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harley-sunday · 1 year

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Feels Like Home [08]

Summary: When an unexpected three-week break between Monza and Singapore finds Daniel back on his farm in Perth he’s desperate to use this time to clear his mind, figure out his future in Formula One, and find his way back. He didn’t expect a new neighbour, a sassy two-year old, and three alpacas would make him realise that sometimes, what you’re looking for is right in front of you.

Pairing: Daniel Ricciardo x reader (unnamed OFC)

Warnings: Language. Smut. Probably NSFW (Finally, right?)

Word count: 5.7k

AN: It’s probably weird to say this about your own writing, but I love this part. Mostly because I’m a sucker for a nice full circle moment but also because I’ve grown these three characters so much. I hope you like it as much as I do ♥

Masterlist

A quick glance at your watch tells you you’ve got about thirty minutes left until Ellie wakes up from her nap and even though there are still some chores you need to do, you decide to grab yourself a cup of coffee and sit outside on the porch for a bit, so you can try to figure out how to talk to Granddad about maybe hiring a farmhand. Not just to help you out now but also after, when you’re- When he’s fully recovered. It’s definitely too much work for one person and even Granddad fully recovers, he’s seventy-eight, you’re not sure if he’ll be able to manage the growing herd of alpacas.

You’re a little lost in thoughts when you hear a car come down the driveway, a blue Toyota you think you recognise from somewhere, and so you stand up, ready to greet your visitors, wondering who it can be.

Are you a little surprised to see Grace and Joe step out of the car? Yes.

Maybe.

Ok, not really.

“Hello sweetheart,” Grace says as she walks over to you. She kisses your cheek before she hugs you, holding you tight.

“Hi,”

When you let go of her Joe is already waiting, wrapping his arms around you carefully, “Hiya.”

“What-” You look from Joe to Grace and back, “What are you doing here?”

Joe lets go of you and nods to Grace, “It was her idea.”

Grace smacks his chest, “Hey. No.” She lets out a laugh then and shrugs, “Well, it was but-”

“Daniel called you, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Grace nods, taking your hand in hers. “I mean, I had plans to come visit you soon anyway, you know, have a cuppa together, but when Danny called us yesterday and said you had two new alpacas to take care of, well-” She squeezes your hand, “We figured we’d come over and see if there’s anything we can help with.”

“Plus, it’s been too long since I’ve seen old Oscar,” Joe says from where he’s standing behind Grace. “I was long overdue for a visit anyway.”

You’ve been a little on edge ever since Daniel left but so far you’ve been pretty good at hiding it, at not letting your emotions get the best of you, but now- You lower your eyes and bite your lip but it’s no use because once you blink the tears are streaming down your face.

“Hey, no,” Grace says, her voice soft and soothing. She pulls you in for another hug, her hands rubbing your back, “It’s ok, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry,” you manage in between sobs. “It’s just- I- The girls- And Ellie- And-”

“Ssh,” Grace shakes her head. “It’s ok.” She holds you a little longer, waits until you’ve calmed down before she lets go of you and puts her hands on your arms, making you look at her, “We’re here for you, ok? Joe can take Oscar to go check on the girls for a bit and I will stay here with you so we can do whatever needs to be done around the house, ok?”

“Thank you.” You use the sleeve of your sweater to dry your eyes and try to smile.

Grace tuts, “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.” She nods towards the house, “Why don’t we go inside?”

Granddad greets Grace and Joe like they’re old friends and you find out they’ve seen each other a few times before, when Daniel first moved in. Joe and Granddad settle into some easy banter between them and it isn’t long before they head outside, so Joe can take him to Eagle’s Nest and check up on the rest of the paddocks.

You hear Ellie call for you from upstairs then and so you excuse yourself and tell Grace you’ll be right back. Ellie’s waiting for you in her cot, looking at you expectantly, as if she knows someone else is here.

“Hi bub,” you pick her up and head to the changing table so you can change her into her clothes. “Guess who’s here?”

Ellie’s eyes grow wide, “Danny?”

Your heart. Oh, your heart when you see her smile drop, “Danny’s in Mexico remember?.” You press a kiss to her forehead, “But Grace and Joe are here. You remember them?”

Ellie seems to think about that for a second and then nods, “Danny home.”

“Yeah, bub,” you tell her, picking her up and settling her on your hip, “they’re Daniel’s mum and dad.”

When you get downstairs you find Grace in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher. Her smile grows wide when she sees Ellie, “Hello pretty girl.”

You put Ellie down in her high chair so you can warm up her bottle of milk and when Grace asks you what else she can do you want to tell her it’s fine, that you’ll manage, but one stern look from her makes you swallow your words and give her your to-do list instead.

Grace busies herself with the laundry and Ellie insists on helping her and so you find yourself in the living room, tidying up and cleaning the floors and windows. It takes a little under two hours but then the living room is clean again, all the laundry is folded and put away, a new load in the machine, and the kitchen is looking like a kitchen again instead of a storage room.

By the time you are finished, Granddad and Joe make it back as well and all of a sudden you find yourself on the front porch, enjoying a cup of coffee with Daniel’s parents, Granddad, and your daughter, who’s happy with her fruit pouch, sitting in Joe’s lap.

After half an hour Granddad announces he’s going inside to take a quick nap, which Grace and Joe take as their cue to leave.

“Thank you so much,” you tell them before you give each of them a hug. “I really appreciate it.”

“It was our pleasure, sweetheart,” Grace tells you with a kind smile. She hands you a piece of paper then, “These are mine and Joe’s numbers. Promise me you’ll call if you need anything? We’re happy to help, whether it’s watching Ellie for a few hours, or-”

“Thank you,” you tell her, carefully folding the paper and putting it in your back pocket, knowing there’s no use in protesting.

“We’re flying out to Abu Dhabi on the sixteenth for Danny’s last race,” she says, “but until then we’re here.”

***

Brazil is- It’s a race he’d rather forget. A collision with Magnussen on the first lap means Daniel is out of the race before it’s even started and he spends the remainder of the seventy laps watching the race from the garage. They leave for Abu Dhabi the next day and the knowledge that it’s his last ever race for McLaren makes him actually look forward to the last race of the season.

His parents come in on Wednesday and if he gets a little emotional when he hugs his mum, so what? It’s been a long time since he last saw her and it’s an emotional weekend as is.

Daniel finishes ninth in the race and brings home a few points that in the end don’t make that much of a difference in the constructor’s championship but he feels good about. The team throws him a small farewell party after the race and he spends most of Monday a little hungover and vowing to himself he’s never going to drink again.

By the time Tuesday comes around and it’s time for their weekly call, Daniel feels giddy with excitement, knowing that the next time he’ll talk to her won’t be over the phone.

She picks up on the first ring and smiles into the camera, Ellie sitting in her lap with an equally bright smile, “Hi.”

“Hi,” he feels his grin grow ever wider.

“You’ve made it,” she says, hugging Ellie closer to her. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Daniel admits easily enough. “I’m glad it’s over. I uh-” He runs his hand over his face and shrugs, “Yeah.”

“And then tomorrow-”

“Yep,” he answers, knowing what it is she wanted to say.

“I’m really happy for you, Daniel,” she says. He can see Ellie nod in agreement even though he doubts the little girl knows what’s going on. “When-” She looks at him with a shy smile, “When are you flying back?”

“Next Monday, but it’s a late flight so-”

“That’s ok,” she answers. “There’s no rush.”

Daniel disagrees. He can’t wait.

***

You angle your phone towards Granddad, “Look, it’s official. Daniel’s back at Red Bull.”

Granddad nods, “Good.”

“He’s not driving though-” You frown as you read the caption of the Instagram post, “They’ve made him their third driver-”

“That’s good,” Granddad says with a mischievous smile. “He’s getting the best of both worlds, sweetheart. There’s no pressure anymore.” He chuckles then, “I can’t wait to hear what shit excuse McLaren comes up with next year, when their cars still aren’t performing and they figure out maybe it had nothing to do with Danny.”

“Granddad-”

“What?” Granddad feigns innocence with a cheeky smile, “Don’t tell me you’re not thinking the same thing.”

***

It’s close to ten when they finally make it back to his place, their flight delayed because of bad weather over Sri Lanka and a long wait at baggage claim despite their priority tags. Daniel’s happy to be back on his farm but he wishes they could have made it earlier so he could at least have gone over to see her.

“I’ll see you in two weeks, yeah?” Blake’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts.

Daniel nods and leans over the centre console to give his best friend a hug. “Thanks, mate,” Daniel says, patting Blake’s back, “for everything.” There’s a weight behind Daniel’s words that he hopes Blake understands.

“Absolutely no worries.” Blake lets go of him and pats Daniel’s cheek, “I’m glad we’re back.”

Daniel nods, understanding exactly what Blake means, “Yeah.”

“You need me to help you with your bags?”

“Nah, I’m good, thanks” Daniel says as he gets out. He grabs his backpack from the backseat, already using the one Red Bull gave him, before he takes his two duffel bags out of the trunk. He taps the side of the car and waits until Blake has driven off before he makes his way over to the house, putting his bags down on the porch so he can take his keys out of his pocket.

He drops his bags in the mudroom, deciding he’ll unpack them tomorrow because he desperately wants to take a shower first. The lights in the kitchen are on and he isn’t surprised to see there’s a note from his mum on the counter, letting him know she came by earlier today to sort through his mail and do a bit of cleaning. He’s already talked to her while he was waiting for his luggage but still he sends her a message to thank her and to tell her he’s made it back.

After a quick shower he finds himself back downstairs, wearing a comfy t-shirt and a pair of shorts hanging low on his hips. It’s still nice enough to sit outside and so Daniel grabs a beer from his fridge, sending a silent ‘thank you’ to his parents for making sure it’s fully stocked with food and drinks, and heads to his front porch. Or tries to anyway, because all of a sudden his intercom rings and with a confused frown he answers it, “Hello?”

***

Even though you try not to speed down his driveway, you still make it to the house in under a minute, Daniel waiting for you on the back porch. It’s been sixty-three days since you last saw him and it both feels like it was only yesterday and a lifetime ago and your heart seems to be bursting at the seams while doing somersault after somersault.

And if you park your car rather haphazardly, well, so what?

Taking a deep breath for no other reason than to not feel like you’re about to lose it, you unbuckle your seatbelt and step outside and all of a sudden Daniel’s right there and cupping your face. He pushes you against the car gently but there’s a sense of urgency when he captures your mouth in a desperate kiss. You close your eyes and moan into the kiss as your hands grab onto the fabric of his t-shirt, needing something to hold onto.

His teeth graze over your lower lip and when you open your mouth he licks inside without hesitating and fuck, that feels good.

Your hands have found their way into his hair, pulling him closer to you so you can deepen the kiss, and you hook one of your legs behind his, needing more of him.

Daniel pulls back then, panting, and lets his forehead rests against yours, “Fuck, I’ve missed you.”

You wrap your hands around his neck and pull him close, breathing him in, “I’ve missed you too.”

“How did you-”

“Your mum called me after you texted her earlier.” You let go of him and cup his face, your thumbs caressing his cheeks and feeling yourself getting a little lost in those big brown eyes, that seem to be just a little watery, “I really wanted to see you.”

He lets out a shaky breath, “How long can you stay?”

“We’ve got all night,” you whisper back and give him another kiss. “Ellie’s with Granddad.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you nod, going in for another kiss because now that he's back you're not sure you ever want to let him go.

“How’s Oscar doing? Back to his-”

“Daniel,” you groan, dropping your head against his shoulder. “We are so not talking about Granddad right now.”

Daniel laughs, “Noted.”

“Good.” You look up at him and roll the corner of your bottom lip between your teeth, “‘Cause I’m gonna need you to kiss me again.”

“Oh, don’t you worry,” Daniel says in between kisses. “I’m planning on doing a whole lot more than that.”

***

They make it to his bedroom eventually, both of them a little out of breath and a lot turned on. Daniel's never not touching her, as if he wants physical proof that she is really here, as if she might disappear when he lets go of her.

"Daniel-" she breathes, tilting her head back to give him better access to where he is sucking in the pulse point in her neck.

He lets his teeth graze over her skin before he swirls his tongue over the now sensitive spot, drawing another moan from her. There's entirely too many layers of clothes between them, he decides, and so he lets his fingers dance from her hips to her shoulders, hooking them under the straps of her dress. Daniel kisses his way back to her mouth, nipping at her bottom lip, and pushes the straps down her arms.

She shivers and he's worried he's overstepped but then she pulls back a little and looks up at him with a cheeky smile as she tugs on her dress to let it fall to her feet until she stands there in nothing but her bra and panties.

Daniel feels his mouth go dry because she looks absolutely gorgeous, all soft curves and glowing skin and he has to tell her, has to let her know and so he licks his lips and swallows hard, "Fuck, you're beautiful."

She lowers her eyes and he sees the minute shake of her head, like she doesn't believe him.

Fine, he thinks. I'll prove it to you then. Daniel takes a step closer and puts two fingers underneath her chin to make her look up at him. He sees her biting her lip and dips his head, kissing the corner of her mouth and smiling into the kiss when he feels the tension drain from her body. He cups her face and gently walks her backwards towards his bed, making her sit down on the edge before he pulls back and locks eyes with her, "Absolutely gorgeous."

He grabs the back of his shirt and pulls it up and over his head, not caring to see where it lands. She catches on quickly and brings her knees to her chest so she can scoot backwards, watching him as he climbs onto the bed with her.

She leans back on her elbows and he puts his knees on either side of her hips so he can lean forward and capture her mouth for another kiss. When she lies down he follows her willingly, deepening the kiss by licking into her mouth before he sucks on her tongue so he can taste her.

When he pulls back she whimpers but then he kisses his way down to the swell of her breasts and the whimper turns into a moan when he pushes the fabric of her bra aside and swirls his tongue around the sensitive bud. It makes her arch her back and he can feel himself grow hard when she rakes her nails over his back. Daniel cups her other breast with his hand, his thumb rubbing her hard nipple over the fabric, and marvels at the way her breathing picks up.

“Dan-” She tugs on his hair gently, leading him back to her mouth for another kiss and he can feel her smile against his lips when she says, “I need-”

“Tell me what you need, babe,” he whispers, mouth close to her ear now. “Tell me exactly what you need and I’ll give it to you. Everything.”

“I need more,” she tells him without hesitating. “I need you inside of me. I want to feel you.”

And fuck if that isn’t the hottest thing anyone has every said to him. Daniel lets go of her and slides down the bed, hooking his fingers behind the elastic of her panties so he can take them down with him, while she reaches behind her and unclasps her bra, letting it fall to the floor without looking. When he stands at the edge of the bed so he can take his shorts off, he can’t stop looking at her, finds himself mesmerised by her body - the softness of her stomach, her plump breasts and-

Daniel makes quick work of undressing and then he’s back on the bed, kneeling in between her now spread legs, letting his fingers roam over her legs before he leans down and presses a kiss to the inside of her thigh, muttering a quiet, “Fuckin’ gorgeous,” against her skin. He slowly, slowly makes his way to her sex, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake before he lets his thumb run through her folds, amazed by how wet she already is.

“Dan-"

She doesn't say anything else but he knows exactly what it is she wants from him and so he dips his head and lets his tongue follow the earlier path of his thumb before he swirls it around her clit. Her hands are in his hair again, keeping him there where she needs him most, and he is more than happy to oblige because he can feel himself already starting to become addicted to her taste.

***

"That's it," you whisper when Daniel bends the two fingers he has inside of you just right. "Don't stop. Don't-"

Daniel doubles his efforts, nose against your clit as his mouth joins his fingers, his beard burning the skin of your thighs in the most exhilarating way.

"Dan," you warn him, your breathing becoming more and more erratic and your body tensing up, preparing for what is to come. "I'm gonna- Shit. Right there, baby. Don't stop. Please. Please, please, please."

He does as he's told and continues his attack on your clit while his fingers pump in and out of you and it's too much, it's-

Your orgasm washes over you, offering the sweet release you've been craving for so long. Daniel slows his movements but doesn't stop, helping you down from you high at a leisurely pace, as if you've got all the time in the world. You guess maybe you do.

When you finally stop shaking and your breathing is back to normal, Daniel pushes himself off and up so he is face to face with you. There's a soft smile playing on his lips but then he dips his head and kisses you, letting you taste yourself and it's almost enough to make you come again. Bucking your hips you feel his erection press against your core and it makes you pull back from the kiss so you can repeat your earlier request, “I need you inside of me, baby.”

Daniel’s pupils blow even wider, a darkness to his eyes that you haven’t seen before but that turns you on even more. He rolls off of you, pulling you with him, and watches through hooded lids as you kneel on top of him, your fingers skimming the hem of his boxers. He closes his eyes when you brush your thumb over the outline of his cock, letting out a quiet, “Fuck.”

You slide back a little and lean down, sliding one hand inside his boxers and taking him out. There’s a bead of precum on the tip and as you wrap your fingers around him you use your thumb to spread it out, before you lean down and take him into your mouth. He’s big, too big to take all of him at once, and so you use both your mouth and hands to get him ready.

“Fuck, you’re amazing,” he breathes from somewhere above you, one hand now cupping your face as you double your efforts and try to take him even deeper. He taps your cheek just as you can feel him start to swell inside your mouth and so you stop what you're doing and look up at him. Daniel swallows hard, “I’m gonna need you to stop if you want me to-”

“I want you to,” you tell him as you pump him one last time and then look at him expectantly.

Daniel reaches over and opens his nightstand drawer, finding what he’s looking for not much later. Getting the condom on somehow turns into a two-person job and makes you both laugh, which seems to relieve some of the built-up pressure. Once the condom is on, Daniel flips you over again and leans down for a kiss.

You can feel the tip of his cock nudge your entrance and so you reach down and gently guide him inside of you, gasping for breath when he starts to fill you.

“You feel so good,” Daniel whispers against the corner of your mouth just as he bottoms out. “So tight.”

“It’s ok,” you tell him, clenching your walls around him. “You can move.”

He does. At first he only pulls back a little before he pushes down again but the slicker you become the more he pulls out, until he’s pumping in and out of you in a rhythm that you know will get you there sooner rather than later. From the way Daniel’s breathing picks up you’re sure he’s not far behind either. You can feel your second orgasm starting to build and so you reach down for your clit just as Daniel puts his mouth close to your ear, “You’re taking me so well.”

His words go straight to your sex and you can feel your body starting to tense up once again, “Fuck, I’m gonna-”

“I’m right there with you, babe.”

“Fuck.” You arch your back and hook one leg over his waist, wanting to feel all of him, and somehow it makes the angle just right and he starts hitting the spot with each thrust and- “Don’t stop. Please. Don’t-”

Daniel picks up his pace even more and before you know it you’re panting, your hands cupping his face so you can look at him. “That’s it,” he says. “Take me in, babe.”

“Dan, I-” you try but then he slams into you harder and harder and you can feel yourself being tipped over the edge, your orgasm washing over you in full force and so all you can do is just enjoy the ride.

“Fuckin’ gorgeous,” Daniel says, watching you as he keeps chasing his own high that follows not much later when he comes with a loud groan.

***

The sunlight seeping through his curtains wakes him up somewhere around ten and he’s a little confused when he hears quiet snores coming from the other side of the bed but then the memories from last night come rushing back and Daniel feels something tugging on his heart. He rolls over and can’t help but smile when he finds her tangled up in his sheets and so he presses a soft kiss between her shoulder blades.

She stirs, stretching her legs before she lets out a quiet moan, “Too early.”

Daniel chuckles, wrapping one arm around her waist and dragging her over to his side of the bed, “Good morning.”

“Mornin’” she whispers as she turns around in his arms so she can face him.

She looks absolutely beautiful and Daniel feels like the luckiest man alive when he presses a kiss to her forehead, “How you goin’, sleepyhead?”

She nuzzles into him, her warm breath hitting his chest as her fingers dance over his stomach, “I’m really glad you’re back, Dan.”

He smiles against her hair, “Me too.”

“Last night was-”

“Yeah,” he agrees quickly. “It was.” He hugs her closer, “We should do that again some time.”

He feels her laugh and she pinches his side then, “We should.”

***

“Do you think- Will she-” Daniel clears his throat and rubs his hands on jeans, “Do you think she’ll still recognize me?”

You put a hand on his knee to stop his nervous habit and smile up at him, “Just wait and see.”

When you pull up to the house not much later, Homer lets out an excited bark and rushes towards the car to greet you and whoever it is you’ve brought along. When he realises it’s Daniel, Homer wags his tail enthusiastically.

“See?” You try, scratching Homer’s ears, “Even the dog remembers you, Ricciardo.”

“Uhu,” Daniel nods, patting Homer’s head absentmindedly. “That’s great.”

The way he’s so nervous is absolutely endearing and so you don’t hesitate and take his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze to let him know it’s ok. You nod towards the house, “Come on.”

Ellie’s inside, having a tea party with Granddad and Mr Koala, but the minute she spots Daniel her face lights up and she claps her hands, “Danny!”

You have to bite your lip to keep the tears at bay and next to you Daniel clears his throat and when you risk a quick glance at him you can see his eyes are a little glossed over as well.

He lets go of your hand and squats down, holding out his arms. Ellie all but launches herself at him and Daniel hugs her close, “Hello Miss Ellie.”

“Danny,” Ellie says again, patting his cheeks with her hands.

“I’ve missed you, kiddo.”

You rub Daniel’s back and when he looks at you from over his shoulder you give him a warm smile.

