Scratch that, actually. Apparently, he was here because he’s a Drake. So, he knew the why, actually.
It’s the how and where that got a little muddled somewhere in there.
So, the how... based on visual evidence, he was going to say magic was the probable cause.
The where... the Fae Wildes? Though, how Janet and Jack Drake managed to have a standing invitation to the coronation of a fairy was not something Tim was particularly capable of answering. Maybe Tim wasn't too far off when he was five and wondering if Janet was actually part of the fae.
Hold on, would that make him, like, half fairy? Well, maybe not - iron, after all, was something he barely put any thought into touching.
Regardless, he should maybe not eat anything or give his name out. Which was an interesting idea when he was at what appeared to be a gala, of sorts. Then again, Tim wasn't particularly keen on the idea of networking with the supernatural and fairytales.
"See, I have to give him the most elaborate box," Tim could hear one of the fae telling another - the former looking, strangely, like a dock worker and the latter like a toddler ready for her first day of preschool. "That way, he knows I can set aside my Obsession when in times of need."
"But, mama's Obsession is feeding people her cooking - how does she honor King Phantom today?" The toddler asked.
"You see that really tall cake over there?" The dock worker asked, pointing over towards what Tim had assumed was the buffet tables. "No one is allowed to eat it. It's why mama is over there guarding it."
All Tim could see over there was a 1950's school lunch lady, so he was tempted to say that that was 'mama'.
"Hmm," the toddler put her hand on her chin in a classic thinking pose, "well, I don't have an Obsession yet so I'm gonna give Phantom this cool rock I found." She nodded as though saying and that's that.
Well, shit.
Tim had to give a gift? And one related to... an obsession? He guessed, if he'd had forewarning before being dragged to this coronation, that he could've gifted a photo of Batman and Robin. That's really the only obsession that he could think of himself having...
"Well, you're an odd one out," a teasing voice stated next to Tim, making him turn away from the supposed father-daughter pair who were oo-ing and ahh-ing over... kryptonite??
Tim met breathtaking blue eyes. Unlike the fae around him, Tim could see that the man speaking to him wasn't glowing and seemed much more human. What were they called- a thrall? A human who was tricked into fae servitude or whatever? Or was that just, like, vampires that took thralls?
First things first, when he got home, he was going to dedicate a couple weeks to learning all about the supernatural. Maybe a month or two.
"Sorry?" Tim asked, pasting a polite smile on his face.
"Oh, don't be, always interesting to see a new face." The man grinned back, "and you seem a bit confused about what's going on. I could help you, answer all your questions, for a price."
Of course, even the humans in the Fae Wildes demanded equivalent exchange.
"What would be the price?" Tim asked, because it might even be something that Tim could pay. Knowledge was almost always worth the price one was willing to pay for it.
"Just one date," the man lifted a finger, his eyes staring at Tim intensely. "One date, in your realm, without any strings attached. First date etiquette, so handholding but nothing else. A kiss at the end if we both agree the date was successful." If the man didn't look so confident, so unbreakable, Tim would say the specification would indicate nervousness. So, the details were part of the deal? Did every deal in the Fae Wildes get written in their souls or something, so the specificity of the deal was important? Or was this man so used to dealing with fae that he'd been specific out of habit?
"And how many questions on what topics am I allowed for one date?"
"You may ask me questions until I am needed elsewhere, on whatever topic you should want. I am allowed to veto any questions that I believe violate someone's privacy, however."
"Deal," Tim held out his hand to shake on it. A cold power seemed to seep into Tim's hand on contact, causing him to shiver. "Whose coronation is this?"
"Oh, you know actually nothing, huh? It's Phantom's coronation."
"Who is Phantom?"
"Oh, just some guy that beat the last king. The last king was some sort of tyrant, so this celebration is actually pretty important to everyone here." The man shrugged, as though power switching hands happened every day.
"I overheard someone talking about honoring the new king; what does that mean?" Tim was rushing through his questions, he knew, but he'd been given an uncertain timeline to obtain his answers.
"For some people, that means finding the most rare and exotic things to gift to the king. I heard that some of them are planning on challenging the king to a duel, to pay homage to how they met the king. For those without connections or strength to back them up, they instead deny their Obsession for the day to prove their loyalties." The man, meanwhile, answered the questions as though he were leisurely chatting with Tim.
"Obsession? That sounds like it's capitalized."
"Well, sure. That's 'cause it is. An Obsession is someone's entire existence, the reason they metaphorically get out of bed in the morning. It can be as simple as a drive to be remembered or the desire to protect those important to them. Every human wants to be remembered and to protect their loved ones; the beings in this realm, with such an Obsession, live, breathe, and eat doing exactly those things - y'know, metaphorically."
"And why am I here?"
"Because you've brushed against the veil. Not enough to be noticeable in your day-to-day life, but enough to change the makeup of your being. I bet you even have an Obsession of your own in there, somewhere." So, it wasn't because he was a Drake. The fairy that had brought Tim to the Fae Wildes certainly made it sound like it was, though.
"How would you figure out your Obsession then?"
"Well, close your eyes," the man said, gesturing at Tim. Tim gave him his most deadpan expression. The man laughed, which sounded rather melodious actually, "no, I'm serious! I know, it's super cliche, but closing your eyes does actually help!" Tim stared at the expectant man for a long moment, before huffing a sigh and following the instruction. "Okay, now, think of what you do to relax." Tim's brow furrowed - that was it? "Sort through those things, find your favorite of them all. Is it something that you would do as soon as you wake up? While eating? Before going to sleep? Would you skip eating and sleeping for it? Have you blown off your friends so you could do more of it? Has it, in some way, made you miserable?"
"That sounds like an addiction," Tim pointed out, keeping his eyes closed.
The man laughed again, "in some ways, it kinda is! Do you feel a compulsion to do it, without any addictive substances interfering with your thoughts? Congratulations, it's either a gambling addiction or your Obsession. Now, you tell me, is it an addiction?"
"I wouldn't quite call solving mysteries an addiction, but-"
"Wow, so you're a detective? That's interesting," the man said, grinning as he leaned towards Tim.
Tim blinked a few times before shaking his head, "you said that denying one's Obsession would be enough to honor the king? How would I deny solving a mystery?"
The man paused a moment, before a mischievous spark lit in his eyes. "The king has a few mysteries a human such as yourself won't notice right away - if you can resist solving even one until tomorrow, that is enough to honor him." Something seemed to catch the man's eye, causing him to lean back away from Tim. "So, just don't look too closely at him, yeah?" With that, he gave a wave before walking off.
AKA "Red Robin jokingly says I'll protect you to a civilian Danny Fenton, unaware this is a ghost proposal. Danny, also unaware this is a ghost proposal, accidentally accepts. So, uh... cue the awkward honeymoon phase?" Dead Tired DPxDC prompt idea!
Or: Tim Drake is a simp with a helping of gratuitously hot Danny Fenton
Red Robin is a disaster bisexual on a good day and a desperate simp every other day, or that's what Jason tells him. But seeing Daniel Fenton - Gotham-U aerospace genius and terrifyingly hot kinda-sorta-crush - about to get mugged feels like a good opportunity for Tim to show he's above all that. He's a hardened, experienced vigilante. He can do this.
Except Danny throws a punch hard enough to drop one of the muggers like a bag of bricks. His blue eyes almost glow in the dark, expression curling into something snarky and surprisingly self-confident. (Tim absolutely does not find that attractive, no. He's a professional.) Red Robin drops down into the alley with familiar ease, bo staff already swinging on the second thug. Danny's on the third one like an animal, slamming the poor guy into the wall so hard his head ricochets off the wall and he slumps in Danny's hold.
He's only wearing fitted white tee and jeans, the same outfit he was earlier on campus, so Tim can see the way his biceps flex and his pecs strain the chest of his tee when his shoulders roll back.
"Wow," Danny drawls. His midwestern accent should sound tacky, but Tim feels a flush burn his pale skin. Thank god for masks. "I was almost a goner there. Thanks for the save, Red."
Tim thinks very, very hard so he doesn't stutter. He's sarcastic and quick-witted, the smartest detective since Batman. He can flirt. (And maybe he's using his Red Robin mask for confidence, but who cares? The amount of times he's gotten tongue tied when trying to ask Danny out, despite sharing four gen ed classes with him, makes him want to claw his eyes out in embarrassment. Tim needs this win.)
"Seems more like an assist than a save. But I can be your knight in shining armor any day." Oh, god. That was the worst pick up line. Tim wishes one of the thugs would suddenly wake up and fight back just so he could get distracted from his utter failure of attempted flirting. Just as Tim's about to backtrack, apologize and say he's just joking, Danny laughs. A giddy, I-can't-believe-I'm-talking-to-you laugh that Tim's personally familiar with. He's suddenly dumbstruck by the idea that Danny might want to flirt with him back.
"Yeah? You'll be my knight?" Danny smiles earnestly, the usual nonchalant bad boy expression softening into something awkwardly endearing.
"Yeah," Tim agrees breathlessly. Jokingly, he adds, "I'll protect you."
As if Danny needs it. Clearly, he's more than able to protect himself, considering how easily he cleared two absurdly jacked muggers. He also has the intelligence of a potentially terrifying Rogue. And he's hot with his tight t-shirts and piercings and perfectly messy hair. And he's funny, matches Tim's sarcasm with his own snark, unashamed of the things he cares about with a passion. Anyways.
"I'll walk you home?" Tim means to sound confident and assured, like how he normally is as Red Robin, but it comes out almost bashful. And he is bashful... bashing his damn head against a wall. Ugh. Get it together, man! Danny laughs again and it's like the stars twinkling or something. It's beautiful. He wants to hear it all the time.
"Yeah. That's-uh, I'd like that." His crush smiles, a flush starting to dust over his ears and cheeks, and Tim turns to tie up the muggers so Danny can't see the goofy smile that takes over his face.
(The next morning, after taking Danny home, Tim Drake wakes up to a tattoo on his left hand. Specifically his wedding finger. The tattooed band is somehow glowing green with incomprehensible runes encircling his finger just beneath the knuckle. What. The. Fuck.)
((Danny Phantom stares incredulously at the wedding band on his hand. The words I'll protect you scrawl in Infinite Realms ancient script like an unbreakable vow. Oh, shit.))
Hmmmrph... I've spent the past week debating whether to or not but... I think the fact that I'm on the fence is enough proof that I should. Fair warning to anyone who hasn't read the previous post: this fic is not complete, and I have no clue what I'm doing with it. So, the possibility of getting more chapters is... low, unfortunately. That being said...
It has been requested, despite being incomplete and directionless.
So, here's the first chapter.
The Fic That Is Currently Unnamed
How did he get into this predicament, one may ask?
He was asking, he’s the one, how in all the Realms did he end up in this predicament?
Danny was your average fourteen-year-old when he suddenly became king of the entire multiverse without any provocation on his part - at least, that’s what he’d tell anyone that asked - and was now a twenty-year-old - by his universe’s time, that is - still king of that entire multiverse. Did he try to surrender the crown? Yes. Yes, he did. On multiple occasions. Did Clockwork or Pandora or Frostbite let him? No. Because they were a bunch of jerks that were jerks who did jerk things.
“Oh, Phantom, this’ll be a piece of cake for you,” he grumbled under his breath, moving wires around with ease, “you’ll just be so amazing at it just like you are with anything else! You’re the only one we can have on the throne, no one could ever replace you!” He replaced the panel and pushed out of his crouch. “And since you’re king, it’s such a highly respected position, you must go around the different Realms and retrieve these items! Oh, but Clockwork, most of these items are in museums or stores or private ownership, what do I do then? Oh, Phantom, of course you’re gonna become an amazing thief! After all, look at how amazing of a king you are, you could totally become an amazing thief!” Danny huffed, pushing the door out of his way and stalking through the now disarmed room. “Anyone else who connects ‘king’ with ‘common thief’ would be considered insane, CW. I hope you’re listening to me right now, because this is becoming ridiculous.”
If he were going to be a king and a thief at the same time, he should at least be able to send other people out to get the items and claim those items as taxes or some shit, right?
He paused in front of where he felt the strongest Ecto-energy in the room, scanning the display to see if he could recognize it before sighing and popping the glass up. Three things he was glad about: this wasn’t his Realm and therefore they wouldn’t be able to use his fingerprints; he’s wearing gloves and therefore wouldn’t leave his fingerprints, anyways; and he’s currently dead, so his fingerprints were non-existent since ghosts don’t leave prints.
He pondered that for a moment, setting aside some fancy looking diamond necklace that he really hoped was fake or lab grown, otherwise he’d feel guilty for even touching it. So, really, he was glad about one thing: no fingerprints anywhere.
He bumped up against some thick ring - he thinks it’s a men’s thumb ring? Danny was many things but knowledgeable on jewelry he was not - before focusing on it. That was what he was here for. Grabbing that, he slipped it on, ignoring the way the curse tried to cling to him, before setting the glass back down. Giving a quick look-see around the room, he found two more artifacts - one a necklace of gold and another a bracelet of rubies and silver - which he wore as well. Just as he was putting the bracelet display back, he ducked at the sound of flying metal.
Looking at the metal, Danny blinked rapidly at what looked like… a stylized bird? What? Who makes shurikens that look like that? That looks so lame. He turned to check out whoever had thrown the blade, meeting eyes… that were a blank white? Probably part of the mask but he didn’t know how people in this Realm worked so it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility- hehe, “realm of possibility,” Sam would smack him for that joke. “You wanna return what you’ve stolen, nice and easy?” Well, they sounded male? Probably? Again, not his Realm so uh… yeah, it was probably better not to assume even if this were his Realm, actually.
“Mm,” Danny pretended to think, snagging the bird-riken - no, that sounded stupid, he’d have to workshop that name since he would be here for a while - out of the wall to test the metal with his claws, “what’s in it for me if I do?” Oooo, nice, this was high quality metal. Either his new friend was rich or they knew someone in a high place. He put a little force into trying to bend it, and was appropriately impressed when it didn’t budge at what he estimated to be human strength.
“Depends on how nicely you’ll wait around for the police,” Danny snorted at that.
“Ah, yes, that makes sense, being arrested for reclaiming my hoard.” The other huffed, pulling out some weird-looking batons from behind their back.
“No, you’d be getting arrested for a B&E in a high-end jewelry store. Now, are you gonna surrender and make my night easier?”
“Mmno thanks, I’m good, see ya Bluebird.” Danny gave a two-finger salute before escaping backwards, grinning at the apparent-vigilante who gave an offended noise before they pursued.
“The name’s Nightwing, brat! Bluebird is someone else entirely!”
“I dunno man, you’ve got a big blue bird on your chest; are you expecting people to just automatically know your name when they see your cosplay?”
“What, and your name is better or something? And it’s a uniform!”
“Sure, I look like a dragon, I’m collecting my hoard, what could my name possibly be?”
“Lemme guess, Dragon? Wyvern? Wyrm?”
“Good to know you’re a nerd, I guess. No, obviously, my name is Drake!”
Nightwing stopped, appearing to blink rapidly even with the mask blocking the view. “Tim?”
Danny stared at the vigilante, who was a rooftop away. “Who, now?”
“Timothy Drake-Wayne? Known co-CEO of Wayne Industries and heir to the Drake fortune?”
“Uh, obviously not,” Danny snorted, gesturing at himself, “do I look human to you? Do I look rich to you?”
“LEDs could achieve that effect quite easily, actually.”
“Yeah, no, electronics don’t like me - I bet you didn’t even notice your comms were down, huh?”
“Localized EMP.” Danny gave a deadpan expression.
“Electronics and science don’t explain everything, bird boy. Anyways, I’ve got places to be and things to reclaim so… bye bye!” Focusing, Danny breathed out a mist of ice so forcefully, it took Nightwing by surprise to suddenly find himself in the middle of what was effectively a snowstorm. By the time the vigilante could see again, though it would be more accurate to say by the time the surroundings were no longer a hazy white, Danny was invisible and intangible.
Doing his absolute best to restrain his ghostliness so the vigilante’s comms came back online, Danny settled midair to eavesdrop.
“Oracle,” Nightwing said, hand over their ear.
“Dick,” Danny’s nose scrunched - either people in this world had unfortunate names or Oracle was insulting Nightwing as soon as they spoke, which was weird for allies in Danny’s opinion. “Your comms were down for twenty minutes, what happened?”
“Names.” Another, deeper and raspier, voice said; Nightwing seemed to roll their eyes, ignoring them.
“Seems like we’ve got a new player on the field,” Nightwing commented, still scanning their surroundings. A series of groans echoed through the comms.
“A new one? Seriously?” It was a younger voice this time, frustration obvious in their tone.
“Oh? Did you get a name?” Oracle asked, typing ringing through the comm connection.
“RR, you’re gonna get a kick out of this one. His name is Drake,” Nightwing grinned.
There was an obvious silence, before a tired voice came in, “I hate to agree, but seriously?”
“Can I get a physical description?” Oracle’s voice sounded cheery now, as though they were holding back laughter.
