a phone danny while i’m on the road
Bruce, introducing his kids at a family Interview: This is my eldest Dick, my second eldest Cassandra, then my son Jason, my second youngest Tim, and my youngest Damian
Bruce: That's my daughter-in-law Barbara, and my other daughter-in-law, Stephanie
Tim: ??? Steph and I broke up forever ago?? How is she your daughter-in-Law?
Stephanie: I may not be dating any of you anymore but I'm the State of daughter-in-law. Daughter-in-law is not a family title, it's the friends you make along the way
Jason: I'm not high enough for this shit
Golden boy Dick Grayson: Me fucking neither
Jason: what
Dick: what
Bruce: ??? What do you mean she's not my daughter-in-law anymore?? I was counting on her marrying into the family :C
Steph: Sorry B, unfortunately your son would rather kiss superbitch than me
Dick: TIM IS KISSING WHO NOW
Bruce: >:( We'll talk about that later, right now-
Tim: I don't think that's necess-
Bruce: We'll talk about that later. Right now can't any of you date her?? Jaylad, you're sin-
Steph: HELL NO
Jason, already on his second blunt: You're so funny, old man. I'm literally co parenting my best friends kid. I'm literallyyyy be gay do crime. Haha.
Dick: YOURE WHAT WITH WHO NOW
Bruce: CAN ANY OF YOU JUST DATE HER
Cass, slowly raising her hand like in Hunger Games: I volunteer
Bruce: ...
Tim: ...
Dick: ...
Bruce: This is why you're my favorite daughter 🥹
Cass: Father, I'm your only daughter
Tim: Untrue. I did drag one time, that has to count
Steph: Does this mean I have a girlfriend
Damian: This family is a disgrace
Interviewer: ...
Dead on main x omegaverse
Danny had met plenty of knot head alphas who had either flirted with him since he was an omega or bullied him since he was a male omega. He had resigned himself to being alone, especially since he had died.
Then, he met Red Hood, an Alpha who was known for not putting up with knot heads in his haunt, known for protecting omegas on the run from knot heads who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Danny had to fight back a blush.
Jason had met plenty of omegas in his life who acted like fainting flowers, reinforcing the stereotypes that people like Bruce and Dick had to fight to break through for most of their lives. He hated those kinds of omegas.
Then, he met Danny, a scrappy omega who broke the Joker’s nose during their first meeting and protected a bunch of street kids by volunteering to be dosed with fear gas during their second meeting. Jason was never so glad he wore a helmet.
Crime Alley knew that the new scrappy meta had a crush on Red Hood. All of Red Hood’s goons knew Red Hood had a crush on the meta who bit Scarecrow on one occasion.
It was everyone’s mission to get those two together.
So I watched this short on youtube and I just can't with these comments 😂
DP x DC
Of which Vlad IS related to Bruce
Their Bat-ness must have came from a common ancestor. And that adoption thing.
But anyways.
Imagine Vlad contacting Bruce with his fam out of the blue, asking BRUCIE, HI NICE TO TALK TO YOU AFTER LONG PERIODS OF ABSENCE BUT IVE A QUESTION THAT NEEDS TO BE ANSWERED FOR MY KWN SAKE- how do you get your children to be civil with you???
Bruce: ... I am not aware you adopted kids Vladdie?
Batfam, listening to the conversation: it's cute that Masters tot we're civil to Bruce at all times lol
Vlad: Currently I have my godson with me and he's acting a lot like a combination of your sons in gala disasters.
Bruce: which gala disasters you're talking about? Coz you know we have the Rogues attacking galas aaaaallll the time-
Vlad: you know what I mean, cousin. Richard in the chandeliers, little Damian stabbing the handsy ones, Timothy making people cry left and right between his blackmails and "conspiracy theories"-
Bruce: (tries to imagine all that Feral in one body and failing)
Batfam: (omg new cousin sounds lit)
Vlad: so yes Brucie, I need some advice, please and thank you.
(Unseen: Danny gnawing his leg)
IN THE BATCAVE
Bruce: *sitting at Batcomputer minding his own business*
Jason: *getting ready for patrol*
Dick: *asks nicely*
Dick: Jay, could you hand me my escrimas?
Jason: *deadpans*
Jason: Go get them yourself, Dickface.
Tim: *walks in*
Tim: Jason, could you toss me my bo staff, please?
