#reveal of all time

[justplaggin]

watch bsd we have a very cool *checks notes* glowing bat

[humming-fly]

I love how Gerald was trying to keep Shadow from spoiling anything about the future meanwhile literally everything Shadow says and does around Maria is the biggest death flag ever

[chloesimaginationthings]

Everyone loves FNAF music man.. even Michael

[watchingwisteria]

listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded mfer happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.

[tagerrkix]

Eden was their ✨disney princess era✨

[egophiliac]

(almost) four years in, and I finally had time to draw something for the anniversary! woo! 🎉🎉🎉

[noxcheshire]

I am sick, dizzy, and can barely think but you know what would be WILD?

If the DC universe was an echo of Danny’s world. What if the continents of their planet shifted enough where Amity is now in New Jersey and had then become Gotham.

And when Danny died underneath the portal a part of his death fractured and imprinted itself into those various worlds. One of them being Gotham, where Danny’s home ironically used to be where Wayne Manor used to be.

So just imagine it, you’re coming back from patrol, grimy, sweaty, and with questionable intentions by dressing as an overgrown bat when suddenly the lights dim. It dims and brings darkness, only enough light to catch the beady marble eyes of the bats you fear.

And then electricity jumps in the middle of the room, flinging itself around like an agitated snake in wide open circles.

Everyone is backing away, some weary, some cursing, some just half way out of their own suit.

And then a child — barely as old as your youngest now, flickers to life before you, screaming and screaming, wailing in pain as the scent of burning flesh mingles into the air. You can see the boy, black hair and blue eyes that underneath the bright light that burns them is causing black to turn white, and blue to turn green.

The electricity crackles and when the boy is about the drop, limp, certainly lifeless, he vanishes as if nothing had ever been there.

But he comes back, he always comes back, in the moment of calm and in the moment of despair, echoing that painful wailing of death.

It’s so wrong.

It’s very, very wrong.

It didn’t even matter anymore why the boy showed up, only that this moment of pain continues to haunt the cave of heroes.

Continuously haunting, even as some whispered apologizes when the boy appeared. Continuously haunting, even as some provided songs of comfort when the boy appeared. Continuously haunting, even as stories of Gotham are told and promises (though uncertain and flimsy at best) are spoken to the wailing boy who always drops fast and disappears just as quickly.

Always, it was the same.

Until one day it wasn’t.

The electricity crackled like it always did. A spark, and then a calamity of light. And the boy would be there, uncurling himself into a tense position as he would wail.

But not this time.

Instead the boy curled himself in the air, calm as can be, almost as if he were sleeping. Even the electricity that they have learned to dance away from was calm, gentle, like ocean waves.

And when the electricity vanished, the boy did not, instead dropping to the floor where Dick was quick to catch him, grunting in preparation of weight only to show alarm at how thin the boy truly was.

On that face that has haunted them all for months is just a boy, sleeping, and scarred. A boy breathing very slow, slower than what they would like, but here in the physical realm with them.

Dick brushed back bangs of black hair, and slowly, ever so slowly, glazed blue eyes stared back.

[sakuravalelp]

A dream land - DP X DC Prompt

Okay, so I was thinking about that episode "Perchance to dream" where Bruce is trapped in a dream world and this, even thought really different, came to my mind.

Danny is king or prince of the infinite realms. He's been working on personalizing/decorating his castle in the infinite realms. When he feels someone walking just outside the castles walls. The thing is, that someone isn't a denizen, they aren't in a corporeal body, but he can feel that they are very much alive and feel distinctly human. He approaches the person to ask why and how they are in the infinite realms, but they fade away before he gets the opportunity.

Clockwork, who was with him at the moment, tells him that the visitor from the living, was just the soul projection of someone that was sleeping, and then refuses to elaborate further. Since it's something that was to do with sleeping, Danny decides to go and ask Nocturn, it seemed like a reasonable assumption that he was the one at fault for the soul projection.

