Origin Story: Robin Danny (Jason Todd edition)
Another day of being chill in the internet and getting a severe case of plot bunnies in the process. Yikes.
(How did I go from not writing ANYTHING AT ALL to doing this monster?)
Now, before we begin, take into consideration the following points:
Danny Fenton was not the one that went into the portal. Instead, Jazz was the one unfortunate enough to get zapped to death after wandering inside.
The whole halfa deal applies to her and her alone, although Danny does have some facet of liminality due to constant ecto-contamination while he lives in Fenton Works.
Finally, since Jazz half died at 14, that leaves Danny as a 12 year old boy.
Let's start with a bang. One day, Danny finds that Jazz restrained on an operation table by their parents and throws a fit to allow her to escape to the Ghost Zone before they can cut her open.
Danny doesn't follow after her. He also doesn't even try to reason with their parents and just runs. Runs as fast as he can, away from the house as Jack tries to chase after him on foot, trying to convince him that they were trying to see what was wrong with Jazz.
But Danny already knows what's wrong. Jazz had opened up immediately to her parents about what had happened to her in their basement and did a thorough demonstration of what she discovered she was capable of as a ghost. She had really left nothing unsaid... and their parents' first reaction to that is to experiment with her?!
That was the first time he felt fear because of their parents, but it wouldn't be the last.
Danny ran until he couldn't anymore, because Jack had caught him and thrown them both to the side. Disoriented, Danny is surprised when a car appears out of nowhere and crashes into them.
Jack takes most of the brunt of the impact.
The car speeds away. A literal hit and run.
"Dad?!" Danny exclaims. He's not even aware he's crying until he sees his tears fall on his dad's face. "How did you-? Why did you even DO that-?"
"Wouldn't be a good dad to you if I hadn't, buddy," his father teases back with fake levity. In his next breath, he chokes out of a cough and some blood escapes him. His coughing fit doesn't let up.
"Ohhh... That's not good," Jack concludes, weakly. His eyes are half lidded with pain as he fights to maintain his composure. He's not... He's not looking so hot right now, Danny notes with dawning horror.
"Hey, hey!" Danny shouts, almost on the verge of a panic attack as he clutches his dad's orange jumpsuit with tight fists. His arms are shaking a little. "I'll get you help. I'll find someone that can help you get better, you'll see! Just- Please! Don't do this to me!"
"I... love you, bud. I'm so- so sorry for scaring you," Jack whispers.
"... Dad?"
His breathing peters out until his coughing is reduced to tiny huffs. And then nothing else.
Danny shakes him a little, looming a little over his unresponsive body. He doesn't like how limp he is while he's touching him.
Jack. Jack isn't breathing.
"This can't be happening...!" Danny whispers to himself, shaking in place. "Not... Not happening. This isn't real. Not real. No, not-"
A sudden screech of wheels running on asphalt. The GAV appears all of the sudden and out of it comes Maddie, looking severely distraught at the sight of the blood and accident.
She runs over to Jack and pushes Danny out of the way. She's not even doing it gently, she straight up pushes her son to the ground. When Danny tries to go back to Jack's body, something shocks him.
Danny cries out, electricity making his muscles twitch erraticly.
"So, we were right," Maddie says. She says it so lowly, he almost can't hear her through his swooshing ears. His mom is hugging his dad tightly to her chest. "You were both overtaken by ghosts."
Maddie gets up and points the ecto-gun at Danny.
What she wants to do is clear.
Danny ducks under the shot and runs away from his crazed mother, but not on foot. Even while panicking and mourning, he's not that stupid. Instead, he goes after the GAV and closes the doors after him. As he fiddles with the controls, he hears Maddie shouting at him to give her back her husband and her baby from the outside. It's incredibly painful. He doesn't know how to drive, but by sheer luck he starts the car and manages to slip away.
His mediocre driving skills turn out to be decent, since he's managed to avoid collision with any other vehicle. In fact, since the gas tank is almost full, his luck holds up until he's out of Ohio. After that, in Pennsylvania, he goes to a gas station and hops inside one of the trucks while the trucker is distracted.
The plan wasn't to go to Gotham. Danny has no plan whatsoever, but that's where he ends. Now, homeless and with no way to contact Jazz, he blends with the rest of the city as he tries to survive the streets.
(He's lucky he can do without much sleep and food. He can count his blessings there, he guesses.)
After thinking about it for a minute, Danny decides to change his identity. No one here cares if he lies about his true name; no one is going to ask for an idea, except for the police. And the police would contact his mom, so he isn't going to go by his birth name anyway. So, when he's forcibly inducted into Ma Gunn's School for Boys, he does so under the name of Jason Todd.
The place is a shithole; in the end, he hightails it out of there as soon as he can.
Unfortunately for Danny, he soon discovers that apart from all the crazies here, Gotham has a lot of shelters that are other criminal fronts. There's hardly an honest soul out here.
Danny reaches the end of his rope once the Winter comes. He's hungry for the first time in a while and he knows that's not a good sign. The cold shouldn't bother him, but it now does, because he's getting weaker by the day. By that point, he's desperate enough to earn a few bucks by pickpocketing and reselling stuff he's pilfered from people in the streets.
This includes tires, of course.
Cue Danny spotting the Batmobile and thinking to himself "Jackpot!"
