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Chapter Text

It had been a normal Wayne family dinner (including flying cutlery, bad puns, and a tired dad voice saying “kids”)

Just as they were about to eat dessert and portal opened, one that looked suspiciously like the Lazarus Pits.

“We are looking for the one named Red Hood!” A man (?) in all white shouted. He was followed by a hulking metal machine, man thing with a Mohawk, a punk girl with flaming blue hair, a teenage boy that looked to be a stereotypical bad boy from the fifties (deathly pale with a shadow behind him twisting) and girl with green hair (it looked so similar to Joker’s hair color) and a red leather jacket, a small chubby warehouse worker, and behind them a being made of pure shadow with a feminine figure.

It took a few seconds for every member in the table to notice every detail before they got into defensive positions.

“Who are you,” Bruce asked in his Batman voice, ready to defend his family from the threat in front of them, “what do you want?”

“Are you deaf, punk? We want Red Hood. We know he’s here we just don’t know which one of you it is.”

“Why do you want Red Hood,” asked Dick, looking ready to tear the intruders a new one. They had finally had a time to be a family and eat dinner (even Jason was here. JASON! And he wasn’t in a bad mood or ready to kill anyone) and these assholes had shown up to ask for his little brother.

“We won’t say for what purpose we are here until we know the hero Red Hood is here,” the floating junk of metal said

“I’m Red Hood,” Jason stepped up a bit surprised anyone not from Crime Alley would call *him* a hero, “what do you want from me and my family”

“Not your family, just you,” the blue haired girl said

“A member of our community has been hurt and as much as we love the kid..” the green haired girl trailed off only for the bad boy to put his arm around her and finish the sentence, “we don’t have the resources to take care of the kid.”

The whole family has tensed when they heard ‘kid’

“What kid, hurt how,” Jason asked in a low dangerous voice, the green slowly tinting his vision of the thought of a *child* hurt.

The…beings nodded, looking at him with approval. All of them parted for the shadowed woman to step forward, she put her arms out as if to show them something…

Jason almost vomited.

In the woman’s arms was a thin boy bleeding greens and reds. He had a Y-shaped cut on his chest (mirroring the one that Jason had but this boy was ALIVE) and barely breathing (how, HOW was he breathing)

Actually it almost sounded like a death rattle instead of actual breaths

“We saved him from a pair of monsters,” the shadowed woman said, “we didn’t know sooner or we would’ve, we could’ve prevented this,” she said miserably

The blue haired girl put an arm around the woman, “it’s okay Spectra, we got Baby Bop out.”

The first man spoke again, “listen here, punk, we would keep him with us but he’s still half human and needs human care, especially at his age. His home life is no longer safe. So, we entrust him to you, Red Hero. Many of the scums you have killed have spoken of you as I put them in jail for the rest of their miserable afterlife.”

“You have no problem getting justice for the living… or the dead,” the man’s smile made him look like a deranged warden skeleton, “take care of him.”

Jason automatically held out his arms as the woman, Spectra, handed the boy to him.

“His name is Danny,” she whispered before going back to the small group

“BEWARE IF ANY HARM COMES TO THE BOY, I THE BOX GHOST WILL HAUNT YOU FOR ETERNITY”

One by one the beings went back into the glowing portal. The last one to enter, the blue haired girl, looked back

“We will be keeping watch. Don’t hurt him,” her eyes seemed to blaze, “or you won’t know peace in the land of the living *or* the dead

And she disappeared as the portal closed behind her

Jason looked down at the small boy in his arms and felt something in his chest shift (protect him at all cost). He would die, but most importantly, he would kill for this kid

Chapter Text

Vlad was talking to a potential victim investor. The rich were all the same, they thought since they had a little bit of money, they were invulnerable and on top of the food chain.

Vlad loved to prove them wrong.

He ignored Bruce “Brucie” Wayne. The man pretended to be an airhead, but Vlad had seen all those articles about the prodigy son of Dr. Thomas Wayne, and something about the man unsettled Vlad.

Better to listen to one’s instincts.

Vlad was just about to get a private business meeting with the man before him when he felt a very familiar tackle.

“BITCH,” his little godson yelled out.

Everyone went quiet, even the musicians stopped.

What was Daniel even doing at a gala in Gotham?

Before he could do anything else, Daniel kicked him in the face and then punched him in the gut.

If Vlad had to breathe, he would’ve been wheezing.

As it was, he had to keep up appearances, so he pretended to be out of breath while dragging a feral Daniel out of the room.

From the corner of his eyes, Vlad saw Bruce looking at them suspiciously. Great, something he would have to deal with later.

He managed to throw a snarling Daniel Fenton into an empty room before letting his frustrations out.

“ANCIENTS, DAMMIT, DANIEL, WE’RE IN PUBLIC OUT OF AMITY!”

“What were you planning to do with that guy?”

Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose, “is that what this was about, little badger? He’s worse than I am, and I’m not going to leave him completely destitute.”

Daniel tackled him again.

“Ugh, fine, fine! I won’t overshadow him. I’ll do this the, ugh, legal and hard way.”

“You better, bitch, or I will stop letting you introduce me as your godson. Later, I promised Sam I would annoy her parents, and I don’t think hitting the mayor of our town in public is enough.”

Daniel left the room, and Vlad couldn’t help but wonder why he wanted the boy in his life.

Chapter Text

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t me!”

Jason was trying to defend himself from his family members (Minus Cass, who could’ve cleared up this mess in a heartbeat). His supposed crime? Beating the ever little shit outta Joker…in his civvies.

“Jason,” Bruce started while pinching the bridge of his nose, “I understand that your beating on Joker is better than you wanting to kill him, but you can’t do it in civilian clothing! We don’t leave him there; we call the authorities to have them haul Joker back to Arkham.”

“But, Bruce, I haven’t done anything,” Everyone in the cave raised their eyebrows, “Lately,” Jason amended. “Besides, I still want him dead,” he whispered under his breath while crossing his arms.

The Batcave was cold. That’s why he was crossing his arms, not because Jason was feeling defensive, no siree.

“Little Wing, listen, I understand that having the Joker escape Arkham can be frustrating,” Dick said, “but at least put on your suit.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Jason threw his hands up, “Since you guys won’t believe it isn’t me, I’ll let one of you guys keep an eye on me until the Joker is attacked again so I can prove my innocence.”

 “Tt, we have other things to do than babysit you, Todd. Learn to control your temper or leave Gotham until we can capture the Joker again.”

“You’re one to talk, Demon brat. If I remember correctly, you entered Arkham just to beat the shit out of Joker with a crowbar. Oh, and then you stole my helmet.”

“Hmph, that was different,” Damian defended himself.

“Oh yeah, how so?”

“I was wearing my Robin suit.”

“Fuck off, brat! Bruce, it wasn’t me!

Everyone, including Jason, stared at the video. To be fair, it was pretty damning evidence.

The man beating the ever-living shit out of the joker was Jason’s height and roughly his same weight. He wore a red hoodie, similar to the ones Jason favored, and the little bit of identification that could be seen were the tufts of black hair.

Jason was starting to regret dying his hair all black. The skunk look would help to clear his name.

The Joker took a powerful punch to the jaw that had him spitting out a tooth before the man disappeared.

Another point against Jason, the man had the habit of appearing and disappearing without a trace.

A different video showed up, the Joker again getting wailed on by the mysterious hero man.

(Jason wondered if he could persuade Tim or Barbara to send him a copy of the videos when all of this was over.)

“Please, guys, I know I’ve done a lot of shit in my time to make you guys not trust me, but I’m not the one beating the Joker. Do you really think I would leave that maniac on the streets if I found him? Just shadow me whenever and let me prove it. Innocent until proven guilty, right?”

Bruce sighed.

“Fine, from now on, one of us will be with you until we clear this misunderstanding.”

Jason sighed in relief. With how often the Joker was getting his socks knocked off, this would all be over soon.

Three weeks. Three painful, annoying fucking weeks.

The clown still hadn’t been found by the Batfamily and co., no one had seen the mystery man beating the crap out of the clown, his siblings were annoying assholes, and Jason was still being accused of being the one of having beaten the Joker. 

It wouldn’t be so bad if it had been Jason. The catharsis alone would of being able to fist fight the clown who killed him whenever he wanted would so make up the looks of disappointment Bruce sent his way.

But it wasn’t Jason getting his sweet justice. Though he didn’t doubt Joker had wronged the guy in some way.

Dick and Jason sat in the media room, trying to get into the movie, when Jason lost it.

“That’s it; I need to go out!”

Dick raised one of his eyebrows, “What brought this on?”

“There have been no sightings of Joker or our mystery man who always finds him and leaves Joker black and blue.”

“Gee, it’s almost as if the man who does beat on the Joker is under 24/7 surveillance,” Tim said as he walked past the media room to who knows where (probably to get more coffee.)

“Fuck off, Replacement!”

If Tim said anything else, it was lost in the vast manor’s hallways.

“Please, Dick, let’s go out. We don’t have to do anything except walk around and maybe get some chili dogs.”

“Hmm,” Dick hummed as he put his disgusting foot under Jason’s nose. He gagged before slapping the offending appendage out of his face, “Okay, but I drive.”

Dick got off the couch in a back flip (instead of sitting up like a normal person) and ran out the door. Whatever, Jason would get what he could take.

Both Dick and Jason were frozen on the spot. Jason’s chili dog had been halfway to his mouth, and Dick’s had been mostly finished when the Joker came out of nowhere with his lackeys. Before the Clown Prince of Crime could say a word, a red streak appeared out of nowhere, and Joker was tackled to the ground.

The man was absolutely feral. He punched, kicked, bit, pinched, and honest to God growled as he attacked the Joker. He was Jason’s new hero!

Cheers erupted around him as the man beat Joker unconscious, and just as Dick had broken out of his stupefied paralysis to apprehend the guy, he got up and ran away. Both Jason and Dick followed after the man, but they were too late. He had disappeared.

“I told you it wasn’t me!”

“Hn,” Bruce studied the footage with a critical eye.

“And you’re sure you didn’t get a good look at him?”

“Yeah, B, we were stunned. Personally, I couldn’t get a good handle on his features. I know I saw black hair and blue eyes, but that’s all I can tell you.”

“Hmm, and you, Jason?”

“I was busy watching the Joker get his ass whopped.”

Bruce stared at Jason with disapproval before breathing through his nose.

“Well, whoever this is, we at least know it’s not Jason. Sorry, for, you know,” Bruce vaguely waved his arm around.

“What, not believing me? Accusing me without evidence?” He asked without any heat, “You can make it up to me by sending me every footage you have of the Joker getting his ass handed to him.

That night Jason laughed as he watched on repeat as the Joker got attacked over and over by Jason’s new hero.

Chapter Text

Jason was the first one to find the guy.

Well, he was a kid, couldn’t be out of his teens yet, maybe nineteen, maybe. Jason walked up to the kid who was wearing the red hoodie still. He was, ironically enough, eating a chili hotdog.

He looked up at Jason, and a look of recognition lit his eyes. The Bat in him made him pause. This kid was acting as if he knew Jason. Should he call his family first, maybe give them a heads up he was gonna talk to a stranger who regularly ran fades with Joker and won?

Thinking back at all the hours upon hours of footage he had been able to get (read: emotional blackmail) off of Bruce, yes, Jason was willing to risk his health and safety.

The kid got up, finished his hotdog, and walked up to Jason, “So, one of the furry brigades finally found me, huh? Took you guys long enough, considering you guys are detectives.”

Jason raised an eyebrow, showing nothing on his face, “Now, why would you think I’m a Bat? I could be just a random citizen wanting to thank you for what you do and maybe ask how you always manage to find the Joker?”

“Oh, so that’s how you wanna play, huh,” the kid asked while smirking. “Well, let’s just say I have a particular set of skills that let me sense certain things. And these certain things might include secrets and feelings such as an evil asshole terrorizing people.”

“And let’s add to the fact that I have an intense hatred of clowns, particularly evil ones, and the yucky feelings that fucker gives off make me feel completely feral, so I attack. Does that answer your questions,” the kid asked while smirking and raising his eyebrow.

It did answer a lot: the kid was a meta; he could sense emotions and sniff out secrets. He knew what Jason did during the night.

Jason didn’t even know the kid’s name.

“So, now that you found me, are you gonna turn me over to daddy bats?”

The kid put his hands in front of him as if ready to be cuffed. Jason saw a mischievous glint in the kid’s eyes that made him think he had found a kindred spirit.

“Oh, fuck no, kid! You and I are gonna be good friends. I want to wail on the Joker, too.”

“Danny Nightingale,” the kid, Danny, said while offering his hand, “And I have a feeling this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Jason.”

****

Jason took Danny’s confessions in strides. Ghosts, half-death, ectoplasm…it had all been a bit much.

(Jason completely ignored the fact that he had ectoplasm in him.)

Instead, Jason concentrated on fucking around with his family and beating the shit out of Joker.

He did end up telling Alfred and Barbara. The first person was out of respect, and the second was out of fear. Besides, it was impossible to hide things from Oracle for long, and better to get her on one’s side.

If his family had believed him in the first place, maybe he would’ve been inclined to tell them he had found their mystery man (kid) and told them their identities had been compromised but, a. they hadn’t believed him, b. they would want to stop their fun, and c. Jason knew deep down he could trust Danny.

“That’s your ectoplasm telling you that,” Danny had said when Jason mentioned it. Jason promptly shoved the kid’s shoulders and told him to shut up.

(Jason wasn’t a ghost or half-ghost; he was a full human who had just been resurrected…mysteriously.)

Anyway, here were Jason and Danny, sabotaging the Joker and making him paranoid. Danny would turn invisible to fuck around with Joker’s things and plans, and Jason would physically attack the clown.

The best part was that they didn't suspect him since Jason had cleared his name with his family. Bonus points, he got to see Timmy and Bruce (the best detectives out of all of them) run around like headless chickens.

Tonight, however, tonight was going to be fun.

After tormenting the Joker mentally and physically for a month, Jason and Danny decided to attack Joker in his base when he was alone at the same time.

Danny and Jason wore the exact same clothing and did their best to hide their facial features (though it was uncanny how much they could pass as twins, something Jason had tested, but there were zero chances of them being related). Then they snuck into Joker’s hideout.

The clown had become so paranoid about being attacked that he had no one in his room with him except for a gun.

In the end, it did him no good.

To say it had been the strangest beat down Joker had ever had would’ve been an understatement. Even now, as he tried to convince Batman that the boy had multiplied and there were two of him now, he wasn’t believed.

He decided to stay in Arkham for a while.

And if Jason let Danny crash in his safe houses and didn’t tell Bruce and the rest of them about Danny right away, well, they were detectives. They could figure it out.

