DC x DP: The Real Blood Son
It's a year after Damian came to live with them that he decides it is an excellent time to bombard Bruce with his news.
"I had a blood brother." He says to Tim after the other commented how important blood meant to Bruce-ie, not enough to make him get rid of his other sons. "He was the first from the artificial womb mother made with Father's DNA; however, he was disposed of once his heart condition became known. I highly doubt you will last even twice as long Drake-"
"What"
Bruce didn't know that he could make his voice that cold. That dead. What in the world does he mean disposed.
I'm loving the potential future horror of this.
For whatever reason, Danny decides to go to his original dimension (maybe to see his grave, maybe to get answers, maybe he's on the run) and the only portal he can exit from is the one he entered.
Be Ra's. Doing evil things, as uzhe.
And a glowing figure flies out of the Lazarus pit.
A figure that looks a bit familiar.
Oh shit. That's the grandson you murdered. He must be back for revenge.
Danny has to leave Amity Park. Maybe it’s his parents, maybe it’s the GIW, maybe he just needs a break. In any event, he has to leave and he escapes into the Infinite Realms. He has no idea where to go, except this vague awareness that there’s a safe place that belongs to him, somewhere. A place he’ll be safe. A place where he can rest.
It’s not like he has anywhere else to go.
A portal feels right to him and he slips through. The safe place is still many miles away, and he heads that way, following his instincts. He hops trains, hides invisibly in the backs of people’s cars, flies when he has the energy for it.
And eventually he finds himself phasing through a high wall, and wandering across a neat lawn and through a shrubbery.
The place that is his is close now, and he relaxes without meaning to. He’s never been here before, but everything inside him is saying home, home, home.
He belongs.
There are roses in formal, shaped beds. Close-clipped grass. And… stone monuments.
A twin pair of tall columns of rough grey granite. Grief; despair sublimated to determination; an old, settled love. Martha Wayne. Thomas Wayne.
Another, near them, wider and squatter, of pale grey marble. A messy mix of love and guilt and longing and a fierce defiance. Jason Todd.
And another, small, slightly arched, of smooth grey-brown speckled granite. Regret and sorrow and wishing.
There is no name on this one, but Danny knows it is his.
This is the centre of the place of home.
How…?
The stone has no name, but it does have words. Beloved son and brother.
Whose headstone is this, and why is it his?
There are roses, yellow and orange and just beginning to wilt, in a square stone vase. There are two candle lanterns, slightly smoke-stained. One has a robin redbreast painted on it; the other is etched with lilies. There is a small scattering of pebbles of different colours and shapes on the top of the stone. At its foot, a larger pebble holds down a thick piece of paper, damp and ink spread from a recent rain, but still identifiable as a skilled drawing of a dog and a cat curled around one another.
Prayers for peace, for protection, for a safe journey. Wishes that things had been better. Quiet assurances of love.
For Danny.
He kneels at his own impossible grave, worlds away from where he lived and died, and lets himself cry.
He’s home.
If Danny enters through the Lazarus pits, then that means Ra’s (and thus Talia) are aware of him and Talia then informs Bruce. Or maybe Danny’s entrance causes some sort of ripple effect and Constantine becomes aware of it and tries to track this phenomenon only to surprisingly end up in the Wayne’s manor. Or Constantine was just visiting when he felt a presence (obviously informing Bruce as soon as he feels it), however, unlike his usual brand of otherworldly beings, this presence felt at home. When he saw that it was over the grave he informed Bruce that whatever it was, belonged to one of those graves which causes Bruce to have an internal panic. This ghost could either be one of his parents, or possibly his dead son (not Jason, he’s technically alive). And so Bruce and possibly the other batfamily members try to talk to the ghost.
