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swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual · 2 months ago

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As per usual, it’s DP crossover with (probably) DC, although you could probably adjust it for other fandoms

ANYWAYS

A little kid and his mother are trick or treating in another city, perhaps at some kind of event rather than knocking on doors, and the kid is dressed as Phantom. It’s very adorable, with his little ghost-shaped bucket and clearly homemade and already stained costume—listen, white only works if you can just fly over street grime or phase it out of your clothes—and his slightly I’ll fitting wig. The kid is SO happy to be out and about dressed as his favorite, and maybe even showed it off to Phantom back in Amity Park before his family left.

The hero, insert whoever you wish here, is probably in civvies and just enjoying the event. The kid, meanwhile, is so glad when people ask who he is so he can explain, and so- the hero gets to hear ALL ABOUT the local town hero who is probably pretty small time despite the kid’s clearly exaggerated stories. The hero certainly never heard of him, but the kid’s mom confirms that Phantom really was the town hero, despite some mixed reviews of the poor guy.

“Did you manage to show him your costume?” the hero asks.

“Yeah! We went down to the cemetery to leave flowers and I got to show him my costume.”

Wait. Cemetery? Maybe it was part of theme, because Phantom had to be named that for a reason, but… it sounded like…

The kid ignores the suddenly VERY still hero and instead turns to his mom. “Momma, do you think we should bring him candy? He doesn’t get to trick or treat like we do, and I can work super hard to get him a bunch!”

The kid’s mom just smiles. “We could, but maybe we should bring him something homemade. I bet he’d like something more filling, teen boys like him have a hollow leg.”

The kid wrinkles his nose. “Like Vernie with the pizza bagels?”

“Like your cousin, yes. We can make some cinnamon rolls and take them to his memorial, maybe bring some of the apples from your grandpa’s garden…”

The hero is pretty much forgotten as the two-part family wanders off, not quite intentionally forgetting the hero is there so much as the hero somewhat accidentally ended the conversation when they just froze and didn’t ask anything further.

Not that the hero didn’t want to. But they’d learn something very serious.

One—there was a small town hero they’d never heard of. Two—that hero was apparently a teen. Third—most pressingly, the teen hero was both beloved enough to have kids dressing up as him and dead enough to have a grave.

This… might require some phone calls.

#dpxdc #danny phantom crossover #meanwhile Danny. sitting on a giant marble slab that has the most ridiculous gag gifts a ghost could ever ask for #he’s just like Oh Sweet Cinnamon Rolls!#he would try to convince people to bring him nasty burger but while val has MOSTLY gotten over her vindictive anger at Phantom DOES decide #that she’s gonna be petty and add cilantro to everything #because Danny has the cilantro soap gene #jokes on her he’ll still eat it #Danny likes his little memorial in the grave. it helps settle him sometimes. also he’s gotten to know the security guards for the cemetery #they’re fun. a bit morbid. they LIKE his jokes so you can stuff it JAZZ #MEANWHILE the hero. Whomstever they are but like 90% of you are thinking either batfam or Justice league #are having just. a TOUCH of a crisis #now they gotta figure out where the kid and his mom are from without either of them figuring out #dealer’s choice on what the GIW and why Amity Park isn’t on the radar #I’ll add my two cents bc when don’t I but I’m by and large not like… dictating this? anyways #I like making the GIW just a BIT more incompetent or just having some massive flaws as an organizational group #so they keep forgetting to tell people to not LEAVE and to keep quiet #average amity Parker if the GIW tried this anyways: aw that’s cute. anyways-#and if it’s dc I guess you need to figure out how the jl never found out. so #i mean there’s a LOT of heroes and cities in dc #and amity park is just lost to the noise or. bc Fenton bad luck #every time Danny tried to call. the jl had some insane disaster and or their systems were down #he eventually figured he might actually be cursed- jury’s still out on that -and he’s saving lives by just handling it himself #he can handle rhe metaphorical mega thunderstorms if it means he doesn’t accidentally summon a fucking tsunami to hit the planet ya know?#the kid and the mom have no idea that what they said was Odd #they are just so used to it. amity park already was using death puns and had an. interesting history and relation with death #even BEFORE there was a dead kid flying around in his white gogo boots

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versias · 2 months ago

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A Haunt is Where the Heart Is

The first time Bruce encountered Phantom, he was bleeding from a stab wound to the side that had missed both vital organs and armor.

“That looks bad.” The voice was quiet, barely more than a whisper.

