#braindead rejected soulmate au

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

An AU of the Rejected Soulmate AU where Robin gets the drop on Phantom in a warehouse and they fight. Robin hits Phantom hard enough to send him crashing into a bunch of wooden crates, thus breaking them.

The fight continues until Phantom calls for a time out and starts listening carefully. Damian hisses out that he will not be tricked into letting his guard down. Danny shushes him again and thats when they hear it.

A tiny desperate mew.

They both race over to the broken crates and begin carefully digging through the rubble as to not harm the tiny kittens further.

Needless to say they bond over caring for the injured kittens and co parent suprisingly well. Damian ends up stealing Tim's soulmate and the batfam only find out about this after the catch Damian going on a date with Tim's (now ex) stalker

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Is this karma? Revenge for the angst I've bestowed onto others? Why does this hurt to much, I want to cry for our sweet little ghost boy :(

On another note how different would Danny be when he meets Tim/ how will he behave around Tim? My original idea had Danny feeling playful around Tim and constantly challenging Red Robin as Phantom to "catch me" before he escaped with whatever prize he was after that night. He would do this by leaving a calling card saying he was going to steal something and only RR would be allowed to try to catch him. If any of the other bats would appear it would be an automatic forfeit and both the item and Phantom would seem to disappear/ phantom wouldn't appear at all the the item would still vanish. (I can't believe I never added this)

Maybe Danny could add incentive to keep Tim interested for a while. Maybe Danny would talk to the ghosts in Gotham and interview victims of unsolved murders and the ghostly witnesses to give Tim "clues" to the cases? Phantom refuses to tell him how he knows of these things.

no hearts in my hand but i've got diamonds up my sleeve - pt 1

DP x DC prompt fill - rejected soulmate (from @im-totally-not-an-alien-2)

I'm one of the folks this prompt got its hooks into. (Even though I was 1300 words into the next chapter of Overkilled, whoops...)

~~~

When Danny Fenton was twelve years old, his soulmate had finally written their first message to him, small neat letters within a spiral galaxy Danny had inked onto his inner forearm. He’d both wanted to share his love of a galaxy’s beauty and, maybe, impress them a bit. He’d practiced that one a lot before committing it to his skin with specialized ink made for just that purpose.

The response left him cold.

‘If I asked, would you stop this?’

The ink was a glittery purple, which went well with his art. They had put though into that. Maybe he was taking this the wrong way.

His chest felt tight. Slowly, he picked up a blue gel pen of his own, and wrote carefully beneath the message:

‘for how long?’

He waited a small eternity. He could feel his pulse pounding in his throat.

‘Forever, ideally.’

Danny realized, with no small horror, that today’s marks were beginning to burn; the outer edges of the spiral arms slowly searing his arm and moving inward.

‘why?’

Hours later, when the rest of the day’s messages were branded into his skin and there was still no response, Danny wiped his face with one last tissue, swallowed hard, and picked up his pen again.

‘okay’

The heat for that one, final message flared quickly and sharply, a warning to stop pushing at the rejected connection between them. His soulmate, as the rejecting party, would be rid of the day’s messages as usual by the end of the day.

Danny, who had in no way reciprocated the rejection, was left quite literally scarred from the encounter.

~~~

When Tim Drake was twelve years old, Jason Todd was dead, Bruce Wayne was spiraling, and Tim had just stolen a Robin costume to save Batman and Nightwing.

Batman had agreed, reluctantly, to train him. But he’d taken one look at the galaxy laid out in colored ink on Tim’s left forearm and cautioned him. Tim couldn’t have identifying marks that people could match in both his civilian and vigilante lives. He would have to stop doodling on his skin where people could see.

If only Tim could control that.

Tim had always gotten sporadic messages, questions, and drawings on his skin, from the moment he himself was old enough to hold a pen. His parents had assumed he drew on himself, and were less than pleased by the habit. Tim had hated being accused of something he hadn’t done. He had no idea why this happened to him, and he resented that now, when he could finally help Batman, it was still getting him in trouble.

If Tim wasn’t doing it, and the messages were sometimes coherent, then it stood to reason that someone or something that could understand written language was doing it to him. He’d never once drawn on his skin, knowing that people already believed he did it to himself but refusing to give anyone more evidence for it. But maybe... maybe the entity that had decorated his skin all his life could be reasoned with.

He looked at the carefully drawn art on his arm. He should probably avoid offending their sense of aesthetic, if he was going to risk making them angry at all.

He ordered a delivery on his phone, and an hour later put the tip of a glittery purple gel pen to his skin.

When the entity had the audacity to ask him “why”, nearly a decade of frustration caught up with him at once.

“Because it’s MY skin?! 'Why'?! Why are you doing this in the first place?! I’m tired of this getting me in trouble; I’m tired of wondering why this is happening to me. I don’t want this. Just… just leave me alone! I have things to do! I have to be Robin—no one else will do it—but I can’t if this doesn’t stop!” Tim threw his pen and stalked out of his house. They’d stop or they wouldn’t. If he was going to be this frustrated, he might as well work it out on the conditioning exercises Batman had assigned him.

Hours later, when he was sweating and exhausted in the cave, he glanced at his arm to see the small agreement. His breath wheezed out of him as he dropped his head to the mat on the cave floor, pure relief making him feel boneless.

When midnight hit, the ink—even his own—faded to nothing as it did every night.

Nothing replaced it in the days to follow.

~~~

When Danny was fourteen, he died. If nothing else, he could at least be grateful that the outfit he’d died in covered his stigma.

A year and a half later, he’d saved the town more times than he remembered. He’d defeated himself, he’d defeated a ghost king, and… he’d just been abandoned for Gregor by both his friends now. Unbelievable.

He’d genuinely thought he’d hit rock bottom when he got home, but as soon as he’d walked through the door, he heard his father shouting, “Danny! Get over here!” in the intense, rage-filled voice he only reserved for ghosts and his blood froze in his veins.

Before he could reply, Jazz rocketed around the corner, somersaulted over the doorway, and snatched his backpack, shoving it over her own shoulder.

“It’s me, Dad! Danny’s… got detention!” she exclaimed, voice too high. She snagged him by the shoulder and marched him alongside her across the doorway, covering his body with hers until they were out of line-of-sight. Then she raced to the laboratory, dragging him behind her, but not before he heard Operative O’s voice in his kitchen, speaking in urgent tones to his parents.

When the lab door closed, Danny broke free from her grasp.

“Jazz, what’s going on? Why are the Guys in White here?”

Jazz replied as she raced down to the portal controls. “They know who you are, Danny,” she said, opening the blast doors. “And worse, they told Mom and Dad! You have to leave, now!”

Danny followed her down as she hustled to the side of the room. She emptied his backpack and started filling it with weapons and spare parts. She pulled a USB from her pocket and shoved it into a side pouch, then zipped everything closed. From the floor beside a table, she grabbed a suitcase that was filled to bursting and an oversized satchel that was similarly bulging.

“Wait, leave? I can’t leave!”

“You absolutely can,” Jazz insisted, shoving the suitcase at him and securing the satchel’s strap around his shoulder herself. “I’ve had these ready to go for you since I found out you were Phantom.”

“But—”

“Danny,” Jazz put both hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “Mom and Dad have come at me, guns blazing, at the passing thought that I was a ghost, since before they even had proof that ghosts exist. Today, government agents who want you strapped to a table have just told them, explicitly, that you are Phantom, and they brought evidence. You’re not safe in either form anymore. You need to leave.”

“But if I go, who will protect the town? I’m needed here, Jazz.”

“You’re one teenager! Superpowers or not, the town will survive without you!”

That hurt.

“If that were true, I wouldn’t HAVE superpowers!” he insisted.

Jazz let go of one of his shoulders to press a hand against her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut.

“What does that even mean, Danny?”

“It means I lost my powers a few months ago, and Sam had to recreate my death to make sure the school wasn’t completely overrun.”

Her other hand followed the first to cover her face, and she slowly breathed for a moment.

“Danny,” she said, lowering her hands again, “if all we need is someone with superpowers…” Something about her tone of voice made him wary. “And you were able to reproduce the effects… then we don’t need you. We can give anyone powers just by reviewing the lab footage and redoing whatever happened to make you. You’re replaceable.”

Danny looked at her with a devastated expression, unable to find words. She avoided his eyes.

“You’re treated poorly by everyone here anyway. Even if you weren’t rejected by your soulmate,” she spoke over his gasp, “Mom and Dad’s reputation make us both pariahs. Your grades have tanked; the government’s after you… there’s nothing here for you, Danny.”

He opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then, in a small voice, he managed, “You’re here.”

For a second, her expression softened, and he thought… he doesn’t know what he thought.

There was a noise from upstairs. Jazz’s mouth firmed, and she manhandled him toward the portal. It was so unexpected, he let her.

“And I’m telling you I don’t want you here. You think I want to deal with the fallout of you getting captured from the Guys in White OR Mom and Dad? At this point, you’re just causing problems for me on purpose.” The words were sharp, intended to be mean. His mind was blank as he absently accepted the backpack she thrust into his free hand.

“Leave, Danny!” There was a beep from the lab door, and he heard it start to open just as Jazz’s hand hit his chest and he fell through the portal. “Don’t come back.”

