#Danny fenton is bruce wayne’s younger brother

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Lost and Found (dp x dc)

Alfred sighed as he looked over the wide gymnasium, thinking to himself that he shouldn’t have listened to Leslie. Community service was all well and good as a way to connect with people, but overseeing an inter-school bakery-sale-and-science-fair combined event was proving to be more chaotic than anything else.

As another child dropped yet another just-bought desert on the floor, Alfred slunk into the shadows deciding to let the clean-up be someone else’s task for once. As he got further and further from the main hubbub, the ex(?)-butler arrived near a small exit door and snuck out quitely. As the fresh air hit his face, Alfred let out a breath. Seeing so many children around had him thinking of his charge and where he could possibly be.

The older man hadn’t brought a pack, since he’s been going to a school, but in the moment he wished he had. Sighing once again, Alfred shook off the craving as he took a few steps towards the communal school garden when the sight of a black-haired boy sitting with his back to him had him freezing. A second later his brain caught up to him, reminding him that this was not young master Bruce. The crushing disappointment he felt as he recognized the boy in front of him was much to small to be his little master Bruce surprised him by its intensity.

Alfred took a moment to compose himself before he cleared his throat. The noise had the figure flinching and turning their head towards the older man. Then, as the boy caught sight of the older man, he seemed to slump. Seeing that he was unlikely to speak up first, Alfred took it upon himself to start the conversation.

“Might I inquire what you are doing outside, young man?”

The boy’s shoulder slumped even more though he still answered. “Haven’t got any sweets to sell,” he mumbled.

“Oh?” Alfred sounded out. “Why is that?”

“My cookies ate my homework so I had to put them down,” said the boy as he finally raised his head, long-suffering

But Alfred could only breathe a faint “Indeed?” as the boy’s features were exposed. The resemblance with master Bruce was so uncanny that the butler had trouble looking away. But as he examined him more closely he could see some minute differences. The boy didn’t have the sharp jawline both mister Wayne and master Bruce had shared. His nose was smaller than master Bruce’s and his eyes were paler than the darker blue passed down through the Wayne line. The sight of a face so similar and yet not quite like master Bruce had his mind jumping to the portrait hung above the manor’s fireplace and the face of the toddler sitting on his mother’s lap as a slightly older child stood beside her with his father’s hand on his shoulder.

Everyone had bemoaned the two-fold tragedy of the Waynes. First to lose their youngest son at such a young age, only to be themselves brutally murdered only a few months later. All was left of the previously illustrious Waynes was a grief-stricken eight-year-old who had just lost his brother and parents in such a short period of time. Alfred sighed as he remembered how angry master Bruce was at his inability to find out to this day what had happened to his brother. The man half-suspected this was how the young man had developed such an obsession with solving mysteries.

Once again having to focus back on the boy in front of him, Alfred smiled at the boy. Then, the boy’s word registered and the man let out an amused huff. “You had no choice but to put an end to that, I suppose. Cookies as spirited as yours would sell poorly in any case.”

“Oh you’ve got no idea,” muttered the young man as he pushed himself to his feet only for his hand to slip on the wet wood surrounding the gardening plots and falling face-first onto the hard wooden surface.

“Oh dear!” exclaimed Alfred as he darted to assist the boy in straightening up. The boy groaned in pain as he held his nose and Alfred could see drops of red falling down.

“Here,” said the older man as he handed the boy a fabric handkerchief.

“Thanks,” the teen croaked as he accepted it.

“Put your head between your knees,” Alfred instructed. “Breathe through your mouth.”

The boy offered a thumbs-up as he complied. Alfred waited patiently by the teen as he kept the handkerchief held against his nose. After a moment, the boy held it away experimentally and when he felt no more blood flowing he turned towards Alfred.

“Thanks,” he said before he looked down at the red-stained white fabric. “I can wash it and return it if you give me a return address.”

“It’s alright,” Alfred refused. “I don’t mind washing it.”

“Thanks,” repeated the boy as he handed the older man the handkerchief back, as he got to his feet, this time more gingerly. “I best get back before my friends start looking for me.”

“Be careful on the way back,” Alfred couldn’t help saying.

The boy hummed and as he turned around for a final wave goodbye, their eyes connected and Alfred felt a jolt travel through his body. Though the pale blue of Danny’s eyes was not the distinctive shade of the Waynes, it was however identical to the color of the late Martha Wayne’s eyes. As the boy opened the exit door and disappeared in the crowd of people, Alfred looked down at the blood-stained handkerchief.

He knew there was a less than infinitesimal chance. Still. What would it hurt to make absolutely sure?

[flamingpudding]

Fictober23 Prompt: 10 - "It's alright, I'm here now."

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: T

Warnings: Slight mention / implications of experimentation

A/N: I might have gotten a bit carried away with this... I also might take a little inspirational break tomorrow.

Damian should have known better, he knew his mother and he knew his grandfather. He should have known, especially after having met Respawn. Could his mothers behavior maybe clued him in sooner? But nothing had seemed any different lately, maybe that was what should have tipped him off. Yet if it hadn't been for Drake's paranoia, after another incident with his grandfather, Damian knew he probably wouldn't have found out anytime soon, either.

He ran through the halls of the League of Assassins facilities, knowing this place probably better than his siblings that were keeping his grandfather's men busy. He could hear them over the coms, he could also hear his father confronting his mother. They were in a different location to cover more ground. Richard and Todd were with him in this location while Drake and Cain had gone with their father. Brown and Thomas were back in Gotham awaiting hopefully good news.

Damian rounded a corner, dodging another of his grandfather's men. He did not wait or turn to pin the man down. Trusting his siblings to take care of this, and a second later, gunshots echoed behind him.

There were various options of where the child, his newly created younger brother, could be. But considering how his grandfather had changed, Damian took another turn leading to the underground area. As much as there was a likelihood that the child was created to replace him, he was sure that grandfather was raising the boy differently also, as he was now considered a failure since he had left.

When he reached the underground area he slowed down, blade drawn and surveying the area. It was surprisingly empty, something Damian did not trust. Carefully he walked along the hall until the distant sound of sniveling made him pause.

"I think I found him." Damian relayed through the coms.

"Gotcha we will catch up with you brat." Todd answered and Richard agreed a second later, spouting some 'mushy' nonsense in addition.

"We will finish up here then and prepare for the pick up!" Drake on the other hand informed, despite the fact that Damian could still hear their fathers end of what appeared to be a heavy argument with his mother through the coms.

Carefully he made his way over to a heavy looking metal door. Locked. Damian clicked his tongue. It took a bit of lockpicking but soon enough he heard the soft click of the lock and he slowly pushed the door open.

"Of course grandfather would have an underground lab." He eyed the room and the equipment stored in it. Different machines with different functions were lined all along the walls. He could see villes, tubes, containers and pinchers of Lazarus Water. But what really caught his eye was the huge tank in the back of the room. The tank was nearly empty except for a four inch high puddle of Lazarus Water and a barely clothed, blue eyed child sitting in it.

The child was indeed the source of the sniffling Damian had heard early as he now saw the boy looking at him wide eyed and rubbing at his eyes furiously like he did not want to be seen crying.

"W-who are you?" The child asked, voice cracking from obvious disuse. How bad were they treating this boy? "You look weird."

Damian knew his eyes were softening just a tiny bit at the child's question. They hadn't trained out the child's natural honesty yet. There was still a chance for this boy to grow up with more normalcy than he ever did.

"You can call me Robin." He answered the child as he stepped closer, noting how tiny the boy appeared to be, unintentionally clicking his tongue. Something must have been wrong with the documents Drake found. The papers spoke of a boy at the age of six. But this boy was tiny, clearly younger than that. Or perhaps they hadn't had the chance for the forced aging process?

"Are you a fruitloop?" The boy inched to the back of the tank away from Damian and he barely refrained from clicking his tongue at that motion.

"I am human, not a type of cereal." Damian shot back at the kid inspecting the tank and how to best open it to get the child out.

"Well duh. But you could still be a fruitloop." Richard would have a great time talking to this child, Damian briefly thought as he knocked against the glass of the tank, trying to judge from what kind of glass it was made and if a Batarang was enough to break it.

The child watched him, there were still some tears in the corner of the boy's eyes but there was also curiosity. "You really are getting me out of here?"

Damian absentmindedly nodded as he reached back with the batarang in hand. "Keep were you are, I am going to bre-"

"No, it's fine!" The child suddenly hopped up, splashing the puddle of Lazarus water against the glass as he clumsily stumbled forward, pressing his hands against the glass from the inside. Damian stopped mid movement, watching how the child's tongue stuck out in concentration as the boy continued to press his body against the glass.

For a moment, Damian was wondering what the child was doing until the boy's hand suddenly went through the glass, falling forward. Damian hurried to catch the boy as he literally fell through the glass.

"What did you do?" He asked once he had the boy, his new baby brother, securely in his arms. The boy giggled, swinging his legs a little in the air.

"I got powers!" It didn't make sense to Damian, neither his mother nor father had a meta gene but there was the possibility of his grandfather mixing in other DNA or possibly, he looked around the lab, no he didn't want to imagine this.

"I see." Was his only answer to the boy for now, he turned to his com. He balanced the boy in his arm while placing a couple of devices in the room in preparation. "The child is safely retrieved. Prepare for pick up."

The boy's eyes widened as Damian made his way out of the underground part. Richard and Todd were waiting at the entrance of the stairs for him. The weight of the boy in his arms and the feeling of his small hands clinging to his uniform, it slowly caused the realization that Damian indeed had a blood related little brother now. Not a clone, but a little brother. Sure he had been created through an artificial womb but the boy was not a clone.

"ETA 5 Sending the pick up location." Drake spoke over the coms.

He was close to the stairs when he noticed the boy pressing his face into his shoulder, shaking slightly. It caused Damian to slow down and inspect the child. Did he overlook an injury?

"You… are you really taking me out of here? It's not a trick from the fruitloop to make me trust him? You are taking me away?"

The words made Damian stop right by the foot of the stairs. Richard and Tood were right at the top, waiting for him. He could go up and let Richard carry the child and do the comforting. His brother was better at this than he was. But for some reason, Damian didn't want to do that. He sent one look up the stairs before putting his focus on the child.

"Do not worry." Carefully, while still holding the boy securely Damian made the boy look at him, wiping the beginning of tears away from watery blue eyes. Whatever his grandfather had done to this child, Damian as well as the rest of his family will not let it happen any longer, especially now that they know of his existence. "It's alright, I am here now."

Saying this sounded very 'cheesy', as his oldest brother would put it, in his ears but the small hopeful shine in the boy's eyes was worth it. "As long as I am here, grandfather will no longer lay a hand on you, nor put you through anything you do not want. I am sure father and the rest of our family will agree."

And didn't Damian know it? Because despite all the conflict and contempt that sometimes existed among them, it was still a fact that his family was protective, it was not a if but a certainty that if anyone harmed his baby brother then he was surely not the only one burning down a building or two.

It rang especially true that once they got picked up, instead of letting one of his siblings hold their new brother he tossed them a controller with a certain gleam in his eyes and watched them fight over who got to trigger the explosive he had placed underground before they were out of reach. All while their baby brother was snuggling into his arms and purring like a cat. Damian smirked at his older siblings, it appeared that his baby brother already had a favorite. Not like his siblings would have been a competition in the first place.

[skylersprompts]

DC X DP Prompt *19*

Daniel Kane knew that he was different. The older he got, the more he remembers about a different life. A life with a different older sister - Jazz - and not in Gotham, but somewhere in the Midwest. But he didn't dwell on it to much. He loves his sister Martha and he couldn't be happier for her. She married Thomas Wayne and they both seemed to be so in love. Then Martha got pregnant and a few month later he held his little godson/nephew Bruce in is arms.

Daniel stayed close to the Waynes and was more often in their house then not. But he also started to remember more, things that seemed impossible. Like a blues skinned, floating boy/man/grandpa. Sometimes when he looked in the mirror, his features looked wrong for a split second. White hair, green eyes and far to young. But he pushes all of this away and tries to live a normal life.

Then his sister and Thomas die. So he does the only right thing and becomes little Bruce's Guardian. It's hard, even with Alfred's help. But he tries do be there for him, while grieving behind closed doors.

When Bruce comes to him, to tell him about his idea to protect the people of Gotham, he first wants to objects, but something tells him that this needs to happen.

So after a few years Bruce becomes Batman. And Daniel worries every night, but he somehow knows that his nephew is doing the right thing.

And as their family grows, he can´t help but be grateful, even though his memories become more and more distorted. It was like he had a life before this one. A life of a normal middle class kid, then a teen hero with outlandish powers. But he was never much older than Damien in his memories, even though he got a new one almost every night.

At some point he started to write everything down. He hid his notes from the rest of the family, until one day when he had a strange feeling. He left everything out in the open for the others to find.

Daniel Kane wasn’t seen again after this day.

.

.

.

The same day, a black haired teen stepped into a portal to another dimension, dying without dying.

.

.

.

