#AU where Tim and Danny are childhood friends

[dcxdpdabbles]

Bruce: I want to let you know that I am entirely on board with welcoming Danny Fenton into this family. Tim: You want to adopt my friend Danny? Bruce: No, I don't want to adopt your special friend. I'm talking about the other way to join a family. Tim.: Ohhhhh. He's your illegitimate son. Bruce: No, he is not. Tim: Well, if he wasn't born into the family and you're not adopting him, how else would he join? Bruce: I mean, it's more of a union of families. Do you get what I'm saying? Tim: Oh! You mean you want me to have him sign a business contract! Bruce: No! I mean- Alfred: Master Bruce! We agree to let Master Tim figure this out on his own! He's in a critical stage of life, and he needs. His. Own. Space! Bruce: But-but he's not connecting the dots! It's fusterating to watch! Tim: OH! you mean marriage! Bruce relieved: YES! You get it! Tim side eyeing him: Bruce...Danny is too young for you. Bruce: You do NOT get it. Tim: Hmmmm oh! *Snaps fingers* You want him to marry one of your kids! I could introduce him to Jay but the thought....makes me angry. So I won't. Bruce: Why? Why would that make your angry? Tim thinking: Cause I don't want Danny dating any my siblings. I want him to...... Bruce: Yes? Tim: I want him to be happy forever! *Runs off* I will make sure he never dates someone who will break his heart as his best friend. It's my duty! Bruce: *Muffled screams of frustration into nearby pillow* Alfred: Now you know how I felt when you used to bring Mister Dent around. Bruce: This is terrible. How did you handle it? Alfred: I suffered until you figured it out sometime in your twenties. Bruce: It's going to take that long!?

[starry-bi-sky]

Childhood Friends Au: Jason

there's something burning in the empty room inside my head fill it up with doubt let it in, let it spread

When Jason gets Tim's text in the groupchat, he ignores it. And then a short series of buzzes distract him from a drug bust. It hasn't even been that long since he reconciled with the family, with Bruce. He thinks that perhaps he should have left it sooner.

He glances at it momentarily when the buzzing stops and he doesn't need to knock out more guys. He sees Tim's question dedicated towards him, and his response is instant, his thumbs flying over in response.

He doesn't care, he's trying to patrol.

(He does not have Danny's number in this phone, it's new. A model from this year rather than one from four years ago. He wants that old phone back. He hasn't even looked at their old letters yet.)

(Jason bets that they've been packed away in storage with the rest of his things. He doesn't want to visit the manor, but maybe he should. Just to find those letters again. He's not sure if he's allowed to.)

And then Tim says its Danny, and Jason flies up to the past texts to find the photo before he can think. And then there is Danny staring right at him again, with the same old smile on his face that he always aimed at people. Lopsided, Danny's favorite kind of smile.

Something old, something new. He's got piercings, and his eyes are as blue as they've ever been. He has an undercut, it looks self-done. It looks good. He looks tired.

Danny's good at hiding things from people, it comes with the purchase of being a street kid. But Jason can't have someone else's back without knowing the ins and outs of the person in question. Jason knows when Danny is tired, and Danny knows when he is too.

Before his death, whenever Danny came over he never missed a beat in telling Jason that he looked like shit. Were Bruce's fancy rich-people, cloud-made mattresses too soft for him? He can find him a moth-eaten street mat for him if he needs it. It'd be like the good old days.

(Jason wishes he could have told him he was Robin, but it wouldn't be safe.)

Jason had to see him with his own eyes, had to confirm with his own eyes just how much Danny had changed. It's just his luck -- if he has any left -- that he arrives to Bruce's dumb gala just as Danny steps out onto their once-shared, west-end balcony.

He drops down, something heavy in his throat, before he can properly think it through. Danny looks up before his feet even touch the ground, like he knew he was there. Jason wonders if he did. There is a cigarette in Danny's mouth. Something old. And something flashes in his eyes that Jason cannot place. Danny looks tense.

Jason feels like he's made a mistake.

In the end, watching Danny walk away feels a lot like Jason is losing something -- or is he missing something? Is it both? He wants to reach out, grab Danny's arm, but his feet are glued to the balcony floor. There are so many things he wants to say, but his tongue has glued itself to the roof of his mouth. Something has crawled into his mouth and died.

So much has been said with so little words. He wants to spin Danny around and ask him so many questions.

What do you mean you spoke to my ghost?

What do you mean I told you the Joker killed me?

What else have I told you?

The Fentons were right?

What happened while I was gone?

Why are you scarred? Where did those come from?

(He is not blind. He saw those silver lightning scars etched into his best friend's skin, saw that it disappeared under his sleeves. Danny did not have those the last time Jason saw him, the last time he was alive.)

(The sight of it makes him alight with murderous intent. He wants to take his best friend by the front of his shirt and shake him -- who did this to you? Who did it? Tell him, he will fix it.)

(But he can't. He doesn't. Doing that means revealing who he is. It means telling his best friend that he has been alive for the last five years and he did not tell him. It would mean telling his best friend that he did not want him to know.)

You're going to kill the Joker for me?

What have I missed?

What do I not know?

You look so tired.

But before he can even get his mouth to move, Danny is gone back inside. The door swinging open, music once muffled now blaring out for only a few seconds before Danny is slipped back inside.

And Jason is left on the balcony, alone, with more questions than he thought he would have. He stares at the broken cigarette on the ground, it feels like a metaphor for something. Jason can't figure out for his second life what it is.

Maybe it's not a metaphor at all, maybe the curtains are sometimes just blue. Maybe sometimes your best friend just tells a vigilante that he is going to murder someone; that he is going to avenge his best friend with his bare hands and feel no remorse for it.

It is what Jason wants Bruce to do, wants someone who loves him to do. But he's not sure if its something he wants Danny to do. Not when he has been living a normal life -- or as normal as it could be -- without hide nor tail knowledge of what Jason used to do, or what he does now.

What have I missed?

Danny. He's missed Danny. He didn't look into Amity Park out of fear of what he'll find; of what he might do. But now Jason thinks he might have to.

Danny has talked to his ghost. Danny is going to kill for him. He has that look in his eyes that Jason knows so familiar; the one where he needs Jason to play distractor while he stole something from the corner store. The one where he looks a kid five years his senior in the eyes and kicks him in the dick because he cornered him and Jason, itching for a fight.

There's a look so familiar in his eyes; the one of a boy that's set his mind to something and he is going to do it. He can't call it the eyes of a cornered animal, because Danny has never been cornered, not when he's been with Jason. He calls it the eyes of a boy about to do something he will never regret.

He watches him leave with the Vlad Masters guy. He hides atop the roof and eavesdrops. The paparazzi have since left now that it was much later in the night; they are not the bigger fish, even if they sometimes parade it to be.

"I thought I told you to make nice." Vlad Masters scowls as he walks to the other side of the sleek black limousine. "To not embarrass me."

Jason frowns at the way he talks. His fingers itch, and something old lurches in his chest: the same old protectiveness that he used to feel whenever he and Danny were about to get into a fight. And then, later, when they would stand inside Bruce's galas with people who couldn't care less if they breathed or died.

Danny scowls right back at him, all venom and bite, and leans against the side of the car. "I did make nice -- as nice as I could when you dragged me here."

Vlad Master rolls his eyes, huffing. Jason's frown only deepens. It's not easy to make Danny do anything he doesn't want to. His sister has tried, so have his parents, as well as his teachers. But Danny is wild and so is Jason. Rebellion and disobedience -- no, independence -- cut into them from the streets like its broken glass.

Jason doesn't remember Danny ever mentioning knowing a Vlad Masters. They must have met after Jason died, then. He doesn't like him. He's the same as all the other socialites in that party. There is a greed in his eyes that Jason knows rots down to the core of him.

"I thought you would enjoy being here, little badger." Masters tries, and his tone makes Jason ruffle. As does the nickname. Danny's scowl only ever deepens, his fingers curling to dig nails into his palms. He looks at Masters like he wants him to burst into flames. "You are friends of the Waynes, I thought you would like the little reunion."

"Whether I did or didn't is none of your business." Danny says. The door clicks open on Masters' side, as if they remembered that they were on the street rather than in the car. Masters climbs into the back, and Danny opens the door. He only reaches in though, and pulls out a old hoodie.

Danny pulls it over his head, and his vest and button-down are hidden underneath it. "Don't wait up you old fruitloop, there's someone here I need to see." And he slams the door shut with more force than necessary.

(Jason makes a mental note to look into Vlad Masters. Who is he to Danny. How did they meet? There is an old animosity between each other that Jason has never seen before. Not even when they were on the streets. Not to this extent.)

Jason's heart seizes up. Danny's reminder early surges to the front of his mind. Right. That's right. He's going to go see him. Jason. He is going to lay flowers on his grave. He remembers that Jason likes zinnias. There are no florists open this late at night, Jason thinks.

He follows Danny from the rooftops. Danny sticks close to the buildings, slipping in and out of shadows. Jason wants to know where he learned how to do that. Where did he learn how to move without a sound?

Five years is a long time to be away from someone, Jason thinks. Something that fills him with dread. Five years is a long, long time. He's afraid that it's been too long. Will he still know Danny like he used to, if he asks? And if he doesn't?

More, more, more. More questions than answers. More things that Jason doesn't know about someone he used know to like the back of his hand. It scares him, and he hates it.

