she/her | aro/ace | Welcome! I've moved my DP fan art over here so I can reblog on my main. Expect Danny Phantom art and posts, though there may be some other stuff thrown in as well.
Hello, I'm darkeneddawning! You've found my Danny Phantom fan blog, where I post art (and occasionally other things), usually of the Danny Phantom variety. I only post/reblog things here that are directly related to my contributions to the phandom, so if you'd like to see my other reblogs, my main blog is @darkeneddawningmain :)
This post serves both as an intro and a tagging guide. Since mobile is weird about searching for specific tags, this pinned post should help with easier navigation. If you'd like me to add a tag to this post, feel free to let me know!
Also, in compliance with this tagging guide in order to not overwhelm the danny phantom and dc tags, anything of the dp x dc variety I post will only be tagged with dpxdc. I will then reblog it a day later with any other applicable tags for categorizing within my blog, since reblogs don't clutter the public tags.
Hey, any of y'all interested in a danny phantom repeating pattern for your miscellaneous background needs?
I've included a few versions of the base tile in case anyone wants to tile it themselves, plus a phone background made using the pattern. The only image here that can't be tiled (seamlessly, anyway) is the phone background, which is the second image.
If you use my art somewhere public, please be sure to credit me! Also, I expressly forbid feeding my art to any kind of ai.
Finally uploading my part of the rephanimation project!! As of posting this, the full video is currently blocked on copyright grounds and not viewable in every country besides Canada. Here's a link to the YouTube channel for when it hopefully gets reinstated, or if you (or your VPN) are in Canada :)
You know all those fics where Danny and Damian are twins but everyone first assumes Danny must be a clone? How about an au where Danny is Damian's clone who escaped the League after he was assumed dead. Damian could even have been the one to have "killed" him, back when Danny was a newly created, fully brainwashed clone minion and trying to kill Damian himself.
Danny gets adopted by the Fentons and canon goes on as normal, until Dan. Witnessing what would happen to the world should he turn evil really drove home to Danny how dangerous he is.
Even if he was confident he could be trusted with his absurd amount of power (which he isn't), what if the League of Assassins found out about him? Does he still have programming triggers from his evil assassin clone conditioning?
So, Danny does the responsible thing: he goes to Batman to turn himself in.
Cue Danny showing up on Bruce's doorstep with ghost hunting equipment, intel on the afterlife, and an almost unbelievable backstory. Somehow he still managed to be more well-adjusted than Damian.
More thoughts under the read more
Here's how I'm thinking Danny leaving the League went down:
After surviving his wounds but failing his mission, Danny (then an unnamed potential Damian replacement) knew there was no point in returning to the League. As a failure, he was meant to be disposed of. He even thought of simply allowing himself to perish, since that was what the League would do.
But he couldn't help but feel as though that would be a waste of a resource. Surely he could be of more use to the League alive than dead?
That tiny bit of rebellious logic is what caused Danny to go into hiding, only living on based on the off chance he would find opportunities to further the League's goals. Obviously, that mentality didn't last long after being exposed to the real world and meeting one Jazz Fenton.
Being adopted by the Fentons was the best cover Danny could have asked for, since any odd behavior he couldn't hide while he was learning how to be "normal" was totally overshadowed by the sheer bizarre eccentricity of his new parents. He was still the neighborhood weird kid, but even that was a major upgrade from disposable tool, so Danny considered it a win.
Anyway, if anyone likes this idea, please feel free to have at it! Interpret it as you please :)
Danny didn't want to be here, but it wasn't as if he had a lot of other options. He didn't know how to contact any other Justice League heroes, and this one, at least, would take him seriously. Probably. Damian, at least, would take him seriously. So seriously that Danny doubted he would be walking away from this without a stab wound.
Luckily, Danny wasn't the kind of person to die because of a stab wound. Or anything, really. Which was kind of the reason he was here.
He sucked his lips in as he stared at the gates. He was far enough down the street from them that there probably weren't any cameras picking him up, but only probably, because the people he was dealing with were insane. And Danny knew insane. From a couple of different perspectives, even.
Again, this was part of the problem.
He sighed and started walking. This was going to be painful and awkward, and he technically didn't have to do this, but...
But.
This was so far beyond his second chance, beyond his third chance, even. He couldn't expect another one. This way, if he did manage to screw everything up, he wouldn't be taking the world down with him.
He reached the gates. There was a tiny intercom there, along with a camera. There were probably more, even better, cameras hidden elsewhere around the gate, to get multiple perspectives of everyone who came up to them. Danny wouldn't be surprised if he was being watched already.
Bracing himself, Danny pulled off his hood. No going back now.
Danny wasn't identical to Damian. Combining science and magic tended to have unpredictable results, and even in cloning there were random mutations. Danny was one of several 'flawed' clones that had still been considered capable enough to be sent out to harry their original. He didn't have the same coloration as Damian al Ghul, Son of the Bat. Something epigenetic affecting his melanin production. Blue eyes, instead of Damian's green, pale skin to Damian's ochre. Not something that would be noticed at night, behind masks with opaque eyes and flashing swords. He didn't stand out, among his clone-siblings.
By the same token, despite the differences being more obvious in the daylight, he would be recognized now. Or, at least, the resemblance would be.
He pressed the intercom button and waited, bouncing up and down nervously. Part of him wondered if Damien ever fidgeted like this.
"Hello," said a crisp British voice, "may I help you, young man?"
"Yeah," said Danny. "Is, um. Mr. Wayne home?" He cringed. "I need to talk to him." Because a billionaire would definitely talk to a random kid who showed up at his house. Hopefully, this person would either notice he looked like Damian, or... Yeah. Knew about the Batman stuff. "It's about... Things at night."
He should have come up with a script of some kind before coming, but he'd been occupied putting together everything else.
"Are you in trouble?" This question was a bit sharper.
"Not... really? But I think he'd want to know what I know, if that makes sense?"
"I see," said the calm, British voice. "If you will wait a moment...?"
"Sure," said Danny. He flipped his hood back up. The League of Assassins probably wouldn't be bold enough to watch the bats this closely.
But only probably.
It was okay. There had only been a handful of years between his escape and when he had to start fighting for his life again. He knew how to handle himself, and the way he traveled didn't leave a trail.
Danny jumped at the sound of footsteps, and a minute later, an elderly man in a suit came around the corner of the drive. He kept his eyes from flicking into the foliage, where he was quite sure at least one of Damian's brothers were hiding.
"Young sir," said the old man as the gate swung open. "Mr. Wayne will see you."
"O-oh," said Danny. "Thank you. You didn't have to walk out all this way."
"It's no trouble, really." He paused. "My name is Alfred Pennyworth And what may I call you, sir?"
"Danny."
"Mr. Daniel, then?"
"Danny, please. Daniel is... weird."
"Ah, bad memories?"
"Kind of."
"Not what brings you here?"
"Uh. No. I think it'd be better if I said it directly to Mr. Wayne, if that's okay."
Mr. Pennyworth hummed, neutrally. "It will be a little while before he returns home."
"Oh," said Danny, wincing again. "I, uh, didn't realize he wasn't... Here. At this time."
"He normally would be. Something came up."
"Is, um. Is Damian here?" It sounded so weird saying his name out loud.
"He is with his father."
"Cool. That's cool." It was very much not cool. He didn't want to see Damian, although he'd planned for it. He and Dani got along, post murder attempt, but he imagined it'd be a lot different with Damian.
The rest of the walk was unremarkable, except for Danny's continuous freaking out. Mr. Pennyworth led him through a grand entryway and into a small sitting room he was sure was monitored eight ways from Sunday, and then some.
"May I get you anything to drink while you wait?"
"No," said Danny. He wouldn't trust it not to be drugged, anyway. "I'm good, thanks." He swung his backpack off his shoulders and held it in front of himself, hugging it close.
"Very well, young sir."
There were a series of loud thumps, the footsteps of someone trying to be heard, and a tall, athletic man came into the room.
"Richard Grayson?" guessed Danny.
"That's me," said the man, smiling, tightly. "And you are?"
"Danny."
"Danny...?"
"Just Danny."
"Okay, and why are you here, Just Danny?" the tone was teasing, but it did little to defuse the tension.
Danny shifted uneasily. The amount of information, of knowledge given to the clones had been limited, but he was pretty sure Richard Grayson was Nightwing, and the first Robin.
"Couple different reasons," said Danny. "Mainly, um. To let him know I exist. And stuff. Relating to that. Him being Batman. And Damian, I guess."
