#But Rise really surprised me
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Really liking Rise VA, her voice is just SO good
#ptn#path to nowhere#Moore and 000 are also great#But Rise really surprised me#Wasn't expecting to like it so much
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Childhood Friends Au: Danny's in Gotham Again
when the wool is off your eyes you'll stop counting sheep at night cause you'll eat your fill of them during the daytime
A few weeks after Danny’s visit to Gotham, he buys an apartment in the city. It’s this little thing, a studio apartment on the same street he grew up in. In Crime Alley. When he tells his parents, they protest heavily. They don’t think it's safe. They think he should reconsider. There were plenty of apartments and places to live somewhere else. And what about college?
Danny doesn’t think he’ll go to college. He isn’t sure what he wants to do, now that being an astronaut is off the table. It’d be a waste of money to go without a goal in mind, he thinks. He says he’ll take a gap year and apply at one of the community colleges funded by the Wayne Corporation, possibly. It just wasn’t in the cards right now.
“If things get tough,” He says at dinner that night, “then I can talk to the Waynes. I’m friends with the family, remember?” He ended up getting Bruce’s number in his phone again before he left, and in the process got Tim’s as well. They don’t talk much, Danny isn’t sure what to say. But he sends Tim memes whenever he comes across one and thinks he’ll like. Tim sends memes back in return.
His parents do remember. They remember. They also remember the horrified shriek that echoed through the house when Danny learned of Jason’s passing. They remember running up the stairs and bursting into their son’s room and finding him sobbing into his bed, curled up like a little kid, like he was in pain. He lost his voice that day, stuck between screaming out his grief and sobbing it.
They’re still not sure if they should let him go.
In the end, Danny wins them out, and he lets them help him search for an apartment. They take a break from their lab work to help search for cheap furniture to buy. They may have more money than when they were in Gotham, but that frugal part of you never fully goes away. They all agree that they don’t want Danny to be seen carrying in nice-looking furniture when he moves in.
He ends up with a basic furniture set, all mismatched, and in the warm summer of June, his parents rent out a u-haul and drive him down to Gotham to move in. They meet the landlord when they arrive, a skinny and frail old man with wispy white hair and a wrinkled face. He gives Danny the keys and tells him what apartment number he is, and then he leaves.
His parents help him move in. They help him carry his heavy furniture up to the second floor, where his apartment is. Danny isn’t sure if he wants them to help. His mom and dad are strong, but they are getting old, closer to their fifties now that their children are grown. His dad’s hair is slowly beginning to thin, and rather than the white eating at the sides of his head, it now streaks through his hair like salt-and-pepper. His mom’s hair is graying out too, and there are more lines in their faces than he remembers there being.
When he voices his concerns, his mom laughs spiritedly and says that they may be getting old, but they are still as spry as when they were in their twenties. Danny isn’t sure if he believes them or not. He can see his dad struggle a bit when they return to get his bed frame, and they have to take a break before they go back down for the rest of their things.
Five years ago, his dad could do this without breaking a sweat. It forces a heavy thing in the back of Danny’s throat. (He is less afraid of his own death than he is of his loved ones, and while he has always felt rocky with his parents, he still loves them more than anything else.)
Danny’s apartment is exactly as he would have expected it to be: shabby and worn through. The entire room smells like stale cigarette smoke and weed, nicotine stains the wall with poorly covered bullet holes, and stains in the carpet that are a color he can’t discern. The fridge has a broken light and when he tries to turn on the gas stove, it click-click-clicks before lighting, fire fwooshing out while the smell of gas fills the air. There’s rat droppings in the cupboards and the closet-like bathroom is just as bad.
The ghostly part of him can sense the heavy stench of death in the room; people have died in this room. People have died in every room of this building, he thinks. They have died on the streets outside and in the alleys squeezed between them. He can feel it like a heavy fog in the air.
It is painfully nostalgic, a bittersweet feeling in his chest that he grimaces to.
When the last box is placed in his apartment, his parents offer to help unpack. They are hesitant to leave and Danny knows it, although he doesn’t know if it’s from empty nest syndrome or because it's Gotham. He thinks it might be both. He is their youngest child finally leaving home to a city known for its danger.
“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay behind, sweetie?” His mother asks, a frown she tries to hide settled in the creases of her face. She fiddles with her hands, a nervous habit Danny has since noticed when she feels truly unsure and doesn’t need to hide it. Hesitancy looms over her like a heavy cloud.
His dad jumps in hastily, splaying his hands and smiling painfully wide to hide the glistening in his eyes. “You’re mother’s right! We can help you get everything set up, champ. I could probably do something with that stove of yours to make it faster!” He says, his voice still booming like it always does even if there’s a stumble in his words.
It makes his heart squeeze, knowing just how much they care. It was hard last summer, telling him that he was the Phantom. Terrifying, actually. They couldn’t comprehend it. He hadn’t felt his heart beat that fast in years when he stood in front of them at the kitchen table and told them he was a halfa, begging them to believe that ghosts weren’t inherently evil.
His parents were people of science, however, and after much, much shock, they slowly came to terms with it. How could they not? The evidence was right in front of them. Their son was dead-alive, alive-dead. Somewhere stuck in the between. The tears they shed that night could fill a river, moving from the kitchen to the living room as Danny explains how he died.
(When Danny tells them that he died after a week Jason did, his mom and dad look horrified. His mom covers her mouth when he adds that it was his idea to go inside it, his dad looks ashy pale, gripping his pant legs so tight that his knuckles turn white. There is a conclusion coming to their minds that he can tell they don’t like.)