Daniel stands up then, Ellie still in his arms, and walks over to greet Oscar with half a hug before he sits down on the couch, Ellie snuggling up to him in his lap. She’s babbling, trying to tell him about all the things he’s missed and Daniel listens intently, asking all the right questions with a wide grin.

“I has day tomorrow,” Ellie says then. “Danny come with?”

“I-” Daniel shakes his head and looks up at you for help.

“It’s her birthday on Saturday,” you explain as you run your hand through your daughter’s hair, “but the concept of the days of the week is still a little confusing so she’s been saying it’s tomorrow for the past week or so.” You throw him a wink then, “I think she just invited you to her party.”

Daniel chuckles and pinches Ellie’s cheek, “Of course I’m coming with, sweetheart.”

“I be three,” Ellie explains, holding up five fingers proudly. Her little eyebrows knit together then, as if she’s trying to figure something out. You guess she did when she grins at Daniel, “Like you.”

“Like my race number, yeah,” Daniel nods, beaming with pride.

***

Daniel’s all over the place the rest of the week, catching up with his parents, his sister and her kids, some old friends he hasn’t seen since the summer break, and he hates that he’s not on the farm as much as he’d like even though she’s assured him things are much more manageable now that Oscar’s finally caved and hired a farmhand who comes to help out four days a week.

On Saturday though, there’s only one thing marked on his calendar and so he finds himself driving over to his neighbours after lunch, opting to get there a little early so he can help out with any preparations that still need to be done before the party starts.

He can’t help but smile when he pulls up to the house and sees the front porch is decorated with balloons and banners, and has to stifle a laugh when he sees Homer’s wearing a pink bow tie instead of his normal collar. Daniel pats the dog in his head when he steps onto the porch, “Looking sharp, Homer.”

Knocking three times, like he always does, before he lets himself in and finds her and Ellie in the kitchen, both of them wearing colourful summer dresses and looking absolutely beautiful. Daniel greets her first, with a quick kiss that might seem pretty chaste but still gives him the butterflies and he knows he’ll never grow tired of, before he presses a kiss to the top of Ellie’s head, “Hi sweetheart.” Ellie looks up at him with a goofy grin and holds out her arms without hesitation. Daniel picks her up and peppers her face with kisses, “Happy birthday, Miss Ellie.”

When he sits her down in her high chair again he hands her the gift he so carefully wrapped this morning, this time using the pink and purple wrapping paper he picked up at Woolies yesterday, “Here you go.”

Ellie starts tearing into the paper, letting out an excited giggle when she sees what’s inside.

Daniel looks at her with an apologetic smile, “I didn’t know what to get her but Michelle told me Isabella loved this when she was Ellie’s age so-”

“It’s perfect,” she says, her hand on his arm. “She’s really into colouring right now so this will keep her busy for some time to come.”

“Momma! Look!” Ellie holds up the box of crayons and the colouring book Daniel got her.

“That’s a fun gift, huh?” She squats down next to Ellie and nods towards Daniel, “Did you say thank you, yet?”

Ellie looks up at him with a bright smile, “Thank!”

“You are very welcome, sweetheart,” Daniel grins back. He looks at her then, “If there’s anything I can do to help-”

“Thank you but everything’s set,” she says as she stands up. He catches her looking at the clock on the wall, “I want to show you something.”

“Ok,” he draws out, not sure where this is going.

She picks Ellie up and nods towards the back door, “Come on.”

Daniel follows her outside and watches as she puts Ellie down, taking the little girl’s hand in hers. Ellie looks up at him then and holds out her hand and so Daniel takes it, trying to make his brain actively remember this exact moment because it is definitely one of the happier ones of his life.

“Your parents and sister should be here around three,” she says as she leads the way to where, he’s not sure. “Blake texted me right before you got here, to let me know he and Michael are running a little late but-” she shrugs and smiles, “I guess what I’m trying to say is we still have some time before everyone gets here.”

It’s then the field they went to a few months ago, when he first visited the farm, comes into view and Daniel lets out a quiet, “Oh wow.” There is a sea of red flowers in front of him, thousands and thousands of poppies swaying gently in the soft summer breeze, the rolling hills in the distance offering a perfect backdrop.

Ellie tugs on their hands, urging them forward until they reach the fence and she lets out a content sigh, “Pretty.”

“Just like you, bub,” she says, letting go of her daughter’s hand so she can squat down next to her. She picks a poppy and hands it to Ellie, “Here you go. A pretty flower for a pretty girl.” When she stands up she looks at Daniel, “What do you think?��

“It’s beautiful,” Daniel admits easily enough, a tiny voice in the back of his head telling him what he already knows. That he’s not just talking about the flowers.

She takes a step closer to him and puts her arm around his waist, letting her head rest against his shoulder, “Told you so.”

Daniel slings his arm around her shoulders and pulls her close, pressing a kiss to her temple. There’s something- It’s weird, he realises. He’s only known her for a little over two months, and he was gone for most of that, but it feels like he doesn’t have to pretend to be someone he’s not. Not anymore. He doesn’t have to be Daniel Ricciardo, Danny Ric, DR, or the Honey Badger. He doesn’t have to be a Formula One driver, an eight-time race winner, the most beloved driver on the grid, and the fan favourite. He doesn’t have to be Red Bull’s wild card, Renault’s saviour, or, most recently, McLaren’s scapegoat.

After thirty-three years, it feels like this is exactly where he was meant to be. It feels like everything that has happened, everything that he’s been through, has led up to this. To this exact moment.

Because when he is here, when he’s with her, and with Ellie, he is Daniel. It feels- Words can’t describe it but in the end it feels like-

It feels like home.

#Daniel Ricciardo #F1 Fanfic #Daniel Ricciardo x reader #DR3 #F1 Imagine #Harley Sunday x Daniel Ricciardo #Feels Like Home

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duskyashe · 1 year

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NaNoWriMo Day #8

[masterlist] [part two]

Prompt found here

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It was summer break, and Danny was lost in the Infinite Realms. He wasn't too worried, now that he'd officially been crowned the High King, his subjects had mostly stopped attacking Amity Park, and he was eager to finally get some exploring done now that he could take a break. Jazz, Sam, and Tucker knew Danny was, his parents thought he was spending the week at Tucker's, and he had Clockwork's promise that Danny would make it home by the end of the week no matter how long he was stuck in the Realms, so he was golden. The only thing he'd forgotten was the map of the Infinite Realms that would tell him where he was and how to get back home, but he'd been working with Wulf on making his own portals, so if he really needed to, he had a way out.

But that was just in case, for now, he was just having fun being lost. There were so many things to see and places to explore! Like where he was exploring currently, it was this old gothic theatre with surrounding alleys, there were hidey-holes and hidden storage rooms, and there was an old fashioned elevator floor, this place had everything!

"Martha, there seems to be someone here," a man's voice came from around the corner ahead of him. Danny froze, not sure what to do. W-was this someone's haunt?! It didn't look occupied when he first found it!

"Oh, the poor dear! I thought Bruce had put an end to theatre shootings, though?" A woman, likely Martha, responded. She sounded genuinely worried and confused as to why he was there, and that... That gave Danny pause. Because that wasn't the normal reaction of a ghost whose haunt had been intruded upon.

The man sighed. "Martha, dear, you know he prefers to go by Batman when wearing the cowl. I've told you before, we should respect our son's wishes."

Their son is Batman?! Does that mean Batman's a ghost?

"I know, I know, but Thomas, that's not the important part! There's someone in the theatre when there shouldn't be! What if they're hurt, or lost, or confused? We need to help them!" Martha exclaimed.

Danny took an unneeded breath and floated forward, a sheepish grin on his face. "Uh, hi there," he said, giving a small wave. In front of him were two gothically dressed ghosts, one male and the other female. The woman, Martha, was wearing a dark green and black striped ball gown, a line of golden buttons decorating the front of the bodice. Thomas, her partner, was wearing a matching green overcoat with black trim, and a matching pair of black dress pants and dress shirt, with a classy top hat, golden buttons, and cufflinks to finish the look. They both had black hair and glowing blue eyes, and both had a small golden bat pinned to their chest above their hearts. They both seemed surprised to see him, maybe they expected him to be hiding somewhere deeper in the theatre?

Martha seemed to come to her senses before Thomas, and was soon hovering right in front of him, pale fingers ghosting over his face and arms with a concerned look on her face. "Oh, you're just a child! You poor dear, you must be so confused! Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking? You certainly don't feel like one of ours, were you visiting Gotham when you died?"

Danny leaned back slightly, flustered and unsure what she was talking about. "I, uh, I've never been to Gotham? I was born and raised in Amity Park? I-I technically died there, too, but that's a bit of a story. Um, what exactly do you mean, I don't feel like one of yours?"

Turned out, if someone highly influential to a city or town died in either a highly traumatic or a sufficiently influential way, they became the spirit of that city or town. Thomas and Martha Wayne were highly respected and looked up to by all of Gotham before they were murdered, and while their deaths weren't exactly traumatic enough at the time for them to have become the spirits of Gotham, they did inspire their son, well known billionaire Bruce Wayne, to become the vigilante and Justice League founder Batman. Once Batman became well known across Gotham, the couple were elevated in status and the previous spirit of Gotham was relieved of their duties. A brief tangent revealed that the spirit of a city or a town had different duties depending on what their city or town needed. For Gotham, and more specifically Thomas and Martha, it was being a beacon of hope and change as well as helping their family's fight to better the city and minimize crime.

"So," Danny said slowly. "Because I'm the protector of Amity Park, does that make me Amity's spirit?"

Thomas shook his head. "It doesn't quite work like that, son. Not every town or every city has a spirit, and a city or town spirit can't be less than fully dead, unlike other powerful positions, such as the High King."

"Not to mention," Martha spoke up, "that as the High King, you can't hold any other ghostly position of power, or else the balance would destabilize, sending all of reality into chaos. As such, the oaths of the High King include the renouncing of any and all former ghostly appointments that might interfere with the balance. It's part of why the Observants never tried taking the throne from Pariah Dark, to be honest."

Danny sat there, thinking over everything he'd just learned. Honestly, he'd learned more about his kingdom, subjects, and the culture that goes with it in one conversation than he had in the entire time he'd been a halfa. "There's so much I don't know, isn't there?" Danny asked after a moment.

Thomas and Martha smiled comfortingly. "Don't worry," Thomas said as he put an arm around Danny's shoulder. "You have time to learn it all, though some of this you really should have learned before making your oaths. I'd like to have words with your guardian, they appear to have been slacking in their duties."

Danny's mind blanked. Guardian? Surely, not his parents. Though. This seemed to be another ghostly thing, so probably—"Clockwork? Or... Maybe Pandora, or Frostbite? I'm... Not actually sure who my guardian is, are they supposed to let me know they're my guardian? Also, how does that work, how does someone become the guardian of a younger ghost?"

"You don't know your own guardian?" Martha cried in disbelief.

"Danny, may I take a look at your core? I feel we'll get more answers that way, but I wouldn't want to impose," Thomas asked gently.

"Why would that be an imposition?" Danny asked.

Martha gently took his hand in hers. "A ghost's core makes up everything that is them, their likes, their dislikes, their personality, their obsession, even their bonds. To let someone look at your core is to trust them with your very soul. Never let someone look at your core unless you trust them with everything you hold dear, alright?"

Shocked, Danny nodded. There was a lot he didn't know. "O-okay, um, yeah, you can look at it, Thomas," he breathed shakily. "I trust you."

Danny did not have a guardian. He had fright-mates in the form of his liminal sister and friends, but he didn't have a guardian or really any other bonds. Thomas raged and Martha cried and the both of them begged him to choose someone to be his guardian. He was a baby ghost, halfa or not, and his core needed the support of a guardian in order to not overwork itself trying to protect him, and end up hurting him instead, potentially permanently. They cautioned him that, with how powerful he already was, his guardian would have to be quite powerful, themselves, like an ancient or a tribe leader. When Danny asked if a city spirit or two would work, they both hugged him so tightly and so warmly that he melted into the embrace, frozen tears falling from his eyes.

"So, does this make me Batman's little brother?" Danny asked with a sniffle sometime later, after the couple agreed to be Danny's guardians.

Martha gasped and put a hand to her mouth, looking to Thomas with mirth in her eyes. "Bruce always wanted a sibling, growing up," she agreed with a laugh.

Thomas smiled at both of them. "Danny even looks the part when he's human!"

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Two weeks after Danny's ghostly adoption saw Danny giggling to himself as he walked up the front steps of Wayne Manor with his backpack hanging from his shoulder. He knocked politely and waited for Alfred, the butler and his brother's father figure, to answer. When he did, he took one look at Danny and smirked. "They're in the family media room, master Danny. Would you like some tea?"

Danny grinned and nodded. "You're the man, Alfred. They suspect anything?"

"Not a thing, master Danny. I shall be recording everything via the security cameras, just as the master and madam requested. Nothing will be missed. I'll bring the tea in when things have calmed down," Alfred said as he started walking back to the kitchen.

He suppressed a maniacal laugh. This was going to be awesome.

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MWAHAHA!!! I SUCCESSFULLY MANAGED TO WORK IN A WAY OF ADDING ONTO THIS FICLET WITH AN ALREADY EXISTING PROMPT!ヽ⁠(⁠`⁠Д⁠´⁠)⁠ﾉ Now. If someone could find me the post about the spirits of cities, specifically Gotham, that'd be great. I know there IS one, cuz that's what spawned the fic "A Change in Management" over on AO3 (I'll provide a link and proper citing later), I just can't find it (⁠^⁠～⁠^⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ

I'm really happy I managed to finish this, because holy heck, my day was just... Really crazy (⁠；⁠^⁠ω⁠^⁠）but it was worth it for y'all (⁠◠⁠‿⁠・⁠)⁠—⁠☆

Have a good morning/day/night!

#danny phantom #batman #dc x dp #dp x dc #dp crossover #fanfic #dp au #fanfiction #nanowrimo 2022 #NaNoWriMo Day 8 #lol Danny got adopted by a Wayne #it's just not who you'd expect!#thomas wayne #martha wayne #they're the spirits of Gotham now. you can't tell me otherwise #if i find/track down/get tagged in the Tumblr post i mentioned #I'll write a sequel for this later this month #it will happen eventually #but it'll happen sooner if I'm not the one tracking the post down

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cabinofimagines · 10 months

Text

Happy (birth)day

This is my first writing since I wrote my school deadlines and I hope it doesn't suck entirely. Also!! Happy Birthday Danny (and Jason Grace of course!) Specific request I allowed is also by Danny :) Pairing: Platonic Jason, Piper, and more! Romantic Leo Valdez x reader :) Request: Can I request camp shenanigans where Jason and reader have their birthdays on the same week (like me and Jason!) So Piper and Leo throw us a surprise party in the bunker? Obvsly Leo and reader are dating 🥺 but you can choose whether Piper is just there for platonic support to her besties or of it's still Jasper era Warnings: none! Word count: 2.2k -Asja

You were suspicious already when, as you had breakfast, Leo did not greet you excitedly. Even worse, you did not see your boyfriend at the Hephaestus table at all. He wouldn’t have forgotten about your and Jason’s birthday’s, right? Leo must be planning something, and as you didn’t manage to spot Piper, who arrived at camp a few days ago, you figured they must have made a plan together. Your suspicions were correct, as when you met with Jason to ask him if he had any ideas, you both were approached by Harley.

“Big bro Leo told me to deliver this,” he handed you a small device, saluted, and ran off. “Thanks…?” you said, looking at his disappearing figure. Jason carefully took the device off your hands. “He must be planning something,” Jason examined the device closely, “I’m guessing with Piper as she wasn’t at breakfast either,” he sighed, “I just hope they didn’t entirely skip breakfast.” “I am sure they had something to eat, Leo loves food after all.” You noticed something on the device and quickly grabbed it, “Is this a button…?” you pressed it, and almost dropped the device as a small, hologram Leo came out.

“Sure hope the timer works on this thing, right Pipes?” Leo laughed, before stepping away and holding his hands behind his back, as if they were bound together. Off camera you could hear Piper laugh. “Would be awkward if it didn’t,” her voice sounded, “otherwise the whole ruse might fall through. 3.. 2.. 1.. go!”

“Ah! I’ve been captured!” Leo looked around frantically, “I’m not sure where I am but I sure hope this lil thing will get out-” he coughed as he cowered, “Please, whoever finds this- I need help-” Leo pretended to think and shook his head, “All I remember is this name- Nona and something about a vault?” he looked straight into the camera, “please find me, and bring all your friends! I can’t die on my lover’s and my best friend's birthdays. It would ruin their lives! Please-” A loud rumble sounded from somewhere behind the camera, and Leo looked up before loudly exclaiming “FUCK” as the hologram stopped.

“Nona?” you asked and Jason laughed. “It’s a Latin prefix for nine, he’s in Bunker 9,” he explained. “Leo’s a nerd,” you said affectionately, “Well, let’s round up all our friends before Leo fakes his death again.”

───────────

Unsurprisingly, all your friends were really easy to find. As in, most of them were already talking, not suspiciously at all, in a circle, right outside the dining hall. Even more not suspicious behavior was when Jason and you approached them Percy very loudly went, “Hey guys! I sure hope Leo is okay, ah-” Annabeth elbowed him. “Happy birthdays!” she smiled, “Anything fun planned?”

“Funny that you mention Leo, Percy,” you sighed, pretending to be worried “seems like he’s in a bit of a pickle right now.” “(Y/n), we both know he’s come out of worse situations,” Jason said next to you, and he put a hand on your shoulder, “The things he said was so cryptic, I think it’s for the best if we just let him figure it out on his own.”

“Oh?” Nico feigned interest, “I love cryptic hints, what are they?” You could see Will hide a smile as he looked at his lover.

“Something about a Nona-” you gasped, “Wait, Jason! Do you think it’s an ex?” Jason huffed, to conceal his laugh. “Maybe, or it’s Latin for nine, but Leo doesn’t know much Latin so that’s unlikely.” Jason sighed, “I’m sorry (Y/n), I guess we’ll have to travel around the U.S. to find Leo.”

“Perhaps a monster is forcing him to learn Latin,” you looked at Jason, “and we both know how that changes people,” “What do you mean, ‘how Latin changes people’?” Jason hit your arm. “They get all serious, Jason,” you gave him a look of pity, “and for Leo that might be deadly.”

Jason gave your statement a moment of thought before nodding sadly. “Who wants to hold a funeral?” he asked, “That way from this year on we can celebrate three things on this day.”

“How about we hold the funeral in Bunker 9?” Annabeth suggested, “It’s a place he loved most.” Before you could react, Nico started walking away. “I’m getting a coffin, be right back.”

“Where will he get a coffin from?” Percy muttered and Will smiled. “He still has some left over from refurbishing cabin 13.”

“Why?” Percy whispered, not expecting an answer.

───────────

As your little progression moved closer to Bunker 9, you had trouble keeping it all together. Nico had six skeletons carry an empty coffin up front. Meg and Grover caught up to you with a bunch of flowers, all potted, which each person carried one of. Except for Jason, who was carrying a torch to light the pyre with that was yet to be built.

The entire Hephaustus cabin was following you, holding up their banner, and Harley excitedly kept running around. Of course, you were certain everyone was aware that this was all a joke, especially when Chiron stopped you to ask what was happening and you simply went; “Oh, Leo got killed by Latin,”

Chiron was confused, but did not ask further questions about the funeral progression. In the end, it made sense as Leo probably got permission to do something in Bunker 9. As you approached the bunker, you noticed that the door was opened, and as the skeletons with the coffin entered first you only heard a muffled “SUPRISE!” from inside. As you entered, most of the progression gave up the pretense, but Jason and you had a goal. So, fully ignoring Leo, Piper, and all the other people that were in the bunker, you both stepped onto the nearest empty table. You noticed Leo standing on the front row, but quickly looked away.

“Today,” Jason’s voice boomed over the crowd, which was being rowdy, “we lost our dear friend Leonidas Valdez,” The crowd was silent except-

“HEY! I am not dead!” Leo’s said loudly. “Sometimes-” you sniffed, “I can still hear his voice. Gone too soon, rest in peace my love.”

“What the fuck happened-” Leo exclaimed.

“If I understand correctly,” Everyone suddenly looked at the entrance, seeing Chiron standing there, “You became Latin, a dead language.” Chiron’s scrutinizing gaze went over the party, “But as you seem rather alive, I think instead you shall be having stable duty for the next month, starting tomorrow, as you did not request to hold a party.”

“Aw man,” Leo sighed, “Can we at least hold it now?” he looked with a hopeful gaze to Chiron who sighed. “As long as I do not perceive anything more to do with this activity. Happy Birthday (Y/n), Jason,” and he galloped away.

Jason and you burst out laughing, as Leo pouted at you two. After you calmed down, you slowly made your way off the table.

“Your timer didn’t work,” you said as you softly gave your boyfriend his device, and a kiss on the cheek. He fidgeted with the device for a little bit before he sighed. “So you made it more dramatic?” he asked, after which he sighed, “I love you. Happy Birthday, my love.” he smiled, “Oh, and (Y/n) of course-”

“Hey!” you gasped and Jason laughed. “Love you too, Leo.” he said as he put his hand on Leo’s head, petting him “Pisada Carinosa” he muttered.

“That’s it I am finding Nona and dating her-” you turned around, only to be met with Piper. “You could date me if you’re done with Leo.” she smiled and you grinned, before hugging her. “I just might,” you joked as you let her go. Leo quickly grabbed your hand, and pulled you towards him and pressed a kiss on your lips. “Nuhuh- you are not getting rid of me that easily corazoncito,”

───────────

After a while, Piper said it was time for the main activity of the day. She led everyone into a “room” that was hidden behind curtains. As you walked in, you saw a gigantic screen and piles of pillows on the floor.

