joey394

[joey394]

part 2 of danny being lost in the ghost zone

[joey394]

Kon falls into the ocean, exhausted, and genuinely doesn't think this is going to end well for him. He's gonna faint in the middle of the ocean, where he'll sink to where the sun can't reach him. He won't be able to do the weird photosynthesis thing he and Kal do in space. He's gonna drown. Then he's, like, suddenly Prince Eric? From the Little Mermaid? But the Mermaid is way hotter and also a dude.

He's underwater, and very deep. He can feel himself fading out, black creeping along the edge of his vision.

Then, there's movement.

A very large mermaid - sorry, merdude - with glowing green freckles and crystalline, snowy hair. He's roughly the size of an Orca, and has the coloration of one aside from the freckles and vivid, glowing green eyes.

The merdude reaches out, very gently cradles Kon in his hands, and Kon's exhaustion catches up to him. Kon blacks out.

Kon wakes up on a California beach, alone.

He immediately tries to reach out to Aquaman; he's gotta find that merguy and uh...thank him. Maybe ask him out. He's not sure how he'd date someone the size of an Orca Whale, but he's Superboy; he'll figure it out.

~~~~~~

Aquaman has no idea what Superboy is talking about; there is no race of mer that large. He'd know, he's the King of Atlantis. Superboy keeps telling him he's wrong, though.

And the more he looks into it, the more he's hearing rumors of a very large, very ancient mer that spends their time lounging around old shipwrecks.

A mer that disappears the second anyone tries to approach them.

A ghost.

Or; Danny was lazing about in the ocean, searching for treasure from sunken ships (Sam said he needed a hobby), using his larger, slightly more eldrich ghost form with the tail. Call him cringe, but it feels more fitting to be in the ocean with that form. Makes him feel all majestic and the like. He comes across a hero floating in the ocean. One he vaguely recognizes as a member of Young Justice? They're in like...California. Somewhere. He decides to play taxi. There are consequences. One of those consequences may or may not be a date.

[joey394]

The Green Lanterns have found an anomaly in space uncomfortably close to Earth. A floating green wormhole, that does not follow the rules that wormholes are supposed to follow.

In fact, it seems to be fine to get close to. It does not distort any time or space near it; it's literally like someone had just poked a hole through the universe, and they can just step into it.

They opt to use an exploratory space shuttle.

Naturally, certain Earth Leaders want to send representatives to go up in that shuttle.

Green Lantern Corp tries to push back, they really do, but humans are stubborn.

They get their exploratory astronauts.

Hal Jordan manages to get chosen for America; his experience in the military and having Batman pull the strings was a huge part of that.

The first hint that something was wrong was when they went through the portal and it was just a sea of green full of doors.

Second was when it looks like they would hit something, they just went through it.

Third was that the portal closed behind them.

Fourth, there's...something circling their craft, tapping on the walls and doors. It talks to them in the voice of a young boy, and keeps asking to be let in.

Or; Danny found a weird ship in the Zone, and he doesn't want to be rude and just barge in since it isn't one of his parents.

[joey394]

Short DPXDC Prompts #1036

Danny’s appendix bursts. If he doesn’t go to a hospital now he will die fully. The only place he could think of that wouldn’t get him reported to the GIW is a Meta Emergency Resource Centre.

[joey394]

Random One-Shot; Dan is mistaken as Clark's clone.

There was a quiet, threatening presence hovering in the sky above Metropolis.

But it wasn’t threatening to the citizens.

It wasn’t threatening to Clark, either.

It was a teenager, bulky but still on the slim side, floating in front of an oncoming storm. The threat was in the way he held himself, tense and stiff. His eyes were glowing a faint red, his brows furrowed, arms crossed and fingers tearing into his hoodie sleeves.

A kid that looked more familiar than Clark would like.

A kid that was possibly a Super.

A kid that was on the verge of snapping.

After exposure to so many teens in his life, Clark was familiar with the tells; it was the kind of tension that could make a kid say something, do something, he’d regret for the rest of his life.

Clark was well aware that the best thing he could do…was give the kid his space.

He couldn’t just automatically assume this was another clone, after all. It could be another Chris situation; an escapee of the Phantom Zone, or another Kryptonian that had escaped his homeworld’s destruction.