~~~

Three years later, Danny wandered into a world filled with superheroes.

[forest-posts-and-reblogs]

Update

I've finally finished the first chapter for Loving You Is A Losing Game! Here is the link to AO3, and I've also posted the first chapter under the cut.

@fisticuffsatapplebees @im-totally-not-an-alien-2 @space-dreams-world @omnicrafts @butterflypeachgrove you guys get the credit!

Tag List:

@taniaundertaleau @whitecrowbane @xye-chan @my-perfect-storybook-love @meira-3919 @bubblemixer @wackyattack

Danny stared at the portal, his finger merely one inch away from the self-destruct button. His hands shook as he stared down the portal.

Am I really doing this?

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and releasing the tension from his body. It felt like this was the only way, but . . . It couldn’t be. There had to be something else he could do.

But he knew there wasn’t. Things had changed. He couldn’t stand being here, alone in Amity Park, where nobody cared about him unless it was to shove him into a locker and where his parents were planning to kill him. He was tired of waiting for someone to see him, tired of waiting for something to change.

Because nothing would.

He’d destroyed Vlad’s portal to the Ghost Zone and stolen his blueprints so he wouldn’t be able to make another one, and he’d planned on doing the same for his parents portal, too, but now . . .

He couldn’t do it.

Danny fled upstairs, away from the portal, away from the basement, away from the place he’d died three years ago and no one had noticed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny could safely say that today was the worst day of his life.

His friends hadn’t spoken to him since they’d started hanging out with Gregor two months ago. Since they’d replaced him with Gregor two months ago. Danny didn’t hold out much hope that they’d talk to him today. He hadn’t had hope for the past week now.

He hadn’t been planning on going to school today, but he knew that if Principal Ishiyama sent another call to his parents he’d be grounded. And since ghost attacks had decreased after he’d destroyed Vlad’s portal three weeks ago, getting grounded meant incessant boredom. Or having to listen to his parents talking about the experiments they planned on doing to Phantom. The thought of that alone made him feel faint - actually having to experience it would be ten times worse. Which was why Danny snuck into class halfway through first period, using his invisibility and intangibility to pretend he’d been there the whole time. Not that he thought it would work on Lancer. He had a sneaking suspicion that Lancer was the only person besides Wes who knew he was Phantom.

Danny held in a bitter laugh. Somehow, his friend circle had gone from Sam, Tucker and Valerie to Wes. And Wes had spent the better part of two years attempting to reveal his identity.

The period ended, and Danny just walked straight through the wall next to his desk and into the corridor outside, not caring if anyone saw him. He knew no one would believe that he was Phantom. After all, Wes had tried to tell the town for years and had failed, at least until the GIW attack seven months ago when he’d realized exactly what was waiting for Danny if his identity was revealed. Wes had gotten a lot cooler since then, slowly entering his friend group.

Until Gregor. Until everything had happened and Sam and Tucker had decided to kick him to the curb. Valerie had already done so two years ago, when he’d first revealed to her that he was Phantom. She hadn’t taken it well.

Danny still had a scar from when she’d stabbed him with a knife made from ecto-ranium.

He reached his locker, not even bothering to act surprised when Wes was standing leaning on the wall right next to it. He knew Wes would have been watching him through the bugs he’d placed in Fentonworks. 

Wes was always watching Fentonworks.

Danny opened up his locker, pulling out a random textbook. “I couldn’t do it.”

“I saw,” Wes said, not unkindly. He paused for a moment, before asking, “Wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

Wes stared at him for a few seconds before nodding. “You planning on doing it tonight?”

“I was thinking I’d spend the night at yours, actually.” Danny slammed his locker shut and turned to face Wes. “My parents have an idea for a new invention.”

Wes clenched his fist. “All the more reason to do it tonight.”

Danny took a deep breath. “I can’t, Wes. Not tonight. I can’t go down there again. I died there, Wes, and no one noticed and I can’t go back to the basement and stand in front of the portal and push that button, I just can’t.”

Wes hesitated. "All right." He pushed Danny to the side and opened up his locker. Danny was about to protest when Wes took the books from his hand and gave him a different set of books.

“You have English now, idiot.” Wes shook his head. “Not Chemistry.”

Danny blinked, taking the books. “Thanks.”

Wes grinned at him, slinging an arm over his shoulder. “No problem, dumbass.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened, but somehow, his parents had captured a shade.

Humans couldn’t even see shades.

Danny would have to figure out a way to get his parents to spill the beans on how they’d caught the poor thing, but right now he needed to come up with a plan to sneak in and return the shade to the Ghost Zone, where it belonged.

It wouldn’t be particularly difficult. All he’d have to do would be to make sure that his parents were sufficiently distracted, and then he could open the portal and get the shade through to the other side. Which was why he was currently standing invisibly outside the basement door, waiting for the call Wes would make with one of his burner phones to Fentonworks, and when his family inevitably answered it, they’d be told that there was a ghost attack in progress at the park. The pair would immediately rush to the GAV, leaving Danny free to go down and save the shade.

Danny pressed himself further into the wall as the house phone rang and Mom walked out of the basement, muttering about bothersome people interrupting their work , a scowl on her face. The scowl, however, immediately vanished as she heard what was being said by the person on the other end. He watched as the call ended and she rushed downstairs, excitement evident on her face, and a few minutes later both she and Dad ran out of the basement and into the garage. Danny released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and sank through the floor and into the basement. The sooner he got this over with the better.

It was easy enough to find the shade; after all, they were both ectoplasmic entities, and shades in particular were so common that Danny had no trouble finding them even in his human form. Which was good, since unlike blob ghosts, shades had such low levels of ectoplasm that his ghost sense couldn’t locate them at all. Danny opened the small ecto-resistant container his parents had trapped the shade inside, and held his hand out, waiting. The shade jumped into his palm after only a few seconds. He held back a grin as he walked over to the portal. Easy . Now all he had to do was get the shade to the Ghost Zone.

Danny held his hand over the button that would open the Ghost Portal.

It was shaking.

Danny closed his eyes and tried to relax. This wasn’t even the same button. It was in an entirely different location. He wasn’t going to die again - not unless he felt like it. Danny felt his lips twitch at the joke, and emboldened, he opened his eyes and quickly pressed the button, jumping back almost immediately.

The Fenton Ghost Portal came to life, a green glow that looked almost like a maw forming inside of it. Danny shot through and quickly found the shade in his palm a nice island with a bunch of other shades. He sent out a wave of safe-protect-happy so the shade would know it was safe to stay there, before returning to the realm of the living.

He wished he could stay in the Ghost Zone a bit longer.

[disaster-catalyst]

Hello sorry to drop in randomly but i saw that you reblogged the glorious rejected soulmate au post and i actually found a fic on AO3 based on the prompt. I thought you would like to know about it? Its titled "Danny Phantom and His Stupid Fucking Soulmate" by lets_get_this_salmonella. Its only a couple chapters in but ITS SO GOOD. I loved the prompt and am so excited to see where the fic goes.

Hi! Don't say sorry this is wonderful news that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise without you dropping in so yes thank you!!

The prompt is already lovely (the fluff, angst, and chaos potential is immaculate) so I'm excited to see how this fic turns out

Again, thank you for sharing this with me, anon :D

[starlight-eclipsed]

Rockets Pointed Up at the Stars (Pt 1/2)

Inspired by this braindead rejected soulmates au post by @im-totally-not-an-alien-2. More art at the end!