Meanwhile, Danny had heard someone coming and instinctively turned invisible/intangible. When he eavesdropped on their conversation, he realized that this trenchcoat guy could see him (and also smelled of death, alcohol, and for some reason, peppermint soda.) when the other guys came over, Danny tensed until he started talking to the graves. Freaked out, Danny bolts. (Basically the idea is that somehow, they become aware that someone is at the graves, either they know it’s Danny or they know it’s one of the people buried there). Danny then tries to avoid the grave and the mansion but then he starts hearing voices.
Maybe after he left, Bruce did research and found out from Talia that there was a…complication…with the Lazarus pit (either Danny came out normally or he literally inturupted one of the five years sacrifices.) Anyways, Bruce learns that the ghost of his son came back, or at least, something that resembled Damian (Constantine could theorize that the ghost could be mimicking Damian’s form, could have ‘grown up’ in the infinite realms, or just gained more power and his form naturally evolved or something like that.) and so now the bats are pretty sure that the nameless brother is the one who visited the grave so they start visiting it more often. After that first meeting where Danny bolted, they wonder if they had scared the spirit off, Constantine had been unable to sense him since (maybe when Constantine leaves, he sets charms/wards that would alert him if the ghost came back). Anyways, the bats start talking to the grave.
Every time one of the bats speaks to the grave, Danny can hear it. He was able to get vague messages before because people barely spoke to the grave and he was a whole dimension away. So usually he only got messages when backed by powerful spells. Now though, he was in the same dimension and people were talking to his grave almost daily. Danny grew to know a lot about the Wayne’s that most people would kill for. Like the fact that they are vigilantes, inner secrets, gossip, Alfred’s secret cookie recipe that the other Waynes would kill for, and so his curiosity started to grow and eventually, Danny made his way back.
The first time he came back and the wards lit up, everyone in the batfamily got the alert and while they all wanted to rush back, they didn’t want to scare him off again. For all they knew, the nameless brother was still mentally 3 years old. However, when Danny came back, someone was already talking. Jason Todd was just explaining his most recent fixation on a book and complaining about Bruce when the wards went off. He had to hold back a smile but was also having a mini panic attack on what was he suppose to do before continuing like nothing happened. Now knowing he had an audience, he started exaggerating everything, trying to make the conversation more entertaining. Maybe Danny even does something like laugh. It’s going great until Damian suddenly bursts in, running up to the grave. Danny is so shocked by this lookalike that he bolts again. (Possibly a small argument between Damian and Jason.)
Now that Damian realized how wrong the league was, he wanted this chance to get to know his brother. Meanwhile this is a turning point for Danny who tries to visit the Waynes more and learn more about them. So he shows up at the grave more and more. He’s still wary of Damian but is very curious about him. Danny stars to do little things like blow a soft breeze into whoever’s talking to let them know he’s there or if he’s amused by something. They start leaving offerings and, hey, these are really good food/cookies and he’s basically homeless right now so he is absolutely taking them. (They realize the ghost prefers food offerings so they (especially Alfred) start leaving more and more. Danny never comes where Damian is but does accept his offerings). And Danny reacts to thing they do. Sometimes, of they’re lucky, they might hear a laugh.
Danny also starts visiting them on patrol and occasionally helping out. Tripping a bad guy here, dropping a bag on another there, jamming guns with ice, or drawing the bats’s attention to something important by tugging on their capes. It’s like they have their own guardian angel. And then one day, Damian’s life is in danger and Danny uses a bit more of his powers than usual to save him. Maybe like a building could be falling on Robin and Danny holds up an ecto shield to protect him. Damian stares in awe at the glowing green shield and then either they wait for the bats to dig him out or Danny could literally touch him (and it’s weird for Damian to feel a cold hand wrap around his arm but not see it) and Danny phases the boy through the rubble. Maybe there was also a fire/explosion that was going to happen. The shield might protect Damian from the blast and the collapsing building. Afterwards, Danny sticks by the boy to make sure he’s alright (which he is besides a few scratches much to his family’s relief. Maybe Jason also gets flashbacks to a building exploding. (Maybe Bruce too). And so Danny is there when Damian goes to the grave. And Damian says something that shocks him.