(“You’ve always hated our inventions, Danny.” Mom says in a hushed voice, and Danny winces at the wording, sinking into the back of the cushions in shame. He never thought that his parents noticed. Mom quickly grabs his arm, “No, no, there’s nothing to be ashamed of Danny. We were… perhaps too careless with our inventions, too enthusiastic. You had every right to hate the things we made when they had a tendency to… to malfunction.”)
(Malfunction is a delicate way of putting it, when Danny remembers every time they had to evacuate their old apartment complex because whatever half-baked creation his parents made inevitably blew up into ash and smoke. There were soot marks permanently stained into the ceiling.)
(Her hand slides down and grabs his, and she cups it in both of her hands, squeezing tightly. He forces himself to look up, and there is a look like her heart breaking when he looks into his mother’s eyes. “You’ve always avoided the lab after we moved, Danny. And you had every right to, so why on Earth did you ever think about going into the portal?”)
(Danny struggles to come up with an adequate answer, a way to verbalize what came over him that day five years ago. The answer is there, hanging in the air like a knot in a noose. He opens his mouth, and then closes it.)
(Finally, with a tongue made of lead, he shrugs lamely and looks away. “I didn’t know there was an on button inside it.” He mumbles, and despite being the truth it feels like a lie. But that is the truth. He didn’t know there was an on button inside it. So he didn’t care what happened.)
(Something dulls in mom’s eyes, like she thought of something else that Danny hadn’t said. Her eyes shimmer, and she squeezes them shut, breathing in so deep that it shakes. And then she pulls him into a hug, a hand burying into his hair and pressing him close. “It must have hurt so much, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”)
(It is something that Danny doesn’t expect her to say, like missing the last step of the stairs. It startles him so much he laughs this short, bark of a thing. He feels his dad press against his back and wrap his big arms around them, his nose pushed into his hair.)
(Because yeah. Yeah, it did hurt. It hurt more than anything else he’s ever felt before. It had torn him apart and sewn him back together again, only to rinse and repeat. The pain was nothing he ever spoke to Sam or Tucker about, and it was something they never brought up. No, that’s not true. If they ever brought it up, Tucker would call it a zap. As if Danny only experienced a mild static shock. Like it was painless. It’s a pretty lie that Danny lets him and Sam believe.)
(His eyes sting and water immediately wobbles into his vision, coming up with such a force that he doesn’t even need to blink before it spills over. “Yeah.” He forces out, voice unexpectedly rough and cracking. “Yeah, it- it hurt. A lot.”)
He tells them about fighting the Lunch Lady a month later. He tells them about finding Jason. It comes spilling out like a waterfall. “I found him, mom.” He says, holding onto her tight while she keeps him tucked under his chin like a little kid. The secret of Jason being Robin stays hidden under his tongue, it is not his secret to tell. Not his identity to expose. He grips her tighter. “I found him, mom. Right there in the Ghost Zone, and he was my Jason. He wasn’t an echo or a— an imprint of him.”
Mom is silent; quiet and attentive, and so is dad, who rubs his large hands up and down Danny’s spine in an attempt to soothe him. It only works a little. Danny breathes in like a gasp as the urge to cry overcomes him again. He always avoids talking about Jason, his grief is like a never-healing scab that can be picked off at any time. It is ingrained into his core.
“And then I lost him.” He forces out, a sob layering under his words that he chokes on and swallows. The hand on his back stills, and he can feel mom and dad breathe in like a question. He turns his head and pushes it into mom’s shoulder. “He disappeared, mom. Just— just gone.”
“And he didn’t move on.” He says, voice snarling like teeth biting before his mom can ask, because he knows that’s what she was going to ask. It’s what Sam and Tucker asked when he came to them in tears hours after he found Jason gone. It’s what Jazz said when he finally told her about it. It’s what every one of his ghosts asked when he told them about it and begged for their help.
Danny grits his teeth and tries not to dig his nails into mom’s clothes as a fresh wave of tears run down his face. “His haunt is still there. If Jason really moved on it would have disappeared with him. That’s how it works. But it’s still in the zone, so Jason’s out there I just don’t know where.”
(Sam once asks him why Danny didn’t just move on from it a year after Jason’s disappearance. She asked him why he didn’t give it up. Danny nearly saw red, and nearly bit her head off for it. It was incomprehensible to him to just stop looking for Jason, to give up. Not when he was out in the zone somewhere. Because he had to be in the zone.)
(Danny once tried to take Jason through the portal with him, and much like what happened to Kitty, it didn’t work. Jason was too tied to the ghost zone to leave.)
(Some bonds are just unbreakable, he thinks. Bonds forged through blood and time and trust, and when you’re on the streets of Gotham, you hoard what little trust you have in someone like a dragon with its gold. It is scarcely given and fiercely kept.)
“I’ve been looking for him.” Danny whispers when talking becomes too hard for him, when it runs the risk of him crying. “When- when I’m not fighting ghosts or, or in school or with my friends, I’ve been looking for him.” He has explored the Ghost Zone in every reach he can. He has met so many people. He’s met the ghosts of aliens from planets in every corner of the galaxy. He has met gods or god-like beings and their disciples.
He’s met famous scholars and writers (he’s gotten the autographs of all of Jason’s favorite writers). He has found entire cities that have so much life in it that it's been permanently etched into the ghost zone, like a mirror version of itself.
He’s visited the ghostly vision of Gotham so many times, and he avoids the imprint of Wayne Manor like the plague. There are ghostly newspapers that he reads. There are the ghosts of Martha and Thomas Wayne in many of them.
