black comic readers will say "buying black lead comics or black characters comics from dc doesn't stop them from getting axed and it's been literally 1200 days since dc has had a black ongoing so we're calling for a boycott to put pressure on dc by not buying comics and instead directly supporting black creatives" and here come the dumbest white people on the earth going "but dc is releasing pride month comics, do you hate queer people? but dc has female creators releasing comics, do you hate women? this boycott is so disorganised. i can't believe you hate queer people"
the boycott is declared over by the official head of DcSoWhite and this was included in their statement. It lasted 3 days. I respect their decision but the fact remains that people were arguing so much about non black people being excluded from a Black centric boycott to the point where they needed to apologise for it infuriates me
[ID: Text that reads, "The fact remains that it has been more than 1200 days since a Black character has headlined a solo title in DC Comics' mainline continuity. We continue to believe this is an issue worth discussing and addressing. However, we also recognize that many fans and creators we care about felt the boycott unintentionally minimized books, characters, and creators whose work provides meaningful representation for women, LGBTQIA+ readers, people of color, and other marginalized communities. That was never out intention, and we apologize for that impact. We heard those concerns, and they played a major role in our decision to reevaluate the boycott." /End ID.]
the person who spearheaded the og movement might be stepping back as a result of all the harassment and collective white bullshit, but the fact of the matter is that boycotts don’t start/end until every single person participating in it decide to start/end it. we can absolutely still continue the boycott, as well as continue to pressure DC to do better. “but dc is releasing pride comics, don’t you care about queer people??” “but dc has female creators releasing comics! so you hate women??” it’s like you can’t fathom Black folks being queer or women. did you know some are all three at once? have you considered that???? boycott this shit trash comic company until they get it together. what the absolute bare minimum fuck.
Batman has a habit of picking up traumatized kids, but the kids are usually in a pretty specific situation: little people who remind him of who he is and why he’s Batman. People who look like little Bruce Wayne on that fateful night out to the theater.
Danny Fenton would not normally have come in contact with Bruce Wayne. Gotham, New Jersey wasn’t exactly within spitting distance of Amity Park, Ohio. The series of events that led to Wayne being in Amity Park on that other fateful night would be the subject of great speculation soon—but it didn’t change the fact that he was there. That the Batman had been unable to save another little boy from another horrific tragedy.
The explosion rocked the whole city. Bruce, incapable of ignoring a cry for help, was out in the streets before anyone could stop him. He was there with neighbors and first responders, digging through rubble for survivors, and he was the one to hear the Wail. The heartbroken, agonizing Wail was at once otherworldly and entirely too human. It was a sound that would haunt Bruce’s nightmares for years to come.
The boy he found, so still and quiet after, he had thought to be a corpse. A cold sensation weighed on Bruce as he dragged him out of the wreckage. Another little boy’s body in his arms. His son, this boy, both dead in an explosion.
Bruce wondered if this was a waking nightmare after all.
Yet a soft, weak thrum beat against his fingers.
Miraculously, Daniel Fenton was not dead. He was injured, certainly, but not dead. It was a miracle, the investigators and medical professionals stated, because by all accounts he had been at the very center of the blast. The crumpled metal tube he’d been found in had somewhat shielded him from the collapsing structure of the house above, thereby avoiding death by suffocation or blunt force trauma. He had been exposed to an intense electrocution, however, the scar of which was seared into his flesh even days later (despite the speed at which Lichtenberg figures should heal). A result of irradiation from strange materials in the at-home lab, the doctors theorized.
Bruce heard whispers as he waited in the hospital hallway for the boy to wake up.
Everyone in town knew the Fentons, after all. This wasn’t unforeseen.
‘So how was it allowed to happen?’, he wanted to shout. Why was there a little boy, newly orphaned? Who was responsible for this?
While Daniel lay comatose in his hospital room, the Batman pored over reports and crept through the scene. The Amity Park Police Department thought this was a horrific accident. The Fentons were known around the city as “a bit cracked” at best, and had been served several citations for building without permits. Their ability to pay those fines was a derivative of the lab and operations center they illegally added to their home, however, and city hall had learned to just shrug it off. Eccentric, but brilliant. Ill-advised, but not malicious. And to their children? Loving, but distracted.
Batman didn’t stop digging. Couldn’t, while a machine breathed for Daniel. While the heart monitor had to be recalibrated to account for a worryingly low but steady heart rate. He needed to know. Daniel would need answers when he woke up.
He would wake up.
Names came up.
For one, Vlad Masters.
A connection going back twenty years, a man injured in similar experiments. The prototype device eerily similar to the machine that had almost been Danny’s coffin. The papers never published called it a window. A gateway. Another dimension, where Fenton, Walker, and Masters theorized the building block of life was very different. A material that only rarely interacted with ‘real matter’—only in moments of ‘transition’. In death. A world that touched theirs only when something crossed over.
A place they termed “the Ghost Zone”.
Ridiculous, he wanted to say. Foolish. Bruce would have called it mad—and it was, in its way—but he’d met too many gods and spirits in his time as the Bat to dismiss it out of hand.
The most unnerving part was using science to describe the indescribable. He was reminded uncomfortably of mixes of sorcery and science he’d seen in other places, during his training. The people who sought to live alongside and to conquer death.
It sounded all too familiar.
Struggling scholars and inventors, the Fentons were outcasts in the academic community. Die-hard believers in fringe science. Their mechanical genius and novel theories received only scorn when attached to things like “ghost hunting” and “ecto-biology”.
So where did they get the money to build their lab? To build the machine?
He followed the money. Businesses that didn’t exist except on paper, people who weren’t really there, shell corporations—then a real name.
Axion Labs. Cutting edge tech. Habit of buying from the desperate and not asking questions. Recently moved headquarters to Amity Park.
Recently changed hands—ah.
Bought out by Dalvco.
Wasn’t that a coincidence. The third member of that team of scientists, quietly funding the other two. Continuing the research that sent him to the hospital? Perhaps an obsession he couldn’t let go of? Or was it more about… irony? Punishing the people who hurt him?
If he was in any way responsible for this… Batman would find out. And he’d see to it that Justice was served.
Batman’s first partner is Shrike. Like the Bat himself, Shrike is a living shadow, black and gray and flashes of light from drawn steel. Batman is terrifying but Shrike is vicious. Shrike has killed people—even if it’s never killed in Gotham, and criminals can tell. It’s in the way it moves, the way it talks, the way it looks at them. The Bat doesn’t kill because it’s some kind of demon with a code of law it can’t break. Shrike doesn’t kill, not because it can’t, but because it doesn’t need to. Criminals fear the day the Shrike decides it needs to.
Damian shows up in the first decade of Bruce’s mission, his son by the daughter of the assassin he trained with, somewhere in the Himalayas. Batman is still finding his rhythm, still finding the line between justified and excessive, between right and just. Damian is a terror. He’s a prince and he’s been raised that way. He clashes with Bruce and Alfred, headstrong in the way his father is, but deadly and willful like his mother. They grow together as people in a painful war for balance. Bruce doesn’t seem to realize he’s a Father until Damian has already outgrown his desire for the man’s approval—or so he says.
Damian finds his way. The butcherbird saves its prey for later by impaling it on branches. Damian has known how to keep people alive through unimaginable torment since he was in single digits. But he finds tenderness, finds care. It is hard-won, but that makes it all the more precious. He begins to learn to take care of people, not because he has to, but because he wants to. Damian has found his way through the labyrinth of his father’s pain and the League’s indoctrination on his own.
The Shrike is a songbird, still. It has gone through Hell, but it came out singing.
Unfortunately for Bruce, Damian does manage to grow into himself and wants to quit vigilante work and become a doctor. Bruce is torn between wanting his child to be a normal person and still perceiving him as a loose cannon that he put into field work just to curb his violent tendencies. Damian leaves home to attend college without caring about his father’s wishes.
Batman, so used to having a partner now, finds that his absence is unbearable. He misses his Shrike. He misses his son. He didn’t appreciate what he had until it was gone.
It’s at this time that Stephanie Brown enters the picture. Her father is common crook turned costumed criminal, the Cluemaster. Stupid name, stupid man, stupid dad. Her mother is an addict, trying to find solace away from the man she tied her life to at too young an age. Stephanie is young, barely even a preteen, and she’s full of anger built from fear.
Her father is in and out of prison. It’s better when he’s not there—her mother is almost a real person without him. Unfortunately for her, he’s getting better at being a criminal. His stint at Arkham actually did help him get past the compulsive need to leave clues. Whatever. Someone just needed to tattle on him anyway.
Steph didn’t mean to become a caped crusader—honestly! She was wearing a cloak of dark purple because she needed to be able to hide, and it’s the only color of cloth they had that her mom wouldn’t miss. The mask was so nobody knew who she was. If her dad found out it was her who was ruining his schemes, he’d kill her.