Chapter Text

“Uh, Mr. Lancer, I have to use the bathroom,” Danny yelled as he ran out of the room, not even waiting for permission.

“Me, too,” Tucker said as he followed his friend.

Sam didn’t ask for permission. She raised an eyebrow at Mr. Lancer and calmly followed her two friends. Not even thirty seconds later, a white light flashed outside the door, and everyone in the class heard, “I’ll have your skin,” before the voice was abruptly cut off.

“Well, this is a good time as any to do this,” Mr. Lancer said dryly as he took out a hat, “due to popular demand, the senior class trip will be in, ugh, Gotham city.”

Cheers erupted in the class.

“Alright, alright, settle down. Now, I am neither confirming nor denying this, but certain members of this senior class would most definitely get into fights if they met any of Gotham's rogues."

"And considering the rogues are, for the most part, squishy humans, the rest of the faculty and I have decided the rest of the senior class will deal with them if the need arises."

Mr. Lancer shook the hat, "Now, who wants to try their luck first?"

After everyone had picked their rogue (No, Miss Paulina, you cannot trade with Mikey. I don't care how much you want to beat the Joker with a chair.) and it was decided if they did encounter a rogue it would count toward their community service, the hat picking incident wasn't mentioned again.

Every senior (every Amity Parker, barring two oblivious ghost hunters) knew better than to talk about it in case a certain Fenton Phantom overheard and got in his overprotective mode over the citizens of Amity. As much as a badly held secret Danny's identity was, they still kept it.

(Stupid US government with their stupid Anti-Ecto Acts and their dumb GIW.)

So the Amity Parker's protectors were none the wiser that their fellow classmates had taken upon themselves to protect the very human Gotham rogues from an errant punch from a certain half-dead ghost boy (who may or may not be the King of the Infinite Realms; there were bets.)

The first order of business had been 'educational' trips before they could go and have fun.

The Amity Parker senior class had ended up in a museum just as The Riddler had decided to hold the 'unsuspecting' out-of-town hostages for one of his games with the Bats.

It was too bad that Valerie Gray had chosen his name. The girl had a lot of pent-up aggression.

Later, when questioned why Mr. Lancer and Ms. Tetslaff hadn't stopped their student, they answered, "we didn't see anything."

"It's kinda weird we haven't run into any rogues, isn't it?" Danny asked as he ate his Jokerized fries.

Tucker shrugged while he bit into his batburger; he dodged a punch after accidentally spilling some burger juices on Sam, "Ahh, it's bound to happen that we have good luck every once in a while."

"Yeah, Danny, don't jinx it," Sam said while cleaning her shirt.

Outside of the Batburger, Mikey was being cheered on as he punched Joker. The Clown Prince of Crime hadn't been doing anything when the short, red-haired nerd started beating him up.

To say it was the most confusing time of his life would've been an understatement. He had no idea what to think as the little nerd fist-fought a blond jock over who got to keep Joker's teeth.

"So, you said you didn't see your students fighting and beating the Joker," Batman asked, his usually impassive voice laced with incredulity.

"That's right," said the two teachers.

Batman could hear his children laughing over the comms. A delirious Joker was wheeled into an ambulance, and a short red-hair-wearing glasses was holding up human teeth in triumph.

Batman had no idea what to think.

Chapter Text

Danny never thought being king would involve so much paperwork, but here he was, doing paperwork. Some of the paperwork was backed up complaints, issues with structural damages, or miscellaneous things that had happened in the Ghost Zone while Pariah Dark took a siesta.

Most of the paperwork was because of one man: John Fucking Constantine, the bane of Danny’s existence.

The man was a verified soul whore. He sold his soul to any being willing to give him a fucking cigarette because he didn’t want to go to the store.

(Danny wasn’t kidding, the man had actually sold part of his soul for a cigarette.)

 So, here Danny was, two minutes away from his eighteenth birthday, trying to figure out just to who does John Constantine’s soul belong instead of spending time with his sister and friends.

(His parents hadn’t taken Danny’s alter ego identity well, so they no longer talked lest it ended with Danny on a dissection table…) 

The clock struck midnight, “Happy Birthday to me.”

A massive plume of smoke suddenly appeared, followed by fire and then, strangely enough, a considerable amount of water. The paperwork in front of him was now fire and water damaged. Great.

“What the fuck,” Danny sputtered, waving his hand to disperse some of the smoke.

In front of him stood three demons.

“Daniel James Fenton, blood son to John Constantine. Your father sold the soul of his firstborn child to me, the mighty—”

“Wait,” one of the other demons interrupted, “no, he sold it to me.”

“No, he sold it to me first!” the third demon interjected.

Before a fight could break out, Danny whistled loudly, getting all three’s attention.

“Have you idiots even noticed where you’re at and who I am?”

The demons looked around before paling. Danny could taste their fear in the air.

“You’re majesty, we’re sorry! We were supposed to meet John Constantine’s firstborn! One,” the demons took out a piece of paper each, “Daniel James Fenton. Adopted son of Jack and Madeline Fenton.”

What a great way to find out he was adopted! Not!

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, “you’re telling me that the man that has made my afterlife a living hell with all the paperwork he’s left me is my FUCKING BIOLOGICAL FATHER?! I didn’t even know I was fucking adopted!!!!”

All three demons cowered in front of Danny’s anger.  The boy suddenly was an eldritch abomination with stars for eyes and a flaming crown hovering over his head. They could do nothing as Danny ranted and broke things in his office.

They gladly gave the King the contracts that held his soul and left in a hurry.

____

John Constantine was done with this meeting. What was the point of having weekly debriefs anyway? This is why he liked to work alone. Why did he join the Justice League again?

John was about to take out a cigarette to alleviate the boredom even a little when a huge, green portal opened in front of them. John called magic to his hands, the portal rank of death magic. Everyone else got defensive, ready to fight a new threat.

They all blinked when a teenage boy with white hair, glowing green eyes, and a black and white hazmat suit with a stylized ‘D’ stepped out of the portal. He had a glowing blue-green crown, and he looked pissed.

“Which one of you fuckers is that soul-whore, John Constantine?”

Bollocks.

All eyes went to him, and the entity snarled.

“So, you’re my deadbeat sperm donor? Thanks for making my afterlife a living hell, you jackass!”

What?

“What?”

The entity snarled again; this time, his face contorted into something inhuman. John was rarely scared nowadays, but the being in front of him made him want to have a code brown in his pants.

“Imagine spending the day before your birthday doing a shit ton of paperwork because of one idiot who doesn’t know how to hold on to his soul. Bad, right? But, being the king, you have to do it. Then, imagine that midnight hits, and three demons show up to tell you that your birth father sold your soul!”

“Worse, right? Well, it is. Then imagine you find your adopted because of your sperm donor’s decisions.”

John had no idea what to say, so, of course, he opened his mouth, “But I had a vasectomy before I made those deals.

The whole Watch Tower was silent at the revelations. His son The entity took a deep breath and turned his eerie eyes toward John.

“I have an entire room of paperwork that is dedicated solely to you! Do you know how embarrassing it is to learn that my no-good lousy birth father is also the no-good lousy magic bitch most of my subjects hate?!”

John wanted to disappear as his co-workers' judgmental eyes went on him again. If he slumped a bit in his chair, well, no one called him out on it.

“You know something, fuck this. I’m not dealing with this on my eighteenth birthday. I’m gonna go to Europe, try to see if ghosts can get drunk, and then,” the being smiled, “I’m going to get a hold of every last one of your contracts, and when you die, John Constantine, I’m gonna make sure your afterlife is so embarrassing you’ll be wishing you’d be in Hell. Phantom out.”

The room was quiet for a long while after the being, Phantom, left.

“Well, I think the meeting is over. Constantine, feel free to miss the meetings for the next month,” Batman said dryly, “I’ll put it down as a leave of absence while you…deal with this.”

John was going to follow in his son’s footsteps and get drunk, too. Happy birthday, kiddo.

Chapter Text

“I’m here to turn myself in,” Danny said quietly to the officer at the desk.

“The reason,” the officer asked, bored.

“I, uh, I accidentally killed the Joker,” he answered while rubbing the back of his neck.

That got the officer’s attention, “Holy shit. Wait here for a sec. Yo, Commish, we have someone here claiming to have killed the Joker!”

Danny blushed as every eye in the precinct turned toward him.

To be fair, Danny had been dead (ha!), tired, and wanted to go to bed. After a double shift and before that, having pulled an all-nighter, Danny was ready to become one with his shitty mattress.

“Oh, you will make a lovely victim, my dear boy.”

It took a moment to register that a Ronald McDonald reject was holding a toy gun to his forehead. His face was caked in a white makeover, and his smile was demented.

Great, a fruit loop clown was fucking with him.

“Back off, or I’ll bite,” Danny warned. Danny hated clowns, but he could let this go this once if it meant getting home quicker.

The clown did not listen, and Danny made good on his threat.

Danny had forgotten the incident until two weeks later when he saw the headline:

Clown Prince of Crime Dead by Mysterious Bite: City Celebrates

FUCK! Jazz was going to completely kill him.

Danny sat before a graying red-head with glasses and in a trench coat smoking a cigarette. Apparently, he was the “Comish.”

“Okay, walk me through this again. You were coming home from work.”

“Yeah.”

“You were tired, and the Joker, who you didn’t know was the Joker, attacked you, so you bit him.”

“Yep,” Danny popped the ‘p.’

“He let you go. You ran—” Danny interrupted him.

“You forgot the part when I warned him I would bite. I feel that’s important.”

“Right,” Commissioner Gordon deadpanned as he put out the cigarette butt over an overflowing ashtray, “so you warned him, he ignored you, and you decided to bite him.”

“Well, what else was I supposed to do when some Bobo the Clown knockoff randomly gets me by the neck, let him kidnap me? I may be new to Gotham, but even I know better than to trust the police. No offense to you; you look like a swell guy.”

Danny heard some muted laughter from the two-way glass and ignored it. He knew better than to show that he had powers in Gotham.

(Seriously, he had just wanted to get his engineering degree and go back home, was that too much to ask?)

Besides, he had a pretty good idea who was (were) behind the glass.

Batman and his little birdies.

“C’mon, pick up, pick up, pick up.”

Danny felt his panic rise as the phone kept ringing. It wasn’t until the 10^th ring that Jazz answered the phone.

“What’s up, little brother?”

“Jazz, I fucked up.”

There was silence in the other line.

“What did you do,” Jazz asked, followed by a resigned sigh.

“Okay, first of all, I didn’t know he was the Joker.”

“Danny,” Jazz warned.

“Fun fact, the human mouth has over 6 billion types of bacteria, and several of those types are deadly if not treated properly at a hospital.”

“You’re stalling.”

“So, I may or may not have bitten the Clown Prince of Crime and may or may not have killed him.”

There was silence for a moment before Jazz yelled, “Daniel James Fenton, you can’t just bite people.”

“I know, I know—” Jazz interrupted him.

“You don't know where they have been!!? What if you got sick!?”

What?

“—But I bit a guy?”

“Yes, and knowing you, you warned him. It’s not your fault he didn’t heed it. Now, I’m on my way to Gotham right now. When I get there, we’ll go to a hospital and make sure you didn’t get some weird disease from this.”

Danny felt eyes on him, and he no longer thought it was paranoia from being a retired superhero.

“No, Jazz, you don’t understand! I have to turn myself in before Batman, and his birdies come after me. There’s a strict no-killing rule here in Gotham, and I’m pretty sure the Joker and Batman had some kind of agreement.”

There’s no way in hell that Joker could’ve gotten away with half the shit he’d done otherwise. If not, Batman needed to find better ways to take care of his villains. Danny understood no killing, but a broken spine could stop someone just as well…

“No, Danny, don’t do anything until I get there.”

Danny stayed silent.

“Daniel,” Jazz warned.

“All right, fine, I won’t do anything until you get here,” he lied.

“What do you think,” Gordon asked as he entered the room. Batman stood stoically and half-hidden in shadows while Red Hood and Nightwing were busy holding laughter in.

“He’s telling the truth,” Batman answered gravelly. He took out a USB stick and gave it to Gordon.

“This is the security footage from that day. We’ve been watching him since we found it. He hasn’t done anything suspicious. He goes to school, goes to work, and then goes home. We don’t think he’s a candidate for super-villainy or any other type of crime. Still, we will keep an eye on him.”

“Hmm,” Gordon hummed as he took out another cigarette. He didn’t know how to feel. On the one hand, Daniel James Fenton had killed a man, but that man had been the Joker. (Did he even count as a man? He was a monster.) On the other, Daniel didn’t commit a crime, per se. He had defended himself and even warned the Joker.

The city was celebrating the Joker’s death, and no judge or jury would condemn Danny even if he had killed Joker for shits and giggles. Gordon sighed, “I’ll let him go.”

“Hn,” came Batman’s eloquent response.

Red Hood stifled a laugh.

Gordon was never comfortable around the man; he had previously stuffed eight heads in a duffel bag. How Batman can let the man walk around freely was not something Gordon felt inclined to investigate… (he had some ideas, but plausibly deniability and all that.)

As Gordon left the vigilantes in the room, he heard shouting. He sighed, tired. What now?

“Where is he? You can’t interrogate him without a lawyer present!”

A young redhead was yelling at the officer at the front desk. Beside her stood an older gentleman with a briefcase. Gordon presumed he was a lawyer.

“We demand I see Daniel James Fenton. I am his lawyer, and the fact that you have him without any legal counsel is detestable. What changes have you brought up against my client?”

“Good evening, I’m Commissioner Gordon, and you are?”

“Jared Mitchell from Mitchell & Mitchell. I demand to see Daniel Fenton. Whatever confession he has said is obviously under duress as no legal counsel has been present.”

Gordon felt his left eye twitch.

“Mr. Fenton came here of his own volition. No charges have been brought up as we have determined everything he has said is true, and it was self-defense. If you want to see him, you can follow me, but we haven’t done anything to the young man.”

“Ancients dammit, Danny,” the redhead murmured, exasperated.

Gordon ignored her and led them to the room where Danny was being held. (He wasn’t handcuffed.)

“I tell him not to do anything until I get here, and what does he do? He turns himself in, with no lawyer present, to boot.”

Danny ignored his sister. He wanted to go home and sleep. Jazz wasn’t having it, though; she wanted him to go to the hospital.

“Jazz, I’m already half-dead. I won’t die from biting someone!”

Jazz stopped and looked at him. He'll never know how her glare was more effective than his mom’s.

“Listen, here, young man; I don’t care if you are half-dead or not. We don’t know where the Joker has been; he could have left some disgusting disease behind! I don’t want to get a call later with them saying you’ve fallen into uncontrollable laughter!”

