#Batman is very confused and concerned that the store is magically back after *insert amount of years here*

[rynan16]

It was a dreary day, as it often was in Gotham. Danny was just returning from the funeral of Jason Todd, his core heavy and head fuzzy. He enters his store, only to see that his time here is up. The 5 years are over, and it’s time to go. Danny falls to the floor, no longer holding back the tears. It feels like his core has cracked from the grief. How can he just leave now, of all times? Won’t he even be allowed time to grej e before they go? A little giggle snaps his mind back to reality. Is head snaps in the direction of the sound, comming from the corner nook that the store always set up for him… for Jason. His core was thrumming with painful hope, and then, his eyes found the source of those light giggles, and Danny’s core soared. There he was! It was little Jason, his Jason, in the corner, sitting in the corner, reading a new book, just like he used to do. Danny couldn’t help himself, he rushed over, grabbing the little Robin in a tight hug, startling the little ghostling.

It’s been a few weeks now, since the store packed up and took them to a new location. Danny was filled with so many mixed emotions the night he found Jason, the night they left. Now having processed his emotions a little more, he’s been thoroughly enjoying telling Jason stories of all the adventures he’s been on, and people he’s met. He’s even gotten to take Jason to his haunt, and show him the library. Seeing the way the little bird’s eye’s lit up at the sight, made Danny’s core thrum with delight. Yes, Jason may have died, but he was safe now. Danny would keep him safe.

The store has been hoping dimensions much more frequently than it used to, only staying in one place for a week or two at a time. Danny’s not sure why, but he’s been enjoying all the adventures he’s been able to go on with Jason, so it doesn’t bother him too much. It’s been a couple months now, and the holidays are comming up soon back home. Maybe he’ll be able to bring Jason with him, he knows that they would absolutely adore Jason. How could they not when he’s so precious, after all?

Something was wrong. Jason was starting to have glitches in his powers. Moments where he would loose his flight and fall back to the floor, or he would get stuck partway through a bookshelf because he became partially tangible. Danny can’t figure out what’s going on, h

no, no, nO, NO, NO…. He’s gone. The only thing remaining being a small shade of a little Robin, that still happily filters around the store. Danny gently holds the little bird in his hands, cradling it close to his core, as he sobs, having once again lost his Jason.

Time moves on. He still misses Jason terribly. Still mourns, still grieves, still looks in the corner, hoping, no expecting, Jason to be there. But time moves on, and eventually, a new normal is established. Danny takes some solace in the small little shade that still happily flits around the store. It’s not the same Jason that he wishes to come back, but… it’s a piece of him, and he takes comfort in that fact. Back when it first happened, he had rushed the little Robin off to Frostbite and explained the situation, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he could help somehow. Frostbite had shaken his head sadly, saying that he had never seen a case like it before, and there was nothing he could do to help. The store moves around less now. Staying in most places for months at a time. Never as long as when they found Jason, but it went back to it’s usual routine. Sometimes Danny wondered if somehow, it had known. The store had stayed just long enough to take Jason with them, down to the exact day, and during his short stay with them, they had gone on more adventures in more places than he had before up to that point. It felt like the store had known, and that it wanted to give Jason as many adventures as it could before he would leave them again.

‘Why am I here again? Why have you brought me back to this dimension? I do not wish to relive these painful memories.’ Danny uncomfortably nuzzles the little Robin perched on his shoulder, an unconscious habit he had picked up when he was particularly missing Jason. He stared wistfully out the door, wishing to see his little ghostling come rushing through the door, but he knew that was impossible. Jason… his Jason, was gone. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear the little bell on his door jingle as it opened, didn’t notice the familiar presence entering his store. Then the little Robin perked up, and flitted off his shoulder. Danny quickly reached out to grab it, frantic, not wanting to loose the last piece of Jason he has left, but he is unsuccessful. The little Robin lands on the new person’s shoulder, and gently nuzzles the crook of their neck, chirping happily. That when Danny notices. He looks at the figure, a red hood covers their face, but he can tell. He can feel. This is Jason Todd. Alive and in front of him. His breath hitches in his throat, and his eyes go all misty.

“Whoa, this place was gone when I came back… man, I’ve missed this place.”

He’s back, Jason was home. And this time, Danny was going to do everything within his power too keep it that way. His little ghostling would stay safe, even if the world was ending, nothing would dare lay a finger on his little ghostling anymore.

