Halloween prompts no. 23
Au where when danny left the portal his friends noticed his white hasmat suit was missing from his human form but both his cloths and suit remained on his ghost form, puzzling them. They never found out what happened to it, but decided it didn't matter.
----
A large jewel was on display at one of the highest security museums in Gotham, one said to be cursed and causes terrible misfortune to anyone who dares touch it. But Selina Kyle was no coward and had nine lives to back her up, meow~
The notorious cat-burglar managed to fight off Batman long enough to grab the jewel, but the moment she opened her mouth to taunt him a large green portal opened up above them and something fell out of it before it snapped shut as suddenly as it appeared.
They both stared in shock at the form of a fourteen year old boy lying unconscious on the floor between them. Catwoman made a run for it while Batman called an ambulance. The boy wasn't breathing. After doing CPR the boy began to breath again but did not wake up. He took a blood sample in hopes of tracking down any family members this kid may have had and watching over him as he was loaded into the vehicle.
What he never could have guessed was that the child was his. Well, his and Selinas. The only real problem was that Selina had no memory of being pregnant and wasn't missing any time. She also showed no signs of mental tampering but the blood sample held no indication of cloning or genetic engineering. Hmm.
Stranger still the kid would flatline multiple times throughout the day and night without any clear cause and his heart would randomly start beating again several minutes later. The amount of times his death had been "called" was unheard of. No one knew what to make of it.
Still, when he told the family they were confused and intrigued. They all wanted to go meet thier brother even if he wasn't awake. Damian seemed a bit off, but was reassured by the knowledge this kid was about a year younger than him.
Halloween prompts no. 24.5
Danny needed a place to live.
The Wayne manor had more rooms than anyone could know what to do with.
Had Danny been sneaking in to the Wayne manor uncaught for a three months now? Yep. Had he had a little fifteenth birthday party for himself with a cupcake and a candle in his new room? Yep. Was he proud of his appearent stealth? Yep.
Did he expect the butler to walk in on him in the middle of phasing his backpack back out of the wall?
Nope. Absolutely not.
The butler eased out of his look of shock like a veteran of wild shenanigans and bullcrappery, "May I inquire the reason for your visit?"
Danny, who was a panicking just blurted out, "I live here now!"
They just kinda stared at eachother before the butler laughed a little. "Alright then. Dinner will be served in two hours. Don't be late."
And with that he was gone. Danny groaned about his big mouth and decided to commit. Dinner was awkward and the butler, Alfred, made him introduce himself and he did so with a little wave.
Damian attempted to murder him with throwing knives which Danny caught and proclaimed were his now. The family all watched on as Danny wound Damian up and kept taking more weapons from him. Little bat looked like he was on the verge of either flying over the table at the teen or just having a stroke.
Steph and Tim were switching between asking questions and being menaces to society.
Jason was making quips at other people and being oddly friendly.
Duke was staring at danny with a look of horror for half the diner before awkwardly deciding to be friendly and hope whatever this thing was didn't bite
He and Dick were already workshopping puns together at the table in front of everybody. A fact no one but them enjoyed.
Bruce was asking vague questions to try to figure out what this kids deal was and how exactly he got past all the security.
Cass had successfully taught him a bit of ASL and they seemed to get along well enough. Especially once stealth was brought up. Turns out Danny likes to sneak around and he had almost been caught multiple times in the three months he'd been living here. All the family went silent.
"Did you say three months?!"
The whole family (sans Damian) works together both to get Danny to stay so they can get answers to questions and try to peace together wth is happening.
At first they thing Danny is going to freeload off of him only to discover he only came home right before the curfew Bruce set for him and heads out first thing in the morning. He usually only used the manor to sleep and shower.
It was Steph who found him first. He was handing out flyers as part of one of his many side jobs. Turns out he spent most of his time working.
He somehow managed to get Jason to help him buy a fridge. Danny paid for it entirely by himself, he just needed Jason to sign a piece of paper since he was a legal adult and Danny very much wasn't. Jason asked why the kid wanted such a huge fridge and he wasn't prepared for him to say he "wanted to stay out of the way as much as possible"
HELLO I AM HERE WITH FANART OF CONNER CARRYING HIS NEW BABY KITTEN who just wont stop trying to become a ghost :(
110% inspired by this AMAZING fic by @playedcrowd5610 about danny getting stuck in his human form with the team, and since everyone believes he's been miraculously revived they're being uber overprotective trying to prevent danny from dying again lolll
Adult Tim learns he appearently has a time traveling, dimension hopping, clone son named Danny who keeps evading Red Hood and Damian and leading them on wild goose chases for fun.
After confirming he was not de aged and he had a solid alibi for the past four days and the blood they had managed to snag from the kid (don't ask how) showed signs of cloning shenanigans did they finally agree on what to do.
Which is why they had the kid tied up like a mummy sitting on the couch in one of Red Hoods safe houses trying to explain to this very sassy teen that they had no intentions to harm him and just wanted to keep him safe and give him a normal life.
This, however, made Danny panic and phase out of his bindings before throwing a smoke bomb on the ground and yelling, "I'M NOT GOING BACK TO SCHOOL!!!" in the same way people talk about prison before escaping.
Red Hood looked Red Robin directly in the eyes before saying, "That one is definitely yours."
The safety on his gun was turned back on with an inaudible click as Jason let the tension leak out of his body.
It wasn't often that someone broke into one of his safe houses, especially one that he hadn't used in a while, so seeing as some of his silent alarms went off he raced over ready to put a bullet in some wannabe robber or maybe a goon sent by another crime lord trying to start something.
Instead he found a prime bat adoption bait sitting in the living room floor, bare stomach pressed to the side of a ginormous egg. It didn't look like any egg hed ever seen either with midnight blue fuzz covering the whole thing. "Hey kid."
The kids head whipped around, startled by a strangers voice. "Who are you?" He asked incredulously, hugging the monster egg closer to himself, "How did you get in here? This place has some serious security."
Jason gave a short laugh, "Yeah, I know. I'm the one who put it there." He watched with mild amusement as the color drained from the kids face.
"You're the apartment owner? I thought he was supposed to be some big scary crime lord!"
"I'm not scary to you?" It wasn't uncommon for people to be intimidated by him. He was, as Steph put it, 'built like a fridge'.
The adoption bait stared into his eyes for a few torturously long seconds before simply saying, "No."
Huh.
"So, whats up with the egg?" He asked, trying to change the subject.
"Thats my line, Todd." A voice said from across the room. Both him and the little intruder snapped there attention to the window where Robin was perched. Jason fought back the urge to chastise the little bat for using his real name seeing as he was out of costume at the moment. After all he was here as Jason Todd, normalish civilian man who came to see why his house was broken into, not Red Hood. Jason almost wished with was some goon working for a big bad even if it would have meant his secret identity was busted, he would have been at least dealing with that instead of Damians inevitable animal custody battle with the kid. Speaking of which.
"Hey kid, whats your name?"
"Danny Fenton." The kid-Danny, tilted his head. "I think."
Robin raised an eyebrow, causing his mask to sift with it, "You think?"
Danny nodded, "Yeah. Got blasted with something a few weeks ago and I don't remember much before that." His grip on the egg had loosened a bit and Robin chose this as he time to strike. Bird boy tried to lift the egg up out of the intruders impromptu blanket nest, but seemed to have misjudged the weight of the egg that was as big as both children's torsos and Danny was swift to take back his egg.
"What do you think you're doing?! Thats mine!" Egg dad hissed.
"Tt. I will be better able to care for the creature. You should just hand it over now. Do you even know whats in there?"
"No! Neither do you!"
Jason knew Robin couldn't refute that so he chose now to step in, "Where did that thing even come from?
He watched as Dannys scowl turned into a beaming smile as he told them about how he was hiding behind a dumpster for warmth when this egg just fell out of the sky and with quick thinking, managed to catch it with a bed of ruined pillows from a recent villian attack. "So you can't take my dragon egg away. I'm the only reason it didn't become a failed street omelet." Danny held his hands on his hips while giving Robin a smug look.
Before the demon brat could say anything or, more likely, try to wipe that smirk off the other kids face, a new person swooped in through the window. "You think its a dragon egg?"
The kid seemed unbothered by the Batman questioning him and just replied with, "Yeah! Look how big it is! Its gotta be a dragon!"
