#if Vlad have an evil jazz

[ecto-stone]

Vlad and Penny from the meme ship ( 0v0 )

4 ever blaming vanripper for getting me hook into this ship. but Ever heard of Sassy overload and so bad for each other that they caused the complete opposite effect and be 100% perfect for each other. That Misery Motivated for You.

[luxaofhesperides]

Human/Mer AU + Bioluminescent Siren Duke ; requested by @justwannabecat!

The human hadn’t been in his territory recently. 

He wasn’t attached or anything, but Duke had started to look forward to seeing him around. It was equal parts exciting and terrifying to be under the curious, watchful eyes of a human who could so easily be dragged down into the depths. 

He knows he shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be indulging this human’s curiosity, trying to lure him closer time after time. Holding the attention of any human is dangerous; Duke’s heard the stories plenty of time. He’s seen the damage humans can do even more. 

There’s just something different about this human, who never dives too deep, who smiles at him and leaves little gifts in the tide pools tucked away from the rest of the beach, hidden from sight. Or rather, usually hidden from sight, since this human is the only one to go there. 

It’s foolish, but Duke actually misses his human. 

It’s not the first time he’d been gone for long stretches of time, but something feels off. There’s worry curling up at the base of his throat, making him swim to the surface more frequently. Steph had given him a look when she caught him, but didn’t say a word. She shouldn’t, really, when she’s been sneaking up to the surface for her own human friend, some small, dangerous human with dark hair and hands that speak more than a voice.

He’d seen her, just once, when he had gone up to splash water and his human then swim away.

Somehow, things felt easier back then. Like the horrors of the world couldn’t reach them among those tide pools. 

It’s reached them now.

Duke’s not expecting to see his human when he swims up to the surface. He’s expecting another quiet night, an empty beach, a dark sky with only the moon casting its lonely light down onto him. 

But when he swims up, his eyes go to a figure on the beach instantly. 

Even from this distance, Duke knows: that’s his human.

He doesn’t think before he’s swimming over, pushing himself faster than he’s ever gone before. It’s low tide, so he can’t get as close as he wants and can’t reach most of the tide pools at all, but it gets him close enough. Human and merfolk vocal chords are different; he can speak in water, but can’t make more than a few hums in air, and humans can’t really do anything in water at all. 

His human is sitting with his knees tucked into his chest on the beach. He’s hiding in his clothes, a hood pulled over his head, but he looks up when Duke drags himself onto the sand. 

Duke can see bruises. Dried blood. A stray tear slipping out of his eyes. 

He wants to ask what’s happened? But all that comes out is a low crooning noise. 

His human laughs, a quiet, bitter noise that makes Duke’s chest tighten uncomfortably. “Hey,” he rasps in a low voice. “Been a while, hasn’t it? I hope you’ve had a better time than I did.”

Duke can’t reach his human. The distance between them isn’t great, but it’s too much. He’s already partially out of the water, hands sinking into the wet sand just out of reach of the waves, and he can’t get any farther out. He reaches a hand out, silently pleading for his human to come closer.

The move makes his human soften, some of the hard edge of tension in his body melt away. He gets up and walks into the water, then sits down next to Duke, taking his hand. 

“I missed you,” he whispers. 

If they were underwater, Duke would be able to say I missed you too. Don’t ever go away so long again. But his human is in no shape to go underwater right now, so Duke presses his hand against his lips and hums lightly. 

They sit in silence for a moment, and Duke realizes that he’s never been this close to any human before. It doesn’t feel dangerous. It feels like relief, to finally have his human in his reach, safe from the rest of the world. 

He gives him human another moment, then reaches out and carefully pushes his hood back. His human allows it, blinking at him slowly. Without the shadow of the hood, Duke can clearly see the bruise coloring his cheekbone and the cuts going down his temple to his jaw. His split lip is still red with blood, and what little of his throat isn’t hidden by his clothes reveals more bruises wrapped around the delicate column of his neck. 

Duke ghosts his fingers over each of these injuries, hating how easily humans hurt each other. His human leans into the touch despite how it must hurt, something devastating in his expression. 

Who hurt you comes out as a questioning trill. Somehow, it gets the point across.

“It’s alright,” his human says. “Really. I’m not even that hurt. It’s just been a long few months. We never talk much, so you wouldn’t know this, but I have to fight a lot of people. Perils of being a hero, you know?”

Duke knows about heroes. More specifically, he knows about mer heroes. He’s considered being one himself, but the currents shifted and he ended up more a loner, banding with the other rejects of the city to live in the fringes and help only those who wander out too far from the marginally safer waters within. 

He hasn’t heard of any human heroes, but then again, he doesn’t know much about humans at all. Nothing beyond the stories all parents tell their children to scare them away from the surface, or the horror stories kids tell each other in the middle of the night when they want to scare each other.

He hums again to let his human know he’s listening. His human has such a nice voice. Why haven’t they done this before? 

It’s always been a push and pull between them, carefully keeping their distance but always circling back to each other. Duke would let his human swim with him, and his human would let Duke sit safely on the other side of a tide pool, tossing sea shells back and forth between each other.

They don’t even know each other’s names. 

He wishes, just for a moment, that he could go back in time and do things better. But he’s happy here with his human and he doesn’t want to lose this either.

He’ll just have to make the best of what he has. It’s how he’s always lived after his parents disappeared.

“This really isn’t that bad,” his human says, “I’ve taken worse hits before. It’s just that I couldn’t transform before the attack started, so now my human form is bruised too.”

…Human form? The more Duke hears, the more questions he has. 

Duke hums at a lower octave, placing a hand over his human’s chest. 

His human laughs lightly. “Yeah, I guess we’ve never really talked much about ourselves, did we? I’m human, don’t worry, just not all the time. I… actually, I died a few years ago. But I came back partially. So I’m also half dead still and I can transform into a ghost to fight threats. I’m a hero called Phantom. Actually, Danny Phantom since I was stupid enough to just give out my first name when I started out. In my defense, my brain was still a little fried.”

There is so much he wants to say to that. He tries, and makes a series of low hums and clicks in the back of his throat, staring at Danny (he finally got his human’s name!) incredulously.

“I promise I’m fine,” Danny continues. “It was just a bit rough. As soon as I get some time to recover, I’ll be good as new! And I really did miss you, you know. Didn’t even go home first, just come straight here.”

That’s honestly really sweet. Duke hums again, a lighter pitch, and takes hold of Danny’s wrist and tugs him towards deeper waters. 

“What? You want me to go in?”

Duke nods, already shuffling his way back out of the sand. 

He expects to look awkward during the process. What he most definitely doesn’t expect is for Danny to easily pick him up and walk them both into the ocean.

Listen. Duke is not a small mer. He’s big. He’s got a long, heavy tail and wide fins going down his back, his forearms, and the sides of his tail. It’s a struggle for him to fit into seaweed nests with his friends during the colder seasons, often left to balance on the edge with his tail hanging out. His friends struggle to pull him through the water with his weight. His parents weren’t able to hold him much after he started growing.

None of this matters to Danny, who acts as if Duke weights nothing at all. 

To his great embarrassment, his fins flare in appreciation for Danny’s strength. He was not expecting a human to be so strong, but Duke’s not about to lie to himself and say it’s not attractive. 

He trills to Danny, who laughs again, then falls into the water, taking them both under. 

Duke doesn’t hesitate. He grabs hold of Danny and swims them further out. He stays close to the surface so Danny can rise for air as needed, but he makes no move to leave Duke’s side even after a few minutes.

He glances back, concerned, when he sees that Danny is watching him with dark eyes, not breathing at all despite being conscious.

Danny holds up a finger and closes his eyes. Two rings of light appear around his waist, then split apart and pass over his body. Instantly, Danny’s body becomes lighter, as if Duke’s hand is grasping at a current on the seabed. His hair turns white and his eyes glow from how bright of a green they are, but there’s something inhuman about his features now, something that makes him look different beyond just physical features. 

Well. Danny did say he could transform.

Now that they’re underwater, Duke can finally speak. The first thing he asks is, “What was that?”

Danny grins at him. “That,” he says, speaking with ease as if he’s not underwater at all, “was my transformation. And this is my ghost form. Quite the look, isn’t it?”

“You can talk down here?! Also, hi, my name’s Duke. Since I never introduced myself.”

“Ghosts can do a lot of things,” Danny answers with a cheeky grin. “It’s nice to finally know your name. I’ve been calling you glowfish in my head this whole time.”

“Glowfish?”

“Yeah. Because you, you know,” Danny gestures vaguely at him, “Glow.”

Duke glances down at his back fins, which are indeed glowing. They flare a bit from embarrassment, which just makes the dots of light lining the fins more visible. He doesn’t glow a lot, keeping a tight hold of that ability, but sometimes it comes out anyways when he’s feeling especially happy.

And apparently, he’s always very happy around Danny. 

It’s a good thing Danny doesn’t know what that means, because if anyone of his friends found out, they’d laugh at how obvious he’s being. Drawbacks of being somewhat bioluminescent: anyone familiar with mers who have this feature know exactly what the glow means. 

“Right,” he says just a beat too late. “Well, now that we know each other’s names, can you tell me how you really feel? Those injuries didn’t look too good.”

“It’s fine, really! I take harder hits all the time.”

“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

Danny doesn’t answer for a long moment, then sighs. “Yeah. It still hurts.”

“Stay with me for tonight,” he says. “You’ll be safe. You can rest and heal and I’ll keep you safe from anything that comes looking for you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.”

Danny doesn’t put up much of a fight. He must be exhausted. “Yeah, alright. Take me away, Duke. You know, this is like those stories about sirens luring sailors down into the depths.”

“Well, I am a siren.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. I take after my mom. She’s the one who taught me how to sing.”

“I guess it’s a good thing we’re friends so I don’t have to worry about being dragged down to my watery death.”

Duke snorts. “Good thing you’re already a ghost then. Not much I can do to you down here.”

He swims down, heading towards a small cavern in a sea rock that he’s claimed as his own, leading Danny into it. The light from his fins illuminates the entrance and the rocks within, a narrow passage that goes in for a few meters before opening up into a larger space full of carefully tended to seaweed and starfish decorating the walls. 

There’s a nook tucked away in the back wall where he’s set up a seaweed bed, the plant braided together into something more solid. It’s big enough to fit his tail, which means it’s big enough for him and Danny. 

“Here,” he says, helping Danny down. “Get some sleep. Then you can tell me about what happened in the morning and we’ll take it from there.”

“I’m glad you’re here Duke,” Danny whispers, curling up on his side.  He holds Duke’s hand, twining their fingers together, and it’s as nice as it is strange to feel how cold Danny is in this form when he was so warm as a human. 

“I’ll always be here for you. You just need to come back to me.”

Danny hums, but doesn’t answer. It’s alright; Duke’s used to his loved ones leaving. He knows he can’t make them stay. All he can do is hope they return one day.

It’s been a long time since he’s had anyone in his home. There’s a communal cave where his friends stay that he visits when he gets lonely, but this place used to be for his family. Now it’s just him.

Him and Danny. 

The last time there was song in these walls, his mother was still around, singing him lullabies. 

Looking down at Danny, curled up and so strangely fragile looking, Duke feels the song build up in his chest. It slips out in low, soft notes, an old melody passed down through generations of their family. 

He sings Danny to sleep.

He sings and sings and sings until all his nightmares are soothed and dawn is almost upon them. 

It’s all he can do, so Duke sings and hopes it’s enough to keep Danny close to him for just a little longer.

[magicpiano]

DCxDP demon twins AU where amnesia!Danny sees Damian, assumes he is another clone, sighs, and immediately welcomes him as his new brother. As much as he wishes this would stop happening, what is he going to do, reject him? It is not his fault he was made. Besides, what is one more clone sibling?

Damian isn't a clone obviously, but he goes along with it anyway. He didn't get along well with Danny when they were children in the league and he sees Danny's amnesia as a perfect way to restart their broken relationship.... Even if it means pretending to be a clone.

Dani is thrilled to have another clone around! (Even if he is such a "failure" of a clone that he doesn't even powers.) Jazz likes having a new little brother too. (Even if it means she now has even more responsibility.) Vlad wants to know who else is cloning Danny. (That is his evil plan!! Plagiarism!)

Damian has, in a very short amount of time, learned: his brother is alive (kind of??), his brother died (kind of???), he is not the only one with clone issues, and ghosts are real (the justice league is so not ready). He is going to have a difficult time explaining this one to the family.

[long-live-astronerd-ghost-king]

DPXDC prompt. Nanny Wilson

Little Danny is almost lost in the mall when his parents suddenly run too fast in an attempt to catch up a ghost that their equipment has detected. Young Fenton is not a crybaby at all, but being alone without daddy and mommy is a little scary, so he begins to whimper and run around, trying to find familiar features in the blurry figures around him. Finally, he bumps into the thigh with a gun. It doesn't look much like an ectoblast, but dad is always inventing something new, so Danny quickly hugs this leg as hard as he can and begs loudly.

Danny: Daddy! Don't leave me! Slade: What the hell… Boy, I'm not your dad.

Danny blinks a few times and realizes that this man really doesn't look like Jack.

Danny: Oh. I'm sowwy. Can you help me find my daddy?

Slade: What makes you think I'm going to do this?

Danny: You have a gun and dad has a gun, so you're good. Are you here to hunt too? Slade: Something like that...What's your father's name, kid?

