Danny in a trench coat and sunglasses: Psshhh, hey, kid Damian: Yes? Danny: Do you want to buy some candy? Damian, gripping a knife behind his back: Sure Danny opening trench coat: Okay, I have chocolate clusters, gummy bears covered in candy rocks, and spicy taffy. Damian: Oh, you meant real candy. Danny: Of course. Why else would you be standing in an alley with a trench coat? Damian: Are you not hearing yourself right now? Danny: I actually heard it. But I have to do it this way. See, I'm hiding from- Jason: THERE YOU ARE! Danny: Leave me alone! I told you I ran out of mini-donuts! Jason: YOU LIE Damian watching his brother chase a street vendor down the road: This is a good mental simulation for him. He needs this.
a bad terrible foolish logics.
Hood needs to hurry or Mr Freeze will adopt him
Danny's love language is physical touch.
He adored his dad’s crushing hugs, his mother’s forehead kisses, and his sister's way of putting both hands on his shoulders to guide him.
He loved the way he would accidentally brush against his friends while walking, how they would grab on each other during horror movies, how Sam would stop and pick the loose hair on his shirt, and how Tucker would press his hand against his back every time he caught up to them.
After being forced out of Amity and outed as Phantom, he started to miss Dash’s punches, too.
Any type of touch was considerably better than the cold he was feeling inside his chest.
His ice core made him feel like he was suffocating, the warmth of a human touch now felt more urgent than eating or finding shelter out in Gotham.
In the meantime, Red Hood received news of a new criminal in the alley that would target random people in the street and grab them, causing their arms to freeze over.
Bruce: Oh no. Dick: What is it? Bruce: Do you remember Danny Fenton? Dick: The biological son you found out about one year before he turned 18? Yeah, I remember Damian was having an aneurysm. What about him? Bruce: Well, he was willing to get to know me, but he's not looking to replace the man who raised him, so he wanted to do things slowly. I agree and have been watching him from a distance. Dick: Okay? What's the problem then? Bruce: The Court of Owls just took him. Dick: Shit. I'll call the others, we can rescue him as soon- Bruce: No no no you don't understand. Danny is far more dangerous then the Court of Owls. I fear by the time we get there it be too late. Dick: He's going to kill them!? Bruce whispering: Worse. He's going to turn them into Skeletons for his undead army, forever doomed to serve him until those they wronged forgive their souls. Death would be far kinder than what is waiting for the Court Members. Dick: Bruce.....did you sleep with a god again? We told you to stop doing that. Bruce: Actually, Maddie is completely human. Danny, on the other hand, died when he was fourteen, overthrew the previous Ghost King, and now controls the afterworld with far too much energy drinks and internet memes in his system. Dick: You promised this kid would be different Bruce. Bruce: Hey, I have not made him a vigilante. He did that on his own. Plus, he isn't a vigilante now; he's more of a morally compromised trickster god.
a phone danny while i’m on the road
Danny being able to feel auras was not something he had consciously noticed at first, and with time he had gotten more used to it. To feel out what emotion felt how, what it actually meant for who.
Not everybody was angry when they were hungry, emotions are difficult to understand. He was glad he had Jazz, and later on J'onn to help him understand.
So he used his "extra" sense for good, to make the life of his friends in the JL just a bit better, easier. That was also how this tradtiton had first been established, Danny wanted to learn how his friends felt. He wanted to understand his friends and how their emotions were shown in their auras.
Movie Night.
Or well, Movie Meet-Up. Night and day were a bit confusing in space.
It started with a talk with J'onn, about favorites, and how overwhelming the martians first movie in a cinema was with all the emotions from so many different people in such a capacity.
It ended with Phantom inviting the JL to a movie meet up, the first of many. He wanted to start with something easy, positive but also a bit funny maybe. So he landed on Lilo and Stitch, the added bonus of aliens being in the movie was his personal highlight!
Over time it escalated, more movies, some complex, most rather picked to give a break from some disaster or another.
Before he really realised it he had gotten such a good grasp on his friends aura that he had started to give comfort with barely a thought. Someone was stressed? Have a hug, something warm maybe? Do you need to get out some energy because the meeting was boring and could have been an e-mail?
Danny really loved his friends, but most of all he loved J'onn. Talking about emotions and how they were shown in auras had evolved into talking about anything and everything.
