Bjurnberg’s Writing

Because I keep forgetting to save these to my phone or ao3

[wolfythewitch]

furthest we've ever been

[bjurnberg]

In the first frame the foxes on the back of his sweater look like blood seeping through - like wings got ripped off.

Hail Mary, full of Grace, the savior-angel banished from Eden Earth, who gave up his wings by flying away from home to save another

[bjurnberg]

Imagine a bear standing in the river during a salmon run, catching fish out of the air in its jaws.

Shining red scales leap from the waters directly at this bear blocking the path.

It’s a mermaid with a pufferfish mace that slaughters the bear and eats it while the salmon it was hired to protect leap past safely to the mating grounds.

[stars-obsession-pit]

Dpxdc prompt film!

Danny is a young adult studying at Gotham University. He leads a quiet, normal life, just the way he likes it

For some reason, the Waynes took notice of him. They investigated him (why?) and analyzed his DNA (how?!)

It turns out he's Daddy Bruce's biokid. Now those arrogant entitled people won't leave him alone, calling him “their brother” and “my son”

Thank God he's legally an adult, so they can't force him to live with them. Danny wants nothing to do with them, but for some reason his refusal only attracts them more (and one of them claims that all this serendipity and his attitude is a ploy to get closer to them?! Fuck off!)

The reason they took his DNA is because Tim noticed Danny looked suspiciously like Bruce, and was a bit trigger-happy after some past incidents with lookalikes. He didn’t necessarily think the chances were high that something was amiss, but better safe than sorry.

But then he found Danny was Bruce’s kid, and things went off the rails. Several surreptitious background checks later, and he decided to meet up with their new brother.

***

“Is this seat taken?” asked an unfamiliar voice, the other young man already sitting down across from Danny at the cafe table and setting his bag down beside him.

“No…?”

“Good. I’m Tim Drake.”

Danny’s eyebrow shot up. “The billionaire? Yeah, right. What’s next, ‘Danny, I urgently need you to buy in on my next big corporate endeavor, you’ll make millions’?”

Tim flushed. “No, really. I’m not trying to scam you. I actually am Tim Drake. And I need to talk to you.”

Danny began to edge towards the corner of his seat, but Tim continued, seemingly oblivious to his obvious desire to leave. “Look, this is going to sound weird, but… it turns out you’re my brother.”

Danny snorted. “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”

“No, seriously.” He pulled out a sheet of paper from his bag, unfolded it, and slid it across the table. Danny’s eyes flicked across it, catching upon a few words such as “Bruce Wayne” and “paternal match”.

Okay, this was getting creepy. “How the hell did you even get this? I sincerely doubt my DNA is on public record.”

Tim bulldozed past the question. “I’ve already taken the liberty of informing the others and setting up a time for you to meet them this weekend. Just show up at Wayne Manor at lunchtime and Alfred’ll let you in. Or I can send a car to pick you up at—”

Danny stood up abruptly, cutting him off. “No thank you. I like my family plenty much, and I don’t need you fruitloops butting in. Good day.”

He bundled up his belongings and left the cafe in a rush.

Tim sat there for a moment, and sighed. He pulled out his phone and dialed. “You won the bet; we’ll need to pick him up.”

[bjurnberg]

I’m imagining Danny calling his parents after getting cornered by more Waynes. He’s all like “look I’ve told y’all multiple times to leave me alone so you leave me no choice but to call in backup” and puts it on speaker phone.

Maddie answers, “HI SWEETIE!! It’s a bit early for your usual call, is everything alright?”

Danny: “Hey Mom, just a moment, is Dad there too? Can you put it on speaker?”

Maddie: “Of course, here. JACK!! DANNY’S CALLING!!

Jack: “DANNO!!! HOW’S CLASSES??”

Danny, smirking at the Waynes around him now: “Oh classes are great! Gotham University truly is everything it’s cracked up to be. But I’m calling to let you know I’m being harassed.”

Maddie and Jack gasp, Tim tries to say: “Wait no, we aren’t-”

Jack can be heard running away shouting: “I’LL GET THE GAV READY!! WE’RE COMING TO SAVE YOU DANNY!!”

And Maddie asks, voice like steel: “Who’s harassing you? What do you need from us? We can call the Dean and your school counselor.”

Danny: “Thank you, calling them would be nice. I’ve already told both what’s going on, but more voices being heard will help them realize it’s serious. As for who… Timothy Drake Wayne stole my DNA and is convinced I’m Bruce Wayne’s bio-son. More of the Wayne family have threatened to take me by force to their Mansion against my will.”

Maddie: “WHAT?! No that- that can’t be right. No. No. We’ll be there soon as we’re able to sort this out. I’ll make those calls on the way. DO NOT let them take you anywhere. You remember the self defense I taught you?”

Danny, grinning even wider at the nervous looks the Waynes are giving each other: “Of course Mom. But fighting on campus would lose me my scholarship and I’d rather not do that.”

Maddie: “Well then, I suppose if they find you off campus that’s a different matter isn’t it?”

Danny and Maddie share an almost identical dark chuckle, and Tim is having some regrets.

After hanging up Danny looks up at the people who claim to be his family, and says, “I love the parents who raised me and they love me. I don’t want to be part of your family. I’ve told you to leave me alone many times, but now you’ve got more of your family involved so I’m getting mine involved too. You escalated first. But I will give you a fair warning. If the rumors are true and the Waynes fund Batman, pass on the message that my Dad is a bit of a crazy driver. He drives a battle tank-”

Dick cuts in: “Battle tank??!!”

Danny continues like he didn’t hear: “-and it’s kinda like if the Batmobile was an RV, so it might cause a little bit of property damage. But he won’t shoot the bazooka unless-”

Jason: “Bazooka?!”

Danny: “-unless he’s shot at first. Now, I’ve had a long day of classes and I’m tired so I’m going to walk away. You’re going to let me.”

[bjurnberg]

dpxdc - deadtired prompt

I’ve been imagining this story prompt for a week now and am finally writing it down

Danny and Tim are in the same class (college or high school idc) and Tim has a raging fever from some infection he got tumbling around Gotham rooftops and alleys. It’s a filthy city, infections are gonna happen (does he have a spleen? dealers choice).

Danny, Tim, and another classmate are put on a team project for the duration of the class, and the other notices Tim is flushed and sweaty and calls him out for it like “Hey dude I think you’re super sick you should go to the nurse” and puts a hand against Tim’s forehead to test for fever. Tim’s too exhausted to protest. He’s legit almost passing out but good at hiding it.

“Wow he’s really burning up. Danny, feel this.”

“Nah I can never tell,” Danny says. “I run cold so checking temp isn’t something I’m good at.”

“Well maybe that’ll help him wake up a little,” and the other classmate grabs Danny’s hand and puts it against Tim’s cheek.

Tim sighs and presses his face into Danny’s hand like a cat. Danny blushes. Other Classmate laughs and shoves Danny closer to Tim, who absolutely buries his face against Danny’s neck and drags him into a vice-grip-hug.

Danny is sputtering and blushing tomato red.

The teacher finally notices and walks over. Whole class is watching, laughing, whispering. Other Classmate explains to teacher that Tim is super feverish and teacher tells Danny to take Tim to the nurse.

Danny tries to move away but Tim holds on tighter and Danny eventually just sighs and lifts Tim into a princess carry (making more classmates giggle or whistle) before walking out of the room to go find the nurse’s office on campus.

Story extras -

Tim is given some basic meds and the nurse calls his emergency contact to pick him up with orders to visit their family doctor. (Bruce or Dick or anyone else, whichever fits your timeline.)

Tim becomes lucid enough to ask Danny why he’s so cold (he hasn’t let go yet) and Danny says, “Well not every meta can fly or throw laser beams. Some of us are just chilly. And it comes with the perk of not needing a winter jacket.” — in this story Danny isn’t shy about being meta, it’s a good cover to deflect any ghostliness, and being naturally cold is an easy answer alongside being something that’s obvious to anyone who touches him by accident. He plays it off nonchalantly. Maybe he goes on a rant about metahuman rights and how just because some people got a funky gene it doesn’t always result in superheroes and villains, some people are just accountants who hiccup bubbles.

Tim is severely touch starved and enjoys holding Danny for that reason. No other. Nope. That’s all, just the touch starvation. It’s really nice to have a prolonged hug and be held by a really cute cold boy.

Danny tries to pass Tim off to whoever comes to pick him up. It’s embarrassing trying to pry Tim off him and Danny can’t seem to make the blushing go away. “I’m so sorry. Wow this is so awkward. No this has never happened to me before and I’ve never talked to Tim before today we’re only in a couple classes together no we aren’t secretly dating why would you think that?! No he didn’t ’fall asleep in my arms’ he literally passed out from fever please get him to the hospital asap he needs an iv for fluids and meds!!”

Danny eventually gets back to class, which is nearly over. Other Classmate joined a different group and the teacher gives Danny a printout of the assignment that he can complete with Tim within the week. Great… now Danny has to see the cute clingy boy again. He can’t let Jazz know about today or she’ll read way too much into this.

[dissociativehyperfixating]

DPxDC Prompt

Ectoplasm and Lazarus water aren't the same thing, not even close.

They are two completely different substances, one is an interdimensional substance that holds the multiverse together and exists in every dimension at once through leaks and bursts from natural portals and thin spots. While the other's origin is unclear but seems to only exist in a cluster of dimensions collectively within the DCverse orbit.

While some have liked the two substances together due to their color and associations with death, they aren't the same.

Unfortunately for Danny, when he hops over to the DCverse and flashes his green eyes in Gotham he gains the attention of a group of vigilante's who are overly suspicious of glowing green eyes. No matter how much he tries he can't shake them and nothing he says can convince them that he has no connection to the Lazarus pits or that he has no idea what the Lazarus pits even are!

[bjurnberg]

“I told you!!” Danny shouted from 20ft above the rooftop, “I don’t know what a Lazarus is!!”

He was exhausted. These creepy shadowy people had been chasing him all over the city for hours. They didn’t trigger his ghost sense but kept popping up out of nowhere like they could teleport. And more kept showing up! All he’d wanted was to take some pictures of the cool gothic architecture for Sam.

“Lazarus was a guy who,” the blue and black one starts but gets interrupted by a smaller one in red with yellow belts.

“Green shiny goop! Like if neon were green instead of red, like your eyes!”

“That’s ectoplasm,” Danny waves his hands as if to say Duh!

“I don’t care what name you call it,” blue and black said, “it’s dangerous and you’re infected and we need you to calm down and come with us.”

“I AM CALM!!” Danny shouted, “Or, I WAS calm and now you guys are freaking me out! And I’m not infected! Ectoplasm isn’t a disease, it’s like my blood or something? Maybe my cells are made of it. I dunno and I’m not gonna let you creepy shadow dudes arrest me because One: ACAB, and Two: I like my blood where it is thank you.”

“It’s not blood,” the big guy with a massive black cape said. He spoke in a tone like he was trying to keep the peace but was also impatient and tired of Danny acting like a child.

Too bad Mister Cape, I am a child so myeh!

“It is a dangerous substance that harms those who come in contact with it. We’ve seen this before. The glow in your eyes is a very specific shade of green.”

“LOTS OF THINGS ARE THIS SHADE OF GREEN!!! Kiwis! Granny Smith apples! Chameleons! The Eastern Green Mamba! Tansy Beetles. Hummingbird feathers. Hellebore. Celosia. Gladiolus. The aurora borealis!!”

[stealingyourbones]

Rambling thoughts cuz it’s 3am and I’m sitting here at work eating microwave noodles on my lunch break and thinking about Alfred Pennyworth.

I love that dangerous old grandpa butler. He’s a fantastic background character that can do a variety of cool things or just be a steady support depending on the comic or episode or fic.

It’s common in fandom to make him more supportive and more badass and more knowledgeable than his comic runs, and he loves Bruce and all the Batfam immensely.

But, well, he often supports Bruce through terrible decisions that hurt everyone else. Enabling actions most adults would know to walk away from or prevent. I know this is highly dependent on the author and comics are telling a story and people are imperfect in many ways, and retcons happen all the time

BUT!! This is where my dpxdc brain chimes in:

A “what if Alfred was a ghost” idea but his Obsession is Bruce. Not the family, not the Waynes, not the estate or his job… just Bruce.

What if he raised this kid after Martha and Thomas died, watched him become Batman, and then the first, or third, or 12th time Batman gets hurt in the field and Alfred has to drive out to pick him up (specifically thinking of that Father’s Day comic) he just… gets killed. He’s an old man, after all, and whether or not he had training he couldn’t win against a whole group of men trying to beat Batman into the dirt.

But his ghost could.

And Alfred Pennyworth was not going to let death stop him from looking after Bruce Wayne.

Now, I figure this event would happen before Dick came on the scene, so his only thought was Bruce. Get Bruce home. Get Bruce’s wounds cleaned and wrapped. Don’t tell Bruce he died. That would only complicate Bruce’s already strange and difficult life. Just take care of Bruce. Support Bruce. Help Bruce. Make Bruce’s life easier in any way he could. Bruce is all that matters.

