#All the realms inside the Infinite Realms

[emacrow]

Danny, being a 10 year old halfa and still managed to beat pariah, save amity park. Revealing to his parents that he was phantom gone great, and while being trained by all pandora, clockwork, and Fright Knight, which added to amount, he was still in school.

The boy had enough on his plate after finding his haunt door in the Ghost realm as a break time, which reminded him dearly of the little prince on the moon bedtime story jazz used to read him.

Sitting on a little planet like Pluto surrounded by space, the stars and planets, galaxies as far as his eyes can see.

The little ghost prince who wears an icy flamed crown far too big to sit on his neck, his ring far too big, and was remade to be a bracelet with Pluto as the design.

Knowing that he rules over everything because he was the high prince of the infinite realm that binds every multiverse together was a big awakening. After meeting the lower class subjects such as Demons, angels,(actually angelss!?!), ghostly aliens, mythical gods, creatures, and Faes who had a LOT to complain about.

Particular about some laughing magicians that scam them all over his soul, who fucking trade their own soul like this had to be insane?!? Haven't they seen Harry potter movies?

It wasn't the worst part after seeing that he wasn't aging as fast as everyone was when he was human. By the time he even reached Casper High, he was known as The Little Munchkin to everyone, and he mean everyone.

At least Dash doesn't bully him anymore like he used to in middle school and pretty much became his body guard alongside Sam and Tucker.

Being 46 inches tall was horrible, yet good advantages in some cases.

Frostbite did tell him that due to him being a halfa and being crowned prince by Conquest. It may have slowed his aging, but he doesn't know exactly how long it takes for him to grow since they never had a halfa so young before.

Ellie, his neverborn baby sister clone who dependant on him and jazz, likes to wander around with him or jazz like a koala, but like to be invisible a lot and likes to snatch his favorite nasty burger kid meal toy even though he got her extra kid meal.

She was his little neverborn princess of infinite realms, and frostbite kept her company as he went through meetings after meeting after meeting with the meanies again.

It was a good idea souping the eyeballs after they complained about ellie.

Pandora is one scary ghost after what she threatened Zeus with about him as they were discussing the broken bridge between mortal realms and them as Zeus slipped out about him being an elderitch freak of ghostling nature.

Danny was unaware of the official protection of the little prince cult he had started back then, but he loved the space related gifts, roses, and that limited editon fox plushy that was sold out months ago that kept appearing in a nice table floating around his little pluto planet in his haunt. (Kid doesn't know he got offerings on an altar for him)

Until one day, he received an odd gift that was a bunch of letters to danyal? He thought someone wrote his name wrong, but a lot of them?

He sat on his little planet as he opened each one and read what was inside.

As old memories of a past he didn't know click in his core..

DPXDC PROMPT: DEMON TWINS, BUT DANYAL NEVER REVIVED

Imagine Danyal never getting revived by the Pits after he had to battle Damian to the death. Ra's instantly destroys the body at the last breath that Danyal takes because he knows that his daughter will have a moment of weakness and he wasn't willing to let a weak one live. I'd like to put them around the ages of 5-6 ish.

Damian thought it was normal, and treated everything as fine because it was always expected of him. His twin was the weaker one after all. All emotional and soft despite the training. He has never called his brother "Akhi" bc he was weak and refused to acknowledge him as a brother

Meanwhile, Talia was grieving her son. Danyal who was just like his father where the people in League would call weak because he was reluctant to kill and was very soft at heart. That's when she made plans to remove her only remaining child from the League and overtake her father.

So Damian was sent off to his father.

Now, Danyal Al Ghul has been reincarnated into Daniel 'Danny' Fenton. He was born and raised in the Fenton's family and has no idea about his past life.

Now, I kind of want Danny to get turned into a ghost at a younger age. Maybe age 10 so Damian would be 16, so there would be an age gap of 5-6 years.

Damian has lived with the Waynes for years now. When he was younger, he didn’t and had never regretted killing his brother. After all, was it a surprise that the moment he entered the Manor, he tried killing Tim? He had already killed one brother, more over his own blood, so what is another, if not an inferior one due to having no relation to him at all?

But now, he regrets it so much. But it's been years, and he barely even remembers Danyal's face. He didn’t tell his family bc he didn't want them to grieve over a family that was long dead. That was practically destroyed the moment he died, so there was nothing left of him. He has no memories of his brother either, only his name, so how could he offer comfort to the other bats when he couldn’t even tell some stories about him either?

The bats are now tied up by a cult, and Damian was in the center of the sacrificial circle.

The cult was summoning someone of Damian's deceased family or something like plot convenience for a summoning. To use them to fight against the bats bc how sad it would be bc they would have to fight against a dead family member that was controlled by them. Damian was struggling bc it could be anyone from the League.

Then, to his horror, it was his brother who was summoned. He was suspended in the air in a fetal position asleep, but he appeared transparent with a tail.

"Danyal" He said, horrified. He appeared older for some reason, but the instant he was summoned, he knew it was him.

Batman, who was trying to reach for Damian, stared at the sleeping ghost. He appeared similar to Damian and his mind did the mental math. He didn’t know exactly when did the ghost died, but judging by his age, he looked to be about the age Damian came to the Manor. And judging by how anguished Damian looked, he came to the right conclusion that the ghost was Damian's brother, his son.

He mourned. This was simultaneously the oldest and the youngest he would have ever seen.

That is also what the rest of the bat thinks and comes to the conclusion of. They broke out of their restrains due to fury and stuff, and the circle is erased, the ghost gone before they had a chance to use him against them.

Meanwhile, (pre-Ghost King maybe) Danny just jolted in bed, confused about what happened bc he had a feeling he turned into a ghost. But he shrugged it off and went back to sleep.

[nelkcats]

The inbetween

Amity Park had been suffering from increasingly tense moments. After years the portal slowly became unstable, spilling a large amount of environmental ectoplasm into the city and producing various changes in its inhabitants.

Ghosts had stopped being a problem a long time ago but the G.I.W never stopped. They got to a point where they started seeing the Amity Parkers as ghosts due to their liminal state, which made the halfa very nervous.

Not knowing what else he could do, Danny sat on the roof of his house. He knew that the portal would explode, that asking the government for help was pointless, and that the Amity Parkers were growing more and more afraid. At least they were accepting their new changes with some amusement.

"I wish I could keep them safe" the halfa whispered. Knowing full well who was listening. For once Desiree took pity on him, probably because the townspeople were so kind once the ghosts stopped attacking.

The wish was granted and Amity disappeared from the map leaving warnings of danger on the printed maps. When the portal exploded the Realms and the city were combined. Leaving Amity as the most sensitive point to the land of the death and the union between both dimensions.

They had a hard time adjusting at first but found that they could get away from the town as long as they hid their new features and don't scare near cities. They created their own civilization and made contact with the ghosts of their deceased friends.

Years later, the legend of the lost civilization began to be told. Like planes and cars that disappeared whenever they entered the "A.P" perimeter on the map, similarly to the bermuda triangle but on the ground. And it didn't take long for people to become curious, of course none of them came back.

Constantine warned the League not to go, that the only wizard to leave the place refused to say anything about it, but told about ancient humans who had evolved to become one with death. The magician disappeared a few days later. The League decided to take the risk and investigate.

Sure, Amity wasn't holding anyone prisoner, just asking for a bit of discretion. People stayed because the sight of someone you've lost a long time, be it a voice or a spirit can make you lose your mind. And people used to move, to learn or meet again. Not that the League knew any of that.

[hxroic-wxlls-fxrever]

Local plumber fast enough to just straight up ignore time manipulation. No wonder why Super Mario Bros. Plumbing is advertised to have the fastest plumbers in the business!

[steveyockey]

To be aware you might be trans but unwilling to do anything about it is to create endlessly bigger boxes within which to contain yourself. When you are a child, that box might encompass only yourself and your parents. By the time you are a gainfully employed adult, that box will contain multitudes, and the thought of disrupting it will grow ever more unthinkable. So you cease to think of yourself as a person on some level; you think not of what you want but what everybody expects from you. You do your best not to make waves, and you apologize, if only implicitly, for existing. You stop being real and start being a construct, and eventually, you decide the construct is just who you are, and you swaddle yourself up in it, and maybe you die there. There is still time until there isn’t.

This reading of TV Glow’s deliberately anticlimactic, noncathartic ending cuts against the transition narrative you typically see in movies and TV, in which a trans person self-accepts, transitions, and lives a happier life. Owen gets trapped in a space where he knows what he must do to live an authentic life but simply refuses to take those steps because, well, burying yourself alive is a terrifying thing to do. The transition narrative posits a trans existence as, effectively, a binary switch between “man” and “woman” that gets flipped one way or another, but to make our lives so binary is to miss how trans existences possess an inherent liminality.

Humans’ lives unfold in a constant state of becoming until death, but trans people are uniquely keyed in to what this means thanks to the simple fact of our identities. You can get lost in that liminality, too, forever trapped in a midnight realm of your own making, stuck between what you believe is true (I am a nice man with a good family and a good job, and I love my life) and what you know, deep in your most terrified heart of hearts, is real (I am a girl suffocating in a box).

And yet if you want to read the film as being about the dangerous allure of nostalgia, you’re not wrong. I Saw the TV Glow totally supports that interpretation, too! But in tempting you with that reading, the film creates a trap for cis viewers that will be all too familiar to trans viewers. Somewhere in the middle of Maddy’s story about The Pink Opaque being real, you will make a choice between “This kid has lost it!” and “No. Go with her, Owen,” and in asking you to make that choice, TV Glow is simulating the act of self-accepting a trans identity.

See, the grimmer read of the film’s ending truly is a nihilistic one. It leaves no hope, no potential for growth, no exit. Yet you must actively choose to read that ending as nihilistic. If you are cis and the end of I Saw the TV Glow left you with a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction, a weird but hard-to-pin-down feeling that something had broken, and a melancholy bordering on horror — congratulations, this movie gave you contact-high gender dysphoria.

In an infinite number of possible universes, there is at least one where I am still living “as a man,” embracing my fictionality, avoiding looking at how much more raw and real I feel when I “pretend” to be a woman. I think about that guy sometimes. I hope he’s okay.

Consider, then, my cis reader, that TV Glow is for both you and me, but it is maybe most of all for him. I hope he sees it. I hope he breaks down crying in the bathroom afterward. I hope he, after so many years locked inside himself, hears the promise of more life through the hiss of TV static.

Emily St. James, “I Saw the TV Glow’s Ending Is Full of Hope, If You Want It to Be,” Vulture. June 4, 2024.

