kich

Danny hates being summoned. He can’t stand it. Now, it’s not all that common- after all, who knows how to summon the King of Ghosts? But when it does, it sucks.

Imagine your heart being tugged out of your chest, and you have no choice but to follow it if, you know, you want to stay alive. Imagine being shoved in a tiny little cylinder and being thrown around like you’re the ball in a game of “Monkey-In-The-Middle”. Now multiply those feelings by 100. That’s how it feels to be summoned.

So when Danny feels the familiar tug in his chest during a calculus test, he groans. He finally discovered what Stoke’s Theorem was (despite its many inconsistencies), why does he have to leave now, of all times? He gets out of his seat and quietly asks his professor if he can head to the bathroom. The professor gives him a stink eye, but gives permission anyway. Danny darts out of the room like his pants are on fire and finally allows himself to be swallowed by the metal cylinder of darkness that is a summoning.

He lands gracefully, feet first, within the confines of a decently drawn chalk circle, clearly meant to protect the summoners from his wrath. Unfortunately for them, however, Danny is strong. Freakishly strong. The measly summoning ritual before him does nothing to stop him as he smudges it with his foot before walking through without so much as a twitch of a finger. He finally glances up at his summoners, already exasperated. Danny knows this abandoned warehouse like the back of his hand, after all, he’s been here countless times - all for the same thing.

“Guys, you gotta give it up. I’m not granting y’all immortality or resurrecting your loved ones. Please leave me alone, I just want to pass multivariable calculus in peace,” Danny sighs out in poorly concealed frustration. He left his calculus test for this?

The cultists’ leader steps forward confidently and recites his practiced speech as if it’s gospel.

“My Lord, the Ghost King, please grant us, your loyal followers, the gift of immortality so that we may follow you for eternity. Our souls are pure and will-”

Before he can finish, he’s cut off by a boot to the chest, followed by a flash of metallic red. Red Hood stands in front of the leader’s body, dusting off his leather jacket smugly (though it is quite hard to tell what the man feels, Danny thinks, what with the helmet and all). The vigilante turns to face the rest of the cultists, and by extension, Danny.

“I got tired of hearing his voice,” Red Hood (in Danny’s opinion, he should be called Red Helmet) states cockily, clearly smirking under that helmet of his. Danny calls back to him, “You got tired? Imagine hearing that spiel at least twice a month for a couple of years. Fucking Jeff, man, he won’t let me pass calculus in peace.”

He nudges Jeff’s prone body on the ground. “Get up man, you didn’t even get hit that hard. Stop playing dead, you’re no good at it.” As he speaks, however, the rest of the vigilantes drop from the rafters to the ground. They’re quiet- they’re trained by Batman, of course they are- but Danny senses them anyway.

Red Robin - Tim Drake, Danny’s mind fills in - walks up and cuffs Jeff, who is now miraculously awake. Batman sends him a reproachful glance, but Red Robin shrugs and says, “He already knew we were behind him, no use in being sneaky here, B.” As RR steps away to call GPCD, evidently to pick up Jeff and the other cultists who’ve just been standing there like a bunch of lost ducklings, Danny stops him.

“Hey, any chance you can get the police to go easy on them?”

“Why? Didn’t you say that they’re the reason you can’t pass calculus- which in itself is a really weird statement that I’m choosing to ignore,” Nightwing questions. They’re taking the reveal of an omnipotent, all powerful god pretty well, Danny thinks. He responds out loud, though, saying, “Yeah, but Jeff’s a pretty nice guy outside of the cult stuff; we get coffee sometimes. Plus they’re a nice break from the whole ‘I killed 50 people for you now give me power to take over the world’ nonsense that I get from others.”

“Anyway, is there any chance y’all could get me something like a doctor’s note for my calc class? I was in the middle of a test and I was crushing it, trust me, but I had to come here or I’d be ripped into a million pieces and I really want to finish that test because my grade depends on it,” Danny rambles, bulldozing over Red Hood’s follow-up question. The room, now clear of all cultists, is silent for a moment. Clearly, the vigilantes haven’t processed this situation as well as Danny thought they did. Then finally, Danny gets to hear Batman speak.

I was three months old when I got my first piercing. My mother placed an ice cube on my ear, to numb the pain, and then struck it with a needle. I didn’t cry.

