I've been a part of the MariBat fandom for years now, and more recently become a part of the BatPham fandom since it grew into a full fandom of it's own.
In all that time I have been sitting on an idea for another crossover with DC that I think has just as much potential to become something entirely its own.
So, allow me to present the idea of Tales of Arcadia x Batman, which I've been affectionate calling the BATHUNTER crossover in my head.
More ramblings and fic recs under the cut.
So, first and foremost:
We have a bat bait, blue eyed, black haired, protagonist with trauma. Comparing this to the other two fandoms we've already hit the ground running.
We also have a reason for them to be in Gotham. At the end of Trollhunters we have Claire and Jim going with the trolls to find a new heartstone in New Jersey. Gotham is in New Jersey.
The trolls traveling across the country and founding New Trollmarket right in the Bat's territory doesn't even require an explanation beyond 'They found the new heartstone under Gotham City.'
The opportunities for identity shenanigans are still just as present as ever. If you stick to the full canon of the Tales of Arcadia universe, sans the time travel reset, then Jim, Claire and possibly Toby are both human and the bats could meet them as human civilians and as vigilantes who go around with glowing face covering armor and the ability to just disappear.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of canon past the first half of wizards. So I like the idea of Jim using a glamour mask to go to school while being a vigilante in his half troll form. Make the bat's even more confused.
I also feel like the dichotomy between the three rules of trollhunting and Batman's usage of fear as a weapon and no killing rule would be fascinating.
Just:
"Fear heightens your senses. Fear keeps you alive. Arrogance gets you killed."
-vs-
“You prefer to call me Batman. But the reason you can never escape me … is that my name is fear. And I live within you.”
“Always finish the fight.”
-vs-
"Heroes should never kill a villain, no matter the depths of his villainy."
They would probably agree on rule three, though: “When in doubt, always kick them in the gronk-nuts.” Since Batman identifying weakness in both his teammates and villains is a whole thing.
Lastly, the potential for bio-dad aus is fascinating to me. Specifically, not with Bruce as the bio-dad, but with Commissioner Jim Gordon.
For anyone who hasn't happened on Jim Gordon's backstory, allow me to give some context. Jim Gordon's wife was named Barbara Eileen Gordon. They had two children, Barbra Gordon and Jim Gordon Jr. Barbara Eileen divorced Commissioner Gordon because she wanted to get her son out of Gotham.
From what I understand, in canon she keeps the name and eventually moves back to Gotham after her son becomes a serial killer and inmate of Arkham Asylum.
But this is an AU, canon is what ever we want it to be and Jim Lake being the biological kid of Commishionre Gordon and little brother of Barbra Gordon aka Oracle has some real potential in the right author's hands.
Fic Recs:
Loose Lips, by NerdofSpades
Batman wants answers. Jim wants to be left alone, so he can go back to his not so normal life. Too bad those two things aren't at all compatible with each other. At least Jim gets some new friends out of all of this. Probably. Maybe.
One of my favorite fics in general. Jim becomes friends with the Young Justice team while trying to convince Batman that he's 'just a civilian'.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
three teenagers are loose in gotham (what will they do), by clayr_of_the_lillies
sometimes you become a vigilante deliberately. sometimes its twitter's fault.
aka a tales of arcadia/batman crossover that wouldn't leave my mind.
Very funny and well thought out. I particularly like this interpretation of Gotham's trollmarket and the friendship between the trollhunters and the batfam.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
In Their Blood, NerdofSpades
Barbara Lake saw an uncomfortably familiar pattern in the behavior of James Lake Junior. She saw it in almost everything he did these days. She had seen it in her friends growing up. She had lived it herself. She just wasn't sure how to help him, so, instead, she calls in a friend.
Another fun one by NerdofSpades. Barbara, having been Batgirl, recognizes Jim's behavior in herself. It's a shorter one but still a lot of fun
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
I'm also working on a couple of my own fics set in this crossover, but their still WIP for now
he bounces around from universe to universe making graves for the dead and putting them to rest. hes not king in this, he just knows how it feels to be without a place to put his bones
danny, of course, carries his own with him, so he is, essentially, his own grave, and its... unsettling. gives him the ghost version of adhd, makes it impossible to take 'settle down.'
and he could technically solve that with a headstone but... well. graves are supposed to be made FOR you. even if youre paying someone or the government is putting you in an incinerator or whatever else is arranged by your family, its supposed to be a mark of affection, of belonging.
Danny died but nobody noticed. Danny left home and nobody cared. Danny left the UNIVERSE, and nobody looked for him.
they call, yeah, and theyre all friends still, but some part of danny feels so distant. he loves his family. he loves his friends. but sometimes he cant help but wonder how much easier their lives are without him. how much safer. if they ever think back on their wild high school years and feel relief that hes not around to mess things up anymore.
so he keeps moving, long beyond the time it starts to feel like running.
and he carves and carves and carves
An Angela here, a Jeoffery there. A Dua and a Haoyu and a Peter. A Zitkala and an Assol and an Ahsan. A Kleio and a Fabian and a Bluebell and so many more he can't remember them all.
It takes longer than he wishes it had for him to start writing their names down in a little book he tucks close to his heart.
He goes to mass graves that makes his stomach roll and his ears ring from how many voices cry out to him, and spends weeks carving name after name into rocks he digs up and places like sentinels around every sliver of bone.
He goes to cities and engraves plaques and nails them to brick walls.
He finds himself in ruins and plains and icy cracks and the bottom of the sea.
His markers won't last forever, he knows. But they don't need to. The dead are, in many ways, similar to the living. They want to be heard, known, cherished. It doesn't matter if it's for a lifetime or a moment.
Danny can give them that moment. For many, it's enough to settle their clamoring and usher them gently on. So Danny keeps doing it, because it feels good, offering people this measure of peace. It feels good, to help without fighting.
eventually, he makes his way to a city called Gotham. He finds many, many unknown dead there. Restless dead. Violent dead.
Danny became a Personal Chef as an adult- wait, holding on. Not that kind of chef. While Danny does and can make high quality meals for people, his actual clients are more often than not of the four legged variety.
It started when Danny got his own pet(s) and was unimpressed by the food options for them, so he made his own. He even went to Veterinary school, and became a pet nutritionist/dietitian, and that eventually spiraled into his career as a Personal Chef.
And okay, yes, Danny does also make food for the owners, as most people hire him for both aspects, but mostly he focuses on animals.
-----
Kara has been struggling with keeping Krypto fed properly. All the dog food she can find from kibble, to cooked, to raw, just isn't enough for his alien biology, and as a result hes been getting into stuff to try and satisfy his stomach.
One if Kara's work friends recommends Danny to her, claiming he helped her grandpa's Yorkie finally put on some weight, and he doesn't charge an arm and a leg. Without any other ideas, Kara bites the bullet and calls, preparing to pull out the "meta animal" excuse.
Except Danny doesn't ask about any of that. He asks about Krypto's activity level, any allergies he has, how often he gets treats/enrichment. He ran an exam on Krypto right in the living room, humming to himself and repeatedly giving Krypto treats to keep him in place. When he finished, he flipped a page in the notebook and started writing out a meal plan, working out with Kara how much it would cost and what day would be best for him to come over to cook.
As he was leaving, he pet Krypto almost fondly. "I've never seen a Kryptonian Hound in Earth before. He could do with a bit more exercise, but let's tackle his diet first, you've actually done pretty well considering all modern dog food isn't enough for him unless you over feed him." And then, as Kara was stunned and dumbfounded, the man left, promising to come by like they scheduled to give Krypto his first meal.
Did Kara want to pull a Bat or heck pull a Clark and research this guy? No. No she didn't, not unless he seemed like an actual threat, so she was just gonna leave it be. Besides, the guy was kinda cute, and Krypto didn't seem go mind him.
Robin: At least all that stupid spell did was give us animal fetures. *glares at the Robin wings now popping out of his back*
Beast Boy: Honestly I don't feel much different.*has a snakes tail, a bats wings, large goat horns, and lion ears* I think I'm a Chimera?
Cyborg: Could be worse.*has two dog ears on his head, one upright and robotic, the other organic and floppy, he also has a tail but it was short and tucked into his suit*
Raven: Starfire seems to be having fun. *looking upwards as two massive raven wings wrap around her in place of her coat.*
Starfire, giggling: I am the cat! Meow! Meow! Meow!*two pink cat ears rest on her head, paired with a long, elegant pink tail* Oh! Phantom is the cat too!
Phantom: *laying in the air with white and black rounded ears, and a long white and black spotted tail, that he is chewing on*
Robin: Why are you eating your tail?
Phantom: *shugs*
Beast Boy: Hes a Snow Leopard, sometimes they just kinda carry their tails around.
Robin, sighing: Nobody's hurt? Good, then let's go catch that weirdo.
Bonus!
Robin: I'm so glad thats over.
Starfire: Awe, I liked being the cat- hey! Phantom is still a leopard!
Robin: What?!
Phantom: *lazily floating and smacking at his own tail* Hmm? Oh I wasn't spelled. *ears and tail vanish before reappearing* See?
Robin: What? Explain!
Raven, groaning as she just remembered: Hes a ghost! That spell had no physical body to latch onto!
Beast Boy: Nice.
Cyborg: So why did you give yourself ears and a tail?
Phantom, deflating: I felt left out.
Starfire: *nods in understanding and pats his back in reassurance*
Bonus #2!
Phantom: Psst! Star!
Starfire: *curiously flys over*
Phantom: I snagged that guy's spell book! *grins as his Snow Leopard ears pops back up* Do you want your ears and tail back?
#dpxdc#dcxdp#dp x dc#dc x dp#phantom is a teen titans member#phantom and starfire are besties#and now theyre also flying/floating cat boy/girl#robin is so tired if this#robin was a robin#raven was a raven#beast boy is a chimera it just felt most appropriate#starfire was a cat i was thinking a Siamese or oriental shorthair something long and elegant#cyborg was a doberman his robo ear is cropped but the organic ear is unaltered#danny didn't pick what animal he got he just let his body so whatever felt natural
Phantom and Starfire keep sneaking off together giggling and being all secretive. This of course will ping the rest that they are up to something. Or dating. one of the two. Therefore the reasst of the team must figure it out. For team cohesion reasons. Nothing else
Phantom teaching Starfire Earth customs, but his parents were mad scientists, so the rest of the team keep having to correct him. No Phantom, your family was just insane. Star, don't listen to him!
I need Dan bringing his A game. Not showering him in expensive fancy gifts. No no no. Dan rocking up with rare roses in a pot Sam grew. Special own blend teas. interesting new recipes with all the ingredients to try. Alfred expecting some sort of young, rich idiot who would do what Bruce does, throw money at problems. But no, what he actually is faced with is a handsome young man who puts so much care and thought into the gifts.
What Alfred expects: a rich young idiot who thinks the best way to woo someone is by buying expensive things without thought to anything but the price tag
What Alfred gets: a rich young man who puts THOUGHT into gifts, respects his gun collection (is in fact very impressed) and considers messing with Bruce (who is as loved as he is frustrating) a bonus not the main goal
Dan sweeping Alfred off his feet by being the perfect suitor. Alfred tried to resist Master Bruce, but he sourced a blend of tea I have not drank since the war. He blended the leaves himself to replicate it from my description. How was he meant to NOT fall for his handsome young suitor.
Batkids are amazed, appalled, that's their GRAMPS! Get your filthy old man fondling hands off their Grandad!!!
But also, Go Alfie, you still got it, it seems. Given he is young, attractive, strong, thoughtful, protective.... Actually he's a pretty good suitor, but like, COME ON not their GRAMPS!!!
When Dan was released from his prison, he was ready to go toe to toe in a rematch with his past self. Instead he was handed a baby and guided to two toddlers by Clockwork. The Ancient of Time explained to him that his parents accidentally created a machine that de-aged ghosts. Now Danny and Ellie, as well as Jazz who was just liminal enough to be affected are all tiny tots without a place to go.
That's about all the explanation Dan gets before he's pushed through a portal and into an alley. Before Clockwork closes the portal he tells Dan "Single fatherhood may be tough but do not lose hope!"
Dan stood there silently looking at them for a moment before shaking his head. Not the time to panic Dan. He has to find somewhere safe to get the lay of the land. Not to mention hope he could find food. Shit. He needed baby stuff. Aww crap. He quickly turned them all invisible and flew up to look over the city.
What city, hell what dimension had clockwork dropped him in? The old bastard didn't give any explanation at all. Fuck! Ok. So it looked pretty run down. Lots of abandoned buildings. He could hole up in one for now. But he needed good and clothes first.
Time to look for a shop to steal from then. Hardly the worst thing he has ever done. And if he chooses a big chain it's practically moral. Why did Clocky think he was the right choice for this!
#dpxdc#deaged fentons#dan phantom#single father! dan#dan with his 3 'kids' in gotham#dan when he's freed: muahahahha! villainous plans part 2!! [evil lightning strike]#clockwork: here - hold this! [passes 3 children over]#dan: [record scratch] wait. no. what do i do? they need so much how do i take care of kids? food. i need food and shelter and-#clockwork: [sipping tea and watching through a mirror] ah yes. perfect distraction
I love your tags XD
But yes. Clockwork had thought about it. Searched the time streams. And the only one that offered Dan a chance at redemption was this one. Now Dan could choose not to of course. In that case he had another guardian chosen already. But he needed to give Dan a chance. And given the way the young man had reacted he has chosen to keep them. Good.
Clockwork smirked to himself. This choice led to a far more entertaining timeline. Dan had no idea what would happen. But Clockwork was looking forward to it. Ahh the follies of youth. He would continue to watch of course. The future was still wavering. But it looked like Dan would be doing the right thing. Entirely of his own volition too! No matter that he won't realise that for a while.
I like the idea of Dan realizing that he was being "a good person"TM while doing something very mundane. Like... washing the dishes after putting the kids down for a nap, or pushing them on a swing at a park, or debating which baby food to get while having baby!danny and dani strapped to his front and back (double harness) and toddler!jazz in the shopping cart
Just, that realization that he's free to do all these plans (he's not in a thermos, the only one who could stop him was a baby, no one here knows him, he still has his powers) and he's choosing to be a dad instead XD
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Also - how old do you think single father dan is? I'm thinking early 20s at *most* bc supposedly the merge with plasmius happened when he was what...15? (It wasn't that same year was it?) And then there's the getting stronger and fights and destruction of the world which I think would be a few years.
===
Oh my gosh
Hes in gotham
!!!!!!
Okokokok
Imagine:
Single father dan is neighbors with crime lord's boyfriend jason
Dan (with his skewed morals) gets jason to babysit on occasion
Absolutely. He just stops and stares for a moment. Then very calmly finished his task. Walks to his room and sits down for a moment. And then.
"Clockwork, you motherfucker! Arsehole! Bastard! Creepy watching man! How dare you con me into this! You absolute wanker! How did you even know this would work! "
And Clockwork is in his tower giggling merrily away. Quickly pens a note and sends it to Dan.
'You had a choice to make. I had plans if you made the wrong one. You chose a good path.'
Dan then just has to sit for half an hour to come to grips with the fact that Clockwork gave him a chance to do better. And it took him months to realise. At least he has a family again? Fuck it. He's gonna go bother Jason. Take the kids over with pie.
Jason gets a knock at the door and grins. Hot neighbour Dan probably wants some adult conversation. Jason will not say no to that! Plus the kids are hella cute. And well, they somehow sooth the pit. Jason has been more clear headed since meeting them than since before he died.
Dan greets Jason with an armful of kids and holding a home made pie? Jason is more than happy to let him in. Dan's pie are amazing. Jason is pretty sure the building grannies have started trading clothes and stuff for the kids for them.
Jason: What brings you round tonight?
Dan: Ah. Kinda embarrassed. But uh. You know I've done dodgy shit in the past yeah?
Jason: Yeah. No other reason for you to be laying low in Gotham.
Dan: I uh, had a breakdown. My family were killed when I was 15. Got brutal bloody revenge. Got locked up for a bit. When I got out I was planning to finish the last off. But these three lost their Mum. So I kinda had to look after them yeah?
Jason: Well shit. Fair reason to lie low man.
Dan: I literally just now realised I didn't have to keep the brats. I could have dumped them in a box in a hospital and gone off. Done the whole villain thing.
Jason: Are you having a crisis about choosing to raise your kids?
Dan: Jay, I thought I was irredeemably evil. Yes I am having a crisis over this!
Jason: Well, what's evil anyway? Are you happier?
Dan: Happiest I've been since my parents and sister died.
Jason: Bloody revenge not do it for you?
Dan: Oh I am not saying that! That felt good. But uh, I went a bit too far you know. It's weird, I never thought I'd have kids. Now I've got three. And for all they stress me out....
Jason: Dan your brats all have powers. If course they stress you out. I caught Ellie flying last time I looked after them. I put pillows everywhere!
Dan: Danny sneezed and froze the room last night.
Jason: I caught Jazz picking up a sofa.
Dan: I can't wait till they get older. I wanna see what happens if they get caught in an attack. I know that's fucked up... But.
Jason: Your kids get attacked and the perp is getting destroyed. Fuck me, I'd think you were kryptonians if I didn't know better.
Dan: I know right. And Jazz has the least powers. Bless her.
Jason: Fuck me.
Dan: Gladly!
Jason: Oh piss off! You know what I meant. Imagine them going rogue! Oh, the look on ol bats face!
Dan: Oh, oh that would be so bad! Hah! Gotta admit I do miss fighting.... I should hunt down Croc for a brawl at some point.
Jason: There's a thought. You could always join Hood's gang.
Dan: Nah, can't risk it. Not without another guardian in case I get found out. I
Jason: True that! Anyway, you brought pie. I'll make dinner! What do the bratlings want?l
He has kids to look after. The breakdowns have to be saved for later. When they are out of the house or asleep. He does not want Jazz trying to help again. He has to at least pretend to be functional in front of the kiddos!!
I’m just imagining little 5 y/o Jazzy saying some profound life advice to Dan in front of Jason, and they are just awestruck at how emotionally aware and functional this tiny skinny little child is.
Dan: “Wow…you are still so much like my big sister. How do you even do that?”
Jason: “I swear, she’s more well adjusted than people 4 times her age”
Dan: “Yeah, my sister Jasmine wanted to be a therapist or a psychologist. Psychotherapist? I don’t know, one of those, I couldn’t ever remember the difference.”
I am thinking that Dan and Jason do not realise they are basically married and co-parenting until Jazz blunt asks when they are getting amrried. And when can she call Jay Papa?
And then they have to sit down and talk about it. Because yeah. Actually. They do love each other. And they trust each other.
Dan: Do it for the tax break?
Jason: Do we have to invite my family?
Dan: Only if you want to?
Jason: I want Alfie there.... Urgh! Tell Jazz she can call me Papa.
Tax break is why they getting married. Wouldn't bother with the fact of paperwork otherwise.
They do finally start sharing a bed cause they realised they love each other. That was the only change in their relationship really. Was properly moving in with each other.
I forgot about this!!! Awww, Dan is no longer a single father!
Lol, I feel so honored my tags are shared twice XD (in @bianca-hooks123 's screenshots, the first two shown are mine from my first and second reblog. The third is @hypewinter 's tags for the original post)
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Ok, but how long until the rest of the batfam realizes Jason is not only married, but married and has 3 kids under 10 XD Alfred was there for the signing, but he's no snitch. Does Barbara have a type of alert for any changes to the legal status of the different bats? Does she get pinged right away? XD (and what last name do they take? Does Jason change his? Dan? Do they make a new one? Merge theirs? Hyphenate?)
Oh my gosh, does Red Hood's gang think Jason is in a throuple? Do they think Jason and Red Hood broke up and thats why Jason is with this other guy? if they think there was a breakup, do they get mad at Jason? Console Red Hood? Tell Red Hood he shouldn't have let Jason go? Or say that Red Hood could do better? XD maybe they get the (wrong) idea that Jason is in a poly with RedHood and Dan bc Jason (as Red Hood) panicked and said no he hadn't broken up (thinking of Dan) and his men are like - ah, a poly! Congrats on finding a third!
