Danny was asked where his in memorium is, after saving another civilian on a JL mision.
Danny in all his glory just "hu?"
"You know, so i can put a thank you for saving me ofrend"
"Oh.. i i dont have one- not even in my secret identidy i had a grave... but thank you so much for thinking of that" the sinsere and melancholical smile that the ghost hero give to the civilian was so full of emotion that even the people acros the screen could feel it.
Not knowing that he was recorded, Phantom guve a false saluted and continued with his work.
The video soon become viral, and with that, little by little a lot of in memoriums and shirenes started poping up all around the globe.
I loved this and kind of just took it and just ran with it. Prompt/Idea credit entirely to OP.
Danny never cared about having a grave when he first died. He had enough on his plate dealing with the half-dead/half-alive fiasco, and he for sure couldn't focus on it when he was constantly fighting ghosts coming through the portal, the GIW, and his own parents.
Sam asked him once if he had ever had a chance to really grieve himself after one particularly nasty run in with the GIW that left him hurt and upset.
That was the first time he ever thought about it. Thought about a grave.
When he brought it up to Frostbite and some of the other ghosts, they were all shocked and upset that he didn't have a grave or memorial for the portion of life he had already lost. Even if he were still technically alive, he was fundamentally changed. Shouldn't there be some place of significance where he and his friends, his family, could go to remember what he once was? What he could have become had the portal not opened on him that fateful day?
Danny realized that he had started for long to the connection that the other ghosts described between their graves, memorials, and ofrendas to the living world and their own histories.
But he couldn't very well ask his parents to help him figure out how to set up a grave without outing himself as no longer fully human. He wouldn't ask his friends or Jazz to help him symbolically bury who he no longer was. He refused to put that additional trauma and burden on their shoulders.
So he just... didn't have one. And time moved forward. As everything aged and grew around him, his ghost form remained almost unchanged. Stuck at the physical appearance of the day he died and unable to let himself grieve that loss, and serving as another constant reminder of his ending adolescence.
Eventually. he got out of Amity Park and was recruited by the JL. It took a long time to convince them that he was actually not a young teenager, that he was bordering on just dead enough to stop aging but not dead enough to decay.
It hurt every time, but it was the reality of what was left of his life. So he pushed through the pain and focused on making a difference in a world that moves past him.
As threats rise and the JL responds, Phantom gains some recognition among civilians. He doesn't come out as often as some of the other heroes, but his presence is noticed nonetheless.
It was after a particularly grueling fight in Central City where an apartment complex collapsed trapping dozens of civilians that Danny found himself thinking of graves again.
He'd spent a better portion of the fight utilizing his intangibility to search through the rubble for survivors, pulling them out and helping to stabilize them away from the danger before going right back in to search for the next person.
It was after the dust settled and the villain had finally been led away by other JL members that an older lady came up to him.
She had been one of the first he had managed to help out of the rubble. One of the fortunate ones.
She limped over, her twisted ankle braced by a paramedic after he'd dropped her off, and she put a hesitant hand on his arm.
"Where can I pay my respects?" She whispered with a sad little smile.
Danny was initially confused.
"Huh? I'm not sure I understand what you mean, ma'am?" He responded back, matching her quiet tone out of respect.
"I'd like to pay my respects to you. To thank you for saving me, saving my family." She turned back to where several others were stood, just out of hearing range, watching the conversation unfold with the same sad little smiles as the woman before him.
"Where is your memorial, Phantom?"
And Danny... Danny couldn't. Couldn't think. Couldn't respond. Couldn't Breathe.
A harmless, polite, and so well-meaning question and he was suddenly 14 again, feeling the lightening from the portal as it spread through his body over and over and over and over again.
He was 15 and realizing he wasn't aging physically anymore in his Phantom form.
He was 16 and realizing that he was never able to grieve himself.
He was 17 and longing for a symbol of what he lost but unable to ask for help to achieve it.
He was 18 and leaving Amity Park in search of a sense of safety and security that had been lacking for years.
But Danny refused to lie to this woman. This woman who asked for so little but had unknowingly just uncovered so much. He couldn't make himself smile, laugh it off, and lie.
So he let out a wet chuckle, tears brimming in his eyes when he looked at her and finally managed to speak.
"I- I don't have one, ma'am. No version of me has ever had a grave, the kid or the hero... But thank you," Danny gently clasped his free hand over hers where it rested on his arm, pouring his genuine sincerity into his words. "Thank you so much for thinking to ask."
And the woman was quite for a moment. This child, this hero, had never had anybody grieve him in life or in death.
She reached her free hand up, cupped his face, and said, "You'll have one with me."
And Danny smiled, tears finally breaching down his face, before giving a polite nod and floating up and away from the group.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a few days later that Tucker sent him the video.
Somebody had been close enough to get a recording of the moment between him and the woman that day, close enough to catch his confession and truth.
And it sparked something beautiful.
The Hashtag #OneWithMe had started circling online within hours of the video going up. People from across the world that had been impacted by Danny as Phantom began erecting memorials and grave markers for him.
A farmer who he had helped pull from a grain silo when law enforcement couldn't figure out how to get to him safely without getting sucked into it themselves had taken a spare piece of tin from one of his buildings and carved out a headstone for Phantom. He'd shared a video of his young daughters putting flowers on at the makeshift headstone sitting at the edge of a beautiful, flourishing orchard. The video's audio capured the two girls thanking him for saving their dad.
A photo of a bookshelf in a home that had been cleared off except a few well done drawings and kid's drawings depicting Phantom protecting the young mother and her son from a robot that was shooting right for them.
An older lady had her neighbor help her post a photo of her ofrenda with the JL's official press photo of Phantom printed out and sitting above a cherry pie. Danny recognized the woman as a lady he had helped get home safe after somebody had attempted to mug her when she was walking home from the store one afternoon, bringing her husband's favorite pie to him since he was sick. He hadn't managed to leave her house before she'd handed him a slice and told him to come back anytime.
The lady from the apartment collapse had even posted a video. It showed her and her family in a makeshift bedroom as they lit a candle. Each member of the family, even ones he didn't remember saving or seeing during the search-and-rescue, took turns thanking him for saving them or expressing their gratitude for saving their loved ones.