She instructed everyone to sit down, as Leo and her handed out buckets of popcorn and other snacks. You sat next to Jason, who was holding a letter.

“What’s that?” you asked, and Jason looked up. “Thalia couldn’t make it to camp, but she left a letter.” He showed you a picture of her and Reyna, standing at the Grand Canyon, “it’s weird how that’s where it started,” he smiled sadly, “how far we’ve all come since meeting each other.” “Hug?” you asked and he nodded.

Engulfed in your presence, Jason began to relax. Certainly, losing his memories was hard and he often doubted whether he deserved Leo and Piper as friends, or if they even wanted to be his friend. But nowadays, he couldn’t be more certain that what he had was his. You, Leo, Piper, Frank, Hazel, Reyna, Bobby, his sister Thalia. All these friendly faces, that mean so much to him. He thanked the gods for his spot in both camps, and for allowing him to be happy and alive. As he let you go again, he had to blink away his tears.

“Thanks,” he whispered, and he leaned back against the pillows. Shortly after, the big screen started playing. Before the movie even got to its proper beginning, Leo squeezed himself between you and Jason, leaning mostly on Jason. Piper sat on your other side, and cuddled up on your shoulder, as you leaned a bit against Leo.

The Barbie opening sequence started playing, to great delight of the people in the room.

“How?” you whispered, “This movie has barely been out for a week-” “My dad pulled some strings,” Piper smiled, “got us a private release.” “That’s awesome.” you grabbed her hand, and looked her in the eye, “Piper I love you-” she laughed. “Anything for my friends.”

───────────

After the movie was done, Leo asked the real question.

“So who are the Barbie and Ken of Camp Half-Blood?” Out of nowhere he got out prisoner signs, one with Barbie on it and one with Ken on it.

“Jason is Ken, right?” Piper stated, “I mean look at him, it’s like he’s made for the ‘beach’ job description-” unanimous sounds of agreement came from the crowd, and Leo gave Jason the Ken sign.

“I fully agree.” Leo said, before he got interrupted by the laughter of Nico.

“Sorry-” the son of Hades wheezed, “Will’s pouty because he thinks Piper used charmspeak to convince people Jason is Ken-” Nico grinned as his boyfriend tried to forcefully shut him up by smothering him.

“Barbie is a doctor though,” you grinned, “I think Will makes a perfect Barbie.”

“Oh! I was going to suggest our local Barbie, Pip-” before Leo could finish the sentence Piper harshly stepped on his toe, before ripping the Barbie sign out of his hands.

“And our local Barbie!” she grinned evily, “Will Solace!” she handed the son of Apollo his sign, and he hesitantly accepted it, and he stood up.

“Well, as I am Barbie I guess I will go to my Ken now. I hate you for this Di Angelo,” Will walked towards Jason, and sat down next to him, slightly awkwardly. As you looked at Nico, you saw that the smile of sheer delight had not yet left his face, “Love you too, Barbie.” he called from across the room, eliciting some laughter from the audience.

───────────

As the party was slowly calming down, you had a moment of calm with your friends. Leo was softly holding you from behind, as you were conversing with Piper and Jason.

“Thanks for organizing this guys,” you said looking at Piper and Leo.

“It’s nothing,” Piper smiled, “I’m happy we got this many people here in the end.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome! Too bad I have stable duty now though.” Leo looked sulky. “I might try to talk him out of it,” Piper said, “After all, your birthday is in like two days too.”

“That’s true, hey Jason,” you turned your gaze to the son of Jupiter. “Yes?” he returned your gaze. “Wanna fake our deaths for Leo’s birthday party.” “Of course,” Jason grinned.

“Please don’t” Leo pleaded. “I’ll help!” Piper smiled. After a second of silence, everyone broke out in laughter.

It was indeed a happy (birth)day.

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britcision · 1 year

Text

Possible alternate titles for this chapter include “It’s Tim Drake Not Tim Break Because He Can’t Fucking Catch One”

Also, yet more new characters arrive! Who will it be! 😈

By the time I finish a chapter I always forget what I wanted to tell you lot around it. Every time. It’s amazing, I wish I was this punctual for good reasons

First Chapter:

Previous Chapter:

———————

Thinking Shit Through Is Not A Halfa Trait

Jason hadn’t really expected to get through the night without at least a pissy phone call from B to ignore, but hell. It was the next day, mid afternoon, and so far so good.

Someone must have distracted the old bat. He’d have to find out which sibling to thank. Scrubbing a hand across his face, he stifled a yawn and headed for kitchen.

There was surprisingly little left of the detritus from their snack run; two halfas could apparently eat to beat a bear. Jason swiped most of the trash into the garbage can and glanced around.

He didn’t exactly keep most of his safe houses stocked with edibles, especially not anything that might go off in between uses. He’d seen more than enough of Dick’s fridge to know better.

But Danny had stayed over, and would probably be up soon, and again: eat to beat a bear. They could order take out. It was just…

Jason felt fucking good. Mellow, relaxed in a way he could barely remember ever having felt before. And when he felt good, he liked to cook.

He could also order groceries in.

Humming softly to himself, he reached for his Red Hood phone and tapped in some instructions. Nothing super fancy, but maybe he wanted to flex a little.

Was it weird to use his criminal empire to get groceries? Maybe, but at least he fucking paid his guys. They’d be over soon too, and he trusted them to get him what he needed.

Glancing around the safe house, he figured he might as well clean up a little.

He’d carried Danny to the bed last night after they’d both fallen asleep on the couch. Who knew constant nightmares were good for something?

Waking up with someone else there had given him something to latch onto. By the time he could catch his breath he’d already settled into Danny’s presence, knew where he was.

Seemed like just returning the favour to unscrunch Danny and give him somewhere a little better to sleep.

He’d given in to the sweatpants around when they switched from games to movies, and Danny had borrowed an old sweater to get out of his dress shirt.

Jason had a couple of Tim’s and Cass’s sweaters that’d be close to Danny’s size, but who wanted a tight fitting sweater?

That was definitely the only reason Jason had grabbed one of his. It was big, loose, and comfortable, the fabric soft and thin.

It had fucking drowned Danny, who had lost his shit giggling and promptly flopped the sleeves down over his hands to slap Jason with. Any bad jokes for the rest of the night ended in a variant of “slippity slap, don’t talk crap”.

Danny had snuggled right down into it in his sleep, the hood pulled all the way over his head to hide from the light, and he’d whined a bit when Jason lifted him.

Tough titties, sleepy king, because sleeping on the couch led to cricked necks and aching backs, and Jason needed something to take care of after that nightmare.

He wouldn’t have hated it if Danny did wake up, but at least one of them slept like the dead. Guy snuggled right down into the bed too, wrapping himself into an immediate blanket burrito.

He also weighed about as much as a wet baby kitten, which Jason would tease him about if he hadn’t been lifted just as easily and flown away with.

The couch was way better when he could stretch himself out across the whole thing, and had robbed a couple of pillows. He hadn’t even had another nightmare.

But they’d left fancy clothing all over the place, and Jason had no idea what Danny’d wear to head home. There were spare clothes, but he probably needed to keep the suit.

Jason made his way through the sitting room gathering and sorting the suits, each over a side of the couch. Jacket, pants, shirts, ties…

A little imp of mischief took him and he switched the ties again. Not like it fucking mattered which one they each took home, and if Danny cared he could ask.

He also found one and a half of Danny’s socks, which was frankly concerning. That or Danny had one normal sock and an ankle sock, which wouldn’t be the biggest surprise.

Jason tossed it onto Danny’s pile anyway, and went hunting for shoes. The groceries arrived before he had any luck, and he paused to grab them.

It was one of his street kids, a mouthy little bugger named Jess who didn’t actually know Hood without the helmet, but was always happy to chat with Jason.

She looked a little pale, actually. Bags under her eyes, thin in the cheeks. Jason made sure all his runners had warm places to crash and enough to eat, but winter was rough.

Abandoning the shoes for now, he jerked a thumb towards the kitchen.

“I’m making pancakes. You can have the first three and take the cookies,” he said tersely, knowing if he sounded worried she’d read it as pity.

The cookies had been a treat for whoever did the run anyway. Only thing on the list that didn’t involve cooking.

Brown eyes narrowed up at him, examining his face, and then she nodded, carrying the grocery bags in.

“Didn’t get pancake mix,” she warned, hopping up to sit on the dining room table as he got to work.

Best get her out of here before Danny woke up. Jason wasn’t looking to drop the Red Hood connection yet, and frankly Danny didn’t need the encouragement to bastardise Jason’s furniture.

He made a dismissive tut at her words, pulling ingredients from the bag and getting to work with a practiced hand.

“Pancake mix is for soccer moms,” he told her over his shoulder, measuring flour and baking powder. They might not be staples in his brothers’ safe houses, but Jason had fucking standards.

Steph kept them in hers so she could bully Jason into cooking for her. Didn’t take much bullying.

Jess made a sceptical noise back, peering at what he was doing and he turned to lean against the counter so she could see.

Wets in one bowl, dries in the other. Dries into wets, mix. Pancakes were easy. A little vanilla, a little cinnamon and nutmeg, and soon the smells of the holidays were filling the flat.

Jess was already shifting closer, watching the pan covetously as he stood over them, waiting for the tell tale bubbles. She wouldn’t ask questions; Alley kids didn’t.

He pointed his spatula into the pan.

“They’re ready to flip when you see the batter on the top bubble,” he explained, and she did her very best impression of a teenager who didn’t give a shit.

No skin off his nose. She might need to know some day.

He flipped the first high into the air and caught it in the pan, just to see her crack a grin. Two and three followed, and a minute later he popped all three on a paper plate.

There were sounds coming from the bedroom. Jess had clearly also noticed, her grin creeping towards the knowing, and he nodded to the door sharply.

“Scram. Don’t forget the cookies,” he added as she hopped off the table.

She paused in the doorway, looking between them and the bedroom.

“Hood in there?” She asked with far too much calculated innocence for her age.

The thought made Jason smile, which she clearly took as an answer, bolting before he knew if she thought it confirmed or denied her guess.

He didn’t really mind if the Alley kids thought he was fucking Red Hood. They all knew his face, and it’d keep any of them away from thinking he might actually be the big boss.

Them finding out he was that Jason, Freshly Alive Jason Todd-Wayne, might be more of a problem, but hell. He was born in Crime Alley, and had lived here for years since his revival.

Anyone who did have a problem would find that opinion pretty fucking unpopular among Red Hood’s lieutenants. They might not know his link to Hood, but they knew the boss liked Jason, and that he always took care of them.

Danny’s revelation about Sam brought a broader grin to his face and he chuckled. Maybe they’d think he was Hood’s sugar daddy.

The opposite rumour had made the rounds more than once, and Jess might just have left to set it going again. Jason just made sure he knew who was running the pool, and that he got a bet in.

Chuckling to himself he poured out another set of pancake batter and dug out another paper plate. No point putting toppings away until he knew what Danny would want.

The man himself made a sleepy appearance just as Jason slid the next lot of pancakes onto a plate. Something lurched uncomfortably in Jason’s chest when he saw Danny was still wearing the sweater… and little else.

The sleeve had flopped down over his hand again and he hadn’t bothered to pull it back down as he rubbed his face, yawning widely.

He looked fucking adorable. It lit something soft and warm inside Jason, spreading easily into his mellow. And into a low, rumbling purr that almost made Jason drop the pan.

The fuck was that?

It must have been a halfa thing, because Danny purred right back without appearing to notice, flopping into a chair at the table.

Deciding he could ask later, Jason slid the plate of pancakes in front of him, along with cutlery. No point bringing them separately; Danny would probably use his hands.

After adding syrup.

Jason was not going to be following that train of thought any further.

Danny made an appreciative noise as the pancakes registered, looking more attentively at the rest of the table. Jason gestured to the syrups, jams, and fruit.

“Wasn’t sure what you liked, but I figured one of us will get through the lot,” he explained, and Danny just stared at him for a long moment.

“Dude, fucking marry me,” he finally sighed, reaching out to grab a syrup and drizzle it over his pancakes.

Ignoring the sudden heat at the back of his neck, Jason chuckled and turned back to the stove, pouring out another set of pancakes.

“Yeah, well, there’ll be more when you’re done those if you want ‘em. We have plenty of batter.” Maybe a little too much, but it wasn’t like there wasn’t always someone craving pancakes.

Danny hummed happily, mouth already full by the time he thought to ask.

“Holy fu’in shi’ these are amazing. Ha’ you ea’en?” It came out muffled as fuck but not unintelligible, and Jason shrugged.

“Nah, I’m gonna have the hot fresh ones when you’re done the ones that started cooling,” he snarked, leaning against the counter to keep an eye on the stove.

Pretty sure he caught Danny frowning in between bites, but it wasn’t like he was lying. He’d get the nice fresh pancakes eventually, and he’d learned the fine art of patience.

He was just flipping the last pancake when something small and beige floated in from the corner of his eye. Turning he almost stepped back into the stove away from a bite sized piece of pancake.

Danny, still sat at the table, smirked at him while still chewing.

“You gotta ea’,” he said smugly.

The bite of pancake closed in.

Jason considered his options. Danny fucking would hit him in the face with syrupy pancake. No two ways about it.

Of all the people in the world who did not need telekinesis…

Throwing dignity to the wind, he leaned forward to try and catch it in his mouth without smearing syrup across his face. Whether Danny was trying to help or hinder this effort was not clear.

Still, it seemed to satisfy him as he went back to his own pancakes. Jason dropped off a fresh stack and reluctantly accepted another forkful, rolling his eyes.

At least Danny let him have the actual fork this time.

“If I knew you were such a fuckin’ mother hen I’d have just ordered cereal,” he told his king. Danny stuck his tongue out at him.

“Says the bitch who decided to make a whole ass pancake breakfast with toppings while I was in bed. A bed I did not go to sleep in, by the way, so thanks for that too.”

Jason considered arguing the point. Ultimately didn’t bother. He didn’t like fights he couldn’t win.

“The faster you eat the sooner I do,” he pointed out instead, heading back to the stove and pouring more batter.

Ducked a strawberry flying at his head. Whether Danny actually threw it or not didn’t really matter. He caught it as it circled back and ate it.

“Or you eat the next stack yourself and I’ll take the stove,” Danny argued behind him, half a pancake ready to be stuffed in his mouth.

Jason considered arguing again. On principle more than anything else; he enjoyed cooking, and enjoyed having someone around to eat his food.

It felt comfortably domestic, which couldn’t really be said about much of his life before. Almost like the days he’d spent learning to cook with Alfred.

Alfred never sat and ate with them. Jason fucking hated that.

Sighing to himself, he pulled down another paper plate. At the table behind him Danny cheered in victory and Jason snorted, rolling his eyes.

“Do you even know how to make pancakes?“ he asked, not quite looking for an out so much as wondering how fast he should eat.

Danny just shrugged, now dumping jam on his pancakes.

“So long as they don’t fight back I’ll be fine. Bubbles on the top, right?”

Abandoning the pancakes for now, Jason turned and squinted at him.

“I have this weird feeling that isn’t a rhetorical statement,” he said dryly. Danny grinned and waggled his eyebrows.

“That’s because you are smarter than you look. And why you don’t keep ectoplasm in the kitchen,” he added more thoughtfully and shrugged.

Jason made a face.

“And yet you still want me to fucking eat it?” He’d not exactly liked the idea before, and this wasn’t helping.

Danny just shrugged again.

“Hey, at least it doesn’t reanimate the food inside you?” He offered, like that was a normal collection of words to say.

Jason stared at him long enough for one of the pancakes to begin to burn. Hurriedly flipping the lot, he turned back to glare at a snickering Danny.

“Well I wasn’t fuckin’ worried about that before,” he said dryly, keeping half an eye on his now slightly charred pancakes.

Danny chuckled, stuffing the last jammy pancake in his mouth and rising.

“And now you don’t have to. We do gotta get your ecto-snack situation sorted today though. We kinda got side tracked with the gala stuff,” he mused, coming to join Jason at the stove.

He wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean Jason was eager to start chugging the green goo. Sighing to himself, Jason poured his pancakes onto his plate.

“I’m not eating the pancakes if you burn them,” he warned then headed to the table.

Sure, he and Danny weren’t technically sitting and eating together, but it wouldn’t feel right to hover. All the damn syrups were still on the table too.

Danny gave him a thumbs up, dolloping out three pancakes a little larger than Jason had, and swearing when their edges immediately ran together. Teach him to mess with perfection.

“Ah fuck… so I guess the question is, Jason Todd-Wayne, what do you wanna do with the first day of the rest of your life?”

And wasn’t that a good fucking question?

Bruce slowly lowered his Justice League Dark communicator until he could glower at it, plastic casing creaking in his grip.

Fourteen hours. Fourteen whole hours since he had asked to speak to John Constantine, and none of their so called mages could be bothered to find him.

Nor had any of them ventured an opinion on the Amity Park situation, though Zatanna had promised to look into it. No, they all insisted that only Constantine had seen that file.

Probably because he was already successfully evading Bruce. But that would not last forever.

Tired red eyes turned back towards the multiple screens of the Batcomputer, the rest of the night’s failed searches.

There was plenty to read on Amity Park. All about the fabled hauntings, the tourist trap, various budding ghost hunters and paranormal enthusiasts daring each other to go or telling each other not to bother.

Amity Park was quiet now, apparently. There was still the occasional blurry, mostly static footage of a “ghost attack”, narrated like a play at the puppy bowl, but for the most part the internet had deemed Amity Park a dead zone.

And it all dated back to the same rough time period as those hundreds of calls to the Justice League. The same time from which Amity Park had never called for aid again.

It could be that whatever was attacking them, whatever had been mistaken for ghosts or a hoax, had been beaten. Had gone away on its own.

Bruce Wayne did not believe in that kind of luck.

There was nothing official within the city’s limits.

Not a school transcript for Daniel James Fenton, transferred to Gotham University after two successful years at the University of Illinois.

Nor for Samantha Manson, or Tucker “Too Fine” Foley, a hacker seemingly skilled enough to have Tim and Barbara running into walls at every turn.

There was, however, one thing that Tim had come up with last night after he’d returned. There were no social media accounts that listed Amity Park as a current address.

There was an ever growing crop of new accounts that claimed to be from Amity Park alums. And some of them had clearly noticed some censorship.

A particular young lady with long dark hair had gone on an impassioned video rant, and while she had not said the words Amity Park, she had avoided them pointedly and deliberately.

Clearly the people moving away from Amity Park had noticed that their social media was locked down. Apparently Tucker had even mentioned it, but Tim had expected to find a work around.

There was no work around. Tucker’s PDA must have been his from Amity Park. Fortunately the man would still be in town, and Tim had agreed to catch him before he left.

If there was a way for them to look into Amity Park, Foley would likely know first hand. Bruce trusted Tim to get the information they needed.

He refused to let Bruce enter anything about an organisation called the GIW into the Batcomputer. Seeing the defences around Amity Park, Bruce had reluctantly agreed.

Still, the lack of data was infuriating.

Jason was still with Danny, and Bruce had a terrible sinking feeling that Danny Fenton had a lot to do with what was wrong with Amity Park.

No point trying to talk to Jason while the two were together. He’d have gone looking for them last night to try some recon instead, but Alfred had hidden his grappling hooks.

Bruce knew he shouldn’t swing through the city with a concussion; Alfred wasn’t wrong to have done so. It was why he hadn’t objected.

He’d tried sending Tim to spy on Jason Danny in his place, but Tim had insisted he had better avenues to investigate.

Bruce would find the time to have that talk with Jason, though. About the gala, but more importantly about just what he really knew about Danny Fenton.

Dick had given them what they’d presumed was a vigilante alias; “Phantom”. It seemed that Danny expected them to look him up.

Was he mocking them? Calling himself a ghost in the machine, a data “phantom” that wouldn’t exist? Or perhaps a reference to Amity’s ignored cries for help? The ghosts no one had believed were real?

Somehow Bruce didn’t think so. If Danny knew who they were, he would know the resources at their disposal. Even if Bruce physically had to walk into Amity Park and buy a phone, he would.

There was one other disturbing alternative.

The Fenton parents had been well known in certain scientific and parascientific circles for decades now. They were cited in numerous papers, usually only for their inventions. The authors made that clear with a rather worrying level of detail, but not why.

What was so abhorrent about their theoretical work that made their own field shun them? What methods had been bad enough to be decried at the mere mention of their name?

Their home, Fentonworks, was marked as a tourist spot for other ghost hunters, and photographs showed a truly ridiculous space ship design tacked onto the roof.

They had also been laughed out of much of the scientific community for their research on ghosts. Primary interest: destroying any ectoplasmic entities they came across.

Yet he couldn’t find any of their original papers. None of the theories, methods, anything they had published. Even where they had been linked before, instead of the work there were now only bold retractions, apparently by the Fentons’ own hands.

Many of their inventions were weapons. Some that made even him flinch, and he didn’t even believe in the creatures they were designed to hurt. And for all that the design specs insisted they wouldn’t harm humans… Bruce doubted it.

Had this couple put weapons in their childrens’ hands when Amity Park was under attack? Had Danny and his sister, Jazz, been drafted into a fight that should have been the Justice League’s?

Bruce hadn’t expected that Danny would have seen anything in Amity Park to rival Killer Croc, but now he kept replaying those first moments of the fight.