There was a bit of quiet as Grayson stared at him like he was peeling back his skin with his mind.
"Does Damian not... know about you?"
"That's..." He made a snap decision, because he wasn't sure he could deal with that particular misunderstanding, and talking to Batman, and Damian, and explaining everything important all at once. "I'm not his brother, you get that, right? I'm," he shrugged, "one of the clones. You know, from a few years ago."
Despite his nonchalance, he watched Grayson carefully, tracking his movements.
"The ones who tried to kill him?"
"Yeah, that was... not my best moment, but in my defense I was sort of brainwashed. And less than a year old. Just for context."
"Context. Right."
"And I definitely understand if Damian, um. Doesn't want to see me. Because, no offense, I don't want to see him. Either. If that makes sense."
"You came all this way, and you don't want to see him."
"Well. No. It's-- Think of it this way: He killed way more of us than we killed of him."
Grayson stared at him.
"He did die," said Grayson.
"I thought he was out doing, like, Robin things."
Grayson pulled a face. "He came back."
Oh, that made things much more complicated. Or did it? It wasn't really Danny's problem that he had died. Even if Danny had also died.
"Okay," he said, finally. "I mean. I just don't want to get stabbed, and--" He stopped, examined Grayson's face a little more closely, and the tiny speck of something inside his ear. "They're totally listening in, aren't they? They've got a radio or whatever. And they're yelling in your ear."
"Damian's having a bit of a problem with you using his voice to say things so, uh..."
"Casually?" suggested Danny.
"Sure, let's go with that." His eyes flicked up and down Danny again. "So... You're doing... okay?"
"Like, right now, or...?" Danny made a small circular motion with his hand.
"You've been living somewhere? Somewhere safe?"
"More or less," said Danny. "But I really would like to wait for Batman-- for Mr. Wayne to get here, before I get into details."
Grayson nodded slowly and they waited in uneasy silence. Mr. Pennyworth had slipped away at some point, without Danny even noticing, which was a feat.
It was, perhaps, another half an hour before Bruce Wayne arrived. He was tall, very tall, and walked nearly silently. A flock of teenagers and young adults trailed in his wake, including Damian, who looked furious, but who at least didn't obviously have his sword.
"Do you need help?" asked Batman, when Danny didn't continue. Damian changed his glare to the back of his father's head.
"Yeah. Sort of. I'm actually here to turn myself in. And to tell you how to kill me." He gave them a pair of thumbs up and grinned. "Normal things, right?"
Bruce scanned the clone in front of him again. He wasn't identical to Damian, no, and the League of Assassins wasn't above modifying the clones they made, but Bruce couldn't immediately see any reason for that particularly worrying statement.
Behind him, Duke cleared his throat. "Uh, no. No, that's not normal."
"But for you guys," said Danny. "For you, it's normal."
"Not really, no. People generally don't ask us to kill them."
"That's not really what I'm asking."
Bruce suppressed a sigh. "Explain."
"Okay." The boy's grip on his backpack tightened. "You probably know how I- We- Me and the other clones, how we were made right? And the whole, um, murder horde thing?"
Bruce inclined his head.
"Great. So, there I was, part of the murder horde--"
"Are we really calling it that?" interrupted Stephanie.
Danny blinked at her. "... Is there... something else you'd like to call it?"
"Please continue," said Bruce.
"Right. So. Anyway. I was trying to murder, uh, Damian - sorry about that, by the way - with everyone else, and, um, naturally got stabbed. A few times. You are really good at stabbing, by the way. Superb. Ten out of ten stabbing experience, would get stabbed again. If I was into that kind of thing. Which I'm not. Please don't stab me."
"Father."
"I think we understand that you were stabbed. Please go on."
"After that I fell off a roof and sort of crawled into a corner to die. But I didn't die! Obviously. Not then, anyway. And I realized I didn't want to die. Kind of. Not quite like that, because of the brainwashing. Did I mention the brainwashing?"
"Yes."
Danny bobbed his head nervously. "It was kind of more like, I decided I'd be more useful to the League not dead, but if I stayed where I was, the League would kill me. You know how brainwashing is. So, I broke into a car, and it turned out one of the people who owned it was sort of a doctor."
"Sort of a doctor?" echoed Dick.
"A biologist with first aid training and a PhD," clarified Danny. "They, uh. That family took me in. Adopted me. You, uh, you know how that works. Obviously." He nodded at the admittedly rather full space behind Bruce.
"I'm not adopted," said Stephanie. "I'm not related to this man."
"Okay?"
"That doesn't explain why you're here," pointed out Tim. "Or why you want to tell us how to kill you."
Danny had been pale and sweaty from the beginning of the conversation, but now he looked downright ill. But Bruce stayed still. There were still good odds that this was some kind of trap, and until he knew one way or another, he wasn't going to make a move that would endanger his children.
Even if, as a clone of his son, Danny was also, technically, his child.
"I'm getting to it. But, uh, to summarize, after a while there, with my family, I decided I didn't want to ever go back, and I was just going to be as normal as possible. Then, again to summarize, I got into a lab accident and, well, lab accidents. I got some superpowers. A variety, you know?"
"You're a meta?" asked Bruce. They'd already known, of course, that he wasn't a standard human. What Duke saw when he looked at him said as much.
"I don't know about meta," said Danny. "I don't-" He turned slightly, towards Damian. "-I don't think we have the meta gene, so...?" He flinched. "But! Powers! Yes!" He extracted one hand from his backpack, and turned it invisible. It stayed that way for a moment, then went back to normal, and Danny went back to hugging his bag.
"So," said Dick, sounding pained, "you got superpowers, and your first reaction to that was to ask Batman to kill you."
"What? No, the lab accident was, like, a year ago." There was a worryingly long pause. "And I'm not asking anyone to kill me, I'm just letting you know how. Just in case."
"Why?" asked Dick.
"Well. There was an incident. With time travel."
Tim groaned loudly.
"Uh," said Danny, wide-eyed, "are you okay?"
"Go ahead, I just hate time travel."
Danny nodded cautiously. "I met an evil future version of myself-"
Tim groaned again.
"-who had killed everyone. Like, really, just about everyone. Whole planet, just rubble, everywhere, except for- Well, details, which I'll give you! But. I'm summarizing. And, I fixed that. The stuff leading up to it, I mean. But then I started wondering, what if I didn't fix it as much as I thought I fixed it? What if it happened again, anyway? And I was grown in a vat. What if there was some kind of, I don't know, extra brainwashing mind control stuff in my head? So, I sat down with some friends and came up with some, er, contingency plans. And now I'm here. Giving them to you." He held out his backpack to Bruce. "The plans. Not my friends. They wouldn't fit in here."
"Father," said Damian, and Bruce took a moment to be proud of Damian's progress. There had been no murder threats. "Are we really trusting the word of a defective clone."
"Hey, I'd say that I'm an improved clone, considering I've never killed anyone. Yet. That I know of."
"Truth," said Cassandra, helpfully.
Bruce decided to sit down. He had these chairs for a reason, after all. That reason wasn't to have crises about clone children he didn't know about, but that was fine.
"Is- is anyone going to take this?" asked Danny, waving the bag.
"It kind of sounds like you're leaving out a lot, there, chum," said Dick.
Danny made a face and mouthed the word 'chum,' then shook his head. "I mean, you try to fit your whole life story into a fifteen minute conversation. I'm not trying to hide anything, it's just a lot of stuff."
"So, if we asked you about your powers," started Stephanie.
"Imvisibility, intangibility, flight, energy blasts, ice powers, and, um. I can possess people. Also. There's a longer list, which I wrote down because I forget things..." He unzipped the backpack and started rummaging through it.
"And the accident that gave you these powers," said Damian, "what about details on that?"
Danny stilled. "Okay, so." He licked his lips. "You guys believe in ghosts, right?"
By the time Danny finished 'explaining,' everyone was sitting, even Damian. Although it might be better to say that Damian was perched.
"I think that's pretty much everything relevant," said Danny, lacing his fingers together. "So... are we good? Do you believe me?"
Honestly, for Dick, the hardest part of all of this to believe was that a clone of Damian somehow wound up with Danny's mannerisms. The fidgeting, the stuttering, the slang, actually volunteering information while being unable to deliver it with any concision... Yeah. It was weird. Especially since Danny did more or less have Damian's face.
"We believe you," said Bruce in a tone that said his guilt complex was eating him alive.
