It is too convenient that only the Supers and some of the Bats are in the Watchtower when they break in, but that's the exact reason why they're doing this right now. Ghost informants are probaby the most accurate out there.
The two young heroes he had picked up when they arrived fall asleep easily in Phantom’s arms after being exposed to Nocturn’s mist, and he hears the mad scream from Batman, asking what he has done to them. He does not really need to try to avoid the various attacks from the other Bats, simply turning intangible. He had expected some ghost weaponry. That was the only reason why the Fright Knight was with him. This is a little too easy.
He notices Superman, Supergirl and Supernova gritting their teeth as they try to fight, despite how human they must feel when exposed to the Infinite Realms’ magic.
Maybe it is cruel, but Danny is more than a little desperate here. He is past the point of being kind.
Danny thought he would be able to deal with it. He just had to keep an eye out and protect his people from the GIW. He had been doing well. Even if someone was captured, he had been able to get them back before anything could be done to them.
He had hoped that campaigning with the other teens, and the few adults who joined the cause in Amity, would be enough for the anti-ecto law to be repealed. And once that happened, he could keep his people protected.
He was wrong.
Lunch Box is missing. She has only been gone for 12 hours, but Danny is pretty sure those are the most important. The only thing he knows is that she still exists, thanks to the perception being the Ghost King gives him. But that is all. He cannot find a trace of her. She is just an infant. She's still so much younger than she was when Danny first met her in the future, and now she is missing, and Danny knows it was most likely the GIW.
He will not be able to find her soon enough. He does not know what the GIW will do with her. He can make an educated guess, but he is not sure. What he does know is that he needs a lot of people acting now, and that the JL has not been reacting in any way to all the chaos.
So yes, when he sees the absolute terror in Batman’s and Superman’s eyes as he kidnaps their youngest, without giving them any chance to react, he knows he may be a bit cruel. But the kids will be okay with them. Lunch Box may not have the same luck.
“The conditions are simple. If you want your kids back, you will have to give ours back. You have three days.”
-_-_-
The JL is panicking. They had not even known Infinite Realms beings existed, yet the King and his knight appeared out of nowhere and took their youngest sidekicks. They cannot even touch them.
The JLD is doubly panicking. Why do they have a law that is basically declaring war on the Infinite Realms? And they need to get that Infinite Realms neverborn saved immediately, from whoever these GIW agents are. Neverborn infants are rare and highly treasured. If something were to happen to that child, it is not just Robin and Superboy they will have to worry about.
The JLD spends longer than they think they should trying to get the JL to understand that their best shot at getting the kids back is to comply with the demands. The Infinite Realms beings are powerful, but they have pride in their word. The kids will be fine as long as they have the neverborn in time.
Danny had to escape his home dimension due to the GIW hurting him too badly during one of their little hunts, causing the ancients to deem Danny’s dimension too dangerous for him. Clockwork gave him a hand making up an identity in another dimension (DC), but he failed to tell Danny that this dimension was nothing like his, and Danny, so focused on getting himself back to his feet and going unnoticed, doesn’t notice that’s the case on his own.
He’s overwhelmed by how much more advanced technology is in this dimension, and with much reason, they’re like XX years over his dimension, but at least he doesn't have to worry about sustainance, since Clockwork placed him on Gotham's academy Scholarship list, and the school is providing for all the basics. He would cry if he had to figure out a job in a place so much more advanced than his own dimension.
Now, Danny knows better than to just repress his powers, he doesn't want a repeat of the freezing incident. Less now that he's alone. Solution: casual use of his powers within his house. But maybe he got a little too used to that, because he kept slipping when having people over. But that's okay, he'll just play dumb and gaslight everyone into believing it didn't happen or Danny has nothing to do with it. After all, powers are not normal, and Danny is a completely normal human boy.
Or at least Danny thought he was playing normal pretty well until his friend from school just created a shadow sphere out of nowhere and started talking about metas and Danny doesn't really hear what else, because his blood is rising in his ear. Is this normal to humans here? Has he been playing human wrong? Shit, how does he ask about what his friend clearly sees to be normal information without giving out he’s from another dimension?
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Duke knows his friend from school is a meta, he’s seen Danny slip with his powers multiple times, and honestly the excuses Danny gives him are getting a little ridiculous at this point. He wants to be able to bond with his friend over the meta experience. So after much thought, he decides to reveal his meta status without revealing the whole extent of his powers. Just to give Bruce some peace about his decision.
But instead of the opening up he had been hoping for, Danny looks completely lost. Did he come on too strong?
"Um, Duke, can everyone just… do that?" Danny asks confused.
"What?"
"I mean, I know growing up in a cult kinda cuts you off from some basic information, but I would have thought we would have at least been told if humans develop the ability to do… that."
"You what?"
Now, learning that Danny grew up in a cult was not how he envisioned this going, but what worries Duke more is that after explaining what meta were, Danny didn’t immediately jump to identify himself as one. So now Duke is worried. Does Danny not know he has powers? Does he actually believe all those excuses he had been giving Duke in the past when he slipped up.
Duke is the one that beliefs Danny thinks he couldn't possibly be a meta because his cult taught him such thing didn't exist. (Danny doesn't reveal he is death during first conversation in this, because Duke is treating him like Danny will break if he approach this wrong and some convenient distraction derails the conversation, so it's not brought up again for a while).
I think Damian should be the one to make the connection between the cults believe of only gaining powers in death and Danny refusing to believe to be a meta, because Danny's alive, so he doesn't belief he could have powers. I think it should be Damian just because it would be funny if he thought it was something obvious they all already implicitly agreed on and finally mentions it really bluntly at some point.