Part II

Tim slumped down on the edge of an apartment building, leaning his weight against the rooftop’s fence. The alleyways below were deserted, criminals retreating to get a couple hours of sleep before sunrise. A perfect setting to catch a breather before ending his patrol for the night.

The Red Robin suit still felt wrong on him. He thought waiting a week to get accustomed to it would help, but he might have made a mistake when he tried to adjust it to be as close to his Robin uniform as possible without it being obvious. He’d have to remember to alter it further the next time he got the chance, to see if wearing something entirely different would finally make him stop checking the shadows for Bruce. Patrolling Gotham alone felt too much like admitting he was really gone.

Just as he was about to move on, the rooftop access door slammed open.

Tim nearly jumped out of his skin as he whirled around, ready to either apologize, attack, or flee, when he met familiar glowing green eyes.

Subconsciously, he let himself breathe easy as he took in the other’s appearance.

Phantom was an anomaly at the best of times. A phantom thief by definition, the criminal had simply appeared one day to cause chaos—lingering only to taunt his pursuers as he made a daring escape with whatever priceless treasure of the month. His motives were unknown, as was virtually anything about him besides his calling card (a green sticky note with nothing but ‘BOO’ written in permanent black marker), appearance, and a meta ability to phase through objects.

Of course, one couldn’t be a phantom thief without a detective rival (or so the thief in question claimed). For some reason, Phantom had outright declared not Batman, but Robin for the role. Tim couldn’t count how many sleepless nights were spent chasing after him, face red from a mixture of exertion and embarrassment. Because it wasn’t enough for the admittedly good-looking criminal roughly his age to run circles around him. No, the jerk had to go out of his way to flirt with him the whole time.

He hadn’t even thought about how Phantom would react to there being a new Robin. But looking at him now, a small part of Tim couldn’t help but feel selfishly glad. From what he could see of the furious expression on his shadowed face and glowing eyes, it wasn’t hard to see that Phantom was taking the change about as well as Tim was.

“I leave for two weeks, and suddenly there’s a new Batman and Robin?! What the fuck, Detective—you’d think to at least have the decency to tell a guy, but nooo, I had to find out through goddamn Victor Fries!”

Tim blinked, “Didn’t Mr. Freeze retire after someone brought his wife back?”

Phantom paused his fury, shrugging a bit. “Nora keeps track of everything happening in Gotham in case something her husband did to save her comes back to bite them.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway! It took me going after Victor to ask why there was a new Robin for me to hear that the actual Batman was dead, Gotham went berserk for a while as every other guy tried to take up the position, and somewhere along the lines you got the grand idea to add ‘red’ to your name! Which makes no sense, since you practically lived for that mantle and I would’ve bet that you’d take it past the grave if given the chance.”

Tim winced. As per usual, Phantom’s words hit home in more ways than intended.

The thief stopped short, the glowing of his eyes intensifying as he looked over Tim’s new identity. Tim didn’t move as soundless footsteps strode forward, not even pausing as Phantom phased through the chain link fence to sit a couple feet away from him.

He could count on one hand the number of times Phantom had done this. One second they’d be exchanging insults, and then suddenly the criminal would stop and stare, feeling like he was gazing into the depths of Tim’s very soul. Each time, he called off their chase, insisting that Tim take a break and talk to someone about whatever was troubling him. It was uncanny how he could somehow tell when Tim’s negative feelings were overwhelming his rational thought—Batman himself would use Phantom encounters to measure Tim’s wellbeing at times.

Looking back, it was odd how Phantom would insert himself into every aspect of Robin’s life, but back off the second he sensed something was wrong. He’d call attention to whenever Tim was particularly anxious, once even physically dragging Bruce over to ‘talk to your son when he’s sad’, but never offer any comfort himself. But here they were, Phantom obviously seeing something Tim could never hope to conceal, with no Bruce nearby to summon and make things better.

Tim’s throat clogged at the reminder of yet another little thing Bruce might never get to do again. He couldn’t be dead, not with how many times Tim checked the body and struggled to recognize the man who’d become like a father to him. 

“...I…I know we’re not exactly friends, Detective. But if you need to get something off your chest, I swear to never use it against you.” Phantom fidgeted with his cloak. From this close a distance, Tim could see the faint glimmer of sparkling purple constellations embroidered on the inside. For some reason, the sight of the soft fabric never failed to calm his nerves.

(It reminded him of a time long ago, when he held a gel ink pen and asked a mystery person to quit whatever they were doing that left his arms covered in star charts that didn’t match anything in the Earth’s night sky.)

He didn’t dare force himself to speak, for fear he might break this tentative peace. Thankfully, Phantom seemed to be taking initiative that night.

“...did you know that I used to be a teen hero?”

Tim’s head jerked upright, meeting Phantom’s eyes. It was impossible to tell exactly what expression he was making behind the mask, but he got a sense of bitter nostalgia. “You never talk about your past.”

A scoff, “Yeah, ‘cause it’s depressing as fuck. Not exactly the sort of thing you can talk about causally.”

He chewed his lip, thinking. “Your suit…minus the cloak, it looks reminiscent of a uniform.”

Phantom fiddled with a cylinder hooked on his belt. It was the only piece of tech visible on his person, a modified soup thermos that somehow served as a near infinite item storage. Impressive, if not odd.

“Yeah, the cloak is more of a blanket than anything else. I added it on when I got tired of looking at the same clothes I used to save my hometown in. It…I didn’t become a hero for fame. It was more trouble than it was worth, honestly. You guys nowadays have so much better support systems than when I was in the business. Makes me wonder if…” he trailed off.

“...why’d you stop?” Tim asked gently, more than willing to throw himself into this new mystery now that he knew it was there.

“It was too much. Everyone wanted me gone, even the people I was protecting. I was hated for my powers, for not always being on the scene when I was needed, for not ending fights faster and for the property damage my villains caused. I didn’t live in a place with metahuman protection laws. The few people that knew my secret identity got tired of superhero life and ditched the first chance they got.” He sighed, “I was hurting, and was desperate for a way out.”

Tim frowned, “So you moved to Gotham and started stealing?”

Phantom snorted. “Nah, I was fucked up for a while after I ran away. It’s funny, one of my rogues was the first to track me down and drag me to a hospital to get my injuries checked. Like a dozen of them got together for an intervention, I thought I was finally losing my grip on reality. I spent a couple months recovering, then took one of them up on a suggestion to try causing trouble for a change. Not anything super bad, but…”

“...enough to feel more in control?” Tim suggested. It wasn’t uncommon for people in bad situations to commit minor crimes, both for the adrenaline and the power rush. Tim himself had once poured his whole soul into tracking and photographing Gotham’s nighttime birds. A hobby that was more than a bit cringe-worthy in hindsight, and definitely creepy considering how much effort he put into stalking his idols. Honestly his young age was the only reason he didn’t get put on a watchlist when he revealed himself to Bruce. That, and the whole I-know-your-secret-identity thing.

“Oof. Yeah, that’s a way to put it. Being hated hurt less when that’s what I was aiming for, y’know?”

Tim tilted his head. “I never hated you.”

A derisive laugh, “Uh-huh. And you loved being led on goose chases when there were more important ways to spend your time.”

“I’m serious.” Tim shifted so that he was better facing Phantom. He didn’t know why, but couldn’t stand the thought of Phantom leaving tonight convinced he was universally hated. “You only make a scene on quiet nights, and you always slowed down for me whenever I had to stop and intervene on some other crime. And you only target the private collections of rich people. Not anyone whose life would be ruined by something getting stolen. You even go out of your way to make sure the guards on duty don’t get in trouble, even when it puts you in a strategically worse position. And…”

He hesitated. Bruce wouldn’t approve…but then again, there was that weird relationship he had with Selina.

“And it was fun. To chase you. It was challenging and frustrating, but your appearance meant that there was nothing else to worry about that night. We could just run regular patrols.”

Oracle was the one to make the connection. Tim didn’t know where along the lines it became an accepted fact, only that Bruce was more comfortable about Robin patrolling alone when Phantom was making a move. A miracle considering what happened to the last one.

Phantom blinked, frowning a bit before his eyes went wide, a shaky smile forming on his lips. “Thanks…it was fun for me too. Kinda the whole reason I kept setting up scenes for Robin to find.”

