Tumgik
#the one with danny as a psychic
glassroo · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
pov you wrote a fucked up dp fanfic and i (mentally unwell) have found it
shoutouts to Ghosting, Echoes, Mortified, Phantom of Truth, and once again Something's Wrong With Danny Fenton for all being incredibly well written fanfics that have also irreparably damaged me
438 notes · View notes
tofuingho · 1 year
Text
Imagine a world where Bruce got really into the occult when his parents died.
He did all the things. He bought a Ouija board. He went to psychics. He held seances.
He never did talk to his parents.
But, sometimes he wasn't as careful as he should have been. Once, just once, when a Ouija session once again failed to reach his parents, he left the planchet on the board and never said goodbye.
How long would it take for something to come through? How long would it take for Bruce and Alfred to notice? The manor is so very big and it has so many lovely dark places to hide.
If things get moved around, who would really notice? Especially once Bruce adopts the Robins. So many children causing so much chaos at all hours of the day and night.
No, I expect that no one would notice until Duke moves in. But even then, who knows how long it would take him to notice one big humanoid shape hidden away in some long forgotten attic room.
440 notes · View notes
tourettesdog · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media
So this may have happened last night while playing World of Warcraft with my guild raid of over 20 people
320 notes · View notes
stealingyourbones · 2 years
Text
Short DPXDC Prompts #183
Danny finds Jarro in the ghost zone drifting aimlessly.
90 notes · View notes
airyairyaucontraire · 11 days
Text
I first learned the word "bogus" from Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl, in which Danny warns us that if somebody smiles with their mouth but the look in their eyes doesn't change, "it's sure to be bogus." In some editions (I'm not sure if this is a US/UK thing or an updating thing) the word is replaced with "phoney," which I find less satisfying. There are just a few words where I can specifically remember what or who I learned them from; "bogus" is one and "brittle" is another (my mother explaining why I might not be able to keep the little plastic cocktail animal* that was on the rim of my milkshake glass at a restaurant forever)
In both cases, I think I initially thought of the word as just having that extremely specific meaning (the falsity of a smile that doesn't reach the eyes, the fragility of thin inflexible plastic), didn't encounter it again for some time, and when it came up again in a different context I was like "What are you doing here?"
*twas a donkey
6 notes · View notes
evilminji · 3 months
Text
You Know How There Are Those AU? Where SUPER Injured Ghosts Need To Retreat To Their Core?
No one seems to be USING that to its fullest potential! For SHENANIGANS! Because! Who?? Could POSSIBLY carry a Halfa's Core safely... but another Halfa?! A FULL ghost would KILL them. A human would be killed! What terribly precarious peril we find ourselves in! Oh nooooooo!
Well, no worry!
As much as Dani fuckin HATES this. That there is her brother. Her Template. Her Clone Daddy and Bestest of Bros. Like HECK she's gonna let him suffer for centuries and possibly DIE. She can take it, Doc! Pop him in! We'll go road tripping and-
What do you MEAN "No"?
Unstable??! Of course she's unstable! But the-.... Oh.
Turns OUT? Dani? Can hitch a ride in DANNY for Emergency Medical Aid... but NOT the other way around. Her body is too loosely held together. He would parasiticly consume her from within. Instead of feeding off her Ecto System like injured ghosts are supposed too, because she's a CLONE? AND an unstable one at that? His Core would just... see her body as free ectoplasm. All of it.
He'd eat her.
Which mean Frostbite can not and WILL NOT allow that.
But he's HURT! That big, off screen, cataclysmic Fight To Save Everybody From *cough cough mumbles* and settle us all in the DC universe, REALLY messed him up! What are we supposed to DO!? He can't STAY like this!!!
Enter-> My FAVORITE DCxDP Trash Ship! Vlad&Lex!!! *horrified screaming from the crowds, someone shouts "oh god, no! Please!"* Ha! There are no gods here, silly billys! Only two terrible, terrible HIGHLY Dramatic, self serving, incredibly damaged, gay peacocks. In Business Suits that cost more then your house is worth.
They're AWFUL~♡
And! Vlad was sent ahead to lay the ground work. Insure there would be no GIWs. Also because no one could stand him and his EXTENSIVE criminal record. But that's besides the point.
But!
You know what he found? A Business Nemesis. Who he routinely dates and/or Dramatically Hate Fu-*coughs* I mean, attempts a Corporate Take Over(tm) off. You know how it is. Business. He ALSO gets to make it no secret he's a "Meta", thanks to the INCOMPETENCE of one Jack Fenton, because that- *seething rant*
Yet? Dispite his STILL burning hatred for Jack? And his finally letting go of Maddie? You know what he STILL wants?
For Danny to be his Son.
*Gets a call from Frostbite*
...............soooooo........ what you're SAYING is..... I can be pregnant with Daniel.
You, Frostbite, need ME, Vladimir Masters, THE ONLY OTHER HALFA, to carry Daniel around inside my body, in what to all appearances resembles a pregnancy, in order to heal him. Because I am an Older And Stronger Halfa Upon Which He Relies.
:)
*instantly begins plotting*
Just? Imagine. Vlad is a FUCKIN LIAR. No one but him would even KNOW what was going on! He just? Rocks up one day, like? *falsely demure* "oh I couldn't POSSIBLY has any scotch, Lex! >:) I'm eating for Two~☆" and just? Deals the MAXIMUM amount of psychic damage he can.
Probably says it at their weekly, public, Veiled Threats Brunch.
It makes front page news. Luthor choked on his eggs. The paparazzi lost their SHIT. Vlad is doing the FULL Celebrity Mom Thing. The classes. The photo shoots. The Gucci sunglasses as he peruses high end strollers. All while HEAVILY suggesting that not only is "The Baby" Lex's.... but that he's going to withhold the child and deny Lex any access.
