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Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 29

MASTAPOST big thanks to @brekitten for betaing this chapter <3

“P-please.” Danny Fenton, son of the siren hunters Jack and Maddie Fenton pleaded. “You can’t tell anyone about this. I’m begging you.”

Damian nodded absently. This changed everything. This was- “You were a human. Just like me.”

“Yeah.”

“You were turned.”

Danny flinched. “It’s not a pleasant memory for me.”

“Is that why you know so much about the ocean, yet so little about sirens?”

“Hard to learn about your new species when they all wanna waste you for being half-human.”

That made sense. Everything made sense. He didn’t know about Damian’s inability to form human words because he’d never met a child siren before, never been a child siren before. He watched movies as a human. He fought the sirens who attacked Amity Island because that was his home. He had Fenton tech because he was a Fenton.

Damian’s scales went cold. He was a Fenton. His parents were siren hunters. Danny’s parents joined up with Damian’s father because both of them were looking for their sons.

Danny’s parents tortured him in order to find information on where their son was. They tortured their son to find out where their son was. Damian clutched his head. It was- It was agonising to think about.

As awful as his time was in his first home, his never home, he always had the love of his parents, even as twisted as his mother’s was. Every blow landed on him was training, with rules and boundaries (even if those boundaries were cruel). His father was even gentler.

Never had he ever known what it was like to have unadulterated rage directed at him from someone who should have loved him.

Danny’s breaths hitched. “Y-you can’t tell anyone. If t-they find out. T-they’ll.” Danny sucked in a breath. “They’ll- They’ll…”

Damian recalled what was done for him the first night they met. Met as sirens, and not the cursory greeting when Father was introducing him to the Fenton family. He pulled himself out of the sink. He dropped to the floor, whereupon he immediately slithered to Danny’s feet.

Damian lay his head on Danny’s leg. He attempted to channel that rumbling purr that was able to shut his body down in relaxation.

His companion, no, his friend’s shivering faded. Danny’s back slid down the wall, until he was sitting cross-legged. Damian climbed up his legs, and laid his head against the trembling boy’s chest.

“I will not let them touch you.” He whispered. Low purrs rumbled from the back of his throat. His chest thrummed like a bass drum.

Danny clutched him tightly. Damian’s purrs grew louder, stronger. Along with them grew a determination.

What would Danny do once this was all over? Once he returned Damian to Gotham? The least his father could do was finance a plane ticket back home to Amity Island, Danny had counted on nobody knowing his secret. Was he just going to swim back the way he came? Hitchhike? How long would that take? How many months would he have been missing from Amity?

How would he explain it all to his parents? Unquiet horror settled between Damian’s scales. He’d had it all wrong. It was not supposed to be Danny bringing him to Gotham. Damian needed to bring Danny to Gotham, to a safe home.

“I am… I am sorry. For treating you harshly.” He whispered.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Perhaps. But it was unfair to you.”

“I’ve been unfair to you too.”

Damian clicked. Such self-sacrificial idiocy. “Tut. I am not entitled to your secrets. You had very good reasons for keeping them.” That, and he could relate.

Danny’s chest rumbled, a response to Damian’s purr. For a moment the boy said nothing. Eyes closed, he leaned his chin into Damian’s hair.

“You know, you’re a kinder kid than the media says.”

“You’re a better hero than the media says.”

The boys quietly laughed together. For the first time, Damian felt open, like there were no longer barriers between them. He understood his friend.

Well, no barriers except for one thing. That was a secret that could perhaps wait for later. However, a friend should share in vulnerability. Danny had trusted him with a secret that could threaten his life if revealed, another item in the long list of sacrifices he had made just to keep Damian safe.

“My mother loved me. But she treated me terribly as well, as did my grandfather. I will never know the pain you feel, but you are not alone.”

Danny stroked Damian’s sail. He allowed it. “I’m glad you’ve gotten away from them.”

And Damian will get Danny away from his parents. This he knew. It had to happen. “Thank you. So am I.”

It was decided that her mother and Bruce Wayne would take the jet skis again. Her father wanted to join in, but was convinced to say on account of Jazz still having a concussion, and to keep the boat safe in case anything happened.

That was exactly what Jazz needed. To pick her father’s brain. She’d had precious little time to investigate her father’s thoughts this whole trip, an error she needed to correct.

Her chest felt like soaring frisbees. It soared with hope.

They had an early lunch underneath the searing sun and among the scenic sea. Sunlight beamed off the waves like liquid diamonds. A seagull cried out above. The air stayed cool underneath the shade of their umbrellas. With the engines dead, the rhythmic shifting of the waves in the background made up most of the sounds. That and their fan humming beside them as they ate. It was a turkey sandwich she’d made from the leftovers in the fridge. Her father was too dirty from work, so she’d insisted on it. “I’m concussed, not helpless, dad!”

He’d just finished another round of repairs. It amazed her what her parents could do in such a short amount of time. She hoped Danny would be far into the Atlantic by the time they’d finished.

“Dolphins.” She said, wistfully.

Dad looked up from his sandwich. “Say what?”

“Sorry, it was just a little detail Danny used to go on about. Did you know dolphins are jerks?”

Her dad shook her head. His eye brows quirked up. General marine biology was less her parents’ specialty than engineering and siren stuff. “No way. Aren’t they supposed to be playful lil buggers that rescue humans and do all that fun stuff?”

“That’s tamed dolphins in aquariums and stuff.” Jazz’s voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “In the wild? They’re one of the few creatures intelligent enough to be cruel.”

Her father gasped. He leaned in like a schoolgirl hearing a particularly juicy gossip bit. “What do they do?”

“All sorts of things. They play around with corpses of fish. They bully other marine life to death just for fun. They even force themselves on others.” Jazz coughed.

Her father’s eyes welled up with tears. Maybe that was a little too dramatic. Sorry, Dad.

“T-that’s so horrible! Why would they do such a thing?!”

Jazz shrugged. “Probably for the same reasons the worst of humans do it.”

“I feel like everything I know has been a lie!” Pfft. Get in line, dad. “Danno knew the truth about those salacious cetaceans all along!”

“Wanna know another little fact Danny told me?”

Her father nodded eagerly. “Of course! But please let me down gently. I don’t know if my poor heart could take another shock.”

“Sharks aren’t actually that bad.”

Her father leaned back and wiped his forehead, relief clear. “Oh! Thank goodness! This I already knew!”

“I know right! There are barely any actual shark attacks per year, and most of them are caused by the sharks being confused or scared.”

“It’s sampling bias through and through. People just focus on the sharks that do attack and don’t realise just how many have never hurt a human before.”

Her father was so smart. And so. Freaking. Dense. Jazz resisted the urge to scream.

“It’s thanks to the Jaws movies, dad. The director was so horrified at the public reaction to his movie that he’s disavowed it. Became a shark conservationist. Can you imagine?”

“I’d be horrified if my work was used for evil like that by people who didn’t know better.” Dad leaned back in his chair, a distant look on his face, contemplation that usually fit her mother better. Her father was more of an emotional intelligent person compared to her mother’s scientific acumen. That wasn’t saying much, considering they both held multiple PhDs.

“Welp!” Her dad got up. “Back to work! This ship ain’t gonna fix itself!”

This was going to take a while.

The first thing Danny needed was food.

He walked out of the building back into the sweltering heat, protected by his invisibility. He’d never had to maintain camouflage for this long before. Sooner or later, it was going to flicker, or he would lose his concentration, or worse. What was more, his body had spent precious energy healing his burnt fingers.

He felt bad for taking the tamales from some poor truck driver. He really did! Would he have done it again in this situation? Absolutely.

A couple of birds fluttered about. Danny had dabbed some water on his nose to transform it. Couldn’t sniff out anyone nearby.

“You think you can eat those birds?” Damian whispered. Danny gagged. Wasn’t he a vegetarian?!

“Dude. Raw meat tastes awful in this form, for one. For another: feathers. Also what about your morals??” Sam would definitely have words to say. Fish was one thing, but birds? Oh boy.

“Survival precedes dietary restrictions.” Danny was pretty sure that would get someone killed. Nut allergies in the wild and what not, but who was he to judge?

The agents had long scattered at least. That meant he could walk through the yard without needing to worry too much. Soon Danny found himself at the side of a road, watching the occasional cars pass by.

Time to start walking, then.

The second thing he needed was clothes.

After some time walking, Danny found himself a very comfortable pair of jeans and a t-shirt in a trash heap. Did it offend his sensitive nose? Absolutely. It definitely offended Damian’s sensibilities even more.

“What are you doing? These things are filthy!”

“Clothes are clothes, man.”

Danny pulled on the jeans. He winced at the rough texture scraping on his skin. Pretty sure jeans weren’t supposed to do that, but ok.

“You are invisible!”

“I’m an American with very American opinions on nudity, thank you very much. You wanna see naked people in public you go to some beach in Denmark or whatever.”

Damian groaned.

“Besides, it means I can save on invisibility energy.”

Danny let go of his powers, only to be beset by the unfiltered power of the sun on his neck. He immediately went invisible again.

“Idiot.”

Vroom. Vroooommm….

The Fenton Jet Skis’ GPS indicated they were getting close.

All this effort, and still no Danny to show for it. Maddie needed these answers, and she needed them yesterday.

Bruce seemed to notice her mood. He tapped the comm piece in his ear. “You saw what I saw, right Maddie?”

“Saw what?”

“He was terrified.”

Maddie glanced to the side. Bruce was still wearing the Abyssal Dismissal Belt. He was likely not being controlled. “How do you know it wasn’t some kind of act?”

“Instinct.”

Maddie narrowed her eyes. “We’ve studied sirens for the last twenty years, Bruce.”

“And this is the first one you’ve ever successfully caught.” Until he escaped, that was.

“It’s an evolutionary tactic for many species to mimic others, or mimic distress signals from other species to deceive them.”

“I know you’re the expert on sirens here, but I’ve seen hundreds of children in various states of pain and distress.”

Right. Bruce Wayne was a noted philanthropist and father to many adopted children. She’d forgotten the man they’d been sailing with for days was also a larger-than-life billionaire on the other side of the country. It was part of why she and Jack wanted to approach his company for grants, early in their career.

“I’ve visited many orphanages. I got many of them shut down. I’ve built many more to protect victims of crime in Gotham. And I promise you that Phantom’s panic was genuine.” Bruce said. Even though his eyes were on the water ahead, she could feel the intensity behind him. His words carried years of suffering. Not just his own, but others’. Maddie let it sink deep into her spine. On a deep level, she knew no explanation of hers truly fit the empirical evidence. Did that mean Bruce’s did? Maybe. And that scared here, for some reason.

“Sirens have gone unnoticed in our society for centuries. How do you know it’s not just part of their many abilities?”

“You make a good point, granted. You also saw his heartrate, didn’t you?”

Did she? Maddie remembered seeing red, and that was more than just her goggles. She’d barely even looked at Phantom’s chest, focusing on his face, his eyes. Searching for the truth in every lie blubbered out.

“It was racing. Probably close 120 beats per minute. Maddie, he was having a panic attack.”

That information was new to her. Maddie chewed her lip. The heart was the centre of an organism’s circulatory system. Its vital role necessitated the unconscious control granted by the sympathetic nervous system. She was sure that 99.9% of sentient creatures could not simply control it.

“It could be his baseline.” A weak argument.

And Bruce knew it too. “Phantom’s heart rate was steady when he awoke, about 50 per minute.”

The implications slithered underneath her jumpsuit. Maddie swallowed bile.

#dpxdc #danny fenton #damian wayne #dcxdp #merman #merboy #mermaid au #angst #bruce wayne #maddie fenton #jazz fenton #jack fenton #cuddles #hugs #comfort

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 15 hours

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My OC as a merman!

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 2 days

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Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 28

>:D

mastapost

The Panama Canal was one of the greatest feats of 20th Century engineering. Originally, ships that wished to cross from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, or vice versa, were forced to make the long and arduous journey around South America, a trip that would take 20,000 kilometres, which would also mean our story would be much, much longer (or at least require more time skips).

It was not as simple as digging a ditch. Panama is a beautiful, but very rugged country, with hilly and mountainous terrain that halted the French in their tracks. That, and the copious mosquitoes. Landslides and rain beat back attempts to dig the canal in the 19th Century. But the dream did not end.

How did the Americans do it? All they needed was a bit of lateral thinking. Instead of digging the entire canal and attempting to conquer the mountains and hills, engineers built a dam to flood an artificial lake, leaving a 15km stretch of unflooded land. This is where they built the remaining canal. In order to raise ships into the canal’s lever, they build a system of locks. Each lock would funnel water into the one behind it, raising the ship until the water level was even on both sides, and so on.

The Canal was vital in the war effort in World War 2, and it was a target of the Japanese I-400 programme, until Okinawa fell, and it was decided that destroying the locks would have had no effect on the war.

This is where the story takes Danny and Damian.