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC Ring of Rage? More Like Ring of Engage

The thing is, Tim didn't mean to put it on. He was just kind of playing with it to keep his hands busy while he was thinking about the recent murder case. GCPD had their hands full with the serial robbers that didn't rank high enough to catch Batman's attention, and Tim never had a problem with helping the police if he had time.

And the ring was a perfect fidget toy, if he is being honest. Small and plain enough not to distract him, but the round stone in the middle was loosely attached, making it able to spin inside the frame. Which is what he did, again and again, like those fidget spinners.

Of course, he was just destined to drop it sooner or later. And then, when he reached under the table to pick it up, his finger caught inside the ring, and, well.

The ring was now firmly on his finger.

The problem was that he couldn't take it off.

It wasn't stuck, at least not in the general sense of it - Tim could easily spin it around, and it wasn't tight. But it wasn't loose either, and as soon as he tried to move it past the knuckle, the ring heavily disagreed, almost like shrinking down and absolutely refusing to be detached.

Barbara suggested soap, which didn't work. Dick tried for a more mechanical approach, first with pliers and then with a laser, which the ring resisted with no effort. Cass, who was actually the one who brought the damned thing into the Cave after one of her adventures in Hong Kong, just smiled and shrugged, which was of no help either. Damian offered to cut the finger off, which probably would have helped, but Tim rather liked all his limbs attached.

Bruce called Constantine. The magician took one look at the ring, barked a humorless laugh, and pat Tim on the shoulder sympathetically.

"Congrats, mate," he said, a wry smile on his lips, "I hope you file for divorce."

Although, while all the rest of the Bats and Birds devolved into fits of hysterical laughter (Steph), indignant sputtering (Damian), and cries of outrage (everyone else sans Alfred, who was pointedly unimpressed), Tim couldn't even bring himself to be surprised. Really, his life had been a shitshow since he was around ten. It's not like he didn't expect himself to be accidentally married to some otherworldly magical creature by this point.

The worst part - worse than the actual engagement, that is - was that Constantine couldn't exactly tell them who the spouse was.

What he did say was that the Ring belonged to the King of Infinite Realms, Keeper of Unseen Worlds, and Eyes of Universe. But those were only titles, and, as John Constantine begrudgingly admitted, there has been a change in the management recently, so no one really knew what the new almighty monarch looked like or what they were, much less their whereabouts.

"You can't blame me for not being keen to find out, though," John said, wincing, "The last one was a bloody tyrant, and the Realms operate under the right of conquest rule."

At least, the mage assured them that since the being had not yet come to collect their shiny new spouse, they might never show up at all. The Ring has been lost for ages after all, so maybe the King didn't even remember having one. Or, the previous King didn't, and the new one didn't know about or didn't care.

The first week after the incident, they spent anxiously researching and worrying. Bruce even went as far as making Tim wear a tracker at all times, which was not great, but he did appreciate the gesture. Kind of.

After the first month with no sign of any changes, the worry started to abate. In half a year, most of the family stopped trying to keep an eye on Tim at all times lest he suddenly disappeared. Two years later, even Tim himself treated the Ring as a natural part of his daily life. The stone inside was still a great fidget toy, engagement or not.

Three years, one month, and five days after Tim first put the Ring on his finger, when the world was falling apart and breaking in front of him and there was not a single thing he could do to stop it anymore, Tim pressed his lips to the cold, dark strip of unknown metal on his finger.

"Whoever you are, I don't even care, please," he whispered in a useless prayer, his voice hoarse and his throat dry, "please, help."

And the world came to a stop with a short, amused chuckle.

"Oh, I thought you'd never ask."

[part 2 ->]

[nightingale-prompts]

It is in the contract- DcxDp prompt

Having pieces of his soul split across so many demons wasn't so bad. At least he knew he was going to hell. But recently all the demons who held those contracts have been...disentagrated.

No only one entity owns his soul. The king of the infinite realms. A major upgrade but probably the worst case scenario.

Now Constantine was at the mercy of the ghost king who had made his presence known.

The first command that echoed in the back of his head was to build an altar to his new master.

"Bring me a burger, please."

That was one of the first odd requests but Constantine tried not to kind hard about this ordeal. Why the hells would the ghost king want a burger? He didn't know. Does he even know what a burger is?

Constantine didn't argue as he went to the nearest diner and came back to place the sandwich on the alter. Immediately the burger dissappeared.

"Pretty good. Not the best I've had but it'll do."

After that once every few weeks the king would request something. It was always something random. The only reason Constantine did it was the easy access to magic and artifacts his new contract gave him.

"Find Vlad Master's car and break his window shield. Then made the inside of his door handles sticky with maple syrup. Then put sugar in his gas tank."

"What kind of problem dae ye hae with this bloke?"

"Don't try distracting me with your funny British words. Just do it and I'll tell you the details later."

[tvobsessivefanatic]

DP X DC Prompt: Bodyguard!Danny

Danny(aged up) is a bodyguard for Bruce.

With how often Bruce gets kidnapped, it'd be suspicious for him to not finally get a personal Bodyguard to follow him around and protect him, so they finally convinced him in getting one.

But becoming a bodyguard for a Wayne will obviously have a lot of things you have to fill in, they'd do a throughout and detailed background check on you before considering on even putting you in their trials to test your fitness abilities and how you react in certain situations, but Danny is desperate, and well, the contract said they'd provide a place to live, and of course an insane amount of cash, all he had to do was guard this one guy as longs as the contract says. To make a background that's unsuspicious, Danny had to get a little help from Technus, or maybe Tucker to make him an identity fit for the job. He's already been trained by Fright Knight the way of the Knight, so pretending to be a bodyguard won't be that hard.

While the trials are being done, Bruce had to personally be there to see who would fit the role the best, Duke and Tim wanted to tag along out of pure curiosity, so imagine the surprise they had when Duke sensed some strange vibes coming from one of them. So they chose Danny, just because they wanted to keep a close eye on a "potential meta".

I like to think that the Batfamily just easily accepts this random meta as their Dad's bodyguard and just casually chats with him overtime whenever they can, they even probably got comfortable enough to walk around the Manor using their full gear while Danny is still inside.

And just to be a good bodyguard, Danny might or might not sometimes follow Bruce around as Batman while being invisible and intangible just to keep him safe...

I imagine Bruce and Danny's relationship to be platonic, but if you want it to be a ship, that could be good too.

Got this idea in the middle of rewatching YJ, saw Lex Luthor with Mercy, just realized how much trust Lex puts into Mercy. And I wondered, It'd be a cool idea if Bruce just casually has a literal King of the Infinite Realms as his bodyguard, so why not?

[radiance1]

This au again lawl. Where Danny wears these special sunglasses to hide his eyes that also track down ghosts in his human form.

The Justice League tracks down a summoning for the ghost king, an eons old tyrant of the infinite realms and known to bring war and devastation whenever he is summoned.

The cultists do manage to summon the ghost king, except, not how they wanted. They did indeed summon the king, but Pariah Dark is still trapped in eternal sleep and somehow, just, somehow, they managed to draw the lottery and dragged the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep to the summoning circle.

So there the Justice League were, wondering what to do with the (currently) locked away and sleeping ghost king.

Until Constantine's coat flipped itself open and a boy with glowing white hair and a mist of blue blowing from his mouth.

"Old man." The boy greeted.

"Brat." Constantine said.

"Do you mind explaining why and how this," The boy gestured to the Sarcophagus. "Is here and not in Pariah's Keep?"

"Funny story, that one." Constantine said, only half-jokingly. He then went on to explain that the Justice League came to track down cultists, said cultists somehow managed to drag that here, and now they didn't quite know what to do with it.

The boy stood still for a moment, before taking off his sunglasses to pinch the bridge of his nose and sighed, a large amount of blue flame spilling from his mouth. "Ancients above, why is it every time something notable happens, it's always you?"

Constantine snorted, reaching into his coat for a pack of cigarettes and lighting himself one. "Hypocritical coming from you."

"I know, but still." The boy walked over to the Sarcophagus and sat on it, as if it wasn't the thing currently holding one of the most powerful ghosts in the infinite realms. "You know smoking is bad for you, right?"

"What, you learned that in class?" Constantine snarked, making no move to do anything and causing the boy to sigh again, toxic green eyes looked around the room, falling over each hero present before homing in on Flash. The boy pointed to him. "You. Come here."

"Whatcha want with red?" Constantine asked and the boy simply shrugged his shoulders. "Passing on a message."

The boy blinked once, and if he was surprised that the Flash was already in front of him, then he didn't show it. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a green sticky not, motioned for Flash to bent down and stuck it on his forehead.

Superman was... concerned. There was a heartbeat there, he could hear it, but it was so slow and seemed rather weak, like the boy was near death.

"Alright, now I gotta get old mean and green back to his keep before the Observants get on my case." The boy put back on his sunglasses and got up, waving Flash away and lifting up the Sarcophagus above his head he walked over to Constantine, whose face wrinkled.

"That ain't going to fit." The warlock pointed out and the boy scoffed, probably rolling his eyes behind his glasses. "And you've fit bigger things, just shut up and lift the coat old man."

Constantine did so, and somehow the boy just shoved the entire Sarcophagus inside. The boy was very obviously smug as the blue mist that was blowing from his mouth the entire time petered out. "I'll clean up the mess on my end," The boy said before waving his hand in the Justice League's general direction. "You deal with all that."

"Just get going already, I'm not about to get those sentient eyeballs on my ass."

"Yea, yea. You got enough to deal with as is." The boy then stepped inside Constantine's cloak and as soon as the man let it drop, he disappeared.

Constantine looked around the room, silently assessing the situation as he brought another cigarette to his lips.

He lamented the fact he would have to deal with this sober.

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP idea: To Be Human Again

Danny had not been human for a long time. His home dimension had long since fallen. He lost his friends and family to old age, watched their descendants rise and fall in the same way, and witnessed his Earth come to an end.

When the cosmos erupted and took the solar system he knew and loved, Danny was oddly at peace with the end. He was no longer a Halfa but a full Spirit of the Stars. Solar flares ran through his veins rather than blood, stardust decorated his skin in gently kissed freckles, and his eyes held the swirling clouds of the cosmos.

Danny had not become a ghost. He had transformed into an Ancient, commanding the prophecies, fates, and endless opportunities that all living beings could experience in their lifetimes.

He flouted through his domain, witnessing battles between Lords of Choas and Order. Planets gain life and break apart. Endless time stretching from the graveities he weaves to flouting stones.

As time passes, his name begins to fade into legends and myths, and even the ghosts that once battled with him forget their time together. They, too, can age at a much slower rate, but change comes for them. He is present for Box Lunch's birth, but when he leaves to create light in the darkness, he misses her growing up. When he returns, Box Lunch does not know him, trembling in place as she bows low like her parents.