So when it was time again for the next Movie Meet-Up he sat next to J'onn, his popcorn ready and excited to see what movie they were going to watch. This time it was J'onn's pick. And Danny really didn't want to see another Grey Ghost episode - No Batman, a series is not the same as a movie!
@egyptianghosts
Emotional Auras-DCxDP prompt
Everyone has an aura. It's not really visible but you can feel it. Danny feels it a lot. It makes sense though. Ghosts are made out of it and it is a primary form of communication for them.
But humans also have it. Obviously, because it stays with them into their ghost forms.
Since joining the league Phantom has naturally integrated into the team. He seemed to know exactly what to say and do.
Sometimes Batman will be studying intel reports and Phantom will appear and just lean on his shoulder. After a few minutes you can notice how Batman's shoulders relax and he unclenches his hard.
Other times a meeting will be taking place and right before an argument breaks out Phantom cuts the tension with a pie he just made. Suddenly everyone remembers that it's past lunch.
Sometimes Phantom will whisper into Superman's ear to remember to call his mother or check in on Kon.
Other times he'll complain about needing to stretch his legs(err tail?) and challenge Flash to a race.
Diana and Black Canary often get a sympathetic ear during certain times of the month. Everyone kind of believes that Phantom likes them best because he will fulfill any request from them. He brings them fancy treats and lots of water and is glued to their sides.
Phantom is particularly attached to J'onn. And it's mutual. Phantom did tell him about the after life and the fate of his people. The martians had a particular affinity for the realms. So much so that they have an entire sector in the realms just so they can continue their unlikely. Its not uncommon that the sudden death of a planet creates a sort of imprint in the realms as the collective consciousness of so many unwilling souls at once enter. J'onn's people just didn't want to surrender death.
Apparently the news of such a thing created such a powerful emotion that Phantom a connection was created between them. The telepathic bond gave J'onn a new perspective on everything as he read Phantom's mind. He also saw and felt what he did. And after that everything made sense.
It was an odd pairing for the rest of the league as J'onn treated Phantom like his own child. Some even theorized that Phantom was part Martian. It would explain the greenish skin.
J'onn often called Phantom the leagues stabilizer. He kept everyone in check at the Watchtower.
Things have never been more peaceful.
When Danny Fenton got into MIT, he thought the biggest challenge would be balancing ghost hunting with college coursework. What he didn’t expect was to impress Dr. Jane Freaking Foster—renowned astrophysicist, literal genius, the mind behind the Foster Theory, and, unbeknownst to her, his idol since age thirteen—during a campus science expo when he presented his thesis on interdimensional ectoplasmic lattice fluctuations as a potential fuel source for wormhole stabilization. He thought she’d walk by his booth with a polite smile. Instead, she paused, squinted at his equations, asked three rapid-fire questions, then turned to the MIT faculty and said, “Is this kid legally allowed to work in a government lab yet?”
That’s how he became her apprentice.
Danny thought it would be, you know, an internship. Fetch coffee, carry papers, maybe input data if he got lucky. What he didn’t expect was to be living in New Mexico three months later, standing on a roof beside Jane Foster while she casually pointed at the sky and said, “If this gravitational anomaly maintains its trajectory, we’ll have a Yggdrasil branch brush up against the heliopause by Tuesday. That’s new.”
Danny nodded, mostly pretending he understood.
What neither of them anticipated was Thor crashing into their lives again like a golden retriever with a god complex and a hammer. He landed dramatically during a research presentation, lightning still fizzing off his cape, and made such eye contact with Jane that the projector screen behind them shorted out.
And then he saw Danny.
“Young one!” Thor bellowed, eyes wide, blond hair tousled by divine winds, “You must be her son.”
Danny blinked. “I—what?”
“Of course!” Thor clasped his shoulder. “You have her radiant intellect and tenacity. Truly, you are worthy of Midgard’s finest mother.”
“I—she’s not—” Danny tried.
Thor turned to Jane, face alight. “You did not tell me you had borne a child! And one so strong in spirit! A scholar of the stars!”
Jane rubbed her temples. “Thor. He’s nineteen. I met him last month. He’s my apprentice. He is not my son.”
Thor shook his head gravely. “Say no more, Jane. I understand. You wished to protect him from the dangers of our past. But I vow upon Mjolnir’s handle, I shall be a father to him.”