Jason’s haunt connects to Wayne Manor, but it is also the street they grew up in. It is a small brick building with a door that leads to Jason’s room. A ghost knows when someone enters their haunt, it alerts them like a doorbell in the back of their mind. A foreign ecto-signature in a place drenched in your own.
Danny visits it every time he goes into the Ghost Zone. It’s always his first stop.
He tells his parents all of it. He tells them of the ghosts he’s met, of the places he’s seen. And when he feels brave, he tells them about Rath and the terror that his future self brings him. He keeps some details hidden, the ones that he can afford to keep without muddling up the story.
(Rath is a tall, spindly thing, like a funhouse mirror version of Danny himself. He has arms that are much too long and legs that are much too tall, with skinny fingers that extend into claws.He wears his suit the same as Danny does, with it partially undone and the sleeves wrapped around his waist.)
(There is a black hole in his chest that is much bigger than Danny’s own. It takes up his chest cavity and drips the same, viscous black liquid as the tears falling from his eyes. Danny never forgets his voice; a scraping, quiet thing like he’s screamed himself hoarse. Rath has a voice like goosebumps, and it haunts Danny like a bump in the night.)
Danny speaks and speaks and speaks until he can’t think of anything else to speak of. He is tired and sad, and it feels like his heart has been ripped out and rubbed raw again. And yet, he also feels so much better. Like a long heavy weight has been taken off his chest.
Yeah, last summer was hard. His parents walked on eggshells around him, and they forced themselves to unlearn their bias of ghosts. It was more than Danny could have ever dreamed of, and when they felt ready for it, they asked him more about the ghost zone.
He smiles sadly at his dad, “I think fixing the stove can be a priority another time, dad.” He says, watching him wilt and his smile fall. Jack Fenton was always so good at making himself look like a kicked puppy. “I can handle unpacking by myself, I promise.”
His parents still look so unsure, like they want to argue. Danny watches his mom purse her lips tightly, confliction running across her face like a datastream. She takes dad’s hand, squeezing their fingers together despite the droop in her shoulders.
“Oh, alright then, I suppose.” She relents, her hand placing on Jack’s arm. “I guess we could go, we’re just going to miss you so much, Danny.”
Tears seem to have won over his dad, and Jack Fenton sniffs back before he can cry properly. “Our little boy, all grown up.” He says, voice wobbling. It makes Danny laugh, and it makes his heart pang. His smile grows impossibly wider and so much fonder. “You’ve become such a kind, wonderful young man, Danno. We’re so proud of you.”
Danny laughs again, and it cracks. “You’re gonna make me cry, dad.” (He feels a welling of guilt in his gut that he ignores — he doesn’t feel like a kind man. He doesn’t feel like a good one either. Not with what he plans to do.)
His father holds out his arms in hopefulness, “One last hug for your old man before we head out?” He asks, mustering up a smile on his face.
Danny barrels into him, nearly knocking his dad over with an oomph. He’s as tall as him now, but he still feels little in his bear hugs. With arms wrapping around his middle, Danny hugs his father tight and breathes him in one last time.
“Careful there, Danno.” He laughs, patting Danny’s back roughly. “You’ll break my ribs with that ghostly strength of yours!” But he holds on just as tight.
Out of spite, Danny bends back and lifts him off his feet, laughing when Jack tenses up and nearly scrambles out of surprise. His mom laughs with him, stepping back to give them room for the few seconds that dad is in the air.
When it’s his mom’s turn, Danny has to hunch to hug her. Something bittersweet to him as she plants a kiss on his forehead and says that he’ll always be her baby. “Even if you do have that horrid smoking habit.” She adds on with a disapproving eyebrow raise.
Danny turns red in embarrassment, and walks them back to the GAV. Gothamites of all kinds slow to stop and boggle at the monstrous, road-illegal thing that is parallel-parked next to the curbside. In the past, Danny would have died with mortification to be seen with it. Now it just makes him laugh. Before he goes back into the apartment building, he buys a newspaper from a nearby convenience store.
The first thing he does when he gets back up to his room is one: make a mental note to buy a bicycle chain lock for the door. The locks jiggle and there are splinters along the side that show signs of it being broken into in the past. The second thing he does is pull his cigarettes out of his pocket and light one.
Danny starts to unpack with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, placing the newspaper he bought onto the counter. He has a cheap loveseat that he pushes off to the side, and he moves the boxes into the kitchen. It’s a matter of organization that Danny has to think about before he does anything.
It’s as he’s pushing the sofa up against the wall facing the windows that his phone rings a familiar tune: Sam. The phone is fished out before he can think about it and when he stares down at the screen, he realizes it's a facetime call.
He presses answer and walks over to prop his phone up onto the counter. The smiling faces of Sam and Tucker greet him, rather than just Sam. Immediately, Danny grins. “Hey Danny.” Sam greets, smiling a dark-painted lazy thing. From the background it looks like they’re in Tucker’s room. Sam is in Tucker’s desk chair, and Tucker is behind her, leaning against it. “Have you moved in yet?”
Danny pulls the cigarette from his mouth and huffs, a cloud of smoke following his breath. “Yeah! It’s a shithole.” He grins lopsidedly, and his feet carry him off to the side to allow Sam and Tucker view of his apartment. He lets thirty seconds pass, allowing the both of them to really see the rest of the room. And then he steps back into frame.
Sam and Tucker both look like they’re trying not to look judgemental, like they’re trying to hide a grimace that Danny sees anyway with the small turns at the corner of their mouths. He grins wider, mirth filling his lungs. “I know, it looks awful doesn’t it?”