Now of course when the kids come along Alfred loves them too. But they aren’t his Obsession. When Bruce hurts his children, emotionally or physically, Alfred doesn’t approve - he will certainly voice his disapproval - but he doesn’t leave either. He stays. He always stays.

Because he must look after Bruce.

That's a cute take on ghost obsessions :) full send

[alien-slushie]

Established Dead Tired where:

Danny's parents are wanting Danny home for the holidays, but Danny really really really does not want to go. Danny barely acknowlages that he has a family, so Tim's not sure what the big deal is. So Tim is trying to convince him to go, until Danny fires back with:

"No! This is the perfect set up of a Hallmark Movie! Do you want me to go back to my home town, leaving behind my buisness man partner, and bumping into my teenage hood fling, falling back in love with them and leaving said buisness man so I can help them run a Christmas tree farm or a ranch or something?"

And honestly, who is Tim to argue with that?

[ughtyrell]

Danny ends up needing to go back for some reason but now it's Tim who doesn't want him to go and is paranoid. Who did you date when you were younger? How many people? Do you think they'll be around? Should he just come with you?

Bonus if he does run into Valerie or Sam or someone he was dating when he was younger. Tim is internally freaking out because Danny's hometown is the perfect set up for a hallmark movie, it's almost cartoonish. Crap is that a redeemed Dash who is helping out the community and wanting to apologize and catch up with Danny?

[bjurnberg]

Danny and Tim have that Hallmark discussion and Tim is reluctant but agrees that Danny should stay in Gotham for the holidays - not because he agrees, but because he sees how stressed Danny is getting and drops it for his boyfriend’s mental health.

But then Danny gets a call that his dad had a heart attack. Jack is in the hospital.

So Danny books a flight anyway, super last minute and Tim couldn’t cancel the five days worth of pre-holidays/end-of-year meetings he had scheduled even though he really wanted to go and support his boyfriend through a bad emotional time. Danny was freaking out about his dad but also trying to reassure Tim it was okay, he shouldn’t miss those meetings, and besides, Bruce had invited them over for Hanukkah dinners and Tim should go to those.

They reluctantly part ways at the airport, sharing a long enough goodbye kiss and hug that the airport cops yell at Tim to move his car.

Jazz picks Danny up from the Elmerton airport and catches him up on the last 15 hours of hospital notes, saying Jack is in high spirits pretending everything is fine while hooked up to monitors that say otherwise, and the only reason he hasn’t left the hospital bed is because Maddie threatened him multiple times with taking away his favorite soldering iron, denying him fudge in the future, and (the most impactful threat) saying she’d call her sister to come trade sleep-shifts with her so they’d always have eyes on him.

Cue Tim receiving texts updating him as promised. He finally gets a break to check his phone that had to be turned off while talking to the Board Members.

Danny: plane landed safely, Jazz is here

Danny: she’s always been good at seeing what people need emotionally and wanting to help others so I knew she’d be taking this harder than me but it’s still weird to see her looking like this

Danny: like she’s 16 again and just a scared kid

Danny: AND THEN OF COURSE she’s immediately psychoanalyzing me

Danny: “you shouldn’t feel guilty about leaving, Danny. It was the right choice for you.”

Danny: “This isn’t your fault, Danny, you can’t protect everyone.”

Danny: like yeah

Danny: I know

Danny: I’ve been to therapy

Danny: geeze louise

Danny: this obviously isn’t my fault

Danny: but at the same time the guilt is a real emotion and I can’t help thinking that if I’d

Danny: sorry we pulled up to the hospital

Danny: seeing my dad like that is

Danny: he’s always been so strong you know? Massive in height muscle and personality. Always energetic. And now he looks his age. It’s weird to think of his age being a real number. I know I left home at 18 for Gotham U and have only been back twice in five years but

Danny: my parents look old now

Danny: what am I supposed to do with that?

Danny: okay we booked a hotel room next to the hospital and bullied Mom into eating and sleeping

Danny: Jazz is watching Dad for now and I’ll take the next shift

Danny: Hope your meetings today went well. Don’t let them bully you into giving them a raise before the working class get one. You were telling me last week how the end of year numbers are higher than average and you know that’s gonna get those greedy grubbers twisting their hands like cartoon villains with money signs in their eyes

Danny: give me a call when you’re free?

Danny: love you

Tim’s heart ached that he couldn’t be there to hold his boyfriend’s hand. But he called and laughed at Danny for typing out “geeze louise” instead of swearing like a normal person. Which brought up their old fake-argument of Danny not swearing at all, and come on can’t you just say “shit” once? For me? Which got Danny laughing and that helped ease the pain of distance.

They talked for a long time. Danny getting all his fears put into words while Tim consoled him, and then he told Danny all the “office drama” of the day to lighten the mood a bit.

It was good, and they ended the call with their customary “I love you” and “love you too” and promises to call again before breakfast with continued texting throughout the day when able.

Tim went into his meetings the next day after a call with a half-asleep Danny grumbling about “continental breakfast is a scam” and reluctantly turned his phone off for the next several hours. He calmed himself by planning to search up restaurants near the hospital to order delivery for all the Fentons, and possibly get some non-perishable foods sent to their hotel room so they wouldn’t have to think about what to eat while everything else was taking up the mental load.

At lunch break he turned his phone back on to another pile of notifications.

Danny: just found out Star is a doctor in this hospital! That’s so cool!

Danny: did I ever tell you about her? She was one of those popular kids at my high school. An A-Lister. And yeah she joined in with the bullies sometimes but she was kind when they weren’t around to add peer pressure. She was always way smarter than the rest of them and focused more on her studies than school drama. Now it’s paid off. She’s almost done with her residency. Planning to join a general medicine family practice type thing. Good for her

Danny: she’s not one of the doctors on my dad’s case, I just saw her in the hallway and we had a minute catch-up

Danny: dad’s heart surgeon says the stint is acting right. I don’t know what all these numbers mean but she’s pleased so that’s good. Maybe I should have taken more biology classes than the very minimum required

Danny: I don’t regret using up all my spare time in shop classes tho

Danny: had to build that prototype rocket and crash it into Wayne Tower or else I wouldn’t have met you

Danny: Doctor Lorel talked to Mom about getting a physical therapist to teach Dad some cardio-friendly exercises once he’s back home. Low impact to start, gotta go slow and keep track of the heart monitor he’s been given. Lots of talk about “going at his body’s pace” and “focus on healing before strengthening”

There were more texts about his morning, pics of the hospital grounds and some selfies. Tim had seen pictures of Danny’s family before, but most of those were old. He hadn’t even met Jack and Maddie in person (Jazz had visited Danny on campus a few times when their holidays lined up) so it felt more real to see Danny in pictures with his parents now.

The family photo he had on his desk showed him at 14, Jazz at 16, and his parents in their early 40’s. Now Danny was sitting on the edge of his dad’s hospital bed, a strained smile on his face as Jack had an arm around his son’s shoulders and grinned at the camera like he was at a football stadium. His skin was recovering from being grayish, though, and his wrinkles were deeper.

Tim shook away the memories of his own father in a hospital bed, and instead hit the call button.

Their lunchtime talk was shorter than yesterday’s but Danny was in a better mood. Seeing his dad improve and hearing the doctor’s comments had done a lot of good. Tim also told him to pick what kind of food he wanted delivered - yes, seriously, no you can’t stop me I’ll just decide if you don’t, you need to eat something besides vending machine snacks and hospital cafeteria options, and speaking of hospital food, about how many people are on staff so I can have a bit of catering delivered to the staff lounge as a thank you?

Danny made fun of him for throwing money around. He approved though, saying it was better for billionaires to spend money on people instead of stocks. It was a well-worn topic they both agreed on - when they’d first started dating Danny would go on rants about how billionaires shouldn’t exist and got startled when Tim agreed. When Tim talked about all the ways Wayne Enterprises is trying to give away as much money as possible Danny started adding ideas to the pile.

The lunch break was almost over when Tim asked in a teasing voice, “So you’re not gonna leave me for Doctor Star right?”

“WHAT?! No!! Why would you say that?!”

“A high school bully who turned into a smart and kind doctor sounds a little Hallmark-ish. And I know how much you love stargazing.”

Danny laughed, which Tim echoed.

“You’re the only constellation for me,” Danny said in an overly sappy voice, but it made Tim’s insides squirm with joy anyway.

The call ended with “I love you”s and Tim ordered several hot and cold dishes from the restaurant Danny chose before running back to the meeting rooms. Turning off his phone wasn’t so hard this time, but he was still looking forward to their call before bed.

The meetings ran late, and Tim quickly shoved a protein bar in his mouth (knowing Danny would call him a hypocrite after feeding a whole hospital) as he walked to the carport and turned his phone back on. He was gonna sit in his car and blast music while he caught up on the afternoon texts, then talk to his boyfriend while he drove home.

Danny: Jazz demanded I leave the hospital for a couple hours

Danny: said I have to set a good example for mom

Danny: so I’m borrowing her car and driving around

Danny: she doesn’t have any good music in her car so I’m blasting the radio

Danny: the dj is the same guy as when I was in high school

Danny: pure nostalgia

Danny: I bet I could get this station in Gotham if I get an extra large antenna and fiddle with an old radio. Bruce has an old radio, right? The kind that looks like a jukebox? I think I saw one in the third or fourth storage room. That house is too big.

Danny: and before you get your knickers in a twist (that’s my job ;)) I’m not texting and driving

Danny: I pulled over at the park

Danny: it’s legit a nice day out

Danny: almost forgot what the pure unfiltered sun felt like

Danny: if Ivy didn’t have a propensity for damaging infrastructure I’d say you should throw money at her to clear up Gotham’s smog somehow

Danny: plants clean air right?

Danny: maybe we should let her destroy a few condemned buildings and warehouses anyway to plant gardens or parks. Worth it to get sunlight in Gotham.

This was followed by a selfie of Danny laying on thick grass, eyes closed against the bright sunlight making his face shine. He was so beautiful. He looked way more relaxed too, the tension around his eyes was nearly gone.

Danny: lol I almost fell asleep

Danny: maybe I’ll let Jazz be right this time

Danny: about getting out of the hospital for a bit

Danny: it’s so noisy there. All the machines and beeping and people

Danny: which is exactly what you say every time you visit me at work, all the workshop noises and people screaming to be heard

Danny: but it’s different so :P

Danny: ope just got a text from Jazz saying Doc Lorel found a physical therapist that’s available to meet dad so I gotta head back

Danny: it was nice to drive around Amity tho. Everything is familiar. I’m surprised it still feels like home. It’s kinda nice. Gotham is so big I feel like I’m still getting used to it after five years. Guess I’m still a small town boy in my core.

A strange mixture of emotion was bubbling in Tim’s gut.

Relief that Danny could relax for a while. And that the doctors were doing a good job looking after his dad. There was also a grumble of home-pride. Nowhere was better than Gotham. But he’d grown up here and devoted his life to it, even when traveling the world he never felt connected to any place like he did to Gotham.

If Danny felt that when stepping foot back in Amity Park would he want to move back? He’d never mentioned that as a possibility. Had actively avoided the topic, actually, and now that he thought about it, this was the most Tim had heard Danny talk about his hometown and the people in it. And he was reconnecting with his parents. Would his dad’s heart attack trigger a desire to move home and be near them?

The memories of Tim’s own dad’s hospital stay flooded him with anxiety and doubts. He’d visited his dad during his coma often, and when he woke up Tim had given up being Robin for a while to be more present and available in his dad’s life. What would he have done if his dad hadn’t died? Would he eventually return to being a vigilante or would he have given it up for good? What would Danny do? Was he having these thoughts and not mentioning them? Would he ask Tim to follow him to Amity Park and work through tele-conferences like other Board Members? Could Tim leave Gotham if Danny asked?

Stop.

Breathe. Breathe deep and slow.

That was anxiety trying to tie him in a knot. None of those things had happened or were likely. They’d talked about their relationship in long-term life planning, and Danny wanted to continue his education after a couple years working on these engineering projects.

Focus on the other feelings. Relief. Hope. Pleased at the doctor’s proactive attention. Excitement about calling Danny and hearing his voice.

Yeah. Call Danny.

The time stamp on the last text was three and a half hours ago, so the meeting with the physical therapist should be done by now. It was past dinner time (or maybe still, with the time difference between them) but if he was interrupting anything Danny would just say so and text him a better time to call.

The phone rang twice before the call was picked up, but before Tim could say anything Danny’s voice hissed in a whisper,

“Sh! Sh! Stop ringing! Shhhh!”

“Danny?” Tim spoke quietly, even though he wanted to shout what’s going on?

“Tim! Hi!” Danny said in a false-chipper falsetto whisper. He was scared. And trying to hide it.

“What’s happened,” Tim demanded in a don’t argue with me I know you too well tone.

“Um. Soooooo I’m kind of hiding,” he continued to whisper.

“Are you in danger?!”

“Sh! Sh! No. No danger. Just. Um.”