“Why did you save me?…I though you hated me?”
And Danny is completely stunned as Damian goes on to say how he understood why his brother would hate him. That he was killed by the league and how he didn’t do anything. How he even agreed with them for most of his life. How he didn’t expect Danny’s forgiveness when he was a failure as a brother, he would avoid him too. And Danny is panicking because yes, he’d been avoiding Damian but it was just because he was in a new environment and seeing is own face was disconcerting. He hadn’t even thought about what that probably seemed like to his brother (and he was still getting used to the idea that he had a brother). Danny needed to fix this. He had to fix this now. Damian was crying. And from everything he knew about the kid so far, that was something he never did. Eventually Danny just started looking at the ground that was still wet from rain earlier that day and started writing in the mud.
<Don’t cry. I don’t hate you.>
And the two brothers have an emotional conversation for the first time. (So, what do you think of the idea of Danny being selectively mute? Like after losing his home, friends, and family, he just stops talking. And now, even if he wants to talk his throat just closes up which is why he didn’t just appear in front of Damian. It probably wouldn’t help if he suddenly became visible but still didn’t talk to Damian. Danny and Cass could bond later with her teaching him sign language). but Anyways, back to the emotions. Danny channels his inner Jazz and does everything he can to reassure his brother that he doesn’t hate him, he’s sorry for avoiding him, and he would really like to get to know him better.
Damian is still crying (and Alfred the cat and maybe Titus had made an apearance at some point after hearing the boy’s cries and were now acting as therapy animals and snuggling against him) Damian is still questioning his worth. That it shouldn’t have been like this. Danny shouldn’t have died so young. He didn’t even have a name. And Danny, realizing the blank gravestone and the fact that he never introduced himself decides to correct this mistake.
<Hello Damian, my name is Danny.>
From that point on, Danny starts taking a more active role in the family. He also basically moves into the manor. Kinda ‘haunting’ the place. He helps people find lost items, helps Alfred in the kitchen (ironic that the only person allowed in the kitchen is an invisible flying entity. Lots of self opening cabinets and floating ingredients.) and even helps in prank wars. Occasionally, the Waynes start to get a glimpse of a boy looking exactly like Damian but with snow white hair flowing in an invisible breeze, and glowing Lazarus green eyes. The first time it happened, someone sees him sitting on the nameless grave (something that might have Danny painted on it now. Likely an art project the whole family participated in with various drawings accompanying it like flowers, stars, planets, and the bat logo. (Jason added the Harry Potter lighting bolt because he thinks he’s funny. Danny found it hilarious though and prevented anyone else from washing it off so it stayed.) but anyways, someone, likely Tim, sees a glimpse of the glowing teenager on his way past the grave (Tim is also the only one who brings Danny coffee as offerings so currently, he’s tied as favorite person along with Damian). And after noticing the other, Danny ‘disappears’. So either Tim decides that he’s too sleep deprived for this or in his current mindset, after seeing the glowing teenager, Tim takes out his phone and snaps a picture which is what alerted Danny. (The image is likely distorted or just blurry because Tim was not holding it steady. Or it was good but he would completely forget he has it).
Soon though, Danny started showing up in front of others. It was always just a glimpse but they would see him in the hall, or petting one of the animals, or sitting by his grave. They collectively decided to not say anything about it. (Also, maybe Duke could see Danny in his ghost form this entire time. He just never brought it up until the others mentioned they couldn’t see him?)
Meanwhile, the league of assassins are convinced that this spirit is bent on revenge. So they decide to strike first. (What about a team up between the league of assassins and the court of owls?) and track Danny down to either somewhere in the city or to Wayne manor to try and capture him. Everyone is under the assumption that Danny is a simple ghost who probably can’t fight back/affect the living world much. And that he is either easy to capture or needs protection. They are very wrong. :)