“It’s— it’s not so bad.” Sam says with a strain in her voice, a forced smile on her face that tries to be reassuring. Tucker nods along readily, and he looks just as unsure as Sam does. Danny stifles laughter behind his teeth.
“No, no, it looks bad,” He takes a drag of his cigarette, shaking his head. “You can say it, I won’t get offended. It’s a fucking apartment in crime alley. Of course it looks bad.”
Sam remains silent, a rearing of her stubbornness showing itself. Tucker takes a different approach, and heaves a dramatic sigh of relief, slumping like a weight. “Okay, you’re right. It looks bad.” He frowns, “Sorry, man.”
While Danny snorts, Sam sighs. “Yeah, it looks bad. What even are those stains?” She asks, and both she and Tucker lean closer in tandem to the screen, eyes squinting at the floor behind him. Danny glances at the floor, and shrugs.
“Blood, probably.” He says, and while years in Amity Park have accustomed him to a clean environment, the desensitization of Gotham still remains. Tucker and Sam both make faces and lean away, as if the stain itself was capable of passing through to them. “Yeah, there are bullet holes in the walls.”
“Are you sure it’s safe to be there?” Tucker asks, a furrow appearing between his brows. He adjusts his glasses and leans against the chair. Sam is frowning heavily, and Danny can already see her thinking up of a new way to fix the problem.
“Oh, I never said this place was safe.” Danny tells him cheerily, taking a last hit of his cigarette before placing the dead stick onto the counter. He itches for another one. Instead he walks over to the shelf his parents brought in and starts moving it. “It’s Crime Alley, Tuck. Safe isn’t even in its vocabulary.”
Tucker and Sam look like they’ve both swallowed a lemon.
“But it’s where I want to be right now.” He says, grunting quietly when the shelf is against the wall he wants it to be, near the short hallway leading to the front door. He can push it in front of it if someone tries to break in. “And Crime Alley’s apartments are the only ones I can really afford right now without mooching off my parents, and I’d rather not depend on them.”
He can hear the disapproving hesitance from where he stands. And he ignores it.
Danny walks back into frame, lifting up a box onto the counter. He hums lightly, fingers run over the tape keeping it shut. “Why do you even want to be in Gotham, Danny?” Sam asks, and she sounds genuinely perplexed. Danny stills. “I thought this place only had bad memories for you.”
His blood turns cold, and like a dime being flipped his slow heartbeat fills his ears. “It does.” He replies automatically, before he can think. Shit, shit. He knows that Sam or Tucker would ask that question, and yet he still feels unprepared for it. His heart pulses quickly against his ribcage, knocking, asking him what he’s going to tell them that isn’t the truth.
Danny stammers, “I mean— I just— I guess I felt nostalgic.” He says, and it sounds like a weak defense. He looks away, finding himself instinctively scratching his jaw. A new tick of his when he’s nervous. From the corner of his eye, he sees Sam and Tucker both narrow their eyes at him.
He cannot tell them the real reason why he’s moved back to Gotham. He can’t tell them of the little secret and vow he told himself five years ago, the one that’s been left to fester and burn like an open wound close to his core. The one that, if he thinks too much about it, sends a searing hot electricity through him, filling him from crown to toe top-full of direst wrath.
(Danny was always the angrier one in the duo of Jason and Danny. He was always the one with glass in his mouth, cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world around them. His knuckles had more blood and bruises on it than skin, once upon a time. All because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He has grown from it, that fury has turned to a small simmering candle.) (But sometimes, sometimes it rears its head, and electricity will buzz under Danny’s skin. There is lightning before the thunder, the second before a fist pulled to punch lands, the spark before it becomes a blaze.)
He stumbles over his words, and then sighs long and low, drooping his head. “I… was thinking that I can’t avoid this place forever.” He says, and the best lies always have the truth in it. Because it’s not a lie, not completely. But it’s not close enough to the truth either. “And that maybe if I came back, I’d be able to do something about those bad memories. Make them better or make it hurt less.”
Like wool over their eyes, it fools Sam and Tucker. Their narrowed eyes soften, and Danny feels like a snake is in his lungs as they both adopt their own versions of gentleness on their faces. “Oh, Danny.” Sam breathes out, and the snake squeezes, “Of course, we understand.”
Tucker nods, smiling at him. “Yeah, bro, that’s really brave of you. I know it can’t be easy coming back.” He says, “Maybe you can reconnect with the Waynes again, you always thought well of Mister Wayne whenever you came back from visiting.”
Danny smiles weakly, the gesture cutting into his cheeks like a knife. Perhaps he could. He was still upset with Bruce for hiding Jason’s killer from him. But he doesn’t hate him. Maybe five years ago, he did, when the death of Jason was still fresh in his mind and freshly bleeding in his heart. Now he just doesn’t know what to think of him. He was Batman. Jason was Robin, and the Joker killed Robin.
It would need to be something he’d have to speak to Bruce about in person, he thinks, in order to resolve it. To hear his judgment on it and make an opinion from there. Danny has learned in the last five years, much to Jazz’s smug delight, that talking to people about something he was upset about did make him feel better.
The conversation slips on from there into something more light, more breathable. And while they talk, Danny unpacks. He sets up his bed in the corner of the room, adjacent to the windows, and unpacks his cheap TV and table stand. It’s directly across from the couch, in front of the windows. He puts up knicks and knacks he’s collected over the years on the shelves.