If this was even a Kryptonian at all.

So Clark floated nearby, trying not to make it obvious that he was hovering. He stopped crime, saved kittens, and always took a moment to breeze past the angry teen. Just to make sure he was still there.

To see if he’d calmed down yet.

The storm hit the city, and Clark could hear the skyscrapers creaking and groaning as they moved with the wind, bending so they wouldn’t break. A lesson, he thought, the maybe-clone or maybe-Kryptonian would do well to learn.

The teenager in the sky, however, appeared to have no give in him at all. Not when lightning came within a hair's-breadth of hitting him. Not when thunder loud enough to make Clark’s ears hurt screamed through the air.

He stared into the clouds, through the clouds, just as angry as he had been hours ago. The only real difference was that he was soaking wet.

Clark was starting to get concerned; he did want to go to bed, after all, but he was worried about leaving an angry super-powered teenager alone. What if someone tried to bother him? What if he got provoked into attacking someone or something?

Clark himself had been a teenager, once, he knew they weren’t prone to thinking things through.

Just as he was starting to consider calling Ma or Lois though, the boy relaxed his hands.

The dripping, torn hoodie sleeves clung to his arms like a more solid form of mud as he stretched out his arms, palms up. His eyes, losing their red glow, closed. His head dipped, chin almost touching his chest.

It looked like he was performing some sort of prayer. 

A quiet veneration of the storm that surrounded him.

Except…no.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

He wasn’t praying. He hadn’t been glaring at the storm.

He’d been glaring at who was inside it.

Someone Clark hadn’t seen nor heard, not until there was a flash of light and someone was falling. Someone almost identical to the teenager that caught him, although slimmer.

Clark saw the slimmer one open his mouth, and immediately tuned in to listen.

“Told you…I could do it.”

The storm started to die down, the rain almost coming to a complete stop.

“Woulda been faster if we did it my way,” the angry one grumbled, trying to pretend like he wasn’t holding the slimmer one with a white knuckled grip. “Vortex is just a little bitch if you don’t care about collateral.”

“People…woulda died your way, dingus. Skill…issue.”

With that devastating insult (Clark knew because Jon said so multiple times), the slimmer one fell completely unconscious.

The angry one, however, turned his head and met Superman’s gaze.

“What do you want, old man?” He asked, not bothering to raise his voice.

“...To know if he needs help, honestly,” Clark answered, doing the same. “If he’s Kryptonian, I have medical supplies to assist.”

“‘If he’s Kryptonian’,” the teenager mocked, as all teens did when they felt cornered by adults. “This has nothing to do with you, and your face is giving me indigestion. Fuck off.”

“Except it does have to do with me, seeing as this…fight, I assume, happened above my city,” Clark countered, tilting his head.

The teen turned in the air, fully facing him.

There was no fear in his eyes as he stared down the Man of Steel.

“...I’m better than you.” The teen said mildly, clutching his…(friend? Brother? Clark was thinking brother, given how similar they looked.) brother closer to him.

“There’s a lot of people who fit that bill, kid.” Clark commented honestly, thinking of Pa, of Bruce, of Lois. There were others, of course there were, and it wasn’t like the first ones that came to his mind were perfect; but there were a lot of people who were better than Clark, and he had no illusions about that.

“I could kill you. Easily.” The teen told him, eyes serious.

“Will you?” Clark wondered, tilting his head.

There was a big difference between ‘could�� and ‘would’; he, of all people, would know.

More importantly, Clark could see a serial number imprinted on one of the boy’s ribs with his x-ray vision. This was definitely a clone, very possibly making use of his own DNA. The blue eyes boring into his own were, after all, a rather unique shade of blue. 

One that Clark saw in the mirror all the time.

A shade humans just couldn’t really get in their own eyes.

But there was something in his facial features that tickled at Clark’s memory.

Not Lex. No, Lex had a narrower nose, and honestly there was none of Lex in this boy’s face.

Also Lex was in prison, so.

No, no. There was something in that narrow face that just…

Wait.

Those cheekbones…Vlad Masters? Clark had only interviewed him once, but the man was fairly hard to forget. He was conceited, he was haughty, and his heart would randomly stop beating even though he was walking and talking just fine.