DCxDP fanfic idea:Vanishing Bookstore

Danny opens a bookstore. Initially, it was his private library, a place tp store all the books he gather from different parts of the glob and different Earths.

Mr. Lancer finally wore him down, causing Danny's love of reading to blossom at the end of his Freshman year. The teacher did so by having him come in person to speak about any kind of book as makeup work, as long as he learned how to dissect what he read and get proper reading comprehension.

Danny found that he could enjoy literature if he wasn't forced to write an essay afterward. But spending lunchtimes with his English teacher arguing about Narina's moral concepts was practically the same as the essay; it was just funnier.

It was the final push he needed to move to the next grade. By the skin of his teeth, but he did it. Mr. Lancer had been so proud of him.

That summer, Danny had been grounded for various weeks due to the ghosts attacks taking him away from his school and chores. Since he wasn't allowed to watch TV, or use the computer Danny had chosen to pick up books from Jazz's young adult fantasy shelves.

He never looked back.

Suddenly, it was like Danny could only go somewhere with something to read. He jumped genres but always fell back to fantasy, escaping into magical worlds between pages. Something about that reminded him of exploring the different worlds within the Infinate Realms, and Danny found himself addicted.

It became his entire identity. Sam was the goth girl, Tucker the tech geek, and Danny the book nerd. His friends and family quickly learned that any gift-giving event was going to lead to a long list of books Danny was waiting to get his grabby little hands on.

Even the classics Mr. Lancer once had to fight him to read were entertaining now that he understood their subtext and inferences that used to go over his head as a kid.

Jazz took him to get his library card which became Danny's most prized possession until high school graduation. Once Danny got his first part-time job- working for Sam's family company but hey if he had a rich friend who was willing to pay him to answer calls who was he to say no?- Danny started buying his own books.

He shopped at local second-hand bookstores, online websites, and chain bookstores and even ventured into the Ghost Zone to see what literature wonders they had to offer. He found that his human money had a far better exchange rate then he was expecting, making it possible to buy a lot more and at cheaper prices in the Zone.

He even found parallel words that sold the same books he was reading. Once, he saw a book he had waited two years to release at a marked-down price because that world had the book out for five years. Danny almost died of joy to find the special edition.

His room, which once had nothing by NASA, was now filled with bookshelve after bookshelve of his treasures. His parents allowed him to expand his little library in the attic once he ran out of room.

Danny had no idea what to do when his parents asked him what he planned to do once he ran out of room there. By that point, he had started to move the older ones into his Haunt in the Ghost zone, amazed that it had shifted into a Libary that rivaled the likes of Libary of Alexandria. He had so many different ones that he could organize by all ten categories of the Dewey Decimal System in his Haunt, making him wonder if he had consumed that much writing in the past four years. (He had. His parents were worried)

Ghosts had even started asking if they could visit his library, and before long, he had opened one of Ghost Zona's first Public libraries. His only charge was that if a new ghost wanted a library card, they had to donate at least three books. His collection grew and grew with each passing day.

Blob ghosts appointed themselves as Danny's librarians, carefully filing his newest additions to his growing delight. Danny now always had something new to read.

He consumed so much that a new title was bestowed onto him. Danny Phantom: Master of Knowledge.

Though that was a rather silly title if you asked Danny, he enjoyed a good read whenever he was awake. Just because he learned while reading didn't mean he was the master of it. However, he did gain a massive patchwork of knowledge that he could usually apply anywhere, making people assume he was all-knowing.

That did not solve the problem of getting too many books, and often, he found copies of the same ones added to his shelves again and again. His blob ghosts didn't think to reject copies because then ghosts couldn't visit his haunt and would be denied books.

Danny would never deny anyone books. He just had to figure out what to do with the copies and old books he was no longer interested in.

Jazz told him to try and have a yard sale of the ones he no longer wanted, and seeing as there were some series he could go without, Danny gave it a shot.

He made a surprising amount of money, but it was far from the amount he had spent to purchase them. Still, watching people get excited as they walk away with bags of books more than made up for it. After his third yard sale, Danny made up his mind.

He would attach a bookstore to his Haunt.

He wasn't sure how since his library had built itself. It seemed unwilling to add on to it that it was a slightly different business. His haunt only expanded to accommodate the library that he was building there. It took reading five rare books that Clockwork had gifted him to find what was once lost knowledge.