Bruce looked like he was about to have an aneurysm, "You found a large egg of an unknown, potentially supernatural creature and decided to incubate it?"
"Yeah!"
Jason decided he liked this kid.
Danny had been following...ok, stalking his bio dad for a while now. He didn't have anywhere to go after Amity blew up and Clockwork just came out of no where almost a week after the initial incident to pretty much say, "Hey! You're adopted! Also you're a clone baby! This is the name and main alias of your parent and here's how you get to your home dimension!" Then he was gone.
Ancients.
Again, its not like he had anywhere to go and he had nothing better to do. So following around his fourteen year old father (his original?) and his scary bat mentor around a gross crime filled city at night seemed better than nothing. It felt kinda wierd calling him dad in his head but at the same time he didn't want to call him anything else. His inner Jazz said it might be his subconscious grasping for any safe or familial connections it can find, but whatever. He'll call him dad. Who will ever know?
He knows Clockwork told him not to interfere with any of the battles here. He was only ever meant to be a fly on the wall (actually he wasn't even supposed to be here but the old stopwatch couldn't really stop him) but it was so frustrating to see this Red Hood guy appear one day and start hurting his dad and not being able to do anything without exposing himself.
But nothing prepared him for the new Robin.
He hated the new Robin. He had everything Danny ever wanted and he chose to treat his family like that? The anger he felt towards RH was nothing compared to what he felt towards the new little bird. Damian would look around whenever he was alone, likely feeling they eyes on him from Phantoms intense glare. Good. He wanted the kid to know he was unwelcome.
Danny may have died at eight and become a superhero, but that didn't mean he couldn't hate another child vigilante if he was given enough reason to. Danny stopped aging after the explosion that ruined his afterlife and his inner Jazz had a lot of theories about that but in reality he knew why.
He had been waiting.
He knew the bats were mortal and one day Batman would be too old to fight and Robin -now Red Robin- would need a protégé of his own, right? Then he'd pop in and reveal himself as Tim Drakes long lost clone son and everything would be perfect.
Damian didn't just put a wrench in those plans. He ruined them entirely! If Batman is replaced by Damian than Red Robin will likely always be a sidekick.
And sidekicks don't need sidekicks of thier own.
So Phantom made it his afterlifes mission to make Damians stay in Gotham as miserable as possible to make him leave. He would make sure Damian would go back to whereever he came from at the first available opportunity, even if he had to possess the whole city to do it.
----
Danny took cover with some other kids in a nearby clothing store. The riddler was one of Batmans common rogues and was dangerous. He and the others watched in horror as a third party, likely a gang of some kind that didn't appreciate a hero battle on thier turf, stupidly fired a freaking rocket launcher at the two of them. The projectile missed the mark by a large margin and hit a nearby business tower, sending rubble and debris down of the two fighters. Riddler was quickly pinned while Batman eventually got pinned after a few really cool evasive maneuvers. Red Robin went to assist while Robin went to fight the gang members. A lucky shot from one of the gang members got RR in the leg, sending him down momentarily.
Danny managed to rally the other kids to help dig Batman and Riddler out from where they were trapped by stealing a bunch of black hoodies for them to wear and ripping up a black shirt for them to wear as blindfolds. They could see out of them just fine, but it would hide thier identities from all parties.
Together they rescued the pair and Danny silently rejoiced at helping Red Robin limp away and treat his wound at a safer location. As much as he wanted to let this interaction last, he knew he had to bouce once RR started asking him questions.
Phantom later looked at himself in the reflection of a piece of building material. He had been told before that a ghosts appearance could change based on significant events in thier afterlives. Seeing his former symbol on his chest had disappeared and the smooth crisp edges of the black blindfold that had materialized on his face he knew what had happened. And he knew he would do anything to be with his father again.
His efforts to get rid of Damian intensified.
Danny had been following...ok, stalking his bio dad for a while now. He didn't have anywhere to go after Amity blew up and Clockwork just came out of no where almost a week after the initial incident to pretty much say, "Hey! You're adopted! Also you're a clone baby! This is the name and main alias of your parent and here's how you get to your home dimension!" Then he was gone.
Ancients.
Again, its not like he had anywhere to go and he had nothing better to do. So following around his fourteen year old father (his original?) and his scary bat mentor around a gross crime filled city at night seemed better than nothing. It felt kinda wierd calling him dad in his head but at the same time he didn't want to call him anything else. His inner Jazz said it might be his subconscious grasping for any safe or familial connections it can find, but whatever. He'll call him dad. Who will ever know?
He knows Clockwork told him not to interfere with any of the battles here. He was only ever meant to be a fly on the wall (actually he wasn't even supposed to be here but the old stopwatch couldn't really stop him) but it was so frustrating to see this Red Hood guy appear one day and start hurting his dad and not being able to do anything without exposing himself.
But nothing prepared him for the new Robin.
He hated the new Robin. He had everything Danny ever wanted and he chose to treat his family like that? The anger he felt towards RH was nothing compared to what he felt towards the new little bird. Damian would look around whenever he was alone, likely feeling they eyes on him from Phantoms intense glare. Good. He wanted the kid to know he was unwelcome.
Danny may have died at eight and become a superhero, but that didn't mean he couldn't hate another child vigilante if he was given enough reason to. Danny stopped aging after the explosion that ruined his afterlife and his inner Jazz had a lot of theories about that but in reality he knew why.
He had been waiting.
He knew the bats were mortal and one day Batman would be too old to fight and Robin -now Red Robin- would need a protégé of his own, right? Then he'd pop in and reveal himself as Tim Drakes long lost clone son and everything would be perfect.
Damian didn't just put a wrench in those plans. He ruined them entirely! If Batman is replaced by Damian than Red Robin will likely always be a sidekick.
And sidekicks don't need sidekicks of thier own.
So Phantom made it his afterlifes mission to make Damians stay in Gotham as miserable as possible to make him leave. He would make sure Damian would go back to whereever he came from at the first available opportunity, even if he had to possess the whole city to do it.
----
Danny took cover with some other kids in a nearby clothing store. The riddler was one of Batmans common rogues and was dangerous. He and the others watched in horror as a third party, likely a gang of some kind that didn't appreciate a hero battle on thier turf, stupidly fired a freaking rocket launcher at the two of them. The projectile missed the mark by a large margin and hit a nearby business tower, sending rubble and debris down of the two fighters. Riddler was quickly pinned while Batman eventually got pinned after a few really cool evasive maneuvers. Red Robin went to assist while Robin went to fight the gang members. A lucky shot from one of the gang members got RR in the leg, sending him down momentarily.
Danny managed to rally the other kids to help dig Batman and Riddler out from where they were trapped by stealing a bunch of black hoodies for them to wear and ripping up a black shirt for them to wear as blindfolds. They could see out of them just fine, but it would hide thier identities from all parties.
Together they rescued the pair and Danny silently rejoiced at helping Red Robin limp away and treat his wound at a safer location. As much as he wanted to let this interaction last, he knew he had to bouce once RR started asking him questions.
Phantom later looked at himself in the reflection of a piece of building material. He had been told before that a ghosts appearance could change based on significant events in thier afterlives. Seeing his former symbol on his chest had disappeared and the smooth crisp edges of the black blindfold that had materialized on his face he knew what had happened. And he knew he would do anything to be with his father again.
His efforts to get rid of Damian intensified.
Pandora was right, taking baths out in the wilderness was great! He could see the stars and point out the constellations as he scrubbed himself and practiced his singing where no one could hear him. This did not stop him from wearing swim trunks, so hess a litte paranoid. Sue him.
Pandora had been very clear about going deep into the wilderness where no one could hear him sing, because if they heard the siren song of a halfa and fled they would be haunted by it forever or until he himself tracked them down and sang a song strong enough to free them.
Ancients she knew him so well.
He had been minding his own business playing in the water with his multitude of floating duck candles, a purchase he begged Sam for when he was drugged out of his mind after a very devastating injury, and practicing one of the songs Pandora put on the "study list" called The Fairy King. If he didn't know any better he would think she was making fun of him.
He scrubbed his arm with a washcloth as he sung watching as the ducks floated around in the little super hero costumes Tucker had 3d printed for them. "Huh. It almost looks like they're dancing."
A light bulb went off in his head. He began practicing with his telekinesis as he sang, making the ducks dance together in little twists and twirls. He doesn't think he's ever had this much fun in a bath before honestly.