He stares at her, wondering what he found wrong with her, until he realizes she is a young adult. Were it not for his once evil timeline, he wouldn't have known her child form. He had missed it.

His gaze falls onto the much older pair of ghosts who call him by his new title. Neither Box Ghost nor Lunch Lady show any signs of remembering his name. They greet him with his title, and act as if though that is his identifier.

How many eons had it been since he last heard someone call him Phantom? Or even Danny?

"Lord Star Weaver?" Box Lunch stammers when the giant being only continues to stare. "Is something the matter?"

"Hmm," he considers her question, wondering if his realizations upset him. It's not that he was lonely or that he missed the sound of his name. But he has spent eons in a haze focusing on his work, and now it's almost as if he was waking from a dream.

Dreams....what did those feel like again?

"Tell me, Box Lunch, are there any portals to any living Earths?" His voice booms over the Realms, echoing as if they were a part of him. Maybe they were.

Danny had not sat on his throne since his elder sister breathed her last, but he still remembered the way the Infinite Realms changed on his whims. It's where he learned to weave stars. The young woman's ghost looked startled before she gestured vaguely to a path behind her.

"Yes, sir. I regularly use the anchored portal to visit the local Earth. It's where my father was born before his death."

Danny looks down at Box Ghost before leaning toward Box Lunch's height. She is no bigger than his pupils, and she seems frozen in terror as his eyes glow with hunger. "Show me," he says.

Her parents make strangling noises, but they wouldn't dare speak against the King and Ancient of creation. They send their daughter worried tight smiles but encourage her to lead the Star Waver to the portal.

She flights for a solid hour, his large form sending every ghost into hiding as he passes. Despite not having a living heart, he knows that it beats a mile a minute within her chest as her glow flickers in uncertainty.

They arrive at the portal, a swirling green pool resting in the open mouth of a mechanical jester. Danny thinks it looks like the building of an amusement park. He remember going to one once with Sam. This had been the Funhouse, filled to the brim with trick mirrors.

The memory causes him to smile.

Lunch Box nervously moves her hands one after another, bowing at the waist and stepping to the side so Danny can consider the portal. He is much larger than the building and doubts his foot would fit inside the portal.

He should change his form.

"Here it is, Lord Star Weaver, the portal to the human-AGHHHH!" Box Lunch's words fade into a scream as two bright rings of light form around the Ancient. Fearing she had offended the being and he was planning on retaliating, she flings herself to the ground before the portal, begging for her existence.

"I will do anything!" She cries, head pressing against the glowing green stone underneath her. "Mercy, please, Lord Star Weaver."

"Anything? Then you shall be my guide in the new Earth, " a human voice says. Shocked, she raises her head only to see that the Ancient has vanished and that a human teenager with soft fluffy hair, big baby blue eyes, and the most innocent demeanor is staring back at her.

Were it not for the soul she could feel carefully folded up inside him, she would have thought him a human who stumbled through the portal.

"My....Lord?" she dares to ask, and she's rewarded with a soft smile. Honestly, the human body the Star Weaver has chosen is an odd one. It looks like a strong gust of wind could knock him over.

"Yes. Where does this portal lead?"

"Gotham," She shutters out, "The city within the United States of Earth. This portal is in te middle of a human outlaw named Joker, but humans there aren't able to see us very well so he never bothers me."

"Gotham" Danny rolls the name on his human tongue, tasting it as the sound vibrates through his bones and his heart. It's been so long since he last felt this alive, and if that was what the name could do, who knows what the city could bring him. "What a wonderful place to get lost in, don't you agree, big sister?"

"Um...I beg your pardon?" Lunch Box blinks, but he shifts her fate with a snap of his fingers. Since she had never been alive, having been a Realms born, Danny has control of her guiding star. He moved it for one that belonged to a version of herself born in the human world.

Lunch Box's body shifts into flesh and blood. Her draw drops as she stares at her human hands. Danny grins. "I'm Danny Fenotn, moving to Gotham with my older sister. Adopted, of course. Who might you be?"

She looks at him with horror and heartbreak, but what leaves her mouth is only three words: "I'm Della Fenton."

"Della." He repeats the name, nodding his head and smiling. "It's lovely."

"It was my mother's Earth name before her death, " she says in a daze, and Danny smiles, striding into the portal without a second glance.

"Come on, Della, I want to see our new home."

He steps into the portal, while she can only look out over the Realms that no longer whisper and speak to her. How could it? She was no longer a ghost. She silently apologizes to her parents, who would likely be waiting at their haunt for her, and turns away from the only home she's ever known.

She can not afford to anger the Star Weaver. If he can breathe life into her with a mere snap of her fingers, she fears what he can do to take it away.

On the other side of the portal Della finds that her King has been caught by humans, who have tied him up to a chair and a snickering clown waved a knife in his face.

His gentle smile did not leave his face even as the Joker sliced two thin lines on his cheek.

"Della" Danny calls never taking his eyes off the clown. "Is this the outlaw you spoke of?"

Human goons swarm her. She is shocked to find that they can touch her as she is thrown on the ground, only to remember she is now human. The dull ache in her chin is her new reality.

"Yes. That's the Joker," She says after getting her wits about her. One of the goons presses the heel of his foot on top of her head, slamming her back to the ground and breaking her nose. A scatter of snickers echoes through the room as Joker loudly cackles.

"That's right, little boy. I'm the Joker, and this is my Fun House. What were you two doing sneaking about here uninvited?"

There are teeth in the Star Weaver's answer, and she shivers in place, wondering how she will survive him. "Oh, I just felt like star gazing. Say, did you know your guiding star is becoming dim?"

[stars-obsession-pit]

The ghost of a past regret

The tome hidden under Damian’s mattress continued to burn in the back of his mind. He knows he shouldn’t have kept it. Magic is dangerous, that of the Infinite Realms especially so. And there was no guarantee the book was even accurate; he’d never given the cultists a chance to make use of its contents.

But a single section from it refused to leave his mind. He couldn’t just throw out the opportunity it offered.

‘Danyal…’

–––

Damian had hated to admit it, but his twin brother could be cannier than him at times. Danyal had caught on to the harm of the League long before he ever had.

And he had tried to get out. To get them both out.

Damn him. Why couldn’t Danyal have been selfish for once in his life…

But Damian had still been caught up in it all. He was the perfect heir. He was loyal. He would not betray his family in the League.

And yet he’d been so quick to betray his brother…

Danyal’s shocked gasp as Damian’s knife slipped between his ribs still echoed in his ears when he awoke from nightmares. Sometimes, on particularly bad nights, he would swear he could still feel the blood dripping down his hands, and amount of scrubbing ever made the sensation go away.

He was sure Alfred at least had noticed the redness of his hands, but he never pushed for answers. Damian was thankful for that, even as he felt undeserving of the comfort. It had all been his fault.

At the time of the betrayal, Damian had felt little of the emotional weight. He was disappointed in his brother, but he was just doing his duty to the League. It would only be later that it set in, and the regrets continued to eat at him long after his family forbid all discussion of the traitor his twin.

What if he hadn’t fought? Would they have succeeded at escaping? Would they have met their father sooner? Would he still be able to see Danyal’s smile?

It was pointless to wonder. Danyal was gone.

–––

But perhaps not completely.

The siren song of the spellbook continued to call to him. The first thing to ever offer even the faintest glimmer of hope for finding closure.

For it contained a ritual to summon the ghosts of the betrayed.

Maybe it wouldn’t work. Regardless of the book’s accuracy, he’d never done anything like it before and wouldn’t be using the spell for its intended purpose. It was described for use in combat, tearing apart enemies with the specters of the vengeful dead, not for seeking atonement. Was changing the context even possible without entirely restructuring the ritual? He didn’t know.

And it wasn’t like he could ask the magicians of the Justice League Dark for help—even the most unscrupulous among them would still try to dissuade him and likely inform his father.

But how could he not try?

It might be wishful thinking to hope he would ever forgive him. But even if Danyal rejects the apology, it would still be worth it just to see his brother just one more time…

He grit his teeth and clamped his eyes shut as emotions warred against logic inside him. It was a terrible idea. He shouldn’t do it. He shouldn’t.

‘Damn it.’

The tome felt impossibly heavy as he pulled it from under the mattress with unsteady hands.

He had a ritual to set up.

[escelia]

New Sibling Just Dropped

Or Danny gets willingly isekai'd into the DCU and gets a twin out of it.

I know I disappeared from the face of the earth for a bit there, and there's stuff I should probably be updating, but I come baring different stuff this time :D

Just started this for fun, and I have at least one other chapter of it done, but idk how long this bout of inspiration will last, so I'm just rolling with it for now.

@flamingpudding look! i pulled a jason todd and rose from the grave!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny was tired. The kind of tired you felt behind your eyes and in your bones, and weighed heavy with achievement. He was perched on the edge of a building in his ghost form looking over Amity Park with a soft smile as he watched Youngblood run through the park with human children, Cujo playfully on their heels. His galaxy cloak (which had been a coronation gift) billowed around his lap like a gas with stars twinkling inside. 

It had been a few years now since he took up the Crown of Fire and became High King of the Infinite Realms, and while he had accomplished many things since then, graduating from high school wasn't something on that list. It sucked that he wouldn't get to walk across the stage with Sam and Tucker, but in the face of all he'd been able to do for both Amity and the Infinite Realms, it was worth it. They coexisted now. There was still trouble every now and then, but Danny had helped the ghosts who insisted on staying in Amity Park find a place in their city where they could thrive.

Youngblood watched over the children of the city, Box Ghost started a box recycling center, Lunch Lady started a program to get food to families that couldn't afford it, and Pointdexter started reporting bullying at the school since he was already there. 

On the Realms' side, Danny shut down Walker's prison. Since it was his lair, he couldn't take it away from him completely, but it no longer housed the many ghosts the warden had considered "rule breakers." He'd given Walker a new set of rules to enforce and essentially took him under his wing as a royal soldier, kept under the close watch of Fight Knight, who'd defected from Pariah Dark so fast after his defeat that it was laughable. 

He'd done something similar with Skulker, though he was a harder case to crack. Unlike Walker, who was happy as long as he had a set of rules to enforce, Skulker wanted to keep hunting. He'd been recruited forcefully by Walker and Fright Knight after they caught him on his way to fight Danny again.

All in all, everything had begun to run smoothly now. The fatigue weighing on him reminded him that it had been hard to accomplish, and continuing to lead his double life hadn't made it any less exhausting. A cold breath rushed through his chest as he felt a familiar presence slide up next to him. 