“Just spit it out Danny.”

“I’m in a hospital, Timmy, that’d be unhygienic.”

Tim couldn’t help the snort and huff of laughter that escaped him. If Danny was being snarky he was fine, even if it meant he was extremely nervous about something, at least it wasn’t a rogue attack. Not that he’d be hiding in that situation.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” he asked quietly to match Danny’s tone and hopefully help him calm down.

“Dash is looking for me.”

He said it like he was a fox running from a pack of dogs and men on horseback.

“I think you’ve mentioned that name twice ever? Someone annoying at high school?”

“Not just annoying!” Danny hissed, trying to stay quiet but was obviously agitated. “He was the worst! He bullied me every day! Trapped me in lockers and dunked my head in toilets and shoved me out of the locker room in just a towel for everyone in the hallways to laugh! I started fighting back after I got powers but then Sydney thought I was the bully and gave me one of those classic don’t misuse your powers kind of lessons so I stopped but when I didn’t fight back anymore Dash kept going and yeah, sure, I avoided the worst of it and could phase out of lockers and stay invisible when I felt like it and didn’t bruise anymore cuz getting shoulder checked into a wall isn’t enough to damage me now and, really, I kind of stopped caring about him for the most part because my life got way more complicated with all the ghosts and stuff but he was always around and then started a Phantom Fan Club with Paulina so even when I was flying around town he was somehow always around and now he’s a physical therapist and Doctor Lorel was soooo excited to introduce him as “the strongest physio on the team, he’ll be able to catch Mr Fenton if he stumbles during exercises,” which is great cuz my dad is a seven foot tall mountain but the thing that’s freaking me out the most is that Dash was being professional and kind and made my parents laugh and kept looking at me funny when no one else was looking so I said I was gonna go get dad some water and now I’m hiding because what am I supposed to do with a Dash Baxter that’s grown up and matured and is gonna help my dad heal and his biceps are the size of my head which means that he could crush me if I wasn’t so durable and-”

“Fenton?”

Danny’s hissing rant had been growing in speed and volume and Tim was already planning to fly out there immediately to seek revenge and protect his boyfriend when the new voice cut in. It sounded loud compared to their whispering.

Danny had gone silent and Tim could hear the hinges of a door squeak open.

“Why are you in the closet?” the new voice asked with pure confusion.

“Because coming out is a choice,” Danny blurted without hesitation. His mouth often spoke before his brain caught up when he was under extreme stress.

A short burst of surprised laughter cut off, and turned nervous to chuckle out, “Don’t I know it.”

“Wait what?” Danny’s voice cracked.

“Uhhhh yeah, I, um, I came out as gay last year.”

“WHAT??!!”

“Yeah. But that’s not why I - um, I was looking for you. I was hoping we could talk?”

“What in the blazes could you want to say to me, Dash?!”

“I wanted to apologize? I was a real piece of shit to you.”

Silence was the only reply. Tim couldn’t picture what face Danny was making. Was he shocked? Pissed? Was he considering punching Dash unconscious and running for it? Tim liked that idea right now.

When Danny finally spoke his voice was low and flat.

“You weren’t just a piece of shit, you were the entire asshole.”

Oh.

Oh no this was a Danny Tim wasn’t familiar with.

Not only did he swear (twice!) but he spoke slow and clear. Not his stressed yapping or nervous jokes or righteous anger.

Tim had thought he’d seen the full range of Danny’s emotions. He was so open with them. Said it was part of being a ghost, that emotions are what make a core and ghosts can’t hide what they are.

But here was something new.

A lack of emotion.

“Yes,” Dash agreed, and sounded like he was about to cry from guilt. “And I know apologizing won’t change the past but I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me or anything, but I wanted to say it? And, well, I thought we could go somewhere and talk so things would be less awkward or, or so I wouldn’t upset you when I was working with your dad, but maybe it’s better if I recommend someone else? I know a couple really good therapists who taught me when I was doing sports medicine so I’ll leave their numbers with your mom or Jazz and you don’t have to see me around.”

Good, thought Tim. Leave. Go away.

“No wait,” and Danny’s normal voice was back. Exasperated, probably with himself more than Dash, and suddenly tired. “I’m not forgiving you here, but. You… when you were teaching Dad those little exercises for his shoulders and lungs you… you did good. And Dad is pretty stubborn and doesn’t listen to anyone but Mom most of the time but you knew how to work around that which is… good. So you should keep working with him. I don’t have to be there at every session. So just. Keep doing good, and maybe that’ll eventually create some balance on your scales. Maybe.”

“Okay! Okay yes! Um, thanks. Did you wanna…?”

“What.”

“You’re still kinda wedged into that closet did you want to come out?”

“I’m bi.”

There was a shuffling noise as Danny moved, and maybe the sound of cardboard boxes tumbling out of storage.

“That’s no secret, weren’t you dating Foley and Manson?”

“No? I mean I dated Sam for a bit but Tucker is super straight. Really into Furries though.”

“Oh. Didn’t clock that. I don’t have the best gaydar. Guess that comes from being in denial for so long.”

“Really. Ya think?” Danny sassed, and Tim was glad to hear it. Overhearing this entire conversation was too much to process, and a return to normality was soothing. He still wanted to fly over tonight. Maybe if he didn’t sleep he could get the batwing there and back before his 9am meeting. He just wanted to hold Danny for a moment.

“It really shouldn’t’a taken me this long,” Dash still sounded nervous but relief that the hard bit of conversation was over was working its way back into his words, making them flow easier. “I mean, Kwan was my best friend, he still is of course, but he kept dropping hints I could talk to him about anything. And he would add dudes into our games of Fuck Marry Kill just to gauge my reaction. Shoulda known I was gay when I got a little too excited about fucking Phantom.”

Danny started coughing, choking on his own spit, and Tim was so startled he accidentally elbowed the car horn.

Dash’s concerned “Are you okay?” at Danny’s hacking cough was immediately followed by “What was that??! Is your phone on a call??!!!” and then a horrified gasp, “oh no I was just really inappropriate. I’m at work. That wasn’t okay to say even though you’re not my client I am so sorry please don’t report me please forget what I said!!”

“I AM ACTIVELY TRYING TO WIPE THAT MEMORY!!” Danny yelled in equal horror. Then his voice came closer to the phone mic and he said, “Please tell me you have a villain in Gotham with a mind-wipe gun or something.”

“Wait! Who is that?! Who’s in Gotham?”

“My boyfriend! I was talking to him in the closet! No, shut up! Tim please tell me there’s a memory wipe gun! If I have to steal the parts from Wayne Tech to build one myself I’ll do it! Don’t think I won’t!”

Tim couldn’t answer because he was laughing so hard he was wheezing.

Maybe he didn’t need to plan Dash’s downfall after all, he was doing that himself just fine. Flying overnight still sounded like a good idea though. Couldn’t let this turn into an enemies to lovers Hallmark situation.

[apatheticsunday]

Like They Do in Vegas

AKA "Red Robin jokingly says I'll protect you to a civilian Danny Fenton, unaware this is a ghost proposal. Danny, also unaware this is a ghost proposal, accidentally accepts. So, uh... cue the awkward honeymoon phase?" Dead Tired DPxDC prompt idea!

Or: Tim Drake is a simp with a helping of gratuitously hot Danny Fenton

Red Robin is a disaster bisexual on a good day and a desperate simp every other day, or that's what Jason tells him. But seeing Daniel Fenton - Gotham-U aerospace genius and terrifyingly hot kinda-sorta-crush - about to get mugged feels like a good opportunity for Tim to show he's above all that. He's a hardened, experienced vigilante. He can do this.

Except Danny throws a punch hard enough to drop one of the muggers like a bag of bricks. His blue eyes almost glow in the dark, expression curling into something snarky and surprisingly self-confident. (Tim absolutely does not find that attractive, no. He's a professional.) Red Robin drops down into the alley with familiar ease, bo staff already swinging on the second thug. Danny's on the third one like an animal, slamming the poor guy into the wall so hard his head ricochets off the wall and he slumps in Danny's hold.

He's only wearing fitted white tee and jeans, the same outfit he was earlier on campus, so Tim can see the way his biceps flex and his pecs strain the chest of his tee when his shoulders roll back.

"Wow," Danny drawls. His midwestern accent should sound tacky, but Tim feels a flush burn his pale skin. Thank god for masks. "I was almost a goner there. Thanks for the save, Red."

Tim thinks very, very hard so he doesn't stutter. He's sarcastic and quick-witted, the smartest detective since Batman. He can flirt. (And maybe he's using his Red Robin mask for confidence, but who cares? The amount of times he's gotten tongue tied when trying to ask Danny out, despite sharing four gen ed classes with him, makes him want to claw his eyes out in embarrassment. Tim needs this win.)

"Seems more like an assist than a save. But I can be your knight in shining armor any day." Oh, god. That was the worst pick up line. Tim wishes one of the thugs would suddenly wake up and fight back just so he could get distracted from his utter failure of attempted flirting. Just as Tim's about to backtrack, apologize and say he's just joking, Danny laughs. A giddy, I-can't-believe-I'm-talking-to-you laugh that Tim's personally familiar with. He's suddenly dumbstruck by the idea that Danny might want to flirt with him back.

"Yeah? You'll be my knight?" Danny smiles earnestly, the usual nonchalant bad boy expression softening into something awkwardly endearing.

"Yeah," Tim agrees breathlessly. Jokingly, he adds, "I'll protect you."

As if Danny needs it. Clearly, he's more than able to protect himself, considering how easily he cleared two absurdly jacked muggers. He also has the intelligence of a potentially terrifying Rogue. And he's hot with his tight t-shirts and piercings and perfectly messy hair. And he's funny, matches Tim's sarcasm with his own snark, unashamed of the things he cares about with a passion. Anyways.

"I'll walk you home?" Tim means to sound confident and assured, like how he normally is as Red Robin, but it comes out almost bashful. And he is bashful... bashing his damn head against a wall. Ugh. Get it together, man! Danny laughs again and it's like the stars twinkling or something. It's beautiful. He wants to hear it all the time.

"Yeah. That's-uh, I'd like that." His crush smiles, a flush starting to dust over his ears and cheeks, and Tim turns to tie up the muggers so Danny can't see the goofy smile that takes over his face.

(The next morning, after taking Danny home, Tim Drake wakes up to a tattoo on his left hand. Specifically his wedding finger. The tattooed band is somehow glowing green with incomprehensible runes encircling his finger just beneath the knuckle. What. The. Fuck.)

((Danny Phantom stares incredulously at the wedding band on his hand. The words I'll protect you scrawl in Infinite Realms ancient script like an unbreakable vow. Oh, shit.))

[khivirsur]

Danny went about his day as normal, just switching the ring onto his thumb.

Yes, he was postponing his crisis about whatever just happened until he could go see Clockwork and demand answers, what of it?

Except... When he went to school, he saw Tim- a guy he shared a few gen-ed classes with and he would hesitate to call a friend but damn was he hot- with a band-aid on his wedding finger on his left hand, and the tattoo-ring (more tattoo than ring, the opposite of his) glowed through the band-aid, pulsing slowly in time with Danny's heart.

Fuck.

Tim is Red Robin?

How hadn't he seen this before? In hindsight, it was so obvious, especially with his experience in the teenage vigilante field, but Tim was doing better at hiding it than he had.

Same dark eyebags that looked more like tattoos than biological function, though.

Fuck... He had to talk to Tim about it, didn't he. Well... He didn't have any answers... He could postpone it until he got some answers.

What day of the week..? Thursday? Just avoid Tim the rest of the day and the next one, too, travel to the Ghost Zone over the weekend and get some answers, and then... What? Pull him aside and ask to talk after classes on Monday?

As good a plan as any.

[bjurnberg]

Avoiding Tim didn’t work.

They had another shared class later that day and Danny was so caught up in his thoughts he crashed right into him walking through the door. Both men jolted in surprise, Danny reached out to steady Tim but - displaying a complete lack of Red Robin’s usual fluid grace - his legs buckled, and Danny somehow ended up holding Tim in a manner that looked like he dipped him at the end of a dance.

There was a beat of silence.

Then all the other students that were early for class started laughing and whistling. Danny was immediately red in the face and pulled Tim upright, then dragged him back out the door into the hallway and even a little farther into an empty alcove to get away from the two people chanting “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

Tim was almost tomato red with blush, his lips pressed tight together as he stared at Danny’s arm that curled behind him, hand pressed against the back of his ribs where he’d pulled him away, which Danny quickly released like it burned him. There was a split second of disappointment in Tim’s expression that caused Danny’s heart to soar and crash at the same time, and all this rollercoaster of emotion is what made Danny blurt out the words,

“We’re married.”

Tim’s face froze.

Those dark blue eyes that were usually so aware despite the dark bags beneath them suddenly froze like a computer screen had fully gone Blue Screen Of Death. And Danny would swear he heard the Windows startup sound when Tim blinked, nodded seriously, and met Danny’s eyes.

“Okay. Yeah. What do I need to know?”