“Land ho!” Danny cried out at the first patch of land. At last, after however many thousands of miles travelling (Danny had lost count) they were here.

“We are not sailors.” Damian grumbled. Maybe he was getting excited too. Danny could feel the way the kid’s fin’s thumped on Danny’s scales, like a puppy wagging its tail.

“Right, we’re just borrowing one of man kind’s most impressive engineering accomplishments for sailing.”

Damian huffed. “As sea creatures infamous for attacking sailors. Be glad we are not in the olden days, or our presence would have caused national, or international panic.”

Danny felt the urge to riff on the kid’s comment, but he remembered the stinging silence from yesterday. He decided not to push boundaries this early back into their kind-of make-up. “As it is I’m sure the authorities don’t mind that much. Probably don’t even believe in sirens. I think they’d just be angry that we didn’t pay the fee.”

With the canal in sight, Danny zoomed into the bay in minutes. The bay narrowed into a waterway leading inland underneath a huge bridge. Danny gasped at the size and scale of the thing. The boys continued up the bay. They dodged ship propellers, dove underneath hulking hulls. The water tinged with the smell of barnacles and metal. Nobody was out on the shoreline looking for sirens, which was a big plus, but Danny still kept a tight handle on his invisibility whenever they got close to the surface.

Soon, they reached the first lock.

“We gonna jump over or what?”

Damian trilled. “That would be an easy way to get spotted.”

“I can make us invisible, duh.”

“They would notice the splashes. We have not seen the GiW in some time, but I would prefer not to give them any ideas. We do not know who could be watching.”

With that, Danny found himself icing his body to the hull of some random cargo freighter. The ship approached the locks. They waited for painstaking minutes, watching the water level rise inch by inch. Once it reached the midway point up the next lock, the gates opened. Then the ship slowly inched forward. Then the water level inched upward again.

“This is gonna take for-freaking-ever.”

“Swimming around South America would have taken forever.”

“Uuggghhh.”

It would’ve been nice if there were some pretty landscapes to stare at for the next however many hours this would take. Sadly, their surroundings were all smooth concrete underwater, void of life and energy. Above water, it was the same, save for some small patches of grass and dirt lined the edges of the locks. Workers and vehicles milled about with their tasks on barren grey roads. The shipyard buzzed like persistent mosquitoes. Whirring machinery, shouted orders and gasping engines filled the air. He even felt a literal mosquito land on his nose when he surfaced to check. He was invisible! What the fuck!

So Danny dipped back underwater, hopefully drowning the little blood sucker. He didn’t want to know what a mosquito could do with his blood.

“What is the situation?” Damian asked.

“Boring. And normal, I guess. The stench is killing me though. God damn.”

Damian’s ear fins quirked. “Do sirens worship Christ?”.

“Uhh, not sure. I’m totally atheist though. Must be why the Fentons call me godless sometimes.”

The next lock finally finished opening. The ship continued inching painfully forward. The hum of its engine echoed back and forth in the ditch.

“Gahhh! Please. Move. Faster!” He banged the hull.

“Please stop complaining. You are contributing to the noise.”

Danny went to make another complaint, only for Damian to nip him in the ear.

“Yowch! What was that for!”

Damian went for the other ear.

That was when Danny sniffed a familiar scent. He slapped his hand over Damian’s mouth. “Wait. Something’s up.”

Damian froze. “What?”

The boys scanned the lock. They were alone in there, without a doubt. Danny’s lateral line only sensed Damian with him, and the scent of another sea creature would have been a beacon in the stale water.

Danny broke off from the ship. He melted his ice, just to be safe. The boy carried Damian above the surface invisibly.

“You see anything?”

“Just employees. And equipment.”

“Let’s look behind us.”

The water level had just about filled the up to the top of the gate behind them. There was little risk of being left behind by the next, seeing as Danny’s swimming speed would let them catch up with the boat in seconds. It took little effort for the boy to scale up the walls and peek overhead.

He was treated to a vast overhead view of the waterway. Danny hummed. All he could see was more machines dotting the side of the canal underneath tree cover, and beyond, the vast blue sea.

Damian squeezed his arm like a vice. “We have potential trouble.”

The older boy scrambled. “What? Where?”

“Down there.” Damian pushed the back of his head down.

Danny’s heartrate spiked. Just approaching the lock system was a familiar white boat. Nerves buzzed underneath his skin, like insects crawling into his scales. “I don’t understand. They have no reason to think we’d be here.”

“Perhaps they are just passing by. It could be a coincidence. Will they detect us?”

“Probably not. Radars to detect are expensive as hell, and only the Fentons know how to make them. They’d have to use sonar, and that can only happen if they’re in the same water as us.”

The boys dipped back into the water. Damian clenched his white shoulder. “We will be past these locks by the time they open for that boat.”

Danny nodded quickly. “Yeah. We’ll be fine.”

They returned to waiting.

His fins flipped back and forth in place. Back and forth. He counted the inches. He cheered every new inch the water level took. Why did it take so long just to move some freaking water?! His fins sped up, becoming a blur. They stirred up eddy currents and swirls. At some point he even felt eddies from Damian’s fins too.

Danny took a deep breath. Fear was the mind killer, or whatever they said. Even if his back scales felt like knives were raking over them, the rational part of his mind tried to insist it was all fine. They were probably just moving some assets to the Atlantic. A million and one different ships used this passage.

But it wasn’t right. His nose was good in this form, but not that good. That boat was over fifty meters away in a completely different body of water.

“Damian. There’s more to this. There’s gotta be.”

“Your nerves are contagious. Keep a handle on them.” Damian grumbled.

“I’m serious. I couldn’t have smelled that boat. It’s like a football field away on a different lock. It’s impossible.”

The swirls of water from the small siren’s fins ceased. Danny couldn’t see him, but he felt the weight distribution change a little, like Damian had just lifted his head. “This warrants further investigation.”

The boys resurfaced again. Danny climbed his way up the walls of the lock on the side. They peered over the edge, keeping their noses open. “I don’t see anything.”

Maybe he was overthinking it from stress…

Just then, Damian tugged his sail. “The other side!” He hissed.

Danny turned around. At the edge of the shipyard, his vision clipped onto two distinct white suits talking to some important look guy in a black suit and hard hat. The black suit guy pulled out a walkie talkie. Suddenly, Danny realised the water level had been still for some time.

His voice lowered to a whisper. “Damian, I don’t think they’re just passing by.”

“It cannot be. What reason would they have to suspect we would be here?”

“I don’t know.” Danny clenched his fists around the concrete wall they had been sticking to. “But this is getting bad.”

More men appeared on both sides now, carrying harpoons, hydroplasm guns, and water testing equipment. Quiet adrenaline fired into his fins. A warbling growl rumbled in his throat.

“What if we can swim ahead? You have the speed to outrun them.” Damian’s voice trembled unevenly. His hands shook.

“Damian, the water’s stopped raising. They’ve locked down the lock. If I jump, they’ll be on me in a second.”

“We cannot sit here and wait for them.”

“I know.”

Danny wasn’t doing much better. If he were in human form, his hands would be soaked in sweat by now. His head whirled. The agents seemed to be in every direction. The water still wasn’t moving. The gate was still shut tight. Danny could probably squeeze his body through some kind of gap, but Damian? He didn’t want to grind the kid’s bones into pulp.

“What if we fight them?”

“You don’t have any of your weapons, and I’ve barely had anything to eat.” No food meant no healing, and little energy to toss ice beams willy-nilly.

“Do we have no other option?”

He cursed the stupid freaking GiW. At least his parents had their moments. Nothing good ever happened when the goons in wetsuits showed up. The last time he and Damian saw them was in freaking Amity Bay! His head spun trying to figure out what had given them away. What could get them out of this situation?

There was one other option. The option Danny had desperately hoped would never have to be considered. But it wasn’t just Danny’s safety now. At least his parents had the decency not to dissect Damian (at least during their stay on the SAV). The GiW would be much less merciful.

Danny’s heart rate spiked. Do or die, then. Sink or swim. He gathered up every ounce of courage that still survived his parents.

“We do.”

“Do it now.”

Danny squared up his shoulders, acutely aware of how the scales on his arms touched those on his armpits. How the water touched his back with no clothes in the way. “Do you trust me?”

Damian hesitated. He could smell the kid’s reservation in the water. He counted the steps the GiW agents took, as if in slow motion. “I have no other person to rely on.”

“We won’t be able to cross Panama. We’ll have to go back the direction we came.” Guilt jumped into the party of stressors stomping on his nervous system.

Damian warbled, like a wounded animal. “I know.”

They were so fucking close. They’d just barely gotten into Panama, and it’s all been ruined and he didn’t even know why.

“Hang on to me. And whatever you do, be quiet.”

Danny placed one arm on the top surface of the lock. He used it to pull himself up and over the edge, pushing with his second arm. Slowly he pulled his entire body over the edge of the wall. Danny began wiping drops of water off his body. He could do it while still being completely wet, but it hurt like a bitch and took ages.

Slowly, invisibly, his scales receded into skin. His tail split open. Its bones reshaped into legs. His tailfin hardened into feet. Danny stood up, still clutching Damian to his chest. The boy gasped at the sudden increase in elevation. And despite being invisible, he could practically feel the boy’s judgement baring down on him.

The GiW agents were closing in.

Danny stuck to the dirt and grass. The asphalt would have fried his bare feet off. Not a pleasant sensation. A pair of agents approached the canal, guns in hand. Danny crept along the side, tiptoeing carefully so as to avoid making a sound and drawing attention.

As Danny slipped away, the pair of agents came up to where he’d just been standing. Thank god.

There was an issue though. The locks were obviously built uphill. That meant going along the canal would bring him through the treacherously steep terrain. Not a good look for a scrawny boy with no shoes who needed to be silent. One slip and the entire force would come down upon him.

Damian squeezed his hand. There had to be a way somehow.

Danny swallowed a thick lump. He formed a layer of ice. Despite it only being a few millimetres, it felt clunky and horrible to walk in, and would definitely make a sound, but it would have to do.

Just carefully. One foot over the other. Let the foot come down gently, like a bee’s landing. Danny walked out into the asphalt, just within earshot of the agents at the edge of the canal.

“Got anything?” The one crouching over it said. He was so tempted to shoot an ice beam and knock him into the water.

“Not yet. It could be hiding from the sensor. We’ll give it another five minutes.”

“It better be close. Sun’s killing me out here.”

One of the nice things about sirens is that they were quite sensitive to heat. Thanks to some nifty evolution, it meant that Danny’s invisibility extended into the infrared and ultraviolet range. That was the only reason he wasn’t getting sunburned out the wazoo, and the only reason Damian hadn’t dried out yet. The air was still very, very warm, but he didn’t need to worry about the radiation from the sun itself.

Danny managed to get out of earshot of those agents. His concentration was split between keeping this ice on his feet solid, and on keeping Damian from dying of heatstroke. The boy remained silent, as requested. Danny’s eyes snapped from one side of his vision to the other, hyper aware of his space, and of the dozen or so agents scattered around the perimeter.

Let it be known that he was no ninja. Probably the only saving grace he had was the fact that they were expecting an invisible fish in the water, and not a kid walking on land. One of the agents barked an order. The agents split into groups of two. The pairs scattered, probably making for the other parts of the canal. That meant two of them were coming his way. Danny’s breath hitched. Sweat dripped down his brow. He iced it over.

Damian’s fins hung low too. Their sharp tips brushed against his belly. He couldn’t stay out here long. He needed water and quick. The boy chirped quietly underneath Danny’s hand.

He ambled to the right of the matching pair. Best to get out of their way. For a bunch of guys in fancy suits, they walked quickly. But Danny couldn’t. His makeshift shoes would be too loud.

He was barely able to get out of their way, barely able to avoid brushing shoulders with the men who wanted him a lab rat. Relief cooled his system like his ice.

Then one of them stopped.

“Wait, G.” He turned around. Turned toward Danny. Hairs stood on end. Knees rattled. “Agent H!”

Danny was seconds away from bolting. Only Damian’s tight grip was able to ground him from doing something stupid.

The man pulled a bottle of sunscreen from his suit. “Agent H! You forgot your mandated sunblock!”

With the GiW agent breaking into a light jog, Danny had seconds to react. He threw his body to the side just as the agent rushed through. The motion pushed his upper body just an inch too far off base. Danny’s eyes widened. He flung his arms wildly, but he could not stop the descent.

He shifted gears. The boy twisted his body so it faced the ground. Damian clung tighter, his claws digging into Danny’s chest. He shoved his hands forward. No time to ice them over. Danny planted his fingers on the ground. Sunbaked pebbles seared his fingers. His tongue bled as he bit down the urge to cry out.

His scream was only muffled into a groan. The footsteps of the agent stopped.

“What?” The man whispered.

Danny became a statue. The man’s gaze crawled over his back like an ant colony. Danny’s pulse stomped around in his ears. In his burning fingers. Each millisecond a war between the urge to cry out, the emergency signals of heat and pain, and the adrenaline that he could not let out. Just hunched over, still.

