#phantom children.txt
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*stares at outline*
Am I really gonna make this situation even more complicated just to make the Freakshow subplot matter?
I guess so
#danny phantom#batman#freakshow#this is all for ghost king danny i swear#and also bc i wanna salvage as much of my original ideas as possible#phantom children.txt#danny phantom x batman crossover
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Discord is down and I'm sad. So here's an out-of-context excerpt for Phantom Children: Redux
Danny opened his eyes.
The sky was an endless expanse of swirling gray clouds. The ocean rocked the raft to a punishing rhythm, murky green-gray waters slapping against the rotting planks.
Danny was tied to a makeshift mast, the rope crossing over his abdomen and tied tightly behind his throat, digging into his jugular. He could not speak. Could not breathe.
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Phantom Children Ch. 8
What's this? An update! Massive thanks to my betas for helping me get through this chapter <3
In Which: A few answers are given to the family and Danny is rudely awoken
[Side note: If you wanna know the general ages of the batfam, its listed in the AO3 version. I also talk about katanas in the end notes ^-^]
AO3 | Prologue | 7 | [ 8 ] | 9
DAMIAN INFORMED TODD—and Drake when he arrived on his bike sometime later on—that the boy whose face is plastered across the monitor was neither a picture of himself nor of Father.
Drake took one glance at the monitor and sighed, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Just when I thought this day was getting better.”
“What, did that café on 5th finally let customers supersize their drink?”
“God that would be the dream, wouldn’t it?” Drake sighed wistfully. “Nah, but I did get a lead on where some of that stolen Cadmus tech might’ve ended up. I was gonna spend the night following up on it, but I guess we have to deal with,” he gestured to the monitor, “whatever this is.”
Todd leaned against the edge of the computer, arms crossed over the red bat insignia on his chest. “What are we dealing with this time, brat? A clone? An alternate universe counterpart? Magic shenanigans?”
Maybe. Perhaps. All of those were perfectly valid conclusions for the enigma that was Daniel James Fenton. (Why Fenton and not al Ghul? Or even Wayne?)
Damian, too, was a genetic experiment; a ‘test tube baby’ as Drake put it at times. Damian was born for greatness, created to be perfect. The perfect soldier. The perfect assassin. The perfect heir. Was this boy—Daniel—like him as well?
A failed one, then. Perhaps the precursor to Damian’s own existence. But that would not explain why the boy was allowed to exist for so long. His grandfather demanded perfection, especially from those of his own blood. If the boy was a failure, he would have been eliminated immediately, not sent to live with some eccentric scientists in the Midwest.
Damian was not naïve enough to think that his mother and grandfather did not keep secrets from him. On the contrary, he expected it. The League of Shadows dealt in secrets as often as it did in death. Certain information was worth its weight in gold, whether it was given or buried away.
But he could not help the sharp pang in his chest. A lightning strike, quick and electrifying at the notion that they kept secrets about their family from him.
His father’s face flashed in his mind. The shock turned into a slow, dawning horror. That flicker of light, of recognition, as he scrutinized the contents of the flash drive and cross-referenced it with a public database.
And grief.
Damian recognized the grief.
Alfred, too, nearly dropped his tray of fresh-baked cookies when he stepped in front of the monitor. His usual unflappable demeanor was momentarily broken at his father’s whispered “Sixteen years. Alfred— he’s sixteen years old.”
His father knew of the boy. He was allowed to know of Daniel when he was not allowed to know about Damian.
------
Grayson returned to the cave with a distinct lack of energy in his step. His mask dangled off the tips of his fingers, chin angled downwards and covered largely by his hand. For a split second, their eyes met. Grayson shifted his gaze away, scratching the back of his neck. Father told him, then. Damian wondered how much Father revealed to his favorite son.
Damian clucked his tongue and buried himself deeper into the chair, arms crossed and pointedly looking away. If it was not for his accursed ankle, he’d have headed out to the training ring to take his frustrations out on the dummies.
“Oh, thank god you’re here, Dickface. Damian’s completely out of it.”
Damian shot him a look. “Shut up, Todd.”
“Leave him alone, Jay. Is Tim back yet?”
Drake emerged from the changing room in a dark green shirt, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He took one long sip before exhaling. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“O-kay…” He pressed his hands together, mouth thinned into a grim line. “Uh, hey Tim, glad to see you back safe. Bruce is coming down soon to explain some things.” He let out a deep sigh, carding a hand through his hair. “This kind of thing would probably be better with the girls around, but I—god, I don’t know.”
Todd raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know whether to call Steph and Cass in Hong Kong, or don’t know what’s going on?”
“Yes.”
------
When Father arrived, Pennyworth following dutifully behind him, it was with an aching slowness in his gait. His steps measured and precise, preternaturally quiet as he made his way to stand by Damian’s chair. Damian sat up straighter, shoulders squared and back an inch away from the backrest. The rest, even Todd, stood at attention; an ingrained habit among Robins and an amusing instinct even among the senior heroes of the Justice League when it came to facing the Batman.
His father kept a steady hand on Damian’s shoulder, and Damian, shamefully, leaned into the touch; his head inclined towards his father’s hand so much so that he could feel the ends of his hair being pushed up slightly as he brushed against his father’s forearm.
He spoke with his usual monotone, as if he was heading a Justice League meeting as opposed to unveiling the secrets surrounding that boy. He brought forward the few photos they obtained from the flash drive. “A few weeks ago, we were alerted of suspicious movement from the League of Shadows in Amity Park, Illinois. Their objectives are, as of now, unclear, though it appears to be tied to the death of Amity Park resident, Daniel Fenton.”
One photo was a standard ID picture people get for their driver’s license, the lighting deliberately horrible so that any attempt to look decent would always end in failure. Another photo was a little better; a candid scene of him chatting with two others his age, a Caucasian girl in gothic-style clothes and an African-American holding a sleek, but still very outdated PDA. His blue eyes crinkled at the corners, hand reaching up to his face to stifle a laugh. There were other photos like this, some candid, others posed. At the forefront of each, a boy that looked too much like his father, too much like Damian.
His father glanced at the photos. He shut his eyes and when he opened them again, he fixed them on some distant stalactite in the Cave. “Around six months ago, Daniel was pronounced dead in a vehicular accident. A body was present, but according to police reports, he was identified via his driver’s license as opposed to any kind of DNA profiling.” He leaned over Damian’s chair to pull up a profile of Masters. “Our source—Vladimir Masters, mayor of Amity and a friend of the Fenton family—indicated his belief that Daniel is actually alive. I am inclined to agree.”
“He’s your son, isn’t he,” Drake said, more of a statement than a question.
Father gave a curt nod. “I cannot say for certain until I can perform a DNA test, but I highly suspect that to be the case.”
“First the demon spawn, now this. Great.” Todd made a hand motion towards the screen. “You know, Bruce, not knowing you have a kid once might be a coincidence, but twice? How do you do that?”
“As of three hours ago, I was still under the impression that my son never made it to term.”
“What?”
“Over sixteen years ago I was involved in a mission that put Ra’s and I on the same side. During that time, Talia and I entered a relationship that resulted in a pregnancy. Though initially ecstatic, she eventually led me to believe she miscarried the child and pushed me away. For what ends, I do not know, but trust me Jason, if I knew—” He paused, the hand that was not on Damian’s shoulder curled into a tight fist.
Father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why she hid it from me then doesn’t matter. Why Talia wants him back now is important. Judging from Daniel’s records, he was adopted into the Fenton family as an infant and has since lived a seemingly normal life as a civilian. His adoptive parents, Jack and Maddie Fenton, are brilliant scientists and engineers focused on the field of paranormal studies. Eccentricities aside, they have zero connections to the League of Assassins or any other concerning parties.”
“So why now?” Dick asked, shifting his concerned gaze from Bruce to the static picture of Danny’s tired smile. “Why, after all this time, decide that now would be the best time to recover him?”
------
Danny’s experienced plenty of rude awakenings before, but waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to avoid his kidnapper-slash-assassin-slash-biological-mom launching a surprise attack takes the fucking cake. He can’t believe he’s saying this, but thank god for all those late night ghost attacks that conditioned him to be a light sleeper. And, of course, the League’s insistence that everyone be in optimal condition regardless of how little sleep you actually got.
Danny kicked Talia off of him, ripping his blanket away before scrambling to his feet. Seriously, if the universe decided to spontaneously give him powers again, he’d really like an upgrade to his ghost senses, please and thank you. Something that works on humans and not just ghosts. Like spidey-senses. He’d really, really like some spidey-senses.
“Your reaction times have improved considerably,” Talia said.
He eyed the katana sheathed beside his bedroll. “Thanks. Who could have guessed that constantly challenging someone to a spar in the unholy hours of morning would make them paranoid to sleep too much? Really, how am I supposed to grow taller at this rate? ” If he could just get it--
She smiled, taking a step forward. “Prepare yourself.”
“Heh.” Danny stepped further away from Talia, keeping his back to the mouth of the cave. One hand stretched in front of him and the other, coated in a green light, was kept hidden behind his back. “Am I actually gonna get some answers today?”
“Let us make it interesting. Last 10 minutes against me and I shall tell you more about your brother.” Talia twirled her blade. “If you happen to draw blood, you may ask any one thing of me.”
“Anything?”
“Within reason.”
His face caught between a grimace and a smile. He’d rather be sleeping right now, but if he had to be awake, then he’d better make the most of it. “Deal.”
Talia’s smile dropped. She veered her body to the right, barely dodging the streak of bright green that whizzed from behind her. The ectoplasmic energy that surrounded the katana bled away as the handle connected with Danny’s outstretched hand.
She quickly glanced back at Danny’s bedding. Beside it lay an empty sheath. “You have telekinesis?”
He shrugged. “It comes and goes.” Yeah, no way was Danny gonna admit that seven-out-of-ten-times he forgot that he had telekinesis. Besides, that shit was hard to do when he wasn’t Phantom.
“A surprise attack from behind is a sound strategy, Daniel. Though it’ll take a lot more than that to harm me.”
Danny pointed to the side of his cheek. “Are you sure about that?”
Talia frowned. She reached up to her face. Her fingers brushed against her cheek and came away with a thin streak of blood.
Danny grinned, pointing his blade at his opponent. “First blood goes to me.”
------
Fact: most fights don’t last long. An average street fight could last anywhere between 25 to 40 seconds, and sword fights rarely last over a minute. Like Talia said, the goal of a fight was to end it with as few injuries to oneself as possible. Humans, even the most skilled ones, can rarely last long in a fight. Prolonged combat is suicide; it makes you tired, makes your muscles heavy. It’s nothing like what Hollywood would have you believe.
Even with Danny’s own enhanced stamina and Talia holding back, he couldn’t last a full ten-minute spar. If Talia didn’t finish him within twenty-five seconds, then he’d fall by his own human limitations.
But the goal wasn’t to spar continuously for ten minutes.
He only had to last that long.
Danny sprinted out of the cave. The sun barely peeked out of the horizon, a thin line of deep orange breaking apart the wide expanse of blue-black sky above. He couldn’t see shit; great news since that meant there’s a good chance Talia couldn’t either, but that doesn’t fix the fact that he can’t see.
Nearly stumbling on the ice, Danny veered to the left. The edges of the lake stopped at towering rocks twice Danny’s height, leaving little room for cover. Though if he remembered correctly, there should be a few crevices here and there to hide in.
“You’ll have to be faster than that, Daniel.”
Shit—
Danny stopped. He brought his sword up to parry Talia’s strike and twisted away, putting distance between them.
Well, so much for just avoiding her for 10 minutes.
He adjusted his grip, keeping his sword steady and eyes trained on Talia as they circled each other. Danny lunged with an overhead strike. Talia used one hand to block the downswing by gripping his wrists. She thrust her sword forward, the tip harshly poking Danny’s abdomen.
“Less than three minutes.” Talia let his wrist go, Danny’s arms slumping to his sides.
He sighed as he sheathed his sword. “Damn, I thought I’d last longer than that.”
“You made a good effort,” Talia assured him. “Putting as much distance between us at the beginning was a good strategy. You recognized the win conditions immediately and attempted a battle of attrition.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am very proud of you habibi, especially as you managed to draw first blood.”
A warmth grew in Danny’s stomach at the words, heating his cheeks. Sheepishly, he scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t entirely sure that would work, honestly.”
“It was clever; half a second later and you might have even killed me. You are an al Ghul through and through” She brushed his hair out of his face. “What would you like as your prize, then?”
