#no metas in gotham lol

[singswan-springswan]

bro adopted ONE sparkle boi and suddenly he's okay with superman covering his patrol shift

[luxaofhesperides]

Soulmate AU: First Words + End of the World ; requested by @justwannabecat!

Duke has long since accepted that he doesn’t have great luck. Most things in his life tend to go wrong very quickly, or complicate situations he was already struggling in (see: being a meta and getting his powers in the middle of a fight). Having an incomprehensible soulmark is an unpleasant discovery on the morning of his nineteenth birthday, but not entirely unexpected.

He had been hoping for something simple, a common one like hi it’s nice to meet you or sorry, didn’t mean to bump into you.

What Duke gets instead isn’t even words. 

Scrawled across his left hipbone is a string of symbols glowing a faint green. They’re not in a language he recognizes, and the symbols seem to move, shifting ever so slightly so they look different every time he blinks.

“Well,” he says after a solid five minutes of staring into the mirror, unable to rip his eyes off his soulmate’s words, “I hope theirs looks nicer than mine.”

He spends his birthday in a bit of a daze, enjoying time spent with the Waynes and his friends. It’s hard to be fully present when he’s all too aware of the soreness on his hipbone flaring up each time he moves. It’s hard to keep his mind off of it, wanting nothing more than to search for answers, unravel the mystery of his soulmate’s first words.

“Something on your mind?” Jason asks, as the attention shifts off of him for a brief moment as Harper and Cullen get ready to leave and everyone rushes to give their goodbyes,

Duke shrugs, carefully keeping his hands still so they don’t drift to where his soulmark is hidden beneath his clothes. “Yeah. Nothing you need to worry about, though.”

Jason looks him over critically, then nods. 

Duke resigns himself to being investigated by the rest of the Bats. If he’s off enough that Jason had to comment on it, then that means everyone’s noticed and are trying to figure out what’s happened. They’re not going to ask him, because they think he needs space to work through whatever’s got him so distracted, but they’re also not going to just do nothing. 

This won’t be the first time they’ve done this. Duke expects it. Frankly, it would be stranger and much more concerning if they didn’t try to dig up all his secrets the moment they caught wind of him hiding something.

He’ll tell them about getting his soulmark soon. Soulmarks can appear on any birthday between the ages of thirteen to twenty five; they might suspect he got his, but they won’t be able to confirm.

For now, Duke can keep his soulmate’s first words (whatever that gibberish means) to himself.

He makes the decision then and there, as his birthday party winds down, to tell them in a week.

And because his luck is abysmal, a world ending threat hits five days later and suddenly there is no time for soulmarks and first words.

Duke is the last to arrive at the Fortress of Solitude, hitching a ride from Superboy to get there. The biting cold and the harsh winds keep the place far from the reaches of the rest of humanity, surrounded by nothing but deadly white. 

Desolate as the landscape is, it’s still in better shape than the rest of the world.

Things would be better if it was alien invaders. It would be more bearable if some sort of cosmic colossus tried to eat their solar system. At least then there would be something physical that they could fight.

Instead, the world is breaking apart, the sky and earth both fracturing to reveal glowing green faultlines. Timelines are getting mixed up and muddled; just yesterday, Duke had to evacuate a building that had been demolished forty years ago, then stop a gang leader who wouldn’t be born for another eight years from taking over a neighborhood block and holding the residents hostage. Strange creatures are appearing out of nowhere, crawling out of shadows and tide pools and from beneath the roots of trees, all horrible, monstrous things that go after people with teeth and claws. 

The Flashes and the rest of the speedsters are nowhere to be found. The last time anyone get communication from them, it had been Impulse sending Red Robin a glitchy, barely audible video chat saying something along the lines of “trying to fix—unstable—keep us here—never been alive before.” All things that are very concerning to hear, made worse by the fact that no one had been able to contact them at all. 

The quiet loneliness of the Fortress of Solitude is a welcome change from the constant screaming, death, and destruction that’s taken over Gotham as well as the rest of the world. Last he heard, even Justice League China was at the end of their rope. 

“In here,” Superboy instructs, guiding Duke through the halls. There’s no time to look around at Superman’s secret base. All his focus is stuck on staying conscious for another few hours to see if this gathering of heroes is able to find a solution to the world breaking apart.

Batman stands besides Superman. Both nod at Duke when he enters the room. Wonder Woman is watching over John Constantine as he writes something on the floor, muttering under his breath. The rest of the Justice League lean against each other, visibly exhausted as they wait for Constantine to finish up what he’s doing. A few other heroes are here too, and Duke goes to join them where they lean against a wall, fighting to keep their eyes open.