"You didn't time out," Danny pointed out without looking to face the ghost beside him. Clockwork hummed in acknowledgment.

"Sometimes it's pleasant to watch time flow in person." It was Danny's turn to hum at him. 

"How are you feeling?" The Ancient asked thoughtfully. The younger ghost tilted his head pensively. 

"It's hard to say. I'm tired, but I'm happy. And also sad..." he paused to gather his thoughts. "I feel like I've done everything I needed to."

But not everything he wanted to do. 

"Go on," Clockwork pressed. The teenager did turn his head now to make a face at his mentor. If the guy knew how he felt and what he was going to say, why would he say it out loud? But the other just arched a brow at him and waited.

"Fine," he pouted. "I've spent so much time and energy finding places for everyone here. The GIW are gone, my parents stopped hunting ghosts, Jazz got into the psychology program at Stanford, Sam and Tucker are graduating today... I helped make that happen, I know I did! But they're moving on without me. They're growing up and I don't feel like I am."  

'I don't feel like I'm ready.'

Danny stopped to take a breath and wipe away the icy tears gathering in his eyes. He felt stupid for crying over it. He was 17 for Ancients' sake! Jazz would have told him he grew up too fast, but he still felt like a child. He had no idea what he was doing! And yet! And yet... he felt...

"But you also feel ancient, right? Like you've been around too long and seen too much?" Clockwork said as though he were reading from a script. Danny sulked. Stupid time ghost with his dumb Time Stream TV or whatever. 

"Yeah..."

"All Ancients feel that way. Though you may be feeling unbalanced in more ways than one because of how young you died and the fact you are half human."

"What do you mean?" Danny turned his whole body to face him now, tucking his knees under his chin and circling his arms around them. His cloak moved with him in inky black wisps and settled around him again like clouds of galaxies. 

Clockworks form shifted to that of a child.

"You feel young because you died young. However, it is the nature of humans to grow and change. While you may have died at 14, your childhood died before that. You yearn to grow and learn, while also being an incredibly powerful Ancient."

He supposed that made sense. He recalled all the years cleaning the lab before the portal had even been built, and the fighting and neglect (Jazz's words, not his) that spawned his disdain of Christmas even longer before. He wanted to go back to school. He wanted a reason to love Christmas. He wanted pets and family dinners that didn't come alive. He wanted to grow up properly.

"But you still want to help people," the ghost said as though Danny had been talking out loud or having his mind read. 

"I hate it when you do that," Danny complained. Clockwork just smiled smugly.

"I know." He laughed at the glare Danny threw him. 

"I have a proposition for you," the older ghost began. Danny perked up in intrigue. "I know of another earth dimension with some problems that need to be addressed. Your role as High King puts you in a position to be helpful."

"Their problem has to do with the Realms?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. Ectoplasm from the Realms is pooling into what are referred to on their planet as Lazarus Pits. They are both helpful and harmful as they do not dissipate into the air so they continually collect and concentrate emotion, but they do sometimes revive the dead."

Danny grimaced in disgust at the thought of dunking a person into a stagnant pool of contaminated ectoplasm. "That sounds disgusting."

"Quite," Clockwork agreed. 

"So what's your proposition?"

"Well, if it is agreeable to you, I would like to de-age your physical form and place you with a family that's had dealings with the Pits firsthand. I've found them to be quite charming." 

"Ah, so you want me to go in undercover?" Danny couldn't help but roll his eyes a little. It wasn't a half bad idea. He could try his hand at childhood again and still get to handle his duties as King Phantom. Leading a double life again would be easy enough, it was just stepping from one role into another. 

"Not at all." Clockwork smiled knowingly. Danny was officially suspicious of his ghost guardian. "This planet has had all kinds of dealings with the occult, and even humans with superpowers isn't that unusual. While I would advise against telling anyone you are a king right away, you are in fact just that: a king. You may do what you wish." 

For an ancient and wise time ghost, Danny thought Clockwork was really shit at hiding his expressions. Though he tried to keep the grin off his face, Danny could clearly see the twitching of his lips and gleam in his eyes that promised the old man was scheming. 

But to get his childhood back. Or, at least a semblance of one... it deserved consideration. Danny looked back out at the cityscape again. Sam and Tucker... they were down there graduating from high school without him. He'd been the one to encourage them to pull away from Team Phantom activities to zero in on their studies, but he didn't regret it. Sam wanted to major in environmental science and Tucker wanted to go to MIT and he just didn't fit into those plans. After Jazz left for Stanford, his parents often forgot he was still there. He'd managed to convince them to study ghosts properly instead of hunting them, and with a little help from the "friendly ghost King Phantom" they were given a place to start. They dove into their research with the same excitement and fervor they'd had all their lives. Which of course meant he went days, sometimes weeks, without seeing them emerge from the lab. It was easy enough to slip past them to the portal while they were distracted. 

The point was that he'd started to feel his anchor to this city, to this realm, start to dissipate as the people who kept him there started to break away from him. He still loved them, wanted to protect them, but they were safe and happy now. He felt fulfilled in his task of protecting them, but there was a buzzing beneath his skin to do more. 

Danny took a deep and controlled breath. He didn't need it in his ghost form, but it felt good to feel his lungs stretch to fullness. 

"When would I start?" He asked finally. The straight face Clockwork had been trying to keep, and he really was so bad at it, finally broke into a wide grin. 

"Right now. Everything is already in place and your duties in the Realms will be taken care of in your absence." 

Danny smiled softly at his guardian. Clockwork sure had a funny way of showing it, but he cared so deeply for the boy next to him that when Danny responded with a bad pun, he couldn't even be annoyed. 

"Well, no time like the present!" He winked.

Clockwork chuckled, and with a flash of light, he sent Danny on his way. 

The more time the older ghost spent with his young ward, the more he appreciated him. The Danny he’d come to know was nothing like the Danny’s from other worlds he’d encountered while trying to prevent Dan from existing. His Danny was now truly one of a kind. None of the others, not even the ones that eventually turned into Dan, had been Ancients. There would never be another Danny like him, and every universe was adjusting to include him should he ever decide to visit them. He had a place in any world, should he choose, but Clockwork knew he was needed most in the one he’d sent him to. It would be truly entertaining to watch the young Ancient settle into his role there, and Clockwork was actually finding himself looking forward to it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was dark and quiet a long while before Danny opened his eyes. And when he did open them it got really loud and really bright really fast. It belatedly occurred to him that he should have asked like a billion more questions before agreeing to be iseaki’d into a different dimension to join a family he knew literally nothing about. 

There was shouting before someone in what looked like a ninja cult uniform shoved a knife into his hand and pushed him in the path of a person in a different uniform. The man in front of him was dressed in blue and black and wearing a mask that covered his eyes, but Danny could see the surprised shape of his mouth before it morphed into something like anger. And then he was being lunged at.

He shrieked as he dodged out of the way. Not his most graceful save, but whatever. His voice was a bit shrill and his center of gravity felt way off. He must have actually been de-aged! He wondered how old he was now. He still felt light on his feet thanks to his ghost half which felt blessedly intact. But the other guy was fast and he ducked into a roll just in time to dodge whatever weapon he was holding. This guy meant business, but he had no idea why he was trying to kill him. 

‘Great, thanks Grandfather Clock for throwing me right back into the good ol’ days,’ he thought sarcastically. Nobody had attacked him for no good reason like that since Walker and Fright caught Skulker mid hunt for the very last time. 

What he now saw was a baton swung down from overhead and Danny knew he wouldn't dodge it in time, so he caught it with the flat of the blade that had been shoved into his hands.

“Wait! Why are we fighting?” Danny yelled, panicked as the guy pushed more force into it. The man's face twisted into something like confusion for a moment and he backed off just the tiniest bit before the scuffing of shoes to his right had him looking over just in time to see another guy in a mask, this time in red, rushing at him. He threw his hands up in surrender. 

“Wait!” He shrieked before he was absolutely bodied sideways into the ground. 

Why was he doing this? He was half ghost, he could have just gone intangible and disappeared. He didn't have to be body slammed into the ground. Wasn't he a child now? Did that guy in red actually just slam a whole child into the ground? 

“Red, hold on! This one's different!” 

“What do you mean?” The guy Red asked. He was still pinning Danny to the ground.

“Yeah, what do you mean?” Danny asked breathlessly, then whimpered, “Someone please tell me what's going on!” 

The one hovering over him must have seen something on his face that convinced him to not try and kill him anymore, because he grabbed him by the collar and started dragging him along. 

“We'll take him in for questioning. Don't let Robin see him.”

“Who's Robin?!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been a long, arduous, and confusing journey from wherever they were to… well, wherever they were now. They'd blindfolded him for the transport so he still had no idea what was going on. He had learned that the guy with batons was Nightwing, and Red was actually Red Robin. The one they called Robin was a feral looking thing with swords, he was very small and stabby. Then there was Batman, and he totally threw off the whole bird theme but was easily the most intimidating. And that was all he knew so far. He'd been restrained at an interrogation table. 

Danny groaned and knocked his forehead onto the table. He really, really wished he'd asked Clockwork more questions. He'd at least been able to catch a glimpse of himself in the glass behind Batman. He looked like he was eleven or twelve again, which was not as young as he'd been expecting, but much more preferable than being a literal toddler. The group of people he’d been brought in by seemed to be heroes. They were all incredibly weary of him, but hadn’t gone out of their way to harm him since his capture. Though it was hard to call it a capture when there wasn’t a chase involved. 

“How old are you?” Batman asked suddenly. His voice was low and rough and somehow Danny could tell it didn't sound like that naturally. 

“Um, maybe eleven or twelve?” Danny replied carefully, picking up his head from the table and having the decency to look a little embarrassed. 

“And what's your name?” He looked like he was expecting something.

“My name is Danny, sir.” 

“Hmm…” 

It was quiet and awkward for a long moment.

“Why are you different from the other clones?” 

“Yeeeaaah, I'm not a clone.” Danny absolutely did not jump when the brute slammed the file folder shut in front of him. 

“We'll see what your DNA results have to say about that,” he said confidently before turning to leave, his cape dramatically flaring out behind him.

Sheesh, and he thought he’d had a flair for the dramatics.

‘Okay, time for some assessment,’ Danny thought to himself as he looked around the small closed room. It was soundproofed incredibly well. While he didn’t have super crazy hearing, it was enhanced by his ghost half, and combined with his other sharp senses, it tended to help him gather more information than others could. The most he could hear outside the room was a quiet hum of activity and nothing discernible. Still, he needed to decide how much he would say to these people. How much truth did he want to weave into his tale? These people clearly already had their own assumptions about him in mind, and while there was absolutely nothing wrong with being a clone, he knew he didn’t have what it took to keep up an act like that for long, which would just end up being awkward for everyone. 