Red Hood - I, wha- I didn't??
RH gang - oh it was Jason! Well, this other guy is his type
Red Hood just thankful for his helmet hiding how red his face is as he sputters
Babs finds out. She legitimately has a program to track her family members. So when Jason Todd shows up as marrying Dan Nightingale? She knows. She uses it as blackmail all the time.
Oracle: I need a favour Hood.
Red Hood: No I'm busy!
Oracle: How's the husband? I should really tell B....
Red Hood: .... Fuck! Fine.
They both took Nightingale. As Dan has the kids. Jason decided to match the babies. Easier to fix one person's paperwork than four after all. No other reason.
Alfred adores getting to meet Master Jason's family. He also used it to blackmail Jason. But lovingly. And also used if you don't do self care I will call your children and husband. It's a more effective threat than Jason anticipated.
The goons absolutely think Dan married Jason and they are both dating Hood. Except the few who are pretty damn sure Jason is Hood. But they ain't stupid. They know better than to spread that around.
The batfam find out when Danny gets caught up in a Joker attack. No amount of knowledge that Danny is basically indestructible is enough to calm Jason down. The bats find Joker very very mangled... Possibly (probably) dead. And Jason curled up hugging Danny who is just bemused by his Papa being so scared. Parting his Papa on the back like Dad does if they get sad!
Batman: Hood?
Danny: Shh! Papa is sad! Go way!
Nightwing: Papa?!?
Danny: Yes! Now shoo! I called Dad. He be here soon!
Nightwing: Dad?
Dan: That would be me. Scuse me. Move it or lose it pal. I'm getting my kid and husband. You can bother us tomorrow.
And they have to look up. Cause this guy is build like Superman. And he has two little girls on his back who run to Jason calling out Papa as well.
Holy shit! There is a lot of "did you know about this?" Eye contact. Nightwing snorts as Dan kicks the Joker, scoops up Jason, in full gear. And the three kids and just walks away with a nod and nothing else. Whispering softly to Jason the whole time.
The next day they show up at the manor. Alfred called everyone for a family meal. " as the secret is out now Master Jason." Bruce just sighs. Of course Alfred his this when asked. Babs grumbled at the loss of her best blackmail. But there is always more.
And then they meet Dan and the kids. And hoo boy. David the ex con who had been a single Dad after his ex passed away? Moved to Gotham to get away from the memories, and to avoid getting dragged back into crime. And where else in the country would take on an ex con and pay enough to raise three kids?
The same three kids with obvious powers. Who are bright and clever. And full of mischief. Jazz is very happy to tell them how silly her Dad and Papa were. They hadn't even noticed they loved each other till she asked when they were getting married!
Bruce and Dick realise this family is why Jason started to level out.... How he stopped being so angry. Tim is just amazed they work so well together. Steph just teases him for having the same physical taste in partners as Bruce.
Backing up a bit. Jason, probably over the course of many days, helping Dan work through his crisis of "Hey, I'm not actually the totally irredeemable monster, the irrevocably stained soul, I thought I was." Only to wake up months later in a cold sweat with the exact same crisis when he realizes he didn't have to help Dan or babysit the kids.
Dan helps him through it of course, but also probably laughs at him. And then at himself. And then Jason joins in. Both laughing at each other and themselves over the realization that somehow fatherhood made them both better people.
Also, would be funny if all/most of the other Bats already knew about Jason's husband and kids. Dick probably broke into Jason's safe house to hang out at some point and found the business end of three startled meta toddlers and a mama bear. Tim's love language is mild stalking. Cass is Cass, nough said. Steph would realize the others are keeping something secret and weasel her way into it just for the fun and chaos. And Damian would realize the others are keeping something secret and strive to find out what so as not to be excluded of caught off guard, only to repeat Dick's mistake. By the time that night with Joker comes around, Bruce is the only one who didn't already know.
Bruce say at the table, trying his best to be polite to his son in law. The one he only just found out about. Who has three kids. That are now his grand kids. How long did they hide this! How much time has he missed! This is cruel Jason! You gave him grand kids and hid them from him!!
Bruce: So.. How did you meet?
Dan: Moved into the unit next to Jay's civilian place. Introduced myself to everyone on our floor. What with the kids able to walk through walls? Best to earn the neighbours.
Bruce: Huh. How, how did everything ah, fall into place?
Jazz: Dad and Papa were friends for ages! They didn't notice they wanted to cuddle and couple stuff! But I could feel it! So I asked when they were getting married!
Tim: Feel it?
Danny: Yeah! Dad went all gushy in his feelings! And so did Papa!
Ellie: Feels like bubbly soda! All fizzy good!
Jason: The four of them are empaths. But only with people they trust. I can't hide anything.
Danny: Papa needs lots of hugs when he's angry. Makes him calmer!
Dan: Yeah. The bratlings took to Jay real quick. It's why I ended up falling for him ya know. He was so good with our kids.
Jason: Dan is an inventor and engineer. He took to helping the people in our building. The local oldies love him.
Dan: It's a good way to build bonds! Means people like the kids. Make em safer. Plus, the knitted stuff and cooking lessons are useful payment alright!
Damian:... The fact Nightingale can throw you through a wall did not factor into your attraction Todd?
Jason: Ok. First. Maybe. Second? I took Dan's name. Easier to change mine to match him and the kids.
Bruce: How are you finding Gotham?
Dan: It's ok. Not as chaotic as home was. Much calmer actually. Great for the kids.
Dick: Gotham. Is calmer? Than your home place?
Dan: Yeah? I was neck deep in chaos all the time. My entire family was murdered. Gotham is way safer for the kids. You saw how Danny handled Joker. Nothing here can hurt us much. Unlike back there.
Steph: So. When can we throw a party? I mean, Jay IS B's kid. We need to do a gala! Introduce B's first grandkids. And show them off.
Jazz: Urgh. Gross adult parties? Really?
Tim: I could always hire Harley Quinn to attack it?
Danny: Jazz thinks Harley is super cool! Can we meet her? Please?!?
Ellie: I like Mr Waylon. He's nice!
Dan: You want to convince your Gramps to invite rogues to a gala? Waylon would probably enjoy scaring the shit out of high society types. While playing with your menaces.
Bruce: You know Waylon?
Danny: Uh huh! Mr Waylon was getting bullied for how he looks. Dad beat em up. And now Mr Waylon comes over for dinner some times!
Dan: Waylon's chill. He likes the kids. Thinks they're hilarious little brats.
Jason: Which he isn't wrong about. I'm trying to convince him to work as security for one of my legal ventures.
Jazz: Mr Waylon is scared it will make people think Papa is a villain. Plus, people are mean to him. And scared of him.
Bruce:.. If I invite him, would you agree to a gala?
Dan: Why not. If nothing else? It means the gala won't be attacked. Plus, the kids need to learn how to deal with rich snobs.
Duke: This can only go hilariously. Dibs on standby. I don't want to actually go.
Cass: Dibs also!
Steph: Me three!
Bruce: Fine. The rest of you should turn up at least.
Tim: Dammit. Fine, at least I can use the three terrors as a shield.
Damian: If any old ladies try to pinch your cheeks? You may hide behind me. Father will not allow me to stab them. I doubt he would agree to let you.
Dan:... Jay, love, where are we gonna find me a suit?
Alfred: Master Bruce's tailor will be made available to you. His friend Clark suffers the same as yourself.
Okay, but the "Gotham is calmer than our original home" things is gonna stick in their heads, especially cause Cass can tell that they're being honest. That's not the story of things to be brushed aside, cause Gotham is widely regarded as one of if not the worst cities to live in the world, so where did they come from?
Their pursuit of answers for this line of questions could be hope they find out about Dan's actual origin story, which will make Bruce insufferable about everyone being able to change and grow for a while. (Though it would be interesting if he could beg Clockwork for ideas on how to help with reforming his rogues and removing Gotham's curses.)
Bruce just keeps hitting nothing. Dan and his kids? Did not exist until four fake ID's popped into existence. So. Aliens or another dimension. Fuck. Ok. So, he is going to start making a list. And ask the Green Lanterns of they know of any species with these traits. Jason and Dan as fully aware. And highly amused. Jason knows, Dan told him everything. But Jason is a petty bitch and is hiding the knowledge.
Bruce has no idea of just how far Dan went. So sure, ex-con who is being redeemed by fatherhood is great. But he's under the impression he was, at worst, as bad as Jason. Who he has already convinced to be less murdery.
Who wants to be Dan helps Jason kill Joker as an anniversary gift?
Oh, Dan definitely does, if he doesn't do it sooner. He might've accidentally reformed himself but he still doesn't accept threats to his family existing.
Do they ever find out the true origin of Dan and his "kids"? How & how long did that take?
I think Dan would make a date of the murder. Mostly cause he knows Jay would enjoy watching someone avenge him.
I get the feeling that any truth about their story told to the Bats? Would be downplayed as much as possible. Jason knows exactly how Bruce would react to bring told his son in law is a world ending threat. He does not want that thanks. The truth of the kids being de-aged siblings? Them on the run from murderous government branch? That much they would share.
Core Family Values (8908 words) by EDS
Chapters: 7/?
Fandom: Danny Phantom, Batman - All Media Types
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Dan Phantom/Jason Todd, Danny Fenton & Dan Phantom & Danielle "Dani" Phantom, Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton & Dan Phantom & Danielle "Dani" Phantom
Characters: Dan Phantom, Danny Fenton, Danielle "Dani" Phantom, Jazz Fenton, Clockwork (Danny Phantom), Jason Todd, Danny Fenton's Parents
Additional Tags: Bad Parents Jack and Maddie Fenton, De-Aged Danny Fenton, De-Aged Jazz Fenton, De-Aged Danielle "Dani" Phantom, Halfa | Half-Ghost Dan Phantom, Ecto-Contaminated | Liminal Jason Todd (Danny Phantom), Halfa | Half-Ghost Jazz Fenton, Dan Phantom Redemption, Dan Phantom is Called Dante, Protective Dan Phantom, Parent Dan Phantom, The Fenton-Phantom sibling's are called the Nightingale's, Dan Phantom adopts Danny Fenton, Dan Phantom adopts Jazz Fenton, Parental Clockwork (Danny Phantom), Meddling Clockwork (Danny Phantom), Ghost Cores (Danny Phantom), ghost prince danny fenton, Ghost Prince Dan Phantom, Ghost Princess Danielle "Dani" Phantom, Ghost princess Jazz Fenton, Dan Phantom adopts Danielle "Dani" Phantom, Clockwork adopts Dan Phantom, Non-Consensual Body Modification, consensual body modification, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Summary:
Clockwork sees a future he does not want for Danny and his siblings.
This spurs him to search for the optimal solution.
Dropping a half redeemed Dan with his de-aged siblings in Gotham is the best option.
Based on this post;
https://www.tumblr.com/hdgnj/751324078209695744/i-think-dan-would-make-a-date-of-the-murder?source=share
The fanfic of one of my OCS no one asked for. DP X DC
I don't think anyone will like this. I don't think anyone will really interact. But I got brainworms so I'm gonna write about Mason Masters. I'll add to and reblog this post whenever this brain worm starts acting up. If you're interested cool. Otherwise keep scrolling. This is for the brain worms not humans
Mason Masters is an oc I made for Danny Phantom. Vlad used his cloning tech to steal some of Maddy's DNA and made a baby out of it. 1 year younger than Danny and tried to turn him into a halfa at age 13.
Surprise Surprise. Vlad fails. Kid dies. But that's not the end of the story cause kid still becomes a ghost. And isn't happy with this outcome. So goes to the morgue and just takes their body back. Using their ghostly powers to possess the corpse and stop it from rotting.
And now "lives" in Gotham as a homeless teen to hide from his Vlad.
I'll add to this whenever I get brain worms. It's a cringe worthy oc but it's fun.
He is both the older and younger brother to Danny. Chronologically he was born 1 year before Danny was born. But he died when he was 13 and ghosts don't age. So by the start of the show's timeline Mason is 13 and Danny is 14.
Mason is also trans. Was raised under a different name(A variation of Maddie). He was raised to be what Vlad saw as the perfect daughter of Maddie.
Of course its Vlad so he's not raised at all in the way that Maddie would've wanted any kid of hers to be treated.
Mason knows he's Maddie's kid. But the exact story he was told is very different than what actually happened.
Vlad basically told Mason he was an affair baby. That when Maddie was pregnant she went on a business trip before Jack noticed and only went back to her family after she was healed enough that Jack wouldn't notice. And left Mason to be raised by his father, Vlad.
This isn't what happened but its why Mason never reached out to Maddie. He was under the impression she knew and knowingly left her kid to be raised by Vlad.
And here is a piccrew I made of Mason before and after he died
The eyes look dead in both intentionally. Though for different reasons before and after he died haha. The piccrew didn't have teal as an option for the outfits but Mason was dressed in the color scheme we see Maddie wear in the show before he died. And Vlad of course made many comments on how their red hair reminded him so much of Maddie.
How dare some completely mortal person take the username TheGhostKing on twitch before he could?
Look, the human probably thought they were being funny, and they didn’t know that there was an actual ghost king with a throne and everything. That ghost king being Nico DiAngelo, son of Hades.
It wasn’t fair. It had taken Leo ages to manage to get a streaming setup for Demigods that didn’t attract monsters. Nico had set up an account as quick as he could, ready to showcase his gaming prowess to the world. (Nico did spend decades in a casino after all. He was an amazing gamer).
And yet, the title that was rightfully Nico’s had been taken.
Nico sent a message to the user, ready to fight for his claim. This could only go well.
//-\\-//-\\
Danny Fenton had no idea who was messaging him about being the actual ghost king, but they were a liar.
After all, Danny was the ghost king, he had won the title through combat fair and square. It came with a few responsibilities, sure, but Pariah Dark had been sleeping on the job, and no disasters had happened.
So he meant no disrespect to DeadTired22, it was probably just some weird kid pulling a prank on him.
But some of the things DeadTired said were… interesting.
DeadTired: I am the ghost king, I have a throne and everything.
TheGhostKing: I know the actual ghost king, and he said you’re lying.
DeadTired: Dude, I know this is probably some joke to you. But you, a foolish human unaware of your place in the universe, shouldn’t joke about things beyond your comprehension, lest you anger the very forces you imitate.
TheGhostKing: Bold of you to assume I’m human.
DeadTired: Who are you then? Midas? There’s a difference between “Ghost that is a king” and “king of ghosts”. I am the second. We are not the same.
TheGhostKing: Eh, why not spill to strangers on the internet? It’s not like you actually know me irl…
“Father.” Nico and Hazel marched into Hades throne room. If they weren’t his kids, Hades would’ve smited them. Only his family had the privilege to act like that.
And Percy Jackson, but that was a different situation. Killing Percy would be asking for war, and, more importantly, Nico would be sad that his dad attacked his friend.
Hades tried his best to look impassive. “Son. Daughter. What brings you to my domain?”
Nico looked Hades in the eyes. “Do I have another sibling?”
What.
“Where would you get such an idea? Did you forget the oath I made to not have anymore children?”
“Well, your brothers both broke the oath, so…” Hazel said.
“My brothers” Hades spat, “are fools. I have no living demigods but you two.”
Hazel turned to her brother. “Maybe he’s a different pantheon, then. I told you not to jump to conclusions.”
“Sorry, Father.” Nico said.
“You are forgiven, my son.”
“Maybe we should get Annabeth’s help on this. She and Percy are always the best to talk to about other pantheons.” Hazel said.
Hades frowned. If only his precious children would come to their father with their problems. Hades wanted to help them, give them fatherly guidance. But his children were running off to other demigods? Hades had a brief thought of smiting the child of Athena for keeping away what was rightfully his, before brushing it off. Nico would be sad.
“I might be able to offer my assistance.” Hades said casually.
“I don’t want to bother you, Father, I’m sure you’re very busy.” Nico said.
“You’re already here, and I’m offering.”
“It’s not that important” Nico dismissed.
“So unimportant you came marching down into my throne room demanding answers?” Hades raised his voice.
“I already apologized for that! Gods, you’re so-“
Hazel interrupted before Nico could insult the lord of the dead. “Nico found someone who claims to be the ghost king on the internet.”
“Son, you cannot believe everything you read on those forums” Hades explained as though Nico was five.
“There’s more than that, though.” Nico turned on his laptop and showed the messages to his father.
DeadTired: Are you my brother?
TheGhostKing: ??? I don’t think so??? Then again, I did discover a sibling by complete surprise once, so there’s always a chance.
DeadTired: I get that, same thing happened to me.
TheGhostKing: Dude, maybe we are siblings. Is your dad an incredibly powerful man with delusions of grandeur and a creepy basement?
DeadTired: you really shouldn’t insult my father like that.
TheGhostKing: and you’re half human too?
DeadTired: yep.
TheGhostKing: another sibling, dang. It’ll be helpful to have more people that can fight baddies with me. High school is tough when you have to save your town from the latest wack job.
DeadTired: and the adhd and dyslexia sucks too
TheGhostKing: how did you know???
DeadTired: runs in the family. Me and my sister have it. By the way, where are you training? I haven’t heard of any siblings in either camp, but with the wars I might’ve missed something.
TheGhostKing: what wars?
DeadTired: …oh no. How old are you, again?
TheGhostKing: 19
DeadTired: you’re still alive, and you haven’t been to camp??? Hold up, I need to have a talk with my dad.
TheGhostKing: k.
Hades read through the messages. On one hand, it could be a demigod from the Norse pantheon or something. On the other hand, Hades got a distinct feeling of dread.
“I might know who this is.” Hades said. “I’ll call him” Hades reached into his pockets and pulled out a rotary phone (he had very large pockets).
“Now while I’m more familiar with sending physical messages, I believe texting is more polite these days, yes?” Hades looked up at his son for confirmation. Nico nodded, stunned at his Dad’s absurd decision to use ancient technology. If Nico could adapt to the times, so could his dad.
It would at least be less ridiculous than this- Nico watched as the king of the underworld spun the dial on the phone wildly, typing a message in the most inconvenient way possible.
Nico didn’t even know it was possible to send a test using a rotary phone. It probably wasn’t- but Hades had magic and whatnot.
The sound of the dial echoing around Hades’ massive throne room was the only disturbance for several minutes. Nico didn’t dare leave- his dad would be passive aggressive about it later if he did.
Finally, Hades inputted the last of the numbers.
Hades smirked, proud of himself. Whether that was since Hades thought he was with the times, or if this was some elaborate ruse on his children, Nico would never know.
“I have invited someone for a chat. I suspect he may be the friend you met online. He should arrive shortly.”
“You’re being very polite.” Hazel noted. Indeed- usually the gods wouldn’t ask for people’s presence like that.
“You seem surprised. Am I not normally courteous to you mortals?” Hades spoke with a bit of an edge to his tone.
All the answers Nico could think of were the wrong ones. Sure, Nico was sassy at times, but he actually did have self preservation, unlike Percy.
“If only Grandfather was as polite as you. He could’ve asked permission first before trying to take over the world.” Hazel expertly defused the situation with a joke.
While yes, their grandfather was a touchy subject, mocking the guy seemed to be a dead-certain way of relieving tension at a family reunion.
Hades laughed, a deep thing that made the earth shake beneath them. “Perhaps,” he started, losing his speech briefly in laughter before collecting himself again, “he could’ve asked permission before eating me alive.”
Nico laughed at the joke, pretending it was hilarious instead of uncomfortable.
The laughter eventually died down.
“What now?” Nico asked.
“We wait. I have a game of Scrabble, if you’d like to play? Athena has been raving about board games lately, and I’d prefer to play with someone whose company I actually enjoy.”
“I’m dyslexic.”
“Right. I’m sure I have some game you like…”
Nico picked the least offensive option. His dad was far too competitive to play monopoly or uno, and he’d rather crawl through Tartarus again than play cards against humanity with his dad.
