KitKat-4775

So, in terrible news, Trump's trying to pull some strings to pass this massive internet censorship bill, featuring all the kinds of internet censorship we're terrified of, including mandatory ID for accessing basically any website, specifically to crush state regulation of AI, because apparently this man will always see the moral bottom of the barrel and start digging.

6/14/2026

not that you have ever been a good or proper dragon. when you hatched out of your egg, your eggtooth was too smooth. the other dragons were rough with you, put little holes in your wings.

you were not bold. you were odd. you liked rippling water and the shine of chitin when bugs scuttle and of course the movement of the stars. those were all acceptable interests albeit maybe not traditional. perhaps you had inherited these through some great-great-uncle or something. certainly a dragon may be wise, or clever, if they are not bold.

yes, you have been a great deal of a puzzle to the other dragons. your body is smaller and rather more soft than it ought to be. so speed should have been yours, perhaps - your mother said it would be like fighting a shadow. if a dragon is not aggressive, it may instead be cruel, sly; a backstab. but alas your scales - so iridescent that they almost shine like the moon at night, a glow from within - you are not a shadow, you are a beacon like the flash of a knight's blade. your father has said at least you would make a fine egglayer, a nice mate to a good male. a dragon like you may still be a good mother perhaps; and that is a fine thing to be; although of course it would have been better if you'd been a trove-hoarder instead.

what a dragon must not be is kind.

you have watched her now for six moons. what a good and proper dragon would do is to go inside and to snatch her. a very proper dragon would have kidnapped her many times over, but you will be the delight of your brood to princess-snatch even at all. when you catch her in your jaws and bring her home, they will love you, then. they don't think you're capable of it, but you are, because you're a proper dragon. you can show them that. if you go in, now, right now.

you are rather too glossy to hide in the shadows, so instead you have learned how to appear flat and round, a puddle of light. (how your siblings would mock you! a dragon should be matte, to blend with the night). you dapple your flank with mud. you perch in odd angles atop of trees, scuttle like the bugs you love - hither, tither, frantic.

what you must not do is fly with your wings full-out. alight, you will be limned by the moon's corona. you will be a beacon. you must remember this when (not if) you snatch her.

____

you found her because of the lake. this lake in particular was your favorite - nestled deep in the woods, between two mountains. it is very quiet; there is nothing to horde there so no other dragon bothers you. a gentle waterfall spills over into a deep cove, and there are many mossy caves you've spent your afternoons napping in. while it is not proper for a dragon to prefer such things, you like to lay in rolling tenure just under the water. you have become excellent at holding your breath, can do it for hours. it is the easiest way to appear as a patch of sunlight.

she was not sunlight. she was the night's joy. the dark press of water. her face at first concealed by many diaphanous layers. her breathing quick and quiet.

she had pulled them back to drink from her water flask. and there she had been: a princess. your first very-real princess. right there, only the reach of a single talon from you. if you had simply lunged then, you would have been able to take her easily, in one single movement.

but you did not take her.

So today I tripped. Fell flat on my face, it was awful but ultimately harmless. My service dog, however, is trained to go get an adult if I have a seizure, and he assumed this was a seizure (were training him to do more to care for me, but we didn’t learn I had epilepsy until a year after we got him)

I went after him after I had dusten off my jeans and my ego, and I found him trying to get the attention of a very annoyed woman. She was swatting him away and telling him to go away. So I feel like I need to make this heads up

If a service dog without a person approaches you, it means the person is down and in need of help

Random Classmate looking at Danny: ....

Danny: He said "I'm not gonna lie, I'm confused as hell"

Random Classmate: Ohhhhh! Okay, so we got to lock in for this project. We can't afford to lose any aura points over this.

Damian looking at Danny: ....

Danny: She said, "We must put our utmost focus on this project. Failure would bring great shame upon us"

Damian: You do a wonderful job translating the common folk language.

Danny: Er, thanks? I'm glad I can help with something. Group projects are never my forte, and I always feel bad that I don't do an equal amount of work.

Damian: I have noticed your participation in group projects before. You are not contributing because you are not trying. It's due to your groupmates' exclusion and isolation of you.

Danny: Yeah, well, I'm poor and dumb. I only got accepted into Gotham Academy because my godfather pulled some strings. No one wants me around.

Damian cupping Danny's face: Never leave my side. I shall protect you in exchange for your translating abilities.

Danny: Um?????

Random Classmate: You guys gonna kiss? Cause Wayne might use fancy words, but even I understood he wants to rizz you up Fenton.

Danny: UM????

Damian tenderly: I have no knowledge of what rizz means. Enlightenment me, my dear.

Random Classmate hand over her chest: That's some Shakespearean shit right there.

Danny: ????????

Damian leaning in only a hair's breadth away from Danny's lips: Most Shakespeare plays end in tradgy.

Because Bruce is a emergency foster sometimes he temporarily takes in kids with no place to go, all the birds know the drill when that happens, no vigilante talk in the manor and Bruce's office is off limits (as the entrance to the Batcave is behind the grandfather clock within) So while few and far between, it isn't unusual for a kid to stay for a few months before moving on.

What wasn't expected was for a very visibly meta teenager with bright white hair, glowing green eyes and a very obvious meta suppression anklet on his left ankle.