----
Red Robin and Nightwing were sneaking through the foliage looking for a supervillians secret base when they heard it. The sound of a full symphony playing live off in the distance. They nodded at eachother before heading in the direction the sound was coming from. They were almost on top of it when they heard the singing begin,
"When the house is still i can hear his song, beckoning me out into the ga-ar-den" the boys froze, this didn't sound anything like thier villain, they turned back to the noise edging closer, "his lullaby- promises sweet- escaaape"
Nothing could have prepared them for what they saw once they parted the underbrush, a glowing white haired teenager was standing in chest deep water, haloed by the moon behind, offering them an ethereal scene "He says, 'come my drifting flower i will hold you tight. Listen to the chime of stars and moo-oonlight-'"
The teen lifted up a floating ducky that was dressed like Red Robin in one hand and placed the other of his chest as he continued singing, "take my hand-and feel here- my heaart"
Red Robin turned beat red and Nightwing moved to give him a comforting pat on the shoulder only to have a twig snap underneath his boot. The guy whirled around and locked eyes with Nightwing for only a moment before screaming and falling backwards into the water. Bubbles rose to the surface of the pond only for a few seconds before they vanished all together.
It felt like a spell was broken and the two vigilantes just stood there for a second before nightwing jumped in to save a possibly drowning teen. No matter how hard he searched he couldn't find any proof that the guy was ever even there, save for the duck candles (?) that Red Robin had already finished collecting from around the pond.
RR didn't seem surprised that the guy had vanished and was examining the ducks. More specifically the bottoms. Dick went to see what was going on only for his younger brother to show him the bottom of the Nightwing duck.
There, in messy handwriting, was the ducks name: Duckwing
Dick laughed and started going through the ducks names, Quack-Hood, Bat-Bill, Red-Drake (which was kinda concerning and brought up the question of whether or not this guy knew any of thier identities) and funniest of all, a Robin one with a little plastic katana simply named Stabby.
----
Danny hid his face in his pillow after accidentally teleporting home. This was awful.
He waited until the heat in his face disappeared before taking a few deep breaths and thinking about how he was going to handle this. He obviously needed to track down the two Gotham vigilantes (what were they doing out there?) and break the spell on them before they become obsessed with him.
Then he remembered his ducks, "Aw man. What are the chances they didn't take my ducks?" Teleporting back to the pond after a full hour of being away showed a dark and duckless pond, much to his disappointment.
Now he added "recue the ducks" to his mental checklist.
Unbeknownst to him the vigilantes weren't the only ones to hear his song...
Theres a new mom and pop coffee shop in Gotham that's doing pretty well. The place has a casual playful vibe but it only ever has one employee, which has lead to it having a bit of a urban myth status.
He's there through all the opening hours and no one ever sees him come or go, only the lights switching off and the teen disappearing.
It probably doesn't help that the shop has a ghost themed name.
His name tag reads, "Nightingale" and he always has a polite smile, but the few who dare to act out in his shop notice his eyes flash a particular shade of green and are suddenly overcome with the feeling that they're being stared down by a large apex predator and a sickening sense of dread.
Needless to say people behave in his shop.
Whats more is that his store shows up on county records just fine, but if you try to look into anything your computer glitches out and you can't find anything. Obviously "Nightingale" can't be the owner, he looks only 15. Some say he's a vampire, others say he's a zombie like Red Hood.
Tim doesn't care what he is because the first time he entered at night as Red Robin the guy immediately started making a coffee were he could see, made it exactly how he liked it and gave it to him before he even had the chance to order. Then he refused his money, saying it was on the house.
None of the people waiting in line argued or were upset and Tim was unsure if that was because he was a well known Gotham vigilante or it Nightingales reputation protected him.
Either way the coffee was delicious.
Tim didn't know how to feel when he found out his family was investigating the "possible runaway" who worked at the coffee shop.
Danny was weak. Amity had been destroyed because of his failure to act and it had hit his obsession hard. The other ghosts jumped on him exploiting his moment of weakness and while he was able to defeat them he was left with very little power left.
He was dying.
Again.
Danny had to choke back a sob. He was alone, scared, and in pain in an unfamiliar dimension in an unfamiliar city that had a smell bad enough to make raccoons turn thier noses away. He needed to find a way to feed his obsession and fast.
It was at that moment a very obviously drugged and hurt Red Robin came falling out of the sky and landed with a thud before him and promptly passed out.
Danny could work with this.
Dragging the other teen as far as he could (which wasn't far in the halfas sorry state) he settled down with the supposed hero on the front step of a boarded up store and rested the guys head in Dannys lap. Taking a deep breath he pulled out one of his parents weapons that he had personally modified. A laser gun that if turned up to the highest setting would be a death ray and at the lowest would be powerful enough to blast someone down a few city blocks. Anyone who tries anything would be in for a world of pain.
Unfortunately there were a lot of people who saw the downed bird being protected by a frail kid with what looked like a toy gun and came walking up with crowbars and bats, intending to get revenge only to find out that it was very much not a toy.
The most annoying ones were these wierd people who Just. Would. Not. Give. Up.
The one with a blue bird on his chest had almost convinced him that he was the heros friend, up until he let slip that his brother, Red Hood had tried to murder him. He got blasted away after that.
Red Hood didn't even get down from the rooftop before Danny blasted him. He had so much bad ghost vibes that Danny could feel exactly where he was even five miles away. Hood didn't understand why he couldn't sneak up on this kid.
Batman gets the "on sight" treatment and Danny is convinced he's a supervillian.
The Joker gets vaporized in front of the batfam, whose jaws are on the floor, except for Jason who's cheering. (Jason later throws a party) Everyone who has a bat logo on them gets blasted. No one can get close and nothing they do can get the kid away. Its only when Robin appears before the kid that Danny visibly relaxes. When Robin asks how he knew he was Red Robins ally Danny pointed out the matching colors.
Robin did not understand the logic behind it but was happy to get the civilian that had been giving them so much grief to a hospital and drag RR to the med Bay to see why he hadn't woken up yet. But no, it was not meant to be. Danny revealed he was not human and that his injuries were more severe than they first appeared, which said a lot because his white shirt looked mostly brownish red at this point.
Anyway, Danny was a supernatural entity who protected people and fed off of them, creating a mutually beneficial situation. The people he protected turned on him seeking knowledge about his biology via the "science and a knife" method and he barely escaped. Danny is so weak now that if he let's Red Robin go Danny would quickly die, but if he doesn't let Red Robin go, he won't wake up. So naturally Danny is too terrified of dying to let RR go and as a consequence Tim is getting the best sleep of his life
"Do you require assistance?" Phantom perked up at the mans voice. Red Robin was the guy multiple ghosts had recommended to him even though he was still alive. Okay, so they kinda did it in a half joking manner, but Phantom was desperate!
The nine year old came out from the shadows and could immediately feel the man in front of him cataloging everything about his appearance. Wierd. But he had dealt with Weirder. Besides, he was glowing, so he guessed the human had a right to be curious. "I heard you were really good with machines."
Red Robin looked somewhat tense, like he was ready to fight if need be. Why does everyone wanna fight him? He's nine!
Phantom quickly brought out a little silver sphere with an OwO face from his bag and quickly began speaking, "This is my friend Livvi, she started acting wierd a while back and I haven't been able to fix her."
To his credit, Red didn't attack him. He just looked gobsmacked. "You came out to Gotham, in the middle of the night and tracked down a vigilante to ask for tech support?"
"Livvi is different!" He fumed, "She's my friend!"
A sigh escaped from the mans lips and Phantom looked up to see him pinching the bridge of his nose, "Okay, you're probably not going to go away until I fix her. Just promise me you'll try to be safer."
Phantom hummed as if contemplating, "I'll try."
With that, the vigilante took Livvi from him and began working on her from the blanket Phantom had laid out. Red Robin began to look more and more curious about Livvi as he worked on her. He even took out one of Livvis ectoplasm powerbanks to examine it more thoroughly. "Can you explain to me what problems she's been having?"
The kid bit his lower lip, clearly worried about the little robot, "Shes having trouble maintaining flight and producing shields. Her speech sometimes comes out glitch or warped despite me not finding anything wrong with her voice box or programming. A few times she's just turned off mid flight and dropped."