The man was a meta, for sure, but mad scientist?

What was Vlad Masters doing getting involved in cloning?

“No,” the clone kid said, idly floating away from him. “It’d make the twerp sad and annoying, and he’s already pathetic enough.”

Clark didn’t like this. He didn’t like Masters cloning him or using his DNA to make supersoldiers, didn’t like Masters having his own Super puppet.

Puppets.

There were two, for all that one was dead to the world. Clark may have failed Kon at first, but he’d be damned if he made the same mistake twice.

He wasn’t letting these two fall into the wrong hands. They were going to go to a good home, they were going to get a good family, and come hell or high water, they were never going to be treated as weapons or things.

“He still seems like he needs help-” Clark tried, but the teenager let out a bark of laughter, interrupting him.

“We have someone that can help, Kal, you don’t need to get involved.”

Between one moment and the next, the teen and his brother had gone invisible and silent. There was no heartbeat for Clark to follow, no slight shimmer of imperfect camouflage for him to spot.

Clark couldn’t find them; it seemed that Masters had, in fact, used his own DNA as well if they could stop vital organs from working. More than likely, Masters could go invisible as well, but just hadn’t had a reason to in front of a reporter the one time they’d met.

Clark well and truly could not find a trace of the clone boy or his brother.

But at least he had a lead.

Vlad Masters.

[joey394]

The Ring of Rage needs a babysitter.

The Ring of Rage, oddly semi-sapient in the way that all ghostly objects tend to be, keeps trying to break into the sarcophagus to get onto Pariah Dark's finger.

Normally, fine. Go sit on the finger of someone locked in Foreversleep, not like it'll change much. But if that ring manages to crack open Pariah Darks comfy forever-box, the Pariah Dark wakes up.

Again.

So Danny, as the current Ghostly Heir-Apparent, having earned his place as Pariah Dark's son by right of combat (ew), is tasked with wearing the Ring of Rage in the human world, so as to forcibly keep it away from Pariah Dark.

So Danny wears it, even though it clashes with a lot of his everyday clothes. Because, like, it does tend to look really evil and give off some bad vibes.

Danny isn't a huge fan of it, honestly. It feels mean to say he hates it, but it keeps trying to convince him to get angry over the dumbest shit.

Danny, as the Ghostly Heir-Apparent, is the only person or ghost who can wear it and not fall to temptation. The only person or ghost who's own personal power outweighs that of the Ring of Rage. So that's fun.

It's like a toddler following him around shouting intrusive thoughts, and Danny just has to keep ignoring it.

Honestly, the only good thing he can say about the ring is that it does the equivalent of a magical girl transformation; if he lets it release some of it's power, and uses it, he gets a red and black jumpsuit.

It's...alright. He guesses.

He stick to doing heroing in Phantom form, though. The red and black, on top of not really being his colors, feel like he's trying to step on the Red Huntress' toes.

So he wears it, but it never sees any use.

Until one day, as Danny is being dragged along to a Ghost Hunter Convention in New York City, a Green Lantern is thrown into the building next to him.

It's a Supervillain, and they're duking it out with said Green Lantern and really, really not caring about collateral.

Danny's parents are right there. They aren't about to let him out of their sights. New York City is huge and covered in CCTV, there's no way he can just...run away and disappear long enough to transform into Phantom. Not without some conspiracy theorist getting ahold of the CCTV footage leading up to him vanishing and Phantom showing up.

What are the chances of that like, actually happening?

Danny doesn't really know, but New York City has always been an exception for weird shit, so he feels like the possibility is distinctly higher than average.

He isn't gonna risk it.

Luckily, he can just do an Anime Magical Girl transformation into the Ring of Rage's fashion choice and use said ring to fight instead of his powers.

Damn.

Maybe it is actually useful for something. Huh.

He lets the Ring of Rage's power wash over him, the red and black jumpsuit replacing his clothes, and a red aura encompassing him as his feet leave the ground.

Granted, he isn't using the ring to fly, but his parents don't need to know that.

"Mom, dad, help the people to shelter; just like in the ghost attacks," Danny says, knowing that if anyone is qualified to herd terrified people to safety, it's literally anyone from Amity Park.

