You guys know those AUs where Damian and Danny are twins, know about each other, and prank the Batfamily by switching places?
Or maybe they pretend that Danny was always there, and "how could you forget about your other son/brother?! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" deal?
Well
What if Danny couldn't stay in Amity anymore? What if he was forced to leave everything behind, leaving a family that he knew he loved, but couldn't say for sure they loved him back?
His twin was his last option, the first family that left him behind.
It was with delight that he found out that he had changed. The whole family was cautious at first, but quickly warmed up to him, and so did Danny.
He gave up the hero life, hoping to finally finish school and try to achieve his dream of becoming an astronaut!
And then, one morning, he woke up with everybody staring at him in the living room.
He looked around, confused.
"Morning?"
"...morning?" Tim answered him cautiouslly. Bruce stepped forward.
"Excuse me, could I ask you as to why you are in our house?"
Danny looked around in confusion.
"Shouldn't I be here? You've all been gone for a mission the past week, if you needed me somewhere, you've could've texted me dad"
Bruce's mouth thinned in a line and the silence stretches enough for Danny to understand.
"Oh... You don't..."
It's an awful sensation to suddenly feel your throat tighten up.
"You told me it was a timeline issue, you don't... "
And just like that, Danny found his third family leaving him behind.
Or
Due to the time amulet, Danny wasn't affected by the timeline rewrite, keeping all of his memories, while being forgotten by everybody else.
Most know behind the mask Batman is as human as he can be, but with the mask he is known to be scary like the boogeyman like from the myths.
Even in the justice league when they first met Batman himself. The bat didn't feel... human. Of course there were the theories of him being an entity of darkness, a dracula, an immortal, or like a spirit of vengeance. But when most the justice league actually gets to know him a little, they find that he is in fact just a human, a super human.
And yet at times Batman feels off. So that thought really lingers. What makes Batman not human?
...
No one really knows this but Bruce has a younger brother. Young and fragile since birth, so he doesn't go out as often. Daniel or what he likes to be called Danny, never had his social debut since their parents died when he was but a year old. Danny himself is pretty awkward and didn't really like meeting other people. In fact he tends to avoid social interaction, in a way he is the ghost of the Wayne family since there are a few rumors about him.
When Bruce went on his journey for his vengeance, Danny although unwilling was also kidnapped for his own journey by a mech like hunter. Chasing and hunting for his pelt in a mirror world of Gotham. It didn't really end there since he ended up going to a lot of doors like portal sending him to places where he more or less gets hunted like sports. In the end he gets his halfa status, meets a lot of beings with high positions greeting him like an old friend.
Really at this point Danny was just tired and confused, like what do you mean beating each other up is as common as saying "hi".
At some point Danny found his way back and Batman found him in an awkward position. Misunderstanding happens and when Danny realizes his brother's other identity, he reflects and comes to a conclusion that he really is too tired.
At first he really worries that his brother is getting into some shady stuff. Who wouldn't? Angsty teenage years, college dropout, and his brother disappeared without a word. Now every time he sees his brother there is always a new bruise or a broken limb.
Danny worries a lot and then he finds out that his brother is Batman...wow
No words there, he hasn't had any real rest since his whole dimensional kidnapping. So he decided that in order to lessen his worries and have that nap that was overdue, he became the Shadow of his brother.
Let Bruce stress out, it's his turn to willingly disappear on him. Visually.
He'll wake up in a decade or so.
...
So did that answer the question.
What makes Batman not human?
Simple it's his shadow that amplifies his whole vibe. Batman feels other worldly because his shadow is just that but no one has connected that yet.
Meanwhile Danny is having the best sleep ever while unconsciously protecting his brother.
Danny comes to possess an amulet like Dorothea’s. Unfortunately, dragon blood comes from his fathers side of the family and being half ghost and in possession of the magic amulet reignites the dormant dragon blood in him turning him into a very real, very half dead dragon.
Right in front of his family.
Even taking off the amulet doesn’t reverse it.
Unfortunately now being both human, ghost and a dragon sets his emotions off which then make his powers go haywire.
Danny fears their reaction and flees into the ghost zone. Only for his powers to get stronger there and for the realms themselves to spit him out into the first dimension that could handle him.
He lands in Gotham, disoriented, lost and afraid. Of course it’s not Gotham unless someone nefarious gets their hands on him.
Months later a new drug hits the market called dragons fury. It enhances a person's magical capabilities and carries a great high but comes with many unpredictable and volatile drawbacks.
Batman and Robin team up with Constantine after finding out that the drug is made with actual dragon's blood. Given the fact that a dragon hasn’t been spotted in the world in a few centuries and each one that had is very powerful. It shouldnt be in drug dealers hands, even if it’s just the blood and not an actual dragon.
Batman and John are speaking to Commissioner Gordon one night while Robin(Damien) patrols close by. Damien comes apon a drug deal and goes to intercept when he notices the target drug being exchanged. Unfortunately the dealer in a magic user and knocks Damien out. Instead of being smart and leaving the user takes Damien back to where they are operating thinking they can use him as leverage.
Damien is somewhat awake by the time he’s being dragged inside a forgotten building and the arguing about what to do with him begins. He can’t get his body to move just yet due to what the magic user used on him and he’s only barely starting to get his feeling back when the group decides what to do with him.
They decided to feed him to the dragon. Confirming the existence of an actual dragon.
Damien is tossed into a concrete cell in the basement of the building. It’s dark and he can’t move to turn on night vision in his mask. yet he can just make out the shape of the walls and the door and the man standing in the way of the dim light coming from the hall behind him. Shadows cover the man’s face obscuring his identity.
The dark and shadows don’t conceal the sound of snapping leather or deep bellowing growls. The sound like a crocodile bellowing mixed with the vicious snarl of a big predatory cat.
From the ceiling drops a dark mass. Body fluid yet coiled and stiff, ready to snap and attack. Not at the prone body laying behind it but the much larger one standing at the door. Teeth barred and poised to attack. Leathery wings spread as far as they could in the tiny cell.
The door slams shut when the long and fluid body lunges. Leaving the beast to slam its weight against it, clawing and snarling before settling with a snort of air. Folding its large wings behind its long body.