Danny was forced to take refuge in another dimension after a reveal gone wrong, it is only until his friends and the rest of Amity park finish driving out the GIW so he can return. Staying in ghost form was just more convenient here, apparently something called metahumans were a thing here and they were protected by law! He could take advantage of his ghost's forms decreased need for food, sleep and warmth, without getting hunted down for being so visibly inhuman.

What he didn't expect was getting caught by CPS.

Escaping them wasn't a problem, he can just phase away the second they aren't looking, easy. What was a problem is when they determined him a flight risk and slapped a high tech cuff on his ankle that somehow suppressed his powers and prevented him from returning to human form!

This was fine, the Wayne guy seems pretty absentminded slipping out the old fashioned way shouldn't be too hard!

Because if Danny could speak he could clear things up with a "hey, this ankle bracelet is killing me," it wouldn't be too far fetched for him to tell them that. He's under the impression that the Wayne's are dumb and very very rich they wouldn't want a stain like that on their reputation. The bats wouldn't chance something like this even if they thought Danny was lying. None of them would want to be responsible for the death of a child in their care. Danny's desperate attempts at escape would just convince them farther that they're telling the truth.

If we go the angst route with Danny's halfa status things can be dragged in a totally different direction.

Danny being stuck in his ghost form doesn't bode to well for him. I'd like to think both halves work with eachother even when one is being used but the ankle bracelet...

The ankle bracelet cuts him off from not only his powers but his human half. He can't speak, no sound comes out. He can't properly breath, he can't eat/ process the nutrients he needs, he can barely sleep because he can feel his human half dieing! Nothing is working as it's supposed to and Danny realizes his situation is growing more and more dire with every moment that passes.

It's like tying off a limb with rubber bands and slowly watching it die. The panic for him would be immeasurable.

Better yet if his human half actually dies the cuff stops working and Danny turns to a batfam member and says the first words he's ever spoken to them.

We can go with Danny's core being super weird too!

Like, the crucial part is wrapped around his heart and that's all normal. But thin, root like strand spreading out from it. Integrating with his entire body, intertwined with his nervous and circulatory sytems.

Our cells can just up and collectively decide that "hey, this sucks I don't wanna do this let's do something else" and then we have cancer or something. Hell, some diseases are only as fatal as they are because they use our immune systems tactics against us! I think Malaria goes full on Ennard and hides inside the carcasses of cells it kills.

A ghost core integrated properly is ruthlessly efficient with both physical injuries and disease immunity in general. It has all the information our brain has and is like

"this is extremely counterproductive why are useless organs taking up space? They can explode!??? Why don't we regrow teeth," this goes on for months until the core just sighs and goes. "Hold on let me fix this, you don't need to cook us alive to kill infections just- let me do something real quick,"

Ghost cores fucking optimize, but they can only do so much.

I'm Imagining the batfam doing an autopsy and finding blueish green vines overgrown filling every empty space of his body. His core's desperate attempts to feed his human half and keep it alive.

@noxcheshire you've got it my friend. Angst you shall receive.

Imagine the fighting, the absolute anguish the family would feel knowing that they played a part in killing this child. Knowing that this child had likely been in so much agony as he slowly died due to their unknowing negligence.

Jason standing over his own grave staring down at the dirt knowing damn well he had unintentionally helped torture a child to death. It had to be painful, there were vines growing everywhere, dead and gnarled where they gave all their energy in a futile attempt to save the poor kid. Danny hadn't done anything wrong he rightfully didn't want to live with someone who didn't know what he needed.

Everyone knows it's the ankle bracelet that killed him or at least they theorized it did. Nobody wanted to be at fault not completely that is. They'd beat themselves up about it cursing that they didn't see the signs and take the damn thing off him. Even when Danny attempted to saw his leg off they'd been too scared he'd run before they could help him that they had become the catalyst to his death.

Lmao!! My bad! Don’t worry Danny’s not perma dead.

Damian was an older foster brother for a mere 37 days. It feels like a failure to him that Danny died of something so preventable. It was a failure on their part for not realizing there was another reason for Danny’s desperate escape attempts. Maybe if it weren’t for the Chaos of a recent Arkham breakout they would’ve been more attentive? They sure as hell were attentive now that it’s seemingly too late.

The body is rotting but Damian’s the first to notice the core isn’t as dead as the body despite the withered vines crumbling in his maggot infested chest. There’s a dim glow hidden by the human looking heart it engulfed. New vines hadn’t grown and old ones had died off leading to the hope crushing despair of their family who desperately wished to take things back. He gets grounded when he tries to pull it out.

Tim agrees with Damian on the sheer basis of a theory. He was morbidly curious the integration with the nervous system was so intricate. It’s by sheer coincidence that he discovered the core was producing something similar to brainwaves.

It’s attempting to connect and send information back and forth with the corpse. Trying to send out more vines but they can’t fight the decomposition the body is too broken, too weak. It’s when Jason says he can feel an overwhelming agony radiating off the rock does Tim decidechi to do something. He does the obvious thing anyone would do. He cuts the rock free slicing away the veins still attached. Within a few hours, the core is attempting to create new blood but there nowhere for it to go so now they have a rock that may or may not have the consciousness of a child in it that’s slowly oozing blood.