Clockwork had a sad smile on his face. But this was what had to be done to right the timeline. Danny Phantom couldn’t exist without Daniel Fenton, so he needed to make sure that this time someone was around who could also protect his human side.

After his identity got revealed accidentally and his parents captured him, it didn’t take long till his human half couldn’t take it anymore. He was only able to rescue the full Ghost of Danny Phantom and it took so long for the young ghostling to heal.

He send his soul back to reincarnate in the past so that they could change everything and he was again able to become the Ancient of Balance. But the moment that Daniel Fenton formed as a Ghost the soul of Phantom had to be reabsorbed into him. And so Daniel Kane would no longer exist.

But Bruce Wayne would still see him as family and Danny would get the family he deserved, even if he didn’t know this anymore.

[helloilikepurple]

I know a bunch of people have already written stuff for this but I was so inspired I couldn't help myself.

<3

It rains a lot in Gotham, especially in the winter months. Water pelts the roof of the manor now, the sky weeping buckets that will fail to wash away the grime and filth of the city. It's supposed to get worse overnight.

It feels disrespectful to do this on a rainy evening.

Danyal hated the rain.

"Damian."

He turns his gaze from the window to meet Father's worried eyes. Richard stands at his side, purposefully loose in his stance; a contrast to the other man's tense posture. A reassuring smile and a serious frown. His brother and Batman, Father hidden somewhere beneath. The cowl sits alone in the Batcave, yet its wearer stands here in the communal space, a towering figure of severity.

Damian scowls. Father insisted to be here for this, yet he has the audacity to meet his youngest son as some character he invented one day instead of the man he is. His lip curls up in disgust. How cowardly.

Father doesn't even have the decency to quail under Damian's stare, instead meeting it head-on with a firm, defiant detachment. Pathetic. If he insists on acting like a child, perhaps they should reschedule. Or, better yet, he could step aside entirely and allow Damian to deal with the matter on his own as he should have done after giving the guidance that was asked of him.

"You good, Little D?" Richard, always the peace-keeper.

"Quite." He bites out. His glare doesn't stray.

As he always does, Father remains stubborn. Unyielding. Infuriating. How dare Father stand there, matching Damian's glare with one of his own, like he has any right to be angry or afraid? Father is not the one who died - who was murdered at only nine. He is not the one who's suffering.

Damian understands grief. He's intimately familiar with it, just as Father is. But Father only lost a son. Danyal lost his life. Danyal is dead.

"Master Bruce, if you would step aside."

Father breaks his stare, eyes darting to land on Pennyworth as he strides into the room towards the coffee table, tray of homemade pastries, and perfectly cut fruit in hand. Father shuffles out of the way immediately, respectful in a way he hasn't tried to be with Damian. The tray is put down without even a tink as glass meets polished wood, yet Father's stubborn-set shoulders still jump just a fraction like a gunshot went off.

Damian sneers.

Father clearly knows he's in the wrong—why else would he be so on edge around Pennyworth? It's almost laughable that it took the intervention of his father to soften the stern, professional crease in his brow. At least Pennyworth shares Damian's displeasure. Richard does as well, obviously, but he's otherwise engaged hovering in this uncertain sort of way like he's torn over what to do about it, no doubt a result of the heated argument he and Father had last night.

"Excuse me while I fetch the water." Pennyworth glances meaningfully at Father. "Do behave while I'm off." And then he's gliding right back out.

A child would grin smugly at the show of support. Damian isn't a child, so he does no such thing, but he does grip the post-it notes in his hand a little tighter.

Cold hands press the stack of paper into his own, the touch lingering as it drinks in the warmth of Damian's living flesh. It's as greedy as it is needy, like this brief moment of contact is all it takes to remind his dead heart how to beat again. Damian, as he always does, indulges it, because it gives him just as much life as it does Danyal.

"These are summoning sigils." His brother says, voice accentuated by a ghostly echo that's long since grown familiar. "I drew them myself so they're a bit rudimentary, but they should work."

He pulls away, taking with him a post-it note off the pile and his touch. Damian feels colder without it.

"Just think of me, rip it down the middle," He demonstrates, the torn halves catching fire the moment they part, the flames a brilliant, Lazarus green, that spreads up his hands and swallows him whole in a fraction of a moment, "and I'll appear." He smiles, popping back into sight a few inches closer in a burst of heatless green.

Damian blinks, and crosses his arms, disapproving. "You were on fire."

Danyal grins wider. "Cool, right? Don't worry, it doesn't hurt. It doesn't really feel like anything except emotion and magic."

"Emotion and magic." He repeats, voice flat.

"Yep. It's a bit fun, really. Like teleporting! I hardly ever get to teleport. CW prefers portals." He adds with a roll of his eyes.

Damian glares, unconvinced. "Is it safe?"

"Of course it is! Look, Dami, it's really weak magic. I could refuse a summons easily, anytime. And it's not like I'll stop visiting. This is just a way for you to call me over. I promise, it's harmless."

"TT. Fine. But if it ever causes you the slightest discomfort inform me and we will find some other method for me to use to get in contact with you."

"Deal!"

Richard may be emotionally compromised, but he'd still jump to Damian's defence over Father's without hesitation, and Pennyworth has clearly allied himself with them as well. All it would take is for Damian to say he's changed his mind, that today is not in fact the optimal day for this, and they would agree without thought. Stand firm at his side in the face of Father's assured disapproval.

The certainty that he would be listened to strangely enough keeps the words from forming. It's raining. He reminds himself. That's more than enough reason to put this off. But Damian Wayne doesn't 'put things off', and he is not going to start now, no matter how much Father continues to test his patience.

Footsteps draw his attention back to the doorway. It seems Drake has seen it fit to finally arrive with Gordon. Not late, likely thanks to Gordon's influence. With a twist of the knob the door swings soundlessly open, revealing the pair on the other side.

"Sorry we took so long." Gordon greets. "Someone fell asleep at his desk."

"I was resting my eyes!" Drake counters.

"For two hours?"

Drake grumbles something into his coffee cup that Damian doesn't bother to listen to as he walks deeper into the room towards Richard. Gordon situates herself instead to Father's right, closest to the entryway and beside the sofa. A tactical choice, seeing as it leaves Father trapped between her and Drake, both of whom have never been shy about putting him in his place.

As if on cue, Pennyworth returns and shuts the door silently behind him, another tray in hand. This one carries a pitcher, a stack of glasses and two plain mugs, one entirely an emerald green and the other a Nightwing blue. An earthy fragrance fills the room, rich with spices, the distinct aroma of cardamom and black tea.

Karak chai.

Two mugs, identical in all but colour. Pennyworth sets the drinks down without fanfare, placing the mugs close to Damian. Pennyworth made karak chai for him. For him and Danyal, undeniably with the recipe Damian had entrusted to him all those years ago when he'd been craving home in the cold unfamiliarity of the manor.

Pennyworth does not speak nor look his way as he straightens back up.

"Thank you." Damian says anyway.

"You're welcome, young master." He nods easily, a pleased smile on his lips as he turns to stand on the fringes of the group.

His family is staring, he knows. Damian can feel Richard's sad eyes as they pin him with empathy and sorrow. He doesn't need the comfort. Damian is not sad. He is emotional, perhaps, but not sad. This is a pleasant emotional, like nostalgia and the surety he is cared for wrapped tight around his heart.

He clears his throat, and this time when he speaks his voice comes out strong and sure. "Now that everyone is present, we should begin."

Richard is a tense bundle of concern in his peripheral vision. "We don't have to if you don't feel up to it- "

"I feel fine." Damian interrupts, tilting his head so he can look his brother in the eyes down the bridge of his nose for good measure.

"Okay." It's a quick acquiescence. A show of trust.

"If there are no other matters to discuss- "

"Wait, are we supposed to sit or stand? Did we ever decide on that?"

Damian respectfully ignores Drake. "- then I shall begin."

The topmost post-it note peels off the pile smoothly. The paper is a toxic green, not quite the shade of the Lazarus pits or Danyal's eyes in death. A circle of runes etched in black pen covers most of the page, leaving only the corners free of marking. The script makes no sense to him, and even now, after numerous days of research, the language eludes him.

Danyal gave him a stack of thirty summoning sigils. After today, Damian will only have eleven left. If all goes well, he will never use those last eleven. The thought doesn't fit quite right in his mind, no matter how much he rolls and flips it.

Do this so Danyal can rest. He tells himself. For Danyal.

He grips opposite sides of the paper with both his hands, poised to tear it in two. He thinks of blue eyes so much like Father's. He thinks of private, hidden smiles and hugs shared under the dark of night. Of afternoons spent sparring, speaking without words as their swords clashed ruthlessly under their instructors' judging eyes. Of hands identical to his own.

Danyal.

He pictures stark white hair and a voice insisting it's more than white. "It's the colour of the stars, Dami. How can't you see it?" He imagines freckles dotting out constellations on unnaturally pale skin that had only ever known kisses of pain that left winding, twisted streaks of puffed pink. Damian draws Danyal with his memories in crisp lines that outline fangs and claws and a smile so happy it hurt.

I miss you, akhi.

He rips the post-it note in two. It wastes no time igniting in Lazarus flames. They grow quickly, tickling his fingers with wisps of power. He drops them only when the fire has almost entirely enveloped the paper that sparked it.

Danyal, won't you come see me?

The paper floats gently down, swaying to the whims of the flames. It has drifted down to be level with Damian's waist when it happens. He's already averted his eyes when the sigil explodes with light, flames large enough to brush the ceiling dancing out in a spectacular, blinding display.

The smile that his lips are drawn to in response is both entirely involuntary and decidedly soft, even as Drake's startled curses reach his ears past the roar of the fire. He steadies his stance as the light dies down, planting his feet into the carpet and bracing his legs.

In a swirl of magic the blaze vanishes.

"Ahki!"

A blur of black, white and green crashes into him with a strength that belies the lean frame that makes itself at home in his arms, burrowing fluffy hair into his neck. His body reacts instinctively to the sudden embrace, pulling his twin close as cold fingers grip at the back of his shirt, clinging to the fabric as tightly as the razor-sharp points of his nails allow.

Damian huffs as he rests his head on Danyal's shoulder. "Is it necessary to do this every time?"

"Definitely!" Comes the chipper reply, voice a giggling lilt in his ear.

"TT. I take it you've been well?"

Danyal pulls away, so jittery his freckles flash glitter-bright. Damian tries not to let his gaze linger on the starburst of Lichtenburg figures that crawl up his brother's face, slashing through his otherwise unmarred eye in jagged, faintly green scars. A marker of his second death. A second death so far from Damian he hadn't known of it until his twin appeared in his room one quiet night.

"When am I not? I'm the picture of wellness!" He grins, lips stretching just a margin too far.

Damian raises a brow.

Danyal doesn't wilt, floating back so they are no longer pressed up against one another. "Someone's grouchy." He teases with a mock pout. Always so childish. "Does the super-secret mission that you couldn't tell me about have anything to do with it?"

Super-secret mission. Damian's excuse, put less crudely of course, for requesting a period of no-contact to prepare for today. Close to two weeks of not seeing one another whatsoever after months of meeting up consistently at least biweekly.

"I don't believe I called it a 'super-secret mission'." Damian pointed out.

"Mm, no, I'm pretty sure you did."

Richard chooses that moment to succumb to the urge to sneeze.

Danyal reacts instantly. Damian gets a brief glimpse of his features stretching, pointed ears, fangs and claws growing substantially, skin turning any icy blue, as the ghost snaps around, placing himself more firmly between Damian and his family with a growl so deep it rattles in his bones. His spine looks as though it's been yanked up, standing pointed and crooked, around the abyss of light that Danyal has become.

Damian knows just what his siblings, Father and Alfred must be seeing. A dark, impossibly dark, almost pitch black void of a face, floating teeth and eyes, far too many of both, floating in the darkness, static buzzing nauseatingly at the corners of every visible feature. His Lichtenberg scar will have lit up, in contrast, a sharp green cut through a warped, mangled body, twisted in ways it shouldn't and far too long in all the wrong places.

"A monster from hell." Danyal had called himself once, ashamed and frustrated, eyes averted like he feared to see the agreement he expected.

Damian, though, had far from agreed. "A guardian." He'd said, calm in the face of Danyal's surprise. "Hurt and frightened, perhaps even angry. But kind. I cannot imagine any monster so flawed. A guardian, though, is hardly anything else. You paint a strong figure, akhi. Do not let unfounded shame confuse you."

So when he raises a hand and rests it on his brother's shoulder, frozen cold under thinly pulled skin, he does so without hesitation nor disgust.

"Akhi, they are trusted people. I give you my word. We're safe."

A glance to Father proves perhaps they're not. There's horror in his eyes. Traces of grief and regret and loss, but horror, blatant in his expression. Damian sneers. How uncouth. This is his son. His youngest child. He should know better than to behave so poorly, regardless of how shocked he may be.

The others, at least, look largely surprised. Pennyworth seems hardly phased, of course, and Drake's gaze is far too calculating for Damian's taste but it is not unacceptably so. Richard, the emotional buffoon, is obviously twisted up, features pulled down in, well, the closest term Damian can think of is heartbreak. Thank the Ancients, as Danyal would say, that Gordon is sensible enough to be visibly unmoved.