Contrary to what he thought, Nocturn informed Danny that Sleeping soul projection was a natural phenomenon that he didn't control. The land of dreams, ("My domain" - Nocturn reminds him), was in the infinite realm after all, and those who have been close to death sometimes slipped they're whole soul instead of just their mind, and ended up all over the infinite realms.

It isn't too different from a lucid dream for them, the body gets all the benefit of the sleep, the mind feels rested if they had a good time in the realms. Except, if they hurt their soul too bad during their little trip, it would have real consequences. Loosing memories, abilities regression, migraine, pain that reflects the soul damage, all either temporary until the soul healed, or permanent and deteriorating, and in some occasions finishing in the persons death. In the latter, the soul is usually too damaged and cease it's existence, or have enough ectoplasm and emotion to form into ghosts with crack cores whose existence is instantly in danger.

Danny clearly didn't like the image that was painted to him, so he asked Nocturn if there was really nothing that he could do. It took a lot of talking and convincing, but eventually Nocturn admitted he could be able to direct the soul projecting to appear on a certain place, but he refused to babysit anyone. Which was enough for Danny, all he needed to do was make another expansion in his castle.

He decided to make a garden to receive their soul projecting guests. The garden was enormous, with all kinds of spaced within it. Playgrounds, picnic spaces, soft benches, tables with ghost and space teamed board games, fountains, and of course, the beautiful flowers that surrounded and decorated the place. Once he got ghosts with gardening, protection and caring obsessions on the place to look out for the souls, he was ready to receive them. It took him by surprise the amount of people that came, the garden was never crowded, but was never empty either, and souls of all ages and places were visiting at all times.

He kept expanding the garden as he heard of new things their guests wished for. He enjoyed spending time in the middle of the garden where souls passed by but rarely appeared, it was calm, but not completly quite with the background noice of the soul enjoying their dreams, and he could do the more mundane king/prince work. Until, he starts getting a regular visitor on his little space of the garden.

Choose the DC character you prefer, my idea is for people who hasn't died in the past but has been in the doors of death (so died and came back would be disqualified but you do as you prefer), but I'm going with Tim.

The soul of a boy around his age appears just in front of him, as usual when he greets new arriving soul, he welcomes him with a gentle smile and tells him he is free to explore the garden. A ghost taker is assign to him. The soul, as usual, seems confused and like he wished to asks questions, but seems content to ask them to his tour guide, and Danny continues with his own duties.

But then, the same soul continues to appear in the same place every two or three days, they exchange greetings and every time talk for a bit longer before the boy leaves to explore once more. It's rear to have multiple visits from one soul, even more so for said soul to appear in the same place every time. By the four time, Danny decides to take a break on his royal duties and accompany his new friend.

~ They get close, and have cute scenes, Tim asks a lot of questions and Danny answers and not-answers a lot of questions ~

One day, Tim shows up as usual, but he is in full Red Robin costume, and well, Danny wasn't expecting an identity reveal.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

On the Bats side:

There's an attack of some villain that's able to put Red Robin (or character of your choice) on a sleeping beauty type of sleep while carrying a serious injury, were he stays sleep until teammates or backup gets him out of it. The event affects his soul, making him disconnect partially from the land of dreams and making his soul sleep project almost every time he sleeps.

Tim starts sleeping more often. It's worrying at first, Bruce being paranoid does every test in the book, despite Tim saying he's just finding sleep easier now. But, he was just affected by sleeping magic and suddenly his sleeping easier? Seems like a side effect, and that makes it worrying.

Tim's health in general improve, just like he's concentration and productivity. Who would have thought that working rested actually was more productive than working on less than three hours of sleep and missing obvious details and clues due to how tired you are.

With everything not only being okay, but better than before, paranoia about Tim's new sleeping schedule soon dies, and instead is replaced with teasing about how he used to refuse to rest kicking and screaming, and now he may sleep more than any of them.

On Tim's side, he's loving being able to soul project so often. He knew from the start he was in a different dimension, and he just wanted to know the hows, whys, and everything else. So far, he seems to do it at least once every three days, and he's even gone two times in a row a couple of times.