"I don't think you could fake being this bad at explaining things," admitted Damian with a sniff.
"Yeah, so, welcome to the family," said Dick, giving Danny his best smile.
Danny blinked at him. "... Does that mean you don't want to put me in a containment cube?"
"No," said Bruce. "I don't think that's necessary at the moment."
"But I caused the apocalypse?"
"If we locked up every meta who might have caused the apocalypse in an alternate timeline, we'd need a lot more jails," said Tim.
"Oh. Okay. But, uh," he pointed at Dick. "I've already got a family... Mr. Grayson? Richard?"
"Call me Dick."
"I've already got a family, who I love. So. If you don't want to preemptively lock me up, you don't have to actually. Do that."
"You mean the scientists who shoot at you?" asked Tim, holding up his phone which, yes, showed two people chasing Danny in 'ghost form' down a street with guns.
"They don't know that's me," said Danny, "also, they've gotten way better lately."
"This is from last week."
"Eh," said Danny. "Progress isn't linear."
"When you fell off that building, did you fall on your head?" asked Damian, incredulously.
"Honestly don't remember," said Danny. "But I'm sure you've gotten just as many concussions as I have, so I'd be a lot less snide about my IQ, if I were you."
"If you're in danger," started Bruce.
"Look, if you really want to adopt someone, can I suggest Danielle?"
Bruce got a very pinched look around his eyes. "Who is Danielle?"
Danny paused. "Okay, maybe I didn't get all the important details."
"Please tell me there isn't a Damian clone out there who's a girl," said Tim.
"There isn't," said Danny, quickly.
"Oh, goo-"
"She's my clone."
"Isn't that the same thing?" asked Dick.
"Not really? I mean, Dani has my powers, and Vlad was definitely trying to clone me. But my point is, you don't have to do that. For me. Because I'm fine. You don't have to feel responsible."
Dick was quite certain that everyone did, indeed, feel responsible.
"But Dani is, like, traveling the world on her own, so if you could convince her to be adopted, that would probably be a good thing. But I do not need to be adopted, because I am already adopted. Also, I'm pretty sure Damian would murder me."
"We've moved past that, actually," said Dick before Damian could explode and prove him wrong.
"Cool. Anyway, you've got the stuff, so if you don't want to lock me up, I'm just going to go. If that's okay. Is it okay?"
No one answered that, because, no, it really wasn't.
The door opened and Alfred cleared his throat. "If I am not interrupting anything, Master Bruce, it is time for dinner."
"Right!" said Danny, brightly. "So, I'll leave you guys to it."
"Why don't you eat with us?" asked Bruce.
"Uh. Because I don't want to interrupt your family dinner? Or get stabbed."
"Hey," said Dick, "Steph interrupts our family dinner all the time."
"It's true," said Steph with a shrug. "Alfred's cooking is the best. I'd totally get stabbed for it."
Danny chewed on his lower lip for a second, then a smile crept onto his face. "Would you say it's to die for?"
"No," said Damian. "You cannot say things like that with my voice."
"I just did, though," said Danny.
Dick grabbed Damian. Just as a preemptive thing. "Great! Let's go eat!"
"Alfred," Dick heard Bruce say, quietly. "I need you to call the guy."
"Well," said Tim, draping himself sideways over the arms of the armchair. "There's someone out there who makes bad death puns in Damian's voice. That's a thing we know, now."
Danny had just left, had even invited them to put a tracker on him, in addition to the trackers they'd already slipped on him. Not that it was really necessary. They already knew where he lived.
Damian picked a throw pillow up off the couch and screamed into it, then put it back down as if nothing had just happened and sat on the couch. "Yes," he said, "we do know that." Alfred the cat jumped up into his lap. "The question is, what do we do about it?"
"Well," said Dick, who was radiating something like exasperation, "B's already called the guy."
Tim sat up and turned. "You didn't," he said. "When did you even have time?"
"Father," said Damian, "he's a clone. Who tried to kill me. Who admitted that he wanted to make himself useful to the League of Assassins."
Bruce had a very Batman-like curve to his shoulders. "Years ago. And your friend, Connor, is also a clone."
"That's different," protested Damian. "I'm not saying that... Daniel isn't an individual, but we don't have any obligation towards him, and he's said as much."
"That's true," said Tim. "But you could extend that argument to just about anyone, couldn't you? He's a hero, and a teenager... But he's in a different city, and he's got a family. We can get him set up with support, real support, like the Titans, but do you really want to try and take him away from his city? Bruce?"
Bruce grumbled. "I'm not taking him away from his parents. But he's living in the same building he died in. And to give him the support he needs, we need to have time with him."
Damian scowled. Oh, that wasn't going to be good.
"We can have that time in different ways," said Tim.
Bruce grunted.
"He honestly seems to be doing just fine for himself," said Damian. "I don't think we need to do this. Or," he added, a little sourly, "that he would appreciate it."
"And Danielle?" asked Bruce.
No one had an an answer to that.
"I guess," said Tim, "you'll need the guy for that, at least."
You know all those fics where Danny and Damian are twins but everyone first assumes Danny must be a clone? How about an au where Danny is Damian's clone who escaped the League after he was assumed dead. Damian could even have been the one to have "killed" him, back when Danny was a newly created, fully brainwashed clone minion and trying to kill Damian himself.
Danny gets adopted by the Fentons and canon goes on as normal, until Dan. Witnessing what would happen to the world should he turn evil really drove home to Danny how dangerous he is.
Even if he was confident he could be trusted with his absurd amount of power (which he isn't), what if the League of Assassins found out about him? Does he still have programming triggers from his evil assassin clone conditioning?
So, Danny does the responsible thing: he goes to Batman to turn himself in.
Cue Danny showing up on Bruce's doorstep with ghost hunting equipment, intel on the afterlife, and an almost unbelievable backstory. Somehow he still managed to be more well-adjusted than Damian.
More thoughts under the read more
Here's how I'm thinking Danny leaving the League went down:
After surviving his wounds but failing his mission, Danny (then an unnamed potential Damian replacement) knew there was no point in returning to the League. As a failure, he was meant to be disposed of. He even thought of simply allowing himself to perish, since that was what the League would do.
But he couldn't help but feel as though that would be a waste of a resource. Surely he could be of more use to the League alive than dead?
That tiny bit of rebellious logic is what caused Danny to go into hiding, only living on based on the off chance he would find opportunities to further the League's goals. Obviously, that mentality didn't last long after being exposed to the real world and meeting one Jazz Fenton.
Being adopted by the Fentons was the best cover Danny could have asked for, since any odd behavior he couldn't hide while he was learning how to be "normal" was totally overshadowed by the sheer bizarre eccentricity of his new parents. He was still the neighborhood weird kid, but even that was a major upgrade from disposable tool, so Danny considered it a win.
Anyway, if anyone likes this idea, please feel free to have at it! Interpret it as you please :)
Danny didn't want to be here, but it wasn't as if he had a lot of other options. He didn't know how to contact any other Justice League heroes, and this one, at least, would take him seriously. Probably. Damian, at least, would take him seriously. So seriously that Danny doubted he would be walking away from this without a stab wound.
Luckily, Danny wasn't the kind of person to die because of a stab wound. Or anything, really. Which was kind of the reason he was here.
He sucked his lips in as he stared at the gates. He was far enough down the street from them that there probably weren't any cameras picking him up, but only probably, because the people he was dealing with were insane. And Danny knew insane. From a couple of different perspectives, even.
Again, this was part of the problem.
He sighed and started walking. This was going to be painful and awkward, and he technically didn't have to do this, but...
But.
This was so far beyond his second chance, beyond his third chance, even. He couldn't expect another one. This way, if he did manage to screw everything up, he wouldn't be taking the world down with him.
He reached the gates. There was a tiny intercom there, along with a camera. There were probably more, even better, cameras hidden elsewhere around the gate, to get multiple perspectives of everyone who came up to them. Danny wouldn't be surprised if he was being watched already.
Bracing himself, Danny pulled off his hood. No going back now.
Danny wasn't identical to Damian. Combining science and magic tended to have unpredictable results, and even in cloning there were random mutations. Danny was one of several 'flawed' clones that had still been considered capable enough to be sent out to harry their original. He didn't have the same coloration as Damian al Ghul, Son of the Bat. Something epigenetic affecting his melanin production. Blue eyes, instead of Damian's green, pale skin to Damian's ochre. Not something that would be noticed at night, behind masks with opaque eyes and flashing swords. He didn't stand out, among his clone-siblings.