Jack: Danny! There you are!

A huge figure in a hazmat suit rushes towards them and Danny notices that his new friend is hastily hiding the weapon. To cheer up the man who is obviously meeting Jack Fenton for the first time, Danny smiles broadly. Dad may look scary, but he doesn't steal other people's toys.

Jack: Oh, thanks for looking after him. Our goal turned out to be too fast and we didn't even notice when our boy started to fall behind. Slade: No problem, colleague. Maddie: ? Danny: Kind uncle is also a hunter. Maddie: Oh, that's great! Em, sorry, but is there any chance that you have a time to look after our boy for a few days? We'll pay you well. You see, he rarely trusts people so quickly, and we absolutely do not have time to look for a replacement for our old nanny, and we really need to complete the last project as soon as possible.

Looking at the giggling boy trying to see if there are any other interesting things on him, Wilson decides that this will not be a bad experience in case he decides to establish a relationship with his found daughter.

Slade: All right, I'll take your order.

~~~About ten years later~~~

Danny, who is much more familiar with death than in canon, after being freshly ghosted: Damn, nanny will be so mad at me.

~~~~~ Danny: Hey, Slade. Do you want me to show you something cool? Slade: Not now, kid, nanny is cleaning up. Danny: Yeah, about that. *makes a corpse go through the ground* Ta-da! Can we talk now? Slade at the first second: *Surprised Pikachu face*. Slade when he notices a strange glow around Danny, like from ectoplasm in the lab of the boy's parents: >:( … >:( … >:( Danny: S-stop it!

~~~~~ Slade: And take out the bloodstains from those shirts too, they're my favorites. Danny: Oh dude, have you heard that child labor is illegal? Slade: Whoever doesn't help uncle Slade doesn't get a new knife for Christmas. Danny: Pfff…Now I'm my own weapon, come up with something new or I'll find myself a cooler mentor. Slade: Jackanapes!

~~~~~

When Wilson stumbles upon a distraught runaway Robin, he sincerely tries to take care of him as well as he took care of Danny. Deathstroke is an experienced babysitter, so there shouldn't be any problems with vigilante child being around on his missions. All children love knives, workouts and guns, right? Plus, staying alone when they are upset, as Jazz says, is unhealthy.

~~~~A few days later~~~~

Dick's thoughts: He wants to make me his evil sidekick, oh no! Wilson's thoughts: What's wrong with this kid? Batman so fucked up? Wayne needs to be stripped of his parental rights. I'm calling Jazz.

~~~~~

Wilson, who does not understand that he has been hanging out with Fentons too long, looks with perplexity at Grayson, who's running away from flying pieces of Maddie's pizza, then shoots some pepperoni and sits down at the table. It's going to be a long way. Poor boy.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, Fenton family is visiting Masters for the first time. Vlad tries to flirt with Maddie and then pretends to be good-natured while getting to know Danny.

Danny: I know 54 ways to kill you with this fork. If I were you I think I'd watch my mouth. Jack: He's joking, V-man. Danny: I'm not. Jack: He's just like his babysitter. They have such an unusual sense of humor. I think our boy really likes you! Usually Danny is too shy to talk like this with strangers. Vlad: Babysitter? Maddie: Yes, Mr. Wilson helped us out a lot and often did not even take payment. He's an angel. Vlad: I think I've heard that name somewhere before... Jack: Ugh, I want to introduce you anyway! Danny: Me too. Jack: Great. What about Wednesday? Danny: Dad, uncle might be busy. Let me ask him when he has time to, um, pay your old friend a visit.

[dcxdpdabbles]

Hey, I have DpxDc God Au prompt for you: Dani is the goddess of untraditional families, traveling, clones, and lost (emotionally and locationwise, not deathwise) children. She becomes a patron to many people (mostly kids and teenagers) struggling in the hero community and otherwise and comes to help them in times of emotional turmoil. Kon is one of her followers/friends, the speedsters pray to her for multiple reasons, and Billy and her sometimes hang out. Danny is the god of protection, space, revival, and neglected and lost children (emotionally and those who died before they reached adulthood). He also ends up becoming a patron for many heroes and abused kids. He helps Jason out when he dies young and gets revived. (Bruce prays to Danny for Jason when he dies to beg Danny to help Jason find peace in the afterlife if there is one). Danny also befriends Tim when he’s all alone in Drake Manor and keeps him company when he can and helps him survive. Dan on the other hand is the god of apocalyptic futures (and alternate and future evil selves), repentance and redemption, aggression, and devastation (emotional and deathwise). He doesn’t want most of his domains to be so dark, but it’s weird how much overlap there is between the same people praying to him along with Danny and Danielle. (SO many heroes have apocalyptic future/evil selves and have done terrible things. Example: Tim: Evil future gun batman and Jason: Aggression and Repentance/Redemption. They would definitely pray to Dan just in case). They’re all pretty respected gods who have been known for ages, worshiped, who actually help not just their followers but those who need their help that fall in their domains. The mythology got a bit weird throughout history, but the Dan(y/i)s were generally thought to be benevolent sibling/triplet gods. Jazz didn’t have enough power to ascend to goddesshood, but she was a patron spirit of psychology and mental health, and low-key a patron of people with eldest daughter syndrome (Looking at you, Dick). Then of course there’s Vlad. Mostly creeps want to pray to Vlad. He’s thought of as more of a predatory demon than a god, he has never been known as benevolent. He embodies most if not all of the seven deadly sins and his domains and immorality reflect that. He is the god of theft, power, greed, lust, cheating, obsession, ego, twisted family, immorality, corruption, envy, and vengeance. He has more domains than the Dan(i/y)s either because he was depicted so negatively from all of his schemes that people just gave him all the dark domains, or because he stole several artifacts and found some loopholes to get more power for himself. The Dan(ny/i)s stand together as one to protect the world from Vlad’s immorality, however there are some moments where Vlad helps starving children steal food or things they need to live, helps people to steal medicine they can’t afford to bring to a sick loved one. He gives self esteem and confidence to those who pray for it that struggle with self worth or mental illness. So yes, he is a more morally bankrupt god, but he has his good moments. Anyways, please write more of this prompt in whatever way you see fit. It could be stuff from the batfamily’s and/or halfas perspective as the years go by and they interact with the gods or something like that as vigilantes and as civilians, or you can write scenes out with the hero community or batfam discussing the little pantheon or whatever, or go into further detail with my examples, have conflict between the Dan(i/y)s and Vlad, change things up, or anything you want. Thank you!

Wonder Woman watches as Nightwing very claps his hands, bows his head, and mutters under his breath. The language is one she is not fluent with but has started to learn over the years in her time of man.

Esperanto.

She can pick out a few words. Enough to know that Nightwing is sending a prayer and hopes of a "Older Sibling" patron saint. He wants her to keep a eye over his younger siblings and to offer him "inner- peace".

Diana is aware that all of Bruce's children, minus Dick, are out on extremely dangerous missions. Dick had been benched due to an injury he sustained in the last confrontation. He was sent to the watch tower were a team of trusted surgeons had operated on his leg.

He would be fine in time but it would be a long wait before he would be ready to go out to the feild.

Understanding that he needed guidance from his gods, she waited paintently for him to finish, taking a few steps away from the doorway of his recovery room so as not to overhear any further prayers. A conversation between gods and man should remain private.

As she leaned on the wall outside, she wondered—not for the first time—who the Bats prayed to. Athena and Aphrodite would always have her loyalty, but she acknowledged that there were gods outside of her own.

She met some of them.

And while she had never seen the Bats or anyone else from Gotham's gods, she knew they were worshiped and believed as much as her sisters loved on Themyscira. It would be rude to ask about them, when she would never offer the gods of Gotham any offerings, so she refraimed but she wondered.

Oh she wondered.

She had witnessed Bruce pray to one of them, usually after a complex case involving children. He never mentions the god by name, but much like Nightwing, he clasps his hands, bows his head, and mutters that rhythmic language. Once, he even saw him place a star carved from one of the stones of his historical home by the window of the watch tower.

He had engraved all his children's hero names into it and allowed the moon to power it with protection.

Jason prayed as well, but not as profoundly as his family. He was Catholic growing up, and his mother often refused to have him pray to another god despite everyone else in Gotham doing so. He only did so as Red Hood because, according to Jason, that was the only time he needed Dan or Vlad.

Diana wondered if those were gods or people in his gang. Jason did not say their names with the same reverence as she did her gods.

Tim, on the other hand, took his Gotham-based region very seriously and had an entire timesheet of proper prayers. He did not pray every day nor did he stop what he was doing in order to do so, but he made it very clear that he would not be availbe three times a week for religious purposes.

Short of an emergency, those three hours every week were dedicated to his rituals for all of Gotham's gods. Diana knows that Steph, Barbara, Cass and Bruce would join only one of those three hours for their own god prefernce.

Despite that however, they were not very religious and often she wondered if the Bats were more atheists. Maybe meeting the gods and fighting some of them had the people of Gotham numb to the faith.

Or Gotham had the practices for such a long time that it became a background, much like tax season. Diana had noticed that despite the prayers and the dedication, the Bats treated their gods much like suppursitations to do before a big game.

It was a odd system to her, but once again, the "Gotham's Stars and Shadows" were not her gods. She did not have enough information to make any sort of statement about them.

Maybe they preferred to be treated as superstitions? Or maybe they liked to be close to their followers to the point they saw them the same way they did decorating their bedrooms? - A form of self-expression but not true faith.

A cold breeze blew by her, shocking Diana into a combat formation. There shouldn't be any wind up here. They are in space.

A whispered laugh echos down the hall, and for a brief moment she senses a god. Falling to her knee just in case, she stares towards the laughter watching a quick outling of a woman with flaming hair and a young girl in a black pony tale laugh and skip.

In their hands are carved stares, glowing green.

They vanish just as quickly as they appeared, but she knows who they were without having to call out to them.

"Diana?" Dick says from the doorway, pushing his wheelchair. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. I am." She smoothly slide up to her feet smiling at him in what she hopes is comforting. "Have you finished speaking to yoyr gods."

"Yeah I hope they protect my siblings and help find Kon."

She thinks of the laughing ladies "I assume they will."

An hour later, Kon is recovered, and Tim miraculously escapes death due to strong wind and a conveniently thrown traveling map into his attacker's face. Diana witness the superman clone add a stone form Kent Farm to the one by Batman's in the watchtower.

It has the words Red Robin carved within a heart. She smiles.

[satoshy12]

Isekai into a Novel

At a Gala

Nightwing looked at all the ones who are with him there: "So are we all here until we get the true ending of the story?"

Artemis: "Yes."

Nightwing: "Okay, who here has read the story?"

Kid Flash: "I have! It's a fantasy adventure story. The main villain, the Cold Archduke of the North, is like the worst villains we and the Justice League has ever fought. A truly evil, future cold-blooded tyrant who rules with an iron fist and blood. He never smiles and is an emotionally constipated, bloodthirsty god of war."

Zatanna: "We would see him right at this Gala and should be called next I think."

Speaker of the Room: "We call Archduke Daniel Fenthorne of Specterville and his daughter, Princess Dawn Fenthorne!"

Dick looked at his teammates: "Dawn?"

Kid Flash: "There was no one called Dawn in the novel."

The door opened and Danny walked in with little Ellie/Dawn holding his hand as he knelt before the Emperor.

Emperor: "My boy! You have a daughter!"

The Archduke smiled warmly and lovingly in the room. "Yes, that was the favour I came to ask."

Emperor: (jumping up) "Of course, I will legitimise her! Now let me see the young girl!" +

Kid Flash to the others: "This is also new. In the original story, the Emperor didn't like him very much. This looks like a father/grandfather and son seeing their granddaughter for the first time."

Aqualad: "So we have no idea of the original story. Except that this man later became the Greatest of all Evil."

Dick looked around and noticed his missing sister: "Where's Cass?"

Zatanna looked at the note and laughed, showing it to Dick: "I Can Fix HIM."

Cass made her way to Lord Daniel as he looked at Dawn talking to the Emperor.

+++ Because of Vlad, the Fenton family had been isekai'd into the novel.

Since they arrived here, Danny had enjoyed spending time with his family. He liked this place, and Dawn was adorable as a tiny toddler. His mum, dad and Jazz loved playing with her too. Coming here because of Vlad was a blessing in disguise.

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

"Hello." A dull thwack sound reverberated across the rooftop, leaving the boy who snuck up on Red Robin clutching his head. The boy, a meta if the large animal ears and tail were anything to go by, shook off the pain and pouted up at him, "What was that for?!"

The vigilante was unrepentant, holding his bo staff in a ready position, "You snuck up behind a vigilante at night. In Gotham."

"Okay," the meta conceded, still pouting. "You have a point there. Robin threw ninja stars at me when I tried to approach Batman."

That got Tims attention, "You tried to approach Batman? Was there something you needed?"

The kid suddenly got serious, "My mom went missing. I haven't been able to contact her for almost two weeks now."

Red pulled his arm closer to his face before he began typing on his wrist computer, "Can you tell me her name and date of birth?"

"Um." The other teen fidgetted with his tail a bit, "Okay, so...she's kinda Cheetah."

"...come again?"

"She's Cheetah. The...the supervillian."

Red Robin stared at him, and honestly who could blame him? The bats hadn't even known Cheetah had a son. "So why are you in Gotham? Why not ask Wonder Woman for help? Cheetahs one of her rogues not ours."

