Dc x DP Prompt #8: Best Friend’s Brother
Preface: this prompt can be used with different characters but I’m writing it as Dead on Main bc that’s my favorite. Also the colleges I mention are real colleges from the DCU
~~~
Danny Fenton was 18 when he moved to Gotham for college.
It was the only place with a half decent engineering program that would take a kid with his record; drop in grades, unexplained absences, missing class, a disciplinary record, etc. Plus there was a decent saturation of both magic and ectoplasm in Gotham’s air. After he got accepted he decided to tell his parents he was Phantom. They reacted surprisingly well all things considered. They were horrified to learn they’d been hunting their son but it quickly turned into acceptance to listen to what he had to tell them. Now they turned their obsession from hunting ghosts to learning more about ghost more humanely. He also managed to get his former rouges to agree to call off any major shenanigans in favor of less destructive outlets. (He got Ember a TikTok and a YouTube channel, he set up a drag racing circuit in the realms for Johnny and Kitty, let Technus enter the internet as long as he stayed within Amity’s grid or help Ember manage her stuff, allowed Desiree grant wishes for Make a Wish Foundation kids so long as she didn’t horribly twist them, etc.)
Now with the town not at constant risk of danger and his parents agreeing to really handle any rouge ghosts, Danny could leave Amity with a clear conscience. His friends were also growing up and heading to their own colleges. Tucker was heading to Ivy University in New England, which rivaled MIT in terms technological prestige, and Sam decided on Vandermeer University in Pittsburg, which had a reputation for being a very liberal, anti-authority campus. Although their trio would be spread out, Danny found comfort in the fact that they’d all moved from the Midwest to the Northeast.
With promises to stay in touch a visit. Danny got set up in GCU’s dorms, ready to move into the next chapter of his life.
~
Danny Fenton was 20 when Tim Drake (age 19 but nearing 20) officially became one of his best friends.
They had been introduced to each other by their mutual friend Sebastian Ives for a new Warlocks and Warriors campaign. Their friendship extended beyond WnW when they ended up on the same Applied Physics and Mechanics class. It was cemented when they got pair up for a project in class and had to spend lots of time around each other.
Danny didn’t mind that Tim tended to be a bit flaky and Tim didn’t mind that Danny was possibly not 100% human. They didn’t ask each other too many questions about that stuff. They knew the other had something odd about him and that was fine with them. It was nice to have a causal friend they could be normal with, without being questioned about their more peculiar behaviors.
They officially became best friends when the built a Rube Goldberg machine with a working trebuchet within an hour of the three they had to complete it for their Applied Phys-Mech final. Danny introduced Tim to Sam, Tucker and Jazz. Tim introduced him to Steph, Tam, and Cass. They texted and hung out fairly often. They truly did consider each other one their best friends.
~
Danny Fenton is 22 when he meets Tim’s family.
Tim’s 21st birthday is coming up and he has plans with his family the day of and is going out with his friends, including a couple from out of town, that night. They want to take him out for his first drink and it’s fortunate timing since it’s the weekend so nobody has to worry about classes. Everyone who was going was already informed that Tim would be spending most of the day with his family before Steph and Cass would bring to the club everyone was meeting up at. Which is why it’s purely a coincidence when he runs into them at BatBurger during the lunch rush.
Danny had just picked up the part-time job to earn a little extra cash to pay for his hobbies. Tim new about it but didn’t know the exact location he worked. That’s why they were both presently surprised when they heard each others voices in the drive through. When they pulled up to window Danny saw his friend leaning over a tired looking black-haired man, trying to stick his head out of the drivers window to give Danny a maniacal grin.
He quickly introduced the other passengers of the car as his dad, Bruce, and three of his brothers Dick, Jason, and Duke. He mentioned he had a fourth brother, Damian, who was still at home. Danny couldn’t really see everyone all that well on account of they were inside a car but he happily greeted them as well. They laughed and Danny wished Tim a happy birthday saying he’d see him at his celebration later tonight before handing them their food. He could the rowdy boys ribbing their brother as the car drove away and Danny resumed his work.