The shape was barely more than an outline of a person; for a moment, Bruce worried he’d been dosed with some kind of hallucinogenic in the knife. It looked around before it shifted more into the visual range. At the same time, it drifted closer.

“Stop,” Batman growled. Then demanded: “Who are you.”

They became more and more real, and he could now see the fine-boned facial features, the grown-out hair in a shocking white, and glowing green eyes. White lashes swept down as it (they?) blinked, answering, “Phantom.”

“Is that ‘who’ or ‘what’?”

They smiled, a mischievous little light dancing in their eyes. “Bit of both, actually.”

“My wound isn’t bad enough to kill me,” Batman denied.

The being giggled, a noise that sounded like twinkling stars and made something squirm in his chest.

“I’m not a psychopomp, dude. Just trying to offer some help. I like to keep people in the world of the living.”

They knelt down, setting their gaze level with the injury, giving him the choice of accepting or not.

Tilting their head back to look up into his face, they said, “Let me help?”

He wasn’t so hurt that he couldn’t get back to the cave. But the mystery of the being was enough to keep him in the alley, stepping closer. He needed more data.

(It had nothing to do with the image of a beautiful person on their knees for him, though he might think about it later. Maybe.)

———

The next time they crossed paths, Phantom’s hair was longer. It floated freely, drifting in some ethereal wind as the being floated, parallel to the ledge.

Bruce let his boot scrape the gravel as he approached.

Phantom didn’t look. Their eyes were fixed on the sky. The blackout had coincided with a break in the perpetual cloud cover. A glittering blanket shone above and Phantom sparkled in the starlight like they were one of the stars. They were glowing the brightest they’d ever been.

“I never thought I’d get to see the stars here.” They breathed. Awe colored their voice.

Bruce glanced up. It was beautiful, but he had to admit that he preferred the shining lights of the city. Gotham was a city of shadows; without the light, the shadows didn’t dance.

He didn’t say that, though. Not when Phantom’s ecstasy was so obvious. It made him want to see the sky the way the ghost did.

“Did you come up here just to hang out with me?”

Batman grunted. “What do you know about the Park Row murders?”

There were always murders in Crime Alley, but the string of brutal killings had the hallmarks of a new serial killer.

Phantom gave him a Look.

“Want me to ask the victims? Or are you assuming all ghosts know each other, Batman?”

Batman leveled an unimpressed look at them.

“Ugh, how’d you even know I was looking into it?”

Characteristic snow pattern in security camera footage.

“I’m Batman.”

“Yeah, whatever,” they waved a lazy hand like a king dismissing their court. “I haven’t learned much. The shades of ghastly deaths like that aren’t very coherent. I can stabilize them a little, but I don’t like to do that—it prolongs their suffering, you know? Mostly, I’m just trying to help them cross over. Everything I hear is incidental.”

“Anything could help.”

Phantom tells him what they’ve heard. It is scattered and some of it might be the final delusions of the dying, but he appreciates it nonetheless. Centering the victims in his mind helps him. It also helps to hear that Phantom helped them reach some kind of peace.

“Thought you weren’t a psychopomp.”

Phantom blew a raspberry at him.

Bruce suppressed a smirk.

———

Adrenaline was still pumping through him when Phantom swept back into the room, the casing of a bomb held in one hand and the actual explosive material in the other. Just in time; Batman had finished laying out the private security hired to keep them out.

“Figured I’d just make it so the bomb couldn’t, you know, explode.”

The sound he made was an approving hum, reverberating in his chest as he stepped closer to the ghost. Normally, the cold wafting off Phantom helped bring him down when the action was over. But Phantom looked up at him through their long white lashes, playful as always. It hit his gut like a physical blow.

Something of what he was feeling must have shown on his face, because Phantom’s green eyes widened in surprise. Bruce swallowed the immediate anxiety, the fear of being known, and let himself reach for Phantom. They caught his hand and entwined their fingers.

“Got somewhere to put explosives?” They whispered.

“I do,” he rumbled.

“Do I get to come with you?” Excitement made their eyes sparkle.

No, I get to come with you.

———

The Batcave does have somewhere for explosives, but unfortunately there wasn’t a comfortable place for the other reason Bruce brought Phantom back with him. He considered bringing them up to his bedroom, then dismissed the thought. He was thinking with his dick, not his head. No revealing secrets while high on adrenaline and drowning in a beautiful person.

Thankfully, Phantom didn’t seem to mind when he sat at the chair before the computer and pulled them into his lap. The first press of lips to his own made him shiver. He opened his mouth and accepted the cool, slick tongue. The contrast between his own hot mouth made Phantom moan, something between pain and pleasure.