The teen shook his head, "She went to meet someone in Gotham before she disappeared. She seemed really agitated before she left, almost scared. I've never seen her like that before." He paused, giving the vigilante time to type before continuing, "I didn't go Wonder Woman since I figured I would wind up needing to talk to a bat anyway since its your turf and all." He said, waving a hand as if gesturing to the city around them.

"I wasn't aware Cheetah had a kid."

The meta grimaced, "she didn't until a year ago."

Red gave him a look, as if urging him to go on.

The meta chuffed, sounding a lot like whatever big cat he was supposed to be, "I'll only tell you my tragic backstory if you promise to help me find my mom."

"I'll find your mom." The bird said without an ounce of hesitation. Tim was a little offended. Did this guy think he was going to leave his mom in danger just because she was a criminal? Appearently so, seeing as the teen looked so relieved at his words.

"Okay, so my bio parents were evil mad scientists. Always a bad start, anyway they were obsessed with the occult and one day they suddenly took me and my sister to Brazil to hunt for some artifact of another. That alone was strange but weirder still was the fact my creepy godfather was paying for it all. He usually only does something like that when he's plotting "

"Plotting?" The detective interjected, "you make it sound like he does that often."

"Yeah. Hes a supervillian." The meta said casually, as if he didn't just leave Tim reeling, but the kid wasn't done yet, "He's had a massive crush on my bio mom since collage and never let it go no matter how many times she rejected him. She even married my dad, his best friend, and this dude just kept simping for 20 years." The teen rolled his eyes, "Hes convinced himself that if he murders my bio dad then my bio mom will fall in love with him and me and jazz will be "his"." He said that last part with fingerqoutes and a disgusted expression.

Tim filed that away for later, "Can I have his name, if nothing else?"

The teen seemed reluctant for a moment, "You're the worlds greatest detectives. You'll find out even if i try to hide it. Besides, I'd probably be better off if you and the Justice League know everything anyway."

Tim was...surprised by that. Most people usually weren't this open with them.

"His name is Vlad Masters, he also goes by Plasmius when he's dressed like a wannabe vampire. He's a ghost who's repossessed his corpse. My parents are Jack and Maddie Fenton, who are obsessed with ghosts and have convinced themselves that all ghosts are evil and must be destroyed, regardless of how much evidence points to them being wrong."

"And your name?"

The meta grinned at him, showing off four very sharp fangs, reminiscent of the large cat he takes after, "You can call me Jaguar. We were exploring a bit when I broke off from my family and got jumped by one of them. Suddenly I was struck by a claw and turned into furry bait. Fluffy stopped trying to make me his lunch and just stared at me before walking away, which was wierd. Then my parents found me, accused me of being a ghost, because thats naturally what someone would assume when thier son sprouts cat ears," he said while rolling his eyes.

"Naturally." Red joked, which had the benefit of making Jaguar smile.

"So my parents chased me through the jungle, shooting all the while, then suddenly a portal opened up in front of me. I'm not stupid, I know there was no way this wasn't a trap. I mean, a portal opening up right after that bizarre series of events and its the same shade of glowing green as the wierd death go my parents are obsessed with? There's no way they weren't related somhow, but I was desperate and jumped through anyway."

"I landed in another jungle, or the same one in a different location, I'm not sure. I tried hunting and foraging but wasn't very successful at either." Danny still remembered the throbbed in his head when he had headbutt that tree after missing his pounce on that pig he had been stalking. "Thats when Cheetah found me. She took me in and taught me to hunt and fight."

-----

Possible plot twists:

1. Danny isnt Phantom in this au

2. Danny is Phantom in this au but is trying to leave that life behind

3. My favorite. Danny has the ability to manipulate and control animals into doing his bidding with the effect of jaguars and other big cats being the most prevalent and he just doesn't realize it.

One of Cheetahs friends/allies realizes cheetah has changed and suspected something and convinced her to leave for a while to see if her care for this kid faded after a while away from his presence. It works and Danny loses another parental figure/possibly attacked by them too.

[starry-bi-sky]

tales of the passerine - danny fenton being bruce wayne's first kid

okay okay. so this is like a continuation/elaboration of my oneshot/prompt i wrote about the idea that Danny was the first batkid. We have a lot of aus where he joins the family after the rest of the bats do, right? So hey! Lets shake things up a bit. Danny is the first to be adopted by Bruce Wayne.

Danny's parents and unfortunately Jazz die shortly after the events of TUE -- how so? I was gonna say an ecto-filter explosion, that would call back to the TUE explosion and trauma behind that. But lets do something new! Carbon-monoxide poisoning.

It's not too unexpected for something to break in the Fenton house, especially with the Fenton parents' questionable understanding of proper weapon handling and lab safety. The water heater broke from a stray shot by one of the weapons, and was promptly MacGyver'd incorrectly. Danny went to stay with Tucker for a guys' night, and came back to a dead silent house.

(Danny's neighbors got a very unfortunate shock when he ran to the next house over in hysterics.)

There was a lot of shuffling around with CPS, the police. People had to be called in to handle the equipment in the lab, and the GIW was rumoring to show up in aid to clearing the scene. When Danny heard of that, he immediately went and dismantled the ghost portal to the best of his abilities. He burned the physical blueprints of all his parents' inventions, their blueprints on the ghost portal, and their most dangerous weapons were destroyed beyond recognition. Anything to prevent the GIW from getting their hands on his parents' tech.

It opened up another investigation, but he was not under the list of suspects. He was placed in the care of Vlad Masters, where they then went back to the rebuilt castle mansion in Wisconsin. Danny, terrified of the future that has once passed and may do so again, shuts down in his grief. Inadvertently, he ends up somewhat repressing his ghost half. Something Vlad, who is grieving Madeline but relishing in Jack's demise and his custody of Daniel, is not very happy with.

Vlad's... gone into a bit of a mental health spiral. He's becoming increasingly possessive over Daniel, the final remnants of his friends and a liminal being like him. He doesn't like that Danny's repressing his ghost half -- both out of genuine concern as a ghost, but also because of his desire to control Danny and groom him into the perfect son. If you ever had a phase where you read Dark SBI found family fics, first off; me too bro, and second off; those are the vibes I'm thinking of.

Danny's mentally shut down from grief! And fear. He's dropped into a bad depressive state -- paralyzed with grief and the terror of the inevitable. Clockwork saved his parents because he believes in second chances, but what's the point of that when his family ended up dead anyways? Danny doesn't wanna believe that he's destined to become evil, and he's holding out onto that hope, but it's a thin line, and he feels utterly hopeless and trapped. He hasn't used his powers or ghost form since he trashed the lab, and Vlad has alarms set up to prevent him from trying to escape.

He's also unintentionally cut off Sam and Tucker -- both of whom are so scared and concerned for Danny too, and are trying their damndest to reach out to him. He keeps ignoring their texts. Danny basically haunts Vlad's manor. He goes out to eat if he has to, attends parties Vlad drags him to, and stays in his room all day if he can.

At parties, Vlad doesn't allow Danny to leave his side, or really talk to anyone -- not that Danny wants to. A product of Vlad's increasing possessiveness. Well, he almost doesn't let Danny leave his side. Danny has a habit of slipping off to hide somewhere for the parties whenever he can, and Vlad reluctantly allows it so long as he stays alone.

This becomes an advantage when eventually, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham after missing for years, and holds a bright charity ball to celebrate the return. Vlad has been chomping at the bits to get his hands on Wayne Industries, and with the return of its owner there is no better opportunity to wipe out his rival. He goes, and he as normal, brings Daniel with him.

Vlad thinks Wayne will bleed his little heart out for Daniel's poor orphan sob story -- he's a fellow orphan himself, after all. He's not wrong; Wayne's little heart will bleed, just not in the way that benefits him.

Bruce sees Vlad and Danny approaching before they're even close enough to introduce themselves - and like with many of the children he will soon come to care for, it's like someone set a mirror into the past right in front of him.

Danny Fenton's suit is tailor-made for him, and despite the fact that it's his perfect size, the sag in his shoulders, the ducked down head, and the way he hunches into himself all pictures the image of a child in shoes too big for him. There's a far away, glazed over look in his eyes and grief marble-cut into the lines of his face. There's not enough makeup in the world that will hide the dark circles under his eyes.

("My nephew, Daniel Fenton." Vlad's hands are possessive on Danny's shoulders. Bruce immediately notices the way the boy tenses under his touch. "His parents passed recently, and as his godfather I was designated his guardian.") ("I'm so sorry, the loss must've been terrible.") ("Yes, carbon-monoxide poisoning caused it. Daniel was out with friends, when he came home... they had already passed.") (Bruce immediately dislikes that Vlad shared the details of their death unprompted -- he likes it even less when Danny flinches at the reminder and hunches into himself.)

Danny runs off at some point earlier into the charity. At this point, parties are still being held at Wayne Manor (because iirc google search mentioned that was a thing at first before it was changed), so he disappears and hides in one of the empty rooms nearby. It just so happens to be the same room Bruce Wayne hides in when he needs a break from all of the socialization.

Thus begins a long, long process of trust. Bruce can't reveal his hand as being smarter than he looks, but he can be compassionate. Kindness needs no measure of intelligence. He keeps Danny company for as long as he can before he runs the risk of being found.

Rinse and repeat. Vlad insistently wants Wayne Industries, and he'll go to as many Wayne parties as he can to get his hooks into the man. The problem is that Bruce Wayne is never alone, and getting him alone is impossible. Finding him too. It's like the man never stops moving. Always talking to someone, always circling somewhere. He orbits around the room as if he isn't the sun of the Gotham Elite's solar system.

Danny's had such repetitive behavior that Vlad never thinks to believe that Bruce Wayne is disappearing to go talk to him. That "Vlad's" son is even interacting with him at all. Danny never gives him a reason to think so, and neither does Bruce.

Danny doesn't actually acknowledge Bruce until a handful of parties in, where he hands Bruce a small slip of paper he smuggled in that says; "don't trust Vlad". Danny's face stays carefully blank, but he's so tense that his hands are trembling, and he's purposely looking away from him. Bruce plasters a smile onto his face, slips the paper into his pocket, and tells him "okay".

(he's been busy with his own goals with the mafia, but he sets aside time to investigate Vlad Masters. He was holding off. Until now.)

Danny does eventually start speaking to Bruce, he's starting to really like the guy. He's starting to see a little hope, even as Vlad is starting to get more and more agitated with him the more he refuses to use his powers.

He reaches out to Sam and Tucker again, and starts trying to reconnect with them. Vlad has spyware on his phone, and he limits the amount of times he can talk to them. A weird parental control lock of some sort that leaves a time limit on how long he can talk to them for. 30 minutes. Danny doesn't tell them anything about Mr. Wayne.

Danny, slowly, wants out of here, and he's slowly gathering the motivation to do it. Vlad is genuinely scaring him -- and Danny wonders just how truthful the past-future Vlad was when he told him that Danny wanted his ghost half separate. He starts trying to come up with an escape plan.

Vlad has anti-ghost wards everywhere around the mansion, and while they're always on, they boost to full power at sunset. The doors and windows are always locked, all main exits have alarms set on them. The only reason it's not super extensive is because Danny hasn't tried leaving at all yet, so Vlad hasn't had to tighten anything.

At night, Vlad locks the door to his room and puts up an anti-ghost ward around the room. The mansion is on the outside westward side of Madison, more entrenched in rural Wisconsin. The closest town is a four-way stop sign with one house on three corners, and an open bar on the fourth. Not much to go.

He refuses to go to Sam and Tucker; Vlad would look there first. It's too dangerous. Vlad would sound alarm bells and have a manhunt looking for him, Danny can't risk going just anywhere. Too much risk of being found, sold out, or caught. There's really nowhere for him to hide.

Until there is. Bruce is telling Danny about the history of Wayne Manor, and says, as casually as saying the weather; "The manor has dozens of empty rooms, I'm sure Alfred wouldn't mind filling another one if he could." And quietly, hesitantly, Bruce places a careful hand on Danny's shoulder, unrestrictive and gentle; "He wouldn't mind getting one ready for you if you need one."

And there it is. There's his out.

Danny, just as quietly, replies; "I'll keep that in mind."

The ball starts rolling.

Now I've been trying to summarize this au as much as possible for length convenience, but Vlad has been steadily growing more and more controlling. More emotionally manipulative. More agitated at Danny for not using his powers.

He wants Wayne Industries under his thumb but he's been steadily growing more and more concerned with Danny. He's started grabbing him, yanking him around, shaking him; trying to goad him into using his powers. He gets angry when Danny doesn't react, or tells him he doesn't want to use his powers. He hasn't outright attacked him, but he's getting there. This has been happening over the time it takes for Bruce to indirectly offer Danny sanctuary at his home.

It all comes to a head when Vlad stops going to parties at all -- something Danny has to pretend he isn't upset about -- because Vlad doesn't want him around other people anymore. Vlad rarely goes now without him, and only leaves to go to a Wayne function or to handle something at VladCo.

Danny can't wait for Vlad to leave long enough to escape. So he leaves during the night of a big storm. Vlad's locked him in his room, but Danny doesn't bother trying to go for it; he goes to the alarmed window instead. Danny's been repressing his ghost half so long that he can't access his powers immediately anymore -- he can feel it, he knows its there, but he can't quite reach it.

He breaks the lock by hand.