“Uh.”

Danny knew Red Robin had been through a lot of strange situations in the past. All of Gotham’s vigilantes had wild stories and rumors circulated on campus. But it was another thing entirely to see the hero he’d been crushing on just accept the situation and ask for details like it was a mission brief.

Tim spoke up when Danny didn’t.

“I’ve done the fake boyfriend thing twice before. Helped a stranger ditch a stalker. Scared him off and helped her get a restraining order. Second time was to mess with some homophobic family during Christmas. A high school friend had just come out as bi and his family kept saying shit like ‘so just choose a woman and it’s fine’ so he wanted to freak them out and asked me to ruin the holiday on purpose. It wasn’t my fault the tree caught fire but I definitely take credit for dumping the punch bowl on his aunt after she started yelling slurs.

“So whatever your situation is just tell me what story we’re going with and I’ll memorize the details you’ve already told to whoever you’ve lied to about being married. I’ve never been a fake husband so we gotta figure out how we met, dating stories and an anniversary, embarrassing but benign family stories to share, and also discuss boundaries for PDA. If we stay the night anywhere I’d sleep on the floor of course. I can get a couple of my siblings to vouch for our relationship if necessary, they owe me some favors. I’m great with makeup so I can wear a disguise if you don’t want to end up in the papers being seen with a Wayne.

“Or,” and then Tim paused. He’d been talking very fast, nodding to himself as he planned, but now he met Danny’s shocked eyes with an almost serious anger. “If someone is being a creeper and you just want them gone, point them out and I’ll ruin them for good.”

Danny felt like a deer in the headlights. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t look away. He was certain his heart had stopped and was grateful that wasn’t something he needed to worry about. The huge crush he’d been holding for Red Robin might have just turned into love as he listened to Tim Drake Wayne talk about defending others and promise protection again for Danny himself.

“Wow,” his mouth moved without his input, “I basically said ‘jump’ and you didn’t even ask ‘how high?’ before jumping to all the wrong conclusions.”

Tim’s eyebrows scrunched together in confusion and Danny got the urge to kiss the crinkle away.

Instead he cleared his throat awkwardly and shuffled his feet. His hand reached up to rub the back of his neck, but the glint of his new ring made the hand pause, held up between them. Tim noticed of course, and his face (which had finally lost all the blush) suddenly went white.

He lifted his hand with the bandaid, and the faintly glowing words got brighter as they got closer.

“What is this?” he asked. The words were quiet and almost monotone, somehow sounding dangerous. Not like a threat, but a demand.

“So. Um,” Danny’s guts squirmed and he tried not to fidget. He failed. “I don’t know how exactly but I have someone I can ask and I was planning to go visit him this weekend so I could get the details but then-”

“Tell me,” Tim said flatly. “What is this.”

Danny closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He let it out slowly. He could do this. Just get the words out.

He glanced around the alcove and out into the hallway. Empty. Everyone was in class or moved on to another building. But even then he leaned a little closer to Tim and whispered as quietly as he could, in awkward fast sentences,

“I swear I didn’t know who you were last night when you offered to walk me home, I only recognized you out of costume because of the ring and words on your skin. I’m also - well I was a vigilante back in my hometown but retired when I left for college, and I’m not fully human. Half human. And it’s the non-human half that I’m pretty sure has some cultural rite that magically tied us into marriage because we, um, we… kind of exchanged vows last night?”

“Vows.” Tim still didn’t look angry, but Danny couldn’t tell exactly what he was feeling.

“Yeah. Uh.” He pulled the ring off his thumb, showed the words glowing on it before sliding it into its proper place on the ring finger. It felt good there. “Mine has your words on it. ‘I’ll protect you.’ And yours…”

Danny reached out slowly. Tim didn’t flinch or pull away, so Danny gently removed the bandaid and the glow of the words got brighter.

“Yours has my words. ‘Be my Knight.’”

There was a moment where they both just stared at their clasped hands.

“It’s not official yet,” Tim said. His voice had gone breathy, and Danny noticed a gleam returning to his eye.

“I mean. Maybe? I don’t know and I can-”

“No,” Tim interrupted, and this time he lifted his chin a little, and the corner of his mouth twitched upward. It looked like a challenge. “It’s not official yet because you haven’t kissed me.”

“Whaahahahahatt?” Danny giggled loudly. It was such an embarrassing response that he tried to cover his face to hide, but Tim caught the hand that he’d been holding and twined their fingers together. He wore a full grin now, blush returning, and his body tensed but he stepped forward anyway looking excited. Their clasped hands were the only distance between them now.

“I’ve wanted to ask you out for a while. And I meant it down to my soul when I said I’d protect you. I will. So… kiss me.”

Danny obeyed. He might have been floating a little when he leaned forward and closed the gap. Their lips touched and it was electric in the opposite way from dying.

“My knight,” he whispered, their lips still close enough they both moved with his words, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“My husband,” Tim responded, his excited grin turning a bit feral as his free hand reached up to Danny’s neck, dragging him back for a deeper kiss.

[gildedphoenix]

What if blob ghosts are treated like bats (the small wing'd kind, not the Gotham kind). Like. Yes, they exist. They are bothersome. But they also help filter ambient stale ecto and thus are an important part of the local ectosystem. But nobody wants one on their home.

People's homes don't generally have a lot of ecto, but sometimes one gets inside and then just gets stuck. Not a lot of dead energy in the living room. And then you've got a blob ghost nyooming around your upstairs hallway at 4 in the morning. Knocking things over. Scaring the cat. Is the poor thing likely harmless? Yeah. But it gives many people the heebie jeebies. So you stand there with an open window trying to tempt it back outside, holding the window screen as.... extra encouragement. inspired by what just happened with a real bat in my real home at real 4am.

[ailithnight]

Most "poltergeists" are actually just blob ghosts stuck in a human's house.

Also, it's not just humans who don't want them in their homes. Most ghosts also don't like them in their lairs/haunts. And often react much the same way humans might react to a bat.

(Are ghost rabies a thing? I'm gonna say ghost rabies is a thing.) After all, while the blobs themselves might have developed immunity to most ecto-contagions they definitely come into contact with due to their ecological role, the ghosts whose homes they've entered very much are not. And while not every blob is infected with something, in fact most aren't because their bodies destroy those contagions pretty quickly after consumption, any blob could be. So there is a health risk from blob bites.

There's also a hygiene thing to it. Ghosts usually clean up the stale ecto around their homes and dump it somewhere more remote for the blobs to feast. So having blobs in your lair/haunt might cause others and/or yourself to wonder how well you're cleaning that the blobs even want to come in. (Even th0ough a lot of times it really is just total coincidence of a bumbling blob.

Anyway, enter Danny. Who didn't get the full run down on ghost culture until much later after becoming a ghost. Whose first and primary opinion of the blobs is that they are just cute little guys. Much nicer than the assholes coming out of the portal constantly ready to throw down for no reason.

Where other ghosts are at least a little freaked out being in close proximity to them (and humans are generally a lot freaked out by ghosts over all), Danny is just absolutely unfazed and even a bit enamored by them.

Naturally this puts him in a very good position to make some pretty decent money as a Ghost Exterminator(humans)/Blob Relocator(ghosts).

[gildedphoenix]

@ailithnight left a lot of gold in the tags.

Blobs in Wayne Manor! Just, so many blobs. Damian hadn't seen them before but like a muscle you didn't know you had, he's able to train his eyes (soul?) to focus in on them.

Now Exterminator (Relocator) Danny has an assistant.

[ailithnight]

The Lazarus Pits existing because it's where ghost cities (being too populated to have anywhere in the Realms to dump it) pump their stale ecto to for the blobs to eat without having them in the city.

So technically Damian grew up around the blobs, hence why he has an easier time learning how to see them. Back in the League, they were just always there, on the very periphery of his senses. It's one of the things that made coming to Gotham so difficult for him. Something was missing, sensory input he hadn't realized he was getting suddenly vanished, but he couldn't tell what it was. Made him all sorts of anxious, unsettled, and paranoid.

There was a moment, coming back to the infested manor, that briefly felt like coming home.

Then Danny comes in, realizes the kid is subconsciously aware of the blobs, and gives him a gentle nudge to bring that subconscious awareness up to conscious awareness.

For Damian, it's like he's been nearsighted his whole life and the exterminator ("Actually, I just relocate them. Humans just don't usually care about the semantics. Some actually prefer the thought of extermination to relocation.") finally gave him some glasses. Suddenly he can see the leaves blobs. Everything resolved into a definition he didn't realize was possible.

[bjurnberg]

Jason has ghost rabies.

He got dunked in a pit where they feed so it was kind of inevitable. He doesn’t know that’s what the Pit Rage is.

Ra’s al Ghul also has ghost rabies, he’s just used to controlling the emotional outbursts because he’s had it for literal centuries.

Enter Danny teaching Damian about blob ghosts. Damian is just as excited to learn everything about them he can like with his other animals. When Danny explains that ghost rabies is a thing, and its symptoms, Damian starts to see his brother and grandfather’s behaviors in a new light.

[ailithnight]

YEs! And,

So I know it's usually a joke in media (and as always, if that's what someone would rather do here, far be it from me to discourage), but in the real world rabies is a terrifying illness with practically a 100% mortality rate after presenting symptoms. If memory serves, even the post-exposure prophylaxis treatment is an absolutely miserable experience of rounds of shots that hurt like a bitch and have a strong chance to make you very sick as well because the virus is that damn bad.

Vaccines may have slashed infections to fractions of their historic numbers, but there's a reason feral animal populations used to be such a big deal. A rabid animal among a human population center used to be a local plague waiting to happen. An animal behaving strangely used to be grounds for rounding all the kids up inside and calling the authorities to either catch or kill it. Dog catchers were basically public sanitation workers.

This to say, if we're calling it ghost rabies, I think it needs to be on that same level of severity. We can stretch it out over a much longer life(death?)span to explain why Ra's and Jason aren't already dead. Or perhaps the fact that they are still alive keeps them limping along when they should have long since ended/faded/shattered/whatever Dead Ghost lore you wanna use. Maybe do a bit of tweaking with ghost medicine if you wanna give either of them a chance of pulling through after treatment. (Or go full angst and go the "give him as comfortable a death as possible" route.)

However it is, if we're gonna give them "ghost rabies", I think we should lean into the severity of it. Make it bad. Make it grim. It's not a joke, it's rabies.

Make Damian all subdued as he pulls Bruce aside to deliver the news. "Todd might have ghost rabies. Ghostly or not, rabies is still rabies; and if it is, he is already symptomatic. Father, he needs treatment, but even with it..."

Danny has already gone off to inform the Yeti's of not one, but 2 potential cases of ghost rabies in undead humans. Cause Danny is a Blob Relocator, not a Healer. He knows to pass this off to some actual doctors.

Jason and Ra's getting kidnapped to the Far Frozen. Their families obviously permitted to come as well. Especially of they are considered to be 'not sane of mind' to consent to treatment. Talia getting told Ra's is already too far gone. Bruce being given Jason's slim (or none) odds. The grief that follows.

[bjurnberg]

@ailithnight I like your thinking. Especially the “it affects ghost cores” because Jason and Ra’s don’t have cores - they aren’t dead, or halfa, they were brought back to life by the Pits. So their bodies have infected ectoplasm which is what the ghost rabies is clinging to, which plays havoc with their emotional states because ghosts are mostly emotion and memory.

But WHEN they finally die they’d immediately become ghosts and have their cores fully infected which would be a problem for other ghosts nearby (like a ghostly zombie virus? Or more like Chronic Wasting Disease in deer that wonder into populated areas).

So maybe Frostbite&Co at the Far Frozen do some tests with their kidnapped no-longer-dead humans and come to an interesting conclusion:

They can extract the infected ectoplasm to prevent the ghost rabies from consuming their cores when they die.

It will be a long and painful process - think multiple lumbar punctures and more needles in smaller muscles groups, followed by a chemotherapy style treatment to flush any remaining infection from the bloodstream.

And that’s the good news.

Because Jason is still young. Still within his natural lifespan. He will survive the ecto-extraction, and he’s stubborn enough to work through the therapy (physical and mental) to rebuild the damages it’ll cause to his body and emotional state.

But Ra’s won’t make it. There’s no way. He’s over 600 years old. Ectoplasm is the only thing keeping his body going. And of course the Yetis comment on the fact Ra’s can’t be allowed to ever become a ghost because it would be detrimental to all he comes in contact with.

Naturally he’s going to cause problems on purpose when he gets the news.

He’d make some biting remarks about the Yetis being dogs trying to put him down instead. They won’t let him keep using the Pits to live, and they won’t let him die either, so what’s left? Extermination? He’s the Demon’s Head! He’s the one who decides who lives and dies!

Cue Danny and Damian hunting down this ticking time bomb that escaped the Far Frozen while Jason suffers through so much medical trauma.

[ailithnight]

Danny, Damian, and Talia. Mother-Son (plus A Guy) Bonding! : D

[bjurnberg]

Damian and Talia know Ra’s best. They’re the only ones who could fight and capture him with much less bloodshed than anyone else.