Danny’s heart clenched. He frowned, dropping his arm to his side. If I was such an al Ghul, then why didn’t you keep me? The question lodged itself in his throat, stifling his thoughts. It was something he’d been wondering for a while, actually, in the moments of solitude he had at the compound. Talia, during their training, would always remark at his potential. How talented he was, how adaptable he was, how much greater he would have been if he had been trained at a younger age.
Well then, why wasn’t he? Why did she give him up?
But each time he tried to ask, his tongue would turn to lead and the moment would pass, the question still left unsaid and simmering at the back of his mind. A Pandora’s Box that held none of the world’s evil but all of Danny’s possible shortcomings.
He could ask the question now.
He could.
He didn’t.
“Why did you take me?”
Talia tilted her head. “It is because you’re my son.”
“No. Not that. It has to be something more than that. You had sixteen years to come back for me—or, hell, you could have just never left me.” His breath hitched, fingers mussing his hair and hiding his eyes. “Why else did you take me?”
“It is true that there was more than one reason why we decided to retrieve you from Amity Park. One of which is because you are my son and an heir of the Demon’s Head.” Talia stilled. The dark skies of dawn made it impossible for him to read her. “The second reason was to protect you.”
“You kidnapped me…to protect me?”
“Knowledge of the ghosts of Amity have spread through the more insidious parts of the world. There are many out there who would pay exorbitant fees to study one of you or to use you.”
Use him? What did she mean by—
Oh.
Ghosts—Amity Park’s brand of ghosts—were a new element that the world had to contend with. Amity Park might have a crime rate of zero but that wasn’t the case everywhere else. Theft, assault, murder; the world was rampant with crimes and criminals clawing their way to the very top. Having ghosts, even ones with the most basic powerset, would be a huge advantage.
“There’s no way that would work,” Danny insisted. “Most ghosts just want to be left alone, and the ones that want to wreak havoc would never work with humans. The only reason they even work with halfas like me at times is because they still consider us as ghosts.”
“If my sources are to be believed, ghosts might not even get a choice.”
Danny’s blood curdled in his veins.
No.
Someone’s found a way to control ghosts.
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Phantom Children Rewrite Progress
Everyone's support on AO3 and on tumblr has honestly been so great, I love you guys!
Progress update on the rewrite: One of the main issues I had with the original story was that I felt like I was skimping out on Danny's time at the League of Assassins in favor of just rushing to meet the bats. With the rewrite, one to try and figure out was how to really sell the impact the League has on Danny's life without making the readers wait a ton of chapters just for a glimpse of the bats. So I'm toying with the idea of having dual timelines, with one focused on the past and Danny's time in the League; the other timeline being set in the present where the bulk of the main plot would be.
I've already written a rough outline of the first timeline, so now all I have to do is figure out (1) the present timeline, (2) flesh out the outline, and (3) write it out.
I'll be keeping the original version of Phantom Children up since a lot of people seemed to enjoy it! I'll have the rewrite posted in the same series under Phantom Children: Redux
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Phantom Children Progress Update
January has been very productive for the rewrite!
Chapter 1 -> Done
Chapter 2 -> Done
Chapter 3 -> Drafting
Total word count so far is around 9k. I don't plan to post anything yet until I can make significant headway with chapter 3 and I'm still slowly working away with my outline. Expect the rewrite to drop in early February!
Anyway I've been having a blast with version 2 and I can't wait to share it with you guys.
#danny phantom#danny phantom batman#dp batman#danny phantom fanfiction#danny phantom x batman crossover#phantom children.txt
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Phantom Children Ch. 9
In which: a story is told and Danny isn't the type of guy to do nothing. Not yet.
Ft. a very important author's note at the end
AO3 | Prologue | 8| [ 9 ] | 10
IT GOES LIKE THIS: A man named Fredrick Isak Showenhower was born into a family obsessed with ghosts. The Showenhower’s were collectors and scholars of the antiquated and esoteric, specifically, they collected artifacts that were related to ghosts or ghost-adjacent things. Their lineage spanned centuries, each member collecting and studying and compiling knowledge to pass onto the next generation of Showenhower’s, who participated in the very same cycle.
But they were very careful to keep their information secret.
Ghosts were territorial over their obsession. And Showenhowers, having lived their lives so close to these specters, were much the same. Their ghostly knowledge was their own, and any Showenhower worth their salt would rather die than share it with anyone else.
While Fredrick Isak Showenhower bore the same thirst of knowledge as his ancestors, he did not share their love of ghosts. Once upon a time, he might have. But years of loneliness in his childhood, always placed second in his parents’ hearts next to ghosts, wore down that love. Twisted it into vicious envy and a need to prove his own superiority to ghosts.
So for years he would toil through the treasure trove of knowledge his ancestors passed down for him, researching and dabbling in esoteric arts long since forgotten, in an attempt to satiate this desire. His efforts bore fruit in the form of a mystical orb that glowed a deep carmine red. Infuse it with a bit of magic, and Fredrik Isak Showenhower— now renaming himself Freakshow— had the power to bring any ghost to heel.
Perhaps he was petty in his use of it. Robbery was hardly imaginative when one has the power to command the undead in hand. But exorbitant wealth was more than enough to sate his ambitions, and Freakshow’s parents had spent too long ingraining the importance of keeping a low enough profile to preserve the safety of the Showenhower’s that Freakshow had never been too ostentatious in his crimes.
That all changed when he took his circus to the godforsaken town of Amity Park, where his magical orb, and all his life’s work, were shattered. In the time between his initial defeat by Phantom and his harebrained scheme to control reality via the Reality Gauntlet, Freakshow had been attempting to amass all the resources he needed to remake the orb. Though completed once again, the artifact eventually fell to the wayside and nearly forgotten when Freakshow had to rescue Lydia from the hands of the Ghost Investigation Ward. And by then, he was too focused on the thrum of infinite cosmic power that the gauntlet promised to remember a measly little artifact like that.
But the GIW didn’t forget.
Time in their holding cells was enough to convince Freakshow to reveal the location of one of his many hideouts. (Despite his own hatred of ghosts, Freakshow was a Showenhower . Stubborn to the core and intensely territorial of the knowledge his family had hoarded for centuries. For his own sake, he would give the GIW an inch, a mere speck of the wide ocean of information his family had, but nothing more.)
It was one of the GIW’s greatest accomplishments, raiding and ‘recovering’ the meticulous research and artifacts of the Showenhower family. But even with that, it wasn’t enough to stop the eventual shutdown of the branch. One victory was hardly enough to excuse so many failures.
Besides, the ghostly threat seemed to be well contained within one city. CADMUS had more than enough threats to take care of that putting this one on the backburner seemed fine.
This proved to be a mistake; one they had yet to realize the magnitude of.
---
Talia succinctly described the situation to Danny, with each new piece of information further deepening the furrow between his brows.
Bad news: Freakshow’s arrest gave the GIW more information and artifacts related to ghosts than they had any right to have. Information that Danny basically gave to them on a silver platter, being the one to hand Freakshow off, anyway.
Good news: The GIW was dismantled. Less people to shoot at him.
Worse news: Someone raided and stole from CADMUS facilities. While the ghost artifacts weren’t the only things taken, the perpetrator remained unknown and has yet to reveal their intentions.
Even worse news: Whether the thief knew of the Orb’s purpose or not, there’s now rumors in underground circles of a secret auction— one that supposedly held all the stolen CADMUS tech.
“I have to stop the auction.”
Talia tightened her grip on Danny’s arm. “Your job is to stay here and stay safe .”
Danny wrenched out of her hold. “It’s my fault that the artifact's loose, anyway. If that thing gets unleashed on Amity Park— could you even imagine what kind of chaos that’ll make?” Freakshow only used it to steal things, and who knows how much he got away with. If someone like the Joker or Braniac or Lex fucking Luthor (who’s Vlad but 20 times worse) got their hands on it…
Danny didn’t even want to think about it.
“That is exactly why you need to stay here,” Talia said, her tone sharper than the biting cold and left no room for a retort. “Tell me, Daniel, are you truly certain you could overcome the artifact’s control?”
He flinched.
“You are far from incapable, Daniel, make no mistake about that. But in this , you are a liability and a danger to everyone in the worst case scenario. Here, with the League, you will be safe.”
His core burned , harsh and freezing like liquid nitrogen.
( Safe?=No-dangerhere-dangerdanger-mustgo-mustprote—)
He grit his teeth, hands curling into fists. His core screamed at him to flyaway-takeaction-gogogo— and it took all his will to tell it no .
Because Talia was right.
Throwing himself headfirst into finding the orb was tantamount to suicide. It was by sheer stroke of luck, Freakshow underestimating him, and Sam nearly being flattened on the train tracks that Danny was able to break free from the artifact’s hold. There was no guarantee he’d be lucky the next time.
But he wasn’t going to just stand by and do nothing .
“You won’t,” said Talia. “The auction is the most opportune time to take the artifact back without scaring the thief into going underground once more. Once we have confirmed the time and location, we’ll have no trouble in stealing it.”
She continued. “But we cannot go in there blind. What the League needs from you, what Ra’s al Ghul needs from you, is your cooperation.”
He clenched his jaw. “What do I need to do?”
----
The trek back to the inner sanctum of Nanda Parbat was made in silence. Talia subtly let her son take the lead to test his navigational skills. Daniel had a surprisingly keen sense of direction, leading them back to the compound with no incident despite having only been on the path once before.
Though perhaps it was not that surprising, given his previous circumstance.
Initially tight-lipped when first asked, Ra’s al Ghul convinced Daniel to divulge what he knew of the ghosts that plagued Amity Park. Daniel, while clever in his attempts at disclosing as little information as possible, told them enough about the world beyond the veil to get a general sense of its workings.
The Ghost Zone, or the Infinite Realms as it was formally called, existed as a mirror to the material world. Where mountains, rivers, cities, and buildings in their world remained, for the most part, stationary, such was not true for the Ghost Zone. There, floating islands would constantly sail in the endless sea of ectoplasmic energy. There one moment, but gone the next. Maps with detailed coordinates were next to useless in that dimension, and so Daniel and his friends had to resort to more unique methods.
Eventually he observed that, while the coordinates of any location kept changing, the pattern of which major islands or landmarks would exist in, stayed constant. Whether they were fifteen miles or five thousand miles away from their original location, Island A would always be to the south of Island B which was always next to Island C. This pattern never changed no matter what direction or speed objects would move in to traverse the Zone. It would make sense then, that Daniel would develop a sharper directional sense and a heightened awareness of his surroundings.
Yet—at this Talia frowned—his acting could use some work.
She could see it in the rigid line of his spine. The way his eyes would shift— behind to look at her, to his sides, to the open skies above. How his fists would clench and unclench.
Daniel was not the type of boy to stand back and do nothing. Especially so if he knew his family were in danger. He was like his father in that regard; capable, dangerous, but unwilling to put aside his own sentimentality for the sake of a higher cause.
She could see the signs as plain as day. Daniel was going to risk running.
---
So to explain where I've been....
University. This semester was just so much stress and I just didn't have enough time to think about this fic much less write it. I had some scenes written and a loose outline planned but all of that ended up being a moot point when my laptop malfunctioned to the point that the only way to save my laptop was to do a hard factory reset. So I ended up losing all of my notes and whatnot for Phantom Children were gone.
I'll be real with you guys, I really want to just rewrite this fic from the beginning. I don't want to give up this idea but I don't like how the story is progressing nor do I like what I've written so far. I started this fic on impulse and a vague idea of how an al ghul!danny might go on, but at this point I feel like I'm just rushing the story just so he could meet the bats.
I know this probably isn't the best thing to here from a writer after a long hiatus, but would rewriting this fic be ok with you guys?
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Phantom Children Ch. 6
Hi guys! I'm back <3 (also, I'm currently looking for alpha/beta readers for Phantom Children, so if you're interested, feel free to shoot me a message!)
In Which: Danny Attempts to get Answers, Bruce Learns, and Dick Finally Learns What's Inside the Door that Doesn't Exist
AO3 | Prologue | 5 | [ 6 ] | 7
DANNY IS KNOCKED DOWN three, four, eight times on the ice. Each time made his back ache, his bones bruised and tired, and his mind burning with embarrassment and a drive to lash out. But each time he gets back up. Each time he lasts a little bit longer against Talia.
The ice still shifts, cracks and rumbles with every wrong move. Danny learned to roll with it. Move on light feet but attack with a firm stance, gauge which parts of the ice are stable and which should be avoided. Multi-tasking has never been Danny’s strong suit, but he’s good at learning and learning quickly.