Immediately the alarm goes off through the entire castle, filling the room with red, and he scrambles for the rope the Wisconsin Ghost left for him a few months back. Danny's already out and climbing down the side of the castle before Vlad even reaches his door -- the only good thing about the entire room being ghost-proof is that Vlad can't get in that way.

The rope ends before it reaches the bottom, and he's still twenty feet in the air. It won't kill him if he lands it right. Danny takes his chances, and drops. He breaks his ankle, but he survives.

And he fucking books it to the back garden. He hears Vlad shrieking over the thunder and rain.

I'll save the full experience for a future oneshot, but Danny makes it out into the nearby woods and forcibly experiences what it's like to be in a horror game, trying to hide from the thing that's hunting you. There's only one thing going through his mind; "i'm going to die"

I have this mental image for this scene. Very stereotypical horror imo. Where Danny is hiding behind a tree, with a hand over his mouth, and Vlad is a few feet away from him, glowing ominously red through the trees, trying to search for him.

Danny doesn't get away from this unscathed, but he does get away alive. That's all he could ask for. He gets away by getting his ghost half awakened long enough to transform into Phantom and fly to Gotham.

But he gets to Wayne Manor, he gets to Bruce. Or, at least, Alfred answers the door from his insistent pounding. Danny's just in tears and Alfred gets him in the living room, wrapped in a towel, with ice on his swollen leg before he has to step out and alert Bruce.

Bruce already breaks multiple traffic laws on a nightly basis. And that's just with the sheer existence of the batmobile itself, not including the speeding and military artillery attached. He breaks double the amount trying to speed back to the cave and get out of the suit.

Right off the bat: Bruce will know, at least before Dick enters the picture, about danny's powers. He'll figure out something considering the fact that Danny traveled from Wisconsin to New York in a single night. That'll be a bit of complicated affair, but I've already got something in mind.

Actually it'll probably be very soon after Danny joins the family, because Bruce tries to offer to fight for custody for Danny - the state Danny was in at arrival is clear enough evidence for a trial. But Danny immediately shuts it down, says it's not going to work and then Vlad will know Danny's with him and he won't be safe. He tells him that Vlad cannot know Danny was with Bruce.

Danny's biggest regret was not telling his parents he was a halfa, and while he doesn't want to tell mister wayne (yet), he does tell him about Vlad being one. He needs to know why Danny can't be seen with Bruce. So he tells him, and Danny's current plan is to just hide out from Vlad until he turns 18. That way, he has no more legal jurisdiction over him. After that? He's not sure.

And to wrap this up, since this has already gotten very long and I can make more posts about this au later; I've thought about it, and I'm going to say that Danny does become a vigilante before Dick enters the scene. He goes by, as you probably guessed; Nightingale. "Gale" for short.

[starwrighter]

"Dad" Dan au

(Pov I haven't read Agit yet) ( I don't mind spoilers though)

I don't think we in the dpxdc fandom play with the canon information that Dark Danny is a product of Danny's ghost half fusing with with Plasmius.

Yeah, he's completely down with mass murder and is really sadistic in the episode but that's not as fun to play with in this context.

He's still merged with Vlad and I'd like to have that bleed into him a bit more than the "oh he's so evil," but him being obsessed with his own Mom like Vlad is a level of weird I'm not willing to touch with a fifty foot pole.

I say, let him have Vlad's obsession with making Danny his son. It's hilarious! Imagine being obsessed with making your past self your son! Dan had no qualms with directly trying to murder the past version of his family. But I love the idea of him first seeing his past self in all his awkward half-ghost glory an obsession kicks into gear with a fury!

Dan hating his own parents with a passion because they're uh, well... His parents. And that stops him from being his own parent! It's so stupid. Dan judging every single one their parenting decisions. All while he himself is still morally detestable.

It's great! Still can't decide if he's just stalking the family like a creep. Or he pretended to be redeemed and Danny with Jazz gaslit their parents into believing they have an older sibling ghosts his from them.

Onto the dpxdc part of this!

Now Dan is just looking for the opportunity to whisk Danny away. Jack and Maddie are interfering with his obsession without even trying to! He'll be trying to feed the kid something edible and they'll be ectoplasm samples in the fridge! Ghost hunting equipment in the open when they know it has a tendency to misfire around their son! Dan doesn't care if they really love Danny. There are harpoons pointed at his kid! Those idiots were one misstep away from accidentally killing their child a second time and Dan isn't having it!

Dan yoinks Danny and fucking books it into the ghost zone. Danny clearly wouldn't be happy with this development (betrayal or surprise you choose!) And Dan is trying his best to get Danny to co-operate. Either with specter deflectors or a deal with Desiree. But Danny's stuck with the guy.

I'm taking advantage of the fact that the Dc universe has absolutely obliterated it's multiverse making pretty much impossible for normal ghosts and humans to navigate. Dan flees with Danny to an iteration of the Dc universe and pokes around for a place to settle.

Metropolis's hero was an annoying goodie two shoes and he'd kill this "lex Luthor" the moment he heard the fucker speak. Plus, both rogues and hero's threw cars like baseballs.

Gotham was flooded with crime but their rouges were just people. Their heroes were just people. Crazy people sure, but Dan could kill them if they stepped out of line.

If only the self proclaimed hero's would stop trying to make grabs at his kid.

[neoyi]

Okay, cool. I can finally talk about the absolute catharsis I felt after fifteen years hoping - dreaming - of this moment because holy SHIT, they did it. They goddamn DID IT.

VLAD GOT HIS REDEMPTION ARC.

Let's talk about it...

By the end of the third season, Vlad Masters had ostracized the entire planet by exposing his true self (why), demanding money and total command of Earth, and completely wailing on Jack Fenton, driving away the only member of that family who unequivocally adored the man where every other Fenton knew him for who he truly was: utterly despicable and incapable of seeing the bigger picture.

Because, after all, he is a villain and that's just what villains do. Villains want power. Villains want to rule the world. There need not be more than that, and in another show, there wouldn't have to be. As far as Hartman was concerned, there is only a binary Good vs. Evil.

You would be hard-pressed to view the Vlad in "Phantom Planet" as the same man who anguished in desperate madness when his perfect clone son died in his arms. That was a Vlad who, by that point, had taken his biggest gamble and lost. I guess one could see his reasoning in season three as a "fuck it all, what even is the point" mode. But while "Eye For an Eye" (tellingly, the last major script helm by former main story writer Steve Marmel... just saying) promised a personal conflict, by the end of the show, he's made it much more external, far greater than what he and Danny's interwoven plot originally started off as.

Vlad is pathetic. Vlad is narcissistic. He is egotistical, entitled; a bitter, arrogant man who lives in his dream castle with all the money and privilege in the world that would leave him content a hundred times over, and it's still not enough.

Money is not Maddie Fenton, the woman he loves. Money is not Jazz, a child that should have been his. Money is not Jack's friendship whom he denies severely, the only part of his life who willingly embraces him. And money is not Danny, who is a half-ghost like him, and by all rights, should have been his son.

No one else could ever understand to the fullest extent of their uniqueness than Vlad and Danny would to each other, and the latter, for the longest time, hated that. Hated the way Vlad talked down to him and manipulated him, hated the whispers into his ears with promises of grand power if he just joined the billionaire's side and become his ward, hated when he caved in just once in front of Vlad's eyes who responded with a smug "See, I know you" reaction. Danny was fortunate to have good moral compasses from his family and friends, but the thing is, though, it's not about the healthy support structure he had, because Vlad had the chance to get some, too. Jack and Maddie loved Danny no matter what he was, and dollars to donuts, they would have for Vlad if the latter had approached them with his problems.

But he chose instead to be bitter and miserable, taking it out on everyone and expecting them to fall into his train of thought. The show knew what he did was wrong, but until season three, never stopped repeating his truest desire: to find love and squash his crushing loneliness.

Hartman couldn't provide a damn on what exactly was Vlad's "destiny" in "Infinite Realm"; it was vague gesturing to excuse his villainy. He was more than happy to abandon the life he's made for himself and the woman he loved in spite of two decades of planning, all on a whim for whatever time period the Infi-map was willing to take him, hoping maybe this one will give him the unconditional worship that he thinks he's deserved (by force, of course.)

Because he's the villain.

And for the longest time, the show ended with the idea that Vlad deserved to be stranded, away from people, because he simply could not help himself. To be fair, there is a lesson in that - some people genuinely DO go so far that there really is nothing more we can do other than stop the problem before they cause any further harm. I'm not denouncing that.

What I AM denouncing is the the narrative plant that's dug its way into the greater plot where an older Vlad in "The Ultimate Enemy", realized what a fool he had been. What he wouldn't give to start all over and be a better person. You don't just give someone a sympathetic goal like "looking for love", constantly provide the necessary stepping stones, and not have it set up for something far more substantial than what we got.

And even then, even if it still ended with Vlad being too far gone, I wonder, should the supposedly original plot arc for season three had been made, would Vlad's fate there been far more appropriate than whatever cartoonish supervillainy he ended up as by the time "Phantom Planet" ended?

I cannot speak for Gabriela Epstein. I cannot say how much Nickelodeon allowed her to tinker with the DP world. All of this is presumptuous speculation on my part, but this entire comic feels like they looked at season three, particularly "Phantom Planet", realized what a travesty that was, had their work cut out for it, and went about to make a post-series finale story that still paid tribute to its ending while wiping it off the map.

Vlad's redemption is the crux.

Within just a few panels, Gabriela Epstein provided an explanation on the why of Vlad's actions circa-season three. The Infi-Map was aimless because Vlad's purpose was aimless. And Vlad's purpose was aimless because his need to be in control was a manifestation of his greatest fear: being alone.

"A Glitch in Time" recontexualizes why Vlad traveled across time in "Infinite Realm." It wasn't a generic bad-guy-wants-to-rule-the-world-through-latest-plot-claptrap, but an act of utter desperation from a man who had since lost the biggest connection to his very being: Danny.

It started with Maddie (someone whom Vlad only interacts once in the comic, but is an acknowledgement of his villainous origin, nonetheless), and it may still end with Danny.

Never, in a million, billion years, have I even thought about another redemption arc... for Dark Danny.

And I am kicking myself for not even considering such an option. I had pegged him so far gone, so far past the breaking point to think otherwise. Dark Danny was suppose to be the outcome of a Danny at his literal worst: a too-late, too-little scenario. Back then, it was a symbol of Danny's rejection of what Vlad expected and desired of him.

But the comic made me sit down and think about the implication of Dark Danny's very existence, that of a man who lost his family and friends ten years ago as a child. Like Vlad, he, too was alone, and had carried a tremendous amount of pain and anguish that his human half just could not bear.

Yeah, they died because of a time loop HE created, but that doesn't erase that he was born from a horrible trauma that he could not properly cope with. And Vlad, try as he might, did not fix it. All he ended up doing was separate a ghost - infamous for their obsessions, and now, as the comic established, a carrier of human emotions - to exist. And Dark Danny carried so much raw emotion that he retaliated very, very violently.

Everyone's respond at that time was to fight him and stuff him in a Fenton Thermos for eternity. I am not saying Danny wasn't justified in fighting his darker self because the dude legitimately caused massive damage and likely murdered a hell of a lot of people, I am just saying Dark Danny is the byproduct of a scared, lonely, traumatized child.

And what does he do? He tries to take what he thinks is his by any means necessary. Vlad got his wish, he got the son he wanted.

And he's facing him now.

And he gets it.

He finally fucking GETS IT.

Which shouldn't have been a surprise because his "The Ultimate Enemy" counterpart got it. He looked at the devil that he created and lingered as a hermit in regret. And now Vlad - Vlad Prime - reacted the same.

Only this time, he can fix it.

I did not anticipate that Vlad's redemption would happen at the same time as Dark Danny's. I didn't expect the two of them to link other than the latter being another number in Vlad's bullshit entitlement count.

I love that it isn't Danny who heals him, but Vlad. It had to be Vlad. In order to own up to his actions, Vlad had to look at the eyes of the boy he was entrusted and corrupted beforehand and apologize for what he put him through. And I don't mean just "The Ultimate Enemy", Vlad is apologizing for everything he's done up to this point.

He (temporarily) sacrifices his body to stabilize Dark Danny who has fucked up the time stream so much that he wouldn't be able to exist otherwise. And only then do the two of them get what they've longed for.

Vlad gets a son.

Dark Danny gets a family.

Holy forking shirt balls.

I have a lot of problems with alternate counterparts sticking around longer than they should in the "main" setting of a show. Usually I'm fine when it's an alternate counterpart demonstrated as someone the hero is trying so hard not to be, because it's compelling to see what could have been under different circumstances. It's another thing when you have another version of the main character running around doing their own thing. Multiverse characters are inherently messy just by existing, but it gets worse when they take away from the uniqueness of the central protagonist.

There's something awkward about two Danny Phantoms living in the same world, and in any other scenario, I would have hated it. But Dark Danny is of a vastly different background brought forth from a long, nuanced, engaging history between him and Vlad.

Danny's central journey - the cusp of the show - has always been the Spider-Man mantra, "great powers = great responsibilities." You are in charge of how you carry the burden of your powers. Vlad has been the one constant always challenging and belittling his selflessness. "A Glitch in Time" had Danny asking himself, what is his purpose? Who is he now that everything has been neatly wrapped up?