Danny isn't even aware. He's in a lovely lil medical coma. Dani is trying to find a good spot to plop down Amity. She just know Vlad is being... Vlad. Meh. He can handle it. Dan? He's not even IN the human realm and is not sure he wants to be.
But over in the LEAGUE? Everything's on fuckin FIRE.
Kon is losing his SHIT and Clark is thousand yard staring into the void. Kon's half brother is in the hands of a... Less Then Ideal... Meta that Batman is PRETTY sure is highly suspect. Might be a deliberate weapons experiment. Certainly is a hostage. And the DRAMA.
Lex has never been worse.
He might actually stab his...partner? Vlad. At the hospital. The SECOND the child is born. There are already long term kidnapping plans in the making. He's hiring lawyers. Getting VICIOUS. There have been talks with DEATHSTROKE. By BOTH OF THEM.
Clark wants to cry.
@hypewinter @ailithnight @nerdpoe @hdgnj @the-witchhunter @mutable-manifestation @babbling-babull
2K notes · View notes
Text
Just realized I love making girl OCs who are psychic/can see ghosts. it is so fun for me
1 note · View note
the-witchhunter · 2 months
Text
DP x DC: Why summoning the Ghost King and Danny when he expects Pariah Dark might literally give John a panic attack
So, this would not be the first time John has summoned something and didn’t get what he expected. To explain that, I’ll have to explain the Newcastle incident, and I will but going to give a brief overview of what the consequences are before dipping into that… because it’s a bit intense
So during a summoning one of the things you need to do is name the being you’re summoning. The ritual and sigils are what brings the being forth. Naming the summoned entity is part of the binding. The binding is what gives you an amount of control over the being summoned and offers protection to the summoner
So having the wrong name means they have no control over what they summoned. Naming the spirit puts it on a leash and muzzles it, having the wrong name is just letting it in without the leash or muzzle
Let’s just say at this point, Constantine’s past experience with summoning would make him super against summoning “the Ghost King” and one of the other magic users like Zatana would have to do it
John would be freaking out the moment the wrong guy showed up, he has some trauma around that. Even if it’s just Danny, this is going to dredge up some stuff and he’s going to have a hard drink afterwards
I will now be going into one of the most traumatizing moments of John Constantine’s life. As such, it’s going to get pretty intense and I’m toning it down a bit
Explanation of the Newcastle Incident Content warning sexual assault and abuse
In 1978 Constantine and his “magic gang” go to the Casanova Club to deal with a bit of a situation there. They arrive and there’s a lot of dead bodies in the basement and a very traumatized girl
Astra Logue’s father was basically a cult leader and an orgy enthusiast. He and his followers did some not so great things to Astra. Astra was psychic, so in her distress she summoned a hellhound named Norfolthing (actually a primordial elemental but that takes explaining) to protect her from the sexual abuse of her father and his followers. Norfulthing proceeded to commit sexual assault against the cult before killing them
John and the Magic Gang showed up to deal with the aftermath. In order to get Astra out of there and get rid of Norfulthing, they decided the best way to deal with this was to “fight fire with fire”
They then proceed to summon the demon/former god Nergal but the ritual didn’t have his name. Right ritual, wrong name. Nergal then proceeded to drag Astra’s soul to hell, Norfulthing raped one of the magic gang
John then spent the next two years at Ravenscar Mental Asylum and only managed to rescue Astra’s soul from hell about a decade later. She was still dead obviously but at least she wasn’t suffering in hell
So yeah
John has some baggage when it comes to summoning things with the wrong name
697 notes · View notes
hannahmanderr · 10 months
Text
I haven't seen anyone else talk about this yet so I'm going to assume no one has (and if this is the millionth post about this I am so sorry), but apparently there was a leak at Viacom last month, and one of the things that got leaked was the original Danny Phantom pitch bible, and let me tell y'all, there is some interesting lore to be had. I've taken the liberty of summing up a few notable points, but feel free to read for yourself - it's pretty short.
Jack was originally written as an ex-spy, test pilot... basically if it was a daring job, he probably had it. His IQ was supposedly only one point off from Maddie's, and his bumbling was more of a result of him being more "brave than smart."
Maddie was originally written as "one of the world's most respected theoretical physicists" and the brains between her and Jack. Get this: her full name was supposed to be Madison!
Sam and Danny's psychic connection was actually a result of the accident. When he was in the hospital and still very much saturated with ectoplasm, she gave him a "get better" kiss on the forehead, which sparked the connection. The connection would've manifested in a number of ways, including a perpetual ability to "sense" the other, see visions, and hear each other's thoughts, though it was supposed to be somewhat unpredictable.
Jazz hid her brains from her cheerleader friends because she wanted to fit in with them.
Danny was supposed to be the only person able to see, hear, and interact with ghosts.
On the subject of Danny, his reputation for being a scaredy-cat was much more well-known, even to the point where Sam and Tucker gave him the nickname Danny Phantom before he even had his accident. This kid was scared of his own shadow, frogs, you name it.
Overshadowing was originally called "ghosting," and the more intelligent a person, the more difficult it would be to control them.
Jack and Maddie were hoping to break the barrier between the "Real World" (our world) and the "Unreal World" (the ghost world). They wanted to get through to the spirit realm to be able to communicate with the dead in order to help make the world a better place (think picking Einstein's brain a little more, seeing what other music Mozart has cooking, etc.). That dimensional barrier was damaged when they first tried out their experiment, and Danny - who was hiding out from Dash in the lab - would be caught in the middle.