Talia corrected his form as much as she beat him down. Exploited every one of his openings until he learned to defend them and praised him whenever he managed to pull one over her. The League’s martial arts was the holy amalgamation between almost every single fighting style there is, mashed and refined to perfection to become almost unpredictable to the untrained. A vast improvement to Danny’s previous ‘fuck around and see what works’ brawling and had the added benefit of meshing together with his spontaneity.
“You are doing well, Daniel,” Talia said as she sheathed her sword, hand resting just above her hip. “You have improved greatly in such a short time, as I have expected.”
It takes every ounce of Danny’s superhuman energy to not collapse to his knees, his every breath a ragged shudder as he tries to get his breathing under control. “Still can’t beat you, though.”
“Very few can boast that feat.”
“I’m not exactly sure if that’s supposed to make me feel any better or not. Do I get my prize at least?”
Tahlia tossed her braid over one shoulder with a laugh. “Come, then, let us rest in the caves. The sun is to set soon and we must make camp before we freeze to death.”
“Hypothermia is so last season. I’m way too cool for that.”
He didn’t know whether to be disappointed that Tahlia didn’t react to his pun. It was pretty clever, in his opinion.
('Puns are the lowest form of comedy,' said mind-Jazz.
Says the one who named the Box Ghost the ‘Crate Creep.’
'That’s alliteration, not a pun.')
It was kind of pathetic that even his mind-version of Jazz was smarter than him.
“What would you like to know first?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sarcasm dripped from Danny’s voice. He sheathed his sword and let it hang loose at his side. “Maybe how old this mysterious brother of mine is?” Ancients, his life was weird enough already, it wasn’t supposed to sound like the B-plot to a bad soap opera.
“Damian is younger than you by a little over four years. He will turn eleven this year.”
“Huh. Never been an older brother before.”
“Perhaps you might have been, if circumstances had been different.”
Cryptic. Great. Danny stepped over a particularly large crack in the ice and scampered over to solid ground. “You gotta give me more than that. What’s he like?”
“Prideful,” she said. “But skilled enough to warrant it. He was raised like a prince—as how you should have been.”
“And he lives with…our dad?”
“Yes. In America.” The cave was deep enough to shield them from the worst of the eventual mountain winds. Tahlia had already started building a campfire with equipment from her knapsack, embers eating away and growing into a steady flame. He sat down, legs crossed, beside the fire, hands tucked beneath his armpits.
He bit his lip, a question forming in his mind. “Do…do we have the same dad?”
Tahlia looked up at him. “Of course. Only your father has had the privilege of being called my beloved, and only he is worthy enough to have sired my children.”
Once night fell, it fell quickly. Blanketing as far as Danny could see from the mouth of the cave in a thick darkness. Snow fell from the skies in thick tufts and covered their footsteps.
“Does he—do they know about me?”
“No, they do not.”
“And you probably aren’t going to tell them anything about me, if you could help it.”
“That is very perceptive of you, habeebi.”
“You won’t tell me anything more about them, will you?”
“In due time, I will.”
Danny blew part of his fringe away from his face. Figures.
Despite the ever-present niggling at the back of his mind, Bruce had yet to see what was in the flash drive. The weeks since his strange meeting with Vlad Masters suddenly exploded with criminal activity with the recent breakout in Arkham and the brewings of another gang war in the shadows of Gotham’s paved streets. It was all hands-on deck. And Bruce, whether as Batman or Wayne, had always prioritized Gotham and its citizens over anything else.
The flash drive remained on his person despite the crisis, tucked away in one of the sturdier compartments of his utility belt to prevent the data inside from becoming damaged. Sometimes he found his hands gravitating towards it, fingers brushing against the button that would release the mystery from its confines before he realized what he was doing and steeled himself. Hands fisted to his side and attention forcibly directed elsewhere.
Eventually, the rogues were placed back into Arkham, and Gotham let out a shuddered breath of relief as it remained standing for another day.
Most of the family were out on a light patrol, cleaning up the remains of the breakout and helping where they can. Jason and Dick bickering over the comms whilst Barbara laughed in her clocktower.
(“It’s not that bad.”
"‘It’s not that bad’—shut the fuck up.” Jason spat. Bruce could hear him revving his bike. “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that? Certified Grade A idiot. B’s gonna kill you.”
He could hear Dick roll his eyes. “Sure, pile it all on, Jaybird. Blame the victim.”
"It was your fault.”
“It’s not my fault I didn’t see it there!”
"You tripped and got a concussion. From a stick. A. Stick.”
“Can we please just leave that out of the report?” Dick groaned. Barbara laughed. “Oh god.”
“Richard motherfucking John Grayson. I swear if you vomit on me then—”
“I’m not gonna vomit on you! You just turned the corner a little too fast. It’s nice to see you care though.”
"Fuck no, I just don’t wanna smell like regurgitated cereal.”)
Damian was benched from a patrol. Their last conflict with Poison Ivy ended with Damian sticking a bad landing and twisting his ankle. He dealt with it with as much grace as can be expected. Meaning that he spent the last few days sulking as he caught up on his missed schoolwork and shooting daggers at everyone else who came back from patrol.
Bruce flicked the flash drive open and plugged it into the computer. The flash drive contained only a single folder dated six months ago.
He clicked it, and a news headline popped up.
LOCAL TEEN DIES AFTER DRIVING OFF CLIFF
Beneath it, a picture. Blue eyes. Black hair. A familiar face.
Blood pounded in Bruce’s ears. He could hear nothing except a sharp gasp from Damian behind him.
When Dick and Jason arrived at the batcave, it was to an eerie silence. Not that it was usually loud, only that Bruce spent most of his free time down in the cave and Dick had come to expect hearing some signs of him around. Typing on keys, the clicking of a mouse, the heavy thuds of a fist meeting a punching bag or a training dummy, etcetera, etcetera. Or maybe even Alfred cleaning up around the cave, feeding the bats, or restocking their med bay.
(Dick, it turned out, didn’t have a concussion. Probably. Not a severe one anyway. What mattered most was that he managed to convince Jason to have dinner at the Manor. Alfred was making a tarte tatin for dessert tonight and those were absolutely to die for. )
One of Tim’s cases took him to the other side of Gotham. The only person in the cave was Damian, who was staring agape at the batcomputer.
“Why the hell is the demon spawn looking at old pictures of Bruce? We get it. They look alike.
“Uh, Dami? What’s up?”
Damian snapped his mouth shut. “I believe it might be best if you asked father that, Grayson.” Despite his clipped tone, there seemed to be little anger in his voice. His proud shoulders were hunched over on the chair, eyes trained on his lap.
He looked so small.
Damian clucked his tongue. “He’s upstairs, if you need him. So is Pennyworth.”
Dick shot a glance at Jason who raised his hands in mock surrender. “You’re up golden boy. Whatever the fuck the old man’s problem is this time, I’m not dealing with it.”
Dick sighed. “Fine.”
There was a door in Wayne Manor that didn’t exist.
When Dick was a child and recently adopted by Bruce Wayne, one of the first things he did was explore the manor. It’s the prerogative of every child that somehow found themselves in a large mansion—even more so given the castle-like exteriors of Wayne Manor. All castles have secret passages, and if the Batcave lay in the subterranean depths below, then surely the manor proper must have its own secrets.
Dick would tumble and cartwheel along the hallways, opening any and every single door he came across. A lot of them were just empty bedrooms or unused parlors and sitting rooms; the furniture covered by white sheets to keep the dust away. Alfred was probably magic, but even he can’t keep the entirety of the manor dust free.
The majority of the unused rooms were unlocked.
Except for one.
It was a room in the west wing, on the second floor. A couple doors down from where Bruce’s and Dick’s were. Why it was locked, Dick never found out. But he was curious since it was the only room on that floor that remained shut.
When he asked Alfred about it, the old butler only said that it was an unused storage room they preferred to keep locked just in case. When he asked Bruce about it, he’d be quick to change the subject. Usually something Batman related. Which, well, always worked, because it was Batman related. And Dick, young and spry and itching to fly under Batman’s wings, would quickly forget about that curious little mystery in favor of punching bad guys in the face and flipping over rooftops.
At some point that locked door quietly disappeared, leaving a blank expanse of wallpaper and a decorative vase where it once stood. It was never brought up again. And Dick slowly forgot that it was ever there in the first place.
Until now.
The wooden table and vase were shoved off to the side. Wallpaper sliced away to reveal the lines of a doorway. The door, covered in its faint damask wallpaper, was kicked open, the wood around the bolt splintered and cracked. He could hear voices—Alfred’s and Bruce’s—speaking softly on the other side.
He pressed his back against the wall and kept his breathing quiet.
“Three times, Alfred.” Bruce’s voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. “Three times she’s done this to me.”
“Master Bruce…”
“I don’t—I don’t understand why—” Bruce choked, swallowing a shuddered breath. “Damian, I can understand. Jason, I can too. But…This? I—” Bruce suddenly quieted. Dick knew the jig was up.
He unlatched himself from the wall and slowly slid through the once-hidden-door, a hand kept on the frame. “Um. Hi, Bruce? Alfred?” The words fell flat, stilted. Dick winced as he said them. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but, uh…” He trailed off the second he registered what was in the room.
It was large, as so many rooms in the manor were. The room was covered in peeling green wallpaper with faded pictures of baby deer and owls and other woodland creatures prancing about. There was a dresser on one wall. A shelf filled with little picture books and stuffed animals on the other. A brown teddy bear had fallen on its face on one of the shelves.
In the middle—where Bruce was hunched over—was a crib. The wood streaked and aged with time, the beddings within pristine and untouched, if not dusty. Hanging overhead was a mobile with little animals dangling on a string.
“Worry not Master Dick. It is good that you are here since it will inevitably involve the rest of the family at some point.”
Dick nodded absentmindedly, trying to lock eyes with his guardian. “B? What’s—what’s going on?” Dick took one step deeper into the room. “The pictures in the cave. I thought they were you since they were too old to be Damian—” Bruce’s hands on the crib’s railing flinched.
Dick’s breath hitched.
“They’re…not your photos, are they.”
Bruce took a deep breath in, the lines of his shoulders tense. “No. They’re not.”
In their line of work, the answer could have been anything. Clones, magical doppelgangers, alternate universe counterparts, hell, even just someone’s genetic code being coincidentally similar to another person. But…this room, this nursery, pointed towards only one conclusion.
“Who is he, Bruce?”
Bruce angled his head towards Dick, unshed tears glimmering in his eyes. “He’s my son, Dick.
“He’s my son.”
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i'm not even done outlining phantom children: redux and i'm already planning the sequel wtf
#the sequel is gonna be great tho#idk how to insert the bats into it yet but its gonna be great tho#danny phantom#danny phantom crossover#dp fanfiction#phantom children.txt
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Phantom Children [DP x Batman Crossover]
Or: Once upon a time, Talia al Ghul gave her first child away to a family that would keep him safe. But Danny Fenton is more like his parents than anyone realized, and Ra's al Ghul is very curious of his grandson who defied death till the very end.
Posted onto ao3 but i also wanna share this here <3 Giving a huge disclaimer that it's been a while since I watched DP and the only Batman/DC stuff I've interacted with are B:TAS, the JL cartoons, and what I got from fandom osmosis so don't expect any sort of canon compliance.
CW for non-explicit mentions of a car accident and fake character death
| AO3 | [Prologue] | 1 |
------------
DANIEL JAMES FENTON WAS DEAD. Or, at least, dead-er, though only very few people would know of that fact.
His body was found at the bottom of a cliff, under a particularly sharp turn on a very windy road. The car he had been driving crumpled like an assignment found at the bottom of a backpack that was two weeks due. He is found by a search party two days after he had been reported missing; the authorities ended up identifying him from his driver’s license, tucked away safe in his back pocket.
His funeral is a closed casket, attended by his family who grieves and two best friends who are vehemently in denial of it all. People from school came, too. By twos and threes, small groups coming too offer their condolences and say such empty platitudes of how he lightened up the room and was always there to make everyone laugh.
Here is one truth they say: Casper High will never be the same without him.
(It’s funny, isn’t it? For a school so enamored with ghosts, they rarely spared a thought for death.)