And of course they need Danny to come along. He’s their guide through this strange dimension. He knows the rules, some of the layout, and has allies. Well, a couple allies, mostly enemies. But hey! At least the enemies are familiar and can be dealt with quickly - maybe even helpful by ratting out where they saw the Old Angry Sick Human go for the price of a fight with Danny!

Maybe halfway through fighting Skulker, Danny makes a comment about how he’s hunting someone right now, and Skulker gets competitive and starts hunting Ra’s for them too!

Then there’s the constant emotional whiplash for everyone because Talia and Damian both care about Jason’s health, Danny has his internal war about taking a sick man to his execution - but the depressive thoughts are interspersed with silly Ghost Zone hijinks and obsession/territory fights and puns. Plus Danny is still teaching Damian as an apprentice for Blob Ghost Relocation while Talia pretends she’s not listening with interest.

[bonebrokebuddy]

It’s time for a, “things I sent to my twin’s inbox but she said I should post myself because I never post my own work and she’d like if I stopped spamming her inbox with ideas but I forgot about it and just kept it in my drafts notes for months and now finally I’m posting the fucking things.”

Or for short:

DP X DC PROMPT #7:

————————————

Danny visits metropolis and people are deadset on believing that Danny is either Clark’s little brother or his nephew from Illinois… despite that Clark can literally not be related to him. Not that the people at the Daily Planet know that, but even the ones who do know are giving him a hard time.

“I’m adopted Jimmy!” Clark threw his hands in the air in frustration. “You are very aware of that.”

“But he looks just like you Clark, you even talk the same!” Jimmy peaked around the corner, catching a glimpse of Danny talking to Lois in the employees lounge.

“He has a upper midwestern accent. I’m from Kansas, Jim. Not all midwesterners know each other!”

“So?”

“Jimmy. You know damn well why we can not be related.” Clark subtly gestured to his cheap “I believe in aliens” mug. Jimmy was Clark’s best friend and most of the time he really appreciated the kid’s keen eye but Jimmy also seemed to be constantly dead-set on figuring how to give Clark a headache.

“But he looks like a mini you! Have you asked him if he has a spare spaceship lying around anywhere?” Jimmy snarked as he glanced over to Danny and Louis who were finally heading back from their break.

“Jimmy, I will put you on the moon and leave you there.”

“Alright sheesh. I get it, I’ll drop it.”

[iril-the-warlock]

This is hilarious and I have a minor addition:

Short (ghost) king Danny being 22, fresh into a journalism bachelor's & using work experience to help cover credits while he's in his masters program. Accidentally slipping up with his powers around Lois, Clark, and Jimmy.

[bonebrokebuddy]

For classic Lois and Clark comedic effect, I’d like to imagine that Lois doesn’t yet know Clark is Superman. So she’s dealing with Clark and Danny’s slip ups and weird disappearances. Not just Danny’s.

At one point a Casper High graduate comes to visit Danny and Lois confirms from them that Danny has had bladder problems since starting highschool that tell him when ghosts are nearby. Wait. Ghosts? Is that what those new villains that were attacking Metropolis were?!

Clark? Well, the office theorizes he has a metagene that tells him where danger or fear is & it’s also linked to his bladder. But that’s also why he knows where to get the best scoops, he knows where all the big stories are.

Lois, of course, knows that Clark Kent is adopted. Wait. Similar metagenes have been shown to be genetic. Are Clark and Danny from the same bio-parents?

________

“Hey, Clark.”

“Yes, Lois?”

“Why can’t I find any traces of your adoption certificate or any orphanage records?”

“My parents found me in a spaceship covered in green goo in the middle of their yearly hike through the Appalachian Mountains.”

“Enough of the jokes, Glasses.”

“Ah, my parents found me left out in the fields on their farm when I was a baby. Why?”

“Don’t worry about it Smallville. Now how do you spell ‘Phantom?’ I can never remember if it’s a “ph” or an ‘f.”

“Lois I have a deadline, turn on your autocorrect.”

“You know why I turned it off, it gets in my way. Besides, I have you, Kansas. So? What is it?

“It’s a ‘ph.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard was it, Kent.”

“At this rate I edit so much of your work I should be credited in the byline.”

“Oh, fuck off Kent” Lois said without heat behind it.

“Yes Ma’am.” Clark replies automatically.

Carrie peers over from her cubicle across the two, “Cat, they’re squabbling again.”

“Point for Lois?”

“Point for Lois.” Carrie says as Cat uncaps a dry erase marker and puts a tally under ‘Lois’ on a miniature whiteboard that hangs on her cubicle wall.

It has 2 for Kent and 53 for Lois. It’s only Tuesday.

—

Well, that absolutely riveting conversation gave her at least something to work with. They didn’t call her Metropolis’s greatest reporter for nothing! But for now she needs to finish this story on the new hero that’s been periodically showing in Metropolis and brought his own colorful cast of villains to the city with him.

*sounds of crashing wood*

Ah, Clark must’ve broken his desk again. What a cultz.

____________

@skulld3mort-1fan

[kyrianclawraith]

[bjurnberg]

@gothfoxx makes a great addition here

Jimmy would be the one who points it out. Well, Lois starts it. She’s trying to shake trees by making comparisons to see what info will fall out. The info she gets is (once again) misinterpreted.

“Look at you two! You’re just like Clark and Jimmy,” Lois smiled widely at Wes and Danny who entered the room muttering angrily at each other.

The two young men stopped to look up in confusion, then at each other.

“Wes doesn’t look anything like Jimmy. You’re just saying that cuz they both have red hair.”

“So you admit you and Clark look alike?” Lois’ grin shifted into a smirk.

“Oh please,” Danny rolled his eyes. He’d been fielding these comments since day one at the Daily Planet. “Bruce Wayne looks more like Clark than I do.”

“And don’t you think that’s suspicious?” Wes cut in. “Three people, seemingly disconnected and from vastly different societal brackets all looking similar? There’s a bigger picture here you keep refusing to investigate. You were all planted. Cloning has been around for -”

“You leave clones alone!” Danny jabbed a finger at Wes, looking pissed, which was rare. Not that he tried very hard to hide bouts of frustration or anger, but Lois took a mental note of how this seemed to hit a personal nerve. The new kid started on a rant about those poor kids can’t help how they came to exist and just need support and love and if you bother them I’m gonna ship you to Mongolia in a wooden crate.

Jimmy snorted.

“Lois has a point. You two even bicker like me and Clark. But to really look like us you need your own Lois.”

“What?” four people asked in unison. Clark had walked over when he heard Danny’s raised voice, and looked just as confused as the others.

Jimmy chuckled as he put an arm around Lois’ shoulder and linked elbows with Clark, pulling both close.

“We’re a team! Best friends working together to scoop stories and break news! You’ve got the dark-haired blue-eyed reporter, the red-headed photographer, and now you need a tiny sassy - ow! Lois don’t pinch - I meant passionate and diligent third member to make up a proper trio like we do.”

“Oh. Danny knows all about passionate trios,” Wes said with a devil’s grin. The exhausted sigh Danny released only made Wes laugh.

“Tucker, Sam, and I were not dating in high school,” he said like he’d said it a million times.

“Uh huh.”

Lois knew Wes and Danny had gone to school together, but this kind of gossip was new. Maybe she should focus less on Danny and wheedle information out of Wes instead. She’d have to sift through his conspiracies to get info she could verify, but it might be worth it.

“Come on!” Wes was still talking, “The whole school saw pictures of you and Tucker cuddling. And everyone knows Sam pushed you into dark corners a couple times a week at least. After that first Fake-Out Make-Out you even tried being vegan for a month just to impress -”

“Ung don’t remind me. That nearly got me disowned by Tucker. Worst argument we ever had.”

“Wait wait,” Clark cut in. “What’s a Fake-Out Make-Out?”

Danny snorted and Wes laughed.

“It’s when you’re about to get caught where you shouldn’t be, so you start making out then act all indignant or shy when security catches you. Fifteen year old me was very into it.”

“And if we’re saying Sam is Danny’s Lois…” Wes added, glancing obviously between Lois and Clark and wiggling his eyebrows.

Lois looked up at Clark thoughtfully, then shrugged, “That could be a viable distraction.”

Clark blushed a furious red and sputtered while the other three men laughed at him.

Then both Danny and Clark’s heads shot sideways to look out the office window. Everyone went still and in the sudden quiet they heard a distant explosion.

“I uh, gotta pee,” Clark blurted and rushed out the door.

“Me too,” Danny followed.

Jimmy, Lois, and Wes all gathered their things to rush out the door as well. They had a story to scoop.

“And they think they’re subtle,” Wes mumbled as the three ran down the stairs of the Daily Planet. He mumbled a lot of strange things, but Lois had to agree this time.

Danny and Clark were connected. They had the same power that notified them of danger (even if “danger bladder” was weird, it seemed to be accurate so who was she to judge). Besides the height difference and need for glasses they looked identical.

And now Lois had several new leads to follow.

Danny was passionate about clone rights. He’d mentioned in the past how his parents had a science lab in the basement but never mentioned what kind of science they practiced. Wes went to the same school but his stories of ghosts and alternate dimensions were unreliable, but now Lois had two more names to search.

Tucker and Sam. (And good for Danny not being ashamed of being gay. Maybe he could talk to a few of their coworkers about being out and proud.)

Now if this Sam had as much in common with Lois as Wes implied, maybe he would be willing to chat.

[apatheticsunday]

Like They Do in Vegas

AKA "Red Robin jokingly says I'll protect you to a civilian Danny Fenton, unaware this is a ghost proposal. Danny, also unaware this is a ghost proposal, accidentally accepts. So, uh... cue the awkward honeymoon phase?" Dead Tired DPxDC prompt idea!

Or: Tim Drake is a simp with a helping of gratuitously hot Danny Fenton

Red Robin is a disaster bisexual on a good day and a desperate simp every other day, or that's what Jason tells him. But seeing Daniel Fenton - Gotham-U aerospace genius and terrifyingly hot kinda-sorta-crush - about to get mugged feels like a good opportunity for Tim to show he's above all that. He's a hardened, experienced vigilante. He can do this.

Except Danny throws a punch hard enough to drop one of the muggers like a bag of bricks. His blue eyes almost glow in the dark, expression curling into something snarky and surprisingly self-confident. (Tim absolutely does not find that attractive, no. He's a professional.) Red Robin drops down into the alley with familiar ease, bo staff already swinging on the second thug. Danny's on the third one like an animal, slamming the poor guy into the wall so hard his head ricochets off the wall and he slumps in Danny's hold.

He's only wearing fitted white tee and jeans, the same outfit he was earlier on campus, so Tim can see the way his biceps flex and his pecs strain the chest of his tee when his shoulders roll back.

"Wow," Danny drawls. His midwestern accent should sound tacky, but Tim feels a flush burn his pale skin. Thank god for masks. "I was almost a goner there. Thanks for the save, Red."

Tim thinks very, very hard so he doesn't stutter. He's sarcastic and quick-witted, the smartest detective since Batman. He can flirt. (And maybe he's using his Red Robin mask for confidence, but who cares? The amount of times he's gotten tongue tied when trying to ask Danny out, despite sharing four gen ed classes with him, makes him want to claw his eyes out in embarrassment. Tim needs this win.)

"Seems more like an assist than a save. But I can be your knight in shining armor any day." Oh, god. That was the worst pick up line. Tim wishes one of the thugs would suddenly wake up and fight back just so he could get distracted from his utter failure of attempted flirting. Just as Tim's about to backtrack, apologize and say he's just joking, Danny laughs. A giddy, I-can't-believe-I'm-talking-to-you laugh that Tim's personally familiar with. He's suddenly dumbstruck by the idea that Danny might want to flirt with him back.

"Yeah? You'll be my knight?" Danny smiles earnestly, the usual nonchalant bad boy expression softening into something awkwardly endearing.

"Yeah," Tim agrees breathlessly. Jokingly, he adds, "I'll protect you."

As if Danny needs it. Clearly, he's more than able to protect himself, considering how easily he cleared two absurdly jacked muggers. He also has the intelligence of a potentially terrifying Rogue. And he's hot with his tight t-shirts and piercings and perfectly messy hair. And he's funny, matches Tim's sarcasm with his own snark, unashamed of the things he cares about with a passion. Anyways.

"I'll walk you home?" Tim means to sound confident and assured, like how he normally is as Red Robin, but it comes out almost bashful. And he is bashful... bashing his damn head against a wall. Ugh. Get it together, man! Danny laughs again and it's like the stars twinkling or something. It's beautiful. He wants to hear it all the time.

"Yeah. That's-uh, I'd like that." His crush smiles, a flush starting to dust over his ears and cheeks, and Tim turns to tie up the muggers so Danny can't see the goofy smile that takes over his face.

(The next morning, after taking Danny home, Tim Drake wakes up to a tattoo on his left hand. Specifically his wedding finger. The tattooed band is somehow glowing green with incomprehensible runes encircling his finger just beneath the knuckle. What. The. Fuck.)