Much like how fans have interpreted things and how the show tried to imply, Danny felt responsible for unleashing the ghosts into our world and decided to adopt the name Sam and Tucker had teased him with to help put a stop to their reign of terror.
Seriously, y'all should read this. There's a lot of interesting info in here, and really it sounds like such a cool concept?? Like I'll probably add my personal thoughts in a reblog, but there's a lot of potential for untapped creativity from the phandom here. Plus it's always nice to see what's technically official content almost 20 years after the show's premiere.
3K notes · View notes
I love seeing Danny Phantom showing up and being like ‘don’t ask too many questions but John Constantine I own your soul. All of it. Lmao sucks to suck bitch’, and he’s usually all Ghost King Full Regalia as he does it, at least in front of the Justice League, but consider—
He just shows up as Danny Fenton.
“yeah I got bored and collected the pieces like Pokémon. Gotta catch ‘em all” says the 5’2 teen who looks like a stiff breeze could trip him. He denies being a sorcerer, or a magician, concedes he’s maybe psychic but mostly he’s just…. The kid of two mad scientists—who have a basement lab where they opened a portal to what he SAYS is not hell but no one is frankly CONVINCED, by the way—and he hasn’t decided what to do with Constantine yet besides getting Danny into some r rated horror movies, but figures he should tell the dude probably.
“What’d you even trade for some of his soul contracts?”
“Don’t worry about it”
They worry about it
8K notes · View notes
midnight-els · 7 months
Text
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the West Wing would have been even better if they'd had a White House cat. Some headcanons bc I was thinking about it today:
Jed gave the cat a very grand, biblical name. Everyone else has shortened it to something very stupid.
Obviously all of the press and the public adore the cat. There's a minor upset in a polling themed episode when Joey confirms that once again the cat has higher approval ratings than the president. Josh is cross that they are polling on this at all.
There is one chair in the Oval Office that is The Cat's Chair. The staff know not to sit there as you'll get a. covered in fur and b. screamed at by an irate cat trying to force you off. They never warn any of their least favourite congresspeople about this.
The cat wanders around in the background of episodes, often being chased or petted by the extras.
The cat is not allowed in the situation room. The cat is always in the situation room. They had to come up with a special bug detecting protocol for the cat in case anyone tried to take advantage of this.
Ripped from the headlines plot about a congressional investigation into something related to the cat, based on the incident about Clinton's cat's postage.
The cat LOVES Air Force One. The Secret Service do not love having to get him on board or captured to get back off.
Leo and the cat are best friends. They're basically this meme. Leo's the grandma. Jed is the mom.
Tumblr media
Aside from Leo, the cat loves the secretaries best. They always have lots of treats for him in their desks. Debbie is the only one he doesn't get on with; she has resorted to using a plant mister to spray him when he tries to get on her desk.
Josh thinks he and the cat are archenemies. The cat hasn't paid more than 2 seconds notice to Josh in his life.
CJ and the cat are archenemies. CJ was very pro-cat until she caught it fishing in Gail's bowl one day. Now she's at war to keep it out of her office. She's still trying to convince Danny to write a piece exposing the cat's dark side to its adoring public. Carol is very tired.
Sam wants so badly to be best friends with the cat. The cat thinks he's trying too hard. Will ends up exactly the same way.
Toby and the cat have never properly interacted and both are very happy to leave it that way.
The cat is supposed to stay in the residence during big events. Abbey stopped enforcing that after he got out and scratched Lord John Marbury when he picked him up against his will.
The cat has a secret service code name. One time, the code names are changed and an overenthusiatic reporter tries to break a story on the first lady's 'unusual activity' by following what he thinks is her code name. It's the cat's. CJ dines out on this for weeks.
The cat occasionally goes missing. The secretaries and Charlie have a recurring B-plot where they have to go and recover him. Somehow, the cat has always ended up somewhere relevant to the A-plot.
The cat properly goes missing after the incidents with the Thanksgiving turkeys and the goat in CJ's office (aka prime cat territory). Each time she claims she'll be nicer to the cat when it returns. Each time it lasts about two days.
Margaret thinks the cat has psychic powers and frequently provides warnings based on her interpretations of 'the signs'. Usually she's right.
The cat somehow makes off with the final edits for the state of the union one time (of course they were only handwritten on one piece of paper). Chaos ensues.
Jed tries to send the cat to Manchester partway through the series. After large-scale outcry from the staff, press and public he is returned to the White House. Unfortunately, after a couple of months as a barn cat he is even more badly behaved than before.
The cat is in both Jed and Abbey's official portraits.
782 notes · View notes
spacedace · 1 year
Text
So I have an idea for a dp x dc fic and I'm going to throw it here since i need to get it out of my head and i'm not sure i'll ever actually write it (and as always if anyone finds my rambles interesting any/all of it us up for grabs to run with):
Elle ends up crashing into the DC universe while exploring, but despite all the dimension/multivariate nonsense that always goes down (or maybe because of it) she can't actually get back, and the levels of ectoplasm are a lot lower than most dimensions which weakens her quite a bit.
There's enough for her to survive, and use her powers a little bit, but using them too much makes her get really weak/maybe even causes serious harm depending on how much she uses.
She finds this out when she tries to open a portal home and both fails to open the portal & passes out as a result of trying. Cut to Elle waking up in Cadmus and realizing "ah, fucked up unethical science, I am familiar with this fuckery" and escapes.
In the process of escaping she comes across Kon, who isn't "finished" yet. He's alive and aged up to a teenager, but isn't quite done with his programming/whatever (this idea came to me based entirely off what I've gleaned through fandom so I don't know the canon of Kon's whole time with Cadmus). Elle immediately realizes "Oh clone baby, that's not good" and breaks him out and takes him with her.