Tim laughed. The sound startled both of them—he didn’t remember the last time he genuinely smiled like this. It had to be sometime before Bruce was gone, at least.

“So…” Phantom hopped down on the railing of a balcony below, balancing precariously in the way that only he could. He looked up at Tim with an easygoing smile that did little to hide the concern underneath. “As your self-proclaimed favorite rogue, wanna tell me what’s up with the sudden change?”

He shifted a bit, grin fading. “Well…Batman died. He was facing Darkseid and got hit. After the chaos died down, Nightwing took up the mantle and made Batman’s son the new Robin, to help him grieve or something.”

“I don’t know where to start with that.” Phantom adjusted his hood, briefly revealing tan skin underneath. “You sound like you didn’t have a say in it. Wasn’t Robin yours?”

Something bitter worked its way up through Tim’s chest. “It was a borrowed title anyway. I only took it up to help Batman, so it makes sense that I was dismissed—”

“No.”

“—after huh?”

Phantom strode up to him, poking a finger at his knee. “You love being Robin. You don’t have to justify losing your identity. It could’ve been taken in the name of world peace for all I care, that doesn’t make it any less shitty. You just lost someone super important to you, and your connection to them was taken because someone thought your grief was less important. I don’t care who the current one is, you are just as much Batman’s son.”

Tim couldn’t help the small sob that escaped. Or when it doubled, and tears started burning at his eyes. He rubbed at them in an attempt to stop them before they could make his mask go hot and sticky, but was startled out of it by a soft weight being thrown over him. He looked up to see Phantom leaning over him, securing the hood of his cloak over Tim’s own head.

“You looked like you needed some comfort. It’s weighted.” Phantom shrugged.

“...thanks.” Tim pulled it closer, more than happy to latch onto yet another new focus. “How do you move so easily in this? It feels like I’m being hugged by gravity.”

Phantom chuckled, and it was at that moment Tim suddenly realized the other was floating in the air over him. Since when has he been able to fly?

“I use intangibility a lot, but it’s not my only power. It felt like overkill to use more than that in my heists. So I didn’t.”

Tim groaned, “You were going easy on me this whole time?”

“Oh, definitely not. I’m sure you’ve noticed, but intangibility is arguably the most pain in the ass thing to counter. I’m being annoying on purpose.”

Phantom grinned, and Tim couldn’t help but analyze the full sight of him. Everything from his teeth to his ears was pointed, a sharp contrast to the wispy white hair that flowed smoothly in a nonexistent breeze. The most attention grabbing was a glowing green mark resembling a gash across his chest, roughly in the place where a hero would wear their logo. The sight of it made Tim’s own chest ache.

“I don’t think Batman is dead.” He said suddenly.

“What makes you say that?” Phantom asked, reclining on empty air. 

It wasn’t denial, not calling him insane or lost in grief. For the first time since his fight with Dick, Tim felt as though he could breathe again. “I know it sounds crazy, there’s no proof—”

“Woah woah woah,” Phantom reached forward, gently pulling Tim’s hands away from where he had started pulling at his hair. “Slow down. Walk me through your thought process.”

“It just…it doesn’t feel right. Not that I can’t believe it if he died, but this specifically doesn’t feel right. I’d feel it if Br-Batman was dead…there was a whole cloning facility where Batman’s body was found.”

That seemed to spark interest in Phantom’s eyes. “You think the body was a clone?”

“Why would someone as powerful and precise as Darkseid drop everything and kill someone he was in the process of cloning? Why was he even trying to clone Batman specifically? We’re missing something, and I think Darkseid is using everyone’s grief to cover his plan.”

Phantom propped his chin on his hand, deep in thought. “Darkseid…I’ve heard that name before. Does he have something to do with time or space?”

Tim practically sagged in relief. “He can travel freely through both, and has a host of other abilities that give Superman a run for his money.”

He snapped his fingers, “Ah, that Darkseid! Yeah, if he wanted Bats dead there wouldn’t be a body left. I’d bet my collection he’s lost in time somewhere.”

“Thank you!” Tim gestured wildly, “You’re officially the first person to hear me out. Like, is it really so hard to believe?”

“No probs, Detect-o. It’s not the weirdest thing I’ve heard, by far.”

“Exactly,” Tim huffed, leaning back and sighing. “Now I just have to convince the Justice League so they can go back in time and grab him.”

“Why not just get him yourself?”

Tim glanced over to where Phantom hung in the sky. “Unless you’re also hiding time powers in there, we kinda need the League to get to him. Plus I don’t even know when in time he is.”

“Lucky for you, I know a guy,” Phantom grinned. “The Master of Time messaged me this mornin’, something about stopping Batman from breaking the time space continuum. It’s why I’m back in Gotham so soon.”

“You…know the Master of Time.”

“Yep!” He popped the p.

“And they messaged you.”

Phantom hummed, “You can imagine how it went when I tried to confront Batman a couple hours ago. The new Robin’s a menace, if I was any slower you’d have to deal with a Phantom shish kebab.”

Tim winced. It was never fun to be on the wrong end of Damian’s katana. Still, he focused back on the insanity at hand. “So you’re saying you can just go back and rescue Batman right now?”

“Now that I know what’s happening, yeah. Clocky probably already has a portal ready for me. Batman will be back before you can say ‘Gotham’!”

It was inconceivable. To think, the living nightmare of the past weeks would be over, just like that. His brain was screaming at him that this was some sort of cruel setup, that there was no way Phantom was telling the truth. There had to be a catch somewhere, some kind of punchline in the sick comedy that was the life of Tim Drake.

But his heart, the part of him that just wanted his dad back won out.

“What’s stopping you? You’re not usually one to wait for a window of opportunity.”

Phantom rubbed the back of his neck. “No, but I distinctly remember waiting for a certain vigilante. I was wondering if…you’d like to come with?”

Tim’s jaw dropped. “You’re inviting me, a vigilante who has attempted to arrest you dozens of times…to travel back in time to save Batman, another vigilante who has tried to put you under arrest.”

“Emphasis on tried,” Phantom joked, before turning serious. “I mean it—it’s your family. Besides, it could be fun. You come with me on a time heist, instead of sitting back here worrying your pretty head off with all the ways things could go wrong. And you get to tell everyone else ‘I told ya so’ when you save Batman on your own.”

He tried to work his mind through what Phantom was offering. To be able to fix things, maybe not go back to the way they used to be (Damian might actually kill him if he ever wore Robin again) but to have Bruce back. It wasn’t even a question.

No matter how smart Tim was, how he tried to plan things in advance the way Bruce did, he never stopped being the lonely kid who would sneak out at night to shadow his heroes. When Phantom reached out to offer a hand, Tim didn’t hesitate.

“You’re wrong, though.”

Phantom blinked, firmly gripping Tim’s hand without hurting him. “About what?”

“I wouldn’t be saving Batman on my own. We’d be doing it together.”

A fanged grin matched his own, blinding him to the swirling green portal that formed around them. Before Tim could so much as wonder if he maybe should’ve messaged someone about what he was setting off to do, they were already gone.

— - —

This was supposed to be a oneshot, but it got a bit long so I decided to split it up.

I really love this au, but I noticed that everyone has a tendency to hone in on the angst so much that the characters behind it get a bit lost in the process. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I wanted to try my hand at writing the misunderstandings without making either of them at fault.

(Insert rant about how the whole point of soulmates is that this person is a match for you, so even if you fundamentally are not good for each other you still get where the other person is coming from. There's so much more angst potential in not being able to hate someone no matter what they do to hurt you, but I digress.)

But yeah, let the boys heal and be happy! Also this is the closest I've gotten to actually writing romance and that's not saying much XD

Here's the design I drew for Phantom Thief!Danny. Feel free to drop an ask, I'd love to ramble more about this :D

[foggystarfishmaker]

Terry?

never forgive me. never forget me.

original prompt & following reblogs by @im-totally-not-an-alien-2 | ao3 ficlet

[tofuingho]

*Because I'm sad, but leaning into it today. I was reading the rejected soulmate!braindead AU*

A ghosts form is based off of their mental state. We've seen what happens when a ghost gets angry, but what happens when a ghost gets their heart broken?

Danny is dating one of the Robins. Let's go with Tim.