When he puts up the curtains, he notices that more than one frame jiggles loosely. Sam makes a comment on the musty stains permanently dyed into the glass, and Danny talks about getting something to fix the cracks. Gotham winters can get brutal, and even if he can withstand the cold, doesn’t mean everything else in his apartment can.
“Oh, watch this.” He says halfway through unpacking, and pulls out a stick of thick white chalk from a box. “This is something I learned from Clockwork a while back; I think he knew I was going to move to Gotham.” He grins sillily, popping into the camera frame to show them. “I wonder how?”
Sam rolls her eyes, smiling while Tucker huffs. “It’s not like he’s the Master of Time and can see all past, present, and future.” Tucker snarks.
Danny hums lightly, curt like he isn’t sure he believes Tucker, and walks to a piece of bare wall not yet blocked by furniture. He starts to draw on it. The chalk shimmers with faint ectoplasm on the wall.
“Uhh…” Tucker’s voice cuts through, “Are you sure you should be doing that? Won’t you get in trouble for that?”
“There are bullet holes in the plaster, Tucker.” Danny retorts dryly, arching his hand to make a big circle. “I don’t think the landlord is gonna care if I get washable chalk on his walls.” Inside the circle, he inscribes the symbols of the Infinite Realms. “I don’t think he’d be able to see it anyways, he was really old.”
When he is done, Danny steps back to admire his work. It’s not bad, he thinks, for a lack of practice. He tosses the chalk off to the side, it lands on the couch and rolls back into the cushions. Ectoplasm heats under his hand, slowly glowing from his fingertips before stretching down the rest of his palm.
Danny’s fingers press against the wall, into the center of the circle. The result is immediate, ectoplasm is siphoned off his hand and into the circle. It glows, and then swirls. He steps off to the side for Sam and Tucker to watch its transformation. The circle fills with a swirling pool of ectoplasm, like a smaller version of the basement portal, and then it warps and stretches.
It fills out a rectangular shape, shifting like taffy being pulled this way and that, before settling into a solid shape. It solidifies, and instead of a wall there is a glowing purple door, warped in nature and seemingly shifting like a trick of the eyes. He can hear the gentle hum of the zone standing next to it, and can see the carving of the circle in the wood.
He gestures dramatically, grinning from ear to ear. “Ta-da~” He sings, “A door to my haunt! For whenever I feel like visiting it.” He pats the wood, making a strange thunk-thunk sound. “And then watch this.”
Danny touches the circle again, and the door twists and recedes like water going down a drain. The circle flashes bright green, and then fades into nothing on the wall, invisible to the naked eye. “I can hide it whenever I want! So if I ever invite someone over—” which he doubts, “—I won’t have to worry about them asking, ‘Hey Danny? Why is there a creepy fucking door in your studio apartment?’”
He gets a pair of laughs for his efforts, and Danny grins wider.
Sam and Tucker have to end the call when Danny is nearly done unpacking, leaving him alone with only his thoughts and the Gotham ambience outside. There were only a few boxes left, and they promise to call him tomorrow. He tells them that they better keep that promise.
The silence that follows after they leave feels somberly, as if the reality of moving in has finally set in and filled the air with its loneliness. With its change. Finally, Danny lets the strangeness of moving back to Gotham hit him when he reaches the last box, and he stops to take another smoke break to let it settle.
It feels so strange to be back in Gotham, he thinks. He’s all grown up, or almost grown up. He can vote and pay taxes, but he doesn’t feel much older than he was at fourteen. There’s a disconnect that makes him feel sad.
There are cars running outside, driving by. He can only catch glimpses of them, his apartment faces an alleyway. There are dogs barking in the distance, strays he bets. It’s already dark out, and he wonders if he looks out the window he would see the bat-signal shining through the night and staining the permanent cloud that hangs over Gotham.
Bruce would be so disappointed if he learned the reason for Danny’s return to Gotham. But Danny’s not here for him. He’s here for someone far more important. And like that, the simmering anger that has tucked itself into the furthest corners of his heart starts slipping through. His heart has teeth, ready to strike and snarl and bite.
He crushes the cigarette in his hand and throws it away. When he opens the last box, it is with hands that tremble and with a face of stone. With a delicateness he does not feel, he reaches in and pulls a corkboard from the box. On the corner frame is a small, near inconspicuous carving of another ghost rune.
Danny hangs it up on an empty space on the wall, out of sight from the window. It’s plain, and he has nothing to pin to it. He presses the small rune on the corner, pushing ectoplasm into it. Unlike the door, it does not twist and warp and shape itself into something new. Instead it bursts into green flame, eating away at the board and revealing the same thing underneath it, just in dark blue-black-purple.
Now this board, this board Danny has something to pin to it. The newspaper he bought earlier sits abandoned on the counter, and Danny unrolls it with something like viciousness in his chest. On the front page is an image of a damaged street, and above it is titled: “JOKER STRIKES AGAIN, 3 DEAD AND 27 INJURED”
Danny rips out the first page, he rips out every mention of him. His hands shake and threaten to crumple the paper as he turns back to the board, there is hot blood pounding in his ears. There is an impending sense of finally in his chest, like a setting sun giving the stage to a starless night. There is a stern set in his jaw, five years of festering rage rushing forth like a tidal wave, threatening to make his vision swim.
It would be so easy, he thinks, to go out as Phantom right now and hunt the clown down. It would only take a night. All it would take is a night, and then he could sink his hands into the Joker’s chest and rip out his heart where he stood. It would be so easy.