“Color scheme was black and white with green accents, it looked like they were covered in low-level LEDs. Just a constant glow, like a glowstick or something glow-in-the-dark. White hair, green eyes, pale skin. Honestly, looked like some teenager cosplaying a neon green and monochrome dragon, he had a jacket that fell into what looked like a Chinese dragon’s tail and had his hood up; tight black pants, tight white shirt, white gloves and boots. He’s definitely got claws, his boots seem to have some sort of anti-grav system since he ran straight up a wall, he can disrupt electronics, and is capable of breathing snow. Appears to have training or meta-senses since he dodged my birdarang that I tried to use to pin his jacket.” Danny scrunched his nose again - birdarang?? Seriously? That’s more lame than a bird-riken; it’s not like the weapon flew back to Nightwing or anything. “Appears to be non-hostile, since he just ran away; might just be a new Catwoman copycat mixed with Mr. Freeze since he seemed to be looking for very specific items.”
“So, a dragon meta-teen? Did he say why he was stealing those things?” A feminine voice piped up.
“Said he was reclaiming his horde or something. So, I guess if we can figure out where those three items he stole came from, we can guess what else he’ll go for.”
Tim huffed, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. He could take Dent’s schtick just to decide which part of his life was stressing him out more.
Heads, the civilian side. All the nonsense and underhanded backstabbing to get more money from others; the consistent need to produce new products like clockwork, and not just new versions of phones or laptops with faster processing, but Wayne Enterprises also had a publishing house, among other businesses. Did any of the public know that WE had a publishing house? Honestly, Tim didn’t know what was common knowledge anymore but Martha Publishing feels a little too obvious to him. Apparently, very few of his siblings agreed, though. And Gotham was in short supply of editors right then, so he needed to find time to employ people who were qualified. Not to mention how one entire branch of the main company was fully destroyed in one of the past Rogue attacks so he was still attempting to get in contact with some of the employees’ families so he could offer support yet for some reason he couldn’t find these families. Not in a “they’ve been kidnapped” way but in a “they moved” way. He’d finally managed to locate a couple families in Metropolis and sent a letter to each of them, just in case, but that still left about sixteen families unaccounted for. He could, honestly, ramble about the things that were stressing him out from WE for ages, all the way down to how Tam refused to switch back to caffeinated coffee so he had to specially go down to the ground floor or how he’d had to replace his usual pen with an inferior quality because he just couldn’t find it and he didn’t really want to accuse the janitor of stealing a pen but really who else could it have been? If he finds out it’s Tam, he’s gonna pull his hair out and-
On Tails, y’know, his nightlife. There was the brand new potential Rogue with sticky hands. None of the things they stole seemed to have any connection, they weren’t even found in the same places. Some of them weren’t found but were designed by world-famous designers, such as Philippe Wolfers, or not even jewelry, such as the times the thief raided natural history museums. One time, the thief even took the main showing piece of a womans’ fashion show. And this was all before Wing’s first sighting in Blud! How did he know it was Drake that stole those pieces? Easy, the camera interference was very specific when it came to Drake’s activities. No one else could replicate that interference, even Tim and Barbara were having difficulty trying to figure it out. But according to that, Drake has been active for the past year, approximately, taking whatever seemed to match their unknown criteria for their hoard. Not that Tim believed their apparent cover story. Ghosts and demons and gods were one thing, dragons having human forms were a whole other can of worms. Not to mention that the Riddler and Joker both seem to have fallen off the map after an ill-timed escape, so he had to try to put down the mystery of Drake to help the clan find those two before they got into trouble - or, more, created trouble. Riddler, at least, should be easy enough since his plots typically weren’t lethal unless someone couldn’t solve his riddles. But Joker needed to be found ASAP because he’d probably already started racking up his kill count-
Tim jerked back, eyes wide now that he’d opened them again. He hadn’t heard anyone open a door or window or even vent so how the fuck did this- this guy get in here?! And why was he so close to Tim’s face?!? “Oh cool, you are awake.” The man leaned back, resting against Tim’s desk and crossing his arms as if he was a totally expected and welcome addition to Tim's office. “You had your eyes closed for a really long time so I wasn’t quite sure.” Cat eyes stared Tim down, as though observing him for even the slightest mistake - and Tim bristled a little at the reminder of Janet.
“How did you even get in here?” Tim demanded, looking around the office to see all points of entry were still closed. Not that they could be opened by even Catwoman without a single sound, hell Tim made sure to make it an obnoxious sound for B so he couldn’t do his dumb I am the Night schtick so Selina sure as hell couldn’t open a door or window without cringing at the noise.
“Oh, ya know.” The man shrugged and waved his hand, as though that explained anything.
“No, I do not know, given that I asked the question.” Tim stated drily, his hand moving towards the little button under his desk slowly and subtly.
“Anyways,” not subtle enough, as the man grasped Tim’s hand with his own clawed one, trapping it under a gaze of inspection - a coincidence? “I’m a little disappointed.” Tim twitched, irritated at the statement. “When I heard there was another Drake in this Realm, I was thinking there’d be a dragon like me. But look, you don’t even have talons, your eyes are a normal human’s, and your teeth…” Drake’s hand reached forward, snagging Tim’s chin and lifting in a smooth motion that would’ve made Tim blush - don’t judge him, he’s running on four days without sleep, Drake is rather attractive, and he’s always had a thing for features that were non-human, Kon could attest to that, and Drake was full of them - if that same hand weren’t pushing his lips back to show his teeth, “boringly human.” Drake sighed, dropping the hand holding his chin but not the one holding his hand.
So, it wasn’t just a coincidence.
“Well, now that I’ve not met your expectations,” Tim said, in his most deadpan voice, “feel free to leave.”
“Hm, I don’t think I will.” The emerald green eyes narrowed at Tim, trailing down from his face to his chest. “I believe you have something of mine, Duckie.”
“Duckie?” Tim muttered, tensing up despite himself as a clawed hand reached for his suit jacket.
If this went where he was afraid it was going, there was nothing that would stop him from blowing his secret identity - not even the dragon being his type.
“They are also called drakes, yes? But they are not dragons.” Drake absentmindedly responded, rubbing the material of Tim’s jacket between thumb and fingers before patting Tim’s chest. Green flew up to meet blue in alarm. “Do you have a cursed item inside of your body?” Drake asked incredulously.
“A… cursed item?” Tim frowned, feeling wrongfooted at the question.
“An item of my hoard, an item that is cursed - do you have one inside of your body?” Drake explained impatiently, letting go of Tim’s hand to start searching his jacket more thoroughly.
“Not that I’m aware of?”
“Has an item entered your body then your life mysteriously had either bad or good results from seemingly nowhere?”
Tim managed to hit the button as Drake was focused on searching his person, taking a look at an extendable bo staff before setting it aside on Tim’s desk. Within Tim’s reach. Tim took a moment to breathe over the sudden irritation filling him over how much the man was underestimating him. A few more incognito weapons and antidotes were removed and placed on the desk, completely within Tim’s reach, until Tim was technically disarmed. If one considered being disarmed as not physically in contact with a weapon, even with one or several available to be used.
Drake froze, pupils thinning as the man seemed to realize something. Looking back up at Tim’s face, Drake began to withdraw, tilting his head to the side. “Huh…”
“What, no piece of your hoard there?” Tim asked sarcastically, trying to hide how the change of demeanor caused Tim to feel more nervous than before.
“The exact opposite, actually.” Drake leaned forward, until they were basically sharing breath. “I’ve never seen a cursed human before.” Tim blinked a few times, ready to refute the claim, when Drake sighed, pulling away once more. “No, I cannot claim a human, that is not good for the human.” He muttered to himself.
Tim, meanwhile, felt mildly offended that the dragon was willing to steal literally so many things but drew the line at stealing Tim.
And where the hell were the Bats? They should be here, by now.
I'm very inspired by the scenes where Danny is Mr. Freeze's assistant, so I made a sketch with the design.
Maybe I'll paint it again.
So, Danny has found a good part-time job, and he really likes this man with a tragic backstory and ICE.
But the GIW keeps track of news about anything that looks like ghosts. Even if his ectoplasmic signature can get lost in Gotham, his appearance is really a problem.
So he asks Sam and Tucker for help, and their grins should really have alerted him.
Sam chooses winter fairy because "fairy is cool, you can borrow my book on medieval mythology to make sure." Tucker is working on the technological aspects. So.
(let's be honest, the main reason is that Ellie recently started watching Winx. They're sure she's going to fucking love it.)
Wings mask the ability to fly. The warm clothes are thick enough to fit inside a special fabric that holds back most of the ghost core's energy signature. The half mask hides the green glow of the eyes. Among other things, the colors are far from the usual black and white, so as not to be associated with an old suit.
Simply put, this costume is a monstrous combination of technology and magic. According to Sam and Tucker, how well Danny's ass stands out is just a nice bonus.
It works, and Danny looks like a perfectly ordinary meta-henchman of Mr. Freeze. Now it would be really nice if literally all the fucking Batman kids would stop staring at his ass.
(optional: Strangely enough, in THIS transformation of a magical girl, literally all the inhabitants of Amity recognize him. Apparently, the blocking of ecto in the mask was overdone? Now everyone at home knows that he's a supervillain's henchman, lol)
(Mr. Lancer lets out a very long, drawn-out sigh)
(besides, I've never been able to choose between dead on main, dead tired or dead serious)
Dash standing on lunch table: Hey everyone! The A-listers are starting a new club. The Phantom Fanclub with me as president and co-founder. Paulina is vice president and co-founder. Everyone else has to be voted in for officers. First meeting is in 30 minutes!
Danny: no.
Tucker: You have a fanclub dude!
Danny: Phantom has a fanclub. A creepy one at that! I mean look! They're building a alter in the club room.
Sam: It's actually called a ofrenda, used for Dia de los Muretos. Its to honor the dead and welcome back to vist the living with offerings. Paulina's family is from Mexico remember?
Danny: I still dont like it. This cant get any worse.
Paulina: Everyone! I just got confirmation that Tim Drake- yes that famous hot CEO Tim Drake- is going to be at our first club meeting to help sponsor a special memorial for Phantom!
Sam: Oh they got a celebrity guest for your memorial. They're going all out
Tucker: You think anyone can join or-
Danny: WE ARE NOT JOINING A STUPID CLUB DEDICATED TO PHANTOM'S MEMORY!
Tim standing behind Danny: How dare you. Do you have any idea how much Phantom has suffered in his afterlife- which should be when hes at peace I might add- trying to protect your city!? Who are you anyway!?
Danny: Um I...well...
Dash: Thats Fenton. His parents are ghost hunters.
Tim: So you're prejudice is learn at home.
Danny: No...thats is...Mr. Drake I wasn't....
Tucker: Does this ruin our chances of joining thr club or?
Sam: I hope not. I really want to add to the ofrenda.
Tim: You two can join. Not Mr. Prejudice.
Danny: But-!
Paulina: You heard the man! Move along, Fenton. And dont even think of peaking at the club sign up sheet.
Danny: But-
Tim: Don't try to talk your way out this. Phantom is a hero no matter what you say.
DC x DP Prompt: John Constantine met and took a liking to Danny, so he starts hyping him up to keep people from summoning him:
Only really have a basic premise for this. Essentially, when the JL received an unusual number of calls about ghosts from a town in the middle of nowhere they decided to send a member of JLD to check it out and see if it’s a hoax or if they needed to intervene. As a little known by the public, but still extremely knowledgeable mage who could deal with most situations (and who just so happened to have pissed Batman off earlier that week) John got volunteered for this “exciting” assignment of spending a month getting the stink eye for smoking anywhere and investigating what everyone was convinced amounted to some kids playing pranks. Worst part being that he couldn’t even slack off, because he knew that in the unlikely case that it’s more even a few small incidents might point to a future catastrophic magic doomsday scenario.
So it happens that John goes to Amity Park only to find what amounts to a dimensional border dispute. It’s everything that could give him a headache rolled into one: crazy whack job ‘scientists’ who didn’t get the memo that they are supposed to run a con when studying ghosts and somehow managed to tear open a hole into reality, a literal kid with godlike powers and way too much idealism throwing around magic far past his understanding without even contemplating the possibility of backlash, inter-dimensional entities varying in power from the equivalent of a minor poltergeist up to above god-tier entering the world without needing any kind of invitation on regular basis to wreak havoc and the US government deciding they know better and proceeding to make things as bad as they can instead of calling anyone who actually knows what they’re doing. In the middle of this it’s downright trivial for him to found out about Danny, he simply improvised a location spell and then was disappointed in himself it even took that much upon meeting the kid, he then proceeds to try to convince this teen hero to agree on calling the JL to try fixing this hellhole up, but he stubbornly refuses (Danny is not sure whether or not the League will side with the GIW, but he is painfully aware of who is going to get the short end of the stick for creating a homemade dimensional tear in the first place and - for all their faults - Danny does love his parents and doesn’t want them to get in trouble). They are still on an impasse with John almost at the point of sidestepping Danny entirely to call the League himself when Pariah Dark is freed.
The fight is exactly as grueling as you’d think, even with John helping out by throwing enchantments on the armor and flinging spells at Pariah. By the end though Amity doesn’t go back automatically and John quickly realizes someone has to claim the crown to get the power to send it back and that it will only accept Danny by right of conquest. Problem resulting from this is that now John has a very good reason to keep things under wraps, because Danny? Is now technically the new Ghost King, meaning that there are plenty of mages, cultists and wack-jobs of every type who will be eager to try summoning him now that Pariah (who had a reputation to getting furious at the attempt and proceeding to kill off the would-be summoners alongside their entire lineage) is no longer the target, but at the same time he knows damn well that things like the tyrant king being overthrown don’t just stay unmentioned indefinitely, so having taken a liking to Danny during his stay Constantine decides to… muddle the waters somewhat in the hopes that it will hold off summoning until Danny is used enough to his powers to hold his own against the big baddies of the multiverse.
Way he found to do that is to throw around wild rumors and acting scared of the Ghost King, stating publicly multiple times that he only met the guy once and wouldn’t dare try for a second time or remarking what a terrible idea summoning Danny is by stating he is some Eldritch monstrosity who will destroy their dimension by sheer proximity if he shows up and not even notice. That ends up working because if this Sad Trench-coat Man who regularly antagonizes gods and demons of all stripes, who legitimately invokes freaking Trigon for bargaining, who out-tricked the devil and then walked away with no consequences thinks this guy is a step too far then by the Abyss, nobody wants to mess up and find out, welp time to burn those summoning tomes.
Danny moves to Gotham for college and falls head over heels for the ecto contaminated beef cake in his English lit class.
He’s constantly tripping over himself anytime he’s around and wants nothing more than to grab his attention.
Now thanks to all Mr. Lancers hard work, Danny’s actually pretty good at English, but thanks to a certain walking distraction he starts to fall behind.
The first time he gets a D on a test he nearly sobs. Thankfully he has a merciful teacher that decided to help him out, so they asked Jason if he could tutor Danny so he could bring up his grades.
Unfortunately that doesn’t stop Danny from being an absolute mess, and an absolutely terrible flirt.
While discussing Jane Austin, Danny decides to just bite the bullet.
“So what would it take for someone to win your heart?” He asked with a dopey grin.
Jason snorted, “The Joker’s corpse.” He said, half paying attention before continuing on with the lesson.
Danny blinked, “uhhh, which one?”
Jason paused, “what do mean which one? There’s only one joker.” He looked at Danny like he was stupid.
Danny just shrugged, “well, yeah, now there is. But, like which corpse did you want? The first, 2nd, or 3rd joker?” He asked, giving Jason a dopey grin. “I can definitely get you the 2nd jokers corpse, the third is still active so he’d require some extra effort, but I may have a problem with the first Joker.”
Jason narrowed his eyes, “and why’s that?”
Danny shrugged, “oh Batman killed him years ago,” he paused, “well technically he didn’t land the final blow. He did however cause the concussion that caused him to stumble off a cliff, but he would have died from the internal bleeding anyway.” Danny explained, not understanding why Jason was so shocked but not at all mad about the attention.
“I’m pretty sure most of his body’s been eaten by the local wildlife at this point, but I can try to find his skull if you want?” Danny said, batting his eyelashes.
Jason just stared at him in shock. “How-how could you possibly know that!?!?”
Danny smiled, “oh, I have some friends that are constantly in and out of walker’s prison in the ghost zone. Apparently the guy won’t shut up about Batman and bragging about killing a Robin.” Danny frowned, “stupid move really, living or dead, people are rarely chill about child killers. Walkers had to put him in solitary just about every week.”
Jason huffed, “you expect me to believe Batman killed the Joker after he killed m-Robin and now he’s in ghost jail?”
“Well where did you think he would end up?” He rolled his eyes “He’s not gay enough for superhell.”
Jason just blinked. “Was that a Supernatural reference?” He smirked, making Danny blush.
“Uhh. Maybe?”
Jason smiled, “alright, prove to me that joker is dead and not only will I go on a date with you, I’ll introduce you to my family as my boyfriend.”
Danny turned bright red and beamed “Deal!”
An hour later Jason walked out of the weirdest prison he had ever seen with his new boyfriend and a new lease on life.
When Jason brought Danny home for dinner that night, they ended up eating without Bruce, as he was still frozen in shock by the front door after his son came in, introduced him to his new boyfriend as his dad and gave him a hug!
