#time matts require destruction as it dams up the flow of time

[currentfandomkick]

Warning: this is a one-shot from me, feel free to add on.

Danny knew something had been off about Clockwork for a while. He also knew Ancients don’t get sick for no reason. So he did what he could to help the symptoms—iced rags for the growing fever, forced the ageshifter into the literal sands of time in the Long Now to keep him warm and calm the ever-chattering teeth. If this helped force Clockwork into not working and something equating sleep, that was between Clockwork and Nocturne.

Danny managed the timelines related to his home universe. If he dragged Dan into helping the more volatile ones as a cautionary tale, well. It was that or another session with Nocturne and Jazz about his feelings as the sole survivor of a tied off time knot.

Danny managed the butterfly affects and set up systems to alert him to when something was liable to harm a timebranch, and for possible timeknots. Detangling timelines was a tedious at best, but necessary to avoid time mattings. Those had to be destroyed and the timeline before the time matting diverted.

Dan was in charge of worst of the timeknots while Danny focused on preventing them. They were lucky to avoid any matts before Clockwork took a turn for the worse.

It started with a broken glass cough. Then he began to groan and thrash. Then Clockwork spewed what could only be described as ‘time juice’ that deaged him as Phantom but not Fenton.

Danny did not appreciate being a toddler again.

Dan said he wasnt adopting him if it was permanent before calling some shadow thing to help him cut off another timeknot and create another benign paradox loop.

Danny sat his toddler tail in front of his mentor and did the only thing he could think of: threaten him into confessing.

“Clocky,” he half sang, “if you don’t tell me what’s making you sick I’ll call Auntie Death and have her get all your exes meet at once.”

Clockwork glanced about the Long Now.

“… one of my, reflections shall we say(?), is badly injured.”

“Reflections?” phantom wrinkled his nose. “You mean mirror born?”

“No, more autonomous duplicates. They’ve all developed beyond what i needed initially. My own alternate developments, you could say.”

“So a not clone-clone is in trouble?” Danny leaned forward, tracing Clockwork’s eye scar with his eyes.

“It appears he was… indisposed until recently and awoke to a serious time matting.”

Phantom blanched at the thought of one of those. “And he can’t cut it off?”

“It appears he is in combat, and losing.” Clockwork shuddered violently for a moment. “Badly.”

Danny narrowed his eyes. Time mattings are beyond him, but he can save Clockwork’s reflection.

“Which timescreen do i go in to help?”

“Danny,” his mentor frowned. “You don’t have to—“

“I want to, fright means no one faces their thing on their own. So let me help.”

Clockwork muttered the time screen’s location.

Danny flew into the middle of a battle. Kronos was big, bad and obsession mad.

He did catch a few magic users and shot them with an ectoblast each.

He forgot his brain would catch up to his body’s deaging at some-point.

“Leave my daddy alone you buttheads!”

That did cause the colorful adults to turn around and look at him. He didnt care—his daddy was sick, really bad sick because a chunk of him went obsession mad because of how matted the timeline was and those are really bad and—and—

“How did a toddler get here!”

“When did Kronos have another kid?”

“Child, you are confused, your father did a bad thing and is being handled.” A woman with armor kind of like Mommy interrupted.

Then Daddy screamed.

Danny whipped his head back to Daddy. Daddy’s in a glowing circle snarling and scared and angry and—and these people hurt His Daddy!

The trenchcoat guy was chanting something and gold chains and Daddy was hurthurthurt.

“I said let my daddy Goooooo!” He wailed at trenchcoat.

The chanting stopped while the colorful meanies ran around and some green people put up bad shields.

“Daddy!” Danny flew up to this version of Daddy. “Daddy daddy daddy!”

Kronos hesitantly extended his large hand for Danny to land in.

“Other Daddy said you needed help an an i help! So can Perry-me since he does knot cuts an’ an other daddy’s all sick now an’ its real real bad! He has chest boogies an’ it got all on me an’ i’m little again but i know i’m supossed to be bigger than a big boy but not like,

An adult. Perry-me’s an adult and he’s like, a lot of sad and angry and Jazz says he needs the there-a-pee but i dont know what potty training has to do with his angeries. I think he need to do like, an ecto poo or something.”

Danny waited for this version of Daddy to say something.

“… which version of me do you belong to?” Kronos asked the boy incredulously. He glanced over the Justice League in the distance.