Writing anything about who Danny is means Vlad is presented in some way, shape, or form. They are so thoroughly linked to each other, and it's that link that simultaneously serve to push their own individual character arc, and their relationship with each other.

So, Vlad gets a son. Dark Danny gets a family. They get a second chance, and it is up to them to work it out. I have no idea if Vlad got his wealth back. Everything is restored as is, except Danny's secret identity is secured again (which I am 100% fine with except for one notable exception, but that's another topic for another day) and implication that Vlad was just a crummy mayor with no indication the greater public is also aware of his Plasimus mode (which I am also fine with.)

There's a part of me who thinks he should have lost the money and power he's accumulated because he gained them through his vice, but if he's back in his Wisconsin cheese castle, then he can damn well use the money he has to not only benefit the world (charities, improving human lives, funding Fenton Works ;D...), but to raise his son.

Dark Danny is going to have to adjust to the idea that his father is Vlad, something he was already expected to do so when he orphaned himself and moved in with him. But it's Vlad who has to work the most out of the two: as a parental figure - as an adult - he's always had a power over Danny regardless of what timeline they're in. Most of the time, he's abused it heavily.

The second chance Vlad has been given here means he has the ability to provide a safe, healthy environment. It's more than he deserves. He failed with Danny and he absolutely failed with Dani (another can of worms in itself; she's not mentioned in the comic, and I imagine it's because her story would need a comic of her own), he cannot fail with this Danny.

Vlad shouldn't have been given a child at all until there was a guarantee that he could work through his bullshit, but Dark Danny is a special case. He is a kid who needs a home and someone to love him unconditionally, and Vlad needs to learn boundaries while giving selfless love in order to be loved himself.

Clockwork gave Vlad a test, so get studying, dude.

This does not erase how Danny Prime feels about him. He may never want to forgive Vlad, and that's his right. He can acknowledge however, that, in order to help those in need of healing, a door can be opened, even if slightly ajar.

For Vlad, that may just take a bit longer and that's completely understandable.

Vlad can't have the kind of relationship he wants with this Danny, but maybe one day, they can be equals - friends.

Like christ, I think this is the first time Vlad has actually, genuinely asked if Danny was alright.

The comic was already good prior to this, but just knowing - understanding that Vlad was more than "a villain" - meant after fifteen looooong years, we finally see the promises of a brighter future for a man with shitty priorities, but a sympathetic goal.

"It's over, isn't it? It's over, isn't it? It's over, isn't it..."

[gilbirda]

DPxDC cheat sheet

So. I'm not a nitpicking person. I understand that mistakes can be made and typos are a thing and sometimes we are just not the kind of person that can make words work for a variety of reasons (dyslexia, for example).

This is not for that people.

This is for everyone who stumbled into this fandom by mistake and had learned things via osmosis and don't have the energy/time to check the source material for the "correct" thing.

Y'all are valid.

This is a cheat sheet of correct terms and fandom things that are not correct that I've seen in fics.

Disclaimer: while experimenting with canon is fun, this is just to lay down the rules of what's what so it can be the springboard of y'all's beautiful creations.

Given that some people just can't behave online: "If you don't have anything constructive to say, don't say anything." Did I say something wrong? You have resources better than this? You want to make a nitpick? Cool! More info to the mix — But come at me in a hurtful and insulting way and I'm blocking you on the spot.

[Will add more when I think more/have suggestions]

DP SIDE - Post "A Glitch in Time" Canon

Sam is Jewish

Sam is ultra-recyclo-vegetarian aka "doesn't eat anything with a face". Is not a real thing.

It's "Amity Park" not "Amity Ville".

Wes is fanon, same as Kyle. Info on Wes here

It's "Casper High", not "Caspar High".

Mr. Lancer doesn't have a canon name. Common fanon ones are William or Edward.

Ghost obsessions are canon. In AGIT, it's explained that ghosts have a purpose or drive. Danny's purpose is "protection" of both humans and ghosts.

Ghost cores are fanon-ish (there is a mention that Danny's ice powers come from his "core" temperature and is never addressed again, of course) (Episode is "Urban Jungle"). Then in the videogame Urban Jungle for the Nintendo DS, Undergrowth's "core" is an actual object called a "core".

Ghost speak is fanon. However, in AGIT, it's revealed that there's an ghost alphabet, and it's ancient form is based on sanskrit and tamil alphabets. Codex of Ghost alphabet.

Ghost Hunger is canon! In AGIT it's revealed that ghosts feed on emotions and thoughts to stay sapient. If they don't, they become feral with time. Halfas feed from their human side, remaining stable.

Danny is the bridge between the spirit world and living world - canon!

Danny beats the Ghost King Pariah Dark in combat, but faints and that fight is never addressed in the series again. Ghost King!Danny is fanon-ish so go ham with interpreting that. (Episode is "Reign Storm")

Tucker is the reincarnation?? (never stated in canon, but he does look alike) of a pharaoh named "Duul Aman" (Duulaman is also accepted as spelling). Said pharaoh never appears in the series as a ghost, just a picture. Who does appear is his (evil) right hand man, Hotep-Ra, who tries to manipulate Tucker (Episode is "King Tuck"). That Tucker gets cool magic from this event is fanon. But cool.

Sam gets possessed by Undergrowth via a vine straight into her spine (gross). Undergrowth calls her "his daughter" and she tries to lure Danny into "joining her to take over the world". (Episode is "Urban Jungle"). That Sam gets cool plant powers from this event is fanon. But cool.

The Fenton parents are never physically abusive - just comedically neglectful in the way parents are depicted in early 2000s cartoons. Incompetent, misguided, dumb... but they are shown to love their kids. The even accept Danny the 2 canon times they find out about him (Episodes "Reality Trip" and "Phantom Planet").

Jazz is never shown as "mature" in the sense that she had to parent Danny and be the responsible adult. She is comedically the "annoying and meddling older sister" from early 2000s cartoons. She wants to be considered an adult. She couldn't see Youngblood, who is a child ghost that cannot be seen by adults, and Danny had to push her into acting childish to make her see him.

Axiom labs is bought by Vlad's company "Vlad.co" not "DALV.co". DALV.co was the fake company that paid for Maddie and Danny to fly to a conference but stranded them in a forest where Vlad's cabin coincidentally was. (Episode "Maternal Instincts")

Dan is not older Danny. He is not called "Dan" in the series, just "Dark Danny". In The Ultimate Enemy videogame for GBA, he's called Dan Phantom. He is Danny's ghost half, who killed his human half, ate/merged with Vlad's ghost side and then tried to kill Vlad's human side. Was losing his humanity what made him evil? Was it merging with the Bad Guy(tm) of the series? 🤷‍♀️ Take it as you will. (Episode is "The Ultimate Enemy")

Freakshow is NOT a clown. He is the ringmaster of a goth circus (called Circus Gothica). Danny's headcanoned fear of clowns can be traced back to the "circus" and clown-related imagery surrounding Freakshow's performances, but not directly BY Freakshow. (Episodes "Control Freaks" and "Reality Trip")

DC SIDE

Damian (not Damien or Demian) had never confirmed his religion. Fanon has accepted he is Muslim.

Bruce is from a Jewish family (Martha Wayne was Jewish), but he considers himself an atheist. Same with Kate Kane (Batwoman).

It's "Selina" Kyle, not "Selena" or "Salina".

It's "Talia" Al Ghul, not "Thalia".

It's "Jason", not "Jayson".

Damian is vegetarian, not vegan. It means he doesn't eat meat, but eats animal produces like eggs, milk, etc. He went vegetarian after rescuing Batcow from a slaughterhouse, he didn't arrive at the manor already being vegetarian.

Duke is NOT adopted. Bruce is fostering him temporarily and is more of a mentor to him than a father. Duke considers the others his siblings, though. EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DUKE: Part 1 | Part 2

Dick was not adopted as a kid, Dick was Bruce's ward. That term is not used anymore, though. Adoption happened later in Dick's adulthood.

It's Gotham, not "Gothem".

Cassandra IS adopted.

Cassandra's most common nickname is "Cass". Even if "Cassie" has been used in canon before, is more commonly used Cass in fandom. Cassie is used more to refer to Cassandra Sandsmark, Wondergirl.

"Baby bird" or "Baby bat" are fanon-ish(?). Little Wing, Dickie, Dickie-bird... Canon! Jaylad is not canon, but Jaybird is canon! A GREAT post with receipts about all nicknames. ("Replacement" isn't canon btw).

Stephanie Brown was the 4th Robin. She is not adopted, and was part of the batfamily because she was dating Tim. She is still considered batfamily even if they are not dating anymore.

In Hush, when Jason comes back to Gotham, Jason puts a knife on Tim's throat, but barely leaves a cut. Tim's throat wasn't injured during the Titans Tower attack.

Cass is selectively mute because she wasn't taught any language beyond what she needed to predict people's movements. She doesn't know sign language. She doesn't know how to read and write (more recent comics show her reading a bit). But she could learn, with difficulty. Very in depth analysis of Cass' disability.

Jason's "Pit Madness" is fanon. Canon offers Ra's saying "the Pit alters the mind - could happen for a few days or for years, you never know" or something like that, and that's it. There is reason to believe that the Lazarus Pit can cloud judgement for a while but there is no voice in the back of the head or the Pit taking over.

Tim never expressed special interest in photography or in it as a hobby. Nor he is a coffee addict more than the other bats, who pull all nighters on the reg. He is actually addicted to energy drinks.

There are 2 main Conner/Kon-El/Superboy I portrayed in fics: Young Justice cartoon one (grumpy, same age as Dick, kind of an asshole, has daddy issues, wears black shirt and jeans, has a space motorcycle and a pet wolf) and 90s comics one (leather jacket, piercings, punny guy, same age as Tim, has a #nohomo relationship with Tim, kind of a himbo).

There are a few Ghost superheroes - Greta Hayes (Secret), she was in Tim's run as Young Justice's leader; and Boston Brand (Deadman), who is a member of Justice League Dark (with Constantine and Zatanna and Swamp Thing!). So the DC heroes are familiar with ghosts and ghost powers.

It's "rogues" gallery, not "rouge". Rouge means "red" in french.

Clark is never abusive to Conner, he just doesn't know what to do with him and chooses to ignore the problem; which, yeah, is mean, but not to the levels that fanon has taken it. And this is in the Young Justice cartoons, not across all depictions. In comics, they consider each other family and that's why Conner took a kryptonian name (Kon-El - of house of El, Kal's family)

The whole "No metas in Gotham" is not true. Batman understands that Gotham is very Fucked Up and that if you add metahumans and heroes with powers trying to do good to the mix it could make things worse. Outsiders don't understand Gotham and if they get jokerized or mind controlled, it will get ugly real quick. That's why Signal is cool beans! Duke is a gothamite through and through.

While is interesting that no one in the Batfam knows about Tim's missing spleen, is very probable that Alfred knows - post about this

Constantine is more powerful than it looks like. A post about interesting abilities.

Damian has a metal spine. Yeah I don't know how it works either. They used it as way for Talia to control Damian for a bit :(

Interesting links:

What's fanon in DP

Fan project for Ghost Speak, written and spoken form, and a ghost speak generator - post AGIT canon

Transcripts of all the Danny Phantom episodes

The whole DP series + the complementary comics + A Glitch in Time comic (if you are able to buy the AGIT comic please do 🙇‍♀️)

How to pronounce Ra's Al Ghul

BatPham ship names (updated regularly).

What are the canon ages of the Batfam?

In depth guide to everything Batman in one place (be prepared to go down the rabbit hole)

Fanon vs Canon Batfam edition

Superfam family tree

Interactive map of Gotham (Gotham Knights videogame)

Timeline of events (Batfam adoption order and ages when those events happen)

Map of Gotham (made based on various sources, with annotations (check the reblogs for more info))

The Titans Tower attack: Fanon vs Canon and More thoughts on the Titans Tower Attack (with links to the comics online)(wear protection kids! before clicking the links have a solid adblocker and a vpn if possible)

This person has dedicated a lot of time to research receipts of Comic stuff so check out their masterlist

---

Suggestions are welcome! Please be kind with each other and remember to have fun with this fandom!

[hugsandchaos]

Here’s an AU! Or a joke of an AU? It’s based off a joke. Basically, Vlad wasn’t affected by the portal like Danny was and is still human, Danny isn’t a Fenton and still had to run with Sam and Tucker because his parents, who are also ghost hunters, found out and didn’t take it easy, and the three somehow crashed in Vlad’s lawn. About forty days later…

During a video call (because I said so!)

Jack: It’s been amazing speaking with you after so long, Vladdie!

Maddie: Say, do you have kids?

Vlad: No, I have three freeloaders.

Sam in the background: Wow!

Tucker: Dude, you’re letting us stay here!

Danny: And I’ve been fighting ghosts off your property for the last two hours!

Vlad: Send parenting tips. I beg you.

Maddie: We were so excited when we were planning for Jazz. A little stressful at times, but we got through it and now we have a beautiful daughter studying psychology! We couldn’t be prouder.

Jazz: I love you too!

Vlad: These three freeloaders crashed on my lawn and acted like feral gremlins for the first week and a half. They test my patience like no one else, but if anyone dares to do something to them, they will pay dearly for it.

Danny: Ha! I knew it! The fruit loop cares for us!

Sam: I got that on camera. You can’t take it back now that you’ve admitted it.

Tucker: If you weren’t stuck with us before, you definitely are now.