“Agent F! I’m turning into sun-dried tomatoes here!”

At last, at long last, the aforementioned Agent F took off. “Sorry! Just got distracted by some mosquito buzzing.”

Fuck. That was close. Too close.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Panama Canal.

What was that menace doing, heading for Panama Canal?

Maddie Fenton’s phone lay off to the side of the console. The new stream chattered. She paused from her work (really just staring at the radar) to refresh the news sites in English. Then whatever Spanish sites, translated by her browser. Nothing. A week ago she would have gone in guns blazing, ready to take out the pelagic punks and stop them from carrying out their dastardly plot.

With their engines busted, that plan wasn’t looking very good. After six hours of repairs, she and Jack had only managed to achieve a fraction of their original top speed. Enough to get them to Panama eventually, but not any time soon. They still had more repairs scheduled. It was only due to Jazz’s intervention that they sat down and took a break.

She wanted to work. She wanted to throw herself into metal and nuts and bolts. Anything to keep her mind from that face.

For years she had made it her mission to bring the sirens to justice for all they had done to her family and others. The few times she got up close to a siren they were vicious, snarling predators. She expected the same stubborn defiance from Phantom.

His resistance was token, at best. She could tell how scared he was even as he put up a tough face. Then he broke down, sobbing and incoherent. It was fake. It was all an act. It had to be. Phantom was stalling for time. He was manipulating her from the start. It had to be. It had to be.

How could it be?

She pulled off her gloves. She stared at the quivering hands, the hands that were a moment away from pulling the trigger. She was so sure she would have done it. He had to have known. He was an awful liar. Tried to misdirect and feign ignorance, and gave himself away every time. Who did he think he was fooling? And yet she could not steady her hands.

Maybe that was his con all along. Not even try to be convincing. Just babble whatever nonsense to lead them along like a string of helpless ducklings until help arrived.

Phantom had never worked with anyone else before. Not from his own kind, at least.

Maddie sipped a cold cup of tea. Maybe he had been migrating, and these were his original pod? If he were with his original pod, then there would be a lot more noise in Panama. The canals were narrow. Phantom was on the smaller side, but even two adults would have been noticed, right?

Did they even exist at all?! She had rebooted and reconfigured the radar, spending hours only for it to fail to detect any of Phantom’s pod. It was like they showed up for one moment, then vanished into thin water the next.

It wasn’t enough. The scientist in her demanded more evidence. Her hypotheses felt flimsy even to her, like there was something that was glaringly missing.

It all went back to that expression. That haunted anguish. Those streaming tears. The face that tore her vision away and replaced it with years of comfort. Years of holding Danny close. To that day when Danny showed up back home six months ago, the day a miracle came to her.

His face was the same back then. Maddie had rushed to hug the son she’d thought she’d lost. However, her baby boy flinched back, like she was going to strike him.

It broke her heart then.

“Mom?” Her daughter leaned into the door way.

“Jazz, I told you to take it easy.”

Jazz came inside, and sat down on the chair beside her. “I am taking it easy. Just getting some fresh air.”

She leaned to the side, her eyes discerning like they’d always been.

“Mom, are you ok?”

Dammit. Was it that obvious? Maddie shook her head. “You know me too well, Jazz.”

She pulled her daughter in. She held her and let herself be grateful that at least she was still here. That there was still hope, somehow. But that hope now clouded over with uncertainty.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?”

It shouldn’t be that way. Maddie was the mother here. It was her who was supposed to be comforting Jazz, but it was the other way around again.

“I just don’t know. Jazz. I thought I knew everything I needed to get the job done, but…”

But now she didn’t. Jazz nodded silently, letting her continue.

Maddie held her tighter. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Sweetie, I’m not sure anymore. Jazz, I can’t get it of my head. The way he looked at us. The way he didn’t. And I’ve been thinking about it for hours and I can’t make heads or tails on it. None of my theories can make up any kind of framework that could explain what happened.”

“Maybe it’s time to find a new framework?”

Maddie pulled back in puzzlement. “What do you mean?”

“Find new evidence. If the current evidence contradicts established theories, then hunt for new evidence that could explain the discrepancies. And then establish a new more comprehensive theory.”

That… made a lot of sense. It was at times like these she marvelled at the brilliance of her daughter. But there was just one issue.

“But your father and I still haven’t finished repairs yet.”

“That’s ok, Mads!”

Her husband and Bruce leaned in to the bridge as well. Bruce Wayne’s head still sported a large bandage around it, but the man was looking much better for wear.

Jack continued. “It was obvious we weren’t as prepared as we could be. Otherwise the fishie little fiend wouldn’t have given us the slip. With the SAV busted, I say we take Jazzie’s advice and go on recon mode.”

Determination shined from Bruce’s squared shoulders. “Jack’s right. We can take the jet skis and catch up to Phantom easily. Then we can observe him ourselves or deploy a drone or two.”

That was surprisingly sensible. They needed more information. Then they could cross out the possibilities and the what ifs, and narrow down the truth.

More than anything, Maddie needed the truth.

Damian was beginning to get uncomfortable. The mucus coating his scales meant that they remained moist. However, he still lost water due to respiration. Not to mention the sweltering heat. Although he did not suffer the burning sunlight due to Danny’s invisibility, the humid air also contributed to his discomfort. As a fish out of water, Damian could tell he could not last much longer.

But his physical discomfort could only distract from the real questions in his mind for so long. Why did Danny hide this ability from him for so long? What was he so scared of? In hindsight it was logical that a siren with the ability to turn humans into their species could also turn themselves into humans. Damian felt the soft, human skin of Danny’s chest against his own scales. His cheeks just so happened to be laying where the teenager’s gills used to be. Now they were smooth. Damian numbly counted Danny’s ribs, which jutted out.

Why did he expect Damian to trust him when he still continued to hide things from him?

Danny walked into a clearing. He carried Damian far past the shipping yard that they had crawled out of, and into a building. It appeared to be some kind of administrative building. Damian nudged him with his chin. Where was he taking them? He walked through the glass sliding doors behind a member of staff. Cool air conditioning chilled Damian’s scales. Danny bee lined for the bathroom, finding it empty. He iced the door shut.

Damian found himself placed into the (thankfully clean) sink. Cool running water washed over his body, bringing much needed relief. Damian purred quietly underneath the cool tap. For a moment, the room contained only the sound of running water, and Danny’s heavy breathing.

Danny’s invisibility deactivated. Damian watched pallid skin appear out of thin air. Stickly legs shivering. The newly human teenager leaned against the war, panting. His chest had no gills, as he’d expected, and his skin was completely opaque. Black hair appeared where there was white. Eerie aquamarine was replaced with dull blue. A familiar face rendered bare of scales or fins was revealed. A very, very familiar face.

And instantly, everything clicked into place for Damian.

#dpxdc #danny fenton #damian wayne #dcxdp #merman #merboy #mermaid au #angst #bruce wayne #good parents jack and maddie fenton #good sibling jazz fenton #good friend damian wayne #mer!danny fenton #mer!damian wayne #internal reveal

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 4 days

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Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 27

MASTAPOST

His sister knew.

His sister knew, and she joined his parents on a hunt. She joined his parents to sabotage them, because she knew they’d catch up to him. She freed him.

His sister saved him. The tears that she helped stop broke through again. His sister knew, and she saved him. She still loved him, even if he was a monster.

Danny took one more look at the deck of his parents’ boat, and he jumped. He’d never been so happy to be in cold water in his entire life. Scales climbed over his skin. His legs snapped together, bones melding into tail vertebrae. The weapons systems on the SAV were down. Thank you Tuck. It had to be him.

Danny looked up at the hull of the boat, clean and free of barnacles. He turned to the vast depths in every direction. He should be running. He should be getting as much of a head start as humanly or inhumanly possible. There was no way he could come back. No way at all.

He didn’t do any of that. He just felt so… so tired. His body sank down to the bottom of the sea, which was admittedly not far down. His glowing scales and lines lit the way down. On the sea floor, he curled into a ball, clutching himself tightly.

What was he to do now?

His mission was complete. Damian Wayne was reunited with Bruce Wayne. Jazz knew about Danny’s true nature, so there was no way she’d not know that the spitfire of a green guppy was Damian. One quick explanation was all it would take for everything to end well. Bruce Wayne would bring his son home. And his parents-

He palmed the spot on his chest over his heart. His parents didn’t know. What if he just went home, pretended like he’d been rescued by someone.

Danny’s scales shivered like goosebumps.

The Amity Island sirens were probably long gone. Maybe they’d come back for more trouble next year, but maybe not. For all he knew, Danny Phantom was no longer needed in Amity. No longer welcome, if he was ever welcome in the first place.

His lateral line tinged. The light of his scales illuminated a small guppy swimming in front of him. Danny stared at Damian, the boy crossing his arms and looking over his body. How did he get out?!

“You are uninjured.” Damian said. It was the first he’d heard from him in over 24 hours. Danny would have cried in relief, if he wasn’t already trying to wipe the tears away from his earlier cry.

“D-Damian! Why aren’t you on the boat? Your dad’s right there!”

Damian sat down on the sand in front of him, fingering one of his fins. “This reunion is not amenable to me. You were right. My father is influenced by the Fentons. It would be safer to return to our original plan. I have more reasonable family members to go to in Gotham.”

Danny blinked. “But I thought you hated me.”

“I am still angry with you. And I have not decided whether I have forgiven you or not.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Regardless, nobody deserves to have done to them what the Fentons intended with you. I would have done away with them myself, but entrusted Jasmine Fenton to the job. You’re welcome.”

That was strangely heartwarming. Despite himself, Danny felt a small smile form. “Thank you.”

They sat in silence. Despite being in sonar range, the SAV did nothing. Probably Tucker blinding their systems. The idea that Damian would throw away this chance shook him, but-

Danny recalled the terror. The fear. The overwhelming dread underneath the shadow of a man who could snap his skinny body in two. Perhaps Damian had a point.

Damian scraped a bit of dirt on his arm fin. The two of them were looking worse for wear every day. “If you are unable to continue, then I understand. I will go through the Panama Canal on my own. Thank you for bringing me this far.”

He grabbed the boy’s arm, stopping him from leaving. “What do you mean on your own?!”

“I will not blame you if you choose to abandon this quest.” Damian’s fins drooped.

Danny shook his head. “You’ve got no supplies, no food, no weapons. We’ve got nothing.”

“I will find more.”

“I can’t abandon you.”

“Even after I caused your capture?”

Danny hunched his shoulders. He filled with determination. “I made a promise, Damian.”

The boys stared into each other’s eyes, searching. Their fins flared, an unconscious fight for dominance. Damian loomed over Danny, defiant. Danny held firm.

“Very well. Are you ready to go now?”

Danny shrugged. “I don’t wanna linger around here much longer. Do you?”

Damian flipped himself so he was belly up. The boy glared at the ship above. “Not particularly. Let us go.”

It was morning when Jazz woke up. Her head lay on a towel and icepack. Warm sunlight streamed into her room. The back of her head numbly throbbed, a reminder of what had happened last night. Emotions simmered. Vestiges of adrenaline, anxiety and stress coursed through her system. Alongside them, relief. She had done it. Danny was safe.

A tear fell through her eye. Would it be the last time she ever saw him?

Jazz pulled herself out of bed sluggishly. The floor in her room and just outside still bore stains from Damian’s mucus. Honestly, boys.

She glimpsed the vast ocean outside her window. They were near the Panama Canal. That was probably where Danny and Damian were headed. It seemed the boys had a plan all along. Danny was strong. Not his superpowers, but his heart. Her little brother had persevered this far, and she hoped that knowing that at least one member of his family loved him for sure would allow him to make it.

For now, she had to face the music. What would her parents to do her?

“JAZZIE!”

Jazz jumped out of her skin. Her father’s feet stomped thunderously through the room. He scooped her up in one motion, crushing her ribs with a tight hug.

“D-dad!”

“Jazzie we were so worried!” Her father sobbed. “We’d just finished fighting off those abyssal abominations when we realised you and Brucie weren’t there! And then we looked in the lab and- and- and-”

Jazz patted her dad’s back. “There, there, dad. It’s alright. I barely even felt anything.”

“Jazzieeee!” Her father cried.

Her mother walked in soon after, a tray of food in hand.

“Honey, you’re smothering her.”

“Oh, sorry!”

Right as her dad let her down, her mother rushed up and engulfed her in another crushing hug. Lots of points in the ‘not smothering’ department there. “We were so worried. How are you feeling? Honey? Is your head alright?”

“Just a bit of a headache, that’s all. I’m fine, mom, honest!”

“Come here now.” Her mum pushed the tray on to her atop a wooden stand that had been lying in the room. “I’ve made you some chicken noodle soup, and I’ve got you some Tylenol for the headache. We’ve also screened you for any remaining siren influence.”