In the days after the funeral, Jack and Maddie Fenton will pour their souls over their research with renewed fervor. Heads hunched over jargon-filled papers. Mugs half-empty with black coffee microwaved for the nth time. Before, they viewed their hell-damned portal as a scientific marvel, a new era in the world of paranormal sciences. One to be measured and experimented on and scienced to exhaustion, until the mystery of ghost and everything associated with it can be explained by theorems and equations and diagrams.
Now, though. Now they look at the green depths with a glint of madness in their eyes. Surely not all ghosts are just ectoplasm with a conscience. Surely at least some of those ghosts might have been different—alive.
All those myths of traversing the realm of the dead had to come from somewhere, right?
Sam and Tucker think along the same lines, except unlike the Fentons they know much more about the secrets of the Ghost Zone. Danny Fenton was dead. But he was already dead, and it seemed too ludicrous—even for someone with Danny’s luck—to die twice. They search what they can of the Zone, call in favors from any of Danny’s ghostly contacts that they can reach to find him. Hell, they even worked with Vlad.
Jazz handles the news best.
No.
That’s a lie.
Her baby brother died and there is no way that anyone would take that news well. But she has to. Where Danny was the heart, she was the family’s pillar. The one that knows how to keep a level head, the one that kept their family full of eccentric geniuses and more-than-human children grounded in some sense of normalcy. She would drag her parents out of their lab and teach them how to cope. Coach them through their stages of grief because Danny wouldn’t have wanted this.
And Jazz was right. Danny didn’t want this. Any of this.
His friends and family are balancing on the knife’s edge and they don’t know. They have no clue.
“Daniel, you will exhaust yourself for tomorrow.”
Danny blinked, tilting his head towards the speaker, eyes glued to the multiple monitors that hung on the wall. “You promised me an hour. I still have ten minutes left.”
“And tomorrow’s training will be more rigorous than the last—but it is your choice, I suppose.” Strong, slender fingers trace the width of his shoulders. Thumbs circling the spot between his shoulder blades. “They will still be there tomorrow. And the day after that. And for many more days to come, I assure you.” Danny snorted. “But if you are not well rested, then there I can’t guarantee the same thing for you.”
Danny leaned away from her touch with a grimace. “You can’t kill what’s already dead, Talia. And besides,” he looked up at her, eyes glowing like the Lazarus pit, “you wouldn’t leave your son to die for very long, yeah?”
Talia al Ghul smiled.
Danny looked away, focusing his gaze back to the live feed of his parents being dragged out of the lab by Jazz. Their faces haggard and empty except for that manic glint in their eyes.
He missed them. Missed them so much.
But Daniel James Fenton is dead.
And forcefully torn out of his husk is Daniel al Ghul.
#danny phantom#batman#danny phantom x batman crossover#dp fanfiction#al Ghul! danny#because the lazarus pit reminded me too much of the ghost zone and because the concept sounds fucking cool that's why#also wayne! danny#because again. cool factor. and i wanted to contrive a way for them to meet without making the fentons assholes or killing dannys friends#and family#phantom children.txt
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Phantom Children Ch. 7
Massive thanks to my awesome betas for this chapter!
In Which: A Story is Given to the Locked Room
AO3 | Prologue | 6 | [ 7 ] | 8
DICK DOESN’T REALLY KNOW WHAT TO FEEL. Surprised, maybe? Though he really isn’t all that shocked. Not that the revelation of another Wayne kid isn’t surprising, it’s just that—well…
Bruce has a tendency to attract foolhardy kids with a strong sense of justice and a willingness to harp on Batman until he gives them wings and teaches them how to fly. It’s the way of the world. The sky is blue, the sun sets in the west, and little Robin-hopefuls flock to Batman like ducklings to their big, brooding, mother duck. (That most of them are black haired and blue-eyed with some sort of traumatic backstory is a coincidence. Probably. The universe is just weird that way.)
And Bruce, bleeding heart that he is despite all the steel walls and nuclear spike fields he placed around it, always had a soft spot for children. It’s what people don’t get when they call Robins and Batgirls, former or current, child soldiers. They think that Batman picks these children up from gutter alleys and unfortunate homes, breaking and reshaping them into crusaders for his war against crime.
(What most don’t get is that the easiest way to gain ‘favorite child’ status in the Wayne household is to just stay home and live the most normal life possible. All of them—with the exception of Damian and Cass—chose this life. And even those two chose to stick with it, even when Bruce was more than happy to give them a way out.)
Dick was one of the first to stand at Batman’s side. The original. The ‘golden boy’ as Jason always put it. He’d been there so early in Batman’s career that, years later, it’s nearly inconceivable to imagine Batman without his Robin. He’s been there for Bruce’s soaring highs, his crushing lows, his mundane middles, just as Bruce has been there for him. Sure, they’ve had their fights, but Dick had always settled himself with the knowledge that he was one of the few people that knew everything about Bruce Wayne.
But this . This nursery—no, this memorial . This monument that spoke of a life that could have, should have, would have been, is something that predates Robin’s existence. A story, a memory that had hurt Bruce so badly that he would rather hide it away than breathe even a word of its existence.
Until now. Until Bruce had no choice but to rip the wound open once more.
“Bruce. I—what’s going on?”
“Perhaps,” Alfred interjected. “Perhaps it may be best to take this to the cave. Such a story should be told once.”
Bruce laughed, a broken, shuddering thing. “What is there to tell? I was naive with a heart too open and full of longing. I let myself hope, and I let myself get crushed . I picked myself up, moved on, end of story.”
Alfred raised an imperious brow. “As you are the one who always insisted on detailed reports, I do hope your summary to the boys downstairs would have a little more detail.” His face softened as he placed a comforting hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “What recent information that has been passed to us paints a worrisome picture, given what little you have shared, but know that this time you are not alone to deal with this matter. Regardless of what you do, the rest of the family is involved by proxy."
Bruce seemed to release some of the tension in his shoulders at that. “Yes. Of course. Dick, why don’t you see if Tim is back yet. I don’t want to explain this more than once, if possible. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure, I’ll get right on that.”
“And, Dick?”
“Yeah?”
Bruce’s gaze was intense. “How is Damian doing?”
He remembered the way Damian sunk deeper into the chair, hands clasping and unclasping at air. The white of his cast hanging limply as Damian’s legs could just barely brush against the cave floor. Dick swallowed a lump in his throat. “I don’t know. But I do know that he could really use his father right about now.”
Bruce gave a shaky nod and Dick left.
_______
Everyone has heard this tale before.
His boys have learned about the birth of Batman, of how a boy lost his parents in an alley at the age of eight. How at 14 he took to the study of criminology to an almost religious fervor. He took and aced every AP test, graduated high school at 16, headed off to get a college degree, then disappeared off the face of the earth.
Batman may have been born kneeling in the shadows of a dirty alley, but it was on the streets abroad where Batman grew up. Learning and studying and fighting until he knew what made the criminal underworld tick, how to escape almost every type of restraints, how to solve a murder with only the smallest of clues. He trained under a demon and met his daughter. When their ideas of justice clashed with each other, he tried to leave, they tried to stop him, and he set their base on ablaze.
He returned to Gotham the prodigal son, the favored prince, the charming socialite. Bruce Wayne took his place at the center of Gotham’s solar system, shining and bright and unbelievably foolish. Batman put on a cowl and learned the shadows of Gotham’s streets, and built himself up to be a symbol of fear and justice. Soon, he acquired a Robin to temper that darkness. To bring a light of hope, to instill a sense of peace— something more than vengeance and the night.
The rest is history.
Here is the part of the story that Bruce had omitted:
Early in his career as Batman, a man named Quayin had plans to steal a weather modifying US satellite. This, and certain other events, led to Bruce and Ra’s al Ghul crossing paths—and working on the same side. The details of that mission, in the long run. do not matter. Not anymore. What’s important is that accompanying him is his daughter, Talia al Ghul. She was as deadly as she was beautiful—and Talia was very, very beautiful.
It was a whirlwind romance. A storm of passion. Gotham’s Bruce Wayne and socialite Miranda Tate. * Batman and the Daughter of the Demon. The tempest reached its peak on that fateful day in the gardens of Wayne Manor. The hot summer sun and buzzing insects fading away as she pulled him aside and said “Beloved, I am with child. I am pregnant.” **
Bruce was caught unawares by the news. Stared dumbfounded at her until his brain caught up with his ears and he felt such unbridled joy bubbling in his chest. He laughed, clear and bright. He held her tight against him as if she held the world in her hands—because she did . Talia held his world within her and Bruce vowed to protect it with every fiber of his being. He called Alfred immediately to tell him the news and started arranging for discreet interior decorators and shipments for everything they needed for a nursery.
Thomas, for a boy. Martha for a girl. He swore that very day that it would be the happiest baby in the world. **
And then—
And then…
As Ra’s and Bruce planned their next move to stop Quayin from initiating a war between America and the USSR, Talia collapsed.
Talia collapsed and the baby was just…
Gone.
And suddenly Talia wanted nothing to do with him. Told Bruce to leave her alone, that their relationship would never be the same.
His child was gone .
By the time the rogue satellite was recovered, Quayin defeated, and all loose ends tied up, the nursery was fully furnished. Bruce took one look at it and then turned away. Locked the door and hid the key god-knows-where.
His child was gone.
Batman continued to work.
There was no use for an empty nursery.
--------
End Notes:
The story I'm using for the circumstances surrounding Danny's birth is basically a modified version of what happens in Batman: Son of the Demon. Modified so that people knew that Bruce Wayne and Miranda Tate were a couple and to give enough time for a nursery to be built along with the rest of the events of that comic.
*Miranda Tate is the name Tahlia al Ghul went by in 'The Dark Knight Rises'
**These lines are taken from Batman: Son of the Demon
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Phantom Children Ch.4
In Which: exposition for exposition's sake exists, and Vlad looks way more suspcious than he ought
| AO3 | Prologue | 3 | [4] | 5
VLADIMIR MASTERS. Human male in his mid-forties, and most notably the founder and CEO of VladCo, a billion-dollar industry that mostly specializes in manufacturing weapons and technology. Graduated summa cum laude from the University of Wisconsin despite having to drop out due to a lab accident in his second year, landing him in the hospital. Despite being based primarily in Wisconsin, he made an unexpected move to Amity Park Illinois shortly after reuniting with his college friends Drs. Madeline and Jack Fenton.
Not even a year later, Masters ran for mayor of Amity Park and won the election by a landslide. Suspicious, considering Masters being an unknown and the former mayor Montez being quite popular. It’s during Masters’ tenure in office that reports of ghost attacks to the Justice League steadily died down.
“Why?” Damian asked.
Barbara shrugged, pulling up a few files on the screen. “I originally had a theory that related to VladCo’s buyout of Axion Labs—a technological research and manufacturing company that’s mostly local to Amity—being a factor. Within the last couple of years, they had been experimenting with highly volatile chemicals with hallucinogenic properties. Amity had always been known for being extremely superstitious with its ghosts, and if Axion Labs had somehow accidentally released that chemical into the city, well…” She leaned back into her chair, hand twisting in the air. “You could bet how that ended up. The hysteria around ghosts only grew worse in the last two years, with suspected sightings from once every few weeks to multiple in a single day. Early attempts to capture sightings were unsuccessful, and soon enough Amity Park was just written off.”
Much like the mass hysteria surrounding the urban legend of the kuchisake-onna in Japan in the late 1970s, Bruce thought. He pulled up some news footage from Amity Park dated a few years back of citizens being interviewed about their ghostly encounters. Beside these videos were a few photos taken by a shaky camera, showing bright blurs of light streaking across the sky or vaguely humanoid shapes rising from the ground.
“So VladCo., bought out Axion Labs, improved its security, and slowly helped detoxify the town?” Damian shifted his weight onto his other leg and crossed his arms.
“That’s what I thought, but—”
“But the ghosts ended up being real.” Bruce pulled up a video of a field reporter-slash-weatherman taking cover as a figure dropped from the sky, breaking through the walls of a building. The figure—features distorted by an eerie glow—shot out of the rubble just in time before a green blast hit it.
Oracle enlarged other news footage with a few taps on her keyboard. Beings zooming through the air. Massive plants erupting from the ground. Technology coming to life. Each video more worrying than the last, and most showing some footage of a figure bathed in a white glow. “I’d be hard pressed to call any of these faked.”
It begged the question as to how Amity Park survived this long unscathed. Since, if he remembered correctly, even the Dark Leaguers tended to avoid Amity Park like the plague. “They have their own heroes, then?”
“Think along the lines of vigilantes with unofficial support.” A few more files popped up on screen. One showcased a female in a full-length black and red body suit on top of a hover board. The other was a male; young, perhaps a teenager, with white hair and a black and white suit. Hazmat? “The Red Huntress and the Phantom of Amity Park.”
