“I ate paint once,” Danny nonchalantly threw out in the middle of game night.
The entire table stopped. Heads whipped towards Danny.
“Yeah, me too. Cardamom yellow was my favorite. Ugly as hell but the chemicals just tasted right.” Tim replied, using the distraction to nab some of Bruce’s money. Monopoly money, that is. Everyone’s heads snapped towards Tim, only Cass and Danny (who was part of the scheme) caught him cheating.
“Really? I think mine was those spray can blue cosmos paint. But that might have been more my thing for space than the actual taste.”
“WHY WERE YOU EATING PAINT?!” Dick asked, looking like he wanted to lunge over the table and shake Danny until he puked out paint. Bruce looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
“Yeah, what the fuck, Tim?” Jason snickered.
“In my defense,” Danny grinned. “I was left unsupervised. Also, Steph, you owe me $24 in rent.”
“Ugh! I’m almost out of money! Can’t you loan me some, Alfred?”
“I am sorry, Miss Stephanie, you are not qualified for another loan. In fact, one of your properties is about to be confiscated as per the collateral agreement.”
“Noooo!” Stephanie made dramatic dying noises.
“What was your excuse, Timothy?” Damian asked, eyes glued to the board and determined to win the game.
“Hey, I was probably less supervised than Danny was.”
“Yeah,” Danny perked up. “My parents brought us down to their lab all of the time. Taught us a lot of stuff.”
“Really? Like what?” Duke asked, casually slapping away Tim’s sneaky hands.
“Oh, like what a rocket launcher sounded like up close! And how to build a laser gun! Oh! And what human organs looked like when they’re fresh!” Danny chirped, collecting his money from a stunned Stephanie’s hands. He looked up.
“Oh, don’t worry! I at least learned what not to do when it comes to lab safety. And we wore hazmat suits to protect ourselves from the radiation.” Danny smiled in a ditzy fashion as the table fell silent in a horrified manner. Cass tapped his arm amusedly, but allowed his bullshit to stand. After all, it’s not like he lied.
“Radiation?” Duck’s voice raised a couple of octaves. Oh yeah, Danny’s going to laugh about that pitch for a long while.
“Organs?!” Jason’s hands closed around the plastic house he was holding rather forcefully.
“Do you even know what basic lab safety practices are, Danny?” Damian demanded, finally looking up with brows furrowed. He rolled the dice and grabbed a mystery card. He gets $100 from Alfred.
“How old were you??” Duke asked.
“Like… 8, when they first brought me in?”
“Eight.” Bruce rumbled, slipping into a more Batman like persona. When Danny sent him a confused look, Bruce straightened back into his Bruce persona. “Wow, they must have trusted you a lot!”
“Sure?”
“What were their names again?” Stephanie asked sweetly, Cass nodding at him.
“Jack and Maddie Fenton.” Not that they’ll find them here, considering his parents are dead and in another universe.
“Cool, cool, cool!” Stephanie blinked, beaming as her hands formed lethal fists underneath the table.
Danny blinked and tilted his head in an unassuming way, pretending like he had no idea what Stephanie was thinking of. He sneakily handed over $600 to Cass in order to complete his monopoly on his side of the board.
Danny stood up and spread his hands out, one hand clutching his new found victory.
"Well, lady and gents, you've all been floundering against the inevitable tide of capitalism. I am here, as a reminder that you can never win against the hopelessness that will be your financial ruin! I, Danny Fenton, have obtained a quarter of the board and therefore have won against even your best efforts!" He cackled, holding up his fan of properties triumphantly. He shot a mischievous grin at Cass, who held up a solemn thumbs up in support for his monetary takeover.
"... Danny, are you... planning on a career in villainy?" Bruce asked, after a brief and total wave of shocked silence. Damian looked like he was having a conniption at having been bested, unknowingly. Yeah, Danny was disarming like that.