But then Danny says he isn't a meta because he's death. Which brings everyone to believe they finally got to the point where Danny can accept he has powers, but went directly to the death believe due to well ingrained cult belive. So everyone is a bit (really) worried, because someone that believes they're death might endanger themselves.
So everyone it's thinking of ways to make Danny realize he isn't, but all by denying he died.
And then Jason should be the one to finally bring up that maybe the guy did die at some point, and not just the heart stop for a couple of minutes kind of dead, but actual died and came back.
By this point there's a probability for even civilians to be revived, there are multiple cases of massive revival by now. And maybe it was that what activated his meta gene. They don't have enough data to say the gene just activates if the subjects survive the death, maybe revived people with the meta gene could also get it activated.
So if Danny actually died then it would have really help ingrained this particular belief of the cult in his head. Migh be the reason why he can recognize he grew up in a cult and yet belive the cult is right in this one specific case. So they should not approach this as trying to convince Danny he hasn't died, but to convince Danny he's alive again. Jason knows that is hard to process, and it must be near imposible with Danny's cult upbringing.
Danny is finding the Wayne's continuously changing approach kind of amusing by this point. The way their reaction is always directed at looking for he's wellbeing is really helping his nerves, and he's working the courage to bring out the last part of his puzzle to let them know the whole ghost story.
Phantom: Isn't he just the cutest?! His name is Comet, I found this poor kitty all alone behind my appartment building! I think hes whats called a tabby cat!
Robin: Phantom thats a Siberian Tiger!
Phantom: *holding a full grown tiger against his chest, and tilting his head in confusion* Is that his breed?
Miss Martian: Well the zoo break out was fixed, but they're still missing a- oh, you found him! Well done Phantom.
You know I love the whole Clockwork hates Speedsters HC, but I do love the idea of the Speedforce being Clockwork‘s child and thus him seeing the Speedsters as his grandbabies.
His little rascals.
They’re just wittle babies who don’t know that playing with time has consequences.
And they keep trying to fix their mistakes, these little cuties!
Clockwork loves his grandbabies, even if he’s sometimes exasperated by them.
Tim had heard parents joke that one day their kids would have children just like them and finally understand what they'd put their parents through. Bruce had never said that to him, but Tim wondered if he'd thought about it, and if that was the reason why Tim was in this situation.
Danny was a fourteen-year-old Tim had been keeping an eye on. The kid lived in the apartment complex right next to Tim's penthouse, and according to his paperwork, his guardian was one Vladimir Masters, a family friend who had taken him in after his parents died.
Tim had set his sights on the teen because he kept sneaking out at night, and Tim kept finding him close to active battles, just observing, a portable camera usually in hand, though Tim had never seen him actually use it.
By now, it was common for Red Robin to end his patrol by escorting the kid back to his apartment. He was almost giving up on the lectures, as they seemed to have no effect on Danny.
Tim found himself calling Bruce one night to ask for the contact information of the lawyer who had helped him so many times with custody matters, after discovering that there were barely any records of this Vlad Masters ever existing.
He thought he was the only kid crazy enough to pull this kind of shit.
Danny's hyper-independence, dismissal of his own needs, and continual attraction to danger are exhausting to look after. How can he make Danny understand that even if they're not family (yet, Tim is working on that), Tim still cares and worries? How does he make him understand that he can and should rely on him?
What does he need to do to make the kid understand he does want him?
Tim needs to get Bruce a basket or something. He really had no idea how much of a headache he had been giving the man. It had taken Tim, what, two years to start believing himself part of the family? But Bruce had managed to give him a place and a sense of security even with all the family drama they had. He can do the same for Danny.
------
Writer's choice for Danny's side of this, but a few things I've thought of are these:
Danny moved to a different universe with Vlad after things got a little too close to a catastrophe for comfort. It had been easy enough to move funds from one side to the other with the help of some of his ghost friends.
Then Vlad tried to pull some shit, and Danny decided he didn't want to deal with all of this again. He pushed Vlad out of the universe, telling him to find one of his own, and simply continued living.
He doesn't really feel scared at night, being a ghost and all. He actually enjoys flying around and taking pictures with spirits all around, and he has found the vigilantes' fights rather fascinating. They're so different from his battles with ghosts.
Not really, but everyone is convinced he is. He arrived at crime alley around the same time the red hood appeared, he's strong, gets along with the night girls, often gets involved in fights to protect others, and is completely unbothered by death. What really sell it was when someone finally saw him shoot a gun, the guy has a terrific aim.
Sure, no one has seen him take a life, but that's what the vigilantes shit is for, right? So everyone knows this young man is Red Hood, but that's okay, crime alley is good keeping secrets from outsiders.
Danny has no idea everyone thinks this, and is unsure why he has so many hit man's behind his head. He can't even blame this on his ghost side, this men only use human weapons! This is his Fenton luck again, isn't it?
Jason is really interested in meeting who is apparently his civilian ID. Also, kind of worrying to have a civilian carrying his name, seems like a quick way to get the guy kill. Then again, the guy seems to have survived pretty well so far.
Okay, but this implies Jason has been looking for his civilian identity for a while, and keeps getting rumors about him, but somehow isn't able to meet the guy! How does everyone in this neighborhood know this guy except him!?
Tim: I know you feed on emotions. You're an ecto-being, known as Phantom, and you're hiding in Gotham from the government. Your real name is Daniel Fenton.
Danny defeated: Who are you working for? How did they find me?
Tim: Don't worry about that. I'm the only one who knows. Listen, I need your emotional eating abilities. Robin died a few weeks ago, and Batman is losing it. Could you eat his sorrow? Help cut through his fog of grief?
Danny: I- ugh I never tried that?
Tim: Well, now is a good chance to try. Pack your bags, you're moving into Drake Manor as my uncle, and we're going to save Batman.
Danny: Okay?