The garden had a lot of things to do, but Tim doesn't care about that, he's more interested in all the information he's getting. The first 3 times he was given different ghost nanny's, who were more focus on entertaining him and didn't really answer direct question. But then king/prince Phantom decided to accompany him personally, and everything went smoother. He was going back to get to know more about this new world, and maybe to know more about the cute prince/king too. He might also have gotten some better looking pajamas.

Now, he has a mission that takes more than a couple days with some people in his team that hasn't yet sen his face. He didn't realize how difficult it would be to do all nighters after getting used to a sleep schedule. He would usually try to go as long as possible without sleeping, but he decides that he should take advantage of the safety of where they're staying and sleep a bit too. He ended up soul projecting in full Red Robin costume. He tried to play it cool, maybe Phantom wouldn't know it was him.

"Red Robin, even if you didn't appear on the same spot as always, I can feel your soul. I know who you are."

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Flower Empowered.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[aquacomet]

The 2024 DCA Reveal-versary magma collab has been wrapped up and here are the final results! ☀️🎉🎂🌙

A super big thank you to all the amazing artists that attended the collab to celebrate! We've broken way over 2023's record of attendees with a overall number of 59+ artists! It really is a lively celestial party in there, they're probably going to need more cake!

An additional thank you to all who stopped by, shared the event, expressed their interest and to the Daycare Friend Pick Up mods for also allowing this in their discord server!

(Due to being over the tumblr tag limit for the full credit list, a reblog will be added onto this with the second section of credits!)

⭐Here's the list of all the artists that participated!⭐

@aquacomet - @crystalmagpie447 - @pure-plum

@thatmooncake - @flinxypie - @eggcromancer

@nexerist - @crabsnpersimmons - @zamjd

@darlingdeer21 - @agent-darkfest - @piowasthere

@nighternex - @gyxtar0luvs - @sulfadimethoxine

@pluck-heartstrings - @starshinenoa - @enduu115

@tvboxi - @tinkpumpkin - @marshmallowcat666

@luckyyyduckyyy - @m-mints - @sunshinehare

@ping-ski - @lil-artist-blog-fandoms-ocs - @sipnoot

@synthrobeat - @galaxysugarr - @alynwrench

(I took care to note down everyone who participated and added their credits, but if I missed someone let me know what you made and I'll add you to the list!)

[mamawasatesttube]

the whole "jason rules crime alley and none of the other bats are allowed there!!1!" thing is so funny like. tim LITERALLY lives in the theater where bruce's parents died,

[claraoswalds]

This is a brand new science for me, and I love it. The language of luck. 'Cause what is a coincidence but a form of accident? Two things bumping together unexpectedly. Like you and me.

[lucabyte]

Different standards

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 279

Now Danny didn’t mean to make a Bootube channel. He’d meant to send that sleep deprived ramble to Tucker, but he had clicked on the wrong app and yeah. Apparently people enjoy his space rambles- or it could have been the ghost blob-cats that had decided to flop onto him. (Honestly he wasn’t surprised they would start to mimic the shapes of things in their surroundings)

Tucker? Found it hilarious, as did Sam and Val and… um, okay this has become their shared channel now, nice. Though there are some strange comments on some of the videos. Really, what do they mean green sky and crazy tech???

[littlefankingdom]

I'm thinking about the drastic differences between how Bruce reveals his identity and how Dick reveals his identity in World's Finest. Dick simply takes off his mask and presents himself to the Titans, but Bruce? Bruce, he calls the Daily Planet, asking them to send Clark Kent to his manor immediately. Clark is now in the house of a stranger he only knows as a rich extravagant man, and said man starts explaining how he knows Clark is Superman. Clark tries to deny it and Bruce explains how he filed the room with a gas that humans cannot breathe, and Clark can breathe, so he is not human. At this point, for Clark, Bruce Wayne is a dangerous man who knows his secret identity, and he has him in his house full of gadgets. Bruce asks him to follow him, and he takes him to the Batcave, which is how Clark makes the connection. Like, the dramatics of it all? The theatrics? Making your colleague fear for their safety? Showing how they need to be better at hiding their identity? Slightly playing bad guy? This is so good.

