How far can this Ninja go?

teenagers citing his videos and data as primary sources on their school projects (how do you make an mla citation for a home video filmed in space?)

grace's final goodbye to earth getting billions of views on youtube

sexy edits of grace ALL OVER tiktok and instagram

grace becomes a whole scientific field unto himself. teams of scientists dedicate their lives to the study of his research and his contributions. maybe some of those scientists were his students once upon a time.

grace x rocky ALL OVER ao3

books on eridian language and culture hit the shelves and sell out immediately

eridian culture reignites conversations about the construct of gender, eridians become nonbinary/agender symbols

space is suddenly back at the forefront of the public mind. space-travel units are introduced to grade school science curriculum worldwide. entire classes are taught solely on grace and his scientific discoveries. EVERYONE wants to be an astronaut

of course, hollywood makes a big-budget Dr. Ryland Grace biopic. it's a box office hit. a huge online movement results in ryan gosling playing grace, and everyone agrees the likeness is uncanny. stratt is the villain of the story.

a series of heartfelt videos from grace to stratt, in which he says hello and goodbye and i hate you and thank you and i miss you, are found in the database and reposted online. there's suddenly a massive outcry of support for her, which results in her release from prison. some youtuber makes a gritty but surprisingly touching short film about her story

people coming together to make earth better. trying to repair the damages from the sun's dimming, trying to repair the environment, trying to repair global relations. they want to be an earth worth saving, an earth that grace would be proud of

space travel becomes a huge global priority, the nations of the world pool resources and there are huge advances in technology (especially with scientists studying xenonite!)

the project hail mary launch date becomes a huge global holiday. there's a parade in almost every city all over the world in honor of the hail mary. people lay candles and flowers at memorials for yao, ilyukhina, annie, and dubois. murals of grace and rocky cover building sides. people gather in the streets and remember those who saved them, and banners that read "grace rocky save stars" flutter in the wind above the crowds.

coca cola airs a VERY insensitive commercial with some low quality eridian puppets. the commercial is slammed online and company stocks plummet

From there it's not actually difficult to get the other soldiers onboard with covering up the fact that poor Ping took one for the team and got afflicted by the vagina curse, especially since it would have been all of them if they hadn't gotten the warning ahead of time. So they agree to help him cover it up, because obviously the army's not going to understand.

Mulan: Uh, what boobs? Huh? Where did these come from?

Mushu: *facepalms and thinks quickly* (speaks from the shadows) I AM THE SPIRIT OF THE LAKE! BEWARE MY CURSED WATERS FOR THEY WILL TURN MEN INTO WOMEN!

Mulan: Look-

Ling, Yao, and Chien Po: WE CAN EXPLAIN!!

[One convoluted, chaotic explanation later]

Shang: ...is this why you've all been insisting we don't camp anywhere that doesn't have a lake.

Shang: and then none of you actually swim in it.

Shang: and you all keep jumping at shadows.

Shang: wait a second Ping did this happen before or after you became insanely good at fighting?

Shang: did you get better at fighting after you became a woman.

Shang: are women better at fighting than us.

Mulan: ....uh. well. maybe? no one's ever tried to find out.

Yao: [thinking very fast] y'know Captain it's just so hard to find recruits these days.

Chien Po: Real shortage of men.

Ling: Lots of women, though.

Mulan: [catching on] Without marriage prospects.

Shang: You're right, men. The spirits must have done this in order to show us that we should be recruiting women as fighters.

Mushu [from the shadows, seeing an opportunity to do the funniest thing]: EXACTLY, LI SHANG. I HAVE TRANSFORMED PING INTO A WOMAN BECAUSE YOU HAVE TOO LONG OVERLOOKED THE TRUE WAY TO WIN THE WAR.

Mulan [seeing an opportunity to get all the stories straight]: O Great Spirit, is it reversible?

Mushu: WHY WOULD YOU WISH TO REJECT MY GIFT? I HAVE SEEN YOUR HEART, CHILD, AND HAVE ALREADY ALTERED THE MEMORIES OF EVERYONE WHO KNEW YOU BEFORE YOU LEFT FOR THE ARMY. YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THEIR DAUGHTER.

Li Shang: Welp, the spirits have spoken. Ping - wait is your name still Ping if you're a woman now?

Mulan: Uh. Actually, I was thinking of renaming myself. How do you feel about Mulan?

BONUS:

Mulan [climbing out of the eleventh lake the men have arranged for her to swim in]: Yeah no, it didn't work. Still got boobs. [tries to appear dejected].

Chien Po: If it makes you feel better, they're very nice boobs.

He jumps headfirst into romantic relationships often, and is quick to return the moment someone he previously dated implied they might be interested in a rerun. He meets a pretty lady that is fully capable of kicking his ass and suddenly his heart beats for her. Just as easily, he will fall for the next man that he finds his empathy reaching a little too far for.