Hades and his children all sat down for a round of Candyland.
//-\\-//-\\
After hades was sent back to the Candy Cane forest for the third time, (Nico was definitely cheating) a someone knocked on the door.
It wasn’t just any door, it was the one Hades had told his children explicitly never to touch. Hazel had her theories as to where it led, and most of those were unpleasant in one way or another.
Hades immediately stood up, and answered the door.
As it opened, green smoke poured out. Hazel peeked behind the forbidden doorway- the space flickered between a dark red sky, complete black, and a strange expanse of green and purple.
It hurt Hazels eyes to look at the shifting landscape, so she instead turned her eyes to the stranger at the door. He appeared a few years older than Nico, but that didn’t mean much with the Gods regularly shifting their appearance. His dark hair and impish grin made him look a bit like Percy. Something about his eyes though reminded her of death, something Hazel was fairly familiar with.
“Sup?” Said the man in the doorway to Lord Hades, King of the Dead, God of the Underworld.
Hades bristled a bit at the lack of respect, yet he didn’t smite or threaten the doorway guy- which pointed to Doorway guy being either a god or someone with enough power that he can afford to disrespect the gods like that.
Another point where he’s similar to Percy.
“I thought Princess Dorethea was teaching you manners- like the proper way to address a king.”
“Yeah, but you know I don’t like those stuffy titles and whatnot. If I don’t have to use them, I don’t.”
“Hm.” Hades grunted. Hades actually liked titles quite a bit, they made him feel important. He also enjoyed formalities to an absurd degree. He was the kind of guy who wore three piece suits to bed.
There was also the fact that Nico and Hazel knew quite well: Hades was just as petty as the rest of the gods.
A wide smirk spread across Hades face. “Son, Daughter, I would like you to meet High King of the Infinite Realms,” the doorway stranger rolled his eyes. “Child of the Veil, Guardian of doorways,”
“That’s enough” Danny looked embarrassed, as though Hades was showing off his baby photos.
“Traverser of Timelines, Hero of Amity Park”
“Seriously Hades, we don’t need to be here all night!” The guy lept at Hades.
“Breaker of the Flaming Siren, Weilder of Fear, Bearer of Mortality,” Hades continued on, dodging the kids attempts to silence him in good nature.
The guy was quite speedy with good reflexes, but Hades was a god who could turn into shadows. Eventually, the guy tired himself out.
“Please, oh great god of death, end this suffering.” The guy said, before lying on the floor and accepting his fate.
Hades, pleased with having made someone else beg for mercy, finished the titles with a grand “Danny Phantom.”
Danny waved from his position on the floor.
“I’m Nico.” He introduced himself, rather than letting his dad do it. Nico knew he didn’t want Hades to list off titles, since his dad would sneak in titles like “cleaner of bathrooms”, complete with paperwork to back it up.
“Let me get this straight.” Said Hazel. “You’re… a half-immortal kid who’s gone on some cool missions, and your kind-of-parent is the fabric between life and death, and the space between realities?” She summarized, having paid attention, since someone had to.
“Pretty much, yeah. I was a normal kid until a lab accident, and now I’m half ghost. Evil ghosts tried to invade my town, so I beat them up. Then I beat the king of ghosts, and now I’m the king of ghosts.”
“Sweet” Nico said. “I also beat up a ghost king- different ghost king- and now am the ghost king. Hades is my dad.”
“Wait… you wouldn’t happen to be DeadTired, would you? Cause otherwise there are three people who are Ghost Kings, and I don’t think I can keep up with that.”
“Yeah, that’s me.” Nico said.
“Nico freaked out and thought you were our sibling.” Hazel explained. “So he went to dad, and dad sent you a message.”
“Sweet. Well, now we know why there’s two ghost kings.” Danny said.
“How does this power structure thing work anyway?” Nico asked. “Like, if we both gave orders to a ghost, whose orders would the ghost have to follow?”
Danny laughed. “Ghosts? Following orders? I wish. Sure there might be laws and protocol, but they don’t matter that much when no one follows it.”
“They don’t just… obey your commands?”
“That would be so awesome if it worked. I could just command the ghosts to not attack people! But no, they have to go around fighting people, or trying to kill me, or feeding off human joy.” Danny rolled his eyes.
“Sounds more like monsters than ghosts.” Hazel noted.
“Yes, your definitions of ‘Ghost’ are a bit different.” Hades responded. “Daniel”
“Don’t call me Daniel.”
“-actually fights something more similar to physical manifestations of primordials. It’s a bit complicated.” Hades explained.
“Dang. You must be pretty powerful then.” Nico stated with a bit of awe.
“Sure, I guess. But you kinda have to be when dozens of ghosts keep trying to attack you. Your dad is one of the only ones who doesn’t bother.”
“His realm interconnects kingdoms of the dead, thus I qualify for ghost citizenship.” Hades said.
“Do I qualify for ghost citizenship?” Nico asked. “Shoot, will I need to pay ghost taxes?”
“You can be tax exempt because I say so.” Danny informed Nico.
“Wonderful that you give tax exemption to my son but not me.” Hades grumbled.
“You’re a god of wealth, you can pay taxes.”
“Maybe I’ll use my son to commit tax fraud.” Hades contemplated.
“Dude.” Danny’s eyes flared an acidic green. “Don’t talk about tax evasion in front of the tax enforcers. That’s tax evasion 101. Thats like keying a policeman’s car. It’s stupid.”
“Don’t threaten me, boy.” Hades sneered. The ground began to shake.
“Or what? Wanna go up against the ghost who beat Pariah Dark?” The temperature dropped to a chill. Nico could see his own breath.
“Child, you have no idea what you’re up against. I have power beyond what you can fathom.”
“So did Undergrowth, and I showed him who was boss.”
“Speaking of wealth” Nico interrupted, “they’re opening preorders for the Mythomagic video game, and you technically abandoned me in a hotel for years, meaning you owe me like eighty birthday presents.”
Danny glared. Hades sighed, and handed over his credit card.
“Get out of my sight.” Hades commanded.
Nico grabbed Hazel and Danny’s hands and shadow traveled away.
Back on the surface, Nico stumbled to the ground.
“You really shouldn’t antagonize the gods like that.” Hazel suggested to Danny.
“I could’ve taken him.” Danny shrugged.
“Hazel” Nico groaned from the floor. “I want my laptop, but I don’t want to stand. Grab it for me?”
“You’re lucky you’re my brother.” She retrieved Nico’s gaming laptop.
“Shh, I’ve only played Candyland all day. I’m ready for some real games.”
“You got Doomed on there?” Danny asked.
Nico grinned, excited to have finally found a fellow gamer.
Danny is a Chemistry teacher at Gotham Academy. His favorite student is Tim. He shocks the students by teaching and creating a Fear Antitoxin for the kids to learn as part of their curriculum.
Danny is just regarded as the fuckin strange occult wizard man of chemistry. The best (and worst) part is that he’s so damn used to the way his parents taught him how to do chemistry that he doesn’t give instructions with proper measurements when demonstrating the lab in class.
Like, what are the moles? What are the measurements that are needed for this? What materials will you need?
Nah.
Danny opens the demonstration with, “Just a warning, half of the steps I will be showing you in this demonstration will not actually be featured in the lab. I didn’t have [chemical], [chemical], or [chemical] but I did purchase some household cleaning and beauty products from dollar tree that I finished isolating them out of 30 minutes before class.“
“And for [chemical], you can make it out of these two, so that’s taken care of.”
“I made sure to order more but it won’t come in until next Wednesday. So don’t worry, when you do this lab yourself, you will not need to do these steps, but I figured it would be a good learning experience.”
“I only had the time to dilute the chemicals before this period, so I apologize.”
“Dr. Fenton?
“You want me to buy water? No. I’ll dilute the chemicals myself. I don’t really have proper PPE besides gloves and safety goggles, so I’ll just have to make do.”
But it’s just something he’s done so much before the verbal instructions are like, “Put enough in until it looks like there’s enough”
For the lab instructions for the students, he has a worksheet with the the actual recipe in standard measurements but when he’s showing the class how it’s done? Rough measurements BABEY
The way he’s doing it, there should be a massive fucking margin of error and he should absolutely not be getting the product he wants because that’s not how chemistry should Work. The lab required a micropipette and he’s doing it by eye.
Like, maybe people who have 30+ years working in their field with something they have done a bajillion times. But absolutely not a 25 year old who has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and got his PhD last year! And even then, doing it by eye is just asking for you to fuck up and waste your materials.
Why does Danny work as a chemistry teacher when he has a degree in Mechanical Engineering?
Well, Danny got an emergency teaching certificate because he took a lot of chem classes in college and Gotham Academy was desperate.
The chem teachers in Gotham have had a trend of getting themselves in deep shit from criminal organizations threatening them to order chemicals needed to manufacture [x] toxin or drug.
And they’d agree because it was for a ridiculous price, but if the chem teachers weren’t able to supply them enough or the criminals couldn’t get what they got the chemicals for to work, they’d blame it on the chem teacher and not their shitty chemistry practices or storing, and they’d get killed.
So, Gotham is running short on demand for chemistry teachers.
It’s also how Danny found out what was in the fear toxins.
Small criminal organizations didn’t have big reach to other means to get chemicals in bulk so they’d go to where they know chemicals can be ordered: schools for chem.
And the small criminal organizations try to replicate the toxins based off what they’ve heard is in them. Based off the previous Chemistry teacher’s ordering history, Danny was able to get a fairly good guess to what’s in it.
And if Danny was Really good at chem (like fictional mad scientist level good), then through tinkering around, he was able to find out what was missing.
Tim is now baffled.
How the fuck this guy who teaches the shop classes also know enough about chemistry that he can make a fear toxin antivenom without ridiculously high-tech equipment with stupid levels of precision measuring????
Danny just shrugs if he’s asked. He’s used to helping his parents in the lab.
I mean, do you think the Drs Fenton actually praticed good sterile technique? Or proper lab safety? Or actually measured or recorded their experiments by moles or standard measurements or anything? Or isolate chemicals from cheap household cleaners? Or ordered at anything less than the highest concentration they could and diluted it themselves because they weren’t going to pay for water.
Fuck no. They learned how to adapt based on what they had and learned how to do it based on sight, smell, heat, color, taste, etc. (Yes, taste. There’s a reason ectoplasm is stored in the fridge and it’s because they think it’s safe for human consumption.
It’s one of the reasons the Drs. Fenton were dismissed by the scientific community. Their experiments didn’t have precise measurements and had a very low chance of the results being replicated because of how they did it.
The biggest challenge Danny had in chem classes in college was writing lab reports.
He almost always got his results right but couldn’t explain it, because it was just “I did it until it felt right” and the profs did Not accept that so he had to get used to actually using standard measurements.
And now here we are in the aftermath of Danny’s lab for fear antitoxin in Gotham Academy.
He was trying to be relatable with these Gotham kids and give them a lab that would be practical and something that they’d actually use to get on the kid’s good graces.
Okay, but listen, they’re all concerned about Danny and Jazz being potential super villains based on observed behavior in Gotham. But then they dig into the Fenton Siblings and pull up multiple articles about Danny Fenton in Amity Park, ranging from Danny discovering Their Purple Back Gorilla was a Female to Leading his classmates (several times) against attacking Ghosts Metas. He’s close friends with Red Huntress who is well on her way to being a Jr Leaguer in good standing with the Hero Community. He also has close ties to a particularly promising WE Programming Intern.
I would put good money on Jazz having multiple research papers and joint(with Sam’s help, who is likely a rising star in the environmentalist circles)protest/projects for reforming how voluntary and involuntary hospitalizations are handled. Her thesis paper on Mind Control can cause PTSD on the same level as a kidnapping or any situation a person experiences any range in loss of control over themselves or their lives.
Batman has a choice to make here. This is clearly a tight-knit group of Young Adults, several of whom are clearly Metas of some kind. That all have backgrounds and skills to be dangerous individuals, but past documented history shows they are Good People.
He could just, close the file and let it go until they show actual activity of crime. Or keep digging.
All interactions with Danny and Jazz are pleasant and friendly. Jazz is the most subtly hostile of the two in these instances, but only when a question is over-friendly or invasive. She’s very obviously protective of her Brother who they can see, outside a school setting he wears t-shirts, has several concerning scars visible on his arms and peeking over the neckline of his shirt. (Bonus for attractive facial scars he covers for classes, but not in his free time.)
They are viciously protective of their privacy. Which, while annoying for Batman’s need to KNOW about potential threats, is not actually out of the ordinary or people or for a Gothamite. Investigations that include interviewing people from Amity Park or Red Huntress show this isn’t a unique trait of the Fenton siblings. Nightwing got whiplash when the professional, polite AP Hero snapped out “What are you a cop?” when he asked about Danny.
NW: uh… no?
Valerie, who’s had it up to Mars with people harassing them: Sure pretty boy, but here’s what I’ll tell you about Fenton and his sister.
NW perking up at potential information: ???
Valerie: You and your team will leave them alone if you know what’s good for you.
NW: is… are they dangerous?
Valerie: The Fentons can take care of themselves, but they aren’t who you gotta worry about if something happens to them, or they feel unsafe because of some loser furry who can’t mind his god-damn business.
NW, trying his best not to laugh at loser furry: You, you know that doesn’t help, right? Look, Gotham has a high turn over rate of Chemists and Psychologists becoming villains. We just-
Valerie: First of all, pretty boy, the fastest way for someone to turn to being a bad guy is to treat them like a bad guy. You’re lucky Fenton is a bleeding heart with iron clad morals, or we’d have been fucked a decade ago. Secondly, it’s ME and his Friends who will come for your asses if you hurt them. You do anything that puts him in danger because you won’t drop it when they’ve done nothing but their jobs, and we’ll hit you so hard and fast the Flash won’t even be able to save you.
NW: okay, okay, got it. Loud and clear!
Valerie: Good. Y'all leave that embodiment of chaos and sunshine alone. Unless you need help, I guess you can ask him for assistance, but he’s retired from the Hero Game and none of us will forgive you if you try to drag him back into it.
They get similar threats when questioning Sam and Tucker.
Sam: The hell I unleash will make Dr Pam’s worst rampage look like a child throwing grass if you don’t leave them alone.
Tucker: Look, I have a good job right now, and I don’t want to fuck that up because every other tech company has some villainous Billionaire attached. But if I find out you ran off my baby boy when he’s finally in a good place and happy, I WILL find out what happens when an ancient virus is unleashed on the modern internet.
Bruce Wayne gets an untraceable Email from The Modern Cassandra, that is a detailed list of every Gotham Vigilante and their potential as a villain.
It concludes with a “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”
Okay i know we’ve moved on to other parts of this au but danny mixing chemicals the same way people bake is SENDING me. Time to recall the two chemistry classes i took in high school that i have little to no recollection of, here we go.
Now imagine Danny bringing ectoplasm into this. We all know Maddie and Jack used ectoplasm powered weapons and other such ecto contraptions (is that canon??) And I’m not saying that Danny would endanger a bunch if kids by bringing ectoplasm to school like some fucked up show and tell BUT
Ectoplasm has been a huge part of Danny’s life. His parents kept ectoplasm in the same fridge they kept food in. They had a lab for a basement. Ecto contraptions and weapons were lying around in the home and nobody thought anything was wrong with that. It was just the norm. Hell,,,,,Danny himself is an ecto entity. Amity Park itself was brimming with ambient ectoplasm.
You can’t expect all that to just go away when he moves to Gotham.
Give me Danny who makes absentminded remarks while looking at a random students experiment like “Wow this could be thicker than ectoplasm”, “How did you manage to fuck this up so bad it looks like ectoplasm how”
Give me weird chem teach Danny who brings exactly two thermoses wherever he goes. He’s only even seen drinking out of one of them. And whatevers in there, it definitely isn’t soup or hot water. And what is in the second thermos, you ask? D o n t. D o n t a s k
Danny, overworked and underpaid like every teacher: god I wish the portal had killed me
Tim, who spent the last week trying in vain to dig up something about him : crying screaming throwing up WHAT DOES THAT MEAN
Danny: takes a swig of what looks like liquid radiation from The Thermos
A new AP Chemistry teacher in the middle of the semester would usually be pretty weird. Not at Gotham Academy, and, more importantly, not in Gotham. Even applying for the Chemistry teacher position in Gotham would get you put on a watch list somewhere. Usually for when you suddenly, inevitably, wound up missing. Or dead.
So none of the students in 1st period AP Chemistry at Gotham Academy were surprised when they walked into class to see a new teacher. They were surprised to see it was the Metalshop teacher, Dr. “Plesse call me Danny or Mr. Fenton, my parents were the Dr. Fentons” Fenton. None of the students called him Mr. Fenton of course. Gotham Academy is a very prestigious school with many very rich parents and with that came a certain respect for titles. So Dr. Fenton it was, no matter how much he complained about it.
Dr. Fenton was busily setting out what the students presumed to be the required lab equipment for their newest lab. Honestly, Dr. Heidel had chosen a great time to go missing (or dead). They’d just finished their most recent lab and unit, so Dr. Fenton wouldn’t be coming in the middle of some lab he probably only knew the basics of. His doctorate was in Mechanical Engineering after all, not Chemistry.
The students were a little confused and concerned though on why the Academy had not been able to find a substitute that didn’t already work there as a full time teacher. Usually there were plenty of substitutes to choose from, at least there were for the amount of money that the Academy could throw around from their parents’ generous donations.
So, with just a few whispered theories on what happened to the last teacher (some as mundane as a brief sickness, and others as ostentatious as them becoming a new Rogue), they settled down at their assigned seats to wait for the bell to start class.
As the last students trickled in with seconds to spare, Dr. Fenton turned towards the class, wide grin and excited eyes fixed on them. The students who were not in Metalshop were unnerved by this, the smile seeming just a bit too big, with just a few too many teeth, and the eyes shining a bit too brightly to just be the fluorescent lights reflecting off of them.
The students who took Metalshop were also unnerved, but for different reasons. They knew that that expression could only mean that they were going to be learning something that would make them feel like their brain had been turned to putty and their perspective was going to be flipped inside out and sideways. It was always an interesting, if slightly horrifying, feeling.
As the bell rang, Dr. Fenton clapped his hands. “Hello class! As you can see Dr. Heidel isn’t here today. They will not be returning unfortunately, they got a sudden offer they couldn’t refuse and left immediately for Metropolis. I will be filling in today while Principal Ramirez looks for a new Chemistry teacher and so I figured we could all do a more fun and practical lab today!”
Most of the class relaxed a bit at this. Dr. Heidel wasn’t dead at least, even if they were likely on the run from one of the Rogues. And they had a substitute who was just gonna give them a fun do nothing lab.
The Metalshop students only became more tense. They had a much better idea of what Dr. Fenton considered fun, and it was usually a lot more difficult (though very rewarding) than the standard lessons. Being practical as well just made it more concerning honestly.
“As you all know, the Rogues in the city use a lot of chemical based weaponry. Scarecrow’s Fear Toxin, the Joker’s Laughing Gas, Poison Ivy’s…well everything, to name a few. So I thought it would be best if I taught you how make at least 1 cure. Today we will be making the cure for Scarecrow’s Fear Toxin AND making it into an easy to carry injectable form, similar in design and function to an EpiPen! I-”
The class erupted into noise.
“What do you mean -”
“Cure for Fear Toxin?! How-”
“No way you can -”
“No way WE can-”
“This won’t work-”
“How would you even know-”
“But you’re not a REAL Chemistry-”
Dr. Fenton clapped his hands once, the sound seeming louder than it should be, silencing everyone.
“Now as I was saying, first I will show you how to make it and insert it into the No-Fear Pen, then I will hand you the instructions and help you to do it. Is that clear?”
Seeing a fewrl reluctant nods, Dr. Fenton smiled a little wider and almost seemed to vibrate a bit as he moved towards the beakers and chemicals on the desk in front of him.