He also would not be telling them about his status as Ghost King, per Clockwork’s suggestion. His captors seemed like the uptight sort, and revealing that he was a big, scary ghost monarch didn’t seem like it’d go over well. Telling them he was a halfa would probably get them off his back over the clone thing, at least. He went over the list in his head.

He was a halfa from another dimension, so he couldn’t be a clone.

He had no plans of fighting with anyone unless absolutely necessary. 

He did not have a way back to his other dimension. 

His name was Danny, and he didn’t have a family anymore.

He did not know why he was in the middle of whatever fight he woke up in. 

No, he didn’t know those people.

Danny must’ve been lost in thought for quite a while because his thoughts were interrupted by Batman bursting back through the door. The man’s demeanor had changed completely and he whipped off his cowl to reveal disheveled dark hair, blue eyes, and an expression of absolute heartbreak that accompanied his shuddering breaths. With the mask off, he reminded Danny a lot of his father. 

Batman searched his face and, much like Red Robin had before, seemed to notice something there. 

“She did it twice,” he muttered to himself. “Two of them this whole time and she didn’t tell me about either of them,” he said through gritted teeth. His frown deepened. Danny copied his frown. 

“Hey, are you okay?”

He still had no idea what was going on.

[call-me-strega]

Dc x Dp Prompt #10: Inter-Dimensional Bake-Off

Alfred was checking the mail the manor had received that day when he found it. In between bills, fan mail, and company missives was a regal purple envelope addressed to one Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth. Intrigued, Alfred set aside the rest of the mail and sat to open the letter.

Inside was a high quality cardstock invitation of a metallic silver color decorated with luxurious midnight green script. It declared on the front:

“You Are Cordially Invited”

Alfred raised an eyebrow and flipped open card.

Dear, Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth You have been cordially invited to participate in the first annual inter-dimensional bake-off to celebrate the coronation of the young, King Phantom, age 21, Ruler of the Infinite Realms, the Great One, Protector of Souls, Keeper of Peace, The Perfect Balance, The Infinite King, Ancient of Space and Reality. We have discerned that you are among the top 25 bakers in the 11 most stable and prominent dimensions with an open connection to the Infinite Realms. Thus, we would like to offer you the opportunity to show off and test your skills against talented competitors. Should you accept, all transport, accommodation, amenities, materials, and potentially needed medical care shall be provided by the King and his court. If you would like to bring any specific ingredients or tools you are welcome to file a request for them when you arrive and they shall be summoned to you at the start of the competition. You are allowed one plus one either as an assistant or moral support. Should you have any questions please write them down and place them on the sigil on the next page and recite the incantation bellow: “bonvolu respondi mian demandon” The event shall occur in a fortnight upon the weekend before the kings official coronation ceremony. In order to confirm your participation in the competition please burn this letter with one of your most recently made baked goods. In order to decline simply dissolve this message under running water. Please confirm your attendance or absence within a week’s time. Kind Regards, the Council of Ancients Advisors to the Good King Phantom

Well, it seemed like Alfred had earned a place in a rather prestigious event. ‘It seems a finally have a reason to make use of all those vacation days Master Bruce keeps insisting I must utilize.’ He smiled to himself, tucking the letter into his pocket. ‘I wonder if Master Jason would be amicable to accompanying me for a weekend of baking in a magical dimension?’

~ Just in case anyone has trouble reading the letter:

Dear, Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth You have been cordially invited to participate in the first annual inter-dimensional bake-off to celebrate the coronation of the young, King Phantom, age 21, Ruler of the Infinite Realms, the Great One, Protector of Souls, Keeper of Peace, The Perfect Balance, The Infinite King, Ancient of Space and Reality. We have discerned that you are among the top 25 bakers in the 11 most stable and prominent dimensions with an open connection to the Infinite Realms. Thus, we would like to offer you the opportunity to show off and test your skills against talented competitors. Should you accept, all transport, accommodation, amenities, materials, and any potentially needed medical care shall be provided by the King and his court. If you would like to bring any specific ingredients or tools you are welcome to file a request for them when you arrive and they shall be summoned to you at the start of the competition. You are allowed one plus one either as an assistant or moral support. Should you have any questions please write them down and place them on the sigil on the next page and recite the incantation bellow: “bonvolu respondi mian demandon” The event shall occur in a fortnight upon the weekend before the kings official coronation ceremony. In order to confirm your participation in the competition please burn this letter with one of your most recently made baked goods. In order to decline simply dissolve this message under running water. Please confirm your attendance or absence within a week’s time. Kind Regards, the Council of Ancients Advisors to the Good King Phantom

The Esperanto translates to “please answer my question"

Edit: now with possible contestants

[sanguinesmi1e]

A Round Door Like a Porthole, Lazarus Green Pt. 1 Pt. 2 (you're here) Pt. 3 Pt. 4

Art of LBM

Danny was still lying under the Specter Speeder, mind reeling as the words “they opened this portal with a child sacrifice, and bound his death and all the lost life potential to their bloody machine to create a perpetual gateway to the Infinite Realms” ran in a loop through his head. Could that really be true? Is his death attached to the portal, forever lodged in the doorway, preventing it from closing?

The guy clearly knew what he was talking about. The bit about why his ghost friends and frenemies caused so much chaos as they unleashed their obsessions on Amity Park made so much sense. It would certainly explain a lot of his interactions with ghosts after he died. 

 Danny silently cursed himself for not destroying everything in the lab before they got here. He and Jazz hadn't worried about the portal schematics, because they honestly didn't have any way to open a portal, only cycle energy in a recursive loop that shouldn’t have done anything. No one, not he and Jazz, not their parents, not Tucker or Technus, had been able to figure out why it had worked when Danny was inside. But if the machine was able to sustain a portal that was already opened. . . He wondered idly if he could light a fire that looked accidental and would both destroy the lab and leave the two men enough time to escape. It’d probably be too risky. And who knew what destroying the portal would do to him. Fully kill him? Destroy him completely and shatter his core? It might be worth it to prevent anyone from gaining this knowledge. 

No wonder Lex Luthor was interested in this business. A child was murdered in this basement, and for all Tim knew, the child’s soul could still be trapped here fueling a Lazarus Pit that connected the world of the living to the afterlife. What Luthor could do with an interdimensional portal or even a single sample of Lazarus water. . . Tim shuddered to think.

On the one hand, he was grateful that Wayne Enterprises secured the business before Luthor had the chance. On the other hand, he felt rather ill to think his family had directly enriched mad scientists who performed child sacrifices. At least he had full faith that between him and Oracle, they’d hunt the Fentons down and make sure justice was served.

“What is to be done for the child?” Tim asked Constantine. “Is his soul tied to that machine?”

“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure it’s just his death.” 

“You’re gonna have to explain the difference to me, ‘cause I’m not sure I see the distinction.” Tim said wryly. 

“I guess. . . Hm. You could think of it as the moment of transition drawn out endlessly like a plucked string whose note never stops vibrating. Like life is the anchor point of one end of the string, and the afterlife is at the other end, and the child’s death is the note created when his soul crosses from one side to the other. The soul is the bow causing reverberations, but the reverberations are the actual death itself. The effect of the soul’s passage. And in this case, the portal is amplifying the death so it doesn’t end like a normal death ‘note’ would.” Constantine leaned in to examine some of the runes that were part of the array. “Not a perfect metaphor, obviously, since you bow perpendicular rather than parallel to the string, and death and souls are nothing like music, but you get the idea, right?”

Tim was still caught on John Constantine saying the words “death note” together unironically in a sentence. He was going to have to share that with Steph later. Maybe with the whole family group chat, even. “Yeah, the metaphor makes sense, as much as any of this occult stuff does to me.”

“Whatever. As for whether there’s anything we can do for the child, I think we’ll have to try and summon him if we can.” The Brit started pulling items out of his trenchcoat’s inner pockets. “We need to ask what the spirit wants done, before we go messing with things we don’t understand.”

“Alright, need anything from me?”

“Yeah, move this stuff out of the way so I can draw a circle.” Constantine directed Tim to shove aside a few stacks of boxes, something called a Fenton Ghost Weasel, and together they shifted a coffin-shaped iron maiden that for some reason was labeled Fenton Stockades. Then he set to work chalking a circle and runes on the ground.

Finally he sat back and dusted chalk off his hands. “That should do it.”

“Will this be bright too?” Tim asked warily.

“Eh, might be? Shouldn’t be too bad.”

Tim grabbed an auto-darkening welding helmet with a green “Fenton” sticker on it off the workbench and slipped it on.

“Alright, here goes.” Constantine began the summoning ritual.

While Danny debated arson, the other two had finished clearing a space and chalked some kind of circle onto the floor. He tuned back into the conversation when he heard the trenchcoat guy begin a traditional incantation for a summoning. Were they trying to summon him? Danny really hoped it wouldn’t work. 

When people tried to summon the Ghost King he could almost always ignore the pull. This pull, however, was very strong and immediate. It seemed proximity made a difference, or this guy was just better at summonings than the average cultist. Before Danny could accept the inevitable, he was pulled bodily — literally! — out from under the vehicle and across the floor, still flat on his back on the Fenton Under Car Creeper, with the Specter Speeder’s ecto-engine hugged tightly to his chest. The wheels of the Fenton Creeper (not to be mistaken with the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick) sped him straight to the summoning circle. Still very much in human form. 

This was his first real look at the guy called Constantine, and he couldn’t help a horrified yelp. “Eugh!! What the fuck is wrong with you, dude!?!!” 

His lapse in attention made him lose the battle with the summoning spell, and it gripped him, pulling him through the convolutions of the spellwork even though he was already lying half across the circle, and forcing him to change into Phantom in the process. It was such a disgusting sensation, like he was one of those squishy water filled tube snake toys that look like a fleshlight, and someone squeezed really hard and abruptly so he turned inside out and went flying to go splat against a wall (or in this case, against the ground inside the circle of chalk). He tried and failed not to retch.

The younger man in the crisp suit whom he’d already identified as Mr. CEO-Timothy-Drake-Wayne looked at him in startled bafflement, while the older blond, still smoking his cigarette, (gross, and was that thing never ending?) was probably looking at him. Maybe. It was really difficult to tell, because he was a frankly vile sight. Danny winced and swallowed down nausea. “What have you done to your soul?”

“I — what?”

“Trypophobia central, man! Ugh that’s gotta be the grossest thing I’ve ever seen. Can’t you cover it up?”