It’s hard to see now with the room in almost complete darkness. Light coming through the cracks between the door and its clawed at and scratched frame. That darkness does nothing to hide when the animal turns its attention to Damien.
Wide, toxic green eyes with vertical pupils land on him, if the magic wasn’t still freezing him then those dangerous eyes may have.
Its body moves like a ribbon flowing through the wind. Fluid, smooth and elegant. Scales darker than the room are nestled in fur equally as dark, only broken up by a mane of shockingly white fur that trails down its long neck, between alternating shoulder blades and down the dragon's long body, ending in a puff of fur at the end of its whip-like tail.
It stops in front of Damien lowering its narrow head close to his. Cold breath ghosts over him along with strong whiskers.
Dangerously close yet it doesn’t attack. Instead the dragon seems to check him over for a moment before settling next to him. Putting itself between Damien and the door.
The dragon wasn’t going to attack him it seemed, now all he had to do was wait till he could move so he can escape with his newly acquired friend.
Rumors have it that the Wayne family has a second son. The day Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne died on that alleyway, they didn't just leave their 8 year old son Bruce Wayne but also their toddler who is no more than 12 months and a half.
The two brothers grew up under the care of Alfred pennyworth, their butler. With the age gap and the recent trauma of his parents death, Bruce grows a bit distant with his baby brother with the goal of vengeance in mind. On the other hand, the younger brother - Daniel Wayne- desperately seeks his brother's attention.
Daniel was a toddler in the care of a nanny while his parents and brother went out that day. He grew up timid and avoided public places, he is mostly in his room on bad days and on good days he wanders around the manor for adventures. The only people he talks comfortably to are Alfred and sometimes his brother when his not in a bad mood. He has the habit of avoiding people like their plague and so at a tender age he had mastered the arts of redirection of the human eye.
Back then Alfred wasn't the only worker in the Wayne Manor, there were multiple people. The Manor has a lot of employees but the only people who got to see the second son are Alfred and the Nanny. Everyone knows there is a second son but no one has seen them, thus Danny has only become a rumor between employees.
Bruce at times would play little pranks of his brother, like that one time at the library he briefly left his 5 year old brother's side when a maid stumbles in to check in on the noise. Danny was frozen in stiff while Bruce was hiding and observing...
The very next day, adding to the rumors that the Wayne Manor is hunted.
The fire grows each time it spreads and soon people start to retire which adds more fire to the rumors that people go missing in the manor because of how fast employees disappear with no explanation.
A lot of employees had reported to have seen a short figure running around dark corners, and sometimes they would feel its piercing eye staring at the back of their head. That they always feel that unsettling chill like they weren't alone when they are doing their work. Sometimes they would hear the grand piano playing one key at a time and when someone checks no one was there. One time a maid had gone crazy because there are always scribbles in random places, she stated the ghost was summoning demons.
Now the head butler, who is Alfred wasn't pleased with the fast rate of retirement of employees but he was also not impressed by the one who caused it.
By the time Danny was a pre-teen there were barely any employees working at the Wayne manor except Alfred. The outside world Knew nothing about the second son of the Wayne family, just that there were faint rumors that by the time Bruce Wayne the play boy came to light the news about Danny became almost non-existent.
If you’re looking for something to draw, I would be honored if one of these Cursed King ideas inspires you. If not, then please accept this ask as just a compliment! I love your art so much, the colors always brighten my dash 🎇🎨🎆
….There was a specific vision when drawing this, but I dont think I managed to relay it much— for instance, I kinda wanted to add the ‘blood’ like my Ghost hunger fanart. But then it just looked too much. So Im doing the “less is more”
Uhh.. I hope you like it?
And thanks too~!!! Im glad my work can brighten your day ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧
By the way, for those who are seeing this, the prompt link is alr in the ask it self, just click the one that is underlined. Now… time to ramble—
DUDE, THE PROMPT IS JUST… CHEFS KISS*** Im not a fan of angst, but like, this can just be the right amount to make it bittersweet and still have a happy end? (This is my delusion. Im a sucker for happy endings, so shush) . So here's my take on the prompt DoM route;
So the idea here is as such;
Danny had ruled the Infinite realms for about three years now, and things.. hasn't really been going smoothly to say the least.
He had frozen the court room as an attempt to run away for a bit of reprieve after a disastrous hearing. He know he would get into trouble for it later. But what are they gonna do about it? challenge him?
He would like to see them try.
He float away aimlessly, without a specific place in mind. But what he didn't expect was to find a newly formed ghost trying to desperately... do something? Danny flew closer.
The new ghost, Robin. seemed to be a teen vigilante who died on the job. and Danny... felt a bit sorry for the kid who was not much younger then him.
Danny and Robin began talking, first was just weekly meetings in between court sessions. Then it became a a daily thing before Robin just became a Constance in Danny's life— well, un life?
The eyeballs tried to object at first, but they soon saw the benefits of making Robin his knight.
Robin's form also slowly morph, from a tiny kid wearing tethered clothes, to a sturdy armor fitting for a royal knight.
The change hadn't been sudden, it was gradual as the years flew by. And by the time the one century mark had arrived.
Danny's knight had disappeared,
There wasn't any indication or anything, he was there at one moment, and just 'POOFED' at the next.
The hell that Danny raise that day was monumental, some of the observers were harmed and even clockwork had to interfere by telling his king that his knight was still there. Just missplaced.
Hearing that, Danny immediately set off, ignoring the warnings everyone close to him shouted, the pain that grew on his head and the weight that dragged him down.
Superman is Danny's honorary older brother DC X DP - Part 3
Previous Part
The Conversation. P2
“How did you meet your clone?”
“What?” He turned his face to peek back at Danny. “Don’t you know that already?”
“I’ve heard everyone else's recounting of it. I wanna hear yours.”
Clark felt his tongue go heavy in his mouth, and he returned his sight to the floor. He had tried not to think about it. Not that that had been any successful, his mind kept circling back to it, but he had tried nonetheless. Silence stretched between them and Clark felt ridiculous for not starting to talk. It’s not like it had really been a big event. Nothing had happened to Clark. All he did was meet a kid.
And still, that small meeting had been the start of Clark's restless anxiety, cold anger, and consuming shame that had weighed on him for over a month now.