I was three months old when I got my first pair of earrings. They were beautiful gold studs. Embedded in the center was a diamond—small, but nevertheless still a diamond. I never appreciated their value, not until much later, anyway. Mary Anne Bell had her white culottes and pink sweater, while I had my earrings. Once Mary Anne cut her hair and began dressing the way she wanted, she was free of the constraints that femininity placed on her. I thought that was what I wanted too.

I was three years old when I got my second pair of earrings. They were a gift from my grandmother, a woman who always knew what she wanted and how to get it, so naturally, I was expected to wear them. So I did. Every day, for the next few years.

I was thirteen years old when I started hating my earrings. In Indian culture, men wearing earrings is normal, almost expected. In America, it’s quite the opposite. I was constantly perceived as feminine man, at best, and a woman, at worst. Femininity restricted me, made me someone I wasn’t. I thought my earrings were preventing me from fitting in the way I wanted.

I was fourteen when I took my earrings out. The constant misinterpretation of who I was was too much, too overwhelming for my younger self to handle. So I eliminated what I thought was the source of the problem: my earrings. I put my earrings in a box, locked it, and shoved it in a dark corner where they would hopefully never see the light of day.

Curt Lemon was afraid of not being perceived as enough of a man, so he had the dentist yank out a perfectly good tooth. Even though his teeth weren’t hurting him (and probably made him happy too), he felt the need to take them out to prove a point.

This perfectly encapsulated my own dilemma. I liked my earrings. They were uniquely mine; thoughtful gifts from my family that represented a part of my culture. Even then, my earrings were, as I thought back then, the reason I felt disingenuous and felt the need to overcompensate. 

Taking out my earrings didn’t help—I just took away something that brought me joy. Mary Anne Bell’s fiance tried to constrain her into a box by limiting her ability to act on her desire to explore Vietnam in its whole. She wanted to be free from the expectations placed on her, and do what made her happy in the end. Like her, that’s all I wanted. I wanted my earrings to not take away from who I was, but to add to it.

I was seventeen years old when I repierced my ears. My sister left her earrings scattered around the house when she moved away for college; everywhere I looked, there seemed to be a reminder of what I gave up for my supposed masculinity.

I don’t know what came over me, but I picked up two earrings: one hoop, one drop. I braced myself for the imminent pain, but it was nowhere to be found. The hoop went in first, into my right ear, painlessly. The drop earring was next; similarly, there was no discomfort. I looked at myself in the mirror, and for the first time in a long while, I felt like myself. Once again, like Mary Anne, I was able to do what made me happy without worrying about others.

A beep awoke Tim from his frankly restless slumber. He rolled over in bed, picking his phone up. He audibly groaned, seeing an incoming phone call from Dick Grayson. So obviously, he did the sensible thing and put the phone back down, rolling right back to sleep.

One minute later, another beep rang through the still air of Tim’s bedroom. Frustratedly, he picked up and ground out a question.

“What the fuck do you want, Dickhead?” He asked through gritted teeth, internally seething. Dick, despite speaking in his Richie Wayne voice, sounded uncharacteristically serious when responding.

“Timmy, we need you at the manor. Bruce and I were planning to dress up to go out tonight, but our favorite club got shut down! Apparently they were dealing drugs, who knew?” Dick giggled, the very picture of an airhead. Tim knew better, though. Clearly, something was wrong if his brother couldn’t speak freely. Why would he go through all the trouble to contact Tim while there was an identity problem? His mind swirled with possibilities, but he focused on interpreting Dick’s words.

Dressing for a night out? Definitely code for going out as vigilantes.

Now, the harder part was their favorite club getting shut down for dealing drugs. Problems at the Iceberg Lounge, perhaps? Nevertheless, he had to respond.

“Oh no, Dick, that’s horrible! Let me come over, we can have a movie night together to make you and Bruce feel better!” He, admirably, tried to chirp out cheerfully. “Where are you right now, let’s meet up!”

A ditzy laugh came from the phone screen, followed by Dick saying, “Oh, I’m at the police station! This nice man found the owner of the bar trying to sell some drugs to me. I’ll see you soon!”

“Wait-“ And he hung up. What a dick (no pun intended).

So Tim, like the wonderful little brother that he is, got out of bed, pulled on a semi-formal outfit (after all, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises can’t be seen looking any less than perfect in public), and drove to the station.

everyone (including myself) is wrong i have decided that danny is NOT the ghost king he’s actually just the unpaid intern of everyone in the infinite realms.

It would be so funny just like:

Clockwork: Danny, there is something I need you to do for me.

