tales of the passerine - danny fenton being bruce wayne's first kid
okay okay. so this is like a continuation/elaboration of my oneshot/prompt i wrote about the idea that Danny was the first batkid. We have a lot of aus where he joins the family after the rest of the bats do, right? So hey! Lets shake things up a bit. Danny is the first to be adopted by Bruce Wayne.
Danny's parents and unfortunately Jazz die shortly after the events of TUE -- how so? I was gonna say an ecto-filter explosion, that would call back to the TUE explosion and trauma behind that. But lets do something new! Carbon-monoxide poisoning.
It's not too unexpected for something to break in the Fenton house, especially with the Fenton parents' questionable understanding of proper weapon handling and lab safety. The water heater broke from a stray shot by one of the weapons, and was promptly MacGyver'd incorrectly. Danny went to stay with Tucker for a guys' night, and came back to a dead silent house.
(Danny's neighbors got a very unfortunate shock when he ran to the next house over in hysterics.)
There was a lot of shuffling around with CPS, the police. People had to be called in to handle the equipment in the lab, and the GIW was rumoring to show up in aid to clearing the scene. When Danny heard of that, he immediately went and dismantled the ghost portal to the best of his abilities. He burned the physical blueprints of all his parents' inventions, their blueprints on the ghost portal, and their most dangerous weapons were destroyed beyond recognition. Anything to prevent the GIW from getting their hands on his parents' tech.
It opened up another investigation, but he was not under the list of suspects. He was placed in the care of Vlad Masters, where they then went back to the rebuilt castle mansion in Wisconsin. Danny, terrified of the future that has once passed and may do so again, shuts down in his grief. Inadvertently, he ends up somewhat repressing his ghost half. Something Vlad, who is grieving Madeline but relishing in Jack's demise and his custody of Daniel, is not very happy with.
Vlad's... gone into a bit of a mental health spiral. He's becoming increasingly possessive over Daniel, the final remnants of his friends and a liminal being like him. He doesn't like that Danny's repressing his ghost half -- both out of genuine concern as a ghost, but also because of his desire to control Danny and groom him into the perfect son. If you ever had a phase where you read Dark SBI found family fics, first off; me too bro, and second off; those are the vibes I'm thinking of.
Danny's mentally shut down from grief! And fear. He's dropped into a bad depressive state -- paralyzed with grief and the terror of the inevitable. Clockwork saved his parents because he believes in second chances, but what's the point of that when his family ended up dead anyways? Danny doesn't wanna believe that he's destined to become evil, and he's holding out onto that hope, but it's a thin line, and he feels utterly hopeless and trapped. He hasn't used his powers or ghost form since he trashed the lab, and Vlad has alarms set up to prevent him from trying to escape.
He's also unintentionally cut off Sam and Tucker -- both of whom are so scared and concerned for Danny too, and are trying their damndest to reach out to him. He keeps ignoring their texts. Danny basically haunts Vlad's manor. He goes out to eat if he has to, attends parties Vlad drags him to, and stays in his room all day if he can.
At parties, Vlad doesn't allow Danny to leave his side, or really talk to anyone -- not that Danny wants to. A product of Vlad's increasing possessiveness. Well, he almost doesn't let Danny leave his side. Danny has a habit of slipping off to hide somewhere for the parties whenever he can, and Vlad reluctantly allows it so long as he stays alone.
This becomes an advantage when eventually, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham after missing for years, and holds a bright charity ball to celebrate the return. Vlad has been chomping at the bits to get his hands on Wayne Industries, and with the return of its owner there is no better opportunity to wipe out his rival. He goes, and he as normal, brings Daniel with him.
Vlad thinks Wayne will bleed his little heart out for Daniel's poor orphan sob story -- he's a fellow orphan himself, after all. He's not wrong; Wayne's little heart will bleed, just not in the way that benefits him.
Bruce sees Vlad and Danny approaching before they're even close enough to introduce themselves - and like with many of the children he will soon come to care for, it's like someone set a mirror into the past right in front of him.
Danny Fenton's suit is tailor-made for him, and despite the fact that it's his perfect size, the sag in his shoulders, the ducked down head, and the way he hunches into himself all pictures the image of a child in shoes too big for him. There's a far away, glazed over look in his eyes and grief marble-cut into the lines of his face. There's not enough makeup in the world that will hide the dark circles under his eyes.
("My nephew, Daniel Fenton." Vlad's hands are possessive on Danny's shoulders. Bruce immediately notices the way the boy tenses under his touch. "His parents passed recently, and as his godfather I was designated his guardian.")
("I'm so sorry, the loss must've been terrible.")
("Yes, carbon-monoxide poisoning caused it. Daniel was out with friends, when he came home... they had already passed.")
