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audliminal · 2 months ago

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Survivability Bias Pt 2

Masterpost

Danny spends the next few days exploring the town more, while he considers the implications of everything he’d learned at the library. He’d taken notes, but they’re not exactly the best. Danny’s never been that good at taking notes, after all, but he has a pretty good memory, so the various key words and few quotes he’d scribbled down are plenty useful in reminding him of all the wild shit he’d read about.

There’d been a lot of history involved in the whole meta situation. It seems like these so-called meta humans, and various other races (species? Danny doesn’t know nearly enough about the cultural implications of that) have been around long enough to have had a significant impact on the world at large. And yet, at the same time, there really hadn’t been a lot of personal information on any of the heroes. Oh, there’d been plenty on some of the villains - and of course there’d still be villains here, he’s not lucky enough to escape that - but aside from various speculation about their romantic lives, and a few acknowledgements of family ties here and there, there’d been very few details about where most of them actually came from.

Superman, for example (he seemed to be this world’s go-to example of metas and superheroes), is listed as being an alien, who’s powers come from his biologies unique interaction with this planet’s atmosphere, although it doesn’t explain anything about what that means. Interestingly, there seems to be almost no speculation about Superman’s so-called secret identity. Only about half the listed heroes seem to have one according to the public, but Danny knows that song and dance too well to fall for it. Honestly, they’re even more likely to have a secret identity than Danny himself, seeing as Danny’s alter ego is literally dead. Not that ghosts seem to be much of a thing here.

He’d felt so silly looking up information about ghosts, right before leaving the library. Compared to the deep dive into recent history, googling “are ghosts real” must have looked insane if anybody could see it. The answer he’d returned had been not unlike the way things had been when he was ten or twelve. Before the portal, you’d see dumb ghost hunter shows where they never actually saw much of anything. Ghosts were, like, poltergeists that moved your furniture around and slammed the doors shut. The results here had been a little more interesting - clearly in a world where superheroes are a fact of life, fantastical stuff is a little more rational, and the speculation was clearly affected by that fact, but it still had been, seemingly, all speculation.

Of course, none of that really mattered when it came to Superman. Danny was at least ninety percent sure he wasn’t a ghost. And even if he somehow was, it didn’t change the fact that he either has a secret identity, or he basically never takes part in society. And if he doesn’t have a secret identity, then the question very much becomes why not. Because that means he either has no real reason to care about anyone here (which seems implausible), or he’s unable to spend that time in public. It’s that possibility that’s knocked out any chance of Danny approaching any of the heroes. Because there’s always the possibility that the endorsed heroes are being used to lure other metahumans in. And Danny doesn’t know nearly enough about this world to make any kind of judgment on what’s most likely here. After all, historically there’s plenty of examples of governments that work with specific people among targeted groups, in order to more successfully take out the others. it tends not to end well for those people when it’s all over, but anyone who’s short-sighted or even just backed into a wall enough can fall for that.

Hell, the GIW had actually tried that line on Danny once or twice, not that he’d ever accepted. After all, they’d never realized that was actually sort of alive, so their pitches had always been... less than convincing.

Danny blinks, reaching out to touch the brick wall in front of him. He hadn’t meant to come back here, but honestly at this point, he really shouldn’t be surprised. This random little alley on side street wouldn’t be interesting at all to anyone else. But if Danny stares long enough, he can almost see the green-tinged light of the portal that brought him here. Not that he’d ever seen the portal from this side. He hadn’t turned to look until after the light had faded. The idea of seeing his friends’ faces through the swirling green had been too much.

They had all known exactly what it meant when he came here. The difficulty of the journey was the point. Between the anti-ecto acts gaining not just mainstream awareness, but support, and the GIW gaining access to better funding and training, well, the second the GIW had started successfully ending ghosts, it seemed like all the denizens of the zone had collectively decided to stay the fuck home.

At first Danny had enjoyed it, had relaxed and been excited to finally be able to focus on just being a teen. But the GIW hadn’t calmed down, had just started going even more on the offensive, and the second he and Jazz had noticed agents showing up casually at their house, everyone had gone into full alert.

That’s how they found out that the next goal was to apparently take the fight to the zone itself.

The conclusion had been easy from that point. The portal needed to be destroyed, and fast. But with the ghost zone blocked off (and Danny’s death being the unknowing link that made the portal ever work in the first place), that would leave Danny as one of three remaining targets.