The man looked thoughtful for a few seconds before asking, "Have you ever heard of the Lazarus Pit?"
"I've heard of Lazarus, but I don't know what it is. I've only ever heard of it in passing. Why?" The ghost was genuinely confused by the change in topic
"Can I text a friend about this?"
"I don't see why not. The more help Livvi gets the faster she'll get better right?" The bird wasted no time activating his coms and whispering into it telling some unknown people about "an unknown glowing meta child with futuristic tech that runs on Lazarus water"
Within the next ten minutes a guy dressed as a bat landed on the rooftop alongside a boy around his age dressed like a trafic light and scowling as if he had just been told that he was grounded from ever having ice cream again. The big goth dude introduced himself as batman and offered him a lollipop. "I'm not supposed to take candy from strangers." Phantom said seriously, "Unless its Halloween."
Batman...well he didn't smile exactly but he didn't seem angry. "Do you know where you're parents are?"
"No. But thats okay. They don't like me."
Batman maintained a cool pokerface, "why don't they like you?"
"I don't remember. I think I knew when I was older-"
"Older?" The other boy interrupted, "Is this not your true age?"
Phantom pouted at him, any hopes he had of making a friend he didn't construct himself were flung out the window, "Yeah, but I don't remember it. Appearently I ate a time god and lost six-ish years from absorbing his powers."
There was a beat silence, then: "You ate a time god?!" Red Robin looked horrifed
"In my defense, I have no memory of what was happening at the time. All I know is that the place i used to live is in ruins and I'm dead."
Bruce Wayne is used to ransom calls. They happen often enough despite his children's training, though it doesn't help that they sometimes purposely get themselves captured to later mock the kidnappers but he digressed.
This call was different. "We have Tim Drakes children" what did that even mean? Did they kidnap some random infants with black wisps of hair and blue eyes and just hope that Tim miiight have had a night of indiscretion in the last year or so to be concerned about?
Spoiler was the first on scene, actively teasing Red Robin about the whole fiasco. He swears they couldn't possibly be his and this had to be a scam of some kind. They had been assessing the situation from the rafters of the warehouse when another guy who looked like prime Batman Adoption Bait stormed the place and beat the crap out of the guys before zooming over to the infants.
The pair nodded at eachother and leaped down from the rafters and landed behind the man. He whirled around, holding the kids protectively to his chest, careful to support thier heads.
They asked him to confirm if he's the father which he did so readily. Red Robin got a wierd feeling though and asked to get a swab for testing, just to be sure.
The guy refused. That wasn't overly suspicious but the defensive way he acted was. Were these not his children? The bats chose to try a different tactic and asked him to wait for the police to arrive so they could confirm he was the twins father.
He ran.
Danny was having one of the worst days of his afterlife, and trust him, he's had some rough days. Being chased through Gotham at night by its local terrifying vigilantes while trying not to drop or harm the babies was hard, especially since he was trying to hide his powers. But really, what was he supposed to do?
He can't exactly just say "a ghost with genie powers overheard my mom wish for grandbabies from me and granted that wish but screwed us by making the other half of the babies DNA that of some random rich guy from another reality?" Cause thats going to go over soooo well.
Why do they care so much anyway? He doubts they're going to make the guy pay child support, not that Danny needs it. Then again its probably better to stay in this world where no one knows who he is and his children are safer...from his parents OSHA violations if nothing else.
Vlad couldn't enter this universe cause he couldn't get past the "source wall" whatever that was, but Danny and his babies had no problems so meh.
The bats had him cornered and hiding invisibly inside an abandoned arcade (why were so many places in this city abandoned???) the bats kept combing through the place looking for him. He knew they were about ready to give up looking for him when one of the babies sneezed.
The next thing he knew the littlest bat, Robin was right next to him, "Found you." Then he was knocked out.
Danny keeps getting summoned to Gotham of all places but it keeps happening at night while he's wearing his Red Robin Pajamas. Worse. He's getting summoned as Fenton.
The first time it happened Danny appeared in the summoning circle started and looked around to see Gothams vigilantes standing over some very knocked out cultists. He locks eyes with Red Robin and makes a face. "Well, this is embarrassing."
The problem is that this keeps happening. The forth time it happened he had been in the middle of brushing his teeth. He accused the bats of doing this on purpose before breaking the circle again and sending himself back. Each time Danny is summoned he's wearing a completely different set of RR pajamas. No one even knew there were that many variations of it.
Steph made a bet that "Tim's simp" probably has a RR themed bed. They found out when the kid gets summoned while asleep in bed. Tough luck for her, Dannys bed was star/constellation themed. The bats takes his fingerprints and DNA while he's out cold and find out who he is.
Danny, on the run from the GIW decides to take shelter in Gotham because if the GIW have any sense they'd never set foot in there.
Even if Batman and the JL agree with thier opinion on ecto entities (as evidenced by their lack of speaking out against the anti-ecto acts) Batman was notoriously territorial and would have issue with a wildly incompetent government organization throwing missiles around his city all willy-nilly.
With that being said it was probably best for Danny to wear a disguise. Sure, they didn't know Fenton and Phantom were the same person yet but Danny Fenton suddenly turning up in Gotham after going missing in Amity is certainly going to raise some eyebrows regardless of the necklace he had that jammed his ecto-signature and made him untrackable.
Danny started off by going blond. Its something he's always wanted to do and now with ghostly shape-shifting powers he doesn't even have to worry about frying his hair or dying his eyebrows to match. After that all he needed to do was part his hair down the middle, add a lip ring or two and maybe a bit of make up.
Danny stared at himself in the mirror. He looked like a completely different person.
A completely different and very attractive person. He looked good. The newly blond man threw on a green jacket and went out to explore the town. He did not expect to literally bump into the Tim Drake. The Wayne adoptee just stood there mouth opening and closing comically. Did he offend him? Crap. He had promised Jazz he would stay off of the radar of the Waynes and the bats specifically and here he was angering one of them.
Danny decided to book it before it became a scene, ignoring the lovestruck Tim's crys for him to wait.
Back at his apartment Danny quickly changed his look to red hair tied back into a two inch low ponytail, green eyes and freckles that unbeknownst to anyone else was made up from the lesser known constellations.
The coffee at this Cafe smelled amazing! Too bad Danny wouldn't get to try it because the next this he knew freaking Red Hood was behind him asking to talk. Our favorite ghost boy wouldn't be embarrassed to admit he let out a small squeek before bolting out the door yelling, "I'm not even a criminal!"
It took Jason a few seconds to process that the guy he had tried to flirt with ran away in terror. Crap.
Day three and four were blissfully Wayne and bat free, though he did find out that Tim Drake and Red Hood were looking for his two false identities. Joy.
Day five he met the stabby Robin who very valiantly beat up two people who had been following him. Danny didn't even notice he was being followed and thanked the bird for saving him. Danny, who was shape-shifted into a very pretty girl at the moment, offered to buy him something to eat as a thank you. "Danielle" insisted and Robin allowed it. Danielle never noticed the slight pink on Damians cheeks as they went over to one of Damians favorite restaurants.
Day seven he had went out as blondie and got confronted by some girl named Barbara. She was nice and managed to convince him to come to a Cafe with her. He told her his name was David and he ran away from his parents with the help of one of his friends family members and that he was Jewish, which was true...except for the David part. He learned that if you wanna keep your story straight keeping to almost truths was your best bet. She in turn told him about Tim and how he's a friend of hers-uh oh- and that he's been looking all over for him.
Danny-David- tells her he's sorry but he didn't mean to offend Tim and doesn't want any trouble before laying down enough money to cover his half of the bill and the tip and booking it out of there
This repeats with most of the family trying to flirt with him or adopt him into the family when he's out as Danny.
Bruce Wayne approached Danny when he was waiting to board an elevator, "Hel-" was all the billionaire could get out before Danny cut him off "Hell no." And then he just got in the elevator and pressed the close doors button and was gone again.
Danny was tired. It had been a week since he fell into this crazy dimention full of people with superpowers. It was tough learning to survive with nothing but the clothes on his back and a thermos that was thankfully empty of ghosts but he managed. Oh, did he mention he hadn't slept more than five hours since then?
Needless to say Dannys tolerance for shenanigans has been thoroughly depleted, so when one of the local vigilantes, Red Robin came flying in through the new hole in the ceiling of the abandoned apartment he had been squatting in he was done.