Danny rolled his eyes, “I’ll make a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and get a full check-up. How about that?”

Jazz mulled it over for a while before agreeing.

“But I want to be there when you make the call.”

“Yes, mom!”

“And if whoever is following us doesn’t show themselves, I’m going to start swinging in the dark,” Jazz shouted into the night.

The shadows around them started shifting until Batman and Nightwing stepped out. Jazz scowled at them.

“Stalking is illegal, you know.”

“We wanted to make sure you got home safely,” Nightwing said, his hands up in surrender.

“Really, is that why two more people are in the shadows watching us?”

“You have good instincts for a civilian,” Batman said, “a little too good.”

“When you come from the most haunted town in the US, you learn to be wary of the shadows,” Jazz said, “Now, what do you want?”

Batman glared at them in silence.

Danny laughed, “Is that supposed to be scary?”

Batman didn’t show it, but he was affronted that the siblings didn’t seem to fear him.

“Listen, the cops already said Danny is innocent. I suggest you leave us alone or,” She took a bat from her purse. How did it even fit in there?

“You’re going to get a face full of anti-Fenton creep stick.”

The shadows around them snickered.

“Hn, I feel more comfortable if one of us walked you home. The GCPD is corrupt, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already been leaked that Danny killed the Joker.”

“I didn’t kill him. The bacteria did. I was just a conduit. It’s not my fault he didn’t get it treated.”

“Hn, still, one of us should walk you home.”

“We can take care of ourselves, thank you very much. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Jazz got Danny’s hand and ushered him toward her car.

“Oh, and stop stalking people and get a hobby that doesn’t involve being a creep.”

Batman ignored his children’s laugh.

Mysteriously, Danny had a good amount of money put into his bank account. The city hailed him as a hero, and the Joker even got a nice tombstone.

Here lies a fucked-up clown

Get dunked on

Killed by a feral raccoon

Our newest hero

Chapter Text

Dani bit into a chili hotdog she had bought while staring at the city from the highest building she could find. The sun had set a few hours ago, but the cold didn’t bother her.

The perks of being half-dead.

She finished the last bit of her hotdog when she felt more than heard a whoosh. She turned around to find the legendary Batman standing beside her.

Even with the white-out eyes, she could feel his eyes on her.

“Can I help you,” she asked while inching further away from him.

“Can I get a DNA test,” he asked back. That stopped Dani in her tracks.

What?

“What?”

“Can I get a DNA test,” he repeated.

“Okay, wow, so I didn’t imagine that. Why?”

“You look like m—someone I know. I just want to confirm if you are or are not related to that person.”

“So, what, I look like you, and you want a DNA test? Do you go up to every child that has black hair and blue eyes and ask for one?”

“No,” he answered without elaborating or denying that he was talking about himself.

Fuck it; it’s not as if Dani had anything else to do.

“LOL, sure,” she said, “but you’re gonna be really confused.”

Dani allowed Batman to cheek-swab her and then watched as he put her DNA sample into a small computer he was carrying in his gloves of all places. She did take the juice box and lollipop he gave her. Dani never turned down free food.

It helped that human poison didn’t affect her.

Five minutes later, Dani took out her phone.

“Hello,” a groggy voice asked.

“Yo, Danny, are you adopted?”

“What the fuck? No.”

“Then why is Batman saying he’s my dad?”

“Who are you talking to,” Batman asked as he finished talking into his headpiece.

“The guy I’m cloned from,” she answered.

“Wait, what,” Batman asked, furious.

“What do you mean Batman is saying he’s your father? Jack Fenton is my dad!”

“Yeah, I think you need to talk to your parents, big guy.”

Dani heard footsteps before Danny yelled, “Mom, dad, am I adopted?!”

“What, of course not,” a woman’s voice said.

“Yeah, Dann-o, you are 100% a Fenton, even if you don’t carry my blood.”

“Dad, what do you mean I don’t carry your blood, and why was I never told about this? Why is Batman saying that he’s my father?”

“Batman, that’s strange,” Mr. Fenton bellowed out, “We had that threesome with Bruce Wayne.”

“Oh, my Ancients,” Dani yelled out, “Batman is Bruce Wayne, the himbo?”

Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, made a confused noise while his other children laughed into the comms.

“Oh, eww, gross, I didn’t need to know that,” Danny yelled.

“Well, we were a bit tipsy, and he was interested in our technology,” Maddie said. Batman took the phone from Dani’s hands.

“Who is this,” he growled.

“Shut the hell up, fruit loop. I just found out my parents fucked around with a billionaire furry who beats up criminals.”

“No, we slept with Bruce Wayne,” Bruce recognized that loud bellow. Jack Fenton.

“Ancients, stop saying that!”

The boy hung up the phone, and Bruce was left with a little girl up on Wayne Enterprise. He had no idea what to do.

“So, you have any food?”

Chapter Text

“I can shoot you where you stand,” Jason told the homeless man.

“Yeah? So can any other two-bit thug on the street,” he sassed back.

“Two-bit thug,” Jason asked, offended.

“Y’aint special,” he continued as if Jason hadn’t spoken while leaning into his personal space.

Jason had finally returned to Gotham to set his plans in motion. He was going to get Bruce to kill the clown one way or the other. The first week had gone well. Jason had made preparations to take over Gotham’s underbelly. He had started fighting against Roman Sionis, aka The Black Mask, to take control over Gotham.

And then he had run into the homeless asshole.

Jason found out his name was Danny, and he would follow Jason around for no damned reason. Not even threatening the guy chased him away. The worse part was that Danny was able to find Jason anywhere.

Case in point, Jason was in his warehouse full of weapons and drugs right now, and the man had found him.

“So, are you gonna let me help you now, or are you still gonna act like a little bitch?”

Jason saw green, and he shot the guy.

Danny looked down at the bullet wound closing with a disinterested raised eyebrow.

Jason’s surprise at the healed bullet wound snapped him out of the pit-induced rage. Danny dared to ask, “Are you done?”

Almost as if Jason had acted like a petulant child and thrown a tantrum instead of shooting him.

“Anyway, I brought you some ectoplasm; remember I told you about it? It’ll help with your anger issues.”

“I don’t want help with my anger issues; I need them!”

“Oh, so you can get your revenge on daddy bats?”

“He’s not my dad!”

“Sounds fake, but okay. Anyway, I also brought you some food ‘cuz I don’t see you eat at all.”

“I don’t need food,” Jason said with gritted teeth. His stomach betrayed him by growling.

“Yeah, sure, Zombie boy. I’ll see you later,” and, as per usual, the fucker disappeared. One of these days, Jason would figure out how to get rid of Danny, but right now, he continued with his plans.

____

“So, what’s your plan here?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Jason yelled, almost dropping his bazooka, “Can you not do that?”

Jason was on top of the building across from Black Mask’s office. He was about to call the man when Danny snuck up behind him.

“What is even your plan here?”

“I’m going to get Black Mask to free Joker,” Jason knew from experience that Danny would discover his plan.

The older man snorted, “That’s stupid. Why don’t you just kill the clown yourself? By the Ancients, I can sneak you in and out without anyone noticing.”

Jason gritted his teeth. That’s not what he wanted. He wanted to know that his da—that Bruce loved him. He wanted his death to mean something. The only way for him to know for sure is for the Batman to kill the Joker.

Jason picked up the phone and dialed Black Mask’s number.

“Well,” Danny said before disappearing, “at least I could talk you out of beating up a kid.”

Jason ignored the man.

____

Jason had fought alongside Batman today, and it had been exhilarating. Fighting alongside him again brought back memories that Jason tried desperately to suppress.

Then Jason had killed the assassins in front of his father—no, in front of Batman.

“What does that make you?” He had asked.

Jason didn’t know. He felt like shit, to put it simply.

Jason removed his costume and weapons and let him fall on the sofa.

“What’s wrong, kid?”

Jason wasn’t surprised to hear Danny by him.

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

“Hmm,” Danny hummed while rummaging through his bookbag, “Here, have some fudge. It always makes me feel better.”

Jason looked at the fudge before shrugging and eating it. It was good.

“Why are you always following me?”

“Because you need someone in your corner. And—and because the living dead need to stick together.”

Jason flinched at the reminder of his death.

“You’ve died, too,” he asked instead.

“Yeah, I’m a halfa—half-human,” there was a bright light, “and half-ghost.”

It was Danny but with white hair, green eyes (like Jason’s now were), and a black and white hazmat suit that had a stylized ‘D.’

“Listen, the dead deserve their retribution, but your actions only make it worse for yourself. Bruce Wayne, the Batman, is never going to kill. Instead of doing this convoluted plan that’s hurting you, why don’t you get your own revenge?”

“I can’t—I’m,” afraid.

When Jason thought of confronting the clown face-to-face by himself, he was that scared fifteen-year-old again that was getting beaten to a pulp by a crowbar. He wanted; he needed his dad to get rid of the monster.

“Here, this is good for you. It’ll help you think clearer.”

Jason looked at the neon green liquid (it looked so much like the Lazarus Pit) and, for the first time, drank what Danny had offered.

It didn’t taste half bad.

____

Jason pulled up to the front gate of Wayne Manor on his motorcycle. He took a deep breath before punching in his old codes. Jason was surprised when it worked.

Jason went up to the front door and knocked. He knew everyone inside knew he was on his way and was half-surprised that no one had tried to keep him out. Jason hesitated for a second and then knocked on the door.

He was welcomed back with open arms and tears.

____

Danny watched as the boy he had met in the Ghost Zone before he had been brought back was embraced by his family.

Danny was glad he had been able to help his friend at least this once. Now, as the King of the Infinite Realms, he had a duty to avenge and protect his citizens, and there remained a dear citizen and friend the remained unavenged. It was time for Danny to visit the Joker. He smiled with too many teeth showing.

There were worse things out there than death.  

Chapter Text

Two Years ago, The House of Mysteries

John Constantine finished the ritual. He needed help with a powerful spirit; apparently, only the Ghost King could handle him.

He was prepared to pay for the king’s price, even if it was for (a piece of) his soul. It wouldn’t be the first time he made a shady deal, and it wouldn’t be the last. A green portal opened up above the magic circle he had drawn.

The candles went out, and the room got cold.

What came out was an eldritch being with galaxies dying and being born in his eyes. He had a crown of ice-cold fire over his white, floating hair and a cape that bellowed behind him. The cape had stars sewn into it. His limbs were long, longer than they should be. The being’s fingers tapered off into long, green claws. His fangs were dripping green liquid. His skin was blue, and he had elf-like ears. He had on a black and white suit of armor.

Its physical appearance didn’t throw John off; no, it was its aura.

John bowed before the entity, “Ghost King, I have summoned you for help. I am willing to give you my soul if you help me get rid of the spirit called Nocturne. He has been causing havoc by putting both citizens and heroes into a deep slumber.”

John felt a cold sweat starting the longer the being stared at him.

“I accept your offer, John Constantine,” the voice boomed. “I will capture Nocturne in exchange for adopting you into my family.”

“Thank you—wait, what?”

The being took a more human-like shape. His skin was pale, and his white hair no longer floated as if gravity had no hold. He was wearing a black and white hazmat suit with a stylized “D” and “P” in the middle of his chest.”

“You offered your soul; I accepted.”

“Yeah, my soul. How does that translate to me being adopted by you?”

The entity smiled, “In the Infinite Realms, offering your soul to a spirit or ghost means being adopted by them. How do you think I got adopted by the Ruler of Time?”

Fuck, John hadn’t known that! Maybe he should’ve done more research.

“I’ve always wanted a son,” the entity said in a chipper voice. “Now, let dad get rid of the problem for you, and then I’ll be back.”

The being disappeared, and he reappeared before John could process what had happened.

“Oh, and we’re gonna talk about why your soul is in pieces.”

The being disappeared again.

John took out a cigarette. He had no idea what happened, but he knew one thing: there was no way in hell he was calling that thing ‘dad.’

Two years later, The Watchtower

It was time to call his dad.

Trigon had merged with the Devil Nezha and had become unstoppable. There was nothing the Justice League and Justice League Dark could do. As embarrassing as it will be to have his dad help him, at least there’ll still be a world to be embarrassed in.

 John put out his cigarette.

“Okay, I have a solution. I don’t like it, but we have to summon the Ghost King.”

“The Ghost King? Isn’t he a tyrant,” Deadman asked.

The rest of the heroes started protesting when they heard what Deadman said. John shouldn’t have made him visible.

John whistled to get their attention.

“A new king replaced the old tyrant through the right of conquest years ago. He’s not the same as Pariah Dark.”

“How do you know,” Batman asked.

Paranoid bastard.

“I’ve met him. He’s a good person if a bit over the top.”

“Hn,” Batman grunted, “and you’ll think he’ll help you?”

“He will, for a price. One I’m going to have to pay.”

Before the others could protest, John used the summoning ritual his dad had given him to get him directly.

His dad came out of the circle in his eldritch form. Many of the Leaguers stepped back or got on the defensive.

“Dad, you’re scaring my colleagues. Can you tone it down a bit?”

“Dad,” the word echoed through the room.

His father smiled, showing his fangs.

“Sure thing, Johnny,” Danny Phantom, aka the Ghost King, answered in a booming voice.

Soon, he was in his Phantom getup, hazmat and all. He kept his ghostly tail, which he used to wind around John’s body. Dad smoothed John’s hair and kissed him on the cheek. He sighed. His dad was very touchy-feely.

Dad’s eyes went to the cigarette at John’s feet and frowned. Fuck. John felt a lecture coming.

“Johnny, are you still smoking?”

“No,” he answered at the same time that Hal Jordan, the wanker, said “yes.”

No wonder Batman hated him.

“This is so cute,” Flash said while taking a picture. Ha, the joke was on him; his dad corrupted pictures on modern cameras.

“Can we get back to the problem on hand,” Batman said.

Thank the Ancients for the stick in the mud.

“Batman’s right,” John said, “Dad, there are two demons on Earth that are causing havoc, and we can’t stop them. I’m willing to go to the, ugh, family reunion if you take care of them for me.”

“Johnny, I would’ve done it for free, but since you offered, I’ll accept your terms.”

Damn, he wished he knew that sooner.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

His dad disappeared, leaving an awkward silence behind.

“So, um, does that make you a prince,” Superman asked.

“Hell no, he can’t make me accept that title even when he’s begged,” John said, crossing his arms.

“But your dad is a king,” Aquaman said, “That makes you a prince.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he protested.

“How did this even happen,” Wonder Woman asked, “You said you don’t have a father.”

“First of all, I said I have an abusive asshole of a father. Secondly, getting adopted by the King of the Infinite Realms was a bloody accident.”

“How do you accidentally get adopted by the King of Ghosts?” Zatanna asked.

