#and am fixing it up | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

confessedlyfannish · 1 year ago

Text

DP x DC Writing Prompt #5

Damian does not glance back at Bruce when he knocks on the door. Instead they both wait in silence.

After a moment, the door opens.

"Hello," Jasmine, Jazz, Fenton greets politely, unsurprised to find the Waynes on her doorstep. Damian's expression grows ever darker at this revelation.

"Hello Ms. Fenton, are your parents home?" Bruce asks, placing a firm hand on Damian's shoulder, to ground as much as to restrain. To his credit he does not shake it off.

"No, they're out of town for a conference," the eighteen year-old says, opening the door wider. "But I think you'd better come in."

Bruce would normally decline, but Ms. Fenton is a legal adult and he has already, even unknowingly, waited 16 years. Damian makes the choice for him, striding past the threshold.

"Please take a seat," Jazz says as she leads them to the living room. She ignores Damian's swinging head as he takes in the home. It is deceptively large, a 90s style house filled with modern furniture. The walls are bright, with purple and green accents that would normally feel garish but somehow work. The stairs leading to the second floor are lined with family photos that Bruce yearns to take a closer look at. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?"

"No, that's alright, thank you," Bruce says, taking a seat on the long plush couch. A men's windbreaker lies haphazardly thrown across one of the arms. A closed container of Oreo cookies sit on the coffee table next to a physics textbook open to chapter 16, half covered in highlighter and filled with sticky notes. There's a child's painting framed next to the tv, a handprint made to look like a thanksgiving turkey in bright blue.

For the home of experimental scientists, it is cozy and well lived-in.

Damian repeatedly glances at the stairs through the doorway.

Bruce clears his throat. "We were hoping to--"

"I've texted--oh, I'm sorry," Jazz says, having spoken at the same time. Bruce gestures for her to go on.

"I've contacted Danny, he should be here soon. He was out with some friends." Jazz explains. As she hadn't pulled out a phone in their presence, Bruce can only deduce they have some sort of camera at their front door. This also explains Ms. Fenton's complete lack of surprise at their appearance.

"So you know who we are." Damian says, the first words he's spoken since they arrived at the house and the longest sentence he's spoken since they arrived in Amity Park.

"I do," Jazz says, calm in the face of Damian's clearly simmering anger. Bruce trusts him not to attack Ms. Fenton, but he still watches him carefully.

"He told you about me," Damian says. It is the same question, but it is also not.

"He did," Jazz says.

Damian swallows. "I see," he grits out.

Jazz's neutrality slips and her face softens in sympathy. "Damian," she starts hesitantly, but before she can say anything else the front door opens.

A moment later Bruce's son walks through the doorway, and Damian is on him.

This is what Bruce hoped to prevent, but despite his numerous checks of Damian's luggage his son has still managed to smuggle a small dagger, which he now produces and swings in a calculated arc at Daniel Fenton's jugular.

Danny dodges cleanly, and dodges every swipe thereafter in a manner that speaks to continued practice long after his time at the League. Damian is a perfect product of his training, but it is up against Danny his flaws come to light. He is just as good as he always was, but Danny is better.

In a matter of seconds Damian grows frustrated and sloppy in his attacks, completely atypical for him. Danny takes Damian out at the knees and pins him down with one arm, pressing his face into the carpet.

"Calm down," he orders. His voice is deeper than Damian's at sixteen to his twelve, the accent that still traces Damian's words completely gone from his speech. Damian growls and thrusts his head back into Danny's face, meeting it with a sharp thunk. He rolls up as Danny recoils, putting distance between them. Danny glares at him from several steps away, hand to his forehead. Damian tosses the dagger into his other hand as he charges, and to Bruce's surprise Danny does nothing more than turn his face to the side, allowing Damian to draw a sharp line down his cheek.

Damian stops dead in his tracks.

"Are you done?" Danny asks, blood beginning to pool at the seam of the cut.

Damian's expression is stricken, eyes stuck on the blood starting to drip down his brother's face.

"I said, are you done, Damian?" Danny asks. His voice is cold.

Damian hears him this time, and he flushes red. "I--you--"

Danny sighs. He looks at Jazz, whose expression is back to carefully controlled.

"Are you alright?" he asks her. She nods.

"You left me," Damian accuses, standing there holding his bloody dagger limply.

Danny turns back to him, raising an eyebrow.

"You left me," Damian repeats louder, rapidly blinking.

"Yes. I did." Danny provides no excuse nor any explanation. His stance is unyielding.

Damian's eyes bounce wildly, shifting to Jazz and Danny slides smoothly in front of her, protectively. He looks at Damian warily, not as if he is his brother, but as if he is a danger. Damian flinches.