That incident seemed to have opened a gate because now Tim felt more comfortable inviting him over when his brothers were still around the house. He occasionally talked about his family more and Danny returned the favor letting snippets of his own family spill a little more. Occasionally, he’d see Tim’s family outside of his interactions with Tim.
He’d run into Damian, and sometimes Bruce or Dick was with him, at the museum or in the park while the younger had been walking his dog and stopped to say hi a couple of times. He chatted with Dick a couple of times when they were both in line to get coffee at a cafe. He saw Duke on a college tour once and waved at him.
The family member he probably saw the most other that Tim (and by extension Cass) was actually Jason. He’d ended up ditching BatBurger to get some more practical experience at an apprenticeship at the auto shop Jason went to to get his motorcycle serviced. The two of them got along pretty well and would often make conversation when Jason was waiting on his bike to be ready or to get his bill.
At first is was small talk about little things like how he and Tim were doing in class or how their days were going but they soon grew to have genuine interests in each other. Jason let Danny talk about space and mechanics and even gave his own thoughts sometimes, once helping Danny realize he was over complicating the circuit board of the device he was building. In return Danny let Jason ramble to him about literature, even taking the initiative to read a book Jason mentioned so he could talk to him about it better. Their conversation tended to be on the briefer side but were always enjoyable to both parties.
Danny actually liked being around Jason a lot but didn’t really bring that fact up a lot around Tim as it didn’t seem necessary. Tim was pretty glad that Danny got along with his family but he preferred to keep them in separate places in his mind. Danny knew and respected that, only really mentioning that he’d seen them recently and that they’d told him to say hi on their behalf (or die in Damian’s case occasionally).
~
Tim Drake was 22 when he came to a horrific realization.
Well, perhaps horrific was a bit of an exaggeration. Tim wasn’t necessarily horrified by the revelation. In all honesty he didn’t know how to feel. He felt an odd mixture of protectiveness, possessiveness, confusion, and optimism(?).
You see, Tim and Danny had been hanging out in the campus center, studying and goofing off when he got a text from Jason saying he was coming to pick him up for family dinner at the manor since he was closest and Dick was busy picking up Duke and Damian from their after school clubs.
“What’s up?” Danny asked him curiously.
Tim set his phone on the table and started putting his stuff away. “My brother is coming to pick me up for family dinner so I gotta head out soon.”
“Ah well I should probably get going too. Tell Dick I said hi.”
“Actually, it’s Jason. Dick is picking up Duke and Damian,” he said shoving his textbook into his bag.
“Oh? That’s nice of him. Hey do you wanna just head out together?” Danny asked, fidgeting with his hoodie strings.
Tim noticed a slight strain in Danny’s voice at the mention of Jason but didn’t comment. He just nodded his head sure and walked outside with Danny. They got out to the street when Tim realized he’d left his phone in the library. He faced palmed and asked Danny if he could hold his stuff so it wouldn’t slow him down as he ran back to the campus center to get his phone. Danny agreed to and hold his stuff and wait for Jason while Tim went back.
After getting his phone Tim started heading back to where he left Danny when he saw that Jason had arrived that Jason had arrived and was talking to Danny. He was about to call out to them when he noticed several things in quick succession. Danny was fidgeting with his hoodie, something he tended to do when nervous. The tips of Danny’s ears were a light shade of pink (it isn’t cold out yet?). Danny looked deeply absorbed in his conversation with Jason in a way that reminded Tim of how he talked about space. And Jason seemed just as absorbed in the conversation as well.
The gears in Tim’s head went into overdrive and he realized ‘Ah- Danny has a crush on Jason’. His eyes widened as his head whipped around to examine Jason again. He saw a look of genuine fondness in his eyes. Thus Tim was confronted with the aforementioned horrific realization and complicated feelings. Tim didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or both.
‘My dumbass best friend has a crush on my brother. And worse(?), my idiot brother returns those feelings.’