They’d all immediately agreed that Vlad could figure out his own solution. Dani- well, she had been traveling, but the second she turned up, the others had made plans to send her on her own one way portal trip too.

Of course, the likelihood that she’d end up here is probably minuscule. So he’s alone.

“Hey,” a stern voice cuts through Danny’s thoughts. He glances over to the person who’s standing at the door to a building. “There’s no loitering here.”

Right. It’s almost easy to forget, in the face of his life’s inescapable absurdity, that to everyone else in this town, he just seems like a possibly-homeless delinquent. Not that the delinquent part is unfamiliar.

“Sorry,” Danny mutters belatedly, realizing that the person is just waiting as he stares at them like a weirdo. He’s not very good with people anymore. Not that he was that good to begin with. Phantom had been a Ghostly Menace, constantly destroying the town with his fights, nobody had expected him to function as a person. Nobody had thought he was a person. But as Danny Fenton- well, he’d fallen short of just about every expectation set at Danny Fenton’s feet.

Distantly he wonders if his friends even bothered to disguise his disappearance. He’d always kind of wondered if his parents would ever notice if he and Jazz just- left. School definitely noticed, though most of the faculty would probably take it as completely expected. After all Danny Fenton was a terrible student, constantly skipping class and never doing his work, and even when he was in class he was usually halfway to falling asleep anyways. Lancer had certainly lectured him about his lack of discipline more than enough. So they might just come to the conclusion that he’d dropped out and run away.

He doesn’t know if he’d prefer that, honestly. The truth is messed up and complicated and frankly, unbelievable. But maybe if they knew the truth at least one person might feel a fraction of sympathy for all the bullshit that he’d been dealing with. Funny, Danny thinks, how coming here feels more like a death than when I actually died.

#dp x dc #the one where danny stumbles into a new universe and immediately guns for nasa #the unofficial title for this chapter is post-dimensional depression #suffice to say that he's got like... a LOT of baggage

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flamingpudding · 1 year ago

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Fictober23 Prompt: 22 - "Who takes care of you?"

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: T

Warnings: -

A/N: Originally Cass was supposed to be the one picking up Danny... but I was not confident enough in that deleted part and so Dick's part ended up getting changed and being the last one instead.

Damian blinked at the child sitting at the playpen of the rescued kittens. He was sure there hadn't been anyone before besides this was a restricted area. Only volunteers and the actual workers of the animal shelter were allowed here. He looked around the area, hoping to see someone that could identify as the child's guardian but he was alone in the room with the child and kittens.

"How did you get in here?" He bluntly asked but the child was apparently ignoring him. The boy's back was turned to him and Damian's eyes narrowed. The child was wearing a slightly oversized NASA shirt as well as ratty looking shorts. He had black hair that appeared to be slightly unkempt with a length just enough to prevent Damian from seeing the child's eyes. He stepped over the knee high kitten fence towards the child but then stopped.

The boy was holding one of their smallest kittens they had rescued two days ago. The kitten had refused any milk or food they had offered it. Damian had planned to try and convince it to eat something before the workers would be forced to attempt force feeding. But the boy was holding it and one of the milk bottles was only used for the youngest of kittens. It was eating.

The small child was mumbling something to the kitten and Damian believed he picked up some of the words being: 'You're safe now.', 'I know it hurts but you gotta eat.', 'Being lost is always scary.', 'I am sure everyone is worried.'.

Under normal circumstances Damian would be suspicious of this boy but right now he was more relieved that the little one they all had been worried about was finally eating something. He would have to thank this little boy and his guardian. Maybe the boy even planned to give that little kitten a home with him.

With a small fond smile Damian decided to let the boy be and turned to feet the other kittens that were already excitingly climbing up his leg for their meal in his hands. He hadn't watched the child for less than five minutes but when he turned back to ask that child about his guardian.

The boy was gone. The feeding bottle was propped onto the fence in a way that allowed the little kittens to still feed off it. It was like the boy had never been there. Damian hadn't heard the door of the room open and close either. Nor the typical rustling of clothes when one stands up. He narrowed his eyes at the spot where the child had been.

Even when asking the other volunteers and workers. No one else appeared to have seen the child he had described to them.