(There is scarring on Danny's hand that Jason has never seen before. Maybe that's the metaphor he was missing before. Maybe there are still more.)

Danny moves like a ghost down Gotham's streets, his hands shoved into his pockets without a care in the world. It is confusing. It is concerning. It is proof that more things have changed than Jason likes.

Danny somehow finds a florist open at this time of night, and buys a bouquet. And like he told the Red Hood, he buys zinnias. Reds and yellows. For a moment, Jason thinks that Danny knows. He wonders if he does.

What would he have told him, if he was a ghost? He told him that the Joker killed him. Maybe that means he told Danny he was Robin too, like he always wanted to. But couldn't, because it wasn't safe, and it wasn't just his secret to tell?

Why has nothing changed, now that he was alive again?

"Did you know," Danny starts, when he sits down at Jason's grave with flowers slipping gently from his fingers, before the tombstone below. Jason is as close as he can without being seen, hiding like a ghost. "That red zinnias mean stead beating of a heart?" He smiles sardonically, "You picked quite the flower, Jay."

(There is an echoing in his ears, Danny's voice faint in the back of his mind. Ghosts can hear you when you speak to their grave, did you know? Jason can hear him better than he should.)

Jason knows the irony. Perhaps it's got double the meaning now, now that he's alive again. Danny doesn't know that though, sitting before his grave with flowers that symbolize a beating heart. Between the two of them, Jason thinks that the only heart here is Danny.

(Between the two of them, the only heart here is one that's made between the two of them.)

"Yellow zinnias," Danny continues, resting his chin in his hand, "mean daily remembrance." His smile tilts on the axis of his mouth, a wrinkle between his brows. He looks pained. Hurt. There is no comment made. Like it doesn't need to be said.

Jason thinks he can hear it anyways, and his heart twists like someone took it and twisted it like a rag, trying to drain the dirty water out of the cloth. He hurts.

I miss you. Is what he hears. Is what Danny doesn't say. Is what Jason knows he's thinking anyways.

I am right here. Is what Jason wants to say, but doesn't. He is right here. But his feet are grave-bound to the floor, and a part of him feels like he's clawing out his own grave again. But the dirt falling is endless and merciless. He can't get free.

He bites his tongue, a lump in his throat. Shame wells in his heart and Jason wants to shrink away from this. His feet are grave-bound to the floor.

"I'm sorry for not visiting sooner." Danny says, hand dropping out of his chin to pick at the ends of his sleeves. His smile fades into a frown. His voice wobbles. "I'm sorry, I don't have an excuse. I should have."

Please don't be. Jason thinks. He doesn't think he can be upset about it, not when Danny is laying yellow flowers on his grave that mean remembrance. i think of you daily. Not when Danny was going to kill the Joker for him.

Jason still doesn't know what to think of that. He still isn't sure if it's real or not.

"I went to one of Bruce's galas today." Danny says, and Jason knows. He saw him there. Danny smiles weakly. "I know, right? First time in five years. Vlad dragged me along, you remember him right?"

No, I don't. Jason thinks, and he feels a flutter of anxiety. A sense of impending doom. A choking dread. What else have I missed? He thinks again. Why doesn't he remember? Danny told him about Vlad, but it can only be from when he was a ghost. How long was he a ghost before he was revived? How often did he and Danny speak?

Jason doesn't like not knowing things, he doesn't like not knowing things about himself.

It would be so easy, a little voice whispers, to reveal himself now. To step forward and take his helmet off. To tell Danny that he was alive. To demand answers that only Danny could know.

But then what? When Danny inevitably asks his own questions? About how long Jason's been alive? Why he was dressed the way he was? Why he didn't say anything earlier, on the balcony?

(But he did say it earlier, when he offered Danny the cigarette and silently asked him for his thoughts.)

Jason is afraid of what Danny might think of him, if he tells him what he's done. About the blood on his hands and the bridges he's burned. What if telling him is just more gasoline on another bridge, with Danny holding the match? He stays silent. Fear is a powerful motivator. It's a powerful deterrent, too.

"The asshole blackmailed me into coming." Danny says, drawing his knees up to his chest. He looks disinterested. Annoyed, actually. Like what he is saying isn't sending alarm bells through Jason's mind. Like what he's saying doesn't concern him. "It's really dumb, actually."

He sighs, long and tired. There is grief etched into every line and pore in his face. "I could have handled it without even needing to come to the gala, I've done it before." He mutters when his eyes open. His fingers brush against the petals of the bouquet.

(And that only sends more alarm bells ringing in Jason's mind. Red lights blaring. Distress fills the cavity of his lungs. What has he missed?)

"I only agreed because I missed you," Danny says, "and Bruce. He invited me to come over sometime soon, to catch up. I agreed and I'm not sure why I did."

Jason didn't know that.

Danny continues talking. Jason listens in dutifully. He feels like a stranger imposing on his own grave. It's ridiculous. It makes sense. He feels like he should slink away and let Danny talk to his grave in peace. He cannot bring himself to move.

If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that he's sitting in front of him, like it's the good old days and they're back in Jason's room in the manor. Staying up late and trading stories back and forth. Sneaking out to the balcony and climbing onto rooftops they’re not supposed to go on. 

Jazz is getting her psychology degree. Him and Sam had a big fight a few years ago, but they’re better now. Tucker wants to start his own tech business. 

And on and on Danny goes, rambling about every little thing he can think of in the last five years since they last talked. He jumps back and forth between topics, when he remembers something he cuts to it. And then jumps back off to the next thought passing through his mind.

"I don't know what I want to do." Danny says, finally, after he exhausts every other topic to talk about. "I wanted to be an astronaut, but now I'm not so sure." His knees draw up to his chin, and he looks so sad. He looks nineteen. Small despite his size.

Were they really just nineteen, verging on twenty? Jason feels older among his years. Fourteen feels so far away.

Danny breathes in slowly, it's a sound that trembles. From where he stands, Jason sees Danny's eyes film over with tears. He makes a choked out sound that sounds like a terrible mix of a laugh and a sob.

"Where did you go?" He whispers. He tries to smile, and it is this pained, awful thing that drops within a second. Fingers clutch at his legs, diggings wrinkles into the fabric. "I know you're still here. Where did you go?"

There is no answer. Guilt is an animal with claws, and it burrows into Jason's heart to make itself home between the tendons. Tears slide from Danny's eyes down his cheeks. He still cries for him, five years later. Five years after. Jason feels worse.

"I haven't stopped looking for you." Danny continues, his voice cracks, and the words run over Jason's ears like water sliding off a duck's back. He doesn't hear it at first -- no, he doesn't understand it at first. And then when he does, he plunges his hands into the waters of his mind to drudge it back up.

You're looking for me? Do you know I'm alive?

It's another question to Jason's never-ending list.

"You might as well tell me where you are now." He smiles again; tries to. It wobbles, lips pulling back to show teeth as more tears spill over and carve red marks down Danny's face. "Or I'll find Cujo and sick him on you. He's gettin' real good at tracking things you know."

Jason doesn't know who Cujo is. But it sounds like a dog. He knows Danny's always wanted one, but their apartments would never allow it. It's not like his parents could afford one either.

There is a silence that hangs over them, with only the sound of the city around them. Danny seems to tremble more and more as each second passes, until finally a bubble pops. His smile drops, and so do his knees that were pressed into his chest.

He doesn't say a thing, not with words anyways. He hunches over and hugs himself with nails that dig into his elbows, failing to stifle a years' old grief. Jason wants to flee, lest he breaks his word to himself and steps out to console and dry Danny's falling tears. It feels like a betrayal unto himself to only stand there and watch him drown in his grief.

Guilt is a thing with claws, and Jason leaves the cemetery with hatred eating his tongue. Danny deserves the privacy that a ghost cannot give him. Jason may no longer be a ghost, but he is still the next best thing. either way I'm left holding onto the shovel and rope digging in the dirt finding bones, finding ghosts

[colorsandwords]

The urge to create an au where Jon, Tim, Danny, and maybe Sam are childhood friends and go on spooky adventures

[dpxdcdisneyau]

Disney Week Is Coming Up!!!

Disney Week is coming up in just a few weeks!

That being said, I thought it could be fun to share some prompts for anyone struggling to come up with ideas but want to participate nonetheless! These are not required, if you have a different idea go for it! These are just some fun prompts to share for anyone struggling to think of something for each day.

Some fun prompts to explore:

Day 1: Resurrection/Death

Coco AU: Tim gets in an argument with the bats that results in him getting thrown into the Infinite Realms. Now he has to find his way back to the world of the living before time runs out and he becomes a ghost forever.

Snow White AU: Danny runs away from Amity after his parents try to destroy him and finds himself adopted by the Wayne Family. Now it's Danny Fenton and the 7 Waynes (Bruce, Dick, Jason, Tim, Duke, Cass, Damian) the Fentons find him and manage to break Danny's core. Now the Waynes need to find out a way to bring their beloved Danny back to life.

Big Hero 6 AU: Jazz is murdered and Danny thinks it's his fault, he joins a hero team to find out who killed his sister and why. The hero team he joins? up to you.

Day 2: Monster/Damsel in Distress

A bat is the victim of a cult ritual but it backfires and turns the batkid into a frog. A ghost finds the frog and is like oh only a kiss from a royal can turn you back! Good thing I know the royal family in the Infinite Realms!