Then her mother dies one night when both her daughter and husband are out—overdose—and Steph’s anger ignites into rage. She hates herself and she hates him. She’s going to kill him.
Batman catches her pretty quick. He’s been trying to find the tipster but when they stop leaving clues he gets worried and puts more effort into it. Finding a kid, barely a preteen, in a dark cloak and a vicious grin smacks him upside the head with nostalgia. Just like his son, down to the murderous tendencies.
He snatches her off the street, gives her a place to go that isn’t her father’s home. He helps her put him away for a long time. Stephanie feels freer than she ever has. She’s sad, of course, but she’s doing something right.
She’s no Shrike, though. She doesn’t want to be, no matter what Batman may want. She’s a bird of a different color, something light and free and full of hope.
Bruce is absolutely using Stephanie as a replacement for his son. He wants a do-over, a placeholder, even if he doesn’t realize that is what he wants. He has trouble seeing Steph for who she truly is and compares her constantly to Damian.
Damian came to him already molded into a weapon. He had not had to teach him from the ground up. Stephanie has some acrobatics training, but no martial arts. He feels almost frantic, giving her a crash course in defending herself, detective work, and the myriad of skills he had to learn to become the Batman. He is desperately worried but it comes across as harsh, demanding. Stephanie always seems to fall short, between his expectations and his fears.
Steph is not one to take insults lying down, though, and she snaps back at him for expecting her to be perfect when she’s just starting out. They clash often and spectacularly. She’s aware that she’s not as good as Shrike, and never will be, and that she’s just living at the manor as a replacement for Bruce’s son. She knows the minute Damian comes home, he will drop her off with foster services. There’s no doubt in her mind. She thus holds herself apart, never allowing herself to see Bruce as anything but a mentor—if that.
For the public, however, Robin quickly becomes a light in the darkness. She is quick-witted, kind to those who need it, and she seems to understand that the people she faces are often just doing the best they can in a bad place.
For one Timothy Drake, she becomes a shining star—guiding light and role model all in one. Timothy saw her as Spoiler, and recognized her moves when she was starting out as Robin. Her evolution as a hero and symbol inspired him, and whenever Robin and the Batman seem to get into a fight, he agonizes over it.
One day, Robin is in danger and Bruce is conspicuously elsewhere as a civilian. Timothy puts on a costume and rescues Robin himself. Er, herself. Because he doesn’t trust that a little domino mask will keep him safe, he wears a wig and pretends to be a girl. Batgirl, to be precise.
[Tim has a whole gender journey ahead of him but that’s a different story later on. He/him lesbian? Maybe. Genderfluid definitely. Robin and Batgirl still date for a little bit.]
Everything happens in a similar manner to canon, including Steph being there when the guy falls and Bruce not believing that she didn’t push him. She gets benched and resolutely goes ‘you ain’t my dad and I don’t have to listen to you.’ Robin operates on her own for a little bit in defiance of him.
Then the Cluemaster teams up with the Joker for some god forsaken reason and tricks Robin into leaving the city. He does not actually know Robin is Steph, but the reason it works is that he’s her dad and she feels responsible. Joker makes a whole production out of it, revealing father and daughter to each other before brutally beating both. They both die in the explosion he sets up for them.
Bruce doesn’t make it in time to save her. Both she and Arthur die from their injuries. Bruce is beside himself with guilt. He knows he pushed her away. He didn’t appreciate her as his daughter before she died and he lost her because of it. He goes a little mad in his grief, as canon.
The person who pulls him out of it is Cass Cain. She has been operating on her own in the city, living on the streets. She helps people because she can’t stand not to. Bruce finds her and instantly feels a connection. He has to help her. She’s even harder to care for than Damian or Steph ever were but he works harder at it. He has to. He has to make up for it.
When Cass joins him on the street she is the second Shrike, Batman’s silent shadow.
It’s Cass who actually picks up Jason after he tried to steal the wheels from the Robincycle. She turns up at home with a kid who was homeless like her, who only wants to help others, and looks at Bruce with such sparkling and hopeful eyes he can’t say no. Cass is the one who trains Jason first of all, but when Jason finds the Cave and tries on the Robin costume, begging to join her in the field, Bruce reluctantly trains him as well.
For the first time there’s a Shrike, Robin, and Batman at the same time.
Tim Drake gets shot and becomes the Oracle, and Barbara Gordon becomes his apprentice, taking up the Batgirl mantle after she hacks into his system.
Things are in a holding pattern for a time. Jason clashes with Bruce a lot because they are very similar, personality wise. He eventually leaves and becomes his own vigilante persona in Crime Alley to get out from Batman’s shadow and protect his home turf. Don’t think it would be Nightwing. Maybe Red Robin since it was originally Jason’s in canon.
Haly’s Circus comes to Gotham, Dick’s parents are killed by Zucco, and Dick joins the crusade as the new Robin (the third). Damian comes back around this time, not to be a vigilante, but to act as their doctor while being a real doctor at Gotham general.
Steph returns after that as the Red Hood, absolutely tormenting Bruce and berating him for bringing yet more children in to die in his crusade. Mocking him for driving away more of his children, for failing to protect more of his people. She’s especially angry with Cass-as-Shrike, because she’s seeing it as a betrayal. She was never good enough to be Shrike, but Cass is? Cass is more like Damian. Cass is the better replacement.
There is a LOT of romantic/sexual tension between Shrike II and Red Hood. They clash a lot and spend some time making out angrily on rooftops.
Batman’s first partner is Shrike. Like the Bat himself, Shrike is a living shadow, black and gray and flashes of light from drawn steel. Batman is terrifying but Shrike is vicious. Shrike has killed people—even if it’s never killed in Gotham, and criminals can tell. It’s in the way it moves, the way it talks, the way it looks at them. The Bat doesn’t kill because it’s some kind of demon with a code of law it can’t break. Shrike doesn’t kill, not because it can’t, but because it doesn’t need to. Criminals fear the day the Shrike decides it needs to.
Damian shows up in the first decade of Bruce’s mission, his son by the daughter of the assassin he trained with, somewhere in the Himalayas. Batman is still finding his rhythm, still finding the line between justified and excessive, between right and just. Damian is a terror. He’s a prince and he’s been raised that way. He clashes with Bruce and Alfred, headstrong in the way his father is, but deadly and willful like his mother. They grow together as people in a painful war for balance. Bruce doesn’t seem to realize he’s a Father until Damian has already outgrown his desire for the man’s approval—or so he says.
Damian finds his way. The butcherbird saves its prey for later by impaling it on branches. Damian has known how to keep people alive through unimaginable torment since he was in single digits. But he finds tenderness, finds care. It is hard-won, but that makes it all the more precious. He begins to learn to take care of people, not because he has to, but because he wants to. Damian has found his way through the labyrinth of his father’s pain and the League’s indoctrination on his own.
The Shrike is a songbird, still. It has gone through Hell, but it came out singing.
Unfortunately for Bruce, Damian does manage to grow into himself and wants to quit vigilante work and become a doctor. Bruce is torn between wanting his child to be a normal person and still perceiving him as a loose cannon that he put into field work just to curb his violent tendencies. Damian leaves home to attend college without caring about his father’s wishes.
Batman, so used to having a partner now, finds that his absence is unbearable. He misses his Shrike. He misses his son. He didn’t appreciate what he had until it was gone.
It’s at this time that Stephanie Brown enters the picture. Her father is common crook turned costumed criminal, the Cluemaster. Stupid name, stupid man, stupid dad. Her mother is an addict, trying to find solace away from the man she tied her life to at too young an age. Stephanie is young, barely even a preteen, and she’s full of anger built from fear.
Her father is in and out of prison. It’s better when he’s not there—her mother is almost a real person without him. Unfortunately for her, he’s getting better at being a criminal. His stint at Arkham actually did help him get past the compulsive need to leave clues. Whatever. Someone just needed to tattle on him anyway.
Steph didn’t mean to become a caped crusader—honestly! She was wearing a cloak of dark purple because she needed to be able to hide, and it’s the only color of cloth they had that her mom wouldn’t miss. The mask was so nobody knew who she was. If her dad found out it was her who was ruining his schemes, he’d kill her.
Then her mother dies one night when both her daughter and husband are out—overdose—and Steph’s anger ignites into rage. She hates herself and she hates him. She’s going to kill him.
Batman catches her pretty quick. He’s been trying to find the tipster but when they stop leaving clues he gets worried and puts more effort into it. Finding a kid, barely a preteen, in a dark cloak and a vicious grin smacks him upside the head with nostalgia. Just like his son, down to the murderous tendencies.
He snatches her off the street, gives her a place to go that isn’t her father’s home. He helps her put him away for a long time. Stephanie feels freer than she ever has. She’s sad, of course, but she’s doing something right.