Anyway, now I cannot accept Bruce not doing something like this everytime he reveals his identity to another Justice League's member. But his kids, they are simply taking their masks off, like normal people. And now, you have other vigilantes' families discussing how they learn their bats' identity and being baffled.

Barry: They just... Took their masks off? And told you their names? That's it? No supervilain's monologue?

Wally: BATMAN PRANKED YOU???!!! I'm calling Dick.

Bart: *Blue screened from learning that Batman pranks the JL*

[luxaofhesperides]

Final hour Ghostlights request! Soulmate AU where when your soul mate dies your soul mark expands. Duke was really heartbroken at first but now his soul mark makes it really difficult to keep his secret identity hidden because he is covered in a map of the cosmos. He has to use his shadow powers almost constantly to keep all the stars hidden! And and maybe they light up like actual stars when he uses his light powers.

He meets Danny at orientation or something at GU and they brush against each other and he just lights up like a supernova, all his stars literally blazing and he's just like "YOU!" Both excited and also OH MY GOD YOU ASSHOLE.

....I rambled a bit here I'm so sorry.

The thing about soulmates is that you don’t really know who they are until they die. And even then, most people never know who their soulmate was, only that they outlived them.

Duke became one of those people when he was thirteen. 

He didn’t even notice until he went to change and saw the watercolor swirl of nebula spill out from over his heart. 

One moment, he was tired and angry, ready to sneak out of his latest foster home to search for his parents and do all the things adults have failed to do. The next, he’s collapsed on his knees, shaking, unable to breathe as he tries to rip his soulmark off of his skin. He couldn’t think past the shock and horror of realizing that his soulmate is dead and Duke didn’t even know until that moment. 

They’ll never get to meet. 

Duke had never felt so alone before. 

He spent the next few days in shock, his mind a mess of static, unable to focus. He hid away in his room, buried under the covers, and his foster parents were understanding when he whispered my soulmate’s dead. They called him out of school and brought him food and water throughout the day, gentle encouraging him to eat something every few hours. 

But disaster waits for no one, and Batman was gone, so Duke pulled himself out of his misery and hit the streets again. 

So his soulmate’s dead. So his parents are gone. So Gotham’s falling apart.

No one’s doing anything about it, so it’s up to Duke to start fixing things. It’s not like he had much to lose.

Soulmates become a bit of a taboo topic to him, after that. He speaks of them to no one, avoids all conversation about them, refuses to stay when people talk about soulmarks. He tries not to look at his soulmark at all.

And then he takes a hit to the chest and patches himself up with shaking hands. For the first time in months he looks at his soulmark again and…

Did it… grow? 

Duke prods it gently, letting out a hiss when his bruised ribs protest at the movement. He remembers the mark being right over his heart. 

But looking at it now, it branches out, swirls of galaxy and constellations reaching out along his ribcage. 

Panicked, Duke grabs for his computer and looks up soulmark growth and webmd soulmark abnormalities.

Neither give him any answers, though WebMD helpfully suggests skin cancer. 

“I’m gonna ignore this,” Duke decides, and pulls on a shirt and goes to sleep. The less he thinks about his dead soulmate, the better. 

Time passes and Duke goes from being a Robin to being the Signal, a legitimate vigilante working with Batman. It’s nice to see Gotham start to settle, things falling into place. For once, nothing is awful; Duke’s found his parents and doctors are looking for a cure for long-term exposure to Joker Gas, Batman’s taking care of Gotham with a number of other Bats, Duke is getting used to his powers and slowly making a good name for himself out on the streets. 

He keeps his focus on protecting people and getting stronger, helping solve cases with the other Bats. No one mentions soulmates, so he keeps his ever expanding soulmark a secret. 

The only problem is that it keeps growing and Duke is concerned that it’ll move to a place he can’t easily hide under his clothes. 

And he does need to hide them. The more his soulmark has grown, the more obvious it is, especially when he uses his powers and the stars on his skin light up like the Fourth of July. He knows it’s abnormal, but it’s also his soulmark and he doesn’t want anyone, least of all Bruce, poking around trying to study it. 