“Hey,” he greets, voice low. “Hanging in there?”

Wonder Girl sighs. “Somehow. I don’t know how much longer we can do this. There’s just too much…”

“We’ll get through this. I mean, even without us out there, plenty of civilians have formed rescue and relief groups to help with keeping things under control,” Speedy says, gently knocking her arm against Wonder Girl’s. “We just gotta keep going. No giving up.”

“What’s this plan, anyways? I just heard that they needed me here to some attempt to fix things.”

“Well, without the speedsters, you’re kind of the only one who can help with time and power related stuff,” Speedy says.

“That’s definitely a stretch. My powers don’t really have anything to do with time. It’s all just light and shadow.”

Speedy shrugs. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Too late to complain about it now.”

Duke doesn’t get a chance to say anything else when a loud clap catches his attention. The entire room goes still and silent as Constantine stands up and surveys the circle and symbols he’s written, taking up an entire corner of the large room. 

“Alright,” he says. “Time to get started. Remember, let me do the talking. If you have to speak, it’s only to back me up or when a question is directed to you.”

Batman nods to the other Justice Leaguers, and suddenly everyone is falling into formation behind Constantine. Duke hurries to join them with Wonder Girl and Speedy, taking a place on the edge of the group where he’s a little closer to the circle than the others. 

Constantine begins chanting. His voice is steady though none of the sounds make any sense, refusing to form themselves into recognizable words, and the air the in the room feels heavier. The chalk circle glows a blinding white and Duke can see magic swirling through the air, his power kicking in the let him watch as reality tears and a glowing star in the shape of a boy comes out of it.

Duke blinks, forcing his power down. The hypnotic swirls of magic fade from sight, but the boy still glows, bright and terrible as he floats above the circle and surveys them all. A crown engulfed in blue flame hovers above his head and the fabric of the cosmos is draped over his shoulders as a cape. 

Just from presence alone, Duke can tell that this figure is now the strongest existence in this universe. He hopes this boy king is kind; no one, not even Superman, would be able to beat him in a fight.

The boy king opens his mouth and speaks, but it’s not words than comes out. A strange static like sound emerges, but light and almost melodic. 

His left hipbone burns.

Duke gasps, hand flying down to it, and the boy king’s gaze snaps to meet his.

The world stands still. No one moves. No one dares to breathe.

And then the boy king drops to the floor and walks out of the circle.

“I thought you said that would hold him!” Batman hisses at Constantine, who is looking more and more distressed.

“It was supposed to! I wrote it specifically to hold the King of the Infinite Realms!”

The boy king glances at Constantine. This time, when he speaks, it’s in smooth English. “Did you name the king in your circle?”

“Yeah, I named Pariah Dark… Bloody hell, you ain’t him, are ya?”

“No,” the boy king smiles, “I’m Phantom.”

The cape and crown fade away, and suddenly it’s not an all powerful, terrifying king standing before them, but a young man with white hair and green eyes who looks Duke’s age. Like he could be any other new generation hero in the room. 

“Phantom,” Duke repeats lightly, just under his breath, but it makes Phantom look at him again.

He walks forward, ignoring the other heroes’ aborted attempts to stop him, coupled with Constantine’s frantic back off motion happening behind him. Phantom leaves the circle and the Justice Leaguers behind to stand before Duke, a soft smile on his face.

“Hi,” he says softly, “I dreamed of you.”

“You—what?”

“I dreamed of you. I have for years now. To think that being summoned was what made us meet—” Phantom breaks off into a breathless laugh.

Duke swallows, then drops his had from where it had been pressed against his hip. “So we’re really—? You have my first words too?”

In the corner of his eye, he sees Batman stiffen up. Maybe he should have just told them the day after his birthday, but in Duke’s defense, this is the definition of extenuation circumstances. 

“First words?” Phantom repeats, “Is that… Do we have different soulmate connections?”

“I think so. Here, everyone gets the first words their soulmates say to them appearing somewhere on their body.”

Phantom’s gaze darts down to Duke’s hip, then back up. “Oh. I get dreams. Where I’m from, we dream of our soulmates, and the closer we get to meeting them, the more we remember the dreams.”

“And you dreamed of me.”

“I did.”

“As touching as this is,” Constantine interrupts, and Duke gets to watch as Phantom rolls his eyes, “We summoned you here for a reason. Our world is falling apart at the seams and we need someone powerful, from the Realms, to help us fix it.”