"Yeah, that was concerning." Tim piped up, nabbing a ten from a shell-shocked Damian.
"Hey! The Riddler gives surprisingly good monologues! And he's really loud, so it's hard not to pick up on things. Duke, your turn." Danny sat back down, pouting. The villainy comment was a little too close to his fears.
"Damn it." Duke, who had rolled, landed smack middle of Danny's territory. He handed over a sheaf of bills to a grinning Danny.
"Wait a minute! You have cheated!" Damian bolted upwards from his seat, finally done running through the purchases he remembered Danny making. "You acquired that property not within the games' rules!"
"Okay, first of all, the rule book is a suggestion, like lab safety rules," Danny saw the others open their mouths to protest, but he quickly shut it down. "Second, there's totally no rules about selling and buying places from a private owner so suck on it. And thirdly? Cass sold it to me, so you all can take it up with her."
"Diabolical!" Damian muttered indignantly.
"... Dammit." Dick sighed, falling back into the chair and balancing on its two legs. He couldn't say anything, considering his current of bankruptcy.
"Danny. Danny, I'll buy a property from you." Jason said, eyeing one of Danny's other properties near his own cluster.
"What do you have that would interest me?" Danny asked, falling back into his Vlad-like imitation.
"Ew, don't do that," Steph reached over to jab him in the arm.
"Yeah, Jason, what do you have?" Duke said, the lovely subtle instigator that he is.
"Red Hood's signature."
The others blue-screen, gaping at the actual audacity Jason had to offer up something that would take him no effort. Danny, prepared with a poker face that came with lying straight to Jazz's ever perceptive eyes about whether he nabbed the last of her ice cream or not, was prepared.
"Red Hood? The condom guy working out of the... um. Upper East Side?" Danny asked, pretending to hesitate. He knows where Jason operated. That doesn't mean he couldn't simply pretend otherwise. For science, of course.
...
...
...
The table howled with laughter, Jason's indignant spluttering unable to say anything against Danny's wide eyed look of innocence. Cass leaned against the table, chuckles falling out of her mouth and eyes crinkled in mirth. Dick had fallen out of his chair, helplessly wheezing on the floor. Duke is hiding his face in his hands, mirroring Bruce's pose as they both shake from silent laughter. Damian is smirking, wicked and sharp as he smugly stared at Jason. Stephanie and Tim are leaning against each other, repeating "the CONDOM GUY" in alternating and increasingly louder voices. Alfred had a smile on his face and a tight grip on the bills in front of him that betrayed his amusement.
"He's a crime lord!" Jason exclaimed, indignant.
"Uh, okay. Well, I mean, why would I want a crime lord's signature? I don't want to be on his radar. Or echolocation or whatever. He's... a Bat, right? That's what you guys call that group, yeah?"
"How do you know the Rogues better than the vigilantes?!" Jason glared at his unhelpful family. Those assholes better prepare for a load of rubber bullets the next time they're on patrol near Crime Alley.
"Hey, it's not my fault the vigilantes here are unsociable. Maybe if they monologued more, I'd know who they are."
"Wouldn't- wouldn't that make them more villain like?" Tim asked, stuttering from his laughter.
"I dunno?" Danny replied, enjoying his the family's unabashed joy. "I mean, they're pretty legit and they help people already so I guess they don't need to be sociable... but still I swear I haven't heard anything about Batman other than that he grunts and is mean towards criminals."
Is mean towards criminals, Duke mouthed at a recovering Dick who was in the process of heaving himself back up. It sent him careening back down to the floor with restrained giggles. Cass tapped Danny, reminding him to eat some food.
"Tt. Of course not. They're efficient at their jobs and have no need to be seen as welcoming to criminals." Damian puffed up.
"Yeah, but they've gotta feel safe, right?" Danny shrugged as he plucked a cookie from the cookie platter. "The... one with the sword, what was it?"