Kon in this doesn't know he's a clone of Superman, he doesn't know a lot of things considering how early into the clone info-dumling process he was in when Elle broke him out. He barely knows language and how to read. What he does know for sure though is that Cadmus is Bad and Getting the Fuck Out is Good so he's down to go with Elle
Queue them becoming friends and being on the run together, learning about this world/dimension together and coming to see each other as family. Eventually they end up in Gotham because it's one of the places that naturally has a higher ectopalsm level and because if you're in the right area no one cares if you have no legal ID (in some circles it's a plus).
Kon gets a lot of odd jobs before eventually ending up working at a strip club or burlesque bar or something (my idea is that it's years after escaping so he's in his early 20s at this point and not just a fresh baby clone anymore and he gets into it because he likes it and it's good money) while Elle uses her ghostly knowledge/what powers she can to work as like a psychic or something like that.
Meanwhile Justice League (with alive again Superman) have found out about the escaped Superman clone and, along with Cadmus, are desperately trying to track him down. The info they have is a bit murky, so they think it's actually *two* clones, one that had Martian dnd also thrown in to the mix based off a short clip they managed to find of Elle phasing through walls.
My idea is that it'd all finally come to a head when Constantine pulls Tim (and maybe also Damian) in on a JL Dark case that involves the Lazerus Pit and for reasons ends up having to hire Elle to help. I'm thinking it's a thing that Elle is a pretty respected name in certain magic circles due to her expert knowledge on the Infinite Realms, though she refuses to work for most people who seek her out - even though the money would be good - because usually it's only evil assholes that want to hire her.
She makes a deal with Jon to help (in exchange for something that would let her get a message to Danny letting him know what happened or something like that) and Kon joins in because there's no way he's trusting a dude Elle calls the "drunk soul slut" with his baby sister unattended, he doesn't *care* if she could handle herself it's not happening.
Anyway, Tim/Kon (and maybe some Damian/Elle) shenanigans during a Lazerus Pit/demon hunting road trip where eventually everyone figures out who Kon & Elle are, Elle manages to get a stable portal setup so she can go home and come back whenever she wants (Kon getting adopted by Danny? Kon getting adopted by Danny) and Kon joining Young Justice and having a good relationship with Clark (who had a lot more time to deal with things before meeting Kon and learned about him as a person before learning he was Clark's clone).
Anyway there would be a scene at the end where Kon would be in his superhero suit for the first time and just:
Clark: Did you choose a hero name yet?
Kon: Yeah, I figured I'd go with Supernova.
Clark, feeling touched: Yeah? Any particular reason?
Kon: It's cool, it has 'Super' in the name, and really it just seemed the easiest option, I'm used to responding to Nova, so *shrugs*
Clark: Yeah? Why's that? Nickname?
Kon: I guess kinda? It's my stage name at the strip club I work at
Clark: what
Tim, brain shut down by this revelation: ...do you do private shows?
Clark: w h a t
2K notes · View notes
1001aus · 1 month
Text
Their tourist trap tourism ads for "the world's most haunted town" finally resulted in the inevitable: TV ghost hunters come to Amity Park. The ones with a van full of expensive equipment. The "psychics." The ones with half a dozen tools that plug into their iphone.
Danny didn't think he could learn new things about ghosts from reality TV hacks, but apparently they're getting all surprised this month.
324 notes · View notes
epkot94 · 1 year
Text
Imagine Danny decides to use his ghost powers to solve cold cases for different police forces all over the world. So he’s just traveling the world to help ghosts bring to light the true events of their murder or disappearances or whatever. But this is in a timeline where Planet Phantom never happened so he’s gotta advertise himself as a psychic medium, and of course his team is Tucker and Sam. Tucker does most of the research to find them cases and Sam is the one strong arming the cops into reopening cases.
Just imagine the hijinks they get into. Danny pretending to be possessed and slapping the shit out of the very vocal nonbeliever cop assigned to work with them cause he insulted Danny’s credibility.
Want to tie this idea into the DC universe but my brains depleted rn
1K notes · View notes
Text
Danny always knew there was something wrong with him even before the accident.
He had memories that he couldn't place. Fuzzy scattered ones of him in middle and high school even when he was still taking elementary classes. As a kid he, of course, thought he had superpowers or was receiving psychic visions of the future.
It wasn't until the after the accident that he knew the truth. More specifically, it was when he met Dani.
Memories of being surrounded by people in white coats surfaced in the days following. They would conduct "tests" in which Danny would be forced to solve a puzzle or figure out the answer to something before the timer went off. It always ended the same. He always failed. It wasn't because he was stupid or anything, it was because he was a tiny child who was scared and wanted his mommy and daddy, even if he didn't even know what they would look like.
So all he would do was wail as the scientists stewed in thier frustration. Thier artificial "Robin" was labeled a failure.
Clockwork smiled as the door to the Clocktower slammed open. "Right on time."
"You stole me!" Phantom accused, tears in his eyes, "You took me from my original dimension!"
Clockwork nodded, "Yes."
"Why?!"
In lieu of an answer the time god opened a portal, "And now its time for you to leave."
Phantom snarled, fighting against the sudden suction pulling him into the portal, "This isn't over!" He managed to bite out just before he was completely pulled in.
"I know."
---
The next thing Danny knows is that he is floating high in the sky of a city he knew instinctually was Gotham. The memories from his...original? His template? Were now fully available to him and told him with absolute clarity that he should not stay shining up in the Gotham sky at night unless he wanted a visit from the big bad bat.
He didn't want to test his luck in case he wasn't a fan of clones. Especially since he was a clone of his son.