Tim decides to make a clone (as one does when your foster brother is dead) not just any clone. Really it’s just a corpse, a husk, a damaged one at that. Tim figures that the core can’t create a new body by itself and if it could it would use a detremental amount of energy doing it but shoving the core into his chest and hoping things go well seems like bad idea. He made sure the husk was missing non vital organs as the core’s response to coming in contact with it’s own DNA is to attempt to share information with the nervous system and fix problems with the physical body.

It takes a year for the core to properly intergrate with husk properly.

Danny wakes up in cave in pain with an overwhelming sensation that everything is new despite remembering everything. The bats surround him, he’s confused why they’re so relieved by Danny’s safety. They aren’t his family. Danny didn’t have a family. They helped kill him.

A body dont just shut down, it's a progress, a painfull one, one that is stretch further than it ever shoud because of Danny funky anatomy

First there is a cut in the oxygen intake, this causes pain the chest area, some among of dizziness and lower energy levels. Than the pain increases, the muscle becomes more and more rigid, the energy level drops even more as food becomes harder do eat and digest, second problem emerge from the multiple deficiencies. The pain increases. Thinking is hard and hallucinations may start to happen because of the lack of nutrients, air and function as the brain, too, start to die.

Getting out of bed hurts

It's getting even harder to breath as movement lower every passing day. Eating, moving, brathing and anything that pulls a muscle becomes harder and harder, more and more painful. It fells like you drowning. But drowning is better, because at lest there are no vivid hallucinations playing before your eyes, in your ears, on your skin. remembering things also become impossible as your brain slowly loses the ability to create memories, and those that are created are filled with horrors and pain.

You lost what days is weeks ago, you don't know the hour either.

Maybe, if you're lucky, by the time you only have a few days left, your nervous system is so deteriorated that you won't be able to feel any pain anymore, that your brain has turned so much into mush that it can't register anything anymore, that most part of the body is so deeply necrotic that theres simplicity nothing more to fell

I feel like the symptoms Danny’s experiencing make this so much worse. Because it’s possible for the batfam to see what’s happening to Danny. They are watching him slowly deteriorate, hallucinating and walking around like a zombie. But they don’t take the ankle monitor off. They know Danny’s never hurt anyone with his powers but they still haven’t taken it off. Were they so worried about their secret identities that they’d slowly watch a child die just to keep him from escaping? They might not be able to see what’s happening to his human half but anyone with a brain could tell something was going on with Danny.

Imagine being brutally tortured to death because cps decided you were a “flight risk,” And your foster family were either to dumb or too cruel to save him.

So already weakened, poisoned, in Ghost form, and a little too cocky about the dimension not having anti-ghost tech, and he ends up with a cuff that weakens his core enough that it's struggling to keep him alive, let alone give him access to his powers. It would have probably been fine, for his relative health anyway, if it hadn't been for the blood blossoms already poisoning him and the fact that his core kept trying to push them out with all its strength and kept falling slightly short each time, weakening him more and more, taking away the energy he would need to turn back to his other form.

Skipping to him living with the bats, he would not be passive about it. Not if he'd tried to saw his leg off in hopes that it would help him get rid of the cuff. As that would have been a last resort, he would have first tried lock-picking it. It had not gone great. Meta cuffs usually account for that and won't come off with a normal key, much less with a lockpick, no matter how skilled Danny was with it. It would have probably been fine but well, Danny's luck rarely works in his favor. Desperation had made him move a little too fast and, when he heard a click (the false release mechanism specifically installed for those situations), he had gotten a little too excited and had tried to rip the cuff off his foot.

Not only did it not work but it made it malfunction in the worst possible way. It still blocked access to his core, more strictly now that it knew he was a flight risk and had tried to remove it without the key (protocol for criminals but I doubt they'd have a different one to use on kids they consider misbehaving, especially if they're already set on restraining them to that extent, which gross but yeah). But now it also started giving him shocks of increasing frequency and potency. Danny did not do well with electricity. Not since the portal. It strained his already tired core even more. Danny kept trying. Nothing worked. His jailors were a little too good at keeping him captive. Danny never stood a chance.

It would have still been fine, or like survivable. Danny's core was strong. Danny had experienced unmentionable horrors and still been able to go back to his life without being too affected by his trauma (no, Jazz, him not talking about it isn't a defense mechanism of repression, he's just vibing, ok?). He could've probably bounced back from the nightmare his life had become since the cuff. He would have taken a Vlad rescue at this point. But he was also in a new dimension with minimal access to ambient ecto (in this dimension, all the extra went directly to the Lazarus pits and was immediately contaminated by Ra's continued existence) and not enough access to his core to turn emotions into energy. All of it focusing on cutting the blood blossom and now enduring being continually electrocuted, which the bats somehow still did not notice...

It was only a matter of time. Maybe he could've lasted longer. Maybe he would've if he had gotten any sign, however small, that there was hope his torture would come to an end. There was nothing. No green notes appearing or size-changing dogs showing up to play. No gav or other Fenton related vehicles or communication devices making their way through the new dimension. No ectoplasm to absorb. Not even the ability to detect if it existed unless it was right in front of him, very close.

He had had a brief moment of hope when Jason had come to visit the manor the first time. He was highly liminal, his ecto was contaminated but still present. Maybe Danny could communicate with him through ghost speak despite it. He tried. Nothing. He tried again. Not even a twitch. Apparently the underdeveloped core wasn't able to catch much. Jason had left shortly after, feeling wildly uncomfortable –like a pebble had been stuck on his shoe but somehow feeling it on the inside of his stomach,– without really being able to know the reason (he felt Danny's desperation and attempts of communication but didn't know what it was).