Also, Vlad defending Danny from Jack and Maddie. In subtle ways at first. When Danny accidentally came in still in ghost form, Vlad acted like it was normal and addressed him as “Phantom”. He walked up to him and thanked him for dealing with other ghosts. He told him to go lay down, and Jack and Maddie were very confused and a bit on edge.

The next day, they saw Phantom again. He was slowly reaching across the table and trying to grab Vlad’s coffee. Vlad was reading the newspaper and gave him a stern look. Phantom glared back, but slowly pulled his hand away and started to leave. Then he came right back and tried to swipe it, but Vlad was quick enough to grab him and scold him for trying to take his coffee. When they came into the room, Phantom freaked out and left. Vlad was displeased.

He was having quality “getting on each other’s nerves” time with the ghost kid who haunts his mansion and protects it from other ghosts! Quit scaring him off with your ghost hunting tech! You know what? New rule; Leave the ghost weapons at the door.

Also, Jazz warms up to him first. Both because he’s surprisingly lovable, and because it gives her a chance to study ghost psychology.

Jack: Vlad, don’t freak out, but your house is haunted.

Vlad: I’m aware. The little badger stole my second cup of coffee this morning. *turns around* Butter biscuits, he just took my fifth!

Phantom: *drinks coffee faster*

Maddie: Be careful! Ghosts are evil and unfeeling!

Vlad: Liar. Phantom takes great pleasure in draining my coffee supply and getting on my nerves. He also appreciates me for letting him turn one of the old rooms into a mini planetarium. Therefore, not unfeeling.

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Stupid thought: Ghosts under a hundred years are babies no matter how old they are. However it’s acknowledged their human ages matter.

Danny is a baby. Johnny and Kitty aren’t. Both were killed during the Salem Witch Trials as witches. Shadow is in fact Johnny’s magic still sticking around. However they adapt to the times compared to other ghosts who died. They like their new style.

Johnny notices first and stops right away to talk to Danny who is stunned. He’s fought ghosts before who just attack?!

Johnny: You feel old but like I can tell it’s just echoes of power kid.

Johnny abandons his plans for Jazz and goes back to the Ghost Zone to talk to Kitty. Both come back and begin helping Danny with Ghost stuff. They become his ghostly parents/older siblings. Mostly older siblings.

So they aren’t rogues. Though they will cause mischief.

Then the GIW attack Danny after figuring him out. Vlad is a bitch and helps. Cause he wants to save Danny and be his ghost dad. Johnny and Kitty are around. They grab Danny when he’s injured and book it. They can’t go to the Ghost Zone though, cause the GIW tracked Danny to the place and realized his identity. Maddie and Jack are confronted and upon learning their son is Phantom… yank out their guns and shoot the agents. Jazz runs to the basement and wrecks the portal. All three are arrested.

Johnny and Kitty run with Danny all the way to Gotham where a natural stable portal is, hidden deep under the rock. Gotham’s Spirit stops then.

GS: He’s to human. He needs to recover here yes, but can’t go full in for to long.

They do take him to see Frostbite while Gotham does her thing. Arranging for an apartment to mysteriously become available, then to find a stash of dirty money, all that.

Johnny and Kitty manage to pass as meta. They hide what they are cause the old Laws say they have to.

Johnny ends up working with Jason as part of the Red Hood gang while Kitty works in a beauty parlour. Danny is in recovery. But when he’s okay, he begins working with Tucker (who along with Sam booked it out of Amity and are hiding out in a bunker Sam’s grandma has) to destroy the GIW.

Jason eventually gets roped into the chaos as he’s liminal. He is more then happy to blow up some government agencies. More so when Maddie and Jack break out with Jazz to run to Gotham to. Suddenly there are two mad scientists who work in Crime Alley with Red Hood.

Few people are happy. I’m not sure if this is during the early days (if so, Johnny murks the clown) or not but Batman is not happy. Meanwhile the Fentons are happily churning out gear for Red Hood cause both have little morals, Jazz is helping expose the GIW and the JL cause they all think they knew (they didn’t. New laws said the hotline had to be operated by a civilian who was easily bribed, thanks Luthor).

I have no idea where this would go other then ‘Johnny and Kitty are Danny’s ghost parents/siblings who run with him to Gotham and cause chaos with Jason and Danny is a baby crime lord’.

I mean you can go bad reveal Jack and Maddie but the idea of them going: you know what? FUCK THE GOVERNMENT before going evil is funnier.

[five-rivers]

The Intern

AO3

Inspired by a variety of DPxDC posts, but mostly this one by @gettingcomfyinyourwalls

.

Before Danny's Accident, he and Jazz had competed for the title of "the normal one" with an intensity and ferocity achievable only by siblings in families where there was no normal one.  After the Accident, he had to cede the title, however reluctantly, to his sister, who then, in a turn around only possible for siblings, then dedicated herself to giving Danny the title of "the one everyone thinks is the normal one."  Combined with his chosen friend group - a girl who pursued weird as a lifestyle, and the kid who once tried to use a tamagotchi to hack a vending machine, then gave the tamagotchi an Egyptian burial when the attempt killed it - it was very easy to forget that Danny was not normal at all.  Not even if you ignored the whole "half-ghost superhero" thing, which was very difficult to ignore.  

It was even easier to forget what kind of not normal he originally was, before the accident, and continued to be even afterward.  

However, the world (and particularly Sam and Tucker) was about to be reminded.  

"Guys!" shouted Danny, literally skipping up the hallway to come to a bouncing stop between Sam and Tucker.  "Guess what!"  He was quivering with so much excitement that his edges looked a little blurry.  

Tucker put a hand on his shoulder to get him to stop.  "I guess it's a good thing, and not that your parents invented a ghost wiggler or something?"

Danny stilled.  "The ghost wiggler.  My enemy."

"Wait, I was joking."

"Mom and Dad weren't.  That thing was evil."

"Okay, okay," said Sam, raising her hands, "it didn't have anything to do with one of your parents' inventions.  What did happen?"

"Two of my summer internship applications were accepted," said Danny, almost sparkling with delight.  

Actually, he was sparkling.  If he had an internship outside of town, he would have to get that under control.  

"That's great," said Sam.  "Which ones?"

"Lexcorp and Wayne Industries!"

"Lexcorp?"

"Wayne Industries?"

"You applied to Lexcorp?" demanded Sam, appalled.  

"You're going to Gotham?" asked Tucker in the same tone.  

Danny looked from Sam to Tucker, then back again.  "Yessssss?"

"To work for the guy you call Bald Vlad?  The one who keeps trying to kill Superman?"

"The place with all those crazy villains and mad scientists? That Gotham?"

Then, together, they asked, "Why did you even apply there?"

"Lexcorp is a civilian leader in astronautics, meteoritics, cosmochemistry, nuclear physics, quantum computing, robotics and medical research."

"Because Lex Luthor is trying to kill Superman."

"And even beyond Wayne Industries, there are so many great scientists in Gotham, like Dr. Isley, Dr. Crane and even Dr. Fries!"

"Danny, those are the villains."

"Well," said Danny, "I figure I'm never going to meet Lex Luthor, being an intern and all, but if I see any dangerous weapons, I can trash them!  I have lots of experience."

"Don't you think it might be a little dangerous for you to work for an avowed human supremacist?"

"It’s not any different from staying home."

Sam leaned back to stare at a point over Danny's head, flummoxed.

Tucker, not liking his point being ignored, squeezed Danny's shoulder.  "If you miss fighting that much, I'm sure any ghost you ask will be happy to spar with you.  The villains, Danny.  Why do you want to go somewhere with that many villains?"

"It's not like I'm joining them."  Danny rolled his eyes.  "I just want to talk to them.  If you're so concerned, I can take Dr. Isley and Dr. Crane off the list."

"Why only those two?  Why not get rid of the whole list?" asked Tucker, shaking him slightly.  

"Because Dr. Isley was mostly for Sam and Dr. Crane was mostly for Jazz.  Dr. Fries is for me, and Mom and Dad want me to try to convince cousin Hugo to try therapy again."

"Why," said Sam, as Tucker glared at her, "do you think I'd want you to talk to Poison Ivy?"

"Uh," said Danny, "because you admire her work?"

"Admired, past tense, and that was before she started turning people into trees."

“But the ‘turning people into trees’ part is way more applicable to our lives!”

“Forget about that,” said Tucker.  “Why do you want to talk to Mr. Freeze?”

“Well, Doctor Fries is an expert in cryogenics and incorporating ice into technology.  I want to be able to do that.”  Danny looked back and forth between Sam and Tucker.  “Come on, I’m not interning for him.  I just want to expand my knowledge base!  Just think about all the cool things I could make!”

Sam and Tucker, united in horror and purpose, grabbed Danny by the arms and dragged him bodily into Senior English.  

"Jazz," said Sam, hauling Danny forward by the arm she held, "your brother is turning into a mad scientist!"

Jazz looked from Sam, to Danny, to Tucker, then back to Sam.  "Yessssss?"

"Well," huffed Sam, "aren't you going to do anything about it?"

"No?  Why would I?" 

“Mad scientist,” repeated Sam.  

“That’s generally a bad thing,” said Tucker.  

“It’s fine.  Danny has a very strong sense of ethics.”

“And lab safety!” chimed in Danny.  

“And lab safety,” agreed Jazz, nodding.  “Now, if you want me to help you with your internalized prejudice, I can refer you to some resources I’ve found quite helpful myself.”

“Internalized prejudice is when you’re biased against yourself,” said Tucker.

“Yes.”  Jazz returned to the task of arranging her pens and notebook on her desk.  

“Wait,” said Sam, “you are not calling us mad scientists, are you?”

“Well,” said Jazz, “Mad Science Disorder isn’t in the DSM, but there’s a movement to have it included in the next edition, and I think you would fit the proposed diagnostic criteria.”

“No,” said Sam.  

“Yes,” said Danny.  

“I have seen the inside of your greenhouse, Sam,” said Jazz.  “You’re at least on the road to being a mad botanist, if not a mad ecologist.”

“I’ve been saying that for years,” said Tucker.  

“And you’re obviously a mad computer scientist, with a minor in archaeology.”

“Wait, why are you saying this like they’re college majors?” asked Tucker.  

“It’s easier that way,” said Jazz.  She frowned slightly.  “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing.  It’s just that you should be aware of it, so you don’t wake up one day and start planning involuntary human drug trials, or something like that.”

“Jazz did that, once.  I was five.”

The warning bell rang.  

“You should go to class,” said Jazz, pleasantly.  “You don’t want to be late.”

.

“Listen,” said Sam, leaning over the desk to whisper at Danny, “couldn’t you, I don’t know, just do the Wayne internship?”

“Hm,” said Danny, rubbing his chin, “maybe.  But I kind of get the feeling I only got the Wayne internship because I got the Lexcorp one.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, like we talked about way back, Bruce Wayne has to be funding the Justice League, at least a little.”  He pushed his math homework - already finished - to one side.  “It’d make sense for him to keep an eye on anyone Lex Luthor personally hires, on account of the Superman thing.  It’s either that or corporate espionage.”

“Wait,” said Tucker, leaning in from the side, “go back to the ‘personally’ part.”

“It’s a special internship?” said Danny, somehow still managing to pull off the clueless innocent look.  “It was, like, competitive?  You know what I mean.”

“Luthor personally hired you?  Reviewed your application and whatever?”

“Yeah.”

“And you think he isn’t going to meet you?”

“Why would he?  I’m basically going to be getting a tour, then doing drudgework for a month.”

“I love you, man, but you are so, so dumb sometimes.  The man is going to meet you.  Jeez, I hadn’t even heard he was doing internships like that for our age group.”

“Age group?” asked Danny.  

“Dude.  No.  Tell me it was at least limited to just high schoolers.  Tell me you didn’t apply for an internship meant for college students.”

“There wasn’t any age on it as far as I remember.”

“Mr. Fenton,” said Mr. Falluca, “will you please come solve this triangle for the class?”

Danny huffed.  “Rule of cosines,” he said as he stood.  “Give me an easy problem…”

“Why is he even in this class?” mumbled Sam.

“Ghost hunting,” Tucker mumbled back.  

.

“How are you even going to get to Metropolis?” asked Sam as they walked away from the school.  “You don’t have your license yet.”  He probably wouldn’t have his license ever.  Three Fentons driving had, evidently, proven too much for the local DMVs.  Jazz, as conscientious as she was, had gotten hers from the one in Elmerton before they, too, realized the horror that was Jack and Maddie.  

“Jazz is going to take me,” said Danny with a little shrug.  “She’s doing a pre-college thing there.  Some kind of volunteer thing.”

“And how are you getting to Gotham?”

“There’s a train that goes there,” said Danny.  “Like, a regular one.”

“And getting back?”

“Mom and Dad will pick me up.”

“Where will you be sleeping?”

“There’s on-site dorms on each site.”

Sam curled her lips.  “The return of company towns in the modern era.”

“I don’t know, I think the Wayne ones are probably fine.”

“But you’re sleeping in the Lexcorp ones?”

“I figure I can disable any subliminal programming devices that might be installed there.”

“Do you not see how crazy that sounds?  Tucker, back me up, here?”

Tucker sighed.  “Honestly, I don’t think we’re going to be able to change his mind.  I’ve been picking out funeral flowers.  You still like lillies?”

“It’ll be fine.  I’ll call you guys if I need help.  Just like you’ll call me if some new ghost shows up and starts causing trouble, right?”