By the same token, despite the differences being more obvious in the daylight, he would be recognized now. Or, at least, the resemblance would be.
He pressed the intercom button and waited, bouncing up and down nervously. Part of him wondered if Damien ever fidgeted like this.
"Hello," said a crisp British voice, "may I help you, young man?"
"Yeah," said Danny. "Is, um. Mr. Wayne home?" He cringed. "I need to talk to him." Because a billionaire would definitely talk to a random kid who showed up at his house. Hopefully, this person would either notice he looked like Damian, or... Yeah. Knew about the Batman stuff. "It's about... Things at night."
He should have come up with a script of some kind before coming, but he'd been occupied putting together everything else.
"Are you in trouble?" This question was a bit sharper.
"Not... really? But I think he'd want to know what I know, if that makes sense?"
"I see," said the calm, British voice. "If you will wait a moment...?"
"Sure," said Danny. He flipped his hood back up. The League of Assassins probably wouldn't be bold enough to watch the bats this closely.
But only probably.
It was okay. There had only been a handful of years between his escape and when he had to start fighting for his life again. He knew how to handle himself, and the way he traveled didn't leave a trail.
Danny jumped at the sound of footsteps, and a minute later, an elderly man in a suit came around the corner of the drive. He kept his eyes from flicking into the foliage, where he was quite sure at least one of Damian's brothers were hiding.
"Young sir," said the old man as the gate swung open. "Mr. Wayne will see you."
"O-oh," said Danny. "Thank you. You didn't have to walk out all this way."
"It's no trouble, really." He paused. "My name is Alfred Pennyworth And what may I call you, sir?"
"Danny."
"Mr. Daniel, then?"
"Danny, please. Daniel is... weird."
"Ah, bad memories?"
"Kind of."
"Not what brings you here?"
"Uh. No. I think it'd be better if I said it directly to Mr. Wayne, if that's okay."
Mr. Pennyworth hummed, neutrally. "It will be a little while before he returns home."
"Oh," said Danny, wincing again. "I, uh, didn't realize he wasn't... Here. At this time."
"He normally would be. Something came up."
"Is, um. Is Damian here?" It sounded so weird saying his name out loud.
"He is with his father."
"Cool. That's cool." It was very much not cool. He didn't want to see Damian, although he'd planned for it. He and Dani got along, post murder attempt, but he imagined it'd be a lot different with Damian.
The rest of the walk was unremarkable, except for Danny's continuous freaking out. Mr. Pennyworth led him through a grand entryway and into a small sitting room he was sure was monitored eight ways from Sunday, and then some.
"May I get you anything to drink while you wait?"
"No," said Danny. He wouldn't trust it not to be drugged, anyway. "I'm good, thanks." He swung his backpack off his shoulders and held it in front of himself, hugging it close.
"Very well, young sir."
There were a series of loud thumps, the footsteps of someone trying to be heard, and a tall, athletic man came into the room.
"Richard Grayson?" guessed Danny.
"That's me," said the man, smiling, tightly. "And you are?"
"Danny."
"Danny...?"
"Just Danny."
"Okay, and why are you here, Just Danny?" the tone was teasing, but it did little to defuse the tension.
Danny shifted uneasily. The amount of information, of knowledge given to the clones had been limited, but he was pretty sure Richard Grayson was Nightwing, and the first Robin.
"Couple different reasons," said Danny. "Mainly, um. To let him know I exist. And stuff. Relating to that. Him being Batman. And Damian, I guess."
There was a bit of quiet as Grayson stared at him like he was peeling back his skin with his mind.
"Does Damian not... know about you?"
"That's..." He made a snap decision, because he wasn't sure he could deal with that particular misunderstanding, and talking to Batman, and Damian, and explaining everything important all at once. "I'm not his brother, you get that, right? I'm," he shrugged, "one of the clones. You know, from a few years ago."
Despite his nonchalance, he watched Grayson carefully, tracking his movements.
"The ones who tried to kill him?"
"Yeah, that was... not my best moment, but in my defense I was sort of brainwashed. And less than a year old. Just for context."
"Context. Right."
"And I definitely understand if Damian, um. Doesn't want to see me. Because, no offense, I don't want to see him. Either. If that makes sense."
"You came all this way, and you don't want to see him."
"Well. No. It's-- Think of it this way: He killed way more of us than we killed of him."
Grayson stared at him.
"He did die," said Grayson.
"I thought he was out doing, like, Robin things."
Grayson pulled a face. "He came back."
Oh, that made things much more complicated. Or did it? It wasn't really Danny's problem that he had died. Even if Danny had also died.
"Okay," he said, finally. "I mean. I just don't want to get stabbed, and--" He stopped, examined Grayson's face a little more closely, and the tiny speck of something inside his ear. "They're totally listening in, aren't they? They've got a radio or whatever. And they're yelling in your ear."
"Damian's having a bit of a problem with you using his voice to say things so, uh..."
"Casually?" suggested Danny.
"Sure, let's go with that." His eyes flicked up and down Danny again. "So... You're doing... okay?"
"Like, right now, or...?" Danny made a small circular motion with his hand.
"You've been living somewhere? Somewhere safe?"
"More or less," said Danny. "But I really would like to wait for Batman-- for Mr. Wayne to get here, before I get into details."
Grayson nodded slowly and they waited in uneasy silence. Mr. Pennyworth had slipped away at some point, without Danny even noticing, which was a feat.
It was, perhaps, another half an hour before Bruce Wayne arrived. He was tall, very tall, and walked nearly silently. A flock of teenagers and young adults trailed in his wake, including Damian, who looked furious, but who at least didn't obviously have his sword.
"Do you need help?" asked Batman, when Danny didn't continue. Damian changed his glare to the back of his father's head.
"Yeah. Sort of. I'm actually here to turn myself in. And to tell you how to kill me." He gave them a pair of thumbs up and grinned. "Normal things, right?"
Bruce scanned the clone in front of him again. He wasn't identical to Damian, no, and the League of Assassins wasn't above modifying the clones they made, but Bruce couldn't immediately see any reason for that particularly worrying statement.
Behind him, Duke cleared his throat. "Uh, no. No, that's not normal."
"But for you guys," said Danny. "For you, it's normal."
"Not really, no. People generally don't ask us to kill them."
"That's not really what I'm asking."
Bruce suppressed a sigh. "Explain."
"Okay." The boy's grip on his backpack tightened. "You probably know how I- We- Me and the other clones, how we were made right? And the whole, um, murder horde thing?"
Bruce inclined his head.
"Great. So, there I was, part of the murder horde--"
"Are we really calling it that?" interrupted Stephanie.
Danny blinked at her. "... Is there... something else you'd like to call it?"
"Please continue," said Bruce.
"Right. So. Anyway. I was trying to murder, uh, Damian - sorry about that, by the way - with everyone else, and, um, naturally got stabbed. A few times. You are really good at stabbing, by the way. Superb. Ten out of ten stabbing experience, would get stabbed again. If I was into that kind of thing. Which I'm not. Please don't stab me."
"Father."
"I think we understand that you were stabbed. Please go on."
"After that I fell off a roof and sort of crawled into a corner to die. But I didn't die! Obviously. Not then, anyway. And I realized I didn't want to die. Kind of. Not quite like that, because of the brainwashing. Did I mention the brainwashing?"
"Yes."
Danny bobbed his head nervously. "It was kind of more like, I decided I'd be more useful to the League not dead, but if I stayed where I was, the League would kill me. You know how brainwashing is. So, I broke into a car, and it turned out one of the people who owned it was sort of a doctor."
"Sort of a doctor?" echoed Dick.
"A biologist with first aid training and a PhD," clarified Danny. "They, uh. That family took me in. Adopted me. You, uh, you know how that works. Obviously." He nodded at the admittedly rather full space behind Bruce.
"I'm not adopted," said Stephanie. "I'm not related to this man."
"Okay?"
"That doesn't explain why you're here," pointed out Tim. "Or why you want to tell us how to kill you."
Danny had been pale and sweaty from the beginning of the conversation, but now he looked downright ill. But Bruce stayed still. There were still good odds that this was some kind of trap, and until he knew one way or another, he wasn't going to make a move that would endanger his children.
Even if, as a clone of his son, Danny was also, technically, his child.
"I'm getting to it. But, uh, to summarize, after a while there, with my family, I decided I didn't want to ever go back, and I was just going to be as normal as possible. Then, again to summarize, I got into a lab accident and, well, lab accidents. I got some superpowers. A variety, you know?"