Tim: You seemed confused. Do I need to explain the plan again?
Danny: I'm not confused. I didn't expect this when I opened the door to a seven-year-old.
Tim: I'm thirteen.
Danny: I'm so sorry. Are you not being feed?
Tim: Everyone blooms at their own time!
Danny: Sure, buddy.
Tim: You-! You will actually do really well at posing as an annoying uncle. You're on thin ice, though. So watch it.
Danny: I'll take that threat more seriously when you can reach my chin.
Danny has gotten very good at getting into and exploring the internet. Not only from having to follow Technus through it, but also because it was fun!
So it shouldn't have been a surprise that when the time came when he had to escape Amity Park for good, he did it through the web. He had never gone outside the city's servers before, so he did get a bit lost, but soon he was exploring all around the world.
He knew he had to get out of the web eventually, but the persecution had left him a little traumatized. It was safe in there, and he was healing well, or at least his pixelated body seemed okay. And okay, maybe online food was a little tasteless and numbed his tongue, but it was keeping him fed, so who cared.
Through his exploration, he's found something strange though. It doesn't matter which server he jumps to, he always sees traces of the same digital signature. If he wasn't literally within the internet, he wouldn't have noticed, but it becomes easier to identify the more he sees it. So he eventually decides to follow.
That's how Danny ends up in Oracle's computer, and there was SO much to explore here.
---
Something has gotten into her system. She hasn't told anyone yet. There's a big stakeout going on, and the bats and birds can't risk getting distracted, but it is driving her crazy.
She's been using her laptop for her Oracle activities to decrease the risk of the thing getting any information on current patrols, but she hasn't been able to lock it out of the data stored on her main computer or erase enough information to keep it away from anything sensitive.
It has been beyond stressful doing everything on a simple laptop after years of using her constantly upgraded setup.
Oracle can't even identify what it is. It isn't behaving like a virus or spyware, but more importantly, she can't get rid of it. It keeps avoiding all her attempts... almost as if it were alive.
After another frustrated night guiding the vigilantes of Gotham with her laptop, she decides to try and communicate with whatever did this. She creates an open chat.
She doesn't think it will actually get any results, but soon she's getting a text."Your computer is crazy!" accompanied by an anime-like emoticon of a pale boy with green eyes and white hair blinking.
---
Or: From what I've seen, Oracle is carrying a crazy amount of work, and I think she deserves a little helper.
Clippy!Danny isn't dissuading the rumors that Oracle is a sapient AI or some kind of supernatural seer-technopath-nonhuman-something.
Just as he found Babs via those subtle hidden traces of Oracles Network Everywhere, her setup and network now also have inescapable Vibes and traces of Being Haunted. Maybe not strongly anywhere but the Mains, yet, but if he starts helping enough?
Yeah, O already vibes the creepy green glow effect On Purpose when taking over other systems (like the Watchtower) and talking to people over them, he fits right in. Lean into the Vibes, Danno. Pick a suitable related Theme/Title to use with Strangers, even if you are Just Lil Danny Phantom to Babs herself. Something spooky but Flavored to match her.
Oracle knows all and sees all and can control a LOT if she feels like it. (Not even a confirmed She to almost anyone who doesn't know her face to face even under masks. Robot Voice.) What kind of lil messenger or assistant would suit them? Hm...
I vote Tiresias, the dead prophet in greek mythology who helps Odysseus in the underworld. If he would actually listen lol.
Danny has worked with Clockwork, he absolutely has the undead offhand comments and suggestions that the Bats will find backfiring if they ignoring them. Between Clockwork and Oracle he is a lot better at not rushing in, but also doubled down on being a little shit.
During one point when a Bat is in mortal peril he just uses the com link as a endgate to save them.
Danny has gotten very good at getting into and exploring the internet. Not only from having to follow Technus through it, but also because it was fun!
So it shouldn't have been a surprise that when the time came when he had to escape Amity Park for good, he did it through the web. He had never gone outside the city's servers before, so he did get a bit lost, but soon he was exploring all around the world.
He knew he had to get out of the web eventually, but the persecution had left him a little traumatized. It was safe in there, and he was healing well, or at least his pixelated body seemed okay. And okay, maybe online food was a little tasteless and numbed his tongue, but it was keeping him fed, so who cared.
Through his exploration, he's found something strange though. It doesn't matter which server he jumps to, he always sees traces of the same digital signature. If he wasn't literally within the internet, he wouldn't have noticed, but it becomes easier to identify the more he sees it. So he eventually decides to follow.
That's how Danny ends up in Oracle's computer, and there was SO much to explore here.
---
Something has gotten into her system. She hasn't told anyone yet. There's a big stakeout going on, and the bats and birds can't risk getting distracted, but it is driving her crazy.
She's been using her laptop for her Oracle activities to decrease the risk of the thing getting any information on current patrols, but she hasn't been able to lock it out of the data stored on her main computer or erase enough information to keep it away from anything sensitive.
It has been beyond stressful doing everything on a simple laptop after years of using her constantly upgraded setup.
Oracle can't even identify what it is. It isn't behaving like a virus or spyware, but more importantly, she can't get rid of it. It keeps avoiding all her attempts... almost as if it were alive.
After another frustrated night guiding the vigilantes of Gotham with her laptop, she decides to try and communicate with whatever did this. She creates an open chat.
She doesn't think it will actually get any results, but soon she's getting a text."Your computer is crazy!" accompanied by an anime-like emoticon of a pale boy with green eyes and white hair blinking.
---
Or: From what I've seen, Oracle is carrying a crazy amount of work, and I think she deserves a little helper.
