Let there be random!

AKA "Red Robin jokingly says I'll protect you to a civilian Danny Fenton, unaware this is a ghost proposal. Danny, also unaware this is a ghost proposal, accidentally accepts. So, uh... cue the awkward honeymoon phase?" Dead Tired DPxDC prompt idea!

Or: Tim Drake is a simp with a helping of gratuitously hot Danny Fenton

Red Robin is a disaster bisexual on a good day and a desperate simp every other day, or that's what Jason tells him. But seeing Daniel Fenton - Gotham-U aerospace genius and terrifyingly hot kinda-sorta-crush - about to get mugged feels like a good opportunity for Tim to show he's above all that. He's a hardened, experienced vigilante. He can do this.

Except Danny throws a punch hard enough to drop one of the muggers like a bag of bricks. His blue eyes almost glow in the dark, expression curling into something snarky and surprisingly self-confident. (Tim absolutely does not find that attractive, no. He's a professional.) Red Robin drops down into the alley with familiar ease, bo staff already swinging on the second thug. Danny's on the third one like an animal, slamming the poor guy into the wall so hard his head ricochets off the wall and he slumps in Danny's hold.

He's only wearing fitted white tee and jeans, the same outfit he was earlier on campus, so Tim can see the way his biceps flex and his pecs strain the chest of his tee when his shoulders roll back.

"Wow," Danny drawls. His midwestern accent should sound tacky, but Tim feels a flush burn his pale skin. Thank god for masks. "I was almost a goner there. Thanks for the save, Red."

Tim thinks very, very hard so he doesn't stutter. He's sarcastic and quick-witted, the smartest detective since Batman. He can flirt. (And maybe he's using his Red Robin mask for confidence, but who cares? The amount of times he's gotten tongue tied when trying to ask Danny out, despite sharing four gen ed classes with him, makes him want to claw his eyes out in embarrassment. Tim needs this win.)

"Seems more like an assist than a save. But I can be your knight in shining armor any day." Oh, god. That was the worst pick up line. Tim wishes one of the thugs would suddenly wake up and fight back just so he could get distracted from his utter failure of attempted flirting. Just as Tim's about to backtrack, apologize and say he's just joking, Danny laughs. A giddy, I-can't-believe-I'm-talking-to-you laugh that Tim's personally familiar with. He's suddenly dumbstruck by the idea that Danny might want to flirt with him back.

"Yeah? You'll be my knight?" Danny smiles earnestly, the usual nonchalant bad boy expression softening into something awkwardly endearing.

"Yeah," Tim agrees breathlessly. Jokingly, he adds, "I'll protect you."

As if Danny needs it. Clearly, he's more than able to protect himself, considering how easily he cleared two absurdly jacked muggers. He also has the intelligence of a potentially terrifying Rogue. And he's hot with his tight t-shirts and piercings and perfectly messy hair. And he's funny, matches Tim's sarcasm with his own snark, unashamed of the things he cares about with a passion. Anyways.

"I'll walk you home?" Tim means to sound confident and assured, like how he normally is as Red Robin, but it comes out almost bashful. And he is bashful... bashing his damn head against a wall. Ugh. Get it together, man! Danny laughs again and it's like the stars twinkling or something. It's beautiful. He wants to hear it all the time.

"Yeah. That's-uh, I'd like that." His crush smiles, a flush starting to dust over his ears and cheeks, and Tim turns to tie up the muggers so Danny can't see the goofy smile that takes over his face.

(The next morning, after taking Danny home, Tim Drake wakes up to a tattoo on his left hand. Specifically his wedding finger. The tattooed band is somehow glowing green with incomprehensible runes encircling his finger just beneath the knuckle. What. The. Fuck.)

Yes, he was postponing his crisis about whatever just happened until he could go see Clockwork and demand answers, what of it?

Except... When he went to school, he saw Tim- a guy he shared a few gen-ed classes with and he would hesitate to call a friend but damn was he hot- with a band-aid on his wedding finger on his left hand, and the tattoo-ring (more tattoo than ring, the opposite of his) glowed through the band-aid, pulsing slowly in time with Danny's heart.