Or Gotham.

But fuck Gotham, and it's creepy BDSM furry brigade of vigilantes.

Dad looks up at him, teary eyed.

"Our little boy is a hero!" Mom cries, throwing up her hands triumphantly before grabbing his dad's arm and dragging him away.

"Don't get hurt now, Danno! Otherwise we'll have to step in!" His dad laughs, and Danny feels chills.

That...that would cause more damage than the Supervillain.

He can't let that happen.

Danny flies up and joins the fray, hyperaware of dodging the blasts and punches meant for him, and missing how the Green Lanterns around him hesitate when they notice he's there.

After two hours (he could have done this so much faster as Phantom, this is so tedious) the fight is over, and the villain of the week is in glowing green shackles.

Then the Green Lanterns, haggard and bleeding, turn on him.

"Surrender as compliantly as you've been so far, and we won't have any issues," one of them says, leveling their ring at Danny.

Danny, bewildered, slowly raises his hands in the air.

"What, did I...did I break a treaty with aliens or something? Is that uh...very professional looking and distinguished alien I just punched actually an ambassador?" Danny froze. "Can we please never, ever tell my parents if they are?"

"...Do you not feel, uh. I don't know. A very big compulsion to kill everyone and everything?" another Green Lantern asks, inching a little closer. "Or to laugh evilly, or something?"

"No?"

"Where did you get that ring, kid?"

Danny blinks.

"Oh, you're upset cuz of this thing? Yeah, alright, I'll just...take it off then," Danny shrugs, and as every single Green Lantern shouts at him not to do it, he slips it off of his finger, the red and black jumpsuit disappearing.

The Green Lanterns wince, pulling back like they're...waiting.

But nothing happens.

"Yeah, I'm just babysitting it so it doesn't wake up it's master. It's not mine."

Or; Danny, due to his Ghost powers/strength and being the Ghostly Heir Apparent, can not only resist the Red Lantern Ring he's inherited from Pariah Dark, but can take it off and not die. This causes concern amongst the Lantern Community. Especially when they learn that the Red Lantern Ring in question is semi-sapient.

[joey394]

The Ring of Rage needs a babysitter.

The Ring of Rage, oddly semi-sapient in the way that all ghostly objects tend to be, keeps trying to break into the sarcophagus to get onto Pariah Dark's finger.

Normally, fine. Go sit on the finger of someone locked in Foreversleep, not like it'll change much. But if that ring manages to crack open Pariah Darks comfy forever-box, the Pariah Dark wakes up.

Again.

So Danny, as the current Ghostly Heir-Apparent, having earned his place as Pariah Dark's son by right of combat (ew), is tasked with wearing the Ring of Rage in the human world, so as to forcibly keep it away from Pariah Dark.

So Danny wears it, even though it clashes with a lot of his everyday clothes. Because, like, it does tend to look really evil and give off some bad vibes.

Danny isn't a huge fan of it, honestly. It feels mean to say he hates it, but it keeps trying to convince him to get angry over the dumbest shit.

Danny, as the Ghostly Heir-Apparent, is the only person or ghost who can wear it and not fall to temptation. The only person or ghost who's own personal power outweighs that of the Ring of Rage. So that's fun.

It's like a toddler following him around shouting intrusive thoughts, and Danny just has to keep ignoring it.

Honestly, the only good thing he can say about the ring is that it does the equivalent of a magical girl transformation; if he lets it release some of it's power, and uses it, he gets a red and black jumpsuit.

It's...alright. He guesses.

He stick to doing heroing in Phantom form, though. The red and black, on top of not really being his colors, feel like he's trying to step on the Red Huntress' toes.

So he wears it, but it never sees any use.

Until one day, as Danny is being dragged along to a Ghost Hunter Convention in New York City, a Green Lantern is thrown into the building next to him.

It's a Supervillain, and they're duking it out with said Green Lantern and really, really not caring about collateral.

Danny's parents are right there. They aren't about to let him out of their sights. New York City is huge and covered in CCTV, there's no way he can just...run away and disappear long enough to transform into Phantom. Not without some conspiracy theorist getting ahold of the CCTV footage leading up to him vanishing and Phantom showing up.

What are the chances of that like, actually happening?

Danny doesn't really know, but New York City has always been an exception for weird shit, so he feels like the possibility is distinctly higher than average.