Sleeping Beauty Au where Danny has been put under a curse and his ghosts start kidnapping people far and wide to wake him up. A member of the batfam wakes him up with a kiss

The pit demon inside of Jason wells up and turns him into an uncontrollable monster, now the Bats are fighting against time to find someone to fix Jason and bring him back to normal. (loosely based off of Turning Red and the Red Panda being out of control)

Day 3: Ohana/Loss

Lilo and Stitch AU: Jason Todd passed away and Dick finds himself struggling to move on. One night he sees a shooting star and prays for an angel to become his friend. What he gets instead is a wounded, angry Danny Fenton who is running away from the GIW/Fentons/Infinite Realms whatever you choose.

Strange World AU: In an effort to save the world, Bruce, Dick, and Tim find themselves going into the Infinite Realms to find something to help. What they find instead is halfa Jason Todd who decided he didn't want to go back home after dying.

Encanto AU(kinda): Duke discovers one day that the Wayne Manor is actually sentient and the entire home is being possessed by a ghost named Danny who has been spending the last ten years protecting the Wayne Family from harm. He befriends the house because he's the only one who can actually see Danny.

Frozen AU: Danny and Damian are brothers who were separated from one another. Danny has ice powers and accidentally hurt someone and ran away from home because of it. Damian goes looking for his brother to bring him back.

Day 4: Power of Love/Revenge Curse

in a fight against Klarion, a spell is cast on a member of Young Justice that puts them under a sleeping spell, the only way to save them is to find King Phantom of the Infinite Realms and see if he can break the curse.

howl's moving castle au where a member of the Batfamily angered a ghost and was aged to that of an eldery person. In an effort to find a way to fix it, the bat goes searching for someone to help them and meet Phantom, a powerful ghost from the Infinite Realms who is trying to avoid being crowned as King of the Infinite Realms.

Ella Enchanted AU where Danny has been cursed to be obedient by Vlad. He goes on a journey to find a way to break the curse put upon him and in doing so meets Jason Todd who has just recently died and is trying to find his way back to his family and the two work together to find a way to fix what has been done to them.

Day 5: Childhood/Adulthood

Damian learns one day that he has a twin who lives in a completely different world than him and makes the journey to the Infinite Realms to meet the twin he never knew he had. (Based off of Tinker Bell: Secret of the Wings)

The Ghost King is forced to hold a ball to find a consort.the batkid who dances with him leaves a birdarang or batarang behind and now it's like finding a needle in a haystack ("have you seen how many there are out there? one's a starfish!")

Mary Poppins AU: Danny is Mary Poppins and becomes a nanny for the Wayne Kids (maybe a no vigilante AU?)

Again, these are not required, these are just ideas for anyone who's wanting to write or draw something but can't think of what they want to do! Just some ideas to point people into a direction.

I hope they help and I can't wait to see you all participating in Disney Week!!

-- Dis

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Vast!Jon AU Snippet: Martin, RUN AWAY

But of course... he won't.

Martin/Jon Childhood Friends

Vast!Jon, professional photographer

Lonely!Martin, YouTube baker

A plane crash! Angst! Drama!

Old guys playing dice with the universe!

Nothing is sacred here.

----------------

Martin follows Aunt Susie into a room with a desk, two chairs, and no interviewers. “Wait here until you’re told,” she says, and leaves him there.

So he sits across from the desk and waits.

It’s weird. Since he was tiny, he’s been good at knowing when anyone was around.

There are no people watching him. He knows this. He is completely alone.

Doesn’t mean they’re not recording. Maybe they’re live-streaming. Who knows?

So, Martin puts on a show.

He relaxes, settles in. Makes sure his smile is on.

And waits.

Scrolls his phone.

Waits some more.

Waits in a way he knows is appealing even if he supposedly doesn’t think he’s being watched. 

It isn’t real voyeurism. Nobody wants that.

They want to watch someone pretty and appealing, and they want to jack off thinking that someone doesn’t know they're being seen, and it’s all one big fraud.

Martin can do that. It’s how he’s gotten along 80% of his life.

(4% Danny, 6% Tim, 10% Jon interference.)

He checks the time. An hour and a half.

Fine. He can out-fucking-wait them.

No one comes in.

He waits.

He needs this.

If they really think they’re going to chase him off by being absent, they have another think coming.

#

It is three hours before someone comes to get him.

His phone battery is down to 38%, which is annoying, but not the end of the world.

His face hurts from holding it just right for whatever cameras are here.

“Knock, knock,” says Peter Lukas, who really has such a delightful voice for someone who seems to be absent even when he’s standing right there.

Martin just looks at him, smiling that way.

They left him alone for three fucking hours. They can lead this conversation.

“So, you probably know you got it,” says Lukas.

“Did I? I don’t see a contract,” says Martin.

Peter laughs.

It’s a fucking great laugh. Or it would be on a recording, because in real life, it feels like icy cold water.

“I think I’m going to like working near you,” he says (not with, he did not say with, and that matters and Martin doesn’t know why), and produces a piece of paper. “Call me Peter. Once you sign this, that number you saw in your offer? It’s yours. Straight to your bank account. Every month, we’ll do it again - though you’ll have to start taking our suggestions from next month on.”

“So I get one month of free will, huh?” says Martin.

“Yep! One month where you still do things the way you do them. After that… well, it won’t be a big change.” Peter smiles, and it is the smile of a shark, it is the smile of a shrike, it is the smile of things that hunt and do not congregate except to reproduce.

Martin pushes back against his fear. He has to. This is necessary. This has to happen. “How do I quit?���

“You quit,” says Peter.  “Turn in your notice in writing. Done. But I don’t think you will.”

“You don’t? I won’t take too many changes to my show. It’s my baby.”

Peter beams.

Oh, gods. It’s the most fucked up thing Martin has ever seen, and he has fallen miles into his best friend’s eternal eyes. 

“You'll always be able to quit,” says Peter. “But Martin - may I call you Martin? I promise you this: you won’t want to.”

Oh, this was bad, this was a bad idea, this was danger and bear-traps and poison, and Martin still needed it.

His mother.

If not for her, he would just take his fucking chances.

He’d even humble himself to move in with Jon (humble himself, haha, as if the dream of seeing Jon sleepy in the morning, imagining him in the shower all wet and perfect, was some kind of hardship), but he could not do that while caring for his mother.

She liked her care facility. She liked so little, and lived in so much pain. 

He had to keep her there.

“Show me the contract,” he says, and at arm’s length, Peter holds it out.

[ittlest-littlest-rat]

I have this ‘Fic Idea’ list I started a while back and I thought ‘man I might as well post these.’ It���s a multifandom garbage heap, take want you want? Good luck deciphering them cause I sure can’t oops

(if anything looks like a fic you have already seen 1- I might have gotten the idea from there 2- post the name/author in the comments I love finding new things to read :))

The List:

- [ ] Team red fic from Wades perspective <Marvel- Deadpool, Daredevil, Spider-Man>

- [ ] Team red fic from Matt’s perspective <Marvel- Deadpool, Daredevil, Spider-Man>

- [ ] Daredevil from Foggys perspective <Marvel- Daredevil>

- [ ] ‘Mace and Scalpel’- with Jason as Mace and Tim as Scalpel <Batman- Red Hood, Red Robin>

- [ ] Danny phantom gets adopted (marvel- adult Peter Parker?) (reverse?) (Matt Murdock and foggy?) <Danny Phantom, Marvel- Spider-Man, Daredevil>

- [ ] Outside pov of red hood and crime alley- maybe after hood gets beat near to death by Batman <Batman- Red Hood>

- [ ] Shield agent at stark industries after shield files were dropped. (Maybe retired, maybe active?) <Marvel- Iron Man>

- [ ] Spooderman Ned pov (college maybe?) (don’t fanboy don’t fanboy. ‘OMG YOURE [blank]!!’ Dang it) <Marvel- Spider-Man>

- [ ] Danny gets powers as baby. Shenanigans ensue <Danny Phantom>

- [ ] Outside POV of Danny at Casper highschool. Sam and Tucker rule with an iron fist and care deeply for their spooky friend. Danny is legit a Cryptid and Sam/Tucker will Murder anyone who tells him so bby boi is oblivious <Danny Phantom>

- [ ] Miles morales Uncle Sam Wilson (maybe friends of dad from army?) <Marvel- Avengers, Spiderverse>

- [ ] 00Q from the perspective of a Q-minion <James Bond>

- [ ] Outside POV- Mycroft’s driver <Sherlock Homes>

- [ ] Harry Potter wants to be a Pilot and by God (Merlin?) he is going to be one. Even if that mean figuring out how to make electronics work with magic. <Harry Potter>

- [ ] Izukus super duper plan to reform the hero commission and Japan law system as a whole. <My Hero Academia>

- [ ] Lucky abrums YouTube channel <Blood Battlefront Blockade>

- [ ] Hawks and the HPSC (gaslighting guilt tripping manipulation- hawks too smart n recognizes but still hard) hawks doesn’t know his own bday- all bite, no bark. Won’t fight for self, but will kill for others. <My Hero Academia>

- [ ] Snape ends up adopting Harry after parents are killed <Harry Potter>

- [ ] Bank teller in queens tells bank robbers to fuck off while Spider-Man/daredevil watches on in horror, dp is delighted and might just propose on the spot <Marvel- Deadpool, Daredevil, Spider-Man>