“Well, Zee, in the Infinite Realms, when you offer your soul, it means you’re permitting them to adopt you. I hadn’t known that when I sold him my soul.”

“John, you have got to stop pawning your soul off like that,” Zatanna lectured him.

“Save it, Zee; dad already gave me the talk. Besides, no demon or spirit would take my soul after he adopted me. I have nothing left to bargain with,” he said bitterly.

John took out another cigarette and lit up when his father appeared. John sighed at his dad’s disappointed frown and put out the cigarette. Having a caring parent was exhausting.

“That was quick,” Batman said, “were you able to defeat him?”

“Yep,” his dad answered while pulling out a Fenton Thermos from his chest cavity.

“I had them close to my chest,” he said with a smirk. Damn his dad’s urge to spit out puns.

“So, they're in that little thermos,” Flash asked incredulously. To be fair, John had had the same reaction when his dad had explained the function of the thermos.

He had shut his mouth when he saw a demonstration.

“Yeah, demons are just spirits. Corrupted, evil spirits, but spirits nonetheless. This little baby captures and holds spirits. I’ll take them to the Infinite Realms and keep an eye on them.”

“Wait a minute,” great; Batman just had to interrupt, “How do we know they will be contained in that thing? How do we know you won’t let them loose or control them for your gain?”

Dad rolled his eyes.

“Please, if I wanted to take over the Earth, I wouldn’t need these two weaklings. Besides, I have a whole dimension aptly called the Infinite Realms that I have to deal with. The last thing I need is to add another headache to my plate.

“Johnny,” his dad turned to him, “I expect to see you at the reunion this Saturday. Your aunts are dying to see you again. Oh, Diana, you can come, too. I would love to get to know my niece.”

His dad left, leaving him to stare at Wonder Woman awkwardly.

“What does he mean ‘niece?’” She asked.

John scratched the back of his neck.

“Dad’s dad might be Kronos.”

“What,” Diana asked. Damn it, dad, you couldn’t have kept that yourself?

Chapter Text

Edward Lancer knew something was wrong. It started with students who rarely, if ever, acted out suddenly stealing from the teacher’s lounge. It escalated to property damage, and—finally—it went to ghosts.

He tried the Justice League a few times but never got a response.

(His students' calls to the heroes went unanswered. Men in white suits showed up instead.)

Then, one day, every teacher, faculty member, and volunteer for the school was sat in an assembly by the frauds—he meant government agents.

“If we find you helping the ghosts, especially this so-called Danny Phantom,” they spat the ghost boy’s name, “you will be arrested and tried as a traitor to the United States of America.”

The elder Fentons stood by the agents’ sides.

(Lancer’s students’ calls became frantic. He knew it was pointless; he suspected interference from the GIW.)

He watched as the Danny Phantom protected the town with his entire afterlife. He watched as Danny Fenton’s bags grew bigger and bigger every day.

Edward Lancer saw how his student’s bright eyes became dimmer and dimmer every day.

(The Fenton’s and GIW were causing more property damage than the ghosts.)

Every other day marked a new ghost attack.

(Every day marked the whine of a new ghost gadget pointed at civilians by the so-called ghost hunters.)

Would the Justice League be okay with the threat to civilians? Lancer liked to think they wouldn’t be.  

(Ms. Manson’s and Mr. Foley’s grades plummeted. They had new bruises every other day.)

Would the Justice League help if there wasn’t interference by the assholes government agents?

(Mr. Fenton’s shoulders curved more inward every day.)

Edward Lancer had to help.

(Ms. Jazz Fenton’s eyes grew more and more desperate every day.)

____

Metropolis was a big city. It could probably fit ten Amity Parks within its borders.

It was good for his students to see the outside world. The freshmen were excited to see the city.

Mr. Fenton looked out the window with bright eyes.

(The letter in his pocket burned an imaginary hole.)

Ms. Manson took pictures of the Daily Planet’s globe.

(If he could only get Superman’s or Lois Lane’s attention.)

Mr. Foley salivated at all the new tech he saw being used.

(An attack happened. Lex Luthor had his expensive boxers in a twist.)

“All right, class. Stay calm! Remember your training and get to a safe place! Ms. Tetslaff, I’ll make sure there are no students that have been left behind.”

“Alright, you lily-footed princesses, this is where all my training comes into play. Run, now!”

Mr. Fenton hesitated. Lancer shook his head.

Mr. Fenton nodded and went after his classmates.

Edward Lancer walked against the running crowd. He had to get to Superman. He saw the Man of Steel fighting in the sky against a suit of armor. Lancer hid between two pieces of debris, watching the fight.

(There’s a boy who fights in the sky in his small town.)

He watched the fight with a critical eye, waiting for his opportunity.

He waited…waited…waited…

There! The fight was done.

Superman watched, confused, as a balding man wearing a black tie and gray pantsuit looked him straight in the eyes and deliberately left a letter on the floor.

“I have to believe you and the Justice League will not be okay with what we are going through,” his super hearing picked up. The man turned around and walked calmly between the wreckage.

The haunted look in the man’s eyes would stay with Clark Kent for a long time.

Chapter Text

“Who are you,” a 16-year-old Daniel Fenton asked Damian Al Ghul-Wayne.

The older twin didn’t know how to answer that question.

Eight-year-old Danyal Al Ghul had just escaped the League of Assassins by killing his handlers and faking his death. It wasn’t that hard. All he had to do was make sure the bodies were burned enough that the teeth couldn’t be used to be identified. He found a corpse his size and gender, and boom, Danyal Al Ghul was no more.

He was able to survive thanks to his League training.

Eventually, while using a water fountain to bathe at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere America, he was found by the Fentons.

“You know you’re making a mess, right,” a 10-year-old with red hair asked him, her hands on her hips.

“Yeah, so? Mind your business, you fink.”

The girl frowned, “Where are your parents?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. I can take care of myself.”

The girl looked at him, incredulous.

“But you’re so small! Every kid has a mommy and daddy.”

“Not me,” he stated proudly, “and if I did, I don’t remember them.”

“Oh, you poor, wretched soul. You’re an orphan.”

“The fu—the hell did you just call me?”

“Mom, dad, there’s an orphaned kid bathing with the water fountain.”

Danyal had been too shocked to run away when the girl grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her parents. By the time he had thought to fight back, he had been in the clutches of a behemoth of man that not even his training could Danyal fight off.

(Seriously, was the man half-gorilla? Why was he so strong?)

Eventually, the questions started.

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t know, I think it’s Daniel.”

“Where are your parents?”

A shrug.

“Do you know where you’re from?”

“Nope,” he said while popping the ‘p.’

Somehow, he ended up being fostered and later adopted by the Fentons. Danyal, now Daniel James Fenton,

Later, Danny would cringe at the memories of wanting to kill and/or maim his adopted family. Thank the Ancients they weren’t normal, or they would’ve questioned why Danny was such a violent and stabby child.

He grew up as a (semi)normal teenager while his parents cared for him. They were obsessed with ghosts and trying to prove their existence, but they cared for him more than his mother ever did.

(Danny ignored his twinge of pain when thinking about his older twin brother.)

He made friends with two outcasts: Tucker Foley and Sam Manson.

The portal accident happened, and he followed in his bio dad’s footsteps to become the hero of Amity Park.

On his fifteenth birthday (not that his parents knew it was his birthday.), Danny told them the truth. No, not about the assassin thing (he would take that to the grave), about the Phantom thing. They took it surprisingly well.

They had been horrified when they found out they had been shooting at ‘their baby boy.’

Danny’s parents helped him capture and release the ghosts now, letting him catch up with school work and much-needed sleep.

He helped with his parents’ research and showed them around the Ghost Zone. They ate up every bit of information they got.

His half-life continued, and he still claimed amnesia the rare times his parents or sister asked him about his past.

It all went downhill one random spring morning. He woke up to find his brother and biological father standing in his living room.

“Akhi,” Damian breathed out.

“Who are you,” Danny asked without thinking. He felt terrible when his brother’s face fell, and their biological father looked saddened, his eyes suspiciously misty.

Now, how was he going to fix this?

The lies had caught up with him.

Chapter Text

“What now,” asked the citizens of Gotham City as green portals opened randomly.

They had just suffered a severe earthquake. Well, all of New Jersey and New York did, but their government had abandoned them. They had asked for help and had received excuses.

“We’re short on money,” they said, “We can send some medical aid but not much more.”

“But we’re hungry,” they cried out, “we’re homeless!”

“We’re sorry,” was all they received back.

 After all, why should they fork out money for such a hellhole anyway? In a city so ridden in crime, what was the point of helping?

Who cared if thousands died? Who cared if thousands upon thousands more ended up homeless? So, the Gothamites were stuck taking care of themselves. There was only so much Bruce Wayne could do. Even the rogues helped when they could (barring the Joker. Thankfully, he was still in Arkham, which was mostly intact.)

Ivy used her plants to keep the infrastructure from falling or becoming more damaged. Victor Fries, aka Mr. Freeze, kept people cool in the middle of the hot summer days. Electricity was still out for many people.

Oswald Cobblepot used his money to help open temporary shelters and allowed people to stay in his lounge.

Goons and gang members worked alongside paramedics. The Riddler was seen handing out clothing and food alongside Red Hood. Unfortunately, after the first two weeks, supplies were running low.

They tried the government again to be met with more excuses.

It was the middle of the day when the portals opened.

What was it this time? An alien invasion, a new maniac trying to take advantage of the chaos? They didn’t expect a bunch of people and trucks to come out of the green swirls. They were more surprised by the glowing floating entities.

If you asked the average Gothamite who their sister city was, they would answer with, “We have a sister city?”

Over the years, as Gotham City grew bigger and bigger, they forgot there was a little city in Illinois that considered them their sister. Amity Park was only remembered as one of the most obscure bits of trivia pulled out during serious pub quizzes. The sign ‘sister city to Amity Park’ had long since been taken off from the welcome sign by vandals and never replaced.

Amity Park never forgot.

Amity Park also knew what it felt like to be screwed over by the government. (They hated the GIW.)

When they heard what happened in Gotham City and that the government wasn’t helping, well, what better way to say ‘fuck you’ to the government than by being a good neighbor to the city they had abandoned?

The Gothamites were ready to fight these new intruders when a boy with white hair and glowing green eyes spoke up.

“Citizens of Gotham City, my name is Phantom. I am the hero of Amity Park, your sister city. We also know what it feels like to have the government abandon us during our time of need, so, with your permission, we come here with aid.”

They had been suspicious at first, but they desperately needed the help. So, they reluctantly agreed, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for their new saviors to turn out to be villains trying to mind-control them or something.

Batman warned Phantom that if he or any of the spirits turned on Gotham, he would bring a war to their doorsteps like they’d never seen before.

It never happened.

The Amity Parkers and their, ahem, ghosts helped the Gothamites with food, rebuilding, and other aid.

The Fentons, an eccentric family with crazy ideas that shouldn’t help but did, brought new technological advancements that helped bring power to the city. It had the extra bonus of being clean and sustainable, getting Poison Ivy to love their way of working.

Samantha Manson helped Ivy with plants and rebuilding parks. She had a similar ability to Poison Ivy, if a bit weaker.  

Tucker Foley and Technus used their abilities to bring back lights and other electronics that helped run the city.

Danny Fenton helped organize teenagers from both Amity Park and Gotham to help the ghosts rebuild buildings when they could or give out necessities to those who couldn’t go to the set-up checkpoints.

Phantom helped direct the ghosts so their talents could be used where they were mostly needed.

Bruce Wayne didn’t know what to think of the Fentons at first. He was highly suspicious of these people who wanted to ‘help’ his city. Eventually, Maddie Fenton got tired of being interrogated and told Bruce they would help Gotham whether he wanted them to or not. He backed off after being yelled at by a small red-haired woman.

(His children laughed at him that night. He sulked for the remainder of the week.)

The ghosts never got tired, so they worked around the clock building infrastructure and roads. It helped that the ghosts seemed to love building so the Gothamites didn’t feel like they were taking advantage.

A ghost, simply known as the Lunch Lady, helped cook huge amounts of food to help feed those who had no way to feed themselves. When she wasn’t feeding people, the Amity Parkers would bring casseroles to help sustain the city. The people of Gotham welcomed the food.

Soon, the Amity Parkers and their ghosts were a welcomed and loved part of Gotham City.

When the GIW came warning the Gothamites that the ghosts were evil and would turn on them, the Gothamites booed them and chased them out of the city, endearing them to the Amity Parkers even more. Even Batman and his brood helped chase the agents wearing white suits out of their city. They didn’t return.

Eventually, Gotham was back on its feet quicker than they thought possible, thanks to their sister city. The mayor thanked the Amity Parkers, and Phantom was invited to join the Justice League.

It was a bittersweet day when the green portals closed and the Amity Parkers returned home. They weren’t needed anymore, but the Gothamites would miss their saviors.

From then on, Gotham never forgot about Amity Park. And if the Spirit of Gotham kept in touch with Phantom, the protector of Amity Park, well, that was her right.

Chapter Text

Tim entered his penthouse, tired after a long night out on patrol. He wanted to get out of his Red Robin suit and fall asleep on his sheets.

He was not expecting to find anyone in his home.

He got defensive when he noticed the red-haired girl sitting on his coffee table. All of his papers had been stacked to the side. She was staring at an unconscious black-haired boy on his couch. There was blood on the floor. The lights coming through the window gave the blood green flecks.

He pushed his panic button, barely making any noise. The girl seemed to have heard him because her attention snapped to him. Tim opened his comms so his family could hear and see what was going on.

The girl had teal eyes that glowed. Something about her seemed familiar, but Tim couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

Before he could ask any questions, the girl spoke.

“According to our parents' medical files, they needed a donor to have kids. We have the same father. That makes you our older brother.”

Tim didn’t know what to say to that. Her breathing was starting to pick up and become erratic. The bags under her eyes looked bigger than Tim’s, and he had only slept four hours in the past two days.

“How did you get in here—”

“You’re the only relative we have that won’t hurt us!”

Ah, fuck.

Well, first thing first, “Is he injured?”

Jazz took her younger brother off the table and ran. She had gotten there in time before her parents had done any real damage. They had still been able to make an incision on Danny’s chest.

When she saw her bleeding baby brother, she didn’t think. Using the element of surprise, she attacked Maddie and Jack with the anti-creep stick. She got in her car and drove in a random direction. After a few hours of driving, she stopped and tried to staunch Danny’s bleeding. His advanced healing stopped him from bleeding to death, thank the Ancients.

 Jazz was glad she had made a plan in case something like this happened.

She took out the first aid kit in her trunk and used butterfly bandages to close up the incision. She never learned how to sew a person up. Usually, Danny did it to himself. He still hadn’t woken up.