He isn't gonna risk it.

Luckily, he can just do an Anime Magical Girl transformation into the Ring of Rage's fashion choice and use said ring to fight instead of his powers.

Damn.

Maybe it is actually useful for something. Huh.

He lets the Ring of Rage's power wash over him, the red and black jumpsuit replacing his clothes, and a red aura encompassing him as his feet leave the ground.

Granted, he isn't using the ring to fly, but his parents don't need to know that.

"Mom, dad, help the people to shelter; just like in the ghost attacks," Danny says, knowing that if anyone is qualified to herd terrified people to safety, it's literally anyone from Amity Park.

Or Gotham.

But fuck Gotham, and it's creepy BDSM furry brigade of vigilantes.

Dad looks up at him, teary eyed.

"Our little boy is a hero!" Mom cries, throwing up her hands triumphantly before grabbing his dad's arm and dragging him away.

"Don't get hurt now, Danno! Otherwise we'll have to step in!" His dad laughs, and Danny feels chills.

That...that would cause more damage than the Supervillain.

He can't let that happen.

Danny flies up and joins the fray, hyperaware of dodging the blasts and punches meant for him, and missing how the Green Lanterns around him hesitate when they notice he's there.

After two hours (he could have done this so much faster as Phantom, this is so tedious) the fight is over, and the villain of the week is in glowing green shackles.

Then the Green Lanterns, haggard and bleeding, turn on him.

"Surrender as compliantly as you've been so far, and we won't have any issues," one of them says, leveling their ring at Danny.

Danny, bewildered, slowly raises his hands in the air.

"What, did I...did I break a treaty with aliens or something? Is that uh...very professional looking and distinguished alien I just punched actually an ambassador?" Danny froze. "Can we please never, ever tell my parents if they are?"

"...Do you not feel, uh. I don't know. A very big compulsion to kill everyone and everything?" another Green Lantern asks, inching a little closer. "Or to laugh evilly, or something?"

"No?"

"Where did you get that ring, kid?"

Danny blinks.

"Oh, you're upset cuz of this thing? Yeah, alright, I'll just...take it off then," Danny shrugs, and as every single Green Lantern shouts at him not to do it, he slips it off of his finger, the red and black jumpsuit disappearing.

The Green Lanterns wince, pulling back like they're...waiting.

But nothing happens.

"Yeah, I'm just babysitting it so it doesn't wake up it's master. It's not mine."

Or; Danny, due to his Ghost powers/strength and being the Ghostly Heir Apparent, can not only resist the Red Lantern Ring he's inherited from Pariah Dark, but can take it off and not die. This causes concern amongst the Lantern Community. Especially when they learn that the Red Lantern Ring in question is semi-sapient.

[joey394]

Bruce has come back from the time stream, and he has never been more disappointed in Tim than right now.

He was brought back by the Justice League, and when he finally got back to Gotham, Tim was nowhere to be found.

Tim hadn't even tried to bring him back.

In fact, Tim had abandoned the hero scene altogether.

Tim. The boy who had sworn that the only way he'd leave the caped life was if he was dead.

Dick is being tight lipped and refusing to say anything on the matter.

Damian clearly knows what's going on but, oddly, refuses to say anything either.

Oracle completely ignores Bruce when he asks, at one point just pretending like he wasn't talking at all.

Cass, however, isn't putting any effort into pretending he isn't asking and is instead completely avoiding him.

Alfred seems to be in the same boat as him, deliberately kept in the dark.

There has to be some sort of reason for it, and Bruce is certain that it's the same reason for all of the avoidance, lies, and Tim's disappearance.

So, against everyone's wishes, he investigates.

Tim isn't in the Manor. Tim isn't in any of his safehouses.

Tim is, in fact, in one of...Jason's safehouses?

After covertly watching from a distance, Bruce discovers three things.

First; while Jason does not appear to be on good terms with Tim, he does view Tim as someone under his protection.

Second; Jason must be getting feedback from Oracle, because Red Hood always finds Batman in five minutes or less when he starts a stake out on Tim.

Third; There are babies in that safehouse. Not toddlers; babies.

He saw one of them through the reinforced window, floating a good two feet off the crib before a panicked and exhausted Tim had snatched it out of the air.

Tim...what has Tim done?

Bruce had heard from Clark that Tim had tried to clone Kon, but had he actually done it?