Fuck.

Tim is Red Robin?

How hadn't he seen this before? In hindsight, it was so obvious, especially with his experience in the teenage vigilante field, but Tim was doing better at hiding it than he had.

Same dark eyebags that looked more like tattoos than biological function, though.

Fuck... He had to talk to Tim about it, didn't he. Well... He didn't have any answers... He could postpone it until he got some answers.

What day of the week..? Thursday? Just avoid Tim the rest of the day and the next one, too, travel to the Ghost Zone over the weekend and get some answers, and then... What? Pull him aside and ask to talk after classes on Monday?

They had another shared class later that day and Danny was so caught up in his thoughts he crashed right into him walking through the door. Both men jolted in surprise, Danny reached out to steady Tim but - displaying a complete lack of Red Robin’s usual fluid grace - his legs buckled, and Danny somehow ended up holding Tim in a manner that looked like he dipped him at the end of a dance.

"Uh... We have to get to class now, but- I'm going to go ask about... This.... This weekend, do you- would you want to come?"

That night, though, Danny had a dream about Tim-Red-Robin.

He woke up just as they were about to kiss (in the dream) to see that he had frozen his sheets. He sighed as he rolled out of bed and checked the time.

Five a.m.? Not the worst, but it would just be stacking on sleep deprivation, and Frostbite would definitely have something to say about it when he went to go see him for answers in a day or two.

Then again, Tim was even more sleep deprived than him, maybe Tim would get the gentle disappointment and disapproval instead?

He grimaced, looking at his bed. The sheets were frozen solid.

Parts of No Se Me Quita by Maluma and Ricky Martin popped into his head as he lugged the frozen sheets off to the bathtub to thaw, so he sang.

"Comenzó con un beso apreta'o..."

"Es que la noche fue oportuna, Pa' lo que siento no hay vacuna, Y es que yo no te puedo olvidar, Y tu belleza que no me ayuda..."

He hummed the line he couldn't remember.

"Y por más que trato, oh-oh, No se me quita, Esto no se me quita, El sabor de tu boca, Sigue estando en me boca, Eso no hay quién lo frene Fue sin aviso..."

"Sentimos una conexión de inmediato..."

"Descontrola mi sistema, Tienes algo que no tiene cualquiera, mi amor..."

He knew that he was singing that last line wrong- it should have been nena, not amor- but he had sung it that way for too long.

He couldn't fix it. Not anymore. The muscle memory was too strong.

"Esa combinación no falla, parceros," he sang, finishing out the song. Of course, it repeated it his head and as such out his mouth.

He finished moving his sheets to the bathtub to thaw, put clean sheets on his bed, ate breakfast, and headed to school.

For the most part it went as normal, except that he found his thoughts drifting to Tim much more often, and his eyes, too, when they were in the same class (not that he was alone; Tim's did the same thing!).

As they left the last class they shared, Tim threw him a paper airplane.

When he looked up from catching it, Tim was gone- presumably headed to his next class- leaving him standing in the middle of the hallway with a paper airplane in his hands.

Danny headed to his next class, gently unfolding the paper airplane as the instructions on the side told him to.

Meet me in the back after school. We have to discuss this.

Below the short message was a doodle of Tim's ring, ghost script and all, interlocked with another ring.

Not just any ring, but his ring. How? Tim had only gotten a look at it once, briefly, but it was perfectly recreated!

He hadn't realized he had stopped moving until he got jostled by another student.

Stuffing the note into his chest for safekeeping, he moved on. Even as his thoughts lingered.

The rest of the school day passed in the blink of an eye, and he found himself out back, waiting for his husband Tim.

"So," a voice drawled. He would have been spooked, were it not for the fact that he recognized it as belonging to Tim.

"So?" He repeated, turning. He had been going to keep talking, but he got struck dumb by he husband's looks.

Pa' lo que siento no hay vacuna, Y es que yo no te puedo olvidar, Y tu belleza que no me ayuda...

"So. You said you had someone you were going to ask about- this?"

Danny flushed as Tim gestured between them with the hand that his wedding ring was on.