“Who are you?” Timothy Drake-Wayne interjected.

“I’m the dead guy? You literally just summoned me.”

“Constantine said you were a child”

“I mean, I was?” Danny looked down at his obviously twenty-something year-old self and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been a while since I was fourteen though. These things happen.”

“Not typically, no. The dead tend to be pretty unaging.” Constantine said. 

“Dude I’m not having a conversation with you while your soul looks like Escher’s swiss cheese nightmare. Anyways, some of us do. Heck, I know a guy who constantly shifts from infant to old man and every stage in between. It’s pretty distracting when you’re trying to get him to let you fix the timeline again.” Danny continued to look anywhere but at the blond man. “But if it’s so important to you, I can —” He got an abstracted look, and slowly de-aged himself until the two men stood over a fourteen year old boy with snow white hair and glowing green eyes.

“That does not help. No.” The guy whose soul looked somewhat like a bleeding tooth fungus said. He turned away and started doing something magical. Danny hoped it would mask his soul in some way, but so far all it did was make Danny feel like he needed to pop his ears.

He also felt particularly uncharitable, so he didn’t revert to his natural age, and instead tried to see how young and cute he could make himself appear.

“So are you just haunting this basement? Seems hazardous, given the former proprietors.” Timothy tried to redirect the conversation. He didn’t seem nearly as distressed to see the ghost of a child, but his eyes darted surreptitiously to the Lichtenberg figure Danny used to always hide under gloves.

“Nah, haven’t been back here in years. I mostly live in my Infinite Realms haunt these days.”

“You . . . live? Is that just a figure of speech?”

“It’s rude to ask about a ghost’s nonliving status, you know. Highly taboo to ask how a ghost died or poke into the circumstances of our deaths without permission.” Danny admonished. Making himself younger than fourteen took more effort than he expected.

“Alright, I’m sorry,” Timothy raised his hands placatingly to the boy who now looked younger than Damian. “What brings you back to Amity Park?”

“Uh, you summoned me? Are we still not clear on that?”

Tim looked pointedly at the Fenton Creeper and the engine Danny still held. He’d shrunk down to the size of a four year old, and the engine really should be crushing him given it was bigger than his torso now. He quickly set it aside, and turned his biggest puppy dog eyes on Tim.

“You were in here already, and you looked pretty alive for a moment there.”

“I can look lots of ways!” Danny focused really hard on looking as cute, small, and nonthreatening as possible. He thought it was working when all of a sudden there was a pop! and he was smaller than he’d ever managed before. 

Timothy Drake-Wayne looked like a giant. The other guy, who had thankfully managed to put away his soul somehow, wore scuffed oxfords bigger than Danny. Hell, he could probably fit his entire self into one of Constantine’s shoes if that wasn’t a bizarre thing to do, and they weren’t already full of stinky feet. Holy shit what happened to him!?

Tim blinked down at the cat? Snake? Ghost. . . thing at his feet. What the fuck. A moment ago he was talking to an adult man whom he’s pretty sure was dead and he’s very sure was trolling them. Now his interlocutor had turned into an adorable creature with soft white paws, a long twisting tail, big pointed ears that swiveled like a cats, and a humanoid face that should’ve been creepy but was actually eliciting cute-aggression in him. Tim blinked again. The little baby ghost creature blinked enormous green eyes back at him. Then it yawned, revealing three rows of needle sharp teeth that looked like a cross between what you’d find in the mouth of a shark and a cat. Yikes.

“Does that mean the interview is over?” Tim asked him.

The creature just blinked up at him again, then zeroed in on his shoelaces, pupils expanding until only a narrow band of green ringed them.

Yup. The interview was over. Those paws hid some wicked claws which could apparently slice through leather with ease. Oh, Tim really hoped ghost scratch fever wasn’t a thing. At least the ghost looked sufficiently contrite after he yelped, and it waited while he removed a shoelace to sacrifice as a toy.

If Damian ever met him, there would be a new member of the family. Maybe he should name the creature preemptively so they didn’t have a cat-snake named Bat-Ghost in Wayne manor. 

“Do you have a name, little baby cat-snake ghost? Little baby ghost man?” He cooed as the miniature monster dashed back and forth, intent on shredding his shoelace.

The ghost paused long enough to chirp, “Li’l baby man!” before launching himself at the string. Even shocked, Tim’s reflexes had him whisking the toy out of the way, and the ghost went careening under a cabinet.

He wedged himself in the gap, landing face first in a dust bunny, and quickly wriggled backwards with an indignant squall. His wordless protestations cut off as he fell into a violent sneezing fit that thankfully dislodged him from beneath the cabinet.

Tim suppressed his laugh, and asked, “Little Baby Man? Is that what you want to be called?”

The ghost pawed most of the dust away from his nose, but spider webs covered his face and a big dust bunny perched atop his head like a fascinator with a cobweb lace veil. He looked Tim right in the eyes and nodded, dislodging the dust in his hair and setting off more sneezes.

“Li’l Baby Man” he confirmed. He placed a paw on Tim’s shoe and chirped, “Tim!” Then he pointed his tail at Constantine and said, “Gross!” with narrowed eyes.

[corkinavoid]

Hey, @confused-they, this is for you and for everyone else who wanted more of this AU. Merry Christmas.

DPxDC Ring of Rage? More Like Ring of Engage [pt. 4]

[<- part 3]

[Written to 'Tantrum' by Ashnikko]

TW: mentioned mild gore (some inside parts become outside ones, nothing graphic)

Tim can't breathe.

Joker's mad laughter is ringing through the darkness of the warehouse, echoing in his head, the screeching sound straight out of nightmares. Hood should be nearby - as in, somewhere in this darkness along with him - but Tim can't think about that, his own maniacal giggles bubbling in the back of his throat, a grin tugging at his lips.

He has to get up. He has to stand, he has to fight, and it really shouldn't be this hard.

But he can't breathe.

Tim clutches his fingers on the fabric of his suit on the chest, distantly wondering if this is how Danny feels when he is more human than ghost. Probably not, he mentioned that breathing is only optional.

He really wants his boyfriend right now. His fiance. Whatever, he wants Danny, he wants his cold hands on his cheeks and the faint, humming purr of his core that Tim finds nice to fall asleep to, and-

Maybe later. He can't exactly summon him now, not in the middle of a fight, especially not in the middle of a fight with Joker of all people.

There's an angry growl somewhere to Tim's left, staticky through the voice-modulator. Then several sounds of gunshots and a gleeful, taunting yell of the madman.

Hold on.

Tim snaps his eyes open - not that anything changes, everything is still pitch-black around him - and blinks.

Why not?..

It's not like Danny is a civilian. Tim tends to pay little attention to the fact since the King of Infinite Realms doesn't hang out with the whole superhero convention on principle. But Tim is pretty sure he won't mind it this once.

Besides, Tim is so done with Joker that it's not even funny.

A few breathy chuckles escape his throat as he lets his body fully slump back on the floor and brings his left hand to his face, placing a quick kiss on the Ring through his glove. He doesn't need to do that, not really, but it's kind of a ritual at this point, and the gesture somehow makes him feel better.

"Danny," he whispers.

For a long moment, nothing happens.

Then, there's a soft, popping sound, and his beautiful boyfriend is floating right over him, faintly glowing and a little sleepy. Tim is momentarily distracted by his bare feet and pj pants with tiny rockets on them.

Danny yawns and tugs the hem of his t-shirt down as it starts to float. "Whas'sup," he mutters, rubbing his eyes and clearly not fully awake, and Tim's heart melts instantly. He loves Danny. He just... He loves him, okay? He loves that Danny didn't question his summons for a moment, he loves that he came even though he was obviously sleeping, and he loves that Danny is wearing a tee he stole from Tim.

Unfortunately, before he is able to get his shit back together, another sound of gunshot ripples through the air, and Danny startles, blinking himself awake and looking in the direction of it. Then, his eyebrows shoot up, and his mouth makes a soft 'O' shape before he turns back to Tim and tilts his head in question.

"You want me to deal with him? The clown, I mean, not your brother," he asks, and it's so casual and off-handed that Tim actually huffs a laugh.

"Sorry, I was just- I'm really tired of his ass," Tim should probably sit up, this is not a talk they should have while he is lying on the ground. On the other hand, Jason is somewhere out there, and he has guns and doesn't have a clear visual around him, so maybe Tim shouldn't sit up.

Danny hums, "Is that a yes?"

Tim just nods. He is pretty sure Danny can see him despite the darkness. "I promise it's a one-time thing, I don't plan on calling you every time one of local lunatics acts up. I just... I fucking can't with him," he admits with a defeated sigh. But, before he can spiral any further into the abyss of unworthiness, Danny's cold hands are cupping his cheeks, and his icy eyes are looking right into Tim's sky blue.

"Love, I don't mind getting rid of each and every one of your Rogues. Granted, it would probably fuck up the timeline, and Clocky would be mad, but I'd do it if you want me to, no questions asked." His voice is quiet, and Tim has never been more grateful for his domino mask, because he can feel his cheeks heating up and he doesn't want Danny to see the exact effect his words are causing.

"I- Okay," he quietly agrees, and then blinks, backtracking, "Wait, no, don't fuck up the timeline. Just deal with the laughing bitch this once, and that's it. We can handle the rest."

Danny is smiling at him in that adoring way Tim recognizes as 'I really want to kiss you, but it's not the time or place'. Then, he nods and lets go of Tim's cheeks, straightening up in the air, and his clothes shift all at once, like a magic trick.

Gone are the stretched out t-shirt and the pants with rocket ships. In their place, Danny's body is head to toe covered in stars and galaxies that hold the vague shape of armor, and there's a slightly shimmering, blueish-green translucent cape over one of his shoulders.

The Crown over his head, the sentient artifact much like the Ring on Tim's finger, appears from nowhere, and, after a brief pause - Tim swears it was debating on whether or not the situation is worth the effort - promptly sets itself on fire. Blue flames cast long shadows on Danny's, no, King's face, making him look older and his cheekbones sharper.

Before, the boy was only faintly glowing, and, evidently, the others present in the warehouse were too distracted to notice him.

But now, with the flaming Crown casting dancing shadows on the walls of the warehouse, it's really hard not to see the otherworldly being making an appearance.

"Holy fuck," Tim hears Hood's quiet, astonished voice, and almost cracks a grin.

Yeah, he wants to say, that's my boyfriend. Although he suspects he and Jason are having vastly different reactions to Danny's presence. Because Tim kind of wants to take all his words about dealing with Joker back and take Danny home, straight to bed.

...He is going to have to strangle Jason in his sleep if his reaction is similar. No, that's a wrong thought, this is so not the time for it.