A real hug! A hug that lasted a full 30 seconds!
Danny wasn’t sure what was going on but he had a hot new boyfriend who was familiar with the ghost zone! He couldn’t wait to introduce him to clockwork!
Mr Lancer would be considered a hardened war veteran if any member of the government not wearing white stepped foot in Amity Park.
He’d fought off zombies, ghost cops, and sentient meat on more than a few occasions to protect his students.
He’d warned each and every one of his students against misbehaving durin their field trip to Gotham and they all respected him more than enough to listen to his orders.
With Mr Lancers guidance they had made it an entire week in Gotham without any incident despite Poison Ivy taking control of the green house they visited, Scarecrow gassing the art museum mid way through their tour, and even Bane fighting Batman right outside the opera house right as they left for the evening. (Thankfully he had the foresight to put Fentons child leash on to stop him from ‘joining the fun’)
And now, here they were on their last day of their trip on their way across the Gotham University Campus to attend the lecture that brought them to Gotham in the first place.
They’d stopped by a lovely little cafe on campus and Mr Lancer was taking a long drawn out sniff of his coffee, just basking in the aroma for a moment when a high pitched laugh broke the peace and suddenly students were frantically running away from an explosion.
Normal this would be when he organizes his student and they all evacuate back to the hotel. All but one of his students had already put on their gas masks and were ready to mobilize at his command.
All but one that stared off towards the explosions with a demented grin on his face that was officially recognized as an omen of doom in no less than 10 occult journals.
Normally he would scold the teen.
Normally he’d had his coffee.
Instead Mr Lancer looked mournfully down at his spilled nectar and sighed.
Walking through his class he stopped right next to the smiling teen and reached behind him.
Every single one of his students immediately stepped back when the click of the glowing child leash signaled the boys freedom.
He didn’t even glance towards his teacher.
He had a clown to hunt.
A different laugh was heard throughout the campus that day, one that would haunt the dreams of any that had been unfortunate enough to be there the day the Joker made Mr Lancer spill his coffee.
Danny moves to Gotham for college and falls head over heels for the ecto contaminated beef cake in his English lit class.
He’s constantly tripping over himself anytime he’s around and wants nothing more than to grab his attention.
Now thanks to all Mr. Lancers hard work, Danny’s actually pretty good at English, but thanks to a certain walking distraction he starts to fall behind.
The first time he gets a D on a test he nearly sobs. Thankfully he has a merciful teacher that decided to help him out, so they asked Jason if he could tutor Danny so he could bring up his grades.
Unfortunately that doesn’t stop Danny from being an absolute mess, and an absolutely terrible flirt.
While discussing Jane Austin, Danny decides to just bite the bullet.
“So what would it take for someone to win your heart?” He asked with a dopey grin.
Jason snorted, “The Joker’s corpse.” He said, half paying attention before continuing on with the lesson.
Danny blinked, “uhhh, which one?”
Jason paused, “what do mean which one? There’s only one joker.” He looked at Danny like he was stupid.
Danny just shrugged, “well, yeah, now there is. But, like which corpse did you want? The first, 2nd, or 3rd joker?” He asked, giving Jason a dopey grin. “I can definitely get you the 2nd jokers corpse, the third is still active so he’d require some extra effort, but I may have a problem with the first Joker.”
Jason narrowed his eyes, “and why’s that?”
Danny shrugged, “oh Batman killed him years ago,” he paused, “well technically he didn’t land the final blow. He did however cause the concussion that caused him to stumble off a cliff, but he would have died from the internal bleeding anyway.” Danny explained, not understanding why Jason was so shocked but not at all mad about the attention.
“I’m pretty sure most of his body’s been eaten by the local wildlife at this point, but I can try to find his skull if you want?” Danny said, batting his eyelashes.
Jason just stared at him in shock. “How-how could you possibly know that!?!?”
Danny smiled, “oh, I have some friends that are constantly in and out of walker’s prison in the ghost zone. Apparently the guy won’t shut up about Batman and bragging about killing a Robin.” Danny frowned, “stupid move really, living or dead, people are rarely chill about child killers. Walkers had to put him in solitary just about every week.”
Jason huffed, “you expect me to believe Batman killed the Joker after he killed m-Robin and now he’s in ghost jail?”
“Well where did you think he would end up?” He rolled his eyes “He’s not gay enough for superhell.”
Jason just blinked. “Was that a Supernatural reference?” He smirked, making Danny blush.
“Uhh. Maybe?”
Jason smiled, “alright, prove to me that joker is dead and not only will I go on a date with you, I’ll introduce you to my family as my boyfriend.”
Danny turned bright red and beamed “Deal!”
An hour later Jason walked out of the weirdest prison he had ever seen with his new boyfriend and a new lease on life.
When Jason brought Danny home for dinner that night, they ended up eating without Bruce, as he was still frozen in shock by the front door after his son came in, introduced him to his new boyfriend as his dad and gave him a hug!
A real hug! A hug that lasted a full 30 seconds!
Danny wasn’t sure what was going on but he had a hot new boyfriend who was familiar with the ghost zone! He couldn’t wait to introduce him to clockwork!
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It started with Earth being invaded by beings from a foreign dimension. They’d used some weird combination of magic and science to carve their way into this dimension, and were set on conquering Earth to use the inhabitants as a slave force/food supply/something else sinister and morally abhorrent. Jason wasn’t 100% paying attention to what these guys goals were, he just knew he was allowed to shoot the scumbags.
Anyway: interdimensional threat, requires interdimensional aid. The JL Dark had decided on summoning the King of the Infinite Realms. Which sounds intense and risky, but Constantine had assured them all it was fine. Apparently the last king was dethroned, and the new ruler was quite keen on maintaining balance, and not being a ‘Tyrannical Dimension-Razing Wanker like Pariah Dark had been’ (John Constantine at his finest).
Apparently there had been friendly encounters with the king before. Raven had met with the king, seeking his aid in emancipating herself from her father. She had described King Phantom as kind hearted and rather humorous, but absolutely ruthless when the chips were down - Trigon no longer held sway over Raven, and she was forever in King Phantom’s debt.
One of the Green Lantern Team’s allies, some Emo, Bichomatic Lantern called Razer (Jason did not know those guys came in more than one colour until now), had apparently sold Phantom his soul in return for finding his missing/dead girlfriend (that whole situation has been labeled as ‘Existentially Complicated’ by Hal Jordan). When he had been called to confirm, Razer had explained that King Phantom was immensely uncomfortable about the whole Soul-Owning part, and was actually very enthusiastic about helping to reunite the lovers. As for the Soul Contract part, it had been reduced to 100 years of service and a garuntee of employment after Razer’s inevitable demise. Jason thought that was a pretty good deal, all things considered.
Constantine’s soul also belonged to King Phantom apparently. This was not very surprising, because it felt like almost everybody had a claim to the Hellblazer’s soul at this point (even Tim, who initially drew up that contract as a joke). The High King apparently had a disagreement with Satan himself at one point, and the devil had politely ‘gifted’ Phantom the Hellblazer’s soul in retaliation. Every contract Constantine had ever made with a Hellborn creature had been passed onto King Phantom, in an act of Pettiness disguised as respect. ‘According to king Phantom, I’m that annoying’ Constantine had announced proudly. Everyone agreed that a) that’s not something he should be proud of, and b) yes he is that annoying. Much like Razer, Constantine had a nice, cushy desk job waiting for him when he eventually kicks the bucket.
All in all, they had good reason to believe High King Phantom would assist them in their time of need. Since it had been an all hands on Deck Scenario, Jason was here with the rest of the Batfamily, fighting alongside the rest of the Costumed Community - every hero, vigilante and antihero had been called in. Currently, Jason was toward the back of the crowd with his siblings, while the JLD and the Founding Members negotiated with King Phantom. The rest of the crowd were monitoring the situation planetside or gossiping. Naturally, their Royal Guest currently in the huge summoning circle was the primary topic being discussed.
And dear god, was the High King an incredible, beautiful sight to behold. Phantom was over four stories tall, with snowy white hair that faded into soft vapour. His skin was a pale blueish gray, and he had long pointed ears, and six glowing green eyes. When the king spoke, Jason could see that his serrated teeth and long, razor sharp canines were Lazarus green, and that his tongue was forked. When he smiled, it was a little too wide to be considered normal. He had four arms, the forearms seemingly made of living ice, with phantom’s green-tinged bones visible through them. His torso was partially melted away, revealing part of his glowing green ribcage and spinal cord. His hips were covered, his flesh returning, and forming a long, black, coiling tail seemingly formed of wispy tendrils. His hands had long, talon-like claws that looked like they could spear through multiple entire humans, and looked sharp enough to shred through metal with ease. He seemed to be clothed in a skin tight, black and white jumpsuit, and had a flowing cape that looked like it contained the cosmos in its folds. His kingly artifacts, the crown and ring, glowed a pulsating, neon green, emanating strength and power.
He looked terrifying, a being of pure Death. A great deal of the room looked up at King Phantom in fear.
He was the most beautifully harrowing thing Jason had ever seen. It didn’t help that Phantom has such a kind looking smile, despite his less human features. He had such a gentle and friendly voice too, and yet he still commanded power with it. Jason’s poor dark romance obsessed heart was swooning HARD… And unfortunately it was kind of obvious, even with the helmet on.
“Hood. Not the time for Gay Panic. Or Monsterfucker panic.” Tim hissed, elbowing him. “I get it, I can kind of see where you’re coming from, but for the love of god pull yourself together.”
“Shut up, just let me enjoy the view in peace” Jason hissed back, eyes not leaving the six-eyed, undead, royal beauty before him. He swallowed, throat feeling dry, despite the fact Jason was probably drooling. Definitely drooling.
“I agree with Red Robin. For once. This is unbecoming of you hood.” Damian chimed in, annoyed. “That is an eldritch emissary of death itself. It reeks of the Lazarus pits. Do not fall for it.”
“Really not sure why you’re so enamored anyway. That guy looks scary as shit” Nightwing grumbled, eyes trained suspiciously on the giant ghost, posture tense. He clearly did not share Jason’s superior taste.
“Shut the fuck up” Jason growled, annoyed. He just wanted to ogle the undead eye-candy without his siblings audibly judging him for it, judge him in your heads like normal people for crying out loud.
“He’s very polite and friendly” Cass remarked neutrally. She looked a little uncomfortable, but Phantom clearly didn’t set off as many warning alarms for her as he did for Dick and Damien.
“Please do not indulge Jason’s monsterfucker agenda” Tim groaned. Steph laughed.
“The lights and colours on this guy…. I mean he is kind of mesmerizing, to be fair to hood” Duke hummed, staring at King Phantom with awe.
“Thank you Signal, for being the only guy here to back me up” Jason grumbled, folding his arms defensively.
“Well, to be fair to the others, I’m like 90% sure you’re drooling under the helmet Big Red” Steph laughed, and Jason flipped the bird at her in response.
“I totally am, and I feel zero shame for it” Jason grinned. “That guy is a solid 12/10, an absolute bombshell of an Entity” he purred. Tim gagged dramatically.
“Oh fucking hell little wing, for the sake of my sanity would you stop lusting over the Eldritch horror?!” Nightwing wheezed, glancing between Jason and Phantom’s titanic floating form in mostly hidden terror. Alright, that’s it. Time to horrify his siblings in public. Maybe this will teach them to keep their mouths shut. Jason turned to his brother, taking the helmet off so Dick could see his domino mask covered face as he said this.
“I will not. That is single-handedly the most beautiful and hot creature I have ever seen in my life, and I have no shame in admitting that!” Jason announced proudly. “I do not care if he’s an undead eldritch horror, he could do utterly unspeakable things to me and I would thank him for the rest of eternity. I shit you not, I would have his fucking children if I was biologically capable of it. I have never seen a being more ethereally beautiful and haunting, and I am genuinely tempted to write poetry about how gorgeous he is. And I would appreciate it if you would ease off my back about it, and just let me enjoy my fantasies in peace, alright?”
Dick’s mouth was agape, speechless. Jason smiled, smug. That wasn’t even the most shameless thing he could have said, there were a lot of thoughts rattling around in his brain and only 80% were PG-13. Even his other siblings had been shocked into silence. He was so proud he didn’t even notice how quiet things had gotten.
“Well, I have good news for you Hood” Damien wheezed, and Jason turned to him, raising an eyebrow.
“What?”
“His Majesty apparently has very keen hearing” Damien finished, eyes trained nervously on the high king in question. Jason quickly turned to see not only a large portion of the Justice League staring at him in confusion or shock… but King Phantom himself staring at him, wide eyed and mouth agape.
Oops
“…oh.” Jason said intelligently, face turning as red as his helmet. He really hoped King Phantom wasn’t offended by that little outburst. In hindsight, Jason really should have guessed that the guy who’s ears were roughly the same size as a car would have good hearing. He could see Constantine suppressing Laughter, and Bruce had his head in his hands. Welp, this is what he gets for being Horny in public. Phantom had completely frozen up, and Jason frantically started thinking of apologies. He’d definitely screwed this up.
Suddenly, phantom’s mouth snapped shut, his face turning bright green, and he reeled back a bit, covering all six eyes with both sets of hands. Jason swore the guy whimpered a little. It was a noise Jason would replay in his mind for ever.
“W-well. Thank you, that is um… quite the confidence booster” Phantom choked out, flustered and flushed, peeking out at Jason through a gap between his fingers. Cute.
“Y-you’re Welcome.” Jason replied, equally flustered. Holy shit holy shit holy shit that response was ADORABLE. Have Mercy on Jason’s poor battered soul! He can’t handle this!! His mind is already picking potential wedding outfits! And that’s not a small feat when you account for the size difference!
“Oh my fucking god” Steph and Tim wheezed, barely containing their laughter. Fair enough to them, the laughter is earned.
“Ahahah let’s back to the negotiations ey???!” Phantom yelped nervously, turning back to Constantine and removing his hands from his face and grinning. He was still bright green and he looked so monumentally flustered and awkward, Jason was swooning once more. God, if King Phantom was interested in a consort…
“I think we should probably give up on Hood” Robin sighed “he’s too far gone”. He was met with a series of agreeing grunts and grumbles.
The talks went on for a bit longer, the JL and JLD finally hashing out a contract that wouldn’t negatively impact the JL, and that wouldn’t ‘have those OCD eyeball-jerks the Observants up in arms later’. Phantoms pointy ear-tips were still flushed green.
“Alright, the deal is made and all the terms are agreed upon. The contract is officially signed. I will deal with the invading forces, and make sure they will never be able to cut through to another dimension in the name of tyranny again” Phantom spoke formally, his voice firm and confident. “I will depart and deal with the threat at once.”
“The Justice League is in your debt King Phantom” Bruce bowed his head respectfully, and Phantom returned the bow graciously. Then the king… lingered. Awkward. He glanced toward Jason, who straightened up.
“Um. B-before I go, uh…” Phantom mumbled nervously, before averting his gaze. “R-Red Hood, if I may speak with you for a moment?”Jason gulped, walking forward to stand at the front of the crowd, before king Phantom. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him. Phantom gulped, before there was suddenly a flash of light, as Phantom’s form seems to shift, morph and shrink, until a significantly smaller figure stood before him. It was unmistakably still King Phantom, despite not looking more like a regular person (if you ignore the glowing, the grey-blue skin, white hair and green eyes), his crown and ring still present. Only now, the cape looked more like a cloak, and his jumpsuit resembled a simplistic Hero getup. He also had legs now. They were nice legs. They would probably look great while pinning Jason down on the floor, while Phantoms boot pressed against his throat— FOCUS JASON. HEAD OUT OF GUTTER.
Phantom was still green-faced and sheepish. He hesitantly reached into his sternum - hand going right inside himself - and pulled out a battered looking phone. Apparently instead of pockets, Phantom just kept his possessions inside his body. Fascinating.
“I-I’m cool with exchanging contact info, I-if you’d like to meet up and get lunch sometime?” Phantom smiled at him, nervously. “T-this is a lot easier than summoning circles, certainly much less messy” the ghost explained, gesturing to the phone.
Jason gaped, before springing into action and pulling out his favorite burner phone. Holy shit holy shit holy shit. Hot eldritch shapeshifter wants to go on a date. This is the best day ever. “Y-yeah! I am very cool with that. Totally cool, very enthusiastic. I would love to have lunch with you sometime” Jason rambled as he walked up to the edge of the summoning circle, and the pair began typing in each other’s numbers. Phantom still had the claws and fangs, but they look looked less likely to carve through his flesh and shred Jason to pieces (he wouldn’t mind if they did, it’d be such a sexy way to go).
“Um. Y’know, not the first time someone’s y’know. Reacted like that to the Ghost King Form.” Phantom murmured. “It’s just… first time it’s been from someone this hot” the King smiled, looking up at Jason through his hair. God, how does this guy alternate between being super hot and super cute so well. It’s unfair.
“R-really? High praise coming from you King Phantom” Jason smiled, finishing typing in the Kings digits and pocketing his phone. Play it cool Todd.
“Oh, you can call me Danny. My full name’s Danny Phantom.” Danny grinned at him. The king of all dead and ruler of the infinite realms name was Danny. Fucking Danny. It’s perfect.