- [ ] Shawn Spencer, Gus takes care of all financials. Explore childhood? Case involving past trauma and how Shawn deals with it and how it reminds him of his childhood <Psych>

- [ ] Tim works at (print shop? Coffee shop?) does bat watch at night. (tweets? Or podcast? Radio?) keeps trying to dodge the bats. Got disowned by his parents when they found a gay flag or does this on the side under alt ident? Parents sold their house and went off the radar without telling Tim (he runs so he doesn’t go in the system and is presumed missing/dead with his parents) <Batman- Red Robin>

- [ ] Danny is justice league darks resident teen hero, billy and Danny are best bros after realized ‘oh same shit different age’ John Constantine watches on in horror going ‘oh no now I have two kids to watch why does god test me like this’ <Danny Phantom, DC- Justice League Dark>

- [ ] Tumblr baby batwatch vague posting about random unsettling shit (think crow au) <Batman- Red Robin>

- [ ] Bats are hiding something from Dick. He just got off a long mission (undercover?) and had to be on edge the entire time. Turns out it’s a surprise party and mans has literally no sense of time. <Batman- Nightwing>

- [ ] Loke from fairy tail- slowly dying. Regulus is a power he is not supposed to have (think stars- regulus is a grouping of four(?) stars- more power? Or like that papa-logia AU where mans is literally a god of some sort). It’s the only reason he’s lived as long as he has. Maybe he doesn’t go back to star-realm and wants to be free, even if that means in death.<Fairy Tale>

- [ ] Harry Potter is a bank thief. Maybe got dropped in another world? Maybe got a taste of thievery when robbing goblin bank? Or just the world’s smallest terror ruining all of Dumbledores plans by going ‘oh most secure bank huh? Bet.’ in his first diagon ally trip and completely ignoring the dark lord problem <Harry Potter>

- [ ] Tim drake reborn as Izuku (nezu LOVES him) Might work better with a dark!Batman world leading to a very traumatized boi who takes one☝️look at Aizawa and goes ‘oh god I’ve already fucked up three sets of parents (drakes, Bruce, inko) ain’t no way I’m letting it happen again.’ Def vigilante fic and he does NOT want to go to UA which makes Nezu a little feral but guess what? NO ONE can out-feral Tim ‘Oops-my-spleen’ Drake <My Hero Academia, Batman- Red Robin>

- [ ] Person get truck-kun’d into full metal alchemist, promptly goes ‘fuck this’ and GTFOs. Sends a letter to maes cause that’s their blorbo. <Fullmetal Alchemist>

[starry-bi-sky]

i had SO MUCH HOMEWORK I HAD TO DO YESTERDAY. I didn't have time to get to this! (Or to your other reblog on the other post lol) but now I do! Yesss to enby Danny, he goes by he/they. I love the idea that Danny has so many bits and bobbles and accessories in their hair, they just straight up have (at least whats modernly considered) viking style braids and accessories lol. God forbid they get a PO box because their fans will be sending them SO many hair bobbles and accessories.

If they show up on video with bones in their hair they swear up and down its ethically sourced. Same with the feathers.

I love all of their account names. Pulsar_facts is clever.

I don't know a ton about Coast City or what Green Lantern does there to give much input on that, but rip to Hal LMAO. Danny keeps climbing up places to get good photos of the city or of the sky and more than once has this gotten Hal's attention while he's on-planet. He knows Danny by name at this point.

AND YEAH I HAD TO DO IT. I think all of the YJ4 should get an interaction like this where Danny ends up being saved by them at some point or another and they do something flirty/risqué that gets the hero in question all flustered/hot n bothered. I wanna bully Tim so bad and say that the other three experience this a handful of times before he even gets to meet Nova once.

It goes as followed: Bart, Cassie, Kon, and then Tim. Tim is lowkey SO jealous/frustrated. Like yeah sure he knows Nova is situated in Coast City and he could just orchestrate a meeting between them as Tim, but that's not the same, and it'd be cheating, and the rest of the team would never let him live it down.

So he's just gotta wait until Nova finally decides to pop up around Gotham and get themselves eventually landed in trouble.

AND YEAH WITH BART! Danny is usually super good about personal space boundaries, he's been human longer than he's not been human and he's super touchy with his friends and family. But when Bart saved them they were so thrown off; he smelled faintly like the dust of childhood and the metallic taste of clock gears and the sleepy weight of nostalgia. He smelled like Clockwork, and Danny just had to lean in and get a better whiff to confirm. He didn't fully process or realize what he did until they were at the police station and Impulse already zipped off.

By then it was too damn late, he was so mortified. I think it'd be funny (and mostly because i've attached myself to Bart for this au) that Danny has the most interactions with Impulse before they meet Red Robin. But that's because Central City is in Illinois and he tends to pass through it while going to Amity Park.

(which is like, apparently an actual state its been located in. at least that's what a quick google search and the wikipedia says. That and Ohio, Missouri, and Florida. I was just going to originally say it was a coincidence for when they're driving back to Amity, since i vaguely remembered that CC was a midwest city (i briefly thought it was supposed to be the chicago equivalent), and I'm glad I looked it up to make sure LMAO)

Like, it's not even that Danny keeps getting into trouble too while in Central City. Sometimes they're just like, existing somewhere and just so happen to be on Impulse's patrol route. The Flashes are renownedly friendly and I bet sometimes stop to chat with civilians if they're not on their way to a crime site or fight.

The next time Danny sees Impulse they apologize SO bad to him, they're so embarrassed and they feel bad for making him uncomfortable. Bart reassures them, and they're both pink-faced.

Bart asks them what they meant when they said he smelled like Time.

Danny laughs all high and nervous, averts their eyes; "I- uh- I-- ....I don't have an answer to that."

Bart decides to kinda let it be for now, and makes a joke about how despite all those thirst traps, they're rather shy in person.

Which is a fucking mistake.

Because, oops! Danny latches onto that like a leech, and for a split second moment you can see the lightbulb flip over their head. Their averted eyes flick over to Impulse, slightly wide for a quick blink. Then he gets this cocky grin on his face, and then they're leaning close into Impulse's space -- not close enough to be threatening, but close -- and Bart suddenly remembers- no, realizes, that Nova is actually really fucking tall.

They look smug, like the cat that caught the cream. Nova says, voice low but full of impish delight, their eyes glowing; "You watch my stuff?"

Bart realizes he miscalculated. And decides right then and there to throw the rest of the team under the bus; "So does Red Robin, Wonder Girl, and Superboy. Okay-I-gotta-go-bye!" And then he splits.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, its the YJ4 group chat. Its Kon. It's just the message: "BART YOU SNITCH!"

Thanks to @starry-bi-sky I now have another dpxdc idea based on how Danny would meet the YJ group. And for some reason the Weasels are Thirsty.

Fucking Twitter or TikTok.

Punk/Long Haired/Piercings Young Adult/College age Danny accidently being a Cryptid Thirst Trap. Maybe Danny has Zero fucks to give an does one of those Be Careful Who You Call Ugly in Highschool posts.

Like maybe he's doing a trendy tiktok but like the lights go out due to power outage.and his Eyes are Literally Glowing (nothing else can be seen But his eyes) before the tiktok ends.

Possibly him cheekily posting a selfie showing off his new tongue and lip piercings. Possibly the photo is just a close up of his smirking mouth while he sticks his tongue out between the V his fingers make.

Just Core Four YJ crushing Hard on this Civilian Punk Twunk!

[killmebythebeach]

I'm so tired. TMA Owl House au.

Okay. Instead of covers there's gods, so everyone's more like warlocks. Head of the Isles, Jonah Magnus, unified all witches centuries ago by placing a system so that everyone can only make a deal with one god, having a ceremony on their 16th birthday and training for all their childhood to be suitable for said god.

Since then the Isles have been ruled by a Head, all of whom are to make pacts with the Eye. Eyepocolapse rules as well, so all the warlocks are under the authority of the Eye. Every other God also has a representative acolyte, like a coven head.

Jon the human getting transported to the demon realm as a child, chasing a weird spider. So he's almost like Anne from Amphibia, he's just hiding out in the woods for a few years until local magicless witch finds him.

Said magicless witch is Georgie, cursed as a child to be barred away from ever making a pact by her inability to feel fear. Her and the Admiral, her weirdly powerful cat, take Jon in and they all immediately become friends.

The Institute is where most warlocks train to take in their god. And within the institute is the Archives, a program supervised by Elias (current Head of the Isles) himself, where Avatar Representatives take on an apprentice.

There's Tim who learns under Nikola Orsinov. His brother used to be her apprentice as well, but died soon after making his pact with the Stranger. Tim plans to make his pact with the same god, seeing if he can bargain for his brother back and maybe learn to harness Stranger magic (one of the most difficult pacts). And maybe kill Nikola, who is rumored to be the one to take Danny's life.

There's Sasha under Micheal Distortion, who has had a knack for the Spiral since she was a baby. But she hates it, the attention from teachers and from her god hates the illogicalness she causes and the need to tear her friends (even if Micheal says they are all to be fake) from the in side out with lies. She's here to tear the Spiral apart from the seams, mapping it out and finding patterns.

And then Martin of the Lonely under Peter Lukas. He was taken in as a boy to be part of the Lonely, and has gotten quite good at banishing people to his domain, summoning and disappearing into the fog, and finding lonely people to leech on, even without a pact yet. The latter ability is the reason he's friends with Tim and Sasha, the only two apprentices in the whole place that don't want anything to do with their god.