She’s no Shrike, though. She doesn’t want to be, no matter what Batman may want. She’s a bird of a different color, something light and free and full of hope.
Bruce is absolutely using Stephanie as a replacement for his son. He wants a do-over, a placeholder, even if he doesn’t realize that is what he wants. He has trouble seeing Steph for who she truly is and compares her constantly to Damian.
Damian came to him already molded into a weapon. He had not had to teach him from the ground up. Stephanie has some acrobatics training, but no martial arts. He feels almost frantic, giving her a crash course in defending herself, detective work, and the myriad of skills he had to learn to become the Batman. He is desperately worried but it comes across as harsh, demanding. Stephanie always seems to fall short, between his expectations and his fears.
Steph is not one to take insults lying down, though, and she snaps back at him for expecting her to be perfect when she’s just starting out. They clash often and spectacularly. She’s aware that she’s not as good as Shrike, and never will be, and that she’s just living at the manor as a replacement for Bruce’s son. She knows the minute Damian comes home, he will drop her off with foster services. There’s no doubt in her mind. She thus holds herself apart, never allowing herself to see Bruce as anything but a mentor—if that.
For the public, however, Robin quickly becomes a light in the darkness. She is quick-witted, kind to those who need it, and she seems to understand that the people she faces are often just doing the best they can in a bad place.
For one Timothy Drake, she becomes a shining star—guiding light and role model all in one. Timothy saw her as Spoiler, and recognized her moves when she was starting out as Robin. Her evolution as a hero and symbol inspired him, and whenever Robin and the Batman seem to get into a fight, he agonizes over it.
One day, Robin is in danger and Bruce is conspicuously elsewhere as a civilian. Timothy puts on a costume and rescues Robin himself. Er, herself. Because he doesn’t trust that a little domino mask will keep him safe, he wears a wig and pretends to be a girl. Batgirl, to be precise.
[Tim has a whole gender journey ahead of him but that’s a different story later on. He/him lesbian? Maybe. Genderfluid definitely. Robin and Batgirl still date for a little bit.]
Everything happens in a similar manner to canon, including Steph being there when the guy falls and Bruce not believing that she didn’t push him. She gets benched and resolutely goes ‘you ain’t my dad and I don’t have to listen to you.’ Robin operates on her own for a little bit in defiance of him.
Then the Cluemaster teams up with the Joker for some god forsaken reason and tricks Robin into leaving the city. He does not actually know Robin is Steph, but the reason it works is that he’s her dad and she feels responsible. Joker makes a whole production out of it, revealing father and daughter to each other before brutally beating both. They both die in the explosion he sets up for them.
Bruce doesn’t make it in time to save her. Both she and Arthur die from their injuries. Bruce is beside himself with guilt. He knows he pushed her away. He didn’t appreciate her as his daughter before she died and he lost her because of it. He goes a little mad in his grief, as canon.
The person who pulls him out of it is Cass Cain. She has been operating on her own in the city, living on the streets. She helps people because she can’t stand not to. Bruce finds her and instantly feels a connection. He has to help her. She’s even harder to care for than Damian or Steph ever were but he works harder at it. He has to. He has to make up for it.
When Cass joins him on the street she is the second Shrike, Batman’s silent shadow.
It's great how in Mark of Cain it clearly takes Bruce a bit to imprint on her the same way she does him but meanwhile Cass has known Batman exists for all of twelve seconds and is like "Soul bond initiated. You have acquired 1 daughter(s). There is no escape. Resistance is futile."
I don’t have any ideas for what should happen but I desperately want to see a mentor Zatanna with Danny. Enough about the blonde disaster man okay let’s get our space boy an actual star 🌟
Soulmate body swap au where Danny swaps with his soulmate (in my mind its damian or maybe cass) while they’re in the middle of a fight.
Like, a big fight. Parademons, alien invasion, full arkham breakout kind of fight. All hands on deck, no backup, all in kind of fight.
And then comms just come on and Danny is there in a hero’s body like “hey, soo… is now a bad time to be soul switched?”
And every listening hero has this sudden stomach dropping horrified reaction, because oh my god, this is almost certainly a civilian, on the battlefield, where are they, who were they fighting last, they’re gonna die, oh no, who’s closest go save them NOW.
And then danny’s like “oh cool a sword i kinda know what to do with this.” (Canonically he has fought with a katana before)
Okay, hes got some training, just keep yourself safe we’re coming
And then ten minutes later Dany’s back on comms like “Great news guys! Some of my power is attached to my soul so I can use it even in this body! Fun.” (If its a hero who has been in contact with laz water he’s draining it to fuel his ectoblasts)
Another two minutes go by and now its just “oh, who’s a big eldritch soul-eating puppy dog? You are! Yes you are, good boy!”
The hero in danny’s body is having a full blown panic attack, trying to contact their team, trying to figure out where their soulmate is, if they’re okay, how to help them, and when they finally get eyes on the situation danny is just-
Charging into battle on Cujo’s back, weapon raised, manic glee and lazarus glow in his eyes and a war cry on his lips as he completely crushes anything in his way.
I give you, 30 minutes worth of sleep deprived writing! It's not quite on the line, but it's kinda close so I figured I'd add it on and let others judge my work.
Enjoy:
Danny blinked hard and fast, he went from sitting on his bed to-outside? In the dark?
WHOAH HOLY SHI--!
Danny jerked back to avoid bullets whizzing by him, and what the fuck is this?! Where is he?!
He ran behind a stack of crates and froze up, where was he supposed to go now?
There's chattering and yelling in his ear, like- directly in his ear and-
"Robin Report!"
Robin? Robin as in... Oh. Oh no. Oh god this is a nightmare.
Danny looked down and conformed that indeed he is in the Robin costume, and body apparently.
"Is now a bad time to be soul switched?" Danny interrupted a little hysterically. But forgive him, he's just found out his soul mate is Robin while he's being shot at!
The talking went dead quiet for a second before all hell broke loose. And that was not including the men coming around the corner of where he was hiding and aiming their weapons at him.
"Hands!" they demanded, and Danny... panicked. It's his only excuse.
Because instead of complying, he pretended to faint, dropping to the ground and laying limp instead of trying to do anything helpful.
He could hear the rest of the bat's chattering, one of them helpfully announcing that he appears to have fainted. (yay for acting)
As Danny was hauled up by his armpits, and his rescuers, (and future in-laws) announced that they were 5 minutes out, Danny felt something hit his leg.
Peaking displayed it was- awe hell yes! A Katana!... like thing. He can work with that!
Danny jerked and pulled the sword from it's sheath and swung at the person carrying him.
"Oh shit!"
"And he's up!" the person in his ear announced. It was like having his own little commentator.
When the first person went down with a scream and spray of blood, the second pulled out his gun and aimed.
Danny can only say it was instinct to instead of ducking, try and go intangible. Thank whatever ancient that he could still go intangible.
"Fuck! N he's been shot!"
But instead of checking or listening, he swiped at the second person and went through the wall, running straight into-
"R- uh! Hey!"
"Oh thank the ancients, please tell me you have a way out of here?"
Nightwing was preoccupied checking him over for injury, of which he found none.
"B's on the way with the car, O are you sure he got hit?"
"It was a dead on shot, I don't know how it couldn't of."
"Uh hello! I'm right here! I went intangible! I'm lucky that's attached to my soul or whatever." (It's probably cause it's his ghost power, and his core is his soul and that's how that happened.)
The first thing that registered was a sucking sensation in his chest. Damian wasn’t bleeding, per say. It was more like his… self was leaking out of the body he was in. Without even checking, he knew it wasn’t his—this was a home cut perfectly in half. Unlike its usual host though, Damian was struggling to balance on the edge of the abyss. It wasn’t just looking at him, it was calling.
The void urged Damian to reach out and expand. Wouldn’t he like to surpass his limits? Wouldn’t he like become something big enough to embrace infinity? Something strong, focused, and overwhelming.
Damian could feel his will starting to unravel, but he fought to keep a firm grip. As dark and lovely as it was, something louder was screaming that this space should not be a wound. He focused on that thread with all his might and pulled himself towards it.
The second thing Damian became aware of was the sound of ribs cracking under CPR.
“Return of spontaneous circulation!” called a booming voice. “We need to stabilize the soul graft as soon as possible. Start with 300ccs of ecto concentrate through his central line and an intravenous injection of 1 cc of blood blossom extract. Make sure to mix it with saline first.”
The third thing Damian became aware of was that those were currently his ribs.
When the nurse returned, Damian was too busy dealing with bone and cartilage shuffling around to object. It made feigning sleep harder, but that was still the safest option. Just as the real thing was closing in on him, the door creaked open and someone next to him spoke.
“Frostbite,” said a young woman, “I trust you with Danny, but why would you use blood blossoms?”