Danny hadn’t been angry. He hadn’t been scared. He had been gleeful, throwing himself at a massive green man with teeth and claws. And while none of his fighting was exactly professional, there was a shadow of training there.

Of experience.

Bruce did not like to think what that experience might be.

Because… Amity Park may have stopped calling to the Justice League because they’d won, and were no longer in danger.

Or they may have stopped calling because there was no one left to be saved.

“Oh, and we’ve definitely gotta see Sam and Tucker before they go, you still need your Fenton Phone,” Danny pointed out over another bite of pancake.

He’d done a reasonable job of cooking, so they’d traded off a couple more times and finally split the last batch between them to share at the table.

It was nice; better than taking turns, and while their day planning had been pretty sporadic, Danny felt good about today.

Of course, he’d gotten to sleep in and woken to The Best Pancake Breakfast Imaginable, so it was already a great day. Jason chuckled across from him, and Danny let the easy grin take over as he chewed.

“Right, I forgot that too. Guess we were just too busy with the whole gala thing,” the taller man mused, a fond smile on his own face.

Jason had a really pretty smile. Danny got the feeling he didn’t do it often enough; not because of anything overt he said or did, but just for the little moments.

Where Jason would be laughing then stop, like he couldn’t quite remember how laughing worked. The occasional moments of surprise in his aura when Danny grinned at him.

And that was just plain illegal around Team Phantom, so Danny was gonna make him laugh and smile as often as he physically could.

Now, he grinned right back, reaching out to gently kick him in the shins.

“Hey, that was also a super important mission. We’ve just gotta do our ghost homework before your next visit to Frostbite so you don’t have to witness the Sad Yeti Face.”

He was mostly kidding, but Frostbite did have an uncanny ability to make Danny feel bad whenever he didn’t follow instructions. Most of his teachers would have killed for such an ability.

Jason raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t stop smiling as he shrugged.

“Okay, so ectoplasm horror stories aside, it’s gonna take me a couple days to source a fucking lead lined vault to store the stuff in. That mean we’ll push back the visit to Frostbite too?” He asked and Danny hummed thoughtfully.

“It has already been a couple days… guess it’s up to you. How are you feeling?” Danny asked, cocking his head curiously.

No matter what Frostbite said, Jason’s aura didn’t exactly feel all that different to Danny. He still didn’t quite feel like a ghost, couldn’t feel a core.

Maybe the ectoplasm residue felt stronger? But honestly Danny wouldn’t swear to it. It wasn’t like there were defined levels to that stuff.

Jason considered the question for a while too, probably taking stock. Like Danny had said, it had been a couple days. But they hadn’t exactly been together for most of them.

Frostbite figured a couple days directly in the zone, maybe a couple more here. With Danny. Although they also didn’t exactly know how much proximity mattered.

Same city probably wouldn’t cut it, honestly… unless it had been going on all year, and they were just nearly done?

Too many variables. And Danny had the joy of watching Jason come to what was actually probably literally the same conclusion as the larger man sighed, running his hands through his hair.

“Honestly? I feel good,” he admitted, sounding more like he regretted that. Or like he couldn’t believe it? “I feel more like myself than I have in years. I just… don’t feel different. More ghosty or whatever.”

Danny hummed thoughtfully at that, playing with his cutlery on the plate. It did make him wonder too.

“It’s been a long time since I first changed, but honestly? I don’t remember feeling all that different, in my human form. It was more that I had a whole bunch of extra powers to try and control.”

Jason made another face, stabbing his last bite of pancake.

“Yeah, that part too… how are we gonna keep that quiet? Seems like it’ll be pretty obvious if I’m gonna start falling through walls and shit.”

Musta to have noticed that as funny as Danny’s old accident stories were, they were also gonna be his soon.

Danny could be magnanimous now that he was the one with the experience. And he’d never had to deal with a bunch of nosey bats. Just stupid teenagers.

Keeping Jason’s secret was gonna be a lot harder.

Pursing his lips, he drummed his fingers against the table. If only there were more halfas.

“Okay, so… the way I developed my powers was different from Vlad, cuz I changed right away and he changed slowly. You’re sorta in between, so I don’t know exactly what’ll happen?”

He glanced over at Jason, who did not look noticeably reassured. Smart guy. Danny puffed a breath up to ruffle his bangs.

“Keeping our theme of honesty? Might be easiest if you can hide out in the zone for a month or so. You’ll get better the more you use your powers, and I or someone else can be around to get you out if you phase into something and get stuck.”

Jason groaned and propped his elbows on the table, dropping his head into his hands.

“I cannot just disappear for a month,” he grumbled, hands fisting in his hair in frustration.

Which, yeah. Danny could sympathise. He shrugged.

“I mean, I’ll definitely be around if you get stuck here too? And it might not be that long, depending on how much you can actually use ‘em. I lived at home, I had to be subtle,” he reminded Jason.

Still not noticeably comforted. Gee, it was almost like this whole half ghost process fucking sucked. It was nice to have someone who finally got that.

Although… there had been one thing that always helped Danny get a handle on his powers.

“We could always half and half it?” He offered, spreading his hands and grinning. “You work out how long you can be away for without raising suspicion. We go on a couple short Ghost Zone vacations and do the Ghost Powers Speedrun.”

Jason raised a brow slowly again, leaning back and away from the table. He looked decidedly suspicious because again, smarter than he looked.

“And why wasn’t that the first plan?” He asked warily. Danny’s grin may have ticked a little to the wicked.

“Cuz originally I was gonna be nice to you. The speedrun version is pretty much just bootcamp. Remember I said fighting was a social thing for ghosts?“ he asked, grin spreading when Jason’s eyes narrowed immediately.

Yeah, he was following. And didn’t look scared, which was nice.

Jason huffed out a laugh and shook his head, his white patch of hair flopping just adorably.

“So the speedrun version is just Fight Club huh?” He asked dryly and Danny cackled.

“It’s me and maybe some friends kicking your ass til you can kick ours back,” he agreed and Jason snickered, folding his arms and smirking.

“So we’ll only be gone overnight. Good to know,” he said casually, chin rising just enough he could look down at Danny.

And fuck it should be illegal to look that good while still being a smug little fucker, buuuut Danny was half ghost. Even just thinking about a fight was pepping him up.

“Oooh, I’m telling Ember you said that,” Danny snickered, catching up his phone.

Making a note to remind himself. Wishing dearly he could get some of the younger ghosts to just remember that phones existed.

The memes in an all ghost group chat would be killer.

Jason looked thoughtful for a moment, like he’d already memorised the whole damn database. Hell, who knew what Robin training looked like? He might have.

But Danny was still pretty confident that no matter what Robin training included, Jason wasn’t gonna be prepared for his first ghost fight.

The Justice League always had such a hard time with enemies you couldn’t just punch. Although he was kinda excited to see if Jason still had any of his old Robin moves.

It’d be something to see a six foot tank of a man fight like a twink.

Fuck, it wasn’t like Danny had been paying much attention, but hadn’t the second Robin been tiny? He was sure he remembered Sam losing her shit about something like that.

Better not tell Jason though. No matter how he felt about teen heroes, odds he’d be happy to learn about Sam’s anti twink hero phase? Less than none.

Memorised the whole database or not, Jason must have placed the name, because he smirked again.

“Guitar ghost? Yeah, not worried. But you’d better have a whole lot more than you showed against Croc, or I’ll be the Ghost King next.”

Suddenly Danny was very very seriously considering throwing the fight.

Jason obviously noticed, cackling as he leant back in his chair.

“Hey, you could be my knight instead,” he teased, and Danny had to grin at that.

“Is it weird that I’d actually be way more comfortable that way ‘round?” He asked and Jason snickered.

Like there was a joke Danny wasn’t quite in on yet.

“Oh, fucking definitely. Trash talk aside though, your hand to hand needs work. No doubt you’ve got great ghost fighting skills,” he added, raising both hands before Danny could protest, “but you leave yourself way too open. If we’re doing Fight Club, maybe I’ll teach you some shit too.”

Oooh, Robin training indeed. Danny wasn’t ashamed to admit he fit the body type way more than Jason did now; big guy might have some moves he could use.

Just like the Robins, most of Danny’s opponents were a lot bigger than him. It’d be nice to have some of that cool flippy spinny shit to really fuck with Skulker next time he came around.

Danny leaned across the table, hand outstretched.

“Deal. Hey, can you teach me to do that flippy bullshit too?”

Jason leaned in to meet him, clasping his hand and grinning back, a slightly nostalgic look in his eye.

“Hell yeah. Though if you want the really fancy flippy bullshit, we might have to tag in Dick. I’m pretty fuckin’ good but he’s the acrobat,” he explained when Danny cocked his head curiously.

Danny hesitated for a moment, then shrugged it off. It wasn’t like Dick wasn’t gonna know his whole ghost deal by the next time they hung out.

“That’d be pretty cool actually. Is he the one who taught you?” He wondered, and watched Jason’s expression go through a dozen twisted emotions.

His aura leaned into the fond-sad-nostalgia-heart break. He hadn’t pulled his hand back. Danny gripped it a little tighter and didn’t relax til he felt Jason squeeze back.

“Yeah,” he admitted after a moment, voice just the littlest bit choked, “he spent weeks just teaching me how to fall safely. Said it was the first step in learning to fly.”

Before Jason died then. There was a weight of history to the words, and Danny didn’t try to answer it. Any comment he could make would just come out cheap.

“Trust me, you do not wanna go down there,” Tim warned without looking up, sitting sideways in Bruce’s office chair with his tablet on his knees.

Duke hesitated, looking from him to the old grandfather clock which hid the Batcave entrance. He’d been about to go and change for his afternoon patrol, but…

Well, he’d been in the cave already that morning. Seen the state Bruce and Tim were working themselves and each other up to. If Tim had fled the cave…

“How bad is it?” He asked cautiously, coming to cock his hip on the desk.

Tim was back in civvies, so not the very worst. On the other hand, he clearly hadn’t been to bed yet.

Which could just be normal Tim, honestly. But sticking around the manor?

Tim sighed, waving a hand at head height.

“B’s hunting Constantine like a bloodhound, and the JL Dark aren’t helping. It’s safer out of the line of fire. Did you catch last night’s briefing?”

It was a generous way to refer to the fucking spam in their vigilante group chat, but honestly? Given what he’d seen this morning, Duke wasn’t surprised.

As meticulous as Bruce usually was about reports, he also wouldn’t start them until he felt he had the data he wanted to cover.

It was never a fucking good sign when Bruce couldn’t find the piece of evidence he’d deemed essential over night, but Tim had put together a pretty concerning list of bullet points.

1. They still had no fucking clue what Danny meant about “Phantom”.

2. Amity Park had undergone something utterly disastrous about four years ago.

3. They couldn’t learn a damn thing about Amity Park from the outside.

Aaaand most fun of all, 4. They needed to catch up with Sam and Tucker again before either of them left town. See what intel they could get and if Tucker could help with their tech problem.

Duke was kinda looking forward to seeing them out of costume. They’d both seemed pretty cool, if a little old.

Yeah, he could justify ditching patrol to get some intel instead. He’d already been out in the morning anyway. He gave Tim a slightly lopsided smile.

“Yeah, I did. This your way of asking if I’m coming for milkshakes?” He asked casually, and paused when Tim blue-screened.

No. Way.

“If you’re what?” Tim asked faintly, staring into space instead of at his tablet.

If Duke thought he had a chance of getting away with it… he flicked his civilian phone out casually, raising it to show Tim and “coincidentally” flipping to his camera.

“Coming for milkshakes with the Amity Parkers,” he said casually, hitting record. It wasn’t the most natural angle to hold it at, but he had Tim’s face in focus and that’s what mattered.

If there was even a tiny chance Tim had been railing at the same list since Duke left this morning… oh man, this’d be good.

“You know, in the group chat.”

Tim’s tablet would have clattered to the floor if Duke hadn’t hastily shaped a shadow to catch it, hiding his grin as Tim nearly fell off his chair fighting his civilian phone out of his pocket.

Duke leaned back and kept recording, not needing to be subtle now that Tim’s focus was wholly fixed on the group chat.

Which had been blowing up since last night with selfies from Steph and Cass and their sleepover buddy, Tucker Foley. Looked like they’d been having a fantastic time too.

There were face masks, painting their nails, Tucker braiding Cass’s hair while she braided Steph’s, honestly it was all adorable.

Duke’s favourite was probably the last one from the previous night, Cass throwing a peace sign and leaning over to take a selfie beside the sleeping bodies of Steph and Tucker, curled around each other like puppies.

Tucker was wearing one of Steph’s oversized sweaters and spare track pants that were probably Dick’s, and Steph had actual pyjamas on. They’d clearly passed out half way through a movie.

Tim scrolled quickly through the pictures, mouth working silently. Duke could spot the exact moment he got to their conversation that morning, because he began mouthing along.

‘TheCainInstinct: Tucker says he must leave by tomorrow to return to school. Lunch plans?’

‘NotJustACop: make it early dinner & I can come by before my shift?’

‘StephBrownies(fanaticalthings tumblr): your shift doing what?’

‘NotJustACop: fuck u’

‘TheCainInstinct: changed your name for nothing’

‘StephBrownies: see you for dinner Dickie’

‘NotJustACop: nope don’t want to now’

‘StephBrownies: rofl then perish’

The bullying went on for a while, but ended with an agreement to meet for milkshakes at the mall. Just like normal young adults.

Apparently Tucker had already messaged Sam, and Jason had tagged in about half an hour ago to say he and Danny would join.

Duke had thought he’d be on patrol, but he’d be changing that response just as soon as…

Tim reached the end of the chat, stared at his phone for a long, despairing moment, then threw it backwards over his head and screamed into his hands.

Grinning to himself, Duke straightened and started backing towards the door, ready to run. The best part of the show was probably over.

“So, if we take your bike we can probably beat Danny and Jason to the mall?” He asked cheerfully.

Tim’s head snapped up, locked onto Duke’s phone, and his brows drew in. Duke ended the recording, turned, and ran.

Yeah, probably not both taking Tim’s bike. That was fine, Duke could head to the mall in what he was wearing.

He sent copies of the video to the family group chat and Babs directly, confirmed he was on his way, and stuffed his phone into his pocket without breaking stride.

All he had to do was avoid Tim’s clutches. No big deal.

Jason’s phone dinged and he glanced at it, then chuckled softly to himself.

“Guess Tim forgot to check the group chat,” he mused, putting his phone in the middle of the table where Danny could see it.

Someone had sent them a video. Well, sent Jason a video, but he was happy to share. Danny could just about recognise Tim, in sweatpants, massive eye bags, and makeup free.

Didn’t look like he’d slept since the gala. Or checked his phone, apparently, and Danny chuckled as he wrestled the thing out and began scrolling.

They’d gone through the pictures after finishing the pancakes, and they were all pretty cute. Danny was keeping some to send to Tucker’s sister.

Not quite enough to warrant the depths of that scream though, even if Tim did have the crush the Waynes all seemed to think he did. Raising a brow at Jason, Danny leaned both forearms on the table.

“A little dramatic, don’t you think?” He asked, lip ticking up into a half smile. Definitely a fun video, but he had the feeling he was missing context.

Jason chuckled to himself, glancing over at the other phone still beside the cooker. Danny wasn’t gonna ask. Better not have Bat stuff on his regular phone.

“Right, I forgot to tell you. Turns out they’ve had some trouble running down any information about Amity Park, and Tim spent most of the night beating his head against a wall,” he explained perfectly cheerfully.

Danny snickered along, then paused.

“Wait, was Tim at Wayne Manor?” He asked. Jason nodded cheerfully, giving a vague hand wave.

“Secret vigilante section, but yup,” he agreed cheerfully. A slow grin crept across Danny’s face.

“The same place Cass and Steph brought Tucker for their sleepover?” Danny asked slowly, although he really did know the answer at this point.

Jason’s grin was all delighted sibling violence.

“Yep,” he agreed again, popping the p. Danny snorted a laugh and shook his head, running both hands through his hair.

“Man I hope no one tells him that part before we get there…” he mused, glancing around the apartment. It wasn’t like he had much he’d need to bring.

He’d sort of been thinking about running home to change first, but Jason’s sweater worked. Now all he needed was pants. Not like the cold worried him.

Something else seemed to have occurred to Jason though.

“Actually… speaking of my family. You, uh… you’d know if Cass was like us, right?” He asked a little hesitantly.

Danny had to admit he was a little surprised by the question, but honestly? He hadn’t been kidding that the family was touched by death. He sat back, frowning thoughtfully as he considered what he’d seen of Cass.

Her death mark had definitely been the closest to Jason’s, but Damian had a taint of ectoplasm too. Still… if Jason’s contamination was faint, theirs were almost nonexistent.

More like a flavour in the back of his mouth than anything real. Way less than Tucker and Sam’s contamination, but that was to be expected; they’d grown up in Amity Park.

They’d been seasoned like soup.

Finally he shrugged again, leaning back in his chair.

“I would know, but… I don’t think she’s on her way to halfa status yet. She might be liminal, like the rest of my lot, and if she comes into contact with more ectoplasm it could always change? Why?”

Something had to have prompted the question.

Jason half smiled back, looking almost sheepish as he rose and started clearing the table. Danny hurried to help; they hadn’t put as much of a dent in the toppings as expected, but hey.

Snacks for later.

“It’s nothing really… just had the thought last night. Cass has a way of… understanding people. What you really mean, what you aren’t saying. Part of it’s body language, she was basically trained to do that more than talking, but… she gets me. Like you do.”

And that was just fucking adorable and Danny would be having the warm fuzzies about being compared to the clearly cherished baby sister later, but for now?

He frowned thoughtfully.

“I mean, there’s a chance she got some of the aura stuff. It’s different for everyone but the liminals… let’s just say you’ve heard Sam swear in ghostspeak, and when I say that PDA is part of Tucker’s body? I’m not kidding.”

Tucker’s connection to his tech was a little weird even for Danny still, who had to fuse bits of his ectoplasm into half of it to keep it running in the Ghost Zone.

Jason looked grudgingly impressed anyway, but still mostly concerned. They were talking about his baby sister just barely clinging to her humanity.

Danny gave him a gentle nudge of safe-won’t hurt-she’ll be okay, and knew Jason felt it when he rolled his eyes. Pushed fuck off-not stupid-I know-thank you back.

“So should we… tell her?” He asked a little more cautiously, a small frown on his face.

Yeah, wasn’t fun to tell people they’d come dancing too close to death to be legally considered people anymore. Though he’d have to take a closer look to be sure.

Danny pursed his lips for a moment, snagging an apple and taking a large bite. Chewed and even mostly swallowed before answering.

“Well, I can take another look at her first and see how bad it is? The little guy too, they’ve both been in the ecto. If it’s done anything to them, we can let them know then,” he added, Jason looking slightly alarmed that another of his siblings was… kinda still dead.

Still, might as well do their due diligence. Danny fixed Jason with a Look.

“But they’re gonna ask about you if we tell them.”

Seemed pretty inevitable to him, but from the way Jason’s shoulders suddenly tensed, he hadn’t thought about it.

When he hadn’t drawn another breath about a minute later, Danny gave him a gentle nudge.

“Look, it’s probably nothing. Maybe we mention it as part of your big reveal instead, once you’ve had time to come to terms with it. They gotta know to steer clear of those Lazarus Pits anyway,” he offered like an olive branch.

Jason grimaced.

“Trust me, we all already know that,” he grumbled, and Danny leaned in automatically.

It meant he felt Jason tense this time, but he didn’t move away. Let Danny take a little of his weight.

“Hey. She’s gonna be okay. Just like we are, right?” He prompted gently, and Jason snorted.

“Well I don’t fuckin’ know about you, but I wouldn’t call how I was doing last week “okay”,” he said sharply, and immediately shut down again.

Danny frowned, not quite sure how much he should pry into that. He’d never actually asked what brought Jason out to his own grave that night.

Obvious answer was something to do with the pit and its overwhelming anger, but just how much had it been hurting him? What had it been pushing him to try and do?

They really didn’t know each other that well, for all they’d been forced to info dump their lives. It was hard to remember, especially when things were going well; Jason just. Fit right into Danny’s life.

Like there’d always been a 6’ hole craving a musclebound tank to fill it. A sassy fucker who’d crack death jokes with him, tell him to fuck off and swear to protect him in the same breath.

Another boy who’d died violently, alone, and so badly needed the world to make sense again.

Catching Jason’s wrist before he could pull away, Danny pulled Jason around to face him instead.

“Dude. Last week you were alone with cranky ass ghosts in your blood, and no idea what the fuck to do about it. It’s better now, right?”

For a second he wasn’t sure what Jason would say. If he’d pull back. It felt like the other man was tensed and waiting for a surge of anger, something he’d have to fight back down.

Really wasn’t kidding about the pit fucking him up.

Jason was so fucking scared of himself that it made Danny fucking ache.

After a long moment, the taller man nodded his head minutely, and Danny grinned. Deliberately bright and cheerful. Nothing wrong here.

“Think how fuckin’ good it’ll be once you actually know what’s going on,” he offered and Jason snorted a laugh, turning away.

His shoulders were just a little lighter though. Just a little looser.

Danny considered tackling them, but Jason probably wasn’t quite in the mood to play horsey yet.

“Hey, did I remember to tell you you can probably get eye lasers?” He asked brightly, and Jason glanced back, raising an eyebrow at him.