And there were so. many. more.
There were hundreds of posts already: pictures and videos of makeshift headstones, memorials, and ofrendas that he had unknowingly become a part of. There were hundreds of people who were willing to make space for him, to help grieve him, to thank him.
And it was then that Danny realized. His half-life could be grieved, the adult hero in a child's body could be recognized, and he could live what life remained knowing that he'd left something impactful behind.
Maybe the physical grave or memorial doesn't mean nearly as much as the people who are there to use them.
Okay so another dpxdc, Danny is Bruceâs younger cousin. Through Maddie, on his motherâs side. Heâs about 5 years younger than Bruce, so Bruce had just left on his training montage journey when Danny went in the portal. Technically, Phantom ends up being on of the first vigilantes on the scene.
Years later, Danny, ID untold to everyone but his team, Jazz, and Valerie, figures he should reconnect with family, since he went awol for a while doing ghost duty stuff.
He quite literally drops in at Bruceâs house, and wow yeah now he remembers why Vladâs flaunting paired with his horrible taste in everything always had him unimpressed, besides the obvious of course. And Bruce has adopted a kid. Huh. Feisty little guy.
Danny does try to keep in more contact after that, but still ends up dropping in sporadically throughout the years.
Featuring: At one point after Jason gets back from the League, Danny just straight up grabs him and dips. He never actually met Jason when he was living with Bruce, so he doesnât even realize that a) this is his, theyâre going with the term nephew. And b) that Bruce is now looking for his un-dead estrangled son. Danny is going to get this strangely not-dead child some medical attention.
With treatment and explanations actually going strangely smoothly, and Jason set up for actually scheduled doctor appointments, Danny takes him back to the mortal world and offers to take him all the way home. Jason accepts, and Danny is faced with the realization that he kidnapped his nephew when he watches invisibly as Jason walks up to his cousinâs house and immediately gets tackled by a sobbing Dick and Bruceâs newest kid Tim.
Later on in the plot, Bruce does end up going through time and Tim gets estrangled from the family and goes searching for him. Heâs midway through his plan when his Uncle Danny shows up by literally picking him up by his jacket, and they both end up staring at each other directly outside of the League of Assassinsâ base, Tim breaking out and Danny breaking in.
Technically, Tim is the first one to find out who Danny is. Jason knows that heâs half-ghost and all that, but Tim is the one that gets to go collect the Infini-Map from the yetis and go on a jaunt through time and space to find Bruce, so heâs the only one so far that puts together that Danny is a strangely big deal in the infinite realms.
Vlad Masters sat firm and proper on the Fenton Family couch, legs crossed, teacup pinched in his fingertips, fighting subtly against the sinkhole that came with the mistake of taking Jackâs usual spot on the couch. He appeared with all the same charm and delightfulness of an ant swarm rearranging your picnic.
Danny stood at the doorway, just-still-in-the-kitchen, just not inviting himself to join the adults in the living room where Jack boomed and rambled and Vlad sat so stiff and polite and nice that his tea in his hands was going cold.
âOh, Danny youâll love this storyâDanny, you should join usâDanny this was, what, summer of â84? When was that heatwave, Vladdy? The one where youââ
âThereâs no need to bore Daniel with the mad ravings of two old kooks, Jack. Kids would rather be off at the mall orâsome store, surely. No need to stick around Daniel on my behalf. I assure you I wonât be offended if you leave.â
âNo worries, V-man. Iâm good right here. I love hearing Dadâs stories." Danny met Vlad's challenge, speaking with more poisonous courtesy than Vlad had proffered first. "In fact I think he should tell a few more, if heâs got more in mind.â
âIn fact I do have more in mindââ Jack answered.
Neither Danny nor Vlad were listening to Jack. They held eye-contact, Danny with a stern unblinkingness of a sheepdog on duty. A lot was said without words. A lot was understood when Vlad decided to visit through the front door. Vlad only used the front door when he wanted something.
And it was never good when Vlad wanted something.
ââthe core reactor project, yeah? That summer? That was in the lab with no A/C. Top floor. We were sweating like pigs, all of us. And I dared you to eat the really moldy pizza from our fridge the night before and you ralphed right intoââ
ââSurely you remember this more fondly than I do. Daniel, really, you can go.â
Not a chance.
âActually,â Danny answered, brightening some as his opportunity struck. âI am interested in this. For science class I need to write a report on the invention of an important piece of technology. I was gonna ask Mom and Dad about the Ghost Portal. And now that youâre here, I can get the whole history.â
Jack made a giddy little noise. He leaned forward, words primed, but Vlad was quicker to the draw.
âSorry to say, your faith in me is unfounded. I wasnât the portal guy back in collegeâthat was always your mother and fatherâs passion project. I was their skeptic.â
âBet thatâs got you feeling pretty foolish right now, doesnât it V-man?â Jack chided, a quick jab to Vladâs ribs that nearly unseated the teacup from his suspended saucer. âConsidering the fully-functioning portal right beneath our toes.â
âI hardly feel foolish, Jack. Your calculation for the portal in college was never going to work.â
âWhat do you mean? Of course it did.â Jack thumped the ground with his foot. âItâs running the old girl right now.â
At this, Vladâs eyes narrowed. For the first time heâd been shaken off whatever skeezy machinations had brought him in. His pride was being challenged, and by Jack no less.
âAbsolutely not. With that calculation? Absolutely not.â
âWell forget the tea biscuits Vlad, because youâre going to be eating your words in a second. Mads, hold my spot,â Jack said, as if anyone was planning to take his spot. He bounced from the couch, scooted from the living room, and vanished into the dark maw of the lab stairs, leaving only the waning beat of his footsteps behind.
His absence filled only a swallowing few seconds. The footsteps returned, bounding upward, creaking with his heavy cadence, and Jack bounced back into the room in much the manner he left. A pad of yellow lined paper was clutched in his hand. When he dropped it on the coffee table, it revealed row after row of tight scribble, churning math, carrying down the page and occupying two entire pages more that Jack flipped through.