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Danielle and Danyal's meeting... very, very quickly goes very sour from, basically, the moment Danny steps into his room and finds Ellie sitting on his bed (strike one) and reading the comic books Tucker introduced him to (strike two). By the time she's looked up to address him, Danny has the door locked, and a hand hovering near the knife hidden under his shirt.
She gets her third strike when Danny, in a voice that could make the mountains tremble, demands to know how she got into his room, and she lies (with uncertainty of her decision growing in her chest) that Jazz let her in. Danny's hand shifts closer to his weapon, and he turns towards her fully, and says that Jazz would never let someone he didn’t know into his room, and who was she.
(Vlad Masters had underprepared Danielle for her meeting with Danny -- not out of any completely direct malicious intent, but he failed to mention just how... 'touchy' Daniel could be -- he failed to mention the scars littering up his arms, unhidden by the hoodie tee he meets Ellie in. He failed to mention that along with those scars, that Danny was visibly lean, capable of doing very real damage without the use of his powers.)
(He tells Ellie that he’s adopted, and that he is observant and clever, but ungrateful and has a bad attitude.)
Her final strike occurs when Ellie, trying to keep her facade of cheeriness, tells him that she’s his third cousin once removed. Immediately, Danny has his dagger pulled out, and Ellie finds herself with the cold metal of a blade pressing against her throat.
Danyal 'A.G' Fenton hasn’t killed since he arrived in Amity Park. At first it was because mother told him to keep a low profile, and killing would do the opposite of that. But, he's been slowly learning from his sister and friends over the years the value of human life. So it's become a combination of keeping his head down, and also that life has value to it.
But. That doesn’t mean he can’t kill, nor is he opposed to doing it if the situation calls for it. It just means that he doesn't do it. And ‘Danielle’ is an unknown in his room, claiming to be family to him, and appearing uncannily similar to him and his family. Either someone hired her and she was trying to pass herself off as a relative to him because that someone realized Danny was the biggest threat, or, his false death has been compromised, his mother was unable to tell him, and the league was aware he was alive.
No matter how he looks at it, this Danielle was a threat to him, his sister, his friends, to Damian, and to the Drs. Fenton. Danyal Fenton doesn't kill, but he has no problems doing so.
(Ellie, pinned under Danny’s knee and the blade to her neck, is too terrified to think of phasing out of his hold. Not that it would help, he would just chase after her.)
“You have broken into my home, dared to lie to my face, and when I demanded to know the truth, you dared lie to me again." Danny's scowl could cower even Skulker, his glacier blue eyes burning. "Your continual breath has been a favor from me, that I have graciously allowed, from the moment you entered my room, dahkil."
"So I will ask one more time," he hisses, "who. are. you."
Danielle, only a few months old, unprepared for the ice storm that is "Daniel" Fenton, and his clone in only flesh and blood, and not memories, immediately breaks. And tells him that she was his clone, that Vlad sent her to come capture him, and to please not kill her.
Danny's face twists with anger, Ellie thinks he's going to kill her anyways. Instead, he withdraws his knife and gets off her, stringing out curses in Arabic as he sheathes his weapon back into its hiding place faster than Ellie can blink.
He switches to English as she is collecting her bearings (and contemplating fleeing), and Danny paces the room like a tiger in a cage. "--of course that wretched, arrogant, peacocking little ingrate would do something so infuriating. I should have driven my sword into the shrivel of his heart when I had the chance--"
Ellie, for a moment, thinks of leaving while he is distracted. And starts to slowly creep away. But Danny notices instantly, and whirls on her. His too-bright eyes bore into her head: "Where do you think you're going."
"...I'm leaving."
And Danny scoffs at her, "Why? So you can fly back to Masters and tell him that you failed to capture me, and that I know that he cloned me?" He says, and Ellie remains silent -- that's exactly what she was going to do. "He will destroy you within seconds."
Of course, Ellie rears back in offense, and she finds the footing to glare at him. "He would not! He's my dad, he loves me!"