Hope is the last to die, Bruce thinks, watching as that last bit of hope Damian had is extinguished, the knowledge working its way through every inch of his body like ice in his veins. His eyes darken. He turns and runs from the room, the front door slamming shut not a moment later.

Jazz stands up, pulling a few tissues from the box on the coffee table. She presses them to Danny's face, cupping his cheek until he holds it himself. "I'm going to go get the first aid kit," she says gently. It is a thinly veiled excuse to leave them alone, and Bruce is grateful for it as she heads for the stairs.

They both wait until her footsteps have faded, taking each other in. Bruce looks at his mother's eyes and the sharp turn of Talia's nose. Damian's everything, four years older.

"You shouldn't have come here," Danny says, throwing himself on the armchair Jazz has just vacated.

"You know who I am," Bruce says carefully.

Danny glares. "I've kept your secret. She nor my parents know."

"I know," Bruce says. "That's not what I meant. You know who I am. And who I pretend to be. So you know I am familiar with masks."

"And?" Danny asks, looking vaguely bored.

"And so I can recognize when someone is wearing one. Damian will too, once he's calmed down."

Danny's expression sharpens. "No, he won't. Because you are going to go to back to whatever bed and breakfast you're staying in, pack up, hop in your private jet and fly him back to Gotham immediately before the League realizes you've gone. If they haven't already," he mutters.

"This is about the League then," Bruce says. "Do you not believe I can protect you?"

"I don't need your protection," Danny snaps, and watches Bruce actively extrapolate with a dawning resignation. "So this is the World's Greatest Detective at work," he says, slumping bonelessly into his chair, the first teenager-y thing he's done.

"Damian's in danger from the League," Bruce says. Danny glares from his slump. It's almost cute. "And as long as the League doesn't know about you, he's safe."

"Draw your own conclusions," Danny says, baring his teeth. Damian often makes the same face. "As long as you leave."

"I can protect him. I can protect you both," Bruce says. "Let me help you."

Danny closes his eyes. He centers his breathing in an exercise someone has clearly walked him through in the past. Bruce would bet money on the adoptive sister waiting patiently upstairs.

"Mr. Wayne. You are not my father," he says. "My trust in you extends to the point that I left Damian in your care, but that is where it ends. And that was when it was sanctioned by the League. By coming here you have endangered those sanctions."

Bruce disregards the sting, doubling down on his analysis. Talia had left Damian with Bruce well after Danny had left the League. But Danny speaks as if the decision had been his.

Or perhaps, Bruce realizes, it is not that Danny decided upon it, but that Danny allowed it to continue.

Bruce takes a second to review what Oracle had gone over with him before they left for Amity. Daniel Fenton had by all accounts, since leaving the League, lived a fairly normal life. His adoptive parents were eccentric scientists dabbling in the occult but their findings that bordered pseudoscience circulated a very niche community of like-minded eccentrics. The bulk of their income came from alternative energy, a more viable source of study that they'd veered harder into in the past year or so, a government contract with the EPA currently in the works. This had in part funded a vacation to an all-inclusive resort the family had taken that past summer.

Danny received average grades in school, above average in science and mathematics, declining sharply in his freshman year and sophomore year before evening out around the second semester. He had gotten into fights repeatedly with one student in particular, suspended for two weeks following an incident that resulted in a the student receiving a black eye. Teachers reported him to be highly intelligent but distracted and removed. They had recommended he be evaluated for an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. He had no social media. He had missed multiple picture days. The ones he had attended he was sneezing, or a blur of movement, even going so far as to fall off his stool, legs flailing. Bruce had drank up every last one as Barbara had waited patiently.

A normal life. A family vacation to Bermuda. Average grades.

His freshman year, distracted and removed. The same year Damian had arrived at Bruce's home. Masks upon masks.

"You have informants within the League," Bruce says. Danny, to his credit, has no discernible tell. But there is no other explanation. "What will you do, if they find out you are alive?"

"That is none of your concern," Danny says, but he might as well be saying whatever I have to.

He never stopped practicing, after all.

"If they go after Damian, it is my concern."

"And that is why you need to take Damian back to Gotham before they do." Danny says. "I will take care of it."

Damian had barely spoken since he had realized Danyal was alive. But Bruce had seen the reverence in his eyes as he looked at the file.

"الوريث الصحيح" he had murmured. The rightful heir.

"You are proposing going after the entirety of the League with no backup," Bruce says. "Even if you think they won't kill you, you won't win either."

"Maybe they will," Danny says lightly. "Kill me. That would also work."

Bruce inhales sharply. "Danny," he starts.

"Go home, Mr. Wayne," Danny says, pushing himself up with one hand. The other still clutches the wad of tissue to his cheek, partially soaked with blood. "Go take care of your son."

"I'll go," Bruce says, "I'll take him to the Watchtower. And then I'll come back."