"Tt. Ignore Father. He is being foolish."

As though reminded of himself, Father pulls back into a carefully blank, but open expression. An obvious mask, but an improvement nonetheless.

Danyal turns slightly, and Damian can see, just barely, his eyes blink slowly. "Father?"

"Yes."

Danyal is still for a moment, and then suddenly he's shrunken down to normal; the right amount of eyes, dulled points and his natural height. He doesn't turn around fully, though, keeping everyone in his sights with sculpted ease. 

"Oops."

Damian raises a brow, pinning his akhi under his judging stare.

"They surprised me! You should have told me I'd be meeting the family! This isn't fair." Danyal whined.

He frowned. Of course Danyal would be uncomfortable; he'd never shown any interest in meeting Father or any of his adopted children. It was cruel of him not to warn him, but he couldn't risk Danyal refusing to attend. This is simply too important.

"I apologise." He ignores the wide eyes at the easy apology, most of all from Drake.

Danyal forgives easily, as he has always has. Not without fanfare, of course. "Ugh, you're lucky I love you so much." He accuses with a point of his finger, expression comically serious.

"Tt." An agreement without words.

His brother nods with humph, and whirls around to face the family he's yet to meet, back to Damian. A show of trust, even after a clear betrayal. Trust had killed Danyal, yet he still had so much to give. The thought made Damian's heart inexplicably ache.

"Okay!" Danyal started, a little too peppy to be genuine. "Sorry about before. Didn't mean to spook you."

Damian chooses not to acknowledge the wordplay.

"I'm Danyal Al Ghul. Or Daniel Fenton, I guess, but call me Danny." He smiles. Without the accompanying glow Damian has grown accustomed to it doesn't look quite right.

Father steps forward, acting the part of gentle parent. A disingenuous play rooted in truth. He supposes it's the best Father can do. Danyal does not move to close the distance, nor widen it. He just eyes him critically in a way Damian easily recognises as apprehensive.

"I am Bruce Wayne. I'm your biological father."

"I know." Danyal makes a show of looking him up and down. "I thought you'd be taller."

Father freezes, as though struck. For a brief moment, his eyes clearly glaze over as though brimming with tears, while his mouth twitches like it's not sure whether to frown or burst into hysterical laughter. And then he melts back into a marginally wider smile than before, expression almost nostalgic. A sort of sad joy.

"I get that a lot." Father replies.

"And I'm Dick!" Richard pipes up with a delighted grin. "Damian's favourite adopted-brother!"

Danyal whirls part way around to face Damian. "I thought Jason was your favourite?" He says with faux innocence.

Richard gasps, apparently betrayed by his "own flesh and blood". An incorrect statement, seeing as neither Damian nor Jason are related to Richard biologically. As he often does with the former acrobat's dramatics, Damian doesn't acknowledge the ridiculous display.

"Tt. I do not have favourites."

"Everyone has favourites!" Danyal cuts back. "Like, you're my favourite twin!"

"I am your only twin. There is no competition."

"Exactly!"

"Following that logic, would I not be your least favourite twin as well?"

Danyal brushes off the very sound rebuttal with a shrug. "Semantics."

Richard chooses this moment to let loose a high-pitched squeal, without even the decency of looking ashamed when Danyal is immediately distracted by it. "You're so cute together! It's like double the Damian!"

Danyal shifts back a little, farther from Richard. It's such a slight movement, if he weren't in a house full of detectives no one would have noticed. But to their trained eyes, his discomfort rings clear from that miniscule action.

Most of all to Damian, who is absolutely furious at Richard's choice of words.

How dare he.

"Damian. Spare."

"Stop! What was that? How can someone so incompetent have shared the same womb as our heir? Damian, come here. Demonstrate for that one."

"Lesser Damian, what do you think you're doing? You don't get to drink water until you do this right. Again!"

"You could do to be more like Damian."

"Better! Do more of that and people will start mistaking you for Damian."

"Danyal is his own person." He snaps. "He is not a copy of myself."

Richard, to his credit, realises he has mis-stepped immediately, if the way his expression falls is anything to go by. "Of course he's his own person. I wasn't trying to say he isn't! I'm sorry it came off like that."

It's a dissatisfying apology. A floundering for words and a panic to undo harm. It's not enough. Not for Damian. Not for Danyal, even if he is to argue otherwise.

It's an irrational anger, Damian realises. Richard truly had no idea they would react badly to a passing comment. Yet here he stands, furious to the point of missing his sword.

Tension mounts and is promptly broken by Gordon, who hardly lets Richard finish his sentence before she cuts in.

"I'm Barbara." She smiles, all approachability and unparalleled calm. "Everyone calls be Babs, though."

Danyal smiles back, tense muscles loosening as the topic shifts. "Hi."

Her smile loosens, becoming gentler in response. "The one with the massive eyebags is Tim," an undignified squawk punctuates her statement, "and that," she nods her head towards Pennyworth, "is Alfred. He's the one in charge."

"I know. I've been dying to meet you. All of you. Damian's told me so much about you." And there's the glow, white-green and joyful. Damian relaxes fully at the sight of it. It's not as bright as usual, but it's there, and it brings him immeasurable relief.

"All good things?" She teases.

"If by ‘all good,’ you mean a couple of lucky breaks mixed into a chaotic storm, then sure.” He teases, grin playful.

She grins. “So, what I’m hearing is… there were some good things?”

"Maybe if you squint." There's a pause, in which Danny rocks back and forth in the air as though rolling on the balls of his feet, considering. "So this is nice and all, but why am I here? What's the special occasion I couldn't know about in advance?"

Damian tenses up all over again, a familiar knot tightening in his stomach. Here it is, the moment he has been dreading, the one he had hoped, with a small but significant part of himself, would never arrive.

Their precious time together is rapidly drawing to a close, because Danyal asked, and someone will answer, and then they'll have to start. Someone will inevitably respond, and soon he will find himself at rest, left with the haunting silence where their conversations once flourished. No more secret meetings in the sanctuary of his room or the serene solitude of the library—just an empty space filled with what could have been.

(How many years until they'll meet again? How long will Damian have to wait to see his brother? How long will he live?)

(But this is what's best for Danyal, so the answers to those questions don't matter.)

"It's personal shit, mate. The sort of ghost your kid is won't like being seen by strangers. Poor bloke might even Fade right then and there if he sees me lurkin' about." Constantine says, taking another puff of his cigarette.

"Fade?"

"Die, Batsy. Like, proper die for them dead fellas."

"So I should not be present." Father says.

"You're family, ain't ya'? He'll be able to tell. Listen, them young'uns can be fragile, but they're still dead, mate. The dead know a lot more than the living do."

Father doesn't look assured. "How is Fading different from being put to rest?"

"Blimey, do I have to spell it out for you? Fading's dying. Rest is rest. The kid'll go back to whatever afterlife he's been in and stop tryna' take your boy with 'im. Be able to wait for him to come round the natural way. Or natural as it gets with you lot." He shrugs.

Father acquiesces. "What do we need to do?"

"Always so serious. Listen, it's simple as shit magic. Even the kid over there could do it."

Damian sneers. "I am no 'kid'."

"Sure ya' ain't. The runes can be drawn in anything. Chalk, blood, whatever tickles your fancy. They just gotta be big enough he can stand in the middle without touching any of the lines." He hands over folded piece of paper, presumably containing a sketch of the runes in question. "They'll just make him more agreeable. Sometimes the young ones panic and you don't want the fella to hurt himself."

"This can cause him harm?" Damian interrupts, stepping closer to the magician with a scowl.

Constantine scoffs. "Course not. What do you take me for? I wouldn't give it to ya' if it would. I don't go around hurting kids, mate, not even the dead ones."

Damian's scowl deepens, untrusting.

"C'mon mate. As much as I like your company I got things to do. Places to be. Demons to scam. You know how it is. So what's it gonna' be? "

"Your help is appreciated." Father steps to be in line with Damian, resting a hand on his shoulder. A leash disguised as affection. Damian seethes under it. "What else do we need to do?"

"What?" Danyal asks, wary. "Has someone died?" His grin is shaky, his glow dimmed to nothing.

Father steps forward. Danny floats back a little, basically pressed up against Damian. Father stops. "Danyal -"

"Danny." The halfa corrects. "Only Damian and Mother call me Danyal."

Father nods. "Danny, Damian has told us about your situation."

Danyal raises a brow, both confused and annoyed. "My situation?"

"We only want to help."

"Okay." He draws out the 'ay', suspicious. "Help how?"

Richard takes over then. "Send you home. So you can rest." His eyes are gentle and sad, his body language open.

"We spoke with a trusted magician." Damian pipes up, surprising himself and Danyal. "You won't feel any pain. I assumed you would like not to be alone, hence the company."

"I'm never alone if I have you." Danyal implores, turning earnest, green eyes to him. Eyes that used to be blue, years ago.

"I'll be there." Damian promises, because how could he not. "Just not yet Danyal."

"I don't understand."

"We're putting you to rest," Drake interjects. "Sending you back to the afterlife where you belong."

"Tim!" Gordon hisses.

Under typical circumstances, Damian would shoot Drake a sharp glare for his crassness, especially towards Danyal when emotions are already running rampant. However, these are far from normal circumstances and right now, he couldn't care less about crassness of all things.

Because he has a clear view of Danyal's face, and the only way he can describe his expression is devastated. His bright, Lazarus eyes have turned a murky green, the light sucked out of them and replaced with brimming tears, his already ashen skin turning an even paler grey-blue. He's not glowing at all, not even slightly, and he's always glowing. Like this, he looks like an actual corpse, and the image makes him nauseous.

"You want me to go? I thought you- you said you missed me. Why are you trying to send me away?" The tremor in his voice hits Damian like a bullet. He'd never heard his akhi sound like this before. Not since the day he died.

Damian grabs him, pulling him into a tight but brief hug. "I have missed you. I always miss you when we are apart." He draws back, still holding onto Danyal as he meets those dull eyes with his own. "I just want what's best for you. I do not wish you to be in pain. Everything I do, I do for you."

"You want to send me away!" Danyal cries, and it's then that Damian looks away from his expression and realises his brother is shrinking. "I don't want to go. Why won't you just come with me instead?"

Danyal is clinging to him now, shaking fingers digging into him as tightly as they can. Likes this, Damian can feel him grow smaller as well, having to look increasingly further down as Danyal's features grow more youthful.

"Please don't make me go. I'll visit less, I won't bother you so often, just please, let me see you. Please, akhi." Tears begin to fall, streaking pale skin with twin rivers.

"Danny, this will be good for you, I promise. We're not trying to hurt you." Father beseeched, uncharacteristically pleading.

"Shut up!" Danyal snaps around, baring fangs in a warning growl. "This is your fault. Damian would never choose to send me away. Right Dami?"

How could he possibly disagree? Danyal is so young now, a perfect picture of the body that Mother carefully laid into the Lazarus Pit. A perfect picture of the corpse Damian made of his brother so long ago. Perhaps he should be grateful the de-aging has stopped where it has.

"Right."

Something in Danyal's expression cracks. "Please don't make me go. Please don't send me away." He begs, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

"Anything for you." Damian says, the response coming easily. "You do not have to go anywhere you do not want to. I want nothing more than for you to be by my side forever as well."

"Damian- "

"Really?" Danyal asks, his voice so fragile.

"Tt. Do you take me for a liar?"

His brother sniffs, still crying profusely. "No."

"Good."

Damian lifts his gaze, already preparing to argue that they should delay this ritual a little longer. But the words die in his throat as he catches sight of Richard’s eyes—wide and filled with panic. Something is wrong. He shifts his focus, and for the first time, notices the runes etched in pencil on the ground are  glowing, radiating a brilliant white light.

Father stands at the edge of the glow, his expression unreadable, lips moving quickly in an ancient Latin chant, each syllable sharp and firm. The sound carries an eerie weight, resonating with a power that prickles Damian’s skin. Nearby, Gordon, Drake, and Alfred are all trying, desperately, to pull him back—to break the spell. But Father isn’t listening. He’s completely entranced, lost in the cadence of his own voice.

Chanting. Over and over again, the Latin words spill from his mouth, growing faster and fiercer, as if compelled by some unseen force. The room feels charged, and the air itself seems to hum with energy. Damian’s stomach twists, dread building in his chest. He knows this isn’t right—whatever they’re doing, they’ve already gone too far.

"If ya' ghost is being, let's say, uncooperative, you can put him to rest forcefully. Don't recommend it, though. It really freaks the little bugga's out. Not gonna' hurt him or nothin', mind you, but it's hard to cast a spell when ya' got some kid bawling his eyes out. All the ghost feelings might attract some blobs too, but they're harmless bottom feeders so they shouldn't cause ya' much trouble."

If Father is going to lay Danyal to rest against his wishes, then he can lose two sons. Damian has lived more than enough. He should have died the day he murdered his brother. If he's going with Danyal, well, Damian could not ask for a better end. 