That tiny smile on his face? That was Danny’s proudest creation yet. Definitely until his damn portal gun started actually working.

“I’m gonna be finding shit you’ve forgotten to mention for the rest of my fuckin’ life, aren’t I?” He asked with exaggerated resignation, like it was such a burden.

Danny snickered and swooned into him anyway, expecting to be shrugged to the floor.

“Well, great news about that, I don’t know if we can technically die of old age anymore? So you might be finding shit I’ve forgotten to mention for the rest of eternity,” he chirped, and Jason groaned dramatically.

Didn’t drop him though. That was another win.

“Not like I ever expected to die of old age,” Jason huffed almost under his breath, and Danny’s grip tightened on him for just a moment.

Yeah.

Danny hadn’t either. Not since he was fourteen.

Tim wasn’t in his office when Bruce rode the elevator up. That was… unexpected, but not unwelcome.

The poor boy had left around when Bruce was seriously considering throwing his communicator, and hopefully would be getting some sleep.

Bruce hesitated, glancing out the windows. Sunlight streamed in, the sun already past its zenith.

Had he really been struggling to contact the League for that long?

No, Tim was probably off with Tucker Foley, information gathering. Bruce wouldn’t disturb him; he was barely in the mood for his own quest for information.

Even the Watchtower hadn’t been able to provide any insight into Constantine’s whereabouts. It was frankly infuriating, though he did feel gratified by Clark’s reaction to his news.

Not that Bruce enjoyed upsetting the other man, but… well, it made him feel justified. Like he wasn’t overreacting.

Clark had hardly believed the scale of the problem at first, and Bruce had had to show him the logs. Which is when he learned another charming little detail.

The official Amity Park logs were purged. Tim had delved into deleted files to pull up the hundreds of missed calls, all of which should have remained in the file if they were hoaxes.

Someone had not wanted them to find out what was going on in Amity Park.

Well, when Bruce got his hands on John “Someone” Constantine, they were going to have a very serious talk about proper procedures.

At.

Length.

For now though, he forced the frown to clear and shook his head a few times. It might take him a minute to pull on his full Brucie smile back on, but he’d have time.

He’d need a full shower and change of clothes before he met with Vlad Masters, after all.

Constantine could try and hide the records all he liked, but Masters had been the mayor of Amity Park for years. Including, conveniently enough, the second year that Amity Park had been calling on an almost weekly basis.

One way or another, Bruce was going to get his answers.

Jason was… well, not fine, which had been the whole point, but he was doing better by the time they reached the mall.

Riding his bike usually helped, narrowed the world down to a destination and the wind on his face.

Did the mall have anywhere he could get that second helmet? He’d been slacking on that one, though since he now needed a lead lined safe (and probably something more portable to carry a fucking snacking supply of ectoplasm), he supposed he could work harder.

Danny clearly didn’t care, clutching his back like a koala and whooping into the wind. But not all of his prospective passengers were potentially immortal.

It wasn’t great learning which bad feelings didn’t belong to the pit, at least not entirely. He’d kind of really, really hoped this would mean he wasn’t always angry anymore.

Shoulda been smarter than that right from the start. He’d been angry as a Robin too, had been scolded by Bruce more than once for “going too far”.

Perhaps the seeds for what he was now had always been in him. Just needed the fertile soil of death to grow.

But it was easier to push those thoughts back without the weight of the pit behind them. With Danny’s arms around him, a warm and reassuring weight that kept him grounded.

Because hey, apparently a lot of things flourished from death, and awful jokes were also among them. And he just couldn’t make himself look at Danny with the same jaded, resentful eyes he turned on himself.

Danny was all light and energy and hope. If even he thought that he and Jason had something in common, maybe there was something here worth saving.

So yeah, he was doing alright when they made it to the mall. Tucker met them at the doors, still wearing a mix of hand me downs from most of the Waynes.

Had Danny thought to have him grab extra clothes before flying to Gotham?

The same Danny still wearing Jason’s massive sweater, a pair of Tim’s track pants, and his dress shoes?

No fucking chance.

Tuck didn’t seem put out by it though, grinning as he waved to the pair of them. He also had the promised Fenton Phone, which turned out to be… a single earbud.

Jason frowned down at the bud in his hand, turning it between his fingers. It was chunky, hooked over the ear and had a microphone, but he did have one important question.

“How the fuck do you call someone on that? Hell, you fucking told me it could text,” He asked bluntly, looking from Danny to Tucker.

As an accessory for a regular phone? No problem. But if there were more than three fucking buttons on the thing he’d eat it. In one bite.

The other two blinked at him for a moment, their expressions oddly identical. Then Tucker laughed and shook his head, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“Oh, the old versions we only had two or three buds that worked, so you didn’t have to wonder who you were calling. There’s an app now,” he added brightly, holding out his hand for Jason’s phone.

Jason hesitated for barely a second, remembering Danny’s comment about Tucker and technology, then handed over his civilian phone.

He’d already let Danny ectoplasm the damn thing, what’s the worst that could happen. Danny glanced over as Tucker began typing, then looked back to Jason.

“Texting works best with a smart watch. Do you have like a Fitbit or something?” Danny added casually and Jason rolled his eyes, leaning back against the wall.

No point asking what Tucker was doing; it wouldn’t involve an app store.

“Do I look like the kind of guy who owns a Fitbit?” He asked rhetorically. Fitbits were for boogie Heights gym rats, not people who worked for a living, claims of durability or not.

They might be minorly impact, sweat, and water proof, but explosion proof? Jason’d be a happy product tester for anyone but Batman offering that kinda tech.

Danny and Tucker very clearly did not agree, sharing another extremely pointed look that made Jason wanna ask if Danny had forgotten to mention telepathy, then looking at him with a pair of raised eyebrows.

“Wwwwell,” Tucker started, dragging the word out like he didn’t quite want to call Jason an idiot. Luckily, Danny had no such compunctions.

“You’re six feet tall, have shoulders like a fuckin’ moose, and thighs that could choke out a tank, yes you look like a fucking gym bro,” he said dryly enough to desiccate.

Wait. He’d been looking at Jason’s thighs?

Jason almost glanced down, shifting from foot to foot as he leaned against the wall. He’d put a lot of work into his thighs, and they did a lot of work for him, but he’d never thought about the aesthetic.

Tucker snickered and snapped him back to the moment, which was unfortunately where Danny was looking at him like he was hopelessly adorable.

Jason looked up and away instead, well aware that the heat singing the tips of his ears meant he’d be pinking up.

He was the Red Hood. Most feared anti hero in the country, not just Gotham. He abso-fucking-lutely was not adorable. He just. Couldn’t tell them that yet.

“So, no Fitbit,” Tucker said finally, still very clearly deeply amused (and yeah, Jason could see how he’d hung out with Steph all night), handing Jason’s phone back, “you can just use the phone, it’s just not as convenient.”

Which… well. Maybe before Tucker went home Jason would have to fill him in on a little secret. Get the app in his mask.

It wasn’t like any of them had hated on Hood at the gala, despite having the opportunity? He just…

Didn’t want Danny to look at him the way Bruce did. Like he was a dangerous disappointment. A loose cannon.

He wasn’t quite ready to face that yet.

He could make do with the phone if he had to. Not like he was planning on calling Frostbite while masked up, or like this’d be the last time he ever saw Tucker.

Unless Tim killed the lot of them. Not gonna write that off as a possibility until they’d all arrived.

Glancing down at his phone, Jason quickly identified the new app and snickered, stuffing said phone into a pocket.

“Oui-chat? Really?” Beat the hell out of talking about… whatever the fuck just happened. And Tucker graciously let him have it with only copious smirking.

“Yeah, well, you can tell people it’s like Snapchat. Or whatever you want, honestly. The interface is all in ghostspeak once you open the app, so humans can’t use it,” he explained magnanimously.

Jason hesitated for a moment.

“When do I learn ghostspeak?” He asked cautiously, thinking both of Danny mentioning Tucker’s liminality, and… well, Cass.

Danny, obviously following, shrugged and began heading for the doors.

“You probably won’t notice you’re seeing it? Which, by the way, was great fun before Sam or Tucker could understand it too. It feels like speaking English but with more… emphasis.”

“Danny doesn’t speak it much,” Tucker added in a stage whisper as he and Jason followed, “it’s one of his king-perks.”

Ahead, Danny groaned and scrubbed both hands down his face.

“It’s not a perk if it fucking sucks, Tucker. Where are Cass and Steph again?” He asked firmly, clearly hoping to avoid the next question.

Jason would die again rather than miss the next question.

“What’s the perk?”

“Ghosts have to obey any command he gives them, or it physically hurts them. And it’s not always intentional, so he’s gotta actually think before he speaks,” Tucker added slyly, with the world’s most innocent smile on his face.

“If only it fucking worked on Cujo,” Danny groaned again, picking a direction at random and heading deeper into the mall. They could make the food court and desired milkshakes in a couple turns, so Jason didn’t correct him.

He remembered Cujo’s file too. Ghost dog. Damian would flip his lid when he found out.

Tim definitely wasn’t mad by the time he reached the mall.

Nope.

He was fine. Hardly his first all nighter, and if he’d been beating his head off the bullshit cyber walls surrounding Amity Park all night while Steph just hung out with the answer at her place, that was fine too.

He’d get to see Tucker now. See if he could borrow the PDA, or if Tuck had any tips on how to get anything through whatever the hell was isolating the town.

Hell, if he had any idea what was doing it, more the better.

It was better this way, really. Tim’d had all night to calm down, to think, to process the sudden and horrifying revelations about Tucker’s home town.

He wasn’t going to go and freak out on the guy in the middle of the mall. He could just go, and hang out, and chat about tech like they had at the gala. The subject would come up eventually.

Tucker would still have his Amity Park social media. Tim hadn’t found a new one.

And of course, civilian Tim Drake couldn’t ask about the secret Oracle file. Totally couldn’t. But, maybe, if they could get around to talking about hacking again and mentioned servers…

No, this was definitely for the best, and by the time he was actually walking through the mall he wasn’t even mad at Duke anymore.

Not like Tucker was going to get to see that video, it’d be fine.

He was… kinda surprised to see Damian already at the table with the others though. Tim seemed to be the last to arrive, barring Dick.

Kid even had a milkshake already, being slurped moodily while Steph and Tucker regaled the table with some of their adventures. Tim hadn’t notice him respond to the group chat.

He opted for the table instead of getting his own drink, since he could see Duke still in line. An actual solvable mini mystery would set him up nicely for a gentle interrogation.

Tucker’s attention snapped to him even as he walked up, and Tim definitely wasn’t smugly satisfied that he promptly ditched the story and his chair to run to greet him.

“Hey, dude, are you okay? They said you had to leave the gala early for a medical thing, should you be out?” Tucker asked, hands hovering like he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

Like Tim might break at any second. Tim gave him a warm smile back, any annoyance tempered by the knowledge that Tucker… Tucker had probably seen some shit.

The kind of medical problems nobody could walk off. The kind where people did actually break if you touched them wrong.

Maybe his disappearing act hadn’t been a great idea. He felt kinda bad for worrying the guy.

“No, I’m fine now. Just accidentally banged off a table and hit an old surgery scar, Dick wanted me to get checked and make sure it didn’t mess up anything deeper. I’m good though,” he added with his best reassuring smile.

Tucker shadowed him back to the table, still flapping worse than Dick when Tim actually took a hit. The others gave him a much more restrained greeting, Sam and Danny definitely amused by Tucker’s antics.

With the pleasantries over, Tim turned to Damian.

“I didn’t realise you were coming, I didn’t think Duke had time to grab anyone on his way down.” Because Tim was chasing him like a bat hunting down blackmail footage.

But no one needed to know that.

Damian rolled his eyes and gave Tim a disdainful look.

“Please, Drake. I did not come with Thomas, Brown and Cain asked if I wanted to come on their way out with Foley.” And someone had to try and get actual answers, said the subtext, but for once Tim ignored it.

He had to, his brain just blanked.

“On their way out?” He asked weakly. Steph was watching him with a slow dawning glee that he just was not ready to handle on zero sleep.

Maybe he shoulda grabbed a coffee.

Damian gave him an utterly scathing look now, taking a hearty slurp of his milkshake.

“That is what I said.”

“I thought you went to Steph’s?” Tim asked in Tucker’s general direction. There was a low ringing in his ears, the world slowly distorting.

Tucker’s confused face was the only focal point left.

“What? No, Cass took us both back to the manor?” Tucker sounded even more confused, now looking at the rest of the table.

Tim let his head fall forward to thunk into the table with a heavy crack.

Upstairs.

They. Had been. Upstairs. The whole time.

In the same fucking building. Probably still awake when he’d gotten in.

He could have just gone and FUCKING ASKED.

Tim really, really, really wanted to scream again.

Tucker had gone back into a panic, hovering around his shoulders and asking if he was okay while the rest of the bats laughed at him.

The table creaked as someone leaned over it, probably Steph as she called gleefully into his ear,

“Oh, he’s just mad he didn’t think to come join us. I bet he’d have loved trying to break that unhackable server you set up for the Oracle, right Tim? Cass and I didn’t have any luck.”

Rolling his head to the side, he cracked an eye open to glare at her. Steph grinned back, entirely unrepentant and eager to watch her words sink in.

Unhackable server.

That he’d set up for Oracle.

That had closed after one use of the link, so Tim didn’t even get a peek at it.

That unhackable server. The one Tim had been planning to ever so gently tease the information to.

He’d just been letting the girls fucking play with it. Upstairs. Within a hundred feet of where Tim had sat, in the Batcave, fuming over both the server and the mysteries of Amity Park.

Tim was going to fucking kill someone.

Jason relaxed back in his seat at the food court, watching Tucker flutter around Tim’s shoulders with a broad grin as he sipped his milkshake.

Yeah, that realisation had been absolutely everything he’d hoped for. Poor Timmy was gonna have to learn one of these days to look past the end of his own nose when he had a case.

Not that any of the bats weren’t victims to hyperfocus, but that was exactly the point. The rest of them would remember to eat, and occasionally even sleep.

Timber would probably die hunched over his laptop before he hit thirty if they couldn’t teach him to at least remember he had a body.

He was kinda the only Robin who hadn’t already died, now that Jason thought about it. Maybe he was due.

Fuck Tim would be an annoying ghost though.

Beside him, Danny caught Jason’s eye and grinned as well, the two of them sharing a quiet moment under the rowdiness of the rest of the table.

Duke, his timing pristine, had arrived back just in time for Steph’s announcement and swung down to sit with a delighted cackle. He joined Cass in gently prodding the downed Timbit while Steph cheerfully explained things to their Amity Parkers.

Not that Sam looked in the least concerned, but she did look curious. Tucker was still flapping around like a headless chicken.

“Tim’s just not had his coffee, he hates hearing he’s missed all the fun,” Steph explained with a casual wave of her hand.

Tucker, ministering angel that he seemed determined to become, snapped to at the words.

“Coffee? I can run and get you some Tim, what kind do you like?”

“He drinks coffee like Danny,” Jason called across the table before anyone else could try and articulate the hell that was Tim’s regular order.

Tucker perked up immediately and headed off, while all heads (including Tim’s) turned to look at first Jason, then Danny.

Who just shrugged.

“Normal coffee hasn’t had any effect on me since I died. What’s your excuse?” He asked Tim, and Jason stifled a snicker.

They had had a quick talk about how much to give his siblings at breakfast. Because as much as Danny figured it was inevitable, it was also just… really funny to fuck with them.

Especially since so far? Apparently they had nothing at all. That was a temptation far too great for either halfa to resist. And Jason knew just how to play it.

Drop obscure little hints and reminders, and most importantly? Pretend they both thought the others already knew everything.

Luckily Danny clearly agreed.

Tim opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, then sighed and let his head drop back to the table.

“I hate the way coffee tastes,” he grumbled into the plastic tabletop.

“And he needs it strong enough to kill an elephant,” Duke agreed cheerfully, ruffling Tim’s hair and taking a big sip of his milkshake.

Tim rolled his head up enough to glare at Duke, then sighed and settled back in his seat, glancing around for Tucker.

“So, what happened at the gala last night? I missed the show,” he added, with a mostly convincing little pout.

If Jason hadn’t known damn well that Tim was off obsessing and driving himself up the wall the whole time, he’d have believed Tim had missed out because of circumstances beyond his control. Which, to be fair, his obsessive tendencies might be.

Not that he’d get that checked out or anything. But Jason had no room to talk.

Luckily the ladies had all been present, and were happy to regale him with the full details of Danny and Jason’s little closet scene, and Sam’s ensuing explosion.

The woman herself sat mostly silent and smug, content to let Cass, Steph, and occasionally Danny sing her praises. Duke couldn’t exactly chime in in mixed company, but he ate it all up with glee.

Their leaving had been all the catalyst for disaster he’d hoped it would be. Cass even had some video that she pulled up for them to enjoy together.

Which then led into what had happened for the rest of the gala.

Honestly Jason was almost sad he’d missed it. The video montages were incredible, and even Tim managed to crack a smile.

Tucker had returned before they finished the story, massive coffee in hand that Tim took a cautious sip of, before immediately downing half. So yeah, Jason called that right.

As if the world needed two syrup-and-espresso fuelled maniacs.

Tuck was still hovering a bit around Tim, but settled now that Tim had recovered enough to give him another smile and ask for stories.

Honestly, crowding the full group of nine of them around a single phone screen at a time should have been uncomfortable; just getting the bats together would have been a mere week ago.

But it felt so natural to come and stand behind Danny, tucked right into Duke and Cass, Tucker and Tim at his other side, all peering down at Steph’s phone. Even Damian, firmly on an end, stayed close enough that he could watch.

Little shit had probably stayed in Robin last night. He had an even harder time letting himself have fun than Tim did.

They stayed in the food court for a couple of hours, just catching each other up and sharing stories. No one actually asked what Danny and Jason had done once they’d disappeared.

Danny filled them in anyway, explaining animatedly how he’d kicked Jason’s ass at Mariokart… which Jason wouldn’t deny specifically so none of the others were prepared for Danny’s brand of fucking cheating when the time came.

He just grinned and casually mentioned that that was around when he’d checked the group chat. Dropped Sam’s theory on Bruce.

The fucking temptation to ask her about that directly was just omnipresent, and if Jason trusted any of them to keep a straight face he’d have done it the second the goth arrived.

As it was, Steph was already breaking into muffled giggles whenever she looked Sam’s way after that reminder, and Duke had his lips pressed together like he didn’t trust his face.

None of them doubted she’d have a full Batman-is-a-sugar-baby speech ready, delivered to Bruce Wayne’s assorted wards or not. Samantha Manson was not a woman to shy from anything.

Jason was just holding back til Dick arrived to set her off. None of them deserved to escape unscathed.

It was… nice.

Jason hadn’t been a teen in years physically, and a lot longer emotionally. This was what he’d always wanted but never quite had.

A carefree day at the mall, with all of his younger siblings for probably the first time ever, and his new friends too. Though Sam and Tucker were hardly there as just his or Danny’s friends by that point.

Tucker had gotten himself firmly adopted by Team Batgirl, and only Babs herself hadn’t yet ratified the decision. Not that that’d take long though, since as far as Jason knew, Oracle still hadn’t broken Tucker’s server.

Tim was doing a damn good job of not biting Tucker’s hand off for a chance at it too, though that might have been because Tuck had immediately promised to give Tim a link that afternoon.

Still, Jason was a little impressed; Tim had gone from exhausted grump to bright eyed and grinning, in just one massive-and-possibly-lethal-to-humans coffee.

Only a bat would spot the tension still creasing the corners of his eyes. The weight of questions he couldn’t ask in public on his shoulders if not his face.

Even Damian was taking his lead from Tim today though; keeping it light, just hanging out and getting to know the Amity Parkers. It’d give them a better shot at getting to a more private location to ask questions later.

Some shit needed a little more security than the mall offered.

Sam was probably the most reserved, but far from the quietest. She was more than happy to cut into any story, razzing Danny and Tucker with a proficiency that was almost sisterly.

If she was jealous Tuck got to spend the previous night hanging out with the girls, it didn’t show.

Even Duke fit right in, introducing himself with ease and enjoying being “caught up” to the story from start to finish.

It was just… so normal. Milkshakes became a late lunch, became wandering through the mall, became a trip to the park as they waited for Dick.

Even Damian reluctantly bonded with Sam over their shared vegetarianism and activism as they passed a hotdog stand that made Tucker drool. Their combined assault did nothing to sway the guy either, so Jason marked him down as a stomach of steel.

He could feel the others keeping an eye on him, the glances that lasted a little too long if he was quiet. Checking for danger. Checking in.

It should have riled the pit, it always did when he caught them before even if he could shove it back down, but today? There was nothing to shove.

He was still worried about Cass, but if Danny didn’t have a firm answer by the end of the day they’d need to bring her with them to Frostbite anyway, so he was already doing all he could.

She didn’t look half dead. But then, nor did Jason or Danny, right up until Danny did.

Honestly, right now even the worry felt distant and low, washed away under a wave of… well, it couldn’t be nostalgia for something he’d never had, right?

But it felt like finally having a wish come true. Every time he’d spied on the bats and seen them just relax, just be a family, and ached that it couldn’t be his. Every spiteful, lonely little thought that used to feed the pit.

There was nothing for them to cling to right now. Here he was, in the middle, laughing at their jokes and telling his own. It was so much better than he’d have ever dreamed.

A couple glances to let him know they were still looking out for him couldn’t hold a candle to that.