And before that Babara didn't know he couldn't leave to taste the food for himself. So she tried really hard to explain to the AI thingy how tastes work. Like explaining the colors of the sky to a blind person. She's trying to compare sweetness to kitten videos. And explains how hot can be both a sense of taste and a temperature. At least the ai should know temperature right? The servers can overheat
Danny revealed his identity to his parents, and it went great! They retracted their previous investigation and were working on new articles that proved ghosts were sentient. As is usual with the Fenton's, they were very vocal about their change in opinion, which meant it wasn't long before the GIW knew about it.
They could not have articles defending ghosts sentience. The Fenton's started receiving a lot of threats, but never gave even an inch. They were two weeks from finishing their article when an "accident" took the whole family. Danny as the only survivor due to his ghostly nature, but he needed to lay low.
He was looking for ways to get justice for his family and finally get the GIW shut down, when he found an article about a lab involved in illegal meta experimentation being shut down due to an article.
The authors of said Article?
Lois Lane and Clark kent.
Que to Danny visiting the Daily Planet and very smoothly using his powers to get past any security and straight to Lois's desk.
Superman is Danny's honorary older brother DC X DP - Part 3
Previous Part
The Conversation. P2
“How did you meet your clone?”
“What?” He turned his face to peek back at Danny. “Don’t you know that already?”
“I’ve heard everyone else's recounting of it. I wanna hear yours.”
Clark felt his tongue go heavy in his mouth, and he returned his sight to the floor. He had tried not to think about it. Not that that had been any successful, his mind kept circling back to it, but he had tried nonetheless. Silence stretched between them and Clark felt ridiculous for not starting to talk. It’s not like it had really been a big event. Nothing had happened to Clark. All he did was meet a kid.
And still, that small meeting had been the start of Clark's restless anxiety, cold anger, and consuming shame that had weighed on him for over a month now.
“Hey, if you don’t want to talk about it-”
“No. Um… I will, I just…”
Clark let out a long breath, and stood to his feet walking slowly to the front wall and eventually laying his back on it to face Danny. He hoped the motion would at least kick his mouth into motion, but the words remained stubbornly trapped.
Danny just looked at him patiently, without offering a second out, because that’s how they talked through things. Because they had agreed long ago that once an out had been denied, offering to drop the subject again would only stress them out.
Clark looked back at the window. From this angle he could see the moon. It wasn’t a full moon, it was in its waxing gibbous phase. The outside was completely dark at this point, with few lights on like Danny's and Clarks. It was a shame Clark could see the hints of clouds approaching. It would likely start raining soon.
He swallowed. “The league had been keeping an eye on project Cadmus for 32 days.” He started like he did with any other mission debrief in the league, eyes focussed on that moon that was slowly getting hidden by the clouds. It made it easier to talk. “Almost everything that Lex Luthor is involved in is kept under supervision, since it often develops into plans to harm metahumans.”
“Often you specifically.” Danny added.
Clark nodded. “That day, a fire at project Cadmus went unchecked in order to prioritize a JLD call about an incident involving Wotan which required full league response.”
“Oh, it's rare for Justice Dark to want heavy hitters around enemies with mind control.”
“Yeah.” Clark huffed through his nose.
It was clear Danny had caught up with his attempt of separating himself, and was trying to make it more conversational by adding his own comments. It was fair game, as Clark did the same when Danny tried to do it, but it was still annoying.
“Batman received the alert that Project Cadmus building had collapsed, and discovered that Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad were there. Most of the Justice league was already reunited to deal with Wotan, and Project Cadmus was something we had to check. It was decided that in order to resolve any collateral damage of the collapsed building, deal with anything that would be uncovered, and reprehend the young heroes, everyone available would go to Project Cadmus.”
“So basically trying to intimidate the kids into behaving using the excuse of the collapsed building.” Danny quipped.
Clark didn’t answer this time. In the end all the context hadn’t been anything more than more delayment for the actual meeting. He had been doing that a lot lately, delaying and avoiding.
“I arrived first. A kid that later would be identified as my clone, stepped forward and he...” He passes his hands through his hair, Every attempt at separating himself fell to the ground when it really came to it. “It was like looking at a picture of myself as a teen, just a little to the left. And Danny, the kid looked at me with so much yearning, like he’s been waiting all his life to meet me, and thinking about it he probably has.”
“How did you answer to that?”
“I didn’t. I couldn't. Our similarities were eerie and I couldn’t tell you what my face did, but I remember my jaw tightening, and the boy's face quickly falling into anger. I missed most of the kids' debriefs after he confirmed he was my clone.”
“Okay… what happened after that?”
Clark is still having a hard time grasping how calm Danny remains about it all. If he didn’t know all of Danny’s tales, he would think he was simply holding back his anger.
“Well, a building had collapsed, and an illegal project had been uncovered, there wasn’t really a lack of ways to excuse myself. So I left the kids to Batman and… made sure to give my back to the kids while I discussed things with Wonder Women and Martian Manhunter.”
“So that you didn't have to interact with the boy or so that you wouldn’t have to look at him?”
“Both… I could feel the boy staring at me the whole time, and I tried really hard to pretend I didn't. I was hoping that somehow, someway, I would be able to get through the whole debrief without having to acknowledge him again. But I couldn't keep it up when Martian Manhunter pointed it out, so I went to the kid.”
“And I'm guessing that conversation didn't go too well?”
“I tried to think of something to tell him, talk to him like I would with any other kid we’d find involved in illegal business, but, and I know how bad this sounds Danny, but I really couldn’t bear to look at him. I managed to briefly tell him the Justice League would figure something for him and ended up scurrying away to the watchtower.” Clark finished lamely.
He really felt stupid. Almost 10 minutes hyping himself up to talk about such a small thing, and yet he isn't sure he would do it a second time.
“I think you managed it pretty well, actually.” Danny said almost nonchalantly after a couple of seconds.