“Okay.”

“...What do you mean ‘okay’?”

“I’ll help,” Phantom says.

“Just like that? No deal to be made, no price to be paid?”

“Just like that. I’m not one for deals anyways. If I can help, then I will. But I do want to see what the problem is with my soulmate by my side, if you don’t mind.”

Batman steps in, fixing Duke with a steady gaze, a barely noticeable tilt of his head. “Signal?”

“Yeah I’ll go with him. Of course I will. The sooner the better, in fact, because everything’s gone to shit.” Duke turns to Phantom, taking hold of one of his hands. “It is really bad out there,” he warns, “If you need help—”

“I’ll ask for help from others in the Realms,” Phantom says. “No offense or anything, but if it’s really that bad, I doubt living mortals will be able to do much to fix things. It’s why I was summoned, right?”

“Right. Let’s get to it, then.”

There’s a flash of mischief in Phantom’s eyes, and cheeky grin stealing across his face for a moment, before he says, “Aye aye, captain!” and picks Duke up like he weighs nothing and flies up through the ceiling.

Duke is able to hear everyone’s surprised, panicked shouts before they’re outside the Fortress of Solitude and Phantom is flying them away. He only needs a few directions from Duke before he finds the first of the large fractures in the sky.

“Yikes,” is all he says, which is not a great thing to hear. “I think I know how to fix it, though. We’ll need to do a little investigating as to who, exactly, started messing around with reality, but once we find the source, it’ll be an easy fix.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”

“Even better than meeting your soulmate?”

“I haven’t slept for more than four hours all week. Knowing there’s an end in sight beats everything else.”

Phantom laughs, throwing his head back and Duke can’t help but drink in the sight of him, so ethereal and bright and full of life. “Fair enough! Got any ideas as to where we should start?”

“I’ve got an entire crew of detective vigilantes,” Duke replies. He’s not taking any more chances. No more waiting to talk about important things; he messed up by keeping his soulmark to himself, so he needs to make sure everyone meets his soulmate before shit goes south again. 

“Let’s go find them, then!”

They take off again, soaring through the skies that are barely holding themselves together. 

The world is still ending, and every hero is being stretched thin, but held carefully in Phantom’s arms, racing head first into a solution, Duke can’t help but feel that everything’s going to be alright now. 

He’s had enough bad luck. Now, his soulmate with him, bearing the title of King with grace, things are finally starting to look up.

[mysecretwindowuniverse]

1x7 | Penguin's Umbrella ☂️

In between all the deaths via weatherballoon, clones, mutants, and resurrections, I still maintain that the biggest suspension of disbelief Gotham ever asked the audience was to pretend that Oswald wasn't stunningly pretty and most definitely didn't have a comically long line of eager suitors vying for his affection at any given moment

[liaroflesbos]

so i read joker last laugh, but instead of thinking about Most Of That, I've been thinking about Batman: Gotham Knights vol 1 issue 22. Bc there are so many red flags for steph and bats' developing relationship, but they actually have a shot at a good relationship in this issue???

steph apologizes for talking so damn much, and bats is like it's np! it's good company! and PUTS A HAND ON HER SHOULDER

and okay maybe a dead man's head is ominously watching them throughout this exchange. but at least they're having a nice time together!

and okay maybe i'm also a little bitter about the fact that bats keeps turning to steph instead of tim. not that i don't want steph included but it feels like bats has basically given up on his robin relationship with tim at this point?? like i know that tim's at boarding school but holy shit bruce, put some effort into maintaining your relationship with robin. if you wanted company maybe you could like. put feelers out for how tim is doing, goddamn.

[chronicangel]

I actually think it would be really funny if Gotham had a reputation for being like, a really cool and fun place that you want to go.

Like I know the running gag in fandom (and a little bit in comics, too) is that Gotham is a cesspit, famed for its insane vigilantes and impossibly high rates of violent crime, but when I think about real-life cities with very high crime rates and sort of a smoggy aesthetic, they are often places that people want to go.

Like, New Orleans is in the top ten cities in the world for homicide rates according to the data from 2022 (all the other 10 are in Mexico, and I can't speak as much to them because I've never been, but I at least recognize Tijuana, which is #5, as a place other people seem to refer to as a tourist destination for Americans), and yet there is a very real and very large crowd of people fully devoted to going there every year for Mardi Gras. I know multiple people who fantasize about living in the French Quarter, and when my grandparents took me there once as a teenager, I remember driving around with my grandmother to look at all the old, pretty buildings.