It’s even easier with kids. He holds a baby, waiting for the baby’s parents to return from being checked over by medics, and he’s imagining them growing up, decorating their nursery in his mind, picking out colleges that’ll more suit different interests - if the baby wants to be a lawyer, then this school would be better; if a little artist in the making, then this other school is the best of the best. And it all goes through his head in the ten minutes that the parents are held up for. He saves a toddler from a burning building, and sees himself taking the kid for walks and building Legos with them. He finds a teenager in trouble, and he’s already imagining helping them with their homework.

Usually, it doesn’t go anywhere. He brings the kid somewhere safe, usually reuniting them with their parents, and then mopes about the loss of that potential future for a few days before it leaves his mind again.

But sometimes, sometimes, a child sticks in his mind. Dick was the first of those children, quickly brought into his custody but not quick enough.

Next was Tim, a bright little child that Bruce noticed before he’d ever adopted Jason. Tim was the first child Bruce had to learn restraint for, telling himself that he couldn’t monitor this little kid who looked at Bruce like he hung the stars in the sky. Still, he couldn’t help but to keep an eye on the little Drake during galas and gatherings. Tim was Bruce’s son before he was ever Robin, no matter what Bruce had said and done in his grief.

Jason was very quickly adopted, Bruce hadn’t even needed to use his hard won restraint for that one. The moment he’d seen those defiant blue eyes glaring at him in the darkness, he’d emotionally adopted the boy. Mentally adopted him shortly after, with the adoption papers filled out and turned in quickly after.

The only child Bruce would find himself counting when doing roll call only to be disappointed had barely been in Bruce’s presence for five minutes. The little boy Bruce found himself thinking often of, wondering how he was growing up, whether he was going to see the stars as an adult like he’d claimed, hoping Bruce might even see the little boy applying for Wayne Enterprise’s Aerospace division. Danny Fenton was a child that crossed Bruce’s mind often despite not being, on paper or by blood, Bruce’s child.

But to Bruce’s heart and mind? Danny should’ve grown up with him.

“Daddy!” Bruce looked down as a small weight hit his leg, stunned to see a small child there. “Look! Shtarsh!” A small lisp, as the child turned a gap-toothed grin up at Bruce. Bruce followed the little boy’s pointing finger, noting that there was indeed a display of stars, the infographics claiming a better way to fuel rockets was such-and-such method over the common-

Wait, had this child called him-?

“It sure is, bud,” Bruce agreed, kneeling down to be closer to even height with this… four-year-old? “But what are you doing over here by yourself?”

“Mommy d’ere,” the little boy pointed towards a woman in a teal… hazmat suit(?), focused intently on the display in front of her. In her hands was a leash that led down to an abandoned backpack.

Bruce’s face twitched at the fact that she hadn’t even noticed, and he didn’t know how long the child had been free of the backpack. Long enough for it to look like it’d been dragged from a different exhibit.

Bruce looked back at the little escape artist, “May I pick you up, chum?” The little boy’s eyes brightened, excited.

“Rocket!” He bounced a little on his toes, hands held up excitedly.

Bruce was disappointed, himself, that he had no clue what this boy was asking for, “Not right now, but maybe later.” Bruce was quick to tack on the last part as the boy deflated. Propping the little boy on his hip, he made his way over to ‘mommy.’ “Excuse me, ma’am- ma’am?” It took several calls, and even waving his hand in her eyesight, to get the woman’s attention - and Bruce’s displeasure with the woman steadily increased the longer it took. “You appear to have misplaced a budding astronaut.”

She barely even glanced at the little boy before negating his statement, “no I didn’t, he’s right-“ finally, she noticed the childless backpack, her head snapping back to Bruce, “Daniel James Fenton! I told you to stop taking your backpack off!”

“But- but shtarsh, mommy!” The little boy indignantly argued back with the woman, and Bruce had to quickly school his face to not smile at Daniel’s attitude.

“That doesn’t mean you can wander off, Danny,” the woman huffed, before reaching out to steal- retrieve her son from Bruce. “Thank you, sir.”

Throughout the rest of the convention, Bruce caught glimpses of the bright-eyed little boy with his mother and father, who was a man that Bruce could feasibly understand the young child confusing Bruce for… if he weren’t wearing an eye-piercing orange hazmat suit, and Bruce a tailored three-piece.

When it became clear that Bruce’s attachment to the little boy didn’t fade with time and distance the way it normally did, he allowed himself just one day in a year where he would indulge, letting himself use the resources available to him to check on the little boy. Last Bruce had seen, little Danny, who had just turned 14, - only a couple years older than Damian now that he thinks about it - was doing well in school and was on his way to becoming an astronaut.

So why…?

Why was his little boy standing before Batman in dirty, ripped up, bloody clothes and an unnatural green light in his otherwise dull eyes?