((Danny Phantom stares incredulously at the wedding band on his hand. The words I'll protect you scrawl in Infinite Realms ancient script like an unbreakable vow. Oh, shit.))

[khivirsur]

Danny went about his day as normal, just switching the ring onto his thumb.

Yes, he was postponing his crisis about whatever just happened until he could go see Clockwork and demand answers, what of it?

Except... When he went to school, he saw Tim- a guy he shared a few gen-ed classes with and he would hesitate to call a friend but damn was he hot- with a band-aid on his wedding finger on his left hand, and the tattoo-ring (more tattoo than ring, the opposite of his) glowed through the band-aid, pulsing slowly in time with Danny's heart.

Fuck.

Tim is Red Robin?

How hadn't he seen this before? In hindsight, it was so obvious, especially with his experience in the teenage vigilante field, but Tim was doing better at hiding it than he had.

Same dark eyebags that looked more like tattoos than biological function, though.

Fuck... He had to talk to Tim about it, didn't he. Well... He didn't have any answers... He could postpone it until he got some answers.

What day of the week..? Thursday? Just avoid Tim the rest of the day and the next one, too, travel to the Ghost Zone over the weekend and get some answers, and then... What? Pull him aside and ask to talk after classes on Monday?

As good a plan as any.

[bjurnberg]

Avoiding Tim didn’t work.

They had another shared class later that day and Danny was so caught up in his thoughts he crashed right into him walking through the door. Both men jolted in surprise, Danny reached out to steady Tim but - displaying a complete lack of Red Robin’s usual fluid grace - his legs buckled, and Danny somehow ended up holding Tim in a manner that looked like he dipped him at the end of a dance.

There was a beat of silence.

Then all the other students that were early for class started laughing and whistling. Danny was immediately red in the face and pulled Tim upright, then dragged him back out the door into the hallway and even a little farther into an empty alcove to get away from the two people chanting “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

Tim was almost tomato red with blush, his lips pressed tight together as he stared at Danny’s arm that curled behind him, hand pressed against the back of his ribs where he’d pulled him away, which Danny quickly released like it burned him. There was a split second of disappointment in Tim’s expression that caused Danny’s heart to soar and crash at the same time, and all this rollercoaster of emotion is what made Danny blurt out the words,

“We’re married.”

Tim’s face froze.

Those dark blue eyes that were usually so aware despite the dark bags beneath them suddenly froze like a computer screen had fully gone Blue Screen Of Death. And Danny would swear he heard the Windows startup sound when Tim blinked, nodded seriously, and met Danny’s eyes.

“Okay. Yeah. What do I need to know?”

“Uh.”

Danny knew Red Robin had been through a lot of strange situations in the past. All of Gotham’s vigilantes had wild stories and rumors circulated on campus. But it was another thing entirely to see the hero he’d been crushing on just accept the situation and ask for details like it was a mission brief.

Tim spoke up when Danny didn’t.

“I’ve done the fake boyfriend thing twice before. Helped a stranger ditch a stalker. Scared him off and helped her get a restraining order. Second time was to mess with some homophobic family during Christmas. A high school friend had just come out as bi and his family kept saying shit like ‘so just choose a woman and it’s fine’ so he wanted to freak them out and asked me to ruin the holiday on purpose. It wasn’t my fault the tree caught fire but I definitely take credit for dumping the punch bowl on his aunt after she started yelling slurs.

“So whatever your situation is just tell me what story we’re going with and I’ll memorize the details you’ve already told to whoever you’ve lied to about being married. I’ve never been a fake husband so we gotta figure out how we met, dating stories and an anniversary, embarrassing but benign family stories to share, and also discuss boundaries for PDA. If we stay the night anywhere I’d sleep on the floor of course. I can get a couple of my siblings to vouch for our relationship if necessary, they owe me some favors. I’m great with makeup so I can wear a disguise if you don’t want to end up in the papers being seen with a Wayne.

“Or,” and then Tim paused. He’d been talking very fast, nodding to himself as he planned, but now he met Danny’s shocked eyes with an almost serious anger. “If someone is being a creeper and you just want them gone, point them out and I’ll ruin them for good.”

Danny felt like a deer in the headlights. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t look away. He was certain his heart had stopped and was grateful that wasn’t something he needed to worry about. The huge crush he’d been holding for Red Robin might have just turned into love as he listened to Tim Drake Wayne talk about defending others and promise protection again for Danny himself.

“Wow,” his mouth moved without his input, “I basically said ‘jump’ and you didn’t even ask ‘how high?’ before jumping to all the wrong conclusions.”

Tim’s eyebrows scrunched together in confusion and Danny got the urge to kiss the crinkle away.

Instead he cleared his throat awkwardly and shuffled his feet. His hand reached up to rub the back of his neck, but the glint of his new ring made the hand pause, held up between them. Tim noticed of course, and his face (which had finally lost all the blush) suddenly went white.

He lifted his hand with the bandaid, and the faintly glowing words got brighter as they got closer.

“What is this?” he asked. The words were quiet and almost monotone, somehow sounding dangerous. Not like a threat, but a demand.

“So. Um,” Danny’s guts squirmed and he tried not to fidget. He failed. “I don’t know how exactly but I have someone I can ask and I was planning to go visit him this weekend so I could get the details but then-”

“Tell me,” Tim said flatly. “What is this.”

Danny closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He let it out slowly. He could do this. Just get the words out.

He glanced around the alcove and out into the hallway. Empty. Everyone was in class or moved on to another building. But even then he leaned a little closer to Tim and whispered as quietly as he could, in awkward fast sentences,

“I swear I didn’t know who you were last night when you offered to walk me home, I only recognized you out of costume because of the ring and words on your skin. I’m also - well I was a vigilante back in my hometown but retired when I left for college, and I’m not fully human. Half human. And it’s the non-human half that I’m pretty sure has some cultural rite that magically tied us into marriage because we, um, we… kind of exchanged vows last night?”

“Vows.” Tim still didn’t look angry, but Danny couldn’t tell exactly what he was feeling.

“Yeah. Uh.” He pulled the ring off his thumb, showed the words glowing on it before sliding it into its proper place on the ring finger. It felt good there. “Mine has your words on it. ‘I’ll protect you.’ And yours…”

Danny reached out slowly. Tim didn’t flinch or pull away, so Danny gently removed the bandaid and the glow of the words got brighter.

“Yours has my words. ‘Be my Knight.’”

There was a moment where they both just stared at their clasped hands.

“It’s not official yet,” Tim said. His voice had gone breathy, and Danny noticed a gleam returning to his eye.

“I mean. Maybe? I don’t know and I can-”

“No,” Tim interrupted, and this time he lifted his chin a little, and the corner of his mouth twitched upward. It looked like a challenge. “It’s not official yet because you haven’t kissed me.”

“Whaahahahahatt?” Danny giggled loudly. It was such an embarrassing response that he tried to cover his face to hide, but Tim caught the hand that he’d been holding and twined their fingers together. He wore a full grin now, blush returning, and his body tensed but he stepped forward anyway looking excited. Their clasped hands were the only distance between them now.

“I’ve wanted to ask you out for a while. And I meant it down to my soul when I said I’d protect you. I will. So… kiss me.”

Danny obeyed. He might have been floating a little when he leaned forward and closed the gap. Their lips touched and it was electric in the opposite way from dying.

“My knight,” he whispered, their lips still close enough they both moved with his words, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“My husband,” Tim responded, his excited grin turning a bit feral as his free hand reached up to Danny’s neck, dragging him back for a deeper kiss.

[quadrantadvisor]

Thinking about DP x DC Jason Todd being a revenant again. Here's my scenario. Jason gets called that by some ghost. He's like "what the fuck is that supposed to mean?" He's heard the term before but he doesn't know any actual lore. He googles it. He scrolls past the Leonardo DiCaprio bear movie. He opens the wiki. Sees the words "animated corpse" and gets a chill diwn his spine. He starts reading the first section.

He closes Wikipedia.

That night he has a nightmare that his family buried him, again, this time with precautions. He wakes up in his own grave, full of stones, too heavy to move, to scream.

[bjurnberg]

Okay but the more I think about this the more nightmare fuel angst potential there is.

Jason being a revenant means these tactics will still work on him.

What if one day a Rogue blows up a building (sadly common in Gotham) but Jason gets hit by debris - the shockwave knocks him over and the bricks and mortar that flew through the air land on his legs. It’s nowhere near enough weight to cause his siblings problems (they all jump right back up and brush off the dust and rocks and race off to help and fight) but he can’t move. It’s just a couple bricks, probably 5-8 pounds worth. He regularly lifts 40 times that weight but suddenly he can’t even wiggle his legs to make gravity roll the bricks off him. He’s paralyzed.

Jason has to call for help which he loathes, and when Nightwing or Spoiler race over they think he’s got spinal damage because he can’t move his legs and he hates the anguish and pity on their face even more. Nearly bites their head off screaming that they just need to move the bricks and when they do he jumps up and rushes off to punch the villain to funnel the aggression in a healthy-ish direction. (It’s not healthy. His family need to pull him away to prevent a murder fueled by dread. And then he avoids them for a month because he doesn’t want to face what happened.)

It was only because he was wearing his helmet that he didn’t get rocks in his mouth. What if he had been paralyzed AND silenced?

[quadrantadvisor]

Oh my god. Imagine a villain figuring this out and purposefully using it against him. What do you do with a revenant? You put them back in the grave and you make sure they can't get out this time.

Jason wouldn't be too worried about being captured, at first, he's got a comm, and every Robin is as good as an escape artist. But he freaks out when he sees the coffin. It's good, solid wood, only the best for him, the villain mocks. He struggles the whole time the goons manhandle him into it, until they lay the stones on his limbs, and it's like he paralyzed.

Honestly, the villain was just doing, like, a dramatic bit. Imagine their glee when it actually works.

The others are clamoring over the comms, asking what's going on, where he is, but Red Hood suddenly falls silent. His communicator is still functional, but nothing they say can get him to respond.

So, the actual plan was always to gift Red Hood a nice new grave and fill it with concrete. And even with some new developments, why not? The night becomes a race against the clock for the rest of the bats, trying to get to a helpless Jason before the henchmen can finish digging.

[voiider]

Bruce Wayne is Danny Fenton's Bio dad but I'm getting sick of comically evil parents so Maddie and Jack had a 3sum with Bruce way-back-when and she never ACTUALLY got a paternity check (they forgot/it didn't matter) but then Jazz gets into knowing her bloodline and family history and does a 23andMe test and then it comes back that her and Danny are only half siblings and they're like "omfg…. did mom cheat on dad??? ….. ITS NOT VLAD IS IT??? OH NO. OH NO" and then Maddie and Jack see it and they're like "oh! lol! that's probably Brucie :)" and then they're like "wouldn't it be nice for you to meet your bio dad? he's such a fun guy. He's funded some of our projects <3" and then they send Danny to live with Bruce for the Summer

cue Batfam shenanigans of everyone trying to keep identities a secret

(This is endgame Maddie/Jack/Vlad)

[voiider]

It's drizzling out. Danny's hair is still a little damp from the short trip from Jazz’s car to the front door. She hasn't even attacked him with a towel yet, insisting he'd catch a cold. Instead she had been too preoccupied with the pile of mail on the kitchen table. She'd screeched and dove for it, shuffling through the letters before pulling out one, large and thick, and ripping into it immediately. 

Danny pulls out a piece of bread and slathers butter on it. He jumps on the counter and folds the bread in half and shoves it in his mouth. 

Jazz stares down at the packet in her hands, face almost unreadable. “Huh.” She says. 

The envelope on the table reads Ancestry.com. 

“What, find out that you're actually adopted?” He asks through a mouthful of bread.

Jazz doesn't even [scold] him, just hands him the papers before sliding into a seat at the table, putting her head in her hands. 

Danny doesn't quite get all the mumbo-jumbo and graphs and actually, hey. Did she steal his DNA for this because- 

His eyes catch on “half-brother” and he can't look away. 

The bread feels like cement as he forces himself to swallow. 

“Uh, what?” He feels numb. “That can't- that's not-” 

Jazz is shaking her head, hands moving to grip at her hair. “It's a mistake,” she says, “these things are- they're not that accurate. I thought it'd be fun to see if- but they must have gotten something wrong. It's probably a scam. Or something. I'm- I should call.” She stands up, a wild look in her eye. “I'm going to tell them they screwed up and that I want my money back because this-!”

“Dann-o!” Their dad calls as he enters the kitchen from the basement door. “Jazzy-pants! After school snack time? Boy I could use a sandwich! Hey what's this?” He pulls the papers from Danny's numb fingers. “Hey, hey! You got the fancy DNA results back! Think your grandpa lied about the Scotland castle? Haha let's see...” 

“Dad, wait!” Jazz cries, but it's already too late. 

It's like watching a car wreck in slow motion. Danny watches his dad scan the paper, watches his eyes freeze when he gets to the middle of the page. 