“Hey, if you don’t want to talk about it-”
“No. Um… I will, I just…”
Clark let out a long breath, and stood to his feet walking slowly to the front wall and eventually laying his back on it to face Danny. He hoped the motion would at least kick his mouth into motion, but the words remained stubbornly trapped.
Danny just looked at him patiently, without offering a second out, because that’s how they talked through things. Because they had agreed long ago that once an out had been denied, offering to drop the subject again would only stress them out.
Clark looked back at the window. From this angle he could see the moon. It wasn’t a full moon, it was in its waxing gibbous phase. The outside was completely dark at this point, with few lights on like Danny's and Clarks. It was a shame Clark could see the hints of clouds approaching. It would likely start raining soon.
He swallowed. “The league had been keeping an eye on project Cadmus for 32 days.” He started like he did with any other mission debrief in the league, eyes focussed on that moon that was slowly getting hidden by the clouds. It made it easier to talk. “Almost everything that Lex Luthor is involved in is kept under supervision, since it often develops into plans to harm metahumans.”
“Often you specifically.” Danny added.
Clark nodded. “That day, a fire at project Cadmus went unchecked in order to prioritize a JLD call about an incident involving Wotan which required full league response.”
“Oh, it's rare for Justice Dark to want heavy hitters around enemies with mind control.”
“Yeah.” Clark huffed through his nose.
It was clear Danny had caught up with his attempt of separating himself, and was trying to make it more conversational by adding his own comments. It was fair game, as Clark did the same when Danny tried to do it, but it was still annoying.
“Batman received the alert that Project Cadmus building had collapsed, and discovered that Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad were there. Most of the Justice league was already reunited to deal with Wotan, and Project Cadmus was something we had to check. It was decided that in order to resolve any collateral damage of the collapsed building, deal with anything that would be uncovered, and reprehend the young heroes, everyone available would go to Project Cadmus.”
“So basically trying to intimidate the kids into behaving using the excuse of the collapsed building.” Danny quipped.
Clark didn’t answer this time. In the end all the context hadn’t been anything more than more delayment for the actual meeting. He had been doing that a lot lately, delaying and avoiding.
“I arrived first. A kid that later would be identified as my clone, stepped forward and he...” He passes his hands through his hair, Every attempt at separating himself fell to the ground when it really came to it. “It was like looking at a picture of myself as a teen, just a little to the left. And Danny, the kid looked at me with so much yearning, like he’s been waiting all his life to meet me, and thinking about it he probably has.”
“How did you answer to that?”
“I didn’t. I couldn't. Our similarities were eerie and I couldn’t tell you what my face did, but I remember my jaw tightening, and the boy's face quickly falling into anger. I missed most of the kids' debriefs after he confirmed he was my clone.”
“Okay… what happened after that?”
Clark is still having a hard time grasping how calm Danny remains about it all. If he didn’t know all of Danny’s tales, he would think he was simply holding back his anger.
“Well, a building had collapsed, and an illegal project had been uncovered, there wasn’t really a lack of ways to excuse myself. So I left the kids to Batman and… made sure to give my back to the kids while I discussed things with Wonder Women and Martian Manhunter.”
“So that you didn't have to interact with the boy or so that you wouldn’t have to look at him?”
“Both… I could feel the boy staring at me the whole time, and I tried really hard to pretend I didn't. I was hoping that somehow, someway, I would be able to get through the whole debrief without having to acknowledge him again. But I couldn't keep it up when Martian Manhunter pointed it out, so I went to the kid.”
“And I'm guessing that conversation didn't go too well?”
“I tried to think of something to tell him, talk to him like I would with any other kid we’d find involved in illegal business, but, and I know how bad this sounds Danny, but I really couldn’t bear to look at him. I managed to briefly tell him the Justice League would figure something for him and ended up scurrying away to the watchtower.” Clark finished lamely.
He really felt stupid. Almost 10 minutes hyping himself up to talk about such a small thing, and yet he isn't sure he would do it a second time.
“I think you managed it pretty well, actually.” Danny said almost nonchalantly after a couple of seconds.
Clark's eyes snapped back to Danny from the window. Danny wasn’t looking back at Clark, eyes stuck somewhere in front of him in a thoughtful frown.
“What?”
“I mean, it's not like you screamed at the kid or attacked him. You even let him know he wouldn't be left to fend for himself.” His eyes drifted to look up at Clark.
“You’re giving me too much credit.” Clark said, feeling a bit numb. “I just threw him at the Justice League and then kept avoiding the boy from then on.”
Clark had heard the complaint a thousand times, from Bruce, from Diana, from Arthur, from Barry, even from Dick that one time the kid came to visit for the first time after their Young Justice group was created.
“I’m not saying the boy doesn’t deserve better Clark, or that you managed it perfectly, just that it could have been worse.”
Clark kept staring at Danny “I may not know how things were for Ellie and you, but I won’t believe you if you tell me you reacted worse Danny. Ellie has said that the day she met you was a pretty fun one before.”
Danny made an exasperated grunt. “Can you stop searching for a correct way to react in my own story? The circumstances in which we met our clones were completely different, Clark.”
Clark frowned. “I don’t think different circumstances would affect that much-”
“I didn't know Ellie was my clone when I met her.” Danny deadpanned, making Clark pause. “Ellie appeared in my room one afternoon claiming to be my third cousin once removed, and that she had run away from home. My parents said Vlad found her roaming around and had already talked to her father, supposedly a cousin my dad hadn’t met.”
“And they… believed him?”
Danny shrugged, “You know how even to this day my dad trusts anything Vlad says unconditionally.”
Clark sighted. “Right.” He had a lot of problems with Danny’s parents and wished he had cut them off from his life completely but… that wasn’t Clark's choice to make. They’ve had a few fights about that. “So Ellie just pretended to be your cousin and you weren’t suspicious about it?”
“Oh, I was a thousand percent suspicious… and worried, but not about her being my cousin." Danny peeked up at the portrait for a minute, then look down at where his hand started playing with his sleeve, searching for words. "My dad’s side of the family has always liked to joke that their genes were the strongest, and with her being a girl and four years younger, I didn’t immediately suspect clones. Not sure I would have suspected clones even if she had been my same gender and age, that simply was not within the realms of possibilities for me.”