Clark's eyes snapped back to Danny from the window. Danny wasn’t looking back at Clark, eyes stuck somewhere in front of him in a thoughtful frown.
“What?”
“I mean, it's not like you screamed at the kid or attacked him. You even let him know he wouldn't be left to fend for himself.” His eyes drifted to look up at Clark.
“You’re giving me too much credit.” Clark said, feeling a bit numb. “I just threw him at the Justice League and then kept avoiding the boy from then on.”
Clark had heard the complaint a thousand times, from Bruce, from Diana, from Arthur, from Barry, even from Dick that one time the kid came to visit for the first time after their Young Justice group was created.
“I’m not saying the boy doesn’t deserve better Clark, or that you managed it perfectly, just that it could have been worse.”
Clark kept staring at Danny “I may not know how things were for Ellie and you, but I won’t believe you if you tell me you reacted worse Danny. Ellie has said that the day she met you was a pretty fun one before.”
Danny made an exasperated grunt. “Can you stop searching for a correct way to react in my own story? The circumstances in which we met our clones were completely different, Clark.”
Clark frowned. “I don’t think different circumstances would affect that much-”
“I didn't know Ellie was my clone when I met her.” Danny deadpanned, making Clark pause. “Ellie appeared in my room one afternoon claiming to be my third cousin once removed, and that she had run away from home. My parents said Vlad found her roaming around and had already talked to her father, supposedly a cousin my dad hadn’t met.”
“And they… believed him?”
Danny shrugged, “You know how even to this day my dad trusts anything Vlad says unconditionally.”
Clark sighted. “Right.” He had a lot of problems with Danny’s parents and wished he had cut them off from his life completely but… that wasn’t Clark's choice to make. They’ve had a few fights about that. “So Ellie just pretended to be your cousin and you weren’t suspicious about it?”
“Oh, I was a thousand percent suspicious… and worried, but not about her being my cousin." Danny peeked up at the portrait for a minute, then look down at where his hand started playing with his sleeve, searching for words. "My dad’s side of the family has always liked to joke that their genes were the strongest, and with her being a girl and four years younger, I didn’t immediately suspect clones. Not sure I would have suspected clones even if she had been my same gender and age, that simply was not within the realms of possibilities for me.”
“Then what were you suspicious of?” Clark asked with a frown.
“I honestly didn’t know, just that she may be up to something shady? Maybe getting something out of my parents lab? I didn’t think it could be more than that, she was ten, and as far as I knew at that point, just a normal little kid. But Vlad was the one that vouched for her, and that man wasn’t beneath using little kids.”
Danny brought his legs up to hug them and glared at the floor. It was the first time he had shown the conversation was difficult for him as well, not just because words were hard, but because the subject hurt, and Clark felt bad about opening old scars.
He opened his mouth to tell Danny that it wasn’t necessary to talk about it if he didn’t want to, that he could figure out this whole cloning situation without making Danny unearth memories he’d long buried, but before he could, Danny slightly raised a hand with one finger up, asking him to just wait him up.
Danny’s comment about him and Ellie never really dwelling on their own experiences lingered in Clark’s mind. It made Clark wonder whether Danny had ever had the chance to tell his cloning story to someone who would listen patiently. Whether he had carried this alone for years, and whether this was the first time he had spoken about it at all.
Sure, Jazz had helped Ellie and Danny sort out boundaries and communication, but that didn’t mean they’d ever talked about the experience itself. It was a pattern he’d noticed often with the Phantom Team: They rarely really talk about the things that have happened. It wasn’t really necessary when everyone was present enough to know the gist of it, present enough to make inside jokes about it, so why talk it out?
Clark had become an outside person Danny could talk to about his hero work, just like Danny had been for him, but they never really dwelled on the past either, did they? Just on the new things that happened. And maybe, opening up about this was not only for Clark's sake, but for Danny’s too.
By the time Danny started talking again, the first droplets were falling against their window, moon and stars fully covered by dark clouds.
“I kept trying to find evidence that Vlad was using her for something, but I thought I had found it all when the second week of her staying with us Ellie transformed to help during one of my battles with the new ghosts that were appearing. To say I was absolutely horrified would be an understatement.”
“...You thought Vlad had killed her.”
Danny nodded slowly, glaring harder at the floor. “And Ellie leaned into it. Made up some story about Vlad offering shelter, that turning into her getting invited into the lab, and Vlad killing her with the portal. According to Ellie, the man found out it wasn’t enough to have any halfa because he wanted me specifically. She managed to escape and get to their home, and to cover his tracks Vlad made up the whole thing with her parents.”
Clark stared at Danny appalled. He knew how sensitive death was for Danny, how important it was for him. It was hard to imagine the Ellie that he knew would make up a death story to… cover her origins? Especially as a neverborn. Clark will not pretend to understand the intricacies of the infinite realm's culture, but he knows that death-borns find it extremely offensive for neverborn to speak freely about the experience of death, something most neverborns are conscient about.
Danny peeked up at Clark from the floor after a moment of silence, and Clark’s face must be reflecting just how he feels, as Danny huffs a humorless laugh.
“Yeah, even to this day I still get mad thinking about how she made that all up, but she didn’t exactly understand the depths of what she was saying, and has apologized for that since.”
“That’s good…” He said, still feeling uncomfortable with the idea Ellie had done that. “But then when did you find out about her being your clone?”
“I’m going there.” He said, rolling his eyes at Clark's impatience. “After that “reveal” I became extremely protective of Ellie, and she kept integrating in our lives. She met my friends, sometimes sneaked into school, went with us to Nasty Burger and sometimes fought ghosts with me. It wasn’t until a month later that Vlad attacked us and this “perfect” routine fell to the ground.”
“Did he try to take Ellie back?”