It was the last drop for Danny. He let his core go (ghosts are deeply driven by emotions, Danny giving up wouldn't be enough to kill him usually, even without access to his human side, but with a core that's barely hanging on? Yeah. That was enough). He felt another tiny sliver of hope when he felt his powers returning to him as his core gave up but it was short-lived. As soon as it started to restart, Danny felt the infernal cuff starting his torture again. He only had enough time to tell the closest person his last words: "you killed me", before he completely faded.

The torture didn't end there. Of course it wouldn't. Danny could never be so lucky. It continued when his senses returned to him as his body started rotting and his core went back to frantically trying to cure him, still completely unable to do anything about it. Or even talk. It went on as he felt every single cut. Every part of the dissection (did it count as vivisection if Danny was aware enough to feel every second of it? Danny thought it did). Every time they stuck their hands inside of him and moved his organs around. Every time they decided to cut one out and put it on the side, separate from his body but somehow still connected to his core and therefore still cognizant of each time they cut them into pieces to analyze and see if that has been the cause of death.

They didn't touch the vines left by the blood blossoms poisoning. Of course they wouldn't. Apparently they thought that was his core's weak attempt at healing instead of a parasite leeching off the little energy he had access to. They didn't remove the cuff either. Danny would've probably recovered if they had done either. Of course, that meant it didn't even occur to them. Even after he was dead they wouldn't grant him his freedom.

Danny didn't think he could ever forgive them. He had experience with ambivalent feelings towards people. After all, his parents had loved one half of him while threatening to tear the other apart molecule by molecule. He knew how to compartmentalize. He refused to do that with them. Sure, they had been friendly enough and "nice" to him. They had also kept him captive and tortured him continuously with their ignorance, going so far as to keep going even when he no longer had a say in it. Of course they wouldn't let him rest in peace even when they thought he was fully dead. Even when he had gone as far as spelling it out for them that they had been the cause. His opinion never mattered to them to begin with so why would they start now that he wasn't able to communicate it anymore.

So Danny was not surprised. Disappointed, sure. Annoyed. Frustrated. Tempted to go all ghost king on their dimension and blacklist it from the Infinite Realms (not that he would, he acknowledged that most of the people in it shouldn't suffer for the choices of the few, it was still tempting). Not surprised. So Danny endured. It's what he did best. What he had been doing ever since the accident with the portal. Maybe even before that. It's not like he had a choice. Not as long as that cuff stayed connected to his core. Not when the blood blossoms were still there. Still alive. Still in effect. Keeping him a little more dead every time and making it harder for his core to make a come back somehow. Danny was low-key rooting on them to succeed. He just wanted it to end. Even the GIW would have been more tolerable than this. He still couldn't do anything.

He got a small reprieve when they decided to cut his core loose off his body. He hoped they would leave it alone for a while, just enough for it to recover a little bit of its strength. Enough so Danny could leave or at least turn it invisible and intangible until they gave up searching. He didn't have that kind of luck. They inserted it into another body. An incomplete one his core would have to work hard to heal. One that wouldn't give him a reprieve at all, even when it wasn't his. Even when he shouldn't have had to heal it just because it was forcefully connected to his core. Danny was perfectly capable of going without a body and having his core create a new one. It was actually better for him. Not that his opinion had ever mattered to them.

At least breathing didn't hurt that much anymore. Aside from the emptiness, it was the best he had felt since his encounter with the blood blossoms. Maybe even before. He could feel his strength returning to him and his core kick-starting his heart. He gave himself a moment to hope that it would be enough to get out of this nightmare dimension and back to at least the Infinite Realms. Frostbite would surely know how to help him.

The hope didn't last long. After all, the cuff was still there, ever present on the same ankle as his previous body. Of course it was. He wasn't sure if he preferred it when the blood blossoms were still in his system. At least they limited the time he would have to endure existing in this state. Now, with a still diminished core and new organs to regrow, because apparently they couldn't even do him the kindness of putting him in a complete body, he would be just as vulnerable before, except without the impending final death to look forward to. Just enough work to keep his core strained and busy so he still couldn't access his powers and a certainty that he wouldn't even be able to escape them with death.

He hoped Jazz got there soon. He wasn't sure even his sister would be able to get him out of this. He hoped she stayed far away from them. He didn't want her to be exposed to these monsters and didn't want to know what they would do to her. Either way, it wasn't up to him at all. He still couldn't communicate with them. Not that they'd listen even if he did.

And the cuff stayed on. Danny pretended to sleep. It didn't work for long. Maybe next time he'd be the one to cut himself open and cut his core loose. Surely that would get rid of the restrictions. If he timed it well. He could probably get away with hiding it somewhere in the house with them none the wiser.

Also what do you mean the foster kid you were keeping dies, his last words being 'you killed me' and your first thought is 'ah yeah, let's do an unofficial autopsy when we clearly have no clue of what's going on to see what killed him. Couldn't have been us' like no, don't cut open the child just because, especially when Danny probably had vivisection PTSD. That's so rude (and unfortunately kind of on beans for the bats in this situation)

Okay, so you know how everyone talks about how Danny and Jason would recognize each other as members of the undead in a way?

