DCxDP Fanfic Idea: The Pickpocket
Danny Fenton gets stranded in Gotham. It's due to a malfunction in his heat-resistant suit that he was wearing while exploring a volcanic area in the Infinite Realms. He knows he shouldn't have taken it until after his mom double-checks his dad's calculation, but Danny needed to go there to find a rare plant that could be used to make a medication Frostbite desperately needed.
The FarForzen were hit by an epidemic that was rapidly spreading among their young. The epidemic hasn't killed anyone, but it was only a matter of time. Dammy wasn't sure what happened to Realm-born members, but he didn't want the poor yeti children to suffer.
Initially, Danny was going to join an exploration group into the volcanic area to find the rare planet, serving as a bodyguard to protect the scientists and doctors as a precaution, since the regular warriors had fallen victim to the illness. Still, the more they traveled, the more obvious it became that the medicine was farther than anyone with an ice core could handle. The sickness had only lasted a little while before it mutated into something deadly.
After hours and hours of debating, Danny was selected to continue on his own. The team returned to the FarFrozen, spending hours training Danny to successfully extract what they needed from the plant. Then Danny flew to his family portal to grab the suit from the basement.
With time already burning, he risked using the Fenton-Furance Fighter without making sure it had cleared his mother's last-minute checks. The suit was a lot like the Ecto-Skeleton, only it was made from more bulky metal that limited his movement a little.
By the time Danny returned to FarFrozen, suit and other supplies ready, he found that the exploration team had been exposed to the illness. With so few doctors- as they were the ones exposed every day to the virus, it was only a matter of time- Danny had to go completely alone, no team to pull him back once they hit the section where they could not venture forward.
It had taken everyone working together to make it that far, and FrostBite feared Danny would be harmed on his journey, but there was no other option. The yeti children were getting worse, the doctors and scientists caring for them weren't better off, and if they did not get the medicine, then they would lose the first patients by sunrise.
They were able to equip him with an emergency escape pod-portal. Should something happen, Danny was instructed to throw it, and fly through the portal that would be released from inside the pod; however, it was very delicate as it was a new prototype. It could handle only one use and would allow only one thing through before the portal collapsed.
Once again, Danny had set out for the volcanic area of the Infinite Realms, this time with a shorter time frame and with far more danger. It took everything he had just to make it to the last location the exploration team was able to advance, and even then, his suit had taken a bit of damage.
Thankfully, it lasted long enough for him to dive into the lava, fighting away fifty-foot lava snakes that lurked near the plant's habitat. The things had attacked him as he was flying overhead, knocking Danny into the lava, while he struggled to get his suit under control. Using his powers to create a shield around him, Danny's core screamed as it was slowly melting in his chest. Thankfully, his parents had also put a weapon in the suit, and a few explosions into the gaping mouth of the snakes- large enough to swallow him whole- had the things retreating.
Danny's suit had been hanging on by mere threads, sparking every other second, and a red danger light had started beeping. He nearly gave up when he noticed a field sitting in the middle of the burning islands, surrounded by green lava. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of plants.
. The hope had been that he would find two or three, making it possible to treat the children worst off and hope for the best. The yeti docots knew there was little chance they would be given medicine as the plant was that rare, and a lot of them were willing to die anyway.
With this much, Danny could save them all! He ignored the way his suit was all but screaming that it had only a few minutes before its protection failed, or worse, exploded, as he carefully extracted the healing flames from the petals and collected the Inigo sap that would hopefully save them all. His movements were clumsy and awkward, but he dared not take off his suit lest he die before getting the plants to the Far Frozen.
Hours later, he had everything he needed, all carefully wrapped up in a carrier attachment to his suit. He flew back home as carefully as possible.
It happened just as he was about to reach the checkpoint
. The lava snake had returned, bursting out of the green and taking a large bite of his suit's leg. Its sharp teeth had ripped through his metal like plastic, clamping around his leg.
For a second, all Danny knew was painful agony as he was dragged down. The thing was attempting to drown him in the lava, and with this much damage, he knew- he would not survive. He activated his escape pod, throwing every lick of energy into his thrusters to delay the snake. As it was tugging and yanking, the portal opened in front of Danny.
Frostbite was visible on the other side, as if it were in the middle of tending to some of the young. From what Danny could tell on the monitors near the kids, they had only a few hours to live.
"Great One!" FrostBirte shouted, looking alarmed, "Jump!"