"You're a meta?" asked Bruce. They'd already known, of course, that he wasn't a standard human. What Duke saw when he looked at him said as much.
"I don't know about meta," said Danny. "I don't-" He turned slightly, towards Damian. "-I don't think we have the meta gene, so...?" He flinched. "But! Powers! Yes!" He extracted one hand from his backpack, and turned it invisible. It stayed that way for a moment, then went back to normal, and Danny went back to hugging his bag.
"So," said Dick, sounding pained, "you got superpowers, and your first reaction to that was to ask Batman to kill you."
"What? No, the lab accident was, like, a year ago." There was a worryingly long pause. "And I'm not asking anyone to kill me, I'm just letting you know how. Just in case."
"Why?" asked Dick.
"Well. There was an incident. With time travel."
Tim groaned loudly.
"Uh," said Danny, wide-eyed, "are you okay?"
"Go ahead, I just hate time travel."
Danny nodded cautiously. "I met an evil future version of myself-"
Tim groaned again.
"-who had killed everyone. Like, really, just about everyone. Whole planet, just rubble, everywhere, except for- Well, details, which I'll give you! But. I'm summarizing. And, I fixed that. The stuff leading up to it, I mean. But then I started wondering, what if I didn't fix it as much as I thought I fixed it? What if it happened again, anyway? And I was grown in a vat. What if there was some kind of, I don't know, extra brainwashing mind control stuff in my head? So, I sat down with some friends and came up with some, er, contingency plans. And now I'm here. Giving them to you." He held out his backpack to Bruce. "The plans. Not my friends. They wouldn't fit in here."
"Father," said Damian, and Bruce took a moment to be proud of Damian's progress. There had been no murder threats. "Are we really trusting the word of a defective clone."
"Hey, I'd say that I'm an improved clone, considering I've never killed anyone. Yet. That I know of."
"Truth," said Cassandra, helpfully.
Bruce decided to sit down. He had these chairs for a reason, after all. That reason wasn't to have crises about clone children he didn't know about, but that was fine.
"Is- is anyone going to take this?" asked Danny, waving the bag.
"It kind of sounds like you're leaving out a lot, there, chum," said Dick.
Danny made a face and mouthed the word 'chum,' then shook his head. "I mean, you try to fit your whole life story into a fifteen minute conversation. I'm not trying to hide anything, it's just a lot of stuff."
"So, if we asked you about your powers," started Stephanie.
"Imvisibility, intangibility, flight, energy blasts, ice powers, and, um. I can possess people. Also. There's a longer list, which I wrote down because I forget things..." He unzipped the backpack and started rummaging through it.
"And the accident that gave you these powers," said Damian, "what about details on that?"
Danny stilled. "Okay, so." He licked his lips. "You guys believe in ghosts, right?"
By the time Danny finished 'explaining,' everyone was sitting, even Damian. Although it might be better to say that Damian was perched.
"I think that's pretty much everything relevant," said Danny, lacing his fingers together. "So... are we good? Do you believe me?"
Honestly, for Dick, the hardest part of all of this to believe was that a clone of Damian somehow wound up with Danny's mannerisms. The fidgeting, the stuttering, the slang, actually volunteering information while being unable to deliver it with any concision... Yeah. It was weird. Especially since Danny did more or less have Damian's face.
"We believe you," said Bruce in a tone that said his guilt complex was eating him alive.
"I don't think you could fake being this bad at explaining things," admitted Damian with a sniff.
"Yeah, so, welcome to the family," said Dick, giving Danny his best smile.
Danny blinked at him. "... Does that mean you don't want to put me in a containment cube?"
"No," said Bruce. "I don't think that's necessary at the moment."
"But I caused the apocalypse?"
"If we locked up every meta who might have caused the apocalypse in an alternate timeline, we'd need a lot more jails," said Tim.
"Oh. Okay. But, uh," he pointed at Dick. "I've already got a family... Mr. Grayson? Richard?"
"Call me Dick."
"I've already got a family, who I love. So. If you don't want to preemptively lock me up, you don't have to actually. Do that."
"You mean the scientists who shoot at you?" asked Tim, holding up his phone which, yes, showed two people chasing Danny in 'ghost form' down a street with guns.
"They don't know that's me," said Danny, "also, they've gotten way better lately."
"This is from last week."
"Eh," said Danny. "Progress isn't linear."
"When you fell off that building, did you fall on your head?" asked Damian, incredulously.
"Honestly don't remember," said Danny. "But I'm sure you've gotten just as many concussions as I have, so I'd be a lot less snide about my IQ, if I were you."
"If you're in danger," started Bruce.
"Look, if you really want to adopt someone, can I suggest Danielle?"
Bruce got a very pinched look around his eyes. "Who is Danielle?"
Danny paused. "Okay, maybe I didn't get all the important details."
"Please tell me there isn't a Damian clone out there who's a girl," said Tim.
"There isn't," said Danny, quickly.
"Oh, goo-"
"She's my clone."
"Isn't that the same thing?" asked Dick.
"Not really? I mean, Dani has my powers, and Vlad was definitely trying to clone me. But my point is, you don't have to do that. For me. Because I'm fine. You don't have to feel responsible."
Dick was quite certain that everyone did, indeed, feel responsible.
"But Dani is, like, traveling the world on her own, so if you could convince her to be adopted, that would probably be a good thing. But I do not need to be adopted, because I am already adopted. Also, I'm pretty sure Damian would murder me."
"We've moved past that, actually," said Dick before Damian could explode and prove him wrong.
"Cool. Anyway, you've got the stuff, so if you don't want to lock me up, I'm just going to go. If that's okay. Is it okay?"
No one answered that, because, no, it really wasn't.
The door opened and Alfred cleared his throat. "If I am not interrupting anything, Master Bruce, it is time for dinner."
"Right!" said Danny, brightly. "So, I'll leave you guys to it."
"Why don't you eat with us?" asked Bruce.
"Uh. Because I don't want to interrupt your family dinner? Or get stabbed."
"Hey," said Dick, "Steph interrupts our family dinner all the time."
"It's true," said Steph with a shrug. "Alfred's cooking is the best. I'd totally get stabbed for it."
Danny chewed on his lower lip for a second, then a smile crept onto his face. "Would you say it's to die for?"
"No," said Damian. "You cannot say things like that with my voice."
"I just did, though," said Danny.
Dick grabbed Damian. Just as a preemptive thing. "Great! Let's go eat!"
"Alfred," Dick heard Bruce say, quietly. "I need you to call the guy."
You know all those fics where Danny and Damian are twins but everyone first assumes Danny must be a clone? How about an au where Danny is Damian's clone who escaped the League after he was assumed dead. Damian could even have been the one to have "killed" him, back when Danny was a newly created, fully brainwashed clone minion and trying to kill Damian himself.
Danny gets adopted by the Fentons and canon goes on as normal, until Dan. Witnessing what would happen to the world should he turn evil really drove home to Danny how dangerous he is.
Even if he was confident he could be trusted with his absurd amount of power (which he isn't), what if the League of Assassins found out about him? Does he still have programming triggers from his evil assassin clone conditioning?
So, Danny does the responsible thing: he goes to Batman to turn himself in.
Cue Danny showing up on Bruce's doorstep with ghost hunting equipment, intel on the afterlife, and an almost unbelievable backstory. Somehow he still managed to be more well-adjusted than Damian.
More thoughts under the read more
Here's how I'm thinking Danny leaving the League went down:
After surviving his wounds but failing his mission, Danny (then an unnamed potential Damian replacement) knew there was no point in returning to the League. As a failure, he was meant to be disposed of. He even thought of simply allowing himself to perish, since that was what the League would do.
But he couldn't help but feel as though that would be a waste of a resource. Surely he could be of more use to the League alive than dead?
That tiny bit of rebellious logic is what caused Danny to go into hiding, only living on based on the off chance he would find opportunities to further the League's goals. Obviously, that mentality didn't last long after being exposed to the real world and meeting one Jazz Fenton.
Being adopted by the Fentons was the best cover Danny could have asked for, since any odd behavior he couldn't hide while he was learning how to be "normal" was totally overshadowed by the sheer bizarre eccentricity of his new parents. He was still the neighborhood weird kid, but even that was a major upgrade from disposable tool, so Danny considered it a win.