“I can’t believe it! That tiny green kid had it in him to mind control our dear Jazzie!” Her dad cried loudly, tears streaming down. “Are you sure you’re ok, sweetie? We can do some more tests.”

Jazz shook her head. “Dad, I promise I’m fine. I barely even registered anything happening. Just a blur in my head, then suddenly I’m awake in here. Where’s Mr Wayne?”

“We put him in the guest room. Your mind controlled self did a number on him! Guess we won’t have to worry about any human creeps getting the jump on you, eh?”

Jazz’s face twisted in (mostly performative) guilt. “I’m so sorry! Is he ok?”

Her mum shook her head. “Don’t worry about him, honey. He’s just got a bit of a bump on his head now. He’ll be fine.” Served him right for terrorising her little brother, be it intentionally or not.

Jazz rubbed the back of her head, still throbbing.

“It’s not your fault. It was the fault of those damn crafty fish.” Her mother’s face sank.

Jazz leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder. “What’s the damage then?”

Her dad sat down. “Well it ain’t pretty. The engines are gonna need recalibrating. Then the rudders fixed. Thankfully we’ve got all the spare parts we could need and more, but it’ll take a day and a half, maybe more, before we’re seaworthy again.”

“Can’t believe all that crying was just act.” Her mum muttered darkly. “Just buying time for his friends to show up.”

Jazz put her noodles down, and gulped a handful of pills. “What did Phantom do?”

“Mostly he tried to lie to our faces. Then put on a show of being scared and helpless. I can’t believe we fell for it.”

Jazz stared into her mother’s eyes. And what she saw shocked her. Instead of the conviction, the hatred and the determination that usually backed those words, Jazz found vulnerability. At first she thought it was because her mom thought she’d lost her chance to get Danny back. But none of that occurred in the days leading up to this event. Not once during this expedition had she seen such uncertainty.

“Mom? Are you ok?”

The uncertainty disappeared underneath a mask, underneath her red goggles. “I told you not to worry, sweetie. Get some more rest. Your father and I have a boat to fix.”

“That’s right! I don’t wanna see you running around trying to help us, got it?”

Her parents filed out of the room, leaving her to her thoughts.

Jazz went for her phone.

Tucker blinked himself away at the morning sun. Immediately he went for his laptop. He went into the Fentons’ systems, went into their cameras and detection equipment, breath baited.

The lab was empty. The sonars were clear. The radar was clear. He wanted to cry. They had done it!

“Yes!”

Sam groaned beside him. Right, he was in her room. “Please celebrate quietly, Tuck. You’re killing me.”

Tucker winced. Sam looked not much better than last night. She was swathed in bandages like some anime main character. “Sorry Sam.” He whispered.

“Did we do it at least?”

He lifted his laptop to show her. “Danny’s like 400 miles away. And with what Jazz did, he’ll be getting much farther.”

“Good. I’ll return to the land of the dead now.”

Tuck waved his hands in front of her. “Wait! What about changing your bandages?”

“Ugh.” Sam stayed lying down, but her eyes remained open.

Tucker got to work. His hands moved carefully around Sam’s tender spots. Her skin had regained most of its colour overnight, but was still sensitive. At some point, he put on the news on his laptop, like they had been since Danny left.

“Your grandma’s gonna kill me for letting you do this.”

“Not before she kills me first.” Sam muttered. “And not before I kill Danny for giving me this killer headache.”

Tucker snorted. “Be a waste of blood to kill the person you spent it all saving.”

“That’s why I’ll suck out all his tasty fish blood. Like a vampire.”

“Hah! I’m pretty sure Hamon and vampirism don’t mix Sam.”

Sam whacked him in the head with a pillow. “It’s the Focus, not Hamon.”

The news feed switched to a familiar image. Sam pulled herself to a sitting position. “Turn it up, Tuck!”

‘On to other news, it has been over 96 hours since Damian Wayne, heir to Wayne Industries, was viciously attacked by sirens. Only a day later, Bruce Wayne, father to the boy, set off with local siren hunters Jack and Maddie Fenton. They have not been heard from since. We interviewed government experts, Operatives K and O for their statements,

The presenter gestured to a large TV screen showing two of the smarmiest bastards Tucker had ever met (second only to, ugh, Vlad).

“We share our condolences to Bruce Wayne for his loss. The siren menace continues to plague this country and others.-‘

“Bullshit!” Sam shouted.

“As a result, we are calling for all citizens in coastal areas to be on high alert. These fish freaks are living among us, seeking out the weakest and most suggestible, and then luring them to the bottom of the sea to be eaten, or worse.’

“And what of Damian Wayne?”

Agent K lowered his head. He placed his hand on his heart. Tucker heckled at the terribly stilted and overwhelmingly dishonest display.

‘We regret to say that he was torn to pieces, and eaten. We will be pursuing his killer, a siren dubbed Phantom, to bring to justice.’

Sam clenched her first. “The only justice we need is for your entire organization to burn and every single one of you in The Hague!”

‘If any of you see or suspect Phantom, we implore you to contact our offices immediately. This specimen is no Little Mermaid, but a vicious predator who will take away everything you hold dear.’

The newscast cut away from the two men. The presenter continued with a constant cool composure, despite the grim subject matter.

‘Indeed, the attacks on Amity Island have gained national attention as a result of Damian Wayne’s death. However, there has nonetheless been pushback against the narrative presented by the GiW. In Baja California, Mexico, residents of a small fishing town were shocked to find an entourage of Atlantean soldiers escorting a group of illegal whale hunters. The poachers have since been deported to the United States, but not before they claimed to be attacked by a siren matching the mysterious Phantom’s description, in addition to another small green siren. Our correspondent in Mexico has the scoop.’

The newscast cut to a female Atlantean soldier and a young reporter.

“The boat was covered in ice, like it was the Arctic or something. So were the poachers. One guy was covered up completely except for his mouth. I’m sure we accidentally ripped off a layer of skin or two breaking it. Feel kinda bad, but they’re poachers so meh. Not to mention all the slime.” The soldier shuddered visibly.

“And what do you think provoked the sirens to attack the ship? Are the sirens just very conservationally-minded?”

She shrugged. “Hell if I know. My guess is the humans were creeping up on their territory.”

The news segment droned on to less interesting details. Tucker and Sam had heard enough.

“Damn, Sam! Looks like your ways are rubbin’ off on Danny.”

Sam chucked another pillow at him. Tucker dodged. “You mean he’s giving himself away. I hate poachers as much as the next guy, but he has invisibility for fuck’s sake. Why did he let himself get seen!?”

Tucker shrugged, mimicking the Atlantean woman on the video just then. “I’m sure he’s got a good reason somehow.”

“Or he forgot he could do that.”

Tucker shut his laptop closed. “Welp, if that’s all, I gotta run back before my mom doubles my grounding.” He winced.

The boy clambered out Sam’s window, and waved her goodbye.

“Thanks Tuck. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“We’re Team Phantom, baby! We’re riding high or dying, and there’s no in between!”

Samson Skulker stood over the edge of his yacht, a beautiful glass of red wine in hand. Below him, his trusty dolphin cohort surfaced, chittering information. The wound on his leg was healing nicely, and his suit was ready too. It was incredible. Simply incredible how much poor little Phantom could swim in a single day. Faster than any other sea creature in the world, except for his own species. It was an exhilarating hunt, even if he had to upgrade his engines over and over just to keep up.

“Panama Canal, you say? Well, well, well. This will be interesting.”

Skulker pulled out his phone and dialed the number he’d seen on TV.

“Hello? I’d like to report a Phantom sighting. I saw him heading towards Panama. I think he’s making Panama his next target.”

Let’s see how the little fishies squirm when there are a couple dozen more sharks in the water.

The water had been getting shallower, brighter. It tinged with the smell of wood and metal and oil. Seagulls cried from above. Damian knew where they were. Knew they were close.

To be continued…

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 4 days

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DPxDC prompt: Fixing Talía Al Ghul

I think I came up with an idea how to “fix” Talía and sort of retcon the questionable shit she did. It would only work in the DPxDC universe though, but it’s something.

She was possessed by a ghost. It was just a weak shade, but it was formed from an amalgamation of Ra’s former enemies and their vengeful emotions when they were killed by the Demon Head. Their unified obsession is destruction of Ra’s legacy, which includes not only the League of Assassins, but also Talia, Bruce and Damian.

It was a sneaky ghost, taking only a bit of control of Talía by… whispering ideas and thoughts. And that ghost rooted themselves so deep in Talía that they believed themselves to be Talía, part of her subconscious, her darker intrusive thoughts, her self-destructive tendencies.

They’re sort of like Dr. Octavius’ tentacles from Spider Man movies.

The possession started some time after she brought Jason to the league after he dug himself out of the grave. It started subtle and weak at first. The ghost tried to plant malicious ideas into Talía’s head. Starting with suggestions of *molesting* still catatonic (and still a minor at the time) Jason. But those Talía managed to resist since she still viewed Jason as her beloved��s son. As her own son basically.

But, due to close proximity of the Lazarus pit (that tends to drive people mad by just being in presence of it and breathing in its fumes), her will weakened every day with the ghost’s continuous assault on her mind, and she became more susceptible to ideas.

At first it was her decisions to send Damian to Bruce and let Ra’s unleash Jason’s vengeful wrath upon Gotham. She agreed with ideas planted in her head. She questioned them at first and doubted her own thoughts.

But when she made a clone of Damian, her will was so weakened that she no longer doubted that the thoughts in her head were hers, because the ghost already firmly planted themselves in her head.

But there were moments, brief and rare, where she would question herself and be terrified by what she’s doing, until it would be snuffed out by the ghost.

Basically Talía ended up with a dual personality disorder, in which one part genuinely wanted to protect her family, and the other destroy it.

And when Danny will encounter her for the first time, he’ll be able to know she is being possessed and has been possessed for a long time. If we go with the version where Danny joined the Batfamily and heard both bad and good, fond opinions of Talía, he will go out of his way to save her.

Talía will fight back, but, with help of the Batfam (preferably Bruce and Damian), eventually Danny would phase into her body and get the ghost out.

And it will result in this: Talia crumbles to her knees, tears streaming down her face as she whispers “It’s… so quiet… I’ve forgotten what silence sounds like…” and then the horror of her actions gets to her and she breaks down in front of Bruce and Damian, apologizing for everything she did.

(Give me good or at least decent person/lover/mother Talía Al Ghul that genuinely tries!)

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 5 days

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Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 26

mastapost

#dpxdc #danny fenton #damian wayne #dcxdp #merman #merboy #mermaid au #angst #bruce wayne #good parents jack and maddie fenton #good friends tucker and sam #good sibilng jazz fenton #jazz fenton #comfort #song fic #magic #injury #self-injury

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 6 days

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Prepared for Anything Part Two

Gotham was a terrible place to live.

It was great.

People weren’t overly friendly or familiar with people they didn’t know, meaning they paid Danny no mind. No one mentioned he had fangs. No one commented on his slightly pointed ears. And no one questioned his strange ability to ward off muggers and would be criminals without even having to speak to them. His ghost aura came in handy sometimes.

It also mean that rent was dirt cheap. Especially in Crime Alley where Danny had taken up residence. It was made even cheaper by the fact that Danny didn't need heating with his ghostly physiology. It cut a lot down on bills. Not that it really mattered much. As Ghost King, he had an abundance of funds that he wasn’t sure he could dry it up within fifty lifetimes, let alone his one. However immortal it was.

The downside was the old wiring. Leaving him here. Eating Mac and cheese out of the pot he’d been cooking up as he watched the fire flicker and smoke plume out the windows.

Now, Danny hadn’t been planning to flee his apartment, it’s not like he woulda been in any danger, but his neighbour, some guy named Jason, had gone door to door, ensuring everyone was following the fire drills that children learned in elementary school which were ultimately incredibly flawed. Who really believed that an entire school of children would stay calm and collected during an actual fire?

Jason was nowhere to be seen now, though. Danny wondered if he was okay, but that guy currently helping a family out onto a fire escape, Red Bird. . .Red Helmet or something, would probably make sure he was. He was apparently a crime lord, but a good one?. . . .

. . .

Gotham was weird.

Just as the red guy and the family reached the ground, a scream for help called from the second top floor. They sounded young. Danny looked up to see a little girl at a window and flames raging too close for her to go anywhere.

Well. . . that was concerning. Who had left such a young kid unattended?

Red Dude was dashing out to the front of the building to get his bearings, looking for a way up. He wouldn’t be able to reach the girl using the fire escape. Danny took another bite of his Mac and Cheese, watching as the man’s grapple gun jammed.

Danny heaved a deep sigh.

He supposed he would have to get involved.

Leaving the crowd of tenants that had huddled on the sidewalk, Danny trudged back across the street and into an alley. He went far enough that no one would see him and opened a portal. With one hand, he reached in, found purchase on his quarry, and turned away to drag the ladder out and behind him.