Jason: *no hesitation, tosses Tim his bo staff*
Dick: *shooketh*
Dick: Why do you help him and not me??? I'm your big bro, Little Wing!
Jason: Middle children have to stay together.
Dick: *confused af because Jay and Tim are his only brothers*
Tim: *curious*
Bruce: *frozen before turning around slowly*
Dick: Jason, you're the only middle child... right?
Jason: *laughs nervously*
Jason: Oh, would you look at that! Crime Alley is calling my name!
Jason: *runs*
---
SOMEWHERE IN NANDA PARBAT
Damian: *sneezes*
Damian: Somebody mentioned me.
---
LATER THAT EVENING
Talia: *on the phone with Bruce*
Talia: What! Me?! Hide a child of yours?!
Talia: *looks at Damian and a picture of Jason*
Talia: Never, Beloved.
BTW i see these posts all the time like "ohhh i dont know what to comment on fics.." and every response is "keysmashes! or hearts!! anything works :3" and thats GREAT!! thats helpful!!
but: consider. if u genuinely like analyzing writing.. do u know ur just allowed to go through and quote your favorite parts and ramble abt what they mean to u and the author will LOSE IT WITH HYPE?
genuinely. i felt SO WEIRD the first time i did it.. but like. holy shit authors love it. its crack for authors. the first time i did it, it was on a fic that hadnt updated in half a year, give or take, and the author made 3 updates that month BECAUSE OF MY COMMENT.
LIKE. as an author every comment is INCREDIBLE!!! but also, dont feel like your comment has to be short or otherwise ur invasive or smth!! authors ADORE long comments more than ANYTHING.
When he said Jack my mind just went to his dad, and then to maybe his parents are dead and turned into ghosts ( or maybe just his father) to stay with him while he flees the GIW.
And his dad is just there, watching his son try to help while having trust issues due to them.
"Aww Danno, why don't you try helping them? They seem like good people!"
But yeah... Tim's dad probably makes more sense xD
He’s walking alone. Despite how dark it is, he’s not particularly nervous, not like the couple of people hovering in an alley.
His shift at Batburger went a little long, not that he’s complaining, he needed the money.
Everything is fine. Splendid. Fantastic. A little quiet, enough to pretend it’s a nice stroll home like it was back in Amity. Of course that all kind of goes up in flames when a dark figure drops into a crouch right in front of him. About two arm lengths away is a guy who straightens to a little taller than Danny himself. From the flickering street light across the street he can spot red, crisscross yellow, and a dark cape.
Red Robin.
Danny shakes his head and turns around.
“Nope.”
A smaller body is already standing behind him, blocking his path. The little guy with a serious face folds his arms across his chest as if challenging Danny to try to get by him.
He’s had enough tussles with Danielle to know better than to test the kid.
Danny rubs at his eyes with a hand, purposefully keeping the other limp at his side. He turns back around.
“Okay. Fine. What? What do you want?”
“You sent in a folder of information to solve the Boothe case,” Red Robin states confidently like there wasn’t any doubt it was Danny who sent it in.
He frowns. It was sent in anonymously. As in they shouldn’t be able to know it was him. Then again they are detectives in their own right even if they dress weird.
“See? This is why no one helps out the police if they’re gonna get grilled for it later on,” he complains sourly.
“That case is connected to another string of crimes we’ve been investigating. I need to know where you got your information.”
Danny glares at him for a second, actually thinking about telling him, then he remembers how quickly these guys throw people into Arkham.
“Do you not get what anonymous means?”
“What is your source?” He asks, completely ignoring Danny’s concerns.
“What are gonna do? Dangle me over the side of a building to get me to talk like you do with the criminals you guys pick up? Go ahead. See where that gets you,” he shrugs indifferently.
“You’re a runaway.”
Danny’s eyes widen in surprise before narrowing into a warning as he turns to look at the pipsqueak that spoke.
“From your poorly made fake ID and the fact you don’t look close to eighteen, you must be a runaway minor. We could bring you in to the proper authorities if you prove to be… uncooperative.”
Danny sneers in annoyance.
“Seriously?” He turns back to Red Robin. Clearly the older of the two and the one leading this investigation. “This is what I get for trying to help? Blackmail?”
“Robin can be a bit… abrasive. I, on the other hand, can appreciate a different approach.”