He looked over at the knocked out hero lying on the bed next to him and after checking his pulse and confirming he was alright he angrily grumbled, "I am not dealing with this." before wrapping another blanket around the sleeping bird and tucking him in. Danny then crawled back into bed and rolled over, content to pretend this didn't happen and hope Mr. Burger Joint would be gone in the morning.
Red Hood watched all this go down from aforementioned hole in the ceiling that he had made when fighting his brother and decided he liked this kid.
For his guts if nothing else.
Next thing Danny knows the guy was not in the crappy apartment. Unfortunately neither is he. Getting up and exploring the new and non crappy apartment he come face to helmet with Red Hood.
That can't be good.
Vlad accidentally outed both of them publicly and Danny was forced to flee into the Ghost Zone while his former rogues destroy the portals and leave Vlad stranded in the mess he made.
Clockwork shows up only to dramatically tell Danny that "This chapter of your life has ended. It is time for you to begin anew." He also warned Danny that he would no longer be able to help him in the new world he would be inhabitanting and wished him luck.
Luck was something he clearly did not receive since he landed smack in the middle of Gotham.
Through a bright green portal.
At night.
As a very glowy Phantom.
In the middle of a very busy road.
People were staring at him from inside thier cars, some were trying to put thier cars in reverse to quietly get away some were filming him with thier phones or trying at least trying to. He is a ghost after all.
Some melodramatic person screamed and suddenly there was some type of demon swooping down to Phantom. It was at this point that Danny thought, Screw this. I'm out. Before turning invisible and flying away.
Except...the demon was following him. Black wings like a bat were flared as the thing followed Danny across the city. It took almost an hour to lose its trail and hes certain the only reason he managed to do that was by leading the thing into the sewers and phasing back up above ground while he was out of sight.
Danny took this opportunity to invisibly phase into a boarded up shop and transform from Phantom to Fenton then phase out invisibly and bolt. He needed to be more careful of cameras this time around. Amity may not have had a bunch but this city was infested with them. After a few failed mugging attempts from some people on the streets he thinks he knows why.
He spent his entire day exploring Gotham and swiping food. He felt bad about it but with no legal identity and no way to earn money in a non-criminal way he was kinda tight on options. Eventually dusk came and, not knowing if that bat demon thing could sense him or if it liked to snack on lost little ghosties, he began somewhat frantically looking for somewhere to hide for the night.
Danny was really, really good at finding hiding spots. Usually this wouldn't be a problem. The opposite really. But here it was.
Turns out most of the great hiding places Danny found (abandoned theaters, insides of clocktowers, the 13th floor of some wierd company towers that he heard were unused and had no way to access) they were already occupied. Either by thier wierd Owl cult, this wierd Robin cult or this wierd Bat cult, Danny has decided to avoid the heck out of the bat cult cause he was 90% certain the thing that chased him on his first night here was the bat monster they worshiped.
Also, that bird cult member in the back and blue kept trying to "adopt him" which he was pretty sure meant inducting into the cult, which is a solid no from him.
Appearently him just finding all of thier hideouts is either horrifying or just embarrassing to the members of the cults. One time he popped into another "bird nest" and came face to mask with Red Robin and Nightwing around when this first started. Everyone just stared at eachother in shock for a solid five seconds before RR began reaching for something and Danny bolted back the way he came (which weirdly enough was though a cabinet door)
RR inspected the dog sized hole in the back of the cabinet that the kid must have come through and realized it lead through the walls. Chilling.
In Dannys defence, his phone was left behind and he didn't even think about reading the newspaper past learning the current date. Still on him, but meh.
It was only supposed to be a simple mission. Red Robin and Nightwing were sent to investigate some magical ruins that might have a lead on one of thier shared cases. Kon had practically begged to come along since he and Tim hadn't seen eachother in a while. Nightwing didn't see a problem with it so off they went.
It was later that night when they were asleep in thier tents (Timm was forced to sleep via the power of kons puppy dog eyes) that something strange happened.
---
Phantom wobbled a bit in flight. He didn't know where or when he was. He had just escaped his parents after they saw Vlad transform and in a fit of rage, Vlad outed Danny too.
Vlad was killed pretty quickly. But Danny? They tried to "fix" Danny. It was only thanks to Jazz freeing him that he could bolt into the Ghost Zone and disappear. And bolt he did. He went so far so fast that he didn't even notice when he re-entered the living realms and just kept going.
Not wanting to make his situation worse, he decided to bed down for the night. His wounds weren't exactly healed but they were closed and that was what really mattered. He phased the blood out of his clothes as he silently approached a camp. Thier fire was out, properly drenched too. Danny had a thought to swipe some food but decided not to. Not out of morality, desperate times and all that, but because he physically couldn't muster up the energy to do anything more than curl up on the grass and pass out from exhaustion.
Needless to say when Tim wakes up the next morning and sees what appears to be a younger version of himself curled up outside he freaks out. He sneakily snags a sample and compared it to his own DNA and, suprise! Its a match. Aside from the obvious marks of cloning in his genetic structure and this odd unknown element sticking to it he was a perfect match for Tim Drake Wayne.
Nightwing woke up to find Tim standing over his unconscious mini and muttering about him being a dad. Dick was glad he packed that expensive coffee. They were all going to need it.
Kon was just excited to be an uncle.
Nightwing giggled at the post he found. He wasn't sure if it was real, but seeing as they live in a world of metas, gods and aliens surely anything was possible, right?
Still, a post on Chirper stating:
"Superpower mishap. My consciousness is stuck in cyberspace, please send help"
was kinda hilarious, even before he edited it to add:
"Not Batman. Do not send Batman."
And of course everyone on the internet is a troll which is why not only was Batman @'d a few million times but other members of the batfam were as well.
Baby bird was still trying to figure out how someone could get thier consciousness of all things stuck in cyberspace while Oracle was doing the digital equivalent of poking the poor data guy with a stick. Interesting times indeed.
Au where the Fenton parents shenanigans cause the entire city (minus Vlad) get transported to the dc universe.
Everything is not fine as now Phantom has to keep human crime out of his city instead of the ghosts. The portals are still open but nothing can pass through without getting fried. Rip Skulker. So Danny can't escape or transport his city back home. Sam was away attending a gala in another state with her parents and Jazz was at collage, luckily Tucker and Dani were able to back him up.
More bad news, Superman appearently keeps "overhearing" things, more specifically the things his parents say, which, yikes.
The real kicker is after talking about the batfamily in an mid superhero fight interview where he was cornered by Lois Lane one (1) time there became a sudden influx of Phantom/Red Robin fanfiction. Mostly coffee shop aus at first but then there came the Phantom/Robin shippers and before he knew it there was a massive shipping war going on
Phantom makes the mistake of sending a note to both of them asking them to "please stay away from me" and adding a candy bar or something as a bribe. Now the bats are curious.
Amnesiac Danny is wondering around the streets of Gotham and when Bruce comes across him, he thinks it's Jason; first as a hallucination and then after he manages to touch him, as some trick someone was trying to pull on him. Except… Danny even has the right clothes on! All muddy and dirty… Alas, when they check Jason's grave, there isn't anyone inside, leaving them with the wrong conclusion that Danny/Jason must have broken out of his grave.
DNA analysis is inconclusive. Every sample comes back as corrupted. Danny and Jason DO look the same and the similarities are convincingly enough to fool Alfred as well. Dick wasn't around too much, so at this point he also thinks Danny could be Jason.
Could, but the situation is… odd. Everyone is left standing wrong-footed. This Jason has no answers and all they have are a bunch of… hypothesis that they cannot test.
Even so, Bruce cannot help himself and tries to make Danny "remember". Eventually this leads to Danny thinking of himself as Jason, pointedly not thinking about how some things don't add up after he starts living in Wayne Manor.
And then enters Tim Drake, whose first act after being introduced is to say that Danny is a fake.
"Baba!"
Danny smiled as he toweled his hair dry. He loved hearing his little one yell from the living room of his-now thier- lair.
The circumstances of his conception were irrelevant. He loved his kiddo very much, hence the abundance of photo albums and home videos chalked full of his kid doing random stuff. The one with him in his high chair stuffing cheerios into his mouth is his favorite solely for the fact it caught him trying to stuff them up his nose a few times. Definitely something to show future dates when he's older.