They've been together for almost two years and Danny's never been more happy! He's got big plans for their anniversary! He's finally going to ask Tim to live together!

He's flying across Gotham and sees Red Robin on a rooftop talking to Superboy. It's looking pretty intense- oh wow! They're making out! Better give them some privacy.

But before he can fly away, Superboy accidentally knocks off Red Robin's domino mask and.. that's his boyfriend.

His boyfriend of almost two years is a vigilante and currently has his tongue down the throat of another man.

He feels his body freeze over and burn at the same time. His chest feels like it's been ripped open and filled with hot molten lead. He fractures.

What's left isn't Phantom and it isn't Danny. It's barely humanoid.

It's limbs are long and thin like they've been put through a taffy puller. It's skin is blacker than the night sky on a moon less night. It's razor sharp teeth look better suited to some long dead aquatic creature. It's eyes burn red.

And. It. Screams.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

So...anyone remember that version of the Rejected Soulmate AU where Danny turns Tim into a Halfa against his will and Tim developed picture powers and trapped Phantom in a painting?

Well I do and I'm about to make it everyone else's problem.

When Danny is finally released from the painting he is not okay. He had been trapped in an attic where pretty much no one went to and then everyone outright avoided for years.

He was essentially stuck in solitary confinement for Ancients know how long. People don't just walk away from that and get to be perfectly sane afterwords. Whats more was that Dannys core was damaged right before being picturefied. Usually the damage sustained would have been nothing more than the equivalent of a skinned knee but being surrounded on all sides by the essence or not only another ghost but another Halfa...well...when two ghosts mix thier essences together they can create a new core.

A baby.

Unfortunately for Phantom both of them were Halfas and Danny had no access to human requirements such as food and water.

Phantoms body couldn't handle the strain of a pregnancy and he had a miscarriage. Worse still, he was constantly surrounded by Tim's essence so he just...kept getting pregnant and kept having miscarriage after miscarriage. When Danny was released he sobbed. It wasn't unusual so hear sobbing or crying from what was dubbed "Dannys room" all around him were the empty cores of the children he had lost, splayed across the floor without a glow and without a life. He looked up at the wall he had been hanging on and saw a distinct discoloration where his portrait used to be. For the love of the Ancients, how long had be been trapped there??

Danny eventually managed to calm down and went over to one of the boxes that hadn't been touched since Alfred stopped coming he tried not to think about that and quietly dumped the contents out onto the floor and used the box to gather up the so many far too many cores.

He would hold a funeral for them all at a later date, but for now he needed to escape the manor.

Sneaking down the stairs he kept his senses sharp. There seemed to be no one in the manor and it appeared to have been that way for quite some time. Alfred would rise from the grave himself if he knew how much dust had accumulated in his absence.

Danny walked past a puddle on the living room floor absently noting the large stain on the ceiling that periodically let a drop splash down into the dampness below. What had happened here? Clearly Tim hadn't died the rest of the way anytime soon after locking Danny up and throwing away the key, so what was up with the manor? How long had Danny been gone? Did they abandon him along with the house? That thought sent his stomach churning.

He knew Tim didn't want him. He had been okay with that so long as he played with him. Most soulmate bonds were platonic and Danny wasn't above pestering someone for attention. Red Robin had almost always seemed annoyed by his presence though and never really gave him a chance even when he seemed to be having fun with whatever "mini game" he had constructed (he made sure to base them off of Reds own hobbies and likes) he had seemed to be holding himself back. Tim never opened up to Danny.

Now Danny was the one trying to avoid Tim as he slipped out one of the manors secret passageways. Thank you old school money and your paranoid aristocrats. He wondered it Bruce even knew of all the secret passageways the Phantom had scoped out in Wayne Manor as he slipped out of a bush behind some old house on another property. Judging on how he had to phase his way out of the hidden door and under the bushes roots he'd go out on a limb and guess no one had used this one in quite a while.

He decided to still stick to the shadows. Even if he had escaped the manor it didn't change the fact that if Tim didn't already know he escaped he would soon enough and would be out looking for him with the rest of the furry patrol.

What about Hood? Did he still hate him? Danny wasn't even sure what went wrong. One day they were friends and then the next he wouldn't even look at him. Did Tim say something? Would he stoop so low? Either way he didn't think Hood would help him. He could feel Hoods Ecto-signature over in the direction of Crime Alley so he couldn't have been trapped for two long, right?

Wrong. So so wrong. According to the date on the electronic billboard he had been trapped for 133 years. Ancients. In other news Tim Drake had been attacked and fallen into a coma not too long ago, which would explain why Danny was free and not being chased. That and his collar that hid his ecto signature. Every day he's thankful for it.

Now would be the best time to leave Gotham. Now while everyone is distracted and Tim can't shove Danny back into his own private Hell.

By the time Tim realizes Danny is missing he will already be long gone.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Rejected Soulmate au where after Tim rejects Phantom on the rooftop Danny plans on taking how own life when he's stopped by Ras Al Ghul who talks him down and praises him for his talent and skill before managing to convince him to be an assasin.

Danny doesn't want revenge on the bats but hes lost most of his morals at this point and in his depressive spiral he's become very easy to manipulate and rather apathetic to others plights. He quickly rises in the ranks and is personally trained by Talia and other high ranking members of the league in combat styles both utilizing his multitudes of powers and teaching him to fight without them.

Phantom is eventually sent out on a mission to his home dimension to kill Vlad Masters and bring his corpse back to Ras for research and experimental purposes. This is when Danny learns that Amity Park did not do well in his absence and had become a war zone.

Sam had the nerve to act released that Danny was back and was going to "fix everything" and even got mad when he told her he had nothing to do with this city or its inhabitants. She tried to yell at him and say it was his "responsibility" and he blasted her in the face without a second thought, leaving her in critical condition and Tucker freaking out and trying to help her.

Danny smiled. That felt good. Not as good as wiping that smug look off of Vlads face nor the look of horror when he realized he was dying again. Danny made a show of Phantom killing Plasmious in broad daylight and letting what was left of the city see him transform back into Masters as he died before dragging his corpse through a portal and disappearing with him.

Ras was so pleased with Phantom. After all, he never failed a mission.

[eihwaz-y-d]

Look at this amazing art! So pretty, so sad. I love it.

It's about the rejected Soulmate Braindead AU

wake up!!

idea belongs to:  @fisticuffsatapplebees ,  @im-totally-not-an-alien-2 and  @eihwaz-y-d

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

I propose a mashup between Rejected! Soulmate AU and Evil!Clone Tim... instead of Danny going to the DC universe, clone Tim saved him and moves with him. Danny can be more morally evil or it can be a lot of angst for original!Tim.

Does clones have soulmates? I think it would interesting if they don't have.

What do you think it would be clone!Tim reaction? And original!Tim?

This ^^^ This is brilliant!!! Clones not having soulmarks can add onto the "clones aren't people" angst and Danny would love Evil Tim so much and he's in a prime mental state to be manipulated and brainwashed. Even without that Danny is practically falling over himself to make Evil Tim happy.

On the "can be morally evil or angst for Original! Tim" i ask: why not both? E. Tim is bringing Phantom into the world of villiany and O. Tim can do nothing to stop it as Phantom begins to show his true power. Justice League Dark eventually has to step in but by this time its too late. E. Tim has created hundreds of plans and countermeasures to defeat/kill them and for the most part succeeded.

O. Tim feels guilt, not only for the deaths of all those heros who probably wouldn't have died if his clone didn't have access to Phantom but for Phantom himself meeting such an "awful fate"

In the mean time Danny is having the time of his afterlife with E. Tim who treats him like a queen and often declares him as his "greatest treasure"

Bonus points if Evil Cone Tim is kind of a Yandere. Maybe Danny just doesn't care of Danny is a Yandere also. Two overprotective super powerful psychos in love who refuse to ever hurt eachother.

Terrifying.

Anyway, E. Tim would definitely rub it in O. Tim's face. Someone at some point calls E. Tim "Mr. Steal your girl" and Danny laughs. He also rubs it in his face how many doors Phantom had opened for him.