“Just like with mortal medicine, poisons and panaceas are all in the application. I didn’t have time to explain your brother’s treatment, but do you know what the purpose of a soul graft is?”
“In the textbook, it said something about scaffolding, right?”
“Excellent, my lady! This is the ghostly equivalent to repairing a severe cleft palate.”
“Okay, that’s its purpose, but wouldn’t this be more of a fracture than a cleft palate?” Her voice became more nervous. “Danny’s been fine before this, right? This wasn’t mentioned at any of his appointments.”
The soothing rumble of a glacier almost made Damian drift off, but the intel was too vital.
“The great one has been, and will be, perfectly fine. You’ve protected his body, and his soulmate will likely be in a similar state thanks to fate’s handiwork. What a gift to two fine young men!”
“His soulmate?!”
The screech made Damian wince and give away that he was awake. He tried to swat the fuzzy hand that reached for him but failed to stop it from...
Cycling his blood pressure cuff?
From what Damian could make out, the red headed blob was pacing as the large ball of fluff and ice checked his vitals. It took several awkward moments before the older man smiled with what was probably too many teeth.
“I, Frostbite, chief of the Far Frozen, welcome you to these blessed lands. I swear on my core that I seek to heal unless harm is the only path to recovery.” He held out his hand. “May I ask for your name and the traditional gesture of your people?”
“I am—“ Damian cursed his luck, “—Robin, knight and prince of Gotham. As I am of many cultures, I am uncertain which would be most appropriate.”
“Is this not the universal gesture?” asked Frostbite, looking down at his fist.
The young woman facepalmed.
“Let me guess: Sam said it was the fist bump.”
“Ah, the heiress of the green played a joke.”
Before the forlorn doctor could pull back his fist, Damian tapped his own against the giant’s.
“Though not universal, it is considered cool.”
Frostbite gave a deep belly laugh that shook the building as Damian cringed at the pun.
Richard would pay for infecting him.
“Sir Robin, it is my pleasure to host you on this auspicious day. Is it safe to assume this is your first swap with the great one?”
“If you mean my soulmate, then yes.” Damian tilted his head. “I am curious as to how he’s earned his title. It seems as if I am the younger of our pair, but I would be surprised if there were many years between us.”
“Danny’s only 17, but somehow the little goober pulled it off.” The redhead came forward and offered her own hand to shake. “I’m Jazz Fenton, his annoying older sister. If you make him do his homework, I’ll pay you in baby pictures and embarrassing stories.”
Damian gave her a firm handshake and vowed to ensure she never met his family. It would likely require a few murders, but his dignity would not survive contact.
“I will admit that I had been more dozing than asleep for several minutes, so I have questions.”
“And we shall answer,” Frostbite promised. “First though, I recognize that squint from the great one and the pharaoh’s staring contest. Eye drops will help liquify the layer of frozen ectoplasm and soothe the irritation.”
Damian accepted them gratefully and took in his surroundings much more clearly. The young woman was encased in furs thicker than Todd’s helmet, and his doctor…
“I do not believe I am still on earth. Can I have our location to ensure I can return to my soulmate?” Damian frowned. “Actually, do you know of earth at all?”
Fenton tried to stifle a laugh and failed miserably.
“Sorry!” she threw her hands up in surrender. “I’m not making fun of you, it’s just that’s somehow exactly how I’d expect Danny’s soulmate to react to a yeti.”
“I take it we are close to earth then.”
“Very,” Fenton grinned.
“Currently, you are in the Infinite Realms,” Frostbite informed him. “It is also commonly referred to as the Land of Corridors, Death’s Hallway, or the Ghost Zone. We are a reflection of many living worlds, including your own.”
Damian paled.
“You’re not dead!” Jazz rushed to say. “Frostbite is just the best doctor for Danny, and I didn’t even realize you’d swapped! He—you—just slumped over while putting your shoes on, and I’d already warmed up the speeder for his appointment.”
“And why is my soulmate’s pediatrician in the land of the dead?” Damian snapped.
“That would normally be confidential, but your swap had unintended consequences.” Frostbite said carefully. “First of all, have you been slightly more amenable through this conversation than you would be normally?”
Damian paused at that and waited to be angry.
He gave it several moments, but…
“What did you do?” He asked coldly. “If you’ve tampered with my soulmate’s body in any way, I swear you will survive whatever I do to you.”
“Praise the ancients!” Frostbite roared. “From this day on, our protector is protected!”
As Damian seriously considered gifting his soulmate a yeti rug, Fenton had the sense to pull Frostbite out of his religious fervor.
“It’s great that we’re all happy for Danny, but could you please tell Robin what’s going on?” Jazz smiled awkwardly. “He’s got less than half the story.”
Frostbite had the decency to look mildly embarrassed.
“Forgive an old man his outbursts, but the rage you felt was a work of art,” Frostbite admitted. “Bright, clear, and sharp as a scythe? The great one has many who would fight for him, but it’s a rarity to find one who would feel this strongly.”
“Take a seat and I’ll try, alright?” Fenton turned away from Frostbite and locked eyes with Damian. “So, I know it might be obvious, but I’m just establishing the facts. You know what ectoplasm is and have been exposed, right?”
“Assume I am open to learning,” said Damian.
“Glowing green, usually an oobleck texture at room temp, very bad news when it’s bubbling?” she asked. “It occasionally reanimates things too, but it’s usually best if it doesn’t.”
“Lazarus water,” Damian hissed.
“Okay mister, put the scary eyes away,” Fenton ordered. “I’m trying to fill in the gaps for you, remember?”
She put her hands on her hips.
“Information is a weapon, and if you’re anything like Danny, I know I can’t stop you from fighting. At least let me make sure you’re well armed.”
Irritation, anxiety and warmth rolled off her in waves. Try as he might, Damian couldn’t doubt her intentions.
“Proceed.”
“Thank you,” Fenton said genuinely. “So, it sounds like it wasn’t a positive experience, but gradual uptake during early development is likely what made you liminal enough to survive Danny’s body.”
“And why—“ Damian pushed past the wave of calm. “—Why would that be necessary?”
“Danny’s what we call a halfa: half mortal, half ghost,” Fenton explained. “As far as we can tell from their tiny population, this typically happens when a liminal—someone with enough ecto exposure to start condensing the soul—has an inciting trauma around a lot of ecto. Their bodies pull the ecto into the circulatory system, creating a core around the herniated portion of the soul.”
Damian nodded slowly.
“So here’s the sticky part that I might have to turn over to Frostbite,” Fenton said nervously. “From what I grasped, you—Danny—you needed a soul graft because Danny’s core is like a turtle shell, and his body can only house half a soul.”
“So I suffered the spiritual equivalent of a spiritual internal decapitation during the split?” Damian asked.
“I prefer the cleft palate analogy, as there was no injury so much as missing skull,” Frostbite chimed in.
“Regardless,” Fenton said, pulling them back on track, “with the graft in place as a temporary core wall, Danny’s body has already started the process of creating permanent housing for your soul.”
Damian narrowed his eyes and willed her to continue.
“You’ll be okay,” Fenton promised, “but you only get to know this now because you’re Danny’s soulmate, and very likely a halfa now.”
It took several moments before Damian could speak.
“The turtle shell,” he ground out. “You fixed my spine, and removing it will kill me.”
Sorrow and comfort wrapped around him like the silken folds of his mother’s robe.
“As Nightwing would say, it’s weird that it’s happened twice.”
The last thing Damian heard as they swapped back was Fenton’s startled laugh. The eye drops must have worn off because her face was already blurry.
You know all those fics where Danny and Damian are twins but everyone first assumes Danny must be a clone? How about an au where Danny is Damian's clone who escaped the League after he was assumed dead. Damian could even have been the one to have "killed" him, back when Danny was a newly created, fully brainwashed clone minion and trying to kill Damian himself.
Danny gets adopted by the Fentons and canon goes on as normal, until Dan. Witnessing what would happen to the world should he turn evil really drove home to Danny how dangerous he is.
Even if he was confident he could be trusted with his absurd amount of power (which he isn't), what if the League of Assassins found out about him? Does he still have programming triggers from his evil assassin clone conditioning?
So, Danny does the responsible thing: he goes to Batman to turn himself in.
Cue Danny showing up on Bruce's doorstep with ghost hunting equipment, intel on the afterlife, and an almost unbelievable backstory. Somehow he still managed to be more well-adjusted than Damian.
More thoughts under the read more
Here's how I'm thinking Danny leaving the League went down:
After surviving his wounds but failing his mission, Danny (then an unnamed potential Damian replacement) knew there was no point in returning to the League. As a failure, he was meant to be disposed of. He even thought of simply allowing himself to perish, since that was what the League would do.
But he couldn't help but feel as though that would be a waste of a resource. Surely he could be of more use to the League alive than dead?