~~~~~~

While raiding Ra's bases and preparing them to blow, Tim stumbled across three babies. Triplets.

Triplets with superpowers.

Triplets that he knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, Ra's will find again even if he buries them in the Foster system.

Plus, he's heard the horror stories of vulnerable metas fed to the Foster system at a young age.

So.

Okay.

He'll raise them himself.

He's Tim Drake, the kid that blackmailed Batman into taking him on as Robin; raising a few kids can't be that hard. He'll just take care of them during the day, nap when they do, and go do hero stuff at night.

He reaches out to the one person even Ra's would never expect him to willingly work with.

He reaches out to Red Hood.

He hires Red Hood as a bodyguard. It's a purely professional relationship.

Red Hood sets him up in the best safehouse he's got; soundproof, lead-lined walls, hidden weapon caches, the works.

Dick, Damian, and Jason himself think that Tim actually did succeed in cloning Superboy and is taking responsibility for raising the kids.

Damian may not like Drake, but he's snuck into the safehouse and met the triplets, and he may or may not be a little infatuated with them. So he'll keep the secret for them.

Dick and Jason feel like Tim is taking on too many responsibilities, and think he's clearly hiding from the Supers in that safehouse.

Oracle gets her information from Cass, who is the only one who knows the full story.

Tim, meanwhile, is learning that children are exhausting, Cass is an amazing babysitter (as is Damian, but Damian if fickle and Tim has to pretend like he doesn't know when Damian is there), and hasn't had any time, at all, to go out and do heroing stuff.

He has so much fucking empathy for Anita, right now.

He's been so involved with the triplets that he's missed key events like; Bruce coming back from the timestream, Kon and Bart coming back to life, Ra's declaring Tim his One True Heir officially, and a throuple of mad scientist super villains dropping onto the scene and making a stir.

Or; Danny, Dani, and Dan got caught by the GIW, forced into their cores, and then stolen by a league of assassins, of all things. So naturally they put a rush on getting out of their cores, because, see, assassins, but they came out way before they had enough ecto to form their actual ages. They came out as babies. Babies that were promptly treated as treasures by some creepy cult assassin man. Babies that were stolen by that assassin man's...rival? Detective? They weren't sure. But they were taken by him. And now they're being raised in a very ecto-rich city, just waiting for the day they have enough ecto to go back to their normal age. Meanwhile, Jack, Vlad, and Maddie Fenton are some of the scariest supervillains the Justice League has ever faced, and no one knows why they keep targeting US government facilities. Bart, Kon, and Cassie are lowkey convinced that Tim is dead. Constantine has a new assistant who forced herself into the position, and Jasmine Fenton is deadset on learning everything he knows to find her siblings. Booster Gold has run into two new time police, but he has no idea which future they work for; a goth teenager and a techy nerdy teenagers that wear clock amulets and keep disappearing into green portals.

[joey394]

Danny, captured by the GIW, is bored out of his mind. Really, he's waiting for them to toss him in that stupid useless cell so he can "disappear" like he always does.

The shield that prevents ghosts from entering or leaving doesn't work, but no one has told them that. Ergo, the cell and the cuffs don't actually work. Except this time when they throw him in the cell, there's a child.

It's a kid, maybe as old as Dani, wearing a Superman hoodie/cape, curled into a little ball in the corner and quietly sobbing. He needs to calm the kid down before he escapes like normal, or the kid's crying is gonna alert the guards.

Normally, Danny phases his hand through the electrical box and destroys the wires, then just phases through the floor and leaves. This serves two functions; it tricks the guards into thinking the issue is with the smoking wires, thereby not alerting them to the busted shield, and also it prevents Danny from having to deal with them if he just phases away from his problems.

This time, he floats over to the kid.

"Hey. Hey, I'm Phantom. Who're you?" He asks gently, reaching out cuffed hands to awkwardly pat the kid on the back.

The kid sniffs.

"...Superboy."

"....Wow, you got really small-"

"-No! I'm not small! And not that one, the. The other one."

Danny frowns, trying to think of any other Superboyyyyyy Oh!

"You're my little sisters favorite one!"

The kid looks up from his knees, eyes wet and jeans damp. There's a collar on his neck, glowing a soft green and illuminating inflamed veins above and below it.