She knew the bandages wouldn’t be enough, but they would have to do. Jazz took out the fake license plates she had hidden in the car and changed them. There was no reason to make finding them easier for her paren—for Jack and Maddie.

Jazz counted the money she had in the car and took stock of her supplies. She had the disposable cellphones with Tucker and Sam’s number programmed. A few thousand dollars in cash, thank you, Sam, and fake IDs Tucker had made for them.

The most important thing, though, was the information on one Timothy Drake-Wayne.

While making plans in case the worst happened, Tucker found out that Maddie and Jack Fenton used a donor to have both Jazz and Danny. He had hacked the agency that the Fentons used. They had used Jack Drake’s sperm to help conceive them.

Jack had been an old friend of the Fentons who had agreed to help. After donating, he had signed away all parental rights. Maddie had carried Jazz and Danny. Over the years, the Fentons had lost touch with Jack.

Jack had a son, though, who was older than Jazz and Danny. 

Timothy Drake-Wayne was the biological child of millionaires Janet and Jack Drake and the adopted son of Bruce Wayne. He was rich enough to buy the Ancients and, apparently, had enough goodwill to provide protection and medical attention.

It helped that he was Red Robin.

He was their last hope.

Tim sucked in his breath when he saw the incision on the middle of the younger teenager’s chest. It looked like someone had started vivisecting him. He had been wrong earlier. It wasn’t the light distorting the boy’s blood to seem green; there was green mixed in with the red. What’s more, it was Lazarus green. Was he a meta-human?

 “What are your names,” he asked. He at least needed to know that.

The girl hesitated for a second before answering.

“My name is Jazz, that’s Danny.”

No last names. Great.

“Don’t worry, Red Robin. I’m using facial recognition and tracking any mention of siblings named Jazz or Danny. I’m also looking through your dad’s medical files. If he donated like she mentioned, there must be records on it.” Thank God for Oracle.

“How’d you find me? And why aren’t you surprised that I’m Red Robin?”

“It’s not that hard to figure out your identity. Or the rest of Gotham’s heroes. There’s only one guy who is rich enough to be Batman and fits the psychological profile to want to fight crime in Gotham City. Once you figure out Bruce Wayne is Batman, it’s easy to find the identity of the other crime-fighters in Gotham.”

Huh, so that’s what it feels like to have your secret identity exposed. He’d have to apologize to Dick and Bruce.

“What happened to him? Why are you running from your family?”

Jazz hesitated and bit her lips. She was still determining if she should trust him.

“I can’t help if I don’t have the whole story,” he told her gently. He was a hero. Whether it turned out that they were his siblings or not, they had come to him for help.

Jazz sighed and dropped her face into her hands. She didn’t know where to start. Tim took out his first aid kit while he waited. He was about to put thread through a needle when Jazz stopped him.

“That thread won’t work. His blood will eat through it. Here,” she took out some glowing green string from her first aid kit, “this will help.”

Tim didn’t question it, but he did file that bit of information away for later. He knew Bruce was doing the same thing. He wondered if they were already here, listening in from the outside, not to spook or give away their location to Jazz.

Tim started sewing up the wound. He discreetly took some of Danny’s blood to test later.

“Just so you know, there will be anomalies in his blood, so don’t freak out when you see that. It’ll still be good enough for DNA testing. Also, if you can burn the evidence when you’re done, that’d be great.”

Tim had thought he had been discreet.

“Damn, Replacement, you’re losing your touch,” Jason said over the comms. Tim didn’t answer, but he did grit his teeth. He should’ve known Jazz would be observant.

“We’re running from our parents. Danny was in a lab accident a year ago. It—it changed him. My parents are ectobiologists. They study ghosts and ectoplasm.”

Tim was listening intently while sewing up the younger boy. He didn’t react to the word ‘ghost.’ He’d seen weirder things. Tim heard typing through the comms.

“A few years ago, my parents built a portal to the Ghost Zone. It’s a dimension where ghosts and other ectoentities exist. It didn’t work the first time they tried to turn it on.” She took a deep breath. “My parents are very lax when it comes to lab safety. They let us enter with little to no protection. Danny had gone to the basement, that’s where the portal and lab is, with his friends.”

Tim continued sewing the boy up, but he could guess where this was going.

“His friends had dared him to go into the portal. I wasn’t there, so I couldn’t stop him. My parents, heh, they’re brilliant but scatterbrained. They built the ‘on’ button inside the portal. From what Danny tells me, he tripped and pressed the on button. A portal to another dimension turned on top of him. It killed him and revived him at the same time. When he came out, his DNA had been mutated. He had powers that only ghosts had and some that were unique to him.”

Tim took a deep breath. He had thankfully finished with the stitches.

Bruce entered through the window silently and in the shadows. Jazz turned to look at him. Wow, she had to be a meta-human, too.

She ignored the bat and looked at Danny, carding her hands through his hair.

“Opening the portal had consequences. Ghosts suddenly overran Amity Park. Danny used his powers to become Amity’s hero. He kept both humans and ghosts safe. Our parents are also ghost hunters. They think all ghosts are evil and would hunt them without prejudice to destroy or study them. Their papers were used to justify making the Anti-Ecto Acts. Laws that allow the capture, experimentation, and genocide of being that uses or produces ectoplasm.”

“I don’t know how they found out about Danny, but I’ll ask him when he wakes up. He’s only woken up for a few minutes at a time. He used his powers to sneak us up here. Sorry about that, by the way. I don’t know what they used on him to make him sleep this long. Usually, he only sleeps two or three hours a night, but now, he’s been sleeping for almost two days.”

“I looked into the Anti-Ecto Act Laws. Guys, bad doesn’t even begin to describe it,” Oracle said.

“Hn,” Bruce said while looking at the information Oracle was sending him to the computer in his glove.

Tim stared at Jazz. He knew now why she looked a bit familiar. She had Jack Drake’s nose and chin. Danny had his mouth and eye shape. Looking at his two (possible) siblings, Tim knew he would do anything to help them.

It seemed he would add more to the brother and sister department.

Chapter Text

Sheila had left.

It had been a mistake to sleep with her. Vlad had been feeling lonely, and Maddie wasn’t paying attention to him, so he slept with the blond woman. A few weeks later, she came back and delivered a bombshell. She was pregnant, and the baby was his.

He didn’t know what to do, but he accepted the fact. Vlad had been there for Sheila throughout her appointments. He was there for every craving, every pain, for everything. Vlad had been there for the ultrasound and cried when he heard the baby’s heartbeat. He had felt the little badger’s first kicks and was there when his son was born.

Jason Peter Masters.

At least, he hoped Sheila would let him give his son his last name. She still hadn’t given it to him to sign.

His son was perfect. Looking at him, there was no doubt he was his, but, under Sheila’s instance, he got a DNA test. It came back positive.

“Don’t worry, Sheila. I will do everything to take care of this little one.”

Without warning, Sheila left and took his son with him a week later. She hadn’t even contacted him. Being a broke college student, Vlad didn’t have many resources to find her and his son. He vowed to save money and find his son in the future.

For the time being, he threw himself into his work.

(He ignored the nightmares of a black-haired, blue-eyed baby in trouble. His son would be fine.)

Vlad ended up throwing himself into his work. He felt pain when looking at Maddie as she seemed to ignore him.

(He missed his son.)

Jack was a distraction, at least. The bigger man was boisterous and found ways to distract Vlad from his pain with his attitude.

They finally finished the Proto portal. Vlad was only half paying attention as he stared into the portal.

(His son would be one month old today.)

The portal lit up, and a beam hit him straight in the face. When it went away, Maddie and Jack stared at him, horrified.

____

Vlad fired an ectobeam at the little badger.

Danny quickly put up a green shield. The boy was learning. He had come into his powers quicker than Vlad did.

“Good, little badger, you’re getting better.”

Vlad made duplicates of himself, “Now imagine how much better you would get if you just accepted me as your father. I can make you into the perfect son!”

“Why do you keep doing this? What is your obsession with having the ‘perfect son?’”

Vlad stopped attacking. Long-buried emotions came back unbidden.

“You remind me of my son. He would’ve looked like you.”

Danny was stunned into silence. What had the fruit loop said?

“I’m sorry. I could’ve sworn I heard you say I reminded you of your son?”

Vlad detransformed. He had a dreamy look on his face, his eyes misty.

“Yes, my little badger. He was perfect. He had black hair and blue eyes and these cute little puffy cheeks. His little chubby legs and arms were so adorable, and he would scrunch up his face whenever he went in his diaper.”

“Why are you bothering me if you have a kid?”

Vlad’s face turned angry.

“His mother took him away a week after he was born. She didn’t even tell me! She was just gone, one day, that bitch! What’s worse, after I made my fortune, I discovered through a private detective that she had given him up.”

“If she was going to do that, why didn’t she just leave him with me? I would’ve taken good care of my little badger! Then I found out she left him with a good-for-nothing abusive asshole. Willis Todd thought he was the father, but he wasn’t. I am!”

Vlad was breathing hard by the end of his rant. Danny didn’t know what to do, so he went back to his human form and put an arm on the man’s shoulder. He looked close to a breakdown.

“His adoptive mother died. Jason ended up in the streets for a while before he got adopted by Bruce Wayne. I was ecstatic—a lead. My son was with one of the wealthiest men in the world. He had to be safe there!”

Vlad sighed.

“He went to look for Sheila in Ethiopia and died with her in an explosion. I don’t know how, but she had to have been the reason for his death. I can feel it deep in my core.”

“I’m sorry,” Danny said. He had no idea what to do. It was easier to fight.

“I couldn’t even find him in the Infinite Realms. His ghost wasn’t there.”

Danny did something he never thought he would. He hugged Vlad.

Vlad broke down crying for the first time since he found out what happened to his son.

“I miss him, Daniel; I miss my little badger so much.”

Hundreds of miles away, in Gotham City, Red Hood patrolled his territory.

Suddenly, he felt a chill go down his spine, and he sneezed. He looked around but was alone. Still, he couldn’t help but feel like someone was watching him, talking about him.

He looked around one more time but saw no one.

Jason shrugged.

He took out his grappling hook and engaged it. He had a city to protect.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

It’s official: Tim had turned into his dad.

No, not Jack Drake. He had turned into Bruce Wayne.

“What am I even doing,” he asked himself as he forged the papers.

Beside him, a toddler snored peacefully. Tim couldn’t even blame his impulsive act on sleep deprivation.

He wasn’t any toddler, though; he was one with powers. He had white hair and glowing (Lazarus) green eyes. He also had powers—Tim had to investigate this obviously pit-mad toddler with powers. What better way to investigate than by adopting him?

…Better yet…

Nobody in Gotham would be surprised at a teen father. Tim had the money and the skills to forge a birth certificate. Babs owed him a favor so she could easily forge camera footage…Why the hell not?

Besides, he was the ward of one of the wealthiest men in Gotham. A surprise love child wouldn’t be such a new thing. Hell, Bruce had done it with Damian.

A new idea formed in his mind, and Tim quickly started implementing it. He picked up his communicator and talked to his teammates. He needed their help if this was going to work. Then he messaged Barbara. Soon, Tim had everything he needed to make his story convincing.

Beside him, the child slept on.

____

Bruce’s bullshit censors were going off.

Tim was fussing over a white-haired toddler he had suddenly brought to the manor. Just the day before, Tim had been child-free. Bruce had seen Tim leaving the office with a briefcase and muttering about deadlines and patrol. At no point in time had Tim mentioned a child.

“Tim, where did that child come from?”

Tim turned his hip to hide the toddler, “Back off, he’s mine.”

“Oh, really, now? Where did he come from?”

“Yep, he’s my clone. I found him before they could accelerate his growth.”

Bruce’s bullshit censors suddenly went from ringing to blaring.

“Is that so? Then where does the white hair come from? Why doesn’t he look like you?”

Tim shrugged, “It’s a Kon situation. They mixed my genes with some of my Young Justice teammates, and this was the result. My genes are just the strongest in the mix.”

The toddler suddenly started floating and going through the wall. Tim seemed unsurprised.

“It’s impressive that in a little over twenty-four hours, you were able to find out about a cloning project, rescue that clone, and find out he was your clone mixed with your teammates.”

Tim shrugged nonchalantly, “I’m just that good.”

“Tim…”

“I already wrote the mission report. I have footage, too, if you want to look that over. Now, if you excuse me, I have to talk to my teammates.”

“Tim, wait!”

But his son had already run out the door.

____

Tim crashed into his bed. His phone had not stopped blowing up all day. Between his teammates demanding Tim show up to Titan tower with ‘their child’ and his siblings asking questions and freaking the fuck out, his phone hadn’t known any peace.

Tim glared at the little toddler he had named Robert.

“This is your fault, you know.”

The kid smiled, and suddenly, there was a blinding light.

Instead of a white-haired, green-eyed toddler, there was a black-haired, blue-eyed one.

“No, now I have to make a new birth certificate!”

Danny, now Robert, laughed at his new father’s distress.

Chapter Text

Technus floated through the ghost boy’s personal computer.

He had fought the ghost boy again and lost…again.

Technus was angry. It wasn’t fair that the ghost boy constantly thwarted his plans for world domination.

This time, though, Technus was going to have a better plan. He had hidden in the boy’s computer to find something that could help him conquer the world. So far, he had only found files on the ghost boy’s enemies, a few files of the game Doom, and pictures—nothing he could use.

“Hello, what’s this?”

Technus opened the file and saw the juiciest video. He grinned; it looked like he wouldn’t have to do much to get rid of the ghost boy.

____

Bruce Wayne had been in the middle of reading a report for Wayne Enterprises.

An email notification suddenly popped up. He took a quick glance and did a double-take.

The subject header read: An Email from Your Son.

Bruce quickly went through every last one of his children but couldn’t think of anyone who would send him an email instead of a text.

Bruce ensured all his malware protection made by Barbara was up and running before opening the suspicious email. A video was attached to it, which made Bruce’s paranoia ricochet up. He hesitated for a few moments before his curiosity got the best of him. He pressed on the link and waited with growing trepidation as the video downloaded.

When he pressed on it, he saw a boy who looked like Damian but wasn’t. First, he had blue eyes. Blue eyes like Bruce’s. Secondly, he was paler than Damian, and his hair was longer and shaggier. The boy also held himself differently. While Damian stood and sat straight and proud with a haughty look most of the time, the boy on the screen hunched and didn’t seem to have any confidence.

“This video is for the eyes of Bruce Wayne only. If anyone other than Bruce Wayne sees this, well, let’s say it isn’t gonna be pretty for you, and your life will be in danger. Honestly, even if you are Bruce Wayne, your life will be in danger anyway.”