Danny shook his head. “He came with the objective of capturing me. By that point I completely trusted Ellie to fight beside me, so I didn’t see it coming when she blasted me in the back.”
“She did what?” Clark exclaimed.
“It turned out that had been the plan all along, Ellie had been gaining my trust to be able to easily capture me.” Danny shrugged like Ellie betraying him wasn’t a big deal. Like being blasted by someone you were becoming close to wasn't a big deal.
He hated how easily Danny accepted that loved ones could attack him, another thing Jack and Maddie had accustomed him to. He resisted the urge of redirecting the conversation into addressing that, it would be an easy scape from the whole clone thing... something Clark still desperately wanted to drop, but that wouldn't be fair for Danny.
“So it was then that you discovered she was your clone?”
“I mean, not during that battle, no. Vlad revealed it while I was trapped in one of his restraint inventions. You know, during his great villain monologue. Not only was it revealed that Ellie was my clone, but that pretty much all of the “new” ghosts that had been attacking those months were failed attempts at cloning me.”
Clark shifted uncomfortably. Attempts at cloning. He hadn’t thought about that yet. Cloning couldn’t be easy. How many attempts were made before the "successful" clone he met was achieved? He shook the thought out of his head to focus back on Danny’s story.
“So how did you react then? To the whole clone revelation?”
“Well, I told Vlad he was a crazed up fruitloop, but I didn’t exactly have the time to have much of a reaction besides that before Vlad knocked me out again”
“So you didn’t say anything to Ellie?”
“She wasn’t around for the great reveal, and…” Danny munched on his words for a moment, and then sighted. “Look, I don’t want to get into detail, but a lot happened that day, there wasn’t really time to actually process the clone thing. I did what all heroes do when experiencing traumatic things but still having to be a hero.”
“Placed it in a mental box to deal with later?" Danny nodded. "You were too busy with Vlad to actually have a reaction about the clones.” Clark said, realizing what Danny meant with how different their circumstances were.
“Yep," Danny said popping the p. "By the end of the day Ellie accepted Vlad didn’t care about her, and we both escaped with my friend's help, but once we were back home we didn’t really talk things out, Ellie said she needed space and told my parents she was ready to return home.”
Clark frowned. “Wait. If she didn’t stay with you, and wouldn’t go back with Vlad, where did she go? Didn’t you say she was 10 at the time?”
Danny nodded and grimaced. “She basically wandered from city to city as a street kid, and if I’m honest to you Clark, I didn’t really question it until the second time she came back around, when I gave her a way to communicate and Sam made me the enormous flavour of using her funds to sustain her while I got my own.”
“How long did Ellie wonder alone before that happened?” Clark questioned worriedly.
He hated the image of 10 year old Ellie fending for herself in the streets. Ellie had moved into his apartment not long after Danny did. He had assumed she had been living with Danny's parents up till then... He had assumed a lot of things about his siblings past.
If Ellie was used to roaming the world by herself from such a young age, it made sense she decided to pick up the travelling once more the moment she turned 18.
“Almost three months, and I know it isn’t great to have a 10 year old out and about. Trust me, I’m not proud of that.” Danny said resigned with the past he couldn’t change.
Clark quickly shook his head, he hadn’t meant for it to be accusatory. “You were a child, there wasn’t much-”
“I know. It doesn’t change that I wished it had been different.” Danny said calmly. “But you see how we had completely different circumstances now don’t you? You can’t base your reaction on mine Clark. You didn’t know this boy before discovering he was your clone, you have no relation with him other than the fact he has your genetic material, and you didn’t have some big fight happening that allowed you to just pack everything in a box while you worked together with him to get out of the situation.”
“I… Okay, yeah, you're right. I can see how our circumstances would give us space for different reactions”
Clark sighted. It was uncomfortable to have how different it went for the both of them placed so plainly in front of him. In a way he was thinking of Danny and Ellie as a clear marking about how it all should go. He isn’t sure how he thought that, when he basically didn’t know anything about how they constructed their present relationship as siblings.
Clark looked back at the window. The rain was still going strong and Clark let his mind get lost in the sound of water falling. He knew there was a lot of his story that Danny wasn’t telling him, but Clark wasn’t about to dig for more than Danny was willing to share. He was not interviewing Danny, this was just a conversation between siblings.
It was also apparent that Danny wasn’t going to judge his reaction to his clone, even more willing to excuse it than Clark himself. After months of anxious fear for Danny’s reaction the real conversation was relieving but it also left Clark feeling somewhat numb, and he wasn’t sure where to take the conversation from there.
He actually wished they could drop it there, and with the silence growing, he actually thought Danny had decided the same. Except, when he turned to look at his little brother, he realized Danny was just waiting him out.
Superman is Danny's honorary older brother DC X DP - Part 1
Next part
Avoidance
It has been 7 years since Danny met Clark.
Danny had to deal with some territorial conflicts within the infinite realms, and wasn't able to return to his own dimension for a bit over a month. Of course this meant that the craziest things had to happen while he was out of the dimension.
When he returned to their apartment, instead of Clark, he found a note the man had left in case he returned. It said that he would be out of the city for sometime for investigative work. Danny didn’t pay it any mind, that happened some times, but it did mean that Clark didn’t fill him in on anything that had happened while he was gone.
That sure wasn’t a problem, not when everyone in the watchtower were eager to update him themselves.
Apparently, Aqualad, Robin and Kid Flash decided they wanted to have a bigger role in the hero world, and in order to prove themselves went on a self assigned mission that uncovered a secret lab with... A clone of superman.
The kids then were able to get into a Batman approved team, joined by Superman's Clone, Martian Man hunters niece, and Green Arrow's new sidekick (Apparently Speedy decided to become independent? He'll have to check on the kid later). Which really, Phantom thought was great for the kids. He was always of the thought that it was better to give them supervised liberty, and it was long due for the heroes to let go a bit more of those kids' leash.