Let's get into the Avatar Representatives!

Enrique MacMillan of the Buried, obsessed with finding the supposed "hidden treasure" on the Isles. He takes no apprentices.

John Amherst of the Corruption, able to make a person fatally ill with a touch (though they don't die unless he says so) or with any object he inscribes his magic into. His apprentice is Jane Prentiss, who let's bugs live under her skin and seems... borderline enamored with her god.

Maxwell Rayner of the Dark and his assistant/field agent/dragon Manuela Domiguez. The Dark has the youngest apprentice, Callum Brodie, of the whole Archive, a prodigy with the ability to spin tales of monsters and make them true, as long as a person is thinking of them in the dark. Rayner is pretty aloof, so Manuela usually attends to meetings and Callum's studies.

Agnes Montague of the Desolation, one of the newest Avatars, yet to take an apprentice. Not much is seen of her, but other people with the same god tend to not like her much, calling her a spoiled brat or a child protégé. Rumor is she burnt her mentor to a crisp while she was an apprentice, earning her the Representative position.

Oliver Banks of the End, taking over after Nathaniel Thorp went missing. He is generally outlasted by the other Representatives, not exactly well liked for his tendency to give prophesies about their deaths at the staff parties.

Jared Hopworth of the Flesh, earning the Representative position after Angela had been fully consumed by her god. He's rather experimental in his practices, and will try magic out on himself.

Trevor Herbert of the Hunt, never really seen at the Archive. Or at announcements or really by the Head at all, actually. Elias probably prefers that, as Trevor does not act like he's of as much importance as he is. Him and his apprentice, Julia Montauk, are usually on excursions to kill monsters or discovering new Hunt magic practices.

Peter Lukas of the Lonely, coming from a long line of Lonely Reps. He never planned to take an apprentice, but Elias forced him to make use of Martin, the boy he took in years ago, and mold him into a Rep so he doesn't become too powerful without someone to control him.

Newest Rep, Melanie King of the Slaughter, gaining her position after Alfred Grifter had quit. Certainly angry enough to be a Slaughter Avatar, she is reluctant to take the job after she said the Slaughter "betrayed her" by mutilating her leg and leaving her blind. But Elias let's her keep the magic and gives her the position, mostly if not to keep an eye on her.

Micheal Distortion of the Spiral, formerly Micheal Shelley before a higher up tasked him with studying the god. His apprentice, Sasha James, enacts as his assistant, telling her to make friends to lie to and to study her innate Spiral magic.

Nikola Orsinov of the Stranger, not much is known about her, funny enough. Her apprentice is Tim Stoker, motivated by his brother and his brother's death to be part of this god.

Simon Fairchild of the Vast has taken many apprentices over the years, claiming them to be part of his family. His most recent apprentice is Mike Crew.

The Web of course has a Rep, even an apprentice of Annabelle Cane, but no one knows who they are. The only thing Annabelle ever publicly refers to him as is Mr. Spider. Even Elias doesn't elaborate on the mystery to the public.

And of course Getrude Robinson of the Eye, having not taken an apprentice since her last one, Gerard Keay, was taken by Elias to be his personal guard. But after Jon the human is caught sneaking into the Archive in his own burning curiosity, Elias forces her to take him as her apprentice, much to her dismay.

But a human? Oh ho HO. Those guys are terrified of everything, and soon all the gods want the human to be theirs, even if he's under Elias's and Gertrude's direct protection.

And even when Georgie offers him to stay with her, a safe haven where Elias won't find him, Jon refuses. There's just... so many new things to discover. He wants to figure out who Elias is, why Gerard works with him, who the Web rep is, what Gertrude's deal is... he can't just leave when there's so much to uncover.

Plus, Tim and Sasha are right. The best way to take down the operation is from the inside. He keeps in contact with Georgie, consigning to study in the Archive, where everyone is trying to kidnap/convince/possess/kill onto their side, to help them take it down.

[dailyjaymerrick]

I wish to know more of the Danny phantom and Percy Jackson au Jays, if you would kindly tell?

this one is so much more and i’m sincerely sorry

so since they’re town hopping and on the run from both alex and the operator, they end up in amity park and think it’s far away enough to have a few days there + there’s woods by the school to look for those sweet tapesdanny and the Gang find the tapes tim and jay were supposed to find they all feel incredibly cursed after watching the tapes, some of the tapes have old footage of tim and jay during filming etc and they recognize them on the street like those are the cursed tape guys!!! (tim and jay are talking abt who the hell phantom is, they’ve seen a few ghost fights and can’t find good info on him)hoodie breaks danny’s window because dagnabbit tim and jay were supposed to find those and then the gang decides to follow tim and jay but they’re really bad at it and tim and jay are Paranoid so they catch on easily tim confronts them while jay stares at danny bc wow he’s really familiar for some reason? and the gang tries to lie but say smth abt tapes and jay and tim are like GTG!!! anyways danny does recon and jay is looking up phantom and discovers danny’s secret in like .2 seconds and danny PANICS and possesses him, (made worse because tim is in the room and then danny, in jays body, bolts to the bathroom coughing) danny makes him promise not to tell if he gives him the tapes and then alex comes and danny helps them escape because solidarityat some point the gang watches marble hornets and that’s why they’re just like LEAVE TAKE UR TAPES AND UR ARSONIST AND HOODIE MAN WE DONT WANNA BE INVOLVED

THE P.JO CROSSOVER IS ALSO A LOT and mostly scattered ideas but the gist of it was that tim and jay are like early college age and are buddies (bonded over seeing greek monsters attack them, jay carries a camera to ensure it’s real but people swear he’s making things up/is crazy) and they’re on the road and are Under Attack and they see this camp in the distance so they start running toward it, jay kinda collapses and they cross the border into camp Everyone’s REALLy confused because these straight up young adults just crossed the border????? how did they survive this goddamn long?????? so they’re just crowding around them and then jay passes out, there’s some hysteria where tim demands to be with him because they try to take them to different places ANYWAYS they both stay in the hermes cabin and they’re really uncomfortable + jays rly jumpy because everyone’s just staring at them? and they keep whispering as if they’re not right there and trying to guess who their parents arethey’re still kinda reeling that greek stuff is Real and also They’re Demigods Apparently mr d also really likes jay for no reason so he lets him keep filming they go to the dining hall for dinner and some kid from the athena table spits out his drink and YELLS because what the fuck it’s JAY (surprise it’s alex) jay and alex were childhood friends everyone is hot in camp h-b and u can fight me over that but everyone also wants to date tim, jay gets jealous very quick ALSO he meets percy and annabeth and they show them around initially since they’re the closest to their age percy and jay are BEST FRIENDS and tim and annabeth are HOMIES jay gets claimed by zeus during a meal and tim gets claimed by hermes after his like 3rd dayeveryone knew jay was probably zeus because whenever he changes mood the weather changes :-) it also makes it more incredibly wild that they survived this long alex tries to get jay to be best friends with him again and let him in on his plan with thanos but jays being whisked away which is kinda sad jay tim percy and annabeth are the bi squad (except tim el and i hc him as gay he’s an honorary member of the bi squad)

thanks for coming to my ted talk

[orrla-fanfiction]

#dcxdpdabbles#dcxdp crossover#from a fic i never wrote#Bruce tries to talk to Tim about his crush#Pre-Dead Tired#AU where Tim and Danny are childhood friends#Bruce hates it when people don't figure things out quickly#leave Tim alone puberty is rough#Alfred pouring another cup of whiskey: This is your first time dealing with a Disaster Bi son huh?

Bruce: I want to let you know that I am entirely on board with welcoming Danny Fenton into this family. Tim: You want to adopt my friend Danny? Bruce: No, I don't want to adopt your special friend. I'm talking about the other way to join a family. Tim.: Ohhhhh. He's your illegitimate son. Bruce: No, he is not. Tim: Well, if he wasn't born into the family and you're not adopting him, how else would he join? Bruce: I mean, it's more of a union of families. Do you get what I'm saying? Tim: Oh! You mean you want me to have him sign a business contract! Bruce: No! I mean- Alfred: Master Bruce! We agree to let Master Tim figure this out on his own! He's in a critical stage of life, and he needs. His. Own. Space! Bruce: But-but he's not connecting the dots! It's fusterating to watch! Tim: OH! you mean marriage! Bruce relieved: YES! You get it! Tim side eyeing him: Bruce...Danny is too young for you. Bruce: You do NOT get it. Tim: Hmmmm oh! *Snaps fingers* You want him to marry one of your kids! I could introduce him to Jay but the thought....makes me angry. So I won't. Bruce: Why? Why would that make your angry? Tim thinking: Cause I don't want Danny dating any my siblings. I want him to...... Bruce: Yes? Tim: I want him to be happy forever! *Runs off* I will make sure he never dates someone who will break his heart as his best friend. It's my duty! Bruce: *Muffled screams of frustration into nearby pillow* Alfred: Now you know how I felt when you used to bring Mister Dent around. Bruce: This is terrible. How did you handle it? Alfred: I suffered until you figured it out sometime in your twenties. Bruce: It's going to take that long!?