“Then what were you suspicious of?” Clark asked with a frown.
“I honestly didn’t know, just that she may be up to something shady? Maybe getting something out of my parents lab? I didn’t think it could be more than that, she was ten, and as far as I knew at that point, just a normal little kid. But Vlad was the one that vouched for her, and that man wasn’t beneath using little kids.”
Danny brought his legs up to hug them and glared at the floor. It was the first time he had shown the conversation was difficult for him as well, not just because words were hard, but because the subject hurt, and Clark felt bad about opening old scars.
He opened his mouth to tell Danny that it wasn’t necessary to talk about it if he didn’t want to, that he could figure out this whole cloning situation without making Danny unearth memories he’d long buried, but before he could, Danny slightly raised a hand with one finger up, asking him to just wait him up.
Danny’s comment about him and Ellie never really dwelling on their own experiences lingered in Clark’s mind. It made Clark wonder whether Danny had ever had the chance to tell his cloning story to someone who would listen patiently. Whether he had carried this alone for years, and whether this was the first time he had spoken about it at all.
Sure, Jazz had helped Ellie and Danny sort out boundaries and communication, but that didn’t mean they’d ever talked about the experience itself. It was a pattern he’d noticed often with the Phantom Team: They rarely really talk about the things that have happened. It wasn’t really necessary when everyone was present enough to know the gist of it, present enough to make inside jokes about it, so why talk it out?
Clark had become an outside person Danny could talk to about his hero work, just like Danny had been for him, but they never really dwelled on the past either, did they? Just on the new things that happened. And maybe, opening up about this was not only for Clark's sake, but for Danny’s too.
By the time Danny started talking again, the first droplets were falling against their window, moon and stars fully covered by dark clouds.
“I kept trying to find evidence that Vlad was using her for something, but I thought I had found it all when the second week of her staying with us Ellie transformed to help during one of my battles with the new ghosts that were appearing. To say I was absolutely horrified would be an understatement.”
“...You thought Vlad had killed her.”
Danny nodded slowly, glaring harder at the floor. “And Ellie leaned into it. Made up some story about Vlad offering shelter, that turning into her getting invited into the lab, and Vlad killing her with the portal. According to Ellie, the man found out it wasn’t enough to have any halfa because he wanted me specifically. She managed to escape and get to their home, and to cover his tracks Vlad made up the whole thing with her parents.”
Clark stared at Danny appalled. He knew how sensitive death was for Danny, how important it was for him. It was hard to imagine the Ellie that he knew would make up a death story to… cover her origins? Especially as a neverborn. Clark will not pretend to understand the intricacies of the infinite realm's culture, but he knows that death-borns find it extremely offensive for neverborn to speak freely about the experience of death, something most neverborns are conscient about.
Danny peeked up at Clark from the floor after a moment of silence, and Clark’s face must be reflecting just how he feels, as Danny huffs a humorless laugh.
“Yeah, even to this day I still get mad thinking about how she made that all up, but she didn’t exactly understand the depths of what she was saying, and has apologized for that since.”
“That’s good…” He said, still feeling uncomfortable with the idea Ellie had done that. “But then when did you find out about her being your clone?”
“I’m going there.” He said, rolling his eyes at Clark's impatience. “After that “reveal” I became extremely protective of Ellie, and she kept integrating in our lives. She met my friends, sometimes sneaked into school, went with us to Nasty Burger and sometimes fought ghosts with me. It wasn’t until a month later that Vlad attacked us and this “perfect” routine fell to the ground.”
“Did he try to take Ellie back?”
Danny shook his head. “He came with the objective of capturing me. By that point I completely trusted Ellie to fight beside me, so I didn’t see it coming when she blasted me in the back.”
“She did what?” Clark exclaimed.
“It turned out that had been the plan all along, Ellie had been gaining my trust to be able to easily capture me.” Danny shrugged like Ellie betraying him wasn’t a big deal. Like being blasted by someone you were becoming close to wasn't a big deal.
He hated how easily Danny accepted that loved ones could attack him, another thing Jack and Maddie had accustomed him to. He resisted the urge of redirecting the conversation into addressing that, it would be an easy scape from the whole clone thing... something Clark still desperately wanted to drop, but that wouldn't be fair for Danny.
“So it was then that you discovered she was your clone?”
“I mean, not during that battle, no. Vlad revealed it while I was trapped in one of his restraint inventions. You know, during his great villain monologue. Not only was it revealed that Ellie was my clone, but that pretty much all of the “new” ghosts that had been attacking those months were failed attempts at cloning me.”
Clark shifted uncomfortably. Attempts at cloning. He hadn’t thought about that yet. Cloning couldn’t be easy. How many attempts were made before the "successful" clone he met was achieved? He shook the thought out of his head to focus back on Danny’s story.
“So how did you react then? To the whole clone revelation?”
“Well, I told Vlad he was a crazed up fruitloop, but I didn’t exactly have the time to have much of a reaction besides that before Vlad knocked me out again”
“So you didn’t say anything to Ellie?”
“She wasn’t around for the great reveal, and…” Danny munched on his words for a moment, and then sighted. “Look, I don’t want to get into detail, but a lot happened that day, there wasn’t really time to actually process the clone thing. I did what all heroes do when experiencing traumatic things but still having to be a hero.”
“Placed it in a mental box to deal with later?" Danny nodded. "You were too busy with Vlad to actually have a reaction about the clones.” Clark said, realizing what Danny meant with how different their circumstances were.
“Yep," Danny said popping the p. "By the end of the day Ellie accepted Vlad didn’t care about her, and we both escaped with my friend's help, but once we were back home we didn’t really talk things out, Ellie said she needed space and told my parents she was ready to return home.”
Clark frowned. “Wait. If she didn’t stay with you, and wouldn’t go back with Vlad, where did she go? Didn’t you say she was 10 at the time?”
Danny nodded and grimaced. “She basically wandered from city to city as a street kid, and if I’m honest to you Clark, I didn’t really question it until the second time she came back around, when I gave her a way to communicate and Sam made me the enormous flavour of using her funds to sustain her while I got my own.”