The grief still lingers when he looks at it, but Duke has long since grown used to it. If anything, these days he’s quietly annoyed by how far the galaxies on his skin spread out, forcing him to take tank tops and shorts out of his wardrobe. 

There’s also the tentative hope that maybe his soulmate is immortal and keeps coming back to life after they die. And they must also have terrible luck, because they just keep on dying.

Case in point: his soulmark flares and spills out onto his shoulder and wraps around his bicep. It’s not the first time he’s seen it move, but it still startles him.

“Are you serious,” Duke mutters to himself, pulling at his sleeve to adjust it and hopefully hide his soulmark. The starts are bright against his skin, and while sometimes he likes to trace them with his finger, now is not one of those times.

As pretty as it is, his soulmark is also very obvious and will cause people to realize his identity if they ever catch a glimpse of it while he’s out as Signal. 

He sighs. There’s no choice but to live out the rest of his life in hoodies and sweatshirts. 

As if to spite him, his soulmark grows once more. 

Did his soulmate just die twice in the span of five minutes? That’s concerning. 

He wishes he could meet them just so he can shake some sense into them. Maybe tell them to stop dying since it’s stressing him out so much. Maybe stick by their side to make sure they never have to die again. He’s honestly not sure what he’d do if he ever meets his soulmate, but he has to do something. This has gotten out of hand.

At least seeing his soulmark grow doesn’t hurt as much as it did a few years ago. 

Lazily, he pulls at the light around him to hide the new portions of the soulmark on his arm from sight. It takes some focus, but he can hold it up long enough for him to grab a snack from the kitchen and retreat up to his room without being questioned by anyone. He could probably even keep this shirt on for the college orientation he needs to attend later in the day if the light works well enough to keep his secrets hidden. 

He’s expecting Alfred in the kitchen when he arrives, but is greeted by Dick clapping a hand on his shoulder, right where his soulmark has claimed space. Duke falters and works to keep the light from fracturing as he returns Dick’s grin. 

“Hey man,” he says, “What are you doing here? I thought you were out until Friday.”

“And miss a chance to hang out with you? No way. Besides, I wanted to give you a ride to your orientation.”

“You don’t have to,” Duke starts, only for Dick to cut him off.

“I’m going to,” he says, as if it’s a threat. “It’s been too long since we get to spend time together without a mask on. Are you really going to deprive me of this?”

Duke shakes off Dick’s hand from his shoulder, walking towards the pantry to find a small snack. “I guess not. It’s going to be pretty boring for you, though. I’m just going to listen to people talk about what college is like for a few hours.”

“We could always just walk around campus afterwards. I haven’t seen it since it was rebuilt after the last time Freeze attacked it.”

“Sure, that sounds fun. Thanks for offering to drive me.” Duke pulls out a box of Poptarts hidden behind stacks of pasta boxes and pulls out a pack for himself. He opens it and isn’t at all surprised when Dick steals one right out of his hands. 

“Meet me out front in an hour then.” 

And with that, Dick leaves, his stolen Poptart in hand, and Duke is left to shake his head and shove the Poptart box back into its hiding place. He heads off to eat his own snack, making sure no one is in the hallway as he lets go of his hold on the light. Already he can feel a migraine building with the immense focus he had to use to make sure nothing looked out of place.

At least Dick didn’t notice anything was off. If he can fool Dick, he can fool anyone.

Still, just to be safe, Duke changes into something with longer sleeves before he leaves and hops into the car with Dick. 

The drive goes quickly to the tunes of ABBA, both of them singing along as they head for the GCU campus. Parking is a bit tricky, but they manage to find a spot a street away and walk towards the student union, where tables are laid out for incoming freshmen to sign in and grab a folder filled with papers meant to help them. 

He waves to Dick and heads in once he gets his folder, and grabs a seat in the auditorium that’s close to a fire exit. 

It takes another twenty minutes for the presentations to start. The lights dim and Duke panics for a brief moment before drawing the shadows over himself lightly to hide the soft glow of the star etched onto his skin. 