(Bruce immediately dislikes that Vlad shared the details of their death unprompted -- he likes it even less when Danny flinches at the reminder and hunches into himself.)
Danny runs off at some point earlier into the charity. At this point, parties are still being held at Wayne Manor (because iirc google search mentioned that was a thing at first before it was changed), so he disappears and hides in one of the empty rooms nearby. It just so happens to be the same room Bruce Wayne hides in when he needs a break from all of the socialization.
Thus begins a long, long process of trust. Bruce can't reveal his hand as being smarter than he looks, but he can be compassionate. Kindness needs no measure of intelligence. He keeps Danny company for as long as he can before he runs the risk of being found.
Rinse and repeat. Vlad insistently wants Wayne Industries, and he'll go to as many Wayne parties as he can to get his hooks into the man. The problem is that Bruce Wayne is never alone, and getting him alone is impossible. Finding him too. It's like the man never stops moving. Always talking to someone, always circling somewhere. He orbits around the room as if he isn't the sun of the Gotham Elite's solar system.
Danny's had such repetitive behavior that Vlad never thinks to believe that Bruce Wayne is disappearing to go talk to him. That "Vlad's" son is even interacting with him at all. Danny never gives him a reason to think so, and neither does Bruce.
Danny doesn't actually acknowledge Bruce until a handful of parties in, where he hands Bruce a small slip of paper he smuggled in that says; "don't trust Vlad". Danny's face stays carefully blank, but he's so tense that his hands are trembling, and he's purposely looking away from him. Bruce plasters a smile onto his face, slips the paper into his pocket, and tells him "okay".
(he's been busy with his own goals with the mafia, but he sets aside time to investigate Vlad Masters. He was holding off. Until now.)
Danny does eventually start speaking to Bruce, he's starting to really like the guy. He's starting to see a little hope, even as Vlad is starting to get more and more agitated with him the more he refuses to use his powers.
He reaches out to Sam and Tucker again, and starts trying to reconnect with them. Vlad has spyware on his phone, and he limits the amount of times he can talk to them. A weird parental control lock of some sort that leaves a time limit on how long he can talk to them for. 30 minutes. Danny doesn't tell them anything about Mr. Wayne.
Danny, slowly, wants out of here, and he's slowly gathering the motivation to do it. Vlad is genuinely scaring him -- and Danny wonders just how truthful the past-future Vlad was when he told him that Danny wanted his ghost half separate. He starts trying to come up with an escape plan.
Vlad has anti-ghost wards everywhere around the mansion, and while they're always on, they boost to full power at sunset. The doors and windows are always locked, all main exits have alarms set on them. The only reason it's not super extensive is because Danny hasn't tried leaving at all yet, so Vlad hasn't had to tighten anything.
At night, Vlad locks the door to his room and puts up an anti-ghost ward around the room. The mansion is on the outside westward side of Madison, more entrenched in rural Wisconsin. The closest town is a four-way stop sign with one house on three corners, and an open bar on the fourth. Not much to go.
He refuses to go to Sam and Tucker; Vlad would look there first. It's too dangerous. Vlad would sound alarm bells and have a manhunt looking for him, Danny can't risk going just anywhere. Too much risk of being found, sold out, or caught. There's really nowhere for him to hide.
Until there is. Bruce is telling Danny about the history of Wayne Manor, and says, as casually as saying the weather; "The manor has dozens of empty rooms, I'm sure Alfred wouldn't mind filling another one if he could." And quietly, hesitantly, Bruce places a careful hand on Danny's shoulder, unrestrictive and gentle; "He wouldn't mind getting one ready for you if you need one."
And there it is. There's his out.
Danny, just as quietly, replies; "I'll keep that in mind."
The ball starts rolling.
Now I've been trying to summarize this au as much as possible for length convenience, but Vlad has been steadily growing more and more controlling. More emotionally manipulative. More agitated at Danny for not using his powers.
He wants Wayne Industries under his thumb but he's been steadily growing more and more concerned with Danny. He's started grabbing him, yanking him around, shaking him; trying to goad him into using his powers. He gets angry when Danny doesn't react, or tells him he doesn't want to use his powers. He hasn't outright attacked him, but he's getting there. This has been happening over the time it takes for Bruce to indirectly offer Danny sanctuary at his home.
It all comes to a head when Vlad stops going to parties at all -- something Danny has to pretend he isn't upset about -- because Vlad doesn't want him around other people anymore. Vlad rarely goes now without him, and only leaves to go to a Wayne function or to handle something at VladCo.
Danny can't wait for Vlad to leave long enough to escape. So he leaves during the night of a big storm. Vlad's locked him in his room, but Danny doesn't bother trying to go for it; he goes to the alarmed window instead. Danny's been repressing his ghost half so long that he can't access his powers immediately anymore -- he can feel it, he knows its there, but he can't quite reach it.