Vlad had to admit he was somewhat surprised to receive a message from Brucie Wayne just the day after the gala. He hadn’t even had time to arrange his little apologies for the boys.

And yet, here the man was, asking to meet him for a private lunch in what was practically an open invitation to overshadow him. Why, it was the perfect scenario he’d thought he’d have to make himself.

And yet.

For the first time in a long time, Vlad found himself unsure as he waited for the man to arrive.

Young Jason definitely had the feel of a halfa to him, though not as strong as Daniel. Jason felt more… incomplete, and yet painfully familiar to Vlad.

Almost as if the boy wasn’t finished forming, just as Vlad hadn’t over those long years of his change.

Now, an overshadowed Brucie could potentially be useful in introducing Vlad into Jason’s life a little more, had Vlad still believed the boy saw him as a guide and father.

That little display at the gala had thrown more than just Brucie’s usefulness into question though. While Jason certainly didn’t seem to care for Brucie’s authority (and who would?), he clearly cared for the man.

If Vlad overshadowed him, that would put them off to the same unfortunate start he’d had with Daniel.

Six years wasn’t quite so much to a middle aged man as it was to a teenager, but Vlad could admit that he’d been a very young ghost when he met Daniel. He’d been… impulsive.

And gripped tight in the throes of his Obsession.

Now, older, more mature, (and with a better understanding of what his Obsession actually required) Vlad had to question his original methods.

He had never wanted Madeline as some kind of puppet. The thing he loved about her was the very spirit that made her so resistant to him; taking it away would kill the only part of her that he truly desired.

And young Daniel…

The boy who had been the only other like him in centuries, if records were to be believed. Madeline’s son, and perhaps that had also clouded his judgement.

Oh, Daniel was brash, impulsive, sloppy, ignorant, and highly resistant to even the gentlest advice. He was also brave, loyal, kind, and capable of a self sacrifice Vlad still just couldn’t understand.

Daniel would not take him overshadowing Brucie Wayne lightly. Had likely come to the gala expressly to make that clear.

And if Daniel and Jason were serious about this relationship of theirs… that meant that Brucie would eventually be Vlad’s brother in law.

Just Vlad’s luck that the universe would saddle him with yet another hulking himbo rather than an intellectual equal, but at least Brucie had an appreciation for the finer things in life.

More in his head than ham and fudge anyway.

Still, he could tolerate it. Daniel needed some supportive adults in his life, and Vlad could acknowledge he had work to do before that could be himself.

Brucie should at least be an amicable father in law, and another point of contact to help Vlad persuade Daniel that he really had changed. Really had listened to the boy’s pointless ranting about doing the “right” thing.

Vlad still couldn’t see the point. No matter how unethical his own business dealings were, there was no ethical way to become a millionaire, let alone billionaire. While Vlad himself wasn’t exactly redistributing the wealth, that didn’t mean Daniel couldn’t once Vlad acquired it.

Too bad Brucie already had a neat handful of heirs to his business. Having Jason take it over would have neatly solved Vlad’d dilemma, but ah well.

If nothing else, he was resolved to try nothing untowards on the man today. Whatever it was Brucie wished to discuss, Vlad could at least be amiable, helpful, and see what the man thought of their boys together.

After all, the very last thing Daniel needed was a father figure who treated him poorly. The poor boy was already far too used to that.

It was almost funny how easy it was to convince their Amity Parkers to come to dinner at Wayne manor. Cass hadn’t expected it to be hard of course; she just got the feeling some of her brothers were a little surprised with how easily Steph floated the idea.

Silly boys.

Steph delighted in being the one who could just drop whatever she felt like into the conversation. It saved a lot of time that their more circumspect members would spend overthinking.

Cass knew she had a bad habit of overthinking everything, but Steph was helping her with it. It was easier when she didn’t have to speak aloud.

Making noise just didn’t come naturally to Cass the way it did the others. Her job had always been to be rarely seen, never heard; just a shadow.

It was a little too easy to fall into old habits around her louder siblings.

Sam also seemed to have noticed, because if Cass fell to the back of the group while wandering, sometimes the goth girl was just beside her. Smiling, signing their own little conversation while the others talked.

Sam knew curses in ASL that Cass had never come across, and some of them had to be spelled out. Cass made sure to remember those though. When Alfred had taught her to sign, he’d somehow neglected most of the profanity.

She had the sneaking suspicion he definitely knew all the signs, but it was hard enough to get the prim and proper butler to even whisper “fuck”.

Sam, Sam swore in all her languages as easily as she breathed. It might be a young adult thing.

Not that any of Cass’s brothers seemed to have grown out of it.

By the time Dick joined them, they’d wandered all the way to one of the downtown parks. Gotham didn’t have many open spaces that were what you’d call safe, but with Ivy both having been present, and now out of town?

Green space was about as good as it got, so long as you made sure you could always see your feet. The faint dusting of snow was mostly undisturbed once they left the streets for narrower walkways; not everyone knew Ivy was gone.

It was a definite improvement over the grey and brown slush along the sidewalks and roads, and it hadn’t taken long for Duke to cheerfully declare a snowball fight.

And by “declare” she meant “grab a handful of snow and throw it at Jason’s head”. It didn’t quite pack hard enough to do more than explode on impact, sending puffy snow everywhere.

For a moment Cass had almost worried, but Duke never did. He was packing his second snowball, selecting Tim as his next target, and sure enough?

Jason had actually laughed, dived knee first into a drift and began packing his own snowballs. The batfam scattered, no one willing to trust an alliance with their siblings.

In an odd contrast, the Amity Parkers moved into an immediate alliance, packing snowballs and selecting a tree. They must do a lot more teamwork in the field.

Maybe they could help train some of Cass’s older brothers in the finer points of said teamwork. Cass had been prepared to do her usual ninja bit, disappearing into shadows only to strike from unexpected angles.

And then Sam had grabbed her wrist, grinning and tugging her behind their tree.

“Help me build a fort,” the goth girl declared, a glee that would have shocked anyone fooled by her dark exterior all over her face.

A stationary position was more dangerous; it left them vulnerable to attack and siege, with few recourses if they were overwhelmed. A large group was obvious; none of the other bats would miss them for long.

Cass hadn’t even hesitated. She dived straight into the snow behind Sam, helping her scoop snow into walls and fortifications. Tucker and Danny kept up a steady stream of snowball production until they had a stack nearly waist high.

Cass could still pick out each of her siblings, mostly red cheeked and all bearing a dusting of snow. They’d immediately gone for each other, old rivalries taking precedence over quiet newcomers.

That was clearly a mistake.

Ten minutes had given them time to build a stock of weaponry and mount a defence, something none of the bats had bothered with. They weren’t exactly stationary defenders.

Their walls complete, Cass was happy to start pelting her siblings whenever they came into view, along with her new comrades.

Sam’s aim was particularly good. Unsurprisingly to Cass, who had had her suspicions about the thermos toss last night. This tracked with what she’d seen, and what Tucker had told her about Sam.

And honestly, given what Harley was likely going to do to Bruce, a knock with a thermos was only the beginning of his troubles.

Good.

People might not expect Cass to be particularly familiar with the damage words could do, but that was because they forgot that the victim didn’t need to speak back.

Bruce hadn’t meant any harm, but that had nothing to do with how much harm he’d done. And Sam hadn’t meant any serious harm by clocking him with a thermos, so that was none of Cass’s concern.

It hadn’t taken long for the rest of her siblings to notice the fort and try to adjust their strategies. Steph immediately tried to rope Jason, Duke, and Tim into her own team, but it was much too late.

There was nowhere within range for them to build their own fort without taking constant fire from Fort Amity. They had no choice but to try for sneak attacks… on Cassandra Cain.

Cass was deeply, deeply satisfied with how dismayed they all were when they realised.

Duke defected immediately, pleading for sanctuary. Tim threw himself on Tucker’s mercy. Steph decried them both as cowards, then tried for wlw solidarity.

Jason disappeared somewhere into the snow, which was still unfair for a 6’ mountain of man to be able to do.

Damian had tried to stay aloof from the vicious snow duel, proclaiming himself utterly disgusted by the very concept, right up until Steph dumped a handful of snow down the back of his coat.

The younger boy’s cries of his final vengeance had been what brought Dick to them.

And, honestly, it was Dick’s own fault that he’d driven his car right into the parking lot, flashed his lights, and asked what was going on in his cop voice. What had he expected to happen?

All participants in the snowball fight bar Damian had immediately turned on him, peppering both car and open window with snow. Even Steph managed a few flailed handfuls, Damian still sat firmly on her back and forcing her face down into a drift.

Dick had to duck down behind the door of his car, laughing as he was buried.

Which was, obviously, when Jason reappeared, rising from the snow like some kind of yeti and yanking the door open, hauling Dick out to toss him into a snow drift.

Duke broke cover, cackling in delight and charging.

“Get the cop!” He called, and Dick howled in laughter.

Cass hesitated for barely a moment, and that was long enough for Sam to decide. She hopped their barricade and charged, leaving the other three behind.

Tucker, Danny, and Cass exchanged looks, shrugs, and followed. They’d probably be heading right to Wayne manor for dinner anyway. They could have a last hurrah.

Far away in a beautiful leafy canopy bed, a phone buzzed. A slender, unnaturally pale hand flailed through the blankets, patting around to find the phone and almost knocking it further away.

The buzzing escalated to a beep, joined by a loud groan as a sleepy blonde, blue and pink head rose from the pillows to glower at the screen.

Saw a new message, missed from the night before.

Humming to herself, Harley Quinn flicked in her passcode to view the message. Soft heart shaped lips pursed in annoyance and she sighed, hauling herself roughly from the bed and patting the other lump in the sheets.

“Sorry, Pammy-petal, I gotta run. Our little kitty-kat’s having some big bad bat trouble,” she called in a sing song voice, pulling a pair of shorts from the floor to tug on.

Another sleepy groan came from the bed, a mussy head of red hair rising to frown tiredly at her.

“Do you need backup?” She asked, her voice low and rough with sleep.

Harley grinned, reaching back into the mess on the floor and shaking clothes from the handle of one of her favourite toys.

“Nah, babycakes, I’ve got a bat of my own,” she declared smugly, swinging the baseball bat over her shoulder and casting a last glance around the room. “Are you gonna be good here if I meet you back in Gotham?”

Pamela Isley, more notoriously known as Poison Ivy sat up slowly, stretching long arms up behind her head and twisting until her back cracked. Leaves rustled through the room, every plant turning slightly to orient themselves to her like she was the sun.

She was certainly the light of Harley’s life.

“I’ll be fine, Harls. I can wrap things up here in my own time and make my way back,” Ivy said with a slow, satisfied smile, glancing out of the window.

You’d never know that up until last week, the lush and blooming forest had been a series of office buildings. In another week, every last trace of concrete would be ground to sand.

Ivy had worked hard on her new formulas, and so far? The first test looked good. Really good.

Harley couldn’t wait to share her glory with the world. Rrrriiiiiight after she went and had another talk with her favourite rich boy about boundaries.

Bouncing back to the bed she threw herself back onto the mattress, pressing kisses all over Ivy’s face. And yeah, it sent Ivy tumbling backwards, laughing as her arms draped around Harley’s shoulders, but that was kinda the point.

Who knew when she’d have the chance to kiss those petal-soft lips again? Why, it might be a whole month! No, she had to get every last second of Pammy that she could.

She’d have plenty of time to get to the airport before the next flight for Gotham left. It wasn’t like she had much to pack.

—————————

Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @kyrianclawraith @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikoyuii @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @trickerdi @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @idkmrpianoman @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @eonic @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge

Next chapter:

#danny fenton dead and loving it #dp x dc #dead on main #dead on main ship #danny fenton x jason todd #dead and loving it chapter 9 probably #counting is hard #the mall episode #the one where we revel in tim’s self imposed suffering

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deadbydangit · 10 months

Note

I saw this somewhere before, but I was hoping I could request it here with different characters! If that was okay ofc, I feel like I've been sending in too many requests lolol

So killer gets pallet stunned by another survivor, but they get stuck under the pallet and can't push it off or anything. The survivor who put them then runs away, and so, S/o comes out of hiding and gets the killer out from under the pallet.

This with Ghostface, Joey, Spirit, Trickster, and Huntress possibly? But remove or add anyone you'd like ^^

No worries; requests keep this blog alive. I only have so many ideas. I hope this works. Please enjoy.

Helping them when they get stuck under a pallet.

Ghostface, Legion (Joey), Spirit, Trickster, Huntress

Ghostface

David swung that pallet down hard.

So hard that Danny got stuck.

You witness the whole thing, coming out when you saw David run out of signt

Make sure to take the opportunity to make fun of him a little.

He would do the exact same.

And he has.

He has a whole roll of photos of just you getting caught in weird accidents.

After you've given him enough grief, make sure to help him up.

Make extra sure his cloak fabric isn't caught in the wood.

If it rips he's going to be extra upset.

Kiss his mask, but don't pull it down. Especially in a trial.

Maybe let him get a hook in, his pride is wounded.

He's embarrassed, so don't tease him too much.

Legion (Joey)

He's been on Jane the whole game.

Something about her shit talking him or something.

Well, she was prepared.

She threw that pallet with all her strength.

Which is apparently a lot. Because Joey is now stuck.

You're going to need to help him.

He's the type of person to laugh too.

So don't be afraid to laugh with him.

Make sure he isn't too beat up.

He'll lift his mask and give you a quick kiss on the cheek before heading off.

Don't be afraid to give him a little grief later.

But don't expect the teasing to not extend to you if you do something like that too.

Spirit

That damned Yui had been taunting and flashlight clicking her the whole game.

And Rin was pissed.

She was even more pissed when Yui threw that pallet down and got her stuck.

Yui skipped off, smirking.

That made her even more upset.

What made it worse was that poor Rin is stuck under the pallet.

She's irritated, upset, and all around angry.

Don't laugh!

She's already feeling bad enough as it is.

Give her lots of love and brush any wood chips off of her.

You'll make everything a little bit better.

Trickster

Yun-Jin was pissed about something.

That pallet flew down with the power of ten men.

And you could hear the impact a mile away.

Once she was out of sight, Ji-Woon was nearly in tears.

It's actually really funny, but try not to laugh.

That would make him actually cry.

Pull up the pallet and help him up.

Brush the wood off his head and tell him is makeup is just fine.

Lots of kisses will be needed before he can even go on with the trial.

He'll probably come to you much later with an injury that never happened.

Sympathy points and all.

Just let him have the attention.

He'll pretty much die without it.

Huntress

Okay, ow.

But also impressive.

It's good to see Dwight getting a little stronger.

Anna was taken aback by the normally meek Dwight's strength.

But, the hunt isn't as fun if your prey is too weak.

She was stuck under the pallet. But this muscle lady was able to throw it off in seconds.

It did leave her confused, but she was able to shake it off.

She's just fine, but if you check on her after she'll be appreciative.

She'll even act more hurt if that gets you to kiss her head.

She's a bad actor, but just let her have that affection.

It just shows how much she loves you.

#dbd imagines #dbd ask blog #dbd x reader #dbd killer #dbd ghostface #dbd huntress #dbd trickster #dbd joey #dbd spirit

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mortumslab · 2 months

Text

Remembering to be Human - Chapter 1

Hello! This is the first chapter of an ongoing series where Sidestep (Arya) openly tells Julia she loves her, taking place at Hoots after therapy. This story is to fill the little hole in my heart until Revelations comes out. I expect to essentially write an entire ending for my own Sidestep. If I make some lore errors, please let me know! There will also be an NSFW version on AO3 soon, for now - it will fade to black.

Enjoy!

(TW: suicidal ideas, actions and thoughts - not in super extreme detail but implied. Bodily fluids - not that kind.)

Bonewizard

(p.s. below is an introduction to the villain in question)

“It’s times like these that remind me why I love you.”

Fuck. Did you say that out loud?

You did. You didn’t mean to, but your guard was down with how raw you felt after your session with Dr. Finch. And Ortega had those classic, warm eyes that always worked before you died.

You’re out of your seat and out the door before you know what’s happening. Hoots was dimly lit, and the sudden sunlight disorients you. You’re around the corner and retching before you know what’s happening, the panic attack at the therapists and your sudden burst of emotions completely overwhelming you. A second panic attack. Shit.

You’re dimly aware of someone holding your hair back - the bright grey, nearly white braid pulled away from your sight as you expunge whatever was left in your stomach. Bile splattering the brickwork.

“Hey, everything’s okay,” a voice says behind you, nearly a whisper and coated in affection. You’re trying to regain your breath, and Ortega rubs your back as you cough up the remaining phlegm.

“I… I didn’t…” But you did. You did mean it. You’ve circled this subject since she found you at the diner, but of course, you were reckless and careless with your emotions. With whatever remained of them, at least. Whatever Heartbreak might have taken from you, this remained. Somehow.

“I love you too… for what it’s worth. I should have told you back then, but I was… I was too worried about what everyone thought. And unsure of what I wanted.” Ortega’s voice sounds like it’s miles away, but yet so crystal clear.

You turn around slowly, unsteadily, to face her. She’s beautiful in ways you could never properly understand. Wiping the drool from your mouth, the taste of bile heavy upon your lips, you say, “I guess you might not want to kiss me now.” She smiles and kisses your forehead gently, lingering affectionately.

“Can we go somewhere to talk?” Ortega looks pensive, as though she isn’t sure if you’re sure about what just happened. You’re not sure. Loving her, you’re sure of. But why would you, Heartbreak, the villain? You’re hiding two very dangerous secrets and on the pathway of diverging them all. Heartbreak may not be a killer, and you know you’ve seeded doubt into Danny and Chen’s minds. But you still put half of the team out of commission, and, by definition, you’re still a villain. You still operate outside of the law.

“Yeah… I think… I think that would be okay.” The words tumble out of your mouth. You’d think the Rat King was influencing you if he weren't across town. The little guy seems to get so excited when your thoughts drift to Ortega. Everyone loves Ortega.

The cab ride is silent. Of course, you can’t read what’s on Ortega’s mind. It’s a blessing and a curse. With her, you’re normal. You’re not the alpha-level telepath. You’re just Arya. And ‘Just Arya’ needs to figure out what they will do when the silence ends.

On the one hand, Ortega is going to interrogate you. Gently, obviously, but insistently. Fleeing now would be silly, and Ortega wouldn’t let you. You’ve gone too far with your emotions. Been too open. She wasn’t ever one to quit, and now that you’ve said the magic words, she’d move mountains to reach you. On the other hand, you’re Heartbreak. You shouldn’t need to feel like this. Should you? From the moment you donned the armor, your behavior has mirrored Sidestep’s. True, Heartbreak’s mannerisms let you be more hostile and more flamboyant, but you’re still taking down villains. The museum, however, will be the point of contention. You lost control. You wanted to be stopped. Maybe not consciously, but you’ve spent enough time reflecting to realize this. Perhaps that’s why you’ve gotten so reckless, so bold. Each step in your plan to unseat the powers that be was more dangerous and foolhardy than the last.

You’re running scenarios, and every outcome seems like either your death or arrest. Or worse, remaining unloved. So what will the great Heartbreak do? The great villain, the one rattling the cages of the corrupt system?

You begin to sob uncontrollably in the back of the cab.

Ortega is holding your hand but seems lost in thought, that is, until you start to sob. Startled, you feel a static shock run through your hand, enough to pull you at least out of an ugly cry. Instead, you’re shaking with tears streaming down your face, ruining what makeup you’d put on this morning.

"Arya! Hey, it's okay!" She's speaking softly but forcefully. Trying to calm you down without startling you. Worried you'll tuck and roll from the cab as her apartment comes into view. She's not entirely off base, but she's cradling your head, and that would make it difficult to eject yourself. You don't think this is usually how telling someone you love them goes. But this is your first time, after all.

The cab lets you both out, and the driver gives you both a worried look before peeling off. He likely recognized Ortega and didn't want to stick around for whatever came next. Approaching the front door, your sobs are quieter as memories flood into your mind. Homemade dinners. Secret affairs. Victories won and battles lost, leading Sidestep and Charge to the same locale. It feels like home despite your awareness of how alien you are, how inhuman you feel, how incurably wrong you've become. Evil thoughts plague you again. You told Ortega you loved her and panicked.

You crash onto the couch, dimly aware it's not the same old beater you and she stole kisses on. Breathing more regularly, you look up at Ortega who looks startled by your erratic behavior. But she also looks wistful. Like she can't believe you're here. She sits next to you, sliding as close as she dares as if you're a wild animal, liable to lash out.

"So..." She starts.

You turn to look at her slowly; you're aware you look like a raccoon now, the reflection of the T.V. not pulling any punches.

"I died at Heartbreak," you say. Obviously, this is not what she expected you to say, and her knowing smile turns into a worried frown. "And I need to explain why I'm still sitting in your living room." You're not sure what your plan is, and like most things you've done as Heartbreak, you're improvising. Your stoicism and arrogance as Heartbreak crumbles around you. The mask you wear is cracking. Arya's and Heartbreak's alike.

"And... and I need to tell you what they did to me. What they made me into." You feel angry, not at Ortega but at them. At the Farm, the Directive. For making you break her heart. Maybe now Ortega will do you the service of ending your reign. Of putting you down. You can only hope as that's the best outcome.

"Arya, I don't understand. Who's 'they?'" She looks confused and worried. You sound like a conspiracy theorist. "And you can't have died, you're right here." She puts a hand behind your head, caressing your slender neck.