âSame baby I came up with in college. It just needed heavier dampening and higher voltage than what we made back then. The portal downstairs has that in spades. Well, in like two-thirds of a spade.â Jack tapped something on the last line. âThe projection was still only hitting 70% of the threshold we calculated to reach dimension penetration. But itâs an art, not just a science. We fired it up anyway, and it took!â
Vlad grabbed the paper pad, agitated. His eyes ran over it. Then again. Until he settled on one line, a firmness overcoming his face. He tossed the pad back onto the coffee table, and Vlad leaned back into the couch, arms crossed.
âThe lambda, Jack.â
âThe lambda?â
âCheck it again.â
Jack did, lips pursed, pad of paper nearly swallowed in his big meaty hand.
âWhat about--?â
âIt squares. The units donât balance otherwise. It originates from an integration step of λ*âλ/ât. It squares.â
Jackâs brow remained furrowed, firm, until delight cracked into his eyes, and he let out a laugh.
âGods, my handwriting is gonna be the death of us. Mads,â he tapped something unseen on the second page. âThatâs the genius of Vladdy. Cracked this puppy wide open with just a glance. I never noticed that in all my checking. That explains the missing 30%, at least. That explains how the portal took. Lucky for you Danny that Vlad was hereââ
âJack,â Maddie said.
ââyour report can have the correct formula. Itâll beââ
ââJackââ
ââA+ worthyââ
ââJack,â Maddie said, curt. âLambda is the ambient ecto-energy. Itâs a few ten-thousandths of a unit.â
âItâhuh.â
Maddie had surfaced a pen from her pocket. She sheared a few blank pages out from the back of the pad and started the formula fresh. She made quick work of copying it over, quicker work of solving it through â lambda-squared intact.
She hit the final line and hatched a pen mark beneath the number. Jack stared, confused.
âThat canât⊠no.â
He repeated the same. New pages torn loose. Formula copied over, processed, line by line by lineâlambda squaredâby line by line by line.
Jack settled on his answer. Same as Maddieâs.
Confusion made his face tense.
âSo itâs not 70% of the way to the threshold⊠Itâs 0.013% of the way to the threshold.â
He held the pen hard, his whole body holding firm and taut as the gears turned in his head. Jackâs eyes flickered across the formula, again and again and again. He looked to Maddie, like a dog issued a command he did not understand.
âBut it worked,â he said, small. âBut it worked.â
Jack stood, robotic almost, eyes lost in something far away. He disappeared into the lab almost as quickly as he had a few minutes before, but now he exited with a smoothness and a quietness so very uncharacteristic of him. It bothered Danny, somewhere deep in his gut.
Maddie followed, a possession matching Jackâs.
Dannyâs fingers curled and uncurled. Heâd succeeded. Heâs successfully interrupted Vladâs⊠whatever this was. But the disquiet infected him. He didnât like it.
âSo what does that mean?â Danny asked, perhaps to Vlad. âWhatâs wrong with the calculation?â
Vlad sipped on tea ice cold.
âWho knows?â Vlad lied.
âŠ
The math didnât work.
Maddie and Jack burned through paper, burned through pencils, burned through hours.
The math didnât work.
Clothes stuck to skin. Sweat lingered fetid and stale in the cold basement air. Exhaustion beat like a slurry through their veins.
The math didnât work.
The portal supervised all, placidly green, the light for their table, the light for their work when the lightbulb overhead burnt clean out and neither Jack nor Maddie could be pulled away to replace it. It stood, it watched, a testament of contradiction to everything they could not solve on paper, and yet everything they built directly into the fabric of reality.
And it should never have worked.
They threw every radical what-if theyâd ever conceived over 20 years of ghost research.
The ecto-ether layer.
The latent activation stitches in space fabric.
The anti-ectomatter collision proposal.
The positive-feedback crystallization theory.
And still nothing worked.
All together, every crackpot theory in their favor taken for granted, racked them up to an activation energy 200x more potent than the calculation, and still just 2% of what would be needed to rip open, and hold open, a stable fissure between their reality and the ghost zone.
Maybe by pure luck, unfathomable luck, Fentonworks basement was directly situated atop a natural portal.
Maybe that would explain ripping it open. It did nothing to explain the stability. Natural portals were unstable by definition. There and gone in a few seconds. Not hours, days, weeks, months, a year, that the Fenton Portal had been open. Never so much as faltering.
It was late. 3am ticked away to 4am, and 4:30am. The discarded paper stacked higher than Jack and Maddie both. Calluses oozed from their hands at another attempt, and another, and another.
Maddie flipped through a folderâs worth of yellowed papers, aggressively thumbed over and over after two decades left untouched. And she settled on the one sheâd passed over a few dozen times already, always seeking something else, something better.
This time she unsheathed it, and she placed it on the lab table.
ââŠIf a mouse died. In the machine. If a mouse ran through the machine and accidentally bridged two live wires, and died of violent electrocution. 500 milliamps. Instantly melted into the circuitry.â
Maddieâs mouth was cotton-dry while she wrote. Ambient ecto-energy was low. Always very, very low.
Unless something very, very bad happened to something with the capacity to become a ghost.
The numbers wove. Maddie started the formula fresh, and it was pure muscle memory. A mouse. A big mouse, even. A 99th percentile beast of a mouse. And a wire that had been wired incorrectly. Something grounded that never actually grounded. An absolutely horrific amount of electricity.
0.37%, by pure numbers. If she included every permissive crackpot idea they had thrown on top, it topped out at 6% of the needed activation threshold.
Not a mouse.
âA cat,â Jack said, words gummy, tongue dry, face tired. âIf weâve got mice down here, maybe⊠a stray cat wandered in. Chased the mouse.â
Maddie nodded. It didnât matter if it made sense.
She penned it in. A large cat. A devastating electrical short. Cats carried more ecto-potential than mice did. Ecto-potential did not necessarily go up with size. It went up with complexity. The things with the most ecto-potential were the things that most became ghosts.
1.45%, by pure numbers. 18% at absolute, absolute crackpot best.
