Labyrinth of Scribbles

So, general idea.

In the tumult of the night his parents died, Bruce hadn’t thought twice about handing his baby brother off to a kind police officer. He was shaking so hard he thought he’d drop Daniel. While the officer walked away to calm the screaming, swaddled infant, Bruce gave statement after statement to officer Gordon and others. When Alfred arrived at the station to retrieve the Wayne boys, he was met with a terrible shock.

Somehow, through incompetence or malevolence, Daniel was nowhere to be found. The officer who took the child initially said they handed him off to a secretary when he’d calmed down, and the secretary said she’d called the local CPP office to check on what requirements needed to be met for an infant in their custody. They said they’d send over an agent to handle the process. The child was passed to the person with the correct badge. They were now unreachable. And Daniel was too.

The CPP office denied having received this call. The secretary produced the recording, which all police lines in Gotham have by default. The police line says the call went to CPP; CPP’s system says otherwise.

And Daniel is somewhere out there with a crooked agent, or a fake agent, and they have no idea who they are or what they want.

Of course this made national news. The image of the stolen Wayne baby was on every television and newspaper. It was broadcast nationwide. Information about the disappearance had a hefty reward. Bruce begged the media for help finding his little brother. Not since the Lindbergh baby had there been such a national outcry.

And still there were no answers. Bruce grew disillusioned with a justice system that couldn’t find his parents’ killer nor his brother’s kidnapper. Daniel Wayne’s disappearance became the first case for Batman. It led him into the darkness of Gotham, plunging headlong into rampant trafficking, corrupt child services, and even brought the fabled Court of Owls to his attention.

—————

Meanwhile, in a different genre, young scientist couple Jack and Madeline Fenton are of their yearly vacation to haunted locales around the country. With a two-year-old in tow, they’re not quite up for spelunking through caverns or wandering the woods at night, but there are plenty of urban legends to investigate!

Through their unique combination of genius and incomprehensibility, the Fenton tangle with the Court of Owls, managing to destroy one of their secret society hideouts and save a cute baby on the way out! Sure, they’re convinced the Court was made up of ghosts and the child was spirited away to be ritually sacrificed. But the baby is safe in Maddie’s arms, and Jack notices how much he looks like himself, so they decide to take him home.

They try to report what happened to the police of course, but the cops told them to get lost with their ‘crazy ghost stories’. Along with the other complaints received about their insane outfits, gear, and vehicle, the police were quite ready to have the Fentons get the hell out of the city.

You’d think a town as haunted as Gotham would have more credulous citizenry, but what could you do? Oh well, back to Amity Park!

“What should we call him, Jack?”

“How about Daniel? I keep seeing that name everywhere for some reason!”

Danny: *taps the words on his vest*

Bruce: "Service Person, I am Working, Do Not Interact". Working?

Danny: *huffing and picks up Dick so he can carry him to a more quiet room*

Bruce: Alfred, that man-

Alfred: Ah yes, thats Master Dick's new Service Person, Danny. He's mostly for Emotional Support, but he has other jobs; like helping Master Dick with his PTSD, and helping him with physical therapy.

Bruce: I don't understand, is this like a relationship thing?

Alfred: Of course not, that would be highly inappropriate. Danny is a Service Person.

Tim had heard parents joke that one day their kids would have children just like them and finally understand what they'd put their parents through. Bruce had never said that to him, but Tim wondered if he'd thought about it, and if that was the reason why Tim was in this situation.

Danny was a fourteen-year-old Tim had been keeping an eye on. The kid lived in the apartment complex right next to Tim's penthouse, and according to his paperwork, his guardian was one Vladimir Masters, a family friend who had taken him in after his parents died.

In the spring of the same year as Shen Jiu is born, Shen Yuan wakes up as the infant son of an Army General.

He hates it. Infants have no dignity, and new layers of Shen Yuan's already thin face shave off with every diaper change and feeding. So! To stave off the growing cracks in his mental state, he starts focusing on the world around him.

As an infant, he figures he must be in some hacks half-assed historical fantasy or something. At three years of age, he decides that, more likely, it's some sort of Wuxia-Xianxia mix with an emphasis on...well, he's not entirely sure, but there's a lot of hidden politics his military family has to deal with, so. Maybe it's something like Game of Thrones?

It isn't until he’s started being taught military strategy and how to read that he starts seeing familiar names. After all, what are the chances of all four Cultivation Clans of PIDW being named in one book?

So.

So...

Yeah, no. Shen Yuan loses his shit.

Some time later (much, much later), Shen Yuan has the wherewithal to start scouting around. The good news is, he's several years away from the start of PIDW's plot, and even more before he would have to worrying about the Realms Merger Luo Binghe would wrought upon them all.

The bad news is that he may not even have to worry about any of that; because while the land Shen Yuan's family currently lives on is at peace, it's tentative at best, and Shen Yuan is next in line to be General of the Nation's army.

--

Many years later, Luo Binghe is ten years old, slowly traveling from town to town on his way to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, when he meets what he would later realize is the love of his life.