“First we will take just a drop of ethylene, a dash of sodium pentothal-,” Dr. Fenton stopped, about to pour the sodium pentothal into the mixing beaker, as he saw a hand shoot into the air and many surprised faces.
“Yes, uh, Tim, right?” He asked.
“Right. Aren’t you going to measure the sodium pentothal, Dr. Fenton? And how did you get that?” Tim Drake asked, voice seeming very strained. Most of the class nodded, a few whispering about it to their lab partner.
“I am measuring it, Tim. No need to worry. I’m using what feels right. And of course I made all the more complicated chemicals you’ll be using for this lab. It would have taken much too long to walk through the whole process to every chemical we are using today, but I appreciate the commitment to Chemistry!” Dr. Fenton’s hands steadily poured “a dash” of sodium pentothal into the beaker, barely looking at it while he answered the question.
“Sir! I don’t think that’s safe! You’re not even looking at it and you’re not measuring it. What even is ‘a dash’ supposed to mean? This is Chemistry, not cooking!” Tim nearly shouted.
“Nonsense! All cooking is Chemistry! And just like with cooking, you measure with your heart. But, since you’re still learning, I’ve written up comprehensive directions and measurements for you. And I’ll be walking around the class so I can spot anyone who looks like they need help. Wouldn’t want to add to much salt to your recipe right? Speaking of salt, that’s the next ingredient! Specifically Sodium Borate, otherwise known as Borax! We’ll be adding a pinch of that.” Dr. Fenton said, a nearly manic grin on his face.
The class collectively decided that Dr. Fenton was definitely not completely (or at all) sane, and was probably the most likely teacher to become a Rogue that they’ve yet seen. In the interest of not being what tips him over the edge, they all quietly (slightly fearfully) focus on the lab and the instructions given to them.
“…And then you just slide this tube into the No-Fear Pen and you’re done! One Fear Toxin cure…antivenom? Eh whatever, one cure ready to go! And what practical lab would be complete without a practical demonstration!”
Everyone’s eyes widened at that, several of them nearly falling out of their chairs to get away as they saw Dr. Fenton pull out a small capsule, easy grin seeming again, just a little too wide, teeth a little too sharp to be human.
“To show that this cure works I’ll just breathe in a little of my home made Fear Toxin then inject myself, don’t worry, you’ll have the opportunity to test it as well, but only after I demonstrate it’s safety,” Dr. Fenton said, completely miss reading the emotions of his students. Nearly all of students started scrambling back, except Tim Drake who sprang forward, chair toppling as he vaulted over the table, desperately trying to grab the capsule. But with a slight squeeze of Dr. Fenton’s fingers, the small capsule broke and a comparatively large puff of gas escaped, immediately breathed in by Dr. Fenton.
“Please everyone remain in your seats, even you Mr. Drake. The Fear Toxin should start to take effect in 3…2…1!” Dr. Fenton said calmly. Far too calmly for such an insane act as to deliberately breathe in Fear Toxin. As he finished sp3aking they all saw him visibly go pale, eyes dilating and almost seeming to reflect more of the overhead lights, before his arm suddenly sprung up, No-Fear Pen in hand, and slammed down into his own thigh. Exactly like administering an epipen.
The class collectively held their breath as the fearful, nearly crazed look, went out of Dr. Fentons eyes and his skin went back to his normal healthy tan, though sweat still beaded his brow. Tim Drake, previously frozen from the sheer absurdity of the situation, slowly untensed his body and walked back to his table, barely remembering to pick his chair up before he sat in it.
“And there you have it! One functioning No-Fear…Anti-Fear? I like Anti-Fear, let’s go with that! One Anti-Fear, ready to be administered just like an epipen! Just jam it into you thigh with all your strength and you should be fine! Now who’s ready for the lab?” Dr. Fenton exclaimed, throwing his hands up in excitement, grin fixed on his face.
Slowly, like their teacher was a tiger rather than a man, they nodded, none of them daring to blink or break eye contact from their Definitely-Going-to-be-a-Rogue teacher. Several of them readied their phones under the table, unsure if they should call 911 now, or wait until things actually devolved in the classroom.
“Excellent! Let me just get these instructions handed out to you. Oh! And of you like this lab, then you’ll love it next week when I’m subbing for Mr. Takahashi, the Home Ec teacher! I’m going to teach you how to make a cure for the Joker’s Laughing Gas as little hard candies. They’re Blue Raspberry flavor!”
None of the class knew quite how to respond to that, but, well, if their teacher was insane, at least they were getting something useful out if him before he went off the deep end and became a Rogue, right?
When Danny finds out he’s considered a guaranteed future rogue he tries to reassure his students except that his perspective on the world is so foreign that it doesn’t quite work.
“So long as the government doesn’t illegalize my existence again, I not going to become a criminal promise!”
“Of course I’m not going to become a Rogue! Do you have any idea how much effort that would take? There are plenty of other easier ways to become famous or infamous than that!”
“I might be retired from the limelight but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go in the opposite direction!”
Other Ideas for advanced demonstrations (these don’t work if they’re not biocoded to the student.):
My-Portal-Home (MHP): A one time use get out of emergency device! It’ll teleport you to wherever you mentally associate with safety. (For his mechanics class, doesn’t work if they’re in jail or teleport then to a place that they’re not welcome.) (Looks like a joke toy, but it works.)
Revival: I know that the death rate is ridiculously high in this city, so here’s an energy drink to undo that! (For Biochem, uses ectoplasm.) (Is that a class that regular high schools have? Because mine did, but mine was weird.) (Doesn’t work on death by natural old age.)
Considering his hero background, Danny could become Gotham Academy’s go-to substitute for any subject. Every student leaves his lesson with a new way to stay safe in Gotham. He substitutes for a P.E. teacher and all students know how to defend against 4 assailants without causing permanent damage. He covers for a Geometry teacher and teaches them how to calculate the trajectory of a brick being thrown at Man-Bat on the fly. He even fills in for a single Psych class and has a very passionate lecture about parasocial that actually makes quite a few students re-think how they view their own interactions with the local Bats. No one can deny that Danny is a brilliant teacher, his methods just leave so many questions. However, he also straight up bit a goon who tried to recruit him so, that’s positive?
Now I need Danny making comments on how to change the agenda of the classes so that the students can survive in the city…
Random teacher: and how do you think of teaching all this?
Danny: I’m using my school’s syllabus as a base, of course adapted to Ghotam
2nd Random Teacher: your school?
Danny: yep, Casper High, you’d walk in as a wimpy tween, and walk out as a young adult ready for college and riot squad support, or surviving an apocalyptic situation, whichever would come first…
1st and 2nd Random Teachers:…
Danny: I still remember the first rescue raid when I was around 15 years old, they had kidnapped all the adults, I had to direct all my classmates, both in the assault and in the use of the emergency airship… ah What a good times.
Except one of those teachers is the Gym teacher, so Danny eventually asks them:
“Hey, do you ever do DodgeShot in gym here?” (One thing that you have to keep in mind is that if you go to a word school, you don’t really know what goes on at regular schools.)
“Dodge… Shot?” The gym teacher replies.
“Yeah, like Dodgeball but it trains your marksmanship as welll rather than just your evasive skills. Casper High had it as a mandatory activity for Juniors and Seniors. (So that if a Ghost attacks them they can defend themselves or avoid getting hit by Ectobeams by the GIW.)”
3rd teacher: “Danny, you know that none of these ‘school activities’ are normal right? Not even for a place as dangerous as Gotham.”
Initially, no none knows how Mr. Fenton and Mr. Baxter know each other. They tease and joke and have one of those “bullying to show affection” type of relationships. (Not like actual bullying but like bickering and throwing lighthearted verbal barbs back and forth at each other.)
Then Mr. Baxter introduces the kids to DodgeShot… oh god there’s two of them.
Tim doesn’t know what’s harder: Training with Bruce or Gym period.
There’s so much good always popping up in this au. This is great because often the P.E. Teacher is the Health Class Teacher too so Not only do they learn fun new activities like DodgeShot (for the upperclassmen, but they also learn exciting new things like how to effectively pack a mini med kit, for everyday carrying, and how to be an on the spot field medic with what’s on hand!
Mr. Baxter: This is why we went over what are the bare basics and how to pack them, so you have them with you. Cutting a strip from a shirt is much quicker and more efficient than tearing.
Mr. Baxter: Since Home Ec hasn’t agreed to adding hidden pockets to their sewing section, we’ll cover that next week!
During the Summer, they have open classes at multiple Recreation Centers to teach what they know to kids from other schools like in Burnley, Crime Alley, Bowery, ect.
Some kid asks about if they have some special tricks for disarming a Bomb and Danny and Dash just look at each other before nodding as if they had a wise and serious silent conversation before saying in unison.
“Book it.”
Before launching into a lecture on what Bomb Disposal entails and why it’s a better idea to leave the area as quickly and as far as physically possible and to report sightings ASAP.
The kid who asked about bomb stuff isn’t from school they work for (most of their students avoid them outside of school hours re the whole ‘unhinged, probably rogues in the making’ thing
So anyway, Danny & Dash go ‘that’s a great lesson idea’ and coordinate to have a ‘bomb day’
They bring in bombs (they just puff glitter everywhere, but they look legit)
Danny is in his usual Metalshop class and just “today’s practical lesson is to learn how to disarm a bomb” *whips out a bomb with a timer set for the end of the class period visibly ticking down and starts lecturing about the ‘more common setup, which is what we’re using for practice today.’
Dash’s class is part evaluation, part situational awareness, & part reflexes.
he has two types of bombs - ones that are stable enough to chuck into the distance and ones that can’t be moved. They’re sprinkled around an obstacle course he puts them through (before explaining beyond ‘do not turn around or leave the course until you reach the end, super ominously’)
He waits at the end while the rest of the class lines up to go through one at a time every few minutes
The first person out is like “Dr. Baxter holy shit there are bombs in there!”
Holds up clipboard, “how many did you spot and where?”
“How- that doesn’t matter we have to warn the others and get out of here!”
“Not to worry [student], those are good instincts to have but this is all part of the exercise. I’ll give the full debrief when everyone is through, for now just tell me how many you spotted and how many different kinds.”
“…s…seven…? But Dr. Baxter-”
next student interrupts by barreling out screaming “Dr. Baxter holy shit there are bombs in there!”
At the end he’s like “Most of you failed to note all of the bomb’s locations and only 4 of you noticed there was more than one kind. Those of you with run times above three minutes will be doing runs tomorrow. I notice only three of you exited the course entirely - likely because the sides were lined with bombs and wire. Good job on finding an exit, Tim. While flexibility wasn’t the point of this lesson it’s an advantageous skill to have in many situations! Mara, Davis,” he addresses the glitter-covered students, whose shrieks of terror everyone could still recall. “I would advise you to consider how affecting your environment might trigger the dangers around you the next time you find yourselves surrounded by bombs.”
“But now,” he claps his hands, “Let’s talk about id'ing which bombs are throw-able to determine how everyone could have exited the maze early on.”
When Danny’s morning students get to the maze, they’re resigned.
Miraculously, no one called the cops. In part bc Danny had never gotten in trouble for having stuff like Joker Gas or Fear Toxin so why would a bomb be different? In part bc people don’t carry their phones in gym (they have to leave them in a tray at the door) or Tim would’ve had the bats in there.
—–
Imagine Tim coming home with a small bruise and Bruce is like ‘What happened? At school?? That wasn’t there this morning????’
’…I lost.’
‘Lost what???’
‘Dodgeshot’
’?????????’
—–
…consider. Wes has not let the Phantom thing go. Maybe he doesn’t try to tell people anymore (bc he’s realized that ‘the light of truth is not enough to break through your foul sway on the innocent masses minds’) but he just. Follows Danny around.
The Fentons won’t sell him stuff bc he literally said he wanted to use it on Danny (& then bc they realized Danny was Phantom and wow, good thing they said no)
The GIW won’t sell to him bc he made them look like even bigger idiots, publically, by trying to do the Phantom=Fenton thing and then everyone mocks them and shows them the memes. They got a lot of shit for thinking Gregor was a ghost disguised as a human. The mockery for thinking an alive-person with a pulse is Phantom? ridiculous.
(They actually don’t care about being mocked or they wouldn’t be GIW, but it was so vicious & public that they lost funding for ‘poor resource management’ or something)
So since he can’t expose/fight him Wes ‘detailed corkboard on Fenton=Phantom theory’ Weston just decides to follow Danny around to keep an eye on him.
Danny thinks it’s hilarious
They’re kinda moving into frenemy-territory slowly but surely, so it could be worse.
I could totally see him as a history (look at how it all connects) teacher.
Or a cop.
he’d be perfect as a cop omg
First time Danny brings in Joker gas someone 911’s and Wes is one of the responding cops.
The demonstration is over by the time the police show up (the kid texted them and is trying to text to cancel but now the cops are there so no one was expecting them).
The principal gets contacted and is like ‘not to worry the exercise is approved.’ but the cops insist on talking to the person.
“Fenton,” the first cop in the room greets, ignoring his partner behind him saying ‘let me- dangit.’
“Wes,” Danny grins. “I’m surprised to see you in Gotham.”
“I have my eyes on you, Fenton,” he hisses. “Tell me how you got your hands on Joker Gas?”
“Alright, that’s enough,” his partner grabs Wes’ shoulder and drags him back. “I’m sorry for him, he’s new Dr….Fenton? Was it. But we do need to know how you got your hands on the Joker Gas.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble officer. I just vacuumed some up during the last attack.” Danny smiles.
“…Vacuumed.”
“Yep! The Fenton Weasel 2.7, for all your sample collection needs! I’d been thinking of doing this lesson for a while, so when the gas popped up on my doorstep and I needed to either wait for it to dissipate or clean it up I figured two birds, one stone. You know?”
“…Right. Well. Have a nice d-”
“No! There is no way we’re just letting this go! He brought Joker Gas into a school! We can’t just-”
Danny cuts off Wes with a cough.
“My lesson was pre-approved, Wes,” his grin is just as wide and off-putting as the day he dosed himself with Fear Gas. “The only reason you’re here at all is because my explanations were inadequate to soothe my students’ nerves.”
Officer Weston ground his teeth before snarling out, “My. Eye. On You,” pointing to his eyes then to Danny, and whirling to leave - once again abandoning his visibly exasperated partner.
1) Wes identifies Batman within a week and is soon after officially banned from responding to incidents at Wayne Enterprises because he keeps running off to try and report Danny Fenton to Bruce Wayne for being a ghost
2) Wes is almost always tackled or prevented by the new former Amity Parker intern Tucker, so Bruce never gets any useful information but Wes INSISTS LOUDLY that he needs to “tell Batman” so he’s gotta triple investigate Wes and stay far away
3) all the Amity Parkers therefore hear about Bruce being Batman from Wes and either disregard it or take it as gospel truth, with no way to identify why each thinks the way they do
4) the reason there are so many Amity Parkers in Gotham is because it is the only other city in America the Justice League never fucking go to, either because
a) they assume the residents will get it if they bitch about the Justice League being useless
b) they don’t wanna run into the league personally for fear of what they will say or do
Or c) they assume Batman is a ghost and the rogues have the kind of wacky antics they’re used to. When someone asks Dash why the hell he would willingly move to Gotham, he explains offhandedly
“Oh, I tried Chicago and Detroit, but it was just too quiet for me. I can’t settle down without at least a little excitement y’know.”
None of the Amity Parkers are ever asked that question again for fear of their answers.
5) Scarecrow and Joker are FUCKING LIVID that some goddamn school teacher is giving out cures for their secret weapons, and even fucking sharing the recipe
The fucking GIRL GUIDES have a badge now for making your own batch of anti-Joker sweets and selling them around town
But only one of them attacks the Gotham Academy
Only once
And sadly for Joker, it’s the day after the first gym class bomb run
Some of the kids are almost relieved they won’t have to do it again but also terrified because what the fuck is Professor Baxter going to do???
Professor Baxter is going to loudly and cheerfully declare “alright kids, we’ll pick this up another day but it looks like there’s some trouble so let’s all go to the bomb shelter!”
And all the kids just. Stare at him. Because yeah the American education system is A Trip but what fucking school has a bomb shelter?? (More than half the students realising yeah this is Gotham we fucking need one)
When someone hesitantly reminds Dash there is no bomb shelter, he sighs heartily, shakes his head, and scoops up an armful of bombs
“Yeah, alright, I forgot. We’ll just go to Fenton’s class, raid the sports equipment first for weapons and Tim, Louis, Cassidy, you guys pick up some of the throwable bombs, you did best on your tests”
And I mean the kids aren’t gonna argue against being armed it’s a fucking Joker attack, some grab spares for the other kids in Danny’s class and Dash nods approvingly and gives them extra credit
They get to class and the gym kids are fucking VIBRATING what the shit are these two gonna do together are they gonna action man out and take the Joker down themselves???? Tim is freaking out is this Danny’s villain arc he can’t get away Dash gave him A BOMB
But when they get there Dash and Danny share looks (and Danny hastily removes something above the door before Dash opens it, this is normal) and Dash nods to the kids
“Alright Fenton, you keep an eye on the kids and set these up” *delivers an armload of bombs* “and I’ll be back soon”
Dr Fenton nods like this is somehow normal and off Dash goes.
10 seconds later, Danny is grinning at the class again
“Alright everyone from Shop class, this is gonna be worth… let’s say 20 percent of your final grade, if I can get back into this room WITHOUT being covered in glitter you’ll all have to do an extra project to make it back up. Set up your bombs, I see you have weapons, well done, share those out and everyone else… do you all have your Joker candies? There’s an extra bag in my desk, stay quiet, stay low, and no one tell Dash I left.”
And then he climbs out the fucking window with a fucking scifi looking ray gun
Tim is fucking TORN on the one hand he NEEDS to get out there and coordinate with B and get this under control, on the other hand these kids are now fucking undefended and also he does not have time for an extra project in shop class
No one ever finds out exactly what happened but by the time the Bats hit the scene Joker is concussed, covered in glitter, and sobbing quietly
Danny gets back in unscathed (dammit) about 20 seconds before Dash runs back in and triggers the bombs
Tim successfully argues that Danny can’t prove he was unscathed in the next shop class and they could just tell Dash he left, so they all get that free 20%
6) if Dick EVER complains about his time at school again Tim just stares at him dead eyed like a war vet
7) despite Danny’s known penchant for biting goons, Red Hood approaches him personally to ask him to run extra safety classes in Crime Alley, under his personal protection
Danny agrees and it’s so weird, Jason’s had some seriously accelerated healing ever since coming back but he has this weird bite shaped bruise on his ribs for 2 weeks after that he will not talk about
Why can’t I see Danny in anything else besides a white lab coat, and science goggles for the entirety of this?? Like he’d look like that one prompt where he was a ‘villain’ to destress! And I love it!
And honestly? I’m liking the Danny x Dash possibilities in here! With shortking!Danny it just makes it cuter when Fenton has to stand on his toes to wrap his arms around Dash’s neck and Dash LET’S HIM!!
Holy shit. I love how this has become a whole ass fic. XXXDDD I would put in my two cents but it’s far too early/late in the morning and I should probably sleep. -w-
But like if there’s this one incident where something more ghostly happens and Tim is the only one to witness it. Idk what it would be but I think it would be funny. Like if an Observant comes to Danny in the break room to talk about ghostly/kingly stuff but ends up getting souped instead cause that is something that he doesn’t want to deal with, now or ever.
There’s a week where Danny subs for the physics teacher. For the entire week they talk about different dimensions and how to get to them. By the end of his subbing period, Danny and his classes have created a working portal to the Infinite Realms. It doesn’t work for long but it’s enough. It burns out one minute and twenty three seconds after being activated and stable. Luckily with his personal experience and his parents notes, no one becomes a halfa or comes down with a nasty case of ecto acne.
This au is just so much fun. If anyone writes an actual fic about this, please tag me! ^w^
So… I have ruminated on these thoughts and have come up with some more ideas.