Well, what about Talons? The Talons are basically undead assassins, so Danny would also recognize them. And maybe if you want to go with the idea that Danny is the Ghost King, the Talons might even feel more loyalty to Danny than the Court of Owls.

Danny watched the shadow out of the corner of his eye. He didn't know who or what was following him.

But at this point in time, he ceased to care. He was pretty sure it wasn't the GIW. They were never subtle, and probably would have attacked already.

Then again, them getting better at their jobs was the entire reason he had moved to Gotham to begin with.

Aside from that, the shadow only ever appeared to be following him at night. Dimly, Danny considered it might have been one of Gotham's many vigilantes and that his Halfa status had been compromised. But if they hadn't attacked him yet, he was probably safe. Maybe. Possibly.

And so, this went on for weeks to months at a time. But the figure never approached Danny. So, Danny decided that he wasn't going to give it much thought.

That was until of course something landed loudly on his fire-escape.

Grabbing a Fenton-Anti Creep Stick, he snuck over to his own fire-escape to just see a weird looking figure just sitting there.

The figure was dressed up as an owl? An owl assassin? It was some really weird cosplay.

Danny stared at the figure and the figure stared back. Neither of them moving. Just staring at each other.

"Are you just going to sit there staring all night?" Danny asked, exasperated. He didn't receive a reply.

Screw this, he was getting some sleep. He had work in the morning and he had to deal with people. Ugh.

He never did anything, just hung around his fire-escape. He didn't even come inside when Danny left the window open. Just sat there staring.

It was more than a little creepy, but the dude wasn't actually bothering Danny, so Danny didn't do anything about it.

But as it started to get colder and colder, and the snow began to pile up, Danny couldn't help but feel a bit concerned.

Danny could deal with the cold. The cold wasn't a problem to him, not with his Ice Core. In fact, Danny was most comfortable in cold weather. But he knew this wasn't the case for most humans.

(Not that Danny was so sure that the guy sitting on his fire-escape was human, but that was besides the point.)

It also didn't help that some part of Danny wanted to invite the guy in. That part of his Core, the part that was filled with his Obsession with Protection screamed to drag the guy inside.

Which was something Danny was a little more hesitant about. The dude was more than a little creepy. Danny still didn't know who he was. And he was always wearing that creepy owl cosplay.

But as the harsh cold of winter grew, Danny resigned himself to his fate.

Mixing up two mugs of hot chocolate, Danny walked himself over to the window next to the fire-escape.

"Do you want to come inside? It's getting cold out here." Danny inquired. He still didn't receive a reply. Figures.

So, in the end, Danny stepped onto the fire-escape himself. The birdman perked up at that, and Danny became equated with the fact that the man was decided taller than him. Curse his short height.

"At least take this." Danny handed the man one of the mugs of hot chocolate, and the man seemed to react mostly on instinct. Danny began to move back inside when a voice stopped him.

"What is Talon supposed to do with this?" The man spoke. This was the first time in all the weeks that the man had been coming to his fire-escape that he had spoken. His voice was smooth, but had a robotic lilt to it that made Danny shiver in discomfort.

"You can do whatever you want with it." Danny responded, eyeing the man up and down strangely.

"Talon doesn't have wants." The man answered back.

Okay, this was starting to get real creepy, even for him. What was up with this guy. Pausing for a moment, Danny responded.

"Then drink it. Use it for warmth. That's what it's there for." Danny pointed out.

Surprisingly, the man quickly moved to remove his mask. The sudden movement startled Danny, but the man didn't stop for anything.

He began to quickly down the glass, causing Danny to speak up in a panic. Not even having enough time to observe the man's features.

"Slowly! Drink it slowly! You'll burn yourself otherwise." And the man automatically slowed down at Danny's words. It was unsettling.

Strangely enough, Danny had never felt more discomfort around the man then when he was so clearly listening to Danny. Because that was the weird thing, he was listening to Danny's words like they were orders. Not the suggestions they were.

Quietly, Danny moved back into his apartment building.

Maybe he should be more concerned about the fact that some strange unknown was following him around.

Still though, he left the window open in case the man ever came inside. He never did.

But later that next morning when Danny woke up, he found the mug he had given the man resting on the windowsill. Completely drained of any hot chocolate.

Despite himself, Danny couldn't help but thing back to how the man looked. His skin grey with what Danny could only connect with the dead. And yet, the man's soft looking black hair would suggest he was perfectly healthy. And the man's eyes? Well Danny never saw them considering they were hidden under his goggles.

Maybe he should shoo the man away. Things were just getting weirder to the point Danny could no longer ignore it.

But his Core screamed against the idea. Danny sighed in annoyance to himself. It seems, at some point or another, his core had decided the mystery man was apart of his 'fraid.

Talon turned towards the strange man, its claws inches away from the steaming mug.

The man had blue eyes, like Those Who Talon Did Not Know. Like his family the strangers in the Memories That Did Not Belong to It.

Talon had returned to the balcony again and again for the memories. It did not like it, because Talon had no likes or dislikes, but the color of the man's eyes made the memories clearer.

The man's eyes were not blue tonight.

Tonight the eyes were a neon green. This too carried memories.

Gunfire and rage. White streak and snark. Shared meals. Quiet libraries. First of little brothers. Lost returned. Little Wing.

DICKIEBIRD.