“Yes,” said Sam, exasperated.  “But you understand those two things aren’t the same, right?  That with the way things are here, there probably won’t be a new ghost causing trouble?”  

Danny had made… peace probably wasn’t quite the right word, with the Fentons, the Guys in White, and the lack of an organized overarching social structure, but there was an understanding between him and the ghosts.  Without that understanding, he wouldn’t have been able to take the time to apply for internships, let alone actually go to any.  

“I mean, if it’s an imposition–”

“That’s not what she meant,” interjected Tucker.  “Nope.  Nope.  You aren’t wriggling out of calling us when a supervillain kidnaps you.  She’s trying to talk you out of taking an unnecessary risk.”

“It’s not really a risk for me, though.”

It really wasn’t.  Danny might not be invulnerable, but the sheer variety of his powers along with his accelerated healing made that point academic.  For most enemies.  

“This is the guy who fights Superman, Danny,” said Sam.  “For all we know, he’s got some kind of anti-ghost material in the same cabinet he keeps his Kryptonite.”

“I don’t think that’d work very well, actually,” said Danny.  

“It was a metaphor.  Be serious.”

“I am being serious.  This is something I want to do.  I want to go there and learn and prepare for the future.”

“You sound like Jazz, you know?  You’ve got two more years here.  You don’t have to do this.  If this is some kind of overcorrection because of the ghosts–”

“It’s not.  I told you why I wanted to do this.”  He stopped on the sidewalk, pulling on the hem of his shirt.  “Is it really that bad?  Is it really that terrible that I’m going somewhere and doing something that I’m interested in?”

“No,” said Tucker, awkwardly.  “We’re worried about you.”

“And I’ll be fine,” insisted Danny.  “Really.  I will be.  And, you know, like I said, I want to do this kind of thing in the future, so it’s good practice.”

“For what?” asked Sam, crossing her arms.  “Scamming supervillains?”

“Well, yeah,” said Danny.  “That, too.”

Sam’s arms fell, along with her jaw.  “What?”

“Scamming supervillains,” said Danny, starting to walk again.  “Like, obviously, I want to either do something with spaceflight or something with a big humanitarian dimension, but scamming supervillains is definitely going to be my backup.  Or maybe my hobby.  They always have the coolest stuff, and a lot of money, too, usually.”

“Coolest stuff?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, almost skipping, now.  “Ice rays, supercomputers, gene therapy, rapidly growing vegetation, limb regeneration, cloning techniques… Lex Luthor came up with a cure for, like, over half a dozen different types of cancer.”

“Because he wanted to kill Superman,” said Sam, taking up an earlier refrain.  It had only 

“Yeah, but imagine what he could do if we could convince him that Superman got his strength from, like, world hunger or something.”

“I hate it,” said Sam, after a long moment, “but I think you have a point.”

“You two could go into business with me.  Some villains go through goons so fast, I bet we could hit them about a dozen times.”

“You’re not planning to do this now, though, are you?” asked Tucker.

“Huh?  No.  No, not until after graduation.  Most I’ll do with any supervillains I see this time around is talk.”

“That’s a lie,” said Sam, immediately.  “There’s no way.  The first time Man-Bat or Brainiac jumps out of a sewer, you’re going to start swinging.”

“Man-Bat is a geneticist and a chiropterologist, you know,” said Danny.  “I’d love to take Brainiac apart, though.  Do you have any idea how many planets he’s wiped out?  And the stuff he’s got to have–”

“You’re floating,” said Tucker.  

“And glowing,” said Sam.  “You’re really going to have to work on that.”

“Oops,” said Danny.  “Sorry.  It’s just, like, everything I’m Obsessed with.”  He landed, but still fidgeted, as if shaping something invisible with his hands.  Which he might have been.  “It’s– I still want to help people.”  The plaintive note in his voice made it clear that ‘want’ was, in this case, closer to ‘need.’    “I don’t mind doing the hero thing, and I can’t ignore a cry for help.  But I’m not going to just waltz into someone else’s territory and start messing with stuff.”

“I think the territory thing is more of a ghost thing than a hero thing.”

“Eh,” said Danny, “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

.

Danny waved goodbye to Jazz as she pulled away from the curb, then grinned up at the Lexcorp building.  Wow, it was tall.  And probably had a lot of really sketchy stuff in the basement.  

But!  He wouldn’t start poking around with that stuff until he’d been there for at least a week.  

(Okay, he’d probably last twenty-four hours at most, but who could blame him?  How often did anyone get to poke around the lair of a supervillain who wasn’t their archenemy?)

He walked into the lobby, craning his neck this way and that to take it all in.  It was… honestly pretty boring.  Not unlike Vlad’s buildings.  But he supposed that all corporate buildings were like that to some degree.  

“Hello!” he said, walking up to the front desk.  “I’m–”

“You’ll have to wait for your parents to come out, I’m afraid, sweetie,” said the secretary.  “Company rules.”

Danny blushed.  “No, um, I’m here for the internship?  The Innovators of Tomorrow Today internship?  I’m Danny Fenton.  Daniel.  Daniel Fenton.”

The secretary blinked at him, then looked down at her computer for a moment.  “I’ll need to see some ID.”

“Will my passport be okay?” Danny asked, tugging on his bracelet to get it to lie more comfortably on his wrist.  On account of the whole ‘no driver’s license’ problem, he didn’t have anything else, other than his student ID.  

“That will be fine,” said the secretary, reaching for it.  She looked it over carefully, becoming more and more confused.  Danny wondered if she was expecting it to be fake or something.  “You’re fifteen.”

“I know I’m short,” said Danny.  “But I’m almost sixteen.”

“I see,” she said.  “Well.  Here’s your visitor badge.  We’ll have someone come escort you to the meeting room shortly, and your internship badge will be ready when you start tomorrow.  You can leave your luggage here, and it will be scanned and brought up to the dorms.”

Danny bobbed his head happily and took back his passport and the badge.  He couldn’t wait to meet the other people he’d be working with.  He bet that there’d be a lot of people his age, no matter what Tucker said after he looked it up and saw the website.  

A tall man wearing an earpiece and some kind of weapon - a taser, probably - walked up to Danny a few minutes later and scanned his badge.  With a few words, he directed Danny to an elevator - one with a keypad code - and brought him up to the tenth story.  The elevator opened directly into a… Danny wasn’t entirely sure what to call it.  It was square and very large and open, with soft, rounded furniture, a kitchenette, and a catered lunch spread out on several long tables.  One wall was all windows, looking down into Metropolis, and another wall was covered in cool, art-deco Lexcorp posters.  

There were a lot of people.

A lot of tall people.  

A lot of tall, college-aged people.  Older college-aged people, even.  No teenagers.

Tucker had been right.  Great.  

A middle-aged woman extracted herself from the loose crowd and came over to Danny, smiling.  

“Hello!” she said.  “You must be Daniel Fenton.  My name is Liberty Rue, I’m the coordinator for the Innovators of Tomorrow Today program.”

“Hi,” said Danny, “it’s nice to meet you.”

Ms. Rue nodded.  “Thank you, thank you.  We’re just giving everyone a chance to get to know each other before we start the orientation.  Please feel free to take any of the refreshments and mingle.  All of you are going to be working together closely.  Your specialties were electrical engineering and space science?”

“Yes,” said Danny.  Although, to be honest, he didn’t really have a specialty.  He was more of a generalist.  

(Unless you counted ghost science, but there was absolutely no way he was going to bring that up.)

“Excellent.  Let me introduce you to the group you’ll be working most closely with–”

What followed was something of a whirlwind.  It wasn’t that there was a lot of people, but it was one after the other, and Ms. Rue seemed to be… showing him off, almost?  Or showing the other people off?  In any case, there was a weird tension to it all.  

Was it because he was younger?  

He tried not to dwell on it too much, though, because everyone here had so much cool stuff to talk about.  Almost all of them had been involved in serious graduate or undergraduate research projects.  Strange matter, transient dimensions, reality fields, meta gene analysis, non-quantum teleportation, reproduction of extraterrestrial technologies…  Danny was starting to feel a little inadequate.  The project he’d sent in was a ‘theoretical’ blueprint for a spy-bot disabler.  One that he was proud of, sure; getting a localized EMP effect without a nuke wasn’t easy, but it was doable.  And the EMP part was definitely the ‘last resort’ stage of things.  It was, after all, much better to hack into Vlad’s bugs and have them send him a hundred hours worth of rickrolls.

In the middle of a conversation about exactly how much room you needed for a decent particle accelerator, Ms. Rue stepped aside and put her hand to her ear.  Danny hadn’t noticed the earpiece before, but now he looked at it with curiosity.  It was well made, and he could barely hear it, even with his slightly augmented hearing.  He wondered if they were designed to counter Superman.  

“Mr. Fenton,” said Ms. Rue, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to steal you away for a moment.

“Okay,” said Danny.  He followed her back to the elevator, stealing a cookie as he went.  They weren’t as good as his Mom’s, but he was pretty sure they tasted the way they did because of their ectoplasm content, so…

Ms. Rue punched a code into the elevator and scanned her badge.  “Alright, Mr. Fenton.  Go ahead.  You’ll be taken where you need to go.”

Well.  That was maybe a little sketchy, but Danny was nothing if not curious.  He got in.  “I’ll be back in time for the orientation, right?”

“If you aren’t, I’ll make sure you’re shown around personally,” promised Ms. Rue.

The doors closed and the elevator went up.  And up.  Then stopped for a moment, during which Danny felt the tingle of a very thorough full-body scan.  And up some more.  All the way to the top.  The doors opened to a sparkling office.  Everything in it was white, chrome, or glass, with smooth straight lines and geometrically perfect curves.  It blended perfectly with the skyline of Metropolis framed by the full-wall windows.  

Between Danny and the windows was an enormous white desk.  Behind the desk was Lex Luthor.  

“Daniel Fenton,” said Lex Luthor, inclining his head ever so slightly towards Danny.  “It is good to meet you.”

“Thank you,” said Danny, trying not to squeak.  “I’m happy to be here.  I’m looking forward to working here for the next couple of weeks.”

“It is heartening to see that you are more open to cooperation than Vlad.”  Luthor turned away, slightly, surveying the city below him.  

Danny took that as an invitation to come closer and peer out the huge windows himself.  What did Vlad have to do with this?

“I confess, I found myself frustrated by his lack of vision,” continued Luthor, “but youth often holds wisdom that age lacks.”  He turned back to favor Danny with a smile.  “On seeing your application, I was charmed by your initiative in circumventing your mentor.”

Danny’s train of thought, such as it was, derailed.  

“Mentor?” he asked.  

“You don’t have to hide it,” said Luthor.  “Not when we are both quite aware of the others’ knowledge.  Considering my wealth, I am privy to a number of things that ordinary people are not.  Including the beneficiaries of my fellow billionaires’ wills.”

Oh.  Oh, no.  Lex thought– But why–  Was he–  He couldn’t be right, but–  But did this make Danny a… a… nepotism baby?

The sprout of confidence that had been flourishing ever since he got the letter announcing his acceptance to the internship program withered.  This was even worse than finding out he and Jazz were test tube babies.  (And that was only so bad because his parents had felt the need to go on a long tangent about how they had selected their donor-parents, as large portions of Jack and Maddie's genomes were unstable due to a combination of the family proclivities and a variety of curses.)

Lex Luthor stood.  “Doubtless, you’re interested in the projects I outlined to Vlad when I proposed our cooperation.  The device blueprint you submitted for the internship referenced them quite cleverly.  I would like to show you how far they’ve progressed since I spoke to Vlad, and then we can discuss your contribution to their success.”

“I don’t have access to any of Vlad’s resources, Mr. Luthor,” said Danny, cautiously.  “I couldn’t provide any, er, funding to these projects.”

“I am aware of that.  But I think your value goes above and beyond the financial, Daniel.”  He put a hand on Danny’s shoulder.  “After all, the reason I approached Vlad was his science background.  And in a few years… Well.  Vlad Masters is not a young man.”

Was that a murder threat?  Danny thought it was a murder threat.  Oh, boy, did he have something else coming for him if he thought he could just kill Vlad like that.  

Luthor directed Danny back towards the elevator, and this time they went down.  Far down.  Into those basements Danny had been thinking about before.  

They stepped out into a vestibule, and a pair of much more openly armed security guards saluted Lex before running through a series of security measures.  Danny took note specifically of the ones intended to detect mind control and shapeshifting.  

From there, they passed through a series of locked doors and into a maze of gleaming white hallways.  The color made Danny’s skin itch.  Too much like the GIW for his taste.

Luthor opened a side door, and showed Danny into an empty lab.  Empty in terms of people, that is.  In terms of stuff… blueprints, prototypes, models, drawings, coffee cups… not so much.

“I had the team take the day off,” said Luthor.  “I thought you’d appreciate the chance to look at things without any distractions.”

Danny surveyed the plans with interest.  There were similarities between what was being built and the mini-EMP portion of his bug-zapper.  There were also echoes of shield technology…  some kind of energy projector or amplifier?  

“What is it supposed to emit?” asked Danny, unable to hold back his curiosity.  He touched, ever so gently, a hollow place he was sure the energy source was supposed to sit. 

Lex smiled.  “I’m glad you asked,” he said.  “Follow me.”

They went back out into the hallway, but only briefly.  The next room had even more security, but Luthor bypassed it all with businesslike efficiency and they entered a plain, all-white and bare room.