“What the hell,” Danny muttered.
Over the next few days, things escalated fast.
Danny woke up one morning to find a goat outside the lab. A live goat. Wearing a ribbon. The tag read: For my brave son, may his mornings be strong of milk and noble of beard. Jane nearly choked on her cereal. Darcy screamed and immediately named the goat “Spacey.”
Thor showed up during Danny’s lecture on cosmic radiation and brought a sack of Asgardian textbooks written in glowing runes, which promptly caused two lab interns to faint and one professor to file a complaint.
Danny begged Jane to tell him this would stop.
“No,” Jane said, sipping her coffee without looking up. “You’re his emotional support stepson now.”
“I don’t want to be anyone’s emotional support anything!” Danny cried. “I have ectoplasmic trauma and insomnia!”
But Thor persisted.
He invited Danny to spar in the desert, claiming it would “toughen his warrior instincts.” Danny blasted a crater in the sand when a ghost startled him mid-match, and Thor wept with pride. “Such fire! Truly, a son worthy of thunder.”
Jane sighed. “You’re going to give him a complex.”
“I already have a complex!” Danny yelled from where he was half-buried in sand.
Then came the night Thor pulled Danny aside with intense solemnity.
“Daniel,” he said, kneeling, “I seek your blessing.”
Danny froze, halfway through a sandwich. “I—what—blessing for what?”
“To court your mother.”
“She’s NOT my—!”
Thor raised a hand. “Please. I know you wish to protect her. But my heart is true. I have spent long hours learning Midgardian courtship. Observe.”
He pulled out a guitar. A guitar. From nowhere. And began strumming aggressively while singing off-key.
“Oh Jane, fairest in the stars, your eyes burn like a neutron quasaaaaaar—”
Danny screamed into his sandwich.
Jane screamed into her coffee.
Darcy recorded the entire thing.
By the time the Avengers got wind of what was happening, it was too late. Tony Stark showed up purely out of pettiness.
“So this is the ‘son,’ huh?” he said, looking Danny up and down like he was a new model of iPhone. “You do look like Jane. Same ‘don’t talk to me before coffee’ vibe. But with a sprinkle of sleep-deprived raccoon.”
Danny glared. “You must be the one Jane threatens to launch into orbit when she’s annoyed.”
“See? Family resemblance,” Tony muttered.
Then Steve Rogers took Thor aside and whispered, “Are you sure he’s her kid? Jane would’ve told us if she had a child.”
Thor nodded gravely. “It is the only explanation. He speaks with passion, has knowledge of the stars, and I saw him summon green fire from his hands!”
“It was a ghost, Thor,” Danny shouted from across the lab. “It was literally a ghost trying to possess a vending machine!”
“Exactly!” Thor beamed.
“Thor. I’m nineteen. Jane is thirty-seven.”
“She is a goddess among mortals. Perhaps she birthed you when she was five.”
“That’s not how—YOU KNOW WHAT, NEVER MIND.”
Soon, even Loki showed up, slinking into the lab with a smirk like a serpent in silk.
“I had to see for myself,” he purred, circling Danny like a shark. “The mortal child who ensnared my brother’s affections.”
Danny just blinked. “I’m not his kid. Or Jane’s. I’m not even sure I’m awake right now.”
Loki chuckled. “You’ll make an excellent prince. Do you have any interest in necromancy?”
“I’m a ghost half the time,” Danny deadpanned. “Define interest.”
Loki grinned wider.
Eventually, S.H.I.E.L.D. got involved. Fury showed up, took one look at the scene—the goat eating research notes, Thor trying to build Danny a golden throne, Jane yelling about radiation levels, and Danny levitating out of sheer stress—and muttered, “Nope,” before turning around and leaving.
But beneath all the chaos, Danny… didn’t hate it.
Jane never treated him like a kid. She taught him everything, from solar flares to Bifrost trajectories. She let him make mistakes, then helped him fix them. She told him he was brilliant, and for once, he kind of believed it. And Thor, for all his thunderous confusion, brought him starfruit from Alfheim and carved him a wooden Mjolnir as a “coming-of-age” gift.
Danny didn’t even mind the goat anymore.
He still insisted, every day, that Jane was not his mom.
But when Thor presented him with a massive, hand-forged broadsword inscribed with: To my noble son, may your ghosts be vanquished and your GPA ever high, he kind of teared up.
