#or they ask how she knows Vlad Masters and she says he’s her godfather

[obsessedwithstarwars]

I love this SO MUCH!!!

Friendly neighborhood vigilante. Chapter 18

BatmanxDP crossover. JasonxJazz

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“Are you still mad at me?”

Jason sighed. “I’m not mad.”

She didn’t like his answer, but contained herself. Like she did all the thousand times in the last hour.

“I promise I’m not mad.”

Her eyes were deep turquoise pools without end. He usually didn’t feel analyzed when she looked at him, she was very firm on never using her skills on him despite joking about not being a good doctor; but now he could almost feel her poke around in his head. He didn’t like it.

“I was mad, but I‘m not anymore. Promise.”

She liked that answer even less than the other one. “I’m sorry.”

She was being honest. Like she had been the first thousand times she apologized.

It wasn’t about being sorry or being mad with her. It was just—

“I shouldn’t have said yes without asking.”

He stopped walking, took a deep breath and turned to look at his girlfriend. She was twisting the hem of her blouse, her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyebrows furrowed. He had no doubt that Jazz was sorry about making that deal with Bruce the previous day, but it didn’t mean that her actions didn’t hurt.

He ignored the pinch in his chest.

Jazz was not like his family, he tried to remind himself once more. She didn’t act because she thought she knew what he wanted better than him, or because she was so sure she was in the right that she wouldn’t waste time asking him if he agreed.

The moment Bruce was out of that window she looked at him with wide eyes. “I fucked up,” she had said without hesitation, throwing him off the spiraling thoughts of betrayal.

How he was feeling was probably written in his face, he had no doubt. Sure, the Pit wasn’t clouding his thoughts — and it hasn’t done so in a while, not even when he thought that Jazz had used him as a guinea pig with the Lazarus Waters — but even with a clear head he was still not okay.

They had talked. For hours.

Figures that his first real argument with his girlfriend would be Bruce’s fault — he was not counting the whole drama of that week as a “couple’s argument".

Jazz's usual ramblings, which in any other situation would be endearing, was then grating to his ears. Excuse after excuse, she kept explaining, or trying to, that she thought he needed to go to that dinner. That his problems with Bruce, while valid, shouldn’t deny him a relationship with the others. That she would be there and could act as a shield—

He had to stop her right there.

It was an awful lot of assumptions, he told her. She didn’t even know about his past, he growled.

That made her stop. “You are right, I don’t. I wish to know, when you want to tell me. I want to know everything about you.” She finally looked him in the eyes properly. “But I still think that deep inside you want to go to the dinner.”

He wanted to go. He wanted to see Alfred and see his second childhood home (the nicer one) and meet the new people in the family.

She knew he wanted to go, because she was one of the few people in the world that could see past his tough guy exterior and actually made an effort to see what was inside.

Still, he would like it if next time, his girlfriend didn’t make a decision for him. He told her so and the argument ended in a better tone, with a hug and soft kiss goodnight.

Why was Jazz insisting again, you ask?

“You shouldn’t have, no. But you apologized and I think I’ve told you to not apologize if nobody was hurt. I’m fine. Shall we go to that damn dinner?” He gestured towards the elevator, and of course Jazz didn’t move.

She stopped biting her lip, but her hands kept torturing the hem of her blouse.

“You don’t look fine.”

Okay. Not only were they going to that stupid dinner because of her, but they were going to be late because of her as well.

He sighed, rubbing his face.

“Well I’m perfectly okay. Can we please get moving?”

Jazz frowned, like he just kicked a puppy or something.

“Danny always—”

“Well I’m not Danny!”

The silence was only broken by the echo of his shout in the empty hallway. It was only then that he noticed he was breathing heavily.

Jason stopped, straightened his back and took a deep breath. Only then he looked back at Jazz, finding those hurt eyes that he had only seen back at his other safehouse, when he accused her of so many horrible things.

The image of a bruised wrist passed behind his eyes.

He was not his father. Either of them.

“Listen—”

“I’m—”

Both stopped talking, looking at each other in a tense silence.

When she didn’t say anything else, he continued. “I’m not your brother, Jazz. I understand that you feel sorry and I understand why you jumped like that. Yes, I’m upset, but I just— I don’t need a talk about feelings right now, ok?”

She processed his words for a moment.

“You need time.” It wasn’t a question.

“I— Yes.”

She tilted her head. “Time away from ‘us’?”

“What? No!” What the actual fuck? “No, I just got you back, why would I want to be apart from you?”

Jazz’s cheeks tinted a bit red just as she looked down at her hands, finally letting go of the piece of clothing.

“Just wanted to check,” she said with a small shrug, still looking down. “Didn’t want to assume things.”

This made him chuckle.

“You are silly.”

At least she was smiling when she looked up at him. “Can I hug you?”

Instead of an answer, Jason walked towards her and pulled her into his chest, easily circling his arms around her body. It was comfortable and it felt right, having her so close. He kissed the top of her head, breathing in her shampoo.

“We cool?” She asked against his chest.

He nodded, even if she wouldn’t be able to see it. “We cool.”

By the time they got to the bike, all the bad feelings had been replaced with tender kisses. Jazz offered to bail on the dinner and blame it on her if necessary, but at that point Jason was so fed up with the stupid dinner he wanted to go out of spite.

The ride was uneventful, Jazz’s long dress pants and heeled sandals weren’t a problem to ride a motorbike.

They made the trip to the Manor in silence, Jason’s mind disconnected from the motions as familiar landscape passed by them at high speed. It has been a while since he climbed the hills towards Bristol, but he couldn’t remember if the last time was when he brought that first edition to Alfred so he knew he was alive, or if there was a more recent instance.

In any case, the familiar shape of Wayne Manor was impossible to miss, nor were the empty roads that were far from civilization and the common people living in the rest of the city.

Jason expected to feel rage, to feel dread, to feel the painful anticipation before facing something that you really don’t want to experience — but as troubling thoughts started to plague his mind, he felt strong but gentle arms tighten around his waist, not giving the thoughts enough time to settle in his mind.

That’s right, he wasn’t alone. He didn’t need to face things alone. Not anymore.

The silence was broken as he parked close to the door and both got out of the vehicle.

“It’s… big.”

He snorted at her comment. “Don’t let the opulence get to you.”

Jazz hummed in thought. “Oh it doesn’t. Is not my first time in a mansion this big.” She turned to look at him with a little smile. “I haven’t told you about the time we lived in a mansion?”

He chuckled as he stored the helmets away. “Sounds like a fun story. Wanna share with the class?”

Her eyes glazed over for a moment, and he knew she was considering if she needed to lie to him. It didn’t hurt that much, especially not now that he knew why she needed to measure her words.

“The GIW paid my parents an absurd amount of money in exchange of our house and all the ghost hunting technology. Danny was thrilled, of course, since he always wanted to be rich. We had our own butler and everything.” She sighed dramatically. “It ended quickly when Danny found out that what the GIW truly wanted was access to the portal to nuke the Ghost Zone. He barely stopped them in time and the day was saved once again.”

“Nuke the Ghost Zone?” He asked as they started walking towards the Manor. “Sounds dangerous.”

“Very. The Ghost Zone, or the Infinite Realms, are like… what was the word?” Jazz thought about it for a moment, one finger on her lips with smudged pale pink lipstick. Which reminded him to check that he didn’t have lipstick stains on his face. He would never live that down. “It is like… a mirror dimension of this one! Yes, that was the thing. Anyway, if that one is destroyed, this one goes as well.”

He lifted an eyebrow, stopping right at the front door. “You guys have dealt with crazy stuff, haven't you?”

Her smile was tired. “You have no idea.”

There was more she wanted to say, but both knew it wasn’t the moment or the place. There was so much pain, so many secrets, in her teal eyes that he wondered how he hadn’t noticed before. Had she been hiding all of that from him? Of course she had, she was good and hiding and lying. Jazz was burdened by secrets that weren’t her own and a past she couldn’t share.

Once again she reminded him so much of Dick, and how his brother was all smiles and circus tricks to distract you from the pain Jason could see in his eyes when Dick thought nobody was looking. He knew there were things his brother wasn’t telling him, and he never pressed. Everybody had their secrets. Even him. Even his girlfriend.