“Cool, now that we have established that,” the boy took a deep breath. “Hi, Dad. Sorry for throwing that out there, but I couldn’t think of another way to tell you who I am. My name is Danny Fenton, but I was born Danyal Al Ghul, the younger twin brother of Damian Al Ghul, heir to the demon head. This email is set to be sent automatically three days if I haven’t opened it. If you’re seeing this message, then I’m dead. Or at least, more dead than I already am,” Danny mumbled the last part.

Bruce felt his heart fall to the bottom of his stomach. He had another child…one who was dead if this video was to be believed.

“It may be cruel of me to send you a to send you a message post-mortem, but you deserve the truth, and telling you earlier would’ve put you in danger. As to how this video wasn’t sent earlier, well, when I know I’ll be on vacation or something else comes up, I set it up in a way to give me more time so there’s no way for this to be sent by accident.”

Danny took another deep breath and straightened his shoulders. Bruce could see the remnants of Bruce and Talia in him as his eyes sharpened with determination.

“I don’t know how I died, or should I say, who most likely killed me. I have a lot of enemies. It could’ve been the GIW; maybe it was one of my rouges or even my adoptive parents, the Fentons. I was a superhero, Phantom, in my small town. Not everyone saw me as one.”

Bruce could see the haunting look in his son’s eyes—the same look he saw every morning in the mirror, the same one that shone in his other children’s eyes.

“When I was fourteen, I died. It was a stupid accident. My parents had built a portal to the afterlife. It didn’t work. I was being stupid. My friend wanted me to go into it so she could take a picture. My parents are smart but airheaded. They put the power switch inside the portal. I tripped and accidentally turned it on.”

“Dying sucked. I’ll spare you the details, but it wasn’t pretty. When I got out of the portal, I was alive but changed. I had ghost powers. It turns out that having an interdimensional portal opening on top of you can turn you into a half ghost-half human freak of nature.”

“Thanks to my fuck up, pardon the French, a bunch of ghosts were now able to freely come to our world through the portal and cause chaos. I had powers, and I could stop them. It’s not like I couldn’t do anything, so I started fighting them, and voila, I became a superhero.”

“My parents are ghost hunters and have vowed to get rid of ghosts ‘molecule by molecule,’ and since they don’t know I’m Phantom, that includes me. So, if it turns out that they did kill me, please don’t judge them. They didn’t know it was their son, and I take full responsibility for that. Oh, also, due to the whole ‘molecule by molecule’ thing, the chances of there being a body to be buried is basically zilch. Sorry about that.”

Bruce made a distressed noise at his son, apologizing for there being no body to bury. Were all his children cursed to suffer?

“Now that that is out of the way, I’m sending this email because now that I am gone, no one is left to save Damian from the League of Assassins. We were raised in an assassin cult. I faked my death at six years old and escaped. My biggest regret was leaving Damian behind to suffer at the hands of our grandfather, Ra’s Al Ghul.”

“You’re a civilian. If you learn too much about the League of Assassins, you'll be in danger, but I need you to save Damian. He’s likely still there. Damian took great pride in being the Demon’s Head heir. He’ll be a little stabby, a by-product of being raised by our fruit loop of our grandfather. Our grandfather also brainwashed him. He tried with me, too, but Damian was a bit more susceptible because he was raised to believe he would be the best in the world after our grandfather.”

“It’s not his fault, so please be patient with him and save him. I’m begging you. My biggest regret was not getting him out of the League; now, I’m dead. But you, father, you have a chance to save him. I can only hope the rumors that you have connections with the Justice League are true.”

Tears streamed down Danny’s face, and Bruce was close to following his son’s footsteps.

“Please, please, save him.”

Danny stared straight at the screen, piercing Bruce’s soul.

“My second regret was not being able to get to know you. From what I’ve seen with your older kids, you seem like a cool dad. I bet you’re the same way with the youngest one you hide from the public. I wish you all the best, dad. Thank you for listening. From Danny Fenton, your almost certainly dead by now, son.”

The screen went blank, and what he had just seen finally hit Bruce. He had another son—one who was most likely dead. One who followed Bruce Wayne. If Bruce had just let Damian be seen by the public more, Danny would’ve seen his twin and most likely made contact sooner.

Bruce let himself wallow a bit more in pity and grief and then picked up his phone.

“Father,” Damian answered instead of a greeting.

Bruce ignored the curt greeting and went straight to the point.

“Damian, did you have a twin brother named Danyal?”

“Who told you,” Damian asked in a tight voice. That was all the confirmation Bruce needed. He hung up on his youngest, afraid he would say something stupid. Damian called as soon as Bruce hung up.

Bruce ignored his (second) youngest and texted Damian the video.

A few minutes later, Damian called back.

“Father, I don’t care what state he is in. We must discover the truth of what happened to my brother. I don’t care if only a single molecule is left; we must find the truth.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

____

Danny was lounging on the sofa watching TV.

He had failed to find Technus, but he knew the boisterous ghost would reappear. For the time being, Danny could relax and catch up on his shows. Danny was about to pop a handful of popcorn when the doorbell rang.

He frowned. He didn’t want to get up.

“Door,” he yelled into the house.

Silence answered him.

Danny got up and grumbled to the door. He didn’t think to see who it was before opening. It was Amity. Ghosts didn’t knock, and the GIW crashed instead of knocking, so it couldn’t be them.

Danny opened the door and came face-to-face with a frowning Damian Al Ghul.

Danny’s mouth fell open.

“Dami—Damian?! What—how?”

Damian tackled Danny.

“Akhi, you’re alive!”

“How—what, of course, I’m alive, why wouldn’t I be? How did you find me?”

“Danny,” a deep voice said. For the first time in his life, Danny saw his father in real life instead of the covers of a magazine or through a screen.

Danny looked behind, making sure his parents hadn’t heard the door. Danny could hear his parents tinkering away still in the basement, engrossed in their latest project.

“Let’s take this outside,” he said while closing the door. He didn’t think their neighbors would even bat an eye at two strangers at the Fenton’s door. After all, they were weird people with multiple people coming and going.

“How did you find me,” Danny asked again.

Damian folded his arms and scowled at Danny.

“Well, it was the weirdest thing. Father got an email saying that you were dead and who or what could’ve caused it. We, of course, came right away to avenge you, but we came to find out that Daniel Fenton had just been to school today.”

“That’s impossible! I just reset the codes to the video. Nobody knows about it—Technus!”

That’s why Danny hadn’t been able to find the ghost; he had been in Danny’s computer messing around.

His brother’s scowl deepened.

“So you weren’t going to tell me you were alive! I mourned you all these years!”

“Damian,” Bruce Wayne, his father, spoke for the first time. He had a deep baritone voice that somehow soothed and scared Danny simultaneously.

“Give Danny some space. He’s been through a lot.”

“Tt,” Damian turned his face away from Danny.

“Dami, you’re out of the League,” Danny whispered, “I’m so glad you got out.”

Damian turned back to Danny, “You left without me. Why?”

“I—I knew I couldn’t convince you to come with me. I’ve been planning, though, to get you out. I was so close, too; I was going to get you out and deprogram you.”

“Well, I got out a long time ago. Why didn’t you go to father?”

Danny looked at Bruce Wayne, “He’s a civilian. I couldn’t bring him into this world.”

“Father is more than a civilian.”

“Damian, we can talk about this later. What’s this about a Technus?”

Danny sighed.

“Yeah, I should fix that. Come on, you might as well enter.”

Bruce frowned, “Wouldn’t your parents get angry for letting strangers in?”

Danny rolled his eyes, “Oh please, they’re so absorbed by their current project I might as well be invisible, pun intended.”

Damian groaned. Bruce, however, frowned. As he walked through the house, he became increasingly disturbed. Weapons were left out in the open. The security system attacked Danny randomly, and a mysterious green substance leaked from the walls. Bruce was also nervous about the huge addition added on top of the house. Damian and Bruce frowned at each other as they got deeper and deeper into the house.

The three of them entered Danny’s room. Damian couldn’t help but look around, wanting to know more about his long-lost twin. Danny liked space if the NASA posters and the hanging planets were anything to go by. He was messy. He had clothes thrown all over the place, and his bed was unkempt.

Danny opened his laptop and started looking through it. He let his brother and father look through his room. First, he had a job to do. He clicked the file he had his video saved and looked for any bugs.

It didn’t take long. Technus was still chilling in the file.

“Technus, you have five seconds to get out, or I go in there and kick your ass.”

“You cannot defeat me, ghost child, for I, Technus, am the master of all techn—.”

Danny didn’t let the ghost finish. He transformed and entered his computer, leaving behind a stunned Bruce and Damian.

It didn’t take long, and a few seconds later, Technus had been kicked out of his laptop. Danny was too angry to joke around. It didn’t take long for him to suck Technus up in the thermos.

A part of Danny was tempted to fly away and let all of this blow over, but deep down, he knew that was no longer possible. He looked into the horizon and turned back.

After all, his brother and father were here. He might as well face the future head-on and let it unfold.

Chapter Text

“Come in,” a voice said at the other side of the door. Danny took a deep breath to calm his nerves. It was just his new boss. What's the worst that could happen? He'd get fired and have to find a new job.

Of course, being in Gotham, finding a job that wasn't Wayne Enterprise would be hard, especially one that offered such a sweet deal, like the scholarship and health benefits he would receive. So, no, Danny couldn't screw this up.

Danny didn't know why the CEO wanted to meet the scholarship recipients/ new employees one-on-one, but who was he to question it? After all, rich people were weird.

Danny took one last deep breath and swallowed his nerves. Everything would be fine.

He entered and came face-to-face with Tim Drake, CEO of WE.

They stared at each other for all of five seconds before Mr. Drake jumped over his desk.

Danny gave an embarrassing shriek as he fell to the ground hard. Ow, that hurt! To be fair, though, what else was he supposed to do when tackled by someone who could be his twin? Or a clone.

Well, maybe biting him hadn't been a good idea.

Danny heard a hiss above him as he bit down harder. There was no way in the Infinite Realms he would let go anytime soon. If this was a clone sent to kill him, Danny had to protect himself. Then he could worry about deprogramming him.

The look-alike tried to shake off Danny, causing him to bite down even harder.

And things had just started calming down, too.

His parents had kicked him out after they found out he was Phantom. He had been homeless on his eighteenth birthday, but honestly, being homeless and not vivisected was better than what he thought was going to happen.

Thankfully, the trio and Jazz had made a plan in case Danny had to run away from his parents. Sam had opened a bank account for Danny with a little over twenty thousand dollars. He was lucky he didn't have to use the fake IDs Tucker had set up. His parents had let him take his papers.

Which was how he found out he was adopted.

Danny had talked to the air in the little motel room he had ended up that night, begging for help from Clockwork. Danny didn't know if Clockwork had pitied him, but the Ancient had appeared. Clockwork had given Danny a vague clue about family in Gotham—Oh, the guy he was wrestling was probably the family he was hinted at.

Dammit, Clockwork, couldn't he have warned Danny?

Danny let go of Tim Drake.

Who was Drake to him? A sibling, a twin?

Danny didn't know yet.

Tim Drake was about to attack again when Danny put his hands up in surrender.

“Wait, wait!”

The other teenager stopped. Tim was breathing hard from the little impromptu fight they had been in.

Danny was glad that his half-dead status made it hard for him to have to catch his breath. It was impossible to run out of breath when one didn't have to breathe technically.

“Who are you,” the other boy asked.

“Fenton! Danny Fenton. I’m the new hire?”

Danny hated that the last sentence came out as a question.

“You bit me!”

“And you tackled me! Now that we have that out of the way, you're not a clone, are you,” Danny asked warily. After all, that wasn't out of the realm of possibilities for him.

“What? No! I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“Why would a rich CEO be afraid of cloning,” Danny asked.

“Why would a small-town guy from the middle of nowhere America be afraid of cloning,” Tim fired back.

“Touche,” Danny said.

Neither of them said anything. They stared at each other until Danny broke the awkward silence.

“So, what now?”

“Now we take a DNA test and try to figure out what the hell is going on.”

“Ahh, I'm adopted and was told by mystical means that I have family in Gotham and was going to find them ‘when the time was right.’ I'm guessing now is that time.”

“That explains nothing,” Tim said in a hysteric voice. “What do you mean mystic means, and could you be more vague?”

Danny shrugged again, “Welcome to my world.”

A few hours later, through rich guys' means, Danny Fenton and Tim Drake had a piece of paper confirming they were twins.

Well, Danny’s afterlife just got interesting.

Chapter Text

Danny’s body had developed a bad habit: his heart and breath would stop while sleeping.

If it hadn’t been for Jazz freaking out one Saturday afternoon after finding him, presumably, dead on the couch when he had been napping, he probably never would have found out. After going to Frostbite and being told it was just a new normal for him, Danny stopped worrying about it. Besides, the ecto in his body ensured that he was kept fine and healthy while asleep or knocked unconscious. He made sure not to take naps in places where he could be found, which sucked when he was in school.

It helped that his friends and sister were there to aid in keeping him awake.

Still, half-life moved on, and Danny adapted as he did with everything else thrown at him.

For example, he was currently in Gotham, trying to find Batman for help. Although it had taken a lot of effort to leave Amity Park while it was under lockdown, he had been able to do it. Now, if only he could find Batman or one of his associates.

Danny looked at the vast city from above while invisible. He wondered where he should even start looking.

He sighed. Well, there was no point in wondering. Danny flew lower and started looking at the shadows. Eventually, he would find someone.

At least, he hoped so.

Danny flew around for a few hours before he saw a dark shadow moving. It was a woman with her face fully covered in a bat-shaped mask.

Finally, someone who could help. Danny landed on a different roof and detransformed. He would get the help Amity Park needed, no matter what.

____

In Cass’ defense, no one had ever sneaked up on her. At least, not that she could remember.

So, when she heard a voice suddenly speak behind her, she reacted without thinking and kicked in the voice’s direction. Too late, she noticed it was just a kid—a kid who folded like a wet paper towel.

“Umph,” he said before going down.

“Oh, no,” Cass ran toward the boy to make sure he was okay.

Cass knew the moment she saw him. She could read the body better than a children’s book. The boy wasn’t breathing.

He was dead.

Still, she put her fingers on his neck, hoping against all hope that he was fine, that he was alive.

She exhaled sharply; there was no pulse, no breath.

Cass felt her body go ice cold. Her heart stopped and started beating double time.

She had killed someone. Not just anyone, but an innocent boy. What would Bruce think? The rest of her family? Would they kick her out?

Cass felt sick.

She took off her full-cover mask and threw up.

She killed someone. She killed someone!

With shaking hands, Cass turned on her coms.

“Black Bat to Oracle. I need help.”

“This Oracle, what’s wrong,” came the automated voice through the com.

Cass sobbed.