Imagine Dash and Danny taking separate groups of students through a Metropolis Museum of some sort. Big villain chum attacks near Dash’s group; hence the students getting extra points for evacuating civilians and doing first aid. Dash distracts the big chum and kicks their ass.
BUT.
Dannys group was farther in and got stuck in the villains trap. Now locked in, the villain (stupidly) declares (declared is a strong word theyre really wheezing after Dash is done with them) that they have planted a bomb in the museum and unless the hero bows to their demands the kids inside will die.
Hero comes a bit late and gets held up trying to get the villains detonator. They storm in, ready to help the kids only to see Danny and Co. calmly walking out with (diffused bomb) carefully packaged and ready for disposal.
Some quotes I thought of:
*trap goes off, everyone is freaking out a bit. Tim knows he’ll live this down.*
Danny notices the bomb. And gets them to a safe (as safe as they can be) distance before realizing what kind of bomb it is and approaching it. “Oh Kids! This is a great learning opportunity! Watch closely. Now, before we start, what are the steps to safely take care of a bomb?”
Kids, behind tables and shelves: “Determine. Defuse. Dispose.”
“ That’s right! Now is this a bomb we can throw? Kevin?”
Kevin: “No, it doesn’t have (bomb part? Idk the difference sorry)”
“ Good! We have determined what kind of bomb it is. This is where it gets fun! See this cylinder here? This is a chemical that reacts violently to ignition! Diffusing this bomb will need to be done with a steady hand….”
The look on everyone’s face as the group waltzes out of the museum, diffused bomb in hand to give to the authorities/hero(es) is something Tim will never forget. (Tim took notes the entire time and definitely plans on using this knowledge in the future)
By the end of the ordeal, both classes have learned something new, Dash and Danny are new internet celebrities and Kon will never again doubt anything Tim says about his Chemistry teacher.
All this to say that Danny is a different flavor of Ms. Frizzle. Especially with the “Bomb threat is a great learning opportunity.”
This is my favorite DP x DC post.
Kwan needs to also get a job at Gotham Academy or nearby just for that Dash Kwan meet up and all of their students assuming that Kwan might be the only normal Amity Parker.
He can be a literature teacher, specializing in poems. He keeps a Fenton Anti-Creep Stick under his desk.
I’d say that maybe Kwan is a lit teacher in Metropolis? Not a lot of schools have teachers all from the same hometown. During some school field trips or Highschool football games could cause them to travel and meet each other?
Additionally: Kwan is the coach for the Metropolis High football team.
What if while Kwan and Dash meet at like a school sports game they trade ideas for PE?
“I’ve been teaching them DodgeShot, can’t believe somewhere like GOTHAM doesn’t teach this.”
“Really? I wanted to try one of Our Games but in Metropolis I’ll probably get in trouble, so I just double the amount of dodgeball and baseball”
Kon, very far away and overhearing: “what’s DodgeShot?”
Tim, unfased with a dead fish stare: “pain”
After that school trip Danny probably becomes somewhat of a public figure in Gotham, occasionally people stop him on the street. If they ask for pictures or autographs he’ll indulge them of course, if he’s not busy.
If it’s the less friendly kind of stopping in the street, where a car pulls up and points a gun at him to get in? Let’s just say once and never again.
He got into the car of course, when a Gotham rogue points a gun at you, you damn well play along lest you lose your life, or well, your half life but they don’t know that.
When they stopped at a random rundown warehouse, Danny got shoved inside, and they demanded he make some new chemical weapon for them that there isn’t an antidote for. Danny, of course, had been expecting this since he got asked to become the chemistry substitute three months ago. They never found someone else to fill the vacancy and he was doing just fine so they let him stay.
By the time the bats arrives all the goons were covered in glitter and coughing up smoke but otherwise unharmed. A note was left behind telling the bats to get there sooner next time, this was sloppy. And for red robin to please see him after class.
The bats can’t tell how Danny figured it out, with how much Tim has seen in his class, he’s not surprised Danny could.
Dick (you think Bruce actually goes to these?) wants to know why Tim is coming back with bruises every now and then,
and why he finds baby bird at 2am, with a haunted look as he whispers, “a dash of sodium peroxide…if the bomb doesn’t have a cylindrical tube, book it…a sprinkle…a sprinkle of copper powder…” as he sips coffee from what Tim insists is The ThermosTM
The ThermosTM is incredibly ugly.
But he’s also concerned about Tim’s chemistry class lab safety, or lack of.
It's not like I can offer the same to the living - DC x DP prompt
Danny ends up in Gotham for whatever reason, and he needs money. He has some not so bad skills with basic dishes and with some effort manages to put together a street vendor stand out of scrapes. He has to get his materials for the first sales from stealing with his invisibility and intangibility. But look, he just needs something to start with, okay?
He uses his powers to heat the metal where he cooks, and keep the cold products cold. He's not going to say he has an stellar sanitary manage of the food, but he tries his best.
He starts by getting a couple of sales and slowly is able to start buying his own raw materials. But it remains a slow business that's barely getting any revenue to keep itself up.
Until a ghost comes up to Danny asking for food. Danny was confused to say the least. They weren't even a strong ghost, couldn't even be seen by people.
"Can you even eat?"
"If you add ectoplasm I could, yes."
"Okay... That's good to know, but sorry mate, I don't have the means to just give food out for free."
"Who said I wouldn't pay?" The ghost says with a raised eyebrow.
Danny's about to say he doesn't accept whatever ghost currency the shades could possibly manage, but the shade beats him to it, and takes out just enough money for one of Danny's sandwiches. Real, living, money. And Really, Danny should question it. But who's he to judge where a ghost gets his money from?
Danny starts getting more and more ghost customers, as there aren't alot of options for them, and with it comes more money, that allows him to invest in the business. As people meet him he gets more living customers as well. Soon his street vendors car can be upgraded into a food truck. He expands his living menu.
He also, starts experimenting with his ectoplasm as an ingredient. He hadn't really tried up till then, just putting it on top of the food. But Ectoplasm is really manageable, and his ghost customers deserve to be as acknowledged as the living ones. It did take a couple reanimated food before he managed recipes were the food remained food.
Soon he has ectoplasm syrup, sauce, bread, candy, cake, Ice cream. Soon the living menu and the ectoplasm menu are completely different, and Danny makes separate menus to show his customers.
That's when he gets a customer he hadn't had before. The guy felt like a denizen, but didn't seem death. Danny didn't think much about it, it was not the first time an undead came to him.
"Welcome! Would you like the regular menu or the other menu."
"You manage two menu's?"
"Well, of course. It's not like I can offer the same to the living."
-_-_-_-_-_-
Jason had heard from a couple of people about the young street vendor that had managed to go from a food stand made from scraps to a legitimate food truck within a couple of months. He was apparently unafraid even if weapons where visible, and kind to any customer regardless of how well off or homeless they seemed, and recently had started to let street kids take some food at late night hours. So Jason was a bit curious, and decided to check it out.
He wasn't ready for his whole life to be put upside down.
This is the part when knowing more BatLore would come in handy.
I'd really want to be able to throw in a bunch of examples of famous Gotham Dead that could be Danny's customers. All I can name from the top of my head is everyone's dead parents & stepparents. Which is all well and good, but hardly a wide cross-section of city population.
I want old gangsters, gilded age socialites, newsies, dock workers, shopkeepers, mall rats, and more.
Name drop ppl who canonically died in Bat- and other Gotham-centric comics, shows, and movies.
Joker victims order drinks with a straw and food cut into bite-sized pieces. Eating gets messy when your face is stuck like that.
People from different decades, ethnic groups, and social spheres have hankering for different foods.
Some people come to gossip. Some act like they're in a hurry, still. Several different ghosts even tried to mug Danny, or make him pay protection money. You know, for old times' sake?
Now to Hood.
I feel like the setup: kid goes from struggling to well-established basically overnight, allegedly has two different menus for different sets of clients - inevitably lends itself to Bat Paranoia interpretations.
Namely, Danny's food truck is a front for dealing drugs or/and delivery mechanism for one of the more chemically-inclined rogues.
So when Jason approaches, it's for investigation, if not straight up prelude to some threats and a beat down.
Imagine his surprise at the direction of the conversation *then*.
OFC, in these circumstances, he wouldn't just eat the food. He'd want it analyzed. But not by Bats. Not if him being offered the "other" menu means what he thinks it means for his living status.
He might reach out to Outlaws or some other contacts. Does Red Hood have a non-Bat-adjacent magic user in his rolodeck?
If there's a link between Lazarus Water and ecto, I'd rather make it less straightforward. If only to avoid big shooty freak out up front.
OFC Hood would want proof of Danny's words first.
Maybe Danny can make him see the other patrons, if only temporarily.
How's that for a paradigm shift?
From there, I think I'd want it to be "Hood integrates into Gotham's Dead community" before there's ship stuff. Give him a robust network apart from either Danny or the Capes.
Maybe even he's accepted more than Danny?
After all, he's *from* Gotham. Danny might be the only reliable source of clean ecto on the eastern seaboard and a Realms bigwig besides, but he's still an out-of-towner. Will need to live here for at least a decade before he's really one of the guys, y'know?
(I'd not make Danny a Ghost King in this one - at least not yet and not knowingly, and make any city spirit more of a vague presence and less of a concrete personality. If I was writing a whole ass fic that is. Which I'm not. But if I was, it would be about community.)
I love this expansion. I feel like a fic with this prompt will be the kind to have a pretty long build up. There's a lot of people that Danny can meet before ever even getting in the bats radar.
Also, I feel that for the investigating side of this, it would be fun to have another bat go visit Danny first. Trying to subtlety ask about the special menu, and Danny just brings up the sandwich of the week or some themed dessert. Danny remains non the wiser to the investigation, he things their just really animated clients.
Then Jason goes himself because he's known to work with the Red Hood - Known Crime Lord that occasionally works with the bats, and immediately gets the dead menu option, except not for the reasons he thought he will.
If we go through the adoption path, where Danny's still a little kid, then having the bats trying really hard to gain Danny's trust so that the kid opens up about whoever has him doing their shady deals. Extra points if Danny likes to fight from time to time with ghostly people and big bruises show up in his human form, leading to misunderstandings.
Honestly if the fic (or its a mass tumblr fic) gets made—i’d say stick to 17 year old Danny at the youngest, but preferably Danny at 18 or up for the food truck going legit overnight to work.
Also, have the gotham ghosts he meets include the OG matches malone, and from there feel free to pile in deceased Goons and Victims, the mob matriarch who’s still around, talon victims from early gotham, hell the late Kanes too.
Danny is clearly Food Bringer and Maker to them—few are giving him gotham gossip beyond what it takes to make sure he stays alive
Jason gets the GossipTM and gotham ghost scene.
Danny does know the undead scene better by virtue of many undead being more mobile and they want to welcome the new member of the ‘been around too long to see this shit go down’ club as he’s (by their standards) baby undead learning to undead, and found a niche feeding dead and living to get by. Excellent survival and way to blend in buddy! We all got our thing.
For bat interactions, Danny knows of Batwoman (Kate Kane) as the local vigilante to watch out for as ‘she’s the one in charge of us unless we make harassing the living a problem’
Mind you, i am from the wiki side of batclan comics (still picking entry point—leaning toward Tim or Jason’s robin run) BUT for the kate question she has a number of supernatural rogues on her wiki page, and batman is notorious for avoiding magic or lacking an affinity for it, so for local magic and adjacent nonsense, i tend to assume Kate just yoinks those cases from him and shoos him away. In some continuities she’s part of the department of extranormal opperations (DEO) which is just another way to say government meta and supernatural branch. So kate is who the supernatural gothamites deal with (largely as there is an organized crime group called medusa that put them on her radar and she just… has not left since)
For matches, i find the idea of him being pissed off about the identity theft and see Batman as a hypocrite more interesting. Man looks at this guy’s Impact a million times over intent and method. Matches was a low ranking informant, so him respecting the ability to get the info but disapproving of 1) his death being brushed under the rug and being a restless dead spirit that can only Do Shit after eating Danny’s food. 2) making Bruce’s life difficult when using Matches Malone persona OR trying to use info he got as Matches far more intriguing than the standard ‘well i’m dead and can’t do shit about it or my legacy this guy stole’z and 3) matches is a multi gen gothamite from the main part of gotham, not the rich side, he is not taking his existence’s usurpscion in any way but a big ass insult to injury and is not letting that shit fly
Matches also liking Jason a lot—man is a methodical planner in his intro so fuck it keep Jason with that trait—as Jason is ‘real gothamite’ and worked within the crime framework that Crime Alley respects/tolerates/understands to forge a communal support system in a more formal style and enforces his shit as clearly as he informed everyone on day 1? Mad respect for the madlad. Possible game of Matches trying to work out how to get the stronger, more tangible ghosts to help him kill joker in the hospital as a ‘we appreciate you’ to Jason AND coordinate making sure Danny can suck the ecto out of the area to ensure Joker is yeeted elsewhere and not a ghost.
Matches sees Danny as Useful Tool to get what he wants, and give less than bare minimum to keep Danny alive in terms of info—will tell him what direction to go in and may escort him to safe locations while insulting Danny left right and center (new england city charm at it finest—fuck you i am helping but i am complaining as i do and you dont get to die until ive decided you’ve been annoyed by me enough and that will never happen)
If you guys mention any types to look for i can see who died in golden age comics and dig from there (online comic readings and retrospectives my beloved)
"He can't tell us apart besides how violent our deaths were"
Do you think the ghosts can tell how violent Danny's death was? Like electricity and a portal opening and DNA rearrangment? Like yeah, he's a halfa weirdo but still... there must be an opinion if they knew, right?
They can tell eventually, but I'd like to make it a little bit of a reveal, if you know what I mean.
Because Realms Ghosts and Lingering Ghosts (wraiths snd shades?) are ghosts in the same way as coelacanths and sturgeons are fish, it takes a certain level of acclimatization to sync up their ability to perceive and communicate.
Danny takes a while to be able to distinguish individual shades he's not familiar with by anything other than vague outline and their death echo.
The Gothamites can tell he died by electrocution, which is nasty but hardly unique, plus something else they can't really see (because Danny's suppressing the hell out of his ecto-signature, possibly with technology). Since he has a living body, they figure he's some flavor of revenant, like Hood, maybe with some extra Realms bullshit on top.
So, either overtime, they all start to notice the portal energy just like he starts telling his clients apart, or he has a little suppression fail and whoever's around at the time spreads the hot gossip.
Anyway, the portal IS a big deal. I sincerely doubt anyone knows what a Halfa is, but this kind of death echo would leave anyone shaken. Even in Gotham.
Ironically, unlike the Yeti, whose main point of reference were figures from their legends - all either victims of one-in-a-million run-in with a natural portal, or - willing or otherwise - sacrifices in a process of opening a magical one, Gothamites instantly clock that Mad Science was involved. Different "living" experiencem i suppose. So that's gonna color their interactions with Danny much more than any notion of mythical psychopomps.
----------
Can I just say how incredible everyone's contributions have been? I'm sitting here with an enormous smile on my face and just vibrating with glee.
If we want to make it dramatic, let's force Danny to transform for one reason or another. Like, all his interactions with Gotham ghosts and undead so far has been while in human form right?
I doubt anyone suspects he has another form if they just think his like some sort of revenant with a little bit of realm flavor. It would be a crazy reveal to have.
And from Danny's side, make him able to see the ghosts clearly while in ghost form and be like, wow, that's not how I imagine you looked.
Honestly, i like the idea that they can see he’s a Young Liminal (i find the idea that halfas are just cusping being either dead or living really fun) and that he has too many ghost abilities for his death to not involve Massive Supernatural and/or Mad Science BS interesting.
Do you think Ivy and Scarecrow’s victims might try to get information about his life pre-Gotham out as they feel a form of ‘killed by BS outside of our control and comprehension at the time’ solidarity?
The portal energy takes longer to let slip, but yes, them being aware he had two causes of death and one was electrocution so they assume the second was being fried from it until they note that sometimes they sense a portal to the ‘Mystery Green Place’/Infinite Realms but only Danny is there and he claims there was no portal.
Danny is distinctly Gotham Transplant and no one knows the cause of his move (i’m team his parents are beside themselves for their life’s work killing their son, them never noticing, and Danny deciding they cant blame themselves and wallow about if he’s gone OR his parents not knowing how to process Danny Fenton= Danny Phantom and he got fed up with being treated like an experiment gone wrong, so he bounced).
Danny is Theirs Now as he is Useful Food Maker, listens to suggestions and has no questions about who they elect to teach him recipes, and even lets some of them help him make the food for others once they get a hold of telekinesis.
Hm. Genuine q, anyone have a clue WHERE in bat/gotham timeline this should take place? Jason helping them out can be anywhere from late in Tim’s robin run to well after duke and others joined the batclan.
And any undead gothamites we want Danny running with, or are we leaving this open to any undead DC characters popping in to check on Baby Undead Danny (he’s 3-5, depending on his age). Asking as i am deeply tempted to have Danny meet Stephanie when a nursing school friend asks her to go to Danny Truck during studying session with them and Danny offer her both menus as ‘you died and stayed dead for a bit, but you’re living now so both menus are safe for you.’ To her classmate’s bewilderment is another avenue of chaos that can be explored and even be why the Red Hood investigation began
I feel like this should be in a time before Duke. I love the bean, but his powers could cause a partial reveal too early in the story unless you manage to keep him away from Danny long enough. Could be interesting to have it during late into Tim’s arc where Jay’s still stewing and steaming, already had the confrontation with Bruce and Joker, and isn’t quite calming down, but is starting the process. 🤷♀️
Fair enough. Question: do we want any of the OG villains from golden and silver age that bruce ‘killed’ to be there as regulars?
How about fillipe garcia (the guy jaybin was implicitly accused of killing) and his dad being mentioned in passing by a dead sex worker as ‘someone she and the girls eviscerate’ and getting an uncomfy confirmation that Jason’s first kill was in the League of assassins and one of his (v morally corrupt) teachers—not the guy that kick started Jason’s uncertainty in staying with Bruce and Bruce’s distrust in Jason as someone who doesn’t kill?
Hm, aren’t there dead former vigilantes too?
What about late talons as regulars who are the chattiest with Danny as Former Undead to Current Undead and they mentor him/steer him to the Undead community as psuedo-sponsors?
… should it be Waylon and Grundy being the tip off about Danny’s food truck—they get separate menus all the time, Waylon mentions it to Roy/Arsenal (he sponsored him getting sober) and Roy suggests they grab a bite there?
Around the same time Stephanie grabs a meal/street food with a colleague in Nursing School post-study session and Stephanie gets Both menus with an explanation of ‘if you’ve had this medical condition and recovered, this one is okay to eat from but if you never had it, its normally a Bad Time. Made it after finding others with it—the deficency doesnt seem to both you since you fully recovered but you look as dead as me, so it can give you a boost but only do this now and then, otherwise stick to the same menu as your friend’ spiel sets off both of them, and they drop a tip to bat-hotline before Stephanie orders off of it and brings a sample home with a note ‘do not touch, going to lab for tests’
Test results can show traces in the sauce of something structurally separate from lazarus water but chemically a merge of Kryptonite and lazarus water but far denser
He started off as a kid who wanted to dump info about space or other interests, making it more "Did you Know" as his theme, but his channel really took off the first time he invited a ghost to speak about the era that came before.
No one knows Sidney Poindexter is a ghost. Ghosts usually do not appear on camera; if they do, they are always a blur or barely visible outline. That doesn't come into play when the camera happens to belong to the Ghost King, who is unaware of the title.
Due to this, the ghosts, as his guest stars, turn out to look like normal human beings. There is no glow, no see-through effect, and the only odd thing about them is how they dress.
Even Poindexter's coloring could be explained with some well-done make-up.
They think he's just someone wearing a costume and pretending to be from the 1950s, using information Danny had researched. Danny's interview with Poindexter became an instant hit among those who applauded the genuine authenticity of what the 1950s actually were like.