"Mr. Wayne-"

"I should've come for you," Bruce interrupts. "Sixteen years ago. I should've come for you."

Danny's brow furrows. "You had no idea I existed."

"But if I had. I would've come. I never would've left you there. And now that I know, I am not leaving you now."

For the first time Bruce watches Danny be completely caught off guard. He openly gapes at Bruce.

"You would've died," Danny lands on, voice thin. "They would've killed you."

"Unlike you, I would've brought backup." Bruce says, mimicking Danny's lightness.

He's lying. Sixteen years ago he would've thrown himself at the League to save his newborn son without a plan, without a thought beyond rescuing his baby.

Danny barks out a laugh. "You would've laid siege to Nanda Parbat with The Big Blue Boy Scout?" he looks wistful. "That would've been rad."

Bruce sees his opening. "Danny," he stands, eye to eye with his son. "Let me help you."

Danny evaluates him. "The Batman," he says softly. "I didn't want you to come, then. I didn't need one more person I had to prove myself to. All I wanted was to live amongst the stars, in the quiet of the cosmos."

"You want to be an astronaut," Bruce says. At Danny's cocked head, he says without shame, "I read your essay on personal heroes. You wrote about Edward White. Ad Astra Per Aspera."

Danny smiles slightly, sadly. "It is a rough road."

"You can be whatever you want to be," Bruce says. "I won't stand in your way."

"Even if I want to be Danny Fenton?" he asks.

"Even then."

Danny sighs. "I don't need your help Bruce," he says. "No," he says as Bruce opens his mouth. He pulls the wad of tissues away from his cheek. Underneath the splotches of dried blood the gash in his face has cleanly knit itself together, a faint white line now all that remains.

"I don't need your help," he says clearly. He holds a palm forward, and a green fire grows from its center, until the flames are licking delicately up his fingers.

"I know The Batman does not kill. But I am not a Robin. I am something else entirely," Danny says, his eyes reflecting the green of the flames. Or not, as he looks up at Bruce, his eyes green all on their own. They are sad. This is why he stayed away, Bruce realizes. Not out of fear. Danny is not afraid. Danny is tired.

But for his brother, Danny will wake up.

"And If the League takes one step towards Damian, I will raze them to the ground."

#Danny I AM RETIRED FROM MURDER Fenton #the informants are ghosts #the thing about deductive reasoning is sometimes you deduct incorrectly #particularly when you don't know about the ghosts #danyal al ghul #damian wayne #danny phantom #batman #dp x dc au #dp x dc crossover #dp x dc #dp x dc prompt #bruce wayne #this is an au where damian doesn't get blown up and lose most of his vital organs #like bruce still isn't a super responsible parent but no nine year olds blow up so that's something #danny: he only blew up once so he can stay with you #batman: he did get speared straight through but we fixed it #danny: he wHAT #i wrote this instead of eating dinner #because drafts are for the mentally healthy #tbh i don't think his name would be danyal al ghul in this one #he's trying really hard to stay under the radar I don't think he would choose essentially a homonym

5K notes · View notes

tommykinard6 · 3 months ago

Text

Here’s something I shall drop into the void

Buck waited for another two weeks after he first saw the text bubbles on his phone, opening his and Tommy’s chat at every possibility to wait. He waited for those bubbles to reappear, for a sign that Tommy was still thinking about him. But there was no sign, no bubbles, no nothing.

Buck had changed Tommy’s name in his phone to his own nickname in a valiant attempt to keep himself from reaching out. It didn’t take long for him to change it back, something in him desperately needing to see Tommy’s name. He was grasping at crumbs and he knew it.

Two weeks later, he nearly dropped his phone as the text bubble reappeared. His heart sped up and a lump appeared in his throat as he watched with baited breath. He was alone in the gym and he was glad of it. His friends meant well, he knew, but he didn’t want his phone snatched away from him again.

He’d already seen his future get snatched away. He couldn’t bear to watch it happen again.

The bubble went away, then reappeared just as the tones went off, calling five stations to a fully involved apartment fire. Cursing under his breath, Buck shoved his phone in his pocket and ran for the engine.

He checked his phone again just before arriving at the fire, heart sinking at the lack of message or bubble.

***

The blaze didn’t go down for hours. By the time they got back to the station, Buck had forgotten about his phone for the first time in weeks. As everyone else hit the showers, he finally pulled it out of his pocket for the first time in hours and froze.

There was no text message.

There was, however, a voicemail.

Buck’s feet took him of their own accord into the bunk room, away from any distractions. He fumbled with the buttons before shoving the phone to his ear. He couldn’t hit play fast enough.

“Evan.” Just hearing Tommy’s voice again made all the emotions surge, anger and sadness and longing and confusion all gelling into a thick lump in his chest. “Or B-Buck. I don’t know if I have the right to call you Evan anymore.”