Anyway, if anyone likes this idea, please feel free to have at it! Interpret it as you please :)
Danny didn't want to be here, but it wasn't as if he had a lot of other options. He didn't know how to contact any other Justice League heroes, and this one, at least, would take him seriously. Probably. Damian, at least, would take him seriously. So seriously that Danny doubted he would be walking away from this without a stab wound.
Luckily, Danny wasn't the kind of person to die because of a stab wound. Or anything, really. Which was kind of the reason he was here.
He sucked his lips in as he stared at the gates. He was far enough down the street from them that there probably weren't any cameras picking him up, but only probably, because the people he was dealing with were insane. And Danny knew insane. From a couple of different perspectives, even.
Again, this was part of the problem.
He sighed and started walking. This was going to be painful and awkward, and he technically didn't have to do this, but...
But.
This was so far beyond his second chance, beyond his third chance, even. He couldn't expect another one. This way, if he did manage to screw everything up, he wouldn't be taking the world down with him.
He reached the gates. There was a tiny intercom there, along with a camera. There were probably more, even better, cameras hidden elsewhere around the gate, to get multiple perspectives of everyone who came up to them. Danny wouldn't be surprised if he was being watched already.
Bracing himself, Danny pulled off his hood. No going back now.
Danny wasn't identical to Damian. Combining science and magic tended to have unpredictable results, and even in cloning there were random mutations. Danny was one of several 'flawed' clones that had still been considered capable enough to be sent out to harry their original. He didn't have the same coloration as Damian al Ghul, Son of the Bat. Something epigenetic affecting his melanin production. Blue eyes, instead of Damian's green, pale skin to Damian's ochre. Not something that would be noticed at night, behind masks with opaque eyes and flashing swords. He didn't stand out, among his clone-siblings.
By the same token, despite the differences being more obvious in the daylight, he would be recognized now. Or, at least, the resemblance would be.
He pressed the intercom button and waited, bouncing up and down nervously. Part of him wondered if Damien ever fidgeted like this.
"Hello," said a crisp British voice, "may I help you, young man?"
"Yeah," said Danny. "Is, um. Mr. Wayne home?" He cringed. "I need to talk to him." Because a billionaire would definitely talk to a random kid who showed up at his house. Hopefully, this person would either notice he looked like Damian, or... Yeah. Knew about the Batman stuff. "It's about... Things at night."
He should have come up with a script of some kind before coming, but he'd been occupied putting together everything else.
"Are you in trouble?" This question was a bit sharper.
"Not... really? But I think he'd want to know what I know, if that makes sense?"
"I see," said the calm, British voice. "If you will wait a moment...?"
"Sure," said Danny. He flipped his hood back up. The League of Assassins probably wouldn't be bold enough to watch the bats this closely.
But only probably.
It was okay. There had only been a handful of years between his escape and when he had to start fighting for his life again. He knew how to handle himself, and the way he traveled didn't leave a trail.
Danny jumped at the sound of footsteps, and a minute later, an elderly man in a suit came around the corner of the drive. He kept his eyes from flicking into the foliage, where he was quite sure at least one of Damian's brothers were hiding.
"Young sir," said the old man as the gate swung open. "Mr. Wayne will see you."
"O-oh," said Danny. "Thank you. You didn't have to walk out all this way."
"It's no trouble, really." He paused. "My name is Alfred Pennyworth And what may I call you, sir?"
"Danny."
"Mr. Daniel, then?"
"Danny, please. Daniel is... weird."
"Ah, bad memories?"
"Kind of."
"Not what brings you here?"
"Uh. No. I think it'd be better if I said it directly to Mr. Wayne, if that's okay."
Mr. Pennyworth hummed, neutrally. "It will be a little while before he returns home."
"Oh," said Danny, wincing again. "I, uh, didn't realize he wasn't... Here. At this time."
"He normally would be. Something came up."
"Is, um. Is Damian here?" It sounded so weird saying his name out loud.
"He is with his father."
"Cool. That's cool." It was very much not cool. He didn't want to see Damian, although he'd planned for it. He and Dani got along, post murder attempt, but he imagined it'd be a lot different with Damian.
The rest of the walk was unremarkable, except for Danny's continuous freaking out. Mr. Pennyworth led him through a grand entryway and into a small sitting room he was sure was monitored eight ways from Sunday, and then some.
"May I get you anything to drink while you wait?"
"No," said Danny. He wouldn't trust it not to be drugged, anyway. "I'm good, thanks." He swung his backpack off his shoulders and held it in front of himself, hugging it close.
"Very well, young sir."
There were a series of loud thumps, the footsteps of someone trying to be heard, and a tall, athletic man came into the room.
"Richard Grayson?" guessed Danny.
"That's me," said the man, smiling, tightly. "And you are?"
"Danny."
"Danny...?"
"Just Danny."
"Okay, and why are you here, Just Danny?" the tone was teasing, but it did little to defuse the tension.
Danny shifted uneasily. The amount of information, of knowledge given to the clones had been limited, but he was pretty sure Richard Grayson was Nightwing, and the first Robin.
"Couple different reasons," said Danny. "Mainly, um. To let him know I exist. And stuff. Relating to that. Him being Batman. And Damian, I guess."
There was a bit of quiet as Grayson stared at him like he was peeling back his skin with his mind.
"Does Damian not... know about you?"
"That's..." He made a snap decision, because he wasn't sure he could deal with that particular misunderstanding, and talking to Batman, and Damian, and explaining everything important all at once. "I'm not his brother, you get that, right? I'm," he shrugged, "one of the clones. You know, from a few years ago."
Despite his nonchalance, he watched Grayson carefully, tracking his movements.
"The ones who tried to kill him?"
"Yeah, that was... not my best moment, but in my defense I was sort of brainwashed. And less than a year old. Just for context."
"Context. Right."
"And I definitely understand if Damian, um. Doesn't want to see me. Because, no offense, I don't want to see him. Either. If that makes sense."
"You came all this way, and you don't want to see him."
"Well. No. It's-- Think of it this way: He killed way more of us than we killed of him."
Grayson stared at him.
"He did die," said Grayson.
"I thought he was out doing, like, Robin things."
Grayson pulled a face. "He came back."
Oh, that made things much more complicated. Or did it? It wasn't really Danny's problem that he had died. Even if Danny had also died.
"Okay," he said, finally. "I mean. I just don't want to get stabbed, and--" He stopped, examined Grayson's face a little more closely, and the tiny speck of something inside his ear. "They're totally listening in, aren't they? They've got a radio or whatever. And they're yelling in your ear."
"Damian's having a bit of a problem with you using his voice to say things so, uh..."
"Casually?" suggested Danny.
"Sure, let's go with that." His eyes flicked up and down Danny again. "So... You're doing... okay?"
"Like, right now, or...?" Danny made a small circular motion with his hand.
"You've been living somewhere? Somewhere safe?"
"More or less," said Danny. "But I really would like to wait for Batman-- for Mr. Wayne to get here, before I get into details."
Grayson nodded slowly and they waited in uneasy silence. Mr. Pennyworth had slipped away at some point, without Danny even noticing, which was a feat.
It was, perhaps, another half an hour before Bruce Wayne arrived. He was tall, very tall, and walked nearly silently. A flock of teenagers and young adults trailed in his wake, including Damian, who looked furious, but who at least didn't obviously have his sword.
"Do you need help?" asked Batman, when Danny didn't continue. Damian changed his glare to the back of his father's head.
"Yeah. Sort of. I'm actually here to turn myself in. And to tell you how to kill me." He gave them a pair of thumbs up and grinned. "Normal things, right?"
Bruce scanned the clone in front of him again. He wasn't identical to Damian, no, and the League of Assassins wasn't above modifying the clones they made, but Bruce couldn't immediately see any reason for that particularly worrying statement.
Behind him, Duke cleared his throat. "Uh, no. No, that's not normal."
"But for you guys," said Danny. "For you, it's normal."
"Not really, no. People generally don't ask us to kill them."
"That's not really what I'm asking."
Bruce suppressed a sigh. "Explain."
"Okay." The boy's grip on his backpack tightened. "You probably know how I- We- Me and the other clones, how we were made right? And the whole, um, murder horde thing?"
Bruce inclined his head.
"Great. So, there I was, part of the murder horde--"
"Are we really calling it that?" interrupted Stephanie.
Danny blinked at her. "... Is there... something else you'd like to call it?"
"Please continue," said Bruce.