A little.
One evening, as they watched the stars from the roof, Jane handed Danny a cup of tea.
“He really does think you’re my kid,” she said.
Danny took a sip. “Yeah. I gave up trying to convince him.”
“Is it weird?”
“Kinda. But… not bad.” He hesitated. “Do you… mind?”
Jane looked at him, surprised. “No. I mean—you’re not. But if you were, I’d be proud.”
Danny stared at the stars until they blurred.
Later, Thor appeared beside them, cape fluttering dramatically despite the lack of wind.
“I have returned with tales of valor,” he declared, “and also cheesecake.”
Danny took the box.
“Son!” Thor beamed.
Danny sighed.
“Fine. You can have my blessing.”
Thor dropped Mjolnir in joy.
Jane looked horrified. “Danny, what the hell?!”
“I didn’t say I wanted it to happen,” Danny muttered. “I just figured he’d stop bringing me swords if I gave in.”
“He won’t,” she said flatly.
He didn’t.
The next morning, Danny woke up to find a full set of Asgardian armor beside his bed and a note that read: For my beloved heir. P.S. I have begun planning the wedding. Do you think your mother would prefer swans or flaming eels as decoration?
He screamed into his pillow.
The goat screamed with him.
WIP from a DPxDC fic im probably never going to finish, I’ll probably post more art of it but I’m pretty art blocked rn🥲
AKA "Danny moves to Gotham and records TikToks with absolutely deranged captions. He films Get Ready with Me in Gotham videos, fit checks, and even A Day in the Life of a Ghost in Gotham! Except everybody is freaking the fuck out in the comments" prompt idea!
No, you don't understand, I'm obsessed. Like, what if Danny's idea of "safe" is just... anything that doesn't actively try to kill him? So Metropolitians, Star City, and Central City citizens are literally biting their nails and sweating bullets every time he posts, because what if he gets merc'd by the "Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag" Red Hood?? And that's one of the nicer villains in Gotham. And Danny's just like wow, this place is niiiiiice, I haven't even been murdered yet!
Maybe Jazz took a 12-year-old Danny to Gotham to escape their parents. Gotham's cheap, dirty, and doesn't ask questions: it's the best place to go to disappear because damn near half the city's population are either super villains, hostages, dead, or vigilantes. She gets a job at an understaffed hospital as a clinical psych intern. She enrolls Danny for online schooling because she's scared a public high school would be too easy for their parents to track.
Which leaves Danny alone for hours. He makes a TikTok account called "Danny Phantom" because, c'mon, he's a kid. And, like most kids, he doesn't really comprehend the idea of a digital footprint or that his account is public, accessible by literally anybody.
He's also a little shit. So, the first TikTok he uploads is of a man getting carjacked, but the caption reads: love to see people helping each other. remember it's always okay to ask for help! it's okay, I don't know how to parallel park, either :)
And you just see this guy in a mask shove a businessman away from his car, gesturing with his gun, before getting into the driver's seat. Except the car is parallel parked so the carjacker just slowly inches back and forth between a Prius and a Honda until he can wedge himself out of the parking space. And then gets stuck in stand-still traffic. The TikTok goes viral. It's talked about on the Gotham news and Gothamites are losing their shit, pointing out the exact moment you can see the carjacker start to soundlessly cuss through the car's windshield or the way the businessman is just... standing on the side of the road, watching with a deadpan look.
Danny doesn't know about it being on the news, but he sees all the comments, likes, reposts, and feels something. He wonders if this is what Ember feels every time people listened to her music. So, he keeps posting. Usually, it's short three-second videos of a hilariously unexpected situation with an even more deranged caption. But then he's accidentally caught in the reflection of a store front while recording and doesn't know, posts it like he always does; only for this TikTok to go viral, too. Because "Danny Phantom" is a child??
He doesn't notice the shift in his comments, but the public opinion quickly changes from wow, Gothamites are just like that huh lol to what the FUCK, kid, get inside!!! anytime he posts.