"Danyal." Big, wet eyes find his. "I'm ready to go home with you."

Danyal immediately latches on, and everything goes green.

Dcxdp

Just thinking of like a demon twins au where danny finds out damian is no longer under their grandfathers rule and goes to visit him in ghost form.

And damian is grieving all over again. Because thats his little brother, dead at his hands. Never able to grow up and live a full life. Just this weird mirror version of it. And now that damians embraced his fathers way of preserving life it feels even more of a waste and he mourns the experiences they could've had together. It felt like less of a blow when he was still in the league and surviving wasnt much of a life. Danyal was most likely happier at rest then there, but now? Now damian wishes they had more time.

Danny not realizing hes forgotten to tell his brother hes actually still alive. keeps saying that damian should come with him. See his home, meet his friends, Etc. Damian thinking danyal wants to drag him to the afterlife. Considers it even, because he owes him that much. Scared by his own thoughts and telling bruce or dick about it. And theyre both grief stricken and furious. Just this whole misunderstanding snowballing. Another son but one whos been lost before they could ever meet. One theyd never been able to know. Who never got the chance to be a child before his time was cut short. And everyone wanting to find a way to lay danny to rest without him stealing damian away too. Bruce desperate to meet this imprint of a son he never met but terrified of it taking away the son he still has.

Lol thinking of like 100 ways this could go.

Bruce calling in constantine. Danny feeling betrayed that they called someone to banish him? He thought damian would be happy to see him? Would accept him. Thought he could meet his father as well.

Or

Damian making him a grave and showing him that he can "rest" now like hed never been properly laid to rest with the league. Danny thinking its either a) a funny joke or b) finally realizes whats going on.

Or

damian offering to go with him as long as hes able to come back? He still wants to live his life and there are others in dcu who can go between realms (sorta i guess?) Danny being like yeah? No duh we'll come back xD damian being like??? When he sees amity lol.

[radiance1]

So, Ghost Prince Danny. Except that he also, ALSO, is Damian's younger twin brother who was sent to keep an eye on the Fentons because of their discovery of a substance that looked like Lazarus Water yet isn't Lazarus water.

In truth, it was really just Talia's way of getting Danny out of the way because he lost against Damian in the battle of heirs (No Danny did not hold back, Damian was just better than him) and she didn't want him dead so that was the next best thing.

Danny does pop up in the League at odd times, mostly to report about the research done by the Fentons. When he became half dead he's around a lot more, mostly to be monitored for his unique condition (somehow someway they don't know about Vlad) and because Danny can just come and go as he pleases cause ghost powers.

So, Danny gives Damian a flute that he handcrafted himself as a birthday present because really, what can he buy that Damian himself couldn't? Also, because he didn't actually want to spend money on his older brother.

They're brothers, but they don't have the most cordial relationship. They don't hate each other, but they don't like each other either.

So, Damian takes this flute and is like: "Fuck you gimmie this for I don't need this shit."

And then Danny is like: "Just take the gift you stupid ahh fruitloop."

So, Damian takes it while berating that Danny would give him something as stupid as this, but then does a full one 180 by keeping the thing on his person at all times.

Not that Danny knows that, really.

So, cut forth to Damian being known by Batman and taken in. Trying to kill Tim and being an overall little shit, I can see one of the Batfam coming across this flute just, randomly really, and then Damian is fucking pissed that they dared to touch it and then takes it back.

Leaving basically everyone stumped over the significance this random ahh wooden flute has but decides not to touch that landmine.

So then the Batfam don't know that Damian has a half sibling (Danny came from Jack and Talia, so he isn't blood related to Bruce but is to Damian) running around out there and Damian isn't gonna say anything and you already know Talia isn't since Danny AIN'T his kid.

Plus, he got a job to do that being with Bruce Wayne would make harder.

So then Damian becomes robin an allat, then the entire Batfam pull up to the Justice League for some big threat and then both Constantine and Zatanna are like: Yo why do you kid carry round an item drenched heavily in death energy to the extreme

Batman is obviously like: Excuse me?

Damian, meanwhile, just does not give a fuck about the flute given to him by his half-brother on his birthday is apparently drenched in death energy to the extreme because that is his and he isn't going to just give it up.

So then one way or another Damian ends up playing it, maybe he was told to play it by both Batman and Constantine just to make sure it isn't actually anything dangerous or whatever and also because Damian wouldn't let anyone else hold it, let alone play it.

Which Damian smirks at because he's played it before and literally nothing happened aside from very good music, but Damian hasn't played it since he came to the Wayne household and has missed it. So he reminisces over how he got it, thinking of his half-brother and their relationship.

He plays it, but this time, since he genuinely thought about Danny death energy just condenses in waves. Damian couldn't see it since he was too focused on playing and reminiscing, everyone isn't really that calm and tries to get him to stop but the death energy blocks them.

Then a summoning circle appears in front of Damian and Constantine recognizes it as being from the Infinite Realms category and it seemed to be a high-level summon circle too so he's like: Well fuck.

Then, contrary to their expectations of some eldritch abomination, it's just Danny. Who, fun fact, was in the middle of his coronation as prince and such, dripped out in royal wear.

Safe to say, Constatine goes: Well double fuck.

The tension is just broken, as all Danny does is cry. Like, genuinely, he just cries because Damian still kept his flute that he made, he genuinely thought the guy just threw it away since he hated it so much.

Danny: Ancients, my big brother actually liked what I made this is making me emotional.

Damian: Why the hell are you crying this thing is still trash btw.

Danny: Yea whatever you say big bro, you love it.

Batman: What do you mean big brother?

Danny: Who in the hell is that-

Damian: Right, I never told him about you.

[starry-bi-sky]

(Part of this post with older brother danyal al ghul)

...Okay, look. Sam knows she's staring. She knows very well that she is staring. And that if she doesn't stop staring it's gonna draw her unwanted attention, and that will only have to make her explain why she's staring. Which she doesn't want to do.

She's trying not to stare, which she thinks she should get brownie points for. She tries to look away, to find a spot on the wall to stare lifelessly at, maybe she can burn holes into some of these annoying socialites' heads. But eventually her eyes drift, and suddenly she's back to staring again.

Can you blame her though? Damian Wayne looks like a very close mini-me of her fucking best friend. Seriously, it's like looking into a mirror to the past. If that mirror to the past had green eyes rather than blue and a distinctive lack of a facial scar.

The first time she sees him when her parents drag her over to Bruce Wayne to butter up to him she has to do a doubletake. Then a triple take. Then a quadruple take, just for good measure that she was seeing what she was actually seeing. She was sure she looked like one of those stress toys that when squeezed had their eyes pop out comically like a Saturday morning cartoon, that's what she certainly felt like anyways.

Look, Danny's come a decent way from being that scowl-y, jerkish little ten year old she first met when he arrived like the wind to Amity Park five years ago (even if he was still occasionally scowl-y and jerkish), but one thing that's stayed the same is how reserved he is about his home life prior to being taken in by the Fentons.

He doesn't talk about it much, and Sam's come to know that he's very good at changing the subject when it gets brought up. Even after being friends for nearly four years, the only thing she and Tuck know for certain is that he has a little brother that he refers to as 'starlight', whom he cares a lot about but left on really bad terms with. And that he's never met his father, but wants to and knows who he is.

He's never told her or Tucker who he was though, and glancing at Bruce Wayne, Sam is realizing why. She can begrudgingly acknowledge all the good he's done for Gotham, but... well, if Danny told her that Bruce Wayne was his dad, she wouldn't have believed him at all.

But she's starting to see the resemblance, as subtle as it is.

And she sees the resemblance to Damian Wayne, her eyes dropping back down to him as he wears a very Danny-like scowl on his face, arms crossed behind his back as his eyes swept around the ballroom. He was five years younger than Danny, and god it was so, so weird.

His eyes turned on to her, and they locked gazes for a moment.

Involuntarily, Sam makes a startled noise and looks away. Fingers tap against her purse, black and purple and unfortunately a clutch that only held her phone and her wallet in it. She would have kept a knife on her, but her parents put their foot down and there was a security detail at the door. Only in Gotham.

Silently, she was hoping that the little Danny-me didn't say anything. Or at least, he hadn't noticed her staring. Which was a tall order if she ever heard one -- and unfortunately, her silent prayers went unanswered as her mother's eyes dropped down onto her.

"Did you say something, Samantha?" She asks in a sickeningly sweet voice, a sound that makes Sam's skin crawl. Her dad and Bruce Wayne's attention also turns onto her, and she glowers at her mom from the corner of her eye.

"I didn't say anything." Sam says, barely keeping her tone polite as she turned her head away. Her mother clucks her tongue, disapproving, but from her peripherals doesn't pester her more

Bruce Wayne, the bastard, takes that time to turn to Sam and grace her with his dime-a-dozen billboard smiles. "I've been talking with your parents this whole time, Miss Manson, you must be terribly bored. How is your schooling going?"

Sam eyes him up and down. On one hand, she immediately wants to be snarky. It's none of his business what her school life is like, she doesn't care for his fucking small talk.

On the other hand, this was Danny's whole father. Someone who she knows that Danny has wanted to meet for, what she's assuming, his whole life. He's never brought it up much, but she remembers that very quiet, solemn conversation she and Tucker had with him where he admits to having never met his dad. But god does he want to.

And... wait. Sam's eyes narrow, and she meets Bruce Wayne's eyes. Does this man even know Danny exists? She drops her gaze down to Damian, who was staring at her suspiciously, and then back up to Bruce, and she alternates between them.

Why was Damian living with Bruce, but not Danny? Why hasn't Bruce done anything to reach out to him - what was going on with Danny's biological family that Danny had to be separated from them, but not Damian? Danny's always been kinda mysterious, but now things weren't adding up.

Was Danny given up? Does Bruce just not want Danny, but wanted Damian? Why the fuck does Bruce Wayne know about Damian but not her best friend -- or does he know and just not care? He's fought for custody for his adoptive kids before, does he just not want to fight for his other biological son? Does he think Danny's not worth it?

She's never cared much about the Wayne family before, other than to hear about the advancements on WE's eco-friendly tech, but Sam thinks she's gonna have to look into why Damian Wayne was living with the Waynes.

Slowly, with a protective anger beginning to burn in her gut and crawl up her throat, a scowl slowly curls at the corner of her lip as she redirects her glare from her mother onto Bruce. "It's going fine," She says curtly, jutting her chin out defiantly. "Me and my friend Danny started a petition to fix the leaky faucets in the girls and boys' bathrooms in order to conserve more water for the rest of the city."

She eyes his face, waiting to see if anything like recognition flashes through it. And- and nothing. Sam breathes in slowly through her nose, trying to quell the red that's blurring the edge of her vision -- does he just, not know where Danny is?

Her parents however, make vaguely displeased expressions. "Our Samantha is... quite passionate about her pet projects." Her dad says, laughing low and nervously, "she's very vocal about silly things like that."

"Her friend Daniel is perhaps even worse than she is sometimes." Her mother adds on, fanning her face with her perfectly manicured hands with a sigh. "I swear, he's the one that keeps dragging her into these things."

Sam's anger turns on its head, and she whirls on her heel like a fire-breathing dragon. "It's Danyal." It rolls out like instinct. Danny's told them both that he hates the Americanized pronunciation of his name, but in a rare moment of restraint, puts up with it for reasons unknown to her. "And Danny doesn't make me do anything, it was my idea."

The name, Danyal, seems to ring some kind of bell in Brucie Wayne's head, because she sees him and Damian quietly perk up like two cats pricking up their ears. Her eyes flick onto him immediately, something dangerous rearing its head. So Bruce Wayne knows about Danny. And he's not reaching out to him. Is he? She's not sure.

She does know that she's gonna rip his throat out if she finds out that he's known about Danny this entire time and has been ignoring him while favoring his little brother. She'll hunt down Aragon herself and steal his dragon-shifting amulet and wreck house on Bruce Wayne if that's the case. Batman and his league of vigilantes be damned. Her parents don't notice her slowly turning head towards Bruce.

But Bruce does, and she makes direct eye contact with him. His smile doesn't falter, he just tilts his head like a curious puppy and looks at Sam's parents. She hopes Bruce can read minds, she hopes he can hear her threatening him.

"Danyal?" He asks, and Sam doesn't know if she hates the fact that he said it correctly or not. She just continues burning holes into him and hoping he might spontaneously combust.

Her mother waves her hand dismissively, tilting her nose up poshly into the air. "Our dear Samantha's little... foster friend from school," she says, not even bothering to hide her disdain, "a creepy little boy with the most garish scar on his face. He's a rude little thing, not good for polite company."

Scratch that, Sam mentally alternates between ripping into her parents and Bruce. She whirls on them. "Do not talk about Danny that way." She all but snarls, and they all but ignore her.

(She's tearing up the upholstery when she gets home. She's going to paint over the fine china. She's going to do something to make them pay for this.)

"Oh yes, he was taken in by that freaky Fenton family a few years ago." Her dad continues in lieu of her mom, and they both shake their heads disapprovingly. "It's just what our city needs, another menace."