His smile fell when he heard anothers voice. No one should have access to his lair. They were in the Infinite Realms for stars sake.
Rushing out of the bathroom in only his sweatpants he charged into the living room to find it filled with capes. More specifically different (largely in costume) versions of Tim Drake. Uh oh.
How did this happen?
"Baba!" He looked down at thier child who was smiling up at him from the arms of one of the younger Tims, showing off his brand new baby fang and bloody hand. Danny rushed into the kitchen to get some alcohol pads and some bravery badges, walking past the summoning circle he had on his wall and taking note of the tiny bloody handprints near the bottom of it.
Crap. That was meant to summon friends and family into the lair. His little star must have tried summoning his father.
After bandaging his kid up and kissing the area he smiled and said, "all better!" Which earned him a giggle from the one year old and an odd look from the child still holding him.
"Tim?" The vigilante looked startled, but Danny didn't give him a chance to recover, "How about you take the little one into the living room and wait with the others? I need to make myself decent before I come explain things."
The kid looked skeptical but agreed and left in that direction.
Danny made his way to his room, and after chasing out two teenage birds who somehow snuck past him into there, he finally got dressed and chased more out of his toddlers room before making it to the living room.
Feeling a room full of eyes on him he sighed and conjured more couches from the ectoplasm in his lair, ignoring some startled shouts as he sat down.
There were a lot of different Tims here. Three adults all in gear, one good two evil, about seven teens, three in gear while four in civvies. Two of the civilian ones were the boys he had caught snooping in his room for clues.
Lastly there were three boys, two in gear with one in a civilian outfit.
Thats a total of thirteen (13) Tims.
"Okay, to start off id like to apologize on behalf of my son. We didn't mean to summon any of you."
The Robin holding Danny son chimed in, "How did he summon us?"
"Kiddo is too small to properly pronounce things yet. Hence why his calling you "baba" instead of "papa"."
He ignored the surprised sounds and questions and just let that sink in before adding, "To clarify, no. None of you are actually the father."
Danny waited patiently for them to calm down and ignored more questions, "I was with an alternate version of you who turned out to be evil-ish and wanted to eliminate all superpowers from existence or something, a fact I didn't know at the time."
"Anyway, he purposely sabotaged my birth control to get me pregnant knowing I wouldn't abort. He did this knowing that when his plan started to come to fruition I'd be too far along to stop him. He had a counter to everything, even things we never told him about. I ended up having to sever the connection between this place- the Infinite Realms- and my home dimension, trapping him there with no way for him to get out and leaving me with no way to ever see my friends or family again. Questions?"
There were many.
Mm. Pain.
Project R au where Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake have a kinda sorta custody battle (more like argument) about who should take in Danny.
The twist? None of them want to take Danny in and are trying to force him onto the others. Each has valid reasons not to take Danny in, Jason is a crime lord, Dick has had paparazzi trailing him around lately, Tim is still a minor and can't take in anyone, ect. Theres a million reasons for each of them. Unfortunately no one realized Danny was overhearing all of this from another room.
Danny had spent so much time building his dads up in his mind, thinking that when he finally found them everything would be great. He never even considered his dads wouldn't want him. Heck, how was he supposed to know his dads were adopted brothers? He kinda understands how this was weird but...what about him? He didn't really have anywhere to go but...should he just leave?
Maybe that would be for the best...
Danny turned his face up toward the sky, letting Gothams rain poor down his face. His husband, Tim, had loved this city-to the point of dying for it while wearing a mask.
The court of owls had been cowardly, and honestly Danny should have expected that from a bunch of entitled rich people. Many of the bats were there taking down the courts lackeys but there wasn't any signs of the Talons, which made sense since they seemed to act oddly around Phantom and just kinda flopped onto the ground and bared thier necks to him. Wierd.
Everyone was fighting, so no one noticed the tip of a snipers rifle poking out of a crag in the cave walls until it was too late. A shot was fired.
And Tim was on the floor
Danny didn't remember much after that. He remembers Nightwing holding his little brother while Batman came to his side. He remembers the other bats running off to find the sniper and Danny just...stood there. He stared at Tims blood splatter and the gray matter all over the floor. The bullet had went through his head had killed him quickly but this didn't comfort him. The scene was so gruesome but he couldn't bring himself to look away as his vision was consumed by green.
The next time he became aware Nightwing was in front of him, asking him to turn himself in. Confused, he asked what he had done only to learn he had hunted down every Court of Owls member like a man possessed and torn them to shreds. No one was sure how Phantom knew who was a member or not especially while he was in that state, but it didn't change the face that Phantom had killed so many people.
Danny was horrified. How could he had done this? He had never experienced the pit rage before and never thought he would. But here he was having lost almost two weeks of time and gaining more blood on his hands than he knew what to do with.
So Danny, not wanting to argue or-ancients forbid- fight his family-in-law while everyone was grieving, agreed to turn himself in.
So he did.
He never agreed to stick around for an interrogation or a trial though. So he didn't.
The cops never even learned of his true identity before he took off but he knew it wasn't safe to stay in Gotham anymore. Heck, it probably wasn't safe to stay on Earth anymore with all the heroes that would be after him if the bats so much as asked. And there was no way he could go back to his own dimensions Earth either.
...but that didn't mean all Earths where out of the question.
---
Danny had finally gotten settled in this new dimension. Starting over was always hard but he had done it before. Grabbing a gig as a freelance translator and editor for a few publication companies was pretty easy when you knew what cards to play and what people to call. Plus, Danny was really good at making false identities and translating, so that helped a ton.
At night he would keep a look out his window, trying to spot the bats of this world, as as much as it hurt him to do so, he always delighted in seeing this worlds Tim running along the rooftops.
This went on for a while until Danny started getting nauseous and intense pain in his chest and abdomen. It was bad enough that he sniffed out this worlds Dr Thomkins pretty quickly and asked her to give him a check up.
Upon doing an ultrasound she found a strange sphere in his chest, which he assured her was normal, and an embryo growing in his abdomen which was very much not. Danny laid on the examination table for a solid few seconds and Dr. Tomkins was about to start rattling off his options to him before her patient started crying. "Oh thank the stars."
Danny explained that this was the child of his late husband who was murdered and he was very happy to have this baby. Sure, he had most of his personal affects (he had cleaned out his and Tims shared home and safe houses on his way out of the dimension, much to the absolue ire of the other bats) but this was a little living piece of his husband, which was something so much more.
But this also meant he had to leave again. This worlds Tim was just like the one that he lost and he had no doubt that some way, some how, Tim would find out about this child. Could he explain this in a way that was satisfactory? Could he handle Tim coming in and out of his home to visit "his" child as he would undoubtedly do? Could he stand to see the face of a man who looked like his husband, talked like his husband, and acted like his husband, but wasn't? No. He couldn't do that to himself. He couldn't do that to Tim. He refused to replace one Tim for another. That was so callus and shallow. He would never do something like that, grief or no grief. He was strong. He'd be strong for Tim.
He paid the doctor and thanked her profusely before leaving and going back to his apartment. He hadn't even unpacked most of his stuff before he was packing it all back up again. He needed to find a world where:
1. Tim was nothing like the Tim he had known and loved
2. Tim was not old enough to take custody of thier child if he ever found out
3. Batman was not around
4. Damian didn't exist. He was usually pretty cool with the little gremlin but he doesn't think he could listen to him insult Tim and not throttle a literal child.
5. It was not impossible to raise a child
The list could probably use some work but that was the gist of it for now.
-------
Danny had finally found his perfect Gotham after weeks or interdimentional travel and countless jumps. Well, perfect probably wasn't the right word for a place like Gotham but his point still stands.
He once again found himself sitting on the edge of a rooftop overlooking the city. He and his husband had liked to sit and chat in these kinds of places when patrol was slow. Now Danny was sitting alone in the rain in one of Tims old jackets reminiscing. Suddenly hearing a grapple line connect with the building startled him out of his thoughts.
Nightwing landed nearby and for a moment Danny thought he was here to insist Danny turns himself in again before he was reminded that this wasn't the same Nightwing and Danny hadn't committed any crimes here. Well. No violent ones at least. Forging a fake identity requires much criming as it turns out.