They start with introductions, bringing in advisors, professors, and student ambassadors. Most of it is basic information that Duke already knows, so he zones out and plays with some shadows at his feet, where no one can see the way he twists shadows together like some dark magic form of finger knitting.

For the next hour, Duke halfheartedly listens to people talk about preparing for classes and keeping on top of schoolwork and learning how to ask for help. He’s saved enough college students that he knows the gist of things, and the orientation really doesn’t give him anything helpful. 

He probably could have skipped, but he wanted a normal college experience. 

He should have known that normal means boring as hell.

As soon as the presentation ends, an advisor encourages everyone to follow the schedule tucked into their folder to give them a half day modeled after a typical student’s schedule. Of course, all the classes are nonsense just to fill up their time, made to help freshmen coming into the college by covering topics such as how to write an email and an introduction to majors and minors.

Duke already declared himself as a Human Services major, his first step into becoming a social worker like his mom was. 

Also he totally knows how to write an email, what are these advisors on about? Do they really think people his age can’t write emails? 

Yeah, he’s ditching. The main presentation is really the only part that matters in the orientation. He’s not walking out on anything he needs.

Duke files out after the rest of the crowd, carefully letting the shadows slip off of him once he’s outside again. Instead of finding the first ‘class’ he’s supposed to go to in the Modern Languages building, he wanders off to find a quiet place he can sit down and wait until Dick finds him. 

Tucked away towards the back half of the campus is a small nook full of trees, bushes, and benches. Judging by the amount of cigarette butts left in the single trash can there, it’s a popular smoking spot. 

No one’s there, so the air is clean and free of smoke, so Duke heads in, hoping to sit down.

Someone else apparently has the same idea. He hops down from one of the concrete planters that’s keeping a bush contained and nearly falls on Duke.

They both shout in surprise, then Duke is moving without thinking, reaching out to steady the startled looking guy who accidentally jumped down in front of him. 

Duke only has time to take note of how blue his eyes are before his hands wrap around the guy’s wrist and Duke feels his soulmark flare with warmth.

In the shade of the trees, the glow of each star on his skin is obvious. It’s visible even through the fabric of his shirt. His soulmark, at this point in his life, stretches across his chest, his ribs, his back, and now his shoulders and upper arms. All the stars in that watercolor galaxy are shining brightly as if the night sky has been draped across his body.

Soulmarks only react like that for one reason.

“You!” Duke shouts at his soulmate, both elated to see that he’s alive and annoyed that he made Duke’s soulmark so large. “Stop dying! Do you have any idea how much stress you’ve caused me?!”

“Oh my god,” the guy says faintly, eyes fixed on Duke’s chest where his soulmark originally rested, shining brighter and bigger than any other star, as if he’s tucked a sun into his heart. “Oh my god,” he says again, with more feeling.

“I’m so happy you’re alive, but please stop dying. It’s bad for my health.”

“I think I need to sit down?”

He does look very pale and faint. Duke tightens his grip on his soulmate’s arms and guides him to a bench, gently sitting him down.

“You’re not about to die, right?” Duke asks. “I don’t think my heart could take it if meeting me killed you somehow.”

“No, no,” his soulmate manages to say, “I’m not going to die. Um. Wow. I didn’t know my soulmark would do that? Sorry.”

“Well, it’s not like you had any way of knowing. It’s all good, man. Just please stop dying.”

His soulmate winces. “Yeah, that’s not gonna be possible. Sorry. Again.”

What does that mean, though? What does it all mean?

“Can I maybe get an explanation as to why you have to die again.”

“Mmmmm no. We just met and it’s kinda personal so. No.”

“Dude.”

Duke’s soulmate shrugs helplessly. “It really is personal! I know your my soulmate and all, so I’ll probably tell you one day, but right now I don’t even know your name.”

Oh shit. He’s right. Introductions completely slipped his mind, too busy reeling over the fact that his soulmate is here and alive. Which, honestly, would be enough to throw anyone off balance.

“Shoot,” Duke says. “Sorry. You just really caught me off guard. Hi, I’m Duke, I promise I’m more put together than that.”