Except Danny never gets hurt. Even in the most dangerous situations, when you'd think this kid is a goner for sure, he's just happily yapping in the background. He's so different from Gothamites because he lacks that dead-eyed, despair-inducing aura of someone who's lived in a hellmouth their whole lives. (A couple people post that Danny kind of reminds them of Golden Boy Brucie Wayne, all air-headed and unrealistically optimistic, and suddenly there's memes of "what happens when you've never gotten shot in Gotham" or "how i act when Commish Gordie accuses me of shoplifting again" with them side-by-side.)
And then Danny's posts go viral again and again. Danny doing a fit check with a blond-haired woman with a checkered outfit, she ruffles his hair and kisses him on the cheek. A picture of him wearing an old jean jacket with a bright red lipstick smear on his cheek is trending for weeks. Spoiler, fully suited up in an all-purple vigilante attire, and him shoving gas station hotdogs in their mouths. He even has videos of him clearly in Killer Croc's lair, with comments of are you in the sewers??? DANNY??? and he responds, no, i'm in mom & dad's basement :) (Waylon Jones is actually sitting behind him in one of the videos, intently watching a TV show on an iPad.)
Everybody adores Danny - Rogues, Gothamites, even the Bats. (There's at least six videos of Nightwing teaching Danny how to do backflips, handstands, and other acrobatic moves. Even the youngest Robin has been caught on camera quietly talking with Danny, a shocking lack of violence that left half the city's population suffering from cuteness aggression for the kids.)
So, yeah, Danny belongs to Gotham.
But the internet is widely accessible and Danny made it so, so easy to find him. Jazz obviously didn't know he was posting videos of himself publicly; she was too tired after back-to-back 12 hour shifts at the hospital that she hadn't even checked social media in months. Otherwise, she would've told him to be careful, to never show his face or post his real name on the internet. Then again, Jazz would never have expected all of Gotham (and Superman himself, totally endeared by the kid after Kon and Jon showed him a couple TikToks) would beat the absolute shit out of anybody going after Danny.
Imagine GIW's surprise when they track down Amity's former residential Ghost only to find an entire city frothing at the mouth to protect their Phantom.
At some point, Damian fucks up. It’s while he’s still new to Gotham and is trying to win the approval of his father and adopted siblings, but ten years of training is not easy to deprogrammed if it’s all you know and Bruce takes it out in Damian and Dick isn’t around and Damian “I act like I’m older but I’m still just a 10 year old with repressed emotions” Al Gul leaves. Runs away if you will. He leaves Gotham because he’ll be found in Gotham and he would like to not be found thank you very much.
He end up in central city (which at some point was claimed to be in Illinois) where he’s happened upon by one Danny Fenton who now lives in the city and works R&D at Star Labs creating a sustainable energy source by filtering ectoplasm that naturally exists in this plane of existence.
Needless to say he’s a well established individual, incredibly smart, and can easily take in a child when he happens across Damian in a park.
Danny has one conversation with this emotionally repressed child who very clearly ran away from home and is also hiding weapons on his person and is like
“Guess your mine now.”
Damian does not cave at first. He accepts Danny’s offer of a place to stay for the night and then once they arrive at Danny’s apartment, Cujo arrives and Damian is sold. Ghosts exist, they’re not talked about a lot outside of certain circles, but it’s not a secret. And after saving enough of the right people as a ghost, the anti ecto acts were rescinded so Danny is home free and is taking after his parents in the study of ecto-everything. He’s also the king and can do what he wants with the ectoplasm he collects. So a ghost dog being in his apartment isn’t weird, but Danny’s grateful Cujo can come and go freely without threat now.
Anyway I saw a tag somewhere about how “sometimes a family is an ex-assassin, a random guy, and their ghost dog.” So that’s what this is.
Danny doesn’t ask questions. Damian’s old family hurt him? Didn’t trust him? Neglects him unintentionally? That’s not conductive to a happy healthy childhood. Do you want to be my family? I have a cousin around you age, you two would probably get along great whenever she visit. Also you seem to have a lot of pent up energy. I know a place we can go and brawl it out of your system. No you won’t hurt me if you don’t hold back, yes I promise I won’t get mad at you for fighting.
For ghosts, fighting is like a social activity. Danny takes Damian into the ghost zone for these brawls, probably uses one of skulkers islands so Damian can have the full benefits of a diverse terrain because this little gremlin is trained and Danny will ask someday, but not today.