Walking a well-used path between towns, his bad luck had caught up with him when a young master in a carriage took exception to the sight of him and, as young masters always did, decided to harass and bully the poor defenseless child in their sight line. Lou Binghe was just starting to regret ever being born when he hears the sounds of hoof beats catching up to their position.

"Make way!" A stern voice shouts. "Make way for the Army!"

The young master's party tries, but their master is prideful and a fool, and thus refuses. It turns out the young master is of some higher rank (with nothing better to do than cause trouble) and so the moment he is told to move, he digs his feet in. A confrontation starts.

Binghe tries to subtly scuttle away, but he's grabbed before he can go far and thrown to the ground between the two parties- used as a scapegoat for why the young master is being so obstinate. He knows- from years of watching servants take the fall- that the next few minutes are likely to hurt real bad.

But then the clouds part, and under a ray of gentle light, a voice calls out amongst the army men. Binghe dares glance up, just in time to see the rugged men part for another man on horseback.

He's different from the others. Oh, he had the build, the armor, and his hair was tied up tight in a bun, making him seemingly indistinguishable from the others, but there was something there that called all eyes to him. A silent assurance, or maybe just a quiet gravity.

Binghe feels himself fill with cautious awe.

"Why have we stopped? What is the issue?"

"Apparently this child is blocking the road." The leading soldier informed.

"That's right, this little runt refused to move for his superiors! The Master will not be moving until some proper respect is beaten into him!"

The man on horseback turns to him then. All awe dies. Binghe's heart sinks. There is a cold analysis in that gaze, and-

No. No, wait. Even as Binghe's heart fell...did those eyes gain a hint of warmth?

"I see." The man speaks. "So a single lost child is enough to ruffle the young master's feathers like this? How great your house must have fallen, that it cannot ignore a single slight from an orphaned boy."

The young master seethes, "You-!"

The man turns to the leading soldiers, cutting him off with a swift order- "Move Them," -then in a smooth, well-practiced move, swings off his horse and lands in the dirt with a gentle, heavy thud.

Binghe watches him with eyes wide- and getting wider as he approaches Binghe's kneeling self and drops to bended knee right in front of him.

"You've found some trouble, child."

Ah! A scolding! Binghe's cheeks flush with shame, his wide stare dropping to his hands. "This lowly one is sorry! This lowly one did not mean to cause trouble for you-"

"Stop. I'm not criticizing you." A warm hand lands on his head, and Binghe nearly gasps aloud. "What's your name? Where are you going?" A small pause. "You've been injured; let me bandage that for you."

For the next little while, Binghe basks in the care of a total stranger. He tells his name, his life story, and for the first time since his mother's death, feels as if he is really and truly being seen.

"Cang Qiong, huh?" The man, plain and indistinguishable from any other soldier at first appearance- oh, but Binghe will never forget his face now. He stares at the man's features as long as he dares, determined to memorize every line and scar and out of place strand of hair. "I can't take you all the way there, but if you don't mind sharing a horse and promise to hide if trouble comes knocking, I see no reason we can't take you a town close by."

Forget memories, he needs to know this man's name now!!

--

He shares a horse with the man (Shen Yuan!). Others offer, but for the second time in Binghe's life, he dares to hide behind someone's legs and clings to the man's pants. (It was entirely impulse, and he scolded himself for it viciously, but Shen Yuan- proving Binghe's mother right that there are kind people in the world still- laughed. Laughed!)

Binghe had never ridden a horse before, but Shen Yuan was so kind. He taught him how to get on, helped him up the entire way, guided him on the best way to sit and hold the resigns; and when Shen Yuan climbed up himself, Binghe didn't feel nervous about their closeness at all.

In fact, an hour into the ride, Binghe fell into a light doze. He couldn't help it. Shen Yuan was warm and sturdy, and Binghe was small and tired. It was bound to happen, and he only woke up when new sounds reached his ears.

When camp was made, Shen Yuan shared his food with him. When it was time to sleep, he didn't mind that Binghe clung to his side and refused to go anywhere else. When Binghe got scared to relieve himself in the forest at night, Shen Yuan would sigh, pat his head, and say "Alright, I'll go with you. But only the once, got it?" And Binghe would happily agree; but by that point they both knew if Binghe asked, Shen Yuan would indulge him. A week of this, and even the other soldiers would tease them for becoming "father and child on the way to war."

Traveling through towns was the best, though. Shen Yuan told the best stories, and when he saw things in the markets or food in the stalls, he would point at them and tell Binghe stories of "that time I ripped some drunk a new one for messing with a girl," and "when I was younger I accidentally broke my mother's prized necklace and spent the next month trying to hide it from her."

They couldn't really stop in town, but at one point Shen Yuan decided to wait until they'd made camp and eaten before taking Binghe on the speediest ride back into town of his life- and all to get him a bath and change of clothes.