Danny pressed the release hatch button, and the suit broke apart. The containment unit with the materials to make the medicine floated in front of him, and the world seemed to freeze. If Danny jumped to safety now, the medicine would be lost, the kids would die, and the FarFrozen would be crippled by a third attempt to find the rare planet, which would have to be delayed.
For only one thing could pass through the portal. Danny looked at the children wheezing and withering on the beds- and he made his decision.
Using every last bit of strength in him, Danny grabbed the container, throwing it as hard as he could through the portal. The second it passed to the other side, the portal's metallic frame started freezing, and the portal's energy zapped in different directions.
"No!" Frostbite reached out, horror painting his furred face, but Danny could only offer him a sad smile as he was blown away. The portal has exploded upon its collapse.
Thankfully, it seemed to have killed the lava snake. It's electric backlash races across the sky in a beautiful waltz of static. Danny eyed it as he fell towards the lava, feeling oddly at peace with his death- until one of the strings of lightning reached out and zapped him.
Screaming, Danny's world turned black as a new miniature portal opened in the middle of his chest, sucking him in before he knew what had happened.
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A few months later, Danny casually walked up to a man on the phone, keeping his eyes on the Deli up ahead as though he was reading their menu.
Using intangibility, the only power he had left over from his accident in the volcanic area, he passes his hand through the stranger's pocket material, grabs the wallet tucked in there, and yanks it out. Thanks to his power transferring to the wallet itself, it slips from his target like water, and the man doesn't even feel it.
He places it into the front pocket of his hoodie that he salvaged from some donation boxes without a blink.
Danny enters the bakery with a spring in his step, and the man continues down the street completely unaware he's just been robbed. He places an order for a nice hot coffee and a meatball sandwich, carefully counting the bills for the man.
It's a miracle to find someone with cash. Everyone in this stupid city seemed to walk around with only cards. Apparently, the place the portal spat him out was a different Earth one an entire decade ahead of Danny's, where it took him ages to learn the primary source of currency was "tap."
Danny still wasn't sure how someone could pay "tap", especially since he'd sworn the thing they used was a communication device, like an odd buttonless cellphone, but nevertheless, he adjusted.
He had to.
Danny was in Gotham, one of the most dangerous cities on Earth. He had attempted to get back to the Infinite Realms, but his powers were shot. He couldn't even fly, go invisible, or shoot energy blasts. All he had was his intangibility.
He attempted to leave the city, but an invisible force yanked him back each time. He literally could not cross the city lines, slamming against the air as if it were concrete. Not the most pleasant feeling when sneaking onto a bus and being forced to go invisible so the bus's metal didn't crush him.
With no resources, no connections, and no powers, Danny had been forced to become a pickpocket. He used intangibility to sneak into buildings, finding apartments not in use for the night, and crashed there. The wallets, purses, and small jewelry he stole kept him fed as he scrambled around the city.
Thankfully, this system allowed him to avoid looking homeless as he borrowed showers and laundry machines and found warm beds to sleep in. He always cleaned up the accommodations he crashed in and left some kind of compensation- cash or a cooked meal. No one batted an eye at him as he scurried around the city, blending in and stealing what he could.
Still, his distrust of this world's reliance on technology and their dislike of "metas" kept him from getting too close to anyone. Danny wasn't sure what a Meta was, but some guy had attempted to shoot him while shouting it, so Danny thinks it's a slur for ecto-beings. The look on that guy's face when his bullets just went through Danny harmlessly was priceless.
Danny hasn't spoken to anyone more than a few words- mostly to order food if he had the funds for it and when he does, he always gives a fake name. Otherwise, he just eats out of whatever fridge he can find in places he crashes in.
"Order for Tucker." The girl at the counter smiled at Danny, her eyes doing a up-down that made him flustered as he grabbed his meal with a muttered thanks. He noticed that many people seemed to find him attractive, but he couldn't tell whether it was genuine or just a trick.
Like the plant lady who tried to dose him with a weird gas the first weekend he got to Gotham. She seemed surprised that he merely let the gas run through his body as he raced away from her living vines.
Danny found a table, tucked away from the room, and sat down. Carefully, he pulled out what he was able to swipe today, counting the cash, some watches, and a bulky, strange-looking ring. He bets he can get a reasonable price for it, even if it is the ugliest thing he's ever seen.
Even if it was eye-watering green and a stupid design on the face of it. Two lines and one circle- maybe it was an hourglass? He would never have bought it for himself.
But he stole it off the hand of a man hanging out with Bruce Wayne, a man whose face was everywhere in this prison of a city, so surely, it had to be worth something.