Nightwing approached him slowly and cautiously as if he expected Danny to bolt at any second. That wasn't comforting. "Hey," the big bird greeted calmly, "How about you step away from the edge? If there's something on your mind I'm sure we can talk it out, alright?"
Danny opened his mouth and then shut it again. Opening it again he blurted out, "I'm not gonna jump."
Looking doubtful, Nightwing gestured for him to come toward him and away from the edge, and if Nightwing were anyone other than a bat he would not have obliged as he did. Once Danny was safely away from falling to his doom the vigilante began asking questions.
After everything was answered and birdy was sure Danny was safe, he made a comment about the jacket and Danny told him it belonged to his late husband who past away recently. This led to Dick egging Danny on as he talked about his husband and grieved.
It was then that Danny showed Nightwing his baby bump and the vigilante was excited for him.
Somehow he and the various bats kept running into eachother around the city and one thing let to another. Before he knew it the bats where coming and going in his apartment to "check up on him"
This worlds Tim was still 16 and loved his role as Robin. He was grieving the loss of Bruce but...this version of Tim was different. Full of light. His smile was brighter and came more often. His humor wasn't as dark and...he was...smol. He began seeing this Tim more like his child than as an alternate version of his lover. Needless to say he planned on spoiling Robin rotten.
Everything seemed to be falling into place. He had a steady income, an apartment, some new friends, and was slowly unpacking.
It was smooth sailing up until his dead husband appeared in his apartment in the middle of the night staring him down with Lazarus green eyes. How had this happened? He was Tims husband and he made absolutely sure Tims body had been cremated (another thing the bats were mad about since Bruce and Tim were Jewish). Tim has specifically asked for cremation to avoid a situation like this where Ras got his creepy little hands on him.
But why would Ras send Tim here? How did Tim get here? How did Tim find him? Why did Tim show up in his apartment on random nights and then disappear into the city when he tried to ask him answers? Why did Tim barely speak? Was this a clone or the original?
Was this even real? Or was he finally losing his mind?
@im-totally-not-an-alien-2, hi I finished the first chapter :), spent way too long on it but Im happy at how it came out and fully intend on making more
@faeriekit since you were apart of that little conversation I assume you wanted to be tagged to, sorry if not!
Also the formatting may be off at the end, typing like texting is hard! I dont know how humans type other than me! And I've seen Tim typing like he doesn't know how to spell in fics before!
I hope you all Have a Great Day!!
Ao3:(to be added)
Tim sighs as he looks at his window sill. The small orange and gray bird that had perched on it stared at him through the closed window. Almost like it was asking him to let it in. But that's crazy! It's just a little bird, it probably just thinks he’ll feed it and that's why it's looking at him. But he’s not Damian and won’t adopt a wild animal the second he sees it.
It pecks at the window, and stares. Again it pecks.
Tap, tap, tap. It continues as if it's knocking. Tim turns back to his laptop, the Riddler is out of Arkham and has been suspiciously quiet.
Tap, tap, tap. Tim doesn’t look. Tap, tap, pause. Taptaptaptap taptap tap. The noise doesn’t stop. Tim swings around and closes the curtains. And the noise persists, until it pauses. Breathing out a sigh Tim can finally make some progre-
BANG. The window shakes.
‘Did… did it just fly into the window? Can’t birds die like that?’ Tim peeks around the curtain to see the small robin-like bird shaking its head and turn to fly off. Only for it to slam body first into the window again. It takes a moment before it flies off. Tim opens the curtains and sees it quickly flying towards the closed reinforced window. He's able to open the window before it can kill itself and it rams into his chest instead. Which painfully sends him careening back onto his chair.
‘Ouch… it hits harder than expected…’ He looked down at the small bird that had moved down onto his lap, now that it's closer he notices that he has never seen a bird- robin(?) like this one. Its body is a light bluish-gray and slender with an orange head with little yellow markings next to its eyes, with tiny black legs with three talons. It stood barely a foot tall and its tail had odd white markings that vaguely resembled an arrow fletch.
The bird adjusted itself and opened its wings, showing a white underwing, and flapped them until it was hovering next to Tim’s face. Small black eyes stare into blue.
“‘Chling!” it chirped and swooped up to land on his head, where it immediately started to peck at his hair. ‘Is it preening me? I thought birds need to trust a person to do that,’ Tim thought, his hair getting thrown into his eyes.
“Hey, stop that. Get off!” he gently batted at the bird trying to dislodge it from its roosting place, getting a stern peck in return. He looks at his laptop. He could just keep working but the bird would be a distraction. Damian might look at the bird, he had more information about animals than Tim did. But did he want to talk to Damian? Not really. He really needed to continue to track the Riddler, he's too much of a threat to be left unattende-
His stomach growls. The bird’s stomach growls. In a weird serenade the organs announce their mutual hunger.
‘When was the last time I ate? When did the bird eat last?’ Tim thought, overwhelming hunger tearing at his abdomen and dizziness makes itself known. Ok snack then he can look into the bird and hopefully find the Riddler. His minifridge is empty, he knows that but still checks it -yep still empty, so he has to go to the kitchen. He grabs his phone from his desk and checks it.
9:49 - Friday, June 2 - 26% battery
He still has about an hour and a half until he needs to get ready for patrol. He closes his bedroom door behind him quietly and pulls up the search bar.
‘What do robins eat?’
He's walking down the stairs, the search engine shows several articles, mostly about the most recent spotting of Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin outside Batburger with pictures showing the three with the fast food bags. Cass was there too but nobody saw her.
He adds bird to the search
‘Mealworms, insects, and berries. Steph ate the last of the strawberries.’ Tim reaches the Kitchen, thankfully no one is in there. The bird finally flutters off of his head and onto the kitchen island and starts hopping around. There’s no other ‘berry’ fitting fruits either. “Sorry little guy, I don't think we have anything you're interested in. Alfie would kill us if we brought any bugs in.” He speaks to the room and grabs his preferred snack, an Alfred made orange-cranberry muffin, and turns to the island.
The bird is pecking at the banana stand. Tim had forgotten about the bananas, Alfred only gets them to brown for banana bread. Everyone besides Dick hates the texture, and the rest of the kitchen is always stocked with something else to eat.
“Oh I guess there is something.” he sets his muffin down and rips one off the bunch and peels it as far as he’s willing. He wipes his hand against his pants and continues with his muffin.
The bird hops onto the yellow fruit and sticks its beak into the soft insides. And they eat quietly together. Tim watches as the bird snips the sides of the peel to open it up more. He pulls up the camera app on his phone and takes a picture of it when it lifts its head up. He then goes to google.
‘Orange and gray bird’
‘Orange and blue gray bird’
‘Robin species’
‘Robin BIRD species’
‘Small birds species’
‘Thrush bird species’
‘Finch species’
‘Bird with orange heads and gray bodies;
‘Birds with white underwings and orange heads’
‘Birds with white stripes on tail with orange heads’
Nothing he searches comes close to the bird in front of him. He sighs and pulls up his messages, and throws away the muffin wrapper.
Demon Child:
lol lokat tis thig
Would you type properly, Drake?
no u
[Image of fletchling]
Unlike you Drake I do type properly.
What kind of avian is that? I do not recognize it.
Idk im ak u
Drake is that our kitchen? Did you let a wild animal into our home?
It was hungy 🥺
Aldo no one eafs the babfas anyway
I am aware of our family’s dislike of bananas Drake.
That does not excuse nor explains why there is a wild animal in our kitchen!
It wan ted insid
Kept hittting my windo
What did you use as bait?
My Good Looks
Drake.
IDK man
It jst wanted in
I think it’s hurt
Didn want you bothefing B over a ded borb outdid
So i open d the window
An it flewa in and won t leab
I won’t be able to look it over until I get home.
And that will not be for another hour. Keep it inside. I will look at it before I go with Father for patrol.
K
At this point the bird had finished with it’s snack and Tim had thrown away it’s peel. It perched on his shoulder looking at his messages to Damian. Tim took another picture of the bird on his shoulder and sent it to Damian and went back to his room.
If anything, the bird seemed to like him, and he could use that to annoy Damian until he got home.
I’ve seen a lot of posts where there is unhinged science teacher Danny and people compare him to Ms. Frizzle.
But what if it can actually happen?
Like Fenton-Tech is weird enough and Danny (as Ghost King) would have access to all the tech and magic across all dimensions. Not to mention he has a good relationship with someone who is essentially the Lord of Time.
