Dan, reformed after three millennia in an isolated time pocket and lots of therapy, decides to try being a hero again.
Only, he's not very good at it. He looks fucking terrifying, and when people see him they tend to run towards the actual danger to get away.
So he's hanging out, invisible, on a random cities rooftop, when a pair of kid vigilantes plop down and start complaining how their mentors don't trust them ecause they haven't had any real combat experience. But to get experience, they need to be out there!
So while these teenagers plan something monumentally stupid, Dan realizes he has a unique opportunity.
Dan becomes a training villain.
A villain that specifically is meant to test kid vigilantes.
He does stupid, petty villain shit and the adult heroes quickly realize that this villain, instead of hurting their kid sidekicks, is teaching them between blows.
Dan's powers are nothing to sneeze at, so a kid vigilante holding their own against him for at least four minutes is considered impressive.
But he never, ever, hurts the kids.
There was an incident where another villain hurt a kid in front of Dan.
No one knows where that villain is.
@simplestoryteller
I? Love this? Like an actual trained Adult Hero would be able to take one long look at this Terrifying Walking War God of a man and go "he... you're say you stopped him from 'stealing toys from a community center'? This guy right here." "Yes. It was close but we did it!" "........ I see."
Like? Cannonically Santa exists. Dan probably teams up with him every year to "Steal Christmas" (oh noooooo~) just to be defeated by the kiddos like a yearly exam. Cause Santa can legit SEE he's on the Nice List Now.
Other villians are like? Oh so he's a pushove- *chokes as an unbreakable grip slams shut around their throat like a bear trap* "No."
He keep apprenticing Heros who are going through that "I've lost faith in the Light" phase. Keeping them at a place they can come back from. I LOVE this AU.
@stealingyourbones
Looks for signs of stress or unhealthy hero/sidekick relationships and hunts down the heroes for the equivalent of parent teacher conferences.
Like, the kids are p unaware that he's actually one of their teachers.
Basically to adult the entire situation looks like
Yes!!! Dan has big scary growls but putting him under a microscope for a second makes you realize he’s literally all bark and no bite.
I would LOVE to see Dan being a regular “villain” of Young Justice. Dan would be DELIGHTED to fight Superboy, Impulse, And Robin. Even better add Cissie and Secret into the mix!
Dan carefully teaching Superboy how to better use his TTK and laser vision when needed.
Dan making extremely elaborate plans to give the Robin enrichment and help him flex his smarts in a way that helps him learn new skills.
So much could be done with this!!!
One time Dan hears Superboy cry out in pain after Metallo managed to successfully capture him.
Dan sees red.
IT IS TIME FOR MY BOY
Y’know who Dan becomes sudden and surprise best friends with? Waylon Fucking Jones
He’s been running his training villain shtick for a while, people are learning his villain name
(He went with Dan-ger because he spent those years getting better not thinking of cool secret identities)
And then one day he gets a surprise call from another minor villain, Killer Croc
He just had a run in with Roy Harper, one of the kids Dan tangles with, and he’s in a bad place. Waylon doesn’t have the same freedom of movement Dan does, but he wants someone to check in on the kid
And like FUCK is he asking any of the heroes who got Roy to a place where he was looking for death
Dan agrees, makes a note, does a couple wellness checks
(Roy thinks he’s being bullied by small time villains because Talking About Feelings is actually still bad and scary and Dan respects that)
Keeps Waylon in the loop, since the guy asks
Waylon mostly only gets to actually talk with the kids once they’ve officially crossed the villain line, so he’ll hit Dan up for some info once in a while, see if Dan knows anything important
Dan finds he has a lot in common with Waylon these days, and it’s nice to talk to someone who a) isn’t a kid and b) doesn’t judge his mild villainy
(Most villains think Dan’s either too full of himself for a wussy kid villain or have no fucking clue why he holds himself back. One usually leads to the other)
Waylon and Dan team up occasionally for some recreational enrichment of the former Robins
**
The adult heroes though? Well, no one talks about it anymore