There’s someone running with them.

Someone else in the Speed Force.

It’s Bart who notices them first. He’s always been more sensitive to the Speed Force than Wally or Barry. Barry knows he’s the worst about it, what with constantly fighting against the idea of the supernatural, and even he notices this other being that’s running through time along side of them.

It’s hard not to once the fighting starts.

They’re a blur of black and white set against the vibrancy of the Speedsters. Set against the sea of agent white. Against red and green blood. Whoever they are, whatever they are, they aren’t afraid to draw blood, or to bleed. It’s a messy fight.

And then it’s over.

Everything ends so suddenly that Barry finds himself not only skidding to a stop but helping to stop the person that’s been running with them. They’re small; the size of Bart but frail in a way that Bart isn’t. And they’re thrashing in Barry’s arms.

“It’s okay,” Barry soothes. His words are soft, just between him and this kid—because it’s just a kid. A kid who’s splattered in red and green blood. “It’s okay. They’re down. They’re down and we’re going to hunt down all the others.”

The kid screams, though it’s an almost soundless noise, and then collapses like their strings are cut. Barry fumbles for a moment before he’s got the kid supported all the way. They’re sobbing now, their shoulders hiccuping with each one. It’s soundless too. Barry brushes fingers through the kid’s hair, even as he looks up in panic. In worry.

Bart fidgets. “Is… are they okay?”

"come again?"

"i learn more from thinking machine. human gender preference. attraction to same gender, means word 'gay.' all eridian same gender." rocky stands straight up. "rocky come out to grace now. all rocky plural gay, statement."

"...wow, that's... rock, i'm not sure it makes much sense to apply human ideas of sexual orientation to a monogendered species."

a long and judgmental pause. then:

!!CONTENT WARNING, GUN VIOLENCE, OPEN ENDED (but come on, it's Danny)

“The hostage is still with Two-Face,” the police radio hummed.

Hostage.

As if Harvey’s attention was on some anonymous stranger and not Bruce’s lover. Somewhere in Bruce’s shed tux the weight of a ring in the breast pocket sat heavy. Would Bruce even have the chance to ask the question he had been so afraid of?

“Oracle,” Bruce barked.

He was too sharp, too harsh, but he hoped they understood. They knew too.

It was Danny.

They cared.

“Danny is taking all the attention. SWAT almost has the all the other hostages out, the ones we know of. Some cars they can’t get close to check,” Oracle answered.

The bridge was mess of smashed and overturned cars. There was no way that there weren’t fatalities. They just hoped to avoid more. But with Harvey.

The coin glinted against the search lights as it flipped again. How many flips had spared Danny now? Each one a promise that Two-Face would stay focused on Danny and let another batch of people go.

Bruce was still too far to stop the flip.

One more. Danny just needed one more toss to go his way.

He hadn't been in the relationship for very long. It had only been one no —THREE years now? No no, maybe more like four at this point. Damn that was a lot longer than he thought it had gone on.

The point was that no, he hadn't told Bruce about his other powers yet. He’d meant to! He really did! But whenever he was around the other man he just fell into the his eyes... and that smile...

Well. It turns out time really does fly when you're having fun and all that. This was definitely the longest relationship he’d had in a while. It also didn't help that he didn't have much practice in telling others his secret.

He'd dated Sam on and off for a bit in college, and then during his years studying for his astrophysics doctorate he’d reconnected with Val and dated her for a while, and she had also already known his secret. What could he say? He liked a competent woman who could kick his ass. 

It had turned out he liked a competent man who could kick his ass too.

Vlad had somehow gotten him to agree to go to some ball with him in Gotham. Said he should "meet the people he'd be working for one day" or some BS. He knew he wasn't going to be an astronaut at that point, so he was working towards the next best thing: becoming one of people who sent the astronauts up in the first place.

Don't get him wrong! Danny would still be applying to NASA, but it wouldn't hurt to have backup plans in the statistical likely chance of being rejected. And while private ventures were one of the few other ways to get someone into orbit, he still hated nearly everyone in that room. For most of the evening he'd sulked in a corner and complained about Vlad and some other more nefarious billionaires to (unbeknownst to him at the time) one Brucie Wayne.

A man whom had found all his knowledge of other billionaires unsavory practices fascinating, and his insults hilarious. And the rest was history.

It turned out that “Brucie” Wayne was just his public persona to keep the paparazzi from looking into his private life —a move Danny respected— and that the man didn’t laugh very often for real when just existing as himself.

But that just made the times when he had Bruce snorting and giggling like a five year old all the better. He was one of the few people that could get a genuine cackle out of the philanthropic billionaire, a fact which he prided himself on.

His real smile was just that much more beautiful then the fake one he'd give to everyone who asked for an autograph, and Danny had learned to read which ones were fake and which ones weren't.