“Danny then. Cute name” Jason smirked, earring him a blush from the Ghost. “So, you thought I was hot?”
“Oh yes, drop dead gorgeous.” Danny laughed, oh what a beautiful sound that was. “Not to mention what you said had my cold dead heart to skip a beat or two.”
“Was that a death pun? What that two death puns?” Why did Jason find that adorable? God they share a love of death puns. His heart just skipped a damn beat!
“Mayybe” Danny smirked, before tearing through the summoning barrier (HE COULD DO THAT THE WHOLE TIME), causing several people to curse and yell in shock, and gave Jason a peck on the cheek. Before he could react, Danny zoomed off towards the chaos, yelling “OKAYGOTTAGOSAVELIVESNOWCALLMEBYEEEEEEE!!” As he left, phasing through the Watchtower window. Jason stood there, brain sending him the Error 404 message as he stood there in shock. He sat down.
“Holy fucking shit” Jason wheezed, breaking the silence.
“Holy fucking shit indeed! Congratulations Red Hood! You just scored one hell of a date!” Constantine laughed. “Fucking hell kid. I’ve seen cosmic powered entities get flustered before, but never one that powerful! You just won the bloody lottery.”
The whole room was alight with conversation. Jason had kind of forgotten that the Justice League was even there, or that the world was a stake! He flopped backward against the ground, staring up at the watchtower cieling. He’d just, apparently, wooed an all powerful undead spirit in under a minute. Damn. Jason could see Bruce approaching him slowly.
“Son.” Bruce said, tonelessly.
“Save it old man, I don’t want a lecture” Jason sighed, closing his eyes.
“I… I don’t have a lecture for that” Bruce admitted, sounding as shocked as Jason felt. “Im still processing everything I just saw. I don’t know what just happened.”
“Me neither to be honest” Jason wheezed.
“…Congratulations. Be cautious… I suppose” Bruce mumbled, still shocked at the series of events. “Be sure to form contingencies if Phantom’s attentions turn sour.”
“Thanks B.” Jason responded, lying there on the watchtower floor, wondering if that was all a dream. The rest of the League ran around him, still paying attention to the crisis Phantom was actively solving. Holy crap. Jason Todd-Wayne had a date with the Ghost King.
…
“…I think Nightwing fainted!” Superboy yelled, lifting the limp form of Nightwing. Oops.
Should I continue this + post it to Ao3? Lemme know in the comments.
Danny got hit. Bad. Whatever new fucked up lazer his parents invented hurt. It hurt really bad. He felt himself fall. He was still in his ghost form but very suddenly, he felt very heavy and flying wasn’t so easy anymore…
He felt his core cry out in fear and then he felt himself shrink. He didn’t think about what that might mean. He was too tired. Maybe he was shutting up like a telescope… all well… Danny felt himself crash through glass…. and for a small second he thought maybe he recognized the glass dome in the mall? Danny didn’t know. Not really.
Danny lost consciousness as his vision was overtaken by green.
…
Damian thought it was absolutely ridiculous. Bonding? Like a child? He was there in Amity Park for a mission with his father not to stroll around some sorry excuse of a mall that had maybe 7 stores. All of which were frivolous at best. He and his father had been dragged along at the idea of Brown who wanted to “experience small town hangout spots.” Useless if you asked Damian. They had finished their case and there was no reason to stay any longer but Brown insisted until Father relented.
So now Damian was shuffling along behind his father, the flashing lights of cheap signs marketing sales and deals in the windows of every small outlet within the half barren mall. Brown had abandoned them the moment she stepped into the building, running off to a store and claiming she knew Victoria’s secret. Whoever Victoria was, Damian was sure she needed to get better security.
Father stood there awkwardly, and it was painful for Damian to watch once he realized he was trying to bond with him. What a frivolous notion. This man may have been his father but he was also the man he was raised his whole life to hate and want to kill. He only didn’t try to do that anymore under the promise that Father would train him to be a better fighter. Was it annoying that there was a no kill rule? Yes. But Damian could deal with that if it meant becoming the best to make Mother proud of him finally.
“Do you want to look around chum? I’ll buy anything you want,” Father said. It made Damian cringe.
He shrugged, trying not to voice his disgust in the hopes that he will stay on Father’s good side so he can continue his training. He used to know how to behave himself accordingly. He was molded to perfection by his mother. But Father’s rules and expectations were different and Damian hated to admit that he was having trouble adapting. He wanted him to smile and it was odd.
“Um… how about we go this way?” Father pointed in a direction that had led to a few shops that seemed to be a bit more colorful. Probably for children. Damian did not want to go that way.
“…Fine,” Damian did not feel that it would do any good to argue. Even if he knew that there would be nothing but childish nonsense to look at.
So Damian walked with his father, not really looking to actually buy anything. He looked through the windows of the shops, taking note of them and the rest of his surroundings as his mother had taught him to do whenever in a new place. One store had video games and another had children’s clothes.
But then Damian and Father passed a store titled Build A Bear and in the window was a stuffed teddy with jeans, biker boots and a leather jacket that looked like Jason’s. Father was not allowed to know about Jason. Damian wasn’t allowed to see him anymore. He tried to a few times but Alfred always caught him trying to sneak out.
“Father,” Damian stopped in front of the window, “I want that bear.”
Suprise washed over Father’s face at Damian’s request. Was it really so hard to believe that Damian might want to indulge in his father’s wealth ever so slightly? The man created him so why couldn’t he use his money for one thing?
“Y-yeah sure! Of course Damian,” he said, “We can go in.”
Damian nodded in response, walking into the childish store colored from floor to ceiling in pastel yellow and baby blue. It was bright and garish to look at but he made the effort to not cringe as he was much more focused on obtaining the stuffed teddy he saw in the window.
“Welcome to Build A Bear! Take a look around! If you want to build a new bear, the options are over that way and someone will be over to help you. If you are looking for clothes to dress your bear, they will be around that corner,” a staff member said.
Build? Damian was going to have to make it himself?! What kind of foolery was this?!
The look on his face must have reflected those thoughts more loudly than he had anticipated as Father patted his shoulder gently, “Chum, you can make the bear however you want. Um… people typically like to put them together themselves in this store.”
Damian was outraged at the thought at first but when it was explained in such a way, Damian saw the perks of designing the bear himself as it will not have imperfections he cannot account for.
“I will design the bear to my liking,” Damian nodded, determined to create the teddy he desired and walked over to the wall of what almost looked like piles of colorful empty skin that had been abandoned of their insides. It reminded Damian of taxidermy but without the middle bits.
He was initially going to pick a grey bear with a red face. It looked the most like Jason to him. But then he decided against that. He worried that it would be too obvious and Father would catch on. So instead he chose a black teddy with specks of silver tinsel spotted into the fur like stars. Damian thought it looked refined like the night sky. And it still kind of reminded him of Jason just the littlest bit.
Damian held the limp, empty teddy in his hand and looked to Father, “This is the skin I prefer the most.”
Father grimaced slightly. It was the face he made when Damian said something that didn’t align with his preferences. He couldn’t have possibly thought that “skin” was too vulgar? Father was the Batman. Damian had even toned himself down. He initially wanted to call it a hollow carcass as that was what it reminded him of.
“Let’s go to the attendant, she will help you get your teddy customized,” Father said. Damian nodded in response, wanting to move on to the next step. They walked together to the woman standing under the sign that said “Step 2: Hear Me.” Damian couldn’t help but think that title was kind of ominous for something that was meant to be marketed towards children.
“Hi! My name is Valerie. Did you find your bear okay,” the attendant said. She had a confused look on her face for the slightest moment that was masked with a smile after Damian felt Father shift behind him. Perhaps the skin he had chosen wasn’t societally correct? What if it was outside of Father’s expectations? Maybe Damian should put it back… he didn’t want Father to be upset and discard him….
“We found it just fine. He said he liked this one the most,” he heard his father say. It was a nice tone but Damian had been learning certain things about unspoken communication recently as Father and Grayson had been very adamant that it was important in training. If Damian understood it correctly, he was being told that he had chosen the correct skin. Which was good.
Valerie smiled a little more as if she had gotten something entirely different from Father’s unspoken communication than he had. But she seemed more relaxed than moments before. Damian wondered what she thought was going on right then.
“Awesome! This next part is where you get to choose what your bear is going to sound like. These are voice boxes. Most have prerecorded messages like ‘I love you’ or ‘happy birthday’ but we also have blank ones that we can add custom audio to,” Valerie explained. It seemed that there was more to the teddies than Damian originally thought.
“Do you have any that have audiobooks on them,” he asked. Jason used to read to him before bed. He would read him things like Seven League Boots and Treasure Island. He only read older books since it was all that Grandfather had. Ever since he began living with Father, Damian was having a hard time sleeping without the reading. He had gotten so used to it for so long Damian had allowed himself to become dependent. And while Damian knew it was frivolous and immature, he thought that maybe if the teddy could read to him instead, he could acclimate to the new situation better.
Valerie tilted her head in thought, “Well we don’t have full audiobooks. Our typical devices we sell in the store only have a capacity for audios up to about 30 seconds. However I’ve got a friend who’s really good with gadgets like this and he’s been developing a voice box that can hold more sound. He’s been recording himself reading Coraline on his new versions to see how long they go. He’s finally got one that could record the whole book and recite it back.”
Damian’s eyes widened, this could be exactly what he was asking for, “Can I have it in my bear?”
Valerie shrugged, “Sure. He’ll know how to make a new one. Let me go ask Wes to get it from the back,” she said before getting up from her stool next to the voice boxes and heading to the register, “Hey can you go grab me Danny’s voice box? The one with the full book? He said he left it in the back rubber banded to a post it note with checkmark on it.”
Damian watched as the boy behind the register glanced over to him and Father and his eyes widened. Damian was suspicious that this Wes person knew something he wasn’t supposed to but he didn’t act on it. Wes dipped into the back and grabbed the voice box Valerie had asked for and went back to fidgeting with the register. Damian looked to his father, noting that he had also seen it. Father gave a nod and pointed to his phone that he was currently using to alert Babs incase any photos or conspiracies come from Amity Park onto the Internet anytime soon so she could erase it.
Valerie came back and finally installed the voice box into the hand of the teddy. After that, she walked Damian and Father to the next step. Which was a stuffing machine, a bucket of fabric hearts, and an array of scent pods in a display.
“Now you get to add a scent for your new friend and choose their heart,” Valerie’s said smiling, “You get to pick them while I fill your bear full of stuffing. How firm do you want it to be?”
Damian thought for a moment, “Very firm.” He did not like the very soft pillows in the manor that felt like he was sinking, something more firm would most likely be preferable.
Valerie nodded and began to fill the teddy while Damian looked at the scent options. Some were standard scents like vanilla and strawberries. But there were some that Damian had never heard of before. There was one labeled, “Ectoplasm” and one called “Ghost Dust.” Damian was pretty sure the “Ghost Dust” was just the smell of sulfur. What struck Damian as odd was the one labeled “Ectoplasm” as it smelled so familiar but he couldn’t really figure out from where. He almost wanted to say the Lazarus but the green waters smelled bad and this scent smelled good.
Valerie noticed him sniffing the “Ectoplasm” scent, “Oh yeah. That’s one of the local options. It’s like an inside joke around here. But you can get that one if you like it.”
Damian nodded, it being the one he liked the most anyways and handing it to her to put into the teddy.
As Valerie was working to get the scent capsule in place she nodded her head towards the bin of fabric cartoon hearts, “Those are the hearts. Each of the bears we make gets to have one. You get to choose it and fill it with love.”
Damian didn’t know about this part. He didn’t know how it was necessary. He almost refused but he had gotten this far. Not to mention he could feel Father’s eyes on the back of his skull. Probably hoping he would comply.
After a few moments, Damian finally reached into the bin. All of the hearts pretty much looked the same. They were made of something soft and covered in red fabric. No doubt they were mass produced.
Except one. One was different than all the rest. It was the same size as the other hearts but it was hard like stone and green. It looked as though it had been damaged slightly, a crack running along a portion of the surface. Unlike the other hearts, it did not have the cartoony heart shape and instead was a perfect orb. Despite that, the moment Damian’s fingers grazed the surface, he knew it was a heart.
“This one,” he said, picking up the green marble like heart. It was very pretty and shone in the fluorescent lights in a way that wasn’t garish like diamonds but rather in a way that just accented the intricacies of the cloudy green that Damian could imagine swirling under the surface like a storm.
“Give it a kiss to fill it with love,” Valeria said.
Damian scoffed, “That’s absurd!”
The attendant shrugged, “I don’t make the rules.”
Damian couldn’t help but glare at the teen girl for making him do something so unnecessary. But after a moment he hesitantly lifted the small green heart to his lips for just the slightest moment. Despite Damian’s certainty that the magic “transferal of love” that Valerie described taking place was not real, for the slightest moment something felt different as his bottom lip grazed the green orb for the slightest second. The feeling was gone as fast it had arrived and Damian discarded it as his mind trying to play along with the whimsical game that the teen girl was trying to make him play.
After that, the heart was placed into the teddy and he was sewn up.
“Before we go to the last step, give your new friend a hug for me to make sure he feels just right,” Valerie said with a smile. Damian was starting to think that if he were a normal child this might have been a fun activity. He was also starting to think that Valerie enjoyed doing her job no matter how childish it was. He supposed that despite the idiocy of the entire encounter, there was something to be said bringing joy to others. Morale was very important in training younger children.
Damian squeezed his teddy in his arms. It was firm like he asked. At the very least, Valerie knew how to follow simple instructions.
“Good?” she asked.
“Adequate,” Damian responded.
Valerie’s smile widened, “Awesome! This the part where I leave you. Just that way are all the clothes and against the back wall are the computers. That’s where you will get to name your bear. Once you go to the register, Wes will print out the birth certificate and you’ll get to leave with your new friend.”
Damian nodded.
Father cleared his throat.
Damian sighed.
“Thank you,” he muttered, shuffling towards all of the clothes for the teddies. He ignored the smile that creeped onto Father’s face.
The clothes were hung from small hangers and were displayed on small clothing racks arranged around the space. Damian was again reminded how childish this endeavor was by how low to the ground the merchandise was for children to have easy access to it.
There were many things to choose from even including the suits of Father and his adopted children. What caught Damian’s eye though was a white t shirt with a red oval on the chest. It reminded him of the bat symbol that Father dawned on his own chest while fighting. It reminded him of the Batman T Jason sometimes wore more.
Damian ended up pairing it with some jeans and black leather jacket. Of course it was all just soft material but the style was meant to look like those things. Damian had taken a moment, not expecting there to be more than one jacket to choose from. One was a plain black and the other had a stylized P on the arm and had a green trim.
Damian liked the way it looked and how the green matched the heart he had chosen for his teddy. The logo on the arm reminded Damian of the jacket Jason had made him. It was a black zip up with patches Jason had sewn into the arms and along the back. They were mostly animals he liked with a few bands that Damian had shown interest in after Jason introduced them to him. He had had to lie to Father about where he had gotten it from after it appeared in the mail. It had taken Damian threatening Alfred’s life for the butler to not throw it out because there was no return address.
Damian didn’t want the teddy to wear anything he didn’t know what it meant so he did get information from the man at the register. Apparently Amity Park was known for its ghost sightings. Damian hadn’t seen any in the short time that he had been there but he knew enough to know that there were many things that very well could have been possible. The P on the jacket Damian had chosen for his teddy stood for Phantom, one of the resident ghosts in the area. He was apparently really helpful and helped residents with more malicious entities. With that information, Damian decided that the emblem of a fighter was something he did infact want his teddy to wear.
After Damian dressed the teddy to his liking, he held it close to his chest and walked with Father to the computers. They were large boxy ones, decorated to look cartoonish and match the color scheme of the rest of the room in pastel yellow. There were two seats in front of each computer. Father sat down in the larger one, forcing Damian to sit in the smaller more childish one.
“What do you want to name him chum,” Father asked. He seemed to be in a far better mood than he was when they first entered the mall. Perhaps Damian putting up with this childish activity made him happy? Surely he knew Damian was above such things even if he was indulging just this once.
Damian thought about what title he wanted to bestow upon the teddy. He wasn’t good at naming things. So he thought about names Mother had mentioned before. She had told him once that while she was pregnant, she had a dream that she had twin boys named Damian and Danyal. It turned out to only be one boy and so Mother had named him Damian.
“Danyal,” he said finally. He typed the name into the computer and filled out the rest of the information on the birth certificate. Father was smiling now, more than he typically did and Damian wanted to ask why but it did not seem wise to distract himself from the process of filling in his teddy’s information.
Once it was done, Damian and Father went to the register where he got to receive the printed certificate, stating that Danyal was now Damian’s teddy. With this proof of ownership, he felt more secure in the off chance that Danyal be stolen by another. It was very unlikely to happen as Damian was a very gifted and trained fighter who knew over 200 ways to kill a man.
Father offered to hold the certificate for him but Damian felt it would be better if he took care of it himself so he carried the colorful folder containing the document and Danyal with him out of the store both close to his chest.
What Damian nor his father realized at the time was the dimly glowing sigil that began to appear on the back of his neck.