Eyes should not be glowing green. Eyes should not be gold

the one time it had seen its reflection in the mirror, it had tried to gouge out its eyes and slit the throat of the Good Doctor who tried to sedate it

Talon did not think the Doctors were good doctors. They always made the memories fade away.

They made everything fade away, and stored Talon in the Sleeping Cold until the Court needed him again.

The Above has started to remind it of the sleeping cold. If Talon could worry, it would worry that the cold would slow his reactions and leave him to sleep in the Above.

Perhaps the cold had already slowed it too much. It did not attempt strike back at the man's attack.

Was it an attack?

The man had wrapped his hand around its wrist and was gently tugging it towards the open window.

"I don't know where you go when you leave, but it's obvious they aren't taking care of you."

The Good Doctors insured that Talon was fully functional. The Court would be angry if it didn't return and would send others to hunt down whatever had delayed it. Is that not the same as care?

"I don't have much space, but the couch is comfy and it's way better than freezing out here"

It thought of the cold darkness of the roost and the memories that would slip through its fingers like sand.

"Please just let me help."

Valerie would also probably want to kill him. Or maybe she's giving up on understanding ghost shenanigans, same with Wes.

Danny glanced at the strange man, watching him from his kitchen as the man sat on his couch. Well, Danny practically sat him there himself, but that was besides the point.

If Danny didn't know any better, he might have thought the man was cationic with his lack of responses. But seriously, this was the type of weirdo that Danny's ghost core thought was ideal to be apart of his 'friad?

(It was strange. Danny's core so rarely accepted others like that easily, especially if they were living. Danny's core only really accepted others into his fold that easily if there were also dead. The man didn't seem dead, and he wasn't setting off Danny's ghost sense, so Danny failed to see why the connection had been formed, but he couldn't do much about it now.)

"The pantry's fully stocked. Feel free to help yourself. Bathroom's down the hall on the right." Danny stated, leaving the man to his own devices, deciding to go to bed.

The next day, the man was gone by morning. Nothing in Danny's pantry had been touched. Actually, the apartment seemed as if no one but Danny had even been inside of it.

The next week, the man didn't come back. But when he did, he hanged around on his fire-escape like normal. Didn't even try to come inside even though the window was open. So, Danny dragged him inside once more.

This time, it wasn't as late as it normally was when Danny noticed the man, so Danny put on a TV show as he sat the man down on his couch. Still no response. Still no real signs of life.

"Do you want any hot chocolate? Any snacks?" Danny asked.

"Talon doesn't want things." Was the first thing said to him all night. Ah, yes, the ever so cryptic words that Danny had no context to understand.

"Would you like to try some?" Danny tried a different approach.

"Talon doesn't have likes or dislikes." And really, Danny should have expected that response. That night, Danny dropped it, left it alone. He was already having the man watching trashy TV shows with him, best not to push it.

But the next night the man came over, Danny dragged him into his kitchen instead.

"Okay, mask off. We're having a taste test party." Danny declared, having prepared a large arrange of different drinks and junk foods to try. Danny wasn't a chef of any sort, so it wasn't anything elaborate, but Danny was sure he could find something the man enjoyed.

The man obeyed, taking off his masks, simply obeying Danny without a second thought. It made Danny uncomfortable, but maybe he could use it to help the man be something more than whatever the hell he was right now.

"We're going to find out what you like and dislike. This way I'm not just shoving hot chocolate at you." Danny explained.

"Talon doesn't have likes or dislikes." The man reiterated. Danny nodded, as if that made perfect sense.

"You've said that. But everyone has likes and dislikes. Even people dressed up in weird owl cosplays." Danny pointed out.

"Talon is not an Owl. Talon is a Talon." The man stated. Once again, making a comment that made zero sense.

"And I'm sure that statement makes perfect sense to you. Now, taste test time."

Danny watched closely as they made their way through the different items. The man's face was neutral the entire time, not giving anything away. He was really committing to the bit of whatever this 'Talon' business was. But it wasn't enough to hide the subtle nuances to Danny's obsessed core that insisted on coddling the man even though he was a full grown adult.

He noticed how the man seemed to linger around the cereal, ate more of it overall. Would have bigger sips of the Sodar verses the Zesti. Small things like that. It wasn't a lot, but it was something.

So, the next time the man came over, Danny had cereal prepared and bottles of Sodar at the ready.

It wasn't just the one weirdo this time. He brought someone with him.

He brought a child that was dressed in the same weird outfit as him.

Danny took a moment to collect himself.

"Ya'know what? Why not. This might as well happen." Danny couldn't help but mumble to himself.

He got to work, setting up the TV and got even more snacks and drinks out. He pretended not to notice as the man gestured the child through the actions, as if eating and drinking wasn't normal behavior. As if being offered food and drink wasn't normal.

Then again, it probably wasn't normal to get offered food and drink by the person of the apartment that they just kinda snuck into. So why not.

Weeks passed, and this continued to happen. Sometimes the original guy wasn't there, but it'd be some other random child. But the one Danny most frequently saw was the one guy.

So what if he took all of his scarce free time, including his lunch breaks, as an opportunity to either visit amity or Sam and Tucker (or Jazz) in their universities? Not his fault portals made it so he could get anywhere he wanted in the world in a matter of seconds.