Not only that, but Poindexter's reactions to modern terms and objects that Danny presents are hilarious to the viewers, as he never once broke character. There is even an entire section where both grumble about the bullying issue in their shared high school.
A particular scene becomes a trending meme.
"Did you know Dr. Seuss coined the word "Nerd" in 1950? He used it in the book If I Ran the Zoo," Danny tells Poindexter.
The other teenager rolls his eyes. "Of course, I knew. It was published in my first year of High school. I was one of the first to be called nerd, you know? It would have been more impressive if it didn't take the entire football team four days to read."
"Four days!?"
"Dr. Seuss's writing style saved the American reading levels back in my day."
"So we have always been stupid, huh?"
Danny's next guest is Johnny 13, a biker from the early 1980s who spends most of his time flirting with Danny—who doesn't acknowledge the attempts—and proudly tells the viewers he may have been there, but he was too poor to know much about the 1980s.
"What were the trends in that era?" Danny asks Johnny after considering his notes.
The biker shrugs. "I think cellphones? They were too expensive for me or my block. Never saw one in real life before I died."
"Well, one trend was waterbeds. Did you know that waterbeds were invented in the 60s? They were made by a design student but weren't popular until the 80s, making them popular for the sudden rise of sex appeal." Danny says with a cheerful grin.
Johnny 13 tilts his head, considering his words. "Radical. I couldn't afford a mattress, much less a waterbed, but I bet they were fun. If you can get your hands on one, I would happily show you how fun they can be."
Danny rolls his eyes and then considers something. "If you couldn't afford a mattress, how did you get your bike then?"
"I stole it. Car theft was effortless back then after hotwiring took off." Johnny's smirk turns dark. "I stole to keep myself fed. Bad luck followed you everywhere when you started at America's rock bottom. Only crime could get you out, and even then, life was shit."
Danny reaches out and pats his shoulder. "At least you got to live through one of the best eras in our history."
"Nah, I died in 1983. I missed it, but do you know who actually got to live it? Ember. She died in 1990."
Next week, Ember strikes an alarming resemblance to the one-hit-wonder singer Ember McLain, who had nearly made it big a few years ago.
"What were the 80s like?"
"Terrible, everyone hated me in school, and AIDS was killing all my friends."
Danny pauses for a long moment, looking horror-struck, until Ember shrugs, "But Glam rock was made popular, which was kind of cool."
"Glam?"
Ember smirked at the host, holding her guitar. "Want to hear some?"
By the end of her performance, everyone was losing their mind that Danny Fenton somehow knew a big name like Ember Mclain, and her music once again started to trend. So much so she released another song called "Lost," dedicated to all her fallen friends who died in the AIDS epidemic.
It goes on and on, with each new video showcasing different times and people from those backgrounds. Tim Drake never misses an episode as a dedicated follower of Danny's Did You Know?
He also thought it was a gimmick to make the show entertaining and thought nothing of the hilarious conversations—not when the host was such adorable eye candy.
Things are normal until Tim watches Danny interview Greta Hayes, who died in the late 90s. His very dead, very much a ghost teammate who happily tells the story of her life while looking like an ordinary girl for the first time.
It's not even someone dressed up as her. She makes an apparent reference to some slang Bart uses, and a few of the team's inside jokes are sprinkled into the conversation.
Tim feels a headache coming on. After watching the episode, he grinned darkly as he picked up his phone and called Bruce.
"So we may have a problem. Either a necromancer with an insane amount of skill or something similar. We need to go to Amity Park to investigate Danny Fenton."
Bruce sighs. "Tim, I am not helping you stalk your internet crush-"
Damian: *Picking up Mar'i from school for Dick and Kori*
Mar'i: Uncle Damian! *runs up to him, her teacher, Danny, trailing behind with her backpack* Please get married! I want to be a flower girl too!
Damian: I beg your pardon?
Danny: *clears his throat and hand's Damian her bag* It was show and tell, and one of Mar'i's classmates showed off her flower girl crown from her aunts wedding last weekend.
Mar'i: Yup! The crown was sssoooooo pretty!
Damian: I see, however I am unsure who you think I would marry.
Mar'i: Eh uhhhh um *looks around frantically before pointing at Danny* Mr. Danny! Yeah! You can marry him!
Damian: Pardon?
Danny: Excuse me?*squeaks and face goes red*
Mar'i: Yeah! Uncle Damian loves animals, and helping people! And Mr. Danny loves animal and helping people! That's a-a um com-on inch-int-imper eh
Danny: In-ter-est
Mar'i: Yeah! Commons Interest! Daddy said thats good for people who get married!
Damian: That is not how relationships work.
Mar'i: You don't like Mr. Danny? *eyes start to water* But hes nice, and he helps me with my maths and he likes the stars and he has a puppy...
Damian: *panicking* I do not dislike him- but- relationships are difficult to-how do I say-
Danny: Mar'i, *Mar'i turns to look at him* When two people get married, it means they're going to be together for a very long time. You need to be very close with that person, and love them a lot. Your Uncle Damian and I don't know eachother that well, so we can't get married, do you understand?
Mar'i: So its like how I gave Lucy a friendship bracelet but not Conner because I'm not good friends with Conner yet?
Danny: Exactly!
Mar'i: Okay, I understand. Mr. Danny if you do ever get married, can I be your flower girl?
Danny: Sure! But that probably won't happen any time soon though.
Mar'i: That's okay! I'm patient!
Damian: *clearing his throat* I appreciate the assistance in explaining the complexities of marriage to Mar'i. I am afraid such situations are *grimaces* not one of my strong suits.
Danny: Don't worry about it! You'd be surprised how many children try to set me up with their family members. It happens to me a lot for some reason, which is weird because my coworkers don't have this problem?
Mar'i: *looking between Damian and Danny with a mischievous little smile*
List of things Mar'i Grayson did to try and get her Uncle and Teacher together, not nessicarily in order:
-Insisted Danny give Damian a kiss because Damian had a pretty bad looking black eye, and when Mar'i insisted kissing boo-boos made the pain go away.
-Convinced Damian to buy her flowers so she could give them to Danny for "Teacher's Appreciation Day", only when the time came she gave Danny a bouquet of wild flowers she picked leaving Damian to awkwardly hand Danny the Peonies and Tulips(hes allergic to roses) for seemingly no reason.
-Saw Danny in a store and purposefully 'got lost' so that Danny and Damian had to work together to find her, then acted scared since she had been 'lost' so all three went out for ice cream to calm her down.
-Gave Danny Damian's phone number instead of Dick's or Bruce's when she got sick at school, so now Danny has Damian's number and vise versa.
-She told Danny that she was sad Damian didn't get a lot of valentine's treats because hes vegan, and convinced him to make some mini vegan chocolate and raspberry cheesecakes so Damian isn't left out. Not one to be outdone, Damian came back the next day with some of Alfred's double chocolate chip cookies.
-Picked a fight with another kid on a day she knew both her parents and Bruce were busy so that Damian was called in for a conference to discuss her behavior.
Jazz with De-Aged Triplets of Danny, Dani and Dan. They move to Metropolis.
And Jazz made the mistake of not looking at them for 10 seconds.
And now Superman is out her door, holding three - very obviously not human looking - siblings and asked if they were hers. Because, if she was understanding this correctly, at the timeframe she looked away from them - they had somehow gotten out.
Turned Ghost, flew to where Superman was fighting Lex and some other Robots, before bashing them all in as 5-year-old Ghostly Toddlers.
Introduced themselves as Danny, Dani and Dan.
And now the public is calling them the real life 'Powerpuff Girls.'
"So they're not really toddlers?" asked Ms. Lane, looking Dan over.
"It's a low-power mode," Jazz explained, patting Dani's hair as she napped on her lap, "they're not exactly themselves right now. Frostbite said that their brains are too young to process their older memories, so they don't really know what or who they are.
"Anyways, they'll be back to normal in about a year or so. Until then, they're my headache."
"And this happened... how exactly?"
"Our universe collapsed. We only escaped because they pooled their power together. That's how they ended up like that."
Superman frowned at that, ignoring Danny as he tried to climb his cape, "Were there any other survivors?"
"Yeah, Sam, Tucker, and Val. They're at school right now... they took it hard, but they have a habit of working through the pain. I'd rather they take it easy to work through it, but hey! Whoever listens to the nagging older sister?"
The two reporters exchanged a look.
"But how are you holding up?" asked Lois, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Oh, it's all good," Jazz scoffed, as if she hadn't also lost her home, friends, and family, "I have to be OK. That's my job."
"It doesn't have to be," pointed out Superman, "at the very least, it doesn't have to be just your job."
"How old are you, anyways?" asked Lois.
"Nineteen," she replied, noticed the looks on their face, and hastily added, "but the others help a lot!"
"And how old are they?"
"...Seventeen."
"Much too young to do this alone," sighed the kryptonian, "look, some other superheroes and I are starting a... team of sorts."
"For babysitting?"
"For support," he corrected, "any type of support we might need. The others step in if one of us needs time off, we work together to take on larger threats, stuff like that. None of us has kids yet... well, except Batman, but Robin and Batgirl are teenagers."
"Batman's real?" Jazz was honestly surprised, "Dang it, I owe Sam twenty bucks."
"Wait, how are you making money?" asked Lois.
"Well, the others work part-time at burger joints and stuff, but I work at the mail room at the Daily Planet."
Lois and Clark both made a mental note to check on her when they could.
"You haven't thought about college or anything?" asked Superman.
"I mean... I don't really have time for that right now. It was hard enough to get the kids into school-."
"Kid."
They looked down at the middle triplet, who was staring intently at Jazz from Superman's shoulder.
"Danny?"
"Kid... too..."
His eyes slowly clouded over, ultimately settling into the same wandering look Dani and Dan had, before turning to tug at Superman's hair.
"They have moments like these," she sighed, ''times where their old selves come back. They don't last though."
"He's not wrong though," Superman acknowledged as he put Danny on the floor, "you're not that much older than them."
"Well, you two aren't much older than me either."
"No, we're not," agreed Lois with a chuckle, "but we need help sometimes too. There's no shame asking."
While Jazz was pondering the idea, Dani woke up. She spotted Superman and opened her mouth to scream-
"DUCK!"
-hitting Superman with a beam attack which threw him into a wall.
"Dani!" Jazz scolded the youngest triplet, "What have I said about using your ghostly wail? You're taking the longest to rebuild your ectoplasm as it is!"
Superman picked himself up. Fortunately, he'd caught himself on time to avoid damaging the wall. Ectoplasm stung though.
"Ow."
"... Ok, if someone in your team can make a ghost-proof playpen, I'll consider it."
"Oh, I'm sure Bats knows a guy."
I'm thinking this could be in the cancelled Justice League cartoon that was supposed to be linked to The Batman, but I think it works with any Superman or early JL series.
I think it works best if it's set as the League is still forming, mostly because the trio could use the additional support.
"So, yeah, turns out poking too many holes into the fabric of spacetime can unzip a whole universe." Finished Jazz, having spent the last twenty minutes explaining how she and her family got there.
Batman simply stared stoically, taking a moment to process.
"I appreciate you taking the time to explain this. I know it can't have been easy."
"It's... well, it's not fine," she admitted, "but it will be... eventually."
"It doesn't have to be right now," he, rather hypocritically, insisted, "we do have a therapist in the Watch-."
"I don't need it."
If Batman was anywhere near as surprised as Jazz was at the outburst, he certainly didn't show it. Instead, the two stared at each other for a solid minute, before Jazz looked away.
"I wear a mask every day. It has a name, a personality, expectations, and a number of people it answers to... it's name is not Batman."
Jazz looked up at that.
"You don't want to spend too much time wearing a mask."
Elsewhere, Sam was chatting with Wonder Woman.
"I swear, my parents annoyed the hell out of me," she groaned, "they didn't agree with anything I did, had an opinion about everything I liked, and made sure I knew how little they cared about the things I cared about."
"Yet, you miss them."
"...Yeah," she admitted, "why? I mean, I didn't hate my parents, even when I told them I did, but I never thought I'd miss them this much."
Wonder Woman smiled wistfully.
"When I was young, I was the baby of the island. The youngest of them all, so I basically had a mother in every woman of Themyscera."
"That's the badass Amazon warrior island, right?"
"A lot of people are surprised when I tell them this, but not everyone was a warrior. I mean, we were all trained in the ways of war, but not all of us considered that path a lifestyle.
"Some were weavers, cooks, farmers, ranchers, shepherds, singers, dancers, poets, builders, architects, and so on. It takes more than soldiers to run a nation, even a small one like Themyscera."
"And you learned from all of them." Sam guessed.
"Hmm, not always. I was a tad... rambunctious as a child. I didn't always have the patience to learns the fine details of planning a building, weaving, sewing, or knitting... Looking back on it, I regret some of it, now that I cannot see them. They were all trying to teach me what they thought would be valuable to learn for the future, yet I only ever cared about swords, hammers, and shields. I do wish I'd let them teach me to weave sometimes."
"Can't you go back?"
Wonder Woman shook her head, "By leaving Themyscera, I became an exile. I wander the world of Man now, and can only return under very specific circumstances."
"How-?"
She gave Sam a moment to gather her thoughts.
"How do you deal with it?"
"I grieved the loss of my mothers long ago," she took a tissue and dried tears that Sam hadn't noticed on her own face, "but grieving takes time... time that you are not giving yourself."
Sam, for the first time since they arrived, finally gave in and cried like the child she was.
Tucker, for his part, was (trying) to have the time of his life. Cyborg was, in his geeky opinion, the absolute coolest superhero he'd ever met.
"Man, that is still, so epic," he swooned as Cyborg connected a wire to his head during a system test, "did it hurt?"
"Oh, a lot," admitted Cyborg with a chuckle, "technically it still does, but the system takes care of that. There's a bridge in my brain that keeps me from feeling it."
"Oh... sorry."
"It's cool, you get used to the oil changes."
They had a chuckle at that.
"So... Batman said you needed something?"
"Yeah, Jazz said you're good with coding. Mind helping me with some troubleshooting?"
Tucker practically flew at the terminal and started looking the code over. It was odd, but some terms in C were different in their universe and Python was called Boa. It was one of those things that were just slightly to the left between their universes.
"I wonder if I could add some of your stuff to me," mused Tucker, "not all of it, I like my hands, but just some stuff to make things easier."
"Eh, I wouldn't recommend it. This looks cool on the outside, but on the inside it's a mash of tech from three different alien cultures, time-travel bullshit, and really itchy nanobots."
"Still better than being helpless."
Cyborg raised an eyebrow at that, "You wanna elaborate on that?"
Tucker closed the terminal and went to the next one across the hall, "Not really."
"... All right."
They worked silently for several minutes, closing and opening terminals when needed. Cyborg worked faster, his wetware/hardware patching meant he could code at the speed of thought, but Tucker's coding was creative in a way that his wasn't. A wetware patch would make him a digital monster.
"How did you...? Nevermind."
"Had an accident," Cyborg replied to the unfinished question without looking up from his work, "bad one. Most of my limbs and internal organs were pulped. The doctors weren't sure how I made it to the hospital. They called it a miracle. I called it hell."
"...Yeah."
"I was helpless."
Tucker looked up from his work.
"This isn't a weapon, it's a prosthetic," he reminded him, "it's primary function is to keep me alive. Everything else is... a bonus."
"...Sorry."
"Don't be. I'm not. Just being alive is a good place to start."
"Yeah. I guess it is."
At the same time, Val was pounding away at a sandbag in the gym. Her father, her city, her friends (?), and every hope she had for the future had vanished in mere seconds, leaving her to pick up the pieces.
Again.
She punched the sandbag over and over, forcing herself to stay angry. Anger had fueled her so far, so why-?
"You good?"
"MOTHER-!"
Her armor was on in a heartbeat, but the targeting systems wouldn't lock onto non-ectoplasmic threats.
"I almost shot you!"
"Eh, you'd have missed," dismissed the Flash, "fastest man alive."
Val felt there was an obvious joke there, but she was better than that.
God help him if he met Danny though.
"You didn't answer the question though. You good?"
Val scoffed and went back to the sandbag.
"Well, considering almost everyone I know is dead, I'm stranded on a new dimension with no papers, I'm going from graduating with honors to struggling through a GED, and my super-powered suit barely works on anything here, I'd say I'm dandy!"
She stopped, panting from the strain, "I'm pissed, ok? I'm just- I'm just mad right now."
"Umm, you don't really look mad," Flash admitted, "you don't even look-."
"Are you saying I can't be mad?"
"Oh, you have every right to be angry," he rescinded, "I know I was, but I'm not sure that you are."
Val wasn't sure where to start, so she did what she did best.
"What do you mean that you were?"
She deflected.
"Oh, long story," Flash dismissed, "but to keep it short, I once traveled back in time to save my mom."
"Your... mom?"
"Yeah, she was killed when I was a kid. My dad went to jail for it, though he didn't do it."
"...Oh. I'm sorry... but she's fine now, right?"
"...Not really," he sighed as he sat down on a pile of gym mats, "turns out tinkering with time is a very bad idea. The League didn't exist and most of its members were either at war or dead."
"Then... oh."
"I had to undo it," he affirmed, "worst day of my life."
"...My mom died when I was seven."
Flash looked up at her. She'd gone back to the sandbag.
"We saw it coming, cancer's a bitch."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Thing is, I thought that'd be the worst feeling of my life," she half-heartedly punched the sandbag a few times, but stopped and let her arms hang limply by her sides, "but I was a kid, so it eventually... dulled. Then Danny and I had a...misunderstanding and I mostly felt angry. I thought he was out to get me, so I went out to get him."
She gestured at her armor, finally retracting it back to wherever it went when she wasn't using it.
"It wasn't fair to him."
"It wasn't fair to you either, was it?"
"...No."
Flash thought very carefully before his next question.
"Is that why you were mad?"
She looked sharply back at him, wanting to tell him off for something, but couldn't quite grasp what for.
"I- why can't anything be fair? Why did I have to lose my mom? Why did that stupid dog have to destroy my stuff? Why did Vlad have to notice me? Why did I have to lose everything and everyone else!?"
She wasn't even punching the bag anymore.
"Worst part is, I'm not even the only one," she sighed, "Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and the Dannys. They lost everything too, so I can't-."
"Yes you can," Flash interrupted, locking eyes with her intently, "you always can. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise."
"... but I don't want to. I'm tired."
She dropped on her knees, looking up helplessly at the sandbag.
"I'm so tired of feeling angry and sad and everything else. I just want to stop for a bit. Is that too much to ask?"
Flash sighed and moved to sit next to her.
"I don't know if it's good to stop feeling," he admitted, "but for now, you can at least rest. Take all the time you need."
Val sniffled, allowing herself to lean on Flash's shoulder.
"I miss my daddy."
In the daycare, three apparent toddlers had a brief moment of clarity.
Soulmate AU where, upon the youngest Soulmate turning 18, all have a dream the next time they sleep about the most important moment of their Soulmate’s life(or lives, if there’s more than one.)
For most people, this isn’t a huge issue. For the Batfam, it’s a huge problem.
But when Jason dreams of a boy who walked into a dark hole in the wall, only to hit a hidden switch, die of electrocution, and wake up as a ghost moments later?
Yay! Plot bunnies hello! It’s my favourite soulmate pairing! Warning for graphic description of death/half death/ they get all the trauma :D
In the early fall of an insignificant year, Jason Peter Todd went to sleep. At the age of 19 and having been alive again for 3 years, this was an insignificant day followed by an insignificant night.
Jason Peter Todd slept 6 hours before he woke up screaming from a nightmare of a horrible memory and this too, shouldn’t be anything new or significant.
But it was.
It was a significant day followed by a significant night with a significant nightmare of a horrible memory.
Because his soulmate turned 18 yesterday and Jason Peter Todd reenacted his soulmates most significant memory.
The memory of dying violently.
It started with a boy in a white, with black highlights, biohazard suit walking into a metal hole in the wall.
Jason, in place of the boy, didn’t stay upright for long.