âA dog,â Jack proposed with a shaky laugh. He swallowed. âA mouse⊠chased by a cat⊠chased by a dog⊠all electrocuted at onceâ
Maddie didnât say the thing they both knew, which was that both of them would have noticed the evidence left behind by the electrically exploded pieces of a dog.
Maddie did it anyway. A mouse and a cat and a medium-sized dog, maybe just small enough to notice no evidence of, all together. All at once. All violently ripped apart, sacrificed to a machine still asleep in its wall.
Mice did not often make ghosts. Cats did not either. Dogs, occasionally. But infrequently. Very infrequently.
37%. At best.
âJack.â
âMaddie, I know justâmaybe something really smartââ
ââJackââ
ââlike an octopusââ
âJack.â
âI hear, maybe, pigs are smart. If it wasââ
Maddie was writing, already. Not for a pig. Not an octopus. Jack watched, and he knew what the numbers meant. The ecto-potential she penned gave her away. An ecto-potential that high.
65kg, an estimate
10,000 milliamps, a catastrophic accident, a death certificate.
A humanâs amount of ecto-potential.
Maddie wrote.
And she wrote.
And she did not apply a single crackpot theory, not a single discredited proposal, not an ounce of exaggeration.
138%.
Threshold, and then some.
Comfortable, easily, then some.
For the first time, after all the hundreds of times she and Jack had penned this equation over the course of 2 decades, the number met her and Jackâs threshold.
A breakthrough.
A revelation.
A pure eureka moment.
Jack and Maddie were silent.
Alone in a humming basement. Alone with only the soft swirls of the portal for company, happy, stable, purring its contentment, singing to the cold air.
âIt has to be something else,â Maddie said. And she said it weakly. And she said it childishly.
âYouâre right. It canât be this,â Jack echoed. âIf someone died down here, weâd know. Dead bodies donât walk away. Weâd have seen it. O-or even if, if the body got stuck in the portal, weâd have heard of someone going missing.â
Maddie sat, quiet. A thought held her mind hostage.
âUnless they didnât go missing,â Maddie said, and she said it barely audibly. âUnless the portal spit them right back out.â
âThenâthatâs what I saidâa dead body, on the floor, weâd have seen.â
âNot a dead body.â
âIt had to be lethal, Madsââ
âI know Jack. But if they died, here, in the portal Jack, then their ghost did not get ripped away from the body and sent to the Ghost Zone. âŠThey ripped the Ghost Zone here.â Palms slick with sweat smoothed over her notes. She pointed to one specific line and found her pen tip trembled no matter how badly she stabilized it. âThe ecto-potential of a creature is how strong of a pull their ghost creates on the Ghost Zone. A strong enough pull means the ghost can reach the Ghost Zone and stabilize, like a fish reeling itself up, yeah? We agree on this Jack, yes?â
âYes,â Jack answered.
âItâs what makes the math even work, Jack. Someone dying in the portal didnât reel themselves to the boat. They reeled the boat in. Jack, they brought the Ghost Zone hereâŠâ Maddie wasnât breathing right. She pulled sweat-soaked bangs away from her face. âTheir ghost never left their body Jack. They died, Jack. And they walked back out.â
ââŠNo. No,â Jack said. âNo, they didnât.â
âThen what?â Maddie asked.
Jack stared. He looked away. He didnât like the expression on Maddieâs face.
âItâwhat about the ecto-ether theory?â Jack said, of the theory theyâd tested and retested and tested all over, all night. He grabbed his pencil back up and pointed it aimlessly at Maddieâs piece of paper, pointed end out in self-defense. âIf the ecto-ether is maybe⊠if itâs only 250-times stronger than we calculated. Then it couldâŠâ
Jackâs voice died. His pencil hung idle. Maddieâs paper remained unblemished.
âIf it⊠was a pig,â Jack offered. âIf it was a pig that died in the portal.â
âHow, Jack? How would a pig get in? We lock all the doors at night, Jack. No one else can get in, Jack. Itâs just us, Jack.â
Jack and Maddie were not there when the portal turned on.
Maddieâs statement carried two possibilities. Only two. Both felt like claws digging all the flesh right out of Jackâs heart.
âI want⊠I want to try the ecto-ether theory again,â Jack choked. âI think itâs the ecto-ether. I think itâll work.â
Jack slid a piece of paper over, already covered in scribbles. In its single untouched corner, he started the equation for the several-thousandth time that night.
Above their head, birds were singing.
Sunrise hailed unseen from the windowless laboratory.
âŠ
At 6am, Vlad answered his cell phone. The reception crackled, struggling through the layers of sheetrock above his head.
âVlad?â Maddieâs voice crackled. âSorry, did I wake you up?â
âNot at all my dear.â Vlad leaned his weight against the wall, playing with the singsong melody in his voice. âBut you sound exhausted. Is anything the matter?â
âYes. Well⊠Yes. Jack and I haveâall nightâtrying to fix the equation.â
âNaturally.â
âWe found something that maybe works.â
âOh?â Vlad asked. He straightened, pacing now, cracklingly attentive. âAnd what might thatââ
âIf someone died. Activating the portal. We have an on-switch inside the portalâs interior. The trigger we use to press it is external to the portal, of course. But if someone went inside the portal, and they pressed it directly, and if they died, and pulled the Ghost Zone hereââ
Vladâs red eyes reflected pools of iridescent green. He twirled his free hand in the fringes of his cape, tongue working over the fanged edges of his teeth. He stared, consumed, forward.
ââand just, you, I was thinking, youâre the only other expert Iâd trust to⊠maybe weigh in.â
âWhat does Jack think?â
âHe denies it. Heâs still. Heâs trying other theories.â
âWell who knows, surely? The answer may lie somewhere you havenât looked.â
ââŠIâve looked everywhere, Vlad. That's the thing. There is no more âsomewhere elseâ. Iâve looked.â
âYou sound like your mind is made up.â
âI just⊠if maybe you have some idea.â
âAm I meant to talk you out of this idea?â
âVlad.â
âDo you think I have some secret information you donât? Sorry to say, Iâm just your skeptic.â Some noise came through muffled from the other side. Vlad flashed a smile. âButâŠas your skeptic I will offer you thisâIt all sounds a bit absurd, doesnât it? To kill someone and have them come back intact and⊠for you to never notice? Who would they be? How would they be? Surely not human anymore, surely. How would you never notice?â
Vlad paced forward, booted feet clicking along his laboratory floor.