It feels like a bastardized version of ectoplasm, and it's probably what's crippling a Kryptonian child from just punching his way out.

It also doesn't feel like something Danny can phase off of the kid.

"Really?" Superboy asks, voice wobbly.

"Yeah, she loves you! Always brings you up when we argue over who's the best hero."

"Who. Who's yours?"

"Impulse, hands down."

"What? What's he got that I don't h-"

The entire building shakes, knocking Danny and Superboy out of their conversation, and prompting Danny to play shield after shoving the kid to the ground.

Then the ceiling ripped off.

Superman himself hovers above them, eyes smoking red and face far more pissed than Danny had ever seen him show to the cameras.

Even though Danny knows there's no way Superman is mad at him, being subjected to that glare is tricking his brain into thinking the papa bear is mad at him.

"...So we should probably remove the collar from him before you kill me," Danny says, voice a little higher than he would like to admit.

[joey394]

Damian has a pet he's entirely unaware of.

It's always been there, following him. Hanging out on his shoulder or arm, even sometimes his hair.

At first, it was scared of him.

But after a bit, it was drawn to him.

It was, actually, his very first pet in Wayne Manor.

Now, it's his most loyal pet. It loves him so much it cannot comprehend not loving him. It is always with him, every second of every day.

It is unnamed, it is unknown, and that is perfectly alright; just so long as it can be by his side.

But one day, Damian is in trouble. Serious trouble.

It doesn't think he can get out of this one; if he dies again, there's no guarantee he'll come back. Damian's first pet is capable of many things, but it's not able to follow him into the afterlife.

It, for the first time, leaves Damian's side voluntarily to go get help.

Danny, who was visiting Gotham to check out Gotham University, is stopped in his tracks by a tiny ghost bat, desperately trying to lead him somewhere.

[joey394]

Damian has a pet he's entirely unaware of.

It's always been there, following him. Hanging out on his shoulder or arm, even sometimes his hair.

At first, it was scared of him.

But after a bit, it was drawn to him.

It was, actually, his very first pet in Wayne Manor.

Now, it's his most loyal pet. It loves him so much it cannot comprehend not loving him. It is always with him, every second of every day.

It is unnamed, it is unknown, and that is perfectly alright; just so long as it can be by his side.

But one day, Damian is in trouble. Serious trouble.

It doesn't think he can get out of this one; if he dies again, there's no guarantee he'll come back. Damian's first pet is capable of many things, but it's not able to follow him into the afterlife.

It, for the first time, leaves Damian's side voluntarily to go get help.

Danny, who was visiting Gotham to check out Gotham University, is stopped in his tracks by a tiny ghost bat, desperately trying to lead him somewhere.

[joey394]

Constantine is late for an appointment. Granted the only one keeping track of like, the exact time for it is him, but he still likes to be on time for this one.

He always, one the fifteenth of every month at 7:30 PM American Central time, summons the hero Phantom.

The first time he did it, it was because he wanted to scope out Phantom for himself to see if the kid was a threat. Every time after that has been because he likes to do check-ins with the kid.

He knows something's different about Phantom, that he's not like other ghosts, but the Occultist has decided that if it's not important in the moment, he's gonna leave that part alone.

John's not super thrilled that Phantom's haunt is infested with Ghost Hunters. Hunters who actually found out how to scientificize magic and make it into weapons.

So once a month, the Hellblazer himself summons the kid to make sure he's being safe. Make sure he isn't hurt.

But now he's three hours late.

He hurriedly summons Phantom, and...that's just a living, breathing kid, sleeping soundly in his summoning circle.

A kid with the same soul-signature as Phantom. A kid that was able to be summoned by the summoning sigil meant for Phantom.

A kid that is, somehow, Phantom.

A kid that's starting to wake up.

[joey394]

There's a boy sleeping in the cornfield.

He's got white hair, is wearing a jumpsuit, looks as solid as the crop around him, and floats two inches off the ground.

And Martha can't move him. Or get him to wake up.

Or touch him, for that matter; her hand had just phased through him.

At first she'd been concerned, but it's been three weeks, and he's still in that same spot, sleeping peacefully. No matter the kind of weather, he remains unchanged.

If it rains, he doesn't look like he gets wet. If it's sunny, he doesn't look like he's overheating. If it's windy, he doesn't budge an inch.