You need to move. Move. Move. Your brain is screaming at you to run, but your heart tells you to spill it all. You never told her this when you were Sidestep because you didn't realize how much you loved her. Maybe you did, but you couldn’t let yourself hope. Couldn’t break the spell. The dam is open now. Every secret will come to light today.

Jumping up, you get some satisfaction in seeing her startled - maybe it's just that you're keeping some level of mystery or control - perhaps you're just becoming manic. You start to pace the room, and before you can stop yourself, you remove the jacket you're wearing and toss it to the floor. Ortega is looking at you with as much nervous concern in her eyes as she had when Psychopathor fell all those years ago. No, don't get caught in the memories. You stop for a moment, then, looking Ortega directly in the eyes, you strip off the mesh top you always wear. As your heart is now known to Ortega, so are your chest and arms. Only your sports bra remains.

For a moment, nothing happens. The orange tattoos, marred with the apparent attempts to escape the Farm, and life permanently, are bathed in the light above.

"I'm not human. That is how I survived." You squeeze your eyes shut, unable to look at Ortega. Waiting for a strike, a bullet, a knife. Anything to end this before you have to suffer further.

But nothing happens. Well. Nothing like that. You sense movement and jolt slightly as she's standing before you. Ortega lightly caresses your torso, her eyes soft and pensive. Then she cradles your right arm, the one most scarred with your transgressions. She looks at you and asks, "Did you do this to yourself, or did they?" You know she means the scars, not the tattoos. "I did," you answer softly, not meeting her eyes. "Oh, Arya," she says as she throws her arms around you. She kisses her neck and cradles your head as she backs away. She's searching your eyes as if the explanation is there.

"What did they do to you?" She asks.

"Please... please sit down." You mumble. She does so without question and sits, her eyes locked on yours.

"You obviously know about Re-Genes. I'm a... a cuckoo. Built to deceive. To lie. To infiltrate. They grew me in a lab, boosted me, subjected me to psychological torture. Part of their process, I guess. It’s supposed to produce telepaths. And for years, I was fed the lies that there was nothing outside the Farm." The words are just spilling out of you.

"The Farm?" Ortega asks softly; she looks strange - a mixture of anger and fear. Neither of which are directed at you. You may not be able to read her emotions, but you have seen them before. And the target never lasted long.

"It's somewhere in Nevada." You respond. "It's where they make Re-Genes. Where they made me."

"So... so what happened at Heartbreak?" Ortega asks this as if the name alone will send you into hysterics. You're surprised it doesn't.

"When I... jumped... I should have died. Cuckoos are equipped with something called a pain gate. it numbs the pain for us. And that, coupled with the Directive being present at the scene, meant no one was going to question why an ambulance suddenly picked me up." You know this is going to be a difficult explanation since so much of it is likely propaganda installed by the Farm. But you do your best.

"When I woke up, I was back. Back at..." you choke back a sob, Ortega makes to get up but you wave her back. "I was back at the Farm. And I knew it was over." You watch Ortega out of your periphery, your eyes locked on the floor. "For 2 years they tortured the truth of Heartbreak out of me. Whatever she did, it broke me. It made me more powerful than the Farm knew and I had enough agency left to fake it." Ortega looks like she's about to interrupt and you cut her off, predicting the question. "Heartbreak was an experiment. I don’t know who created her. But the Farm wanted to know how it affected me. And her power did something to me. And I think it did something to all of us. But as a telepath, I was empowered... kind of. The Farm wanted to know more. The telepath gave me enhancements and powers that I didn't have before. At the cost of my emotions."

"What do you mean?" Ortega looks enraptured.

"I thought I needed to sacrifice something to escape her. Being a Re-Gene, the only viable option felt like the emotional need to keep living.” You stifle a manic laugh, it sounds hollow. “I’m not even real anyway.”

"You are. You're real. You're Arya... I..."

"No," you're angry. Not at her, not really. "I am a lab-grown freak. My life was always forfeit. And when I saw into Heartbreak’s mind what they did to her, I knew it was my fate.” This was true. You'd always felt like you weren't in control. “And then they left me to rot. To shut down. But I didn’t. I held on. And, after enough time, I escaped.” You say this so quietly. Because you know this is where you believed you were forsaken. Forgotten. Unloved.

And this leads you to your second truth. The one that's going to hurt the most.

"Ortega, they broke me." You hear the pleading in your voice. "They stripped me of whatever dignity I had left and rebuilt me. Took parts of my memories, stripped what they needed and filled the remainder with lies."

You know they were lies now. Ortega reached for you. Chen looked for you. The Farm lied to you.

"And I need you to understand that I only ever wanted them to face justice.” You’re afraid. This truth is going to get you killed. “I couldn’t let them get away with this. Not again. Not after…” You falter.

“You’re Heartbreak, aren’t you?” Ortega doesn’t look away.

If your brain were any more of a computer than it already is, it might have buffered.

“I… am. And I don’t regret the actions I’ve taken, but I do regret not telling you sooner.” That is true. Though you might never have told her had today not already been an emotional disaster.

Ortega is silent. She is looking at you, but you don’t notice. You’re on your knees now. Sobbing silently as you expect her to kill you. Kill you for embarrassing the Rangers, for upsetting the status quo, for being in love.

“I’m sorry for the lies. For hurting you. For hurting all of you. For being less than human and tricking you into falling in love with me. I think the Farm… I think they altered my memories.” Your eyes are still closed, head bowed. “They made me believe you’d stopped caring. I was so angry. I felt so betrayed. It wasn’t until I’d already… until I’d already become Heartbreak. Then I realized how wrong I was.” You were wrong about them, your friends. But you weren’t wrong about your cause.

“I expected to be stopped, to be killed.” You continue before Ortega can do or say anything, though you feel her - not her thoughts but the ozone. The burning taste was familiar, the one she had before every battle. But for some reason, it doesn’t feel directed at you. “I regret hurting the Ranger, but I don’t regret what I’ve done since,” this time, you do look up, and you falter as Ortega is kneeling in front of you. She’s so quiet for such a large woman. “I won’t stop. Not until I’m killed.”

Heartbreak hasn’t killed anyone. You’d never permanently hurt any other heroes besides the Rangers and Handyman. Unfortunately, they'd gotten in the way but you dealt with them as humanely as you could. Even Blaze. Though you hardly hurt him and really, you had seen a way out. Though that backfired. The money you’d stolen from Umbral had gone to charity, and despite you doing so anonymously, your name was still attached to it. News outlets had postulated you were simply a vigilante, an anti-hero. You know vigilantes don’t attack other heroes, though.

“I can’t go back.” Your eyes are closed again, tight. “If you’re going to bring me in, please just kill me. Bring Steel if you can’t. The Farm will get me again if you don’t and I would rather die. They can’t take me again… they can’t… I can’t…” The tears. You won’t let the Directive take you again. The thought it almost too overwhelming.

Falling.

Falling. Dying. Revived.

Tubes. Green. Terror. Torture.

Shaved head. Indecent. Exposed. Petrified.

You don’t have control. You’re out of control. They’re in contr—

Then there’s pressure on your lips. Hard. The heat breaks you from your panic.

Ortega is kissing you as though you’re her lifeline. Confusion races through your mind. She’s supposed to be angry. To hate you. To fear you. You broke her shoulder, you bruised her heart. You nearly killed her.

You break from the kiss prematurely, spluttering, “Wait, Julia, I don’t…” You never call her Julia… what’s just happened?

“I knew something was wrong.” She speaks for the first time in what feels like hours. “I read Ochoa’s article, and you called Heartbreak your origin story. Only one person returned from Heartbreak.” I’m not a person, you think, but you’re not going to interrupt this time. “And she seemed to come to the same conclusion. Someone who knew the truth was enacting justice. Vengeance, maybe. But righteous, nonetheless.” She pauses, looking at you with those brown, beautiful eyes.

“And I was following the threads. Heartbreak, the person, wasn’t doing serious damage to innocents or heroes. They were just causing the right amount of trouble. I was even wondering if you were even a villain at all. Chen expressed the same. Danny, well, Danny was hurt badly during the gala.” You look down in shame.

Danny’s scream has haunted you for months. Herald didn’t deserve that. “But then you started to train him, and we watched your sessions. More for education than anything else. And Chen and I wondered where we’d seen that style before. We realized we hadn’t seen it since Sidestep… and I’d seen it at the gala. The false pretense of precognition, the misdirection. You knew everything before it happened and were controlling the battle.”

“Then why let me continue?” You’re confused now, well, even more confused. You’d been as careful as you could be, but you knew the charade would end eventually.

“Because you were doing a good job… you alerted the media to Devereaux, to Carter. The District Attorney was following your leads.” She smiles softly. Oh fuck, she’s proud of you. She idolizes you. This was not the expected response.

You’re on your feet suddenly, pacing again. This doesn’t make any sense. She’s supposed to hate you. To hate your skin, your flesh, your ideals, your actions. Why? Why doesn’t she?

“Why don’t you hate me?” The question sounds weird, but then you realize you said it out loud.

“At first I feared Heartbreak. They—you reminded me of regrets. Of mysteries left unsolved. Chen had looked for you. He never told me if he found anything. But when you’d told me the people I worked for were the villains, you seemed so genuine. Even though you’d just beaten me silly,” she laughs softly, massaging the shoulder you’d dislocated. “My idiot self started to think about what you’d said. I usually don’t listen to the villain monologues, but with your name, it was hard not to. Your anger didn’t make sense, not until now, though.” She traces your tattoos with her eyes. She knew Heartbreak was hurting but didn’t know why.

“Is that why you never confronted me again?” You’d wondered why Ortega, of all the Rangers, never attacked you. Even Lady Argent had. And she seemed to do it out of enjoyment, rather than justice.

“Partially, Chen and Argent wanted to test you further. To some degree, they wanted to see if you were a villain or a future ally. Especially since you’d broken every expectation. The bomb that went off at Carter’s was the first clue. You helped Chen rescue over a dozen civilians. Without question. Then the money? Villains don’t donate to charities. And they don’t do it anonymously. Your actions with the DA? Unheard of. All without a casualty. Better than can be said for the Rangers.” Bitterness. She’s been doubting the sanctity of the Rangers for awhile.

“So… what are you going to do?” You’re confused and scared. She can tell. She can see you shivering. It’s not cold, it’s adrenaline and fear.

“What I should have done ten years ago.” She stands up, and before you can sidestep, she has you in her arms. The kiss is soft and tender at first. It deepens as you relax. Then she breaks away.

“I love you, Arya.” She says it with such passion you can’t help but believe it this time. It’s all laid bare. She knows you now. She might not know all the horrors you’ve endured, but she’s seen your secrets and hasn’t recoiled. “And I think we can talk shop after I show you just how human you are.” She lifts you easily into your arms. Holding you like a bride. You just go limp because otherwise, you might end up on your ass.

Fade to black - this is private (or on AO3)

#fhr #fallen hero #fallen hero retribution #fanfic #literally so i can get a happy ending bc I am sad

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absolutely-esme · 9 months

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My ghost biology head canon

I've found that sharing my head canons is a lot of fun, so I thought I would share more of my thoughts on ghosts.

First off, I imagine the particulars of how ghosts work being something that varies widely. There are some things that are relevant for everyone, but a lot of things that you would expect to be species-wide constants vary based on the individual.

Each person's experience as a ghost is shaped by their particular mind and what works for them, with some minor influence from their ideas about ghosts. While their assumptions/beliefs about ghosts can influence how they function as a ghost, it will never override their own nature and cause them to develop into something antithetical to their own self.

Do ghosts need to eat? Some do. Some don't.

Do ghosts need to sleep? Some do. Some don't.

Are ghosts bound to a place or object? Some are. Some aren't.

I imagine that some ghosts have cores that function like a brain/heart/whatever, are their one vulnerability, and injuries to them are serious business, like the fandom likes to imagine. I don't personally think this would be true across the board. Some would have cores that operate differently and others would have a system that doesn't have anything similar to cores at all.

Some ghosts might have something that could be called a core, but rather than a delicate vital organ, it's more like a combination of a lifeboat and the black box from an airplane. It's small and not especially powerful but virtually indestructible. If their body gets messed up too badly they can jettison themselves as a core and hide away somewhere safe until they manage to rebuild their body.

I imagine Skulker working like this. The "real Skulker" is not a tiny blob sitting in a cockpit, piloting a giant robot. When he's all suited up, he's experiencing things as the man-sized being he appears to be. That said, if he gets roughed up to the point where it makes more sense to just cut his losses, he can go tiny-blob-mode and bail before rebuilding himself.

Some ghosts exist split among multiple bodies because some parts of themselves work better separately. I imagine Johnny 13 and his Shadow are actually one ghost, but there were parts of himself he didn't understand and wasn't managing well that he was better equipped to understand and accommodate as a separate being. Johnny probably fought a lot with shadow when he was newly formed before stepping back and finally managing to view him with a sort of empathy that is often easier to offer to others than to oneself.

The particulars of Danny's ghost half were largely shaped by the dance of give and take between his human and ghost half adapting together. A lot of it either follows the lines of his human half or fills in the gaps, but it also follows Danny's nature in ways that always would have been part of his ghostly self even if he hadn't been a halfa. Being the child of ghost hunters actually left Danny with less of an idea of what ghosts were than the average person because he actively avoided thinking about it as much as he could, so a lot of his ideas about ghosts stem from his own personal experiences. His ghostly nature is fluid and highly adaptable, as well as eager to learn and explore.

Sometimes he develops abilities similar to things he's seen other ghosts do because "that's something ghosts can do." Sometimes he develops abilities as a response to whatever stress he's under (Danny will never admit he developed accelerated language acquisition because he was so stressed out about his grades that his ghost half interpreted the need to better understand purple-backed gorillas as a life or death emergency). Some just happen just because he grew that way.

Ghosts in general are not static. They learn and grow and change over time. The particulars of how they change over time are a bit less predictable than for humans, but it happens. They can have children (like Box Lunch) but the development of those children may not follow the same patterns as a human child's development.

I don't tend to imagine ghosts having "obsessions," exactly. The term "obsession" implies that it is unhealthy, overpowering, and impeding one's ability to function. Instead, I imagine them having something I'm calling "focal points" until I come up with a better name.

Focal points are things that are important, grounding, and central to a ghost's experience of the world. They may be activities or subjects of interest, but ghosts need to engage with at least some of their focal points with relative frequency for their health. Ghosts generally have more than one focal point and engage with different ones at different times.

Being denied access to one focal point in the short run will be disappointing but not dangerous, so long as they can still engage with others. Long-term, lack of access to one of their focal points can cause restlessness, anxiety, irritiability, and depression.

In some cases, a long-term inability to engage with a specific focal point may result in a focal shift, in which the focal point changed to something more reachable. This happens most frequently with a focal point centered on a person who is not willing to cooperate. While the focal shift is ongoing, the ghost will be atypically sensitive and prone to mood swings and experience an amount of discomfort proportional to how major of a focal point they are shifting. After the focal shift is over, the ghost should be able to function normally with no lingering ill-effects.

Not every focal point can be shifted and ghosts are highly recommended to seek council from a professional in ghost-medicine on any focal point related difficulties before making any decisions on how to proceed.

If not managed in a healthy way, it is possible for a ghost's relationship with one or more of their focal points to start bridging into obsessive territory, but this is the result of a problem, not normal functioning.

#danny phantom #headcanon #ghost biology #Skulker #johnny 13

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channajen · 1 year

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Story: Backpack in an Open Closet

Dannymay2023 story, Day 2, prompt: "Backpack"

posted on A03 (here)

Summary: Maddie Fenton has spent almost an entire week repairing the lab. She finally emerges, only to find herself alone at home. Where did everyone go? Enter Jack--the man with the answers. Answers Maddie wishes she didn't get.

Story below cut. READER BE WARNED. THERE BE SERIOUS ANGST AHEAD!!! No happy ending!!

It started like any regular Saturday morning. Maddie Fenton had finally gotten their lab equipment fixed during the very early hours of the day. She had been working for nearly a week straight—ever since the night she had gotten a good shot at Phantom. After catching the ghost trying to sneak into the lab to steal more of their equipment, Maddie had hit him with her latest design. He loosed a horrible screeching wail and completely wrecked one wall of lab equipment. Jack had run off after him and left her to deal with all the mess. But—that was in the past now. She’d already forgiven him. It was the start of the weekend, and Madeline Fenton was going to spend some quality time with her family.

She stretched her arms above her head as she climbed the stairs. The kitchen was quiet when she entered. There were no signs that anyone was awake yet. Huh. Everyone must be sleeping in… She wasn’t going to be angry about it. Even if she had stayed up all night to finish the repairs alone—again. She shook her head wondering what was up with her husband. Nothing some coffee and some fudge won’t fix. She smiled to herself and moved to the cabinets to get things started.

Half an hour later, everything was done. Maddie was surprised that the smell hadn’t brought Jack thundering down the stairs as usual. Had she even seen him since that night with Phantom? She had assumed that his persistent inability to catch the pesky spook was weighing him down and he was hiding out in the Ops Center. Now, she wondered if there might be something else going on. She decided to bring him his coffee and fudge in bed. It would be an awesome start to the weekend for the both of them.

She walked up the stairs and noticed that all the bedroom doors were closed. It wasn’t strange. Her children loved their privacy, and they hated her husband’s snoring. She smiled and shook her head—Maddie really loved her family. Once she made it to her bedroom door, she gently pushed it open with her toe. She nearly dropped the coffee mug in surprise at the sight of the neatly made bed. Jack had very obviously not slept in as she thought. Where could he be?

It wasn’t like Jack to just…leave…like that. He had to be around the house somewhere. He never made the bed, though. Something strange was definitely going on. She put the coffee and fudge down on the nightstand and turned back to the hallway. This time, she paid more attention to her surroundings.

The kids’ doors looked odd…what was different? Oh! Their name-plates weren’t on the doors anymore. What in the world was going on?? Hesitant now, she pushed open Jazz’s door. The room looked—too well made. There were no books or notebooks on the desk. The closet door was closed and nothing was hanging on the knob. Even her daughter’s purse and knapsack were missing. It was a bit bizarre. Then it hit her—Jazz was planning to leave for university in a few weeks. Her things were likely packed away already—Jazz always liked to plan ahead—and the young woman was probably out with friends. There was nothing to worry about. The thing with the doorplates was odd, though.

Maddie took a deep breath and shrugged. She had been down in the lab too long. She really needed to take some time to relax—after she found her family. Next up was Danny’s room. Maddie walked a few steps across the hall and tried to turn the knob. It wouldn’t move. Since when does Danny lock his door?? Maddie didn’t even realize that he had a lock on his door. She knocked a few times to wake her son up. You never barge unexpectedly into a teenage boy’s bedroom when it’s locked… After a minute or so, the silence in the house got heavy. Maddie shuddered as a cold chill ran up her spine. That’s enough!

“Danny, Let me in this room right now, young man!” She waited, but there was only ringing silence answering her. In a fit of…something…Maddie kicked the door by the knob. It flew open and slammed into the wall. She looked around and gasped at what lay before her.

Danny’s room had been stripped bare. All of his possessions were gone. The stars on the ceiling were missing. His drawers were open and empty. The bedclothes had even disappeared! The only thing that even hinted that this had been her son’s room was an empty school backpack crumpled in the corner of the open closet. There wasn’t even a note. He was just…gone. Maddie didn’t understand. Why would Danny have left?? There were no answers.

The scientist was frozen on the spot. How could she tell Jack that Danny had run away? He would be devastated; she was devastated. Maddie didn’t even notice when the tears began falling. Little pat-pats on the floor. Her chest squeezed tight, and she began to pant. Soon, the panting turned to sobs, as the mother of two dropped to her knees in grief.

Some unknowable time later, a large hand fell on her shoulder. Maddie grasped for the warmth. She laid her cheek on Jack’s skin and closed her eyes, waiting for his grief to come. She waited—and waited, until finally confusion gave her the strength to look up into her husband’s face. He looked…contemplative, almost…nostalgic? Certainly not surprised. What? Her confusion gave her voice. “Jack? What’s—what’s going on? Where’s Danny?”

The man’s face fell, and he sighed. A half-hearted smile crossed his face. “Danny’s home now. I helped him pack up his room when he had to leave.”

Maddie fell over on her ass. “You—WHAT? Why?! Why didn’t anyone tell me? Where did he go?? Where is Jazz? What about his friends???”

Jack looked at her matter-of-factly and shrugged. “They all packed up and went with him. It was quite the procession, if you ask me. I expected it when Jazz decided to leave with him, but Sam and Tucker surprised me.”

“WHERE DID THEY GO, JACK!?!” Maddie’s screams led to more sobs.

Jack looked down at her with an unreadable face. “They went home to the Ghost Zone. Where else would they have gone?”

“The…the GHOST ZONE?? And you helped them???”

“It was the least I could do, Mads. I mean, I am their father—well, Danny and Jazz’s father—but you know what I mean.”

Maddie stared at her husband. He had lost his mind! “Jack…honey…” She finally managed a few words. “Just how did they get to the Ghost Zone? I was with the Portal all week!”

Jack blinked at her. “Well, Mads, it seems we aren’t the only one’s with a working portal to the Ghost Zone. Vladdie helped us out. He’s got a really nice lab set up. He’s even let me stay with him this whole week. I think he might have actually forgiven me for that old accident back in college, now that everything has happened, and all.”

“Vlad…has…a…portal…and…YOU LET OUR CHILDREN GO THROUGH IT TO THE GHOST ZONE?!? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND???”