“Black Bat, what’s your status?”

“I did something bad,” she whispered. “I—I accidentally. It was an accident!”

Cass got to her knees beside the dead boy—the boy she had killed.

Oracle must’ve hijacked her lenses.

“Is that—is he dead?”

“Accident,” she wailed out.

“Black Bat, stay where you are,” Came Batman’s voice.

Cass felt relief and trepidation at the same time. Batman would fix this; he would make things right.

Batman would judge her; he could throw her in Arkham.

“Please,” she said, “please.”

Cass brought her knees up to her chest. She was a murderer. A murderer! She killed someone, an innocent boy who had done no wrong. She felt her stomach revolting again and turned around, not wanting to accidentally defile the boy by vomiting on top of him.

Cass heard the swish of a cape.

Batman was here. He went straight to her and held her.

“It’ll be okay. Tell me what happened.”

“I—I was patrolling when I heard a voice behind me. I didn’t think; I kicked out and hit him. Then he fell, and he was…he was gone.”

“Hmm,” Batman hummed. He took off his glove to check for a pulse. When he found none, he started doing CPR. Cass felt stupid. She could’ve been doing that. Instead, she wasted precious time freaking out. When the CPR did nothing, Batman took out a Taser and started electrocuting the body.

It was unexpected.

One second, the boy was dead; the next, he woke up yelling.

“What the actual fuck?!”

The boy got up and leaped away from them.

“Why would you electrocute me?”

“You were dead,” Cass said instead of answering the question, “I saw you. You weren’t breathing; your heart had stopped.”

“So you decided to electrocute me?”

“We wanted to bring you back,” Batman said, “we apologize.”

“You kicked me,” he accused.

“Yes, you surprised. I’m sorry for—for killing you,” she said.

“Hmm, you didn’t kill me; I was unconscious. I stop breathing, and my heart stops when I sleep, or I’m not conscious. It’s a quirk of mine.”

“What?”

“Yeah, sorry for traumatizing you,” he said while rubbing the back of his neck.

“Ask him if there’s a reason he snuck up on Black Bat,” Oracle asked.

“Is there a reason you were snuck up behind me,” Cass asked.

“Oh, yeah, there is actually! Sorry about that. I forget how quiet I am. Anyway, I need help from the Justice League, and when I saw you, I figured you could contact Batman.”

“Why do you need the Justice League?”

Cass never thought she would be so happy to see someone take a deep breath. She would listen to the boy and help however she could. That’s what he wanted: help.

“Have you ever heard of the Anti-Ecto Laws?”

Chapter Text

“You do know I’m a neurosurgeon, right?” Danny asked hysterically as he looked at the injured Man of Steel. “Flash, you kidnapped me and don’t even know my profession. I can’t just operate on an alien whose physiology I don’t know. I don’t have blunt force trauma surgery experience.”

Flash had kidnapped Danny from his home to Justice Hall’s operating room, which sucked because this had been his first time off in a month. Danny had been looking forward to catching up with his C-Dramas and eating microwaved ramen. Instead, a member of the Justice League had brought him to his fallen comrade. Superman had a kryptonite sword sticking out of his abdomen, and shards of the rocks had broken in different areas in his body.

“Look, we can’t remove the sword or the pieces without using more kryptonite, which will harm him even more. We know you use your meta powers of intangibility to help operate and remove difficult tumors. Please, you’re our only hope.”

“If it’s an intangibility thing, why not ask Martian Manhunter?”

“He has no medical experience,” Danny would not admit it out loud, but he jumped and squeaked when Batman walked out of the shadows. How had Danny not seen the man?

“Please, you might be our only hope in saving him,” Flash pleaded.

Danny bit his lip and looked at Superman. The man was sweating bullets, his breathing was shallow, and his cheeks were red with fever.

Danny could admit he was a hell of a neurosurgeon. He had success with the impossible. It helped that he didn’t hide his abilities so doctors and patients alike trusted that he could remove what would be considered unremovable. But he had practice in the brain, not the rest of the body.

And Superman wasn’t human. Who knew how his organs were positioned, what extra things he had, or what he lacked compared to humans.

“Look, even if I want to help him, I could put him more at risk. I have no knowledge about Kryptonian physiology, and I don’t do this type of surgery. I work with the brain. I could cause more harm than good. And, I could lose my license for operating out of my sphere of experience.”

Batman took out a small stack of papers.

“These papers here say you are not liable if anything were to happen to Superman. You are our last hope. You have the power to go in through intangibility, and you have medical knowledge. You might be the only person on Earth who can save him.”

Danny bit his lip; he knew his hesitation was wasting precious seconds, but he still had doubts. What if he killed the strongest man on Earth? He would be ostracized, ridiculed! But... if he didn’t do anything, the man would die anyway.

He took a deep breath.

 “Ancients, don’t let me regret this,” he whispered. “Fine, I’ll do it. But I can’t guarantee it will work.”

“All we ask is that you try.”

____

The surgery had, somehow, been successful.

It helped that they brought in surgeons and doctors who knew Superman’s body and helped guide Danny.

It had still taken hours.

Danny had to turn Superman intangible to see which areas stayed solid. That was the only way he could take out every little piece of kryptonite. In the end, he had taken out thirty-seven tiny shards that weren’t bigger than an inch, ten big ones, and the sword that had been stuck in his abdomen.

Luckily, the man started healing when the kryptonite was put in a lead box and taken away from Superman. They had also put him under lights that mimicked the radiation of the Earth’s sun, so he could heal even quicker.

Danny sunk into a chair, tired. Flash approached him and gave him a water bottle and protein bars.

“Thanks,” Danny said while gulping down the water.

“We should be thanking you. If it weren’t for you, our friend would be dead.”

“Yeah, well, I’m glad everything worked out and, no offense, I hope you don’t need me again cuz that was nerve wrecking.”

“Hmm, that’s too bad. We were going to offer you a job,” Batman suddenly said from the shadows.

“Holy shit, don’t sneak up on people like that.”

“Apologies,” he said, not sounding apologetic.

“I already have a job, thank you very much. Besides, as I mentioned before, I’m a neurosurgeon. So unless one of you has a tumor in your brain or you get impaled in the head, I’m of no use.”

“Today told us differently.”

“Look, I appreciate the offer, but dealing with humans differs from dealing with aliens.”

“We’re willing to train you with doctors that know about alien physiology. We can pay for you to return to school to learn more about other types of surgery. You have special skills, Dr. Fenton, that would benefit the Earth and its heroes.”

Danny let that sink in.

He didn’t know what to think. He hadn’t had the best grades in High School and didn’t know how he had entered med school. Danny had worked his butt off and didn’t hide his abilities in the hopes of helping people. Some had accused him of cheating, but he learned everything everyone else had as well.

Should he take the offer? He wouldn’t mind learning new things, even if he was a lousy student. He would eventually understand after studying, but could he leave his old job behind? He helped people who would otherwise be dead if it weren’t for him.

“If I agree to this, and that’s a big if, can I keep my old job? I like helping people. I can be kept as a retainer in case of big emergencies like today while still being able to work at the hospital I’m at.”

“I see no issues with this,” Batman said.

“Okay,” Danny nodded, “Okay, count me in.”

He shook Batman’s hand.

“It’ll be a pleasure working with you, Dr. Fenton.”

“Same. But first, where can I take a nap? I’m tired.”

Chapter Text

Danny phased through the wall invisibly. Instead of finding the hostages, he found some of the henchmen with guns. He disposed of them quickly. They never knew what hit them.

Phantom was on recon, as usual. After all, not everyone can go through walls, and Martian Manhunter was unavailable. He had also been sent to help release the hostages when he found them. It was a delicate situation: a group of unknown individuals had taken hostages while robbing a bank that held rare and potentially dangerous items. Unfortunately, it was an old building designed like a maze, with extensive basement space.  

Danny had started on ground-level floors while the Justice League tried to negotiate with the robbers. They didn’t want to make any moves until the hostages were rescued.

Eventually, he found the hostages, but there was a situation.

A woman was on the floor, red-faced and screaming, while a few men stood to the side looking green around the edges. The only other woman in the room was helping the screaming woman on the floor.

“Phantom, have you found the hostages?” came Batman’s gruff voice through the comm they had specifically designed so that he could be heard through it even with the ectoplasm getting in the way.

“Uh, yeah, but there’s a situation…”

“What kind of situation?”

“There’s a hostage who is in active labor. I can’t just leave her.”

Suddenly, an explosion resonated above them. The men screamed in terror while the woman cried out in pain. The only two calm individuals were the woman assisting with the delivery and Phantom.

Fuck.

“See what you can do and get them out,” came Batman’s oh-so-helpful advice while another explosion rocked the building, and he cut off communications.

Danny didn’t even have a chance to say, ‘You got it, boss.’

Fuck. Fuck, fuckity-fuck. He was alone while the Justice League dealt with the baddies above them. Fuck, he was a college freshman; why did he decide to join the Justice League again?

“I should’ve joined the Titans instead,” he murmured.

Danny was panicking on the inside but didn’t show it to the terrified hostages. He floated toward the two women to see how to help.

“Hey, aren’t you gonna get us out of here?” One of the men asked.

“I will, but first, I have to assess the situation.”

“No, get us out of here!”

Danny turned glowing green eyes at the man and glared.

“Do I tell you how to do your job? No, so let me do mine.”

The guy had the decency to shut up so Danny could assess the situation and come up with an idea.

“Everything will be okay, ma’am. I’m here to help. Try to breathe through the pain.”

“Aaa-ah,” Danny flinched at the scream that could put his ghostly wail to shame. Her hair was plastered to her face, red with exertion.

“It’s okay, Patty. Let it out,” the other woman told the screaming woman.

“I swear I’m going to get so drunk after this!”

“You can’t drink while breastfeeding,” Danny said absentmindedly. As the two women glared at him, an idea struck him.

“Excuse me, ma'am? Do you mind if I...grab them?” He asked politely as he could, given the situation. He took off the white cape that Nightwing had given him as a joke, but Danny had secretly liked it, so he kept it.

“What?!”

A contraction hit her as she asked the question, making it sound harsher than she had probably intended.

“Don’t worry, it won’t hurt the baby, but I will need to grab them. I’m amazing in biology. I’ve had a very detailed talk about reproduction and birth. I’ve even seen charts and all!”

Danny was suddenly thankful for his mom's instance that he knew the ins and outs of female biology. Who knew it would help him? But his mom was right: a man should know what a woman goes through.

“So, what do you say?”

“Aaaaahhhh! Do what you have to; just make it stop!”

“Okay, we can do this. Just breathe and let me do my thing.”

Danny took a breath he didn’t need, which helped calm his nerves. He went intangible and put his hands into Patty’s stomach. Once inside, his hands went tangible again to feel the baby. He put his hand around the baby’s waist and gently took it out. The little guy was as clean as, well, as the day he was born.

“Uh, congrats, it’s a boy,” Danny said nervously as he rubbed the newborn's back until the baby seemed to realize he was out now and could take a breath and cry. “He's a lively one.”

Danny ripped a piece of the cape to wrap it around the umbilical cord and then used his ectoray to cut through it.

Everyone but the baby was stunned into silence. Even the men were shocked. That had to have been the cleanest c-section they had ever seen. Danny wrapped the baby around his cape and handed him over to his mother.

“Alright, ma’am, I’m going to work quickly to remove the placenta. I don’t want you to go into toxic shock. Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing.” He said while winking at the confused mother. He went back in intangibly to remove the leftover afterbirth.

Danny gave the new mother a few seconds to get used to the squirming bundle in her arms. Then, another explosion brought them back to the current situation.

“Alright, everyone, grab a hold of each other. As long as one of you touches me and you hold hands, we can all get out of here intangibly. Patty, I’m going to carry you while you carry the little one. You think you can manage that?”

Patty nodded and visibly tightened her hold on the squirming, screaming bundle of joy.

“Awesome, everyone, hold on. You might feel funny, but we will get out of here safely.”

____

Danny woke up the next day after the mission. After debriefing and making sure the little guy and Patty were okay, Danny went home and crashed. He had been so tired he didn’t even have the energy to eat dinner.

He woke up hungry.

“Three bowls of cereal it is,” Danny said as he poured his first bowl and sat on the couch. He was so glad that Batman paid for an apartment because he didn’t know how he would’ve explained his odd hours and random injuries to any roommate. Danny turned on the TV, and the first thing he saw was Phantom’s face next to Patty’s.

“And in other news, Patricia ‘Patty’ Henderson has delivered a healthy baby boy in an unusual manner. We now go to Kathy, who is there with more information.”

“Yes, Chuck, I’m in front of Mercy Hospital with new parents Patty and Jack Henderson and their little bundle of joy, Phantom ‘Tom’ Henderson. Mrs. Henderson, tell us more about this harrowing but ultimately heartwarming story.”

“Well, it started with a robbery and being taken hostage. I guess the stress of it all caused me to go into labor. I thought I was going to die with my baby, but Phantom, shout out to him, by the way, came in and took out my baby with no pain, no fuss, or no mess. It was the easiest delivery, and I have two other kids.”

“Fascinating! Would you recommend this type of delivery in the future?”

“Yes, I would! It was so easy and so painless—thank you, Phantom!”

Danny turned off the TV. He didn’t want to hear more. He sighed.

He finished the other two bowls of cereal and was getting ready to go laze in bed for a while longer when his League communicator went off. He groaned. Please don’t let this be another mission.

“Phantom speaking.”

“Phantom,” Batman’s gruff voice came through, “Congratulations on the successful mission.”

“Um, thanks. Is there anything you guys need?”

“Well, ever since news got out that you can help with painless deliveries, the Justice League has gotten calls worldwide from pregnant women who want you as a midwife. I was wondering if you can make a statement?”

Even Batman sounded unsure. Danny groaned. What had he gotten himself into now? One thing was for sure: there was no way he was changing majors.

Chapter Text

Jason looked at all the items with a gaping mouth—not that anyone would be able to tell with his helmet on—and then he stared at the scrawny fifteen-year-old who had presented the Red Hood with all the items. Items stolen from the Waynes.

Bruce’s wallet lay there, money still inside it. Dick’s watch that he had gone crazy looking for, Tim’s necklace and Damian’s pocket knife. How in the hell had this kid been able to pickpocket the greatest detectives/martial artists in the world?

“Where did you get all this, kid? How did you get all this?”

The kid brought his chin up in challenge, “You said any kid in Crime Alley who pickpockets the entire Wayne family would get all necessities paid for them by you until they turned 18. Was that true or were you blowing it out of your ass?”

“No, it’s true. It’s just that I never thought a kid would take it seriously, let alone do it.”

“I’m not like most kids,” he said.