E. Tim is now:

1. Immortal. Kinda?

2. Given access to all kids of magical artifacts and advanced tech

3. Completely stable thanks to Phantom and the magical yeti scientists hes friends with offers to make clone babies for the two of them in the very distant future

4. Has an amulet that let's him turn into a dragon at will

5. Has his originals soulmate thoroughly in love with him and willing to do anything he asks of him and its clean-no matter how hard E. Tim tries to hide it- he's in love with Phantom too.

E. Tim is living the good life and O. Tim is very jealous.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Rejected soulmate au but I made it worse instead of better

Danny, instead of just leaving, instead snaps and commits a series of murders as Phantom, rampaging across the city. His first victims were his parents who he mauled to death, then Vlad, then his so called "friends". Once he came out of the green rage induced fog he realized what he had done and sobbed somewhere in the woods around Amity.

He knew that the GIW would arrive soon, and well, he's already in this deep and he can't just let a government agency that hell bent on genocide and conquering/expirementing on the entities of an entire dimension do as they please so he takes his hanger out on them as he's always wanted.

Hes so glad Jazz is away for collage. She's safe from them. Safe from him.

Its a wonder Clockwork didn't try to talk to him. He probably knew it wouldn't do any good, and Danny is technically of the living and Clockwork isn't allowed to harm the living or control them, only influence them into taking different paths. Hence why he did the time freeze/rewind fiasco when Danny attacked him at the clock tower when he was 14. He wasn't allowed to actually fight him and honestly at that point Clockwork didn't need to. But now Danny had that time medallion in his chest courtesy of his alternate evil future self and Clockwork couldn't do anything.

Danny was 16 and far too powerful for the master of time to take on.

Danny demolishes the GIW like he was playing Doomed on the easiest setting. It was laughable how quickly they went down and Danny found himself enjoying it.

He always had to tamp down that feeling. That vicious glee he got whenever he took vengeance on someone who wronged him. It had always been a thought in the back of his mind that he may have been inherently evil at heart and that he would turn to the dark side eventually.

He wouldn't be like the fusion of himself and Vlad though. That was just a mildless monster destroying everything in its path. What was even the point of that? For all the darkness in his heart, he couldn't see that as anything other that sheer stupidity. He assumed it was Vlads half. The only thing the creep was ever good at was dragging everyone around him down.

Danny packs up and activates the Fenton houses Baba Yaga Protocal, causing his childhood home to grow legs and literally walk away. He eventually managed to find all of Vlads secret labs and treasure stashes, raiding all of them and stripping them of everything they had to offer.

Then he went to find his soulmates dimension in the comfort and convenience of a newer and crazier version of howls moving castle. He had no plans on harming them per say, but he wanted to know why. Why reject a soulmate you hadn't even met before? A person who either platonically or romantically is your perfect match and can understand you better than anyone.

Danny himself suffered immensely throughout his childhood. His parents mental and emotion manipulation and neglect had left Danny longing for thier praise and attention but also left him feeling hollow and confused. Being the children of Evil mad scientists made it difficult to be friends with anyone. Even if the kids weren't weirded out by them, the parents of those kids would tell them that they weren't allowed to play with him or Jazz in fear for thier safety.

Rumors about the Fenton parents experimenting on thier children eventually reached thier ears. That was when he realized that other parents didn't give them twice daily injections of ectoplasm into thier bloodstream.

Im lazy but heres more:

1. Danny as a kid 9-12 realized that Sam and Tucker were crappy friends. Sam often tried to chase away any other girls that tried to talk to Danny for any reason (she was getting better) and often was controlling or patronizing to him while using her parents wealth to get what she wanted. Whether she realized it or not, she was actually a lot like them.

Tucker, Danny decided, secretly hated him and had straight up admitted before that he only became friends with Danny to steal the cool tech from his parents lab, which Danny had allowed and risked getting hurt by his parents to make his friend happy. Tucker was always jealous of Danny, stating that Tuckers own life was plain and boring while Dannys was like the protagonist of an anime. Tucker was quiet about it, but Danny saw how much the other boy enjoyed seeing him fail.

He tried to hang out with his big sister more, cause she could understand and she loved him, right? He was standing outside her door again with his favorite ball (it had the constellation Pegasus on it!) and raised his hand to knock on her door when he heard her groan loudly.

He knew he wasn't supposed to eavesdrop but he put his ear to the door anyway. Curiosity had always been his greatest weakness. On the other side she was talking on the phone. To who he had no idea cause Jazz didn't have friends, but she was complaining about mom and dad and...him. she told her phone friend that she loved him, but only out of obligation. She was his sister and she had to care about him, even if she didn't want to.

Danny didn't understand. She had just said she loved him so why did his heart hurt so much?

He went back to playing with Sam and Tucker. They were what he had, even if he didn't like them, he could lie to himself and tell himself that he did. Just like with mommy and daddy.

If he keeps telling himself that he loves them than he will. If he keeps telling himself that they love him then they will.

Dannys always been good at lying to himself.

Still, the soulmark on his arm remained. It was a vague promise of a light at the end of the tunnel. A dream that someone would show him what real love was like and they would sweep him off his feet and take him far far away from this place.

So why...

2. Phantom doesn't make a name for himself in this new dimension right away. Yeah he had all this treasure he stole from Vlad but treasure isn't money and he had no idea if money from his dimension would even be valid what with all the protections the us had on thier bills to make it difficult for people to make fakes.

Selling gold bars and the like was easier said than done, especially if you actually wanted a fair price for it, and he'd rather have a hoard stashed away for his later plans to more easily take shape.

3. Phantom was an excellent thief, even without his powers, but hes in too early to be arrogant and this world was filled with super-powered villians and heros alike, all trying to make a name for themselves.

He refused to be anyones stepping stool to something greater. Not anymore.

Danny was as cunning as he was skilled. He disguised himself in seedy bars, talking up whatever heist he had made recently, saying whatever thief had pulled that off must have been the greatest, sometimes he ever went dressed as a swooning girl for the extra oomph.

It usually worked and some meat head would take credit for his crimes. Word would sometimes conveniently make its way to the cops and if Danny was really lucky the poor sucker would actually go down for his crimes.

All to muddy the waters. Its harder to connect all these crimes to him when half of them have convictions and the other half have nothing linking them together <3

4. Danny needed minions but he didn't want to tell them anything. He wasn't in the position to start recruiting younger supervillians into his army yet. That was much later in the plan.

No, he needed a mercenary. One who didn't ask questions.

Mr. Deathstroke came with great recommendations and had a great track record for getting whatever contract he had completed and he had a vendetta of some sort against the Teen Titans and Young Justice.

Yeah, he was a bit fruitloopy but he seemed perfect for the job he had in mind.

Danny would keep Deathstroke at a distance of course. He was a mercenary, a hired gun, not his friend. Some one else could easily hire him to get information about Phantom or worse, hire him to attack or capture Phantom.

No the only thing tall, dark and scary was getting from him was the money owed to him in the contract. Money he now had plenty of.

5. Danny never really considered that he would have to compete with other thieves.

He had made sure to steer clear of places like Gotham and Metropolis because of the heros there who always stopped thieves and revealed their identities. Danny didn't need that, no thank you.

But as he was doing one of his heists, the third one this month and the one he planned on sticking the blame onto another poor sap-freaking Catwoman ran into the room with a sphinx carved of some precious stone and Batman not far behind.

Batman locked eyes with him for only a moment, cowl meeting domino for a split second, and Phantom knew he had been found out. This wasn't Gotham. He had no idea how they had gotten here or when but Danny wasn't naive enough to think the worlds greatest detective wouldn't be on his tail after he saw Phantoms arms drapped in the "priceless artifacts" from the India section.

They very much had a price. His buyer had paid a hefty chunk in advance.

Catwoman, who Danny had silently sworn vengeance against, kicked Batman away from her mid brawl and launching him in the direction Phanton was escaping.

Crud. It was time to fight and he was so not happy about it. Danny did manage to get away with the use of his electric powers. Turns out leaving the lower half of your face exposed is a bad idea, especially if your opponent knows Thunder Punch.

He used an EMP pulse as he ran to fry any cameras and Batmans equipment before heading down the hallway and through a few walls. He turned invisible once he was far enough away and flew off into the night with his prize.

This buyer better not backstabbing him. He's in no mood to play nice tonight.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Can you please give Danny a happy ending in Rejected Soulmate Au

Originally, the whole thing was supposed to be happy. Well, except for the beginning anyway.