The thought alone forces Danny to stop as he is hit with another rush of fury, really making his head and vision swim. Thorny vines wrap around his throat, making it hard to breathe. He stares at a spot on the wall until the shaking passes.
If he wants to be discreet about this, then he can’t do it now. Even if he wants to. He doesn’t want witnesses. He doesn’t want an audience. He made a mistake, telling Red Hood about his plan. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking at all. But he can only hope that the Hood hasn’t mentioned it to Bruce. He knows it hasn’t been long since they started working together. He hopes that the Hood has already forgotten about it.
He pins the newspaper clippings onto the black-blue-board, and stands back. It’s bare now, but it won’t be forever.
He presses the circle again, and the pinboard reverts back to its original blank state.
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Was I expecting to make a third part?? No. No I was not. I was also not expecting to make an entire google doc filled with summaries for short story ideas about this au that all tie into each other so that way if i DO continue this i have a skeleton pathway to follow rather than making everything up from scratch and potentially cornering myself
you can find this on ao3 or on tumblr 1 2 :)
#dp x dc#dpxdc#dp x dc crossover#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dpxdc crossover#childhood friends au#cw swearing#cw smoking#im calling them short stories bc if i call them chapters i might intimidate myself#fun fact every single chapter will have a crane wives lyric on it i am DETERMINED#i hope yall are subscribed to this on ao3 bc i almost didnt post this on tumblr#the fentons being good parents were a surprise to me too but also i never really planned on them being BAD parents#okay so they appear as negligent in the first post but we'll just call that a plothole#i had the idea that danny was the angrier one out of the duo earlier today and it felt like an epiphany#there's no guarantee of a next part but yk immm kinda hoping there is#on the docs the ending bullet point for this chapter was#'make it feel like a tv show where the seemingly inconspicuous and friendly character has something sinister up their sleeve'#WE know that danny's not inconspicuous in the least he's been thinking of this murder for the last five years. but nobody but red hood know#i had to come up with a in-story reason why danny doesnt kill the joker NOW but my out-of-story excuse is: there'd be no tension otherwise#its about the BUILD UP. Its about the RISING TENSION. Its about KNOWING that danny is planning to kill the Joker but you dont know WHEN#its about knowing that something is going to explode but never knowing when#i made the doc yesterday and spent my entire pluralism for educators class going thru the crane wives albums and looking up the lyrics and#matching them to the *checks doc* 18 short story prompts i have prepared#i am still missing one :((#its the tim and danny story and i have NOTHING PLANNED FOR THEM. i cant think of a thing for them to bond over :(( so i cant match a CW son#even DICK has a story and that was also a surprise#my favorite lines: He was always the one with glass in his mouth cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world#aND danny slapping his door like a used car salesman and going 'now people wont ask why i have a creepy fucking door in my studio aptm :)'
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Realized this while playing Birushana. Tomomori. You know.
#birushana#birushana rising flower of genpei#otome#wizardess heart#shall we date#blanking on what other morally controversial otome games ive played#but seriously that trope of “im lowkey obsessed with the heroine and even seeing the hate in her eyes as she looks at me is perfect.”#to “i would love to see what other expressions i could bring her to make-”#ALL the way to the final installment of “oh. when she smiles.. when shes happy.. and looks at me with such happiness?#that is the best expression she has ever made. she looks beautiful like that... everything else pales in comparison- no.#i actually dont care to see her tears or to have her look at me in anger ever again.“#and just. falling in love with her happiness and doing everything they can to make her smile and laugh among other things??#because they feel really good doing it??#sorry i know thats common with villain love interests but im REALLY a sucker for it okay i cant help it#but also no seriously what other games like this have i played again?? i havent played any of the villain routes in hakuouki yet#but i feel like this trope is probably in there so.#hakuouki#JUST THE LOOK OF SURPRISE ON THE LOVE INTEREST'S FACE WHEN THEY SEE THE PROTAG SMILE AT THEM FOR THE FIRST TIME#AFTER ONLY EVER PREVIOUSLY SHOWING FEAR OR HATE#I LOVE IT AAUUUGHHH#oh!! thats right!#steam prison#paradigm paradox#piofiore#BECAUSE YANG I FUVKING LOVE YANG EVEN THOUGH HES AWFUL UGH#even if tempest#ill tag that in here too bc Tyril was that way for a hot second in the beginning of his route/timeline when he was first meeting Anastasia#i definitely know theres more but damn#anyway#we support character development in this house
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So was it just me or was anyone else expecting Lloyd’s skin to go invisible like Mr. Pale’s the moment he got the light powers or was it just me?