She doesn't want to bother Clark with it, because he's got so much to worry about already and this doesn't seem that harmful.

Well, she doesn't want to bother Clark with it until a bunch of men in white suits trespass on her field, do something to the kid, and actually manage to make him move.

Then Martha Kent stares down the barrel of a gun unlike any she's ever seen before, zero fear in her eyes, and opens her mouth.

"Kal!"

Or; The GIW split Danny's ghost half and human half, and the ghost half escaped to get help. But the ghost half got tired thanks to the GIWs incomplete technology, slowing down until it was in the middle of a cornfield in Kansas. Then, sensing that it was somewhere safe; it slept. Until the GIW managed to track it down. The human half is fading, and it's fading fast. It needs the ghost half to live, and they need this specimen to survive as long as possible. After all; the data mined from a living specimen is invaluable.

[joey394]

Dan, redeemed but still with a chip on his shoulder, is on a mission.

Getting shoved into a teenage version of his body had been annoying. Growing up again had been a pain.

But.

He'd made it.

He's now an adult at the mature age of twenty, has the same terrifying stature his ghost half has, and has decided what he wants to do with the next few years of his life, at least.

He's going to confuse Batman.

See, when Dan had destroyed the world in his own timeline, there were two heroes that posed actual problems for him; Batman and John Constantine.

Of those two, Batman had been the worst.

He'd been the hardest to get rid of, stuck around the longest, and came up with a contingency that had damn near actually taken Dan out.

To be fair, Constantine had gotten way closer to deleting Dan's existence, but that had been more of a one and done fight, not a million annoying little things.

Batman had been a thorn in his side so much that even redeemed, Dan still has a grudge against him.

But.

He knows who Batman is.

More specifically, he knows who Batman's butler is, and that man is the picture definition of "overworked". Said butler also, sometimes, bemoans taking care of such a large Manor by himself on a forum just for Butlers.

A forum Dan has been frequenting, replying to those complaints and slowly endearing himself to Mr. Pennyworth. Exchanging tips. Getting advice on how to Butler. Talking about not really getting a chance to apprentice because people are "scared" of him.

(Okay so that one is true, Dan's got a plan and he wants to do it well, but there's literally no rich person that would hire him as an intern Butler. They all say he's too "intense" or whatever.)

When Oracle had traced back to Dan's computer, she'd only found normal usage and nothing suspicious. Because that was what that computer was used for, and only that.

When Mr. Pennyworth had finally asked if Dan would like to train under him as a replacement, Dan had taken a long while to stop laughing.

Dan, built like a competitive weight lifter and taller than Superman, shows up at the steps of Wayne Manor fully prepared to Fuck With Batman.

~~~~~~

Alfred's apprentice is freaking Bruce the hell out, and it's getting to the point where he's not afraid to acknowledge that.

[joey394]

Prompt idea: Danny has been attending Wayne family dinners for weeks now and he truly doesn’t know how he got this far

Danny has been without a home or a means to get food for a while because of either identity reveal gone bad or Dan timeline shenanigans. Either way he needs to eat. As a last ditch attempt Danny tries to attend/infiltrate a Wayne family dinner. He’s seen the Wayne kids around Gotham and he’s sure that he could look and act the part enough to get in the door and out with some bread rolls at least.

Was it his best idea? No.

But he sure as sugar ain’t firing on all cylinders rn.

And Bruce already has a gaggle of blue eyed, black haired children.

What’s one more?

Batfam of course notices immediately when a whole new kid shows up, grabs some miscellaneous pieces of food and then prattles off some excuse about “not being that hungry.” (Clearly a bald faced lie) And that they were “Going to the library to study for finals, bye Dad!”

1. No one skips out on family dinners. Even Jason was here.

2. Alfred sets the table for everyone ahead of time and the kid had no place to sit.

3. Nobody in this house studies anything beyond case files.

4. Nobody in this house calls Bruce Dad.

Danny thinks he is suffering from success. No matter where he is in Gotham someone picks him up and insists he’ll be late for family dinner which is unacceptable.

Alfred just wants to feed the boy.

The batkids are amused by his efforts to look as though he’s been here all along.

Bruce is drafting adoption papers as we speak.

[joey394]

[joey394]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "Past Tense, Pt. 1"