[starry-bi-sky]

Childhood Friends Au: Danny's in Gotham Again

when the wool is off your eyes you'll stop counting sheep at night cause you'll eat your fill of them during the daytime

A few weeks after Danny’s visit to Gotham, he buys an apartment in the city. It’s this little thing, a studio apartment on the same street he grew up in. In Crime Alley. When he tells his parents, they protest heavily. They don’t think it's safe. They think he should reconsider. There were plenty of apartments and places to live somewhere else. And what about college? 

Danny doesn’t think he’ll go to college. He isn’t sure what he wants to do, now that being an astronaut is off the table. It’d be a waste of money to go without a goal in mind, he thinks. He says he’ll take a gap year and apply at one of the community colleges funded by the Wayne Corporation, possibly. It just wasn’t in the cards right now. 

“If things get tough,” He says at dinner that night, “then I can talk to the Waynes. I’m friends with the family, remember?” He ended up getting Bruce’s number in his phone again before he left, and in the process got Tim’s as well. They don’t talk much, Danny isn’t sure what to say. But he sends Tim memes whenever he comes across one and thinks he’ll like. Tim sends memes back in return.   

His parents do remember. They remember. They also remember the horrified shriek that echoed through the house when Danny learned of Jason’s passing. They remember running up the stairs and bursting into their son’s room and finding him sobbing into his bed, curled up like a little kid, like he was in pain. He lost his voice that day, stuck between screaming out his grief and sobbing it. 

They’re still not sure if they should let him go. 

In the end, Danny wins them out, and he lets them help him search for an apartment. They take a break from their lab work to help search for cheap furniture to buy. They may have more money than when they were in Gotham, but that frugal part of you never fully goes away. They all agree that they don’t want Danny to be seen carrying in nice-looking furniture when he moves in. 

He ends up with a basic furniture set, all mismatched, and in the warm summer of June, his parents rent out a u-haul and drive him down to Gotham to move in. They meet the landlord when they arrive, a skinny and frail old man with wispy white hair and a wrinkled face. He gives Danny the keys and tells him what apartment number he is, and then he leaves. 

His parents help him move in. They help him carry his heavy furniture up to the second floor, where his apartment is. Danny isn’t sure if he wants them to help. His mom and dad are strong, but they are getting old, closer to their fifties now that their children are grown. His dad’s hair is slowly beginning to thin, and rather than the white eating at the sides of his head, it now streaks through his hair like salt-and-pepper. His mom’s hair is graying out too, and there are more lines in their faces than he remembers there being. 

When he voices his concerns, his mom laughs spiritedly and says that they may be getting old, but they are still as spry as when they were in their twenties. Danny isn’t sure if he believes them or not. He can see his dad struggle a bit when they return to get his bed frame, and they have to take a break before they go back down for the rest of their things. 

Five years ago, his dad could do this without breaking a sweat. It forces a heavy thing in the back of Danny’s throat. (He is less afraid of his own death than he is of his loved ones, and while he has always felt rocky with his parents, he still loves them more than anything else.) 

Danny’s apartment is exactly as he would have expected it to be: shabby and worn through. The entire room smells like stale cigarette smoke and weed, nicotine stains the wall with poorly covered bullet holes, and stains in the carpet that are a color he can’t discern. The fridge has a broken light and when he tries to turn on the gas stove, it click-click-clicks before lighting, fire fwooshing out while the smell of gas fills the air. There’s rat droppings in the cupboards and the closet-like bathroom is just as bad. 

The ghostly part of him can sense the heavy stench of death in the room; people have died in this room. People have died in every room of this building, he thinks. They have died on the streets outside and in the alleys squeezed between them. He can feel it like a heavy fog in the air. 

It is painfully nostalgic, a bittersweet feeling in his chest that he grimaces to. 

When the last box is placed in his apartment, his parents offer to help unpack. They are hesitant to leave and Danny knows it, although he doesn’t know if it’s from empty nest syndrome or because it's Gotham. He thinks it might be both. He is their youngest child finally leaving home to a city known for its danger. 

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay behind, sweetie?” His mother asks, a frown she tries to hide settled in the creases of her face. She fiddles with her hands, a nervous habit Danny has since noticed when she feels truly unsure and doesn’t need to hide it. Hesitancy looms over her like a heavy cloud. 

His dad jumps in hastily, splaying his hands and smiling painfully wide to hide the glistening in his eyes. “You’re mother’s right! We can help you get everything set up, champ. I could probably do something with that stove of yours to make it faster!” He says, his voice still booming like it always does even if there’s a stumble in his words. 

It makes his heart squeeze, knowing just how much they care. It was hard last summer, telling him that he was the Phantom. Terrifying, actually. They couldn’t comprehend it. He hadn’t felt his heart beat that fast in years when he stood in front of them at the kitchen table and told them he was a halfa, begging them to believe that ghosts weren’t inherently evil. 

His parents were people of science, however, and after much, much shock, they slowly came to terms with it. How could they not? The evidence was right in front of them. Their son was dead-alive, alive-dead. Somewhere stuck in the between. The tears they shed that night could fill a river, moving from the kitchen to the living room as Danny explains how he died. 

(When Danny tells them that he died after a week Jason did, his mom and dad look horrified. His mom covers her mouth when he adds that it was his idea to go inside it, his dad looks ashy pale, gripping his pant legs so tight that his knuckles turn white. There is a conclusion coming to their minds that he can tell they don’t like.) 

(“You’ve always hated our inventions, Danny.” Mom says in a hushed voice, and Danny winces at the wording, sinking into the back of the cushions in shame. He never thought that his parents noticed. Mom quickly grabs his arm, “No, no, there’s nothing to be ashamed of Danny. We were… perhaps too careless with our inventions, too enthusiastic. You had every right to hate the things we made when they had a tendency to… to malfunction.”) 

(Malfunction is a delicate way of putting it, when Danny remembers every time they had to evacuate their old apartment complex because whatever half-baked creation his parents made inevitably blew up into ash and smoke. There were soot marks permanently stained into the ceiling.) 

(Her hand slides down and grabs his, and she cups it in both of her hands, squeezing tightly. He forces himself to look up, and there is a look like her heart breaking when he looks into his mother’s eyes. “You’ve always avoided the lab after we moved, Danny. And you had every right to, so why on Earth did you ever think about going into the portal?”)

(Danny struggles to come up with an adequate answer, a way to verbalize what came over him that day five years ago. The answer is there, hanging in the air like a knot in a noose. He opens his mouth, and then closes it.)

(Finally, with a tongue made of lead, he shrugs lamely and looks away. “I didn’t know there was an on button inside it.” He mumbles, and despite being the truth it feels like a lie. But that is the truth. He didn’t know there was an on button inside it. So he didn’t care what happened.)

(Something dulls in mom’s eyes, like she thought of something else that Danny hadn’t said. Her eyes shimmer, and she squeezes them shut, breathing in so deep that it shakes. And then she pulls him into a hug, a hand burying into his hair and pressing him close. “It must have hurt so much, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”)

(It is something that Danny doesn’t expect her to say, like missing the last step of the stairs. It startles him so much he laughs this short, bark of a thing. He feels his dad press against his back and wrap his big arms around them, his nose pushed into his hair.) 

(Because yeah. Yeah, it did hurt. It hurt more than anything else he’s ever felt before. It had torn him apart and sewn him back together again, only to rinse and repeat. The pain was nothing he ever spoke to Sam or Tucker about, and it was something they never brought up. No, that’s not true. If they ever brought it up, Tucker would call it a zap. As if Danny only experienced a mild static shock. Like it was painless. It’s a pretty lie that Danny lets him and Sam believe.)

(His eyes sting and water immediately wobbles into his vision, coming up with such a force that he doesn’t even need to blink before it spills over. “Yeah.” He forces out, voice unexpectedly rough and cracking. “Yeah, it- it hurt. A lot.”)

He tells them about fighting the Lunch Lady a month later. He tells them about finding Jason. It comes spilling out like a waterfall. “I found him, mom.” He says, holding onto her tight while she keeps him tucked under his chin like a little kid. The secret of Jason being Robin stays hidden under his tongue, it is not his secret to tell. Not his identity to expose. He grips her tighter. “I found him, mom. Right there in the Ghost Zone, and he was my Jason. He wasn’t an echo or a— an imprint of him.”

Mom is silent; quiet and attentive, and so is dad, who rubs his large hands up and down Danny’s spine in an attempt to soothe him. It only works a little. Danny breathes in like a gasp as the urge to cry overcomes him again. He always avoids talking about Jason, his grief is like a never-healing scab that can be picked off at any time. It is ingrained into his core. 

“And then I lost him.” He forces out, a sob layering under his words that he chokes on and swallows. The hand on his back stills, and he can feel mom and dad breathe in like a question. He turns his head and pushes it into mom’s shoulder. “He disappeared, mom. Just— just gone.”

“And he didn’t move on.” He says, voice snarling like teeth biting before his mom can ask, because he knows that’s what she was going to ask. It’s what Sam and Tucker asked when he came to them in tears hours after he found Jason gone. It’s what Jazz said when he finally told her about it. It’s what every one of his ghosts asked when he told them about it and begged for their help. 

Danny grits his teeth and tries not to dig his nails into mom’s clothes as a fresh wave of tears run down his face. “His haunt is still there. If Jason really moved on it would have disappeared with him. That’s how it works. But it’s still in the zone, so Jason’s out there I just don’t know where.” 

(Sam once asks him why Danny didn’t just move on from it a year after Jason’s disappearance. She asked him why he didn’t give it up. Danny nearly saw red, and nearly bit her head off for it. It was incomprehensible to him to just stop looking for Jason, to give up. Not when he was out in the zone somewhere. Because he had to be in the zone.)