That tiny bit of rebellious logic is what caused Danny to go into hiding, only living on based on the off chance he would find opportunities to further the League's goals. Obviously, that mentality didn't last long after being exposed to the real world and meeting one Jazz Fenton.
Being adopted by the Fentons was the best cover Danny could have asked for, since any odd behavior he couldn't hide while he was learning how to be "normal" was totally overshadowed by the sheer bizarre eccentricity of his new parents. He was still the neighborhood weird kid, but even that was a major upgrade from disposable tool, so Danny considered it a win.
Anyway, if anyone likes this idea, please feel free to have at it! Interpret it as you please :)
Danny didn't want to be here, but it wasn't as if he had a lot of other options. He didn't know how to contact any other Justice League heroes, and this one, at least, would take him seriously. Probably. Damian, at least, would take him seriously. So seriously that Danny doubted he would be walking away from this without a stab wound.
Luckily, Danny wasn't the kind of person to die because of a stab wound. Or anything, really. Which was kind of the reason he was here.
He sucked his lips in as he stared at the gates. He was far enough down the street from them that there probably weren't any cameras picking him up, but only probably, because the people he was dealing with were insane. And Danny knew insane. From a couple of different perspectives, even.
Again, this was part of the problem.
He sighed and started walking. This was going to be painful and awkward, and he technically didn't have to do this, but...
But.
This was so far beyond his second chance, beyond his third chance, even. He couldn't expect another one. This way, if he did manage to screw everything up, he wouldn't be taking the world down with him.
He reached the gates. There was a tiny intercom there, along with a camera. There were probably more, even better, cameras hidden elsewhere around the gate, to get multiple perspectives of everyone who came up to them. Danny wouldn't be surprised if he was being watched already.
Bracing himself, Danny pulled off his hood. No going back now.
Danny wasn't identical to Damian. Combining science and magic tended to have unpredictable results, and even in cloning there were random mutations. Danny was one of several 'flawed' clones that had still been considered capable enough to be sent out to harry their original. He didn't have the same coloration as Damian al Ghul, Son of the Bat. Something epigenetic affecting his melanin production. Blue eyes, instead of Damian's green, pale skin to Damian's ochre. Not something that would be noticed at night, behind masks with opaque eyes and flashing swords. He didn't stand out, among his clone-siblings.
By the same token, despite the differences being more obvious in the daylight, he would be recognized now. Or, at least, the resemblance would be.
He pressed the intercom button and waited, bouncing up and down nervously. Part of him wondered if Damien ever fidgeted like this.
"Hello," said a crisp British voice, "may I help you, young man?"
"Yeah," said Danny. "Is, um. Mr. Wayne home?" He cringed. "I need to talk to him." Because a billionaire would definitely talk to a random kid who showed up at his house. Hopefully, this person would either notice he looked like Damian, or... Yeah. Knew about the Batman stuff. "It's about... Things at night."
He should have come up with a script of some kind before coming, but he'd been occupied putting together everything else.
"Are you in trouble?" This question was a bit sharper.
"Not... really? But I think he'd want to know what I know, if that makes sense?"
"I see," said the calm, British voice. "If you will wait a moment...?"
"Sure," said Danny. He flipped his hood back up. The League of Assassins probably wouldn't be bold enough to watch the bats this closely.
But only probably.
It was okay. There had only been a handful of years between his escape and when he had to start fighting for his life again. He knew how to handle himself, and the way he traveled didn't leave a trail.
Danny jumped at the sound of footsteps, and a minute later, an elderly man in a suit came around the corner of the drive. He kept his eyes from flicking into the foliage, where he was quite sure at least one of Damian's brothers were hiding.
"Young sir," said the old man as the gate swung open. "Mr. Wayne will see you."
"O-oh," said Danny. "Thank you. You didn't have to walk out all this way."
"It's no trouble, really." He paused. "My name is Alfred Pennyworth And what may I call you, sir?"
"Danny."
"Mr. Daniel, then?"
"Danny, please. Daniel is... weird."
"Ah, bad memories?"
"Kind of."
"Not what brings you here?"
"Uh. No. I think it'd be better if I said it directly to Mr. Wayne, if that's okay."
Mr. Pennyworth hummed, neutrally. "It will be a little while before he returns home."
"Oh," said Danny, wincing again. "I, uh, didn't realize he wasn't... Here. At this time."
"He normally would be. Something came up."
"Is, um. Is Damian here?" It sounded so weird saying his name out loud.
"He is with his father."
"Cool. That's cool." It was very much not cool. He didn't want to see Damian, although he'd planned for it. He and Dani got along, post murder attempt, but he imagined it'd be a lot different with Damian.
The rest of the walk was unremarkable, except for Danny's continuous freaking out. Mr. Pennyworth led him through a grand entryway and into a small sitting room he was sure was monitored eight ways from Sunday, and then some.
"May I get you anything to drink while you wait?"
"No," said Danny. He wouldn't trust it not to be drugged, anyway. "I'm good, thanks." He swung his backpack off his shoulders and held it in front of himself, hugging it close.
"Very well, young sir."
There were a series of loud thumps, the footsteps of someone trying to be heard, and a tall, athletic man came into the room.
"Richard Grayson?" guessed Danny.
"That's me," said the man, smiling, tightly. "And you are?"
"Danny."
"Danny...?"
"Just Danny."
"Okay, and why are you here, Just Danny?" the tone was teasing, but it did little to defuse the tension.
Danny shifted uneasily. The amount of information, of knowledge given to the clones had been limited, but he was pretty sure Richard Grayson was Nightwing, and the first Robin.
"Couple different reasons," said Danny. "Mainly, um. To let him know I exist. And stuff. Relating to that. Him being Batman. And Damian, I guess."
There was a bit of quiet as Grayson stared at him like he was peeling back his skin with his mind.
"Does Damian not... know about you?"
"That's..." He made a snap decision, because he wasn't sure he could deal with that particular misunderstanding, and talking to Batman, and Damian, and explaining everything important all at once. "I'm not his brother, you get that, right? I'm," he shrugged, "one of the clones. You know, from a few years ago."
Despite his nonchalance, he watched Grayson carefully, tracking his movements.
"The ones who tried to kill him?"
"Yeah, that was... not my best moment, but in my defense I was sort of brainwashed. And less than a year old. Just for context."
"Context. Right."
"And I definitely understand if Damian, um. Doesn't want to see me. Because, no offense, I don't want to see him. Either. If that makes sense."
"You came all this way, and you don't want to see him."
"Well. No. It's-- Think of it this way: He killed way more of us than we killed of him."
Grayson stared at him.
"He did die," said Grayson.
"I thought he was out doing, like, Robin things."
Grayson pulled a face. "He came back."
Oh, that made things much more complicated. Or did it? It wasn't really Danny's problem that he had died. Even if Danny had also died.
"Okay," he said, finally. "I mean. I just don't want to get stabbed, and--" He stopped, examined Grayson's face a little more closely, and the tiny speck of something inside his ear. "They're totally listening in, aren't they? They've got a radio or whatever. And they're yelling in your ear."
"Damian's having a bit of a problem with you using his voice to say things so, uh..."
"Casually?" suggested Danny.
"Sure, let's go with that." His eyes flicked up and down Danny again. "So... You're doing... okay?"
"Like, right now, or...?" Danny made a small circular motion with his hand.
"You've been living somewhere? Somewhere safe?"
"More or less," said Danny. "But I really would like to wait for Batman-- for Mr. Wayne to get here, before I get into details."
Grayson nodded slowly and they waited in uneasy silence. Mr. Pennyworth had slipped away at some point, without Danny even noticing, which was a feat.
It was, perhaps, another half an hour before Bruce Wayne arrived. He was tall, very tall, and walked nearly silently. A flock of teenagers and young adults trailed in his wake, including Damian, who looked furious, but who at least didn't obviously have his sword.
"Do you need help?" asked Batman, when Danny didn't continue. Damian changed his glare to the back of his father's head.
"Yeah. Sort of. I'm actually here to turn myself in. And to tell you how to kill me." He gave them a pair of thumbs up and grinned. "Normal things, right?"
Bruce scanned the clone in front of him again. He wasn't identical to Damian, no, and the League of Assassins wasn't above modifying the clones they made, but Bruce couldn't immediately see any reason for that particularly worrying statement.
Behind him, Duke cleared his throat. "Uh, no. No, that's not normal."
"But for you guys," said Danny. "For you, it's normal."
"Not really, no. People generally don't ask us to kill them."
"That's not really what I'm asking."
Bruce suppressed a sigh. "Explain."
"Okay." The boy's grip on his backpack tightened. "You probably know how I- We- Me and the other clones, how we were made right? And the whole, um, murder horde thing?"
Bruce inclined his head.
"Great. So, there I was, part of the murder horde--"
"Are we really calling it that?" interrupted Stephanie.