But the thing everyone he talked to seemed to be focussed on was how Superman hadn't taken to the clone thing too well. Phantom got at least 6 people asking him to talk some sense into Clark. It was honestly a bit uncomfortable...
Phantom hadn't really talked much about Ellie with the hero club. He, much like Batman, hadn't been as open with his identity. No one really questioned it because he was Superman’s little brother. In their eyes, Danny's family was Clark's family. Few had bothered looking closer, not when he wasn't that involved with the league.
Danny was pretty sure the only one that had noticed he didn't share a last name with Clark was Bruce, and only Ancients knew what else the bat knew about Danny. But as far as Danny was aware, the only one that knew that Ellie was a clone, was Clark, and even then, he didn’t exactly know the whole story. Everyone else that got to meet Ellie thought they were siblings.
And there were few people that got to meet her, what with Ellie spending most of her life out of the country.
So Phantom knew that they were asking this only as Superman's brother, not knowing how personal this situation was for him.
Danny wasn’t so sure how exactly he was supposed to approach this, he didn’t even feel comfortable asking his friends or Jazz about this. Sure, they knew Ellie was his clone, but they weren’t really there for all of it. They hadn’t been cloned, hadn’t been tortured, hadn’t seen Ellie melt. But Danny knew he had to approach it, and soon, before Clark decided to move out or something.
It had been weeks since Danny had returned to the city, and Clark hadn’t returned home once. He kept saying he had jobs out of the city or that needed him to stay somewhere else, like Danny didn’t know Clark had to take the offers himself to get that much travel work. It was cheating, Danny didn’t feel like having this conversation through the phone.
Even Lois and Jimmy had called separately to ask if they had fought, and if everything was okay (Danny suspected Clark had stayed in their apartments some nights), but it reached a ridiculous point when Perry called to make a wellness check. Of course it would be weird if Clark decides he wants to be out of the city as much as possible out of nowhere.
He was getting his brother to talk to him one way or another.
-_-_-_-_-_-
Danny sighed, feeling a bit ridiculous as he stood on top of the daily planet globe, but he was running out of options with Clark avoiding him so badly. Sure, this probably wouldn’t be as effective as it was for Lois when Clark knew that even if it would really hurt for a couple of hours, he would survive hitting the concrete, but he was still 80% sure it would work.
“Okay. Clark? I know you can hear me. If you don’t appear here in the next minute, I’m gonna jump off here and fall to the concrete. I’m not floating to stop the fall, you hear me!? Don’t think I’m not capable of letting my body go against the concrete!”
Danny started slowly counting down from 60, getting more and more annoyed as the numbers went down.
“3. 2. 1…. I can’t believe you’re actually gonna make me jump you asshole." Danny mumbled the last words before taking a step off the globe.
He heard Lois scream when he took the jump.
Shit, he hadn’t noticed she was there. Why was she there? Wasn’t it far past working hours? Right, Lois was pretty workaholic, or well, as she liked to call it, passionate.
Well, this could actually result in a problem if he let himself fall to the concrete. Lois and Jimmy may know Clark was Superman, but Danny had never revealed Phantom…
Eh, more reason for Clark to actually appear and catch him. For which he’s taken quite the time isn’t he? Like, Danny already passed the half point, is clark really going to-
“Why are my loved ones so at ease doing this to get my attention?” Superman said with a sigh as Danny sagged in his arms.
“You didn’t leave me with much choice.” Danny said glaring at Superman.
“I-”
“Danny!” Lois screamed getting out of the building, her hair a mess and completely winded.
“Did you run all the way down here?” Danny asked as he got off Superman’s arms. He was pretty sure Lois wasn’t on the lower floors when he jumped, it was pretty impressive she was all the way down here already.
“That doesn’t matter! What were you thinking!?” Lois screamed while roughly checking on Danny.
“Why are you mad at this!? You do it all the time!” Danny complains.
“That’s not important. And you. Smallville. You sure took your sweet time getting here! Were you not worried about Danny!? Whatever fight you two are having can not be worth losing him!”
Superman sighted. “Of course not Lois, and I told you, we aren’t fighting.”
“Hard to believe, when it has come down to this.” Lois grunted with her arms crossed.
There was a moment of silence, as neither of them were sure how to go from there, then Superman talked once more.
“I have to go-”
“Absolutely Not!” Danny screamed at the same time Lois exclaimed “Don’t you dare take a single step Smallville.”
“Look, I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but it’ll never get resolved if you don’t talk it through.”
“Please Clark… I don’t like how you’ve been avoiding me.” Danny said, and his voice might have been a little whiny, but he really did hate it, and Superman still doubting how to proceed honestly hurt a little.
Superman finally sighted. “Okay… yeah, we should talk, but…” He looked a little uncomfortably at Lois.
Lois huffed. “I’ll go back to the building, I didn’t exactly pick after myself when I left. But really. Talk whatever this is through.” She looked pointedly at both of them.
“Don’t worry, we will.” Danny answered. Once Lois was inside the building, Danny tried one of his usual teases to break the tension, “So, when are you going to finally ask her out?” But Superman didn’t rise to the bait, instead looking away with what seemed like shame.
“Let’s… just go back home and get this conversation over.” Superman said finally.
“Sure, but you’re carrying me. I’m not letting you disappear on me, and… Lois may still be looking through the window.”
“You could just let her know you’re Phantom, you know?” Superman says as he carries up Danny once more.
“Not before you marry her.”
“We aren’t even dating yet.”
“Yet?”
The frustrated groan Superman lets out makes Danny relax. At least a little bit.