He trips.
He falls.
He catches himself by pressing a hand to the wall.
A click and then pain.
This was a memory of being ripped apart at a molecular level for what should have been less then a minute and yet felt like HOURS.
The pain giving away briefly to the sight of a world beyond the veil of the mortal realm, of a green vastness that words fail to give an accurate description of.
But just as the pain left, it was back and he was back to being surrounded by white metal, only this time the pain was three times worse because there was now electricity F O R C I N G his being back into the shape of a boy and into a body beyond saving and no longer accepting of life.
Agony was the only word that could describe the pain he was in and yet the word did not give it any justice. It did not describe a level of pain that shouldn’t have been possible to feel.
He wanted to die. He wanted to live. He wanted to be an astronaut. He wanted to explore SPACE. Why was the pain not leaving? How long was dying supposed to take?
The screaming had started as something recognizably human near the beginning but as the memory carried on, it became less human and more haunting.
Yet still, there was human screaming present that wasn’t his own. He knew deep down, past all the pain and knowledge that he wouldn’t be making it out of this alive, that there was someone else there and that they were hurting too. He needed to get to them, to get to them and help them before he can no longer move, before they, too, reach a point where they are no longer able to be saved.
He wants to be saved.
He knows in his very being that he is past saving.
But he can save the others if he just gets to them. He can save them like he wants to be saved. He can PROTECT THEM before he dies so they don’t die too.
Jason could F E E L as every movement brought agony to every inch of his body.
As every movement felt like too much for him to handle.
But they were still screaming and he needed to get to them.
Seconds or minutes or hours or days and he knew he wouldn’t be able to tell you how long it took to crawl out of the tunnel. Only that he did.
The screaming had stopped but he couldn’t have told you when.
Movement to his left caught his eye.
His eyes met GREEN.
The creature wasn’t human. Eyes too wide, hair floating as if it was underwater, the colour matching the purest white he’s ever seen, and the body was just WRONG.
Sharp ears, claws, arms too lengthy and bending at the wrong places.
No legs, just a whispy black tail.
Black with white highlights.
It was wrong.
It was terrifying.
He was looking at a mirror…
The pain was no longer a thought in his head as everything was replaced with HORROR.
The reflection wasn’t human. The reflection was a monster.
He knew he DIED. He was DEAD.
He was a MONSTER.
Jason Peter Todd woke up screaming.
He needed to find him.
————————————————
Danny had been dreading his 18th birthday ever since his accident.
He had a gut feeling that he would be the youngest and knowing his luck made him certain that that would be the case.
He was right.
Leading up to this point he had hoped beyond hope that he would be paired with either Tucker and/or Sam. He desperately wished to have someone that he knows wouldn’t see him as a monster. As some sort of freak.
Someone who would accept him as Phantom AND Fenton.
He has learned by now that he rarely gets what he wants.
But like usual, it worked out in the most unexpected way.
His dream turned into memory as he took the place of his soulmate.
His soulmate who was half beaten to death and still getting hit.
Over and over and over again Danny felt as each hit broke bones and left deep bruises.
The laughing haunting every strike.
Danny, for a brief moment, knew that he would have more clowns in his nightmares after he woke up.
The pain was quick and sharp, followed by an aching that he knew would last for months if not years.
He was crying.
He was screaming with each hit near the end.
He wanted Bruce.
He wanted his dad.
The sight of the lady across from him just brought him pain and hurt in a way that he couldn’t put to words.
Does Bruce even want him?
He wants be saved.
Bruce will save him.
He needs to get out.
Bruce will come.
The door is locked.
Bruce will be here soon.
There is only ten seconds left on the bomb.
B’s really pushing it close.
5
Where is he?
4
He wants his dad
3
Bruce should have been kicking down the door right now.
2
He doesn’t want to die.
1
He wants his dad.
For a brief moment Danny could almost hear his name being called.
He’s so sorry. He should have listened.
Bruce came for him.
But it was too late.
He’s so sorry.
True void filled his head and for a brief moment there was absolutely nothing. No pain, no emotion, no breathing or movement, no sight, no hearing, no touch or taste or scent.
Then, with a sudden great breath, he woke up to black. The kind of black you get only with the complete absence of light.
It was cramped.
It was cold.
It was dark.
It was getting harder to breath.
Where’s Bruce?
He wants out.
Pulling off his belt, Danny felt the memory guide him as he used it to punch through the wood.
There was dirt.
He’s buried alive.
Danny didn’t have much air and felt the panic grow.
He needed to get OUT.
He dug and dug and dug. His nails bled. His mouth tasted like ash and dirt.
He couldn’t breath.
He was going to die.
He was going to die again.
He wants his dad.
Then there was air.
He crawled his way out dropped to the ground with great heaping breaths.
Danny’s eyes felt unfocused as they dragged across the surface of the stone beside him.
Well hello again! *cackles in pure delight* The people have spoken and I’m still trying to get out from a pile of plot bunnies so part 2 here we go! (ps my ‘at’ symbol is not working on my computer right now so if you wanted to be tagged for a continuation I apologize)
Be warned Jason does not have a fun time and connects all the wrong dots :D
.
.
Apparently ‘finding him’ is going to be a lot harder then his re-traumatized brain said it’d be when he woke up.
Jason stared at his high tech laptop like it offended him.
Sadly, his laptop was unaffected by Jason’s glaring and didn’t tell him anything about his soulmate or even where to start in his search.
The only thing he had was his birth date and age.
He had no name.
No location other then some kind of lab.
There was someone else there with him but Jason didn’t get to see them.
Oh and to make this even worse, his soulmate was also no longer human which will make searching for him either stupidly easy or unimaginably difficult.
Not that he minds the inhuman part since he is determined to be the best DB (death buddy) a ghoul? Wraith? could have at the very least.
He’s definitely down for something romantic though if it’s an option since he doubts he’ll find someone who will understand him to the level a soulmate will, human or not.
That was new information about himself that he didn’t need to think about right now.
Though seriously, wasn’t that a real kick to the gut. At least Jason still looks like a human and feels like a human. His DB didn’t even get the zombie experience, he just skipped all the steps and went from small teen to whatever the fuck he was now.
Jason froze.
He forced himself to backpedal through his train of thought.
His soulmate was in a lab.
His soulmate wasn’t alone.
His soulmate went in human and came out something else.
His soulmate was something ‘other’ and in a lab with someone else.
Someone who could be a scientist.
Someone who would be interested in the creature the hole in the wall produced.
Someone who could have no problem ‘studying’ his soulmate even knowing that he was the kid who went in.
Jason would have collapsed if he weren’t already sitting down. The air felt heavy and an edge of green tinted the corners of his sight.
His soulmate was a small teen (his gut knew that he was a teenager but probably only just).
A small teen who had a biohazard suit that fit him perfectly. Jason can spot a tailor made suit when he fucking sees one and that one was tailored for him.
Why was there a button that turned the machine on on the INSIDE?
A convenient pile of wires cutting across the ground with little to no light right before the button.
It wasn’t an accident.
It wasn’t a mistake made by a clumsy teen.
It was PLANNED.
It was a TEST.
It was an EXPERIMENT.
An experiment done on a KID who was UNAWARE that HE was the SUBJECT.
The LAB RAT.
WHERE IS HIS SOULMATE NOW?!
WHERE IS HE?!
——————————————
Danny reevaluated the level of difficulty ‘finding his soulmate’ would actually be.
One of the first things he did was grab his phone when he woke up to set up a video call between his friends and sister.
Jazz was currently living in her university’s dorm and thus no where near Amity but she was adamant about being included.
She knew how scared he was.
“How bad?” Was the first thing asked when the call connected, granted it was Sam asking and he probably was not looking great after what he just witnessed.
“So do you want the good or bad news first?”
“Bad,” Tucker cut in before the other two could answer.
“I now have more clown trauma and my soulmate died in a planned explosion.”
Silence answered him as his friends plus sister digested what that meant. The thing about soulmates is that when one dies, the other still gets the connecting dream regardless of the others death. The connecting dream will always happen after the youngest of the soulmates has existed for 18 years, whether they are alive or not has no effect on the dream and it’s the same if the older one is dead by the time the youngest reaches his 18th birthday.
You’ll always get the dream, but on the chance you don’t, it simply means your other half wasn’t born into your time period. Case and point that one famous singer dude who was the soulmate to Mozart.
Death was unfortunately something soulmates had to experience if whatever caused their soulmate(s) to die wasn’t fast enough to kill them instantly. Death is a pretty significant event after all and unfortunately not as rare as people wanted it to be.
“…You said there is good news?” Jazz was the one to break the silence but the mood had turned somber and Danny could roughly guess what they were thinking about his luck and life.
“He came back from the dead zombie style and I managed to get a look at the name on his gravestone,” this time the silence was filled with an ‘are you shitting us’ vibe and Danny couldn’t be more proud. “So I don’t think I’ll have a problem with them selling me out to the government before I find them.”
Tucker snorts an aborted laugh, but it was too late and before they could even continue the conversation everyone was laughing too hard to form words.
“Ancients! What the fuck man?!” Tucker manages to get out between two heaving breaths.
“Danny, your life is a bloody soap opera,” Sam states as she tries to force down the laughter. Unsuccessful, Danny notes, since her shoulders are still shaking but her attempt is appreciated.
“Only you, little brother,” Jazz grinned, “only you.”
“Well then,” Tucker pulls out a laptop from somewhere off screen, “give us the name. We’ll track him down for you.”
“Jason P. Todd-Wayne.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Yeah,” Danny nods, “heard enough about the Waynes from the three of you and Wes enough to recognize his name too.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“You know Wes is actually right like 97% of the time when it comes to his conspiracy theories and the only reason no one believes him is because of the curse placed on his family line. Which is good for me since every time he tries reveal me it just strengthens my secret identity….” he trailed off and waited for a reply but it seemed they were all still in shock so he just continued his train of thought, “so like, what are the chances that the Red Hood is actually my soulmate?”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“So, I mean like, all I need to do is show up in Gotham and track down his safe-house or whatever?” He paused again but more so to put his thoughts back into order and to remember everything he’s been told about the Waynes and the Gotham heroes. “It would probably not be a good idea to approach the Waynes since officially Jason is still “dead”. I don’t think they get along all that much if the hero identity thing is true considering the last I heard they barely work together and only when it’s absolutely necessary.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Which means they would probably be hostile if I showed up? I mean, Batman is notorious for hating metas and even if that isn’t really my situation I think he’d be pretty unhappy about me being there and even more so that I’m his estranged son’s soulmate…” He shifted onto his back and stared at the stick on stars on his ceiling. “I’m thinking it might be easier and safer if I just approach Red Hood in Phantom form in case Wes is actually wrong. It might be better if I find him out on patrol instead of his safe house cause I don’t want him to feel cornered and Phantom can be slightly terrifying to non-Amity Parkers but I’m pretty sure he saw my accident so like he should sorta recognize me. What do you guys think?”
“…”
Yeah, Danny thought, finding him will be much easier then I thought it was going to be.
Greetings Guys, Gals, and non-binary Pals. I’ve given up on crawling my way out and have simply accepted my place in the plot fluffle I’ve found myself buried in…. Aka part 3 lets gooooooooo!
Also @justwannabecat Thanks for posting your idea cause I’m just going to town with this now. Your amazing. I love this idea so much.
Danny POV! He’s a little confused but he’s got the spirit.
.
.
Danny’s a little distracted.
He should be paying attention to his surroundings but honestly he just has so much on his mind.
Like, you could argue that it’s fair that he’s a little out of it considering he just had The Dream™️.
That anyone would be after experiencing a soulbond like his.
The problem, however, is not that he’s distracted by the dream so much as he’s distracted about how he’s supposed to introduce himself.
He does NOT want to mess this up.
Danny has a history of messing these kinds of things up, and sure, it has always slowly sorted itself out but Danny doesn’t want to risk a bad impression right off the block.
This is his SOULMATE.
Soulmate means FAMILY, regardless of whether it’s platonic or romantic.
His secondary obsession may be PROTECTION but before all else it is the PROTECTION OF FAMILY.
Jason is already tied into his obsession and Danny doesn’t know whether he’ll be able to take another rejection from his family.
The rejections from his parents, even completely unintentional on their end, hurt him so badly that he thought he was dying again. They weren’t (and still aren’t) aware of his Phantom status but his core received the message loud and clear that his connection to them was unwelcome.
Danny dodges to the left avoiding a stray ectoblast, his eyes still dazed as he contemplates his issue.
You see, Danny KNOWS Ghosts. He KNOWS Ancients. He KNOWS Nerverborns.
Danny KNOWs almost every sub species in these categories.
They are beings that he’s dealt with since he was 14 and freshly half dead. They are creatures that he’s grown up learning about from before he could even read (regardless of how biased that information was and how much of that information he’s had to relearn).
Danny does NOT know about the creatures of The Undeath.
Even though he’s technically a part of that category. More so then even the Ghost category, since Halfas are just considered as a honorary sub-subgroup of Ghost.
Since they’re stupidly rare.
Like.
There is only ONE true Halfa rare.
It’s Danny
Both Vlad and Dani are considered Halfa only because there is no other name to give them.
Danny may have lost it a bit when he was told that little piece of information by a confused Frostbite after a question on his biology brought up the fact that ‘of course you’re biologically different from them, they’re a different species then you. One is human-adjacent and the other is ghost-adjacent.’
He freaked out even more when he was told he was arguably an Ancient.
He’s getting off track.
Danny rolls forward to escape the glowing net and sends a spike of ice back in the direction it came from. A curse notified him that he’d hit and destroyed Skulker’s new net launcher.
The thing is, not only are Halfas rare, they are rare amongst the RARE.
The Undeaths are RARE and to make it even worse (for Danny) they keep to themselves.
But, there IS still enough of them to NEED their own category instead of just labeling them as some weird subgroup.
Which is where his problem stems from.
Danny knows NOTHING of The Undeath culture let alone the cultures of its subgroups.
He forms a sword out of ice and meets the serrated hunting knife in a stalemate above his head with a clash of power.
So yeah, Danny’s a little distracted because although he KNOWS Jason is at least a part of The Undeath category since he died and came back, he doesn’t KNOW which Subgroup he actually belongs too.
Sure, his first thought was Zombie and he did make Zombie comparisons when talking to his friends and sister, but in truth, he honestly has no fucking idea WHAT Jason actually is.
He felt Human when he came back from the dead and he crawled out of a grave.
Yes, Danny is guessing based on human stereotypes but he has nothing else to go on.
He’s never met an actual Zombie but he’s pretty damn sure whatever he’s learned about them through various medias is probably 99% wrong and/or misunderstood.
They probably don’t even eat brains.
Media portrayals are awful and mean after all.
Danny should know, he’s had 4 years of media spotlight and very little of it has shown him to be anything other then a monster that’s useful.
So yeah, Danny’s just going to assume that Jason is a Zombie until otherwise researched or told and he’s not going to believe anything he can find on the internet or in movies.
He’s going to treat this as an academic research assignment and only believe reputable sources.
He CAN’T let this introduction be ruined by a cultural misunderstanding. There is a high chance that Jason knows he’s an Undeath too if he witnessed his accident.
Which means he might (probably will) expect Danny to be aware of The Undeath culture.
Aware of what should be taken as an insult.
Aware of customary greetings and introductions when meeting someone you want to have in your life. Greetings and introductions that tell the recipient whether you actually want them or if your doing it out of polite curtesy.
Danny NEEDS to know these things and to preform them correctly so that Jason knows he wants him in his life in whatever capacity he can, and is willing, to give.
On the rare chance that Jason DIDN’T see his accident and subsequent revival and thus not actually expecting him to know the culture (which Danny highly doubts) then he at least wasn’t underprepared and it’ll be a nice surprise for his soulmate.
Which means he needs to ask Ghost Writer about researching The Undeath. He will have something on them and hopefully it will be a text that has been written by someone who’s actually apart of The Undeath community.
Someone that the community actually knows/knew.
Not someone like him, not someone who is alone and isolated because they have no one to even introduce them to the others. No one to learn from.
Danny, who has been matching the knife blow for blow, finally steps back before launching himself forward across the ground. He swipes his sword of ice across Skulker’s knees and separates them from the main suit, causing him to lose his balance for a split second before his flight kicked in.
The split second was all Danny needed.
With Skulker shoved into his thermos, Danny takes off towards the portal.
He’s got research to do.
———————————
Jason came into awareness in a warehouse turned lab, surrounded by (still breathing and alive, thankfully) bodies.
He’s been trying to avoid killing when he can.
He’s been trying to build some semblance of a relationship back with his family.
Jason has never been more grateful for that fact as he is now.
He might be at odds with Bruce and still hate his methods and choices but he knows he needs help.
He needs Barbra. He needs Oracle.
Oracle works with Batman.
He’ll give her whatever she wants if she can find his soulmate.
He’ll give Bruce what he wants. He’ll suffer through every family dinner and be polite and civil. He’ll get Bruce to ‘revive’ him and pretend to be the perfect Wayne kid at every gala.
He’ll stop killing completely.
Whatever it takes, as long as they find him.
As long as he’s allowed to protect the one person who is supposed to be his other half. Supposed to be there for him through the good and bad. Someone who’s supposed to want him for him regardless of how broken and damaged he is.
He just needs a plan. A plan to hopefully involve only Babs. Involving the Bat and his merry flock of followers is a last resort scenario.
Jason just needs to find his soulmate.
He just needs to find out who’s in charge of that lab.
*Drops Part 4 and sprints off into the distance while still covered in plot bunnies.
Also I was just going to keep it Jason <—> Danny POV switch but other characters demanded time and bullied their way into the story so you lads can have a fun point of view switch this time.
.
.
WHO is Barbra Gordon?
The police chief’s daughter?
The first Batgirl?
A woman who lost so much potential because of a clown with a gun?
The Oracle who sees all?
A librarian who is always happy to help?
A woman who believes that the law will prevail?
These facts may give you a small glimpse into solving the question of WHO, but that is all it is, a glimpse.
Barbra has asked herself this question for years and yet she can never come up with an adequate response.
Since she, herself, doesn’t know the answer.
There are even times, like right now, where she isn’t sure if she’ll like the answer she will find.
Because when Jason Todd (a boy who was almost a little brother to her. Someone who was working his way back into that spot ever since Bruce was rescued) came crashing into her apartment and started BEGGING, she felt the cold icy rage like she hasn’t felt it since the day she was told she would never walk again.
Stubbornness and pride is what defines the Red Hood. NO ONE and NOTHING should be able to hurt him enough to make him B E G.
Not after the Joker.
Safe to say, Barbra Gordon was a wheel away from stealing Jason’s gun to shoot whatever had pushed him to this point.
She still felt the same way after getting the full story from him.
Someone was going to die and she is not surprised to feel absolutely no remorse in that thought.
So instead of thinking to hard about it, Barbra let that icy rage fuel her as she extracted as many details as she could get from Jason.
‘What kind of lab?’
‘How much of it did you see?’
‘What kind of metal?’
‘How about any papers?’
‘Do you remember what was on the paper?’
‘Could you describe the logo that was on the corner?’
‘Are you sure it looked like a G stacked on a W with a line cutting through it?’
Details she got.
Details she used to hunt down anything even slightly similar to a lab Jason described.
Details that led her to the government.
Details that led her to laws passed under the guise of something else.
Laws that used undefined, broad, and blacked out words to give them the right to kill and persecute and experiment on who ever they like.
Barbra Gordon decided she wasn’t going to control her rage this time.
She was going to let it burn and if she got closer to the answer of WHO she is, then so be it.
She would make them burn too.
—————————
“Heya Sweets!”
“Mmh?”
“O just called,” Dr. Harleen Quinzel smiled a manic smile, “she asked if us Sirens wanted ta burn down da Gov with Hood cause they’ve got his soulhalf.”
Both knew their answers and there wasn’t any doubt Selena would disagree.
.
—————————————
Danny sighed in relief.