"Right. So. Anyway. I was trying to murder, uh, Damian - sorry about that, by the way - with everyone else, and, um, naturally got stabbed. A few times. You are really good at stabbing, by the way. Superb. Ten out of ten stabbing experience, would get stabbed again. If I was into that kind of thing. Which I'm not. Please don't stab me."
"Father."
"I think we understand that you were stabbed. Please go on."
"After that I fell off a roof and sort of crawled into a corner to die. But I didn't die! Obviously. Not then, anyway. And I realized I didn't want to die. Kind of. Not quite like that, because of the brainwashing. Did I mention the brainwashing?"
"Yes."
Danny bobbed his head nervously. "It was kind of more like, I decided I'd be more useful to the League not dead, but if I stayed where I was, the League would kill me. You know how brainwashing is. So, I broke into a car, and it turned out one of the people who owned it was sort of a doctor."
"Sort of a doctor?" echoed Dick.
"A biologist with first aid training and a PhD," clarified Danny. "They, uh. That family took me in. Adopted me. You, uh, you know how that works. Obviously." He nodded at the admittedly rather full space behind Bruce.
"I'm not adopted," said Stephanie. "I'm not related to this man."
"Okay?"
"That doesn't explain why you're here," pointed out Tim. "Or why you want to tell us how to kill you."
Danny had been pale and sweaty from the beginning of the conversation, but now he looked downright ill. But Bruce stayed still. There were still good odds that this was some kind of trap, and until he knew one way or another, he wasn't going to make a move that would endanger his children.
Even if, as a clone of his son, Danny was also, technically, his child.
"I'm getting to it. But, uh, to summarize, after a while there, with my family, I decided I didn't want to ever go back, and I was just going to be as normal as possible. Then, again to summarize, I got into a lab accident and, well, lab accidents. I got some superpowers. A variety, you know?"
"You're a meta?" asked Bruce. They'd already known, of course, that he wasn't a standard human. What Duke saw when he looked at him said as much.
"I don't know about meta," said Danny. "I don't-" He turned slightly, towards Damian. "-I don't think we have the meta gene, so...?" He flinched. "But! Powers! Yes!" He extracted one hand from his backpack, and turned it invisible. It stayed that way for a moment, then went back to normal, and Danny went back to hugging his bag.
"So," said Dick, sounding pained, "you got superpowers, and your first reaction to that was to ask Batman to kill you."
"What? No, the lab accident was, like, a year ago." There was a worryingly long pause. "And I'm not asking anyone to kill me, I'm just letting you know how. Just in case."
"Why?" asked Dick.
"Well. There was an incident. With time travel."
Tim groaned loudly.
"Uh," said Danny, wide-eyed, "are you okay?"
"Go ahead, I just hate time travel."
Danny nodded cautiously. "I met an evil future version of myself-"
Tim groaned again.
"-who had killed everyone. Like, really, just about everyone. Whole planet, just rubble, everywhere, except for- Well, details, which I'll give you! But. I'm summarizing. And, I fixed that. The stuff leading up to it, I mean. But then I started wondering, what if I didn't fix it as much as I thought I fixed it? What if it happened again, anyway? And I was grown in a vat. What if there was some kind of, I don't know, extra brainwashing mind control stuff in my head? So, I sat down with some friends and came up with some, er, contingency plans. And now I'm here. Giving them to you." He held out his backpack to Bruce. "The plans. Not my friends. They wouldn't fit in here."
"Father," said Damian, and Bruce took a moment to be proud of Damian's progress. There had been no murder threats. "Are we really trusting the word of a defective clone."
"Hey, I'd say that I'm an improved clone, considering I've never killed anyone. Yet. That I know of."
"Truth," said Cassandra, helpfully.
Bruce decided to sit down. He had these chairs for a reason, after all. That reason wasn't to have crises about clone children he didn't know about, but that was fine.
"Is- is anyone going to take this?" asked Danny, waving the bag.
"It kind of sounds like you're leaving out a lot, there, chum," said Dick.
Danny made a face and mouthed the word 'chum,' then shook his head. "I mean, you try to fit your whole life story into a fifteen minute conversation. I'm not trying to hide anything, it's just a lot of stuff."
"So, if we asked you about your powers," started Stephanie.
"Imvisibility, intangibility, flight, energy blasts, ice powers, and, um. I can possess people. Also. There's a longer list, which I wrote down because I forget things..." He unzipped the backpack and started rummaging through it.
"And the accident that gave you these powers," said Damian, "what about details on that?"
Danny stilled. "Okay, so." He licked his lips. "You guys believe in ghosts, right?"
You know all those fics where Danny and Damian are twins but everyone first assumes Danny must be a clone? How about an au where Danny is Damian's clone who escaped the League after he was assumed dead. Damian could even have been the one to have "killed" him, back when Danny was a newly created, fully brainwashed clone minion and trying to kill Damian himself.
Danny gets adopted by the Fentons and canon goes on as normal, until Dan. Witnessing what would happen to the world should he turn evil really drove home to Danny how dangerous he is.
Even if he was confident he could be trusted with his absurd amount of power (which he isn't), what if the League of Assassins found out about him? Does he still have programming triggers from his evil assassin clone conditioning?
So, Danny does the responsible thing: he goes to Batman to turn himself in.
Cue Danny showing up on Bruce's doorstep with ghost hunting equipment, intel on the afterlife, and an almost unbelievable backstory. Somehow he still managed to be more well-adjusted than Damian.
More thoughts under the read more
Here's how I'm thinking Danny leaving the League went down:
After surviving his wounds but failing his mission, Danny (then an unnamed potential Damian replacement) knew there was no point in returning to the League. As a failure, he was meant to be disposed of. He even thought of simply allowing himself to perish, since that was what the League would do.
But he couldn't help but feel as though that would be a waste of a resource. Surely he could be of more use to the League alive than dead?
That tiny bit of rebellious logic is what caused Danny to go into hiding, only living on based on the off chance he would find opportunities to further the League's goals. Obviously, that mentality didn't last long after being exposed to the real world and meeting one Jazz Fenton.
Being adopted by the Fentons was the best cover Danny could have asked for, since any odd behavior he couldn't hide while he was learning how to be "normal" was totally overshadowed by the sheer bizarre eccentricity of his new parents. He was still the neighborhood weird kid, but even that was a major upgrade from disposable tool, so Danny considered it a win.
Anyway, if anyone likes this idea, please feel free to have at it! Interpret it as you please :)
Danny didn't want to be here, but it wasn't as if he had a lot of other options. He didn't know how to contact any other Justice League heroes, and this one, at least, would take him seriously. Probably. Damian, at least, would take him seriously. So seriously that Danny doubted he would be walking away from this without a stab wound.
Luckily, Danny wasn't the kind of person to die because of a stab wound. Or anything, really. Which was kind of the reason he was here.
He sucked his lips in as he stared at the gates. He was far enough down the street from them that there probably weren't any cameras picking him up, but only probably, because the people he was dealing with were insane. And Danny knew insane. From a couple of different perspectives, even.
Again, this was part of the problem.
He sighed and started walking. This was going to be painful and awkward, and he technically didn't have to do this, but...
But.
This was so far beyond his second chance, beyond his third chance, even. He couldn't expect another one. This way, if he did manage to screw everything up, he wouldn't be taking the world down with him.
He reached the gates. There was a tiny intercom there, along with a camera. There were probably more, even better, cameras hidden elsewhere around the gate, to get multiple perspectives of everyone who came up to them. Danny wouldn't be surprised if he was being watched already.
Bracing himself, Danny pulled off his hood. No going back now.
Danny wasn't identical to Damian. Combining science and magic tended to have unpredictable results, and even in cloning there were random mutations. Danny was one of several 'flawed' clones that had still been considered capable enough to be sent out to harry their original. He didn't have the same coloration as Damian al Ghul, Son of the Bat. Something epigenetic affecting his melanin production. Blue eyes, instead of Damian's green, pale skin to Damian's ochre. Not something that would be noticed at night, behind masks with opaque eyes and flashing swords. He didn't stand out, among his clone-siblings.
By the same token, despite the differences being more obvious in the daylight, he would be recognized now. Or, at least, the resemblance would be.
He pressed the intercom button and waited, bouncing up and down nervously. Part of him wondered if Damien ever fidgeted like this.
"Hello," said a crisp British voice, "may I help you, young man?"
"Yeah," said Danny. "Is, um. Mr. Wayne home?" He cringed. "I need to talk to him." Because a billionaire would definitely talk to a random kid who showed up at his house. Hopefully, this person would either notice he looked like Damian, or... Yeah. Knew about the Batman stuff. "It's about... Things at night."