"Danny is not a menace." Sam continues, raising her voice while her hands shake with rage. Her parents finally look at her, but she can already tell that they're going to scold her for raising her voice. She bulldozes over them and jabs her black-painted finger at them. "He's got a bigger heart than the both of you combined."

"Samantha, please." her mom says, exasperated. They both give her disapproving looks, Sam thinks about grabbing champagne off the tray of a nearby waiter and throwing it in their faces. "You defend that boy far too much. What do you actually know about him and his family?"

Sam sets her jaw, puffing herself up like a dragon protecting its hoard. She steps into her mom's space. "I know that he loves the stars; you can ask him anything about astronomy and he could give you an entire lecture on the formation, class types, and various gasses that stars are made up of. He can tell you how the Earth was formed, he can tell you about the visible light spectrum and about light curves, and a whole ton of other stuff that I don't really understand. But Danny loves talking about it."

Her face twists and scowls, "I know he cares a ton about the environment and about fixing light pollution, and preserving the forests and natural habitats of animals." She nearly jabs her finger into her mom's chest, "I know he loves dogs, and that there's one he feeds every day on the way to school that he calls Cujo, its a St. Bernard puppy and Danny carries him around whenever he sees him after school, and is in the middle of training him."

It's not a total lie, but it's not the whole truth either. Cujo doesn't need food, but Danny gives him it anyways. "I know he likes spicy food and loves movies but specifically only sci-fi and horror, and he hates most martial arts movies. His favorite superhero is the Martian Manhunter, but Batman comes in at a close second." For reasons to her that were pretty unknown, but it didn't matter.

"I know he loves wordplay and making puns, which I would have never expected from him when we first met, but it's so unbelievably Danny-like that I can't imagine him not making puns." And she smiles a little to herself, she remembers the first time Danny intentionally made a pun once and it got startled laughs out of both her and Tucker.

Her smile suddenly falters, and she swallows. Her lips purse up, wobbling, and she very quickly glances over to Damian Wayne, of whom is watching her with a vaguely bewildered expression alongside Bruce.

She turns her eyes back onto her parents. "And I know that he worries a lot, even if he has a shit way of showing it. I know he had a little brother that he hasn't seen since he was adopted by the Fentons, and he doesn't talk about him often but when he does he he calls him 'starlight'." From the corner of her eye, she sees Damian jerk.

"So- so, so what if he's not 'good for polite company'." Sam's voice, embarrassingly, cracks down the middle. But she's so angry over Danny's behalf that she doesn't really care. "Or that he can be mean, and critical, and stubborn. He's learning, and he's becoming kinder by the day. That's more than I can say about you."

(She remembers when Danny finally admitted to her and Tucker being his 'closest friends'. It was sometime before the portal incident, and it felt like a milestone because beforehand he only really referred to them as his companions or allies.)

(At the time, he'd looked unsure of himself. Skittish like a stray in the back of an alleyway, almost shy in his own way. It had come out stilted, slow, like an infant taking its first steps, and it would have been endearing if it hadn't been heartbreaking.)

Her parents rear back like she'd struck them, and her mother holds a hand against her chest in aghast. Sam doesn't care, she blinks the sting out of her eyes. "Samantha." Her mother starts.

Sam cuts her off, "I don't care what you have to say, you-- you pricks." she snaps, around her, there are gasps. Belatedly, she realizes she's grown an audience, but again she doesn't care. "Danny might be an asshole, but he cares. And I'd rather be around someone whose mean but cares, than someone whose nice but doesn't."

With that, she whirls on her foot and turns on Bruce Wayne, who has been silent the entire time with a surprised expression on his face. He starts to shake out of it when Sam turns to him, but she doesn't give him the chance to speak. "Enjoy your party." She snarls, and then stalks away.

[flwrkid14]

Why Tim Drake Sees the Bats as Co-Workers and Not Family (Tim Drake is a Fenton)

aka a follow up to this post, on why tim calls the bats coworkers because I think it's the funniest thing ever

It’s not that Tim hates the batfam. If anything, he has a grudging respect for them. They’ve saved his life (and Gotham’s) more times than he can count. But to Tim, that doesn’t make them family.

Here’s the thing: Tim already has a family.

Growing up as a Fenton, Tim knew what family meant. Jazz was the protective big sister who made sure he ate, slept, and survived middle school. Danny was the chaotic younger brother who still cared enough to make sure Tim didn’t feel overshadowed. Even his parents, as wildly eccentric as they were, loved him with the kind of unapologetic enthusiasm only Jack and Maddie Fenton could pull off.

Sure, they weren’t perfect. They panicked after Danny’s death-and-rebirth-as-a-ghostly-superhero and left Tim with Aunt Janet Drake, thinking they were protecting him. But they called. They checked in. And once they realized how bad things were with the Drakes, they worked to make amends.

Tim never stopped being a Fenton, no matter how far Gotham took him from Amity Park.

So when Bruce Wayne swept in with promises of training, teamwork, and trust, Tim didn’t see a new family. He saw an opportunity.

————

The Batfamily Dynamics:

The Batfamily operates on trauma and duty. Everyone has scars, and everyone has a mission. That’s how Bruce connects with people—through the shared pain of loss and the relentless drive to make Gotham better.

But Tim’s mission was never born out of personal tragedy. He didn’t lose his parents to crime or see Gotham as something he had to save. He joined because someone had to. Batman was falling apart after Jason died, and Gotham was suffering for it. Tim stepped up because it was the right thing to do—not because he wanted to fill some emotional void.

And that’s where the disconnect lies.

For Bruce, Dick, Jason, Damian, and even Cass, Barbara and Steph, being part of the bats means finding family again. It’s their way of healing. But for Tim, it feels like replacing the family he already has.

————

Tim’s Perspective:

To Tim, the batfamily is a job. A very dangerous, very complicated job, but a job nonetheless.

Bruce isn’t his father. Dick isn’t his brother. Jason isn’t his big-brother-who-died-and-came-back (that spot was already taken by Danny). They’re teammates, coworkers, and maybe even friends. But family? No.

Because family is Jazz sneaking him snacks during his stakeouts. Family is Danny sending sarcastic texts about “ghost-proofing” the Batcave. Family is Jack and Maddie trying (and failing) to make sense of his vigilante life while showing up with enough ectoplasm-based cookies to fuel an army.

Family is messy, chaotic, and full of love.

And while the batfamily might be chaotic, the love feels conditional—wrapped up in the mission, the masks, and the unspoken rule that Gotham always comes first.

————

Why Tim Doesn’t Want a Second Family:

And then there’s the second layer—the one Tim doesn’t say out loud.

To Tim, having a second family feels like betraying the one he already has. Like admitting that Jazz, Danny, and the parents who tried so hard to fix their mistakes weren’t enough. And they are enough.

Tim doesn’t need another family. He doesn’t want another family. The Fentons are imperfect, but they’re his. If he started thinking of the batfamily as his own, it would feel like he was erasing the people who already mean everything to him.

It would also make losing them hurt more.

The batfamily’s world is dangerous. Gotham is dangerous. And if Tim ever let himself think of them as his family—as more than coworkers or teammates—it would make every death, every injury, and every failure cut that much deeper.

Tim’s already had to grieve once, when Danny died. He barely survived it. He doesn’t think he could go through that again, especially not in a world where loss is inevitable. Keeping the bats at arm’s length is self-preservation as much as loyalty to the Fentons.

————

Does It Hurt the Bats?

Absolutely.

Dick wants so badly to be Tim’s big brother. Jason finds it hilarious, but even he bristles at being labeled a coworker. Damian sees it as a betrayal of loyalty. And Bruce—well, Bruce doesn’t say much, but the tight line of his mouth speaks volumes. Tim doesn't even want to think about how Cass probably already knew, and how much it had still hurt her nonetheless.

But Tim doesn’t change his stance. Because at the end of the day, the bats aren't his family. They’re his team, his coworkers, and maybe even his friends.

And that’s enough.

[deadsetobsessions]

DCxDP prompt:

Danny’s Damian’s older brother but it’s like 10k words of him freaking out about how weird it is to be the younger sibling when he used to be the older one and Jazz+Danny’s need to help and be useful+manage people comes in handy when it comes to their neglectful parents.

And the other 10k words is of Damian angsting about replacing Danny with Dick and the others and grieving for his older brother.

Cut scene in the middle to Danny eating a fruit roll up from the ground as Jazz tries to pry him away like when you try to see what your dog ate that they shouldn’t have eaten.

Goes back to Damian telling Bruce about his actual first son. They try to find out where he died and somehow ends up in Amity.

Then? 10k words of them meeting.

Cut scene to Phantom, flattening boxes to soup Box Ghost, with no idea the Bats are on their way. Phantom wrestles with Cujo and accidentally dents a random plane. Whoops. Wait. Is that Bruce Wayne and his baby brother???

Resolution to the weird family situation? Bruce Wayne adopts all of them. That’s right. Even Maddie and Jack Fenton. They’re cousins now.

Alfred shakes his head over the paperwork.

Damian tries to stab Danny as Danny steals his last cookie. Jazz watches peacefully as someone else attempts to wrangle her gremlin little shit of a brother.

[phantoms-world-and-more]

Danny and the waynes

So playboy bruce wayne gets a girl pregnant, but because she sleeps around she has no idea who the farther is and cant provide for danny

So he gets put on the foster system for a few years when, at 5-7 years old is adopted by the fentons

The years in the foster system has caused him some mental health problems and that inspired jazz to be a psychologist

Danny growes up, has his accident, danny phantom happens, he comes out to his parents as phantom and they accept him, but aftrt a few years guarding amity he wants to explore

So he finds a way to graduate early, get permission from the fentons to go on a year long trip(as long as he keeps in touch)

Afew months later 16 year old danny is in gothem and gets into a rouge gallerys battle field

One thing leads to another and when danny mentioned he was in the foster system but isn't any more they ask to do a DNA test...

Only for it to say he's bruce waynes kid...

.

.

.

Commissioner gorden knocked on the wayne door asking to talk to bruce wayne

Gorden tells them they might want to get all of their siblings their while he talks to bruce, and takes bruce into his study to talk privately

So all of the batkids are there wondering whats going on when gorden walks out of the room, excuses himself and leaves

When bruce cmes out he's pale as paper and he says the words no one was expecting

:... i have another son

.

.

.

So they all get filled in and their all loosing their minds

Dick is exited to get another brother

Jason is praying this "danny" wasn't anything like the demon brat

Tim was a mix between hoping this one doesn't kill him, and getting ready to compete with dick for tital of favourite brother

And danian is having a life crisis at not being the only blood son but being the younger blood son

Danny is a mix between anxious at meeting his birth family and exited at having a more normal family

.

.

.

About a week later jazz got a call from danny with the words

:they all need therapy

[caffeinatedvigilantewriter]

This is a mashup of various tropes. Don’t like don’t read. May include

- deaged danny

- Damian x Dani (serious chaos)

- dead Jazz

- dead Sam

- dead Tucker

- not-shit parent Vlad (kinda)

- the Waynes have a strength kink

So when Danny is 18 and have safely moved out, has financial security and can go no contact with his parents he decides to tell him that he’s Phantom.

It doesn’t go well.

By the time Jazz Sam and Tucker find him he is deaged to around 6. The fentonworks lab explodes.

Dani, who is 16 and was on her way to visit, came just in time to sift through the rubble and find Danny, who has only had enough memory to recognize her as his sister. She also finds three dead bodies. Jack and Maddie survived.

Scared and mourning, she takes Danny and runs to Vlad, who realizes how terrible and obsessed Jack and Maddie were and gives Dani lots of money to hide somewhere where the Jack and Maddie wouldn’t dare to look- at least not for a little while.

Gotham.

So she takes Danny and changes their names.

Elliot ‘Elle’ Jasmine Nightingale and Daniel James Nightingale, brothers and sister duo.

Dani- now Elle- still holds a grudge on Vlad, coupled with the Fenton stubbornness, she insists that she can pay rent/bills/groceries/etc. she gets an apartment in crime alley.

Because Elle doesn’t want to leave a paper trail, she does a less-than-legal job.

She joins a fight rink under the name of Phantasm.

And she’s great at it.

Shes spend the money on education for Danny, ignoring her education for the moment until Danny is old enough to join school.

Damian and Bruce were having major arguments, mostly about his violence and Damian quits being Robin and becomes Nocturne. (Bc I love that name)

He undercover a fight rink and thinks if he busts the rink Bruce will trust him enough.

He does recon and quickly realizes that one of the fighters was incredible, winning fight after fight without causing major injures to her opponents. Her name was Phantasm.

He decides that in order to find out more about her, he has to join undercover. It was only to take down the fight rink and learn more about the beautiful fighter that could bend him in half and nothing more.