“He says you’re his, his re-flex-on”

Kronos eyed the speedsters responsible for the horrendous timematting that required a reset spanning back at least six generations to prevent. Possibly more for a thorough job well done.

“Origin then, i see.” Kronos returned his attention to the ghostling. “And why would he send you?”

“Daddy says i’m a hero but i think he’s trying to make up for my other mommy and daddy always forgetting me and that their stuffs want me on their, their wab, Wa, luh, lab. Lab! Words are hard.”

Kronos briefly debated killing the distraction. Or at least sending it away. That stupid bond to Origin getting in the way of fixing the clusterfuck that is his sector of the multiverse.

“Yes they are little one. Do you have any reason to stay here?”

“I help! We go to Perry-me and Other Daddy and they can fix it! Perry-me’s been covering for Daddy since he got sick. I make the, the portal and Perry-me’s good at fixing time problems where, where they start. Daddy’s good at listening an, an everyone de, deserves help so i help!”

Kronos glanced at the gathered Justice League with the Laughing Magician contest with… and the child before him both being outside of his omniscience.

Of course Origin would adopt the closest thing to the Laughing Magician in his sector.

“You’re not going to leave until i agree, are you?”

“Daddy is fright, and fright means no forgetting or ignoring or pretending the person isnt there and doesn’t need help or leaving them on their own when things are bad. And time matts are really, really bad!”

Kronos sighed. “Lead the way laughing magician.”

Kronos did give the Justice League a dark grin as they left in a portal the toddler clapped into being.

“Daddy! I found the hurt you! An’ it’s a, a super bad time matt! Worse than when Perry-Me killed the world!”

—

The Justice league stared at one another in horror after Superman finished relaying what the kid had said.

Kronos as his father is bad enough. There being multiple Kronos’s is worse. Then Kronos’ mystery kid having John Constantine’s inherited title and role as the laughing magician?

They are, in a word, fucked if the two return. And they will. Its only a matter of time.

Batman was twitching a storm while John downed his flask.

(Barry was oddly quiet.)

Time crisis

Clockwork looked sick, this was the first time Danny had witnessed something like this so he couldn't help but feel concerned for his mentor. However, no matter how many times he asked what was going on, the Ancient refused to answer.

The halfa was taking care of him and finally Clockwork revealed that he was under attack. Danny raised an eyebrow in confusion, he saw no one in Clock Tower and the Observants were not around, seeing his confusion the Master of Time explained himself more clearly.

Clockwork had multiple bodies, distributed in different dimensions. And while they didn't follow the same rules, their job was the same, "preserve the timelines". One of his other bodies must have sensed his timeline being altered multiple times and awoke from its rest to repair the error.

Someone must not have been happy about that, if the damage Clockwork was receiving was anything to go by. The Ancient had no doubt that if they kept attacking him they would cause him further damage, which would be a big problem for the timelines.

The reason he didn't want to tell the halfa that was because he knew Danny would want to help, but not all of his "parts" were good, nor did they have the same methods to "repair" and he didn't want to show the boy a bad part of himself. Although he doubted his other "self" would attack young Daniel, seeing how fond he was of him.

Danny of course, offered to solve the problem. Knowing the boy was stubborn, Clockwork sighed in resignation and opened a portal to the DC Universe, where the Justice League was facing Kronos, Danny stepped through the portal immediately and started running to the battlefield.

Wonder Woman was gritting her teeth in fury as she faced Kronos, who was scowling in annoyance, his gaze seemed to be fixed on the speedster for some reason; half of the League were injured but holding their ground, and John Constantine had almost finished preparing a spell to destroy the titan once and for all. He opened his mouth to tell the Titan it was his end when a teenage boy ran past him.

Danny, who had no idea what was going on, stood in front of Kronos not knowing what to say. He didn't quite know how to fix the situation. Kronos looked at him in confusion as John choked as he noticed the boy in the path of his spell.

"Fate is not inevitable" the halfa told the Titan decisively. While he had been a hero and understood why the people around him would want to "stop" the other Clocky, he didn't want to see his mentor die (even if this was some sort of clone? Danny didn't quite understand), he was selfish, and he knew the other Clocky had his reasons. He looked at the wounded on the battlefield and took a deep breath before looking at the Titan again.

"Come home with me and we'll find another way to solve it" Danny offered, ignoring the heroes glaring at him. Kronos was still silent, he knew he could kill the boy in seconds but something in him protested at the idea.

Danny wondered if he could lock the being in front of him in a Fenton thermos.