âIt would be ridiculous,â he continued, with a building crescendo, âso unfathomably self-centered surely, to not notice something like that befall someone so close to you, who died at the hands of your own invention? âŠIf Iâm correctly inferring who, in your household, you suspect of having activated the portal?â Vladâs tongue lingered along his teeth.
Maddieâs line held, quiet. And the seconds of static drew long.
âAh, apologies. Iâve overstepped,â Vlad continued. âI meant this as a vote of confidence in you. You and Jack both. Two people as attentive, caring, compassionate as yourselves. You would notice. I promise.â
âYouâre⊠Okay, thank you, Vlad. I appreciate it.â
âIs there anything else, my dear?â
âNo. No. Thank you, Vlad. Iâll think about this.â
Maddieâs line clicked dead. A chuckle built to Vladâs lips and he let his head tip back with mirth. It lasted only a moment. He stowed his phone. And as if the interruption had never happened, Vlad reaffixed his attention on his own portal swirling in front of him. It bathed him, swimming green, purring contentment.
If Tucker knew that this train was going to be held hostage for one of Riddlers schemes he would have taken the bus instead.
One participant of the train had to solve the Riddlers puzzles before they would meet some flavor of gruesome end. The Bats were working on establishing a connection to the transit captives to help with the clues but so far no dice.
Tucker looks at the piece of paper with the first riddle written on it. Then back at the Riddler, back to the paper, the Riddler, the paper.
It's too easy.
'I am swift, I am unseen. I bring Death with me, but touch not a soul. Hell follows in my wake. What am I?'
This has to be a trap, right? Some kind of 'the right answer is the wrong answer' situation.
"Can I see the second riddle?" He asks, carefully.
The Riddler hums smugly, "But of course. You get to see all four clues to solve my final puzzle and save your dear fellow passengers." Dramatic condescension topped with the threat of imminent death. No pressure.
"Right, right..." Tucker takes the second piece of paper and reads.
'My master takes peace and paints my coat with blood. What am I?'
Okay, yeah, no. There HAS to be a catch, an extra trick at play. A quick glance at the other two clue-riddles does nothing but confirm his answers.
Tucker chewed his lip, floundering to find the right words. How do you ask a riddle-based supervillain with a body count, what the catch is, without insulting them if there really is no catch, and their riddle is just disappointingly simple? But like, politely.
The Riddler chuckled darkly.
"So, Mr. Volunteer, feeling like you've bit off more than you can chew?"
"No, I just..."
The train car was deathly quiet. The Riddler was clearly enjoying Tucker's silence, practically vibrating with villainous validation. It was almost enough to make Tucker do the smart thing and simply solve the clues. Almost. But he just HAD to open his big mouth and blurt out:
"I thought you would give me a harder riddle?"
Tucker winced when a few of his dear fellow transit hostages hissed 'come on man!' 'are you serious!??'. Yeah, that was a total Danny move.
And the Riddler looked LIVID. Silent, staring, still as a statue and probably seconds away from ordering his henchmen towards premature violence. If Tucker were a smaller guy, he'd be worried about the villain personally throttling him. For now, all the man did was whisper.
"Excuse me?"
"Look it's just- I mean, the first one, it's a Pale Horse, right?" Tucker stuttered, "'I bring Death with me and Hell follows in my wake.' it's a reference to the four horsemen of the apocalypse." It's fine, this is fine. Too Fine, in fact. Tucker can totally talk his way out of this. (Or at least buy time until someone gets here to deal with their man.)
"And I mean, it's not a bad riddle. There's no shame in using existing riddles! I just thought..."
Tucker fidgets with the strap of his gym bag. Everyone is staring at him now. The Riddler, the hostages, even the henchmen stand agape. To be fair, what kind of idiot with a deathwish decides to critique a villain mid-scheme? Bad Luck Tuck, that's who
Welp, he's already dug himself this deep. Let's see how far the hole goes and if there are noxious fumes at the bottom. Time to Bugs Bunny this sitch.
"You know what? Screw it. I'll say it; I'm insulted." Taking advantage of his height, Tucker took one long step into the Riddler's personal space and flicked the man's stupid bowler hat right off his scheming head.
"You went through all the trouble of taking a train full of people hostage, put together this convoluted riddle-solving scenario, and then your riddles don't even make a statement? Or at least a social commentary?"
Another step forward and the Riddler took one back.
"I get that 'a pale horse, a red horse, a black horse, and a white horse' is probably alluding to a location or referencing some future team up against Batman, but honestly? It feels lazy, man. As soon as you figure out one clue, the rest are obvious.
"My life is on the line here and you're half-assing this. So suuuue me for expecting harder riddles. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised, when your performance today was downright pedestrian."
A few women and maybe a henchman or two gasped from the rear of the train car. Of all his comments so far, the Riddler looked most offended at that.
In the back of Tucker's head a little voice kept whispering bits of advice. Keep talking, keep him distracted and off kilter. Keep the pressure up, stay in his face, don't let him regain his footing, physically or mentally. Be it from his years of watching Danny do the exact same thing, or a little bit of ancient wisdom making itself known, he listened.
"And also, if I'm reading this correctly, it's pretty pretentious to compare yourself, and whoever you're working with, to the apocalypse. Full offence, you are not world-ending material. I've seen what world-ending dudes look like, and you. are. not. it!"
The last four words Tucker punctuated with sharp jabs to the Riddler's left lapel, forcing the man to pivot.
"Heck, Red Robin has more world-ending potential than you do. But, you know what you are good for?" Tucker said, stepping back.
Iâm glad everyone whoâs colored this so far made the inside of the cape all spacey. This was my favorite piece to shade so far :) Iâve been using a lot of green lately. I will now continue to color the rest of the purple team pieces.