But, unlike with his brother, Jason wanted to know those secrets — not to make sure she was not a supervillain, but because he wanted to carry that burden with her. It hurt to see her in pain. He wanted to take away her sorrows so she didn’t have to look like this.

Jason cupped her face with one hand, for once not worrying about his calloused palm being rough on her soft skin. She leaned into the touch.

He put his other hand on her waist, leaning in for a last kiss. She eagerly placed her hands on his chest, responding to the kiss with a little smile against his lips. He felt her sigh and melt into his arms, all worrying thoughts escaping her mind this time.

He may not be able to take away all her sorrows, but he was happy to distract her from them for the moment.

When they parted, he saw a curtain quickly be closed in a nearby window.

He sighed, knowing that it was showtime.

“Ready?”

At her nod, he rang the bell.

Of course, the door was opened immediately. Alfred had been waiting behind the closed door, with half the family standing there, trying to not make it obvious they've been eavesdropping.

“Welcome,” the butler said with a smile. Jason answered with one of his own, happy to see the old man. “May I take your coats?”

Jazz hid her nervousness as she gave her denim jacket to the butler, softly introducing herself to him.

“Jason.”

He looked up, finding Bruce standing there with a stupid turtleneck and sensible jeans, selling the whole “dad” thing. He kept an open and non-aggressive stance, with a small smile. He even wore stupid superhero slippers.

“Bruce.”

Jazz came back to the tense silence, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Your jacket, dear?”

He looked away from Bruce and took off his jacket, deciding to not give it to the man to ruin this night for him and his girlfriend. Jazz deserved to have a good time, and he would not be the one that fucks this up for her.

“Jasmine—”

“Jazz is fine,” her smile was polite, although not as warm as the ones she gave him. “Thank you for inviting us.”

It was a charged sentence, of course, since Bruce never intended to actually personally invite anyone — he always sent Dick to mediate between them. And they only accepted to come after he fucked up so bad he had to make a deal to even start apologizing.

He knew. They knew. The others knew.

Jason snorted.

He loved his girlfriend to bits.

“So…”

Everyone turned to look at Dick, who was smiling in that specific way. The one where he was trying hard to become a distraction.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

“She knows who you are.”

“Well, maybe she wants to have a more formal introduction, given the circumstances.”

“She is right here.”

Now everyone looked at Jazz, who didn’t seem amused at being talked over like she wasn’t there.

“Right. Okay.” Jason sighed dramatically and got ready for grating night. “Jazz, these are Dickolas, Timbit, and Bruce, who you have already met.” He vaguely made a gesture towards them. Tim was biting his lips, trying not to laugh. “This is Alfred,” he put a hand on his shoulder, smiling when the older man placed one of his gloved hands over his, “he taught me how to cook.”

Jazz’s eyes widened when she made the connection — right, he had scarcely talked about his childhood that dinner when they kissed for the first time.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Alfred said with a slight bow.

She answered with one of her own. “The pleasure is all mine. Jason has talked a lot about you.”

He hadn’t, right? Now he couldn’t remember exactly how much he had told her.

To hide his blush, he continued. “And this is Cass.” He pointed at the silent and observant figure of Cassandra next to Bruce. “She is—”

“Black Bat.”

Cass smiled broadly at Jazz’s words, nodding and approaching her to sneak her arms around her before anybody could stop her. She pet Jazz’s long red hair a few times before letting her go.

“Welcome.” She said.

Jazz blinked in confusion for a moment before smiling back.

“Thanks!”

Both smiled at each other for a few moments, his girlfriend’s shoulders finally relaxing. She was nervous, he knew, and she was hiding it well. Did Cass notice that as well?

She was some of the few he interacted less with, and he didn’t know her as much as the others. From his investigation he knew who she was and where she came from, what she was capable of and why she didn’t kill; but he had never seen her without her suit, or from this close. Black Bat was a shadow, barely seen but always there.

But Cassandra was all smiles when she took Jazz’s hand in hers and pulled her further into the house with a skip in her step, visibly excited to meet the new person.

“The others are in the living room.” Alfred answered Jason’s unasked question. “Dinner will be served in an hour.”

With that, he disappeared through a door and went probably to the kitchen to finish preparing everything.

Right.

Dinner.

“Everything alright?” Tim’s question brought him back to the group already walking away from him. He rushed to Jazz’s side.

“Uh?” Jazz’s attention snapped back to Tim, her eyes had been fixed on a corner in the ceiling. “Sorry, can you repeat that?”

Tim glanced at Jason with a slight frown, silently asking if he knew what’s up. “You seem distracted.”

He hadn’t even finished his sentence and Jazz was already looking away, this time up the giant stairs that went to the east and west wings of the Manor. Her eyes on the door toward the East Wing, the Family Wing.

“Darling?” Jason gently touched her side.

“I’m…” Her eyes moved with intention, like they were following something running down the stairways and towards the hallway to the left. “Is just…”

When her eyes started to water, Jason pulled on her arm and made her stop. Something was up, he was sure of it.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry, I…” with her free hand she wiped the tears away. “It’s— This house has belonged to the family for generations, right?”

Everyone looked at Bruce, who tilted his head. “Yes. Why is that important?”

Ah, Bruce. Always demanding.

“Well, huh.” She sighed, wiping away more tears, careful to not smudge her eyeliner too much. “There’s no easy way to say this but… The place is haunted.”

As she said it, she glanced behind Bruce, narrowing her eyes. There was nothing there, of course. Nothing except—

“Ghosts?”

“Yeah, that’s what haunted means.”

Dick rolled his eyes at the answer. “I mean, are there ghosts here?”

Jason didn’t miss Tim’s nervous look at Bruce, or how the man looked around, wary.

“There are ghosts everywhere in this damn city.” She chuckled. “But this place feels like… You know when a cursed place feels wrong? Like you don’t need to know the backstory to know something bad happened there?”

Everyone tensed. Jazz wiped more tears.

“Well, this place is like that, but the opposite. So many lives, so many—” More tears flowed down her face, but she didn’t seem sad. She frowned like she was getting pretty annoyed. “Damn it!” She turned on her heels and glared at the empty stairs. “Yes, I can see you! And hear you! Stop making a show!”

Jason felt it. He didn’t know how, but he felt like something that was there had fled away at the woman’s words.

“Thank you!” She huffed, straightening her back and wiping her wet hands on the hem of her blouse. “So rude!” She shook her head in disbelief, finally turning back to them. “I’m sorry, what was I saying?”

Jason was the one that recovered first. Yes. His girlfriend could see ghosts. That was normal. Just one more thing to the list.

“What did you see?”

Did she see Bruce’s parents? They didn’t die in the Manor, but…

“I couldn’t say… Not every ghost maintains their form when they are created, and these didn’t.” She smiled, apologetic. “They were very chatty, though. I’m sorry.”

There was a moment of silence, broken when Tim clicked his tongue.

“Well, that’s surely something that happened.”

“Uh…”

“So my house is haunted?”

Jazz blinked. “You’ve never noticed? Have you never felt the protection magic around the house? Even mortals are capable of detecting ghost magic, especially as strong as this one is.”

Dick mouthed “ghost magic”, flabbergasted.

“No. I can’t say that I have.” Bruce answered slowly. “If I show you photos, could you identify the ghosts?”

Cass pulled the hand she was still holding and hugged Jazz close to her chest and away from Bruce. “No work talk.”

“Right, um,” he cleared his throat, suddenly very uncomfortable, “sorry about that. Tonight is supposed to be a normal family dinner.”

Jason wondered how many lectures he had gotten before they arrived. He still found it funny that his apology had been coached via comms — sad, but funny. It wasn’t surprising that the old man was incapable of offering an honest apology on his own.

They continued walking, Jazz now more present than before, offering casual explanations about what she was used to with ghosts, why she was crying — she laughed, saying that it was her body’s way of reacting to ghostly presence — and that she had been planning on setting up a protection spell but this was stronger than whatever she could do anyway.

Soon they were in the main living area, the voices of the others bouncing out of the door. Jason recognized the place — that’s where the gaming console was when he was little, and where Bruce usually sat to read with him after school and before patrol.

The memories weren’t as painful as he thought they would be. Sad, of course, given that those moments were from a life he couldn’t get back no matter how much he wished for it.