Danny blinked at her. "... Is there... something else you'd like to call it?"
"Please continue," said Bruce.
"Right. So. Anyway. I was trying to murder, uh, Damian - sorry about that, by the way - with everyone else, and, um, naturally got stabbed. A few times. You are really good at stabbing, by the way. Superb. Ten out of ten stabbing experience, would get stabbed again. If I was into that kind of thing. Which I'm not. Please don't stab me."
"Father."
"I think we understand that you were stabbed. Please go on."
"After that I fell off a roof and sort of crawled into a corner to die. But I didn't die! Obviously. Not then, anyway. And I realized I didn't want to die. Kind of. Not quite like that, because of the brainwashing. Did I mention the brainwashing?"
"Yes."
Danny bobbed his head nervously. "It was kind of more like, I decided I'd be more useful to the League not dead, but if I stayed where I was, the League would kill me. You know how brainwashing is. So, I broke into a car, and it turned out one of the people who owned it was sort of a doctor."
"Sort of a doctor?" echoed Dick.
"A biologist with first aid training and a PhD," clarified Danny. "They, uh. That family took me in. Adopted me. You, uh, you know how that works. Obviously." He nodded at the admittedly rather full space behind Bruce.
"I'm not adopted," said Stephanie. "I'm not related to this man."
"Okay?"
"That doesn't explain why you're here," pointed out Tim. "Or why you want to tell us how to kill you."
Danny had been pale and sweaty from the beginning of the conversation, but now he looked downright ill. But Bruce stayed still. There were still good odds that this was some kind of trap, and until he knew one way or another, he wasn't going to make a move that would endanger his children.
Even if, as a clone of his son, Danny was also, technically, his child.
"I'm getting to it. But, uh, to summarize, after a while there, with my family, I decided I didn't want to ever go back, and I was just going to be as normal as possible. Then, again to summarize, I got into a lab accident and, well, lab accidents. I got some superpowers. A variety, you know?"
"You're a meta?" asked Bruce. They'd already known, of course, that he wasn't a standard human. What Duke saw when he looked at him said as much.
"I don't know about meta," said Danny. "I don't-" He turned slightly, towards Damian. "-I don't think we have the meta gene, so...?" He flinched. "But! Powers! Yes!" He extracted one hand from his backpack, and turned it invisible. It stayed that way for a moment, then went back to normal, and Danny went back to hugging his bag.
"So," said Dick, sounding pained, "you got superpowers, and your first reaction to that was to ask Batman to kill you."
"What? No, the lab accident was, like, a year ago." There was a worryingly long pause. "And I'm not asking anyone to kill me, I'm just letting you know how. Just in case."
"Why?" asked Dick.
"Well. There was an incident. With time travel."
Tim groaned loudly.
"Uh," said Danny, wide-eyed, "are you okay?"
"Go ahead, I just hate time travel."
Danny nodded cautiously. "I met an evil future version of myself-"
Tim groaned again.
"-who had killed everyone. Like, really, just about everyone. Whole planet, just rubble, everywhere, except for- Well, details, which I'll give you! But. I'm summarizing. And, I fixed that. The stuff leading up to it, I mean. But then I started wondering, what if I didn't fix it as much as I thought I fixed it? What if it happened again, anyway? And I was grown in a vat. What if there was some kind of, I don't know, extra brainwashing mind control stuff in my head? So, I sat down with some friends and came up with some, er, contingency plans. And now I'm here. Giving them to you." He held out his backpack to Bruce. "The plans. Not my friends. They wouldn't fit in here."
"Father," said Damian, and Bruce took a moment to be proud of Damian's progress. There had been no murder threats. "Are we really trusting the word of a defective clone."
"Hey, I'd say that I'm an improved clone, considering I've never killed anyone. Yet. That I know of."
"Truth," said Cassandra, helpfully.
Bruce decided to sit down. He had these chairs for a reason, after all. That reason wasn't to have crises about clone children he didn't know about, but that was fine.
"Is- is anyone going to take this?" asked Danny, waving the bag.
"It kind of sounds like you're leaving out a lot, there, chum," said Dick.
Danny made a face and mouthed the word 'chum,' then shook his head. "I mean, you try to fit your whole life story into a fifteen minute conversation. I'm not trying to hide anything, it's just a lot of stuff."
"So, if we asked you about your powers," started Stephanie.
"Imvisibility, intangibility, flight, energy blasts, ice powers, and, um. I can possess people. Also. There's a longer list, which I wrote down because I forget things..." He unzipped the backpack and started rummaging through it.
"And the accident that gave you these powers," said Damian, "what about details on that?"
Danny stilled. "Okay, so." He licked his lips. "You guys believe in ghosts, right?"
By the time Danny finished 'explaining,' everyone was sitting, even Damian. Although it might be better to say that Damian was perched.
"I think that's pretty much everything relevant," said Danny, lacing his fingers together. "So... are we good? Do you believe me?"
Honestly, for Dick, the hardest part of all of this to believe was that a clone of Damian somehow wound up with Danny's mannerisms. The fidgeting, the stuttering, the slang, actually volunteering information while being unable to deliver it with any concision... Yeah. It was weird. Especially since Danny did more or less have Damian's face.
"We believe you," said Bruce in a tone that said his guilt complex was eating him alive.
"I don't think you could fake being this bad at explaining things," admitted Damian with a sniff.
"Yeah, so, welcome to the family," said Dick, giving Danny his best smile.
Danny blinked at him. "... Does that mean you don't want to put me in a containment cube?"
"No," said Bruce. "I don't think that's necessary at the moment."
"But I caused the apocalypse?"
"If we locked up every meta who might have caused the apocalypse in an alternate timeline, we'd need a lot more jails," said Tim.
"Oh. Okay. But, uh," he pointed at Dick. "I've already got a family... Mr. Grayson? Richard?"
"Call me Dick."
"I've already got a family, who I love. So. If you don't want to preemptively lock me up, you don't have to actually. Do that."
"You mean the scientists who shoot at you?" asked Tim, holding up his phone which, yes, showed two people chasing Danny in 'ghost form' down a street with guns.
"They don't know that's me," said Danny, "also, they've gotten way better lately."
"This is from last week."
"Eh," said Danny. "Progress isn't linear."
"When you fell off that building, did you fall on your head?" asked Damian, incredulously.
"Honestly don't remember," said Danny. "But I'm sure you've gotten just as many concussions as I have, so I'd be a lot less snide about my IQ, if I were you."
"If you're in danger," started Bruce.
"Look, if you really want to adopt someone, can I suggest Danielle?"
Bruce got a very pinched look around his eyes. "Who is Danielle?"
Danny paused. "Okay, maybe I didn't get all the important details."
"Please tell me there isn't a Damian clone out there who's a girl," said Tim.
"There isn't," said Danny, quickly.
"Oh, goo-"
"She's my clone."
"Isn't that the same thing?" asked Dick.
"Not really? I mean, Dani has my powers, and Vlad was definitely trying to clone me. But my point is, you don't have to do that. For me. Because I'm fine. You don't have to feel responsible."
Dick was quite certain that everyone did, indeed, feel responsible.
"But Dani is, like, traveling the world on her own, so if you could convince her to be adopted, that would probably be a good thing. But I do not need to be adopted, because I am already adopted. Also, I'm pretty sure Damian would murder me."
"We've moved past that, actually," said Dick before Damian could explode and prove him wrong.
"Cool. Anyway, you've got the stuff, so if you don't want to lock me up, I'm just going to go. If that's okay. Is it okay?"
No one answered that, because, no, it really wasn't.
The door opened and Alfred cleared his throat. "If I am not interrupting anything, Master Bruce, it is time for dinner."
"Right!" said Danny, brightly. "So, I'll leave you guys to it."
"Why don't you eat with us?" asked Bruce.
"Uh. Because I don't want to interrupt your family dinner? Or get stabbed."
"Hey," said Dick, "Steph interrupts our family dinner all the time."
"It's true," said Steph with a shrug. "Alfred's cooking is the best. I'd totally get stabbed for it."
Danny chewed on his lower lip for a second, then a smile crept onto his face. "Would you say it's to die for?"
"No," said Damian. "You cannot say things like that with my voice."
"I just did, though," said Danny.
Dick grabbed Damian. Just as a preemptive thing. "Great! Let's go eat!"
"Alfred," Dick heard Bruce say, quietly. "I need you to call the guy."
"Well," said Tim, draping himself sideways over the arms of the armchair. "There's someone out there who makes bad death puns in Damian's voice. That's a thing we know, now."
Danny had just left, had even invited them to put a tracker on him, in addition to the trackers they'd already slipped on him. Not that it was really necessary. They already knew where he lived.