Danny found Trigger-Happy-Dude starting to scale the building. Danny interrupted him before he got too far.

He belatedly wondered where the fire-fighters and cops were.

“Oh, hey, look what I randomly found in that alley.”

Red Dude paused to look at him. Looked at the ladder trailing behind Danny.

“It’s a ladder.” Danny raised it slightly from his lazy hold, noting how much he felt like he was giving an infomercial right now. “Pretty long, huh? Long enough to reach that floor, I bet.” Danny added helpfully with an encouraging nod. “How fortuitous.”

The Red Dude was quick to drop down and take it from him, but stared at Danny the whole time as if was abnormally weird.

Which was rude. Danny was just abnormal, thank you very much.

“Uhh. . .good work.” Red Dude said, setting up the ladder with Danny’s help. The vigilante tested it for stability.

Danny scoffed. As if he would purposefully tamper with it.

Which wasn’t too far-fetched in this city.

Red Dude deemed it acceptable. “Hold it steady for me, would ya?”

Danny nodded.

The man climbed up and Danny held both sides, pouting down at his pot of Mac and Cheese he’d had to set aside for the moment.

Ah, the sacrifices he makes.

Across the street, there were a multitude of cheers as Red Dude reached the little girl and settled her on his front like a backwards piggy-back hold.

Danny stepped aside when Red reached the bottom to pick his pot back up.

Sirens cut into the roar of flames above their heads and the loud call of the tenants that had lasted rather short, a few half-hearted cheers dying on the wind.

It was the middle of the night. Everyone was tired.

The mother of the little girl ran up to take her child and flagged down the first paramedic to arrive on the scene.

Danny returned his gaze to Red Dude who equally eyed him. Or at least, Danny assumed. His head was facing him.

“You’re that guy who punched out Joker.”

Danny paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. He slowly brought it the rest of the way. “How’d you know about that?”

“Cameras.” Hood tapped his helmet with a finger. “I saw RR and Robin’s video feed.”

Danny hummed, nodding along as he chewed. He wasn’t terribly concerned. Danny was just a random guy that happened to punch another random guy. It probably happened all the time in a place like Gotham. There was no need for further investigation into who Danny was. The vigilantes had probably forgotten all about him until this instant.

Red Dude looked at his pot. “That’s what you’re eating?” He said, somehow conveying judgement through the modulator.

“Yep.” Danny took another bite. After a moment of contemplation, he left the fork in his mouth to produce another from his hoodie pocket. He held it out to Red Dude. “Mac and Cheese?”

The dude leaned back slightly and his crossed arms gave the impression he was offended. “You just carry forks around in your pockets?”

Danny shrugged. “Ah, ya know, never leave home without a back-up fork.”

Red Dude considered him for another moment and Danny thought he’d decline. But then, he shrugged, his stance relaxing somewhat. “Sure.” He accepted the fork.

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 6 days

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Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 25

MASTAPOST

#dpxdc #danny fenton #damian wayne #dcxdp #merman #merboy #mermaid au #angst #bruce wayne #good parents jack and maddie #good parent bruce wayne #torture #interrogation #misunderstandings #miscommunication

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 8 days

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hi I've just binge read dark blue moon and the suffering sun and I LOVE IT!!!! such a cool concept, you wrote the characters so well and there's so much tension skskskns..... can't wait for more!!! <333

Watch me melt as I absorb the vibes from this post qwq

Thank you so much for reading and following the story owo. Your words mean a lot <3

#dbmatss

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 8 days

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Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 24

MEGA WARNING FOR VLAD BEING A CREEP, HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION, NEEDLES, NUDITY, MORE CREEPINESS AND DANNY GETTING SHOT

big thanks to @impyssadobsessions as well as @faerplay for their help with the first scene owo

MASTAPOST

Hazy fog closes around his mind. Danny turns in fits in his sleeping position. The water is cold, the ocean is eerily quiet. His mind is dragged back to a cold room at the bottom of the ocean, even as he claws the ground, unable to remain in the present.

Danny struggles, but his hands are stuck. His legs are tied together. He screams. Nothing comes out. He begs for help. Nobody hears. He cries for his parents to come save him. Nobody comes. Danny is trapped there for a thousand years and will never see the light of day again.

Nobody comes to save him when kind eyes and tender hands enter the room. The voice is sweet, and light, like a fairy god-uncle come to save him. Nobody comes to save him when the hands burned his skin with their touch. Danny’s fins rattle, shooting up straight like goosebumps.

Nobody protects him. Nothing protects him. His bare skin shivers in the cold air of the lab. His skin burns hot. Hot from shame, from disgust and violation. The kind eyes are not kind at all – they stare in hunger as bare and uncovered as his own body. It burns when needles plunge into his skin. It burns when the sigils are carved into his back, only to heal and then be carved again. It burns when the hands caress his cheek and the voice tells him it will be alright.

The voice is lying. It will always be lying.

Danny begs for the scene to go away. He has seen this all before. The room shifts. Red hair sways in the wind. Gunshots fire. Danny runs, but he cannot. He has no legs. He crawls back underneath glaring hatred. The eyes zeroed in on his heart grow. They grow and multiply and there are hundreds now. Hundreds of faces. Some in white suits. Some in brilliant Amani. Some in jumpsuits. Some in child-sized hoodies and jeans.

Danny’s vision shifts between the waking and the dreaming world. Details blend into each other like melting portraits. His lateral line senses Damian a million miles away and also right behind him and inside his guts with a sword. His ears register fictional water rushing, and very real vitriolic words spat out by fifty voices overlapping.

Danny’s eyes were thick with pearlescent slime when the real became fake again and the fake was revealed as the truth. The voices faded away into the background. The quiet of the ocean came back. Nothing like the clinical silence that drove him to tears in…

Danny jumped back. His scales shivered like rats under a microscope. He rubbed his body all over, the brushed it, then ground against his scales. Anything to get rid of the phantom fingers on his body, to get rid of the ghost touches that lingered even months later.

‘You need to ground yourself. Something to anchor your mind to the here and now. Let’s try a grounding exercise together, ok?’ Jazz said, once, when she caught him stumbling around the house at three am, skin matted in cold sweat and eyes wild like a cornered rat.

He saw himself. He saw his white scales and the bones underneath and the millions of nerves and blood vessels that you could only see if you squinted just close enough. And he saw Sam, smiling as she told him it was the most beautiful sight she’d seen in her entire life.

The supplies that he and Damian plundered from the Atlanteans, a chaotic and exciting fight that left him smiling on the inside even as he questioned the kid’s sanity.

He saw Damian inside his makeshift sleeping bag, the boy who had gone through so much pain, and will be forever changed, like Danny. He would not be able to shift like Danny’s half-human body could, nor talk or hide his siren traits perfectly and blend in plain sight. And the tears started again, so Danny forced himself to move on.

He couldn’t say if the grounding technique solved anything. Jazz told him as much. At least he felt alone again. Better than feeling the company of the evillest man he’d ever met.

Danny wiped away the last of the tears. The pearls that beaded up on the floor were swept away into the open ocean, never to be seen again. Better that Damian didn’t have more things to worry about than his failed rescuer failing even further.

The younger siren woke up soon after, shivering violently. He hoped Damian had better dreams. Danny passed another satchel for warmth, but Damian refused to even look at him, or take the thing. They had breakfast together in silence, as Damian rubbed his scales to stave off the cold.

They departed without a hitch. Danny’s cheeks continued to burn white hot, this time with guilt.

Jazz Fenton chanted in her head. ‘Go faster little brother. Please. Don’t stop.’

But it was futile. The radar showed him going too slow. The SAV would catch up to him today. Then they would capture him, and then-

Jazz pulled out all the stops. Every coping technique she could apply, she applied. She clutched Bearbert to her chest like a lifeline, like he was Danny’s lifeline. She took deep breaths and counted to them. She counted things she could see, hear, touch, smell and taste.

There had to be a way out of this.

Jazz turned around only to bump into the massive body of Bruce Wayne. If she didn’t know better she would’ve thought that she’d run into a brick wall.

A hand grabbed hers just as she lost her balance. “Steady there, Jasmine!” Bruce Wayne said.

Shit. The one person she didn’t want to talk to right now.

Jazz schooled her features into polite embarrassment. “Oh, s-sorry Mr Wayne! I didn’t realise you were there!”

For such a large guy, Bruce Wayne was stupidly stealthy. The man waved off her concerns. “There’s no trouble, Jasmine. You look worried. Is something wrong?”

Everything was wrong. Jazz went for a half-truth, something that can misdirect him away from her true feelings. “We’re so close to catching up to Phantom. I just… I want my brother back.”

She did not avert her eyes, but she did maintain eye contact up until the last word, upon which she turned away, and looked out into the window. Excessive eye contact was a tell for liars. Avoidance would make her suspicious. She had to maintain a balance.

Bruce Wayne leaned out the window beside her, and she almost screamed. Goddammit! Take a hint and fuck off already!

He took a deep long sigh. “So do I.”

Jazz counted the seconds until it was polite enough to leave. However, part of her was curious. “What was your disagreement with mom and dad about last night?” She said carefully.

Bruce Wayne rubbed the back of his neck. She had a gut feeling it was fake, but couldn’t prove it. “Well, as your mother said, we were just having a… discussion about Phantom’s fate.”

Jazz tightly grasped her tone and timbre, not letting her voice betray anything. “And what do you think we should do with him?”

The man sighed. “In all honesty, I don’t know. He needs to face justice for his actions, but how that will be conducted, I don’t know.”

Jazz’s chest heaved. For all his talk, Bruce Wayne was only less blood thirsty than her parents. That he was sympathetic to the sirens had no evidence. She was foolish to even think so last night.

But maybe he can be swayed, just as he swayed her parents?

“It’s not like you can put him in jail.” Jazz muttered.

“There are plenty of metahumans and other supernatural species in prisons. I should know. I helped fund their rehab programs.” Bruce Wayne’s tone was also even, like he was testing her.

“The GiW doesn’t have jurisdiction over metahumans and other supernatural creatures.”

“You’re afraid for him.”

Jazz’s heart rate spiked. No, no, she had to keep a handle on the situation. Do not catastrophise. Do not catastrophise. “You believe in rehabilitation, don’t you?”

“It’s all I ever dream of, for my city.”

“Is vivisection included in your plans for bringing criminals back into society?”

Bruce Wayne’s expression hardened by a fraction, something she only noticed from intensely studying his face as she spoke. “It isn’t.”

“What do us normal people do when the bodies trusted to dispense justice misuse their powers?” Jazz’s voice sharpened. “After capturing Phantom, and getting Danny and Damian back, what kind of justice can be dispensed that doesn’t involve humans performing the most inhuman punishments imaginable?”

Bruce Wayne’s eyes narrowed. Jazz felt seen through. Shit. She spoke too much.

“You don’t agree with your parents on sirens, do you?”

Jazz straightened her back, using her father’s genes to stand only a head shorter than the towering man. She stared straight up at his eyes, unwavering. “That was always clear. The real question is: do you?”

Bruce Wayne said nothing.

The day passed by without Danny even noticing. The sun began to sink into the horizon. It was probably about four pm or something now. Thankfully, the ocean’s surface wasn’t as populated with obstacles as your average road, or else Danny would’ve crashed many times already. He fought to keep his eyes open. After all that had happened, he felt so, so tired.

He looked to the moon for guidance. Apparently lots of more isolated tribes worshipped the moon. He could see why. It was vital for its role in creating the tides.

He always dreamed of walking on the moon. Fat chance of that happening now. Would it even listen to him if he prayed?

Danny nudged Damian with his shoulder. “You know, I’ve been told there are lots of sirens that worship the moon. Ain’t that neat?”

Damian buried his face into the crook of his green-scaled arm.

“Maybe we should say a prayer. I’m not a very religious guy, but maybe someone will listen?”

Danny tried a few more times to get a response out of Damian, but he was stone-walled out each time.

“D-Damian. Please. I know what’s happening to you is horrible, and I’m sorry I haven’t been helping as much as I should. But I genuinely didn’t know about your voice. You have to believe me. I-I-I was raised alone. I’ve barely known any other sirens in my life.”

Damian sniffed. Was he crying?

“Damian?”

Engines sounded in the distance. Danny’s blood went coat.

He turned around, and his worst fears were confirmed. His heart rate spiked. On the horizon, two jets skis closed in. Their speed and power blasted water into the air in their wake. He could recognise his mother’s red hair anywhere, but his heart spiked when he spotted Bruce Wayne on the other speeder.

“Father.” Damian whispered.

Danny went full throttle. He pulled Damian to his chest, ignoring the boy writhing to get out of his grasp. No. He couldn’t let his parents get their hands on Damian. How could he have been so careless?! Of course Bruce Wayne would talk to the ‘siren experts’ in town.