But the room wasn’t the same quiet haven he remembered. Someone was arguing loudly while someone else was laughing, and sounds coming from the TV, probably a video game, were blasting from speakers.

It was the same place, but at the same time it wasn’t.

Jazz didn’t draw attention to him when he picked her free hand and interlaced their fingers, she kept talking with Dick about something regarding her gymnastics class.

“Oh, hey!” Bernard, Tim’s boyfriend, was the first one that noticed them arrive. He stood up and walked towards Tim, extending his hand to shake Jazz’s. “Hello, I’m Bernard.”

She shook it, confused. “You are…?”

“Tim’s boyfriend.”

She finally made the connection, smiling. “Ah, I remember reading about you.”

“I hope not in those stupid tabloids.”

“That and when I looked up the Dyonysus cult.”

Bernard blushed deep red, quickly withdrawing his hand. “Listen—”

“Hey I’m not judging you. I wasn’t even looking for you,” she laughed. “I just did a research of all the occult stuff happening in Gotham before I moved here.”

“You must have been researching for weeks.” Blondie number two jumped over the sofa she was lounging on and shouldered Bernard out of the way. “Stephanie Brown.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jazz shook the offered hand. “Spoiler?” She asked for confirmation.

“Yup!” The woman beamed. “It’s so nice to have another girl around. Jason should have gotten braver and asked you out before.”

“Hey.”

Jazz looked uncomfortable for a second. “Things happen when they need to happen.” She looked at him, her eyes full of worry. “I— I haven’t told you yet, but I may have found out about you that night?”

This made him stop. “What?”

“Yeah.”

“And you still said yes?”

She blushed, looking away. “Yeah.”

He remembered her flirting back, how she blushed easier than usual, how she looked at him when he finally said the words. His speech had been pathetic and yet she had looked like he hung the moon and stars.

Had she known he was Red Hood then? And she said yes?

“You are weird.”

She chuckled, getting on the tip of her toes to kiss him on the cheek, the hand entwined with his squeezing for a second.

Someone clicked their tongue, the sound clearly displeased. Jazz jumped back to put a bit of space between them, suddenly very aware of their audience.

“Dami, be nice.” Dick said in a tired tone.

“I just don’t see what’s so interesting about her. Is a civilian who just happens to be involved in the supernatural.”

“She can see ghosts!”

“No way!” The last person to introduce themselves, Duke, stood up from where he had been sitting on the floor, leaving his controller aside. “You can see them too?”

“Ah, metahuman, right?” Jazz’s smile was wide. “Signal.”

“Yeah!”

“And you can see ghosts?”

“I can see… well, I call it ‘ghost vision’ but maybe it is not the same thing as you do,” he chuckled, quickly shaking her hand. “I can see auras and a bit on how they move in the past and in the future.”

“You can see the future???”

Aaaaand they lost her. Jazz’s eyes glowed with excitement, ditching Jason to follow Duke to the sofa and sit down to ask him a myriad of questions. She tried not to be too invasive, but he knew she would start asking about his childhood soon.

He sat down next to her, not acknowledging the others as they stood around either on the other sofas, the loveseat or on the floor. They were very obviously looking at him like he was an animal in a zoo, waiting, comparing.

This was exactly what sickened about coming to the Manor — they weren’t looking at him when he was there. Each had a mental image of “Jason Todd” and struggled to match it with the person he actually was. Or, in the case of Bruce, he was still trying to find the little boy that died.

The walls started to feel too narrow, the room too small for him, when he felt a soft touch on the back of his hand. He looked up, finding the smiling face of Jazz, his vision clearing around her.

“Right, Jay?”

He tried to mask his confusion. “About what.”

He saw the worry flash behind her eyes, but she quickly moved on. “About when I told you I saw your suit and I had to pretend I didn’t see anything.”

Oh right. When she drilled onto him about how to properly hide his stuff and how obvious he was.

“It’s not my fault you broke into a poor guy’s apartment late at night. You pervert.”

Her face went red immediately. “I— I didn’t—” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not the scoundrel that likes to break in through the window, like other people.”

“And whose fault is it? You refuse to get that damn lock.”

“I will do it when I do it!”

It was adorable how frustrated she got with the teasing. He couldn’t stop the smile that stretched his lips.

He didn’t care who was watching anymore, or if the others were trying to walk on eggshells around him. Jazz reminded him that it was okay to just be and he knew she would be in his corner if it came to it.

---

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[such-expensive-mistakes]

Superpham AU (part 6)

Masterpost

Lois prides herself at being good at rolling with the unexpected. Unfortunately, all of her experience with aliens and supervillains and magic has not prepared her for Danny.

Danny has a disconcerting habit of dropping disturbing or traumatizing information in an off-hand way, seeming to not even realize the implications of his own words. It started with what he said about the dimension he'd grown up in discriminating against people with powers, then with what he'd said about the red son and the lack of superheroes, but it just keeps happening.

Lois tries not to call attention to it, because she prefers it to the alternative, which is Danny shutting himself up in his room and refusing to talk to any of them.

Lex Luthor is on the nightly news-- as he so often is-- and Lois has to explain the man's many crimes to Danny. (No, Jon, it is not a rant.)

"Oh," Danny says. "He sounds like Vlad."

"Vlad?" Lois asks.

"Yeah, Vlad Masters. He's my godfather. He's a total fruitloop who wanted to marry my mom and make me his son."

Lois carefully does not react. She wants Danny to tell her things. She wants to know what his life was like when she wasn't in it. "That sounds..."

"Yeah, he tried to clone me. Well, I guess he succeeded, but none of them were stable except for Ellie, and she wasn't really that stable to begin with."

"Ellie?"

"Yeah, short for Danielle. She went by Dani-with-an-I for a while, but she decided she wanted her own name."

That is not the part Lois was looking for clarification on. She goes with it anyway. "Tell me about her," Lois says, and tries not to be concerned about Danny’s descriptions of a teenage girl who apparently lives and travels on her own because she doesn't like to be stuck in one place. Ellie doesn't even get the full benefit of being quarter Kryptonian, living in a world with a red sun.

The four of them are sitting down to dinner-- pizza again; one of them should probably cook sometime this week, but Lois and Clark are both on deadlines-- when Clark asks Danny more about his adoptive family, the ones he grew up with.

He looks sad, the way he always does whenever his adoptive parents come up.   Lois can hardly blame him, when he lost them in such a sudden and traumatic way.  

"They're scientists," Danny says.  "Or they were.  They studied, um, the Ghost Zone and the things that live there.  They didn't really understand it at first-- they thought all the-- um, everything from there was evil and needed to be killed, but they learned they were wrong eventually."

Lois meets Clark's eyes and knows he is as concerned about what happened before that 'eventually' as she is.  Still, neither of them comment, not wanting Danny to clam up again..

Jon, however, has no such reservations.  "That's really messed up."

Danny shrugs.  "Yeah, kind of.  They came around, though.  And I think they blamed themselves for how bad the GIW got because they were the ones who designed the weapons."

"The GIW?" Lois asks, instead of what she really wants to know, which is: Your adoptive parents designed weapons to be used against beings from another dimension??? Did they know what you were? 

"Guys in White," Danny says.  "I don't think that was their real name, but they were from the government."

"Your parents built weapons for them?" Clark asks, his tone deceptively light.  "I thought they were scientists."

"They dabbled in a lot of things.  But they were fantastic engineers."  Danny segues into a story about some of the modifications his adoptive parents made to their car, which is a topic only slightly better for Lois's heart.

Later that night, Lois is sitting in bed, checking her emails on her phone, when Clark sits down next to her and turns on the white noise machine they keep on the nightstand.  (It's the only way to have private conversations when your child-- children-- have super-hearing.)

"I'm concerned about Danny," he says.

"No shit."  The more Danny tells them about the dimension he grew up in, the more Lois hates it.  "But there's nothing we can do now except be there for him."

"I know people who have traveled across dimensions, you know," Clark says.  "I could always ask for a favor."

"You won't," Lois says.  "Because if you do, I'm going to end up committing felonies in another dimension."  

Clark smiles humorlessly. "What makes you think I wouldn't be there with you?"