After Danny was crowned he decided that the truce party had to have a counterpart, after all ghosts became friends mostly through battles, and he assumed that one day letting them fight wouldn't be a bad thing, it might even help stir up some grudges.
This was how High King Phantom, ruler of the infinite realms inaugurated the long-awaited "Day of War" or just "War Day", a moment when the Infinite Realms naturally became chaotic; alliances were allowed but it was not advisable to trust on them.
And of course, you were free not to participate, you just had to put a blue or green band on your arm, or a little green clock in the backyard of your haunt so the ghosts would leave you, your haunt or your territory in general alone.
Danny thought of it as some kind of giant paintball day, only with no paintballs and full of aggressive ghosts with various powers, it was especially exciting since everyone knew there would be no hard feelings after it and they would end up in the king's palace eating sweets as little children.
They usually celebrated it on a day close to any celebration related to death in human world, when their powers were especially powerful and therefore everyone could have more fun.
The problem was that since Danny had human friends (liminals?) who came to play, they didn't really consider it weird when some humans fell into the realms by a natural portal, and since they weren't wearing any blue or green arm bands they were definitely in the game.
For their part, the family of bats along with some League allies found themselves literally standing on a field of war where everyone seemed to be going for the kill, Jason was strangely excited about it, as was Damian.
When Dick asked one of the locals for an explanation, a guy on a motorbike threw him into the air laughing and yelled "LET THE HUNGER GAMES BEGIN!"
#is kinda fun because all the heroes are losing their minds
#thinking they ended up in a interdimensional war
#but at the end of the day all the ghost are happy and laughing
#eating some sweets and ectoplasm
#the heroes would try to find out allies
#they would be betrayed
#Jason will consider return for the next year
I feel like the reason the League even went to check out the portals is a combination of Constantine going AFK (because he knows what's up and wants no part of it) and the Lunch Lady and Box Ghost raiding the Lazarus Pits so that Lunch LAdy can make high quality snacks for the afterparty.
It would be really interesting if Constantine was dragged into it somehow or has joined in because why not let loose for once and settle some grudges from those he swindled.
The JL later stumbles upon him in clothes they never see him wear, fistfighting entities and flinging spells left and right with a vicious grin on his bloodied face. Just John releasing all his pent up emotions and the things he hid onto beings that take and dish out what he gave because that's what War Day is about.
Definitely a bonus if JL saw just how terrifying John can be and decided to not bother him for a while.
Heck, it will better for Batman to join in on the fun too and get the rest of the JL on his training regimen or the survival camp that he and his robins go through. Educational and a way to release some misplaced aggression, win-win for all.
The astronauts of NASA have a secret: if there's ever something you want or need from Earth, there's a number you can call, and whatever you seek will quickly appear when nobody is looking.
If it's an emergency, there's no fee. Whatever is delivering the goods likes astronauts, and wants them to be safe and healthy.
If it's more of a want, the entity will accept payment in cash or autographs. Group orders from Starbucks and desserts after a long, hard day are not uncommon.
It's reassuring to the astronauts, because if there's something friendly that can and does bring them stuff, then that something would probably be willing to help them get out of a tight spot.
Nobody questions that the number starts with a non-existent country code, or that it will always connect even if your phone doesn't have service.
The Star King, High King of the Infinite Realms, the Ancient of Space is always happy to take a break from paperwork to bring happiness to his heroes.
The concept of Vlad having a redemption arc and joining the team is so incredibly hilarious to me specifically because Team Phantom is just a bunch of teenagers. Itâs just kids. This is a preschool class field trip.
And then Vlad would be there as like their shitty uncle.
Heâs the fucked up looking dog with anger issues they found abandoned by the side of the road and feed expired chicken nuggets to. Scary dog privileges but itâs just a bunch of kids with their overpowered deranged uncle who isnât blood related to a single one of them.
Everyone knows that King Phantom's appearance fluctuates based on his mood and the task ahead.
Dynamic battle, working in a team to achieve the impossible? King Phantom is a young boy of 14, quippy despite the inherent sadness of a child ghost.
Showboating, standing in front of a powerful enemy to tell them that "No, Earth is already occupied." or to a ghost: "You've taken it too far this time." And King Phantom is a huge man with red eyes and hair that flickered like candleflame.
And if the mission was sabotage and espionage, sneaking into fortresses previously impregnable? King Phantom is a girl, even more unsettlingly young than the first.
Danny has no idea why everyone has so much trouble keeping the three of them straight - constantly referencing events that happened while he was on sabbatical from JLA work. However, Danny does appreciate that because technically all three of them are technically the same person that the King workload can be spread out a bit - those realms are infinite after all.
Danny gets a job at some underground bar as one of the tenders there. The problem? He wasnât informed that Gothamâs most dangerous villains would frequently go out for drinks, using said bar to do so.
And naturally, through the power of tired college student and brunt-out hero, he manages to gain favor of all of them.
So much so that they begin including him on planning heists, kidnappings, etc.
Imagine the bat familyâs surprise when they find Gothamâs infamous âthird partyâ is actually just some dude.
The villains have absolutely no clue that this kid is anything but a stressed tired student but all of them (besides the joker. They donât invite him to their bar nights. The dude would ruin all the fun by âprankingâ (read: Joker Gas/painfully slaughter) all of the staff.), they just see this kid who talks offhandedly about his life from before Gotham. They all see a bit of themselves in Danny, everything from the crazy rich guy obsessed with him, to the mad scientist parents, to being the accidental test dummy for his parents inventions, they all connect with this overworked Gotham University kid.
   Her margarita was terrible, but Ivy didnât come to this bar for the drinks, she came for the company. But, by the green, she would teach the new bartender how to make a decent margarita if she had to. The new guy was weird, at least for working at a place like this. When your clientele consists mostly of people who have fought/fight Batman and his little birds on the regular, you have to be crazy, or have balls of steel.
