Prompt 169
Danny is from a world where everyone has wings, even if most have long since lost the ability to fly. Something about loading and aspect ratio, wings being too small, body too heavy, now mostly used as display, whatever.
It doesn’t matter even if he had blueprints from when he was like six of a jetpack to help fly. It won’t work anyway and hey, he has his ghost form! Which uh, might be perhaps, affecting his wings which were maybe sort of scorched black and practically down to the bone thanks to the accident.
It doesn’t matter, he swears. Though he’s admittedly relieved to see the new feathers growing in are different from Dan’s angry sunset. Even if they’re not even supposed to be able to grow back. Alright, this is fine, no one is going to notice! It’s not like everyone knows about the poor Fenton kid whose wings were absolutely destroyed thanks to an accident! It’s fine.
He’s not flying in a half-panic towards the Far Frozen while crying because his wings are coming back and he’s so scared. He didn’t panic and instantly fled the moment Jazz pointed them out while changing the bandages.
He definitely didn’t trip over something while wiping away said tears and blacking out from all the stress and all of his problems that he definitely mentioned to someone and isn’t keeping a secret. Definitely.
Hawkwoman and Hawkman would like everyone to know that neither of them were expecting a very small child to be spat out of the villain of that week’s machine that should definitely not be a portal. A very small child, maybe nine or ten, with a multitude of concerning wounds both old and fresh. Which isn’t even beginning to touch on the wings.
Feathered, like baby down despite the gnarled scars, unlike their own metallic, with the beginning of tiny specklings like stars amidst the darker fuzz peeking from the wounded flesh.
Who?! Who dared?! It’s (at least to the forever reincarnating duo) a literal baby! They still have down! Tiny baby fuzz! Was it the portal?! Oh this villain is going to taste their maces for causing this if that’s the case!
The rest of the Justice League would honestly like to know what just happened and are honestly unsure on if they should stop the two…
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"Stillborn? No, no, still born." -- DPXDC AU
Based off a comment I saw where Bruce knew about Talia's pregnancy in the earlier comivs, and was ecstatic to be a father. So much so that Talia feared he'd give up being Batman for it, so when she gave birth she put the baby (Damian) on a doorstep and (seemingly) told Bruce that the baby was stillborn.
Instead of Damian, that baby was Danny! Meet Daniel Brown, the 14 year old foster kid whose been living with the Fenton family for the last two years. He's about two years older than Damian.
His last name, "Brown", was a generic surname given to him because the note he came with didn't have one on it. It just had the name "Danyal" on it, but albeit 'Daniel' was the one that had been put into the system for, I'll be totally frank here, racism reasons.
(I looked it up to make sure, and it's generally not permissible for foster parents to change the names of their foster kids even if it's a permanent residency, and for that reason Danny doesn't have the last name "Fenton".)
Danny's got ✨~issues!~✨ He's been through a handful of homes growing up, most of them terrible for a variety of reasons. Which has, as a result, left lasting scars. He's generally a very sweet kid, just very distrustful and jumpy. He's got the signs of a kid suffering from PTSD, and a handful of other issues including attachment and insomnia. His inferiority complex could rival Damian's, and that's going to make for an interesting mutual hatred for when they finally meet.
(something I'll get into later)
He still has the blanket he was found in. It's made of a very high quality material and is a beautiful emerald green with little golden thread accents, it's high quality as a result has Danny clinging onto a desperate hope that his bio family might be out there, and the only reason they gave him up was because of some outside factor. It's been taken a few times in old foster homes, and he's flipped out each time.
While he still calls Jack and Maddie by their names, he likes them well enough. The bar isn't that high though, and while they're some of the better foster parents he's had, "better" doesn't equal "safest". Their laboratory malpractice. Basically, C- Fenton Parents. They're negligent by virtue of being engrossed in their work, but they do care equally about Jazz and Danny. So he doesn't hold it against them that much.
He kinda prefers it that way, their loud affection is overwhelming and Danny doesn't know what to do with their attention, even if he craves it. It's a bit of a complicated situation.
They took in Danny because they genuinely wanted another child, but didn't want a big age gap between them and Jazz. It was actually Jack's idea to foster, and they discussed it with Jazz beforehand. She was all for the idea. Thus, a handful of weeks later, a ton of paperwork, and inspection later, and Daniel Brown entered their household with a trash bag in one hand and eyes like shards of stained glass.
His relationship with Jazz is kinda strained, but that's by virtue of her constant psychoanalyzing and helicoptering. Like with the parents, Danny's overwhelmed by the attention and also just, straight up doesn't like the fact that she's telling him that there's something wrong with him. He knows that, thank you. He pushes her away when she does this.
Other than that though? When Jazz isn't smothering him and is acting like an actual sibling and not a third parent, they're pretty close, and Danny really likes her. They've hung out a few times on their own volition, and Jazz showed him how to take better care of his long hair.
His school situation,, pretty similar to canon with the bullying, albeit with a few more instances of him blowing a fuse and lashing out against his attackers. He's a rather angry kid, but it's quiet. It builds up, piles on top of itself, until eventually, like a volcano, it erupts and burns everyone within radius.
Danny's got a fire core, not an ice core. Phantom's hair is made of white magma; thick and heavy, setting itself on fire when his anger runs hot. When he gets angry, his skin begins to char and split open to reveal pulsating lava underneath, and he crackles and pops like a raging forest fire.