—-

Tim blinked at the boy that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Or maybe Tim had been too tired to realize that he had sat down into a booth that was already taken when he had ordered his coffee. The child didn't appear to pay him any mind, to focus on a piece of paper they were drawing on with green crayons.

Tim looked around the coffee shop trying to spot who this child belonged to but found no one. Now the most responsible thing would probably be to alert one of the store workers about a possible abandoned child, get in contact with the authorities and make sure the child would be returned to his rightful guardians or parents.

The problem was, Tim was sleep deprived and had his own fair share of abandoned child issues as well as having seen enough corrupted authorities trafficking children like that.

"Hey there, what are you doing?" He asked the kid instead, black shaggy hair hung into the kids eyes and the head moved only so slightly indicating that the child had heard him.

"Drawing a blueprint." The boy mumbled and Tim arched an eyebrow.

"With crayons?"

"This is the only shop that gave me this for free so I wouldn't have to attempt to steal a pen and paper."

Tim hummed studying the boy more closely and his drawing more closely now. He arched an eyebrow when among the barely readable scribes he noticed something that looked a lot like a mathematical equation.

Letting his eyes wander around the store once more before resting them on the child Tim thought about it. A child seemingly alone in a coffee shop, the only place according to the kid that had willingly given him paper and crayons to draw with. The drawing being a 'blueprint' for something and among the scribbles were some actual calculations that might make sense. He would need to take a closer look to really judge that.

"Don't you have things like that at home?"

Before he could receive an answer Tim's number got called out, telling him that his order was ready. Glancing at the kid he got up to quickly retrieve it. But when he turned back to the table to continue questioning the child he found the booth empty with no indication that anyone had been there before.

Partially Tim thought his mind might have hallucinated the boy in his sleep deprived state but a broken piece of green crayon left on the floor by the place where the boy had sat was his indication that he hadn't. Strangely enough, when he tried to check for video evidence, Tim found that all surveillance videos were corrupted.

—-

Jason was just done dealing with this drug deal when he heard rustling behind some of the warehouse crates. Instinctively he pulled out his gun. It appeared like one of these goons tried to sneak away. Well not on his watch.

But once he had silently made his way over to the crates he did not find a left over underling like he expected. No when he kicked the crate and pointed his gun it was not a grown ass man trying to hide from Red Hoods wrath, no a goddamn child rolled out of the crate clutching some metal pieces and electric cables to his chest.

"Fuck!" His first thought was that these assholes he had just beat up were not only trafficking drugs but also children, it made him want to beat the ever living daylight out of them a second time. But then the child's head tilted ever so slightly, eyes covered by his shaggy looking hair but Jason thought he saw blue peeking out between the strands of hair.

"Shit." He cursed once more hurrying to put his gun away so as not to scare the kid, before he crouched in front of the boy. "Hey there, you okay?"

His hands hovered above the boy's shoulders, close enough to catch the kid should he fall over but not too close to make the boy feel threatened. Looking the kid up and down, Jason tried to see if there were any injuries on the boy.

"No! The circuit board I found is now cracked! What a waste!" The boy held up a clearly cracked and broken piece of electronics with one hand, his other arm was still clutching some cables and metal to his chest.

Not the reaction he was expecting but Jason could find a way to roll with it. "Bummer huh? Want me to show you a place where we could get a perfectly good one?"

The boy was grumbling something inaudible and threw the piece of broken electronics to the side, instead picking up something else that had rolled out with the boy from the crate. Jason watched how the boy, clearly ignoring his question, picked up what looked like a piece of surveillance equipment and inspected it.

"I guess that thing will do. No one will miss it if one of them is gone, right?"

"One of them?" Jason questioned looking at the little transmitter in the kids hands. The boy appeared to finally pay attention to him, turning his head ever so lightly up to look at Jasons. "Yea there are a bunch of these in all the boxes."

He narrowed his eyes and looked over his shoulder and shouted at his men. "HEY! Get someone to look at this stuff! They bugged the place!"

When he turned back towards the boy he found kid gone. Jason blinked in disbelief, his hands which had been hovering over the kids shoulder were now above an empty spot.

"Where the fuck…?!" He stood looking around the warehouse and around all the boxes and crates. But the kid was nowhere to be found. He cursed several times and had his men looking in the surrounding area but there was no trace of the child.