Damian joins under the name of Ghoul and swipes some DNA from Elle, learns her (fake) name her (fake) backstory (family died in an heated lab explosion) but doesn’t understand why a chunk of her DNA was unreadable (ghost part of her DNA)

After a bit of digging, realized she didn’t attend school and the next morning Elle waked up to a letter starting that her full-ride scholarship to Gotham Academy has be approved (GA offers a afterschool care for students with younger siblings)

Elle never applied and is confused but accepts after Vlad, Ember, and Kitty convinced her.

She coincidentally is put in the most of the same classes as Damian, who she eventually crushes on befriends because he’s hot she’s suspicious of his faint and funky ecto signature.

So shenanigans include (not in this order and are optional)

- GALA where Vald announces her as Vlad Co heiress and the are invited to the gala and get a bit sus of Elle bc Vlad is sus

- JASON AS ELLE’S NEIGHBOR is actively trying to set up/prevent Damian and Elle getting together (either one works, as long as the plans fail comically)

- PRINCESS ELLE OF YHE INFINITE RELAMS + SUMMONING

- TALIA ATTEMPTING TO KIDNAP DANNY because he looked like Bruce/she wants another son and Elle absolutely beating her 7 different ways to Sunday and Talia telling Damian that she approves of her

- ELLE DESTABILIZING/GETTING REALLY SICK and Danny calls Damian in a panic because he knows Elle trusts him even if she won’t admit it

- ELLE GETS SAVED BY NOCTURNE and Elle instantly clocks him as Damian bc of his ecto signature and rips him a new one because look how vigilantism turned out for Danny

- THE BATFAM THINKING DANNY IS THE CLONE OF ELLE and investigating Cadmus, who could have ties to the GIW somehow

- ELLE BECOMING A SORT OF SERIAL KILLER to protect Danny (check the comments @emerald-fox-93 linked it :)))

- DASH BECOMING A GCPD COP AND HAVING TO ARREST ELLE because she killed someone who tried to kidnap Danny. Damian picks her up from the station after she calls him.

- PAULINA BECAME A LAYWER FOR WE bc I saw a post like that and it was fire. She eventually fights for the removal of the AEA (anti ecto acts)

- THE OTHER BATS GENUINELY BECOMING CONCERNED and began to think that Elle is mind-controlling Damian because he keeps brushing them off to hang out with her

- DAN JOINING THE JLA and calling up Elle when he needs her help and Damian being there and being like ‘wtf??’

Jack and Maddie eventually find Danny and Elle and Elle vanishes. Danny- who Elle hid when the Fentons stormed the apartment- calls Damian sobbing and pleading for him to find Elle because the bad people are going to hurt her.

Damian, knowing little to nothing about her situation, basically goes ballistic trying to find her. The family, titans, and the League gets involved because one 15 year old doesn’t realize he has a massive crush on his classmate. He calls up that every favors he is owed (and some that is not) so now basically almost the entire LOA is after a 15 year old girl who was kidnapped by the two mad scientists who are committing around 16 wars crimes.

They find her after the ghosts she’s Still in contact with realize she hasn’t texted in a while and they’ll help Damian on his manhunt

And because Elle is the high princess, the entire ghost zone is ready to help Damian get their princess/queen/regent back

Jack and Maddie never stood a chance.

Any more ideas?? Please tag me and comment 🙏 :))

Edit: I’m updating the post as I think of new ideas, so it’s changing pretty often, you’re not crazy, I just have no writing ability and too many ideas 🤪

[goinggoingghone]

dp x dc au but danny is bruce's biological kid and he knows it. his parents straight up told him as soon as he was old enough to know, and he loves his adopted parents all the same.

of course, it was a bit rocky with all that ghost business, but eventually Jack and Maddie came around to their halfa son and liminal daughter. Danny just thought it was funny they took longer to accept he was alive and dead than accepting he was in a relationship with Sam and Tucker.

So there's some ghost conference in Gotham being held by the GIW in order to get more occultists/people interested in ghosts to work for them. The Fentons go there, as published ghost scientists, to expose the GIW and prevent people from buying into their beliefs.

But while they're out, one of the Bats mistakes Danny for a younger Bruce. Of course there are some differences, but the Bat (I'm thinking Tim, who's running on like -16 hours of sleep and several cups of coffee) is convinced he's a clone or something. So he takes a DNA sample and the results come out: he's Bruce's kid.

Bruce is devastated that he couldn't be there for one of his kids, and so he tries to get more info in order to possibly get custody back. Tucker, who accidentally found the network the Batcomputer used three weeks ago while looking for the GIW's, is immediately aware they're looking into Danny.

The Fentons have a collective moment of "oh for fuck's sake" and try to come up with a plan to get Bruce Wayne, who definitely is Batman at this point, to get off their case.

While on a walk to get his thoughts in order, Danny runs into Red Hood in Crime Alley. Both of them are immediately aware of the other for vastly different reasons. Jason, for "Batman wants to adopt this kid who already has a family" and Danny, for "oh shit this guy has a fucked up core what the hell is wrong with this guy" they have a Spiderman meme moment and Red Hood, always on the lookout for an opportunity to spite Bruce, offers his help. Danny accepts, with the caveat that he takes Jason to the Realms to figure out what the fuck is up with him.

Jason is extraordinarily confused but for some reason the Pit is really quiet around this guy and he feels safe around some dumb teenager so he's like "okay?? Sure??"

Danny takes him back to the hotel the Fentons are staying in and explains the situation a bit. Jack and Maddie hook up their temporary portal (blowing the electricity of the hotel in the meantime) and get Jason to the ghost doctor, Frostbite.

He gets diagnosed with "bro your ectoplasm is fucked up" disease and his ectoplasm is cleaned. He's like a diet halfa, with a few ghost powers but no ghost form. A liminal on steroids.

Anyway, Bruce sends a Batkid to the Fentons hotel (because of course he found it) in civilian garb to explain the situation. The Fentons Are Not Having It.

So, of course, with parents Bruce believes are mad scientists, he takes it upon himself to get that child out of a home of mad ghost hunters. By kidnapping him.

Danny's just pissed off because he finally got Vlad off his case and now he's here dealing with ANOTHER billionaire with a bat-themed super persona wanting to forcefully adopt him. The irony would be funny if it weren't so infuriating.

The Batkids are so happy to have a "new brother" in the house, even if said brother really doesn't want to be there. Jason just has no fucks left to give anymore and re-kidnaps Danny.

This of course sparks a game of Who Can Kidnap Danny and it's getting to the point where Danny just hates the BatFamily more and more because he was SUPPOSED to have a date with Sam and Tucker today and now he's holed up in the Batcave getting fitted for a vigilante costume by Nightwing. Alfred and Jason are the only sane people in the mansion.

So Danny "Bad Decisions" Fenton just says "fuck it" and goes ghost in private, leaving the manor and flying back to Amity. The convention has ended by this point, so they're all back home.

Cue BatFamily freaking out.

Eventually Bruce serves the Fentons legal papers (once he finds their address). The Fentons show up to court and verbally and respectfully ream Bruce for trying to re-adopt their son who they love so much. As the evidence of Bruce being wrong adds up, he realizes what he's done and feels like shit. Jason gives him a hearty "I told you so" for his efforts.

The Fentons live happily ever after, and Danny gets a cool secondary family that he doesn't really like until they all apologize.

Heheh. Just wait until they meet Dani, he thinks.

[disillusioneddanny]

Forget Me Not

Tim/Danny

TW:MCD

He found himself sitting in Tim’s old bedroom, photographs and cameras scattered around him as he desperately tried to figure out what happened to his baby brother. Figure out what he had done to his baby brother.

Tim was gone.

And everything felt wrong. Dick knew it was his fault. Knew that he had been there to watch as Tim slowly slipped away, leaving him with nothing but the memories that Dick now held tight. Two of his brothers had died now. And now he was stuck in a house full of memories, of nothing but haunted whispers and glimpses of a brother who was gone.

He had thought that no matter how far Tim went, Dick would be able to follow. He thought that if he had given Tim space, let him grieve in this weird, and horrible way he was choosing that he would eventually get his brother back. That one day, Tim would wake up and he would realize that Bruce was dead and he would come home and he would be the partner that Dick needed, that they would grieve their father’s death together.

Instead, he had been found in his safe house with his throat slit.

And he had gone somewhere that Dick would never be able to follow.

He had left Dick to grieve yet another family member.

The vigilante wiped a stray tear away as he stared down at the pictures, pictures of Batman, of Dick as Robin, of Jason as Robin. Pictures of Nightwing. Pictures of Batgirl, of Spoiler, of Orphan. Pictures of Damian.

Not a single picture of Tim.

Of the bright-eyed, intelligent boy that Dick loved more than life.

Of the brightest, most caring, cunning boy. Of a boy who loved with his entire heart, despite the fact that the world around them continued to shatter it, over and over.

Dick took a steadying breath as the door opened and a ten-year-old boy carefully stepped inside. He said nothing as Damian carefully sat beside him, his head pillowed on Dick’s shoulder as they stared down at the pictures together.

Tim had gone to a place where they would not be able to follow. But Dick had to hope that he had finally found Bruce, that he was happy wherever he was. He was going to let Tim rest in peace, and had refused to even entertain Damian’s idea of taking his brother’s broken and defeated body to Ra’s to bring him back. He was going to let Tim rest in peace, but he wasn’t going to forget him.

His face would one day blur in Dick’s memories, just as his parents had, just as Bruce was starting to do. There weren’t nearly enough photos of the seventeen-year-old. He had taken them of everyone else, but never himself.

Dick wrapped his arms around Damian’s shoulders as the younger boy shook with held-back tears of his own. He wished that he could have helped Tim carry this burden, took the time to just humor the kid. Maybe if he had, Tim would still be here. Maybe then, Dick would have been able to help Tim come back home.

But instead, he had to let Tim rest in peace. And make sure that his legacy would live with Dick until they saw each other again one day. Until their next hello.

———

Danny Fenton sat at the top of Wayne Enterprises and stared down at the city below. The entire town was in mourning, which was understandable. They hadn’t just lost a good one, they had lost the best one.

There was a melancholy weight that seemed to weigh on everyone in Gotham, he could see it in the ways that people seemed to just walk down the sidewalk. Each of the Gotham vigilantes had a different crowd that seemed to flock to them.

Nightwing was the one that the older ladies and the children trusted.

Red Hood was the one that the kids and the street workers called for when they needed help.

Spoiler was especially popular with teenagers, especially the runaways and street kids who seemed to run the streets like their own little empires.

Batman and Robin made everyone safe and comfortable, everyone knew to call for them for safety and help.

But then there was Red Robin.

And the people who Red Robin called for were the vulnerable, the depressed, the ones thinking about ending it all. He was the one for the kids who were ignored or overlooked by their parents. The vigilante who was there for the ones who felt invisible or unseen. He was the hero for the underdog.

He was Danny’s hero.

Danny rubbed at the stray tear that fell down his cheek and let out a breath. He was gone now and everything felt wrong. He knew that there was a reason behind it, knew that he needed to do what he did. But it still hurt, still made it hard for him to even breathe as the days went by. It was necessary, though, it was.

It was the only thing they could have done, but it didn’t make it hurt any less, didn’t make it feel like his lungs were shriveling up in his chest or like his heart was cracking into multiple pieces.

He was the one who had to watch as Tim slowly slipped away, as he carefully tied up each and every loose end in his life without anyone but Danny ever knowing or ever seeing what it was that he was doing. It was hard, it was painful and he found himself fighting over the feelings that seemed to war inside of him as the days went by.

It had been a week.

A week and Danny was still filled with regret, filled with what ifs and questions.

What if they had been able to do it a different way? What if there had been a different solution than the one that they had found? What if there was a way to do this without leaving every person in Gotham feeling like they were now missing a part of themselves?

He saw it in the ways they all looked towards Wayne Enterprises, where Red Robin once stood confidently with his arms crossed over his chest as he stared out over the cityscape. How he heard the other bats start to call for him only to falter in their steps.

He saw it in the way that Bruce would stand over Tim’s grave, silent and sturdy and unable to actually look at the headstone.

Logically, Danny knew it was the only way. Knew that he was going to have to end things like this. He knew every time that he looked at Tim that it was the right decision to make. But it didn’t seem to take the guilt away.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it.

Saw the way that he sliced the knife across Tim’s throat, saw the blood spray out onto the carpet, and felt his heart break as he saw the light fade out of the man’s eyes for just a moment.

His mental state was in a stalemate as he tried to move on from what had happened, to come to terms with the part that he played in everything. Red Robin was gone and it felt wrong, it was a robbery to the people of Gotham City, and he knew that the walls of Wayne Manor likely felt hollow. Because of Danny, because of what he did.

Red Robin was a hero for the unseen, the ones who needed saving from themselves, the ones who were barely keeping their head above water.

He was a hero for people like Danny. Which made sense as to why he would show up now.

“What are you doing out here?” A voice asked and Danny turned to find Tim standing behind him, his bright eyes curious as ever.

Danny turned back to the city and let out a deep, heavy sigh as he looked out over the city once again. “I feel like a piece of shit,” he said mirthlessly. “I know that what we did was necessary, was the only way to keep you safe from Ra’s and I know that you’re okay. You’re a halfa, you’re like me. But every time I close my eyes, all I see is me killing you,” he whispered. “I look at my hands and I see your blood on them. It’s like it’s seared into my memories forever.”