“How long did Ellie wonder alone before that happened?” Clark questioned worriedly.
He hated the image of 10 year old Ellie fending for herself in the streets. Ellie had moved into his apartment not long after Danny did. He had assumed she had been living with Danny's parents up till then... He had assumed a lot of things about his siblings past.
If Ellie was used to roaming the world by herself from such a young age, it made sense she decided to pick up the travelling once more the moment she turned 18.
“Almost three months, and I know it isn’t great to have a 10 year old out and about. Trust me, I’m not proud of that.” Danny said resigned with the past he couldn’t change.
Clark quickly shook his head, he hadn’t meant for it to be accusatory. “You were a child, there wasn’t much-”
“I know. It doesn’t change that I wished it had been different.” Danny said calmly. “But you see how we had completely different circumstances now don’t you? You can’t base your reaction on mine Clark. You didn’t know this boy before discovering he was your clone, you have no relation with him other than the fact he has your genetic material, and you didn’t have some big fight happening that allowed you to just pack everything in a box while you worked together with him to get out of the situation.”
“I… Okay, yeah, you're right. I can see how our circumstances would give us space for different reactions”
Clark sighted. It was uncomfortable to have how different it went for the both of them placed so plainly in front of him. In a way he was thinking of Danny and Ellie as a clear marking about how it all should go. He isn’t sure how he thought that, when he basically didn’t know anything about how they constructed their present relationship as siblings.
Clark looked back at the window. The rain was still going strong and Clark let his mind get lost in the sound of water falling. He knew there was a lot of his story that Danny wasn’t telling him, but Clark wasn’t about to dig for more than Danny was willing to share. He was not interviewing Danny, this was just a conversation between siblings.
It was also apparent that Danny wasn’t going to judge his reaction to his clone, even more willing to excuse it than Clark himself. After months of anxious fear for Danny’s reaction the real conversation was relieving but it also left Clark feeling somewhat numb, and he wasn’t sure where to take the conversation from there.
He actually wished they could drop it there, and with the silence growing, he actually thought Danny had decided the same. Except, when he turned to look at his little brother, he realized Danny was just waiting him out.
Okay so another dpxdc, Danny is Bruce’s younger cousin. Through Maddie, on his mother’s side. He’s about 5 years younger than Bruce, so Bruce had just left on his training montage journey when Danny went in the portal. Technically, Phantom ends up being on of the first vigilantes on the scene.
Years later, Danny, ID untold to everyone but his team, Jazz, and Valerie, figures he should reconnect with family, since he went awol for a while doing ghost duty stuff.
He quite literally drops in at Bruce’s house, and wow yeah now he remembers why Vlad’s flaunting paired with his horrible taste in everything always had him unimpressed, besides the obvious of course. And Bruce has adopted a kid. Huh. Feisty little guy.
Danny does try to keep in more contact after that, but still ends up dropping in sporadically throughout the years.
Featuring: At one point after Jason gets back from the League, Danny just straight up grabs him and dips. He never actually met Jason when he was living with Bruce, so he doesn’t even realize that a) this is his, they’re going with the term nephew. And b) that Bruce is now looking for his un-dead estrangled son. Danny is going to get this strangely not-dead child some medical attention.
With treatment and explanations actually going strangely smoothly, and Jason set up for actually scheduled doctor appointments, Danny takes him back to the mortal world and offers to take him all the way home. Jason accepts, and Danny is faced with the realization that he kidnapped his nephew when he watches invisibly as Jason walks up to his cousin’s house and immediately gets tackled by a sobbing Dick and Bruce’s newest kid Tim.
Later on in the plot, Bruce does end up going through time and Tim gets estrangled from the family and goes searching for him. He’s midway through his plan when his Uncle Danny shows up by literally picking him up by his jacket, and they both end up staring at each other directly outside of the League of Assassins’ base, Tim breaking out and Danny breaking in.
Technically, Tim is the first one to find out who Danny is. Jason knows that he’s half-ghost and all that, but Tim is the one that gets to go collect the Infini-Map from the yetis and go on a jaunt through time and space to find Bruce, so he’s the only one so far that puts together that Danny is a strangely big deal in the infinite realms.
DP x DC Prompt (picked up AC Black Flag, the sea shanties inspired me for this one)
The entire DC world knows of the historical figure known as Captain Nightingale. The youngest pirate captain to ever live, as the stories tell that he was just a teenager when he began to earn the respect of adult piretes with his combat skills and his magic. Captain Nightingale had the largest navy to exist during the time of his reign.
Captain Nightingale was a boy who had pure white hair and tanned skin. His pirate outfit was mostly black with white accents and an amulet around his neck that is said to guide him to whatever he desires, yet the hear didn't seem to bother him. And he remained looking like a teenage boy for decades before he just vanished, leaving his ship, his sword, his outfit, and his amulet behind.
The "artifacts" of Captain Nightingale's reign have been scattered in the modern era of the DC world. Ra's Al Ghul has the entire outfit of Captain Nightingale, Ra's Al Ghul himself, has lost many times to the young Captain after it was decided that the pirate Captain would become a problem to them. Lex Luthor is the current owner of Captain Nightingale's ship, having used all of his devious methods to obtain it. Selina Kyle had stolen Captain Nightingale's amulet from a museum across the seas before arriving in Gotham. The Wayne family has the Sword of Captain Nightingale, as it is rumored that the Wayne's of that time were somehow part of Captain Nightingale's crew.
Danny, sent to the DC world on a vacation because of overworking himself on his Ghost King duties, learns about his other vacation as a Pirate Captain through a Lex Luthor funded tour about his ship, the Sagittarius, on display like a trophy.
Danny debates whether he should rally his crew again or remain a normal person. His debate is interrupted by a sticky note appearing on his forehead that reads:
"Try not to kill anyone, My King
C.W."
It looks like Captain Nightingale is going to make a dramatic reappearance into the living world after all.
The Justice League is looking for a mysterious thief that has been stealing the artifacts of Captain Nightingale. They learned of the artifacts going missing through Batman, as Catwoman complained to him about the Amulet of the Pirate Captain she stole was now stolen from her. Then Batman learned from Talia that the outfit of Captain Nightingale was stolen from her father's personal treasury. The sword of Captain Nightingale was just recently stolen from Wayne Manor, and only the ship remains, which Lex Luthor us doing all he can to prevent it from being taken.