All that was left from his encounter with he child was that piece of broken electronic the kid had thrown to the side. Not even his helmet had retained any footage. The video one loaded onto his laptop to review it, turned out to be corrupted. So now he couldn't even print out a picture or something of the boy.

—

By now the meetings of his siblings with a small black haired boy had made the rounds in their family. While Damian, Tim and Jason appeared to have had the biggest meetings with the child they weren't the only ones. Once the topic has come up, Steph, Duke and even Cass shared small stories of having met a child with the same description.

Dick had then pouted a little, lamenting that he was the only one that hadn't gotten to meet this strange kid that appeared out of nowhere and then also disappeared like he never had been there. His siblings had only stared at him unimpressed.

Well either way it looked like Dick was getting his wish after all. If Damian hadn't mentioned what the kid was wearing and Jason hadn't added that the kid appeared to be collecting electronics Dick might have overlooked it when he had jumped from roof to roof.

But as it was he caught a little boy trying to drag an old washing machine tied with rope into an empty building. It had made Dick pause and stare at the situation long enough to realize that the kid fit the description his siblings had given him before perfectly.

On instinct he wanted to jump down and talk with the little bugger but he was also curious of what the boy was doing so he watched a little more and he was quite impressed. The child must possess some strength because after a while the kid had dragged the washing machine into the building.

Spotting an open window Dick decided to sneak in that way to continue to observe. Once in though he blinked at what he saw. The kid had built a lab out of scrap metal. There was also something that looked like an arch the boy was clearly working on but holy moly. Tim probably wasn't too far off with his boy genius on the run theory.

But looking around more Dick also noticed that the place did not look lived in. Sure there was this giant self made lab area but everything else looked very much abandoned. He glanced around and snuck into another area finding a mattress, bedding and a backpack with a thermos as well as a couple of packs of snacks but no actual food.

Dick frowned at this. Even if the boy was a child genius, this was no way to life for someone his age. He looked over his shoulder towards the entrance of the area he was in. In the distance he could hear metal clanging. Looks like the kid was already working on dismantling the washing machine he had dragged in.

He reached out to the backpack, looking into it carefully but found nothing but a second set of spare clothes and what looked like an old self made flip phone. He should feel guilty but he wanted to make sure of things, so Dick flipped the phone open, checking if it was on. What greeted him was the image of a teenage boy that held similarities to the child getting hugged by what appeared to be the teenager's friends with a red haired girl behind them.

Frowning more, dick decided enough was enough. He openly walked to the lap area where the child was currently sticking his head into the washing drum. "Hey there kid!"

He winced hearing how the boy apparently banged his head on something and let out a storm of curses that would probably make Jason proud or all of his siblings frown. Leaning over the washing machine he smiled at the kid as the boy glared up at him rubbing his forehead. Ouch there really was a bump forming. He will ice it later.

"You're one of Gotham's vigilantes, Nightwing." The kid muttered but Dick caught the hand sneaking to the side reaching for a heavy looking wrench.

"That I am and you're a little kid working in a self made lab. Where are your parents and or guardian?"

"Don't have any here." The kid was now full on glaring at him. Why was he getting the not as friendly treatment? Sure that's better than the way his siblings had described the boy ignoring them but he hadn't done anything bad to the kid yet.

"If you don't have any, who takes care of you?" He then asked, still all smiles and friendly despite internally being very worried about this child's wellbeing.

"I take care of myself. I am not doing anything illegally. Everything I got here was thrown away by other people! You can't arrest me!" The boy hissed and hadn't Jason and Cass said they saw the child's eyes being blue? Why did he just see green peek through the bangs of the kid?

"Hey, hey, hey! I am not here to arrest anyone! I promise!" He held his hands up but the boy still glared at him. "But if you are alone here, you know I can't just let you be right?"

"No, you can!" The boy sprang up holding the wrench like a weapon in front of him. "I am perfectly fine on my own and working on a way back home! You can just leave me alone and act like you never saw me!"

Dick shook his head. The boy appeared to be stubborn and set on not having anyone interfere with whatever he was building. But Dick, in good consciousness, couldn't just leave like nothing was going on. His siblings had also voiced worry for this child. So he was going to try to negotiate something with the kid, and if that didn't work… Well Dick could always pull a Bruce and bring the kid home and into his care anyway. "Sorry little guy. No can do, but if you tell me more about your situation maybe I can help you get home?"

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