DCXDP fanfic idea: The Nail Art
Danny Fenton has no plan for when he gets overpowered in a fight. He always assumed that if he lost, he be killed in battle.
His enemies made it very clear they did not expect him to walk away alive. So imagine his surprise when the one ghost who could beat him didn't finish him off. It was an odd blacksmith-themed ghost, going by the name of Forger, who used heated-up metal in deadly attacks. Coupled with his ability to puppeteer suits of armor, Danny found himself slowly being pushed back, having to fight a miniature army at once.
He had been taken down when he got careless and rushed to rescue a few civilians who were caught in the crossfire. He was sure Forger was going to execute him, what with his suits of armor holding Danny down on a mental box, which he had mistaken as a chopping block.
Danny had struggled with every inch of his strength, but he wasn't able to break free from the metal hands holding him down. One of the suits had raised an axe, and for a moment, the young ghost thought this would be the end of him.
He hadn't even noticed them ripping the top half of his jumpsuit, eyes fixed on the axe angled above his neck. His struggle intensified, but more empty armor suits appeared and made quick work of flattening him.
Forger had strutted up to his detain form, giving some grand speech about being the one person who decided the winners and the losers. That his weapons were the real reason wars began and ended. That it was he, Forger, who took down one of the best threats of the Infinite Realms, and this would be the last time anyone heard of Danny Phantom.
In the distance, over the villain's monologue, he could hear his friends and family screaming. They were attempting to break through the row of guards to reach him. He knows they won't make it in time. He was going to lose his head.
Tears stung Danny's eyes, sured he was about to be executeded before everyone.
Instead, Forger picked up a mental pole and burned a mark on his body. It was a scorching white pain the likes Danny had never felt before, even when he had half died in his parents' portal. He remembers screaming so loudly that the street they had been fighting on had been blown away by a ghostly wail.
Forger stood strong against the yell, but his army of suits not so much. The blast rendered them all into hulks of broken metal, and his allies, once able to climb to thier feet, were rushing across the battlefield ready to save Danny.
Forger cursed, obviously knowing that it would take a while to defeat everyone now that his army is down. He grabbed a half-delirious Danny by the back of his neck, agitating the burn mark now taking up most of his back, and flung him into a portal that he created with his hammer. He had been using that to smack suits into existence. Danny didn't know its name, but he knew it was a smithing hammer.
Danny had a few minutes where everything was white, as pain raced from the burnt flesh of his back to every inch of his body, and it took longer than it should have to regain awareness of his surroundings. Phantom didn't have super healing per se, but he did have a side effect of being dead, where his ghost body returned to its original state of death.
If Danny got injured in his human form, he had to wait out those injuries like a normal human. If he got hurt as Phantom, then in a few hours after the injury, whatever level server it was, he would be back to his original ghost-forming body, thankfully without the electric shot. That didn't happen now, because the burn had somehow transferred over to his human form.
Danny had very little recollection from that point on. He remembers the portal flinging him for what could have been hours or mere seconds in a glowing mixture of green and black, he remembers slamming into what looked like a dirty dumpster, but instead of landing inside, he bounced off the metal with a scream, he remember laying on the ground chocking through his own tears and pained breaths, and he remembers what looked like a gaint dark shape bat flying towards him from above, somehow glowing in the rain.
He woke a few days later in Gotham General Hospital, in one of the intensive care units. Apparently, he had been a John Doe that Batman had dropped off, and Bruce Wayne had stepped in to fund all medical expenses. His back, from his shoulder blades to the lower curve of his small back, just met his pelvis, was branded by the metal that Forger used on him. It had not been taken care of, and it suffered heavy bleeding and melted flesh.
The staff and social services, seeing as Danny was only fifteen, were very interested in how and who burned a mark across his back. He hadn't been forthcoming because he literally had no idea what was going on besides being pumped with heavy painkillers. He also realized on day two, between doses of medication, where his mind fog cleared slightly, that he could not transform into Phantom. Every time he tried to call upon his powers, his burn mark flared up like it was renewing, and a nurse had to burst through the room door upon hearing his echoing screams.
His spiking pain had them convince his burn was getting infected- it was- but only because Danny aggravated it. That was because he was trying to be Phantom. He decided to wait until he was healed enough to go ghost and settled into a routine in the hospital. He spent most of his time lying on his stomach, with the nurses coming in and out, each helping with feeding and basic needs. Every day felt worse and worse, not just because of the pain or his trapped mobility, but because Danny never felt as alone as he did then.