Damian picked a throw pillow up off the couch and screamed into it, then put it back down as if nothing had just happened and sat on the couch. "Yes," he said, "we do know that." Alfred the cat jumped up into his lap. "The question is, what do we do about it?"
"Well," said Dick, who was radiating something like exasperation, "B's already called the guy."
Tim sat up and turned. "You didn't," he said. "When did you even have time?"
"Father," said Damian, "he's a clone. Who tried to kill me. Who admitted that he wanted to make himself useful to the League of Assassins."
Bruce had a very Batman-like curve to his shoulders. "Years ago. And your friend, Connor, is also a clone."
"That's different," protested Damian. "I'm not saying that... Daniel isn't an individual, but we don't have any obligation towards him, and he's said as much."
"That's true," said Tim. "But you could extend that argument to just about anyone, couldn't you? He's a hero, and a teenager... But he's in a different city, and he's got a family. We can get him set up with support, real support, like the Titans, but do you really want to try and take him away from his city? Bruce?"
Bruce grumbled. "I'm not taking him away from his parents. But he's living in the same building he died in. And to give him the support he needs, we need to have time with him."
Damian scowled. Oh, that wasn't going to be good.
"We can have that time in different ways," said Tim.
Bruce grunted.
"He honestly seems to be doing just fine for himself," said Damian. "I don't think we need to do this. Or," he added, a little sourly, "that he would appreciate it."
"And Danielle?" asked Bruce.
No one had an an answer to that.
"I guess," said Tim, "you'll need the guy for that, at least."
Secret was lost, which was unusual because she really hadn’t even left herself. She’d been experimenting with her powers, plunging into the darkness within herself she called the Abyss, seeking its limits. She knew it let her move through space when she smoke-jumped, but she also knew there was more to it than that.
There was just this sensation, a little tug somewhere in her chest, that pulled her down through the endless black.
Or, maybe, not so endless at all. Maybe she only thought it was endless because she’d used it as a thoroughfare or a prison. But the Spectre had said she was a gateway—a guardian of the gateway between the living and the dead. If she thought of it like that, like a threshold, like a…
A door.
The door was there, suddenly. But it had always been there. She just hadn’t noticed it before. The door was the same beige as her clothes, skin, and hair. It felt like it was part of her, just like everything else here was.
It was part of her, so she could feel the Not Her on the other side. She was struck with a profound sense of vertigo. There was an eternity on the other side of The Door. It was a not-world not-place she had never been and somehow always known. It called her. It repelled her.
She wanted to flee. To shoot up through the empty place inside her and rejoin her living, breathing friends on the right side of the river Styx.
But she came down here for a reason.
She was a hero. She couldn’t let herself be afraid of something she’d never seen, of a place she’d never been.
She grabbed the door knob and opened the door.
Green.
It was all green. It surged like a tide, crashing over her. It didn’t knock her back or down. It swept through her.
Secret gasped and it felt like she hadn’t breathed in such a long time. Which, she hadn’t. She hadn’t needed to breathe, or eat, or sleep.
Secret was dead.
But she wasn’t gone.
She floated out beyond her threshold into the green expanse and watched in awe as her skin, the sandy and washed out color it had been, deepened into gold. Her hair shimmered like spun silk where it floated beside her face. Her clothes became vibrant as colors bloomed across them, a sight she hadn’t seen in so long. It changed as she watched; it responded to her desires, shifting form and color to suit her.
Secret laughed, delighted. She spun in the green as it seeped into her and lit her from the inside out. She didn’t realize how empty she felt until it started flooding in.
Gosh, it was incredible! If she’d known—
If she’d known, she might have left. She would never have met her friends. The boys who saved her from those awful scientists, and the other heroes she met later.
Maybe it was okay that she was only discovering it now. Maybe this was when she was meant to do it. She wasn’t late. She was right on time.
With a deep gulp of that green something, Secret ventured farther from her door, ready to see this place that called her like a home.
———
Danny didn’t see new ghosts too often. His part of the Zone was home to a lot of heavy hitters and didn’t rank high on the list of vacation spots for after-living. Pariah’s Keep, Clockwork’s Clockworks, the Far Frozen, Skulker’s Lair… there were an excessive amount of harsh and dangerous environments that drifted through the local ecto. Most ghosts also kept to their Lairs, avoiding the other residents unless they were itching for a fight.
So it was surprising to see a girl, staring in wide-eyed wonder at the chunks of rock and drifting Doors. She was almost a shade, she was so pale, but her outline was strong and she was filling in rapidly as her core inhaled the pure essence of the Realms. She drank like she was starving, enough that Danny could almost feel the pull of it.
She didn’t seem like she wanted to fight, so Danny advanced cautiously.
“Hey there!” He called from far enough away to still book it if she flipped out.
Danny’s luck held. She spotted him and, unlike literally every other ghost he encountered, did not attempt to vibe check him through the nearest surface. She smiled instead, a slow and pleased thing like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to grin.
He drifted closer.
“New to the Zone?” He asked.
“Oh! Is it obvious?” She seemed flustered, glancing down at herself like she could spot where it said ‘newbie’ on her cool coat.
“Eh, kinda,” Danny shrugged. “But only because you’re so thin, ecto-wise. You been eating emotion instead?”
“Huh?” She looked clueless.
“Uh,” he rubbed the back of his head. He was not often in the position of knowing more than another ghost about being a ghost. Especially since he was only half-a ghost and she seemed to be fully dead. “You know, getting energy from living people’s emotions?”
“Is that something I do?” He’d never seen a face so perfectly described by ‘flabbergasted’. He held back a snort.
“Maybe? You could have been Obsessing hard out there, I guess. Got a Haunt on the living side?”
“Uhm… does my team’s headquarters count?”
“Are you the only ghost there?”
“I’m… pretty sure.”
“Then yeah, probably. As long as you’ve been spending a lot of time there it should be firmly yours. You’d know if it was challenged by another ghost.”
They had drifted closer as they talked, and Danny flipped so they were vaguely floating in the same direction.
“I’m Danny, by the way. Danny Phantom,” he told her, offering a hand.
She shook it gently, staring at where their hands met solidly. “Secret.”
Danny blinked. “Uh, alright? Keep your secrets?”
“Oh, I mean… no, my friends call me Secret! I don’t remember my name from when I was alive.” She didn’t let go of his hand. “They call me Suzie sometimes but that’s probably not my name.”
“Ahh, okay, that makes more sense. Not uncommon for ghosts to forget their names. Don’t worry about it. Secret’s a cool ghost name. More creative than mine.”
She nodded, still holding his hand. He didn’t mind holding the girl’s hand but…
“Are you okay?”
“What?” She looked up, startled. Then she seemed to realize what she was doing and released him. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry. I just… I haven’t been able to touch something so solidly before…”
“Heh, yeah, the Zone hits different. Nothing like pure ecto to make you feel like a whole new ghost!”
She laughed. “That’s true! I feel almost alive again!”
“So I gotta ask: how’d you pick Secret? Were you real big on keeping secrets or what?”
“Actually, that’s a funny story…”
———
As Secret told Danny Phantom her story, it occurred to her that it wasn’t actually that funny. It had been scary, and infuriating, and dehumanizing, and these emotions were still there when she walked back into those memories. But she clung tight to her friends and the new memories she’d made. The D.E.O couldn’t touch her anymore; Young Justice wouldn’t let them. Superboy and Wonder Girl and Impulse and Robin and Slobo and Empress and Arrowette—they were all on her side. An anchor in the storm.
Danny raised a hand as she came to the end of her tale, where they’d given her the moniker Secret as a nod to hiding her from the Justice League and the government.
“Hold up—these DEO chuckleheads, did they wear white suits?”
“Well, some of the A.P.E.S. agents did…”
“Oh my god, I think I’ve got the same assholes in Amity Park!”
“What?” She shot up in alarm. Literally, she rose above Phantom. He had been kind and funny so far, seeming carefree, but now there was a dark scowl on his face.
“Yeah, we’ve been calling them the Guys In White, like the Men in Black, y’know? They said they were government but didn’t specify what part. I’ve been kicking their asses and rescuing ghosts for, like, the past year.”
Secret felt horror rising in her throat at the idea of any single ghost trying to take on the DEO. The pained wails of the spirits who had been trapped alongside her in that awful white facility echoed in her mind.
“All alone!?”
“Nah, I have friends helping me out. Sam and Tuck always have my back.”
Secret wrung her hands together. “Just… those two?”
He shrugged. His nonchalance was chilling. “They’re no sidekick squad, but they’re what I’ve got.”
No, not nonchalance. This was resignation. This was someone who had been fighting alone so long that the idea of help was offensively late. Three teenagers, only one with powers (the dead one), fighting the DEO?
She grabbed his hands again. “Danny, take me to Amity Park with you, please. I… have to see it myself.”
Danny is not the only Superhero around - but what if it wasn't the Justice League? What if ... It was 3 certain Superpowered Little Girls?