"Because you're a better person than I am."  Clark never believes her when she says that, but it's true.  Clark is a fundamentally good person.  Lois tries to be a good person, but there's a reason she's not a superhero.  

-----

Kon intended to stop by Metropolis several days ago.  Or at least call Clark back.  But he’d gotten sidetracked by an earthquake in Southeast Asia, and then by Dr Light causing problems in California.  

He gets a few hours of sleep back in Smallville, then remembers that he’d planned on dropping by Metropolis and meeting Danny days before.  He walks the last few blocks to Lois and Clark’s house— flying would be way too noticeable in their neighborhood— and lets himself in.  He walks up to the living room and spots Lois there, furiously typing on her laptop.  

Kon is man enough to admit, at least within his own head, that Lois kind of intimidates him. Sure, Clark is physically stronger, but there’s an intensity to Lois that Clark lacks.  She glances up at Kon, and even though she’s smiling, he still feels pinned under her gaze.  

Kon shifts uncomfortably, reminds himself that unless he turns into a corrupt businessman or something, he’s not actually in danger from Lois Lane.  

“You here to see Danny?” she asks.

“Yeah.”  Kon shoves his hands in his jacket pockets.  “I figured I should probably meet him.”

“He’s in his room,” Lois says.  “He’s not… It’s not a good day, but maybe he’ll talk to you.  He hasn’t exactly gotten the chance to be around anyone his own age since he showed up.”

Kon knocks on the door to Danny’s room.  

“Come in,” a voice calls from inside.

Kon’s first thought is that he looks more like Clark than Danny does.  Stupid; of course he does.  He’s Clark’s clone.  But then, Jon resembles Clark almost as strongly as Kon does, so maybe it wasn’t a completely stupid thought.

Danny is sprawled on his stomach across his bed, phone in his hand.  There’s a video playing on it— someone talking about the history of the Justice League— but he’s ignoring it, watching Kon with a wary expression.  The room is still as bland as it ever was; other than the clothes tossed haphazardly on the floor, there’s no sign a teenage boy lives here.

“I’m guessing you’re Kon?” 

“That’s me.”  They stare at each other awkwardly for a moment.  

“Have you actually seen any of Metropolis, or have you just been hanging out in here?” Kon asks.

“Lois took me shopping for some stuff,” Danny says.

“Okay, no,” Kon says.  “You have got to get out of this house.”  

“You don’t even live in Metropolis,” Danny says.  

Kon shrugs. “Doesn’t matter; I’ve spent more time here than you.” There’s an old-school arcade he’s been to a handful of times, and a couple of places to eat.  Anything has got to be better than Danny hanging out and brooding in this sad bedroom by himself.

It's a warm day outside.  The sun shines down on the two of them as they walk in near-silence toward downtown.  The awkward silence doesn't quite break until they're at the arcade, competing on an old racing game.  

"I don't think we have this one in my dimension.  The other dimension.  Whatever."  Danny says.

"Yeah?"  Kon speeds ahead of Danny in the game, just in time to cross the finish line.  Danny groans.

"Yeah, but this world doesn't seem to have Doomed, either," Danny says as they start another race.  "There's a lot of little differences like that."

"That's gotta be weird," Kon says.  

"Yeah, Clark kind of freaked out when I told him the sun there was red."

Yeah, Kon can see why.  They talk more as they play more video games, and Danny tells Kon about his friends and what they'd do when they were hanging out in his hometown of Amity Park.  The main people he talks about are his best friends, Sam and Tucker, and his older sister, Jazz, but he mentions a few others.  

"Wait, who is Ellie again?" Kon asks, after Danny shares a story about a prank she pulled on another kid at Danny's school.  They've left the arcade, and are hanging out at the diner a few blocks away.  It's not the coolest place-- in fact, it looks like a grandmother decorated it-- but Clark introduced Kon to it, and it has great food.

"Oh, I didn't tell you?" Danny asks.  "She's my clone."

Kon chokes a little on his soda.  "You have a clone?"

-----

Danny is probably being paranoid.

Scratch that, he's definitely being paranoid. Lois and Clark have been nothing but nice, and they're clearly used to weird things happening. Like, even aside from the whole alien superhero thing, Lois just saw a kid fall out of a portal and decided to help?  Plus, Clark is an actual superhero.  

Even his— the Fentons came around on the whole “ghost powers” thing.  Eventually.  But he’s gotten used to hiding, to trying to blend in.  

(And what had them accepting him done for them in the end?  They’re dead, the GIW killed them.)

He’d rather hide than suddenly discover that Lois and Clark aren’t cool with their long-lost son being half dead.

Some of his powers he can pass off as Kryptonian— super strength, flight, enhanced senses.  He knows Lois saw his ghost form, and though she hasn’t asked about it, he’s pretty sure it’s just a matter of time.  

These thoughts circle through his mind over and over, only leaving him temporarily when he’s hanging out with the Lane-Kents.  

His bio family.  

That’s not much better, though; there’s a sadness in Lois and Clark’s eyes whenever they look at him, although they try to hide it.  Jon just a kid, and clearly doesn’t know what to make of the whole situation.  Lois keeps saying they are going to introduce him to more people, especially people his own age, but Danny shies away from that.  He doesn’t want to meet more people.  He doesn’t want to get comfortable here.

Still, he’s glad he came out with Kon.  An afternoon of videogames and greasy food hasn’t solved any of his problems, but it’s a nice break, and Kon has already promised to introduce Danny to his friends— a whole team of teenage superheroes.

“I can’t get over how many heroes there are here,” Danny says.  “Like, why do you even need that many?”  Sure, it would have been nice to have some more backup when he was Phantom, but in this world there seems to be at least one superhero for every major city, plus some extra.

Kon shrugs. “Natural disasters, alien invasions, supervillains, street crime… No one can handle all of it.”

Out of all the things he’s encountered so far in this dimension, this might be Danny’s favorite.  Even more than the proven existence of aliens.  Back home, Amity Park needed Phantom, even if they hated him.  But the world here doesn’t need Phantom.  

It’s kind of freeing, and Danny hates it.  He doesn’t want to like anything about this dimension more than his own.  

Would it really be that bad?  You might be stuck here forever, a little voice inside his head whispers.  

He ignores it.

[radiance1]

Danny doesn't get into an accident, and he doesn't become a ghost. The portal? It does get turned on, although neither Danny, Jack, nor Maddie knew how it came to be, and nobody thought to ask Jazz because, well, she is utterly disinterested in Ghosts as a whole and everyone knew it, so why would she even be in their lab, and even more so near their portal??

Danny, along with having an affinity for space, also has one for stealing here, though he knows that it's wrong he just... loves do it. He loves the thrill that comes with taking what isn't his, and the chance at being caught in the act as well.

He got better at it than when he was younger, and it isn't like he keeps most of the stuff he steals. Well, most of it at least.

Anyways.

Danny is good at stealing, Danny likes stealing, but his family is already used to his antics, though his parents do have some kind of ghost thing going what with the portal to hell and what not, but he digresses. One day, an old family friend pops up and Danny is curious about him, interest doubling when he finds out the guy is rich.

So he steals something off the guy when they met, and he successfully stole some weird gem thing off the guy- Vlad or whatever- or at the very least, he thought he did. Because when Danny was in his room, Vlad knocked, entered (after getting his position obviously), and then said he would like his possession back.

Danny is quite surprised, but gives it back after asking how Vlad knew he stole it, Vlad just looked at him and smiled (Did his eyes just flash red?). Then said that Danny has a talent for stealing, and, well, Danny always knew he did, it was obvious really.

But hearing someone praising him for it is quite different from disappointment and lectures about why it's wrong when they find out it was him after a while.

Then he offered him a place where he could train said talent, and, well.

Danny didn't have anything better to do, really.

He didn't know what he was expecting, but actual stealth training wasn't it, nor was Vlad creating an actual goddamn museum filled with items of value with an actual security system and guards (He thinks they're robots) for him to actually try against.

This was... wildly out of Danny's depths. But again, he didn't have anything better to do. His grades did fall overtime since then, but he didn't really care much about it, it wasn't like he was some genius like Jazz, so why bother?

His friends bothered, but he just told them he was spending time with his godfather you know? Nothing bad or anything! Sam and Tucker wanted to meet him, and Danny took them along.