Bruce pressed his forehead against theirs.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured.

“I don’t mind,” they said. “It doesn’t hurt much; it’s just like stepping into a hot bath. And I don’t mind a little roughness.”

“You know, it occurs to me I never asked… what should I call you? I mean, pronouns-wise.”

Phantom threw their head back and laughed. Bruce resisted the urge to nip at the exposed throat.

“I use he, usually,” he said. “And please call me Danny. You?”

Bruce swallowed, looking for the right words, but Danny was quick to reassure, “No need to share your name, man. I’m in the enviable position of not having a life to disrupt if my secret identity is discovered. I’m not gonna scream ‘Batman’ though. He/him for you? Is ‘B’ okay?”

Relief. “It is. It’s perfect.”

Then he considered the rest of what he’d said. Not having a life, but didn’t deny a secret identity. Interesting. But not relevant, at the moment.

“So you’re a screamer?” His hands drifted down Phantom’s sides and around his thighs.

Phantom snickered, “Maybe. You know, if you can make me.”

It wouldn’t be easy to keep up with undead vigor, but he couldn’t back down from a challenge like that.

Bruce vowed to make him hoarse.

———

They slept together many more times after that. Phantom did get to see his bedroom and met Alfred (who referred to Danny endearingly as ‘Master Bruce’s young man’). Bruce made sure Danny knew he had somewhere safe to return to when he needed it.

He didn’t let it go further. Partly, it was about Batman. Working together once or twice was alright, but Batman couldn’t afford to have a partner. How could he ask Danny to shoulder Gotham’s darkness with him? Force him to watch Bruce throw himself into danger every night on an impossible quest?

He was already breaking Alfred’s heart. He couldn’t do the same thing to someone else. He loved Danny too much to do it to him.

God, Bruce loved Danny Phantom.

Bruce loved the way Phantom curled around him in sleep. Loved the way he arched his back and cried when he was close to orgasm. Loved how he floated a bit when he talked about space. Loved how he could always tell what Bruce needed to say, even when it got mangled between his brain and mouth.

Yet.

Phantom wasn’t… alive. Not in the way Bruce was, at least. It didn’t seem fair to ask him to stay, to spend the rest of Bruce’s life tied to him. It wasn’t like they could grow old together. Bruce would age and Phantom wouldn’t, frozen in death. Whatever power allowed him to manifest in the physical realm shouldn’t be wasted on something so… domestic as a boyfriend. A husband.

Bruce loved Danny. He nestled somewhere in his heart, fluttering against his pulse. He could keep him there without chaining him to his side. It was enough.

It had to be.

———

Danny told him he needed to attend to his duties in the Infinite Realms. He looked resigned.

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know. Time gets weird in the Zone. I’ll come back, though. Promise.”

Danny kissed him goodbye.

Bruce tried to tell himself it wouldn’t be forever.

It felt like a lie.

———

Bruce found Dick Grayson. He tucked him under his wing. Held on too tight and pushed him away.

———

Bruce found Jason. Failed him, again and again.

———

Tim found Bruce. He didn’t deserve him, but he wasn’t leaving. It ached.

———

Bruce’s family grew, children and cousins alike gathering under the banner of the Bat. Sometimes it felt right, to stand with them and fight for a better future. Sometimes Bruce felt like he was losing his mind, losing his grip on the situation and reality. He watched his children get hurt and get back up and get knocked down again. Sometimes, it was like seeing himself. Sometimes it was alien and horrible, and he was trapped in a nightmare.

He had lovers. Women, mostly. Selina, who came and went like an alley cat, disappearing whenever she pleased.

Talia, deadly and divine in equal measure, with a touch of death about her.

He didn’t need Alfred’s knowing glances to pick up the common thread, thank you.

He was pining, not in denial.

———

Damian showed up on his doorstep, haughty and whole and real. His flesh and blood, ten years old. This was the first time he’d ever even heard of Talia having a child.

What the fuck.

———

Jason came back from the dead, dripping with rage.

Bruce wished Danny was here. He’d know what to do. He always did.

#fandom fusion: dpxdc #dc x dp #s: dc universe #p: spirit halloween #p: Bruce/Danny #au: timeline tweaked #Danny shows up a decade later like I lived bitch #he was off fighting pariah dark and then every other challenger for the throne in single combat #but his rule is solidified and now he can finally settle down with his boo #wait what do you mean he’s got kids now #how long have I been gone #one of the kids is a revenant?? when did that happen???#Danny returns to a room on fire and just goes well this might as well happen

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