Jason laughed. Most people become unnerved at the distorted laughter from his helmet, but the wet cat of a kid didn’t even flinch.

Jason laughed harder.

It had started as a joke. Well, mostly. The kids of Crime Alley are proud and don’t like ‘handouts,’ so Jason had the brilliant idea of giving the kids a ‘job’: pickpocket the Waynes. Most kids who heard the challenge thought it was a joke and would do other small ‘jobs’ Red Hood would give them so that he could pay them.

 Most kids who believed it was real thought it wasn't even worth trying.

Most kids who tried were caught immediately. Subsequently, they would receive a meal paid for by the Wayne they had chosen to steal from, and suddenly find some doors opened for them because Jason knew his family and knew they had a soft spot for kids, even the Demon Brat.

What Jason hadn’t expected was for a kid to succeed.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Da—I mean, Sticky.”

Jason ignored the kid’s fumble.

“Why are you called that?”

“Cuz anything that I want sticks to my fingers,” he said while showing Jason his gun. What the hell? Jason looked at the strap on the side of his leg and saw it was empty. He hadn’t even seen the kid move. No wonder he had been able to steal from his family.

“That’s a great skill you have there, kid.”

A little too good. He had to be a Meta.

“Thanks. Will you pay for my necessities, or will I just have to go back to stealing for a living?”

“I’m a man of my word, kid. You did the job successfully; I’ll pay for your things until you turn eighteen.”

Sticky’s shoulders relaxed.

“Great! That’s great. Uh, how will this work exactly?”

“Huh, oh, aw, give me a sec, will you?”

Sticky furrowed his brow. Well, Jason was taking a picture of the items and sending them to his family’s group chat.

The response was immediate.

Big Bird: No way, no way in hell anyone was able

to pull one over one of us, let alone all of us.

Me: Well, he did, Big Bird 🤣 Babs,

can you hack into the security cams here?

All Seeing: Already did, here’s a pic.

Demon Brat: No way that scrawny teenager was able

to steal from us.

Timmers: I’m with the brat here. No way this was possible.

BatBastard: Oracle, can you find out more about this boy?

Me: Seriously, can’t have anything without you freaking out.

“Um, hello? Mr. Hood? Are you still with me?”

Jason put his phone on silent and paid attention to Sticky again.

“Yeah, sorry, kid, important business texts. Anyway, yes, I’ll set you up. After all, a deal is a deal. Now, I won’t be able to get you an apartment out of Crime Alley, but I can set you up in one close to here. I’ll also pay for school supplies, clothes, food, and give you a monthly stipend.”

“Oh, uh, I’m not going to school. I only need a place to stay and food. I don’t even need the money.”

“Nonsense, kid. You got the job done, and I said I would cover all necessities until you’re eighteen.” Jason hit the kid on his back. Sticky didn’t even stumble.

“Okay, Sticky, let’s go get you set up.”

Sticky stared at Jason with big, blue eyes and nodded.

“Wait here, I’ve got to get my bike.”

Jason was glad he had left his bike far away so he could call Babs.

“Oracle, anything on the kid yet?”

“I’m running face recognition software right now, but so far, nothing.”

“Hey, you think you can return our stuff?” Tim asked.

“Sorry, those are my trophies now.”

“Hood, I swear, if you don’t return my knife, I will send you to your grave again. That was a gift from Richard.”

“No names on the field,” came Bruce’s gruff voice. Jason could hear the clacking of a keyboard in the background. They were most likely in the Batcave.

Oracle’s distorted voice sighed.

“I’ll keep checking. For the time being, try to get the kid a good meal and a place to live. He looks like a wet cat.”

“Okay. I’ll sign off now. Hood out.”

Jason drove up to the kid and gave him a helmet.

“Welcome to your new life, kid.”

Sticky accepted the helmet, not knowing how much his life would change.

Chapter Text

Danny didn’t know how he ended up working in a Waffle House in Gotham, but here he was.

To be fair, it was the only legal establishment in Gotham that didn’t ask questions when Danny presented his clearly fake ID—hey, there was only so much Tucker could do on such short notice. Besides, he’d rather take orders or fling hashbrowns than end up a goon and get beaten up by Batman and his crew.

“So, I kidnap people and hold them hostage while Batman finds the clues to my riddles!”

“Welcome to Waffle House. How may I take your order?” Danny primed his pen, ready to write.

“Riddle me this—”

“No.”

The Riddler stopped and tensed.

“No?”

“No. This is a Waffle House, sir, not a gameshow. Either let me know your order, or I’ll go to the next table. I don’t have time for this bullshit. I get paid $2.50 an hour and get lousy tips, and the last thing I need is a third-rate villain—”

“Third-rate?!”

“Making my life more miserable. Especially since you seem like the type to leave no tip.” Danny finished.

Everyone at the table fell silent, their eyes going from the Riddler to the scrawny teenage server who had just told their boss off.

Danny kept his pen primed for writing in case the Riddler wanted to place an order. If he wanted to fight, well, it was a Waffle House after all. One of the job interview questions was whether Danny was afraid to throw hands or not. Besides, he knew his coworkers would be happy to help if it came down to a fight.

The Riddler laughed, instead—laughed—at the kid.

“You have moxie, kid. Why don’t you come work for me? I would pay you way better than this place ever would.”

“No thanks,” Danny replied as if he wasn’t talking to a supervillain. “Now, how about we try this again? How may I take your order tonight?”

Danny left his shift with a $200 tip from the Riddler and a phone number so he could ‘keep his options open.’

The following night, Riddler was arrested and sent to Arkham.

____

Danny tried to wipe away the grease from his ever-present notepad as he walked toward his favorite customer.

“The usual,” came the mechanized voice.

“Two cheeseburgers, extra onions, large fries, four pieces of bacon on the side, and a large coffee, black, coming right up.”

Red Hood took off his helmet, though he still had on a mask underneath it, and grinned at Danny.

“You know it, kid.”

Danny grinned back and went to place the order. He knew this wouldn’t be the last thing Red Hood would order—seriously, the guy could really pack it up—and he always left a huge tip.

Besides, the guy was funny. Oh, and he was death-touched, making Danny feel a type of kinship with the guy. Once again, Danny wondered if Hood knew he had died and come back to life. Well, better not to ask. It wasn’t polite.

Danny took the order out to Hood.

“Enjoy.”

“Anyone giving you guys any trouble, kid? I know how the rogues like to show up here from time to time.”

“Nah, no one has caused trouble since the Joker.”

That’s how they had met. The Joker had shown up to cause his usual bullshit havoc, and Danny had hit him upside the head with a plate. Hood had been following the clown and didn’t kill him because of ‘daddy bats shitty rules’ and had arrested Joker after roughing him up a bit.

After that, he became a regular at Waffle House and always asked Danny to be his server.

Leaving that night with $400 and Red Hood trying to follow him home discreetly, Danny was okay with that.

____

“Hey Harley, hey Pamela!”

Danny couldn’t help but greet the two women enthusiastically. He heard Sam rave about Poison Ivy so often that Danny couldn’t help but admire the woman. Besides, Harley was a riot to be around. Danny was glad she was away from an asshole like the Joker.

“Hello, Danny. Did your friend enjoy the autograph?”

“Oh, yeah, she absolutely freaked.”

Danny had to use a fake address to send Sam the autographed paper, but Sam had texted him the night she received it through their secure phone and had gushed the whole time, thanking Danny.

“I’m glad I was able to make a fellow lover of the environment happy.”

“How you’ve been, hon?” Harley asked.

“Exhausted, but alive. I’ve been getting good tips lately.”

“Glad to hear it. Now, I want onion rings with marinara sauce, and Pam here will take a black coffee with five sugars.”

“Got it,” Danny said, and went to place the order.

____

“No, you can’t have chocolate chips in your hash browns. Please stop asking.”

“I didn’t even say my order yet!”

It was 3 AM, and Danny had to wrangle hash brown orders from Nightwing. And he always asked, every single time, if Danny could add chocolate chips to his hash browns, the freak.

Of all his customers, Nightwing and Robin were the most annoying ones. Well, Robin wasn’t too bad. If only he would stop calling Danny ‘Daniel,’ he wouldn’t even mind the little twerp even if he had the habit of pointing a sword at Danny.

Better a sword than an ectoblaster.

Nightwing, though, always got on Danny’s nerves. He would order the strangest combo of food and would pout every time Danny denied him. But who ordered pancakes with hot sauce and ketchup? Freaks, that’s who.

At least Robin stuck to waffles and orange juice.

“Gee, can’t help but wonder to ask myself why I would think that,” Danny deadpanned.

Nightwing, the asshole, smiled brightly at him. Robin’s scowl deepened at Danny’s tone.

“Well, can you add chocolate chips this time?”

“That’s it, get out,” he said in a serious tone and walked away.

“Aw, don’t be like that. I’m just joking. Danny, come back!”

Eventually, he went back, after taking three orders before theirs.

Chapter Text

Danny frowned as the summoning failed. He looked up at his current client. Dick Grayson’s blue eyes held a mix of expectation and skepticism as he watched Danny. Danny tried again. He was using a worn-out copy of Wuthering Heights for the summoning of one Jason Todd-Wayne. There was still nothing. He tried a few more times and had no success each time. Danny knew he wasn’t the one to blame. He had a 100% success rate in summoning. There wasn’t a ghost of a dead person he couldn’t summon. He only needed something of the deceased, and ta-da, the dead person would appear. So why was he failing now? It made absolutely no sense.

Unless…

Danny turned to Dick Grayson and asked a question he had never had to ask in his three years as a medium. Ancients, he didn’t even know how to ask it! Well, he might as well rip off the bandage.

“Mr. Grayson, are you sure the person I’m trying to summon is dead?”

Richard Grayson, aka Dick, aka Nightwing, scowled at the man before him.

He had come to Nightingale’s because he heard that the man could summon the dead. He had overheard a pair of criminals in Blüdhaven discussing Daniel Nightingale and how he had summoned various deceased individuals to talk with. Dick knew ghosts existed, so he had taken a chance and gone to the man. Dick wanted to see his brother one last time, just one more time. He still felt guilt for not being there to help Jason and even more so because he hadn’t been at Jason’s funeral.

(Never mind that he hadn’t been told about his brother’s death, let alone been allowed to go to his funeral.)

“If you’re a fraud, just say so. There’s no need to make shit up.”

Bruce wouldn’t lie about this. Not about Jason’s death.

Danny hummed as he picked up the worn book. He handed it back to Dick.

“Mr. Grayson, I have a 100% success rate. This is the first time a summoning hasn’t worked. So either I’m losing my touch or,” Danny looked Dick straight in the eyes, “Jason Todd-Wayne isn’t dead.”

Dick took Jason’s book and left in a huff.

The man was clearly a fraud. There’s no way Jason was alive…right?

____

Dick stitched his side. He was getting sloppy and let a low-level thug stab him.

Dick hadn’t been the same since he visited Nightingale’s.

There was no way Jason was alive. Bruce wouldn’t be that cruel…would he?

Dick hissed as he pulled a little too roughly on his last stitch.  

He put away his first aid kit and turned to look at his reflection. He looked like shit. He was pale, with bags under his eyes. It didn’t help that Bruce had a new Robin, causing Dick to stress even more. What was Bruce thinking? Jason had just died, and he had already replaced him.

But what if he isn’t dead?

Dick growled and punched the mirror. He hissed at the new cuts.

Silence reigned while Dick was lost in thought.

What if, his mind whispered, what if?

____

Dick stood in front of Jason’s grave. It was raining. But then again, when wasn’t it raining in Gotham?

The angel looking over Jason looked as if she was weeping as the rain ran down her face.

“Dick, I don’t understand why you called me here.”

Dick turned to Superman.

“Please, for my peace of mind, can you tell me, is Jason…is Jason down there?”

Superman gave Dick a pitying look.

“Please,” his plea was lost in the wind, but Dick knew Superman had heard him. The Man of Steel sighed and looked into the dirt.

He exhaled sharply at what he saw.

“Dick, the coffin, it’s empty. It looked as if someone clawed themselves out!”

Dick fell on his ass.

“Jason, Jason is alive!”

____

Clark had gone straight to Bruce to tell him what he had found. Dick had refused to go with the man. He wouldn’t be as cruel as Bruce had been and not tell him about Jason, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see the man.

Dick knew Bruce would leave no stone unturned until he found Jason, and it was good to have the greatest detective looking for his brother, but Dick had a different way to look for his little brother.

Dick went to where it all started.

Danny looked up as the locked door was pried open. Danny raised an eyebrow at a soaking wet Dick Grayson.

“We’re closed.”

“Please, please, I’ll do anything, pay anything, but you have to help me find him.”

“Mr. Grayson, I’m closed. So, either leave or I’ll make you leave.”

Danny knew his eyes were glowing. It didn’t seem to unnerve Dick.  

“Please, you knew he was alive. We can’t find him. His grave is empty.”

Danny felt his belly flip-flop

“What do you mean?”

“You asked if I was sure Jason was dead. I looked in his grave; he clawed his way out. He could be anywhere. Please, if you can help me find, I’ll do anything.”

“Mr. Grayson, if what you say is true, then he belongs to the realm of the living. I only work with the dead. I can’t help you.”

Dick fell to his knees, numb. No, there had to be something they could do. Bruce’s way was too slow…maybe… maybe…

“Please,” he begged, “Please. He’s my baby brother.”

Danny looked at the man. He looked more dead than alive. Danny sighed. He really didn’t know how to help. He didn’t know how to find a living person. Unless…well, the dead loved to gossip.

“Where was your brother buried?”

____

Dick followed Danny as he talked to an invisible person.

Dick didn’t care who or what the other man was talking to as long as it led to his younger brother. Danny led them to a dark alley in the middle of Crime Alley. He tensed when he heard shouting, and instinct had him running toward the sound.

“Wait,” Danny called out. Dick ignored the man.

He saw a shadow leap into the air in a move that was painfully familiar—a move he had invented.

Dick ignored the man who ran past him; his eyes were on the small, shivering figure. He took off his coat and wrapped the teenager in it. Dick knew if it hadn’t been raining, his tears would have been clear for the world to see.

“Jason,” he breathed under his breath. His brother’s blue eyes were vacant of any expression.

“Bruce,” he said.

“We’ll see him soon,” Dick whispered, and then couldn’t stop himself. He drew Jason in and hugged his brother.

Dick was so engrossed in feeling how solid Jason was that he didn’t notice as Danny literally disappeared. A few seconds later, the sound of grappling could be heard, and then Batman appeared. Dick couldn’t be mad at Bruce for finding them. After all, his little brother was in his arms, and that was all that mattered.

And if Danny found a grateful Bruce Wayne offering him a check for returning his son to him…well, he wasn’t selfless enough to say no.