Haunt Manipulation.

It was risky, but Danny created the Infinite Realms Bookstore with enough concentration, some runes, a dash of overly powerful ectoplasm, and some of his core bits. He chose to run this one because the blobs seemed frightened of hackling with customers, and frankly, seeing people be happy was a different kind of rush.

Things were fine for a few years. He didn't need to work now that he had a steady cash flow—though sometimes he had to find someone willing to trade for US Earth 23-19 dollars. He was his own boss with his books to read, his body not needing sleep or food while in the zone, and his ability to lose himself in between pages whenever he wanted.

Then, his bookstore fell off his haunt. It was like an apple falling from a tree- it grew too heavy for the Haunt to handle- flinging Danny into a nearby Earth portal. Luckily, he could get back to the Zone with the spell he placed on his backdoor, and his haunt was in the same place as it always was.

It turns out that Haunt Manipulation is no longer an extended practice because it cannot anchor anywhere. It vanishes and reappears randomly, lingering for a few months. Danny finds that the last haunt like this is now named the House of Mysteries.

At first, Danny was really annoyed by this, until he realized that he could once again walk among humans and spread his library to different worlds. He especially loved it when he appeared in areas where he could teach people to read.

Something about introducing people to his obsession was almost as fulfilling as his obsession itself.

He became a strange but wise man in some worlds and a god of knowledge in others. Danny was having the time of his life, flinging between timelines, exploring dimensions, and still being able to port back to his regular Haunt that connected him to his home.

He saw his parents every Thanksgiving and Christmas. He was able to be the Best man at Jazz's wedding, saw Tucker become the head of his own tech company, and was one of the first to meet Sam's girlfriend between his exploring.

Infinite Realms Bookstore's newest location was on an intriguing Earth behind Danny's home world regarding technology. It was a crime-infested city with far too many problems for its own good. His bookstore also chooses to plant itself right smack in the middle of the worst part of town.

On the far back wall, in the elegant letter, it read "Five years," meaning Danny and the bookstore would be here for five years before it vanished. Strangely, it was the longest time that it had lingered in one place.

Danny suspected that Infinite Realms Bookstore was starting to develop a mind of its own. His books were organizing themselves overnight now, and he was sure he never saw any blob ghosts about.

That did not stop him from happily opening his doors to Crime Alley anyway. The morning of his first day in Gotham, while sipping some coffee- he forgot how good it tasted!- a young boy wandered in.

He was obviously looking for an escape, so Danny willed some chairs and tables to appear in the far back. A complimentary snack section appeared a few seconds later, and there was a "Feel free to read anything off the shelves" sign.

The kid's eyes widened when he spotted them before he hastily raced toward the classics and selected two large volumes. He planted himself at one of the tables surrounded by drinks and cookies and didn't move for hours.

Danny left him to it, choosing to close when the kid left. It was tweleve long hours but worth it to see the glee on the tiny litte face as he flipped through pages.

The next day, he came back, and the one after that. Before long, Danny had his first regular.

That regular is a young boy named Jason Todd.

Jason reminded Danny of himself when he first got into reading, which led to him making a deal with the young boy. He would let Jason bring books to trade, allowing the boy to take home whatever he wanted in exchange. This meant Danny could get books from this new dimension and Jason didn't have to worry about finaces.

There was a time where Danny was pretty sure Jason was just reselling him back his own books. But seeing as Jason looked more and more like he was having a hard time finding a good meal, Danny pretended not to notice.

This is similar to when his bookstore developed free showers for him to use only when he was about or private reading rooms with a warm bed. Jason early took advantage of these, unaware that they vanished from view to all other customers once he stepped inside.

Sometimes, he falls asleep and spends the night inside those private reading rooms when Danny "forgets" to walk through the store before closing.

Everyone else paid because they didn't make Danny's core sing like Jason. It was easy to tell when the boy became Robin, as he found the vigilante pulling Batman to his window and pointing out books. The moment that mask little face pressed against his glass, Danny knew who it was.

Just as he knew the next day when, Bruce Wayne opened his door to buy everything that Robin had wanted. Danny kept that to himself, though. He figured it would be funnier if they thought they were sneaky.

Maybe this place would be his finest location yet.