“Hi Duke, I’m Danny, and I’ve apparently been traumatizing you for the past few years by making you think I keep dying.”

“Well. At least we’re thrown head first into the crazy. Best way to know if we’re be a good match.”

“You sure you can handle this? You seemed pretty frazzled a second ago.”

Duke flusters and lightly whacks Danny’s shoulder. “That’s normal! Anyone would do the same when meeting their soulmate for the first time!”

“Fair enough,” Danny laughs. “This is a totally weird request and you can absolutely say no, but… can I see?” He presses a hand against one of the glowing stars beneath this collar bone, looking up at Duke with wide, hopeful blue eyes, and Duke finds it so cute that he’s willing to do anything Danny wants. 

“Here,” he says as an answer, pulling the collar of his shirt down a bit to reveal the nebula spilling onto his shoulder. 

“Oh,” Danny breathes, tracing a light finger against it. “It’s beautiful.”

“I’m guessing you like space?”

“Love it. I wanted to be an astronaut, but uh…. It’s never going to happen. Health problems, you know?”

“Well, I know it’s not the same, but I hope the stars you put on my body will be a good enough replacement.”

Danny cheeks turn red and he turns away, flustered. “Don’t smooth talk me right now, I’m not ready for it,” he mutters, bringing up a hand to try to hide his expression. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Duke laughs, “I’ll try to keep the flirting down to a minimum. It’s just really great to finally meet you. And I’ve been wondering, what’s your soulmark look like?”

“Oh, well…” Danny fiddles with the long sleeve of his shirt. “I had a pretty bad accident years ago that kinda affected how my soulmark looks. So if it looks weird, that’s why, okay?” He takes a deep breath, then pushes up his sleeve, holding his wrist out to Duke. 

The first thing Duke notices is the soft yellow glow, Signal yellow to be precise, running down his arm as if sunlight fills his veins. Then he sees Danny’s soulmark, a sun with rays that wrap around his wrist. And running through his soulmark are Lichtenberg scars, glowing yellow as if stealing the color from his soulmark. 

“Guess we both got super obvious soulmarks, huh? At least we kinda match, that way.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Danny agrees. 

“Man, what a day.” 

Danny looks more relaxed with him now. It’s much better than the startled, tense version of him that first sat down on the bench. Duke hopes he chooses to stay with him; he doesn’t admit this often, willingly, or to other people, but he’s a romantic at heart and has always wanted to live a happy life with his soulmate. It’s still far off in the future, but he hopes Danny feels the same way.

“So, are you ditching the orientation classes to?” Danny asks.

“Yeah, there’s no way I’m going. I mean, a class on how to send emails? They can’t be serious.”

“I know, right?! I saw that and thought I was being pranked. I mean, we’re going into college. We better know how to send an email by now.”

“Since we’re both free for now, wanna grab lunch with me? It can be our first date, if you want.”

“I’d love to! And you can show me around Gotham a bit. I’m coming here for college, but I haven’t really seen the city yet. It’d be nice to explore it with someone who knows where things are.”

“Are you free for the rest of the day? ‘Cause I wouldn’t mind showing you around, if you want.”

Danny smiles, radiant. “I am. I’m in your hands for the rest of the day.”

“Cool,” Duke says, trying not to think too much on that wording. It’s very suggestive, very flirtatious, and he’s looking forward to getting to know Danny more so he can start properly flirting. “Lemme just let my brother know to not wait up for me.”

He pulls out his phone and sends Dick a text that just reads: met my soulmate. going on a date now. i’ll see u back at the manor!

Then he puts his phone on silent and tucks it back into his pocket. He’ll tell Dick all about this later; for now, all his attention is on Danny. 

Soulmates get priority, even stressful ones that give him the largest soulmark he’s ever seen. 

And right now, he’s on a mission to find the best lunch spot to take his soulmate to for their first date. Everything else can come later; for now, he’s going to enjoy the time he gets to spend with Danny.

He hopes they’ve got a future together as bright as the stars in his soulmark. 

Despite it all, Duke is sure they’re going to be alright.