Tim let out a breath of his own as he sat down beside Danny and twinned their fingers together as he stared out at the city. “It was horrible of me to ask you to kill me,” he admitted, tilting his head to the side in that curious way he did when his mind was going in about thirty different directions and he was planning at least five steps ahead of what was going on.

“It was necessary,” Danny breathed out. “It had to be me so that I could transfer ectoplasm to you.”

“Yes, and I’m grateful Danny, you have no idea,” Tim said quietly as he squeezed Danny’s hand, holding it in his lap as he let his feet dangle over the side of the building. “It hurts,” he said quietly.

Danny hummed in response. “I know,” he said simply. “Dying sucks ass.”

Tim shook his head. “No, I mean it hurts knowing that they think I’m dead. They’re all grieving me. That was the hardest part,” he whispered, still staring out at the city, his eyes glazed over and unseeing. “Being turned into a halfa was whatever. I’ve had my throat slit before by Hood. I’ve had so many near-death experiences that dying was actually easier,” he said with a humorless laugh.

The newly created halfa sucked in a breath and closed his eyes as he tipped his head back, his nose now pointed towards the sky. He let out the breath slowly, his thumb rubbed against the back of Danny’s hand. The new death scar that marred Tim’s neck shone against the bright lights of Wayne Tower.

“What hurts is knowing that Dick is down there grieving both me and Bruce. Knowing that the only way I could ever save Bruce was by dying myself was fine. Knowing that Dick, and Jason, and Barbara, and Alfred and hell, even Damian are all down there grieving? That hurts worse than any of it. Knowing that my heartbeat is forever different so not even Kon can track him down now that he’s alive once more. It’s. It’s hard, and it hurts Danny. It hurts knowing that they’re all down there grieving me, thinking that I’m dead. And it hurts knowing that I’m probably never going to get to go back to the life I had. That even after I save Bruce, I’m never going to go home.”

Danny hummed in response. “I still don’t understand why I couldn’t have been the one to go and get Bruce for you. Or to be the one to kill Ra’s,” he said but Tim was already shaking his head.

“We’ve been over this, Danny,” Tim said, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “Even if you were the one to kill Ra’s for me and bring Bruce back, I would never be able to stop running. Talia would be after me, the Council of Spiders is still after me, the Justice League thinks I’m batshit, and I’m pretty sure I would never feel safe again. Being a halfa, being this, it makes it easier. I can survive whatever is thrown at me. Not only that, but I’m with you,” he said quietly and finally opened his eyes to look at Danny, a small smile graced his beautiful face.

Tim let out a shaky breath and shook his head. “Who would have thought that my mission would take me to the sleepy town of Amity Park? And that I’d meet you, the answer to all of my questions,” he said before he leaned over and gave Danny a soft kiss.

Danny just smiled against his boyfriend’s lips for a moment. “Well, it didn’t lead you straight to me. I mean you put your nose into a lot of places it didn’t belong and I was already investigating the whole Batman timestream thing in Gotham when it happened,” he said with a chuckle.

Tim just snorted and pulled his head back, shaking his head in amusement as he did. Danny just smiled and stared back out into the city.

When he had met Tim, he was in Gotham trying to figure out how the hell Bruce Wayne had been catapulted into the timestream when Valerie had called him demanding he come back to Amity and talk to the weirdo who was trying to break into the local museum. He had gone back to find a haggard Red Robin trying to find his own clues to figure out what happened. They had compared notes, and started investigating together. Danny had been ordered by Clockwork to collect all of the bat-themed artifacts that were spread out in the world, and Tim was desperately trying to collect evidence to get Bruce back.

Along the way, they had developed feelings for one another. Danny figured it had to do with the fact that they were trauma bonding as they went about their mission. They had managed to evade Ra’s who was actively hunting Tim down, evade the Council of Spiders who was also hunting Tim down, and evade the bats who were trying to drag Tim back to Gotham to shove him into Arkham for being batshit insane.

It was what led Tim to decide that he needed to die to get them all to leave him alone. They still had thirty more artifacts to find before Clockwork would allow them to hop into the timestream and pull Bruce back. Something about righting all of the wrongs that Bruce had caused before getting him back to the present. Danny wasn’t even going to pretend to understand why they couldn’t just drag Bruce back and then hunt down the rest of the artifacts. But as his mentor always liked to remind him, it wasn’t for him to question. So the seventeen-year-old simply accepted what the ghost of time told him and went along for the ride.

Faking Tim’s death had been hard, though.

They had to make it perfect, they had to actually kill him to pull it off. Danny had slit Tim’s throat efficiently and carefully. Had watched as his blood sprayed his clothes and the room, and the light died in Tim’s eyes. He had forced the ectoplasm into Tim who became a halfa almost instantaneously, just as Clockwork told him he would.

From there, he had receded into his core and allowed his human body to stay there. Damian and Dick had been the ones who found Tim. They had done all the tests showing that it was actually Tim’s body.

Danny didn’t stay to see how the funeral went. He had hidden out in the Infinite Realms like a coward until the agreed-upon time to get Tim back. After a week, he had gone to the fresh grave and pulled Tim out of it, leaving behind an identical duplicate of his boyfriend. And somehow the two had now found themselves sitting on top of Wayne Tower, watching the city below them mourn the death of one of their most beloved vigilantes.

From what they had gathered, it had been whispered in the streets that Red Robin had died in the field, none of the others able to bear the thought of replacing his mantle. A Red Robin suit hung in the Batcave beside an old Robin suit. There wasn’t a plaque for it yet.

“It’s worth it,” Tim said, his nose scrunched. “I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but it is. Once all of this is over, we can go anywhere. You don’t live in Amity anymore, not after everything with your parents. We’re seventeen, we can go anywhere we want in the world, do anything.”

“Maybe one day we can come back to Gotham. You wouldn’t be the first bat who came back to life,” Danny said gently, still holding Tim’s hand in his.

Tim gave him a grim smile. “Maybe,” he said, although, it didn’t sound like he believed it. And maybe he didn’t. From what he told Danny, too many lines had been crossed. Bridges had been burned and from what it sounded like, Tim wasn’t convinced they could ever be mended. The freshly created halfa stood up and wiped his pants before a bright ring of light surrounded him, showing his new ghost form. “For now, we have work to do.”

[hypewinter]

So I've seen a lot of posts that use Danny Todd or Respawn in reincarnation ideas. Couple that with a severe lack of sleep and a desperation to not do any or the various assignments I have and I got a gloriously stupid idea. What if Danny were constantly reincarnating?

We begin with Thomas Wayne Jr. Older brother to Bruce Wayne and brain damaged serial killer turned acrobat? (Boy the 70s were wild) anyhow after Thomas Jr. heroically takes a bullet for his brother, the higher powers that be decide he was given a rotten hand in life and decide to let him reincarnate.

Enter Danny Todd who has yet another tragic life. He tries to shield his brother from the terrors of the world and give him a good life. He even joins a gang and dirties his hands so Jason doesn't have to. The unfortunately ends with Danny Todd losing his life with the fire escape he's on collapses. The powers that be cough awkwardly as they realize this new life was just as terrible as the first. Therefore they try again.

Bam! Daniel Fenton comes bursting onto the scene and his life is actually pretty good. Sure his parents are a little obsessed with their research but by no means are they neglectful. Plus Danny is smart, talented, and driven. What a great life, nothing could possibly go wrong with this one! Until Danny turns 14 and promptly gets zapped. Now this right here opens up a whole new can of worms as Danny's newfound half ghost status gives him access to his past lives. Nothing too grand. Just little memories or feelings here and there but these glimpses seem to be getting clearer as time goes on. Too bad there's no time to focus on that though with all of these new ghost baddies stream in. Speaking of ghost baddies, during the events of TUE, Danny ends up sacrificing his life to save his family and erase Dan from the time stream.

So.... he's dead. Again. Geez what is with this kid dying younger and younger? Why can't you just live a long happy and fulfilling life!? *Sigh* That's it. Maybe what your soul really needs is some peaceful eternal rest. Wait where did he go? What do you mean he fell into a reincarnation pool? Who did he reincarnate as?!?

Respawn, son of Slade Wilson and Talia Al Ghul, opens his eyes. He has four sets of memories competing for dominance in his mind. Which leads him to be very confused and given his parentage/training, very angry. The only times things ever seemed to calm were when he was stalking Damian around his new family. Is that what he needs? The Waynes? But they already have Damian. Respawn would just be the spare if he joined them. He didn't like that. Replacement however - though still mildly annoying - he could get behind it.

[flamingpudding]

Fictober23 Prompt: 9 - "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: T

Warnings: Red Hood's swearing, mention of character death

Danny blinked a couple of times before he realized what exactly happened. He had been with Alfred making some cookies for the rest of the family after Oracle had reported they would all come back uninjured. And Danny had decided to help Alfred in hopes to get back on Damian's good side. The boy had been pretty short and huffy with him ever since Danny had admitted that he didn't plan on getting reinstated as hero.

The rest of the family had taken it sort or well, sure there were the occasional side comments in hopes to maybe convince him to come on patrol with one of them every now and then but otherwise his decision was greatly accepted. Alfred had appeared especially happy when Danny had announced that after having lived with the Waynes for little more than a year now.

Of course Phantom would still come out to help if his ghostly rogues decided to show up and pester his new family or Lady Gotham needed help with something or when Lazarus Pits were involved. But this certainly did not include a situation like that.

Looking down at his gloved hands, Danny breathed out a sigh of relief, noting that he had gotten summoned as Phantom at least. Pretransfomred. Last time he got summoned and had appeared shortly as plain old Danny before changing into Phantom, Tim, as Red Robin of course, had gaslighted the cultists into believing they hallucinated seeing Daniel 'Danny' Fenton-Wayne for a brief moment. The press still had a field day with the nonsense the arrested cultist spouted.

At least now they wouldn't have to deal with another media drama that could result in Vlad trying to fight Bruce for custody again. Still, Danny frowned, they had summoned him right out of a late night baking session with Alfred and knowing his family the way he does now it was only a matter of time before they all stormed this place or at least some of them.

Bruce had put a tracker on him specifically for this kind of situation, aside from the fact that he was also still pestering the Justice League Dark to find a way to stop it from happening in the first place.

"You do realize that you are in deep shit right?" The occult leader looked at Danny for only a short moment before continuing his spiel about how with the power of the summoned they would lead the world back to the balance it's supposed to have and bla bla bla. Being the Ancient of Balance Danny never thought he would even get summoned, aren't cultists in books more interested in evil demons, masters of chaos, Cthulhu and so on?

Knocking with his fist against the barrier lightly, the halfa noted that he would probably be stuck in place until his family showed up to disturb the chalk writing on the floor. For a moment he wondered if he should attempt to break out but then remembered the lecture Bruce had made him sit through the first time he broke a magical barrier and got injured in the process. It was probably better to wait.

"You know the last time I got summoned out of family time, one of my brothers went apeshit on the cultists." Danny continued to interrupt the leader's speech, just to be a little shit. He needed to pass the time somehow. Plus he wasn't lying. He had gotten summoned right out of movie night with his siblings, it's no understatement to say that they were not amused. Jason was especially pissed for some reason. "And the time before that it was my younger brother, that was a whole lot more bloody but no one died anyway in the end.

"Silence spirit of balance, you will listen to me. I was the one that summoned you."

"Yea… buddy that's not how this whole summoning thing actually works. You read a couple of fictional books." Danny retorted until he saw what the leader pulled out and flinched back.

How was that possible? Danny was sure that after his parents death, Bruce had bought all the rights of Fenton Works, including the patents and put it all in Danny's name no matter how much some tried to fight it. If it wasn't willed to Danny then Bruce had bought it. They had stopped any production of his parents' inventions, they had forced the GIW to cough up all the inventions they bought and then disband the governmental organization through the Justice League.

Of course Danny had known that some of his parents inventions were still on the black market and then there were also Vlads inventions but, the cult leader was holding up a Fenton bracelet Danny had specifically created for his brother to help him control the corrupted ectoplasm in his system until his treatment with Frostbite was done. How was it possible for them to get a hold of it? No wait it looked slightly modified from the one he made for his brother.

"This will make you listen to me." Danny's eye widened as he noticed a shard of a very familiar red crystal embedded in the bracelet when the leader waved it around triumphantly at Danny's reaction. It wasn't enough to brainwash him by simply holding it to his face but if he made direct contact with it? Danny wasn't so sure.

"How did you get that!"

"Oh not so mouthy anymore are we?"

His core quivered and all his eyes could do was focus on the red shiny stone as flashback ran through his mind as he pressed as far away from the leader as he could. His back hit the other end of the barrier he was in and Danny contemplated breaking the barrier and high speed flying home to the Wayne manor even if it risked injury.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The calm but familiar voice broke Danny out of his panic as he saw a blade sneak around the leader's neck. Robin was standing right behind the man seemingly having appeared out of nowhere.