"Uh. Yes. So. Related question: have you figured out what I went by before I retired?"

Tim shook his head, lips pursed halfway between a grimace and a frown.

"I assume you looked into Amity Park? My town?"

"I didn't find anything. A joke slogan of 'the most haunted place on Earth', changed to that from 'a nice place to live' when you were fourteen, but nothing. At first glance, it looks like a normal town, but upon closer inspection there was a suspicious lack of anything. Aside from the mayor being a creep."

"Okay. Also related: do you believe that ghosts exist?"

"Yes. One of my friends is a ghost."

"Oh, really? Wonder what kind, if she's substantial enough for you to interact with, but not causing problems... Anyway. When I was fourteen, my parents built a portal to the other side in our basement. It didn't work until I stumbled inside and turned it on while I was in the middle."

Tim's expression went blank, and Danny hurried on.

"I'm okay! Well, half. See, the portal stabilized around me, and I kept dying and being revived by it, so... I'm half-dead? And half-alive? Schrödinger's boy, we used to joke..."

Tim just kept staring at him.

"Ghosts started coming out, and I turned out to be a magical girl, able to switch between being half-dead and half-alive while simultaneously being both, so I took on the name Phantom and kept Amity safe. For the most part. There was a learning curve."

"That is all horrifying and I will have to thoroughly investigate how this was missed. I am sorry that happened to you. But what does this have to do with what is going on between us?"

"So, the portal is to what I call the Ghost Zone, or the Infinite Realms. It's the glue between the multiverse, and is also the afterlife, basically. Has all the afterlives. And if you die in a certain way, you become a ghost, and get a Haunt in the Zone. My doctor is a ghost Yeti of the Far Frozen, and I'm planning to go see him about this."

"Ghost Yeti..? Okay. Sure. When, and can I join you?"

"I'm going some time this weekend. I don't really have anything on my calendar, so I could go whenever. It's if you have any timing restrictions. You're part of this too, after all."

Tim took out his phone, and presumably looked at his calendar, though he did type some before putting his phone away.

"I have a prior commitment tomorrow, but it will be over with by noon, and after that I will be free for the rest of the weekend."

"Okay, cool. So, we could meet up at twelve thirty… At the coffee shop across from the W.E. building? The one with the potted plants and the baked goods?"

"I know it. It's a good choice; they have stellar coffee."

"Oh, yeah, it's the absolute best, right? Ah, I'll see you then?"

Danny's grin feels awkward and dopey as he stares at Tim, but Tim grins back before catching him in a quick kiss and sauntering off.

Danny is left breathless from the kiss, and only just realizing: he is head-over-heels in love.

He wants to worship that man.

"Esto no se me quita, El sabor de tu boca, Sigue estando en me boca, Eso no hay quién lo frene Fue sin aviso..."

The excitement and nerves started getting to him, the closer it got, so he headed out to the coffee shop almost a whole hour early.

Giant makes a gluten free corn & rice pasta. It’s not organic, so it’s not the *best* for my MCAS, but like…

I could make a farmer’s cheese that looks/tastes a little like ricotta.

I can use cranberries to substitute for tomatoes and make a meat sauce with ground pork.

Better news:

I can have alliums *and* bell peppers.

I can have both regular *and* powdered milk.

I can even have a little citric acid occasionally!

So!

Last Friday, I got the final internal denial letter for a functional, safe wheelchair.

Last Saturday, I ate shit in my poorly fitted hemiheight with shot brakes.

Sunday was spent recording this spiteful little meme song in a goddamn neck brace.

Monday—today—it’s finally edited and live on Ko-fi.

1) Figured this out.

Danny, floating on the ceiling: I've been shot before, there is litterally no punishment you can give me that scares me.

Danny: Uh- Nope! I think I’ll go to bed now

Hal: get back here! You need to understand that was not ok!

First: THIS RECALL IS NOT STATE SPECIFIC. IT IS NATIONWIDE.

here are the specific products and dates:

FDA page on this:

Why the fuck is it 8:00 PM?

Yeah.

Is it bc I’ve already hit the “Oh shit” wall and know damn well that moving’s gonna suck?