I haven't decided yet on how he meets the batfam -- i've got two ideas but they're both in opposition to each other, and drastically alter how the rest of the plot goes. But I do know that him and Damian hate each other in the beginning. And it has nothing to do with inheritance or "being the blood son" -- although their blood relation absolutely plays the major role in their disdain for each other.
Simply put, they're jealous of each other for the same thing: thinking that the other was wanted.
Damian hates Danny because, unlike Damian, Bruce knew about Danny since conception and wanted him from the moment he heard about him. He had a whole nursery set up, and still does. He never took it down -- just locked the door. Damian was thrust upon Bruce without warning, and he feels like he forced himself into the family. And while on some level Damian knows and understands that Bruce wants him and loves him as much as his other children, that doubt and feeling of inferiority still remains. He looks at Danny and sees him with what Damian always feels he needs reaffirmed.
Meanwhile, Danny hates Damian because he looks at him and sees him with everything Danny's ever wanted. He hates him because Damian grew up knowing both of their parents, with one of them for most of his life, and then moved over to the other. There was never a moment where Damian was (seemingly) left to doubt his place within the family. Damian was raised with the very same woman who left Danny on a doorstep, with no clue to his identity beyond a little green blanket and a note with only a first name. Damian was wanted everywhere, and Danny was wanted nowhere. Damian is Danny's replacement in his eyes.
(It's the little revelation that Damian grew up with their mother that elevates Danny from being quietly envious of Damian to downright despising him. What did Damian do, that Danny didn't? He could live with Damian living with Bruce -- Bruce didn't know Danny was even alive. But him living with their mom? Are you fucking kidding him?)
Damian never outright attacks Danny physically, but it's not like he hides that he didn't like Danny. Meanwhile, Danny, in all his repressive anger, quietly despised him from a distance until finally one wrong snide side-comment has him blowing up and it becomes a screaming match. They're both just enough similar to each other that when they look at each other they really just see a mirror.
They'll work it out together, eventually. But it'll be ugly and cruel and explosive, and they'll start mending the bridge to become brothers in more than just blood relation in the end.
But yeah, stillborn Danny has... a lot going for him.
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Hunith leaned on her rake and watched as the car swerved into the driveway.
It had barely come to a halt when the passenger door opened and Gwen climbed out.
She looked tense.
She was also drenched from head to toe.
The hem of her jeans sagged, the rest of it looked damp and clammy. Her shirt must have dried during the drive home, but it had bits of seaweed stuck to it. Her hair was eighty percent frizz.
When she saw Hunith at the fence, Gwen smiled unconvincingly, and sped towards her house just slow enough that it couldn’t be called a run.
The driver’s door slammed loudly and Arthur came stomping around the car. He looked no better than Gwen: If anything, he was wetter than she had been. He didn’t even grab anything from the trunk, much less wait until he could lock the car. He just marched into the house and slammed that door behind him, too.
Just as Hunith thought that scene couldn’t get any stranger, the back door opened and her son climbed out.
The greeting died on her lips before it could escape.
Merlin looked like a storm warning. Hunched shoulders, pursed lips, flashing eyes - oh, and he was wearing a dress.
Not even a good dress. It was an oversized grey monstrosity and looked like it came from the garbage bin of a secondhand store. It was definitely not one of Hunith’s.
Merlin had bunched it up at the hips in at attempt not to stumble over the long skirts, and he stomped past her and into the house with no sign that he had seen his mother at all. She could hear him all the way up the stairs, and then the slam of his bedroom door.
Alright then.
All the noise must have roused Gaius from his afternoon nap. He stuck his head out the door, looking exactly as bewildered as Hunith felt.
„Was that Merlin?“, he asked.
Hunith nodded.
“And... a wig?”
Another nod.
„Hm.“ With a final puzzled look up the stairs, Gaius retreated to his study. Hunith turned back just in time to see Mordred clambering out like the smallest clown in the clown car.
He was dry and dressed normally, but he was wearing an expression of utter defeat. With his towel held in front of him like a terrycloth shield he walked towards Hunith as if he’d much rather write a difficult math test.
He dithered at the gate for a moment, and then met Hunith’s gaze only to sigh the world-weariest sigh she had ever heard.
(Which was saying something. Hunith had lived with Gaius for most of her life, and would have previously named him world champion of sighing. Somehow this was still the most normal thing that had happened in the past ten minutes.)
„My dads will pick me up in a few minutes“, Mordred told her morosely. „Can I wait here?“
„Of course“ Hunith hurried to say. „Do you want something to drink? Bal made cookies, if you want any. They’re in the kitchen.“
Mordred gave the door Merlin had stormed through a long, dubious look. „I think I’d rather wait out here.“
„Alright.“
Hunith watched as he settled himself on the doorstep, towel in his lap. With a deliberately casual air she picked up the shovel and continued weeding.
„I probably don’t even want to know“ she said conversationally, „but what exactly happened at the lake?“
The child behind her made a noise like an upset mouse. „I don’t know“, he whined. „Merlin doesn’t tell me anything.“
Hunith looked over her shoulder to see Mordred scuff at the earth with his shoes, a frustrated expression on his face. „But I had to help Merlin put on a costume and Gwen and Arthur fell into the water and they both cried and everyone shouted and I think they broke up.“
„I see“, Hunith said faintly. That would fit with what she’d seen, but - she’d thought Gwen had broken up with Arthur a week ago? And anyway, none of this explained the costume, or really anything, but she’d decided to ignore that for now. „I’m sorry that happened. It sounds uncomfortable.“
„I’m sorry it happened too.“
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