People famously think of New York City as a dangerous city with high crime rates (although the last few years have really reflected those crime rates going down), and yet it is also one top 10 of the most popular cities in not only the US but the world for tourism. My Dad lived in upstate New York from 2021 until this year, and just moved to North Jersey (significantly closer to the city), and for a while, he would rent a hotel in Times Square for a weekend every time I visited. If a band or artist is touring the US, it would practically be a crime to skip NYC, and there are the huge drawing forces of tourist destinations like the Statue of Liberty and Broadway. In fact, I lived halfway across the country from NYC and I still knew people who went on high school field trips there with their theatre programs.

I grew up in a college town in Southwest Missouri, and for most of my young adult life, I must have gone to St. Louis at least a half-dozen times a year. We went on a field trip to Six Flags when I was in 8th grade. I took a mini-vacation there in July 2023 where I paid for an Airbnb for a week and went to the zoo three or four days in a row so I could really take my time with it. I went on a day-trip in May of this year with a friend from work where we walked around the city to the tune of 19,000 steps. And all of that despite the fact that I spent my entire life hearing about the gang violence permeating the city, and the fact that St. Louis was ranked as the most dangerous city in the United States for several years in my lifetime.

I just moved to Philadelphia, which is in the top 50 cities in the world for homicide rates (see the link on New Orleans), because I've been coming here since I was a teenager and it's always been a home away from home to me. And when I went on my first walk around the neighborhood after moving here, I proudly bragged to my friends about how I had only been catcalled five times, two of which were by the same dude (some guy on my block who yelled at me at the beginning and the end of my walk) and one of which was by a child, so statistically that was a pretty good walk.

My point with all of this is that there are lots of very dangerous places in the world that people still idolize and want to go to. Within the lore of DC Comics, Gotham is a city that was first established in the early 17th century, with beautiful Gothic architecture and the Delaware Bay framing its edges. It would also be the largest city in New Jersey by a long shot, and I can imagine that with the real-world affectionate rivalry between New York and Jersey, citizens of the state would loudly defend Gotham as the superior city to NYC, cesspit or no (the same way that Missourians will hold Kansas City over Kansas' head until the end of time, or until they give back what's rightfully ours).

I imagine people from all sorts of places and all walks of life would go on two-week trips to Gotham during summer vacation to see whatever iconic landmarks stuck out to them, or maybe even to try to catch a glimpse of Batman and the other famous vigilantes-- I think if I heard that there was a vigilante in one of the big cities only a few hours away from my hometown, I probably would have been drawn to it like a magnet the second I was old enough to decide where to spend my breaks.

Also, just looking at it realistically, most of Gotham's crime happens at night and in very specific parts of the city-- which is also true of big cities in the real world. So it's extremely likely that a tourist could spend weeks or even months in Gotham and still never be directly subject to the sort of crime that Batman and Robin and whoever else might be there at the time are dealing with. I can easily imagine plenty of folks from Metropolis deciding to take a day trip to Gotham, which is just across the bay and would logically only take a couple hours tops to get to (assuming there's an operational ferry, and why wouldn't there be?), walking around the city looking at gargoyles and trying famous restaurants, and then packing on up and going back to Metropolis to say, "Yeah, people talk a big talk, but I've been to Gotham and it really isn't that scary."

You know, the way we all do with real cities.

[gothamghostwhispers]

Ineed hellp

Gotgasdd

[clownprince]

trick or treat :)

HC: gotham is basically night vale but metropolitan. actually, it's even weirder than night vale -- the entire city is thoroughly haunted, for one. it's not known exactly what percentage of those who walk the streets at night (or in broad daylight) are non-corporeal entities, but every gothamite has at least one ghost encounter story, bare minimum.

the ghosts are as varied as the residents themselves -- some look the same as they did in the moment of their death while some can pass as living humans and are even solid to the touch, some can possess the living, some are residual hauntings stuck in a loop, etc.

the city also seems to be partially sentient -- or the architecture, at least. the gargoyles are frequently found in positions that are unmistakably different than the ones they were in yesterday. and not everyone knows this, but if you engage them in conversation, they'll whisper city secrets into your ear. the buildings shift and morph, moving streets and changing their shapes and interior designs randomly.

this can be beneficial to residents, but it's unpredictable -- the city might suddenly grow a fully-furnished hideout in part of an abandoned building that aids a costumed crook in hiding from their pursuer, but it would just as soon form an opening in an alley wall that subsumes the villain when they enter.