Suddenly there’s a couple pieces of paper money in between his fingers. Danny couldn’t see how much it was from this far away, but it didn’t really change how he felt about the whole situation.
“Now bribery? Wow, you guys really got the whole good cop, bad cop thing down, don’t cha?”
“Then what do you want?”
“For you to stop wasting your time,” Danny answers with a snap.
Red Robin pauses.
“Our time,” he repeats calmly.
“Yea. Your time. This is a dead end and you should move on.”
“And why are you a dead end?” Presses Robin.
“Because,” Danny emphasizes with a look over his shoulder, “the guy you’re really looking for, my source as you put it, is dead, okay? So you can’t go ask him questions. I sent in everything that was relevant. Find another lead.”
Red Robin’s expression remains blank as he mentally calculates his next move. Danny hopes he takes his advice and let him go home.
“His name?”
Danny folds his arms over his chest, a pathetic attempt to protect himself. He chews on his lip a minute. To tell him or not to tell him. It’s not really ratting the guy out since he’s, you know, dead. Although there is a large chance Danny’s missing something and it’s all going to lead back to him somehow.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“I never said you did,” the vigilante replies calmly, almost nonchalant.
Danny shifts his weight with nerves. He really wasn’t getting out of this without giving them something, huh?
“Greg,” he grinds out like it’s painful.
Silence for a few moments, then-
“As in Gregory Boothe?”
The victim of this whole conversation? Yes.
Danny’s silence is answer enough and the diverted gaze just solidified their suspicions.
“Gregory Boothe’s body turned up a month ago. Presumably he’d been dead for several weeks before that.”
Red lets that damning information hang in the air like Danny didn’t already know.
“So when did he talk to you? Last week?”
Danny jerks at the off handed joke, actually taking a step back and hitching his shoulders up to his ears. He grimaces at his knee jerk response, but can’t take it back. A glance toward the vigilante shows a calculating stunned expression from what he can see ignoring the mask. He looks away again finding a discarded soda can very interesting.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Demands Robin behind him.
Danny tried to resist the urge to curl even more into himself, but knows he failed without even having to look.
“You’re a medium,” Red Robin states. It’s not even a question.
Danny flinches and shoots the guy a scared glare.
“I am not one of those scam artists,” he hisses firmly.
“No,” Red agrees, “you’re not. You didn’t ask for money or attention.”
Danny stares like it’s his first time seeing him. The lack of aggression or accusations was new and a little disarming. He was genuinely confused as to why the guy wasn’t immediately going to denial or throwing him in Arkham.
“Hell of a city to hide in when you can see ghosts,” Red Robin says in a light tone like he was teasing him. The small tug to his lips just proves it.
Danny’s shoulders practically sag at the playful demeanor. A hand reaches up to rub the back of his neck self-consciously.
“Yea, well… no one was gonna look for me here.”
Which was only half the reason he chose Gotham, but it was still truthful.
“So… Greg?”
“Isn’t here right now.” Danny pauses and snorts at himself. “Please leave a message.”
The vigilante does have a sense of humor because he smirks in response to the joke.
“Is there another way to… make contact? Summoning maybe?”
Danny raises an eyebrow incredulously.
“Summoning is rude,” he says like it’s common sense.
Instead he turns to the nearest reliable ghost in the vicinity.
“Hey, Susan, can you go-“
The vigilantes can’t hear how she interrupts him because she was standing there the whole time and knows exactly what he was going to ask.
“Okay, thanks. Meet at mine.”
The ghost woman nods and flies off to go hunt down dear old Greg and Danny turns to Red Robin. He makes a casual move with his head to say ‘follow me’ and continues walking down the sidewalk past the guy and further into the old, decrepit buildings he’s been squatting in.
They already know he’s a runaway, being homeless shouldn’t come as a shock to them. Even with his two jobs, he can’t afford to rent an apartment. No wonder so many people are in poverty or in the slums.
He ducks into his rundown building, ignoring the rats scurrying away, and hops up the rickety stairs, avoiding the ones that were unstable. It was a nightmare figuring out which steps were faulty. Lots of injuries.
At the top he turns to see Red easily copying his movements up the stairs while Robin balances along the railing like a tight rope. When they reach the top at the same time Danny just stares at them for a moment before shaking his head in exasperation. Darn vigilantes. Why did Danny have to get caught up in this mess?