The Justice League needs to catch this thief to stop them, as they learned from Constantine that the artifacts could be used in a ritual due to their strong magical affinities.
The Justice League had rushed to Lex Luthor's museum, where they caught the "thief" in the act of stealing the ship of Captain Nightingale. A teenage boy wearing the outfit, which looks to be a perfect fit, of the Captain, sword hanging off the hip of the "thief," and the Amulet glowing brightly while hanging off the neck of the "thief." But it's when the "thief" turns around to face them as he's climbing the ships side that shocks them. It's the spitting image of Captain Nightingale that looks at them.
"Ahoy there, landlubbers! I am ashamed that my personal property has been kept as far apart from each other for so long. Didn't none of you respect others' property?"
The ship began to float as the boy got closer to the steering wheel of the ship.
"I've come to teach you all a lesson for disrespecting the dead, but I won't be doing it alone"
The boy had grabbed the sword from his hip and raised it high.
"Rise from the grave, me hearties!"
The ship of Captain Nightingale began to be filled with undead pirates, all looking at the Justice League. Then, right before the ship had flown away, they all heard the boy, no, Captain Nightingale himself, say:
"It is time to set sail once again! Prepare for the return of Captain Nightingale!"
Danny Fenton is able to see ghosts, at this point its become second nature to see them, and also seeing them and ignoring them when he wasn't around people who knew his secrets.
When his parents got invited into Gotham and they took him with them, he hadn't expected anything exciting. Sure Gotham was known to be crime central, and had several psychos on their own, but it was mostly humans.
There shouldn't have been that many ghosts in Gotham, it was quite far from the nearest gate into the ghost zone. So how was there this many around the same family?
They were clinging to them, like they were trying to claw away at their skin and get inside, wailing lowly while floating around them.
The worst of them was the famous airhead Bruce Wayne. The shadows clung to him, and the ghosts the most vicious, they would wail whenever he laughed, claw at him when he joked and keen when he smiled.
The others weren't much better, the ghosts hovered around them, shifted sometimes from one to the other sibling, but would cry, keen, wail and scream when they moved effortlessly in the crowd around them.
The shadows clung most to the previously pronounced dead second oldest. There was almost a green hazy hugging his entire body, but it felt terribly angry.
The same with the youngest, newest member and only biological son, Damian Wayne. The ghosts around him didn't cling helplessly, they looked like they were trying to slice open his skin with their bare hands and they felt so so angry.
The others were much the same, the ones with the most, the middle children, Timothy Drake and Cassandra Cain. The ghosts weren't as angry, but instead sad and grieving.
The oldest child, Richard Grayson's ghosts were quiet, crying and keening silently while they clutched onto the shadows of his being. Like they were calling out to him, becoming distressed when he couldn't preserve them.
The only ones with basically none, was the new ward of the family Duke Thomas, and the known family friends Barbara Gordon and Stephanie Brown. The shadows were dark, the least with Duke and Stephanie, but the ghosts still lingered.
How was this family still able to laugh this easily. Even normal people should be able to feel this level of vengeful energy. It should feel like the world was pushing in on them, the body turning lethargic even after hours of rest and one's emotions will turn more volatile.
"Danny, you alright?" His father's sudden question brought him back. He tore his eyes away from the family at the center of attention.
"Yea, I'm just gonna go find some more finger food."
He slowly began weaving his way through the room.
there was no way he could just leave them like this, either they were bad guys that needed a good beating, or something horrible was going to happen sooner or later.
Idk, whatever it is, its long, I got carried away.
Danny has lived through many earth cycles(meaning Earth dies off and reforms over and over again). Because he's a halfa, he has to interact with the living world to some extent, meaning hes experienced every single Earth since his own.
In this new Earth, Danny stumbles upon Crime Alley, and buys a big building near the cemetery, and starts fixing it up, just so he has something to do.
During a really bad storm, two street kids are able to sneak in through an unfixed window to escape the rain, only to jump when they realize the building's owner is also in the building. They don't recognize him, and get really nervous, but before they can run, Danny starts fretting over them, pulling towels, and blankets out of his pocket dimension*. The children stand petrified as Danny flies over them, using the towels to dry them off before wrapping them in the blankets and picking them up. Danny moves them further into the building where its safer and further from the windows. He apologizes about not having clothes for them, but he could aquire some if they wanted to. As hes rambling at them he gathers some food and plops it in their laps, its mostly prepackaged stuff. The children are suspicious, but they're not going to turn down warmth and free food. After eating Danny encourages them to sleep, one kid sleeps while the other stays up to make sure nothing bad happens, and after a few hours they switch off. Danny is unbothered by this, and falls asleep in the opposite corner, unphased by the cold. The next morning, the storm has passed, Danny feeds the kids again, and the kids leave.
News travels fast, especially among the street kids, and some kids decide to check out the rumors, some sneaking into the building, others just knocking on the door. Danny always happily welcomes them in, and feeds them, offering them clothes or shoes or jackets or medical supplies/treatment, whatever they need, he gave one girl a kitten plush just because she had called it cute. A few kids test him, they'll break something to see if Danny would get mad, or ask if he wants payment, or they offer him this substance or that. Danny, they quickly find out, is really expressive and easy to read. If they break something, he just laughs about it and makes sure they didn't get hurt before he starts fixing it. But when they offer him payment, or substances, his face just falls, his brows scrunch, and his lips dip like they just shot his puppy, and he very firmly tells them no, his "payment" is them having at least having one form of comfort, be it food, or just a place to get out the rain. And well, the kids believe him.
Danny's building becomes one of their safe havens, if they get hurt or cant find or buy food, they go to him. Once Danny gets the doors and windows all replaced, and get some rooms set up, he even starts letting kids crash there, some kids have to bunch together, since the building isn't finished, but at least they all have a bed. Danny even starts to keeps coloring books and toys around, and even keeps menstrual products in stock in case they're needed.
Most kids don't stay for long, couple hours to a few nights, but some kids, especially the very young ones, have more or less moves into Danny's building, spending most if not all their time there, and Danny just doesn't care, he welcomes them with open arms.