"Robin." Damian supplied, eyes narrowed and trained on him.
"Yeah, the baby bird. The kids think his swords are cool so they trust him. But like, the others? The flippy blue one? Not so much."
"Wait," Dick said from the floor. "They don't trust Nightwing?"
"Nah, they trust him to protect them, but he has a history of bringing the kids to the police, you know?"
"What's wrong with that?"
Danny shrugged. "ACAB. But also because everybody knows that half the guys in the GCPD and CPS are child traffickers."
"Wait, what?" Jason and Tim straightened.
Bruce piped in, the emotional whiplash of amusement to concern to amusement to concern visibly making itself known on the man's baffled face. "I thought Batman and Commissioner Gordon took care of that?"
"Sure, the obvious ones." Danny hesitated. Well, he's pretty sure they think he's a meta so... "There's... a meta trafficking ring that they're a part of. That's. That's kind of what I was running from."
Danny looked up pleadingly. Cass placed a hand on his arm in comfort, not knowing that he was fibbing about running from them.
Danny was on the streets helping his own Alley metas to run from them.
Danny is as feral as she was, and that meant he could hide just as much as she could read off of him. Cass was the best and he felt kind of bad about lying to her, successfully or not.
"Uh. Some people said you know Batman, Bruce. I know- uh, that might not be the case but if you do, could you ask him to look into it?" Danny made his eyes tear up. "And maybe he wouldn't care about me much, I mean, I know he doesn't really like metas but if he helps out, I could totally like, leave the city once the kids are safe, promise."
Ooh, Danny put a little too much sincerity into that. He could practically hear the hearts breaking in the game room as everyone glared at Bruce.
"You won't have to leave."
"... Promise?" And Danny's voice was a little too desperate, too hopeful, because Bruce's eyes tugged down in sadness.
"Promise." He rumbled, all Bruce Wayne and all Batman. Danny's core warmed. Danny also saw the rest of the family's faces darken in pure agreement. And partial wrath.
"Yeah! We'll kick Batman's ass if he even thought about kicking you out!" Stephanie proclaimed.
"He's far more proficient in combat than you are, Brown." Damian immediately leapt to Batman's defense and that was that.
Well, later, as Danny was "sleeping" and Phantom was hovering in the cave, invisible and intangible, he got confirmation that his Alley meta kids were going to be safe, soon.
After all, the entire Batclan was suiting up and baying for blood, with Oracle's all encompassing presence behind them, fingers reaching for their enemies' weak points.
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imagine with me Danny ends up in Gotham some how and is a mad scientist that is hired to make cool shit and gets BANK but then the bats crack down on the shit and they see a 13 year old boy with big ass goggles with machinery all around him and looks up for a second before glancing up again as if confirming what he saw and then slowly turns around “Hi…? I swear if these are one of my delusions than I will be complaining to HR- wait am I… HR?”
Danny ends up in Gotham after Nasty Burger happened, but to not become Dark Danny, he buried himself in machine work, using some blueprints from his parents' lab as a baseline and then eventually creating his own.
Some guy in Gotham found him one day and decided that he had a talent for making stuff like this, and that he'll pay Danny handsomely if he made some things for him, and, well. Danny was pretty low on money from his parents' bank account after blowing most of it on machine parts.
So he accepted.
Then the guy started requesting some other things for some other people and he eventually became his middleman for the big hitters in Gotham who wanted his stuff. Well, not that he knew his stuff was being given out to the big hitters that also include villains, since he spent most of his time just building, then eating, then passing right the fuck out, and repeat.
Then the bats crack down on him, and Danny's been making some shit for more than 24 hours already with no rest time and just a little snack here and there, and then he questions if he accidently inhaled something he wasn't supposed to because the bats are literally in his workshop/house.
So he thinks he maybe high as shit right now and then just treats them like they weren't there and goes back to making his thing because that one guy said a person with a fuck ton of money wanted it. Then Batman pulls him away from the machine and he's like: "Huh."