So, Danny ends up being adopted/fostered by Bruce just months before Damian arrives at the manor, the how and why is your choice, but the GIW is still a threat.
Now, Danny catches Damian attacking Tim the first time and instead of telling the rest of the family or scolding Damian, he went lik:
“You haven't even defeated me, and you think you have a right to attack Tim? Get in line, kid.”
And so Damian understands that to get the right to fight against Tim, he needs to get rid of Danny first. Climb the power pyramid, if you will. And so, Damian starts his assassination attempts against Danny.
But here's the thing: Danny is making absolutely no effort to stop him, he just takes the attempts. The first time, Damian successfully stabs Danny, and goes to announce his victory over Danny to his father. Bruce rushes to Danny, worried for his safety, and finds him just chilling there, not a single drop of blood or injury. Damian is gapping.
“Oh yeah, the kid beat me in a round of hide and seek. He’s pretty good.”
Bruce is relieved and pats Damian’s head, not noticing his utter confusion. And so a cartoon-like montage starts: Damian attacks Danny and claims victory, but Danny is completely fine, and says Damian won at some random game. Everyone thinks the two are super close, and that Damian’s excitement about winning is super cute.
Eventually, positive enforcement wears Damian down, because everyone congratulates him and gives him affection for winning the “stupid things” Danny comes up with. He gradually calms down and integrates pretty well. Danny does end up being his closest sibling because he’s the only one that actually knows all of Damian. The only one Damian could attack with zero restraint and still be treated the same.
But the important thing here is: Danny becomes an invincible figure in Damians mind. He could be stabbed, decapitated, poisoned, and still come back like nothing happened.
So surely, when Phantom is shot out of the sky by a Blood Blossom, surely he’ll just stand back up in a minute like always. Surely, he’s just waiting to get back to the cave to pretend like he always did for Damian. Surely, he’s just putting on a show on the medbay.
But hours go by, and he’s still pretending. Still looking pale. Still keeping his eyes closed.
Damian doesn’t understand why he hasn’t bounced back yet. He should be okay by now. Alfred is moving around, changing the IV,dabbing Danny’s head with a damp cloth. There’s commotion outside as everyone is trying to get an antidote.
But this shouldn’t be happening.
Danny is invincible.
Danny should be back to normal already.
So Damian starts shaking Danny. Screaming to stop pretending and tell them he was beaten in some stupid game again. To open his eyes already.
Father is pulling him away, trying to calm him down, but he keeps struggling in his arms, because he’s getting Danny to wake up.
And he doesn’t notice the tears falling down his face until he runs out of energy, and all that’s left is hiccuping in his father’s arms.
...
So… yeah, that’s what my mind supplied today while on the bus :)
Maybe one day I'll write it, but I don't have time, so I would love to see someone else's take on it.
(This is my first time writing for either DP or DC but you know, I loved the prompt so much I wanted to give it a crack!)
“You haven't even defeated me, and you think you have a right to attack Tim? Get in line, kid.”
The words echoed in his mind, mocking and sarcastic, burning with derision, but Damian was forced to admit that he had been… hasty. Reckless, even. Whilst eliminating Drake would certainly help establish himself as Father's true and only heir, there was clearly a hierarchy to things.
Although he was the blood son - the true son! - in terms of age and seniority, it was clear there was a pecking order. And as the youngest, and the newest to the family - technically speaking - he was at the bottom. In the League, killing Drake would allow him to take his position in the hierarchy by demonstrating that he was superior to him.
Clearly that was not the case here. Clearly, if he wanted to assume his rightful place, he would have to work his way up. He could work with that.
Fenton wasn't even a vigilante, like Father or the others. He had managed to stop him from striking Drake with surprising swiftness and ease - embarrassing him by scruffing him like a cat, no less - but it's not like he was a Robin or even a Bat of some kind.
It should be simple. He knew his schedule after studying him, knew his favoured hobbies and haunts. He was trained since birth to be the Heir to the Demon's Head.
So whilst Fenton was setting up his game console to waste his time playing video games, Damian demonstrated why he should've been studying the blade by piercing him right through the heart with a knife. No sense using his blade when he'd have to remove it and get blood everywhere and cause a greater mess that Pennyworth would have to clean up.
"I win," he whispered into Fenton's ear as he twitched and struggled, his death throes. Wide blue eyes met his gaze for a moment but Damian melted away, triumphant and proud. One pretender dealt with. It was time to announce his success to Father.
------------------------------
Father… did not take his triumph like he had expected. If it had been Grandfather, he would've simply nodded, because success was expected, and Damian had always excelled.
But rather than be satisfied - or, as he dared to hope, proud - he had been horrified. Furious. Desperate to save Fenton, tearing through the hallways to the gaming room, with Damian trailing behind, confused as to where he had mis-stepped. Had he gone about it wrong? Should he have instead challenged Fenton to a duel? Announced his intentions prior?
"Danny! Danny just-Danny…?" Father shouted, fear and panic and then confusion on his face as his voice petered out.
"Oh hey Bruce," Fenton replied, looking away from the screen. The fact that he still did not call Father by an appropriate title burned at him, but the indignation was swallowed by the shock of seeing him… perfectly fine. Healthy.
Damian had stabbed him in the heart. He was certain of it. There should be blood. He should've died in seconds. He absolutely should not be sitting there, calm, relaxed and playing whatever vapid game he had loaded!
"... Damian said he had… attacked you," Father asked, voice tight and brow furrowed.
He hadn't phrased it like that, of course, but he hadn't been shy of describing his triumph over Fenton. Prematurely, apparently, given he was… somehow unharmed. No blood. No stab wound. No knife, even. He was definitely missing one, however, so he hadn't just… hallucinated it somehow.
Fenton just blinked and laughed. "Oh, that? Yeah, we were playing hide and seek, and he got a little enthusiastic. But hey, he won, so, congratulations buddy."
… Hide and seek? As if he would indulge something so… puerile!
Father studied them both, clearly confused and thrown, but… considering. "I… see," he said slowly, and although he certainly sounded assured, Damian was willing to bet he did not see. "I'm glad you're both getting along then. It's nice to see you're making an effort, Damian."
He was making an effort, but not to get along! He was still too shocked to react to Father ruffling his hair like a child, moving to leave both of them in the ensuing silence with only a parting request that they don't 'rough house too much in the manor'.
He wasn't sure whether that was a coded request not to assassinate within the manor or not, but with Father gone… "I killed you." It was a factual statement, even if he did sound almost accusatory.
"Did you?" Fenton drawled, a lazy smirk playing at his lips. Mocking. "I must've missed it."
Grinding his teeth was not a healthy response, although it was nigh on impossible to stop. "I do not know what tricks you used, Fenton… but I will triumph."
"Mmhm." Without any of the appropriate level of fear and wariness, Fenton turned back to his game.
He was tempted to try and strike him again, but he would do this properly, not impulsively. He would try again after.
"Oh, before I forget." He reached beside him, pulling out the knife he'd been stabbed with. "Here. You forgot this."
"You will live to regret this, Fenton," he seethed, cheeks burning with embarrassment and shame, "But no longer."
"Sure, sure. Better luck next time, buddy."
------------------------------
Stabbing had failed, so his next attempt was something grander. He waited until Fenton was in the manor gardens late one night, with his telescope. The perfect situation.
His steps were silent, his sword was drawn. He brought it down and he felt the resistance of flesh and bone as he carved straight through Fenton's spine. "I win," he hissed, watching the pretender let out a cry of pain and fall to the ground.
He wasn't taking chances this time either, and buried his blade through the back of Fenton's skull. And then he watched for a few minutes to confirm there was no trick. He checked for a pulse and found nothing.
Fenton was dead.
This time, when he declared his triumph the next morning to Father over breakfast, he didn't seem as concerned as before. Perhaps he was right to do so outside the manor itself? Grayson seemed more concerned, but he didn't seem eager to do anything given Father's calm reaction.
"I am sure Pennyworth will be able to confirm my victory, for Fenton should still be-" he continued, but found he couldn't finish his sentence as his eyes registered something impossible.
Fenton. Walking into the kitchen with a yawn. Unharmed. Again. No sign of the grievous wounds he should've received, no sign of anything except perhaps staying up a little too late. "Morning Bruce, morning Dick, morning Damian," he greeted, blinking sleepily, "Is there coffee? I'm dead tired this morning." His gaze flicked to Damian for just a moment, and there was a quirk to his lips that suggested he was making a joke.
He didn't see the humour in it, personally.
"Morning Danny," Grayson returned cheerfully, looking about far more awake than Fenton, but his gaze was nonetheless alert and assessing. "Damian said he 'triumphed' over you last night?"
"Oh yeah. We were playing tag. He's pretty fast and nimble, you know?" he lied, as easy as breathing. An infuriating thing to notice, given he shouldn't be breathing at all. "Good way to burn some energy."
Father sipped his coffee with a pensive grunt, but just nodded. "So long as you're not staying up too late, boys. I know it's the weekend, but do try to think about your routines."
There was a muffled snort from Grayson and even Fenton looked like he was about to call Father out on the hypocrisy there in a light, joking way.
"Tt." Vexing. Back to planning, it seemed.
"Let me know if you want to play again, Damian," Fenton said cheerfully, sipping his coffee as he passed him, "I'm always down to hang."
He dared to go to ruffle his hair like Father had, and if Damian had his sword on him, Fenton would be sans a hand.
------------------------------
He watched, careful, as Fenton drank the coffee he'd prepared for him - laced with fast acting poison, of course. The lout burped, pat his stomach, and made eye contact with him.
"Hey, thanks for the coffee, Dami. That was really thoughtful of you."
Thoughtful? That should've-"Tt!"
"Why don't you ever bring me coffee?" Drake whined, like the idiot he was. "I'm jealous now."
"It's because I play with him - maybe if you weren't so busy?"
Ugh. That's the last thing he needs, Drake occupying his time-
------------------------------
He garroted Fenton, holding the wire so tight it cut into his neck, and watched the corpse for a full hour, until the flesh had gone cold. Father just nodded along when he announced this time, he was surely victorious.
And then Fenton had been sitting at the table for dinner like nothing had happened, and cheerfully congratulated him at winning their game of chess by getting him in a chokehold.
He bashed his brains out with a rock in the barn - brutal and barbaric - and Pennyworth had thanked him for 'assisting Master Danny with his chores'. Fenton claimed he was going to sleep like a rock that night, and if he thought it would actually work, he would've smothered him with his pillow.
He decided he must be overthinking it, and went back to using swords and knives, ambushing Fenton wherever he could. He stabbed him in various places, striking vital organs and at least one time severing Fenton into multiple pieces. He had even considered claiming the pretender's head for certain proof of his demise to present to Father.
He'd held up a pumpkin instead. He has no idea when Fenton made the switch, but he'd come up with some ridiculous story about practicing for Halloween.
In July.
Despite the obvious ridiculousness, Father had ruffled his hair, praised him for getting along with Fenton so well and he couldn't even bring himself to be annoyed by it anymore.
"... I will triumph, Fenton," he hissed, glaring at the smugly grinning face of his greatest nemesis.
Fenton reached out to ruffle his hair again, pulling back with a light laugh as he went to impale the hand for his temerity. "Of course you will," he agreed, without even bothering to sound like he believed the words, "Better luck next time?"
"Tt."
------------------------------
At some point, he stopped bothering to announce his triumphs over Fenton, if only because none of them were triumphs. Inevitably, Fenton would be fine, like nothing had happened, and he would make some playful knowing comment hinting about what Damian had actually done, but nobody would ever notice or call him on it.
Damian refused to admit defeat, however, so he kept trying, but it was growing increasingly difficult to become convinced anything would actually succeed. Even burying the corpse didn't seem to change anything - there wasn't even any evidence that Fenton had climbed out of his grave, which just left him wondering what he had buried, if anything.
Fenton was sitting in the gardens, on one of the old, worn stone benches, enjoying a small lunch of Pennyworth's cucumber sandwiches.
"Not going to try and kill me again?" he quipped, voice just loud enough to reach Damian clearly from where he was observing him from behind some bushes.
Observing. Not stalking, as Brown had derisively suggested, and he was not just trying to spend more time with Fenton as Grayson cooed. It was observing. Reconnaissance!
… Although he did emerge, grumbling silently now that it was clear stealth had failed. "I am still attempting to draft a plan with a greater chance of success." Simply attempting to stab Fenton was simple enough. He rarely fought back, but it never stuck. He'd tried everything he could conceive of, short of electrocution and shooting him.
"Well, you'll think of something," Fenton said simply, offering him a sandwich.
He narrowed his eyes, but he grudgingly joined him on the bench and took one. It was, of course, superlative. He'd briefly considered whether it might've been poisoned, but Fenton had never attempted to retaliate. He found it doubtful he'd suddenly decide now.
He could, of course, have planned to get him to lower his guard… but then, Damian had watched Pennyworth hand him the lunch earlier. The benefits of reconnaissance, of course.
"You are clearly more skilled than the others believe," Damian said after a long silence, broken only by the sound of sandwich consumption, "Why have you not usurped the others, or at least demonstrated this competence?"
Fenton grinned at him, infuriatingly friendly and unbothered even now. "Wow, I'm competent now? I can't wait to rub that in Tim's face."
He scowled. "Tt. You are… surprisingly incapable of dying."
There was a snort at that, and Damian's eyes narrowed. The humour seemed… genuine, but he failed to find the joke. "And for the record, Dami, I'm not really all that eager to put on the spandex and gallivant about at night. I get why Bruce is doing it, and I fully support him - and Dick, Tim, and Steph - but I mean. Can you imagine me in a Robin outfit?" He shook his head with a laugh.
Fenton doesn't look that different from Grayson… and Drake. And himself. And Father. So yes, it is quite easy to imagine him in the costume although it is one that rightly belongs to Damian.
"... If you relinquish your claim, I will accept your surrender."
That merely got him a raised eyebrow. "Nuh-uh. You want my place, you've got to pry it from my cold dead fingers like God intended."
He's pretty certain no God had a hand in this, but he'll concede the point. "Very well. But I must ask - are you at all capable of fighting back, or do your talents simply lay with refusing to die?"
"Oh, you want to actually throw down with me? Sure, we can do that. I don't have to tell you not to hold back do I?"
"Tt. Of course not."
------------------------------
Fenton fought well, unsurprisingly. It hadn't stopped Damian from pinning him and snapping his neck, but all it takes is turning his back on him for a moment for Fenton to be standing up like nothing happened - save for perhaps the way he gingerly stretches his neck.
"You really don't pull your punches, huh?" he said, and a part of Damian notes this is the first time Fenton actually acknowledged being affected by what Damian had done. He'd always playfully hinted at it, obviously, but he never seemed sore after being stabbed or beaten, his voice wasn't hoarse when he strangled him, and there was never any sign of distress when he tried poisoning him.
"And I see you are not even pretending to care now," he shot back, although he was surprised to realise he didn't feel any animosity. Barely even any annoyance.
Fenton just shrugged. "Don't really see the point. You already know it's not going to stick."
He narrowed his eyes briefly, studying Fenton for a moment. "Does Father know you are a Meta?" There is a persistent rumour that Batman does not like Meta's in Gotham. It is a lie - Father has nothing against them, provided they follow the rules and don't disrupt the system. But powerful figures invite powerful opponents. There are those who attack Metropolis purely because Superman is there.
Father does not want the same happening in Gotham if it can be helped.
"He does," Fenton admitted freely, "It's actually part of why he's taking care of me. My situation is… complicated." His expression turns darker there, seeming serious for perhaps the first time Damian has ever seen him. Somber, even.
"Tt. I do not think he knows that well. He seemed… distraught when I first hold him I killed you."
There was a bark of laughter at that, filled with something sardonic. "Bruce worries. He's already lost one son, so he doesn't want to lose another. Fortunately for him, you can't get rid of me that easily."
"Tt. I'll figure it out eventually."
Another laugh. "I'm sure you will. How about round two?"
------------------------------
He never really stopped trying to kill Fenton - when they sparred, he gave it his all, confident that there was no need to hold back. He just… stopped trying to ambush him, or surprise him. Stopped trying to assassinate him. His time with Father and his… rival claimants made it clear that such things weren't tolerated. Wouldn't be looked well upon. Father's fear and concern had been genuinely fear that he had killed Fenton - as though Fenton could die.
If he had gone through with his attack on Drake… he doubted they would be so kind and welcoming to him now, not the way Fenton was. Fenton, who didn't seem to mind whenever he had tried to kill him, because he was, for all intents and purposes, immortal.
("I figured it was enrichment," he'd said, as though Damian were a zoo animal. He'd stabbed him for that comment, but he hadn't expected it to stick. It hadn't.)
And slowly, Fenton revealed more of his own abilities. The transformation, the ice, the phasing. The flying. He called it 'going ghost' because despite being Damian's senior by age, he was by far his junior by maturity. He learned about the Federal Anti-Ecto Acts, the situation that had led to him being adopted by Father, a situation that Father - and the Justice League - were working to unravel so he could return to being himself, safe and true.
He didn't quite understand why it was necessary for Fenton - he was, after all, immortal.
"You know I still feel pain, Dami," he'd said, light and conversational, and he didn't want to acknowledge the twisting feeling.