Hydroplasm rays pierced the surface of the water. Danny swerved to the side as one sailed where his head had just been. He jumped out of the water as another two almost hit their mark. Shit. All this dodging was slowing him down, and his pursuers got ever closer.

“What are you doing?! My father is right there!” Damian shouted, the loudest he’d been in over 24 hours. “Release me right this moment!”

“He’s with the Fentons!” Danny yelled back. A shot struck him in the back. Danny screamed. Tears formed in his eyes. “He won’t recognise you!”

“I must try! I can communicate with him in writing!” Damian redoubled his efforts to escape Danny’s hold.

“Are you insane!? The Fentons will put you on a dissection table before you can try such a thing.”

“Father would never allow it!”

“They’ll kill you!”

“Phantom!” Came Bruce Wayne’s voice booming through a megaphone. “Stand down now, and we can do this the easy way!”

“See?! My father is not a violent man!”

“It’s not your father I’m worried about!” It just came slipping out.

His mom’s voice came next. “You get back here Phantom and you will tell me what you did to my baby boy Danny or I will rip you apart. Molecule by fucking molecule!”

Danny’s blood froze again. Damian ripped himself out of Danny’s arms. The boy emerged from the water, arms raised in a sign of surrender. “Damian!” He shouted. Shit. Shit shit shit. His mother aimed a gun right at Damian’s heart. Damian’s eyes widened. He turned around in an instant. Danny never swam faster in his life.

Seconds dragged into minutes. His mom pulled the trigger. Bruce Wayne yelled. “Maddie! Stop!”

Danny snatched Damian away. A weighted net launched at dizzying speeds. Danny just barely avoided its trajectory. One of the weights slammed into his tailfin and pain shot up.

The distraction rewarded him with a shot to the arm. With one arm clutching Damian and the other in pain, he could barely swim. The speedboats surrounded them. Danny’s breath hitched. He tried to flip himself and descend, but he only managed half a meter before another net ensnared his body.

He felt a prick on his neck, and Danny’s vision went dark. The last thing he saw was his beloved mother’s cold, calculating eyes.

His skin burnt. He felt naked again.

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 8 days

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i'm so glad you've been enjoying it <3 it's been an honour to know this series is good enough to binge all day uwu

Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 23

still a bit ill so this chapter's late, but we're racing towards the conclusion of the panama arc! Woohoo!!!

MASTAPOST

An entire day passed by in a haze. Damian continued to refuse to speak to Danny. They passed through coral reefs, shipwrecks and uninhabited islands, each teaming with beauty and vibrant sea life. Damian remained listless. At a certain point, Danny even tried to coax him into seeing a pod of orcas passing by. The child shook his head, and growled.

Past a certain point, the kid was barely even eating. Even as Danny passed him bits of seaweed and sargassum, Damian only nibbled on them over the course of hours.

They swam over the second coral reef they’d seen that day. Danny’s eyes passed over sea horses, clownfish and a whole pod of jellyfish. Damian slept clinging to his back, although it didn’t make much of a different, having not spoken a single word since the whaling boat. At least he was resting.

Somehow, he felt even guiltier than when he was speaking and guilt tripping him back in the reefs around Amity.

It had been days now since he was home. Suddenly left without a conversation partner for long stretches of time, Danny felt his mind wander to scary places. He pursed his lip, careful not to chew it with his sharp teeth. An old question reared its ugly head. What would he tell Bruce Wayne when they got to Gotham? Damian seemed to think it wouldn’t be an issue, but the kid was ten (or six now?). Danny didn’t know if he could live with himself if he took away his companion’s family on top of everything else.

And Danny’s family? He shuddered to think of how he’d explain his weeks’ long absence from home. His parents have probably been going crazy over his disappearance. Even with their habit of getting easily distracted, there was no way they hadn’t noticed it. He prayed that they would just assume he ran away. Unlikely. It would be less surprising if the returned to Amity with a million and one new inventions to fight and hide from.

A treacherous stray thought crossed his mind. Bruce Wayne did have a reputation for taking in troubled kids-

No. It would never happen. Not after failing to save Damian, and returning him a wreck of a traumatised child.

Maybe it would be better if he disappeared into the ocean…

These thoughts trampled over his poor heart for hours, and hundreds of miles. What did he do? What didn’t he do? What will he do and what won’t he do next? What could even be done? The answer stabbed needles in his throat. At the moment: nothing.

All he could do was keep swimming.

Jazz looked over the SAV’s radar. Internally she was panicking. She’d done all she could, endured hours of stress directing her parents and Bruce Wayne away and distracting them and slowing them down. But they still kept getting closer, and Jazz didn’t know if she could do anything more without tipping the elders off and risking everything.

Even now, Danny was within five hundred miles of them, and at the rate they were going, they’d catch up within a day. The autopilot hummed as it drove the boat. She texted Tucker on his secure server. What could they do now?

Jazz looked up at the night sky. She raised her hands, and traced constellations. She recited stories Danny would tell over and over again, and then the new stories he made up once the old ones got boring. He stopped doing that when he came back, irrevocably changed.

She recalled the story of Herakles. How Zeus conceived him with a mortal woman and slighted Hera, queen of the gods. How Hera rejected Herakles for what he represented: Zeus infidelity, and tried to have him killed.

The parallels were startling to her. The hour of confrontation fast approached, and she still could not tell what would happen, or what she would do. Would her parents show mercy to someone they saw as a monster, as no different from Aunt Alicia’s murderer and Great Uncle Jack and Great Great Grandma Wlikes and so on and so forth? Would Danny be cast away, his blood spilling into the water like the Milky Way?

Jazz sighed, and retreated to her room. As she went below deck and passed the hallway, harsh whispers slithered out of the door around the opposite corner, left slightly ajar. The light was on. Her parents’ and Bruce Wayne’s shadows shifted over the light.

Jazz tip-toed, heart pounding in her chest. She put her hand to her ear, and her ear to the door.

“I’m saying we need to be analytical about this.” Came Bruce Wayne’s hushed voice. He sounded like he’d been talking for a while now.

“That blob of ocean magic animated by post-human consciousness and possibly also negative emotions ripped our boys away from us, and probably sold them off somewhere for them to be used as- used as- I don’t even know!” The shadow of her mother threw her hands up. It was the same speech as ever. Her parents were stubborn. That was where she and her brother got it.

“And if we don’t interrogate him the right way, then we’ll lose them forever. Don’t you understand that?”

Her parents went still.

“Mads, I think Brucie’s got a point.” Her father’s voice lowered an octave, a stark contrast to his usual jovial shouting. Jazz had to shake herself. What was Bruce Wayne doing?

“Jack?”

“Phantom’s taken big hits before. What happens if tearing him apart doesn’t get him to squeal? We’ll be back at square one.”

“But if we threaten him first, then we can use that as bargaining chip.” Bruce Wayne continued.

Her mother was breathing heavily. For a moment, she said nothing.

“There’s another thing, too.”

“What is it, Brucie?”

“We have much more we need to learn from Phantom. What his motives are. What his species’ motives are. You said so yourself Jack, that you haven’t caught a single siren ever. Has anyone?”

Nobody had. It was something her parents had been pursuing for years. The first scientists to capture and study a live specimen. That was what they wanted. What did Bruce Wayne want, and what was he getting at here?

A spark of hope inside her told her it was because he was sympathetic. He wasn’t directly opposing her parents’ views, because doing so never made someone change their minds. He was going with their flow, subtly redirecting them towards more constructive ideas.

Hah! What a joke…

“He’s right, Mads. There’s so much we don’t know.”

“I know…” Her mother whispered, her voice breaking at the last syllable.

“There’s… another thing.” Bruce Wayne began, speaking slowly. “I have a source from Atlantis. They sent a report of a Phantom sighting a few hours before you approached me.” Jazz’s heart chilled. Billionaires really did have their pockets in everything, didn’t they?

Chairs scraped. “What? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“It didn’t have any information that was either relevant or new.” Bruce Wayne hummed. “By the time the report arrived at my inbox, Phantom was already long gone, and your radar was already providing that information.”

“Then why bring it up now?” Her mother asked, always discerning.

“The report mentioned a second siren. A young boy. The report mentioned he looked about six years of age.”

Her parents went silent again. Jazz’s eyes widened. There was only one person that she thought of that Danny could be travelling with, and that was a turned Damian. Perhaps the report only saw them from afar, and misjudged his age?

“So he’s got a tiny accomplice??”

“Jack, we don’t know what-”

“Actually, Jack would be right. The child was assisting Phantom in pillaging at least two Atlantean outposts.”

Her mother growled, muttering a string of swears. Her father sat down again, chin in his hands, something he only did when he was in serious thought. “We didn’t even know for sure if there were siren children out there.”

“Jack.” Bruce Wayne stressed. “I’m bringing this up because whatever we are going to do to Phantom, we leave the child out of it.”

“But the research we could conduct-”

“Where’s your code of ethics?” Bruce Wayne’s shadow made a cutting motion.

Her parents’ shadows went still.

“How can our sons look us in the eye if we tortured a child, even an inhuman child, to try and save them? Whatever crimes Phantom has committed, this child hasn’t been a part of them. He may be just as much of a victim as Damian and Danny.”

“Bruce, the sirens have been responsible-”

“I’m keenly aware.”

At this point, Jazz decided to make her presence known. She poked her head in, putting on a light voice and a sleepy expression. She fake-yawned. “Guys? It’s getting very late. We all need to be up bright and early.”

“Oh, sorry Jazz. We were just talking about what we would do once we capture Phantom.” It seemed her mother didn’t mind her being privy to such a conversation, which meant the location out of the way was Bruce Wayne’s choice.

Jazz ran her hands down her hair. “For what it’s worth, I think the possibility of interviewing and surveying a child siren might give us an opportunity to investigate and potentially isolate the effects of nature and nurture. How much of the violent behaviour displayed by sirens past is due to their cultural upbringing and how much is caused by natural instincts? We could learn so much.”

Her mother hummed. She could tell by her face that she was considering her words. Jazz pressed on.

“Look, whatever happens, I think we need to reserve judgement for this new siren until after we’ve met him. We don’t attack baby lions just because adult lions are dangerous to humans, right?”

She looked to Bruce Wayne. She couldn’t read him. Jazz felt ill for what she was about to say, but she knew how futile it was to express her real beliefs, and try to push back an avalanche. “And maybe we can save the child? Teach him to be better than his violent peers, and educate him to be kind and accepting like us humans are.” Like she hoped her parents could be.

That got her parents attention. Jazz told herself it would all be worth it. It would be worth the nausea she had for saying something so utterly vile wrapped up in a cute bow.

She ignored the strange look Bruce Wayne gave her, and excused herself. She needed to have a cry. Catharsis would be good for her. Even if the underlying problem still writhed beneath her skin, fraying the bond between her and her parents.

She was so distracted she didn’t even use the opportunity the heated conversation gave her to sabotage the boat. What kind of a sister would this journey reveal her to be? What kind would her parents be revealed as?

Night settled as an eerily quiet day of swimming went past them. Danny scurried into a small cave for shelter. As soon as he crossed the threshold, Damian got off his back and shoved himself into the far end of the closed space, curling himself into a tight ball, back turned.

Danny unpacked the supplies one by one, alone. He passed a strip of kelp to Damian. The small siren’s fins remained rigid, like they’d been all day. Damian yanked the strip from Danny’s hands without a word.

Danny stared at the boy’s back. The words he needed still hadn’t come. They still slipped away whenever he tried to search. No pathway of apology seemed right in his head, so he pushed it back.

“It’s a nice night out.” Danny rubbed his wrists. “Clear skies. We can still see the North Star. Funny how we’ve gone south for so long, but we won’t be crossing the equator at all.”

Danny looked back to see if anything changed. Nothing did. “We’ll be in Panama soon. Probably in a day. Hopefully the GiW won’t be able to track our location enough.

He gave up soon after. He passed strips of plant life and watched as Damian silently took them. When Damian finished one batch, Danny passed him another. Once dinner was done with, all he had to do now was sleep, and dream. And think of the families that each missed them.

Damian shivered. His fins rattled from the motion. Danny crawled closer, reaching his hand out, waiting for permission.

“Do not touch me.” Damian whispered, voice still hollow. Danny’s heart took another wound, but he nodded regardless. He took a sack and emptied it, and draped it over Damian’s body. The rest of the night was spent tossing and bending his fins, and then in fitful sleep.

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 8 days

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Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 23

still a bit ill so this chapter's late, but we're racing towards the conclusion of the panama arc! Woohoo!!!

MASTAPOST

Past a certain point, the kid was barely even eating. Even as Danny passed him bits of seaweed and sargassum, Damian only nibbled on them over the course of hours.

Somehow, he felt even guiltier than when he was speaking and guilt tripping him back in the reefs around Amity.

A treacherous stray thought crossed his mind. Bruce Wayne did have a reputation for taking in troubled kids-

No. It would never happen. Not after failing to save Damian, and returning him a wreck of a traumatised child.