Still thinking this is a massive hallucination because he's high as a kite, he tries to get Batman to let go, but his grip is pretty strong, then he pokes him and then goes: "Oh, maybe this isn't a hallucination."
"Oh sugar honey iced tea."
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Been Watching Weird Fruit Explorer(?)... and I just...
W-Who let Bored Danny have BooTube?
Sorry, YOU-Tube. He has TWO Apps now. BooTube is bigger. Way more random, yet... somehow more niche? Meh. It's what happens when you get billions of billions of people who all have their own Obsessions to rant over, on a site.
Ember's channel is pretty lit, tho, ngl.
He stopped using YOU-Tube almost overnight. Too many ads, weird algorithmic pushiness. No thanks. It was too small and too "trying to take my money". You know?
Buuuuut? See.... TUCKER is the Tech guy.
Coding and that sort of stuff. HE does hands on work. You want a toaster? He can MAKE you a toaster! With LAZERS! Runs off The Goo! But a program? Eeeeeeeh? Hit it with hammer maybe? Monkey make fire? Hit with stick? Blergh.
Yeah, he can SORTA push through.
But he suuuucks.
And like... he had a headache, okay? His project had just, quiet literally, exploded in his face. So when he looked at his phone? All the apps were blobs. He clicked the one that LOOKED kinda right. Shoved his arm in his phone and brute forced a channel set up.
He figured he could ramble about Space!
It's not like he cared is anyone LISTENS or not! It's a "for him" thing, you know? Like a diary. But more... putting on a ☆~show~☆?
So he rambles from the floor of his Lair's Lab, crashs and wails in the distance, green sky occasionally visible as he lazily floats by windows. Dropping... juuuust past human knowledge understanding of Space. Talking like he's STUDYING somewhere. Referencing PAPERS no human will ever be able to find.
But a few they WILL.
Some of which, are currently? Only half written.
But then? Oh YEAH... he should eat! You know... Sam keeps bringing him fruits and veggies and stuff from her internship at that Botanical Lair. Stuff never seen before of Earth. Or hasn't been seen in centuries.
Again, like, a FEW that? Randomly? Have???
He picks up something sharply purple, bright orange insides. Crisp crunch. He makes a face. And starts to ramble about it, distracted from Space. "Weirdly mushroom-y" he notes. "Kinda bubblegum sweet? But like... CHEAP bubblegum. Like it hits you all at once and is kinda chemically. But it disappears real fast? Huh. Spicy too..."
It's the first video on the Playlist. One of hundreds. Two of the green Lanterns RECONIZE that fruit ad HIGHLY toxic to humans, can't recognize what planet they're seeing. Or how this alien teen got himself on YouTube.
He seems... unaware of how incredibly famous he's become.
But his strange techno Pharoah friend has not. HE is both perfectly aware and apparently amused. Has taken to feeding him rare and hazardous flora and fauna, to see if it tastes good.
....there have been an alarming number of plants from dead planets.
And the comments the kid makes? Alarming as hell.
Sam's just pleased everybody's getting their greens. Danny's glad him n tuck get to hang and do "try weird foods and fuck around, bro time". They've made lazers! Talked about stuff! Debated why Martian Manhunter is THE superior Justice League member.
Danny understands. Wonder Woman is a BAMF. But he's biased, Tucker. He doesn't CARE if she has a sword and flowy, impressive locks! Shape-shifting telepath! From MARS!!! *imaginary mic drop*
And Tucker? Is conquering the YouTube scene with this charming, weird, relatable young alien. Who rambles about Space, debates nerd stuff, eats weird plants and describes them, and makes sci-fi technology! Theme? WHAT THEME? Phantom is a weird channel, man. You never know what you'll find!
And no one can get rid of it.
Believe them, governments have TRIED. Censorship? Not possible. Not without removing the whole SITE.
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