So what if he refused to even speak whenever he was focused on his latest project? He had things to do, (self-imposed) deadlines to meet. Not like he could give his work any less than 100% of his attention, that's how explosions happened. No, Kyle, he wasn't being paranoid. He had enough experience with OSHA violations to know exactly what happened when you ignored them and pretended everything was fine. He had died at 14 because of one. He wasn't stupid. Or traumatized. Nope.

The talons' now almost-daily visits hadn't really made a change on his social life except to give him an extra reason not to have one. At least not in Gotham. He did have local friends, Jazz, didn't you hear? The owl cosplayers had finally gotten comfortable coming inside his house and taking his snacks, he was thriving. No, he did not need an intervention, thank you very much.

It had still taken him by surprise when one of his more persistent coworkers had insisted on walking him home after he had lost track of time and stayed slightly after hours to finish his project. Apparently outsiders shouldn't be walking out at night alone in Gotham. Danny thought they were exaggerating but they seemed genuinely worried so he agreed. It's not like he lived far, just about a 10 minute walk, nothing was going to happen to him, even if he did find trouble. He couldn't say that, though, and his reassurances that he was truly really fine were getting nowhere so he had just given in. They did make a good substitution for small talk while they walked together, even if his companion (so he didn't actually know their name, sue him) kept looking at him weirdly after he had given a couple of toned down examples of why he was perfectly safe.

They got to his door and Danny opened it, already wondering whether to invite them in or just thank them for the company. Neither happened as he noticed the sharp inhale and sudden silence behind him where a constant stream of words had been flowing before. He turned around to see his companion frozen, eyes wide and focused on something behind him. He opened his mouth to ask if they were ok, part of him wondering what rattled them so badly to stop them mid sentence, the other part cynically thinking they wouldn't have been much protection if they had gotten attacked on their way to Danny's house. Before he could do much, they talked although it didn't seem to be directed at him.

Look, I don't know if you can tell, but I really like soulmate AUs, okay. Also, writing something exactly 500 words is more annoying than I thought it would be, but was a fun experiment.

Lightly inspired by this post.

Danny's parents were never concerned about the words on Danny’s wrist. Given their occupation, they thought Danny would meet someone while studying, or perhaps even lecturing on ghosts, or maybe as part of some other job in the future. Jazz has always been concerned about the words on Danny’s wrist. This is probably the normal reaction, given most people do not surround themselves with the dead. 

Danny himself was concerned about it for a while. But then he died. The amount of death surrounding him at all times, what with his parents’ study of ghosts, practically tripled after that. And suddenly the words ‘Is he dead?’ were a lot less concerning. Because in his life, oftentimes the answer was yes.

I’m just imagining Danny doing this when Jason walks in and sees The Joker’s corpse. ^^^

——————

Danny doesn’t wanna deal with this. He’s trying to live a normal college life (though maybe it was a mistake to think Gotham could be normal in any way). Then he gets spooked by a crazy clown and punches the man on instinct, forgetting to control his strength. Though, in his defense, the man was stealthy enough to suddenly appear behind him and creepy enough to scare him, which his brain perceived as a ghost.

Then this guy shows up.

Danny very firmly does not respond, choosing to continue glaring at the wall in hopes that ignoring the situation will make it go away. A full minute passes, but it does not go away, and neither does the man.

“Is he dead?”

Oh. Ancients. Please no.

How is it possible to have this kind of luck? His soulmate’s first impression of him is of him killing somebody. Accident or no, that is probably the worst way to introduce himself. In fact, how does he even introduce himself in this situation? ‘Hey there soulmate! Nice to meet you! Sorry you had to see me kill that guy, totally an accident. Hey, maybe we can just forget this whole thing, yeah?‘

Danny sighs and gathers the courage to turn around and face the man behind him and— holy shit that’s the Red Hood. His soulmate is the Red FUCKING Hood. A crime-lord-vigilante-anti-hero is what the universe chose for him? Danny can practically hear Clockwork laughing at him.

“Yeah, I’m not a fan of clowns.”

——————

(Feel free to add on or tag someone who you know will. And off the top of my head I’ll add the few I can remember.

@hdgnj @ailithnight @jaewritesfic @dcxdpdabbles @sleepy-writes-stuff @stealingyourbones @starry-bi-sky

Imagine, you are young Jason and you wonder what your soulmate has against clowns. Then the Man Who Laughs comes to power, and you start to understand.

You are Robin, getting beat to death by the Clown Prince of Crime. You catch a glimpse of the words on your forearm, spoken by the soulmate you'll never get to meet. "I'm not a fan of clowns."

You are the Red Hood, risen from the Lazarus Pit. You look at your forearm. "Yeah, me neither," you say.

You are a Bat in Gotham, beholding the most beautiful sight imaginable, the Joker himself laid out on the ground. You ask if he's dead. The boy in front of you responds with six words that have followed you all your life:

I repeated the experiment later, wearing the boots but otherwise my usual clothing and mimicking the expression I thought I’d had at that moment. People parted like I was Charlton Heston.

I now wear that style of boots whenever possible. I recently had a man do a double-take as I walked by and ask me, politely, where I had served because I “looked like a soldier.” I’m not current or former military. I was wearing a flowy purple peasant top and looked as un-soldierlike as possible.

Wheel like you’re gonna win the Indy 500 and don’t care how.

Your crutches are short swords; walk like you can see them buried in the bodies of anyone who crosses (in front of) you.