Danny was supposed to get Red Robins attention through Fun Minigames, Prizes, slipping RR intel no human should be able to have without at least three moles, exciting motorcycle chases, exciting other chases, and eventually make Red fall in love with him.

It was originally inspired by the song Coming After You by Owl City and Bombshell Blonde which is also by Owl city

Then the angst bug bit me.

And I've been torturing ya'll ever since.

But yeah I probably should make a happy au for it. I'll think about it but my brain doesn't wanna do stuff rn

Other authors are free to play with it too as always

[nightfox321]

what if the batfam think that danny is only with E.tim becuase he looks like O.tim not realizing that danny fell in love with E.tim becuase he is E.tim

@gilbirda Ok, so you made a snippet of on of your AUs a while back (braindead rejected! soulmate i think) and I haven't been able to think of much else since. So my brain made a little thingy for you!

------------

1. Tim takes a risk one day by writing back to whoever was doodling on his body, with a glittery purple gel pen, asking them to stop trying to contacting him.

All the person asked was, "Why?"

Tim never answers.

2. Danny faces constant rejection from his peers, authority figures, his parents and sister neglect him and now his own soulmate doesn't want him. They hadn't even met before he was rejected. Jazz finds out about Dannys powers and tries to reach out but Danny rejects her pretty violently due to his own pain. Then the episode where Sam and Tucker ditch him for Gregor happens and he gives up.

The two people in his life that has had pretty much complete control over his life and trajectory just abandoned him and he does not take it well. He ripped the symbol off his chest, disappeared and never came back.

3. Danny zooms into a new dimension/universe/whatever to avoid his former friends and family from being able to track him only to land in a place called Central City and immediately getting roped into helping Captain Cold who gives him a normal domino mask and they end up working together for a while.

4. Danny somehow overhears one of the speedster talking on the phone about his friends brothers soulmate issue at some point and they perfectly describe the interaction that happened between Danny and his soulmate all those years ago, down to the glittery purple gel pen and the types of doodles Danny had made as a kid and the things he said.

Danny learned one of his soulmates belonged to a group of detective vigilantes in a place called Gotham. Unfortunately he was spotted by the speedster and Danny had to bounce.

5. The Flash made reports to the Justice League about a meta teen who hes been having trouble with for a while and can't seem to pin down. He only asked for tips though as he "could handle it himself."

6. Danny leaves for Gotham and learned about Catwoman and Batmans weird Master Thief and Greatest Detective dynamic and decided that's what he wants to do. He was going to make his soulmate chase after him one way or another. Someone was going to want him even if they were wanting him behind bars.

He begins robbing bank vaults and museums, leaving no trace or clue as to what happened until he starts leaving a calling card of sorts.

7. Jason, who's been on the outs with his family lately meets this spunky white haired meta kid running around with a sci-fi mask/visor thing and giving supplies to homeless encampments and keeping the less fortunate alive and befriends him. He learns that this is the guy everyone has been searching for and just...tells no one. Jason is all for a Robin Hood vigilante, and really, its kinda funny to see his family squirm.

8. Phantom and Catwoman rob the same museum at the same time but for different things. They stare at eachother from where they're both still crouched from thier respective landings until Danny breaks the tension with "I didn't see you if you didn't see me?"

Catwoman laughs, amused. "Sure."

9. Danny finally narrowed down which of the batfam is his soulmate and introduced himself to them as Phantom.

The first thing Danny did was hit on Tim. Tim is flustered but otherwise doesn't really respond to it and tries to fight Phantom into submission, so of course Danny ghosts him by disappearing through a roof mid fight. Danny made a big show of his intangibility in that fight and made it seem like it was the only power he had but he was very skilled with it and he wanted to impress him.

10. Phantom becomes well known to the underbelly of Gotham. Mostly the homeless and nightworkers. But Danny was open and friendly. Never judging and always ready to lend a helping hand. Even better. He never came to collect on favors.

Over time, they became loyal to him.

11. Danny gets framed for a series of murders and the whole gang (minus Hood) are trying to capture him, thus, motorcycle chase scene. They use the white of his tires to tell when he's gone intangible due to all the dirt falling off the wheels. Nightwing jumps onto the bike and shocks Danny with his encrizma sticks right before Danny grits out "bye bye birdy~" and makes a big show of taking in a deep breath and holding it.

Nightwing is forced to jump off the bike as Danny runs through the concrete abutment of the overpass and coming out the other side

12. Danny meets Tim and Duke in his civilian form while he was at a Wayne tech conference. Danny had been asked about one of his inventions and was trying to show off the blueprints and explain things and thats why he was there in the first place. Duke of course, was internally screaming because that's the guy thats the guy they've been hunting for nearly a year but can find nothing on.

Red Robin confronts Phantom that night on a rooftop and Phantom laughs at him, "Thats why I was avoiding Signal for so long. He'd see my magical girl form and know instantly."

RR holds out a pair of handcuffs and says "Its over Danny." Phantom smirks and says, "I don't think it is, Tim" before jumping off onto a different roof and disappearing into the night. Tim is shook.

13. Danny over hears Robin berating RR at an old clocktower and intervenes, "Little Wayne, you do realize you were the first person I figured out, right?"

Damian proceeds to lose his mind.

14. Tim accidentally finds a material that Phantom can't phase through and quickly gets to work making things he can use against Danny. What he doesn't know is that Danny can phase through it he just pretended he couldn't because he wanted to see what would happen/what Tim would do.

Danny can sense the material and it feels really wierd to him, but doesn't harm him at all.

15. RR manages to knock Phantoms visor off his face and realizing it was made of tech he swipes it and brings it back to the cave for study.

He wasn't ready for all the information on the computer. Not only was his nemesis(?) from another plain of reality (he thinks Danny is from the ghost zone) but he was once a superhero with his own Rogues Gallery and human city to protect. Which begs the question, why did he become a Phantom thief?

16. The Joker hears about Phantom giving the bats the run around and comes to a misunderstanding about which bat he's been messing with which ultimately ends with Joker saying that he is Batmans ultimate nemesis and Phantom asking what that had to do with him? The misunderstanding is cleared up when Phantom complained about Joker even thinking that he was flirting with Batman because "Ew! He's an old man!"

Joker still got a few shots in for the heck of it but so did our ghost boy but they were no longer enemies.

17. The whole batfam had been freaking out about finally capturing Phantom and celebrating and plotting on how they were gonna get him to keep his mouth shut about thier identities until Jason came in,

Jason: Need help?

Phantom: Please?

Jason: *escapes with Danny*

Batfam: What?! No!!! Why?!

18. The batfam have only a vague idea of the Robin Hood thing going on. They know he's doing it just not to the extent its gone to. They find out later on that Phantom had been working with RH and his gang to sell off the items and most of the profits go to helping people. Other times he strait up gives jewelry and whatnot to children and working girls because "Everyone deserves something pretty, and even if its not your style you can keep it for a rainy day"

Phantom quickly gains a following and Danny doesn't even know about it. Clueless indeed.

19. Dannys main motivation in this is essentially just playing Cops and Robbers with Red Robin. Nothing else really matters to him. Not the robberies, not the fact he's working with a crime lord, not even his own safety matters much to him anymore. Hes readily zooming down the path of self destruction and Hood starts telling his family stuff, but only because he was genuinely worried about "Casper" crashing and burning.

20. No one knows why Phantom is fixated on Red Robin. He refuses to tell them. Red thinks its just because he's the smartest of the bats and he's not entirely wrong.

21. Danny legit started scheduling his heists with Tim to ensure they're both free after one couldn't make it too many times which blew the birds mind. Phantom must have been just that confident that he would always win. The bats eventually think Danny will stop stealing if RR isn't in the city for a long period of time. Danny more or less followed him and stole stuff from whatever city Tim was in. If there wasn't any museums or banks then Danny would steal a local landmark. Tim still wasn't sure how Phantom stole an entire building that one time but it had never been seen since.

22. Hood grows to be very protective of our favorite ghost boy. They bond and are actually really close. Danny admits he always wanted an older brother.

23. Tim goes off world for a while to see how Danny would react and Danny just...drops off the radar. No one knows where he is and after a week or two they start getting worried.

Tim returns after three months and Danny reappears two weeks after him with a tan and keepsakes from the places he visited on his vacation. Tim later screams into his pillow.