#I was actually expecting Lloyd’s skin to start disappearing#It really surprised me when it didn’t happen#Is Mr pale just special or something?#Im so confused by it.#ninjago dragons rising#dragons rising spoilers
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There are probably people who hate that there are elemental powers that are directly associated with other elemental powers (Heat being associated with Fire, Quake being associated with Earth) but I honestly think it's really cool and I love it. Maybe I'm just biased though because I personally think it's really cool that Frak got an elemental power similar/related to Cole's when he mentioned Cole is his favorite ninja as a kid
#ninjago#lego ninjago#ninjago dragons rising#dragons rising season 2#dragons rising s2 p2#dragons rising spoilers#jinx's dragons rising liveblogging#im on episode 13 of season 2 but if it gets revealed that there ARE elemental powers directly related to other elemental powers#(as seems to be the case with heat and quake)#it wouldn't surprise me and i'd still find it really cool
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#persona 4#p4#persona 4 golden#p4g#yosuke hanamura#hanamura yosuke#but he certainly does it with a lot of consistency and i love that so much#yosuke's not the first person to always include nanako#it makes me extremely soft because i feel like yosuke tries to be inclusive with his friends he doesnt want anyone to feel left out#we see it especially in his interactions with the first years and teddie#on some level he knows that the others are less willing to put themselves out there#thinking about the beach outing where kanji says that he would not have gone yo the beach if it wasnt for yosuke's invitation#anyway in this particular instance I'm just very very weak for yosuke looking out for nanako as well#i mean nanako is super cute (and i say that as someone who doesnt really like kids or kid characters) and everyone loves her (as they should#so in a way yosuke keeping her included is not surprising#but on some level its also just... yosuke being considerate of yu#i mean look at yu's title of siscon kingpin of steel in arena - yu cares very much for nanako#so by extension yosuke does as well#also on a more delulu lvl in p4d rise says she'll give nanako priv dance lessons#because it'll just be her yu and nanako and WOW isnt that just like... (giggles) - rises hilarious transparency aside#isnt that exactly what yosuke has with yu and nanako?#ngl im lowkey thinking about romcom single parent troupes and yosuke is just ticking all the boxes#ok ok im jking (im not)#he's good with his queue
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i found a super old drawing tablet which, naturally, ended with me drawing women all day
#i'm not super proud with the 2003 april drawing but that's the first thing i drew so i was getting used to the whole thing#i LOVE this drawing tablet i am definetly going to use it for mspaint drawings#i'm surprised it works because i think the most recent thing it said it could work with is a windows 7 and like#i don't have that!#it's cool i have many fun doodles i also drew#dunno if i'll share#depends on how many doodles i make later#the first drawing was inspired by a transfem rise leo fic i read#it isn't perfectly written but HEY the coming out scene made me feel things!!!#ESPECIALLY the pronoun switch with “so she ran away” MAN!!!!!#this isn't a recreation of a scene (there isn't really any context to it?) i just wanted to draw my favourite girls together#speaking of i need to draw the aprils more#i LOVE mutant mayhem april i am not going to apologise for the woman i become when tales of the tmnt releases#tmnt leo#transfem leo#because. yes#tmnt april#april o'neil#rottmnt leo#rottmnt april o'neil#2003 april o'neil#tmnt#rottmnt#tmnt 2003#mspaint#i hope the quality isn't too destroyed for these because i will cry
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I think I might’ve teared my tutor a new one…
#oh let me tell you I let all out#like crying snot falling screeching#I questioned everything and let me tell you I was not surprised when I asked if they had actually researched anythinh about the topic#and she said no#that out job is to do the research so they can ’’learn’’ and use it as a material for future lessons#and I’m like sure.. I can do research no problem#but have you considered the ethical AND ecologial side of this?#and she literally goes ’’tbh no.. I have not even thought about that’’#jesus take the wheel (actually take the whole fucking car)#plus she had no idea why I’m the only one in a group of just exchange students#and don’t get me wrong they’re very sweet people#but I’m not a project manager nor a babysitter#one of them has studied english for ONE YEAR#and she’s strugggglingggg#so we got to the point where instead of fucking around with fucking crypto wallets and NTF’s we could study the rise fall and darkside of#metaverse cryptocurrencies etc#and don’t ask me what the innovation is because the tutor had no idea either but…#I rather write a thesis about this than fuck around with blockchains bitcoins and whatever the shit#thank FUCK I’m seeing Kuumaa and Käärijä this weekend#might’ve actually done something really stupid if I didn’t have something else to think about#irl shenanigans
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Affections across time
Open starter for @vulpuslunae - Royals x Mythical AU for Xuan x Miharu
A light shining in the distance... The familiar sound of a voice... The sweet note of a gittern, the warmth of a touch and a smile...
Xuan's eyes jolted open, a bothered feeling shaking him awake from the troubled sleep he'd been trapped within just moments ago. Another one of those dreams... Fragments of a distant past returning to haunt him once again. But this time more lucid... more real... And with a higher frequency too.
It was as if his unconscious was trying to send him a message. Some sort of gut feeling or premonition as if trying to herald a prophecy. Or at least that's what it felt like. But it couldn't have been... It's been three thousand years after all. Why now and not sooner? Eyebrows furrowed, the man shook his head, refusing to even entertain the thought that this could be a sign of that person having finally come back.
Yet, at the same time, a part of him wished for it to have been true. After all this time and all this waiting... Maybe there was a fate after all and maybe it wanted for them to be together once again. Didn't she promise? And how cruel of her if this turned out to be actually true and she'd intentionally made him wait. Three. Thousand. Years! Only an immortal being such as the phoenix could fathom the torture of living in uncertainty for this many years. Huffing, the man glared towards the window. Only a fool would agree to serving such a cruel master again!
And still, the feeling left by the dream kept lingering, growing stronger and stronger as the day went on, bothering the man even further as he tried reasserting his decision that no matter what, no matter if he'd get reconnected to that person, he wouldn't make the same mistake again of allowing them to see him at his weakest and hurt him for a second time. After that day, he'd sworn to stay away from love and he was adamant on honoring his own promise to himself!
But even soo, that invisible thread was pulling him in like a damned leash. A fated bond that transcended time and space itself and unbeknownst to the young man, it was leading him back towards the very same thing he was vehement on avoiding. Inevitable.
Not long after, his fate was finally sealed when they bumped into one another.
The harsh cold feeling of stone made Xuan's side ache as he landed on the concrete, the feeling of anger already starting to brew like the fire in his veins. "Ugh... For fuck's sake, watch where you're going...!" He was about to add a not soo gentle appellative when their eyes finally met, rendering Xuan to immediately go silent.
