#bonus: every meta in gotham respects the fuck out of Duke for being a gothamite meta hero who talks back to Batman

[currentfandomkick]

Adding on to the issue? Danny comments that their patron spirit is legit draining and killing him.

So one of the reasons Danny is dying is that the very entity that embodies their city and has kept them from dying in Gotham is actively being a parasite on this child who is dying Because the bats kept interfering with his desperate attempts to leave.

Anyone wondering how Jason would feel about the very spirit that brought him back from the dead as his death was unjust in her POV as it was away from her. That same spirit is killing a kid who wants to go home. Just like he had when he was dying in Ethiopia and trying to save his bio mom and himself from the bomb.

And can anyone even read his schematics? Even with the math as a universal language, I doubt the same can be said about the periodic table.

So Danny, having accepted his impending death while Tim is trying to get Danny home. Jason is having an existential crisis.

Bruce and Damian are feeling especially guilty as they understood Danny and told everyone to treat him as hostile and were in a tizzy about a LOA agent making devices that resembled teleportation between worlds.

This is not a LOA agent.

This is a child being killed by their city spirit who is actively consuming this child’s actual soul. This is a kid who fought them tooth and nail trying to get home and they were the ones stopping him. Bruce’s paranoia being why the kid is dying.

Damian feeling like he backslid in learning to apply compassion to others as he did not extend it to this kid his age who used an old LOA dialect. Which should have been a sign more was going on but he had tunnel vision when the idea of the LOA being active in Gotham again.

Dick, let him be in space and come back to a kid that is dying as Gotham’s Spirit is actually preying on him.

Hell, Dick can even remove him from the observatory, kick him into one of Blud’s and get people helping the kid get back home.

Stephanie can even have the weird relationship with Danny making jokes about having died herself and come back (screw the ‘faked her death’ storyline. Stephanie came back and was terrified of what it meant to be rejected by death and forcibly brought back by the city spirit as ‘others offered to take your place as you saved them. So you can live for now.’)

Have stephanie and Danny make jokes about dying and being told by death ‘fuck you, go back.’ Only Danny is being dragged to death by a spirit he can’t physically fight and Stephanie is in favor of Danny staying away from Gotham for his own safety.

And let the others not know about this as ‘how do you explain that to a family that never stopped grieving Jason Todd, Robin 2’ even after Jason came back as Red Hood.

Cass gives him pictures of the stars from different locations. Babs keeps trying to get Danny to fight back, but he is visibly less responsive each day.

Up to writer if Danny passes before the portal to danny’s dimension is fixed.

For anyone asking where Duke is, you have OptionsTM as his powers vary a lot and depending on what his relationship is with the others and how they perceive him changes what steps and actions he may take. List below!

Duke clocks Danny as Nonhuman the one time he runs into Danny and kickstarts the Batfam ‘oh shit thats not LOA’ issue

Duke is the only one able to transport Danny outside of Gotham despite others attempts. This is the wakeup call that Danny is a victim in a horror movie and they are helping the monster.

Duke and Danny bother the fuck out of each other. Danny can clock Duke’s BS about never getting up to shit while Duke sees through Danny’s tells despite not having a language in common (his weakening ecto-field changes shapes depending on bis emotions. Can also project them.) duke Hates this. Danny can’t stand the glowstick as he reminds him of thinking heroics would be better than it was for him.

Duke’s future vision let him see Danny dying. He’s the one who blurts out that Danny’s trying to go home and if he doesn’t get there not only will Danny die, but a bunch of pissed off metas from that realm will come and personally raze gotham in unending droves for killing Their Guardian Ghost Boy. This kicks most of the batfam from sad boy hours to ‘oh fuckfuckshit.’

Duke decides Danny is His Friend Now Motherfuckers and even when Danny is back in his dimension? Duke uses the shadow teleportation thing his umbrakinesis lets him do to visit danny

Duke legit finds out about this Whole Mess and asks Danny what his dimension is like. Uses the ectoplasm to teleport him and Danny into the Far Frozen and konks out after doing so as Lots Of Power to do so. Batpanic as Danny ‘must have kidnapped Duke.’ Danny and Duke understand each other via Ghost Speak. Duke is the only one who can understand as Clocky likes him and gave him that ability as a treat with the future vision.

Combos of the above! Mix and match to your personal preference

Duke striaght up struggles with Danny’s Death Aura and is sick around him. Still tries to help but fuck his life, ectoplasm = debilitating migraine… and as Danny dies Duke can be closer to him with less injury but it’s still an issue that Danny is dying and Duke is out here trying to find out how he can help. Possibly bugs some of the rogues to help as they are more chill with him as the newest bat and a meta. Ivy may or may not make ecto-filtering and producing plants to help.

Step 1: Get stuck in another dimension. Step 2: build a portal back to the Ghost Zone. Step 3: Leave.

Danny's got it down to a science at this point. It barely takes him a week to get back home. (Except for the time the dimension he landed in was in the stone age, but we don't talk about that.)

Step 1 was easy enough, if involuntary. Now, step 2 is where it's all going wrong.

This dimension's language isn't one he speaks. That's fine, maybe adds a day or two to the search for parts, but the main problem is the people dressed in Halloween costumes, speaking like they're from a Shakespearean play who always find him and wreck his portal.

And it's not like he can just move to a different city, this one's soaked in ectoplasm. He'd have to spend a pretty fair amount of time searching for another place as saturated as this one.

Meanwhile, the Bats are not having a good time. Some League or League-adjacent member speaking a barely intelligible form of the League dialect keeps attempting to build some sort of weapon in Gotham, and refuses all communication in English.

(AKA: Danny is stuck in another dimension where his English is their League dialect. He just wants to go home now, please.)