Vlad was a cool dude, and seemed to click well enough with Danny's friends, and much to Danny's chagrin was utterly appalled by Danny's falling grades, and told Danny to focus on his grades more, or he'll have to cut back his training to include studies.

Danny picked the latter.

A while later there's been the appearance of some ghostly hero who fought other ghosts and avoided his parents. Which is neat, he thinks. Sam was very interested in her, and Danny couldn't say he wasn't curious either.

Then that whole 'Amity Park hostile plant takeover' happened and uhhh. Sam developed plant powers and then somewhere along the line Tucker gained super intellect and then Danny is the only normal guy out of the three of them.

Well, he is a master thief in training but still.

Regrettably, Sam's parents don't like her newly developed powers, because she doesn't use it how they want her too, and Sam decided to stop using it all together, then Vlad popped in and was like "You can use your powers in this place I have prepared specifically for using powers" and told them not to question why he had such a room, because it looked pretty used and obviously not newly built.

Tucker becomes really good with tech, like, really good with it. Sam gets very powerful with her plant based powers, and Danny is kinda feeling... out of place? In his circle of friends.

He's a bit jealous, he won't lie.

So he asks Vlad if there's a way for him to get powers, and Vlad thinks on it for a bit, and says that there is but Vlad would need to run a few simulations before coming back to him.

A bit later, and Danny is taken down to Vlad's lab, Vlad asks if he's sure, Danny says yes, and then he goes under.

Then wakes up, and he has ghost powers. Although he doesn't have some of them, like intangibility, invisibility, or overshadowing (he never even knew they had that power) like normal ghosts though, but he isn't a ghost, so it made sense.

Vlad said he had to modify his body to be able to contain ectoplasm without any unnecessary risks, which is why Vlad took some time instead of doing it straight away.

Danny is stronger, more durable, more agile, stronger reflexes and stronger stamina, so Danny had to use Vlad's training room to get a proper grasp on his powers, and then his training had to be modified to suit his powers and it really good, suspiciously good.

Did Vlad have another student with superpowers before Danny? Is that why he knows how best to train Danny's powers, and also why he had a training room?

Then he completed his training, and he could finally be called a fledgling master thief! Then Vlad employed him in his service, to get some practical experience outside of Vlad's control.

First mission? To infiltrate, obtain a copy of and then wipe away any and all files in a GIW facility, Vlad asked Sam if she was willing to go with Danny, as her powers would prove useful, she agreed. Tucker is staying behind, as deploying him is much more danger than it's worth, he will be the one to hack into, copy, and wipe away the files when Danny and Sam gets to them though.

Vlad warned them, however. Because the city they're going to in one rife with crime and supervillains, so they'll have to lay low, and even lower because they don't want to catch the eyes of the night's protectors.

Which city are they going to?

Gotham City.

[aikoiya]

DP - PT AU - Never Knew

Phantom Twins AU where Vlad decides against inviting the Fentons to the reunion. He just... past all the vitriol & desire for revenge hid the pain of betrayal, by both of his college friends, not just Jack. It took him a while for it to click that if she had wanted to see him, then she would've & Jack wouldn't have been able to stop her. She was too great a force to be bullied like that. So, even Maddie's shine had dulled after so long apart.

As a result, he doesn't meet Danny or Dina as Fentons for a good while. However, he does meet them as Phantoms. After all, he's still a powerhungry motherfucker & would absolutely start his business in the Ghost Zone once he managed to steal the Fenton's plans for the completed portal.

That'd actually be the first time they'd meet. However, they wouldn't have the context of them all being halfas.

So, a few of his schemes still come about, but the twins only know that it's Plasmius behind them.

---

You may think that neither Red Huntress or the Ultimate Enemy would exist, but you'd be wrong. In actuality, they do. See, Vlad is aware of the Phantoms & they keep stopping his assassins from taking Jack's life. So, in his investigations, he purchases Axion in order to have a reason to go to Amity & gather information on them. When he learns of Valerie & her grudge against the male Phantom, he decides to pit her against the boy.

In Reign Storm, Vlad just suddenly shows up at the Fenton household &, because they've never met before & don't know each other's identities, everyone gets along great.

It's Plasmius that the twins have beef with afterall, not Vlad.

So, no one has a single effing clue how Vlad got ahold of the Ring of Rage or why he'd give it to Valerie, but figured that it was just some antique he found in his attic & got rid of.

While Vlad is there, he & Dina get along especially well.

This will be a Fusion AU, so Danny & Dina discover they can Steven Universe fuse here. Just like in the Fusion Twins AU, they try to keep it a secret to use it as their trump card.

In Million Dollar Ghost, Danny & Dina wouldn't have the context that Vlad is Plasmius, so they'd have no idea why Vlad was gunning for the Phantoms so much besides maybe being as ectophobic as their parents because of his past as an ectologist.

And, in Ultimate Enemy, he's still the twins' godfather, but in this situation, Vlad would only just learn of this, so because he doesn't know they're halfas, he's feeling a mix of awkward, excited to be raising children because he's always wanted them, & a little put off that he'll now need to be careful about his ghostly involvements in his own home.

However, because of their close proximity, Vlad would eventually discover that they are, indeed, halfas & this would lead to the future where Dan exists.

The difference would be when Past Danny needs to see Vlad, because he doesn't think to go see him, Future Dina has to tell him to do so.

There would be an explanation, but Vlad wouldn't tell Danny that he was a halfa in order to protect the boy & his sister from his past self. So, he just says that his Danny's ghost form fused with Plasmius.

Then, the rest of the episode continues.

As for Masters of All Time, Vlad is pretty much forced to visit the Fentons because he can't think of anyone else who could help him. However, instead of using Sam & Tucker as blackmail, he accidentally sneezes or coughs on them when they meet & that transfers it to them.

So, now Danny is forced to go find a cure while Dina stays to help. She & Vlad just talk idly as she helps nurse him.

Because Danny has no idea that Vlad is Plasmius &, therefore, no desire to go back in time & change things, he just asks Clockwork to let him watch the past to see if he can figure out what went wrong.

Because he's not trying to rewrite history, Clockwork allows it & the rest is history.

The rest of Vlad's schemes happen, but with little differences to continuity that prevents the twins or Vlad from learning that the other are halfas too.

Like, Infini-Map happens with Vlad demanding to be taken to his destiny & the map taking him to Dina like in the original AU, but here, he'd back away enough to not take her with him when he then demanded to be taken to what he deserved.

So, when they see Vlad Masters in the past, they think they're just seeing Vlad's ancestors.

Vlad still lets Vortex out, but then doesn't show up the rest of the episode.

As for Urban Jungle, it actually wasn't Vlad this time, but Mayor Sanchez that did it.

Finally, Phantom Planet goes much the same as in the original AU, but without Vlad being mayor & instead acting as the owner of Axion putting forward a plan to no longer need the Phantoms.

Master's Blasters would be Vlad's second ever direct attack against the Phantoms &, this time, because they don't have the same relationship that they do in the original AU, Vlad lets the Blasters attack Dina when she tries to help people even though she avoids getting in the way & doesn't try to fight ghosts.

Keep in mind, Vlad's primary goals end up being killing Jack &, later, beating the Phantoms.

Anyway, he makes it look like Plasmius was overshadowing Masters during the reveal & on it goes. Jack goes into space with both Plasmius & a Masters duplicate. It's there that the Master dupe lets out all Vlad's anger issues on Jack. Jack is devastated. He then leaves Plasmius in space, not because he knows he's Vlad, but because he's holding the world hostage. He takes the Masters dupe back to Earth, not speaking to him.

Then with Vlad escaping the path of the Disasteroid only to return later & discover that the Earth is fine, the Phantoms are worldwide heroes, he's enemy number one in literally every country, & businesses are ordering Specter Deflectors to avoid ghostly corporate espionage.

It seriously could not get much worse for him.

Episodes like Eye For An Eye, Kindred Spirit, & D-Stabilize do not happen.

---

5 years pass & Vlad has something of a mental breakdown due to isolation & work stress. He gets therapy & in a desperate bid to do something other than work, begins dating again & gets back into some of his older hobbies, such as dancing. It'd been one of his passions before the accident. Also, baking.