Jack flips through the papers a few times, before returning back to the front page again.

His face is entirely unreadable.

“Hun?” He calls, still not looking away from the life ruining papers. “Could you come up here for a sec?” 

Danny makes eye contact with Jazz. 

“What is it?” Maddie calls as she comes up the stairs. “Did the new part come in?” She's still got goggles hanging around her neck. 

“I need you to take a look at this,” Jack says, handing Maddie the papers. Danny looks on, horrified. It’s like everything’s moving in slow motion. It’s like watching someone walk up to the guillotine. 

[quadrantadvisor]

Hi sorry do you mind if I just-

-

Maddie doesn't notice a thing, doesn't see the looks on her kids' faces. "Sure thing, dear, what is...?" she starts to ask, then trails off as she scans the page. She frowns.

The tension that had been sitting in Danny's stomach like a lead weight finally snaps. He stands, his chair screeching behind him, and says, "Mom, Dad-" not even knowing what he means to say, just knowing he needs to stop this, now.

Jack interrupts him. "That can't be right, can it Mads?" he asks, a strange solemness to his tone, his eyebrows drawn together.

Danny has a sudden, desperate, selfish wish that they weren't doing this in front of him. He doesn't want to see his family get torn apart, doesn't want his own existence to be the thing that ruins them. He's feared for that eventually ever since the day he walked into the ghost portal, but he never thought it would happen like this.

Maddie puts a hand up to her mouth. "No, it couldn't be," she mutters against her fingers.

"Danno was born in February," Jack points out, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Right," Maddie agrees. "So-" suddenly, her eyes spark in recognition. Danny's breath catches to see it. "Oh my goodness, Jack, Brucie!"

Danny's gaze snaps to his father, who... brightens? "Brucie!" he says jovially. "That'd explain it!"

What?

"Oh, I feel so silly," Maddie says, tapping her forehead. "We should've had a DNA test done ages ago, but I didn't even think about it!"

Jack laughs. "Don't worry, Mads, it completely slipped my mind, too!"

Jazz jolts up from her seat at the table, making Danny flinch. She slams her hands down and harshly demands, "One of you explain what is going on, right now!"

"I'm so sorry Jazz, this is yours, isn't it?" Maddie says blithely, and holds out the packet.

Air huffs from Jazz's nose. Danny thinks that she's trying to take deep breaths to keep calm, but mostly she sounds like an angry bull. "Are you implying-" she says, very deliberately "-that this information is accurate, and that Danny and I aren't full siblings?"

Jack claps Danny on the back, startling him. "Not to worry, Danny boy, you're just as much Fenton as ever! No silly thing like genetics will keep my son from taking up the noble pursuit of ghost hunting!"

Danny, feeling suddenly faint, collapses back into his chair. Hearing the words "my son" is somehow both relieving and terrifying. Because, yes, it's nice to be reassured, but he really didn't need the reminder that, apparently, he and his dad aren't even related.

Maddie turns to him as well. "Brucie is a perfectly fine genetic source, sweetie, it's alright. Very nice man, very handsome, a little dim a times but, well, he certainly does alright for himself."

Jack's hand comes down on Danny's back again. "No wonder the kid hasn't hit his growth spurt."

"Brucie is over six feet, Jack."

"Explain. How. This. Happened," Jazz seethes.

Maddie gives her a look. "I'm fairly certain that you know where babies come from, sweetie."

Jazz throws her hands in the air.

Surprisingly, it's Jack who actually picks up the thread. "Back before our research really took off, your mom and I used to get out a bit more."

"I was so happy we found a good babysitter for you, Jazz, do you remember her?"

"And Brucie was the best," Jack continues. "He always knew great spots! Jazz clubs, wine tastings, the works! We all got to be such good friends, and he even helped us start our business!"

Maddie smiles. "Our first investor," she says fondly.

"Our only investor!" Jack corrects.

Jazz also sits down, very abruptly. "Are you saying you were swingers?" she asks.

"Nothing so regimented as all that," Maddie says, flapping a hand. "Brucie only brought his own dates a few times, really. And we'd been spending time with a couple of others before him, but he was the last one. Gosh, Jack, we haven't seen him in forever!"

Jack agrees, "You're right, it's been too long, hasn't it?"

Finally, Danny manages to croak, "Who's Brucie?" His head is spinning with this new information, barely even latching onto the connection between himself and a man he's never met.

Jack says, "He's Bruce Wayne, of course!"

Jazz pops back up to attention. "Bruce Wayne?" she asks incredulously. "The Bruce Wayne?"

Maddie claps. "We should go for a visit! I'm sure he'd be happy to see us, and he'd love to meet you, Danny." She smiles warmly at him.

"That's a great idea!" Jack bellows. "A Fenton roadtrip to Gotham!"

Danny has a sinking feeling that his life is about to get significantly more complicated.

[mkarchin713]

Alfred wasn’t surprised that his pseudo son had inherited his parent’s romantic preferences, preferences Alfred knew better than anyone.

Alfred was surprised by Master Bruce’s choice in partners. Partners who apparently had a child and had recently discovered that their son was not Mr. Fenton’s biological child.

At least the Fenton’s had the decency to inform Master Bruce once they discovered the … mix up, unlike Miss Al Ghul, whom just showed up at his doorstep with a ten year old.

Master Bruce had such… eclectic choices in romantic parents. At least the Fenton’s weren’t villains or heroes, though they definitely were some flavor of mad scientist.

But who was he to judge. His own paramours were not people one could call … conventional.

Master Bruce must have inherited that trait from himself.

Nevertheless, Alfred now had a new mission to focus on.

The mansion was to have guests soon and he needed to inform Master Bruce his brood had expanded while he was away.

[zealousember]

Alfred has set up three rooms, one too many he thinks, but one can never be certain, goes down to the bat cave, with a fresh batch of pastry goods, waits, seated, for Master wayne and brood to return.

The screech of the batmobile can be heard.

"Bruce, we need to talk, young sirs and young ladies, please, leave us, post haste, take a pastry with you" Alfred speaks before anyone can get a word in.

All of Bruce's brood, take their preferred pastry, and leave Bruce in the thick of it.

"Alfred, what is it, it sounds serious" Bruce asked taking his cowl off.

"Remember Madeline and Jackson Fenton's,"

"Well, uh, I do"

"Their son Daniel Fenton, who has a birthday in February has no relation to Jack Fenton"

Bruce squints his eyes in deep thought, "ok and you bring this up why?"

Alfred, looking disappointed, world's greatest detective, his ass "9 months before, you and the couple, were in a intimate relationship no"

Bruce, gears turning, but he doesn't want them to turn "I have another kid, Alfred, request them to come visit please"

Alfred sighing "already on it master Bruce, should I tell Madeline and Jackson your room is open, or no"

Bruce walks away.

Alfred "duly noted sir, they will be here with young master Daniel, and young lady Jasmine in a week from now"

Bruce sighs "you already made plans, thanks Alfred"

---

The ghosts of Martha and Thomas, who are watching over their third.

"we have another grandson and granddaughter. Yay"

"but did it have to be with the ghost hunters, they nearly caught you in that box, I just barely got you out of it"

"who knows, maybe they don't hunt ghosts anymore"

"the Fenton's not hunting ghosts as if"

[bjurnberg]

In what felt like no time at all the Ghost Assault Vehicle was packed with their weekend bags and the Fenton Family was barreling down the highway toward Gotham.

Danny hadn’t even gone to school that next Thursday morning, too lost in reeling thoughts to care about taking the day off - Jazz had called him out sick for the next two days, and she’d sounded shaken enough as well that the school office worker hadn’t questioned it.

Neither of the siblings had spoken much since the big reveal, both trying to wrap their heads around everything their parents kept excitedly gabbing about as they tossed photo albums, travel toiletries, and ghost weapons into a suitcase. But they sat close in the back seat of the GAV, supporting each other emotionally as well as physically through Jack’s merging and screeching curves.

Danny had at least texted Sam and Tucker Thursday morning to let them know he wouldn’t be in classes and was taking off to Gotham for a few days. He wasn’t sure how to say “hey turns out my dad isn’t my dad - well he still is but not my bio-dad - guess what it’s Bruce Billionaire Wayne! Haha, whodathunkit? Two himbo fathers for the price of one! Turns out my mom has a type” so instead he just asked his friends to take notes for him and keep their ghost weapons and extra thermos close in case the Box Ghost or Klemper showed up.

They knew to call if something major popped up. Sam told him to take pictures of the cool gargoyles all over the city, and Tucker said if he had time to visit a Wayne Tech store for the newly released memory bank he’d send Danny the money to pick it up for him. Danny responded to both messages with a thumbs up and tried to avoid thinking about the added squirming in his guts at the thought of being related to the guy who owns the company that pays the inventors of those memory banks.

On paper the drive between Amity Park and Gotham was about 11 hours, but Jack’s driving shortened that to 8 1/2 even with a couple bathroom stops and fast food drive-throughs.

The closer they got to Gotham the more Danny felt like puking those chicken nuggets back up. He must have made some kind of noise when he saw the “Welcome to Gotham” road sign lit by the setting sun behind them because Jazz reached over and held his hand.

“It’s just two days,” she whispered, also looking a bit sick but meeting his eyes intently. “Friday and Saturday here, then we leave early Sunday morning to drive home. Just two days. This doesn’t change anything between us, Little Brother.”

“Of course not,” he responded immediately, then gave a weak grin. “It’s not like I could donate you a kidney since my accident anyway. And a DNA change didn’t stop me before so why let it now, yeah?”

“That’s the spirit.”

They both snorted at the unintended pun, and entered Gotham laughing.

Pulling up to Wayne Manor was a shock even though they knew a little of what to expect. What they didn’t expect was Bruce Wayne himself walking out the front door to greet them, and Jack launching himself out the abruptly parked GAV with a shout of “BRUCIE!!” to literally scoop the man up into his arms and plant a kiss right on the billionaire’s mouth.

Maddie laughed and jumped down from her seat to walk over, “Let him down, honey, so I can say hi too!”

Bruce was smiling widely as his feet touched back on ground and he leaned down to give Maddie a peck on the lips, holding her hand as he kept the other hand on Jack’s chest. Jack in turn had a hand on each of their hips as they stood in a tight circle.

Danny just stared. The whole scene looked… so normal? Sweetly domestic?

His parents had packed up the hazmat suits in their luggage and worn what they call their “on-the-town clothes.” Not date-night clothes, but nice outfits. He honestly hadn’t been paying much attention to them during the morning pack-up and long drive, but seeing them greet their old flame in real people clothes, acting like humans with a past instead of scientists with a lab in the basement… Danny felt like he was in a different universe. He knew logically that they had lives before him and Jazz were born but it really struck him in that moment.

And then Bruce Wayne looked up and their eyes met and everything came crashing back.

[unpretty]

@zahnie i am kind of mad tbh bc now i keep thinking about that leverage/batman crossover and it’s ridiculous. they’re using a charity gala as a way to get into the manor. eliot immediately pegs alfred for former mi6, but he can’t figure out what the fuck bruce’s deal is. something about the way he stands or the way he watches the room or his shoulders or something. “is it not distinctive enough?” “oh, it’s distinctive as hell, i just don’t know what it is”. let’s say it’s older bruce so hardison has to get into a hacker fight with tim. sophie can’t grift bc there are too many rich people who’d recognize her in attendance. parker can’t infiltrate the catering service because they run that shit tighter than the white house (WHY is he so paranoid about his CATERERS what the HELL i’ve seen BANKS less lax about tracking employees than this) so she has to pretend to be a model. that backfires so fast because bruce is so nice and wants to know if she’s okay bc she seems uncomfortable. parker is thrilled when she discovers the house is full of secret passages but that also ends poorly when she turns a corner and bruce is standing there like “hey there, you seem lost”. he’s still wearing the tux and drinking his champagne. he helpfully guides her to the bathroom since she is having such trouble finding it. eliot has a tense standoff with alfred bc this is wayne manor alfred and that means he is like an older, british eliot who’ll shoot a motherfucker. hardison and tim get distracted playing wow together and it isn’t clear exactly how that happened. there has to be at least one scene where eliot and bruce are fighting and the rest of the team just watches instead of doing anything useful because it’s actually kind of really hot. they don’t even really hurt each other so it’s fine. probably fine. just let them keep pinning each other to the floor for a while, it’s fine. bruce has a lot of helpful critiques for nate’s plan that nate does not appreciate. the obvious thing is that they figure out he’s batman but it’s kind of funnier if they don’t and just think bruce wayne is an inexplicable bamf. they’ve all learned a valuable lesson about judging people based on appearances. bruce flirts with sophie and nate pretends not to be bitter about it but he gazes out at the gotham skyline and broods. it’s just what happens when you’re in gotham. it’s a very broodworthy skyline. make fun of batman all you want but you look out at that skyline and try not to brood. you can’t. even superman broods. i mean, he looks like he’s brooding. he’s usually trying to remember if he left the oven on because every time he decides to make himself a nice dinner a supervillain attacks and four hours later his baked ziti is charcoal. it still counts as brooding. nate never stood a chance.