Thus begins Danny's DC world tour as he searches to the truth behind his creation and attempts in vain to return home all while trying and failing to dodge all the people who are familiar with his template.
(Danny can be a clone of any of the Robins and you can play with the ages all you like thanks to time travel and fanfiction)
1K notes · View notes
starwrighter · 3 months
Text
Dude, get a restraining order
(Masterpost) (Ao3 link) (previous)
(Chapter #5 Ya'll)
Just like he said he would, Damian walked Danny to his earth science classroom. Guiding him through labyrinth-like hallways with a firm grip on his sleeve. It’s as if he thought Danny would slip through his fingers and be swept away by the crowd of students. Embarrassingly enough, that’s an accurate assumption of both his luck and his situational awareness. If he dared to imagine the future, prison bars, sigils, and the outline of a body immediately came to mind.
Forever he’d be thanking the ancients for Damian expert skills in navigating. Without him, he’d probably be curled up at the bottom of a staircase by now. Or in a death cult keen on taking over the world. It might seem ridiculously pessimistic, but freaky escalations like that happened to him all the time! He’d gone from searching for a gift he’d accidentally knocked into the zone to staging a massive prison break! Needless to say, he appreciated the company.
“Since your map is half a century out-of-date; I’ll pick you up around lunchtime,” Damian declared, curtly waiting for his response.
”Sounds good,” Giving the other boy a small wave and a thankful smile Danny headed into the classroom.
A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips as he read the cheesy geology jokes scrawled onto the board. The jokes were stupid in a way only teachers or dads could make them. Puns that could do psychic damage if you dare read them aloud. It’s beautiful. Leagues above a certain English teacher who butchered slang so brutally the lingo died on the spot.
The typical classroom posters lined the walls. A clear bucket full of rocks just sitting on the teacher’s desk as she started taking attendance. He sat close to the front furthest from the door. His blindside faced the wall, nobody could sneak up on him and he wouldn’t be trampled when the bell rang. Nobody could gawk pityingly at his face this way. Yeah, you could pry this spot from his cold dead hands.
It might seem extreme but people were…Weird when it came down to his disability. Some people treated him like he was utterly useless, incapable of doing anything on his own. They tried to “help” without bothering to ask about his condition or if he even needed help. It was so much worse the first few months after the accident. He was wheelchair-bound for that. -1/10 wouldn’t recommend.
He could say with certainty nobody wanted to be paralyzed. It’s jarring how differently treated him back then. They’d point out the obvious like he’s completely blind. Annoying, but understandable considering how gnarled his facial injuries were before they healed. It looked like somebody shot him in the face with a firework. The fact that he didn’t lose an eye was a medical miracle backed by new ghostly powers.
What wasn’t understandable was the complete lack of boundaries strangers had with him and his wheelchair. No amount of warning could’ve prepared him for the first time someone grabbed his wheelchair and moved him. He thought it’d been a one-time thing but it happened again and again without fail. Somebody would move him out of the way or try to “Help” him get to where he’s going. Several times without so much of a “Hello! Do you need some help,” people he’d never spoken to would grab the handles of his chair and start pushing him.
It’s infuriatingly dehumanizing and their heartbroken faces when he called them out tugged at his heartstrings. So many times he’d guiltily stewed over his responses. Jazz killed that guilt without so much as a thought when she put things into perspective. Even though Jazz had a habit of psychoanalyzing him it felt good when she said his anger warranted.
Nothing would ever feel as good as taking those first shaky steps outside his wheelchair though. The wave of overwhelming emotion when a group of baffled doctors told him his paralysis wasn’t as permanent as they previously thought was unparalleled. He cried a lot that day. Tears of joy, he’s not ashamed to admit that.
Never in his life would he have thought he’d be grateful for Dash’s bullying. But after a full two months of extensive physical therapy and multiple surgeries, he now knew were unnecessary anyone treating him like they did before was a godsend. Dash believed in a twisted kind of equality when it came to bullying, he’d pick on anyone he deemed a loser. For him, it’d been verbal harassment, but regaining the ability to walk gave him confidence. He was extremely cocky, snapping back with sarcastic venom at every dig made at him.
Slowly but surely, people stopped babying him. It was harder to argue that someone was helpless when they were actively picking fights with the star football player. After all the shit he’d involved himself in people treated him like normal. Normal in the sense he was picked on for being a loser with crazy parents.
He’d take that kind of bullying over the underhanded insults drowned in infantilism. As the months passed it felt like everyone forgot about his accident. His classmates would get angry at him when he couldn’t keep up with them and go green with envy when he got extra time for his assignments. People acted like he was getting special treatment just for the sake of it.
Like full body electrocution was something he could just walk off. They didn’t understand how walking and running were easier than standing in place. He was accused of faking it whenever he stood up from his wheelchair. People were offended that he still considered his left side blind when he could still see light in his peripherals.
Everyone he talked to said he was lucky. Lucky to survive, lucky to walk again without aid, lucky to have all the sweet powers, lucky lucky lucky. He didn’t feel all that lucky when his joints locked or when reading gave him migraines so bad he questioned if being alive was worth it.
He knows it could be worse. Dear god does he know it could be so, so, much worse. He could be fully dead. Charred to a crisp without even a blast shadow as evidence of his death. He should’ve been paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. Braindead, hooked up to a machine as his family mourned their loss. The consequences of walking into that portal chamber were so much lighter than anyone could’ve imagined. So he dealt with it.
Things could be worse. At least he wasn’t in Gotham directly after his accident. Slipping through solid objects around people 100x more fearful of their surroundings was a wonderful way to speedrun getting his spine shattered by a guy in a bat suit. Or trafficked. Danny winces as he scribbles on a sheet of lined paper.