"You never complained," he'd replied, and it wasn't an accusation but it was in some ways.
Fenton had just shrugged and said "I've had worse." and ruffled his hair and Damian had let him, as his mind replayed the countless deaths he'd inflicted on his immortal brother.
Immortal, but not unfeeling.
He would not apologise for it, however. It wasn't his fault Fenton hadn't done the sensible thing and died. Everyone else did it when you stabbed them in the heart.
------------------------------
"Are you coming out on patrol with us now, Fenton?" Damian asked, already suited up as Robin. Father had finally acquiesced to allowing him to take his place at his side, donning the mantle that was rightfully his after Drake 'graciously' allowed it to pass as he became 'Red Robin'.
With the Anti-Ecto Acts rightfully repealed, Fenton was now free to resume his own mantle as 'Phantom' once again, and Damian would grudgingly admit that having his assistance was… not insubstantial. He was a powerful Meta, even if he restricted himself greatly.
And he was the only one who consistently returned to the manor without injuries, by virtue of fact that nothing done to him stuck and so was Alfred's favorite. Which was just unfair, in Damian's opinion.
"Yup," he said cheerfully, stretching a little, "Bruce's assigned me with you tonight - we're heading along the Boulevard, near the docks. Supposed to be some activity by Penguin."
Smuggling of some kind, doubtless. "Take to the skies then. We will scout the area and keep an eye out for his men."
"Aye aye, cap'n!"
He rolled his eyes, but he always appreciated that Fenton never pushed back, or accused Robin of being too young, too junior to take lead. Phantom had been active for a few years, but Damian had been taking missions for longer.
There was a bright flash, and Daniel Fenton-Wayne was replaced with Phantom, legs trailing off into that ghostly tail. "After you, boss."
"Tt."
A routine scout and patrol. Standard operating procedure was only engage if lives were being threatened - even if a crime was being committed, so long as nobody was actively in danger, Father preferred they avoided active engagements. He could, grudgingly, see the logic that was present even beyond Father's desire to coddle and protect them.
Stop a drug shipment, and you got all those drugs certainly, and put away the criminals who were smuggling it. Follow that shipment, and you learned more about the logistics chain, the transportation, the storage.
So they would watch, Robin carefully hidden in the shadows on a roof, and Phantom above, invisible.
"Robin, Phantom, I've got some kind of activity heading your way. White vans, no plates."
Damian narrowed his eyes behind the domino mask. Another gang? "Which direction?"
"Coming in from the north."
"Too much to hope for a quiet night, eh?" Phantom said breezily, "I think I see them. Is that-do they have a radar? Wait." There was an element of… something in his voice then. A quiver. A note of… fear? Concern?
"Phantom?" he muttered. Did he turn his attention to the vans? Phantom had a visual, but if he was concerned, then something could be happening, but if he turned, then he would abandon the vigil on Penguin's men.
No, Phantom could handle himself fine. He was functionally invincible.
"They're still around?!" he squawked, and there was anger there as well.
A voice, shouted distantly, too far for Robin to hear the words intelligibly. He glanced up to where he knew Phantom was hovering - or the rough area - just in time to hear his panicked shout… as a rocket rushed up and exploded into a cloud of dark, crimson red.
There was a scream of pain, and Damian was moving before he had the wherewithal to recognise, consciously, that it was Daniel screaming. He'd never screamed no matter what Damian put him through.
"Oracle! Reinforcements! Phantom's down, they hit him with something, I'm engaging-" There was a flurry of responses over the comms, alarmed replies from his other siblings, Father himself, but none of it mattered because Phantom was falling out of the sky, streaking through the lingering cloud like a falling star.
He'll survive impact his mind supplied, and so he swept down to engage his brother's attackers.
"Stand down Robin," one of them snarled, tall and dressed in a ridiculous white suit. How it stayed clean was beyond Damian, but also, not important. "Don't fall for the ghost boy's ridiculous-oof!"
Damian was already moving. It was only Father's abhorrence of killing that prevented him from drawing his blades on them, but he had no time for anything even resembling banter. They'd dared to shoot his brother.
His favourite brother even.
"He's overshadowed! Shoot!" one of them shouted, and suddenly there were blasts of green scorching the ground and walls, but their aim was mediocre at best. He had learned to dodge live fire years ago by better marksmen.
But if he hit them harder now that they were fighting back, he's certain nobody would bring it up.
Once Drake and Father arrived, what had started as a relatively one-sided fight turned into the bloodless and nonlethal equivalent of a slaughter. "Robin. Phantom?" Father asked, brusque and to the point as always.
He nodded immediately, grappling to the nearest roof. Fenton had fallen not far from here, although why he hadn't simply gotten back up was beyond Damian. A test? Another game? A poor time for it, certainly, but he had shrugged off worse than a little poison.
"Phantom!" he called, swinging onto the roof he had landed on. "This is no time to be fooling around!"
Fenton didn't respond, unless one counted the pained cry as a response - it didn't seem directed at Damian, however, merely at his situation
"Fine then," he snapped, arms folded over his chest, annoyance clear in his tone, "Play it like that. If you wanted to ride back to the manor, you just had to say so."
"What happened?" Father growled, rushing over, already protective and concerned in his own way, checking over Fenton as he writhed.
His annoyance bled out as he snapped into a more serious demeanour. "Those men down there fired some kind of missile at Phantom; it burst into some kind of gas, and he fell." Then his face scrunched up in annoyance. "I do not see why we are indulging him like this."
"Robin." There was a furious warning to Father's tone, and Damian couldn't help flinching.
"What?" he blustered, defensive, "It's not as though he won't recover! This is nothing-"
"Enough. We're returning. Oracle, inform Agent A to prep the medbay for potential poisoning."
Poisoning?! Ridiculous! Damian had tried several varieties, including both batrachotoxin and tetrodotoxin and the only thing Fenton had said about them was that they gave the sauce a nice kick!
"Fine," he muttered, annoyed, glaring at his brother. "Waste of time. He's fine. He always is."
------------------------------
He glared at Fenton the entire way home, and didn't shy away from proclaiming the fact that Fenton was just pretending for some ridiculous reason. He expected him to get up in the medbay, laugh it off and ruffle his hair again, make a joke about no longer being the only one who returned uninjured.
Damian had returned uninjured, but he didn't get a plate of cookies as a reward from Alfred because he was busy fussing over Fenton. Who, again, was pretending.
"... Have I annoyed you in some way?" he asked, scowling at where Fenton was still groaning and whimpering in bed - he hadn't stopped the entire way, presumably because he did not actually need to breathe. "Is there a reason you're insisting on this… farce?"
Outside, he could hear his siblings rushing around, Drake furiously analysing the files and research, Grayson and Father arguing over whether to contact the League. Even Alfred was panicking, although in a quiet, controlled way, given how swiftly he'd prepared tea and quickly dabbed at Fenton's forehead when he came in, but they seemed content to leave Damian to watch over him, even if they had scolded him for proclaiming the truth.
"I'm sorry for attacking you so often. Is that what you wanted to hear?" Fenton just whimpered. Not a real response. "... And I'm sorry I stole the last cookie. You were too slow, but… it was unfair of me to deny you it. I am not sorry about eating it in front of you. It was motivation to get better. And I'm sorry I told Grayson where you kept the last of your froot loops. I didn't eat them, he did, but it was my fault he did. Go ahead and tell me I won whatever stupid game you came up with this time."
He frowned a little, still staring right at Fenton's pained grimace. "Fine. You win, instead. You won weeks ago. I gave up trying to take your place, it was clear I wasn't going to succeed. I admit defeat. You bested me! So you can stop now!" His voice was raising despite himself, a sense of desperation he wouldn't admit bubbling up inside of him.
"Fenton! This isn't funny! It's over, the game's over, open your eyes and stop-" His hands reached out to seize him by the shoulders and Fenton had always been cold to the touch, but never clammy like this, and his skin was bordering on translucent to the point he could see the veins, pulsing sluggishly, and he was shaking him now, furious and desperate. "Stop pretending already! You're not-you can't-"
"Damian!" Father shouted, broad hands seizing him by his own arms, trying to pry him away, but he refused to be separated now, struggling and kicking.
"Wake up you idiot!" he howled, furious as something hot begin to sting at his eyes, "Stop playing dead! You can't die! You can't!"
"Damian, sport, it's okay, we're working on a cure," Father soothed, pulling him away with his infuriating gentle strength, still insisting on this childish charade.
"He doesn't need a cure!" he screamed, "He's fine! He's always fine! I cut off your head, Daniel, this is nothing so stop pretending-!"
Father's arms bound him tighter, turning him around to bury his face against his bulk, and his struggling, flailing hands seized the fabric of his batsuit. "It's okay," Father murmured, "He'll recover, we can fix this."
"He's fine," Damian whispered, voice hoarse from screaming, trembling with emotions he refused to acknowledge, "He's fine, he's always fine…"
Daniel's continued pained whimpers said otherwise, but he had to be fine.
When Damian woke up the next day after crying himself to sleep, he immediately went down to the cave, not caring to change from the clothing that he was changed into last night. He didn't care. The only thought on his mind was that Daniel could be hurt. When he got down to the cave, he saw some members of the JL and JLD there, but he just moved past them and into the med bay, not caring to answer anyone who called his name. He had his sword with him so some of the people sounded panicked but he didn't acknowledge them.
He entered and went next to Daniel and stayed on his left. Daniel had trouble with his left arm more so that was his weaker side, it was where he needed more protection so that is where he stayed. He sat against the wall with his sword in hand on the ground. He glared at everyone who came in. His father and Richard looked confused at first before taking on sad expressions.
Why they made that face was unknown to him, he was just adding to Daniel's protection. He was weak right now and damian was going to make sure no one could hurt him now that he was vulnerable. Damian stayed when Alfred came in to change ivs and check on Daniel, he threatened Richard when he came in and tried to get damian to leave Daniel's side. Damian just swung his sword at him, cutting him on his arm. He wanted him to leave Daniel! Outrageous!
Richard left the room after that, sighing as he went and got his cut taken care off. Damian simply sat back down on the ground, pulling his legs up to his chest. Once Daniel recovers he will make sure that those people will never hurt his brother again. He does not care about breaking father's rule. He will break it to protect Daniel.
Father had brought him some sandwiches, he tried talking to damian but he didn't listen, he simply ate his food in silence. Glaring at people when they entered and went near Daniel. When they did go near Daniel he would stand up, sword in hand as he watched their every move. He didn't trust these people. He did not care who they were, if they made Daniel's condition worse then he would kill them where they stood.
This was the process over the hours that passes, damain would stay by Daniel and refuse to leave. Daniel seemed to be getting a bit better over time, some of his scars and veins didn't glow as bright as before. They were a dim red now. They didn't find an immediate cure, just one to help flush his system slowly. It wasn't until 3 days later when they actually got a cure.
On the third night he had fallen asleep on the floor again, sword in hand but when he woke up he was being held by someone, he heard his father and other siblings talking to the person holding him, he was to tired to tell who it was at the moment. As the person responded he woke up more, looking up at who was holding him. "Aww, my tiny protector is awake." Damian blinked. Daniel. Daniel was awake. He was sitting up and holding damian. He was okay. "Your awake..." damain sniffles, moving and wrapping his arms around Daniel's neck, hugging him tightly. He was okay! He was talking! Damain knew he was crying, he felt the tears going down his face but he didn't care, his brother was okay and damian was gonna make sure that an incident like this never happens again.
... if damain glared at anyone that wore a bit to much white and kept Daniel away from them then that was someone else's problem. So what if he clung to danny and didn't leave his side alone for the first few weeks. No one complained...
(I ain't good at writing lol, someone wanna write them more detailed go ahead man)
Danny gets sent by his parents to summer camp as a surprise. Danny isn't exactly happy about it. He opens the door to his cabin and gets introduced to his two bunk mates, Damian Wanye and his older brother Tim. The two had also gotten sent to camp by surprise. In reality, they were sent undercover on a mission to investigate something odd happening in the camp. Tim expected Damian to run Danny off within a week, but that didn't happen now. The two have to work hard to keep their work under the radar while trying to act like normal teens around Danny. Danny is aware of this but doesn't care to get involved up until things get supernatural in nature
Damian and Tim: *seething with rage bc they have to room together while pretending to be normal kids and investigate something suspicious about this summer camp AND the damn kid that they’re rooming with won’t leave*
Danny: *with glowing eyes and ghost powers* Wow, people outside of Illinois are weird asf
(Also, to make things a little easier, I'm making the age gap between Tim and Damian three years. So they'll be 17 & 14.)
Cabin 18 and the Missing Kids.
Danny wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but one moment, he had been sleeping, and the next, he was being dragged out of bed, shoved into the GAV, and dropped off at some random camp with bags he hadn't noticed missing the night before.
"It'll just be two weeks, sweety!" Mom cheered, not even looking at him as she studied the device in her hands. It blinked, but not insistently enough to mean anything concerning.
"That's right, Dann-o!" Dad laughed, clapping Danny on his back, almost sending him crashing down. Grumbling, Danny tightened his grip on his bags and stared at his parents.
"Vladie's paying for all expenses, so enjoy it while you're here. said it was one of the best camps in the world!" Dad continued, ignoring Danny's obviously decreasing mood.
Granted, he had already been rather upset after getting woken up at 3 in the morning, so his parents probably just chalked it up to him being tired. (So tired; he had only just gotten to sleep, not even twenty minutes before they woke him up. Damn ghosts and not respecting sleep schedules.)
Mom patted his back with a small smile as Dad jogged back to the GAV, "I know you don't like Vlad and his schemes, and I completely agree with you, but he's trying, sweety. At least give this a chance before locking yourself in your cabin. Who knows, maybe you'll actually enjoy it here."
"Do you even know what the camps name is? or the programs schedule?" Danny asked, frowning up at her.
"Uh," she blinked, before shrugging, "didn't get a chance to look into it. Vlad kind of just told us about it last night, said it was supposed to be a surprise."
"Anyway," she continued, ruffling his hair with a tight smile, "give it a chance. We'll see you in two weeks. Love you." And with a kiss, she rushed off to the GAV and left Danny to watch as the car sped away, almost knocking a tree over in it's haist.
Turning with a sigh, Danny slowly made his way to an adult dressed in bright orange. "Check in!" the guy shouted, waving his arm over his head, clutching a clipboard in the other hand. "Check in over here!"
"Excuse me?" Danny asked, already done with the situation.
"Oh! Hello there!" the guy smiled, way too cheerfully for eight in the morning. "What's your name, kid?" he asked, already scanning the board.
"Danny," Danny huffed, squinting up at the sky. It looked like it was going to be clear and sunny today, hopefully it stays that way into the night. He might as well take the opportunity to stargaze, it'll probably be the only good thing he'd get out of this.
"Last name?" the guy asked, flipping through the pages. Just how many kids were going to be here?
"Fenton," Danny answered, watching as the man's smile grew tighter. Obviously Vlad had pissed them off then, not surprising really. The fruitloop probably made up the whole plan yesterday and Karened his way to getting Danny a spot. There goes his chance to stay under the radar.
"Right!" the guy continued, trying to not seem annoyed, "because of your... late addition, you'll be in Cabin 18. Your roommates are already unpacked and settled in, so you'll just have to deal with whatever beds are left. Sorry, kid."
He was very obviously not sorry. Time for damage control then; does he go with classic deception or outrageous lies? hmmm, probably be better off with half truths.
"That's fine, sorry about my uncle and all the trouble we've put you through. He's been trying to make up for accidentally leaving me on his private island last month. Dad probably told him I liked camping or something." Which was true, both the being left on an island and his dad's nonstop talk of going camping with just Danny, which probably gave Vlad the idea for this, now that Danny was thinking about it.
"Oh," the guy blinked, before awkwardly clearing his throat and glancing to the side. He smiled again, this time trying not to look baffled instead of annoyed. Well, being thought of as an unlucky, sympathetic rich kid was better than being the bratty rich kid.
A win's a win.
"Well," he checked off Danny's name, digging into his bag and handing over a key. "Here's your key, don't lose it. We've had to install locks after last year's incident. Only those who sleep in the cabin or camp officials have keys. So if you do lose it, please let one of us know and we'll get you another one. If you find a key, please bring it to the main office were we can store it safely."
"Cabin 18 is down that path," the guy turned and pointed, "and will be three cabins back on your left side."
Turning back, the guy gestured for Danny to start walking, "get settled in; we'll be going over the rules once everyone is here. So, around 11, head down to the cafeteria and take a seat at your numbered table. Also, don't go exploring without supervision, we don't need to send out another search party."
"Right," Danny acknowledged, walking as quickly as he could while not making it obvious he was running away.
This was going to suck.
Not only did Vlad have some new plan to probably kill Dad, but Danny would be stuck out here camping and unable to disappear long enough to deal with Vlad without anyone noticing his disappearance if the search party comment meant anything.
Amity was four and a half hours away, which he could fly, but it'd take him at least thirty minutes at his top speed to get there, then however long to fight Vlad, stop his plan, then another thirty to get back.
If they really were as stingy about the rules as he was starting to think they were, he wouldn't even get ten minutes away before someone noticed his unauthorized absence.