Using a little used power of his that he calls colorswap (it's a very underdeveloped & limited-usage shapeshifting-adjacent ability that only lets the user change their body's coloring), he'll change his hair to chestnut brown, his eyes to hazel, & give his skin a slight tan (this was actually his mother's exact coloring) before going out & creating a persona for himself that he calls "David Romanov" or Dave. When like this, he used the typical Upper Midwestern accent & more casual vernacular.

He becomes something of a serial romantic or fuckboy that can't keep a stable relationship during the next 5 years, going from one man or woman to the next. While technically bi, he has a vast preference for women & is heteroromantic, so men always end up being one-night stands with Vlad as the top.

As he practiced using colorswap more & more, he could do it more frequently & hold it for longer periods until he could perform it once every other day & hold it for several hours.

Then, one day, 10 years after Phantom Planet, he was in Chicago after a business deal when he spots one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen in his life. Long midnight hair that fell past her plump rear, glittering ocean eyes that sparkled with intelligence, petite with an hourglass frame, gorgeous D cups, 44" hips, & heavily muscled in a way that brought to mind the Greek Amazons. How she managed such a combination was beyond him, but she was beyond attractive.

And she was looking right at him.

Vlad: "Dave Romanov."

Di: "Call me Di."

Vlad raised a brow.

Vlad: "Is that really your name?"

Dina: "Let's just say that my full name brings some unwanted attention."

Vlad: "Well, now I'm curious."

Di: "Maybe if you stick around, you'll figure out what it is."

Vlad smiled.

Vlad: "Maybe..."

They shook hands, then Vlad pulled her hand up & kissed the knuckle.

That night, Di took him to her appartment & after they'd finished... consorting... they were just laying there in bed. Vlad was trying to go to sleep when the woman beside him started mumbling something under her breath with a look of concentration on her face.

When he listened close, it sounded like formulas for something he couldn't recognize, but it sounded like chemistry.

Suddenly interested, he asked what kind of formula she was reciting.

Di said it was something new that she was trying to work out the kinks for before presenting it.

Surprise & a spark of fascination. "What sort?"

She glaced at him mischievously, "What do you think it is?"

Liking this side of her, Vlad went over what he'd heard in his head. "Is it supposed to modify hormones?"

She smiled at him. "That's right. I'm trying to figure out a puberty blocker that won't castrate you or lower your bone density like Lupron & other hormone blockers do."

Vlad leaned in, "Really? Tell me more."

They then got into an unusually civilized debate concerning the ethics of letting children get sex changes too early & giving them something that used to be used to castrate sex offenders.

Vlad's perspective was very left wing, while his lover of the night was resolutely right wing & backed her statements up with facts, statistics, & intimate knowledge of how chemicals worked.

Yet, it never devolved into a fight & Vlad was immensely engaged, finding her incredibly intelligent, charming, & very persuasive in her arguments. It was remarkably sexy, he thought.

Eventually, the topic meandered to another project of hers. An antidepressant that, if not entirely eliminated, at least severely lessened the likelihood of emotional blunting. As a man who had depression & experienced emotional blunting from his antidepressants, he could absolutely appreciate the idea of such an invention.

The conversation moved onto something else & they found themselves talking & joking together long into the night. Vlad couldn't remember the last time he had such an engaging conversation before finally falling asleep.

---

The next morning, Vlad woke up early, planning to get dressed & leave before she woke up like he always did after one-night stands.

But this time, he was reluctant to do so, finding that he'd enjoyed their time together much more than he had any of his other lays.

He sat down in the limo he called to pick him up & sighed both sadly & in relief as he let his original coloring take over before reaching into his pocket to pull out his box of cigarettes & lighter.

As he was about to light the cig in his mouth, he caught sight of a strip of paper sticking out of the inside of the box.

His brow furrowed in confusion as he pulled it out & inspected it.

On it was a cell number with a little heart, the words 'Call Me,' & the name Di.

Vlad didn't notice the fond smile stretching his lips, cig still in his mouth, as he wondered how she knew he'd leave so early, but his driver certainly did.

The millionaire glanced up to see Winslow's knowing smile & frowned to hide his expression, then went to crumple the number like he normally did these days when he was given one, but then he paused looking at it & remembering how much he'd enjoyed himself with her & how long they talked.

He folded the paper up carefully & slipped it back into his cigarette box before putting it back in his pocket.

When he went to light up again, he saw Winslow's face in the rearview again.

That damn knowing smile having turned into an outright grin.

Vlad: "What? It probably won't last. They never do."

He turned away, lighting his cigarette, but he couldn't help the slight pink dusting that came to his cheeks.

---

The truth of the matter was that Vlad was actually in Chicago to investigate what's been causing problems for his less-than-legal endeavors there. The business meeting was just a front so he could investigate in person. This all starts before meeting Di.

What he finds is a gorgeous ghost woman taking out his 'henchmen,' who honestly made him think he was looking at an angel when he first saw her.

She was shapely, with flowing, pearlescent white hair & lovely peridot eyes that glowed in the night like green moons behind her black domino mask. Though, her costume seemed familiar to him for some reason.

However, he quickly shook himself out of it & proceeded to attack her.

It was the basic witty, back & forth. That was when he learned that she was one of the mysterious goody two-shoe Phantoms that he'd fought before. Goodness, she'd grown! Which was unusual for ghosts & just made him wonder what she was doing so far from Amity.

Except, she was good. Damn good. Powerful too.

No matter what he tried, she countered him.

Many times, she'd nearly beat him & he'd be forced to beat feet or face defeat.

She also appeared to have a good grasp on strategy. She'd outsmart him frequently & Vlad couldn't help how attractive he found it.

At one point, he manages to get lucky & pin her to a wall.

Plasmius: "I've got you now, Kitten."

To which, she responded with a smirk before utterly flummoxing him by surging forward & kissing him full on the mouth, her knee rubbing against his crotch.

So surprised by this sudden turn & the electricity behind the kiss that he melted into it. Their lips & bodies moved against each other sensually, their tongues twining in a dance & their teeth clicking together. With this came heavy petting that left Vlad putty in the heroine's capable hands.

They made out like that for some time & before he knew what was happening, Plasmius was the one being pressed into the wall in front of him, his hands bound behind his back by ectoplasm & the Phantom woman's lovely body pressed into his back.

Phantom: "Now, I've got you."

Her words came out in a playful purr against his ear.

Vlad was struck by how underhanded & clever the move was. Suddenly realizing that she wasn't as much of a goody-goody as he'd initially thought.

And, sure, he'd managed to escape again, but even nights later, he couldn't get the feel of her body pressed against his or the fireworks that went off when they'd kissed out of his head.

Before long, he began to anticipate fighting the Phantom.

It eventually turns into a Batman & Catwoman scenario. Vlad realized that he had a Villainous Crush on this lovely little heroine.

When he eventually realizes this, he begins to openly flirt with her &, to his delight, she flirts right back.

But then, after meeting Di, he began to waffle about the 2 women before desperately trying to convince himself that neither relationship was really serious.

He'd even made an offer to the lovely Phantom while stroking her cheek with a hooded smile.

Plasmius: "Join me, my dear, & I'm sure we'll be able to explore much more... private avenues together..."

She'd giggled at him cutely before promptly putting him on his face, hands once more bound behind his back, ass in the air with her pelvis pressed into his rear & soft breasts pillowing against his back. He could feel her hand gripping his hair as it pushed his head down into the roof of the building they were on.

He'd flushed bright magenta at the submissive, suggestive position & the feeling of fingers in his hair, a thrill that he denied to himself rushing up his spine as he hardened in his pants.

She leaned down to whisper in his ear.

Phantom: "If anyone were joining someone, it'd be you joining me, Hotshot."

Vlad shivered hotly at the domination in her voice before shaking himself of the spell & getting free.

He simply could not deny how attracted he was to her.

---

Anyway, Vlad later decides to take Di dancing the week after meeting her. While she'd never gone before & he preferred dance partners that lived up to his expectations, he found that he didn't mind teaching her &, besides, she had a definite talent for it & an eagerness to learn that made teaching her easy & fun.

Several more dates came after that &, eventually, they agree that this wasn't casual anymore. At which point, the flirting stops between Plasmius & Phantom.

He does eventually learn Di's full name & he nearly gets whiplash from the realization of just how very small the world was.