"Who are you, flying glowstick?" Joker sounds rightfully pissed off by the interruption, "Does Batsy employ alien kids now?"

Danny chuckles, the starry freckles on his cheeks glowing brighter, "Okay, just because you compared me to an alien, I'm not going to completely erase you from this plane of existence."

Tim snaps his head up.

"Wait, no killing," he reminds, not because he actually cares but because B would throw a fit. Danny brushes him off with a wave of his hand.

"No worries, he'll stay alive," he smiles at Tim, and to everyone else, it probably looks like stuff of nightmares, sharp, pointy teeth and lips stretched out far beyond human capabilities. But Tim sees it for what it is: a face of mischief.

"Do I get a vote in this?" Jason's deadpan voice comes from somewhere on the other side of the warehouse at the same moment as Joker screeches in rage, "Who the fuck do you think-"

"Nope," Danny pops the 'p', and Tim is not sure if he is answering to Hood or refusing to listen to the clown's monolog by it. Maybe it's both. It's probably both.

The next moment, Danny is gone, disappeared from the place he was floating at, and Tim hears a wet, very unpleasant sound followed by Joker's scream of pain.

"You see this?" He hears Danny's nonchalant, unfazed voice above the clown's pained cries, "This is your rib, bitch- Hey, quit whining and listen to me, it's important."

There's a slap, a rustle, and a sound of ripping fabric, and Joker's voice becomes muffled, like someone put a gag in his mouth.

"You're like Adam now, you know, lacking one rib," Danny continues, "Only I'm not making you a girl out of this one, I'm pretty sure you don't deserve to reproduce. Anyway, going further down that metaphor, I'm the God almighty in this situation, so if you want to keep the rest of your ribs - and the rest of other things that are supposed to stay inside of you - to yourself, you gotta do a thing for me, okay?"

There's some muffled groans that Joker makes in response, then an enraged growl, a sound of a struggle, another slap, and then that same wet, disgusting squelch.

"Two ribs, wow, okay, you're really being difficult about this!" Danny sounds so innocently dumbstruck about it that Tim suppresses a laugh. "Are you listening now?" There's a quiet, choking wheeze that answers him, and Danny sounds quite pleased when he says, "Great."

Tim debates if he should look. He doesn't exactly want to since the sounds provide enough context, but it might be somewhat cathartic for him.

And then the air around him inexplicably shifts, becoming cold and oppressive, weighting Tim down like a heavy blanket and pushing him into the floor. The dancing shadows and the blue light of flames on the walls twist and churn, like taking aim, and Tim doesn't know what Danny looks like right now but he knows he is as far from human as possible, his voice coming with a staticky, echoing whisper, a threatening hiss slithering inside Tim's ears.

"Play your little games all you want, Fallen Jester, but know that you can not win. The punchline to your joke is long overdue, and your soul has belonged to me for quite some time now," his words are cold and uncaring, and in all the time Tim has known his boyfriend, he has never heard him speak like this: with a sense of lazy power, like he is only humoring the people around him.

Like they mean nothing to him.

"I will not kill you, or at least not here and now. My Guiding Star doesn't want to see my hands dirty with your filthy remains. Besides, death is only a moment, and you don't deserve only a moment of suffering," he huffs a short, humorless chuckle, "But, luckily, I am the Eyes of the Universe, the Titan's Bane, the King of the Dead, and everyone will meet me once their eyes fall shut for the last time," there's a smile in his voice now, full of cold and merciless anticipation. Tim feels a shiver run down his spine.

"So just you wait, Jester, and I will meet you on the other side. Then we'll see how whatever is left of your soul is going to spend an eternity."

Tim's ears are ringing with the pure, somehow gleeful hatred that laces those last words. He didn't know he could literally taste the disgust and the promise of pain, and yet, here he is, with a hint of something sour on his tongue.

And then, the heavy, weighted air that has been charged with power is lifted, the shadows and bright blue lights are all gone, and Danny, wearing his pj's and smiling, is standing over him. His feet are planted on the ground for once, and the Crown is gone without a trace, but his t-shirt is still trying to float up. The boy tugs it down again, offering a hand to Tim.

"Wanna go out for a burger since I'm already here in Gotham?"

Tim had never breathed easier in his life. He laughs a little and reaches up, taking his beautifully unhinged boyfriend's hand and standing up.

"I thought you'd never ask."

[nightingale-prompts]

God's TV- DC x DP prompt

Accidentally summoning a god from another dimension can happen, especially when cults are involved. However, no can could predict that the not only was the god a teenage boy but also a very bored teenage boy who didn't want to leave.

So he stayed and moved into Titans tower.

Danny is helpful (when he wants to be) but rarely goes out on missions. He says they are boring and nothing is dangerous enough to exert the effort. Instead, he minds the medical bay. Having a healer more than made up for the lack of help.

It's not like anyone disliked Danny or thought he didn't do anything it was just that he was unpredictable. Danny could be nice, considerate, and even sweet if he was working in the medbay. He could also be a pain in the ass anywhere else. He loved pranks and scaring people with his powers. He was harmless though.

No one really knew what he did all day. He was usually in his room doing something they guested. Said room was an anomaly. It was larger on the inside having been made into a pocket dimension. The appearance and organization of the room changed every time you went in.

It was after one mission that the team learned what was in the room.

A rogue had used their invention to erase Superboy's memories and they didn't know what to do. They took him to Danny who was currently rearranging the medicine by color. They hoped that his powers covered mind-altering afflictions. Unfortunately, Danny couldn't wave a hand and fix this.

Instead, Danny took the group to his room. The decor was neon Tokyo meets space right now. The furniture was currently floating and almost hitting Wonder Girl in the head with an end table. Of course, there was no gravity here.

"Stay here while I grab it," Danny said flying up the vertical corridor.

While he was gone the room rearranged itself into a contemporary format. The furniture grounded itself and shifted into a normal living room.

Danny returned with a cart and a headset. He placed a card he pulled out of the cart into the headset and put it on the dazed Superboy's head.

"Wait what is that?" Tim asked.

"It's his memories. I kept a backup in case this happened." Danny shrugged.

Immediately everyone began asking what the hell does that mean and why does he have that.

"Oh please, this dimension has this happened all the time. Amnesia is so cliché and cheap. I saw a pattern and decided the easiest way to prevent you from losing the entirety of your lives was to make save states of your memories." Danny said matter of fact.

Robin pinched the bridge of his nose.

Impulse studied the rack of cases and looking for the card with his name on it.

Wondergirl sighed, she was used to this from Robin but even he wouldn't go this far.

"What? It's not like just anyone can find these. Only you can access your own memories anyways. I just decided to repurpose my RE:Viewer." Danny pouted.

"What is a reviewer?" Wally asked flipping through the cases. Each one had titles like moves or shows with an arrangement of stickers.

"The RE:Viewer is something I created to catalog things I've seen looking into other dimensions. I don't have an infinite memory you know. But the longer I have my title the more I'll lose touch with my mortality. These things help me stay close to people by giving me the chance to remember how it feels. I also have been using them to get the stories of others. Keeping their experiences like you'd keep a TV show or movie. So many stories could have been lost to time but now they are saved. I use them to teach myself." Danny smiled.

The concept genuinely sounded interesting. Like experiencing a movie in 4d.

It had been 3 minutes before Kon took off the headset and back to his old self.

Danny pulled the input card out and it disappeared into another realm with a flick of the wrist. Danny was completely honest that the copies were inaccessible to everyone but him.

"You feeling alright Superboy? Your memory should be backed up until a week ago." Danny said shining a light in his eye.

"I'm fine. I think. What happened?" Kon asked batting the light out of his eyes.

"Explanation later. Take a nap first. You aren't concussed at least." Danny informed.

"What are the stickers for?" Wally said pointing at the rainbow of colors the card cases had.

"Just the emotions associated with the experiences. Orange is comedy, red is action, pink is romance, and blue is tragedy." Danny listed. "That one with the pink is one of my favorites. I meddled a bit in that world. Two people who had never met fell in love at two points at different times. One of them was doomed to die but I worked my magic on a mirror that allowed them to meet once. They shared notes left in different places for the other months ahead. Makes you believe in true love. A real tear-jerker."

"What about the black stickers?" Wally asked.

"Don't touch the black ones," Danny said darkly, smacking his hand away. "You don't need to know about those. I don't like thinking about them."

"So you just take the memories of others and put them inside your machine to replay later?" Batgirl asked. "Isn't that kind of wrong?"

"No, I asked permission. I usually pull them aside at some point and ask. If it's my memories (that's the green stickers) I don't need to. The rainbow ones are simulations. Like a video games." Danny responded patting her on the back for not being to hard on him about this admittedly weird situation.

"So what's the black one with the rainbow sticker?" Wally asked picking up the case that was obviously stuffed in the back.

"STOP TOUCHING THOSE!" Danny yelled pulling him away.

[1mlei]

Dead on Main Soulmate AU [Part 2]

In this AU everyone is born with a tiny red heart tattooed on the inside of their wrist. If you're close to your soulmate the heart will beat, and when you meet them the heart turns to gold. If your soulmate dies, the heart will fade to black.

First part | Next part | Masterpost

CW: Brief mention of suicidal thoughts, take care everyone!

----------

Danny is 15 years old when he's informed that he is the crown prince of the Infinite Realms. He would have loved it if someone had had the decency to explain that the title of Ghost King would be passed down through right of conquest sometime before he fought Pariah Dark. If not that, couldn't someone at least have said something a bit sooner?

Now Danny had been faced with the information that he was ghost royalty out of nowhere, and that's just not something he was prepared to deal with on a random Tuesday afternoon.

As Danny paces the length of his bedroom he chooses to ignore Tucker's pointed reminder of "It's a Wednesday."

Instead of responding, he shoots a tiny ecto-blast at where his friend is lounging in the beanbag, which is easily dodged. Not that it would have hit, whenever Danny was aiming at one of his human friends me made sure to channel his dad and aim almost a full foot away from them, just to be safe.

He may be annoyed with Tucker's lack of sympathy about his situation, but he would never purposefully hurt him. Still, a warning shot when Tucker got extra cheeky wouldn't hurt anyone.

The other boy let out an affronted squawk as he dodged the blast, but wisely stayed silent after that.

Danny continued his pacing for another moment, but before he could start his frustrated rambling again Sam spoke up from Danny's bed, she hadn't even looked up from her phone for the whole time Danny had been ranting.

"It's not that big of a deal Danny, the council have been dealing with things just fine up until now, I'm sure they'll handle things until you're ready."

It was true, he knew that the council would continue to run the realms, and allow Danny to ease into the role.