Danny, exasperated but still polite (in the typical Midwest manner): Yes, Clockwork?

Clockwork: gives him some bogus task that involves something like jumping into a time stream and retrieving someone (cough cough batman?? cough cough dpxdc crossover?? sorry guys i live for dpxdc content)

Danny, eyes twitching: And what do I get out of this?

Clockwork, with a smug look on his face: I’ll pay you in experience. This will look very good on your resume when you eventually apply to jobs.

Danny, beginning a Grade One crash out: And… while applying to a very human job, I can put that I assisted the physical incarnation of Time on my very human resume and… get the job? Is that what you delude yourself into thinking? Are you broke? Is that why you won’t fucking pay me?

Clockwork, shrugging: I mean, you can always not accept the experience that I’m offering you, it’s just that the timeline will collapse and it’ll be all your fault. Your choice!

Danny:

Danny: fine.

The next week…

Clockwork: Danny, I need a favor.

Danny felt a pull on his gut- a pull that he’s intimately familiar with, a pull that is almost always followed by a summoning. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to follow the sensation, going ghost in the middle.

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne was sitting in the middle of a chalk circle, tied haphazardly to a chair. A cloth was stuffed into his mouth, likely because his kidnappers got tired of his brain-dead yapping. He internally rolled his eyes, waiting for one of the Bats to “save” him.

His kidnappers stepped out of the shadows, surrounding the chalk circle which was not actually a chalk circle and holy shit that’s a ritual circle and he’s a sacrifice and has the Brucie Wayne persona bled through to his actual brain because how could he have missed that-

The cultists began chanting in Latin, and Bruce began to panic slightly. Where were the bats??

Before they finished the supposed summoning, the Bats broke through a window. They took down the cultists with ease, readying themselves to retrieve Bruce from the circle.

It was too late, however.

The chalk circle began to glow a strangely familiar shade of green, reminiscent of the Lazarus Pits. Red Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood attempted to break the chalk circle, but a barrier went up and he couldn’t get through. The Bats were forced to watch in horror as their father- the man who took them in when they had nothing, the man who raised them, loved them, helped them, saved them- was consumed by green light.

After a minute, the green light died down. Siting unscathed in the center of the light was Bruce. The Bats rushed to him, ready to check him over, when he stood up robotically and turned to them.

give me gen alpha damian wayne. do it.

Now, I know what everyone is thinking. “Damian’s so serious!! He would never use slang!!”

I raise you this: consider how funny it would be.

I think it would go like this:

Damian, in the middle of fighting Riddler: Imagine being an unskilled, unskibidi, loser beta!

Damian, decking him in the face: Riddler? More like no-rizzler!

Damian when Riddler’s obnoxious hat falls off during battle: Fanum tax!

Damian, dragging a hog-tied Riddler back to Arkham: Bro got cooked, I’m literally hitting the griddy on you right now. I mogged you so hard, start mewing more then break out again. Chat is he ready to go back to Ohio?

Riddler: what the fuck

Later, in the Batcave:

Nightwing, trying to bond with his little brother by using his generation’s slang terms: What’s up, opp!

(He thought “opp” meant something like “opportunist”, referencing Damian’s ability to take advantage of all the openings Riddler left in his defense.)

Nightwing, not noticing the stony look on Damian’s face: You got so cooked today, better looksmaxx harder!

(He mixed up “cooked” with “got cooked” and tried to tell Damian that he should take a break and do some self-care.)

Damian: Get away from me, you bastard!

I like to interpret the Infinite Realms as what the name suggests: truly infinite. It could be the dimension that binds everything together, where everyone from every dimension and universe goes when they perish. Maybe these poor, unfortunate souls become blob ghosts, who knows?

Anyway, the Ghost King is the dude that has power over all of this. Essentially, he’s like the capital G God. Now imagine the other pantheons of gods. Greek, Indian, Egyptian, etc. The Ghost King literally rules over the gods.

When Danny defeated Pariah Dark, he became the Ghost King. It’s now his job to keep everyone under his command in line, keep them from destroying the universe. So, let’s assume the Justice League is fighting Ares (again). All of a sudden, this tiny child glowing green flickers into existence.

The Justice League is understandably concerned. How the hell is the kid flying? Where did he come from? Most importantly, why is he here? They ready themselves for battle.

Then, the child speaks.

“Ares, dude, we talked about this! You can’t try to enslave entire dimensions just because you’re bored, do you know how much paperwork you’ve caused me?!”