A lot of the time, Danny is working on the building, trying to fix up the other floors to add more bedrooms, but hes also in the kitchen a lot. Once he got the kitchen working, he started cooking actual meals, he still kept prepackaged stuff to send off with the kids or as snacks, but he also made a lot of yummy soups and stews, and pastas, somehow he made veggitables taste good without having to hide them! When he wasing cooking or fixing, he was with the kids, playing games of pretend or patching up injuries, or sewing up torn seems. He very freely used his powers, and would happily fly the kids around, making them giggle loudly, or he'd make ice sculptures of whatever the children wanted, and the ice never melted. If anyone needed him, he'd drop whatever he was doing to go to them, all with a kind smile on his face. It was a feeling none of the children had felt in a long time, if at all, being able to rely on an adult who wanted nothing in return other than their happiness.
Its not that the children didn't think Danny was dangerous, they knew he could be, they'd seen it a few times. The most memorable was when a no name gang was trying to make a name for themselves and tried to break into the building. The children all huddled away from the door, or had run upstairs to hide. At first, Danny tried to talk the men down and convince them to leave, but that obviously didn't work and one of the men pointed a gun at the children. Danny had gone very still, and the room dropped in temperature, Danny's smile, always so warm, contorted into something sinister as his black hair flashed white, and blue eyes slited green. A low growl rumbled, and before the men could react, Danny punched the nearest one in the face, spitting and hissing and crackling as the lights flashed and flickered over head. The men shivered and cowered away, trying to shoot at him, but even as the bullets hit their target, Danny didn't even flinch, until he finally threw the men, a tangle of limbs and blood and stuttered pleas, out of the building with a final horrible screech, followed by the door slamming. Just as fast as the white hair, twisted smile, and green eyes appeared, they faded back into black and blue. Danny turned towards the kids, guilt and worry on his face as he started to apologize if he scared them, but before he could even finish, the kids ran towards him, saying he was so cool, almost as cool as Red Hood!
So yes, they knew, Danny could be scary, but he'd only ever been scary to protect them. That's why the kids made a vow never to mention him to any of the Bats or Birds. Danny was obviously a meta or maybe even from another planet, he was something, but he was good, kind, and he didn't need the Bats or Birds breathing down his neck. There was still a debate going if Red Hood should be told, but it was unanimously decided that no one else could know.
Or: Danny, who has been half alive for Eons at this point, decides to spend some of this Earth cycle refurbishing a random building just as something to do. But the area that building resides in is in crime alley and some kids hide in his building from time to time. He ends up helping the kids until all the street kids decide Danny is good for supplies/a place to sleep. As the building gets more and more complete some of the younger kids, decide to stay with Danny Full/Most of the time. Because Danny is like the only good thing in Crime Alley they kids don't want to tell any of the Bats or Birds because they think they'll scare him away.
*Because Danny has been half alive for literal Eons he just openly uses his powers at this point and doesn't care who sees
*Danny has a bunch of random useful and useless skills because hes been half alive for Eons and had plenty of time to learn
I’ve gotten a WAVE of asks about this AU, so I decided to flesh it out some more and answer some of those questions!
I’ll probably polish this extended summary up at some point and submit it to AO3. But for now, here’s a rundown of my thoughts–please feel free to send more questions! I’ll update this post if I get any more. But if you’re someone who wanted to write fic for it, don’t worry, you don’t need to take my headcanons as gospel. It’s a pretty basic AU honestly lol
Summary:
The portal accident results in a violent explosion that wipes out the whole block, and condemns all of Amity Park. Danny haunts the city for 100 years, before Sam and Tucker find him.
Setup:
In the 1920’s, 19-year-old Danny went into the incomplete portal on his own, hoping to help out his parents. Ripping the portal open through unnatural means created a huge burst of energy that resulted in a massive explosion. A good portion of the Amity Park population died, many were injured, and the ones on the fringes relocated–Amity was quickly deemed too dangerous due to the excess ectoplasm in the area that attracted ghosts.
While the disaster was in Amity, the fallout was seen around the globe. Before, natural portals were rare, short-lived, and rarely allowed ghosts to fully slip into our realm (the most severe cases being on par with poltergeists that most people didn’t believe in). Now, natural portals pop open frequently around the world, large enough to allow the entirety of a ghost into the physical plane. They’re more common the closer you get to Amity, but they happen enough elsewhere that this change was something of a small apocalypse before people settled back down and found out how to combat at least some of their new, permanent neighbors.
Danny is unaware that he’s only half-dead, believing he’s a full ghost. He ends up sticking around Amity, unintentionally making it his haunt. His grief and guilt over causing the death of his loved ones (and many others) makes him isolate and avoid human contact. Though he has, at times, scared nosy people away from the city in a mix of territorial instinct–and to get them to leave before a less friendly ghost finds them.
Ghosts are much more of an uncontested danger in this AU. Lesser ghosts are practically mindless, and while stronger ghosts are capable of reason, their interests are limited. They’re highly territorial, possessive, and often destructive. Most worrisome is that they also like to snack on the life force of anything alive. No one is sure what dictates a ghost’s propensity to attack or hunt the living for their life force since ghosts don’t exactly experience hunger. At least, not the way we do. If a human is rescued before their life force is fully drained, they can make a full recovery–though humanity has still not yet found what this “life force" is.
And since the Fentons’ research died along with them, there aren’t many tools available to the public to protect them from ghosts. Most homes have standard ghost shields and some weapons are available on the market, but certified ghost hunters are required to take care of anything more powerful than your average spook.
Sam and Tucker met in high school, and are now rooming together for college very close to the Amity border. Rent is surprisingly cheap when you’re a stone’s throw away from a condemned area crawling with ghosts. Sam is the one who drags Tucker along with her fascination over finding out more about the city, and its largely mysterious demise. Sam is aware of the danger, but feels ghosts have a place in this world just like everything else, and does exercise caution–like one would while foraging in the woods with a known tiger population.
What she and Tucker weren’t expecting was to run into a ghost that felt almost human. One that hasn't hurt them, not for lack of trying–while being powerful enough to walk past ghost shields without so much as a flinch. The long white hair is familiar in the whispers of the ectobiologist community, but there’s no way it could be the rumored ghost king Phantom, right?