[unpretty]

“Parker, if he so much as gives you a bad feeling I want you to get the hell out of there as fast as you can.”

“What?” Parker looked back over her shoulder at the man currently adorned with three blondes, five brunettes, and a redhead. “Why?”

“Something’s not right,” Eliot said, which wasn’t an explanation at all.

“Think you can maybe give us a little more to go on than that?” Nate asked, the kind of sardonic authority that was easy to pull off when he wasn’t even in the building.

“No,” Eliot snapped. “I don’t know what the hell it is, I just know it’s bad news.” MI6 in the way he held his champagne and CIA in the way he stood and a soldier in his shoulders and Interpol in the way he looked around the room – no, CIA again – no, FBI – League of Assassins? Obviously not that, couldn’t have been that, so what exactly was it that had him wanting to grab Parker and get the hell out? If he could get closer he might be able to tell, the mezzanine might as well have been a different building entirely for all the good it did him. All forest, no trees.

“Not distinctive enough?” Hardison asked, but it wasn’t a real question.

“Too distinctive,” Eliot answered, even though he knew Hardison didn’t actually care. “I’ve just never seen it before.”

“If you’ll pardon the intrusion, sir,” said a voice not in Eliot’s ear, and he did not make it obvious how he stiffened at the address. Eliot turned, let harmless confusion and interest soften his face.

The butler, the one he’d seen before. Pennyworth. That familiar combination of MI6 and Interpol, muddied with domestic service but present all the same.

“May I have your name?” the butler asked, his hair was white but his eyes were sharp.

“Isaac Easton,” Eliot lied automatically. “Is something wrong?”

Mr. Pennyworth exuded serene amusement. “So sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid you’re not Mr. Easton.”

“Don’t try to deny it,” Sophie said in Eliot’s ear before he could respond. “He couldn’t make it so he told you to come.”

“You caught me,” Eliot said, sheepish. “Turned out he had some kind of a family thing, said I could use his invite. Didn’t think anyone’d notice if I used his name. He’ll be flattered you remember him.”

It was unclear if Pennyworth bought this story, as placid as before. “I don’t, actually,” he said. “But I’ve always made it a point to examine the guest lists personally. If there were meant to be a former green beret in attendance, I would know about it.”

Eliot was, for the most fleeting of moments, stunned.

The butler smiled. It was not kind. “The way you watch the crowd,” he explained. “It’s very distinctive.”

Eliot froze. He frowned. His brow furrowed.

If Hardison laughed any harder, he was going to hurt himself.

[notquiteaghost]

ok but, the leverage crew definitely aren’t conning the bats right? they’re after someone else, & want into the manor for some paperwork bruce specifically keeps in his home office cuz it’s less weird if your house where your kids live is more fortified than the average military base. except, obviously bruce has this paperwork cuz he is also after whoever it is, maybe as batman or maybe just as a rich guy who has tricked all the other rich guys into thinking he’s also a shitbag so they brag to him about all their shitbag exploits

which is to say. leverage crew are unknowingly speedrunning this guy’s demise. bruce was already handling it, he’s just content to play a longer game cuz taking down evil rich guys who do run-of-the-mill rich people crimes and not, y'know, increasingly elaborate supervillain crimes often involving fun new dangerous chemicals and explosives is the batman equivalent of a hobby. he combs thru the banking records of gotham’s elite to relax

and. because in both the leverage crew and the batfam’s experience people who have a very particular skillset and are lying about it do not mean well, they spend the whole gala convinced the other group are Villains.

so the longer the job takes the more nate suggests maybe they just bail, guys, they can find another angle that doesn’t need those files, they have definitely stumbled into something bigger here and he has no idea who bruce wayne actually is but he does not want to piss him off, while parker and eliot stubbornly refuse to leave because, no, they are figuring out what the fuck wayne’s deal is. hardison is having too much fun talking to tim to take a side. sophie can’t decide if the inevitability of someone being stabbed is worth finding out why dick grayson is subtly grilling her about a few very specific pieces of artwork and their exact locations

(for the record dick is mostly trying to figure out if she knows selina) (he is asking the wrong person) (parker hasn’t ever talked to her but they’ve crossed paths) (only so many buildings containing incredibly expensive things in the world. yknow how it is)

and the more of the evening that passes the more bruce starts to develop a twitch, because these people are here for A Reason but no one can find anything on them, they’re not trying to get in the kitchens, they’re not armed, he sent tim off to hack into their comms two hours ago and he still hasn’t come back, dick is convinced the older woman is a prolific griffer but bruce is reasonably sure she’s related to him somehow, what are they trying to do why are they here bruce’s head hurts

eventually, eliot hits his subterfuge limit and just starts for the office, and bruce follows him, and they get in the aforementioned brawl in a relatively out-the-way hallway that slowly attracts parker, sophie, nate, and dick, and as that is playing out hardison finally says something he thinks isn’t incriminating but makes tim go “ohhh you’re after the medical fraud guy. shit, why didn’t you just say so? i’ll send you the files now”

meaning hardison finally gives his full attention back to the main comms channel and says “uh, nate? it’s cool, i sorted it, you can bounce”, only for nate to reply “eliot has bruce wayne in a chokehold” and then, as hardison splutters, “no, wait, bruce wayne has eliot pinned– no, eliot has– no, i think– wait, maybe–”

“you, uh. you can break it up” hardison says, desperately trying to find a security camera with a good angle, and tim pipes up “hey, can we set up your guy and bruce on some playdates?” as nate, caught between bemusement and concern, says “i think? this is fun for them?”

and then alfred appears to remind bruce he can’t mysteriously disappear when it’s his party (“no, i think i can” “i am not saying it would be implausible, master bruce, i am saying it would be impolite”), and sees the leverage crew out, and the leverage crew have the weirdest debrief of their lives and then get their actual con off w/o a hitch thanks in part to some extra bonus files tim sent, and a couple weeks later bruce sends them a fruit basket and a standing invitation to any and all events he hosts

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

Cass and Parker should get to hang out, too.

[atiyasnake]

I’m absolutely in love with but especially with the idea that the Leverage crew does not find out that he’s Batman and he just is a weird badass suspect ‘too distincitve’ rich guy. Tho it would be a funny tidbit if one if the leverage crew, I’m thinking Parker, finds out about the bat vigilante aspect but just simply does not tell anyone (Tho Cass totally knows Parker knows and Parker totally knows Cass knows she knows).

It’s just fun to think of the funny interactions they would have with each other. Along with what chaos they could cause at following events, they attend all together.

[bjurnberg]

Yes please please please please I love this

I’d like to add a scene idea for when Bruce and Parker meet.

Keep reading

[azuremist]

I think that more fanfiction should be written with the aim to tackle the original meaning of hanahaki. Because when the concept of hanahaki disease was originally created, it was intended to be a metaphor for suppressing one’s feelings.

Your feelings are this beautiful garden of flora inside of your chest. When you express how you feel honestly, you allow for it to grow freely. But when you hide how you feel out of fear of rejection, and try to make it smaller and smaller, the flowers become cramped inside of you, until you choke on your own feelings. Every flower you cough up is something you’ve felt, but refused to say.

The whole “dying” thing is intended to be more symbolic especially. You’re killing off bits and pieces of yourself and how you feel, because you’re afraid to express yourself.

It’s not really supposed to be, “The one I love doesn’t love me back, and I’m dying from it.” Rather, it’s more along the lines of, “Repressing your emotions is bad for you, and it’s better and healthier to express them freely, even when it’s scary.”

Which is to say that, one, the cure for the disease should be telling the person that you are in love with how you feel. How the other person feels about the person afflicted should have nothing to do with it, as the trope is meant to be about feeling your emotions unapologetically.

And that, two, it’s not an inherently romantic trope. Obviously, it has romantic applications, but it can be written for any situation where a character is hiding how they truly feel. This can include a refusal to address a specific trauma, a desire to indulge in something that they’re ashamed of, and even really practical things, like wanting to ask one’s boss for a higher position.

Although (as an aromantic person myself) I don’t agree with this conclusion about the trope, this application would also avoid people calling it arophobic. When the thing killing the character is a refusal to be honest with themselves, rather than an unrequited love, it’s on nobody’s hands but their own to save their life.

There are a ton of ways that this interpretation of the hanahaki disease could be applied in new and interesting ways in fanfiction, and I’d love to read what things people could come up with!

[bjurnberg]

Non-romantic applications for fandoms I’m currently in:

Danny Phantom - Danny won’t tell his parents he’s half ghost. Undergrowth cursed him with hanahaki and coughing up flowers is getting harder to hide than the ghost powers.

DC/Justice League - the entirety of the Gotham vigilante crew start coughing up flowers and none of the other heroes know why and are very concerned. The Bats just went through a major Arkham breakout with all hands on deck hunting down Rogues and short-term patients alike, trying to keep civilians safe from multiple madmen with chemical weapons while also herding the escaped group therapy session of suicidal 20-25 year olds away from the bridges. Basically a very traumatic week that none of them will talk about.

BBC Merlin - Merlin has hanahaki because he refuses to tell Arthur he’s a sorcerer. Yes they’ve been fuck buddies for years, that’s just a background fact unimportant here.

Marvel/Thunderbolts - Bob starts coughing up flowers and the whole group freak out because this must be connected to the darkness within him somehow and they can’t have that returning. Bob stole some fancy foreign candy from Ava’s room and is scared to admit it. He thinks it’s the candy’s fault, like, maybe it had seeds in it and they’re growing in his stomach? His mom told him that happened with watermelon seeds as a kid.

[stealingyourbones]

Superman and The Flash have their annual 50 lap race around the world when an unknown joins them on their yearly get together… a glowing teenager with blinding white hair, toxic green eyes, and a face of sheer delight, whooping and happily shouting as he does his best to keep up with the Speedster and Man of Steel

[the-witchhunter]

For added context

This “race” is a real thing in comics and Barry goes easy on Superman

How often does these two racing come up? More than you’d think

In the early races they would tie. DC liked to tease it out. Who’s the fastest? Who know, after all you can’t say one is faster if they tie…

Then they casually drop the bomb that Barry has been holding back for years every time they raced. The race was a publicity thing, he was having fun and putting on a show, meanwhile Clark was actually going as fast as he could

So keeping that in mind, Clark and Barry are both holding back for Danny to remotely keep up with them. A bit like a dog running next to a vehicle, the vehicle could go faster but the dog is just having fun trying to keep up

[stealingyourbones]

[stealingyourbones]

As @the-witchhunter said, this race is something that happens in comics, and quite frequently too! Here are just a few of the comics where they race.

[bjurnberg]

All of this is adorable. Danny doesn’t get to go this fast most of the time because he’s protecting people or fighting ghosts and while he can use his speed it’s for a purpose not just for the thrill of speed.

Back to the dog running next to a car analogy - Danny is like a sheepdog. He’s got the speed and agility but it’s focused on herding. Making his target move in particular ways to avoid damaging infrastructure or herding crowds of people away from harm.

But when you get to see a sheepdog just sprint in a straight line?! It feels like watching a jet scream past you at an air show. Sleek and perfectly attuned to its job.

Lightning is still faster than a jet, but Barry can enjoy sharing the sky with this kid who’s thrilled by the storm.

[somestorythoughts]

#let Danny be happy#let Danny find joy in his powers#let him eat 50 grand slam breakfasts at ihop afterward

He and Barry totally see who needed to eat the most during the after race dinner right?

[nerdpoe]

Clark had a cousin growing up, and he literally just found out, as an adult with a child of his own, that the cousin was just Some Guy Ma and Pa found in their field.

He'd been talking with Ma, remembering Pa, and had mentioned that he hadn't seen his Cousin, Danny, in awhile.

His Ma told him that she had no way to contact Danny, because Danny was just Some Guy that showed up to lay in the snow on their field at random intervals, and he looked enough like Clark that they could get away with saying he was a cousin.

Apparently, he'd been harmless enough, and when Pa had pointed a shotgun at him for trespassing, the only thing he'd done was say "fair" and still refuse to move. Pa had done some interrogating, while Ma had kept a six year old Clark distracted, and found the long and short of it; the boy was an ice meta, and he'd overheated, so he was cooling down in the snow on the field before leaving again.

Pa had told Ma, while Clark was still distracted, and she'd ordered him to go out there and give the boy the last tub of ice cream they had.

After that, the boy, Danny, had sporadically returned every winter, stayed for a few days, helped around the farm, babysat Clark, and then disappeared.

When Clark had left for Metropolis, Danny had only come by one or two more times, then the visits stopped.

Danny hadn't even come back after Pa died.

Ma had assumed that the worst had happened, but since she only knew Danny's first name and that he was an ice meta, had no way of finding him. She hadn't said anything because she hadn't wanted to add to Clark's stress.

Clark, though, has a whole lot more resources at his fingertips; he's going to find Danny.

[void-of-unparalleled-chaos]

This seems like a prompt you would like @stealingyourbones