   The last guy was the latter, but even he eyed everyone cautiously and kept a shotgun under the bar. He was kind of an asshole, which it what got him killed, but at least he could make a margarita. This kid though, he seemed to calm and didnât give off the crazy vibes. She would know, between Harley and her time in Arkham, she knew crazy.Â
   This kid had to be just old enough to work the bar because he looked like a baby in comparison to everyone there. He seemed friendly enough. He liked telling stories from his hometown, some little place called Amity Park, like his accent wasnât enough of a tell that he wasnât local. She was inclined to think he was bullshitting a lot of these stories of his, but he could spin a yarn.Â
   âSo there we were, in the zoo, at night, and doing this project on the purple back gorilla, when-â
   âI call BS.â slurred a somewhat drunk scarecrow. As skinny as he was, it didnât take much to get him sloshed. âThatâs not a real animal.â
   âWell Dr. Crane, as one of several people with a PHD in our humble establishment, Iâm sure youâre proficient enough with google to prove me wrong.â Crane muttered to himself as he tapped away at his phone. âSo as I was saying. There we were, when I notice this guy lurking around. I confront this dude and he starts going on this tangent about being the greatest hunter, like hunting an animal in a cage is all that impressi-â
   âHoly shit itâs real!âÂ
   âYes Dr. Crane, like I said.â Crane squinted as he looked between Danny and his phone. âNow as I was saying, I interrupted his âhuntingâ and decided to go all âMost Dangerous Gameâ on me and wanted my pelt for his wall-â
   âYouâre the kid that figured out the gorilla was a lady!â Slurred Scarecrow, and that just raised more questions for Ivy. She glanced at the phone, and there, in a news article, was young bartender Danny and a Gorilla. Huh, not all bullshit then.
   âWay to spoil the ending.â He sighed. âAnyway, how are you all doing on drinks?â
   âWait, what about the guy hunting you?â Harley asked.
   âHm? Oh, Skulker. Heâs no big deal, he tried hunting me all the time back home. Obviously, it didnât work out for him.â He shrugged. âNow about those drinks?â
   Ivy reluctantly ordered another margarita. Admittedly this one was better than the first, but still not right. As much as she enjoyed the entertainment, someone had to teach the boy to make a decent drink.
Oh man I adore this. I was gonna put this in the comments but ya know why not put it here instead?
There are so many chemists in the Gotham rogues gallery that at least ONE of them knows something about food science or at least how to make a cocktail. In the end, The Penguin is the one who caves. Sure, he would much rather stay at his own establishment but ever since the new bartender started working in The Dead End, (The name of the underground bar. Itâs a cheesy name sure, but the owner isnât known for their creativity.) The villains have appeared less and less at The Iceberg Lounge.
The man is almost offended at how poorly this kid is at making the simplest of drinks. The boy, Danny, offhandedly mentions that his tastebuds barley work anymore from his parents unhealthy lab practices of keeping chemicals in the fridge. To the Penguin, that was no excuse. He offered (read: forced) Danny to work at the Iceberg Lounge for two weeks under the study of their best mixologist.
The kidâs childhood was a villain origin story in the making and somehow has made it out and plans to get a clean and legit job and live a normal life. Every Gotham Rogue wishes they could have had that normal life at some point in their life and theyâre not going to take it away from this quippy bartender
Edward was curious, Oswald was complaining about how every one of the rogues were going to this one dead end bar for a single bartender and then Oswald had his best mixologist train him. Oswald didnât even hire him, Ed was going to have to look into this.
Ed wanted to know everything and this boy was a enigma, a real riddle to be solved. His stories were wild and yet he didnât have a hint of a lie on his face and anything Ed looked into had something to back it up as truth. He didnât flinch at any drunken villain or henchmanâs threats when he cut them off for the night, he didnât blink an eye on any of the wilder stories they told, and he didnât care for any of the plans they made for their next crime, instead heâd just sass them back with clever quips as if he was the boy wonder himself. But even with all the things stated above he seemed to just be a normal tired college student from out of state.
No. There must be something Ed was missing. A crucial piece of the puzzle. Ed was curious, and he will not stop until he knows everything there is to know.
(Edward Nigma, The Riddler, and now the new Wes. Danny is so tired of being stalked by ppl who need to be right lol. Sorry if I mischaracterized him, I donât read enough comics to really know the layers his personality has but I do know that heâs smart enough to piece together who Batman is but wants proof heâs smarter, so much so that he wonât tell anyone just so he can lord it over ppl)
The Bar hosts a trivia night every second friday and on the 13th of each month. If the 13th is a friday the winner gets double the price compared to a eegular night.
Rogues don't really need the money save of 3 free shots though, and some rogues don't drink (some cycles needed breaking), so Danny asked what else they would be interested in.
Riddler was the first to ask Danny about one strange fact about him and said he'd buy a shot for anyone who relates and would tip him 50%.
Danny, broke college student extraordinaire, obliged. Going home with $42 extra was nice and this kind of request became common, though what needed to be achieved to get a drink varied.
Something rogues relate to, something they never experienced, something that would make them blanche, laugh, stare unbelievingly. Maybe something they thought to only exist in fiction.
Danny had many stories to tell. Some were lighthearted stories about his friends, some hard truths he learned in midnight talks with his sister, night terrors from his parents talks at the dinner table, horrible teachers, his frenemy relationship with the invading population from his hometown. So much more than a kid that seemed more or less well adjusted was expected to go through.
The tips grew not just every trivia night, but anytime the rogues came.
So much of themselves was in this kid, a kid who spent his nights working around them. The most dangerous people in the city. Not flinching at their remarks, not ratting out their plans, keeping an eye on them to not overdrink.
The kid was good and they wanted to keep it that way.
And if Harley came along and gave him her number if he ever wanted to talk to a freshly relicensed professional, then the rogues were nothing but supportive.
The Joker is a little shit. Everyone in Gotham knows that that stupid clown loves to ruin everything thatâs good in Gotham. Thatâs why they tried to keep him away from here, this is their bar, a dinky looking thing thatâs only selling feature was itâs good company.
But the more you try to play keep away the more the dumbass clown gets curious and the more he wants to ruin it.
It was trivia night, the night was going and the drinks were pouring, a jolly good time to be had. But then a fucking clown decided to walk in.