I’m sure at other points other ghosts show up as well and are like, we’re play fighting with Phantom’s kid? Hell yeah! Danny probably finds some dead LOA assassins at some point who inform him about the kid he’s adopted and that the LOA will probably come after him again at some point. And Danny just laughs because Damian’s his now. Danny would like to see anyone try to take his kid and live to tell the tale.
The bright side of that interaction is that Damian gets introduced to an entire zone in the realm that’s made up of denizens he can learn his heritage and culture from. He ends up with a ghost sword and spars somewhat regularly with old LOA members who have chilled out in the afterlife.
Obviously they don’t live in the zone. Danny has a job, and Damian, as soon as Tucker creates the most airtight new identity in the history of man kind and hides Damian behind a ghost firewall, has school. He is now Damian Al Mir Fenton (the ghosts started calling him Almir as a nickname because he is the son of the ghost king and a prince so Damian decided to adopt it as his middle name). They get away with this for a while because Damian spend enough time around Danny and in the zone that he’s liminal adjacent and that causes camera’s to not quite capture his likeness correctly, so when the bat clan finally starts looking for him he doesn’t show up on face recognition scans they use.
It’s like, a year or two before they eventually get a lead. One of Damian’s clones arrive and either fools then bats into believing he’s Damian, or gets captured and Batman’s giving a briefing in the watchtower about the LOA. Either way it happens on the watchtower.
Either Flash see’s the clone of Damian or see’s a photo of the clone and blue screens for a minute before loudly declaring “why are clones of Fenton’s kid being sent after you?” And then Batman blue screens because who the fuck is Fenton and why does flash think Damian is his kid?
And so flash goes on the explain That Danny works with him at Star labs and he’s got a kid name Damian who arrived a few years ago because his mother passed away and apparently he’d never told him she was pregnant. So obviously he took him no questions asked. Honestly the two of them are great together. I know there was a bit of a rough patch at the start, I can’t imagine what it’s like for a kid to be uprooted from everything he knows and loves to be placed in a new place with a basic stranger, but the two of them seemed to work it out. Barry invited them over for holiday dinners sometimes they’re a sweet family.
And now Bruce is blue screening for another reason because some civilian took in a ten year old assassin and is still alive but also has a thriving relationship with Damian? He doesn’t believe it.
So when Bruce returns to the cave he looks up Fenton, finds a whole lot of questionable things about his family, but none of them apply to him. Guys just a dude working on renewable energy sources. And he see’s pictures of Danny with his son and yeah, that’s definitely Damian Wayne, except this Damian has a small smile on his face and an exasperated look of fondness as 30 year old Fenton hugs him from behind.
Another photo shows Danny decked out in fan gear sporting Damian’s name as the now 11-12 year old hides his head in embarrassment. Damian in question is wearing a martial arts uniform. A later post shows he was at a competition and won. Bruce half expected to find articles about major injury caused to opponents Damian competed against, but video’s of the competition show intense fighting, sure, but nothing lethal and no unessessary damage. Damian is respectful as one should be in this environment and Bruce isn’t convinced he’s looking at the same feral 10 year old that was dropped at his door step.
Dick makes the first move when word gets out, naturally. He shows up in Central City and makes his way to Star Labs where he requests a meeting with Danny. He explains that Damian is his younger adoptive brother. That when he went missing it cause a rift between Dick and Bruce (“Bruce Wayne?” Danny asks for clarification then laughs “knew there was a reason I didn’t like billionaires.” And Dick almost laughs at that). Dick had been looking for Damian all this time and would like a chance to reconnect with him. He understands if that’s not an option, Damian seems like he’s happy and healthy and knowing how he was treated when he first arrived, Dick is almost relieved, but if there’s a chance to see his baby brother he wants to take it.
Danny nods and says he’ll bring it up with Damian. Leave me your number and I’ll message you what he thinks.
Damian takes a week, but decides to meet up with Grayson. Their first meeting is at a local cafe. They sit alone at the table, but Danny is a few away just out hearing distance (if he had normal hearing) being a silent support for his son. The next visit Danny invites him over for Dinner. They’d moved into a house by now and Damian had an entire room dedicated to swords he collects. “I don’t use them much, but they’re part of a history I belong to and having them feels right.” They also have a sparing room because in Danny’s words “he has too much energy for his tiny body. Once we found a way for him to regularly let it out he calmed down a lot.”
Dick is completely charmed. Tells Bruce that Damian is happy where he is and to fuck off, but he expresses it over many words.