There was one JL meeting all about Dan after they saw him snap Metallo in half with his bare hands, where they review all the footage from the kids’ missions
They try and work out his actual power set, made harder because a lot of them do know Dan’s going easy on the kids and specifically training them to find weak points and shit
The way he always dips when an adult hero moves in has also been noticed, and they’re no longer convinced he’s intimidated
(Good for them, he never tried to pretend too hard)
Dan’s officially classed as Not A Threat, but the special classification that means it’s because he doesn’t want to be, not because he isn’t capable, and Batman makes new murder plans
It becomes the official sign that a young hero has fully transitioned to an adult hero; they recognize that Dan has been playing with them the whole time
Dan notes the switch too, and doesn’t play-train with them anymore unless he’s asked
His relationship to the adult heroes he mentored is super different from the other adult heroes though; they’re not gonna tell the next group of kids what happened, but depending on how well each of them took the news that he was testing them out…
Well, they like their Uncle Dan
They all know how he reacts if anyone actually seriously hurts the kids, and quite a few aren’t above calling him in to help if the mentors are unavailable (or just unwanted)
I'm just imagining that Dan, after Roy makes the realization that Dan was both not ever actually trying to hurt them (and "graduates" from kid to adult hero) also realizes that Dan was keeping a special eye on him while he was at his lowest.
And in hindsight, things always miraculously got a tiny bit better after Dan showed up to bother him. Weird little coincidences that Roy brushed off before but can see a pattern in now. Blankets, food, cash, nights where he was too out of his head to protect himself that he somehow came out of unharmed, one particular stint just before he got clean where he woke up in a hospital with no idea how he possibly could have gotten there.
He puts the pieces together. He reaches out, wanting to thank the "villain" that helped him and so many other kid heroes make it to adulthood, kept them safe even as he was teaching them how to take on the world and all the evils in it.
And Uncle Dan is, by far, the best babysitter Lian's ever had.
The pictures of the giant, terrifying man wrapped in a sparkly feather boa with makeup haphazardly smeared across his face by Lian as he hunched over a tiny child's table with a comically tiny tea cup in hand only made his reputation as a low-level villain grow even more.
What Dan did to the people who tried to hurt Lian now...well. It's for the best the kids didn't see that, really. It's even better that those who would think to seriously hurt his kids *did*
Okay but… Dan’s history… his tragic backstory… excuse me if I get a little melodramatic…
A young hero “graduating” and realizing they’ve been played, confronting Dan about it, asking him why, and getting some of the story.
Dan telling them he was a hero once. Fourteen. Just had a horrible accident. The only defense for his town. Hunted by his parents, by the government, hated by the very people he protected with all his might. Bullied in his civilian life. Looked down on by his teachers. No training, no teacher, no support, except his two friends who were even more out if their depth than he was.
He learned to fight through trial by fire. He learned to use his powers from watching his enemies use theirs. Skulker, Ember, Lunch Lady, THEY were his teachers. And he learned well. He was good- but he wasn’t good enough.
Eventually, after a stupid, seemingly harmless mistake, trying to salvage his grades, he lost what little support he had. His family and friends all dying in one fell swoop. Taken advantage of by an older and more powerful Vlad, losing his soul, rage consuming him, and becoming a worse monster than any of his “teachers.”
A version of himself from the past coming to beat him. One who had a mentor in Clockwork. One who finally had the help, and the guidance, that Dan never got.
Dan reforming himself. Wanting to be better, but as a ghost his form is made of rage and pain and people can tell that he’s a vengeful, bloody spirit. He’s terrifying. He’s no hero. But he still wants to make up for what he’s done. And though these youngsters already have mentors, he sees himself in them.
So he’ll play the part of the only teachers he ever had.
(Also i wanna see Dan have beef with condiment king and NO ONE KNOWS WHY)