Maybe it would be better if he disappeared into the ocean…

All he could do was keep swimming.

Jazz tip-toed, heart pounding in her chest. She put her hand to her ear, and her ear to the door.

“I’m saying we need to be analytical about this.” Came Bruce Wayne’s hushed voice. He sounded like he’d been talking for a while now.

“And if we don’t interrogate him the right way, then we’ll lose them forever. Don’t you understand that?”

Her parents went still.

“Mads, I think Brucie’s got a point.” Her father’s voice lowered an octave, a stark contrast to his usual jovial shouting. Jazz had to shake herself. What was Bruce Wayne doing?

“Jack?”

“Phantom’s taken big hits before. What happens if tearing him apart doesn’t get him to squeal? We’ll be back at square one.”

“But if we threaten him first, then we can use that as bargaining chip.” Bruce Wayne continued.

Her mother was breathing heavily. For a moment, she said nothing.

“There’s another thing, too.”

“What is it, Brucie?”

“We have much more we need to learn from Phantom. What his motives are. What his species’ motives are. You said so yourself Jack, that you haven’t caught a single siren ever. Has anyone?”

Hah! What a joke…

“He’s right, Mads. There’s so much we don’t know.”

“I know…” Her mother whispered, her voice breaking at the last syllable.

Chairs scraped. “What? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Then why bring it up now?” Her mother asked, always discerning.

“The report mentioned a second siren. A young boy. The report mentioned he looked about six years of age.”

“So he’s got a tiny accomplice??”

“Jack, we don’t know what-”

“Actually, Jack would be right. The child was assisting Phantom in pillaging at least two Atlantean outposts.”

“Jack.” Bruce Wayne stressed. “I’m bringing this up because whatever we are going to do to Phantom, we leave the child out of it.”

“But the research we could conduct-”

“Where’s your code of ethics?” Bruce Wayne’s shadow made a cutting motion.

Her parents’ shadows went still.

“Bruce, the sirens have been responsible-”

“I’m keenly aware.”

Her mother hummed. She could tell by her face that she was considering her words. Jazz pressed on.

That got her parents attention. Jazz told herself it would all be worth it. It would be worth the nausea she had for saying something so utterly vile wrapped up in a cute bow.

Danny stared at the boy’s back. The words he needed still hadn’t come. They still slipped away whenever he tried to search. No pathway of apology seemed right in his head, so he pushed it back.

“It’s a nice night out.” Danny rubbed his wrists. “Clear skies. We can still see the North Star. Funny how we’ve gone south for so long, but we won’t be crossing the equator at all.”

Danny looked back to see if anything changed. Nothing did. “We’ll be in Panama soon. Probably in a day. Hopefully the GiW won’t be able to track our location enough.

Damian shivered. His fins rattled from the motion. Danny crawled closer, reaching his hand out, waiting for permission.

#dpxdc #danny fenton #damian wayne #dcxdp #merman #merboy #mermaid au #angst #bruce wayne #jazz fenton #good sibling jazz fenton #jack fenton #maddie fenton #no comfort #ethics #dehumanisation #mer!danny #mer!damian

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 9 days

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<3 i'm glad you're enjoying the ride! Yeah there's a few elements going on here and it's all very exciting to write uwu

Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 21

MASTAPOST credit to @adonneniel, @brekitten and @bucketorandomness for all their help brianstorming. The scene with bruce has been a long time coming!

Walter Wekapipo puffed his second cigar of the day. Puff. Puff. Smoke filled his lungs, taking the edge off. Just another cold, damp day on a cold whaling boat in the middle of nowhere.

The captain shouted his orders. Walter got to it. He trawled to the back and grabbed some rope. He heaved. He hauled. The whale they got was a small one. Probably a baby. Should leave it alone. Let it grow big, but captain’s orders.

See, Walter saw himself as a morally complex man. You, dear readers, may consider him with disdain, He is a whaler! You may say. They are endangered species, you continue. And these are very valid points, for which this narrative will not only not judge you but appraise you for.

And Walter considered these points too. Sure they were pretty creatures, but they could always make more. People have been huntin’ whales for centuries. Millennia even. How could you blame him for needing to make a livin’?

No, who you should blame, Walter thought, was the rich pricks out on the East Coast. The assholes who run around in Armani and Gucci and drive fancy cars and do big speeches about the environment and then sneak off to Japan to try whale meat and raw horse. Bleugh.

What he could do with that kinda money…

But he didn’t have that kind of money, and you know? Mama always told him he needed to be happy first with what he got. So Walter picked up his harpoon gun, and dragged his feet to the side of the boat. A whale surfaced. There she was. Huge, meaty, tonnes of oil. Crying out like a bitch too. He remembered his mama crying out like a bitch every single day, till they institutionalised her. Poor mama.

Maybe in a better life, he wouldn’t be out here killing whales illegally. Walter didn’t really have the heart to fire the thing. Not really. But captain’s orders. And it was this or the streets.

Walter flicked his cigarette into the water. Time to get over with it. The captain yelled at him again. He knew he wasn’t getting’ fired. Boat was barely staffed as it was. Walter picked up his harpoon and took aim. So sorry, whaley-girl.

Something wet smacked into his cheek. Then it slid down his face, and dropped onto the floor. What in the world-?

Water slowly lowered his head. His half-smoked cigarette lay there innocently, chock fulla water.

Then came the most hideous, horrifyin’ screechin’ Walter had ever heard in his life.

May God have mercy on his tainted, tainted soul.

Damian opened his gills pre-emptively. He jumped out of the water at full speed, roaring the moment he surfaced. The first man, the repugnant one with the harpoon gun. He was to go down first. The poacher was too stunned to even move. Damian sank his teeth deep into the man’s hand, going deeper than his human bites had ever gone.

The man screeched like a distressed school girl. Damian did not relent. His opponent attempted to fling Damian off, but the small siren held firm. The man stumbled back, howling and trying his best to rid himself of the monstrous child.

The two men beside him shouted. They reached for their harpoons. Twin blue beams blasted them back. The ice bound them to the back wall, leaving only enough room to breathe and wiggle their fingers.

Damian moved to finish his opponent. Tired of the incessant screeching, Damian unhooked his teeth from the man’s arm. Raising his head to eye level, Damian matched the poacher’s terrified look with a hiss of his own. One firm head butt later, and he was down for the count.

And Damian was hardly done.

He may be without his grappling hook. He may be without his legs. But he was still Robin, and a Robin who could not adapt was no Robin at all.

Shouting erupted along the boat. Footsteps scrambled and ran in every which direction. Men rushed to where he was lying ‘prone’ on the deck. Let them come!

“You handle the right. I will decimate the left.” Damian shouted. Danny nodded, charging up another beam.

Damian held his sword in one hand, and activated the wrist ray on the other. The men hesitated.

“Come on mates. It’s just a baby! We could get rich selling it!” With that, the trio of sailors yelled and rallied, each of them carrying harpoons. Child’s play.

Damian coiled his tail, and jumped as a wound-up spring would. A harpoon fired. Damian fired back. The wrist ray’s beam hit true, and the harpoon flew off course. The siren boy continued his course, and latched onto the first man.

His movement came as fluid as gentle river. In one motion with one hand, a slash at the stomach. In another with the other hand, he launched himself at the next poacher. His second total victim fell to the floor like a sack of bricks, writhing and crying out. The second of the trio faltered. A fatal mistake. Damian went for the head. His tail wrapped around the disgusting human’s neck and squeezed. The third man lunged for him. Damian burned his feet with the wrist ray. Then he sent him flying back with a shot to the shoulder.

There were more men. Damian did not relent. He would not relent until nobody was standing, until they could no longer continue their dirty deeds.

His platform was beginning to lose consciousness. Damian slammed him behind the head with the hilt of his sword. As the man fell, Damian launched himself to the next person foolish enough to approach. Then the next, and then the next. Damian dodged and deflected harpoons. He leapt from person to person in a bloody game of leap frog, and when he ran out of people to jump to, he instead went for the crane in the centre of the boat. Damian clambered up the crane using nothing but his upper body strength, aided by his lighter weight.

The remainder of the men were cowering under shelter. It was foolish to think they could escape from him for long. A death rattled emerged, a warning for anyone who dared approach. A foolish man peeked from a window. The wrist ray burned off a patch of hair for his troubles.

Damian had no patience for these games. It seemed Danny had the same idea. The flashes of blue light ceased alongside the screaming. Oh how therapeutic the screaming was.

Before long, chaos emerged from even the cabin rooms. Looks like Danny had breached them. His opportunity granted, Damian dropped.

He landed on a hapless sailor. A slam to the back of the head had him slumping against the doorway. Damian leapt into the fray.

As soon as it had started, the bloodbath ended. Damian and Danny sat there in the bridge, surrounded by fallen poachers, still breathing, a small mercy. The boys panted heavily, their bodies not quite used to exertion over water. However, the deed was done.

“Has anyone told you you’re totally insane?” Danny asked.

Damian nodded breathlessly. “Many times.”

“High-five?”

Damian’s shoulders slumped. “Very well.”

They still had work to do. Danny tipped over a bucket of sea water on them both. “To keep our scales wet.” He said. Together, the sirens worked on freeing Dorothea. Damian cut the ropes, while Danny used his ice to smooth over the deck.

Damian laid his hand on her nose. He trilled his goodbyes. “Farewell, Dorothea. May you travel safely.”

With the ice acting like a smooth ramp, just a couple pushes were enough to slide Dorothea back into the water, safe and sound. Her mother sang to them in thanks. The whale pod departed soon after, leaving the two siren boys to the rest of the dirty work.

Damian emerged from the brig with rope. A lot of it. Danny worked on icing over the wounds inflicted by Damian’s rampage, many of which Damian would attest were well-earned. However, Damian did not intend to become a murderer again. Despite everything, he still wished to live up to his father’s ideals.

With the crew and captain rounded and tied up, that left another question.

“How are we gonna get these guys to the authorities?”

“We could always just sink the ship and allow them to perish.”

Danny crossed his arms, his face going flat. “No thanks.”

“It is simple. We emulate Basil the Second of the Eastern Roman Empire, who blinded 99 captured soldiers out of a hundred, and gouged out only one eye from the remaining one. Then he had the enemy soldiers return, led by the one-eyed men.”

Danny’s own eyes widened to dinner plates. His nictitating membranes flashed back and forth rapidly.

“I mean to say we allow one man to captain the ship home, while still heavily restrained.”

Danny’s body slumped in relief. “Oh thank god. I thought you were gonna actually try and do that.”

Damian bared his teeth at the crooks, who cowered as far as they could, tied up in rope and ice. “I would like to, but I am bound by higher principles these days.”

“Not concerning at all, but ok.”

Danny wisely chose to not press the issue. He chose someone relatively skinny, freed him out of the bunch. The scrawny man did not even try to flee. Damian’s sword made sure of that.

Just because they were allowing them to live did not mean they had to be nice. Land was less than a day away, so they could afford to be a little harsh. Damian tried the man wrists to the steering wheel, and Danny welded his feet to the floor. “Just so you don’t get any ideas, buddy.”

Danny patted the man on the shoulder, a gesture that was normally meant to encourage and provide support. The scrawny sailor trembled.

“Oh, Dami!” Danny perked up.

Damian’s fins rattled at the childish nickname.

“Now that we’re on a boat, we can call home.

That was… that was good news! Yes! He had completely forgot about that, lost in his righteous rage. That was the whole reason they’d ravaged the previous Atlantean town. Only the map had showed the nearest island to be thousands of miles away, and the coastline would have been too risky. Yes, this was good news indeed.

Damian put his sword to Scrawny’s throat.

Danny cleared his voice. “You might wanna give us your phone password, or my friend here is gonna make a sushi restaurant out of you.”

The man rattled off a series of numbers. Danny fished out his mobile phone, an old battered model, but functional.

“Here you go, Damian.”

Damian’s heart lightened. At last he could contact his father. Perhaps set up an extraction of some kind at the other end of Panama, or even earlier. This would be an enormous step towards bringing this adventure to an end, and returning back to Gotham where he was needed (and deep inside his heart, where he needed to be as well).

Damian slid the phone’s screen to unlock it, only for it to not work. Damian swiped the screen again.

“Why is this not working?” He rapidly rubbed the screen with his thumb, but the device did not respond.

“Oh yeah. These things are designed for human skin, which, uh, you know.” Danny showed his open palm, showing fingers coated in scores of tiny scales.

Damian looked to the side. He crawled up to one of the piles of tied-up poachers and came up to one fortunate enough to have been rendered unconscious. Damian yanked his arm forward, not caring for the deafening crack sound that motion created, and used the poacher’s human fingers to input the call for him.

An inelegant solution for an inelegant problem.

But that was no matter. Damian checked and double checked the numbers, making sure it was his father’s and nobody else’s. He took a deep breath, and pressed call.