One wall of this room was taken up by a backlit display cabinet made of square cubbies.  Within each cubby was a tiny chip of crystal, like a sample display of particularly expensive rock candy.  Green, of many shades, was the best-represented color, but there was also red and blue.  That made sense, because each crystal was made of delicious ectoplasm-infused quartz.  Danny swallowed.  They were making his mouth water, but the amount of death energy they would have had to be around…

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Luthor.  “Kryptonite.  The key to repelling our would-be alien overlord.”

Yeah.  Remnants of a planet that imploded while still inhabited by billions.  That would do it.  

“I intend to create a Kryptonite field over the whole of Metropolis, one that should, at the least, disable Superman to the point where we can drive him out.  I will sell them to the great cities of America, and then, the world.  One day, the whole Earth will be protected, and Superman must either leave, or die.  But for now, it is still a dream.  That is why I need you, Daniel.”

Danny didn’t think Luthor’s weapon would work.  Not now.  There was too much missing.  Too much being missed by scientists and engineers expecting the Kryptonite to behave in a normal, logical way.  He was certain, however, that he could make something that functioned exactly as described.  He could even do it quickly, building off ghost and human shield technologies.  He could see the pieces of it fit together, like a puzzle.  

Making it, just to prove that he, Danny Fenton, could, was tempting.  

So tempting.  

But he had this little thing called morals, and driving Superman off Earth was definitely in the category of bad.  

“Well, I don’t know if I can fix problems all your scientists can’t, but I can sure try to help.”  He winced a little at the phrasing.  Why did he have to use the word help?  

“That’s all I ask,” said Luthor.  “But that’s far from our only project.  Shall we?”

“Sure,” said Danny, not at all faking his smile.  Even though he’d have to sabotage this stuff, it was really cool to see it!

.

Later that night in his dorm room - which was, incidentally, a lot more spacious than he’d expected - Danny rotated the bracelet on his wrist and pressed a button on its side.  Inside the thick band was a miniaturized and completely functional version of the spy-bot zapper he’d submitted as part of his internship application.  He listened to it click as it went through the different modes available to it.  It tweedled at him when it finished.  

Only then did he pull out his phone and power it on.  He clicked into his contacts and hit the button for his first favorite.  

“Hey,” he said, when the call connected, “Jazz, so…  Sam and Tucker might have been just a little bit right about my internship…”

.

May do more at a later time, but for now, this is it. I am incredibly forgetful, so I don't do taglists. Please consider subscribing to the AO3 version of this instead.

[dcxdpdabbles]

There are so many fics out there where Danny is either adopted by or the biological son of Bruce. In many of these he might have an existential crisis but other wise he is fine and happy to be part of the BatFam. Where are the ones where he fights against this just doesn't want to connect with Bruce of the rest of the family.

One: Bruce is a billionaire and Danny has had some bad experience with Vlad trying to adopt/get him as a son. So even if Bruce is one of "the good ones" Danny does't like billionaires.

Two: Danny for the most part grew up in a mostly normal family and home, with two Parents and a sibling. Most of the BatFam were only children and parents are dead or came from dysfunctional homes. I think Duke is the only one who really had a normal childhood.

Three: The Fenton family is pretty openly affectionate with each other and are pretty normal emotionally. Danny has a great relationship with all of them (Danny went evil in the timeline where they all died). Most of the Batfam is emotionally constipated.

Four: Danny is used to his boundaries being respected. I don't think that the Batfam is great at that. With Bruce needing to know everything, Tim's stalking tendencies, Barbra's hacking, just to name the obvious.

Danny knew that he was adopted into the Fentons. His parents had never hidden it from him, but they never treated him as anything besides their child.

He had come into their lives one day when one of Maddie's old high school friends had called, bawling that she had gotten pregnant and that her husband wasn't the father. He had discovered the truth and thrown her out, leaving her pregnant and alone on the streets of Gotham.

Maddie had been furious at the affair- she hated disloyalty- but had decided to help her only for the baby's sake.

She had driven over multiple state lines back to her home city to pick up the friend only to find out she had taken her life and left her newborn son to Maddie. While Maddie had been able to escape the hellhole that was Gotham, Rebecca never got the chance, not with her average intelligence.

In high school, the two were as close as sisters until Rebecca fell into the whisky bottles her father carelessly left around. She blossomed into a beautiful woman upon their graduation- more so than Maddie-, turning from a sweet homebody into someone who got into exclusive parties and powerful men.

Maddie had slowly drifted away from her, so far away at college, and Rebecca fell further and further into the party scene. It was a surprise that she settled down for marriage and Maddie truly believed that she had been happy with her husband.

That's why Danny was such a surprise. Maddie did not know who Danny's biological father was, but she did not care. Not after they placed the sobbing infant into her arms, and she realized that she was his mother now.

She immediately phoned Jack to tell him what had happened, and he told Jazz she was a big sister before the call ended. They told him the story about when he started to learn his colors. Not with her taking her life, of course; that was when Danny turned fourteen. This was only a few days before Danny revealed he was Phantom to them.

They were first shocked, but then they became supportive. Phantom now had two proud ghost hunters following him, shooting photos instead of guns.

It was embarrassing, but it was also nice of them.

And that was that. Danny is a Fenton, adopted, but a child of Maddie and Jack Fenton all the same.

He never gave his biological parents a thought. In fact, he all but forgot about them until Sam convinced him to take an ancestry test. He had allowed her to swipe his mouth, package his DNA, and send it off to see where his people came from, completely forgetting that he would not match with Jazz, who had done the same thing a month prior.

His results were shocking, to say the least.

Somehow, someway, Rebecca Silver had been in the system of DNA samples, and they had matched him to her alongside his biological father.

Bruce Wayne. Rebecca had an affair with Bruce Wayne, arguably one of the wealthiest men in the country, and they had sent him a message to let him know he matched with his son.

An eccentric billionaire has just been told that Danny was his. He knew that song and dance well, and it was never fun to dance to. Danny could only stare at the results with dread as Sam apologized profoundly.

"Maybe he won't see it." Tucker tried. "I mean, Wayne is probably so busy with rich people stuff he doesn't have time to even look at his emails. Especially ones that will come in spam since it's comersolized."

"Yeah, Maybe" Danny doesn't think he's that lucky.

A month later, the Fenton's home phone rings. His parents are working on a new invention on the dinning room table, Danny is stretched out in front of the TV watching a mindless cartoon and Jazz is crocheting in the love chair.

It's a typical Tuesday night where everyone is doing their own thing but close enough to each other that they can call it family time. Jazz is the closest to the house phone so she picks it up with a cheerful "Fenton house, this is Jasmine."

Her smile slowly slips away as all the blood drains from her face. Alarmed by her reaction, Danny sits up. "Jazz? What's wrong?"

His words have his parents' heads snapping up, zoning in on their daughter's rapidly growing destress. Yes, they get distracted often with their work, but the Fentons have always been loving parents.

They quickly spring into action.

"Jazzy-pants?" His dad says, walking up to her and taking the phone from her slack hand. He covers the speaking end of it, not paying attention to the call as his mom hugs his sister. "What's the matter?"

"It's... Bruce Wayne's lawyer," Jazz says faintly. "He's calling about Danny. He said that Mr. Wayne has been attempting to take Danny back and that they are going to take us to court soon."

The room goes dead quiet, and Danny snorts. "He can't do that without a letter or something. Come on Jazz, it's obviously a prank."

Someone at school likely found out and thought it would be funny to make "the biggest loser of Casper High" Danny Fenton, think a billionaire wanted him as a son. Honestly, he wouldn't put it past the A-listers.

He laughs to show how stupid this prank is, but neither of his parents joins him. Instead, his mother closes her eyes and whispers, "We received his court papers weeks ago. We've been trying to get a lawyer."

What.

She pushes Jazz into his dad's arms, where his sister is slowly panicking. His dad tries to soothe her as his mom opens the drawer under the TV, pulling out three orange envelopes. She looks remorseful as she hands them to Danny. "We didn't want you to worry. I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner. Vlad said he would help, but he wasn't sure what he could do against such a powerful man"

And there, in overly complicated terms, is clear as day. Bruce Wayne wanted full custody of Danny Fenton and was willing to take the Fentons to court to get it done.

The man- who has never so much as met Danny, much less have a right to say what happens to him- was accusing his parents of child abuse and child neglect! He not only was trying to take Danny away but Jazz as well!

Where did this man get the audacity!?

"I don't want to go with him!" He shouts rage, making his eyes glow green. "I don't even know him!"

"I know, sweetie. I won't let him take you" His mom says, yanking him into a protective hug, and he realizes that her shirt is getting wet with his tears. Tears that fall just like the woman who raised him. "Everything will be alright."

It won't be, he knows, but he won't tell her that. He just lets his mother hold him, and when his sister and father crash into the hug a second later, he holds them just as tight.

He's not sure how they will win against Bruce Wayne, but Danny will fight his biological father every step of the way. He will not be his son.

______________________________________________________________

Bruce stares at the photo of Danny Fenton- his son. His boy, whom he wasn't aware was alive until a month ago- and the reports from concerned teachers and whatever information Barbra could pull from his classmate's social media.

Dramatically dropping grades.

Clear signs of sleepless nights.

Flinches whenever his parents pull out "ghost hunting" gear.

Strange bruises and cuts along his arms and legs.

His small stature is no longer growing properly like his peers.

It all pointed to one thing. The Fentons were abusing his son and Bruce would bet the sister was suffering from the same treatment if her own grade dropping, sleepless eyes, and desperate race to adulthood were any indication.

Bruce laces his hands, resting his chin on them as the Batcomputer slowly flips through various reports being quickly dismissed by incompetent social workers who all claim it was Ghost Hunter related and not a cause for concern.

Those same social workers all seemed to have gotten quite generous donations from one Vlad Masters, a well-known family friend of the Fentons.

He hates corruption that allows children to be hurt, more so when it;'s his own children.

"When do we go retrieve Brother?" Damian asks, green eyes narrowing in rage as the reports scroll slowly. Ever since he found out Danny is a blood sibling, all Damian has been talking about is getting his elder brother home. "I am displeased with how long it's been, Father."

"Soon," Bruce promises, aware the rest of his children gather around him. They don't speak, but he feels their protective rage at what Danny has gone through, and he knows they will use every last bit of their training to get Danny home. "Either through the courts or in person. Danny will be with us come summer."

"Good," grunts Jason. "I'll have a little chat with his adoptive scumbags when we get him."

"I'll help," Dick tacks on.

"I'll make it look like an accident," Tim says, voice leveled but eyes blazing as the reports get to the neglect section. He has personal issues about that.

Bruce has never been so proud. "Court date is set for three weeks. They can't weasel their way out of it this time."

Don't worry son, he thinks to Danny, I'm going to save you.

[satoshy12]

Heir of a Tyrant

Upon discovering that Danny was the rightful inheritor of both the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage, Vlad executed a de-aging scheme by instructing Skulker to poison and attack Danny. The poison transformed Danny into a child, rendering him too young to claim the throne. As an older Halfa, Vlad intended to seize the position of Proxy and rule the zone with Danny as his ward. Jazz, however, could not allow this to happen and fled Amity Park with her newly-turned toddler brother. As Jazz attempted to flee, she landed in various cities, yet Vlad's followers persisted in their pursuit. Fortunately, even though the heroes typically disregarded Amity Park, they were now determined to safeguard them. From Wonder Woman and Superman to the Flash and even the Green Arrow and Black Canary, along with Martian Manhunter, they all came to their aid. It was heartwarming to see how ecstatic little Baby Danny was whenever an alien or space hero appeared, while he was utterly uninterested when a mundane hero was around. Green Lantern won him over by mentioning that he was a Space Police officer and part of the Airforce. Danny found nothing wrong with this Space is Space! Jazz believed that Wonder Woman was somewhere in the middle since Danny liked her but not as much as the Alien Heroes. Nonetheless, he did not detest her or find her dull. Jazz believes it might have something to do with Pandora. In a meeting of the Justice League, the heroes gathered to discuss recent events they had encountered. To their surprise, each of them had encountered a green monster that they had to fight. The alien heroes in attendance spoke about how cute the toddler was that they had seen, as well as his red-haired caretaker. This caught the attention of Wonder Woman, Superman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Martian Manhunter, who were surprised to hear about the others' encounters. Batman spoke up and asked why the monster was hunting the toddler and the babysitter. Shazam explained that they were beings from the Infinity Realm, and that he had heard about this place from the Gods. However, he suggested that John Constantine might know more. When John Constantine confirmed what Shazam had said, the group turned their attention to the captured Vulture, hoping to get some answers. They learned that the toddler was actually the heir of Pariah Dark Throne, and that the Ghost had been sent to capture him and bring him to their boss. Their boss wanted to take the toddler's crown and control the Realm for himself, by making himself Danny's guardian.

As they learned by Shazam, Zatanna and John's shocked faces, Pariah was a Evil Dark Tyrant that was sealed by Ancient for a good Reason too. And someone who wants to take his place would be the same, the most important thing at the moment would be to find the duo and protect them, and make sure that the Boy will not grow up to be a Tyrant or be used to take control of armies and realms.

All the Planning the Justice League and Justice League Dark did for the weeks, was to be kicked out as Bruce saw the tiny toddler Black Haired blue eyed toddler and just changed the whole plan to just adopt the Duo.