The medical staff didn't even know his name (His fault for refusing to say it), and the loneliness was eating him alive. The only thing keeping him going through those horrible two months in the hospital was the knowledge that Bruce Wayne (whoever that guy was) paid for everything and his new favorite show on the TV in his room.
Nail Artist Road Race. A show where nail artists crossed the country, doing challenges and getting eliminated as they tried to be the first to the finish line.
It was likely an old show, since they tended to do reruns for hours on end, and Danny was pretty sure he eventually watched the entire show twice by the time he was able to sit up and start physical therapy in a recovery center. Mr. Wayne once again footed the bill, and Danny- now allowing them to know him as Danny Fenton but playing the animisa card after a scan showed signs of it- was asked if there was anything he would like to make his private room better.
The facility was already one of the best in the country, and Danny honestly felt it was more of a hotel than a recovery center. He didn't ask for much, but he did ask to practice nail art, wanting to try it after watching so many hours of it. Mr. Wayne did not disappoint, and within three days of his request, a miniature studio was set up in a corner of his private room, complete with fake hands for him to practice on.
At first, Danny wasn't the best, but with the laptop Mr. Wayne sent him and a few free video tutorials, he was off. By the sixth month after his fight with Fodger, Danny had realized that he was A. in a completely different world and B. really good at his new hobby and C. He could not go ghost without Forger's mark flaring up. He spent nearly a year before he was finally able to be released from the recovery center, and at age sixteen, Danny was shipped off to the foster system.
Due to being in a new world, Danny had no proof of identity, and it was quickly concluded he might have been trafficked. Likely by a cult or something similar, thanks to the blasted mark burned into his flesh. He had no reason to correct the misunderstanding, yet he pretended to be a scared young man. He couldn't go Ghost and likely never will again, so he had to make sure no one found out about his origins.
Who knows what they would do with a boy so easy to make disappear? Over the course of a year, despite his limited movement, Danny had come to realize Gotham was not safe. Much less for a person with little to thier name. His only saving grace was that Bruce Wayne seemed to have taken an interest in him, and, despite never meeting the man in person, he was under Mr. Wayne's protection.
This is how Danny ended up with Mrs. Hoang, a widow of fifty, who may not have treated him with warmth but made sure he had everything he needed. She wasn't like his parents, who always openly expressed thier love in both actions and words, but she didn't treat him like Danny was a criminal or a slave like the many horror stories he'd heard about Gotham's foster system. Instead, she regarded him as if he were a chore she had to put up with.
He didn't mind too much, since he was able to continue school and found that the world's material was far easier than his, despite the many technological advancements they had. What happened to the academic levels?
He also found a part-time job through Mrs. Hoang, who eyed the nail set he had brought with him from the recovery center (he was able to keep all personal items, though there weren't many) from day one. She knew a nail salon run close to thier house, was a regular client, and was able to sweet-talk the owner into hiring him for weekend overloads.
Danny was overjoyed, even though they had him do mostly pedicures with simple designs, but he was good at what he did and was eventually given his own table to start doing designer manicure sets. As the only male, underage, and non-Vietnamese speaker, Danny felt isolated from the staff, despite how friendly and well they treated him.
He was happy that he eventually started getting his own clients, whom he gossiped with as he worked. This is how he met Rose, a girl one year above him, who had come in with her mom to do a mani-pedi, and had been so excited that he had taken her request, making her nails look pretty with her pride flag, demisexual, that she begged him to come to the next GSA meeting in school and do the other club members.
He didn't see anything wrong with it, and had taken his nail kit to school the following Friday, working on the students' hands as quickly and as creatively as he wanted. He charged him half the price they would have paid at the saloon (after all, most of his equipment was a gift, and thus he didn't pay for any of it) and had found himself with ten loyal customers.
Rose decided she would get him as many customers as she could. She spread the word that he charged very cheaply, regardless of the design, and soon girls (and a few boys) were messaging him to book appointments. Danny had bought himself a phone at his job at the saloon, and it was a great investment for him.