He breaks the lock by hand.
Immediately the alarm goes off through the entire castle, filling the room with red, and he scrambles for the rope the Wisconsin Ghost left for him a few months back. Danny's already out and climbing down the side of the castle before Vlad even reaches his door -- the only good thing about the entire room being ghost-proof is that Vlad can't get in that way.
The rope ends before it reaches the bottom, and he's still twenty feet in the air. It won't kill him if he lands it right. Danny takes his chances, and drops. He breaks his ankle, but he survives.
And he fucking books it to the back garden. He hears Vlad shrieking over the thunder and rain.
I'll save the full experience for a future oneshot, but Danny makes it out into the nearby woods and forcibly experiences what it's like to be in a horror game, trying to hide from the thing that's hunting you. There's only one thing going through his mind; "i'm going to die"
I have this mental image for this scene. Very stereotypical horror imo. Where Danny is hiding behind a tree, with a hand over his mouth, and Vlad is a few feet away from him, glowing ominously red through the trees, trying to search for him.
Danny doesn't get away from this unscathed, but he does get away alive. That's all he could ask for. He gets away by getting his ghost half awakened long enough to transform into Phantom and fly to Gotham.
But he gets to Wayne Manor, he gets to Bruce. Or, at least, Alfred answers the door from his insistent pounding. Danny's just in tears and Alfred gets him in the living room, wrapped in a towel, with ice on his swollen leg before he has to step out and alert Bruce.
Bruce already breaks multiple traffic laws on a nightly basis. And that's just with the sheer existence of the batmobile itself, not including the speeding and military artillery attached. He breaks double the amount trying to speed back to the cave and get out of the suit.
Right off the bat: Bruce will know, at least before Dick enters the picture, about danny's powers. He'll figure out something considering the fact that Danny traveled from Wisconsin to New York in a single night. That'll be a bit of complicated affair, but I've already got something in mind.
Actually it'll probably be very soon after Danny joins the family, because Bruce tries to offer to fight for custody for Danny - the state Danny was in at arrival is clear enough evidence for a trial. But Danny immediately shuts it down, says it's not going to work and then Vlad will know Danny's with him and he won't be safe. He tells him that Vlad cannot know Danny was with Bruce.
Danny's biggest regret was not telling his parents he was a halfa, and while he doesn't want to tell mister wayne (yet), he does tell him about Vlad being one. He needs to know why Danny can't be seen with Bruce. So he tells him, and Danny's current plan is to just hide out from Vlad until he turns 18. That way, he has no more legal jurisdiction over him. After that? He's not sure.
And to wrap this up, since this has already gotten very long and I can make more posts about this au later; I've thought about it, and I'm going to say that Danny does become a vigilante before Dick enters the scene. He goes by, as you probably guessed; Nightingale. "Gale" for short.
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I think Danny Phantom fandom is absolutely sleeping on the sheer dumb bulshittery Danny, Sam and Tucker generate on the regular and it’s a fucking shame. Like, the three of them have exactly one (1) single braincell between them, and the only one to use it at least semi-regularly is Jazz. You literally can’t leave them for five minutes without them stumbling into some new bullshit every single time. Granted, a lot of times bullshit finds them first instead of the other way around, but by god will they make the situation worse. They run into the situations with the same reckless abandon the cockchafers fly into any solid obstacle in their way, and you’d think that at least one of them will be the voice of reason, and you’d be dead wrong.
Danny? He thought pranking a murder happy millionaire with a vindictive streak the size of Grand Canyon was a great idea. And then, like a moron, he decided to use equally murder happy government agency with a huge prejudice against ghosts and a vendetta against him, personally. Absolutely nothing that could go wrong with that, obviously!
(spoiler alert, things did go very wrong very fast)
Tucker? A valid choice at the first glance, except he is always down to commit crimes for either his friends or just for funsies. Remember that time he ran an obviously illegal babysitting scam business? Or that time when he brainwashed and then dimensionally displaced the whole school into Ancient Egypt setting? Another notable instances of Tucker being a menace, in no particular order: organised o pro-meat protest in a few hours, tried to shoot a ghost with his phone as a projectile (and succeeded), sold Sam out to a ghost out of sheer pettiness, gave Skulker an alarm-induced ptsd, almost killed Danny that one time (don’t worry, Danny was fine) and in general committed to being bullshit-enabling gremlin.
Now Sam would seem the most grounded and reasonable out of three of them, but it is what SHE wants you to believe. She is just as, if not more, unhinged as the boys, she just hides it better. Remember that time she trashed the castle and antagonised a few dozen of armed guards, while having no back up, no weapons, no allies and while being in some shithole in the Ghost Zone? And then basically told a tyrannical asshole with op dragon powers “fuck you and your entire kingdom” in the face? And then rode another dragon who put said asshole through a wall? Good times.