“Partners?”
“More like enemies working on the same turf. Sources place Phantom as appearing first, though it seems Red Huntress has more government support in the end despite there being no official statement. They seem to be the most effective ghost hunters in town, though far from the only ones. The Fentons of Fenton Works are also acting as ghost hunters, though their track record of success leans more towards their anti-ghost tech than any hunting. The town’s even attracted visitors from the Ghost Investigation Ward; a side branch of Cadmus though a now defunct organization.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Damian said. “If anything, this should be more than enough reason for a League intervention. Why the Justice League didn’t come sooner is the real question here.”
Bruce’s lips thinned. “That’s because we were warned off it.”
“What?”
While there was no rule against heroes entering another hero’s city, there were certain unspoken rules that demanded that JL members avoid claimed cities or stay just outside of city lines until given permission to enter. Some were especially strict about it such as Batman’s ‘no metas or outsiders’ rule. Others were more lenient, simply requesting a warning before entering.
Amity Park, despite having no listed heroes in the database, was marked with heavy ‘Do Not Interact’ warnings for humans and metas alike.
“Justice League Dark said that under no circumstances should the League interfere in Amity. The situation was never explicitly laid out for us except to say that everything was being handled.”
“Oh yeah,” Oracle chimed. “Constantine even had it bolded, underlined, italicized, and in all caps. The occult community was very clear about everyone staying away—and apparently this decision had support from Amity Park too.” She pulled up another document. “That’s probably what led to the decline in their ghost reports, actually. Amity’s claims were considered bogus and brushed aside. No one outside their town—not even their sister town of Elmerton—believed them, so they simply stopped asking for help.”
Strangely, it reminded Bruce of Gotham. Both cities existed in its own isolated sphere, unwilling to let any outsiders interfere in its business.
“It’s safe to assume, then, that whatever Ra’s al Ghul wants with Amity, it has to do with these ghosts. Do we have anyway to contact the town’s vigilantes?”
Oracle shook her head. “Ghost attacks within the past few months have slowly died down along with sightings of Phantom and Red Huntress. Your best bet is asking Masters directly.”
Damian glowered. “Masters blatantly sent out an invitation for Batman to my father. How do we know that Masters hasn’t somehow found our secret identities?”
“Unlikely,” Bruce said. “Vlad Masters, despite his wealth, has done well to keep a low profile. He’s met Bruce Wayne a total of three times within the last decade and Batman not at all.” That, and with the kind of spyware Batman has, he’d be able to tell when, where, and who was trying to dig deep into Batman’s past. Masters hadn’t even registered as a ping.
“Besides, there’s always a few rumors of Wayne Enterprise’s involvement with Batman. All this tech has to come from somewhere, no?”
“How long is Masters staying in Gotham?”
“Umm…” Oracle leaned forward in her chain and flipped through a half-dozen windows. “Going by his reservations at the Gotham Royal Hotel, he’s leaving tomorrow.”
Bruce pivoted on his heel, heading deeper into the Cave. “We better make this count, then.”
------
According to Oracle’s intel, Vlad Masters was staying at one of the executive suites in the Gotham Royal Hotel. A titanic structure with forty-eight floors, two towers, and the gothic aesthetic that never seemed to leave Gotham’s architecture.
Scaling the building as well as entering the suite proved no challenge for Batman and Robin. But upon entrance, it was abundantly clear that the room was vacant.
“Are you sure you guys are in the right room?” Bruce could hear the clicking of Oracle’s keys through their comms. “Masters had reserved the suite on the west tower.”
“Yes we’re in the correct room, Gordon,” Robin hissed.
“Codenames only, Robin.”
Robin clicked his tongue, sweeping the common room for any hidden bugs or cameras as Batman scouted out the rest of the room. The bed was made to hotel standard and the bathroom towels all completely replaced. There were no clothes in the hotel closet or dresser.
The only thing left that indicated occupancy of the room was an unmarked manila envelope unsubtly tucked within a pillowcase.
Robin tensed at the sight of it. “A detonator of some sort?”
Batman rotated the package, holding it up to his scanner. “Doesn’t seem to be. Regardless, it might be better to take it back to the Batcave and locate Masters ag—”
The envelope started ringing. A standard ringtone found in most phones. Quickly, but carefully, Batman opened the manila envelope and dumped its contents onto the bed. A ringing burner phone and a flash drive came tumbling out.
Batman threw the flash drive at Robin before answering the phone, holding it up against his ear but saying nothing.
Silence. Then, Masters’ voice filtered in through the phone with a strange echo-like quality. “Good evening, Batman! I’m so glad my invitation managed to get passed along.”
Batman growled into the speaker, “What do you want, Masters?” He signaled Robin to do another sweep of the room for any signs of Masters they might have missed.
“I sincerely apologize for not being there to meet you myself; incredibly rude of me, I know. But it cannot be helped, the shadows are growing ever bolder.”
“So, you are aware then, of the League of Assassins’ presence in Amity Park?”
“A league of assassins? What a terrifying notion that is.” Batman frowned. It was unlikely that they had misread his words at the gala, so why was he acting unaware now? Could he be watched? “Why such a group would appear in my little town, I wouldn’t even dare to guess.”
Robin came back into the room and signaled back ‘negative.’
“Why did you call for us, Mayor Masters?”
“Do you know what is so very tragic, Batman?”
“This is strange,” Oracle said. “I can’t pick up his signal. He’s not appearing on any of my cameras, either.”
“When someone so young dies much to soon.” A pause. “Could you even imagine such a thing? A parent burying their own child.”
Batman could. He had no need to even imagine it because he lived it.
“Some very close friends of mine have been weighed down by the shadows of death and I require help in providing them the closure they need.”
“Are the Fentons the targets, then?”
Masters paused. Then let out a breathy laugh over the phone. “Oh, if only it were that simple.”
“So a different target.”
“Everything you need to know is in the flash drive I’ve enclosed in that envelope Whether you take up the case is entirely up to you—though I do hope you take it. Regardless, if he is not returned soon then I assure you that a disaster unlike any you have seen before will arrive.”
Batman narrowed his eyes. “Is that a threat, Masters?”
“No,” He laughed. “That was no threat. That was promise.”
The phone line disconnected just as Oracle exclaimed that she finally found Masters boarding his flight back to Amity Pak.
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Phantom Children [DP x Batman Crossover] Ch. 1
Disclaimer: It's been a while since I watched DP and the only Batman/DC stuff I've interacted with are B:TAS, the JL cartoons, and what I got from fandom osmosis so don't expect any sort of canon compliance.
In Which: the author takes advantage of the passage of time in Nanda Parbat being wonky and Danny doesn't give up, per se, but is sort of resigned to being stuck with the League of Assassins until further notice.
AO3 | Prologue | [ 1 ] | 2 |
CW for descriptions of non-consensual drug use (if there's anything you guys would like me to tag, please tell me)
-----
WHEN SOMETHING WENT WRONG WITH DANNY’S LIFE, it was usually because of one or two things: Ghosts or Vlad. And considering their truce and how even Vlad wouldn’t go this far (at least, Danny hoped), Danny was kidnapped because of ghosts. Or his association with ghosts.
Though how an organization of ninja-assassins got wind of his ‘unique’ circumstance was beyond him. The shackles they slapped on his wrists were more a formality than anything after the second time he tried to escape them with intangibility. The only reason they managed to get him contained the entire trip from Amity Park to wherever the fuck Nanda Parbat lay was because of the cocktail of drugs they pumped into his system spiked with blood blossoms.
Danny had to give it to them. The League of Assassins might not have any anti-ecto weaponry, but they did their homework.
He barely remembered the trip. He catches flashes—blurry figures and words he couldn’t comprehend. A warm hand holding his, a thumb rubbing smooth circles on the back of his palm and calloused fingers running through his hair.
When he awoke, it was in a room bigger than his bedroom. His ankle was shackled to a bedpost, and the only door leading out was locked. There was a separate room for the bathroom off to the side and a shelf stacked with books decorating the otherwise bare walls, but other than that there wasn’t much else. Not even windows.
Intangibility, he learned, wasn’t an option. The blood blossoms in his bloodstream were still in circulation, rendering his transformation useless. If his nose was right, his captors were pumping blood blossoms from the vents. The sickly sweet of the flower was faint in the cool air, but the slight red haze that persisted in the room was unmistakable.
He tried, regardless. The rings barely made it half-way before his knees buckled and he started retching all over the floor. At least his stomach was empty.
-------
Danny doesn’t know how long he’s been in Nanda Parbat. Time moved differently here. Faster, he thought. He doesn’t really understand how or why, though sometimes he wondered what Clockwork thought of all of this.
(There are times, in the darkness and solitude of his cell, when Danny would call for Clockwork to rescue him. Quietly, so quietly, it was barely even a whisper. But Clockwork would hear it—Danny was sure he would. Clockwork helped him out before, so this time shouldn’t be all that different. But at the end of the night, nothingness would answer him. And Danny had to learn over and over again that even the Ghost of Time had his own rules to follow.)
It had taken a few days and Talia nearly biting the head off of the League’s physician for them to realize that blood blossoms would be an awful way to contain him. Effective at immobilizing him, yes, but the flowers left him about as helpless as Superman in a kryptonite cave.
“It all works out in the end,” Talia would say. “The blossoms were never going to become a long-term solution; you might end up developing an immunity to them given enough exposure.”
Though knowing now what Talia’s ‘long-term plan’ was for making sure Danny didn’t slip through the walls of the headquarters and fly across the ocean, Danny would rather take his chances with the blood blossoms.
Danny might not have been as smart as Vlad, but he was tricky and creative when he needed to be. He knows he’s powerful. And sure, he might forget some of his own abilities every now and then, but that doesn’t mean he can’t use them. In the time he’s been stuck in the Leage’s lair (and coherent), Danny had thought of a dozen escape plans, each one with a high chance of success. If he made an attempt, he could guarantee the League wouldn’t notice until he was a quarter-way across the globe.
Escaping wasn’t the problem. That would be the easy part.
His core burned at the thought of it. And it hurt—as if his entire being was dunked in a vat of dry ice and left to freeze. He hated how he was here and everything that he was protecting was far. Away.
Danny wanted to go home. Wanted to read comic books in his bed, play Doom with Tucker and Sam, sleep in class and make fun of the Box Ghost. He wants to eat his mom’s food, even if there’s a fifty-fifty chance that it would come alive and try to eat him instead. He wants to listen to Jazz try to psychoanalyze his problems. Wants to go fishing with his dad and eat his famous chocolate fudge. Wants to fly above the skies of Amity Park and touch what little he can of the universe before he’s called down again.
Amity Park is his haunt. His Home. The soft hum of the Ghost Portal in the basement a lullaby he’s listened to for so long that sleeping without it was next to impossible. Every fiber of his being craved to go back because how is he supposed to protect Amity if he isn’t there?
But to go back meant sacrificing everyone.
Danny doesn’t risk it.
(The—the last time was an accident. If Danny isn’t—if he isn’t careful, this time it may be an assassination. He refused to have his family’s death on his hands again.)
He has faith in Sam, Tucker, and Jazz to hold down the fort until he could find a way to escape. They’re smart. Smarter than him. They’ll work something out and—in a worst-case scenario, they’ll find a way to shut down the Ghost Portal to stop the ghosts from coming through.
Logic meant nothing to his ghost core, though. The next best thing to do was to drown out his worries with the League’s rigorous education.
Hand-to-hand and weapons combat. Geography. History. Dozens of foreign languages. Poisons and herbology and basic first-aid. His days are packed with new things to learn and to repeat until it’s drilled into his skull so deep he could recite the information in his sleep. (Hyosycamus niger, aka Henbane. Every part is highly toxic and can cause dizziness, stupor, insanity, and eventual death. It’s medicinal uses range from--)
The League demanded perfection. The Demon’s Head demanded even more than that.
Talia oversaw his education. Sometimes, there would be another, older, man by her side, observing his regimen with cold calculation. Whenever that man arrived, Danny’s instructors were always stricter.
His teachers made little effort to interact with him outside of their set schedule, and during his lessons they only ever answer pertinent questions. He supposed there would be other students of the League in Nanda Parbat, but he’s seen neither hide nor hair of them. His rooms (a bedroom + bathroom combo that led out into a large indoor space for training) are separate from everything else.