Danny gets in her face, glowering back with an equal intensity. "He does not." He snaps, "Vlad Masters has not a soul in his body nor a heart in his chest. He would sooner cut off the hand that helps him stand, than to take it along with him."
"If you're really made of my blood, then I will teach you only this: we bow not our heads nor our hearts to anyone." Danny's too-blue eyes narrow, and his voice dips into a hiss, "Especially not to a conniving snake like Masters. Your heart: cut it off, or cut it out. He will sooner leave you to bleed."
Then, he unlocks the door and drags her out before she has much time to act. And as he drags her down the hall he shoots Sam and Tucker a text, and they meet up at Nasty Burger. Ellie is a spitfire, but Danny has her too intimidated to leave.
"This is Danielle," he tells them bluntly as he corners her into the booth, "she's my clone. Masters created her."
Ellie is with them for a week, and somehow throughout that time, Danny manages to actually get her to like him throughout that time. He's callous, blunt, and full of sharp edges that you can cut yourself on. But when he's not spitting venom, he's fretting.
When he drags her back to the house after being with Sam and Tucker, he pulls her to Jazz's room and opens the door to tell her the same thing. "This is Danielle." He says upon abruptly opening the door, interrupting Jazz's studying as he pulls Ellie inside. "She is my clone, Masters created her. She needs clothes."
Then he turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him. Ellie, in that moment, thinks that now's her chance to flee. But Jazz then squeals, and she is trapped in new arms, shaken around by Jazz Fenton, excited for a sister.
(Ellie finds herself complaining to Jazz that night, shoved into old pajamas. She's in utter disbelief that Jazz could care about a jerk like Danny.)
("He's rough around the edges, but Danny does care." Jazz tells her, combing through her hair with her fingers. "We've been working on it ever since he joined the family, but Danny warms up slowly. He's usually less stoney; I think your arrival spooked him.")
("Spooked him?" Ellie repeats, she doesn't believe it at all. "He has a funny way of showing it, he threatened to kill me!" And she turns around just in time to see Jazz's press her lips into a line.)
("He's... very protective. He'll deny if you ask him, but he worries a lot." Jazz's fingers find her hair again. "What I do know for certain though, is that he wouldn't have kept you here if he wasn't worried about you at least a little bit.")
(Ellie doubts it.)
But Ellie is indeed there for a week, and the day after her initially rocky introduction with Danny, he is a little bit kinder to her. Still kinda a bitch, but he's less harsh to her, if... almost uncomfortable around her. Flighty, kinda.
Whenever she gets mouthy at him though, he looks oddly smug about it and, infuriatingly enough, praises her attitude. He is very, very annoying. And still kinda terrifying. But hearing him shout insults via puns at someone during a ghost fight that happens that week lessens the intimidating factor,,, a little bit.
Things go about,,,, relatively,,,, similar to canon. In the sense that it ends with Ellie defecting from Vlad because she finds out that Danny was right and that Vlad didn't actually care about her. (And that Jazz had been right too; Danny, in his weird, mean way, had been worried about her as well)
Danny looks out of his depth as she talks about how he was right, and he cuts her off with a vaguely uncomfortable clearing of his throat. And gives her the most awkward, but genuine apology he can muster.
"I should've used more tact when telling you about Masters, and I... apologize for threatening you when we met. I was..." he makes a face like he's sucked on a particularly sour lemon, "worried. First about my family, and then later about you."
(Ellie will be damned: Jazz was right)
Before Ellie leaves, Danny puts a hand on her shoulder and tells her: "I wasn't kidding about what I said to you when we first met: you are of my blood, and as such, you do not bow your head nor your heart to anyone."
Ellie looks at him, thinks about the last week, and smiles like she's caught him in a trap. "What about Sam and Tucker then? And Jazz?"
Danny smiles, it's awkward and tilted, like his face isn't used to the gesture. "We bow not our hearts, but that doesn't mean we can't share."
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