(Danny once tried to take Jason through the portal with him, and much like what happened to Kitty, it didn’t work. Jason was too tied to the ghost zone to leave.) 

(Some bonds are just unbreakable, he thinks. Bonds forged through blood and time and trust, and when you’re on the streets of Gotham, you hoard what little trust you have in someone like a dragon with its gold. It is scarcely given and fiercely kept.) 

“I’ve been looking for him.” Danny whispers when talking becomes too hard for him, when it runs the risk of him crying. “When- when I’m not fighting ghosts or, or in school or with my friends, I’ve been looking for him.” He has explored the Ghost Zone in every reach he can. He has met so many people. He’s met the ghosts of aliens from planets in every corner of the galaxy. He has met gods or god-like beings and their disciples. 

He’s met famous scholars and writers (he’s gotten the autographs of all of Jason’s favorite writers). He has found entire cities that have so much life in it that it's been permanently etched into the ghost zone, like a mirror version of itself. 

He’s visited the ghostly vision of Gotham so many times, and he avoids the imprint of Wayne Manor like the plague. There are ghostly newspapers that he reads. There are the ghosts of Martha and Thomas Wayne in many of them. 

Jason’s haunt connects to Wayne Manor, but it is also the street they grew up in. It is a small brick building with a door that leads to Jason’s room. A ghost knows when someone enters their haunt, it alerts them like a doorbell in the back of their mind. A foreign ecto-signature in a place drenched in your own. 

Danny visits it every time he goes into the Ghost Zone. It’s always his first stop. 

He tells his parents all of it. He tells them of the ghosts he’s met, of the places he’s seen. And when he feels brave, he tells them about Rath and the terror that his future self brings him. He keeps some details hidden, the ones that he can afford to keep without muddling up the story. 

(Rath is a tall, spindly thing, like a funhouse mirror version of Danny himself. He has arms that are much too long and legs that are much too tall, with skinny fingers that extend into claws.He wears his suit the same as Danny does, with it partially undone and the sleeves wrapped around his waist.)

(There is a black hole in his chest that is much bigger than Danny’s own. It takes up his chest cavity and drips the same, viscous black liquid as the tears falling from his eyes. Danny never forgets his voice; a scraping, quiet thing like he’s screamed himself hoarse. Rath has a voice like goosebumps, and it haunts Danny like a bump in the night.) 

Danny speaks and speaks and speaks until he can’t think of anything else to speak of. He is tired and sad, and it feels like his heart has been ripped out and rubbed raw again. And yet, he also feels so much better. Like a long heavy weight has been taken off his chest. 

Yeah, last summer was hard. His parents walked on eggshells around him, and they forced themselves to unlearn their bias of ghosts. It was more than Danny could have ever dreamed of, and when they felt ready for it, they asked him more about the ghost zone.

He smiles sadly at his dad, “I think fixing the stove can be a priority another time, dad.” He says, watching him wilt and his smile fall. Jack Fenton was always so good at making himself look like a kicked puppy. “I can handle unpacking by myself, I promise.” 

His parents still look so unsure, like they want to argue. Danny watches his mom purse her lips tightly, confliction running across her face like a datastream. She takes dad’s hand, squeezing their fingers together despite the droop in her shoulders. 

“Oh, alright then, I suppose.” She relents, her hand placing on Jack’s arm. “I guess we could go, we’re just going to miss you so much, Danny.” 

Tears seem to have won over his dad, and Jack Fenton sniffs back before he can cry properly. “Our little boy, all grown up.” He says, voice wobbling. It makes Danny laugh, and it makes his heart pang. His smile grows impossibly wider and so much fonder. “You’ve become such a kind, wonderful young man, Danno. We’re so proud of you.” 

Danny laughs again, and it cracks. “You’re gonna make me cry, dad.” (He feels a welling of guilt in his gut that he ignores — he doesn’t feel like a kind man. He doesn’t feel like a good one either. Not with what he plans to do.) 

His father holds out his arms in hopefulness, “One last hug for your old man before we head out?” He asks, mustering up a smile on his face. 

Danny barrels into him, nearly knocking his dad over with an oomph. He’s as tall as him now, but he still feels little in his bear hugs. With arms wrapping around his middle, Danny hugs his father tight and breathes him in one last time. 

“Careful there, Danno.” He laughs, patting Danny’s back roughly. “You’ll break my ribs with that ghostly strength of yours!” But he holds on just as tight.

Out of spite, Danny bends back and lifts him off his feet, laughing when Jack tenses up and nearly scrambles out of surprise. His mom laughs with him, stepping back to give them room for the few seconds that dad is in the air. 

When it’s his mom’s turn, Danny has to hunch to hug her. Something bittersweet to him as she plants a kiss on his forehead and says that he’ll always be her baby. “Even if you do have that horrid smoking habit.” She adds on with a disapproving eyebrow raise. 

Danny turns red in embarrassment, and walks them back to the GAV. Gothamites of all kinds slow to stop and boggle at the monstrous, road-illegal thing that is parallel-parked next to the curbside. In the past, Danny would have died with mortification to be seen with it. Now it just makes him laugh. Before he goes back into the apartment building, he buys a newspaper from a nearby convenience store.  

The first thing he does when he gets back up to his room is one: make a mental note to buy a bicycle chain lock for the door. The locks jiggle and there are splinters along the side that show signs of it being broken into in the past. The second thing he does is pull his cigarettes out of his pocket and light one. 

Danny starts to unpack with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, placing the newspaper he bought onto the counter. He has a cheap loveseat that he pushes off to the side, and he moves the boxes into the kitchen. It’s a matter of organization that Danny has to think about before he does anything. 

It’s as he’s pushing the sofa up against the wall facing the windows that his phone rings a familiar tune: Sam. The phone is fished out before he can think about it and when he stares down at the screen, he realizes it's a facetime call. 

He presses answer and walks over to prop his phone up onto the counter. The smiling faces of Sam and Tucker greet him, rather than just Sam. Immediately, Danny grins. “Hey Danny.” Sam greets, smiling a dark-painted lazy thing. From the background it looks like they’re in Tucker’s room. Sam is in Tucker’s desk chair, and Tucker is behind her, leaning against it. “Have you moved in yet?” 

Danny pulls the cigarette from his mouth and huffs, a cloud of smoke following his breath. “Yeah! It’s a shithole.” He grins lopsidedly, and his feet carry him off to the side to allow Sam and Tucker view of his apartment. He lets thirty seconds pass, allowing the both of them to really see the rest of the room. And then he steps back into frame. 

Sam and Tucker both look like they’re trying not to look judgemental, like they’re trying to hide a grimace that Danny sees anyway with the small turns at the corner of their mouths. He grins wider, mirth filling his lungs. “I know, it looks awful doesn’t it?”

“It’s— it’s not so bad.” Sam says with a strain in her voice, a forced smile on her face that tries to be reassuring. Tucker nods along readily, and he looks just as unsure as Sam does. Danny stifles laughter behind his teeth. 

“No, no, it looks bad,” He takes a drag of his cigarette, shaking his head. “You can say it, I won’t get offended. It’s a fucking apartment in crime alley. Of course it looks bad.” 

Sam remains silent, a rearing of her stubbornness showing itself. Tucker takes a different approach, and heaves a dramatic sigh of relief, slumping like a weight. “Okay, you’re right. It looks bad.” He frowns, “Sorry, man.” 

While Danny snorts, Sam sighs. “Yeah, it looks bad. What even are those stains?” She asks, and both she and Tucker lean closer in tandem to the screen, eyes squinting at the floor behind him. Danny glances at the floor, and shrugs. 

“Blood, probably.” He says, and while years in Amity Park have accustomed him to a clean environment, the desensitization of Gotham still remains. Tucker and Sam both make faces and lean away, as if the stain itself was capable of passing through to them. “Yeah, there are bullet holes in the walls.” 

“Are you sure it’s safe to be there?” Tucker asks, a furrow appearing between his brows. He adjusts his glasses and leans against the chair. Sam is frowning heavily, and Danny can already see her thinking up of a new way to fix the problem. 

“Oh, I never said this place was safe.” Danny tells him cheerily, taking a last hit of his cigarette before placing the dead stick onto the counter. He itches for another one. Instead he walks over to the shelf his parents brought in and starts moving it. “It’s Crime Alley, Tuck. Safe isn’t even in its vocabulary.” 

Tucker and Sam look like they’ve both swallowed a lemon.

“But it’s where I want to be right now.” He says, grunting quietly when the shelf is against the wall he wants it to be, near the short hallway leading to the front door. He can push it in front of it if someone tries to break in. “And Crime Alley’s apartments are the only ones I can really afford right now without mooching off my parents, and I’d rather not depend on them.” 

He can hear the disapproving hesitance from where he stands. And he ignores it. 

Danny walks back into frame, lifting up a box onto the counter. He hums lightly, fingers run over the tape keeping it shut. “Why do you even want to be in Gotham, Danny?” Sam asks, and she sounds genuinely perplexed. Danny stills. “I thought this place only had bad memories for you.” 

His blood turns cold, and like a dime being flipped his slow heartbeat fills his ears. “It does.” He replies automatically, before he can think. Shit, shit. He knows that Sam or Tucker would ask that question, and yet he still feels unprepared for it. His heart pulses quickly against his ribcage, knocking, asking him what he’s going to tell them that isn’t the truth. 