They all seem like perfectly reasonable people at the first glance, and then Tucker and Danny would dare each other to lick that weird glowing green rock, and Sam would roll her eyes and groan about how stupid boys are, and then Tucker would dare her to lick that glowing rock too, and Danny will say, “Come on, Tuck, it’s okay if she’s too afraid to do it-”, and yes, Sam and her mother have many disagreements on a lot of things, but both her mother AND Granny did not raise a fucking bitch, move over, Tucker, or so help her the spirit of Pandora-
They all end up absolutely miserable in ecto-containment units sick as hell with ecto-flu and on all questions answer that no, they don’t know how this happened, maybe it was ghost attack last week, they did get blasted by that green goo, after all, but really, they have absolutely no idea, honest. Jazz suspects something, but she also has no proof and therefore can’t prove anything. In the end, it was one of the worst weeks in their life and they all ended up swearing to not do it ever again.
(they do end up doing it again two months later)
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my guilty pleasure trope is like. trash reality dating show au LOL
like you and bakugou on love island ??? HELLO ???? he is 100% the show-stopper that comes in as a twist at the very end, after everyone is already coupled up. thinking they're happy in their pair. ready to move forward and get to know one another. AND THEN BAM. bakugou katsuki. huge and tan and toned. probably a firefighter or something, been single for a long time because he finds it hard to put himself out there — and coming on live, national television was the perfect way to get himself out of his comfort zone LOL
let's say. you're coupled up with denki and you love it ! he's great and funny and charming and will make someone happy — but that someone is just not you. from the get-go, your relationship feels more friendly than anything, but he doesn't try to cop a feel on you in bed and he's a good snuggler and maybe you kiss him once, just to see how it feels, and that's not so bad either. but there are no sparks, no fireworks. you'd be content to even ride out the rest of the challenge in a couple, because he's comfortable, but that's not what either of you came on the show for.
after the first week, bakugou couples up with jirou. her sharp wit and dry humor draws him in enough (and he's always kind of liked that edgy look that she has) — but he very quickly realizes that she's really not that into him POOR GUY. bakugou really isn't her type; besides finding his attitude funny every now and again, they really don't have much in common. don't do much of the same things, share hobbies or interests, so it's a little bit of a bust.
i like to think you're just friends for a week or two. another guy comes in, two new girls come in, but nothing really changes for either of you. keeping your respective couples, just because no one else has really caught your interest — and it's not until a challenge has you kissing him square on the mouth that either of you start to take a second glance across the villa.
you watch him work out in the mornings, make a second cup of tea for when he's done. somehow, you both always end up in the same section, leaning back in the lawn chairs or sitting side-by-side on the beanbags as you chat about how the challenge has been going so far for either of you.
the part of this trope that is so funny to me is that — bakugou really is not the kind of guy that should be on this show LOL he's hard to approach and intimidating and if you don't understand his attitude, then you won't like him. and what little game he has isn't played like this: approaching someone in front of everyone else, nabbing you from your couple, having to put himself out there so that he doesn't get sent home. all while on live television.
but — it's not until you admit, casually one day, that you and denki are just friends that he decides to do anything about it. the two of you have gotten along so well in your couple that bakugou didn't think he stood a chance but after talking to you, he's awkwardly telling kaminari in the kitchen, alone, that he's planning on pursuing you. and denki thinks that's great ! thinks you deserve it !
the week continues on much the same: you and bakugou chat here and there, eat breakfast together away from everyone else, he makes you laugh and you make him smile his crooked little smile at the floor, embarrassed, as he tucks his face and pulls his hat further over his eyes. it's cute and you're having fun with him, but the recoupling is surprising, still.
when he has to stand up there, in front of everyone, red-faced, and grit out that you've caught his eye, that he's enjoyed his time with you, that he'd like to get to know you better — and you're floored. ecstatic, but floored. because he is certainly intimidating, and regardless of the fact that you were with kaminari for so long, you might not have ever approached bakugou, because he's just. so huge and handsome and striking.
and then you're settling in for the night, crawling in to your shared bed for this first time. and he's not like denki, not a cuddler, but you still make a point to wiggle around to him, wait until the lights are off and even breathing sounds throughout the room — and then you tell him, quietly, grinning in the dark:
"i'm really glad you picked me."
you feel bakugou sigh, a bit heavy, and you wonder if you're going in to strong — but then his hand skates over your arm, rests carefully against your hip, and he murmurs, "'m really glad, too."
i wrote this a lil bit ago and have since been made aware of luna's love island bkg !! 🥺 it's so detailed !! there's a whole show for the two of them !!
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