Danny slept alone, ate alone, and trained alone. And for a boy who has had his two best friends stuck to his side like glue for as long as he could remember, it’s a terribly lonely experience.
His shadow guards don’t count. They might as well be another piece of furniture. Another stone in the wall.
-------
Talia was the only one that broke his new mundane routine, as much as she was the cause of it. She was his only source of companionship in this hell hole; the only one who would really speak to him. And yeah, he knew why that was. Jazz had rambled on enough about Stockholm syndrome to know that this ‘arrangement’ was Talia’s attempts at forging a bond between them. But godit’s just so hard to be stuck inside your own mind all day when. It made him think too much. Worry. (Whatifwhatifwhatifwhatif).
And then—
And then.
Danny had asked Talia a multitude of questions, but only two did she ever answer. Both asked when he was still trying to flush the drug cocktail and the blood blossoms from his system.
The first was when he asked, “Why am I here?” She answered that it was because Ra’s al Ghul, her father, wanted him. He had knowledge the Demon’s Head wanted; powers that Ra’s could only ever dream of. The man was curious—though Talia assured him over and over again that Danny wouldn’t be vivisected and studied for science.
The second answer came right after when Danny asked her “How could you be so sure?”
Talia smiled. Lacquered fingers coming up to brush away the dark strands that fell over his face. Her hands traced the curve of his jaw, cupping his cheeks to raise his eyes to hers. “Because you are my son,” she said, voice honey sweet.
He jerked from her hold.
Burned by it.
“You’re lying,” he spat. “I’m already someone else’s son. Try again.”
Talia let her hands drop to her sides. “You are my son.” She took a step closer towards him. Steady. Firm. “That is why you are here.”
“I don’t believe you.”
A pitying smile. “Be that as it may, you cannot change the truth.” She approached him, slowly backing him against the wall before she reached out to tilt his chin upwards. Some traitorous part of Danny’s mind catalogued her features. Made connections that shouldn’t exist. “I have carried you in my womb, Daniel. You were a part of me for so very long and I loved you more with each passing day. You are of my body and of my blood—not matter how much you may deny it.”
“No.” He pushed her hands away and raked his hands over his hair. “You’re lying.” She must be. They don’t look alike. Not at all. Everyone always said he was his dad’s—Jack Fenton’s—exact copy. Black haired and blue eyed and sharp-jawed. Awkward but well-meaning and with a heart of gold, his mother said. It was once of the facts of life; Danny took after his dad, and Jazz took after their mom. Simple as that.
(There is a memory resurfacing from his early childhood that Danny is desperately trying to repress again. Memories of kids teasing him on the playground, innocently cruel in the way only children can be as they tried to convince him he was adopted. That his skin looked nothing like his parents’. Dusky where his parents and sister were fair. He went home crying to his parents that same day, and they soothed away his worries with hushed words and a well-timed distraction.)
He asked no more questions after that. Talia was lying to him for some reason, and no answer she could give would be trustworthy anyways. What little of him he could see in her was only a figment of his own imagination. His mind playing cruel tricks.
Then his hopes were dashed aside when Talia showed him a picture of his father a day later.
The man in the photo looked like him. Black haired and eyes the same shade of too-bright blue. There were differences, of course. The man in the photograph was fairer, unlike Danny. He was taller and broader where Danny was lean and lanky. But despite this and all the other minute differences, this man who was supposed to be Danny’s biological father looked like him.
The same slant of the brow. The same shape of the eyes. The way the man held himself with this sense of gravitas and power that Danny couldn’t yet do in his awkward teenage years but had seen before. In a monster another man.
Danny’s future self was terrifying in its inhumanity, but it didn’t take that much of an imagination to know that he looked almost exactly like the man in the picture.
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Phantom Children Pt. 5
Hey guys, it's been really busy for me at university so I have no idea when I'll have free time to write this month. Chapter 5 is actually still unfinished, but I didn't want to leave you guys hanging, so here's the first half of chapter 5.
In Which: Another deal is struck upon the ice
AO3 | Prologue | 4 | [ 5 ] | 6
THE PIT SINGS. A low, groaning thing. Muffled like how sounds distort underwater. It reminded Danny of the sounds of Jupiter he would listen to when he really needed to study; the sounds heavily mixed to be more ambient yet still echoing traces of the original, haunting melody of the universe.
The Pit calls for him. No, not the pit—the ectoplasm in the pit is what calls him. Pulls the waves toward him as if he were the moon, bright and full, whispering with garbled voices hello-hello-hello. His core whispers back the same words every time he is near it. Hello-hello-hello. The Pit lingers in the back of his mind and sings in familiar words he does not understand.
Talia calls it a fascination. Ra’s calls it a connection.
A visceral link. Like calls to like. Strange ectoplasmic middle fingers to the laws of the universe—to the great equalizer that is death.
(Danny thinks Ra’s is wrong. Not completely wrong, but not right either.)
When his ghost form is no longer trying to cannibalize his human self, Talia dials up his training. Before, she was merely an observer. Now, she fights him in the ring, teaching him how to dodge with bruised ribs and broken bones. Brutally correcting his stances with harsh jabs and quick strikes. Sweeps him off the floor with a twist of her leg when he forgets how to use his feet. Each day left him with such bone-deep fatigue that mor more once he fell asleep during his sixty minutes in front of the monitor.
They know, now, that the Pit has no adverse effect on him. That he can use the pit more than once.
Bruises and fractures, cuts and scrapes; injuries mean nothing when a dip in green waters will wash everything away.
Even the possibility of insanity starts to feel far-fetched.
Danny should hate this. He should really hate this.
He loved it.
Phantom had always been a fighter. A protector. An underdog matched up against bigger and stronger foes but always somehow coming up on top. He was popular. Liked by the citizens of Amity Park despite his dumpster fire of a reputation near the beginning. Somehow in the year and a half since Phantom’s conception, he went from town menace to this larger-than-life figure. (Ha!) The hero of Amity Park with all of the expectations and responsibilities that came with it.
But Danny—plain, ol’ Danny Fenton—wasn’t any of that. Wasn’t allowed to be any of that. Because Danny Fenton was a wimpy kid who tripped over air and regularly got shoved inside lockers. He was the ghost hunters’ son who was deathly afraid of the paranormal. A C-average student in a family of geniuses.
A persona unwillingly crafted and carefully maintained, because at least this way no one other than Jazz or Wes will be able to connect Fenton to Phantom. Who would believe it?
But here, in Nanda Parbat, he was neither Fenton nor Phantom— he was something more. He had no secret identity to keep from the people who have vigorously researched him. He had no need to hold back.
Here, Danny was free to be Danny.
“Daniel.”
Even if he was called by the wrong-right name.*
Danny floated up from the pit, his transformation seamless as he stepped onto the edge on quiet feet. Tahlia threw him a knapsack. “Ready yourself, we have places to be.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I get my sixty-minutes after the Pit, remember?”
“I did not forget.” She smiled, resting her hand on her hip. “I simply thought that by beloved child might relish a change in scenery.”
Danny perked up, hands tightening around the straps of the knapsack. “We’re going outside?” Tahlia nodded. “Like—outside-outside. With the sky and trees and—and the stars?”
Amusement softened her sharp features, jade eyes sparkling with mirth. “The very same. Though the place we are going to is quite fickle in nature, and I am unsure if we will get another chance to go. But if you really insist on it then—”
“Wait!” He snapped his mouth shut, clutching the bag closer to his chest.
(Family, his core whispered. Family-safe-safe-protect-need-see-confirm-family-home)
The sixty minutes he gets to see his family was…precious. One of the few times the restlessness in his core would draw back; melt away like frost in the spring, leaving some sense of contentment behind. It was his refuge. Sanctuary. Physical proof that what he was doing here—(staying away-away-why-go back-back-return-home-family-home-protect)—meant something.
But.
Outside.
The Pit might have increased his training regiment, but it also allowed him to leave (escorted) the walls of his rooms. And this—
Danny could go outside.
He could go outside.
If he didn’t accept this now, then who knows when the opportunity would arise again? His family wouldn’t mind, right? Jazz did say something about how spending time outdoors is good for one’s health.
He swallowed a lump in his throat. “My…my family will be alright, yes?”
Tahlia cocked her head. “Why wouldn’t they be? You have done nothing wrong that goes against our agreement, and you have progressed wonderfully in your training. I am quite proud.” At Danny’s disquieted expression, she sighed. She raised her hand. “I swear on the blood of the demon—on our blood—that I will honor our agreement and do no harm to the Fentons and your friends during our trip.”
She lowered her hand. “Are you satisfied, habeebi?”
Reluctantly, Danny nods. An agreement from Tahlia is probably the best he could do at this point. “How much time do I have to prepare?”
“Everything you will need is in that back. Though, it might do you good to dress very warmly.”
----------
Danny’s first breath of fresh air was biting. It filled the lungs crisp and clean, chilled him to the bones though he could feel no cold. Each warm exhale expressed itself in swirling mists, disappearing into the slate gray clouds above. A facsimile of his own ghost sense.
Fenton did not think much of breathing; Phantom did not need it.
Danny had never realized how wonderous it was to breathe.
“We head northeast,” Tahlia called out. Like him, she is bundled in thick black layers with long leather gauntlets strapped at the end of the sleeves. Her bag secured tightly, and a sword strapped to her back. Her long black hair is bound in a tight braid beneath her fur-lined hood.
The path is covered with snow, deep enough that his first few steps past Nanda Parbat’s gates sinks his leg midway up his calf with a loud crunch. It was hardly as deep as some parts in the Far Frozen, but over there Danny had the choice to simple float over. Tahlia trudged through the snow with a preternatural grace. The path ahead was marked only by the faint traces of footprints almost—but not quite—covered with fresh snow.
Among the many things the League had taught him, this was one: the devil is in the details.
They speak little on their trek. Not that Danny particularly minds, absorbed that he was with world around him. Nanda Parbat, he learned, was built high in the mountains. Cocooned from the rest of the world by the snow-capped mountain ranges that surrounded it. A fortress of wood and stone that seemed distinct yet so carefully hidden. The high walls protected the buildings within from view. Its roofs—elongated and curved—and tall towers modelled after east Asian architecture. Though which country, Danny does not know.
Their destination—past a large protrusion of stone that covered the fortress from view once crossed—was a lake. Frozen a pale blue with ice, surrounded by more mountain walls and the opening of a cave off to the side.
Perplexed, he said “What, are we gonna go ice fishing? Just so you kno, I’m not that big of a fan. The last time I went with my dad I was nearly eaten by a sea monster.”
“We should have enough food for this exercise, Daniel. And you need have no fear of sea monsters, this lake is devoid of any such creatures.” Once they reached the mouth of the cave, she unstrapped her bag, setting it against the stone wall. Danny mimicked the motion. “We are here to train.”
“With…?”
She gestures to the katana strapped to his back.
“With swords.”
A nod.
“On the ice?”
She smiled, leading him to the edge of the frozen lake. “It has become something of a family tradition of the al Ghuls, to cross blades upon the ice.” She plants a steady foot on the lake, walking towards the center with long strides.
Danny followed behind her with some trepidation. He wouldn’t die from frostbite, he was sure, and if he fell he could always fly himself out. But that didn’t stop him from flinching at the rumbling sounds the ice made beneath his feet.
“My father trained both your father and I on this lake.” Tahlia unsheathed her sword as she took her place across from Danny. “And as your father no doubt trained Damian on his own lake, I have the pleasure of training you.” She slipped into a stance. “On your mark.”
Danny slipped into his own stance, feet apart, both hands on the hilt. Then, something nudged at the back of his mind. “Who’s Damian?”
Tahlia tilted her blade, the polished sword gleaming and sharp. “Your brother. Now—begin!”
“Wait, wha—” Danny barely managed to parry the blow.
Sparks flew as blades crossed and Danny twisted off to the side.
He slipped. Head meeting the ice, the deep crackling sound of the lake making him tense.
Tahlia points the tip of her blade against his chest. A single elegant brow arched high in dissatisfaction. Danny glared at her, brushing the fringes of his hair away from his face. “To be fair, you shouldn’t say stuff like that right before a fight. You caught me off guard.”
“If you find yourself in a fair fight, you have failed to prepare enough.” She sheathed her sword before extending an arm to help Danny to his feet. “The goal of a fight is to end it—no matter the cost. Now, take you place.”
Danny picked up his sword, then, hesitates. He looked up at Tahlia. “Did you mean what you said?” Do I have a brother?
Tahlia smiled, drawing her blade once more. “Impress me and you’ll find out.”