"Robin! B said to wait for his signal!" Another voice appeared and Danny heard the thud next to him with the flutter of a cape. Relieved, he turned his head ever so slightly to find Red Robin next to the barrier, looking unimpressed at the fact that Robin, from the looks of it, had run ahead of them once again.

Robin clicked his tongue and Danny finally relaxed enough to snicker at his siblings' banter. Before he could add in his own two cents to the banter a window crashed in and Red Hood added himself to the rescue party.

"Can't any of you follow a fucking plan?" The man announced his presence loudly while also landing boot first on some random cultist members. That instantly scattered, their stunned frozeness, caused by their leader getting held at blade point, broken now.

"You're one to talk. Since when do you simply follow B's plans anyway?" Red Robin huffed back, taking the bracelet from the leader as well as destroying the barrier seal with his boot by smudging the chalk writing.

"Point taken." The other answered as he started to knock out any cultist that was in his reach. Red Robin joined him once he gave Danny a look over and was certain that the barrier no longer existed.

Robin once more clicked his tongue causing Danny to look over, the leader now knocked out cold before his feed. "Phantom, you need to stop getting summoned by these incompetent…"

"Imbeciles!"

"Scoundrels!"

"Asshats!"

"Scum!"

"Fucktards!"

"Lunatics!"

"I do not require your input!" Robin shouted across the room at their older siblings that were currently giving the rest of the cult members the beat down of their life.

"Fruitloops?" Danny offered chuckling at the seething glare Robin directed at him for that and he lifted the palm of his hands in a sign of peace.

[duskyashe]

CAMP NANO DAY 6

[chapter 4] [AO3]

(please see tags for trigger warnings)

============<×^-^×>============

It was a little known fact that Bruce Wayne hadn't only fostered his boys. As one of the few above-the-board trained and highly experienced foster parents in Gotham, Bruce had actually fostered dozens of children from all kinds of situations over the years. The only kids the press ever actually found out about were the ones he legally gained custody of, in one way or another, due to stringent privacy policies set in place back when he'd applied to be a foster parent for Dick.

Sometimes Bruce is able to keep in contact with his former foster kids, and he's always happy when that's the case, but other times he loses complete contact with them and can't legally track them down again. It's those children, outside of the ones he's legally able to claim as his own, that he worries about relentlessly. But even among those kids, there's two he worries about the most.

Jasmine Madeline Fenton and her younger brother Daniel Jackson Fenton had come into Bruce's life and home when Dick was thirteen. They weren't the first kids he'd fostered since adopting Dick, but they were the most impactful. Jazz was six, her hair was freshly cut and washed, her clothes neat and a bit on the baggy side, and her backpack still had a tag on it. Danny was three, he, too, had freshly cut and washed hair, his clothes were brand new, and his diaper bag was fully stocked.

Jazz was six and her clothes hung off her frame. She had bags under eyes and didn't know how to brush or wash her own hair. The backpack she had when she walked in his front doors was the very first new thing she'd ever seen that her parents hadn't immediately cannibalized for their experiments.

Danny was three and hadn't been given a real bath in almost a year. His clothes were all either too small or his sister's hand-me-downs. His diaper hadn't been changed in over six hours.

Bruce had been so sure he was going to be awarded permanent custody of the two. There had obviously been criminal neglect going on in that household at least, it should have been child's play to gain permanent custody of them. His lawyer and the children's case manager had assured them their case was practically airtight.

The kids had only been in his custody for two weeks before the state awarded full parental rights to the Drs Fenton. Jazz had only barely started getting used to eating three times a day again. Danny had just started smiling whenever Dick played peekaboo with him. And the courts sent. Them. Back. A month later and the Fenton's moved without a word, leaving behind not a single trace. It was almost as though they'd vanished.

Dick had been devastated. Alfred was crushed. And Bruce? Bruce experienced the five stages of grief for the second time in his life twice over. For years, he had private investigators searching everywhere he could think of for the siblings, desperately hoping to find even the slimmest glimmer of hope that they were alright, that they were still alive.

Jason coming into the household lessened some of that pain and desperation, especially after Bruce obtained full custody of him, but the tension between Dick and Jason drove the lingering tension between Dick and Bruce to critical levels. Argument after argument, fight after fight, all about the same topic: Why did Jason get adopted when Jazz and Danny were still out here?

Eventually the tension exploded in one of the worst ways possible, and the family was reduced back down to three. The first six months after Jason's funeral, Bruce refused to take on any new children. He even asked the private investigators to only contact him if they definitively found proof of the kids. The pain, the grief, the guilt was just too much for him. He'd failed Jazz and Danny, and he'd failed Jason, too. He couldn't handle failing yet another child.

Then Tim showed up, too tiny and too determined to get his way. The shock of seeing the obvious evidence of yet more criminal neglect from his own neighbors drew Bruce out of his downward spiral just enough to realize he needed help. Tim was right, he had been killing himself with his work, and doing so was the exact opposite of what Jazz, Danny, or Jason would have wanted from him. He notified CPS of a possible situation he was keeping an eye on, as well as the fact that he was pulling himself back together so he'd be able to reapply to be a foster parent, and then sought the help of a therapist sworn to absolute secrecy with the help of multiple NDAs.

A year later, he was reinstated as a foster parent, awarded first temporary, then later full, custody of Tim. He fostered a pair of blonde little girls for a few nights before an aunt was found in Vineland, New Jersey, who got custody instead. About a month after them, he fostered a ten year old boy for a week before his dad regained custody. He even fostered Tim's friend, Stephanie Brown, for two months while her mom went through rehab.

And then Red Hood came to town.

Between trying to track down and figure out who Red Hood was, Bruce also took on twin eight year old boys for about five days, a fifteen year old girl for two and a half weeks, a pair of cousins for ten days, and three siblings for a night. When Red Hood was finally revealed to be a revived Jason, angry at the thought that Bruce had replaced him and missing a few key memories, it had been two years since the last time he'd heard from the private investigators he'd hired eleven years prior. After weeks of careful negotiation and peace talks between Bruce and Jason, the family of four was well on their way to being the family of five they legally were, when Bruce decided it was time to get back in contact with the team he'd left in charge of the investigation looking for the Fentons. They only had a potential sighting of the Fentons at a class reunion in Wisconsin a few months prior, but any sighting was better than what they'd had for most of the eleven years prior, so Bruce asked them to double down and see what came from it.

Two weeks later, there was a knock on the manor door. It was the middle of a torrential downpour, one of the worst thunderstorms Gotham had seen in years, yet there was undeniably someone knocking at the door. Bruce, who'd been passing through the entry hall on a late evening stroll through the manor, was the one to answer the door.

She was in her late teens, her hair was long, wet, and stuck to the side of her face, her clothes in poor repair with splotches of dark red and neon green on them, and her backpack was worn and frayed. He was in his early teens, he, too, had long, wet hair that stuck to his face, his clothes were rags and barely hanging onto him with more of those dark red and neon green splotches, and his duffle bag was stuffed to the gills.

"Mr Wayne?" Jasmine Madeline Fenton asked, voice quivering as the two of them huddled on his doorstep, Daniel Jackson Fenton's eyes drooping to half mast from exhaustion. "We need your help. Our parents are trying to murder us."

============<×^-^×>============

I'm not gonna lie, it took me forever to figure out what I wanted to write today, but once I decided on this, it just wrote itself (⁠^⁠_⁠^⁠メ⁠) I actually got the idea for this fic from a prompt @evandarya had posted in the Batpham server a while back, which I absolutely loved and just had to write, so this ficlet is dedicated to them (not that they're aware of it yet lol)

Once again, I have no idea if I'll ever continue this ficlet, for my muse is fickle and likes to play favorites ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠⊙⁠_⁠ʖ⁠⊙⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ I might get lucky and get sudden inspiration for a sequel for this, or I might not, who knows? Honestly, if anyone wants to add onto this, go right ahead lol that'd be amazing.

[samgirl98]

Forgotten Demon Twin 4/?

Prev | Next

Damian crossed his arms. A part of him wanted to be angry at Danyal. How dare he lie to them? They wanted to ensure he was fine, and here he was, not telling them the whole truth.

Then, the guilt set in.

Damian wouldn’t have to have asked if he had checked up on his brother if he had remembered he had a brother. Why was he so angry? They were strangers to Danyal. Of course, he would keep his secrets close to his chest. He had lied to the League, knowing that it could result in his death. Lying to the famous ‘no killing allowed’ Batman must’ve been easier.

Danyal sat in midair, his legs crossed.

It was difficult to see Danyal as, was he a ghost? Was his brother dead?

“How did you gain powers,” Richard asked, “Neither Talia nor Bruce have the metagene.”

Danyal shrugged but didn’t answer.

“Listen, I appreciate that you guys care enough to come and visit me, even if it is years later,” he mumbled the last part. It still made the family flinch, “But I don’t owe you guys anything. I don’t have to explain the ifs, whys, and buts. Just because you guys feel guilty, you can’t just uproot my whole life and claim to care and want to take me away from the only loving family I have ever known.”

“I’m not in any danger here—”

“You’re a child hero without adult supervision,” Bruce said.

“—And I have everything under control.”

“You shouldn’t have to have everything under control, Danny. I understand the need to help, but you’re young. You deserve to have some help.”

“What makes you think I don’t have help?”

“Really, do your parents know you’re Phantom?”

Danyal said nothing.

“We want to help, Danyal,” Damian said.

A look of anger marred Danyal’s face.

“Help? Like when you said you would help me train, shoved a sword through my shoulder, and then pushed me from a tower?”

Damian flinched and ignored Tim’s judgmental look.

“That was wrong of me. I apologize for everything I’ve done to you.”

Danny was about to say something before stopping. He still wasn’t one hundred percent sure this wasn’t a trap and didn’t want to give Damian a reason to take him back. So far, it looked like the League was no longer involved, but Batman and his…children were an unknown factor. If he could convince them to leave…

“Daniel James Fenton, you are in big trouble, young man!”

Uh-oh. Irate older sister alert.

Every member of the Batfamily was surprised that an angry teenage red-haired girl had snuck up on them.

She was carrying a green and white baseball bat, and her eyes seemed to glow.

Duke noticed she had a weird aura around her, too. It wasn’t as strong as Danny’s, but still there.

“Who are you people? Why is a group of mostly adults meeting my younger brother in the middle of the night in a desolate park?”

The girl looked at everyone at them and gave a double take when she spotted Damian. She turned to Danny.

“Why are they here,” she asked loudly.

“Jazz, this is Bruce and Damian Wayne. They are my biological father and twin brother. Oh, and everyone else is Bruce’s adopted kids, I guess.”

Wow, he had Damian’s introduction skills.

She turned around and crossed her arms. The bat was still in her hands.

“I’ll ask again: why are you here?”

“I just found out about Danny and wanted to meet him?”

Jazz walked up to Bruce and, without hesitation, poked Bruce’s chest with the baseball bat.

“Oh, and you couldn’t have waited until morning and talked to our parents first? You just had to lure my baby brother away from the safety of his home and basically ambush him?”

“Jazz,” Danny whined, embarrassed.

“I’m just saying it how I see it, little brother.”

“There were some outside circumstances that would’ve made meeting,” Jazz interrupted Bruce by banging the end of the baseball bat on the floor. It left a crater.

“I don’t care about you’re ‘outside circumstances.’ Most of you are adults, and you have a minor with you at night without his legal guardian’s knowledge. If you want to talk to Danny, meet our parents first and set up a meeting like a normal person.”

“Jazz, you don’t understand who they are—”

“I don’t care if they’re the president. Rules exist for a reason. Now come, Danny, we’re going home. Tucker and Sam are worried.”

Danny detransformed and followed Jazz. The last thing he heard was the butler say, “I like her.”

He sighed. It was going to be a long ride back home.

____

Tim had yet to learn what happened.

One minute, he was introduced to the Demon Brat’s twin brother (who seemed more mellow than Damian). The next, they had been attacked by some creature that Danny beat in under ten seconds.

He knew Danny had been lying when he opened his mouth, and Cass had confirmed it. He hadn’t had time to interrogate the kid, though, before an angry red-hair, who reminded him a bit of Barbara, showed up and chewed Bruce out while holding nothing more than a baseball bat.

“Well, that was…interesting,” Duke said.

“I like her,” Jason said, “She stood up to Bruce.”

Bruce glared at Jason. It wasn’t often he got chewed out, and it had never been from a teenage girl. He didn’t like it.

“So, next course of action,” Tim asked.

“Tt, obviously we get Danyal out of this…situation. He shouldn’t have to deal with all of this alone.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, baby bat.”

“Why not?”

“Danny seems to be attached to his adoptive family. He’s suffered a lot in the League. Don’t you think we should consider his feelings?”

The brat thought about it before deflating a little but said nothing.

“So, I repeat: what now?”

Bruce said nothing, not sure what to do.

Suddenly, the smell of earl grey tea was heavy in the air, and he felt the phantom hand of his late surrogate father.

He took a deep breath and said, “It’s time to meet the Fenton.”