"Don't leave the path," some random camp leader shouted, glaring at two kids trying to sneak away through the trees. They had only gotten five feet off the dirt path before being spotted.
Shaking his head, Danny kept walking and watched the number of cabins pass by. It seemed they were being grouped in rows of six. which meant cabin 18 would be the sixth one in row three.
Coincidentally, that was the last row.
Which meant there was another eighteen cabins down the other path where all the girls had been heading. Which meant 36 cabins full of kids.
Danny zips around the massive dark aquarium with a net carefully snatching up all sorts of colourful marine life before going up and gently depositing them in smaller tanks that Sam prepared.
"You do realise this is extremely illegal, right?"
"Taking these poor endangered fish from their homes is extremely illegal. We're righting a wrong here Danny, and you still owe me one"
Danny sighs and goes back down but keeps talking.
"I just don't want to be accused of stealing again"
"Tucker got us covered, we'll be fine. You just keep fishing Danny, I think we're almost done. "
Danny carefully goes through the dark depths of the aquarium again and it's then that he sees a much bigger shape dart away from him.
Sam said this entire thing was filled with poached endangered marine wildlife so everything in it needs to be retrieved. Aka, Danny goes in pursuit.
It takes some doing but eventually Danny gets a hold of it and it's worryingly little girl shaped.
He holds the little girl in front of him and just kinda looks for a second at this squirmy child that can apparently breathe underwater.
"Sam! Sam, holy Fffffffuudge"
"What!? What??"
"There is a baby in the aquarium!" He holds up the squealing little red head who has apparently decided what's happening now is funny actually.
"A baby!?"
"In the aquarium!" He points down at the water.
"Why is there a baby in the aquarium!!?"
"How am I supposed to know?! Maybe these weirdos accidentally fished up one of Aquaman's people?"
"Oh my god, we need to bring her back!"
"How the ff-frick-" the little girl giggles and goes, "Fik!" Making Danny wince, "-are we supposed to do that, I don't know where Atlantis is at Sam"
"Call the justice league?"
"Didn't they disband again not too long ago?"
"... shit, you're right"
Danny rushes to cover the little girls ears while hissing, "language" and Sam slaps a hand over her mouth.
"Sorry..."
Danny floats in a circle above the water bouncing the child who seems fascinated with his glowing white hair, "Okay, okay, here's an idea. Jazz has her drivers license. We'll do an impromptu road trip to the east coast"
"... yeah, sounds good, let's go"
Sam holds the little girl as Danny stacks up all the tanks filled with fish and they quickly leave the premises.
"Can I just say I love you hair little miss, Naturally dark red? if only I was that lucky."
The now empty tank is surrounded by a gaggle of awkwardly shifting henchmen.
"So who is gonna tell the boss we lost the princess?"
So far the road trip has been incredibly educational.
The gang has learned what a one year old eats, and how to change diapers.
They've also learned that there are a bunch of crazies out there that want to steal a baby atlantean.
By now Jazz has fought a guy who called himself Black Manta in the new and improved Fenton exoskeleton. That battle involved a lot of lazers going in various directions.
"I thought Aquaman was an idiot to entrust her protection to a group of teenagers. But I'm starting to see his logic. You lot prepare yourselves, next time it won't be so easy"
And he'd been gone before they could correct his assumptions.
Then there was the swamp witch that Sam Out magicked with her own plant abilities.
"Curse you children, that royal blood will be mine!"
"Is she talking about me?"
"I really doubt it Tuck..."
Now they've finally reached the east coast and some big crustacean looking guy got sand guardianed by Tucker. Aka he's stuck up to his neck in the sand of the beach.
"You're only delaying the inevitable! Ocean master will have the child!"
The group just looks at him rather annoyed.
Great, that means some other asshole is going to show up any moment now.
The up side to it all is that the little girl seems to love all the action. It would have really sucked if they had to soothe a crying child every time a fight happened.
I love seeing Danny Phantom showing up and being like ‘don’t ask too many questions but John Constantine I own your soul. All of it. Lmao sucks to suck bitch’, and he’s usually all Ghost King Full Regalia as he does it, at least in front of the Justice League, but consider—
He just shows up as Danny Fenton.
“yeah I got bored and collected the pieces like Pokémon. Gotta catch ‘em all” says the 5’2 teen who looks like a stiff breeze could trip him. He denies being a sorcerer, or a magician, concedes he’s maybe psychic but mostly he’s just…. The kid of two mad scientists—who have a basement lab where they opened a portal to what he SAYS is not hell but no one is frankly CONVINCED, by the way—and he hasn’t decided what to do with Constantine yet besides getting Danny into some r rated horror movies, but figures he should tell the dude probably.
“What’d you even trade for some of his soul contracts?”
Ajhsjdks can you imagine if he didn’t even have to trade anything for it?? Like a bunch of demons, ghosts, n creatures offering their piece of John’s soul during his coronation to gain the favor of their new monarch
A dude’s whole ass soul was dropped in his lap the moment he became king and he finally got around to meeting the poor guy with the overcomplicated soul custody issues
I feel like this particular version of Danny would grab Constantine whenever he runs into magic stuff (not ghost stuff, or ghost magic stuff) he doesnt know how to deal with on his own... of course, anything beyond Danny is also above Constantine's skill level, and it's alway the most bizarre, horrible, complicated stuff he's ever seen, and why oh why is this seemingly normal kid even involved???
Wait, wait, no, what if he got Constantine's soul through something entirely or mostly unrelated to his ghost shenanigans? Like, idk, some kids at Casper High giving demon summoning a try, to mixed results, and then Danny khuman version) shows up and bullies the demon into bribing him to let them leave... with a ludicrously small bribe (a piece of Constantine's soul), of course. And stuff like that just keeps happening. Doesn't even have to be demons. The soul bits could have circulated like bad pennies. Maybe Jack or Maddie buys an old soul contact off ebay to do experiments on, and Danny asks if he can have it when they're done.
Gosh darn it, I'm going to have to write something.
.
"Ooooh, Maddie! It came!" Jack picked the thin package up and spun around.
"What is it?" asked Danny around a spoonful of cereal (Cosmic Crunch, now with extra marshmallow stars!), mildly alarmed. It probably wasn't anything inherently dangerous, he'd sense it if it was, it was unlikely to be anything nice, either. Best case scenario was some kind of Vlad Masters fan boy merch. Which. Barf. Worst case, well...
He didn't have a good track record with his parents' packages.
"Just some nonsense your father picked up online."
Ooh, they were fighting. Good to know. Hopefully it wasn't Santa-related. He'd die. Literally, if temporarily. It was way too early in the year.
"It's not nonsense!" protested Jack, tearing into the package to reveal an... oversized manila envelope. He held it up, as if it refuted Maddie's point entirely.
"Magic isn't real, dear."
"Yes, it is! There are wizards and magicians in the Justice League!"
"There are wizard and magician themed superheroes in the Justice League. That one girl does stage magic, sleight of hand, publicly. They're almost certainly aliens or metas."
Well. Danny didn't know about the guys on the Justice League, but he knew for a fact that magic was real, dangerous, and not always detectable in the same way ghost stuff was. So that little manila envelope might have something more dangerous in it than he'd initially assume.
"Okay, but that doesn't answer what it's supposed to be," he pointed out, lowering his spoon to his bowl.
"Oh, yeah! It's a soul contract! It gives me ownership of a human soul!"
"... Huh?"
Maddie was wearing her goggles, but even so, it was obvious she was rolling her eyes. "A man claiming to be a demonologist said he'd gotten it in a bargain with a demon."
Danny blinked. "Isn't that usually the other way around?"
Maddie shrugged.
"Well, yeah, but the demonologist had something that pesky demon wanted!" said Jack, beaming. "So it had to pay up! Apparently, the soul belongs to some hotshot wizard!"
"It's a scam, Jack."
"Well, spell scam backwards and you get macs! As in, take it to the max! Bonzai!" He opened the envelope with a flourish, and pulled out a piece of yellowed but otherwise normal-looking paper.
Emphasis on looking, because now that Danny had his eyes on it, he could tell it wasn't normal. The power in it was faint, but it was there.
"I'm going to go run some tests on it!" declared Jack, taking off into the basement.
"It's just old printer paper, Jack!" yelled Maddie, before returning to her coffee with a huff.
"Uh," said Danny. He looked at Maddie, who still had a sour expression on her face. "I'm going to... uh... make sure he doesn't set anything on fire." Or summon a demon, accidentally or on purpose.
.
"Aw," said Jack, after several nerve-wracking (for Danny) days. "I guess Maddie was right. It is just a normal piece of paper. I'm sorry, Danno. I know you were real interested."
"Uh huh," said Danny, still a little burnt out from destroying the automatic demon summoning machine Jack had built and promptly forgotten about in a corner. "So, uh. I guess you don't need it?"
"Eh? Well, no, I guess not. Might as well chuck it!"
"Actually, I was wondering if I could have it!" said Danny, quickly, before Jack could crumple up the contract.
"Really? Why?"
That was a good question, honestly. It had caused him a lot of trouble, and he didn't really want to own a guy's soul, but the idea of just throwing out something like this struck Danny as a bad one. Maybe he could track the guy down and give it back to him, assuming he wasn't an evil bastard. Which he might be, if he did things like making deals with demons.
"I don't know," said Danny, shrugging. "It's kind of funny, isn't it? Like, I own this guy's soul now. It's in writing and everything."
Jack chuckled. "That it is! Sure, you can have it! Maybe we can even get it framed or something."
The small power in the paper shifted slightly with the change in ownership. Danny didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"Ha, maybe," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's fine the way it is for right now, though." He slid over to the table the paper was on, and gently tugged it out of the ecto-measurement apparatus. "I'll just put this away!"
And try to learn more about it.
.
Johnny Thirteen simultaneously gave off the vibes of being someone who Knew Stuff and the vibes of someone who had never had a thought in his life. As such, when Danny saw him standing in the middle of the mall, obviously freaking out, he knew he was the perfect person to ask about the whole 'owning a soul' thing.
So, Danny slowly sidled up to him.
"Trying to find a gift for Kitty?"
"Ohholysh--! Phaaaenton! The hell are you so sneaky?"
Danny shrugged. "You need help?"
Johnny squinted. "What's it to you?"
"Come on, I offer to help you all the time."
"Yeah, sure, usually followed by the whole 'get out of my town' speech."
"Gasp," said Danny, pressing his hands to his chest. "I'm so offended. Yeah, dude, I want you out of town when you're breaking the speed limit by eighty miles an hour and Shadow is destroying everything you touch, putting dozens of people in danger of injury or death. Shocker. But I've got some questions about this thing I found, and I'm willing to deal with whatever Shadow's doing to get answers. As long as he isn't about to hurt someone."
"What makes you think Shadow's doing anything?" demanded Johnny, right before a set of shelves in the nearby candle store collapsed.
Danny raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, fine. Mine and Kitty's anniversary is coming up, and I dunno what to get her. What do you want?"
"I need to know if soul contracts are a thing and how they work. Like, what they do and stuff like that."
"Holy crap, did someone try to buy your soul?"
"No," said Danny. He made a face, then admitted, "My dad bought one and when it looked like it wasn't going to do anything ghostly, he gave it to me."
Johnny's eyebrows flew up. "Jesus Christ, you're involved in the soul trade."
"Don't say it like that," said Danny, masterly ignoring the sounds of a twenty-four lunch pileup from the food court. "I just didn't want to leave it lying around. It's not going to corrupt my soul or anything like that, is it?"
"Nah," said Johhny. He reached into his pocket for something. "I'm not philophical or anything, but even when you're dealing with magic there's wayyy more nuance in good and evil than people like to think. Smoke?"
"Stop that, you'll set the smoke alarms off. What else do you know about this stuff."
Johnny stuck his cigarette into his mouth and held up a finger. "Gift for Kitty first, then answers."
That was about what Danny expected. "Okay. Which anniversary is it for you guys, anyway?"
Johnny shrugged. "Dunno."
Yikes. He wasn't as bad as Jack, who could probably take Olympic gold in time blindness, but still.
"Well," he said, summoning years' worth of his mother's lectures on the subject, "flowers and chocolate are always good. So's jewelry. But they have to be quality. Then there's, I don't know, hobby stuff? Does Kitty have any hobbies?"
"She's been on some kinda fitness kick lately. Maybe I can get her some diet shakes or something like that? Maybe a scale? Ours broke."
"Absolutely not. I'd ask how you were still alive, but you're not, so. Anything else?"
"What's wrong with diet shakes?"
"Dude. Are you trying to call her fat? Move on. What else does she like?"
"She used to do some knitting?"
Wow, Danny would never have thought that.
"Okay, I guess you could give her some yarn, too? That's not enough on it's own... Maybe take her out on a fancy date, too? Or," he continued, think things through from a more ghostly perspective, "you could do like... a gesture? Like, beat up an enemy for her or something. But a date, definitely."
"I know about dates," said Johnny. "It's the present that's trouble!"
"Well, I've given you options."
"Yeah, sure, options, as if I'm made of money."
"You're saying you're dead broke?"
This isn't funny, you twerp! This is my afterlife on the line!"
"Oh my gosh, calm down. If you can't pay for it, just fight someone for it or steal it or something."
Johnny eyed him doubtfully. "You'll be me up if I do."
"I'll beat you up if you try and do it here," clarified Danny. "Walker has a bunch of stuff. So does the Box Ghost. And I know for a fact Bertrand and Spectra have a bunch of wedding rings."
"Why would they-?"
"Wedding counselor scam. Don't ask. It sucked. Anyway, go fight one of them instead of involving humans. I know you can at least take Boxy."
"Yeah, great idea! I'll just go-!"
Danny grabbed the tail of Johnny's leather coat before he could fly away. "Your side. Now. And let's get out of the mall before Shadow sets the candle store on fire or something."
"He wouldn't do that, he hates fire!"
The fire alarm started going off. Danny spared a minute to stare at Johnny flatly. "Don't go anywhere."
.
Johnny did go somewhere. He didn't get very far.
.
"You know, this makes me much less likely to make deals with you in the future, right?" asked Danny from his perch on Johnny's back.
"Aw, come on, you didn't even have to 'go ghost' or whatever to find me."
"I did to put out the fire, though. Do you know how fast a candle store can go up? Do you?"
"No," admitted Johnny.
"It's fast. Really fast. Buildings in general burn fast. I prefer fighting fires to murder attempts, but that's like comparing getting shot with a shotgun to getting shot with a pistol. They both suck. You get me?"
"Uhh..."
"Never mind. So. Selling souls. Soul contracts. Whatever. What can you tell me?"
"It's like, a thing some demons and devils do with humans. Pretty much what it sounds like. Power or favors for the soul upon death. Or when they're dead."
"Bit of a weird distinction to make."
"Yeah, well, believe it or not, it's come up. And Ancients only know how you'd count with either of those."
"Hm," said Danny. "I probably count as having died, but am I dead... I guess it matters for people who are only temporarily dead? Like, people who get resuscitated? Or whatever the JL has going on."
"Yeah, that's it exactly. But basically, if you have a contract with one of those guys and you die, it's a one way ticket to the Unworld. Hell. Whatever you want to call it. No chance of forming a normal ghost or getting into the nice afterlives. Unless someone intervenes for you and they pack a big punch, it's eternal slavery, torture, or being eaten. Sometimes all three."
"What if someone who isn't a demon has the contract?"
"I dunno, it doesn't come up much, man. Heard about some angels shredding a few a while back, and there've been rumors about where Nocturne gets his sleepwalkers for ages, and about Pariah's army, too, but nothing solid. I guess you'd own them. Thralldom. Maybe their soul would get suctioned to you instead?"
Danny grimaced. He didn't want to own anyone. So. "Any way to safely get rid of one?"
"Sell it?"
"No, I mean, like, destroy it. So it doesn't hurt me or the other guy."
"Dunno. Try and find an angel, I guess."
"Johnny, where am I going to find an angel?"
"Pft. It's not like they live on another planet or anything."
"No, just in another dimension."
"Hey, it's called the Infinite Realms for a reason. But, like, are you sure you want to free up someone who made a deal with a demon for power?"
See, this is why Danny got Johnny for advice. Other than him just being available.
"Yeah, okay, you have a point there. I'll come back to that. You ever see a soul contract before? You could tell if it was a real one?"
"Uh, maybe?" Johnny shifted slightly. "I only ever saw one, and it was for this weirdo named John Constantine. You'd get a real kick out of his story."
Danny stiffened slightly, recognizing the name. "Yeah?"
"Oh, yeah. Like, I don't know if the man is big on balls or short on brain cells, but you've got to admire it anyway." Johnny chuckled. "So, get this. The guy's dying. And, you know, he sucks, so he's convinced he's going to Hell, right?"
"Sure," said Danny. He didn't really get how people were sorted into afterlives, but, for obvious reasons, it wasn't a problem he was going to personally face.
"He doesn't want to go to Hell."
"Reasonable."
"He picks a fight with Satan."
"He-- Like, the actual Satan?" The Infinite Realms being what they were, names from mythology tended to have a lot of different claimants.