The Undeath follows a similar culture as Ghost, subcategory Revenant.
Also, his soulmate wasn’t a Zombie.
NOT that there is anything wrong with being a zombie. The problem was that he couldn’t find anything written BY a zombie. The closest he got was a journal written by a wight which are, in GW’s words, a more sentient zombie.
The information he came across in the journal didn’t describe what he felt from his soulmate or line up with anything he’s heard about the Red Hood.
Considering some of the information he did read he is maybe (a lot) glad that Jason isn’t a zombie/wight.
He doesn’t have the stomach for it (even if he’s willing to force himself to adapt)
With that crossed off, Danny is proud to say that he managed to narrow the list of possible categories of The Undeath down by a substantial amount.
Although, he’s probably not going to get any closer to an answer until he meets Jason himself.
Thus, all Danny needs now is an adequate gift to give his soulmate.
Some type of gift that would impress him and show that Danny is very strong (luckily, the first gift in ghost courting and adopting a family member is the same so Danny doesn’t have to worry about being too forward or accidentally rejecting his soulmate).
The first gift always needs to show that you are capable of protecting the recipient and/or able to take out their enemies.
He’s stuck on what to do/get for his gift though, but he figured he’s better off thinking about it with his friends anyways so he simply heads back to Amity.
He was in the Ghost Zone for a grand total of 3 days.
He had 103 missed calls.
It’s safe to say, that Danny was both 100% certain Wes was correct about Red Hood’s identity and that he’s probably never blushed as hard as he did when he turned on the news.
The white house was on fire.
The headline stating the abolition of the Ecto-Acts along with a list of various GIW labs that have been blown completely off the map.
Starfire, Arsenal, Dr. Isely, Dr. Quinzel, and Catwoman walked behind THE Red Hood as he glided over to a heavily modified motorcycle. The light of the fire framing all of them in shadow.
Yeah.
Danny really needs an amazing gift if he’s going to come anywhere close to matching Jason.
It’s also, in Danny’s mind, confirmation that Jason knows what he is.
Danny has never been more happy about taking his time to research.
*shuffles into view while covered in plot bunnies, drops Part 5, and shuffles back out of view* also I have lost control of the characters so they’re just doing there own thing and I’m stuck here for the ride.
Danny has some trauma and decides to share it.
Jason finally figures out he’s not in a vivisection fic but he still has no idea what’s actually happening.
Thank you all for the comments and keyboard smashes btw, your joy brings me joy :D
Also if someone wants to tag others that’d be awesome cause my computer currently hates the ‘at’ button right now (again… I should maybe get a new computer soonish maybe)
Anyways…. Here ya go you funky internet people!
————————————
Jason needed this search to go faster.
6 days and they still haven’t found his soulmate.
6 days and all they’ve done is hit the major labs.
6 days and all they’ve fucking managed to do is change one government implemented act.
6 days and all Jason can do is wait and force himself to NOT shoot the various “scientists” simply because the government covered up UNETHICAL EXPERIMENTATION by leaving no record of their labs, making the scientists the only people who might actually KNOW where the other labs are.
The ONLY upside to this entire situation is the fact that there is apparently a group of KIDS who have been teaming up with the “Ecto-Entities” (Which Jason and pretty much EVERY OTHER hero/antihero who was present/listening to the conversation was pretty sure E.E. was just another way to say A META or Non Human. Safe to say it wasn’t just Jason who was holding back their urge to kill) who have been breaking INTO the labs to free the test subjects.
These kids seem to be stupidly competent too considering The Labs they’ve visited haven’t been able to keep a test subject long enough to preform “extensive research” like VIVISECTION and have only had enough time to do surface scans before they where “stolen” from them.
That and the fact that not even Oracle can find traces of this team up. Every single tech file and online trace has been wiped so clean it’s like they computerized bleach and flooded the system with it after every raid.
The GIW have had to start from scratch every single time because of that.
The government couldn’t even arrest the group either since all video evidence of the raid has ALSO been wiped from existence so other then some basic surface descriptions they had nothing to identify the group.
Jason has never seen Oracle be so impressed by another hacker.
The existence of this raiding team also brings up a very important fact, there is a large possibility they’ve already saved his soulmate.
He needs to find this team and give them a hug.
Still, the point remains that they still haven’t found anything about where his soulmate is, they don’t know where the raid team is from, and they still haven’t gotten the locations of the other labs.
Worse yet, Jason was called back to Gotham 2 days ago due to an Arkham breakout.
The Joker still hasn’t been found and the bats haven’t been able to track him which means Crime Alley needs Red Hood there for when shit hits the fan.
Jason once again considers just killing every Arkham rouge so he can get back to his search.
But he promised Babs and so he’s stuck.
Jason is stuck waiting and thinking about his other half.
They could be trapped in a GIW lab (though that has become less a worry. Seriously, even Barbra wants tips from that raid team).
Maybe his soulmate thinks Jason won’t like them if they’re not really human looking (or human at all) and isn’t trying to find him because of that. Jason hopes that that is not the case but maybe it is and that might mean that he’ll have to make his search public as Jason Todd.
Maybe his soulmate didn’t see his death.
Maybe they they only saw his death.
Maybe Jason is just spiralling into worse and worse trains of thought and maybe he should just stop but he CAN’T.
A ringing sound cuts off his panic before it can really start but it still takes him a moment to realize it’s Babs calling him and that he should probably step away from the edge of the roof he was on.
“Joker has been found.” Jason loved that about her, always straight to the point when she knew he was worried and couldn’t tolerate long meaningless interactions.
“Where?”
“In the medical ward at Gotham General. Apparently someone found him before us and they weren’t happy to see him.”
Jason drew a sharp breath. Barbra doesn’t sugar coat things unless it’s very bad and he knows what she sounds like when she tries to understate something. She sounds like him.
“How unhappy are we talking Babs? The standard Gothamite unhappy or our version of unhappy?” He could almost feel her lips flatten into a cold grimace as the conversation paused.
“Ours,” he pressed down on the sick satisfaction that boiled up from the emotionless tone of the original Batgirl’s voice as he imagined exactly what ‘Ours’ meant for the Joker. Jason didn’t need to imagine for long. “The Doctors said he’ll live and that he’s healing but right now they aren’t exactly sure of the true extent of his injuries because he’s currently in what looks like a self induced coma. They also said they’ll need to wait for the X-ray results and for him to wake up before they can confirm whether or not he’ll regain full use of his arms but even if he does he’ll most certainly have chronic pain in his hands for the rest of his life.”
“So he won’t be hurting people for a while huh?”
“No Hood, I don’t think he will be doing much of anything for a while.”
Maybe Jason should have said something more and maybe Barbra should have been helping Bruce track down the person who did that to the Joker but maybe they both needed a moment to feel satisfied.
Maybe they both needed this moment to just feel some small bit of relief.
No matter how temporary.
——————————————
*3 day before the Joker was found*
Danny wasn’t quite sure what to do for Jason.
He sat down in the air as he stared at Arkham Asylum.
He came to Gotham almost immediately after he was filled in on what Jason had been doing for him and Danny knew he had to do something about the Joker because that’s the only real enemy he knows Jason has.
But what should he do?
He obviously can’t kill Joker even if it’d be so stupidly easy to do.
Maybe even because it’d be stupidly easy to do.
Red Hood, and therefore Jason, never killed The Joker when he had the opportunity too. Time and time again Jason has had opportunities, Danny remembers seeing and hearing the news talk about The Red Hood bringing The Joker in which means it’s an active choice.
Honestly, from what Danny has seen, Jason has been actively avoiding killing people for roughly a year now.
Further proof of this is that Jason didn’t kill a single GIW agent either and honestly that should have been even harder then killing them. They have a stupid tendency to use untested weapons that backfire on them 90% of the time which means they end up needing to be saved most of the time from themselves.
If Wes is to be believed (which again, he usually is) then Jason might not have been right in the mind when he was having his kill streak anyways.
Maybe he was mind controlled and/or manipulated.
Danny knows what that can be like.
He knows what it’s like to blame yourself for things other people and circumstance made you do.
Take Freakshow and Dani for example.
The image of someone making Jason do something that might haunt him for the rest of his life makes Danny want to rip the imagined person to shreds with his claws. It makes him want to find them and put them through a real horror movie scene as he hunts them from empty corners until they’re screaming at their own shadows and then drag them into the deepest part of the Infinite Realm.
He wants to weep and curl up on himself as the image of Jason being hurt that way makes his core cry out in pain.
Danny wants to rap Jason in a hug and tell him that he had already proved how strong he is by how far he’s come.
So Danny can’t kill The Joker because if he does then he is undermining whatever Jason is trying to achieve by letting him live.
But Danny can make him hurt.
He needs to display that he’s physically capable of protecting Jason so a few broken bones from the Joker should work but it doesn’t feel like enough.
He wants to kill him.
He knows that he won’t for Jason’s sake and because it’d place him one step closer to becoming Dan.
Dan’s timeline still gives him nightmares.
Regardless of whether he’s reformed or not.
Oh.
“Now that’s a thought,” Danny whispers to the air as it whisks his voice away.
He looks back down at the asylum, his eyes shadowed as he lets himself think.
Danny’s worst enemy and biggest monster has always been himself. It is what keeps him in check and it is what keeps him in control of his abilities.
The Joker keeps killing and killing and hurting and hurting with no remorse. He will keep doing so because he knows he’ll get away with it.
The Joker acts as if he’s playing a game.
He acts like he’s obsessed.
The Joker acts like some members of Danny’s rouge gallery. The ones who have forgotten what it means to hurt and to die.
But Danny’s rouges usually only need to have it pointed out to them that they are causing pain, that they may have almost caused someone to DIE before they immediately stop.
Ghosts might forget what it was like to be mortal in death but they also remember what it was like to die.
Ghosts rarely (if ever) want to kill.
But The Joker doesn’t act like a ghost.
He acts like an Ancient.
A being who doesn’t know what it’s like to feel fear or pain.
A being who hasn’t learned to be afraid of itself.
Danny should teach him to be afraid of himself.
He even has beings who will help him. Who are required to aid him because he is their Crowned Prince.
He is sure Nocturn would love to work with Fright Knight in creating a very terrifying and long lasting nightmare. It’d be fulfilling their obsessions and Danny is quite sure he can convince Ghost Writer to write the nightmare’s script.
Who knows, the nightmare might just make The Joker relive his every kill from his victims’ point of view. It might make him experience EVERY SINGLE BIT OF PAIN AND FEAR they felt before they died by his hand and word.
It’s not like The Joker needs to wake up until he’s terrified of himself.
It’s not like he needs to only relive their deaths once either.
An alarm sounds below.
Danny smiles.
First things first, Danny needs to shatter every bone in those awful hands that touched HIS SOULMATE.
Maybe he’ll take a small souvenir to turn into a gift too.
There’s this bone in your thumb— it’s tiny, and it is highly uncommon— but if you break it, you require immediate treatment. Maybe even surgery. It is absolutely crucial that the break is found and treated quickly, preferably in the first twelve hours of the break, because if left untreated, this teeny little bone in your thumb with dissolve, and it will take any hope of using your thumb with it. I know all this (and not the name) because my brother broke his (he’s fine).
I think Danny should steal it. Out of both Joker’s thumbs.
Soulmate AU where, upon the youngest Soulmate turning 18, all have a dream the next time they sleep about the most important moment of their Soulmate’s life(or lives, if there’s more than one.)
For most people, this isn’t a huge issue. For the Batfam, it’s a huge problem.
But when Jason dreams of a boy who walked into a dark hole in the wall, only to hit a hidden switch, die of electrocution, and wake up as a ghost moments later?
You pals have given me your opinions so now this fic will be graced with Danny’s friends! Aka you’re all going to get some worried Sam and multiple sections of slightly terrifying Tucker Foley who knows way too much and has seen too much about this world and is like one bad day away from punching multiple gods.
Tucker’s part is next btw so look forward to #7. (Although it may be awhile because of work deadlines) He’s got feelings and he’s going to make those feelings very well known towards the batfam and most definitely Jason
Anyways without further adieu, here is a scene from Sam’s pov cause she is stressed and people need to know why and a lovely reaction scene from Jason’s POV of the batfam who just got ahold of Jokers medical report.
—————————————————
When patrol was done that evening, after they had all double checked to make sure that the last of the rouges that had escaped were back in Arkham (or in the Joker’s case, the medical ward at Gotham General), every bat and bird reconvened at the Batcave.
Jason watched as his siblings came trickling in from the various entrances, having arrived first in an odd twist of fate.
He was almost giddy with anticipation.
Barbara had rolled off the elevator around 2 minutes after he had pulled in on his bike.
She looked giddy too.
Not all that surprising though considering how the night went for the Joker and the fact that they were going to pull the medical files from the hospital once everyone was present to see just HOW unhappy Joker’s assailant was to see him.
All the bats and birds know that the Joker’s injuries looked bad just from a cursory check but that could mean everything or absolutely nothing when you get into it.
The important part was how long it’d take for the Joker to heal.
How long of a break do they have where he isn’t a boogeyman they have to face or even think about.
Jason and Barbara were giddy.
The bat-mobile pulled to a stop on it’s platform. Everyone was now present.
Barbara got to work.
As Bruce walked up to the crowd of vigilantes surrounding the computer, Barbara finished pulling the files.
Jason couldn’t breath.
“Is that….?” Dukes voice trailed off as he stared at the bat computer, or more specifically, the report and photographs currently being displayed on the screen.
Jason wasn’t breathing.
“Yep,” Tim answered, popping the ‘p’, as he too, stared at the monitor.
Jason needs to breath.
“What the fuck.” Stephanie’s voice was small and muttered under her breath, it sounded as though the words simply slipped out without her knowledge.
Jason really needed to breath.
Barbara was just staring, her mouth slightly open and her eyes blown wide. Tears were slowly running down her face as Cass maintained a solid grip on her shoulder.
Jason felt faint.
A sharp intake of breath, that Jason knew came from Bruce, was barely audible even in the silence of the cave.
Jason needed to sit down.
All at once, Jason’s legs gave out but it didn’t even matter since Alfie was right behind him with a chair.
A wrinkled hand pressed on his shoulder to stabilize him and a hand belonging to his older brother slipped into his grip returning the pressure he was dishing out.
“Little Wing?” Jason could feel Dick’s concerned eyes on him but he couldn’t look away from the report.
From the pictures.
From the X-rays.
Distantly, he knew he was crying too.
The tension in the cave could be cut with a knife.
“They are anatomically correct.”
Or apparently one fucking sentence from Damian.
Dick wheezed.
Bruce looked like Damian slapped him with a fish.
Steph started giggling.
Jason could breath again.
Barbara was sobbing and laughing. Hiccups breaking each one.
No one could say shit though cause, yeah, they were anatomically correct.
He had a point.
On screen, an X-ray of the Joker’s arms were displayed among other reports, like the one about his lumber spine vertebrae being damaged to the point of no fixing.
He won’t be able to walk again.
Back to the Joker’s arms, the hands were smashed but the doctors got to them in time to save them.
Not that it would do anything considering he was missing his Ulnar nerve from the shoulder down in both arms.
Both nerves having been accurately replaced with fishing wire.
It almost distracted from the fact that his humerus bones were replaced by bent crowbars.
They were also anatomically correct in their placement.
The Joker won’t heal from this, never fully at least.
He’ll never be able to swing his arms again.
He’ll never be able to walk or run again.
He’ll never again be able to hurt another person.
The Joker that haunted his nightmares was, in a way, dead.
Jason decided, for once, that he’ll let himself be weak.
He’ll let himself cry.
He’ll let himself seek out comfort from his family.
He will allow himself the feeling of protection.
Maybe, for once, things were going to be okay.
—————————————————
Sam’s worried.
Her hands move through the motions of picking up and filling her watering bucket, moving instinctively to make sure nothing spills as she turns off the tap.
Sure she isn’t as worried as she originally was before Danny told them that his soulmate was some type of undead and from Gotham, but still, she’s worried.
The clicking sound of her greenhouse’s door registers in her ears as she stays stuck in her mind.
You see, as often as they now “joke” about Danny being an eldritch horror even though he’s still very human adjacent in appearance, it is, in fact, not a joke.
Not a joke in the slightest.
The only reason why Danny himself has not realized this is due to the fact that Tucker and Jazz have been helping her hide that particular detail from him for the past four years.
That and the fact that they lived in a city where the veil to the Other was already almost nonexistent even before a permanent hole was made which meant every citizen had some form of exposure to it.
She’s now holding a yellow zinnia. Unsure of what to do with it she places it between the two purple zinnias she had near the back of the green house. The combination felt right.
Her thoughts took over again as she stared at the arrangement.
Sam had quickly realized, six months after The Accident, that they were extremely lucky that the ghost situation happened in Amity Park.
That over time, with the help of an open portal, the city, and therefore it’s citizens that were already lightly coated before the portal opened, were now drenched in Other.
They were extremely lucky that as long as you have been exposed to at least a small amount of Other or have had near death (or actual death) experience then all the ghosts just look adjacent to what they were in life (if they had one at all) and only feel slightly scary but mostly just unsettling.
It was only luck that saved them from The Madness.
Danny Phantom is a true Eldritch Horror like the majority of Infinite Realm beings and somehow they have been lucky enough to not have a single case of The Madness of Revelation in Amity Park’s citizen population.
The same can’t be said for the tourists who visited Amity Park before Amity became unsettling itself.
Before the mere sight of it’s buildings on the horizon made people instinctively turn around.
Before Elmerton’s citizens realized that Amity’s warnings weren’t a joke they could scoff at and make fun of as they went about their short visits.
The people who came to Amity sane only to be shipped out of the city to different asylums with The Madness after seeing a ghost was not knowledge that Danny needed to know yet.
They just barely got him to a point where HE doesn’t see himself as a Monster. Which is a down right miracle after they learned about the Dan incident. An incident they only found out about a year after the fact when an Observant tracked him down and told him he’s royalty which sent him into a panic attack about evil futures and having that much power.
So yeah, Danny doesn’t need more fuel to hurt himself with and she will do her damn best to keep said fuel away from him until it is absolutely necessary to tell him. Tucker and Jazz had agreed.
This was the reason why they made sure Danny would call them when he got his Dream. Why they made him promise to run through all his plans with them before he tracked down his soulmate.
They had all hoped that’d it would be one of them or, at the very least, someone from Amity.
An undead vigilante from Gotham will have to do.
She looked down at her hands, they were now covered in dirt and for the life of her she can’t seem to recall the last hour of gardening.
Her water bucket sat empty on the ground under the zinnias in the back. The setting had given her a good feeling after she had placed the yellow one between the two purple ones but now they looked like they’ve been cut off from nature.
No green anywhere near them.
She spots the other zinnias she had off to the left, one of them was green. Perfect.
Sam grabbed it and made her way towards the back, setting it down gently in front of the three zinnias already there.
It was better but something still felt like it was missing.
Maybe it’s just the worry for her friends who’ve gone to Gotham.
Gotham and Danny.
Gotham is soaked in death and Gothamites are close enough to Parkers that none of them should suffer The Madness.
However, Gotham does get outsiders unlike Amity.
Sam knows she can’t do anything about that fact.
So she had given Danny her medieval black hooded travel cloak and told him to wear it constantly because the world is full of idiots who have phasmophobia.
She had pressed upon him that he doesn’t need to suffer through some random citizen’s delicate prissy mindset just because they can’t handle ghosts being a thing, especially not while his soulmate is so obviously trying to court him.
Then she’d watched him leave through a portal to Gotham with Tucker, who had gave her a nod and a knowing look.
All that’s left is for her to stress and worry with Jazz and trust in her best friends.
To trust that Tucker will keep Danny safe while Danny keeps Tucker safe.
Sam realizes that she’d walked back over to the zinnias to grab another colour while she’d been off in her head.
She places down the blue Zinnia in the front of the two purple, one yellow, and one green zinnia.
It felt complete.
A small melancholy smile graces her lips but she couldn’t have told anyone why.
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