They weren’t back home in seconds, like they could be. With Danny’s resistance Superman could use his full speed, but this time he barely went any faster than he would if they were going by car. Danny didn’t blame him for it, he was nervous, had been dragging talking with Danny for weeks now and it seems he wanted to drag it longer. Danny was okay with it, he still wasn’t sure how he would approach it all.
When they finally arrived home, Danny let Superman change out of the suit first, and as he expected, his brother chose to do it at a normal human speed.
Danny sat on their couch as he waited, letting his head fall backwards and looking up at the ceiling.
He felt out of his depth. He was the one that asked Clark the difficult questions about life, and Clark used to be the one asking hero tips. Now Clark was basically a full fledged hero, hadn’t needed Danny’s help on that department in years, and Clones… well, clones were both a hero question and a difficult life question.
The problem was that there weren't even any questions to begin with, just a conversation that needed to be had.
One Clark didn’t even want to have. And… okay, it was a complicated subject, but Danny didn’t get why it turned into Clark completely avoiding him all this time. He could have just avoided the topic, or told Danny he didn’t want to talk about it. Don’t they know each other enough to know Danny would have respected that?
Phantom's Room: *trashed and messy with three broken space shuttles, a torn poster, and multiple glow in the dark stars tangled in the carpet instead of stuck on the ceiling*
Robin, Young Justice cowering behind him: We're so sorry Phantom! It was an accident, I swear! We were just-We were just-
Phantom, voice tight: Robin, silence.
Robin: *shuts his mouth*
Phantom: Right now, I am á̰̘̠̺͎͖ͤ͂n̴̵̘̲̳͚̠ͣ͂g̶̪̤̗͍ͭ͌̋̔ṙ̶̻͖͒͂̍̉y̸̖̝̻̞̾͛ͫͤͣ̍͋. However, instead of ruining the timeline by personally "escorting" you all to the Realms with my b̷̏͗͗ͨ͗̔͗̃a̸̞̦̫̹̜ͪ̑͂r̵̷̦̹͔̪̬͍̙ͦ̆̅͛̂ͮ̋e͎̞͇̥͛̀ͣ̋ͯ̓̅ h̸͕͙̣̼̖͈̗ͧͩ͋͆ͧ̋͛a̸͕͖̍n̷̶͎͈̖̟̮̙͎̆͂ͧ̔͋͛d̷̥͔̙̙̲̃ͣ͐ͅs̵̨̻̺̫͈̭̬̯͒̃ͭͪ̑ͅ like I so desperately want to, I am instead going to the Realms to brawl with my fellow ghosts. I do not know when I will be back, but until I am: S̶̻̞͋ͥ͂̌ͤ͗ͣt͍͇̞̰̘̜ͦ̏͊̆ͧa̶̦̰͍̙̍ͭ̽̀y̵̨̠͍̺͛̑̏ͅ o̰͍̻̪̭̞̹̠ͫ͌͛ͨͬṵ̝͙̫͉̣̰ͮt͓̲͗̇ͧ̏̉ ō͖f̴̴̫̝̩͎͇ mͧ̽͒ͪ̂̌y̴̶̬͕̞̥̯͛̀ͦͥͪͅ ṛ̶̶̪̯̰o̶͌ͨͮ̏̏o̷̧m̷̞̍̅̃͒̾ͦ͋!̨̗̳̇̌̍̆ͨͣ̽͒ Understood?
Young Justice: *gulping as they all nod their heads frantically*
Phantom: Good. Now get ǫ̷͚ͯu̝̘̟̫̮̪̳̜ͧ͒ţ̶̥̹̌͌̃͗ͤ͊́̎!̴̵̱̻͉̗͔̞̥̳͌͑ͩ̍ *shoves them out of his now trashed room and slams the door behind them*
Kid Flash: Well, that went well.
Young Justice: *groans*
Artemis: Did Phantom just insinuate, that if it wouldn't ruin the timeline, he would have killed us?
Robin: A moment of silence as thanks to the timeline for saving our lives.
Why? Pick your poison, but Dani ends up having to take care of her "older" brother... while homeless... and traveling... and surviving by stealing food.
That's when another hero finds a twelve-year-old trying to figure out how to change a super-powered baby boy's diaper in a dark alley, and comes to some obvious (and some not-so-obvious) conclusions.
I don’t think Tween mom is the obvious conclusion unless there was some additional factor. If I saw a homeless tween changing a diaper my first guess would be younger sibling. Given the baby’s powers I’d guess either ran away from a meta hating home or escaped from a meta trafficking ring.
Fair enough. But same in reverse unless Danny’s at least 17 my first guess would probably be sibling.
And also SAME, but I usually like keeping them like siblings in my stuff. I like them bouncing bad ideas and chaos off each other. And giving them the teasing sibling dynamic. If I do deage then I’d usually just lower Danny to Dani’s age and make them twins. I just feel like you lose some of the character/personality when you turn them into a baby.
On a sidenote, why do people always deage characters into babies/toddlers? They’re so little characterization you can do with characters that young. But if you instead turn them into children then they still have some level of personality/independence you can play with.
Idk it’s just always weird to me when a character is reduced to like six or younger because that sounds like a nightmare suddenly loosing a lot of your consciousness and being forced into a helpless state.
Why? Pick your poison, but Dani ends up having to take care of her "older" brother... while homeless... and traveling... and surviving by stealing food.
That's when another hero finds a twelve-year-old trying to figure out how to change a super-powered baby boy's diaper in a dark alley, and comes to some obvious (and some not-so-obvious) conclusions.
I don’t think Tween mom is the obvious conclusion unless there was some additional factor. If I saw a homeless tween changing a diaper my first guess would be younger sibling. Given the baby’s powers I’d guess either ran away from a meta hating home or escaped from a meta trafficking ring.