Fate sure works in such mysterious ways... Master and servant finally reunited.
#xuan interactions#vulpuslunae#v3: phoenix rising#xuan x miharu#// Ah! Sorry for the long wait! Finally got to writing the starter!#// Hope you'll like it! It kinda gives me k-drama/c-drama vibes and I like that#// Was going for a more mysterious vibe there lol#// Also the title is actually reference to an instrumental song I really like that I think fits a bit the theme#// Also also (surprise) new Xuan faceclaim introduction but shhh! 👀
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the new gene is not at all what i was expecting, but i like it. and it gives me some ideas for a new breed pair :3c
#flight rising#boo! red and green be upon yee!#i really thought the festival genes were all gonna match the primal eyes#but this one's neat surprise. makes me even more curious what the rest will be now 👀👀#debating if i just want one of these pairs or if i should just go ahead and make both#but i'll have plenty time to decide i guess#cause finding dragons with the right colors is gonna be more of a challenge than i thought apparently ;>.>
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i’d like to talk about how the tableau of antony dimmond is just the three of swords. is hannibal a tarot girlie
#THE ANSWER IS YES#he knows his sun moon and rising signs#i know he loves fate and chance so this doesn’t really surprise me#he is such a drama queen
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call me the epitome of multifandom today because I'm getting people following me for, and liking my The Glass Scientist stuff, People coming around for Fools Gold since the new episode dropped, and the very occasional constant like or two from people seeing my Rise of the TMNT things.
#I never knew how many fandoms I was in until I started dropping and getting new ones#no one is really around for my F&C stuff anymore though which I found a tad surprising.#WHAT I FIND MORE SUPRISING IS PEOPLE STILL FINDING MY RISE STUFF#HOW DID YOU GET HERE?!#THAT WAS LIKE- NEARLY A YEAR AGO NOW!#WHAT THE HECK-#I may make some more fools gold things some time in the future but for now m really more into Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde things#glass scientists included-#and that secret second thing that I'm keeping secret until its done#and has a proper name because its current one just is not It.#which- I also- did not expect to get followers from TGS by the way- I was just making a funny haha because I really liked TGS and the-#-exsisting funny little posts like mine- that I mimicked#why- are you following me-?#who are you wonderful people?#sunset speaks
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ppl on tiktok crying, screaming, throwing up about the latest european election results as if jewish ppl haven’t been talking about rising antisemitism for the past few months plus literally every other minority yelling at the top of their lungs about the hot mess that is the european social landscape for YEARS now.. mhhkay :)
#european elections#european election results#antisemitism#babe wake up f*scism is on the rise#then again#it’s always been there never really left#but take this with a grain of salt coming from me#like i come from italy#there was never anything like denazification over there#i’ve been dealing with ppl calling for those like me and other minorities to get burned alive or left to drown since i was a kid#so uh really can’t say i’m surprised here#haha a global pandemic economic recession amidst rising social divide plus rising antisemitism haha haven’t seen THAT ONE before :)#certainly haven’t seen that anywhere else HAHA :)))#/s
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“You did good. You know that, right?” (Let's go with Rise because she's the kindest girl and Artair even if you haven't met her)
'You Did Good' Prompts
"... I'm glad you think so, at least." Artair brushed back his hair. Doubt sat heavy like a river stone in his gut, but he tried to ignore its weight. She was kind for saying so, and he didn't want to appear ungrateful or make a kid feel like she had to do anything for him. "You're... one of the detective's friends, right? Shirogane? They mentioned someone with pigtails."
#answering things#ask meme answers#random meme#ic artair#rp#rise#i actually have met rise! she surprised me because my only frame of reference for p4 characters was that ancient musical xD#and what i remembered of her was different. but i really enjoy her as a character so far!#she startled me by switching from super quiet to her idol voice lol. it was like hearing someone switch to their customer service voice#also i hope this is okay!!#if not let me know! i asked liz if she'd be okay with the detective telling him about the IT but i don't want to step on your toes ^^
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Absolutely adore when franchises know when to deploy the Main Musical Theme(TM) that people associate with older installments. You gotta use it at the right moment. You can't over-use it or it gets stale. But if it hits right by god it hits right
#weirdly (spoilers) the new transformers movie did this better than a lot of new franchise installments ghdskhjkhsjkg#the first jurassic world movie did it well too but i have a personal grudge against fallen kingdom for how it used the jurassic park theme#fuck you jurassic world fallen kingdom you gave me a realistic depiction of an anxiety attack#a really good video game example of Using the Main Themes Really Well (And Sparsely) is Tears of the Kingdom tbh. good shit right there.#(tagging for transformers spoilers because the surprise of the leitmotif drop is half the fun of it:)#transformers spoilers#rise of the beasts spoilers
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CRINGETOBER DAY 5: GIJINKA
i don‘t usually participate in these things but i reallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy badly wanted to share my lightbulb gijinka… i love her sm (if she dies in the ii2 finale someone‘s getting hurt (/nsrs))
#i really wanna do rise leo for day 13 but don’t be surprised if this is the only cringetober thing you see from me#hrghhhhhhhhhhhh the colour outline looks kinda asssssssssssssssss……#wait omg maybe i can draw something primos related for day 24 maybe??? hrgrhhehh idk#i don’t participate in these [insert thing] month#ii lightbulb#lightbulb ii#inanimate insanity lightbulb#inanimate insanity#ii#ii2#cringetober#cringetober 2024
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