The thing was, he was hoping that "ready" would mean he was at least of legal age. But no, ghosts saw time and age differently of course, they were satisfied as long as he was at least sixteen. Which he would turn in a few months.

In a desperate attempt to postpone the coronation (because Danny was not ready to become king of an infinite dimension yet, holy shit, he had convinced the council that it would be in their best interest to wait until the summer after Danny turned sixteen.

Danny still had to go to school after all, and the thought of having one measly weekend to be crowned before having to return to the halls of Casper High was not one that excited him.

The council had agreed to wait until summer. Danny wasn't overly happy that he'd still only have two months to adjust, but he'd take what he could get at this point.

He was not looking forward to starting his junior year, to say the least.

As if his looming coronation wasn't enough, now that Danny was aware of his title as crown prince, he suddenly had a bunch of new responsibilities. Supposedly, it was to prepare him for being king. Danny found it tedious at best, but he hadn't found a way to get out of it so far.

Luckily, as long as no ghost caused too much trouble Danny didn't have much to worry about.

----------

A ghost was causing too much trouble, enough that Danny got called in to deal with it.

At first he'd been salty that he had to ditch Sam and Tucker last minute for some stupid job that surely someone else could do. But once he heard what the job was, he was for once glad that he was dealing with it himself.

The situation was delicate, and Danny wouldn't trust a lot of ghost to handle it carefully enough.

An annoying ghost whose name Danny hadn't bothered to fully remember (Wi.. Fin.. Vin..ca.. something or other, not important) had decided to head to the human realm to take revenge for their death.

Now, if Danny tried to stop every ghost that ever tried to avenge their own death he'd never get to rest. A ghost's death was such a personal matter too, Danny didn't feel like he had any right to step in and say what's right or wrong for them to do.

So, in nearly all cases he stayed out of it. A lot of ghosts were happy to avenge their deaths in non-violent ways. Some time spent haunting their murderer, scaring them shitless, and most ghosts were satisfied. Not enough to move on, revenge was rarely enough for that, but enough to exist peacefully in the Realms.

That was all fine in Danny's book, but this particular ghost (Danny mentally dubbed them "Vi" when he failed to remember their full name) had decided that violence was the only answer.

The thing was, they blamed the wrong people. Vi had been a citizen of Gotham when they were alive, and they got caught up in some bad business. That had eventually led to their death.

It wasn't any one person's fault, but Vi blamed the Gotham vigilantes. From what Danny knew, Vi had been running away from said vigilantes, not wanting to be arrested, and had died because they were too focused on avoiding the vigilantes to pay attention to their surroundings.

The details of their death beyond that was not something Danny knew, he had listened to the necessary details from Clockwork before he left, but he didn't like learning exactly how other ghosts died unless they tell him themselves, it felt too personal.

All he needed to know was, the actions of the Gotham vigilantes had indirectly caused Vi's death, so they were on their way to Gotham to take revenge. That was bad, on so many levels.

The absolute last thing Danny needed was The Batman getting interested in ghosts. Danny had done a great job of managing without his or anyone else's help so far, and he really didn't want them poking their noses into his business now.

That was why Danny was speeding towards Gotham City, hoping to get there before Vi managed to track down a vigilante, as he was sure they didn't have any ways to defend themselves against ghosts.

After flying at nearly top speed for half an hour, Danny finally arrived. Not that long if you think about it, but plenty of time for a vengeful ghost to track down their targets.

With no better method, Danny started flying laps around the city, hoping his ghost sense would go off eventually.

His ghost sense remained quiet, but he found something better.

Batman himself, was right there fighting off a group of thugs. It was a small group of people for a skilled fighter like Batman to take on, he didn't really need backup. Which probably meant, the bird was somewhere nearby..

And yup! Standing on a rooftop close by keeping lookout was Robin.

This was neat, two vigilantes in the same location, now Danny could just stay here and keep guard until Vi showed themselves.

Danny hovered over Batman's fight invisibly, realizing how lucky he was that the man was unaware of his existence, and had no access to ecto-powered weapons. Danny shivered just at the thought.

Now that he was thinking about it, Batman was surrounded by a lot of people. A lot of them were probably innocent people, pulled into this business by a lack of better opportunities. Just like Vi.

And if Vi was here only for revenge, surely they wouldn't risk other people suffering the same fate as them. If they attacked Batman now, any one of the thugs could get caught in the crossfire.

Would Vi just wait it out until Batman was alone? It didn't make a lot of sense. Surely they would act soon, but Batman was surrounded, and Robin was.. Robin was alone!

Danny turned around in a panic as a cold shiver ran through his body.

Shit

He shot off towards Robin at high speed. Now that he had sensed them he could tell where they were (two seconds) Vi was heading right for Robin, their claws out and ready to strike (one second), they were just about to make contact, barely an inch away from Robin, when Danny crashed into them, phasing them both harmlessly through the vigilante and flying them far, far away in the blink of an eye. His heart was drumming so hard in his chest, (he could feel it all the way through his arms, wow) he didn't realize his heart could beat that hard in ghost form, he assumed his core would take over.

Maybe it was just testament to how stressed out Danny was.

That had been too close.

He had barely a moment to rest, as Vi broke out of his hold angrily.

"Foolish boy, do not get in the way of my revenge again."

Vi tried to fly away to try again, but Danny formed an ecto-barrier around them to keep them put.

"Not gonna happen, you're targeting two innocent people."

Vi hissed at him with frustration,

"You know not what you speak of, fool. Those killers parading around as heroes caused my unfair demise, and I shall have reve-"

At that point Danny decided he'd heard enough, it was a school night and he had to get going, so he grabbed the thermos from his belt and sucked Vi into it mid-spiel. He'd heard that same speech enough times to know how it goes.

Robin still alive, Batman unaware of ghosts existing, Crisis averted, and Danny would still make it home with enough time to get a half-decent nights sleep. Things were looking up.

---------

Jason is 14 years old. It's been a year since his soulmate died.

He's gotten good at pretending it doesn't affect him anymore. After that first night where Jason let himself properly cry in Alfred's arms, neither of them had spoken about the matter again. Alfred made it a point to treat Jason exactly the same as before, knowing that if he were to act extra careful as to not upset the boy it would have the opposite effect.

Alfred was great like that, always noticing and remembering things but knowing when not to bring them up.

He pretended not to notice that Jason never wore short sleeved shirts anymore.

When he found Jason huddled away in the library he pretended not to notice how many more romance novels the boy was reading compared to before.

During the darkest nights, when Jason silently wishes he could go join his soulmate wherever they had ended up, Alfred was there without fail. He didn't speak of the things he knew Jason was thinking about, whether it was as to not make Jason uncomfortable or because Alfred himself didn't dare say it out loud, he didn't know.

But he was there, every time.

And when Jason realized it had been a full year since his soulmate died, Alfred was there as a silent support, just a moment away should Jason need him yet never intruding.

If Bruce notices that anything has happened to Jason, he hasn't bothered to ask about it yet. Jason isn't sure if he prefers it that way or not.

On one hand, he doesn't like the idea of Bruce butting into his personal business, the man had never been great with emotions.

But the realization that his father-figure didn't even know what he was going through had Jason wanting to burst into Bruce's study and tell him everything, if even just to get a reaction out of him.

It had been a year, but so far he hadn't said anything.

--------

When Jason is out on the streets of Gotham, the mask of Robin is always a nice barrier to hide behind. He'll lock his emotions up tight in the back of his mind and cover them up with the veil of an unbothered vigilante who had far better things to worry about.

This night he's standing on a rooftop, keeping a lookout as Bruce deals with a group of thugs. The group was small enough that Bruce would have no trouble at all dealing with them, and Jason's time would be better spent keeping an eye out for anyone trying to slink away unnoticed by the bat.

It had been an uneventful few minutes, watching Bruce dispose of the thugs as all of them kept rushing him, not a single one having the bright idea that whatever payout they were promised wasn't worth sticking around anymore.

Then, Jason felt a shiver run up his spine. He felt like he was being watched. It was a foreboding feeling, like something was going to jump at him any moment.

He spun around, quickly assessing his surroundings, but he found nothing out of place.

The feeling did not go away though, only growing more insistent.

And then in the blink of an eye, a gust of wind picks up around Jason as the feeling of danger flares, and Jason is sure he is about to die right there.

In the next second, the wind turns cold, and Jason could swear he saw his breath fog in front of him for a moment. Yet he doesn't feel even the slightest bit frozen.

The cold passes through him impossibly fast, and with it the feeling of danger vanishes, and so between one blink and another Jason is left standing there dumbfounded at what just happened.

He hadn't imagined it, that feeling of danger was nothing concrete but it had been clear as day in Jason's mind.

The wind was definitely real too, he'd felt it rustle his hair as it passed by.

And the biggest piece of evidence he wasn't going crazy, was the small piece of frost on the ground around Jason's feet. He took a step away from it experimentally, and it quickly faded. But it had been there.

The biggest mystery of the night though, the part of this whole thing that shook Jason to his core, was his wrist.

He raised his wrist and pulled back his glove to check, because there was no way he was actually feeling what he thought he was.

But right there, the tiny black heart that was stuck to his wrist as a permanent reminder of what he could have had, was carefully beating in an excruciatingly slow rhythm. Slow, faint, but real.

Jason lost track of time as he stood there, just watching the heart on his wrist beating slower and slower, until it stopped and refused to move again.

For the first time in a year, Jason feels a dangerous sliver of hope sneak it's way into his heart.

It can't be.

But there was no other explanation.

Jason had been in danger, but some unknown force, one that brought an overwhelming feeling of safe with it had saved him.

And his tattoo was telling him his soulmate had been there.

Jason couldn't think of a better explanation than that the one who saved him was a spirit, or ghost of some kind. It sounded ridiculous.

He looks back at his wrist, gently stroking his fingers over the tattoo as the considers it.

It seemed like a ghost saved him.

His soulmate had been there.

His soulmate who was dead.

Jason felt silly for entertaining the thought, but he couldn't help but want to believe it. That tonight he had been about to die, and the spirit of his soulmate had protected him.

He took that realization and stored it away with the rest of his emotions. He didn't know how to feel about it.

He knew, that for the past year his grief had made him consider some terrible things. But how could he possibly want to go join his soulmate now, when they'd done the impossible and appeared next to him for even just a moment, to save his life.

Jason decided then, that no matter what happened, he was going to live. The sadness may never fully go away, by he would live the life he had been given, and his soulmate would simply have to wait until Jason was ready to join them.

With a lighter conscience than he's had in a year, Jason grapples away from the roof and heads back home, a tiny hint of a smile on his face.

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