He turns, walking along the floor closest to the wall before getting to what he’s deemed his room.
It used to be an office from what he can tell. A desk pushed against the far wall and a ripped sofa he’s been using as a bed on the other wall. The floors were the most stable in this room which really won out.
Danny goes to the desk where all his papers are scattered over the surface. An organizational pattern only he understands as he shuffles through the pile he pulls from the cubby above the desk. It holds all the same information he sent into the police, just in its raw form with about twice the amount of useless information. Along with it is a few other ‘cases’ that sounds familiar that he just threw together into a pile. Maybe the genius detectives could decipher what he couldn’t.
“Here,” he says, holding out the stack. Red Robin doesn’t hesitate to take it off his hands.
There’s no chair for the desk anymore so he slides some papers out of the way to hop onto the desk to wait.
“No.”
The vigilantes look at him and he shakes his head and looks over to the side.
“No, Abby. I’m not wasting their time.”
Red Robin goes back to flipping through papers. Most of them were old business papers he had found in the office and just written on the back. Some were receipts or pamphlets or some other random scrap of paper he could get his hands on.
“Because yours was an accident. There’s nothing for them to solve.”
Robin watched him cautiously as if waiting for Danny to snap or suddenly turn violent. Instead he leans back on his hands in a vulnerable position which screamed ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone’.
“There is a lot more information here than what was submitted to the police,” Red Robin comments neutrally, purposefully ignoring Danny’s exasperated sigh and one-sided conversation.
Danny shrugs in defense, “Didn’t think all of it was relevant.”
The vigilante doesn’t respond.
Robin drifts closer as Danny gives a withering glare to the corner. He examines the mess of papers surrounding the teen in the low lighting.
“Are these all files of victims?”
Danny glances over them with a knowledgeable eye.
“Most.” He twists to point at the top left corner of the cubbies. “Those are accidents though… well, what sounds like accidents.”
“There should be more.”
Danny looks at the boy with a tilted head and raises brow.
“Not everyone sticks around,” he explains simply.
Then something draws his attention away across the room. Surprisingly his eyes don’t glaze over like someone with mental illness, instead they sharpen to see something they can’t. It resembled Constantine or Thomas.
“Greg, these guys wanna talk to you.”
What proceeds is a very awkward interaction with Danny as a middle man between victim and vigilante. Despite the need for a translator, Red Robin does in fact get a lead from the conversation.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
Danny nods. “Sure, no problem. Just don’t rat me out to the police and I can help with any other case that pops up with a ghost attached.”
“You know we can help with your living situation,” Red Robin offers with a glance around the room.
“What, and put me in foster care? No thanks, I’ll pass.”
“There are other options,” Robin chimes in with nonchalance that implies he doesn’t actually care.
“You don’t pass for eighteen, but if you let me make you a new ID we could say you’re emancipated.”
Danny frowns.
“I’d have to be sixteen to be eligible for emancipation.”
“You could be sixteen.”
No, he really couldn’t. Maybe if you squint your eyes and tilt your head, but Danny is fourteen with all the baby fat and innocent face that comes with it. His license now is a clear fake to anyone who sees it, but in this city no one’s gonna question it to his face. They just raise a brow, look at him, then shrug it off and roll with the lie.
“What do you want?” He demands. All this good will and wanting to help him can’t be free.
“We want to help,” Red says too easily.
Danny stares for a second, eyes narrowed as he tries to block out the multiple voices around him.
Insurance. He wants Danny to owe him so he can keep coming back for more information.
“I just told you I would help. Why are you still trying to get leverage?” He demands with irritation.
“We want to help-“
“You want me in your back pocket.”
Red Robin doesn’t give that a response, his lips pressing together to make a hard line.
Instead of pushing, he surprisingly takes a step back and heads towards the door, papers still in hand. Danny doesn’t argue.
Robin ducks out first, blending into the shadows without even a glance over his shoulder. Red Robin pauses in the doorway.
“Don’t try to skip town,” he states like an order. Like if Danny did in fact try, he would be found and brought back.
It didn’t even cross Danny’s mind.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he says tiredly, too fed up with the day to defend himself.
Red Robin watches him for a moment before nodding and disappearing out the room.