So imagine Gotham Academy Teacher Danny who believes in practical experience and/or first-hand experience.
Mix in a bit of Fenton-tech here, a bit of time magic there and you have a class full of high schoolers who have witnessed things.
It’s a toss up whether people believe them or not because thanks to Clockwork, no time has actually passed when they left.
More half baked ideas idk what to do with
1. Danny is singing along to the instrumental version of a broadway musical song (I was thinking "the other side" from the greatest show on earth) in an old abandoned-ish theater he found while exploring the Infinite Realms.
He gets startled by a guy in a red domino mask when he starts singing the second person in the duet.
Danny: *surprised Pikachu face*
Danny: *Happily singing the duet with this guy with a red bat symbol on his chest. It probably means nothing. Probably*
Meanwhile RR watches from the shadows, recording everything for blackmail
2. Dick has been having a reoccurring nightmare about a boy who looks just like him wearing a white and black hazmat outfit.
The boy always screams in terror or pain as he falls into a Lazarus green void, hand outstretched as if he were reaching out for Dick to save him as he falls into oblivion. Then the large metal doors to an octagonal doorway slam shut, blocking Dicks view.
Dick wakes up in a cold sweat
3. Danny, as a civilian in Gotham, trusts his local vigilantes way too much. It may be a byproduct of him being a former vigilante himself, but if he has a problem he thinks a bat would like to know about, he tells them and is generally happy to vibe with them
Aka he leads Robin to injured/stuck animals that Danny himself -as a totally normal non-meta teen who totally has parents and a safe place to live- can't free/cure.
Hes an informant to Red Hood
Hes practically seducing Red Robin with new inventions
The Batgirls check up on him every so often for the tea and to raid his snacks
Oracle saw him using his powers and has decided to mentor him on the down low. They exchange favors often.
Ect.
Oh, and he's doing this all while "disguised" with an over-sized hoodie whose hood no one can see into the darkness of.
4. The League of Assassins think Danny is some type of god/miracle child and will do anything to get thier hands on him.
Danny thinks this would be fine if not for the stabby nature of the cult chasing him around. He doesn't want to be tortured for his sass. No thank you.
5. Danny finds a clone baby in a tube, and upon realizing it was braindead and had no soul he overshadowed the tiny body. He didn't really have much of a choice. He had taken massive damage in a fight against a monster in the IR and didn't really wanna find out how far his "die and resurrect self at will" powers went.
He did not expect to sleep for years and years in that tiny tube in that abandoned lab.
Aka one of Tims friends find a younger version of Tim sunning himself on a beach drinking lemonade
Danny, tired of being the absolute last priority in his friends and families lives, runs away after a major fight with one of them which causes him to realize all his living relationships are toxic.
Danny lands in a new world and decides to get a new parent or parents. How? Not through the foster system of course but through admittedly more sinister means. He picked someone he liked and altered the memories of them and thier loved ones to convince them that this kid was always thier son and created false legal paperwork and school records along with implanting memories into his new classmates. He even went so far let the person give him a new name so it would be more believable and it would be one less connection to his past.
The only problem is one (1) Jason Todd, who is appearently immune to his mind tricks. Jason only managed to get Tim to see the truth by pointing out Danny isnt mentioned anywhere in the batcomputer and things start falling apart from there.
Danny just wants someone to love him :(
DPxDC idea that has been floating around my head for a few months now:
Gotham, given its whole... thing with Lazurus Pools and general bad vibes, has a ghostly representative. Lady Gotham, when she bothers to be coporeal, looks like an influential lady from the 1920s, straight art deco elegance. A real classy girl.
Jazz is touring college campuses around the US. She has full ride offers from Gotham University, Metroplis College, and Star City State, to name a few. Danny, upon hearing that his sister is going to GOTHAM of all cities, decides he is going on this trip with her. He might be only 15, but his big sister isn't getting mugged while he has half an afterlife left to live!
Lady Gotham is all a flutter! Why the last ghost king was so frumpy! King Phantom is so handsome and powerful, and he is coming to her city. She absolutely has to show off her best side! She feels like a teenaged girl getting her home ready before a new beau comes to visit. She's flustered, she's nervous.
Meanwhile, John Constatine wakes up with cosmic alarm bells going off because something really, really bad is happening. He investigates to dicsover that for the past three days Gotham has not had a single crime.
No murders, muggings, hell not even a single jay walker!
Gotham the most cursed place on the North Or South American continent is suddenly more squeaky clean than whatever small farm town Superman grew up in.
No crimes, no smog in the air. Crime Lords seemingly gone in a puff of smoke, Assassins asleep in their beds.
Its so freaky. Even Batman is spooked and he is never spooked by anything.
Constantine is certain some demon or other nefarious being is harnessing Gothams cursed energy for some evil plot. Gathering the power to use it like a nuclear blast. Batman is concerned about mass mind control.
Lady Gotham is doing the metaphysical equivalent of hiding all of your stuff in a closet before a guest comes over because you dont have time to actually clean. She had to shoulder the thing closed! She just knows that when the lock fails there will be a huge mess.
Jazz and her family are just surprised about how nice Gotham U's campus is. She'd heard it was so dark and dangerous, but everyone is smiling and pleasant to her! Danny is just happy Jazz is safe from various villains.
So we have Batman investigating his rogues gallery for mind control plots, Constatine hunting for demons, Jazz and her family taking a walking tour of Gotham U, and Lady Gotham using every bit of her ghostly powers to make sure her damned, cursed city doesnt embarrass her in front of her crush!
Danny wasn't sure what to expect from living with the Waynes. Okay. Thats actually a lie. He was expecting them to be like Vlad, complete fruitloop and evil or like Sam's parents, controlling and caring way too much about image
Instead they were really nice. Sure, Damian could get kinda aggressive when his boundaries weren't respected and Tim was someone he didn't want to be on the wrong side of but both had been very kind to Danny.
The issue was with them being bats. Of course the Waynes didn't know that he knew (they have a betting pool for when he finds out) and he planned to keep it that way. So when he saw Duke dressed as Signal sans the helmet standing at the kitchen counter they kinda just stared at eachother. Ghostboy was panicking. He didn't want to be guilt tripped into being a hero like he was in Amity. Would his new family think he was a coward if he refused? Would they think he's selfish and cut contact like Sam had?
Overwhelmed, Danny blurted out, "Nice cosplay dude!" And left.
The bats make it a game to see who Danny thinks has the best "cosplay"
Tim swallowed his panic as he fled from the facility, the bundle in his arms wiggling wildly. He couldn't raise the child as Tim Drake, he had to many enemies and the paparazzi would have a field day over him being a teen father regardless of if the truth about him being a clone came out.
So he would just raise him under one of his aliases.
Should he go with Caroline Hill? She was a doctor and an adult so she could get away with having a child if he spun the story right...
Tim probably could have gotten away with raising the baby on his own if he wasn't raising in in Gotham. It seemed like every hero, villian-and embarrassingly enough- vigilante, took one look at his baby and decided on the spot that they adored this baby.
Which ment his kid got kidnapped a lot.
Tim did not need this stress.
Danny stared up at his captor of the week, his Nightwing onesie had a tear in it now, a fact he was making well known in the only way he could. Yeah, he had been reincarnated and was in fact a 15 year old in the body of an infant, but he was petty enough to cry without embarrassment. It didn't matter how much the green plant lady rocked him or reminded him of Sam! He wanted his dad!
It probably didn't help that he only had intangibility right now since having more than that would likely be too much for his mortal baby body. He thought that alone would be over powered but since he couldn't even walk let alone fly it actually just seemed to get him into trouble.
He wasn't sure if he should be worried or relieved when he got saved by Cujo suddenly appearing in hig big form and taking off with him. Yeah, he's saved from Plant Sam 2.0 but Cujo is still a puppy and well...babys are fragile.
Cue Robin trying to rescue a baby from a glowing green dog and adopting said dog. Then Robin nearly deciding to adopt him before his his dad-Red Robin- intervened. Appearently a baby halfa was too cute to resist.
He felt bad for his dad and mas making a very extensive list of all the people who have kidnapped him, ya know, for petty revenge purposes.
In the meantime Robin gets a front row seat to an adorable baby in a Nightwing onsie calling Red Robin "Dada" just because Danny is still a little shit even after being reincarnated