Most of his clients were beyond excited that he was willing to place rhinestones and special metallic effect on the nails for the same price as a regular gel set, and since he only charged twenty, he had almost all of his afternoons booked weeks in advance. His boss at the saloon heard about his increasing popularity, but she didn't seem to mind, only reminding him to push their other services to his clients if he had a chance.
Eventually, Danny turned eighteen, two years after his fight with Forger, and Mrs. Hoang was quick to remind him he had to leave. He didn't hesitate to go because she felt more like a landlord than a caregiver, but he was worried about where he would live. Danny had saved as much as he could over the course of two years, which sadly wasn't enough to live on.
He had enough to find a cheap apartment for about four months before he had to worry. The saloon he worked for offered him a full-time position on his eighteenth birthday, which helped with the extra hours, but it would be a while before he could live comfortably.
He thought a lot about his family, on nights when the walls were so thin he could hear his neighbors drunkly singing at two am, or when he had to duck his head and walk quickly in the street to work or the bus stop (He hoped to buy himself a car before a permanent house). He mourned them often, the lives they could have had and the memories they could have made, while also wondering if they ever stopped looking for him.
If they ever looked at all.
It was a pain that had dulled over the course of the two years, but every once in a while, he was reminded so violently of his parents and sister that his whole day was ruined and nothing could pick up his mood. It was the kind of grief that attacked when he was unguarded and invaded his waking thoughts about what life used to be.
Other times, he just tried to get through the day.
But despite everything, Danny wasn't too sad; he made a life for himself. He had his coworkers, who slowly erased the distance between them. Rose had become his new best friend and often spent time in his apartment when she needed a break from her roommate (she went to Gotham U and hated her roommate). He had a passion for it and was good at it, which made it possible to pay bills and buy himself little treats.
He never met Mr.Wayne in person, but that wasn't uncommon in Gotham. The man sponsored many people for a few years without ever crossing paths with them. It's why so many knew about the rich man despite him not being a formal celebrity.
Forger's maker was still on his back, like an ugly, unwanted tattoo, but at least it was shaped in a cool circle with pretty interesting signs and symbols that might have made a fantastic design were it not the reason his life had fallen apart. No one really saw it, because Danny refused to go topless in front of anyone, but one night, Rose had caught a glimpse of it and had gasped so loudly that he had avoided her for nearly a week in shame.
She apologized a dozen times, feeling horrible about her reaction, and then asked if Danny wanted her to pay to have it covered up. She swore she knew a great tattoo artist- Rose was that type of person who had contacts upon contacts of various people who could do odd jobs for her- and after a month of thinking it over, he accepted. That's how he found himself venturing into Crime Alley (he had been poor but not that poor. Thank the heavens Mrs. Hoang never demanded any of his hard-earned money) following a drawn map to an apartment building.
The man who opened the door was a few years older than him, somewhere in his mid-twenties. His arms were covered in tattoos, the one most eye-catching being the Scorpio on his upper shoulder. He was muscular, in a way that said he could and would break a few bones, but he had a friendly smile stretched across his face.
"Hey there, you're Danny, yeah? Rose sent you to have something on your back covered." The man tilted his ballcap back, peering down at Danny with sparkling green eyes. There was a certain rise in his pitch that told Danny he wasn't originally from Gotham either. Though he couldn't tell where the stranger had originally lived.
"Yup, that's me," Danny laughed, hunching his shoulder and shifting his feet. He tried not to show how uncomfortable he felt with his surroundings, even though he was hyper-aware of the cracked hallway walls and the low lighting that made it look like a horror movie opening scene.
It did help that the redhead in front of him was sinfully attractive. Only a little.
"Great. I'm Roy. Come on in, I have my stuff set up in the corner of the room." Roy stepped back, holding the door wide open for him.
Danny carefully moved through, eyes landing on a corner that looked to be made up of a portable tattoo table and shelves covered in various colors. A little rolling table was nearby with a tray and a few markers. He didn't see the tattoo gun, but Rose said this first meeting would be just to design and see how the scar looked so they could work it into the cover-up. He felt more relieved when he noticed the license and credentials for tattooing hanging on the wall behind the chair.
The second thing Danny noticed was the man on the other side of the room, lifting a bar of weights in arm curls. Danny didn't do much working out, but he could tell that he was lifting a lot of weight just by the size of the circles. If Roy was muscular, then that man was the size of a brick house. His sweat had his sleeveless undershirt clinging to his back- the part facing Danny- and highlighted all of the muscles currently being used as the man lifted the bar back and forth.