About Danny:
He has very long hair, claws, and black sclera. His hazmat suit is more torn and ragged, with exposed hands and feet that fade into a burnt black.
His hair tends to float a lot on its own. It can start morphing into fire under duress.
He does still technically have gloves and boots, they've just charred and melted into his skin towards the ends. He can't take them off in his ghost form. His hands and feet have a leathery texture that's tougher than the rest of his skin.
The white of his hazmat suit is both supposed to look like flames, and also a battered look representing his more violent, explosive death.
Overall, he appears rather listless and sad, with an unnerving air of danger around him–even for a ghost.
Danny’s “ghost sense” comes out as white smoke.
He does breathe black smoke at times, usually when agitated.
He's already fought and defeated Pariah Dark by the time Sam and Tucker find him, technically making him the Ghost King. This is heavily speculated by ghost experts, despite there being no real proof beyond a massive battle that scarred Illinois. He has not donned the Ring or the Crown, and captured sentient ghosts are hesitant to answer questions surrounding him. Danny basically has the throne but doesn’t do anything with it, and finds it meaningless enough to routinely forget he has the title. He only fought Pariah because he knew otherwise, humanity would have perished. A lot of ghosts are scared of him because he's so hard to figure out, and he's strong.
Danny is usually very quiet and speaks softly, because his lungs were damaged in the blaze that half-killed him. He's technically healed since becoming a ghost, so it's more of a compulsion due to the traumatic memory. That, and he’s just… very forlorn and distant, shy around humans who don’t seem to understand how dangerous it is to keep hanging around him.
His memories pre-accident are extremely fuzzy. He knows the very basics of who he was, but specifics have been muffled due to trauma and isolation. He routinely forgets human habits, etiquette, etc. and tends to act more like a full ghost with some odd quirks.
He does try to scare Sam and Tucker off numerous times. Unfortunately for him, they realized they shouldn't have been able to escape a ghost that strong–but they did, because he let them.
Sam and Tucker think he's mute at first! He doesn't speak a word to them until several encounters later, when he fumbles his whole scary act and saves them from another ghost.
He’s still half-ghost, though he doesn’t figure this out until Sam and Tucker come along trying to unravel the mysteries behind the Amity catastrophe. Physically and emotionally, he’s been stuck for 100 years–so his human form is still 19. It’s unclear at this point if he can age normally like a human as long as he stays in human form, or if he’s immortal.
Danny's family did not turn into ghosts, though he sometimes worries he'll find them in the afterlife as shells of their former selves. He doesn't know if it's better or worse that he's not sure he'd recognize them.
(Danny also still has some living family. Take a guess.)
Yes, he knows how to Wail. Understandably, he very rarely uses it. You do not want to witness this.
Danny :) is not immune :) from the allure of eating a human's life force :)))
Danny Phantom Pitch Bible, included in the Viacom leak from June 2023
I haven't seen anyone else talk about this yet so I'm going to assume no one has (and if this is the millionth post about this I am so sorry), but apparently there was a leak at Viacom last month, and one of the things that got leaked was the original Danny Phantom pitch bible, and let me tell y'all, there is some interesting lore to be had. I've taken the liberty of summing up a few notable points, but feel free to read for yourself - it's pretty short.
Jack was originally written as an ex-spy, test pilot... basically if it was a daring job, he probably had it. His IQ was supposedly only one point off from Maddie's, and his bumbling was more of a result of him being more "brave than smart."
Maddie was originally written as "one of the world's most respected theoretical physicists" and the brains between her and Jack. Get this: her full name was supposed to be Madison!
Sam and Danny's psychic connection was actually a result of the accident. When he was in the hospital and still very much saturated with ectoplasm, she gave him a "get better" kiss on the forehead, which sparked the connection. The connection would've manifested in a number of ways, including a perpetual ability to "sense" the other, see visions, and hear each other's thoughts, though it was supposed to be somewhat unpredictable.
Jazz hid her brains from her cheerleader friends because she wanted to fit in with them.
Danny was supposed to be the only person able to see, hear, and interact with ghosts.
On the subject of Danny, his reputation for being a scaredy-cat was much more well-known, even to the point where Sam and Tucker gave him the nickname Danny Phantom before he even had his accident. This kid was scared of his own shadow, frogs, you name it.
Overshadowing was originally called "ghosting," and the more intelligent a person, the more difficult it would be to control them.
Jack and Maddie were hoping to break the barrier between the "Real World" (our world) and the "Unreal World" (the ghost world). They wanted to get through to the spirit realm to be able to communicate with the dead in order to help make the world a better place (think picking Einstein's brain a little more, seeing what other music Mozart has cooking, etc.). That dimensional barrier was damaged when they first tried out their experiment, and Danny - who was hiding out from Dash in the lab - would be caught in the middle.
Much like how fans have interpreted things and how the show tried to imply, Danny felt responsible for unleashing the ghosts into our world and decided to adopt the name Sam and Tucker had teased him with to help put a stop to their reign of terror.
Seriously, y'all should read this. There's a lot of interesting info in here, and really it sounds like such a cool concept?? Like I'll probably add my personal thoughts in a reblog, but there's a lot of potential for untapped creativity from the phandom here. Plus it's always nice to see what's technically official content almost 20 years after the show's premiere.
Damn interesting read!!! A few things that stood out to me:
It seems like at one point Danny was fighting more than just ghosts! It would have been any sort of imaginary being. Which does kind of explain weirdness like ghost dragons and ghost werewolves and ghost genies.
Really happy they didn't stick to the original version of Jazz. Quite apart from the whole "hiding her smarts to be cool" thing being a bleh concept, this pitch says she keeps Danny's secret because "she loves having something to hold over his head" which, oh, that is SO much worse than what the show actually wound up doing. In this house we stan 100% supportive sister Jazz!
The claim that if Jack knew about Danny's powers he would immediately demand to be his sidekick is a great one, and I'd love to see it showing up in fic.
I swear I remember an old Nickelodeon Magazine article advertising the new show that said Sam was into anime. This pitch seems to support that faint memory; it says Sam is into "all things geek!" Shame this never properly made it into the show.