The GIW passed an amendment to the Anti Ecto acts that protects Halfas and Liminals after they see Danny transform. A week later Danny is captured by a Meta Human Trafficking group.

Like? Is a super nova beautiful? Yes! A tiger? Absolutely! Wildfires and tsunamis, majestic in their awe inspiring power? Why of course! BUT! Do we let civilians go up and TOUCH these things?

Ha! Fuck no.

They already HAVE pretty substantial evidence that SOMETHING (probably ghostly) is going on. They investigate it. They keep IT from getting hurt or hurting innocent people. Sometimes? It's radioactive material. Sometimes gas leaks. Sometimes GHOSTS! (Very exciting)

There is so much we can learn from that! Push our understanding of the Cosmos forward! Clean energy maybe? Medicine? Who knows!? But they INVESTIGATE! Learn. And, most importantly, get ON SITE first! So they can throw up Caution tape and keep anyone from ending up in the hospital (or worse).

They're basicly the "I want to believe" crowd for ghosts. But also Nasa. But ALSO the highest paid skeptics money can buy and environmental impact specialists etc. They'd NEVER have hired the Fentons. And in fact, probably have them on a WATCH LIST right along side several cults. Solely? Because the Fentons are trying to PUNCH A HOLE into(!!?) The long theorized ghost dimension.

Like?? NO?! DO NOT DO THAT!?

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?

Do you BORE A HOLE into the planet to study the way magma moves?! MAKE a fucking blackhole in a populated downtown to STUDY THEM? Maybe try breeding highly venomous snakes next to a preschool, next? While you juggle kerosene?! The FUCK, Fentons!!?!?

Part 1

(Omg yes)

“You know, I never knew that Red Hood told Little D bedtime stories at the League,” Nightwing said to Batman. “I need to visit home more often. I keep missing out.”

Phantom slightly turned his head towards them, interested in gossip. He had heard of the Red Hood before, but hadn’t ever met the guy, since he seemed antisocial and volatile from Batman’s words.

“Oh, you’re going to visit the Manor?” Batman asked, extremely casually, even though everyone and their mothers could see that he was standing at attention at Nightwing’s words, like a dog hearing the word “walk”.

Nightwing rolled his head in a physical imitation of rolling his eyes. “Sure, B. I’ll visit this week.”

“Hnn,” was Batman’s extremely overjoyed, jumping-in-glee answer. There was a pause before he asked, “What do you think of his stories?”

“Of the Ghost Princess and her Robin? I think it’s super cute, but I’m curious as to how he makes up stories with characters like Phantom or Wraith. Seems rather detailed, no?”

Phantom stood up then and everyone turned in his direction at the sound of his chair scraping against the floor.

If there was one thing that Phantom loved most in the world, it was his sister. And if there was one thing that she liked and mourned the most, then it was Robin, one of her most dearest and best friends while she was Queen Regent. However, he had been taken away by her by unseen forces that resurrected him in another world, rendering him unable to be found.

Phantom turned to the two standing in the corner and floated over. “Did you mention a Ghost Princess? I want to hear this.”

Nightwing and Batman shared a look and the former said, “Hmm. You and the character Phantom share the same name, huh?”

“I’m also a ghost, y’know?” Phantom said, his hands behind his back in an innocent pose. He looked at them with big, sparkly green eyes, already able to tell that both of them were softening. He wasn’t much older than Red Robin and he loved taking advantage of that. “Can I hear about the Ghost Princsss?”

“It’s a bedtime story that my son created in order to soothe my youngest to sleep,” Batman replied. “It’s a story about a ghost queen and her loyal subject, Robin, as they handle and take care of things in their kingdom.”

“Robin?” Phantom asked, pretending to be confused. “Like your Robin?”

Nightwing shrugged. “I asked our Robin and he thinks that “Robin” was more like a literal bird creature than an actual person like us, since Red Hood would mention golden wings.”

Phantom’s mind flashed back to the Robin he knew, whose yellow wings covered him like a cape as he protected Jazz. It was sounding more and more like this Red Hood was telling the story of Robin and Jazz together.

“Huh,” Phantom said. “That sounds interesting. What about the Ghost Princess and the character Phantom?”

Batman replied, “The Ghost Princess seemed to be queen regent, but preferred to be called princess, while this “Phantom” character was her crown prince. The two were a pair of siblings with two others, Wraith and Spirit.”

Phantom’s eyes widened.

Spirit was a name that Dani had chosen for herself when she was still figuring out her identity. However, what made it special was that she had never revealed her name to the public population in the Ghost Zone, meaning that only a few individuals knew her name. A few individuals that included Robin.

Phantom smiled. “That sounds interesting! I love ghost stories, I’d love to hear this story in person!”

Due to the Anti Ecto Acts, Danny decides it would be safer to leave the United States and live abroad.

Danny looses a bet and now he has to attend couples therapy. The problem? He has no one to attend couples therapy with.

The obvious solution, he decides with 3am clarity after 36 consecutive hours awake, is to put out a job listing. And where better to find a fake partner than a dating site?

About Me

Looking for someone to take to couples therapy and see how long it takes the therapist to notice we don't know each other.

He pulls up a dating site, the one Babs laughed at his profile on. What's this? Someone who wants to attend couples therapy? Interesting ... actually, that would be a great way to troll Bruce.

(And his therapist did mention potentially looking at less violent ways of getting back at people he's angry at.)