It started when Professor Utonium was looking through other researchers and found the Doctor Fentons. Normally he'd just think about it himself, but then Blossom asked what he was looking at.
He told them about the Fenton's Study of Ghosts - to which all of the girls were collectively scared, but assured by the Professor. With some extra research, the Professor and the Girls found out about the portal.
About the Ghost Attacks. The PPG all wanted to help the citizens, but then the Professor found out about Phantom. The Town's Resident Ghostly Superhero.
Another Superhero. The Girls were estatic at the thought, but all cameras and photos were kind of busted. The girls asked, they wanted to see who Phantom was!
Of course they can, and the girls were now going on a 2-week long vacation ... to Amity Park.
Ghost Writer was getting Soup Time, for he had cursed Danny to Rhyme. It wasn’t his fault the guy couldn’t take a joke! Now even Danny’s thoughts made him want to choke. Try as he might to cease this nonsense, Danny found a rhyming sound at the end of each sentence. No one would say he was a poet, but Danny’s half-assed vocabulary still showed it.
“Danny, c’mon man just talk to us! What’s wrong?” Tucker asked, now thoroughly worried about what had passed.
“Yeah, Danny,” Sam continued, “I promise we won’t laugh.” A promise she could not hope to keep. Danny wanted to weep.
“Alright, I’ll tell you, and you’ll hear it soon. It’s all the fault of Ghost Writer, that loon.”
“Oh no, are we stuck in another story?” Tucker looked around, as if some veil would fall to the ground, peeling away a veneer of reality. Unfortunately, it was only Danny stuck in a situation this shitty.
“Just me, Tuck,” Danny sighed, “It’s just my luck. He cursed me to rhyme for ten-days time. I said rhyming was the easiest part of writing a poem, hardly an art.”
“Well, you’re not entirely wrong?” Sam snickered. “I wouldn’t have said it to the guys face though.”
“I can’t keep my mouth shut, as we all know.”
“Ten days isn’t so bad!” Tucker rallied. “We’ll say you’ve got, like, meningitis or something at school and as long as you stay quiet it’ll pass.”
“Honestly, yeah, it’s kinda tame for Writer. Maybe he’s warming up to you?” Sam said as a tease.
Danny snorted. Writer, like him? Oh, please.
Then something unusual began to grow, a shiver of power from somewhere below. It zinged up his spine in a manner reminiscent of his ghostly sense when a specter was present. But all through his body, the cold feeling seeped. Danny grabbed at his head, feeling thoroughly creeped.
“Guys, something’s wrong!” He cried.
“Yeah, dude, you’re glowing!” They replied.
And he was, and he tried to suppress it, but his ghostly aura flared, then the rings of transformation were lit. They traveled along his body, transmuting living flesh to dead, shimmering ectoplasmic construct instead. Then the rings did something new and strange. The one above his head shrunk, the one below his feet changed.
The white halo brought forth the Crown of Fire. On the ground, the circle glowed brighter. With green shining bright, Danny’s eyes opened wide. Then the portal was formed and Danny plunged inside.
The startled and fearful faces of his friends haunted him through the travel’s twists and ends. He felt like he was squeezed through a twisty straw, and every part of his body felt aching and raw.
Then he hit the other side. It felt like being hurled through glass. Danny shuddered and shook, and waited to see what would pass.
A group of people in bathrobes, each bearing a candle. A cult, Danny thought. Great. More for Phantom to handle.
How had they summoned him? Had the Crown dragged him through? If Danny was bound to it, and they did, that could be true.
Which would mean they had been aiming for the Ghost King. Well, at least the person here wasn’t Vlad and that stupid ring. Just these guys with the worst timing! Why oh why, when Danny was rhyming!?
“Who dares to summon the King of the Dead!?” Danny roared, playing up part. “You’ll join me in death, by the Crown on my head!”
“Pariah Dark, Ancient of War, High King of the Infinite Realms, we beseech thee!“ cried the fanciest bathrobed man. Danny clocked him as the head honcho and placed punching him at the top of the plan.
But Danny had no time to break through the spell. At that moment, everything went to hell. A woman in a bathing suit crashed through the door, and a glowing gold rope whipped across the floor. It snagged one magician before he could even turn. Another person rushed in, beginning to burn. From his form burst a creature that almost reminded Danny of the most ancient kind of ghost. But different, darker. Its aura starker. Then there was a woman in fishnets, and a man in a trench coat. They mopped up the weirdos as easy as Danny'd float.
Then they noticed that the circle had a creature within it. Despite Danny's less than noble appearance, they tensed and raised weapons, and Danny thought, 'Damn it.'
"Hello there," he tried to keep it short and simple. But Ghost Writer's curse was not so nimble. "Phantom is my name. I'd like to get out of here! It's lame!"
Not his best work. A D- from Lancer, Danny figured his teacher would grade his answer.
"Circle configured for some 'Lord of the Dead' bloke," said the man in the trench. He chewed on a cigarette, fists careful to unclench. The woman in the top hat and fishnets replied, but Danny could not understand her, though he tried. "Not sure where the teenager comes into that. Sacrifice?"
"Laever ytitnedi."
Danny flinched at a flash of magic. Whatever it said to her caused her face to pale, how tragic.
"Not a sacrifice," she said, tipping her hat down.
"That's what they summoned," she said with a frown.
They each regarded him with suspicion. Danny laughed nervously, trying to break the tension.
"I really don't want to be here, if you can believe. If you can just reverse the spell, I'd be happy to leave."
The creature that felt like a ghost-but-not stalked forward and said, "This one bears the trial of the lesser demons. It rhymes compulsively, as do I, my minions."
"Not your minions, Etrigan," Trench replied. "And that one was weak at best. So s'just a lower level demon mocked up like a kid. Standard banishment, then?"
"Wait, what?" Danny cried. "No, I'm not a demon! I'm a ghost! I promise there's an explanation! I pissed off an enemy of mine and he cursed me for ten days to rhyme!"
He didn't want to be banished! What happened to him if he was vanished? Ghosts could be repelled back to the Zone, but Danny was only part Ghost. Would it tear him in two? He didn't want to be shown!
The Wayne family had very few relatives left, but through marriage they had acquired a couple second and third cousins. Any family reunion was a quiet affair with many old people mournfully discussing better times. Bruce wasn’t the only child at these functions but he was a decade younger than the only other minor, so they had very little to discuss. They mostly ignored each other politely and waited for their respective immediate family to get tired so they could leave.
The summer before the tragedy, however, one of his second cousins—a dour, hard war veteran by the name of Jasper Daniel Fenton—arrived with another child in tow. He was only a few years older than Bruce, and he was full of exuberance. He was also very loud, though it didn’t seem to be intentional. Very few of his family seemed to appreciate the bright spot in the ceremony. Thomas, his Father, nudged him towards the boy. With a deep breath, Bruce marched up to Jasper and his kid, and he offered to take his new cousin on a tour of the house.
Jack, as he introduced himself, declared them best friends immediately and nearly pulled Bruce’s arm out of its socket whenever he wanted to stop and look at something. Somehow, the older boy found every secret passageway in the Manor, apparently by accident. He rambled nonstop, mostly about ghosts.
“Places like this are usually soooo haunted! I bet a lot of youse Waynes have died here! Oh man, can we see the attic? Do you have a basement? A wine cellar?? I bet they’re drenched in ecto-energy!!”
Bruce found he didn’t have to actually respond to keep him going. He just made noises of interest once or twice and gave Jack an encouraging nod whenever he looked over.
Jack was a force of nature. Bruce was quietly awed by how easily he ignored the snide comments or unfriendly glances of their relatives.
“Hey, Brucie, you should come to my house sometime! The woods behind our place are super haunted, and I’ve finally got my ecto-inspecto up and running!”
“Ecto… inspecto?” Bruce questioned, curious despite himself.
“Yeah!”
From a pocket in his patchy, oversized jeans, Jack produced… a gizmo. Bruce couldn’t describe it any other way. Wires ran haphazardly from a dish—which looked like a repurposed funnel—to a box that was clearly cannibalized from a walkie talkie. There were circuit boards and resistors open to the air like a radio turned inside-out.
“This is the prototype, mark three! This one has been functional for a week and hasn’t exploded at all!”
“Is that what happened to mark two and one?” Bruce was pretty sure he knew the answer but felt compelled to inquire.
“Oh no, mark one melted! Two is the only one that exploded! I’ve fixed the heat sink issue though! Cmon, let’s hunt for ghosts!”
Helpless against his cousin’s enthusiasm, Bruce followed.
Years later when considering how to distance his public persona from his mission as the Bat, he remembered his whirlwind cousin Jackie, who bowled through social situations like a wrecking ball and whose brilliance was irrevocably tarnished by harmless buffoonery.