"Don't know, don't care. He's a tough dude, anyway. So, Johnny C, he picks a fight with Satan. Which, again, respect. Gotta beat up the biggest guy in the prison yard. And Satan's all like, ooh, now I've got to have your soul and torture you for all eternity. God, demons are so boring. Then our boy goes and sells a his soul to two biggest, nastiest demons he could find. Like, you'd call them Ancients if they ever took a break from torture."
Wow, Danny wasn't liking the revelation that demons could be as strong as the Ancients. "Okay, so far I'm leaning more towards the dumb category rather than the bold category for this guy, but continue."
"Right, so here's the genius part: He sold it to both of them."
"Yeah? You said that."
"Without the other one knowing. So, when it started to look like he was going to kick it, they all showed up to his deathbed and started fighting, including good ol' Satan."
"Why'd they have to go to his deathbed?" asked Danny. "I thought the soul just went swoop to them." He made a sort of sweeping motion with his hand, not sure how truly disembodied souls should move.
"Don't ask me, man, this is all third hand. Fourth hand? Whatever. Point is, since demons are all assholes, they'd fight each other if his soul was up for grabs, and none of them were too sure about their chances, what with all of them having armies or whatever, so they shoved him back in his body, healed him, and went on their way."
"They can do that?"
"Yeah, like I said, they're almost Ancients."
"So... It's an immortality scam," said Danny.
"Yeah, and, guess what, he's still doing it. Like, the guy sells his soul like it's going out of style, because it can't get much worse for him, right?"
"Okay," said Danny, "but it sounds like he's well known, so... Why would anyone buy his soul, if it's a scam?"
"Clout, probably? They get passed into the Zone sometimes, and I don't know how demons see it, but it's got to be a big boost being able to say you've got the soul of someone who's in the Justice League."
Danny was about to make a comment about a guy like that getting into the Justice League, but then he remembered something terribly important. "The Justice League, you say?"
"Yeah, wild, right?"
"So, uh. I guess the contracts he made with the big demons said they'd get his soul when he was dead?"
"Yeah, probably. Why?"
"What'd happen if he made a later contract with someone else and it said after he'd died?"
"Well, unless they wanted to piss off the big demons, they'd leave it."
"Uh huh," said Danny, rubbing his lower lip. "And, hypothetically, what would happen if someone... collected all those different contracts?"
"Holy crap, you really are getting into the soul trade."
"Hey! I'm just trying to help out a fellow hero!" said Danny, who absolutely had an ulterior motive, even if it was mostly benign. "It's not very useful to just give him back one contract, is it?"
Johnny, uncharitably, snorted.
"So, do you know who has his contracts?"
.
"You want to do what?" asked Jazz, a spoonful of yogurt hanging forgotten in front of her mouth. "For what?"
"I want to collect all of John Constantine's soul contracts so I can blackmail him into taking me to the Justice League's super secret space base."
"Danny..." said Jazz. She finally lowered the spoon, then looked around the kitchen as if their parents might pop out of one of the cabinets, despite being off installing ghost shields around a private kindergarten on the edge of town. "Don't you think buying someone's soul is a little..."
"Hey, he's the one that sold it."
"Probably for a good cause, if he's in the Justice League."
"Sure," said Danny, "and I'm going to give them all back to him, really, but between this and me managing to get past the NASA health checks, which is more likely?"
He really was going to give all the contracts back to Constantine, or at least destroy them, renounce them, void them, whatever, but the guy clearly needed an intervention. Stat. Plus, secret space station base.
It wasn't like he was going to make him do anything bad. And he'd make a proper appointment and everything, back off if there was a Justice League emergency, that kind of thing. He was sympathetic to the plight of the overwhelmed and formerly-dead superhero! He was one!
"Danny, if you..." she sighed heavily, "blackmail this guy with his soul contracts, don't you think he'll wonder how you got them? You don't want to be investigated, right?"
"Yeah! That's why I'll get all of them as a human! It'll be like a hobby. A personal challenge!" He pumped his fist.
Jazz stared at him with a mixture of resignation and horror. "Danny... you know that's worse, right? That's going to make them investigate you. As opposed to Phantom."
"Yep! And then they'll find the portal to the afterlife in our basement, and maybe they'll finally take us seriously." His eyes briefly flared green.
"Right," said Jazz. "Okay." She picked up her spoon and continued eating her yogurt with an air of extreme exhaustion. "As long as we're going all-in on the lunacy, sure. Fine. Whatever. Don't sell your soul or your firstborn by mistake."
Danny gave her two thumbs up. "I won't!"
.
"You want to what?" asked Sam.
"I want you to help me buy this guy's soul."
"From ebay?"
Danny nodded. "From ebay."
"I thought they didn't let you sell souls on ebay."
"Yeah, the seller is using a loophole, where they're actually selling the contract, but that seems to be good enough for the magic."
Sam stared at Danny for a moment, then shrugged. "You know what? I'm in."
.
"Okay," said Sam, dropping a huge book on the table, forcing Tucker to scramble to save his lunch, "this spell isn't specifically for soul contracts, but should let you find 'similar magic.'"
"Sweet," said Danny, pulling the book over. "You think I'll be able to do this?"
"If not," said Sam, "I'll help you out."
"Well," said Tucker, "can you do it somewhere else? That thing is dusty, and I need protein to survive seventh period!"
.
Danny walked around the circle of mushrooms three times before closing his eyes and stepping into it. When he opened his eyes, he was somewhere else, but there was the thin silver line of magic, leading onward.
So far, so good!
.
"Oh my gosh," groaned Danny, sprawled on the couch, "there's still so many. Why are there still so many?"
"Well," said Jazz, "it's possible that he's still selling his soul. So you might never be able to get all of them."
"Gross," said Danny. "I want him to stop." Something tingled, and Danny sat bolt upright."
"What is it?" asked Jazz, reaching for her wrist ray.
Danny focused, but... "Nothing. I guess I just got a chill."
"That's unusual."
"Yeah."
.
"Okay," said the minor demon from inside the summoning circle, "you drive a hard bargain, human. I'll sell it to you, on one condition."
"What's that?"
"You cause that bastard magician problems."
"That is the intention."
.
Danny sized up the demon in front of him, then raised his modified ectoblaster. "Well," he said, pleasantly, "if you don't want to sell now, I guess I can beat you up until you change your mind."
"And what can a human like you do? You aren't even wearing a symbo--"
Danny shot the demon in the face with holy-water-infused ectoplasm.
.
Danny set his homework down on the table and stared at Clockwork's extremely smug face. "What do you mean I could have just been stealing them the whole time?"
"Well," demurred Clockwork, his voice oddly synchronized with the ticking clocks of his lair, "not all of them. Some of them are only transferable through willing trade, not through possession of the physical version of the contract. But I'm sure you're well aware of how demons are at this point"
Danny groaned. "I've been trying to figure out what I can trade them or threaten them with all month."
"Indeed. But do be aware that stealing from demons is risky business."
.
It evolved the demons did not guard their vaults against living human incursion as well as they should have. Danny had lots of fun.
.
"Look," said the demon, "I don't even want it anymore." It snapped its fingers, and a... thing... appeared in a burst of gray smoke. "Look at it! I feel like it's looking at me!"
Danny examined the admittedly creepy but not at all haunted baby doll the contract was written on and sensed an opportunity. "Good point. You know what, I've changed my mind. You can keep it."
"No! Wait! Human, take it! Take it! I'll pay you!"
.
"Hey, Sam, I got your money back."
.
With a triumphant smile, Danny added the last of the contracts to what he'd dubbed 'Constantine's pile of bad decisions.'
It promptly exploded.
.
On reflection, Danny thought, staring dazedly around the room, it hadn't really been an explosion. Not a very big one, anyway. His room was completely intact. Except...
Except the contracts were gone. Shredded. There were little bits of paper (and doll stuffing) strewn around the room like confetti.
Danny screamed internally. What. Had. Happened. Had Constantine booby trapped his contracts somehow? Jerk. That was so unfair!
Except... He rubbed his eyes, as if that would do anything. The magic was very clearly still there. He hauled himself to his feet, tapping into his flight just a little bit, and stumbled forward, glaring at the drawer he'd kept everything in, as if it had answers to whatever had just happened.
His sense of the magic-- It very clearly moved with him. Oh. That wasn't great.
.
"Great one," said Frostbite, pressing his icy hand to his ectoplasmic one, "why didn't you come to us sooner? Or at least instead of Johnny Thirteen?"
"I don't know," said Danny, "I thought I had a handle on it! And, I, um, maybe... didn't have the right, or, uh, pure intentions."
Frostbite made a ice bench behind him without looking back, which was pretty cool. Danny wished he could do something that specific without looking. "What do you mean?"
"Well," Danny bobbed in the air, uncertainly, "he has access to this really cool space station that I wanted to go to... Like it would have been a win-win, though! I was going to give him back all of the contracts... So I guess it would have been a reverse soul contract, but..." He shrugged. "Now the contracts are gone, but I can feel the magic, and I don't know what went wrong!"
"Ah," said Frostbite, "well, nothing wrong with indulging your passions, especially not when you can do both at once, but I'm not sure if anything did go wrong, in the way your thinking of. Given the unique nature of Mr. Constantine's contracts, and your complete and rightful ownership, I suspect that the magic in all of the contracts simply merged, destroying the physical manifestations of the contracts and simply anchored themselves on you."
"Okay," said Danny, "so... what does that mean? Can I get rid of it?"
"Great one, I am afraid you are going to have to get used to the idea of, well..."
"No," said Danny, "no, no. It was going to be temporary. I was just going to-- It was going to be like a prank! I'd show up, boss him around a bit, teach him a moral lesson - like what Clockwork does, you know - then give it back! I can't for serious own someone! That's slavery! I can't do that to a person!"
"You don't have to do anything with it," said Frostbite, trying to be comforting. "You can ignore it completely... Although, I suppose it'll be a bit harder after he dies..."
"What happens when he dies?"
"Well, I suppose I should congratulate you on your first, ah, sworn vassal?"
"Are you just saying vassal to avoid saying thrall?"
Frostbite shrugged.
Danny groaned. "What am I going to do?"
"Perhaps tell Mr. Constantine his immortality scam is no longer in effect," suggested Frostbite. "And enjoy yourself. In the meantime, I will look into... potential solutions."
"Okay," said Danny. "Okay. I'll... do that."
.
Danny exited the portal and immediately realized that he had no idea how to contact John Constantine. Curse his inability to think things through or plan ahead. He thunked his head against the side of the portal.
He had a lot of work ahead of him.
"So," said Jazz, spinning on the computer chair, "is this when I tell you I--"
"You told me so, I get it, I get it. Ughhh."
"Yeah, yeah, sorry, even I have to gloat now and again. How can I help?"
"You'll help?"
"Yeah, if you tell me what went wrong."
Danny cringed. "It's more like what went right."
.
"I can't believe you actually own a dude now," said Tucker, tapping away at his computer.
"Don't say it like that. I was going to give it back to him! And I'm not going to, like, make him do anything... except maybe show me the Watchtower... At least this way he's not going to get tortured when he dies?"
"That's real thin, dude, but I forgive you. I know you don't want to own a dude."
"I really don't want to own a dude. It was supposed to be a joke, and now it's a magically binding nonsense thing."
"Yep. Sounds like the story of our lives. Maybe next time don't mess with demon stuff."
"I was going to give it back!"
"Uh huh, I know you were buddy," said Tucker. "Wow. This guy is more of a ghost than you are."
.
Eventually, Danny decided the best course of action was to take a bus down to DC and walk up to the reception desk. It was also the worst course of action, because it meant he had to go to DC, and all the planning and excuses involved in that, but beggars can't be choosers.
"Hi," he said, pasting on his best smile. "I'm, uh, I'm looking for John Constantine."
"Okay, do you know what tour he's with?"
"No, he's a League member, um. I need to pass him a message."
"Oh," said the receptionist. "I'm not sure if anyone by that name is here right now. If you have an emergency, or need to report a crime--"
"No, no, I just need to send a message. Here. Please?" He handed over an envelope that contained a letter that should explain everything.
.
John strolled into the Watchtower, having been bullied into going to a meeting by Zatanna.
"Hey! Constantine! Check your mail, it's overflowing!"
He waved them off as an acknowledgement. What could be in his mail, anyway?
An envelope thrown like a shuriken hit him in the back of the head. "Seriously, it's becoming a problem!"
John glared at the spandex-wearing idiot, but picked up the letter and made a show of opening the letter. He grabbed the piece of paper inside and froze as he sensed the faint touch of magic on it. With a somewhat greater sense of urgency, he pulled out the letter.
Dear Mr. Constantine, started the letter.
I own your soul.
"Ah," said John. "Bollocks."
.
.
.
Might do more of this later, but... I don't really know much about Constantine or DC, so... if anyone wants to pick it up... :)
AU, where Jason returns to Gotham, but in between of his evil mastermind plans and managing the criminal empire, he starts working in this anonymous psychological hotline services.
And gets a call from Bruce-fucking-Wayne.
Well. It is not like Bruce announces that he is Bruce Wayne — it is anonymous, after all — but Jason knows his father's voice, alright?
'I don't need a physiological help,' his father tells him the minute he picks up the phone.
Jason... Snorts.
'Of course,' he nods, making his voice nicer. 'How can I help you?'
Bruce pauses, his breath hitching for a second; almost as if he recognized Jason's voice.
'My... my son thinks I need it, but I am fine,' Bruce insists. 'Still... I want to, well, fulfil a promise I gave... for once.'
Jason rolls his eyes, a familiar irritation flaring up in green flames before his eyes. He wonders who is this lucky son that gets to have such a diligent, responsible father - Dickhead? Tim? Damian?
'I see,' he breathes out, trying to follow a protocol of the calls. 'I am sure he will appreciate your loyalty. Will you tell him about it?'
'If he appears,' something screeches in the background, and if Jason closes his eyes, he can easily imagine Bruce leaning back on the armchair, in the Batcave. 'I... He only ever appears in my dreams, my boy.'
Jason freezes.
'Excuse me?'
'I... He is dead, my son.'
Had someone else died? Jason frowns, reaching for his phone, typing anxiously Nightwing and Robin in the search bar, trying to see if there is something serious happened; because he can't be talking about the second Robin, can he-
'I am sorry,' he blurts out, eyes drifting back to notes on the table, with some common phrases that can be used in this situation. 'I... Do you want to talk about, sir?'
Bruce is silent for a while. Jason thinks he is about to drop the call, but then, he sighs heavily on the line:
'His name was Jason. And he was the brightest boy.'
Jason mutes the microphone. He thinks he is going to vomit.
Jason keeps his cool the best he can, slowly getting Bruce to spill everything. How much Bruce loved his son, even when he was getting into trouble (Jason knows that he means 'violent as Robin'). Bruce talks about how it was his fault that Jason died, that if he had just paid a little more attention, talked to Jason a little more, maybe he could have saved him. He spills everything, eventually sobbing into the phone, as Jason listens on.
"I'm sorry," Jason can barely manage to say. "You clearly loved him a lot."
"Love," Bruce corrects, his sorrowful sobs slowly turning into a vengeful growl of Batman. "I love him. I love him so much, and I just wish I could bring him back. I wish I could-" He cuts himself off. "I have to go."
Before Jason can say anything, the line cuts off. He blinks, looking out the window. The already gloomy Gotham sky has darkened. Batman will be out soon. And he would be angry.
He tells his goons not to go out tonight. That he has a feeling the bat won't be happy. They ask him why he's leaving, then.
"I... have to go see my old man," Red Hood says, as he walks out of the hideout. "He's having a rough time."
😂🤣 Now if this was the Guides, you know the very last picture would be Luke literally hanging in over Vader’s shoulder while taking a selfie of them both with the flower crown filter and sporting the biggest grin. Probably not even a shiteating grin, because, well… Why would he? It’s just him taking a picture with Vader, nothing special there.
Vader, however, knows exactly what’s going on and is relishing in the chaos this is gonna cause. Especially if it means Luke wins the betting pool he’s 99% sure the 501st has set up for this malarkey.
HOLY— WHAT— I— HOW??? LOOK AT THIS!!! I JUST. MY BRAIN IS MELTING OUT OF MY EARS TRYING TO PROCESS HOW YOU COOKED UP SOMETHING THIS GOOD THIS FAST.
And just… they look so happy together, I just. I— 🥺 They’re just… taking a picture, smiling at each other (I bet Vader has the most adoring look under than mask. You’re fooling no one, you dork!) while goofing off and it just feels like something unaccountably precious.
Honestly, this might be the piece of art that best encapsulates the entirety of the Guides so far. Even just from the background context of the picture (the clothes, location, ect.) you can see that there’s a far bigger picture at work here, but right now?
Right now a not-yet-father-and-son are having a moment of simple, silly joy as they pull a bit of harmless mischief together. Right now there’s this snapshot of a little ray of pure, optimistic hope and love that nonetheless probably crashed the holonet thrice over the moment the screenshots went live from everyone on the Lady with a working eye and a comm unit. Not that the not-yet-father-and-son duo care. As far as they know, they’re just having a bit of fun.
The 501st probably still banned Luke from participating in any kind of future contest the moment the adoption was official to give them an excuse.