Danny stammers, “I mean— I just— I guess I felt nostalgic.” He says, and it sounds like a weak defense. He looks away, finding himself instinctively scratching his jaw. A new tick of his when he’s nervous. From the corner of his eye, he sees Sam and Tucker both narrow their eyes at him. 

He cannot tell them the real reason why he’s moved back to Gotham. He can’t tell them of the little secret and vow he told himself five years ago, the one that’s been left to fester and burn like an open wound close to his core. The one that, if he thinks too much about it, sends a searing hot electricity through him, filling him from crown to toe top-full of direst wrath.  

(Danny was always the angrier one in the duo of Jason and Danny. He was always the one with glass in his mouth, cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world around them. His knuckles had more blood and bruises on it than skin, once upon a time. All because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He has grown from it, that fury has turned to a small simmering candle.) (But sometimes, sometimes it rears its head, and electricity will buzz under Danny’s skin. There is lightning before the thunder, the second before a fist pulled to punch lands, the spark before it becomes a blaze.) 

He stumbles over his words, and then sighs long and low, drooping his head. “I… was thinking that I can’t avoid this place forever.” He says, and the best lies always have the truth in it. Because it’s not a lie, not completely. But it’s not close enough to the truth either. “And that maybe if I came back, I’d be able to do something about those bad memories. Make them better or make it hurt less.” 

Like wool over their eyes, it fools Sam and Tucker. Their narrowed eyes soften, and Danny feels like a snake is in his lungs as they both adopt their own versions of gentleness on their faces. “Oh, Danny.” Sam breathes out, and the snake squeezes, “Of course, we understand.”

Tucker nods, smiling at him. “Yeah, bro, that’s really brave of you. I know it can’t be easy coming back.” He says, “Maybe you can reconnect with the Waynes again, you always thought well of Mister Wayne whenever you came back from visiting.”

Danny smiles weakly, the gesture cutting into his cheeks like a knife. Perhaps he could. He was still upset with Bruce for hiding Jason’s killer from him. But he doesn’t hate him. Maybe five years ago, he did, when the death of Jason was still fresh in his mind and freshly bleeding in his heart. Now he just doesn’t know what to think of him. He was Batman. Jason was Robin, and the Joker killed Robin. 

It would need to be something he’d have to speak to Bruce about in person, he thinks, in order to resolve it. To hear his judgment on it and make an opinion from there. Danny has learned in the last five years, much to Jazz’s smug delight, that talking to people about something he was upset about did make him feel better. 

The conversation slips on from there into something more light, more breathable. And while they talk, Danny unpacks. He sets up his bed in the corner of the room, adjacent to the windows, and unpacks his cheap TV and table stand. It’s directly across from the couch, in front of the windows. He puts up knicks and knacks he’s collected over the years on the shelves.

When he puts up the curtains, he notices that more than one frame jiggles loosely. Sam makes a comment on the musty stains permanently dyed into the glass, and Danny talks about getting something to fix the cracks. Gotham winters can get brutal, and even if he can withstand the cold, doesn’t mean everything else in his apartment can. 

“Oh, watch this.” He says halfway through unpacking, and pulls out a stick of thick white chalk from a box. “This is something I learned from Clockwork a while back; I think he knew I was going to move to Gotham.” He grins sillily, popping into the camera frame to show them. “I wonder how?” 

Sam rolls her eyes, smiling while Tucker huffs. “It’s not like he’s the Master of Time and can see all past, present, and future.” Tucker snarks. 

Danny hums lightly, curt like he isn’t sure he believes Tucker, and walks to a piece of bare wall not yet blocked by furniture. He starts to draw on it. The chalk shimmers with faint ectoplasm on the wall. 

“Uhh…” Tucker’s voice cuts through, “Are you sure you should be doing that? Won’t you get in trouble for that?”

“There are bullet holes in the plaster, Tucker.” Danny retorts dryly, arching his hand to make a big circle. “I don’t think the landlord is gonna care if I get washable chalk on his walls.” Inside the circle, he inscribes the symbols of the Infinite Realms. “I don’t think he’d be able to see it anyways, he was really old.” 

When he is done, Danny steps back to admire his work. It’s not bad, he thinks, for a lack of practice. He tosses the chalk off to the side, it lands on the couch and rolls back into the cushions. Ectoplasm heats under his hand, slowly glowing from his fingertips before stretching down the rest of his palm. 

Danny’s fingers press against the wall, into the center of the circle. The result is immediate, ectoplasm is siphoned off his hand and into the circle. It glows, and then swirls. He steps off to the side for Sam and Tucker to watch its transformation. The circle fills with a swirling pool of ectoplasm, like a smaller version of the basement portal, and then it warps and stretches. 

It fills out a rectangular shape, shifting like taffy being pulled this way and that, before settling into a solid shape. It solidifies, and instead of a wall there is a glowing purple door, warped in nature and seemingly shifting like a trick of the eyes. He can hear the gentle hum of the zone standing next to it, and can see the carving of the circle in the wood. 

He gestures dramatically, grinning from ear to ear. “Ta-da~” He sings, “A door to my haunt! For whenever I feel like visiting it.” He pats the wood, making a strange thunk-thunk sound. “And then watch this.” 

Danny touches the circle again, and the door twists and recedes like water going down a drain. The circle flashes bright green, and then fades into nothing on the wall, invisible to the naked eye. “I can hide it whenever I want! So if I ever invite someone over—” which he doubts, “—I won’t have to worry about them asking, ‘Hey Danny? Why is there a creepy fucking door in your studio apartment?’”

He gets a pair of laughs for his efforts, and Danny grins wider. 

Sam and Tucker have to end the call when Danny is nearly done unpacking, leaving him alone with only his thoughts and the Gotham ambience outside. There were only a few boxes left, and they promise to call him tomorrow. He tells them that they better keep that promise. 

The silence that follows after they leave feels somberly, as if the reality of moving in has finally set in and filled the air with its loneliness. With its change. Finally, Danny lets the strangeness of moving back to Gotham hit him when he reaches the last box, and he stops to take another smoke break to let it settle. 

It feels so strange to be back in Gotham, he thinks. He’s all grown up, or almost grown up. He can vote and pay taxes, but he doesn’t feel much older than he was at fourteen. There’s a disconnect that makes him feel sad. 

There are cars running outside, driving by. He can only catch glimpses of them, his apartment faces an alleyway. There are dogs barking in the distance, strays he bets. It’s already dark out, and he wonders if he looks out the window he would see the bat-signal shining through the night and staining the permanent cloud that hangs over Gotham. 

Bruce would be so disappointed if he learned the reason for Danny’s return to Gotham. But Danny’s not here for him. He’s here for someone far more important. And like that, the simmering anger that has tucked itself into the furthest corners of his heart starts slipping through. His heart has teeth, ready to strike and snarl and bite. 

He crushes the cigarette in his hand and throws it away. When he opens the last box, it is with hands that tremble and with a face of stone. With a delicateness he does not feel, he reaches in and pulls a corkboard from the box. On the corner frame is a small, near inconspicuous carving of another ghost rune. 

Danny hangs it up on an empty space on the wall, out of sight from the window. It’s plain, and he has nothing to pin to it. He presses the small rune on the corner, pushing ectoplasm into it. Unlike the door, it does not twist and warp and shape itself into something new. Instead it bursts into green flame, eating away at the board and revealing the same thing underneath it, just in dark blue-black-purple. 

Now this board, this board Danny has something to pin to it. The newspaper he bought earlier sits abandoned on the counter, and Danny unrolls it with something like viciousness in his chest. On the front page is an image of a damaged street, and above it is titled: “JOKER STRIKES AGAIN, 3 DEAD AND 27 INJURED”

Danny rips out the first page, he rips out every mention of him. His hands shake and threaten to crumple the paper as he turns back to the board, there is hot blood pounding in his ears. There is an impending sense of finally in his chest, like a setting sun giving the stage to a starless night. There is a stern set in his jaw, five years of festering rage rushing forth like a tidal wave, threatening to make his vision swim. 

It would be so easy, he thinks, to go out as Phantom right now and hunt the clown down. It would only take a night. All it would take is a night, and then he could sink his hands into the Joker’s chest and rip out his heart where he stood. It would be so easy. 

The thought alone forces Danny to stop as he is hit with another rush of fury, really making his head and vision swim. Thorny vines wrap around his throat, making it hard to breathe. He stares at a spot on the wall until the shaking passes. 

If he wants to be discreet about this, then he can’t do it now. Even if he wants to. He doesn’t want witnesses. He doesn’t want an audience. He made a mistake, telling Red Hood about his plan. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking at all. But he can only hope that the Hood hasn’t mentioned it to Bruce. He knows it hasn’t been long since they started working together. He hopes that the Hood has already forgotten about it. 

He pins the newspaper clippings onto the black-blue-board, and stands back. It’s bare now, but it won’t be forever. 

He presses the circle again, and the pinboard reverts back to its original blank state. 

-----

Was I expecting to make a third part?? No. No I was not. I was also not expecting to make an entire google doc filled with summaries for short story ideas about this au that all tie into each other so that way if i DO continue this i have a skeleton pathway to follow rather than making everything up from scratch and potentially cornering myself

you can find this on ao3 or on tumblr 1 2 :)