Danny narrowed his eyes.
“Now—”
He adjusted his stance. You’re on.
“Begin!”
Danny lunged.
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Phantom Children Ch. 3
In which: Danny getting yeeted into the Lazarus Pit yields anticlimactic consequences and Bruce Wayne converses with a fruit loop.
AO3 | Prologue | 2 | [ 3 ] | 4 |
DANIEL BARELY HAD TIME TO SCREAM before he’s plunged into the green depths of the Lazarus pit, primeval waves crashing against the walls of the pool. Talia flicked her wrist, signaling the ten League members hidden in the shadows to approach. Each one spaced equally apart around the pit with smoke pellets synthesized from blood blossoms held in their hands, ready to drop at a moment’s notice.
Pit madness rendered the majority of the living uncontrollable, with even the weakest of humans imbued with a strength that could only be induced by the purest of rage. The League was not taking chances as to how a being like her son would react to it.
The waters stilled.
Then—
A bright flash of light. Then, faster than the eyes could follow, a figure erupted from the waters. Bone white hair that twisted and curled as if it were still underwater. Skin lightly tinged frostbitten blue and clad in a suit of black and white and shrouded in an aura of blinding light. Phantom appeared from the depths, floating above the pit like a god reborn.
His eyes burned a toxic green.
“What the fuck was that?”
But not pit madness green.
Talia ordered her assassins to at ease with a raise of her hand. She slowly walked to her father’s side just as her son—Phantom—landed at the edge of the pool. Idly, Talia noticed how different Phantom seemed in comparison to her son. Physical attributes aside, Daniel tended to make himself smaller. What venom that may coat his words and the vitriol in his glares dampened by the way he held himself. Shoulders hunched and head tilted down. Non-threatening. Hands always needing to do something, whether it be holding his arms or shoved inside his pockets or constantly brushing it through his hair. No matter how she and his instructors taught him how to hold himself like a warrior, like a soldier, he still tended to present himself as a skittering little animal.
Phantom was different. He squared his soldiers and lifted his chin high, unafraid to stretch out to his fullest height and use his defiance of gravity to make himself look bigger. Stronger. His arms held steady at his sides, curled into tight fists. Green eyes—green as the Lazarus pit yet without that spark of madness that so consumed everyone else—burning with righteous fury.
“You fucking threw me into the weird green pool. What even—who does that?”
Ra’s tilted his head. “Fascinating. It seems you have a resistance to the pit madness.”
Phantom blinked, caught off guard. “Pit…madness,” he echoed. A statement, though from the wrinkle in his brows and the look he shoots Talia, it was more a question than anything else.
“It is one of the side effects of the Lazarus pits.” Talia approached her son with caution, holding his face with both hands and inspecting for any differences. “While the waters rejuvenate, restore, and even temporarily imbue one with supernatural strength, it also tends to inflict users with temporary insanity.”
“Insanity?” His eyes widened, trembling hands coming up to hold her wrists. Strangely, Daniel did not pull away from her touch. “I could have gone insane?”
Those bright eyes of his looked so frightened. Haunted. Pupils dilated to mere pinpricks of blackness, lost in a sea of Lazarus green. “Oh habeebi, only temporarily.”
“Like that’s better!” He yelled. “Even temporarily, I’m—” He staggered back, breaking out of her hold. Harmless Danny Fenton bleeding into proud Phantom as he ran his hands through his hair, unwilling to look at anyone.
Ra’s continued to watch, his arms crossed beneath his sternum, muttering to himself. Her father had prided himself on being one of the most knowledgeable about the Lazarus pits and its effects. Now, faced with a new mystery, the scholar within the Demon’s Head emerged as he observed his grandson.
“No,” Ra’s said, mostly to himself. “Perhaps less of a ‘resistance’ and more of an ‘immunity’ to it, given how both Daniel and the Lazarus pit have similar compositions. It would be a fascinating tangent to follow.” He chuckled to himself. “How droll. The life-restoring Lazarus pit holding a connection to the land of the dead.”
Talia turned to her father. “So, Daniel will not feel any of the pit’s side effects, then?”
Daniel perked up at the sound of his name, halting in his pacing. “I…might not go insane?”
“Perhaps, though it is too soon to tell. You have the waters of the Lazarus pit flowing through your veins, Daniel.” Ra’s smiled; eyes gleaming with the sparks of pride. “You and it are made of the same chemicals, the same reality-defying compounds that can bring the dead back to life.”
“Well, great. I have the same chemical makeup as a glowing hot tub, what else is new—” Her son staggered, and she caught him. Impossibly bright rings formed at his abdomen and then split, transforming Phantom back into a human. Mortal. His face haggard and sweating from the temples, eyes back to her beloved’s pale blues.
Her father did not bat an eye. “The pit’s healing effects are slowed down, then? Or perhaps it is because he has no wounds to heal?” Ra’s hummed; chin cradled in his hand. “Set him back into the pits, Talia. I believe young Daniel has yet to absorb all his needed energy.”
“Sure, yeah, that’s fine. Put me back in the crazy water, why not?” Daniel tugged at her shoulders. “Just…gently, please?”
Talia smoothed down his dark hair with a smile. “Of course, habeebi. I will even stay with you as well.”
When he looked at her, it was something almost akin to gratefulness.
------
In Gotham City, the upper echelons of society gather together at the Gotham Expo Center. The shining halls, which had been used as the site of a week-long exhibition of new scientific research, was reoutfitted to serve as the venue for the exhibition’s final event.
A gala. The hunting ground of the nouveau riche and old money families. Corporate moguls and debutants made their rounds across the floor, chatting with heirs and politicians and the who’s who of the upper class.
Scientists and researchers attempted to step out of their shells and dazzle the crowds. Wanting to fish a willing patron with deep pockets to fund their next project. Reporters huddled together like schools of fish, warily approaching the predators in their midst for a question or a photo. Both things many of the wealthy and affluent are easily ready to give, as long as it only showed off their best side in tomorrow’s society papers.
Bruce Wayne, the Prince of Gotham, and society’s darling observed everything as he always did, in that most people believed he barely noticed anything beyond what’s right in front of him. He raised the flute glass of champagne to his lips, pretending to take a sip as he listened to the chatter of sycophants around him. A few were even some promising researchers of which he made a mental note to pass along to Lucius.
Two nights ago, Bruce received a tip of unusual movements from the League of Assassins. The organization had been quiet as of late, and while Bruce had been very carefully monitoring their activities in the background, the sudden tightening of their security prompted him to take a closer look.
There had been sightings of the League of Assassins centered around a small town in Illinois—Amity Park. A rural tourist trap championing itself as the most haunted place in America. Something that Bruce would normally scoff at or zealously research about if not for John Constantine’s warning to “never go within a ten-mile radius of that hellhole.” With similar sentiments from others in the occult community, the Justice League decided to take that warning to heart. Bruce’s curiosity may have been piqued, but even he was tactful enough to avoid courting more trouble.
Suffice to say, Bruce—and especially Batman—could not afford to ignore Ra’s al Ghul’s movements. Whatever his plans were involved whatever anomalies were going on in Amity Park. And wasn’t it simply serendipitous that one of the guest lists for tonight’s gala was Vlad Masters, the mayor of Amity Park?
“Vlad Masters, is that you?” Bruce, slapping on his signature Brucie smile, masterfully detached himself from his previous group, quickly heading towards the nearby bar where he spotted Vlad getting another drink.
“Why, Bruce Wayne, it’s been so long!” The two shook hands, of which Bruce was slightly surprised at how cold to the touch Vlad was. A health condition, perhaps. Then again, there was something in Vlad’s appearance and stature that spoke of a deeper reason.
“It’s been, what, two years? What brings you to Gotham?”
“Business; the usual really.” Despite whatever friendly aura they’re projecting, Bruce Wayne and Vlad Masters weren’t friends. More acquaintances that have been forced to mingle a few times because of the nature of their business and the demands of high society. From what Bruce knows, Vlad is a business tycoon that’s as blindingly charismatic as he was infamous for his quick rise to wealth and a few rather shady dealings.
Bruce stuck his hand in his pocket. “Well Vlad, last we all heard was you dipping your toes into politics. You’re a, uh, what, a governor?”
Vlad let out an obviously fake chuckle. “Oh nothing as grand as that. I’m only a small-town mayor, really.”
“Right!” Bruce snapped his fingers. “So, what’s that like?”
“Oh dreadful work, really. So much paperwork, so many things to do or oversee, but rewarding in its own way.” He puffed out his chest. “Many of the people in Amity Park do rely on me, you know. Though I’m afraid my schedule’s busy enough that I barely have time to go home!”
“Well, we’re very happy that you made room enough to visit us here in Gotham.”
Bruce sensed Damian coming to stand beside him and instinctually placed a hand around his shoulder. Though his youngest had been steadily adjusting to his new life here in Gotham, he still preferred to stick to his father’s shadow than mingle with those of his own age groups at galas. (Then again, Bruce was very similar when he was younger so perhaps it was a genetic thing).
He smiled down at Damian—frowning as he’d rather be patrolling the streets in uniform as opposed to schmoozing with people he hardly cared about. “Have you met my son, Vlad? Damian, this is Vlad Masters, a business partner and a, uh—” He scrunched his face, pretending to remember what Vlad’s current occupation is. “Mayor of some small town out west.”
Bruce turned to look at Vlad, expecting to see some variation of ‘insulted but trying to keep up a polite façade’—only to freeze.
Vlad’s face paled considerably. His beady eyes comically wide as he looked at Damian, the fingers curled around the stem of his flute glass bone white. Damian, unnerved, steadied his stance but shifted minutely closer to Bruce.
Well, this was interesting. “You alright, Vlad? You looked like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
Vlad jerked his head towards Bruce. Surprise—and fear? —contorted his features for a brief moment before smoothed back down into a proper mask. “Mayor of Amity Park, yes. My apologies,” he chuckled. “Young—Damian, was it? —only reminded me of someone I knew once.” He shifted his gaze back to Damian. “The resemblance is actually quite uncanny.”
Damian furrowed his brows. “Amity Park?”
“You’ve heard of it, Damian?”
“I would be surprised if you did.” Vlad masters took a small ship of his champagne. “Then again, it should be expected that you might have heard of it. The town does love it’s ghosts.”
Bruce laughed. “What, like Casper?”
“Something like that, yes.” There’s a tightness to Vlad’s voice. “Amity Park is its own breed of strange. We’ve handled things well enough on our own in the past, and quite honestly you get used to all of the spooks eventually. Though I must say the shadows are quite new—I’d often ask myself if I should petition your city’s vigilante and put him on the case.
“Shadows?”
Vlad easy smile shifted into a faint grimace. “They have a rather nasty habit of snooping.”
------
Despite Bruce and Damian’s attempt at plying Vlad for more answers, Vlad kept his mouth shut, evading questions and changing topics skillfully. Something that only raised Bruce’s alarm that something was going on.
“So,” Bruce unbuttoned his suit as he stepped into the car, “How did you hear of Amity, Damian? Ghosts and ghouls don’t exactly seem like something you’d be interested in.”
He waited for Damian to buckle his seatbelt before shifting the Bentley into drive and pulling out of the Expo. They had stayed at the gala long enough, making their rounds and giving the media enough for a headline in the society pages.
Damian rested his hand against the window. His face scrunched as he watched the looming facades of Gotham’s architecture pass by. “Mother mentioned the name once or twice,” he said. “I was not…privy to every operation that happened in the League, so I don’t know anything despite that my grandfather took an interest in Amity.”
“And I’m sure that from Masters’ odd phrasing, Ra’s didn’t just magically lose that interest either.” He narrowed his eyes. “Contact Oracle and have her dig up everything we need to know about the situation in Amity Park. I think it’s time Batman made his introductions to some out-of-town guests.”
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Phantom Children [DP x Batman Crossover] Ch. 2
In which: Danny thinks, Talia is concerned, and we finally see Ra's al Ghul's pride an joy: the Lazarus pit
AO3 | Prologue | 1 | [ 2 ] | 3 |
---
DANNY COUNTS THE DAYS by the hours he is in the monitor room. One hour is all that he is allowed. One hour after a day of learning and fighting, of ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘no sir’ and ‘stand up straighter, boy’ and ‘remember that you have feet.’ Of being handed a sword only to have it knocked out of his hand (pickitup-pickitup-pick-it-up). Of ‘here’s eight plants, only one of them is the antidote to the poison you just ingested, and you better hope you remember the difference because this is the life you live now, Danny.’ This is what you agreed to for some time in front of a few television screen.