âWell if this isnât a hole in the wall,â The Joker laughs out as he walks towards the rest of the rogues. âBartender! Iâll have your finest whiskeyâ
âWho invited this clown?â Two Face growls, rolling his eyes.
âRight so, who invited me? Oh, I assume you all just thought someone else would have, didnât want to boggle down Uncle J with all the invitationsâ Joker smiled as he danced around their table, bringing his face uncomfortably close to their ears as he spoke before shoving Harley out of her seat and sitting down.
âHey!â
âNow whatâs the big fuss about this bar?â
âââ
Danny was working, just his average trivia night in the bar when a fashion disaster walked in and ordered a whiskey. So he started pouring, until he heard Harley shout.
He looked up and saw the walking garbage can had pushed Harley out of her seat and stolen it.
Danny had never seen such a mood killer before in his entire (after)life. The room went silent the second the waste of space walked in and now heâs causing trouble.
Danny walked over and helped Harley up before setting the cup of whiskey down in front of the pathetic attention whore.
âHereâs your drink, Iâm gonna have to ask you not to cause any trouble or youâre gonna have to leaveâ
And boy if the pale faced asshole didnât look like he was about to cause trouble.
âââ
(So idk how to write it rn so below is a summary of what I planned on next but Iâm tired and itâs super late?early? Itâs ass oâclock in the morning and I really should have gone to sleep and now Iâm sleepy rambling so sorry if itâs incoherent)
The Joker laughed in Dannyâs face and pointed a gun at him right before he was kindly introduced to the floor and dragged to the exit.
When Danny returned he apologized for the commotion and trivia night resumed, The Riddler is vibrating in his seat and they get the âwhy I hate clownsâ story
Jason cannot believe how his night was going but he was loving it.
âââ
Batman was insufferable. He was being his regular paranoid self when he discovered the reason why the Gotham underworld has been calmer lately and made plans to visit as Matches Malone, petty arsonist looking for a job for some extra cash. Jason put a stop to that, the last thing Jason needed was for him to have an excuse to be in his part of Gotham.
And that was how Jason ended up in a bar with an ironic name on a Friday night surrounded by henchmen, not that he was complaining, his men had been inviting him for weeks and now that he was here, he definitely felt the appeal.
The green that always sat at the edge of his vision faded when he walked in. The bar had an aura of relaxation, it was like you walked into a sleeping giantâs room but it was fine because you knew the guy, the feeling of being a robin back when it was magic and being safe under Bâs cape. It felt safe, a safe that was hard to find especially in these parts of Gotham. He shook it off. It was apparently trivia night and if Jay was here then he might as well try to win the damn thing.
And of course, he was having too good of a time and the world hates him. The sorriest excuse for a clown walked in and his eyes went green. He was a millisecond from launching himself at the demented jackass when Jason saw his introduction to the earth. He witnesses the twink of a bartender make eye contact with him before dragging the not-even-a-real-clown out of the bar.
Through the door they hear the biggest verbal smackdown in history to the point where some feel sorry for the poor sap on the other side of the smackdown. Jason might be in love.
When the bartender walked back in, he apologized for the commotion and started the trivia back up again.
My Vlad, Jack, and Maddie go on the run from the government episode post was extremely well received, so here's some more because i love them!!!
-Vlad is not operating on all cylinders (you try being coherent after being handcuffed to Jack Fenton for hours!) but he's still actively trying to get Jack out of the picture. It's not working.
-Vlad also becomes increasingly bad at hiding his powers as things get more ridiculous and out of hand.
-Jack won't shut up about college, and every event he references is more insane than the last.
-There is room for genuine emotional reconciliation in this situation. I like to think that Vlad finally explodes about the lab accident and hm maybe Jack and Maddie actually apologize for how that was handled?? Vlad of course does not accept whatever apology is offered.
-But........he might save Jack's life at the end. Not on accident (if you squint). And no, Vlad will not be taking questions about that.
What if the Justice League thought Phantom was Jasonâs ghost? Jason died fairly young, fifteen or sixteen, which isnât much older than Danny is at the start of the show. And while Danny ages (in most fics anyway), Bruce has no reason to believe that ghosts age. So if he met Danny a year or two into being Phantom, heâd be the same age Jason was when he died.
Jasonâs death in the comics was a huge deal. It wasnât like other comic deaths where they die and come back within the year. Five years passed between a death in the family, and Red Hoodâs debut. As far as comics go, Jason Toddâs death was seemingly as permanent as they come. To Batman and the rest of the justice league, Jason stayed dead all those years. His death had to affect the entire teamâs interactions with the Young Justice team. It absolutely affected the kids in the batfam.
So if any of them ran into Phantom, a dead vigilante in the right age range, their thoughts would immediately jump to Jason. It would be a difficult idea to dissuade, especially if theyâre under the impression that ghosts donât always remember their lives. The living donât know Dannyâs secret and the ghosts wonât tell. Some of them might even help spread the rumor further. Itâs a good alabi and a lot of Dannyâs rogues like him enough to cause some good natured chaos. That Danny gets jumpy around anything ghost or circus related because of Freakshow definitely wouldnât help
Hell, Amity Parkers might also theorize that Phantom is the ghost of the second Robin. I could see Paulina starting that theory, since it does sound sort of romantic in its own way. Others would pick it up, because it does make a lot of sense. Dannyâs protection obsession could very easily read as a kid who died protecting people, and then continued after he died.
If a lot of Amity Parkers have that theory though, I imagine after the Pariah Dark incident theyâd come to hate the Justice League and especially Batman. In their eyes, the poor kid died for the cause and the league couldnât even be bothered to help him in death. Phantomâs concerning remarks about his parents would definitely add flame to that fire. Batman especially is hated amongst Phantomâs supporters
Basically, imagine the Justice League meeting Phantom just before Jason comes back as Red Hood. Imagine them having to deal with a town that despises them, and the literal ghost of (they think) Batmanâs greatest failure. Imagine them trying and failing to get Phantom to remember and past life that isnât even his, not understanding that this boy was failed in a completely different way than Jason was.
And all the while, Jason begins moving his chess pieces. The Red Hood makes his debut and Batman isnât in Gotham to stop him
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