Diana Fenton, the daughter of Jack & Maddie Fenton. The 2 who'd ruined his life in college with not only their negligence, but also their inability to remember that he effing existed.

Vlad was shook & it took him some time to process, but eventually he realized that his quarrel was with her parents, not her.

---

It wasn't until, one day, Diana suddenly called him 'Hotshot' that something occurred to him, but then he brushed it off, thinking it was impossible.

But he could never quite get it out of his head.

---

Slowly, Vlad learned more & more about Diana. She was going to school at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, the Chicago Campus specifically, & that was why she was here in the first place.

He learned she enjoyed literature & violin. He even learned that she wanted a family of her own someday, but was waiting on the right man & as he slowly learned more, extending his time there more as he desired to know her more, he idly thought of possibly being that right man.

Days turned into weeks turned into a month together & they were suddenly going steady. Now, he felt guilty for keeping who he really was from her.

Still trying to protect his secret, he made a fake invention that he could wear while he told her an at least partial truth.

Vlad: "You see. I'm really-"

Dina: "Vlad Masters, billionaire businessman. I know."

Her voice was light & somewhat playful, but the realization that she'd known shook him.

Vlad: "H-how did you know??"

Dina: "It wasn't hard. Just a paletteswap. Let's just say that I have experience with this sort of thing."

While ridiculously hot, he couldn't help but wonder what else she knew & was just waiting for him to tell her himself.

Phantom Twins AU Masterlist

[kuzann]

Jack's exact lines on the matter in Bitter Reunions are "We haven't spoken since that day. But the good news is, I think after all these years, he's finally forgiven me." Now granted, Jack is 100% an unreliable narrator, but imo his using "we" here suggests one of two scenarios: Jack ditched Vlad and never tried to reach out from the get-go, or Vlad refused to let Jack see him in the hospital and Jack backed off. The fact that he's only trying to reconnect now that Vlad has invited him back can also suggest that he was waiting for something like that to happen before trying to talk to Vlad again.

My issue is that we don't get direct confirmation of which one it was in canon, and that allows different interpretations of what happened. Heck, the "you abandoned me for 20 years" bit would've been a great grievance for Vlad to bring up in Phantom Planet, but no it's just "you turned me into a mutant freak and married the girl I loved" and that's it. That could've confirmed which one it was, but still nothing.

To Jack never telling his kids about Vlad. Why would he...? He thinks Vlad hasn't forgiven him for what happened, and before BR it was quite possible that he would never see Vlad again because for whatever reason interacting with Vlad hinged on Vlad inviting Jack back into his life. It's also possible that Jack has briefly mentioned Vlad by first name only before, and Jazz just never put the pieces together before because she didn't know his last name.

To the godfather bit I have to ask if we ever got canon confirmation of that. I know Danny went to live with Vlad in TUE but how do we know he didn't start with other relatives and then end up with Vlad because his ghost powers were making him unmanageable or endangering them or something like that? Vlad's words on the matter are "With nowhere else to go, you came to me, the only person on the planet who could possibly hope to understand your situation." Which, if Vlad was the first option would be weird because Maddie has a living sister that Danny could've gone to. I guess it's also possible that she said no and thus Danny had to turn to Vlad as a guardian.

And then we look at this with the added context of the alternate timeline in Masters of All Time. MoAT shows that Vlad is a nasty enough person that he would dump a gravely ill friend and manipulate another just to be with a girl he liked. It's one of the reasons I don't like the episode cause to me it says "Vlad was always a nasty piece of shit even without the accident(so it's okay that Jack hurt him so badly in the main timeline! He was always bad and you don't have to feel bad about it!)" Other reasons include Jack not getting his own ghost form, Danny is not wearing a Time Medallion while time traveling(which imo points to Clockwork making a fake timeline because why would he let a stubborn teen mess up the real one), so much stuff being a lazy copy-paste of the main timeline... But that would be a whole post on its own so I'll drop that. The main point is that MoAT's characterization of Vlad lends further weight to the interpretation that he pushed Jack away after the accident. Granted, even a nicer person would probably tell Jack to take a hike after what happened, and for very good reason, but still. It also opens up the question of whether or not Jack and Vlad ever really friends to begin with or was Jack just being an unreliable narrator who didn't see the warning signs that their friendship wasn't real.

No argument on Maddie not giving a shit about Vlad. Good observations there. She probably saw him more as "Jack's friend" than as her own.

Also no argument about all the adults sucking, which is kind of a trend in DP as a whole tbh. None of the adults in Danny's life are acting as they should. I just think that the canon is open enough that interpretations that are less dire than what you saw are still valid as what could've happened.

When it comes to the emotional intelligence issue I feel like this is also a problem of the show having low emotional intelligence tbh. The writers just weren't thinking about this stuff and took it for granted that viewers would forgive the Fenton parents and see them as good regardless of what they do. (Because this show is 100% not a fan of them catching consequences for their actions.)

AU idea I stumbled across while writing up notes for chapter 11 like. What if AU where Vlad wrote Jack out of his life after getting out of the hospital and never looked back. He still has ghost powers and is still stupid rich but he's off just doing his own thing and hasn't thought much about Jack in years.

When the reunion rolls around Vlad invites the Fentons because they were part of the class for that year so it's just a matter of course. He treats them like any other guest and is kind of bewildered when Jack addresses him like they should be really close during the reunion party, and asks Jack to remind him of how he knew him back in college.

Jack is pretty hurt by the coldness and goes over the whole deal about them being best friends back in college and then sort of. Brushes over the fact that he caused the accident that sent Vlad to the hospital for years.

Vlad listens with polite interest and then when Jack gets to the accident he coldly tells Jack that he remembers now. Then he laughs, and asks what Jack expected by strolling up as if they were still friends. Jack injured Vlad and then never even apologized, never reached out, he's basically making Jack out to be the worst person in front of everyone at the reunion party. Everyone else present is a fair-weather friend for abandoning him cause his ailment made him "too ugly" to want to be seen with but at least they didn't pretend otherwise when they showed up for the reunion.

Jack is devastated by this and all the other Fentons are furious with Vlad for humiliating him in front of an audience. Danny decides to prank Vlad as payback after the party is over and ends up running into Plasmius that way. Vlad basically conjures a broom and swats Danny back out of his house because he has no time for some uppity ghost kid and he has other stuff to get on with. They don't figure out each other's secret identities until some time later.

Danny has a grudge against Vlad for humiliating his dad and takes any chance he can to try to play ghostly pranks on him. Never seems to work for some reason and that Plasmius ghost keeps showing up to stop him maybe they're friends and--WAIT.

It's a huge shock when Danny figures out that Vlad is also a human-ghost hybrid. Literally the only other person like him is a guy he hates for being mean to his dad. Vlad figured Danny out a while ago but didn't say anything cause he wanted to see how long it took Danny to realize it.

Danny wants Vlad to apologize for humiliating his dad and Vlad's just like, no Jack never apologized for landing me in the hospital for years and turning me into a mutant freak why should I apologize to him? You're lucky you escaped with only the mutant freak part, kid.

So potential for angst and for comedy. Could be fun!

[bigowlenergy]

Chapter 8 up! also on ffn.

X

Valerie sits in the dead car, door open to the empty field, waiting. She’s not sure for what, anymore.

Takes in a deep, solid breath, and reaches out to Danny. Aims carefully, wraps her hand around his upper arm. Squeezes.

He wakes with a jolt, hissing, clutches his arm. He sounds like a cat. Teeth just as sharp. The noise comes from high in his throat before he cuts it off abruptly, staring at her.

“Get out.” She says, stepping back from the car. To the side, where the seat backs block his view. She vaults to the roof, activating her suit before her feet can make any sound. Crouches over the passenger’s side door. Waits.

It takes a few seconds before Danny opens it. Swings his legs out.

“Val?” He calls quietly, sounding honestly confused.

The barrel of her gun gets his attention.

Danny turns to her, red stained eyes wide. A dull glow to his irises, a faint, clean redness to the sclera. The smudged makeup on his cheek reveals skin blistered and shiny like horrible sunburn. His freckles are little red pinpricks of light.