Bruce Wayne sat on the back deck of the SAV, alone for the moment. The Fentons were just below, manning the controls. Apparently there was some kink in the system that was causing them to lose speed. Unsurprising, considering they had invented this whole new system in less than 48 hours. Or at least that was if Jasmine was to be believed.

The back deck sported an umbrella over a desk and a couple chairs for relaxation. On his tablet, Bruce carefully read the Fenton’s previous papers on sirens, a length catalogue dating back to over twenty years, when they were both in college.

In college with Vlad Masters, until he had disappeared, only to return grievously ill.

His phone rang. Bruce stared at the call. An unknown American number. He’d long ago stamped out the scam callers and telephone advertisers from ever bothering him or his family. The only person who could be calling this number was someone who knew it. Or at least someone who’d manually dialled it and wasn’t a scammer.

Hope began to swell. Surely it couldn’t be. It had to be Damian. Wasn’t it? No, he had to quash his hopes down. He had to stay focused.

Bruce answered the call.

“Hello, Bruce Wayne speaking. How may I help you?” His body tensed, hoping to God that it would be his son’s voice on the line, in the one and a million chance.

But what came through the line wasn’t his son’s voice. Or anyone’s voice. Instead, a series of frantic high-pitched trills, clicks and whistles came through. Almost like the caller put the phone next to an excited dolphin.

“Listen, I do not have time for any pranks. Who is calling me and why?” Bruce clenched his first. Of course he was a fool to get his hopes up.

Another frantic dolphin call. What a waste of time.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself for prank calling me.” The clicking went on in even more rapid succession, but Bruce ignored it. “Goodbye, and do not call this number again.”

Bruce hung up.

He hung his head in his hands, wishing for Damian to be back and safe. Wishing nobody had to be in danger.

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 9 days

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Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 22

MASAPOST

this chapter kicked my ass, what with the allergic attack and continued insomnia epsidoe ;-;

Danny watched as Damian’s body froze in dawning horror. The hang-up sound deafened the room. The boy sat stock still. His arms trembled. The phone slipped out of his palm. He didn’t bother to pick it up.

“I… I do not understand.” Damian whispered. “I was speaking in plain English.”

But Danny understood. He understood now, where he never knew before. A lump grew in his throat.

How many people think about the movements of their tongues in speech? How many people actively plan out and execute precisely which movements their mouths make, judging distances, contours, contact time and aerodynamics? How many conversations has the average person had without a single thought towards any of these factors?

His siren brain turned Damian’s shell-shaken chirps into English words so seamlessly that it took active concentration to remember they weren’t English words, not any that a human could easily understand.

“Damian-”

“Do not ‘Damian’ me!” Damian’s fins turned into rigid spines, a reaction he only ever saw from sirens seriously trying to kill him. “We have been speaking in English this entire time! Why could he not understand me?! I have been-”

Damian’s eyes widened. His breathing hitched, then labored. His hands went to clutch at his throat.

“What have I been speaking?”

“Damian, I’m sorry.”

“When you threatened the sailor for his phone password, he complied immediately. You spoke human English to him!” Damian jabbed Danny’s chest, accusation radiating off every word.

“I know. Damian, I-”

“Father is a discerning man. He will not accept a phone call from a strange number twice! You could have squandered the only opportunity we have had to contact help for thousands of miles!”

The young boy’s chest strained to contain his breathing.

“Damian, you’re hyperventilating. Let’s slow down and-”

“No!” Damian backed away from Danny’s hands, like they were molten lava. “We need to contact father again, now! Show me how to form human words.”

Danny stuttered. He had never thought how to do that. He spoke in clicks to his enemies, and when he changed to human form, he’d speak normally again with his loved ones. Changing to human words in siren form was effortless to him.

Damian did not wait for his response long. The boy wheezed, and gasped. The boy’s throat clenched and throbbed as he spat out rasping hisses, and malformed syllables.

He sucked in another breath, and tried again. Each attempt ended up in failure. Damian’s breath grew shallower, his breathing accelerating further and further.

“No! No, no, no, no!” Damian muttered. The boy’s body slumped over, collapsed against the floor. “Why can I not do it?! What do I need? Show me!”

Damian’s chin wobbled His eyes wavered with tears threatening to come out.

Danny was at a loss. Heat scorched his cheeks, shame and guilt in tandem. “I- I- I don’t k-know. I never l-learned. I-it just came naturally to me.”

“I have lost my legs! I have lost my family. I have lost my age and my mental maturity. And you never saw it fit to tell me I have lost my voice too?! What else will you take from me?!”

Danny’s heart seized. A white streak dripped down Damian’s cheek. Then another. Danny lowered his head. “I’m sorry Damian. I- I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know this would happen.”

“What do you mean?!” The child wailed. “We have been swimming for two days! You have had so much time to consider, and yet you did nothing!”

“We can still contact your dad. I-I can speak to him. Or we could text. Or maybe-”

Danny’s nose prickled. Voices came from around the boat. Atlantean voices. More than ten of them. He raised his head, and spotted scores of soldiers announcing their presence in front of the boat. A couple of them in fancy headgear also sported Atlantean magic tattoos. Not good at all.

Damian wrenched a half-sobbing chirp too broken to understand. Danny scooped up the tiny, tiny child, and turned them both invisible. Damian pushed against his arms, but Danny kept firm. He shattered the windows of the room, causing the soldiers outside to yelp and ready their weapons. Without giving them anymore notice, he jumped into the water, speeding away from the scene.

Danny had lost count of how many hours he’d swum, Damian still clinging to his back. Whatever faint traces of warmth the boy had started to show him had long evaporated.

“Damian?” Danny prompted, for what felt like the hundredth time. “Damian, I’m sorry, I swear I didn’t mean to.”

What did he mean to do?

Damian remained quiet, and terrifyingly still. All that came out was a tiny whine and a hiccupped gasp.

“Damian, I promise there’s an explanation for this. It’s-” Danny stopped. It’s what? What could he say to explain? That he was a full human until he was 13 years of age? That he’d had about 10 positive interactions with the other members of his ‘species’ his entire life? That he was not even what or who he said he was, a freak of nature, tainted and touched in ways he could barely imagine?

His only safety net was his secrecy. Danny’s mind flashed to armadas of GiW ships funded by Wayne Enterprises, his parents at the helm of the flagship, and Bruce Wayne soon after. He imagined swimming, and swimming, and swimming for the rest of his life, hiding away in the Mariana Trench and never seeing the stars again.

Damian had no reason not to tell his father everything that transpired during this journey. And he especially had the right to be very angry with Danny. After all, who else failed to save him?

But he was also owed an explanation of some kind. Maybe a half truth? Danny swallowed the lump in his throat. He cleared his mouth. Why were there tears blurry his vision?

“Do not speak to me.” Damian muttered. Nowhere was the boisterous, prideful ego. The kid sounded utterly defeated.

“Damian…” Danny begged. He blinked as fast as he could. The tears were even faster.

“The only reason I have allowed you to carry me is because I still wish to go home. But I do not wish to speak to you. Or speak, period.”

Danny let the silent tears fall freely. “Ok.”

Jack Fenton lay on a mechanic creeper, looking into the complex mesh of wires he and Maddie had concocted in a feverish haze over the course of a single day, and now it was sparking. That was worrying. No need to sweat it, though. Jack Fenton was nothing if not a mechanic, and he’d sort this issue out in no time.

Maddie was on the deck, carefully watching for any siren interlopers who might take an easy shot at them. With her at the helm, Jack had nothing to fear as he inspected the damage.

His eyes traced lines of wires and pipes. Hydroplasm tubes leading into combustion chambers fed by cooling units. Ahah! There it was! One of the cooling tubes was leaking. The bolts on the thing were just a bit too loose, and water was beginning to drip through. A layman might think a cooling tube being broken would cause issues, but the Fentons were nothing if not thorough. Their failsafe system kicked in, and forced the engines to slow down so as not to overheat everything. Let it never be said that Jack Fenton did not care for the safety of his children!

Actually, now that he thought about it, there were a lot more minor issues than he thought there would be. Nothing major, thank goodness, but he could tell why the SAV had been chugging lately.

Time to get to it! Now what tools would he need?

Jack Fenton sat up, only for his head to bang on a pipe. He fell back onto the creeper with a wheeze. Gotta keep an eye on where he was!

“Dr Fenton?” Was that Brucie?

“Brucie boy! Please, call me Jack! Dr Fenton was my dad.”

“I’m sure Jasmine will soon be saying the same.” Brucie chuckled. “Jasmine told me you were taking longer than normal. Need a hand?”

“You sure about that? This isn’t the kind of thing you can find in an old Toyota.”

Brucie was out of his fancy suit and tie, and in more dirty work-appropriate wear. At least he had the spirit!

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem. I’ve done a few creative engineering projects myself. Some of my designs are sold by the company.”

Jack rolled himself back into the open air, where Brucie was already taking stock of the machinery. Jack’s eyebrows shot up.

“Huh. I didn’t know you were a hands-on type of CEO!”

“I try not to be distant from the people I’m working with in the company. This is your field of expertise, though. If I’d get in the way, that’s fine too.”

“No, no! It’s been a long since time someone’s been this interested in our work. Most people run away! Probably the sirens intimidating ‘em.”

“I can imagine.” Brucie’s voice became sombre.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Brucie, I didn’t mean to, well.”

“It’s alright. The two of us are in the same boat, anyway.”

Jack snorted. Brucie’s face cracked up a little. “Alright then. Come on down and I’ll show you what we need to do.”

Brucie wasn’t lying when he said he had experience. Guy was keeping up with Jack as he explained how the engine worked and why it wasn’t working now. It was like he was talking to a peer in the field! It was exhilarating, considering he and Maddie made up pretty much half of the entire field of siren research.

“Where do you even get enough energy to power this thing? I know it’s not oil or coal or any kind of fossil fuel.”

“That’s easy, Brucie! It’s hydroplasm! Same thing that makes up sirens’ bodies. Gives them their powers.”

Brucie coughed loudly, almost dropping the power cell he was holding up while Jack redid the seals. “So it’s siren blood?”

“I guess you could say that. Not like we’ve ever actually caught one.” Jack tapped the hydroplasm tubes. Thankfully those ones were still airtight and secure. “All this stuff is filtered from the big blue sea herself! Ain’t that neat?”

“It’s incredible.” Jack felt pride swell, for his and his wife’s hard work.

“You’re pretty incredible yourself, Brucie.”

Brucie’s eyebrow quirked. “I can’t say I haven’t heard that before, but it’s usually from women trying to get my attention.”

“I mean it! Most parents wouldn’t have the gumption to take to the seas and fight monsters from the abyss for their kids. And that’s fair! Not everyone’s got the expertise Mads and I do.”

Jack turned the last screw and tapped the power cell. Tight as a tourniquet.

“And not every CEO’s willing to get knee-deep in nuts and bolts either.” Jack continued. Truth be told, Jack had never thought of the possibility of meeting a rich person before. He always thought they’d be in some other kind of world, totally unlike anything he knew. Vladdie was different of course. They went back all the way to their college days, after all.

“Not every parent would personally invent an arsenal worthy of sailing the high seas and fighting through them to get their son back.”

Jack beamed with pride. “Come on, Brucie. You’re making me blush!”

The men continued working, patching up the cracks, filling in missing parts, and welding together pipes, falling into a new pattern that they weren’t quite used to. Occasionally they would bump into each other, or pass the wrong tool and would have to correct. These mistakes became rarer as the night went on, and a comfortable silence settled between them.

“I’m just- I don’t know what to say. The boys. After Alicia and her son, we promised it would never happen again. Moved all the way to Amity, filled the bay with equipment, made a fortress out of our house, and then what?”

Brucie looked down. “I’m sorry about your sister-in-law. And I’m sorry I was careless too.”

Jack reared his head up. “What do you have to be sorry for, Brucie?”

“It was very likely my carelessness in visiting Amity Island that provoked the attack on my son, and yours.”

Jack waved them off immediately. Preposterous! “The only fault to be had is Phantom’s. We’ll get our boys back, and make Phantom pay.”

Bruce screwed in the last piece. The fathers backed out of the room, and slid the protective panel back over the engines.

“Danno’s a strong kid. I’m sure your Damian’s a wildfire and a half too. Wherever they are, I’m sure they’ll have each other’s backs.” Jack whispered. He hoped everything he taught his boy would give him a chance, even a sliver.

Brucie nodded. The men shared a look, and shared whatever hope they could carry on this voyage over the ocean.

#dpxdc #danny fenton #damian wayne #dcxdp #merman #merboy #mermaid au #angst #mer!danny #mer!danny fenton #mer!damian wayne #sirens #jack fenton #bruce wayne #good parents jack and maddie #good parent bruce wayne #they have an argument #transformation angst

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 9 days

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Fi from @linked-maze au! this design makes me so incredibly happy u have no idea, i absolutely adore fi and sksw, and angels/wings are my special interest, so this just makes me 🫠🩵💜

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 11 days