Someone is staring at him. The boy beside him was shooting daggers into his very soul. Hadn’t even bothered to hide the way his face twisted in suspicion when Danny turned to look him in the eyes.
“You need something?” Danny probed, praying this was just him misreading facial expressions.
“What the hell happened to you?” The other boy whispered, his tone harsh and accusatory.
“A shocking experience,” His half-assed response earns him a sharp glare and a sneer.
“No really, what happened?”
“Got zapped,” He shrugs, hoping his classmate would take the hint and drop it.
“That’s not what I meant,” The other seethed. “How did you get electrocuted?”
”Electricity,”
“The fact you’re dodging my question makes you look more suspicious,”
“Not trauma dumping on a stranger makes me suspicious?”
“It’s Gotham! We don’t get transfer students outside major cities and we certainly don’t get ones willing to stay for months! What are you planning?” He hisses, voice cracking as he tried and failed to make it sound lower.
“Trust me, if I had a choice to stay home I would’ve,”
“I don’t think I do trust you,”
“That's not my problem,” Danny shrugged. This guy spoke with the delusional confidence only the stubbornest flat earther could rival. He’s not a gothamite by any means but wasn’t the key unspoken rule of the city “Mind your damn business unless you’re a bat,” It’s on par with Don’t dig straight down but this guy clearly hadn’t learned of the former.
“Why do you have fangs?”
”Genetics,” What kind of question was that? Plenty of people had fangs. It’s a common trait, almost every person in amity has it!
”I don’t believe you,”
Heh? What’s the point in asking if he wasn’t going to believe him when he answered? It reminded him of a certain annoyance back home.
“Why do you-“
”Leave me alone!” He snaps. It’s like his classmates doing his best impression of a toddler! “Why?” “Why?” “Why?” Desperately trying to catch Danny in a lie and refusing to believe any response that wasn’t a confession of guilt. World's greatest detective over here, interrogating him for having the audacity to show up to Gotham with “Gasp!” Scars! Oh, the humanity! What a delinquent!
Ancients’ weren’t these prissy private schools supposed to be better than public schools? He walked to school today expecting to be murdered and or indoctrinated into a weird death cult not interrogated by Walmart Batman over here!
What was this guy expecting to drag out of him anyway? Blueprints for a deathray? A secret plot to break everyone out of Arkham? Secret rogue plans? He just got here today! What could he possibly be planning when his apartment didn’t even have toilet paper yet? They hadn’t even hit the 24-hour mark and he already had a conspiracy theorist pestering him.
“Why are you-“ Copycat Wes starts.
”Leave him alone you fucking moron!” A female voice snaps behind them.
“ You don’t understand! He-,” Sputtering to defend himself the girl glowered at him.
“Has done nothing to warrant your harassment,” She finished the sentence for him.
”No! He’s up to something I swear! Just look at him,”
The girl looked him up and down, her hazel eyes shooting daggers into his soul. “He looks like he’s a strong breeze away from a heart attack,”
Ouch.
"There is something wrong with him, you're just too dim to see it," He spits.
 
“Listen here you toe-eyed spaz, I don’t want to have to deal with Lightning Rod over here frying people to death because you wouldn’t stop tormenting him!” She seethed, jabbing her finger into Offbrand’s chest.
“How do you know he’s not going to do that regardless?”
She turns her attention back to him. “Are you going to start doing rogue shit?” She speaks calmly as if she’s asking about the weather.
He pretends to ponder for a second, checking his phone for dramatic effect. “ Nah, My sister says I’m not allowed to be a criminal outside my hometown. It’ll affect her chances of getting into a good college,” To his surprise, that’s an acceptable response for her.
”See, he’s fine.”
“Did you not hear a word he said?” Copycat sputters. “He just admitted to being a criminal,”
“And?”
“What do you mean, and?” The boy is red in the face now.
”That’s not our problem,” She replied bluntly.
“How is it not our problem?”
“It just isn’t,”
“It clearly is “ He emphasizes.
“This is why you keep getting mugged,” She snaps. “You’ve lived in Gotham your whole life, how have not learned how to mind your damn business,”
“I know how to mind my business. This is my business. You’re the one who butted in,”
“I’m a nosy bitch too. But I’m not the one who’s pretending to be Batman.” She’s smirking now, tapping her fingernails on her desk.
“I’m not pretending to be Batman,” He defends, hands clenched into fists. “I’m just doing my civic duty!”
“You’re delusional,”
“Well- at least I’m not a criminal,” Offbrand Wes sneered, whipping around to glare at him.
Oh great, he’s directly involved again.
“What a scathing remark, I’ll be sure to cry about it while I build my deathray,” Maybe he shouldn’t keep antagonizing. Offbrand looked about ready to strangle him.
“Now you’re pissing him off on purpose,” The girl behind them deadpans.
“ I am, thanks for noticing,” He’s giddy, a shit-eating grin on his face that would immediately get him shanked if he were outside right now.
Their conversation continues. The three of them whisper-yelling at each other. Offbrand Wes fumed at every one of Danny’s sarcastic responses, doubling down on his suspicions. With every absurd accusation thrown his way, the girl defended him. But if you listened in for more than a few seconds you could see she didn’t step to his defense for the sake of being nice. She just really hated this kid. Who could blame her?
The argument devolved into the two gothamites insulting each other in a way only rich kids could. Family names Danny barely recognized as important were thrown around like dodgeballs. Maybe if Danny kept up with celebrity drama he’d be able to tell who’s winning?
“Daniel Fenton? ” He almost jumps at the sudden interruption. He’d been so awestruck watching these two go at each other's throats that he hadn’t noticed anyone approaching them. The teacher is staring down at him; he smiles politely. Better to garner goodwill now rather than later.