He should have come up with a script of some kind before coming, but he'd been occupied putting together everything else.
"Are you in trouble?" This question was a bit sharper.
"Not... really? But I think he'd want to know what I know, if that makes sense?"
"I see," said the calm, British voice. "If you will wait a moment...?"
"Sure," said Danny. He flipped his hood back up. The League of Assassins probably wouldn't be bold enough to watch the bats this closely.
But only probably.
It was okay. There had only been a handful of years between his escape and when he had to start fighting for his life again. He knew how to handle himself, and the way he traveled didn't leave a trail.
Danny jumped at the sound of footsteps, and a minute later, an elderly man in a suit came around the corner of the drive. He kept his eyes from flicking into the foliage, where he was quite sure at least one of Damian's brothers were hiding.
"Young sir," said the old man as the gate swung open. "Mr. Wayne will see you."
"O-oh," said Danny. "Thank you. You didn't have to walk out all this way."
"It's no trouble, really." He paused. "My name is Alfred Pennyworth And what may I call you, sir?"
"Danny."
"Mr. Daniel, then?"
"Danny, please. Daniel is... weird."
"Ah, bad memories?"
"Kind of."
"Not what brings you here?"
"Uh. No. I think it'd be better if I said it directly to Mr. Wayne, if that's okay."
Mr. Pennyworth hummed, neutrally. "It will be a little while before he returns home."
"Oh," said Danny, wincing again. "I, uh, didn't realize he wasn't... Here. At this time."
"He normally would be. Something came up."
"Is, um. Is Damian here?" It sounded so weird saying his name out loud.
"He is with his father."
"Cool. That's cool." It was very much not cool. He didn't want to see Damian, although he'd planned for it. He and Dani got along, post murder attempt, but he imagined it'd be a lot different with Damian.
The rest of the walk was unremarkable, except for Danny's continuous freaking out. Mr. Pennyworth led him through a grand entryway and into a small sitting room he was sure was monitored eight ways from Sunday, and then some.
"May I get you anything to drink while you wait?"
"No," said Danny. He wouldn't trust it not to be drugged, anyway. "I'm good, thanks." He swung his backpack off his shoulders and held it in front of himself, hugging it close.
"Very well, young sir."
There were a series of loud thumps, the footsteps of someone trying to be heard, and a tall, athletic man came into the room.
"Richard Grayson?" guessed Danny.
"That's me," said the man, smiling, tightly. "And you are?"
"Danny."
"Danny...?"
"Just Danny."
"Okay, and why are you here, Just Danny?" the tone was teasing, but it did little to defuse the tension.
Danny shifted uneasily. The amount of information, of knowledge given to the clones had been limited, but he was pretty sure Richard Grayson was Nightwing, and the first Robin.
"Couple different reasons," said Danny. "Mainly, um. To let him know I exist. And stuff. Relating to that. Him being Batman. And Damian, I guess."
There was a bit of quiet as Grayson stared at him like he was peeling back his skin with his mind.
"Does Damian not... know about you?"
"That's..." He made a snap decision, because he wasn't sure he could deal with that particular misunderstanding, and talking to Batman, and Damian, and explaining everything important all at once. "I'm not his brother, you get that, right? I'm," he shrugged, "one of the clones. You know, from a few years ago."
Despite his nonchalance, he watched Grayson carefully, tracking his movements.
"The ones who tried to kill him?"
"Yeah, that was... not my best moment, but in my defense I was sort of brainwashed. And less than a year old. Just for context."
"Context. Right."
"And I definitely understand if Damian, um. Doesn't want to see me. Because, no offense, I don't want to see him. Either. If that makes sense."
"You came all this way, and you don't want to see him."
"Well. No. It's-- Think of it this way: He killed way more of us than we killed of him."
Grayson stared at him.
"He did die," said Grayson.
"I thought he was out doing, like, Robin things."
Grayson pulled a face. "He came back."
Oh, that made things much more complicated. Or did it? It wasn't really Danny's problem that he had died. Even if Danny had also died.
"Okay," he said, finally. "I mean. I just don't want to get stabbed, and--" He stopped, examined Grayson's face a little more closely, and the tiny speck of something inside his ear. "They're totally listening in, aren't they? They've got a radio or whatever. And they're yelling in your ear."
"Damian's having a bit of a problem with you using his voice to say things so, uh..."
"Casually?" suggested Danny.
"Sure, let's go with that." His eyes flicked up and down Danny again. "So... You're doing... okay?"
"Like, right now, or...?" Danny made a small circular motion with his hand.
"You've been living somewhere? Somewhere safe?"
"More or less," said Danny. "But I really would like to wait for Batman-- for Mr. Wayne to get here, before I get into details."
Grayson nodded slowly and they waited in uneasy silence. Mr. Pennyworth had slipped away at some point, without Danny even noticing, which was a feat.
It was, perhaps, another half an hour before Bruce Wayne arrived. He was tall, very tall, and walked nearly silently. A flock of teenagers and young adults trailed in his wake, including Damian, who looked furious, but who at least didn't obviously have his sword.
"Do you need help?" asked Batman, when Danny didn't continue. Damian changed his glare to the back of his father's head.
"Yeah. Sort of. I'm actually here to turn myself in. And to tell you how to kill me." He gave them a pair of thumbs up and grinned. "Normal things, right?"
You know all those fics where Danny and Damian are twins but everyone first assumes Danny must be a clone? How about an au where Danny is Damian's clone who escaped the League after he was assumed dead. Damian could even have been the one to have "killed" him, back when Danny was a newly created, fully brainwashed clone minion and trying to kill Damian himself.
Danny gets adopted by the Fentons and canon goes on as normal, until Dan. Witnessing what would happen to the world should he turn evil really drove home to Danny how dangerous he is.
Even if he was confident he could be trusted with his absurd amount of power (which he isn't), what if the League of Assassins found out about him? Does he still have programming triggers from his evil assassin clone conditioning?
So, Danny does the responsible thing: he goes to Batman to turn himself in.
Cue Danny showing up on Bruce's doorstep with ghost hunting equipment, intel on the afterlife, and an almost unbelievable backstory. Somehow he still managed to be more well-adjusted than Damian.
More thoughts under the read more
Here's how I'm thinking Danny leaving the League went down:
After surviving his wounds but failing his mission, Danny (then an unnamed potential Damian replacement) knew there was no point in returning to the League. As a failure, he was meant to be disposed of. He even thought of simply allowing himself to perish, since that was what the League would do.
But he couldn't help but feel as though that would be a waste of a resource. Surely he could be of more use to the League alive than dead?
That tiny bit of rebellious logic is what caused Danny to go into hiding, only living on based on the off chance he would find opportunities to further the League's goals. Obviously, that mentality didn't last long after being exposed to the real world and meeting one Jazz Fenton.
Being adopted by the Fentons was the best cover Danny could have asked for, since any odd behavior he couldn't hide while he was learning how to be "normal" was totally overshadowed by the sheer bizarre eccentricity of his new parents. He was still the neighborhood weird kid, but even that was a major upgrade from disposable tool, so Danny considered it a win.
Anyway, if anyone likes this idea, please feel free to have at it! Interpret it as you please :)
Merry Christmas Truce, @m0nomercy! You asked for Danny, Dani, and Valerie relaxing and having fun with a movie or games night. I hope I delivered!
This picture has a bit of backstory– basically, Valerie twisted her ankle a few days ago and has been forced to sit out of ghost hunting until it gets better. She was asked to keep Dani out of trouble in the meantime, though she suspects they told Dani the same thing about her. Regardless, they’ve been having a good few days bonding. Danny came over after patrolling and fell asleep during a Smash Bros game, and Valerie is taking much delight in creaming his character and making Dani laugh. She’s also pretending not to notice the drool on her arm :)
Merry Christmas Truce, @leda-x! Here’s Danny from A Snapping Sound! :) I was a little intimidated to get someone who was so good at writing AND at art, but I hope you like it! Have a TERRIFIC holiday and a FANTASTIC new year!!!
Here’s my full piece for the @goingghostphanzine! I love Reality Trip SO MUCH. Orders are over for a physical copy, but if you didn’t get one, fear not! You can order a PDF version soon!
So I got a couple nice messages about my art lately, and I committed to posting some art this weekend. I ended up being more busy than I thought I would be, so this is as far as I got. XD Sorry about the blobbiness.