One hour. Sixty minutes. Three thousand and six hundred measly fucking seconds was all he got to see his family before he’s ushered back to his room. Dark. Barren. Windowless.
God, when was the last time he saw the stars?
He spent his multitude of ‘one hours’ simply watching. That was all he could do, really. Watch and collect snatches of Amity—of Before. Like torn pieces of an antique photograph, unable to be restored but too precious to throw away.
Talia would call him too sentimental. Danny would love to remind Talia that if it wasn’t for her and her freaky older-than-dirt dad, Danny wouldn’t even need to be fucking sentimental.
Breathe in for four. Hold for seven. Breathe out for eight.
Repeat.
Repeat again.
One more time.
There’s a voice in Danny’s head that sounded too much like Jazz telling him that this kind of behavior was unhealthy. The Jazz in Danny’s head didn’t exactly know why, though they’re both pretty sure that constantly watching your family and friends move on after your death probably isn’t good for one’s sanity. Especially since Danny isn’t really dead.
Well.
Dead-er.
He isn’t—
(family-love-mememe-why aren’t they looking harder-don’t they care-they care-for their own good-what about-happy-no-me-them-me-them).
Truth be told, Danny isn’t angry that everyone in Amity seemed to be getting on with their lives. God, he’s seen how his suppsed-death affected them. He can’t—he won’t be responsible for holding them back from living when he can’t even be sure if he’ll ever be able to return to Amity again.
(He’s seen what happens when someone refuses to move on. Hell, the Zone is full of it. It’s either you obsess with grief…or you try to rip it out of yourself entirely.)
Danny wanted them to live on. Be happy. (With him.)The FentonWorks portal remained under constant vigilance, and since Pariah Dark, most ghosts recognized Amity as his haunt and tended to stay away. With any major threats he could only hope that Clockwork would step in somehow and at least keep it contained. Tucker and Sam were more than capable enough to handle most of his regular rogues gallery, especially if Red Huntress was backing them up too.
Amity…didn’t really need Danny anymore to protect it.
(Family-happy-protectprotectprotect-what?-safe-not safe-not needed).
For all that they tried to find out, Danny, Sam, and Tucker never did manage to figure out what his ghostly obsession was. Sam went out on a limb and said Heroism which…wasn’t quite right but fit the bill well enough.
And what was the point of heroes?
To build a world where they aren’t needed.
------
There was a noticeable shift in her son’s demeanor after he learned of the true nature of his parentage. Though it should be noted that while Talia showed a photograph of her beloved to Daniel, she did not disclose his true identity as to Ra’s al Ghul’s orders. Her father reasoned that it was more advantageous for Daniel to develop a closer connection with the maternal side of his family as opposed to the Waynes—a name that would be more familiar and thus better viewed than the strange people who kidnapped him.
No; ‘Recovered’ would be the most appropriate term. Daniel was her child. Would always be her child, no matter who raised him.
Daniel was…quieter. Somber. His eyes glazed yet sharp—blue eyes bloodshot despite maintaining a regular sleep schedule. Like pit madness with neither the madness nor the pit; simply the look of rage that bubbles beneath the skin, close to boiling over yet never there.
He continued to watch his false family obsessively. Yet…he had taken to watching Talia as well. Quietly. Unobtrusively. Small glances at the corner of his eye. Contemplative looks with furrowed brows whenever he presumed she did not notice. He had even taken to meticulously check his reflection in the mirror; pinching cheeks and turning his face this way and that, cataloguing his features as if to find what parts of him was from her—or perhaps if there was any part of him that ever resembled the paranormal scientists he once called parents.
Even if the physical similarities were not there, the DNA testing—regardless of the anomalies found in Daniel’s genes—was proof enough that he was her son.
“You have been keeping with your diet regimen, yes?” Asked one of the League’s physicians. He pressed his gloved fingers against Daniel’s skin, brushing the ridges of his ribcage. Marring her son’s skin was a large, faint scars. Fractals branching across his torso like the branches of a gruesome tree. “You are still too thin.”
“Fast metabolism,” Daniel mumbled. He is sat on an examination table in their medical wing, black shirt neatly folded beside him. His figure, though not skeletal, per se, was gaunt. His ribs poking from his pallor skin, stomach still concave for a boy who ate double the portions than any other member of the League of Assassins. “I’ve had it since the accident, but it’s never gotten this bad.”
The physician hummed, jotting his notes down along side the results of Danny’s vitals. The exact numbers were unknown to Talia, standing as she was by the door, though she could infer the results from previous physical examinations. (Low blood pressure and core body temperature. Faint pulse, slight tachycardia,) “Do you have any ideas why?”
Daniel’s lips thinned, eyes darting to the side as he always did whenever Phantom was related in anyway. His face was too open; Talia needed to train him out of that. “My…” He took a deep breath. “Ghosts aren’t supposed to stay very long in the Material world. It lacks the ectoplasmic energies that helps them ‘stay alive,’ so to speak. Usually they can supplement some of this by filtering some of the ambient energy in the atmosphere to strengthen themselves—it’s why Amity was such a hotspot for ghosts because of the large concentration of ectoplasm in the atmosphere—but it still isn’t a good long term solution.”
He scratched the back of his head. “Since I’m still somewhat human, I’m able to spend way more time in the Material world and can substitute spending days in the Zone by instead filtering ambient energy and eating.”
The physician made another noise, the tip of his pen tapping against the side of the clipboard. “So I take it then that, as your other half doesn’t have access to this ‘ambient energy’ as you call it, it is forced to take what energy it needs from the calories you’ve consumed, yes?”
“Basically.”
“What will happen if you do not have enough calories to supplement this energy?”
Danny shrugged, a rueful smile on his face. “Dunno. Maybe this time, death will stick.”
Talia narrowed her eyes.
Such a thing will not happen. She had been forced to give up on Daniel once, and then later on she lost her youngest to her beloved. Never again.
This child was hers.
------
“Father, did you not say that the anomalies found in Daniel’s DNA were similar in composition to the Lazarus pit?”
Ra’s al Ghul did not pause in pause in his reading to look up at Talia. The bird shaped magnifying glass held steady above the ancient manuscripts spread across his desk, eyes focused on the words and figures carefully inked onto the page. “Yes.” He set aside the magnifying glass and gently flipped the page. “It is what strengthened my belief of the connection between the Lazarus pit and these spirits.”
Talia straightened. “With your permission I would like to place Daniel into the pit.”
Her fathered looked up, curious. “You forget what the pit does to those who are in good health.”
She placed the results of Daniel’s most recent physical exam on to of his desk. Ra’s sat back in his chair and idly flipped through the folder, reading the contents as if no different to reading the newspaper instead of how his grandson is slowly being starved by his own biology. “Well, well. This would be a problem.”
He closed the folder, a wry grin curling at his lips. “Have him ready for tomorrow. I am curious as to how the pit would affect one already half-dead.”
------
Danny is awoken by Talia sometime the next day. “Come,” she said. “You do not need to change, so come quickly.”
He got off the bed with a silent groan, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the heel of his palm. “Where are we going?”
“Not far. Somewhere that will help you.”
He snorted. “Letting me go home would help me.”
Talia doesn’t answer, simply waiting for him at the door. Danny groaned, combing away as much of his bedhead with his fingers as he followed her.
For the first time since being dragged to Nanda Parbat, Danny is allowed to venture beyond his small section of the compound.
He didn’t really know what to expect.
Still didn’t stop everything from being so…anticlimactic.
Beyond the steel door, normally kept locked and guarded by two of his shadow guards, was a hallway. Endlessly long with a wide pathway, lit enough by the fluorescent lights overhead but not enough to banish the shadows that clung to the stone walls. The hallway looked empty. ‘Looked’ being the key word, here. Even if he couldn’t see them, Danny would bet on his half-life that the shadows were teeming with life.
Talia led the way through the maze of twists and turns (were they underground?), a couple of shadow guards quietly following behind them.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
Talia looked at him from over her shoulder for a moment, then turned away. “Have you heard of the Lazarus pits?”
“Lazarus? Like the guy who came back to life?” Neither of his parents were really religious. His dad only really Baptist in name because he was born into a Baptist family that, too, wasn’t overly strict in their religion. The only reason why Danny knew of this Lazarus guy was because of Mr. Lancer’s unit on Greco-Roman and Christian allusions.
Talia nodded, turning a corner. “The Lazarus pits are natural pools with restorative properties, capable of rejuvenating the body, healing grievous injuries, and even bringing the dead back to life.”
Danny nearly tripped over his own feet. “What? That’s—” Impossible. He ran up to Talia, wildly gesticulating with his hands. “What’s dead is dead. Resurrecting the dead goes against the natural law of the universe!”
“Well, you seem to be doing fine.”
He frowned, crossing his arms. “That’s different. I’m still dead, even if my entire existence seems like the but end of a Schrodinger’s joke.”
“Be that as it may, what I speak is truth.” She stopped in front of a door and opened it. Then, stepping aside to usher Danny in first. “See of yourself.”
Danny stepped inside, Talia following behind him, and—
Oh.
Before he even saw the pit, he could feel it. A low and steady hum reminiscent of the ghost portal. But…different. Not necessarily fainter but garbled, like hearing someone speak underwater.
The room was a large, open space, with stone walls framed by red wooden pillars. It was dim, lit only by the green glow of the pit that consumed the majority of the space. A square pool of too-clear waters and toxic-looking steam rising from the surface.
The waters felt of the Zone but…not.
“Ah, Daniel.” He nearly jumped out of his own skin. Ra’s al Ghul stepped out of the shadows behind him, hands folded behind his back. The green glow highlighted the sharp contours of his face; the shadows that clung to him only making his visage harsher. “It is good to see you.”
Danny greeted the Demon’s Head with a League salute. “Grandfather.”
The word felt foreign on his tongue despite being in English. To formal for a boy who never really had the chance to interact with his own grandparents. But Danny was told to refer to Ra’s like this, and so he did. (He was only grateful Talia didn’t insist on calling her ‘mother.’)
Ra’s al Ghul was an enigma. Centuries old yet he looked only about a decade older than his mom and dad. (Jack and Maddie Fenton will always be his mom and dad. They raised him. Loved him, in their own eccentric, science-y way. No blood test or adoption or ninja-assassins could change that). Like Danny’s still-unnamed biological father, Ra’s carried himself with theatrical purpose. Comically villainous in his attire and grand gestures, though unlike Vlad, Ra’s had this overwhelmingly intimidating presence that engulfed whatever room he stepped in.
Ra’s was a man that commanded attention as opposed to demanding it. And now, at the focus of the man’s calculating gaze, Danny could not help but stand stiff at attention.
“You’re mother was right,” Ra’s said. Danny barely restrained himself from perking up at that word. “You are wasting away, Daniel.”
Tell me something I don’t know.
“Well, at least you still have that fire in you.”
Danny startled, slapping his hand over his mouth. Shit, he didn’t know he said that out loud. Out of the corner of his eye, Talia suppressed a small smile.
“You have that in common with the Detective,” Ra’s continue, circling Danny like a carrion that spotted its next meal. “That and the rather foolish notion on not properly reporting the extent of your injuries.”
“With all due respect, grandfather, I wasn’t expecting on staying here for this long.”
Ra’s gave him a knowing look. “But something is keeping you here, isn’t it?”
“Keeping my family and friends hostage is a pretty good motivator, apparently.” An insidious thought bubbled in Danny’s mind. But that isn’t all, is it?”
“I have consulted your mother and your physician as to the nature of your condition, and I have decided that the Lazarus pit would be a sufficient way to restore your health.” He gestured to the pool. “It appears that your DNA shares several similarities to the composition to the Lazarus pit.”
Danny crouched at the edge of the pit, hovering his hand above the water’s surface. “It’s because it contains ectoplasm. An impure kind, I think.”
“Will the impurities be harmful to you?”
He pursed his lips. “I don’t think so? My body can filter out the impurities just fine, it’s just that I’ve never encountered thistype of ectoplasm before. It’s so clear and—aqueous, I think is the word.”
There’s a strange glint in Ra’s eyes. Dare Danny say it, it even looked mischievous. It made him uneasy, and just as Danny made a move to step back, Ra’s al Ghul picked him up by the collar of his night shirt—
And threw Danny into the Lazarus Pit.
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As much as I love my Danny is an al Ghul AU, making up a connection between the Lazarus pit and the ghost zone is hard af
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