”I’d like to see you after class today,” Oh god, already? What had he done to peeve this teacher? Did she hear them arguing? Offbrand was grinning, vindicated as Danny stumbled over himself.
“Oh- uh, will it take long? A friend said he’d help me find my classes since my map is a little off.” He offered up the map as proof. A sacrifice in hopes of leniency for whatever crimes he’s about to be accused of.
The woman looked over the paper, her relaxed expression dropping with the growing confusion.
“Can I see your schedule?” Danny hands it over without a word. Slowly, she ran her fingers against the brail of his schedule. The slow shift in her stance as her face paled felt like it’d been ripped straight from the trailer of a horror movie. He’s heard a lot of crazy things in his life but nothing would ever shock him more than what his teacher said next.
“We’re going be sued into the fucking ground,” Her words were barely audible, whispered behind a closed fist. Danny’s stunned silence was a thousand times louder. Teachers could swear here?! Isn’t that illegal? He sits speechless for an agonizing minute, unsure if he’s in trouble.
Wordlessly, she drags him to the front of the classroom. It feels like he’s being walked to the gallows.
“Do you mind if I keep this?”
”Yeah? I need to know my schedule,” Was wandering around clueless detention for Gotham schools? He hadn’t even done anything. Sure, he was a tad bit tardy this morning. That’s the plane's fault, not his!
“You don’t have a school iPad?” She sounds utterly exasperated.
“No,” He’s supposed to have a school iPad?
“Did they at least give you a proper school I.D.?”
”I hope so ” He shows her the plastic card he’d been given alongside his schedule. She scrutinized the card, glaring intently at every word. It’d taken hours to get a decent photo for that stupid card.
“There’s something wrong with it isn’t there?” Screwed over straight from the get-go. He’ll be haunting the front desk for the foreseeable future.
“No, no it’s fine,” She waves him off. “Leave the map with me and drop your schedule off at the front desk when you leave for the day okay?” He nods, that’s all he can do at the moment.
When the bell finally rang their teacher practically shooed his classmates out the door. Students clogged the doorway, a glob of tangled backpacks that slowly oozed into halls separating with miffed expressions. The tile floor couldn’t be more appealing as he waited for the bomb to drop. In a fancy school like this, the punishment for tardiness could be public execution. You never know.
The punishment for seeing the school guidance counselor had been public humiliation with a side of attempted murder. So capital punishment being carried out in schools wasn’t something he’d be surprised about. They’d better have a guillotine, he’s gotten pretty sick of the electric chair.
“Is your friend coming to get you?” The woman asks, still studying the map with a furrowed brow. She squinted at the paper holding out in front of her face like the distance would change the image.
“I think so, he dropped me off here,” Danny pauses, fiddling with the buttons on the cuffs of his sleeves. “I’m not in trouble, am I?”
She shakes her head much to his relief “Somebody’s going to be in trouble but it certainly isn’t you,”
Patterned knocking at the classroom door draws his attention from the woman. Green eyes met blue as Damian quietly entered the room.
“That’s him!” Beaming, he turns back to the teacher. “Can I go now?” She nods wordlessly. With her approval, Danny doesn't hesitate for a second. He darts over to the other boy with a relieved grin on his face.
“How was class?” He asks as they step out of the classroom.
”Unnoteworthy,” Damian hummed.
”Same,” I mean, technically he did get into a fight. But it wasn’t exactly something to write home about. Blows hadn’t been exchanged and he wasn’t gut-punched with a month's worth of detention. Yet.
The walk to the lunch room is heavily crowded. The cafeteria echoed with the chattering of a sea of teenagers. Their navy blue uniform made clusters of students indistinguishable from one another. Sam would hate it here.
“Hey, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate lunch here?”
“Ten. I bring my food from home,” Damian responds quickly pausing afterward as if he’s contemplating a second answer.
“Fair,” He shrugs “nothing beats some home-cooked edible food,” Memories swirled through his brain like he’s a soldier fresh out of war. Reanimated turkeys, living mashed potatoes, gallons of milk that glowed bright enough to light an entire room.
“I reckon your parents’ aren’t the best chefs?” He can barely hold back a wince at the question.
”They try to be…” He sighs “Dad can make some killer fudge but everything else he cooks looks radioactive,”
“I suppose I can relate to that” Damian drawls, “Most of the family is barred from the kitchen without supervision,”
“That’s probably a good idea, learning to cook can be pretty messy,”
” I take it you’re the cook of your family?” Damian asks, eyebrows raised.
“Eh, kind of? I’m not the best but I can make edible food,”
“The bare minimum you know?” He laughs. “My parents are scientists so there wasn’t exactly time for cooking lessons while they were drilling us on safely handling their machinery,”
Damian looks him up and down, eyes locking on his face. “I don’t think those ‘drills’ did you well,”
“They did. I deliberately ignored what they taught me; fucked around and found out,” He shrugs. The past is the past and he’s learned not to change it for his own sake.
“I see…”
“Soooo…” Danny starts, the silence between the two of them awkward. “How would you rate the school-provided lunch?” He reiterated.
”I’ve only eaten the school-provided lunch once but I’d say it’s a four, maybe four point five if I’m being generous,”
”I’d settle for edible,” It’s a private school. Sure, it being in Gotham threw him off a little but what’s the worst that could happen? He dies? A bit too late for that.
“Your standards concern me,”
“Take that up with my school cafeteria; they gave me those standards,” To be fair, his parents contributed to that too. So had Nasty Burger. He had a love-hate relationship with food especially when it’s from a school cafeteria.