“Uh…no? And I think you got that a bit wrong there. I didn’t let OUR children go to the Ghost Zone. I let MY children go home to the Ghost Zone. YOU don’t have the privilege to call them your children anymore—seeing as how you killed Danny and all that.”

“I…you…I what??”

“You killed my son, Maddie. My flesh and blood. I admit that WE screwed up and killed him half-way with our stupid ghost portal, but YOU are the one who has been hunting him and who finally ended his human life with your newest damned toy!” Jack’s face was red hot.

Maddie didn’t know what to do or say. She had never, ever, seen Jack this angry. Not in the entire time she had known him. But there’s no way he was right about Danny…she hadn’t hunted him or shot him at all…had she? “Jack, what…what are you talking about? I’d never hurt our children…”

An ugly look crossed Jack’s face. It was a look she might have expected to see on Vlad, perhaps, but never on Jack. His voice was so low it was almost a hiss. “Tell me you didn’t know. I dare you. TELL ME YOU DIDN’T KNOW!!!”

“Didn’t know what?!?” Maddie was panting again, from fear, or anger, she wasn’t sure.

“Tell me you didn’t know that Danny was Phantom!”

Maddie flinched from the heat of his words. What did he mean “Danny was Phantom.”?? How could Danny be Phantom? She shook her head, trying to make sense of the craziness. Then his words hit her. “We killed him half-way.”

Oh.

Oh no.

OH NO!

“DANNY!” Maddie scrambled to her feet. She began frantically searching the house for something—anything to prove Jack wrong. He had to be wrong!!! She almost tripped running down the stairs to the lab. She booted up the computer and began hunting for files—but everything was missing. All of the ghost research, the portal information, weapons diagrams… Everything. Was. Gone.

Jack! What did you do?? She ran upstairs just in time to hear the front door slam and the GAV start up. What did you do?? She looked down blankly at the floor. Laying by itself near the door-frame was a small black plastic stick. It was an unmarked USB drive. Maddie picked it up. It was still warm—probably from being in Jack’s pocket.

This time, Maddie’s trip down the stairs to the lab was slower. She noted how the server lights were all blinking red, and the lights on the portal were off. She swallowed and forced herself across the room, stopping in front of the blast doors. A deep sense of dread filled her when she pulled off her glove to open the genetic lock. The doors came apart with a hiss and the room was quiet afterwards. The ever-present hum that had been the active ghost portal was gone. In its place was an eerie silence.

Maddie grabbed a flashlight off of a nearby table and cautiously stepped in the tunnel. The edges were blackened and charred; the metal, corroded by ectoplasm. The beam of light played against the walls dug into the earth and stopped on a blackened button that read “ON.” The button was clearly surrounded by a small handprint. Oh, Danny!

It was then, surrounded by darkness and wires, that the truth of the last few years hit her. Danny had…had died here—halfway, according to Jack. How long had he known?? Why didn’t he tell her? Were all of his “clumsy” attempts at “catching” Phantom just games? Was she the only one who didn’t know??

The paramedics who dragged her out of the basement three days later could only get her to say three words. “I didn’t know…I didn’t know…I didn’t know…”

~fin~ (for Maddie, anyway)

Jack's POV will be the next (and last) story in this short series.

#danny phantom #dannymay2023 #danny fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #angst #angst without a happy ending #friendship is forever #maddie fenton's A+ parenting #jack fenton is a good parent #dannymay2023 day 2

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satashiiwrites · 5 days

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Snippet Sunday

tagging @quietborderline @monsterrae1 @rosieposiepuddingnpie @tkwritesdumbassassins @outtoshatter @whimsyswastry and @missanniewhimsy with no pressure. It’s sunday and i’m procrastinating packing for vacay. Y’all know the rules.

Banner by me.

Title: Family, Familia, ‘Ohana, Chapter 13: Eddie POV

Fandom: 911, H50, SWAT

Pairings: Buddie, McDanno, platonic Deacon/Hondo

Fic summary:

When one family seems lost another comes back from the past. But does Buck want to return to the past or live in the present? And does his present lead to a future he wants? Only he can answer these questions but Steve at least will be there to support him

Tags/warnings: first draft. NavySeal!Buck. Slow burn (look it took us 170k almost to get to the first kiss), first time, get together, set post tsunami/lawsuit era.

The nurse gives him a warm blanket to wrap around himself while he waits for someone to read his scan. Eddie falls into a light doze and is woken several times by the orthopedist and then again by the nurse and neurosurgeon telling him that he’s cleared to leave sometime around five AM local time.

Each time he wakes, he reaches for Buck only to see the rigid line of his back through the tiny slit window in the door. Buck is never looking back at him, and Eddie knows he’s got his work cut out for him to knock whatever bullshit Buck’s been telling himself about Eddie being taken is his fault out of Buck’s thick skull.

But first, Eddie needs Buck to willingly be in the same room as him.

Danny Williams shows up at the time that Eddie is handed his discharge papers. Buck has disappeared in search of a wheelchair despite Eddie’s protests that he can walk out of the hospital. Eddie is irritable, hasn’t slept in what feels like ages, and wants a real shower.

“Danny Williams—I’m a lieutenant with 5-0, which I’m sure you know.”

“I have heard of you,” Eddie admits as he shakes Danny’s hand. “Any chance you can get me a shower so I don’t smell like roadkill left out in the heat for two days?”

“Sorry, no can do. We need everything on you for evidence and then pictures.”

“For trial?”

“Yes. Assuming we go that route,” Danny mutters the last part, but he hands Eddie a set of hospital scrubs and allows Eddie to change in private, leaving his clothes, including his boots, in a large paper bag. He won’t wear his boots without socks, and Danny has provided a set of flip-flops that are the right size.

“We’ll get you some regular clothes after the CSIs have their pictures, and you can use the showers at our headquarters. You signed the release, letting us use your records for the case?”

“Yeah. Where’s Buck? Did he have to go to LA for that wheelchair I don’t need?”

Danny snorts and smothers his laughter, ice-blue eyes dancing. “You give him a run for his money, don’t you?”

“I guess?”

Danny waves off Eddie’s confusion. “He saw me coming and hightailed it somewhere. He’ll be back once he’s talked himself into something possibly macho but extremely bullshit about you getting hurt.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Eddie repeats yet again, scowling at Danny.

“That’s the attitude. Keep repeating it until he believes it. The kid is too much like Steve and needs to have his little brood session before you knock him straight. He was terrified for you, so let him have it now.”

“Okay…?”

“I’m sure you don’t need my lecture on the care and feeding of your Seal?”

“I know how to take care of Buck,” Eddie firmly states. He doesn’t need to be told anything to care for Buck as long as they’re talking to each other. If Buck keeps hiding from him, he might take an assist from Kono if she’s available, but he doesn’t know Danny, and McGarrett will probably be on Buck’s side in things and be unhelpful if he needs to pin his partner down.

“Again, I’m sure you do. Just remember he’s a bit tender about you being kidnapped.”

“How could I forget,” Eddie says, pointing to the bruising on his face. It didn’t hurt since he was given some Tylenol and ice, but it was pretty spectacular looking in the glance he’d gotten in a mirror.

Buck picks then to reappear with a wheelchair, and he pales at Eddie pointing to his bruises.

“Buck,” Eddie calls, stopping him from disappearing again. He may play it up a bit how stiff he feels when he stands and hobbles to the wheelchair, making Buck hover. Give Eddie a few hours in the sun, a shower, and a nap, and Eddie will be good as new and ready to sit on Buck if necessary to make him listen to what Eddie has to say.

“Let’s get the show on the road. The sooner we get your photo shoot done, the quicker we let you shower,” Danny reminds him as Buck pushes him out of the ER.

#Family familia ‘ohana #buddie #911 #evan buckley #eddie diaz #Mcdanno #danny williams #steve mcgarrett #navyseal!buck #First draft #snippet sunday

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poke-me-with-a-stick · 1 year

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Chapter 18 of ‘Artificial Wingman’!

For the full story, click Here!

Enjoy!

---

Jason landed soundlessly into the apartment, his tired mind already running through different plans and scenarios. Absently, he tugs his helmet off, running his fingers through his hair as he thinks. He knew that the most logical move would be to get ahold of Harley somehow. If they wanted any chance of finding this teen before something more dangerous happened, then they needed to talk to Harley. Worst case, she dropped Demon Brat's boyfriend off somewhere in Gotham, leaving him to wander around by himself.

Best case, she still had him and was just hiding out somewhere, licking her wounds. If that were the case though, he could only hope that the teen hadn't wandered off on his own. It would be a pain to have to comb through all of Gotham's security and CCTV footage for a teenager who had no idea where he was going.

'I'm getting ahead of myself,' he shook his head. 'First things first, I need to tell Jazz.' Sighing, he turns towards the living room, pausing when he doesn't see the bright ginger haired girl anywhere. "Jazz?" He called out, turning towards his kitchen. Nope, also empty. 'Maybe she's in the bathroom?' The man started down the hall, glancing through the darkened doorways of his apartment. All the doors were opened, lights off, just as they had been when he left.

A bit worried now, Jason hurried back to the living room, rounding the couch in hopes that she had just fallen asleep or something. That wasn’t the case, he found. The couch was empty. A curse slipped from him when he realized she was gone. "Fuck. Fuck!" He groaned, dropping his head into his hands. Damn it! Why did he think for a second that the girl searching for her missing brother would just stay put?

"What are you groaning about, Todd?" Damian asked, slipping through the opened window. The teen must have gotten impatient, waiting for him to return to the roof.

"She's gone." Jason mumbled. The teen scoffed, crossing his arms as he leaned against the wall, his foot twitching slightly.

"What did you say? I cannot understand your mumbling. Speak up!" Demon brat demanded, glaring.

"I said, she's gone." Jason finally lifted his head from his hands, shooting his own glare at the teen. "She must have figured out he left before we got back or something." Turning his back on the teen, he searched the small space for anything the woman might have left behind. She had to have left a clue, a note or something…

"...bingo!" Jason exclaimed, opening the laptop she had left on the coffee table. Lifting the screen had made a piece of paper fall out, yellow paper fluttering to the floor. He was quick to grab it, crumpling it in his hast as he unfolded it.

Damian hurried over, his impatient yet disinterested mask forgotten as he leaned over his brother's shoulder. After a moment he huffed in annoyance. "What does it say? I can't see it over your shoulders." He hissed. Despite the tense circumstances, Jason felt a small smirk work its way onto his face.

Part of Jason wanted to tease his brother, but the smarter part of him didn't want to be on the business end of a sword. Instead, the man shifted to let the teen see it easier as he read Jazz's neat cursive script aloud. "Jason, if you're reading this, please don't be too mad. The Dot on the screen started moving, and I'm going after it. I'll try to meet you back here. If I don't, these were Danny's last coordinates." Below her neat scrawl, was a set of numbers. He really didn't have to think very long on where those coordinates would lead him.

"Looks like Harley took Danny home with her. Well, that makes things a bit…" Jason turned to look at his brother, only to find the teen gone. He didn't have to be a genius to know where he went. "...easy. Damn it!" He groaned again, fighting the urge to bang his head into something. Why did everyone want to disappear today? Was it too much to ask that someone just sit and talk a plan out? ‘Oh jeez, he was starting to sound like Bruce.’

The man ignored the thought, not really wanting to go down that particular path right now.

Pulling out his phone, Jason scrolled through his contacts until he found the one he wanted. Pressing it, he held his phone to his ear, praying she would pick up.

"...Hello?" A feminine voice asked cautiously.

"Hey, Ivy." The man couldn't help the small, tired grin that wormed its way onto his face. "So, um. Funny story."

—

The city was a blur beneath Damian as he moved, jumping from rooftop to rooftop and running telephone lines effortlessly. He didn’t bother to look where he was going, trusting his instincts to keep him from stumbling as he parkoured through Gotham. Sweat beaded on his brow, trailing down his mask before drying in invisible, sticky paths due to the harsh wind beating at his face.

Distantly, in the back of his mind, a voice that reminded him too much of his Father urged him to stop, to slow down and think this through. Logically, he knew that the best plan of action would be to get into contact with Dr. Isley and Quinn first, to check on Danny’s well-being and to garner permission to enter their home and retrieve him. But he wasn’t running on logic at the moment, was he?

It was almost like there was a haze over his mind, blocking all rational thoughts. Vaguely, he wondered if this was the true effect of the Love Potion, but the thought fled as soon as he acknowledged it, driven off by other, more prominent thoughts. All he could truly focus on were thoughts about Danny. Most of those thoughts were worrying for the teen’s wellbeing, if he was okay, if he had been hurt at all, if he had eaten anything. His other thoughts were about what he would do if he didn't like any of the answers to those questions. ‘It wouldn't be that hard to sneak into Arkham and break Joker's spine, would it?’

After what felt like hours of movement, but in reality was probably no more than half an hour, Damian spotted his target location. Harleen Quinzel and Pamela Ives's apartment was on a less populated side of town, and covered in lush plant life. More vegetation than any other part of Gotham. From an outside perspective, it was probably beautiful, the old brickwork covered in climbing and creeping flowers and ivy, small gaps exposing windows and occasional reddish gray blocks.

A flash of red hair was all the prompting he needed to hurl himself at one of the blank spots of the building. Sadly, the teen's dramatic entrance was slightly dampened when the woman slid the glass open, allowing him to twist and roll gracefully to his feet. The instant he regained his balance, he turned towards the woman, body thrumming with anxious energy even as he stared her down.

Isley blinked at him, her phone held loosely in her hand. After a moment, the shock faded from her expression. The woman sighed and raised the phone back to her ear. "You really weren't kidding, were you?" She asked, sounding exasperated. From where he stood, Damian couldn't quite make out what was said in return, but he did recognize the voice. It would seem that Todd had made that phone call after all. "Listen, thanks for the heads up, but I have to go." Isley turned back towards the opened window, pulling it shut again with a sharp click. "Yeah, I'll call you back in a bit. Take a nap or something until then, alright? You sound exhausted." She hung up, turning back to Damian.

She looked like she was about to say something, probably to address Damain's presence in her kitchen, but the teen was quick to speak first. "Where is he?" The teen demanded.

She gave him a look, one that he was sure she had given Quinn before, before she sighed. "Of course that's what you're here for." She muttered to herself, bringing her free hand up to rub at her temple. Straightening her back, she gestured towards the doorway. "The kid's in there. But there's something you should probably know-" He was off before she could finish her sentence. She growled something behind him, clearly annoyed, but followed him as he darted through her apartment, coming to a stop just at the doorway to the living room. There, laying on an old couch with his head in his sister's lap and two hyenas nudging persistently at his hands, was Danny. All at once, the overwhelming anxiety that he had been feeling all day faded, leaving a content and relieved sort of exhaustion in its wake.

He stood there, shoulders slumping as the tension they held was released, and only really acknowledged the fact that there were other people in the room when he saw a shadow shift out of the corner of his eye. Immediately his guard was up, the teen snapping around with a knife in hand to glare at the person sneaking up behind him. Instead of flinching or running like people usually did when confronted with his blade, Harley Quinn blinked surprisedly before bursting out into loud gales of laughter. The sudden noise caused Jasmine to jump, her gaze darting around for the source of the sudden commotion, which in turn made Danny jolt, the teen letting out a grumbling whine at the unexpected movement. Shooting Quinn a scathing look, Damian turned back to the siblings.

"Danny?" He called out cautiously, inching his way closer to the couch.

Almost immediately Danny shot up, lilting dangerously to the side as he straightened up to the best of his ability. Jasmine gave a startled yelp as her brother began to tumble off the couch, hands outstretched to catch the teen. Damian was faster though, dashing quickly across the remaining space between him and the halfa. Gripping the teen's arms, Damian was quick to pull him back up. Danny didn't even seem to mind that he almost fell to the floor, instead throwing his arms around Damian's shoulders in a poor imitation of a hug, pulling the vigilante closer with surprising strength. "Robin!" He trilled happily, awkwardly clutching Damian as close as possible. "Wh'n d'ou get h're?" His slurred words had Damian shooting his sister an alarmed glance.

Jasmine, who had stood up and moved out of the way, gave him a tired smile. "He was dosed with something. I still don't know what though." She scratched the side of her head in a confused sort of gesture. "Had to be a strong substance, to affect him like this."

Damian nodded, shifting Danny around a bit so that he could sit in the woman's recently vacated seat. Danny twisted with him, spine turned at what would be a worrying angle for a normal person in an effort to keep his grip on the vigilante. With a bit more shifting and cajoling, both teens finally settled down comfortably, Damian sitting upright while Danny laid with his head cushioned in his lap.

With a sigh, Damian let his eyes rove over Danny's relaxed form, taking in the multitude of bandages that covered his wrists and ankles. "Are you alright, Danny?" He asked the teen.

Danny nodded happily, a rumble emanating from his chest. "Y'eh," he grunted, tilting his head down to look over his own body. "I th'nk so. Don' feel an'thing." His hand inched its way up his arm to pick curiously at the bandage wrapped securely around his wrist, only stopping when Damian's hand settled atop of his.

"Don't pick at it." Damian scolded him, bringing his hand back to his side and gently flicking his forehead. The teen pouted in response. The both of them were so entranced in their own little world that they didn’t notice the odd tension that had filled the room around them.

“M’kay~” Danny hummed, snuggling closer to the teen. “M’glad y’re h’re.” He smiled widely up at him, flashing his fangs. “I m’ss’d you!”

Damian couldn’t stop the soft smile that replaced his usual scowl. “I missed you too.” He admitted quietly. If the giggle he got in response warmed his face a bit, well, there was no one to call him out on it. And it would be heavily denied if they tried.

—

"Should we go?" Jazz whispered, having crossed the room to stand next to Harley. The woman merely shrugged in response. Jazz took that as a yes, quickly turning and leaving the room. Harley didn't move from her spot, watching the lovebirds on her couch as Robin fussed over the hazed teen.

"Harley!" Ivy hissed from the doorway. Harley stuck her tongue out good naturedly, but still didn't move. Her girlfriend rolled her eyes before coming forward and grabbing her wrist, gently tugging her from the room.

"Aww! I wanted to watch the lovebirds!" She whined, digging her heels in half heartedly.

"Yeah, I know. But I really don't feel like bandaging you up when Robin runs out of patients and stabs you." Ivy retorted, depositing Harley on one of the kitchen barstools.

Jazz glanced over at her, one eyebrow raised. "Is it bad that I can't tell if that was a serious statement or not?" The redhead asked, a tired grin prominent.

"Ehh," Harley shrugged. "Not really." She stretched out across the kitchen island, tapping a random pattern out on the marble. "But he would have probably stabbed me. He's a very stabby kid." Jazz didn't look the least bit alarmed by that statement, only sighing as she nodded.

"Yeah, that doesn't really surprise me. Danny seems to have a bit of a type, when it comes to people who could probably maim him."

Well, there was most definitely a story there. "Oh?" Harley asked, tilting her head playfully. "I don't suppose you would be willin' to tell me 'bout that?"

Jazz seemed to ponder it for a minute before a sly smile slipped onto her face. "You know what? Yeah, I'd be more than happy to tell you. A little sisterly payback seems to be in order anyways." Oh yeah, Harley liked this girl. "So, a few years ago, Danny had a crush on this girl named Valerie…"

—

Jason sighed, letting his head drop into his hands. Relief warned with his exhaustion as he set down his phone. Damian was already there, probably holed up in a corner of Harley and Ivy's apartment scowling or something, so at least he didn't have to worry about that. Ivy had told him to take a nap, which he was seriously considering at the moment.

Sure, he had lasted a lot longer on much less than three or four hours of sleep, but with all the twists and turns the past day or so had taken? He really wanted to take a break. Besides, it wasn't like Damian and his dimension hopping boyfriend would be going anywhere else tonight. Meeting up with them could definitely wait until tomorrow.

A tap on the window had him regretting being hopeful. Of course, the moment he decides to actually take care of himself for once, the universe throws him a curve ball.

'Maybe they'll go away,' Jason thought hopefully, sitting completely still. The silence stretched on for a few minutes before a second, more forceful tap sounded. The man couldn't help the groan that escaped him as he lumbered to his feet reaching the window in a few long strides.

All the harsh words that itched to get out fled his mind the moment he opened the window. Sitting patiently on the fire escape, with a well worn messenger bag and a classic black duffle bag, was Cass. She was trusted up in her vigilante best, mask hiding whatever expression was on her face.

Jason fought the urge to bang his head on the window seal, feeling his nap opportunity slip further and further away. "Please tell me there isn't a head or something in there." He quipped in lieu of voicing any of his grievances.

Cass's shoulders shook slightly with her silent laughter as she shook her head no. "No heads," she signed. "But something too important to keep at the manor. Damian left this in his room." She held up the messenger bag. "And this is something important." She gestured to the duffle.

Sighing, Jason stepped back, letting his sister slip through. "I don't suppose I could get a nap in before we talk, could I?" He questioned.

She tilted her head in thought. "I don't see why not."

"Awsome." Honestly, he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Will you be okay alone here?"

"Yeah," she perched on his couch, grabbing the TV remote and flipping through the channels. "Take your time, Jason. You look tired."

This was why Cass was his favorite sibling. "You're the best." He told her earnestly, already heading for his room.

She smiled behind her mask as she watched him leave, waiting until she heard the door close with a soft click before turning back to face the TV. 'Yeah,' she thought, pulling her mask off as she settled more comfortably into her spot, ‘I know.’

---

(I know that there are probably some spelling/Grammar mistakes, but its okay because I tried my best!)

For the lovely person who made the prompt for this story, as well as the amazing people who follow along!

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