Danny slumps with a groan, finally sliding off the desk to shuffle to the couch, body flopping face first into the worn cushions.
It’s silent to everyone else but Danny.
“I know.”
…
“I know, Jack, but I don’t trust them. Even if he is your son.”
Danny never noticed the bug planted by Robin on the underside of the desk.
Around the same time as Batman appearing, a mysterious man had begun to make changes to Park Row, aka Crime Alley, in Gotham. The man had an uncanny feel to him, but what he was doing was genuinely helping the people who live in Crime Alley.
Crime Alley had changed when Robin had come under the Bats wing. Crime Alley was no longer the dingy rundown place it was, instead, it became a lively place that is under the protection of the man who changed it.
The man even took in a kid, a local Crime Alley kid, one Jason Todd. He teaches Jason, as well as other kids, self-defense against adults who think they can take them hostage to use as leverage against Batman. During the night, two new vigilantes stalk the night along with Batman, Robin, and Batgirl. Cardinal and Nightingale, a Meta Adult man who has powers similar to an old children's cartoon and a boy just a few years younger than Robin.
Nightingale had reformed some of the Rogues of Gotham. Kiteman isn't a Rogue anymore. He is now an Ally to Nightingale because Nightingale had somehow got the Ghost of his dead son to be with the man, Waylon Jones wears an Amulet to be human again, but when Nightingale needs him, all he has to do is take off the Amulet and help the man who made human again. Nora Fries is no longer sick, something Nightingale did had cured her from her illness, so now Mr. Freeze, aka Victor Fries, is working with the man who is the savior of Crime Alley to make a new clean energy source for Poison Ivy and Swamp Thing to be less hostile. Nightingale even made Harley Quinn realize that Joker abuses her and only cares about making Batman break his no killing rule.
On the day side of Gotham, Bruce Wayne had recently announced that he has a biological son along with his newly adopted son, so Damian Wayne and Richard "Dick" Grayson-Wayne are bonding much earlier than Canon. Timothy Drake has been outed to be living alone for a while by a mysterious source. Needless to say that the Drakes have been losing money and renown steadily, with Timothy becoming a Wayne when Bruce took him in, Cass will soon also be part of the Wayne family with Stephanie becoming Jason's sister, the Thomas family, along with many others were saved by Nightingale and Mr. Freeze when they found developed a cure to the Joker Gas.
Danny had fled his home dimension after he revealed his identity when he saved the planet from the Disasteroid. His parents didn't accept him, and neither did Valerie. The GIW had become too powerful when Vlad wasn't monitoring them, same with the Ghost Hunting team Vlad hired, the Masters Blasters.
Danny had arrived in Gotham after Clockwork sent him here as a sort of "Training Mission" for his Ghost King duties a few years later. Needless to say that he was pretty shocked and excited to see that his favorite comics were real (and petty that in this world, his life is a children's cartoon that is better than the life he lived). He's in Crime Alley, making it a better place to live in.
Danny had subjugated the League of Assassins by killing Ra's Al Ghul. The old Fruitloop had wanted immortality, and being a Ghost is technically being an immortal being. He made the League of Assassins into the League of Shadows, and they help the world by his orders and not Ra's orders. The Court of Owls will soon be in a war with the League of Shadows that won't affect Gotham much if it goes well.
Danny had taken in Jason when he saw that the boy was almost about to take the tires of the Batmobile because he knows that Jason's path will inevitably reach the one where he dies in that warehouse. Danny was the one to reveal the living situation Tim was in to the public. He's even helped reform some Rogues as his new Vigilante persona. It took a while to find Kiteman's son's ghost for him to be reformed. And healing Nora was pretty easy when he asked Frostbite to look at the woman. His experience with Sam has made managing Poison Ivy somewhat easy. He just needs to spread his Ectoplasm fueled things around to make the world a lot less polluted for both Ivy and Swamp Thing. He found some artisans in the Infinite Realms/Ghost Zone to make an inverse of Aragon and Dorothea's Amulets for Waylon Jones. He even used some of the stuff Jazz rambled to him about psychology to get Harley to see that Joker doesn't really care about her.
Danny doesn't know if Jazz, Sam, and Tucker are alright. He just hopes that they are, and they'll come to him when they make it to the Ghost Zone.
I'm so glad I live in a world where there's Archive of Our Own
Ever get absolutely blindsided by a fixation