Ectoplasm reoxygenated with blood blossom vapor. The least lethal of its uses. A branding more than a wound. A project scraped by Vlad Masters. Val had never understood why he was even comfortable using blood blossoms in any capacity, considering his own weakness to it. Had quietly taken the samples from the hazardous waste bins in his lab.

And Val can see it now, the resemblances between him and Danny. She’d grown too used to Vlad’s eccentricities as a hybrid that she had automatically ignored them in her own boyfriend. Danny is all the more obvious with it, now that Val’s paying attention. Vlad’s always been one for prudence and repression of his ghostly traits. His snarls tempered into fantastic sneers. His looming reads as annoyingly pompous rather than outright predatory. His strong aura translates into a commanding presence. But Danny. She knows it, now, the shape of the thing that she’s been overlooking. Been trained to overlook for five years.

Goddamn Vlad and his obsession with pretense; he had her primed to politely ignore the way Danny coughed to choke his purring silent. How he would freeze up when he got overwhelmed emotionally, eyes unfocused as he drew his caustic aura back in. The too clean shape of his mouth when he sneered with the exact same showing of teeth as Vlad.

Danny is just like Vlad.

No. He’s worse. Vlad has never lied to her, not even about what he is.

Danny’s perfect cupid’s bow mouth hangs open as he stares up at her.

“Move.” She says.

“Val -” He says and isn’t that nice. Phantom called her the same thing.

Phantom had the same wounds.

Phantom has lured her away from Amity Park to the countryside, alone.

Well, turn about is fair play. It’s Val who holds the reigns, now. This isolation away from his anchor is by her design.

Red Huntress is in control tonight.

The red glow over the ghost’s face last night blends and blurs into the same glow over her frightened boyfriend’s face now. It’s the same. The image, the light, the wounds, the boy. But no matter how hard she stares, she can only see Danny.

Danny, caught red eyed and red handed and red fanged and whatever else he might be guilty of. Cast in the red light of her suit. Under the light of the far stars.

“Val -” He tries again and she is not having it.

“Show me,” She snaps, keeping her aim true. Danny is - she doesn’t want to have this confrontation with Danny. She wants Phantom. “Show me your real fucking face.”

She wants the real thing, not the easy little lie she’s been fed.

“Look, Val, it’s not what you think, I -” His voice cuts out with a yelp as his slow, backwards retreat rams his back into the ghost shield around the car. He’s not about to go anywhere. Phantom’s fast. Val’s clocked him at 200 mph, once. He could race her back, get in bed, pretend to have been impersonated out here, tonight, her suit would remain silent, and she’d be back at square one. Back to nothing but doubt and a growing mistrust. A suit gone silent in the face of a monster.

“Val, please listen,”

But Valerie Gray is not some stupid piece of tech. She’s human. Clever and terrified and willing to suss out the truth no matter what reality tries to sell her. And she knows damn well that Vlad is Danny’s godfather. The strong signature of Phantom dives off her radar when he’s hiding in human skin. That’s how he kept getting away from her. That was the trick. Vlad always had a weakness for family. She should have suspected something sooner.

Danny lets out a deep breath, slowly moves to hold his hands up in surrender. The mocking position Phantom takes with her when he pleads for a night off or a sweet little truce, just for this one enemy, just this once, Val, please, trust me. Let me help you. Trust me.

Val primes her gun. Remembers. Her toes tap the edge of the roof. The moon glints off the barrel.

“You stole my prototype.”

“That -” He bites off his words, winces, guilt crawls all over his face. Then he takes another breath and straightens up further. Shoulders back. Stance wide and steady. Expression too calm, too controlled. A sureness that wasn’t there before. That didn’t exist in Danny as anything but an easy-going confidence.

This. This is Phantom.

The shape of his body is too solid, but the blur of strong, wide shoulders and the light of bright eyes fills in the familiar silhouette.

“Val… that kind of weapon isn’t something that should exist. I couldn’t let you just. Just use it on someone. I didn’t hurt you, right? I just made sure you didn’t have it,” A half pleading tone edges into his voice. And what an empty fucking thing. Didn’t hurt her. Bare fucking minimum, for a boyfriend. But not for a ghost she’s been hunting down for years. Phantom, she’s always expected to hurt her. And he has. Sprained wrists and ankles. Three concussions. Bruises on bruises. Took out her engines and broke her arm junior year.

And didn’t - wasn’t Danny the one who helped her at school, after that? They’d only been vague friends at the time, but he’d seemed so concerned. Been so helpful, careful not to be overbearing and respectful of her continued ability to help herself. A thread of guilt clear in him that left Val feeling validated in her hunting, shamefully. She’d thought herself his protector.

Nothing like the second time Skulker pulled a knife on her, and smiled at her flinch. No triumph to it. Guilt.

Like now, how his red, red eyes are sweeping over her, like he does when he’s searching her for hidden injuries. How he looks right before he frowns at her, just a little, and gets out the unending supply of bruise cream. But right now, bathed in red, that’s wrong to see. This is Danny, her boyfriend. But in the lines of his body and his stance and the hardness around his eyes is Phantom.

Val wants one or the other. Not both.

Not this too solid ghost where a too ghostly boy should be.

But in the end, aren’t those things the same?

“How long.”

It’s a stupid question. Phantom’s been around since freshman year. Val’s been hunting him since a few months into it. But she wants to hear what the fuck he could possibly have to say for himself. For five years of lies. For six and a half months of lying to her face.

He gives her a look. Knows it for the test it is. That distinct little frown. Phantom. Looking down at her from on high while she wallowed on the shore. Danny, looking up at her when she said she’d cut the loss of whatever homework. Not quite disappointment. A low challenge. Come on, that look said. I know you can do better than this. Try a little harder.

 For me?

And, god, it had always worked, hadn’t it. Played Val like a sucker. Sat her down at her daddy’s table or his kitchen and got her to make the effort at a normal life. Slowed himself down so she could give chase more cleanly. Tackled ghosts out of the air if they got too close to her. Gave her everything she needed to succeed. With him. Against him.

 What the fuck is wrong with him?

“No,” Val snarls. This test - it’s meaningless. She knows, he knows. Danny is dead. Long live Phantom. What she wants to know is -

“Why?”

“I… I guess I just didn’t want to go yet.” Danny says quietly. Hands lowered. Searching her face like he can see through her visor to her soul. To her own ghost. Val swallows hard.

“Why,” She corrects herself, steadies herself, “Did you lie to me?” Ask the right questions. Get specific. Accuse against personality traits. Make them get defensive. Unsettle them.

And sure enough, something flashes across Danny’s face that looks close to anger. Just a second. One of those too-quick mood swings of his. That restrained temper.

“I never lied to you, Val,” He says firmly. Believes it, too.

“Then why the fuck,” She snarls, he flinches. Moves back enough to scrape a heel against the shield, lights the cleaing up in green for a moment. Sparks fly. “Did I have to find out that my boyfriend is dead five years after it happened? Huh? What the fuck is that?”

“Why should I have told you?” He finally snaps back at her. Waves his hands as he speaks. “Maybe I wanted to see if I could trust you first! And look at that thing,” The glare he spares for her gun is downright venomous. Phantom all the way through. Danny, when he’s really pissed. Same look. Same look.

Same person.

“Could you get off about the stupid fucking gun? I’m trying to - to talk to you!”

“Well then get your gun off me!”

Val forces a hard breath through her nose. “Fine.” She snaps, clipped. Sharp. “Fine.” Says Danny, the same. She lowers the gun, stands over him on the car. Toes the metal edge of the roof. The shield arcs above her, lines of light in her vision. Distracting. She deactivates her visor. Looks at him without the useless screen in her way. Just as much information. Still no trace of a signature.

“Well?” She asks flatly, opening her arms wide and dropping them. “That good enough for you, ghost?”

“No,” He says. “Come down?” Come back to bed. “Please, it doesn’t have to be like this. We can just talk,” Stay on a little longer? I just wanna talk to you tonight.

Val sits on the roof, legs over the open door. The car bounces. Metal squeaks. She says nothing. Danny watches her like he’s waiting for more than that. He’s not getting it. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again.

He takes a tiny step forward. Val waits.

“Okay, can we talk now?” He asks quietly.

“Sure.” Says Val. “Lets hear it, ghost boy.”

Lets see him try to lie to her again.