A studio was blaring a rock song near his feet, nearly covering up the soft grunts and clanking of the metal as he worked out.
Danny felt his stomach drop. He did not feel safe. Why had he listened to Ross?
"Rose said your scar is big and raised. Do you mind if I see it? We need to know whether the skin can be worked on." Roy said, dragging Danny out of staring at the back of the dark-haired stranger. When he turned to look at the tattoo artist, he found himself at the receiving smirk, obviously having noticed his staring. "Don't mind Jason, he can leave if you're not comfortable showing it here."
"I wouldn't want to make him quit midset." Danny babbled, waving his arms in the air. Who knows if someone like that won't react violently if someone like Danny demands that he leave.
"I don't mind," Jason called over his shoulder. "It's almost time for a break anyway. Besides, Roy told me hours ago you were coming. It's my fault for waiting so long to start."
Danny blinked in surprise even as Roy nodded, "There you have it. It's really all up to you."
"Well....in that case, can he leave?"
Jason didn't need to be told twice. He set the bar down gently on the rack nearby, gathered his speaker and his water before turning around to face Danny for the first time. "You got it. I'm going to hit the shower and watch a movie in my room. Let me know if either of you needs anything."
Roy called out some gratitude for him moving, but Danny couldn't hear anything above the sound of his racing heart and possibly angels singing. Because right there, that man, was the most gorgeous person he had ever seen, and really, it only made sense that he had an angelic choir traveling with him everywhere he went if he looked like that. Even his one streak of white hair didn't seem off-putting; if anything, it gave a striking aspect to his already sharp and handsome features.
Danny was pretty sure the world had slowed down, as Jason wiped the sweat off his forehead with a red hand towel and then took a sip of his bottle. He gawked after the man until the door of what was presumably the bath closed behind him, and it was only Roy's clearing his throat that brought him back.
Flustered, Danny scrambled to sit on the chair beside the tattoo table, attempting to get his red face to cool down.
Roy didn't mention his obvious reaction to Jason, though he did have a teasing edge to his smile now, but that quickly fell away when Danny revealed his back. Then the redhead was nothing but business as he considered the design and the damaged lines, eventually claiming he could make it work, but they had to pick something that favored great detail to get all the symbols.
They discussed a few ideas over the course of an hour before Danny settled on the story of Icarus, specifically the moment when the man fell from the sky, as a sort of ironic explanation for why he was stuck in this world. He did not share that part of his reasoning with Roy.
They decided Icarus would be at the center of the artwork, with clouds and scattered feathers around him, and the man stretching out a hand towards the sun, which would be the majority of Danny's shoulder blade area. Roy promised to work on a few designs for Danny to review, which he would email, and, depending on the one he picked, they could schedule the number of seasons needed to get it done.
Danny winced at the price amount, even with the friend discount Rose was getting him, but Roy was more than happy to trade a few sessions for Danny's services at his daughter's birthday party. He was to do the nails of all her little friends using the princess designs Rose had shown him, and a full set for his current girlfriend. She wanted something dazzling with rhinestones. He also wanted Danny to do a full set for Jason's sisters, whose birthdays were coming up.
Seeing as the tattoo sessions were a hefty price discount for a few sessions of nails, Danny was quick to agree.
He left the apartment as quickly as he could, a little frightened to walk Crime Alley in the dark. Thankfully, it wasn't pitch black when he left, but it was pretty late still, and he all but ran to the bus stop. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched, despite being unable to pinpoint where it was coming from.
By the time he got home and threw himself onto his bed, he had half the mind to send Rose a message to complain about not receiving a warning of the location or the attractive men that were in it, but decided against it.
One did not simply threaten Rose Wilson without having a death wish.
Instead, he sent her a bunch of gasping cats and an all-caps message that contained only four words: Those guys were hot!
She replied in three seconds.
I know. I figured you deserved some eye candy, as a treat.
Danny rolled his eyes, curling on his side, trying to hide his smile and smother his racing heart. It would take him days before he realized that whenever he went to his tattoo session, he would feel watched. It would take even longer for him to notice the two figures, one with a bow and another with a helmet, dashing over the rooftops in the same direction as his home.