24. Tim has made it his personal mission to figure out who Danny really is, why he's fixated on him, where he came from, ect. Hes trying so hard but can't find anything. Its almost like he didn't exist before. Tim suddenly got an idea after Phantom accidentally got hit in the face and got a nosebleed. Tim saw green blood and immediately realized Danny might not even be human. Fortunately for our little ghost, he thinks he's an alien. A Martian specifically. Tim manages to snag a good sample from treating Phantoms wounds. Ghostboy was so focus on his core thrumming and mentally comparing it to his heart racing that he didn't even notice.

25. Tim later freaks out because the meta is freaking made out of Lazarus water.

The entire batfam was not happy to discover this and decided to work together to pressure Phantom into telling them what he was and what exactly he wanted.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Ok, but revisiting the Rejected Soulmate au because someone wrote more on it today and I got excited. I read it and Snapped! Danny (who we should definitely use more often) kidnapped Tim and took him to the ghost zone to protect him and I totally thought that Danny was going to go on a rampage and kill/destroy anything he deemed a threat to him until one of the bats convinced Danny he was a threat to Tim and he looked over to see Tim shaking and looking terrified

Of him.

Danny loses it further and either destabilized or "eliminated the threat" right in front of Tima nd the other bats.

Thats not how the story went tho and now I'm brutally reminded why I don't write major angst

[forest-posts-and-reblogs]

Chapter 2 of Loving You Is A Losing Game

Danny had, very reluctantly, joined his parents in their once-in-a-blue-moon family dinners. He had only done this because he had needed to figure out exactly how his parents had captured that shade. He would have preferred eating Nasty Burger takeout in his room, or going to Elmerton and eating at one of their breakfast-for-dinner places, or accepting one of the many, many dinner invitations Johnny and Kitty kept sending him now that they had finally agreed to keep property damage to a minimum whenever they entered Amity Park.

Duty calls , he thought to himself sourly.

“So, mom, dad,” he asked, “did you do anything interesting in the lab today?”

Jack Fenton immediately replied, “We created a device that can find ghosts and used it to capture one! It was invisible, of course - probably trying to evade capture. But never fear, Danny, because we caught it! It’s successfully contained in the Fenton Ghost Containment Device, and your mother and I are going to study it before ripping it molecule by molecule!”

Danny ignored the sinking feeling in his chest. “Right. Any chance I could take a look at your tracking device after dinner? I wanna learn how you guys make such cool things.”

It wasn’t even a lie.

“Of course, honey,” Madeleine Fenton said. “You’ll have to make do with the blueprints, however, as we need the device so we know where the ghost is. Unless it realizes there’s no point in hiding from us.”

You’ll be waiting a long time in that case, seeing as I sent it to the zone , Danny thought to himself.

Danny woke up to a blue mist rising above him, and mentally groaned. Why couldn’t he have just one night of peaceful sleep? That was all he was asking for, but noooo. He was exempt from pretty much anything even remotely normal.

He slipped out of bed and turned himself intangible, falling through the floor and into the basement, where the ghost was (hopefully) located, and found himself staring down a ghost vulture.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Danny groaned. “Why are you out, Nutty?”

The vulture’s name wasn’t actually Nutty, but Danny thought it was funny, and despite the fact that the vulture had protested the name before, he got the sense that they liked it.

“I got a new job, kid. Pays well, too. All I gotta do is find and kill this one guy. Apparently he got on a lotta people’s nerves.”

Hopefully it’s not Dad, he thought. Out loud he asked, “Yeah? Who is this mystery person?”

“Some kid called Wes Weston,” Nutty croaked.

Danny froze for a full five seconds. Then he moved. He slammed Nutty into the wall so hard the vulture left a crater.

“Who paid you to kill Wes?” He snarled. "̶̠̅̓Ẁ̸̢͔̻̘̍̃̈́̀͘h̵̡̘̥̠͇̒õ̵͙̰̬̦̻̹̂͗̌̈̐̏͑̊̓͝?̷̢̟̰̮̗̲͘"̵̝̂̿̽̓̒̑͐͑̓̆̊̄̚

“I don’t know!" Nuty squawked. Danny pressed them further into the wall, and Nutty seemed to panic. "No, really, I don't know! It was some person in a hood! I never saw their face!"

"You sure it wasn't Plasmius?" Danny asked. If Vlad had decided to go after Wes, for whatever reason, Danny wouldn't hold back. Not this time, not anymore. Not when the life of his only remaining friend was on the line.

Wes couldn't die.

"I'm sure!" Nutty croaked. "Now can you please let me go?"

“Not until you promise not to hurt Wes,” Danny growled. “Promise me that, and I’ll let you go.”

“I promise!” Nutty all but shrieked, and true to word, Danny released him.

Nutty squawked once, flapping his wings in indignance. “Forget this, I’m going back to the Ruins. Much less of a chance of getting your body slammed into a wall there.” He shot a look at Danny.

Danny sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry about that, Nutty. I just - I couldn’t let you hurt him.”

Nutty snorted, then took off through the open portal. Danny watched him go before returning to his room. He sank back into bed hoping to finally get some sleep -

His phone rang.

Aggravated, Danny threw back the covers, snatched up his phone, and said, “What?”

“You left the portal open,” came Wes’s dry reply.

Danny stiffened, before falling through the floor and into the basement - again - and yes, he had indeed left the portal open. Danny groaned.

“Just one night,” he said into the phone, “all I want is one night I can sleep through without having to worry about ghosts.”

When Wes spoke again, he sounded tired. “I know. I don’t like it either.”

“Well, guess it’s time to die,” Danny chuckled. He took a deep breath. “I’m going -”

“Wait!” Wes exclaimed.

Danny paused. “What’s wrong?”

“The portal’s open. You could leave.”

All of a sudden, Danny was extremely aware of the glowing green tunnel in the wall (the tunnel he had died in). He swallowed.

“I don’t think I can, Wes,” he whispered, hating the words even as he spoke them, hating the weakness they revealed.

Wes was silent on the other end of the phone.

“Do you want me to be there when you do it?” he asked.

Danny released a shaky breath. “I think that would be worse, actually.”

“Danny. I know you don’t want to, but you need to leave. Amity Park isn’t safe for you anymore. Your parents have contracts with the GIW. Vlad is kidnapping you pretty much every week. Valerie hates you. Sam and Tucker don’t even care that you exist at this point.”

“I can’t leave you,” Danny whispered. His hands were shaking. “You heard what Nutty said. Someone wants to kill you, Wes. They could -”

“I can protect myself.” Wes cut him off. “And whoever wants to kill me hired Nutty from the Zone. If you want to find out who’s after me,

you’d have to go to the Zone regardless. Why not go there permanently?”

“Because you and Jazz are both here!” Danny shouted. “I can’t abandon you! If the GIW realize that you’re liminal, they’ll kill you both!”

“You wouldn’t be abandoning us, Danny,” Wes soothed. “The GIW are only after you and the other ghosts. They don’t even know that liminals exist. After you leave, if the ghosts attack again, Val, your parents or the GIW will scare them enough to send them back to the Zone for good. And when the ghost attacks stop and Amity Park settles down a bit, I’ll see what I can do to come visit. I have the blueprints for the portal. I’m sure I could convince Kyle to help me build it.”

With every word Wes spoke, Danny relaxed a bit more. Wes was right. Everything would be fine.

He’s lying to you, he’s going to turn on you and leave you just like everyone else as soon as he realises how worthless and insignificant you are

“Okay.” Danny said. “I’ll do it.” And with a click, he hung up. Bracing himself, and turned to look at the self-destruct button. He jumped forward and pressed the button, leaping back almost immediately.

The basement lit up in red. A siren wailed. A pleasant, robotic voice said, “Self-destruct mode activated. You have 60 seconds. Also, the ham is spoiled.”

Danny flew up, grabbed his parents, and flew out of the house. He left them on the front door of their neighbours, then flew back in. He hesitated in his room, before grabbing his model rockets and returning

to the basement. With a deep breath, he flew into the green, green, green portal, all the way to the other side. He flew till he was surrounded by the green, till he could feel the ectoplasm in the air, till he could see the Ruins surrounding him.

The Ruins are gonna get ruined , he thought, and chuckled.

Behind him, there was an explosion.