Of course that doesn’t stop Bruce. Who approaches Danny out of the blue, practically Cornnering him and says he’ll charge him with kidnapping if he doesn’t return Damian to him. That danny has no idea who or what Damian is or what he comes from.
Danny, in return, just laughs. “Kidnapping charges won’t stick,” is all he says. “And I know more about who Damian is and where he came from than you do. More importantly, I was able to see past it and treat him like the slightly feral ten year old he is. Let me guess? You tried to change him? Cut off his beliefs and ideologies cold turkey? Got frustrated when he couldn’t turn off ten years of learned habits like a light switch? How they keep letting you adopt children is beyond me Bruce, but your not taking my kid I can promise you that.”
Bruce still tries. Sends his lawyers after Danny and Danny sends back a legal document signed by Talia that passed guardianship of Damian over to him. Talia had tried to come collect her son at some point. If he wasn’t with Bruce then he would be by her side. Danny Ghost King Fenton, said this is my kid and you aren’t taking him before beating down almost an entire legion of assassins and Talia herself. “You abandoned him, even if out of love, and his father rejected him. Damian’s mine now.” And Talia recognizes strength when she sees it and knows her son will be safe, but also see’s the way that Danny is encouraging her son’s connection to his heritage and not forcing him to change, just calm down. So she signs the papers and leaves them with Danny because she does love her son in her own weird ways and she will see him safe and happy, it’s unfortunate she believed bruce would be up to the task.
The adoption is airtight. Since Talia raised him and Brice didn’t know he was real (and also ghost lawyers are crazy good) Damian stays a Fenton and Thrives.
Thalia swings through sometimes to visit. Sometimes she meets up with damian, other times she meets up with Danny and hears about how her son is doing. If anyone asks, Thalia is Damian’s aunt, who travels and couldn’t take him in after his mother passed so she tracked down Danny.
Bruce is furious, but also resigned. Outside of kidnapping, there’s not much else he can do. And even if he chose to push even harder on the legal route, the arrival of Dick in Fenton’s social media would cause issues because Dick would voice his support for Danny no doubt and also speak on the initial attitude bruce had towards Damian when he first arrived. So no. He has to content himself watching his son be raised by someone else who was able to do for Damian what Bruce failed to do.
First
Damian was glad him and Danny were finally at the zoo, being around the animals calmed him especially since he took great care to make sure the animals were held in accomodating enclosures.
There was also Danny's frankly terrifying guardian, Damian was sure even his grandfather would fear the man. It wasn't that he looked scary, or did anything apart from scowl at him, but the moment he met the man's eyes it was like fear had a tight grip on him.
He glanced at Danny's hand, should he take it? Danny was grinning at the otters running around.
"Danny?"
"Hm?"
"Your guardian..."
"Frank? What about him?" Clear blue eyes met green ones, Damian swallowed his nervousness down.
"How are you related?" Danny looked up, as if in thought.
"Well, we aren't related, really. He's just... part of the Family Business, you know? Dad was worried and thought I shouldn't go alone to study in the crime capital." Damian nodded, that sounded normal enough. It did.
"What's your family business? I don't remember you talking about if before?"
"Ah... well..." Danny seemed to avoid his eyes. "It's more my business that my family has their fingers in as well due to overlapping interests."
"Hm." That answered nothing! Damned be Grayson! Damian should have done the background check like he initially wanted to. But no! Grayson had convinced him to have "a real expierence!"
Tt. Grayson will regret their next training session!
"But Damian don't worry! Frank is more like a bodyguard. And a cook... and maybe a maid... you know what he's most like a housekeeper. But don't tell him I said that! He's sensitive about his job!"
"Of course I would never! Come let's go see the penguin feeding."
He did it, he took Danny's hand! Okay, normal breathing, this is a date, of course they'll hold hands! If he get's a second date they may even kiss! Right now he should focus on his date, he could find out about the scetchy sounding background after. And if he had to rescue Danny from his mob family he would!
Surely father would understand that he needed to marry his beloved as soon as possible to help him. He would accept a house as their wedding gift as long as he had enough space for his animals. And Danny's meta dog of course.
I got Fright Knights name from this fic, it's a Jason is Danny's father while having to deal with Fright Knight and the fact that lazarus waters are Danny's other parent.