time is also wonky; it's distinctly non-linear and different periods bleed into each other, whether that be in the form of cultural anachronisms or entire human beings temporarily (or permanently!) shifting twenty years into the future. some theorize that gotham has multiple timelines running concurrently; since that would be one explanation as to why gothamites so often disagree on when, how, and even if certain events occurred.

there are other entities, of course; hundreds of them. the liquid shadows that manifest from the dark corners of alleys, healing broken bones and ruptured organs, saving people from dying like dogs in the street. seemingly non-sentient but still unnatural artifacts like books that seem to impart knowledge far beyond what their pages could reasonably contain -- books that no librarian ever seems to know the exact origins of. people who try to catalogue the anomalies tend to disappear under dubious circumstances -- so few are inclined to try, at this point. it's just an accepted part of life.

[oneofgothamsinsane]

What a good day to be able to hide the fact that I have meta gene(It gives me horns and shit that i can make disappear if i try hard enough) and be seen as a normal human. :)

(I just met BatBitch and he asked me if I knew any doctors at the clinic who were metas.)

[dhampiravidi]

does anybody know how the Spectre (DC Comics) feels about Batman & vice-versa? I know that some people ship Hal Jordan (who was previously the Spectre's avatar) with Bruce Wayne. I also know that the Spectre will totally kill someone if he thinks they deserve it & Batman famously has his no-kill rule. Also: IMHO, Batman is a badass who can very easily scare the shit out of most people. The Spectre has a similar vibe, being the spooky Starbucks-green Spirit of Vengeance.

so what do you all think?

[new-revenant]

Danny is plopped into Gotham via Clockwork because he needs a vacation and a way to vent his energy which is building up because of a growth spurt. Danny in true Fenton fashion finds an underground group of meta teens and kids, who just want to live a normal life, and decides to join them in throwing huge underground raves where everyone could vent out their powers however they wanted as long as someone kept a look out for the bats or rouges. Well one night Danny is on lookout and sees the bats. He doesn't know what to do so he immediately runs in, smashes a bottle of soda on the floor and yells "IT'S THE FURRIES! SCATTER!" and just as Batman arrives everyone runs in a different direction. Danny just straight up turns invisible and phases through the floor in panic.

Me: *quickly scrolling down to save to drafts and answer*

Also me: *sees “IT’S THE FURRIES! SCATTER!”*

That made me laugh a lot lol. It’s such a silly prompt, I love it so much. It’s such a vibe. I have nothing to add, it’s perfect.

[gece-misin-nesin]

Imo Jason is “irredeemable” by default because I don’t see what he needs redemption from.

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

Batman: *trying up unconscious goons when he notices a glowing meta(?)*

Batman: What are you doing?!

Phantom: *without looking up from his phone* Taking pictures of OSHA violations and reporting the company's responsible.

Batman:

Phantom:

Batman:

Phantom: Its Gotham so I will need to beat up some of the people responsible.

Batman:

Phantom: I promise not to kill them

Batman: There no metas allowed in Gotham. Its dangerous for you to be here.

Batman: Leave

Phantom: lol no.

Phantom: *vanishes*

Lmao Danny is terrorizing company execs and managers and beating people up for worker safety

Just Danny going "You WILL be OSHA compliant"

[saphrxn]

how do you feel about batman?

my favorite version of bruce is an elsewords one that ppl meme on but. he is very special to me u just dont understand him

canon bruce is a jackass who treats the sidekicks like shit. but im of the opinion that only cass jason and tim he sees as his kids? steph is basically 'tims ex who works w us' and damien is 'kid that lives in my house' emotionally but he logically knows damien is his son. dick is his brother cos it makes the whole ward thing better to me, and this was there old relationship anyways . i hate batfam shit tho so i just dont look into what they all do 🤷🏽‍♂️ but truly only like Bruce when he's doing solo detective shit cos as soon as he's with other ppl it's like... Someone shut this rich bitch upp

[radiance1]

Okay so remember that one idea where Danny got turned into a wisp? Like picture Venti from Genshin before he took on the form of his friend but make it icy and with green eyes.

Alright so, Danny somehow ends up in DC, most likely a summoning for the ghost prince that the cultists believe got botched because that doesn't look like a being of great authority and a lot of magic users would tell that oh yea, that thing? Most definitely just a low level ice spirit nothing to worry about there.

Not knowing that it's actually the prince of the infinite realms lol.