It would always be Evan. Even for Tommy. Especially for Tommy.

“I just-I needed to say something. And I know you’re on shift. Probably at that fire downtown. Be safe. Please.” Buck didn’t know that he’d ever heard such uncertainty in Tommy’s voice. It was unfamiliar and unsettling. He didn’t like it. “This might be the coward’s way out. And I hope you don’t feel obligated to listen. I just need you to know something. You deserve answers, ones I didn’t give you before.”

There was a long moment of silence on the other end.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I want you to know that. I ran away because of my own problems, not because you did anything. You talked about me being an inspiration, but Evan, Buck, I’m anything but. I wanted nothing more than to agree to moving in. It wouldn’t be your place though. I have a house. It makes more sense to move into mine. I wanted that. I still want that and it’s not fair to you.

But at the same time, I realized that you-you think I’m a much better person than I am. Evan, you’re-you’re fucking amazing. You love unashamedly, you keep your family close, you aren’t afraid to be yourself. I’m always afraid. I’m never good enough. I’ve never been enough. Done some shit that I can never undo. Said shit I can’t take back. I hurt you, I hurt Abby, I hurt a lot of people by being a coward. Hurt myself most, I think, and I’ll never be deserving of you. And I was afraid of you figuring that out for yourself.

I shouldn’t have said all that shit about needing to explore. You don’t need to do that for your identity. I said you should because I knew that you would find someone worthy of you. It’s not me. I wanted it to be. I really fucking wanted it.” Tommy’s voice broke. Buck swiped at the silent tears running down his face, disturbing the soot settled there.

“I’m fucking selfish cause all I want is that future we had in front of us. I’m an idiot for letting you go and I would be an idiot if I tried to stay, knowing I could never deserve you. I’m so-so confused and lost and I just miss you. I love you and I’m a mess.”

Buck choked out a sob, scrubbing at his face.

“That’s not fair. I shouldn’t have said that. That’s not fair to you.” Tommy was quiet for another moment. “I think what I’m trying to say is that I ran because I was scared of you breaking my heart. I knew if I ran first, it would just be hurting myself. You hurting me, it’s something I could never predict or prepare for. It’s the unknown. Because all you’ve ever done is make me happy. I’ve never felt more alive than with you. Every moment we were apart sucked and these last few weeks…” Tommy trailed off again. Finally, he blew out a deep breath.

“I’m a mess. I thought I was put together. I thought I’d done my time in therapy and had worked through these issues, but I haven’t. I’m-I’m back in therapy now. I’ve got a lot of shit to work through. Feels good to tackle it though. I’m doing it for me mostly, but I’m also doing it for you. For us. Even if you would never take me back, I’m doing it because we deserved it. Because you deserved it.

I would take everything back that night if I could. I have no right to ask you to listen to this. I don’t know if you ever will. I have no right to beg for your forgiveness. To ask you for another chance. But if you let me, I would. Maybe not yet. I-I gotta work through some shit first. But I would spend every day and night for the rest of our lives making it up to you. I would never leave you again, not my choice. I’d spend the rest of my life making sure you’re loved and that you never doubt it.

You owe me nothing. You deserve better. You could tell me to fuck off, or ignore me. I’ll respect whatever you want. You never signed up for this. I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”

The line went silent for a long time. Buck had to check to make sure the voicemail hadn’t ended, sniffling as he did so.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You’re it for me and I should’ve fought harder to tell you. I should’ve told you I love you. I have a lot of regrets, Evan. You’ll never be one. Letting you go will be my biggest.”

And the voicemail ended.

“Fuck.” Buck whispered, rubbing away the tears from his eyes. “Fuck. Goddamnit.” He pulled up the automated transcript of the voicemail and read it until his eyes swam again. He saved the voicemail and the transcript before pulling up their messages.

Buck: you’re gonna say all that to me in person. And then we’re going to talk about it. No more making decisions for me, but we’re going at your pace now not mine

Buck: and I’m going to say it back in person

Therapy would do them both good. Maybe therapy together would help too. And maybe it would all be for nothing, but even as much as it all still hurt, Buck wasn’t going to deny himself what he wanted anymore. These last weeks had been hell enough.

Buck: and it’s still Evan for you

The bell went off in that moment and Buck wiped his face again hurriedly, grimacing at the realization that he hasn’t even gotten to shower yet as he ran out of the bunk room. The others looked him up and down in concern as he climbed into the truck, but he didn’t pay attention. He didn’t even know what kind of call they were going on, too in his own head to listen. His mind just kept looping on,

I love you

#911 abc #911 show #9-1-1 #tommy kinard #evan buckley #bucktommy #911 fic #break up and make up #911 season 8 #slight Abby mention #Tommy’s a mess and so am I #tk6 writes #my fic #fix it fic

514 notes · View notes