Call him paranoid but Casper High fed people dirt and grass plucked from the football field as a “Vegan option” Don’t even get him started on the rocks. Whole ass stones almost as big as his fist. They’d been expected to eat that?! Anyone who’d gotten nailed with one of those suckers when ‘food’ started flying, forever had his sympathy. Nobody was hospitalized but he’d seen the dents in the wall when they made him clean the cafeteria. Rocks were chucked in that food fight.
He’d gathered his lunch without much of an issue. The salad wasn’t sentient and his sandwich hadn’t screamed at him yet. He’d even managed to remember his lunch number at the end of it! Today’s a good day to be pleasantly surprised by the bare minimum. God knows he's gonna need the extra positivity.
Walking through the cafeteria, he spots Damian pretty quickly. The other somehow found himself one of the only empty tables in the whole cafeteria. When Damian waves him over it takes all his self-control to stifle a grin. For a split second, he’d thought he’d overstepped. Thought he’d missed the signs that Damian wanted him gone like Dad missed the signs that Vlad was a psycho.
“Are you really the chef of your family?” Damian questions.
“I am,” he grins, as Damian eyes him skeptically. “Does this-“ Danny gestures at himself. “Not look like the textbook example of a five-star chef to you?”
“Absolutely not,” Damian replied coldly without skipping a beat. “You look like you could burn a bowl of cereal,”
“I can cook, it just took a while to learn how,” You could only learn so fast when every ingredient is contaminated by a mystery cocktail of chemicals.
Even if he wasn’t a master chef he’s better than he was those first months after the accident. So many dishes shattered against the floor. He’d been scolded for each one. Anything he tried to hold slipped from his grasp before the ten-second mark.
“Could you give me any advice?” Damian asked.
“Try out some pasta recipes,” He comments between bites of his sandwich. “They’re hard to screw up and almost every cookbook has about a dozen you can practice,”
“Don’t go with overly complicated recipes straight off the bat. If you’re trying to make a three-course dinner when you can barely make a peanut butter jelly sandwich you’ll end up with a whole lot of wasted food and some scratched pans,” Danny warns, he’s lost count of the hours he’d spent scrubbing the charred food out of pots and pans.
“Alfred wouldn’t be happy about that,”
“Maybe you should ask ‘Alfred’ to teach you,” Danny comments, he wasn’t a tutor. That’s Jazz’s job. Sure, he’d like to be helpful but his journey in the kitchen involved resurrected coleslaw and radioactive dairy products. An experience few could relate to.
“I taught myself with YouTube tutorials, cookbooks, and spite; I’m sure you’d learn better with someone with someone there to give you feedback on what you’re doing.”
“Tch,” Damian glowered, shooting daggers down at his food.
“I’m serious!” He emphasizes, “Trying to wing it straight off the bat just isn’t a good idea,” He knew from experience. Food poisoning isn’t fun. Neither were the blisters you’d get from boiling oil.
“I’m sure many people ‘wing it’ in the kitchen,” Damian insists. “What if I’m a naturally born chef?”
”Didn’t you say you’re barred from the kitchen?” Damian’s cheeks turn a flustered red.
”I said most of my family is barred from the kitchen!” Damian defends like Danny’s ‘accusation’ is a slight against his character.
”Are you included in that ban?”
”…yes” The other boy whispers begrudgingly. He tries, he really does, but there’s no stopping the quiet giggle that erupts from his chest. Damian glares daggers at him cheeks rosy with embarrassment.
”I swear I’m not laughing at you,” He wheezes. It’s a lie and both of them know it.
”Go ahead and laugh, I’m not the one who fried myself,” Damian huffs.
Danny made jokes about his accident all the time. Much to everyone else's dismay his lab accident was his go-to event to joke about. No matter how many times he got scolded for “Making people uncomfortable” he kept it up. This wasn’t the first time someone had made a comment but there’s something about the way he said it. Something about the way he emphasized his words made Danny lose all composure. Collapsing into his folded arms, shoulder shaking with silent laughter.
”Hey…” The other boy’s voice is weaved with concern a guilty lift to his voice. Gently, he pokes Danny’s arm. Any worry drained from his features when Danny lifted his head to look at him.
”I thought I'd upset you!” Damian half shouts.
”Nah, I’ve got thicker skin than that,” He reassures.
”You're the first, Others tell me I come off rather… cold,”
“Really?” That’s a surprise. Danny couldn’t see it, then again he hasn’t known Damian for very long. After all that’s happened, he’d like to think he’s a better judge of character. The other boy didn’t give off Penelope spectra vibes. Nor did he act like a miniature Vlad. If anything, he reminded him of Sam.
“You’re a liar if you think I’m friendly,” He snaps scowling at Danny as if he’d just spat in his lunch or something.
”I’m not a liar, I just have a different definition of friendly than you do,”
“Does your definition of friendly happen to be rich?”
“Fuck no!” He snaps without thinking. Raising an eyebrow Damian stares at him green eyes scrutinizing his expression like there’s deeper meaning in his words. “Eat the rich,” He clarifies, as if that’s supposed to explain anything.
“Friendliness is compassion, a willingness to help, not sugar-sweet conversations with extroverted compassion,” It’s easy to put on a sweet voice while you screw someone over. Even easier to insult someone with a snidely worded ‘compliment’.
“You helped me without hesitation when you could have left me to fend for myself,”
“The situation was ridiculous, I had to help.” Damian defends
“ You didn’t have to,” he points out.
“Listen, I’m not trying to challenge your view of yourself; I’m just saying you’ve been nice to me so far,”
Damian relaxes, staring down at his lunch. “I pity you,”
“Pity me enough to give me a bite?” Danny asks, batting his eyes obnoxiously.
“Absolutely not,”
“Fuck.”
344 notes · View notes