So what I'm thinking of here is that Danny, either he was summoned in Gotham or finds his way to Gotham, ends up running into Mr. Freeze and just goes:

"Yea you're my friend now :]" and Mr. Freeze has like zero say in the matter, like at all. He has no idea where this little ice creature came from, hell it might even be a meta for all he knew. The thing just came to him one day and hasn't left since.

Maybe you could even say that he unintentionally and unconsciously starts acting somewhat fatherly to Danny, and if Danny acts childishly that only drives that on further. You could, perhaps, even say that Mr. Freeze and Nora has always wanted children and he's living out part of said fantasy with this random little spirit/meta that attached itself to him.

[secretlythatsme]

Okay, I was trying not to harp too much on dc canon here but you rbed first so I'm considering this a go-ahead lol

The whole "no metas in Gotham" thing is a mix of canon and fanon. Canon implied it, and fanon took it to an extreme.

Bruce not wanting metas (or any other vigilantes) in Gotham is heavily implied by both him and the narrative. He does not specifically state it - it's one of those read in between the lines things. Bruce, through actions and words, has proven for about twenty years that he doesn't like meta vigilantes in Gotham. It's not all meta people - he specifically has an issue with vigilantes. And there are multiple canonical reasons for this: metas can do more damage to Gotham and its citizens (on purpose or accident/out of their control), the more meta vigilantes there are the more crime will rise to the challenge, meta trafficking rings, etcetc. There's a lot of nuance to it and it's not going to be the same answer for every person Bruce meets, but in general, he doesn't Love it when metas are in town. It makes things harder for him, the citizens, and the metas themselves.

Bruce is not bigoted against metas; he just specifically doesn't want meta heroes/vigilantes/criminals showing up because that usually makes things worse for everyone. He does get uneasy with unidentified metas, but that still leads to his actual reasons above. He's not actually forcing them out of Gotham, he wouldn't be able to and he's not trying to. He is trying to keep track of and document them though (again, for reasons listed above). (like there are a lot of different plots where random metas are rounded up to be killed, abused, and/or taken advantage of.)

One of the only things that Bruce has said that's really been bigoted in nature is telling Cass that he doesn't want her to associate with "his kind" in reference to Kon (batgirl run). Which is yknow, rude as fuck but could be brought down to Bruce being overprotective of Cass knowing what Kon used to be like. Everything else is just normal Batman paranoia and planning.

The thing about Duke is that he is the exception. He's not the rule, he's the exception. Gotham is Duke's home, and he proved that he could be trusted and trained. There have been other metas who operate in Gotham or come and go (Black Canary, Gotham Girl, Zatanna, to name a few), but Duke being in the batfam is an exception. And the narrative is very clear about that. Bruce takes him in because he sees a traumatized teen, who has the potential to do a lot of good, who wants to do good, and who has proven that he can help people. But he also takes him in because he has powers and he needs to be trained to use them for good and not fall through the cracks or be killed because he's a meta (one who happens to be drawing attention to himself by helping people).

In regard to Danny specifically, if he's trying to pretend he's a normal citizen, then no, Bruce wouldn't particularly care unless something weird is up. If Danny is very clearly a vigilante/getting into shit, then yes, Bruce will care. And he'll care a lot about Danny not being from Gotham. It's not his home, so he has no business being there. If he's still a teen in the au, then Bruce will be nicer about it, but if he's an adult? Bruce will immediately be questioning why he's there, what his powers are, what he uses them for, how long he plans to be in Gotham, etcetc. Bruce will make it known that he doesn't approve of an unknown meta vigilante stirring shit up in his city.

So again, mix of canon and fanon. Canon makes it clear - fanon exaggerates.

ALSO for your angst dpxdc consideration: danny would absolutely still be considered a meta. the term "meta" is used in a very vague, umbrella way where basically anyone who isn't a normal human is a meta. so even without the proper meta gene, danny would still be considered a meta by basically everyone (especially bruce). canonically speaking, danny isn't just a normal booooo kinda ghost - he also has some insane powers (like his ghost wail!) so he'd be considered a person with superpowers and therefore a meta.

so when you're writing dpxdc fics, please consider this! danny would be a meta in the dcu! kick that kid out of gotham!!!!

[luludeluluramblings]

the town and the batfamily fighting to see who gets Smalltown!Meta!Reader.

I love having Bat Family having to fight people for Reader! It makes the stakes more interesting!

Smalltown is about to get they ass's whooped though. But, the effort is there! Now back in Gotham, things are gonna get a bit more dicey after. Lol.