A bath! A warm, clean bath! And he wasn't weird about it at all, like some of the street kids told him adults could be! He even bought Binghe's new clothes with his own personal coin! (It wasn't new, and the colors were a little faded, but it was clean and sturdy and bought just a little bigger than Binghe's size- but most importantly, it was His! His, and a gift from the man who was quickly becoming his favorite person!)

All in all, Binghe- oh, Binghe didn't want to leave Shen Yuan at all!

And then he overheard it.

It was a town close to Binghe's last shared destination with Shen Yuan. The townsfolk were quieter there, and when they saw the soldiers, they all murmured and stared as they passed, quiet and solemn. Like the wake of a funeral.

Binghe tentatively called up to Shen Yuan, unnerved.

"Hm?" He followed Binghe's eyes, sighed, and pat his head. "Don't worry, Binghe. They're just worried."

Later in camp, Binghe asked more about it; and that's when he learned what an Army was. Really learned.

"You could die?"

The firelight made odd shadows on Shen Yuan's face, but for a second Binghe thought he saw somberness settle there.

"That's right."

"Why?" Binghe asked- and he knew he shouldn't, but a new fear had grown in him and the image of Shen Yuan cold and still on a battlefield, injured so bad he died, all alone without Binghe there to help- oh, it made his little heart tremble and made his eyes burn with tears.

"Orders from our dearest Emperor," another soldier chimed in, poking their fire with a stick. Shen Yuan called his name in a scolding tone, but another soldier cut in just as quickly.

"You see, the mortal realm's Emperor decided fighting with our neighbors was better than brokering peace."

Shen Yuan tried to scold him too, but Binghe beat him to it with another "Why?"

"Enough. Binghe does not need to hear-"

Another man- one that spoke to Shen Yuan frequently with information and questions- stepped in then. "Captain, he of all people needs to hear. You'll be parting soon, doesn't he have the right to know why you might not meet again?"

And Binghe learned. He learned that the current Emperor of the mortal realm was recently instated. That he was young and tyrannical and bore no insult, no matter if insult was meant or had ever existed in the first place. Executions were plentiful, relations with old neighboring allies were failing, negotiations with opposing neighbors were falling apart, and in fact the only person here in this camp that had come out of any sort of willingness was Shen Yuan, as the son of a General. The others had been enlisted very much against their will with little expectation to make it out alive, let alone gain anything from their misery.

Why? Because the Emperor had perceived insult from an envoy negotiating peace, had them locked up, and when the country they came from refused to apologize for some imagined slight, the Emperor had lost it and had the envoy executed before the whole capital.

Binghe had never hated someone before, but now, knowing that it would be on this man's orders that his Shen Yuan could die...

"Let me come with you."

The soldiers laughed at him. It wasn't mean-spirited, just sad and knowing, and Binghe understood even if he didn't like it. What would a ten year old do on the battlefield? Die, that's what.

Shen Yuan pulled him over into his arms before Binghe could really start crying, sitting him in his lap and rocking him side to side.

"It'll be alright. Even if I do die, I won't go."

"You won't?" Binghe hiccups into his chest. His small arms cling to Shen Yuan's sides, and Shen Yuan holds him almost exactly how his mama used to.

"Of course not. Binghe wants me to stay, so how could I die?"

There's a smattering of laughs behind him, and Binghe pouts. "Don't joke!"

"Not joking, not joking," Shen Yuan soothes with lightness in his voice- definitely laughing then! "I'm very serious. The most serious. Binghe doesn't want me to go, so even if I die, I'll stay and wait for Binghe to find me; how does that sound?'

Binghe sniffles, "Sounds good."

"Good. Then it's a deal: as long as Binghe wants me, I won't move on to the next life. I'll wait right where I fell, I promise."

Binghe would prefer a promise to live, but even he knew that wasn't one a person could keep. Atleast this way, even if Shen Yuan wasn't alive, Binghe could still keep him. Maybe...maybe he could even find a way to bring him back? If cultivation magic was real and demons walked amongst mortals, then why not bringing back the dead?

--

Their parting isn't happy in that final town. Everyone knew Binghe had to go. Binghe knew he had to go. Yet, when Binghe looked up at Shen Yuan, he could see the soldier struggling with himself. His hold on Binghe's hand was firm, and it tightened when Binghe adjusted his hand inside it before finally letting go.

Just like the first time they met, Shen Yuan moves to kneel before him.

"You'll be safe? Stay out of trouble? Cang Qiong isn't far; if you're scared, I can take you the rest of the way..."

Binghe shakes his head. "You can't. The Emperor won't like it."

Shen Yuan purses his lips. Binghe likes to think he knows the man very well now, and so he swears he can almost hear Shen Yuan say "Damn the Emperor!" in his mind. It makes him smile.

The soldier moves on. "Food then? Water? Do you have enough? Should I give you coin for an Inn? A bath might be good if you want to make a good first impression on Cang Qiong."

"The boy will be fine, Captain. You've given him everything he'll need. If you give anymore, you'll end up giving him half our supplies and go broke."

Binghe and Yuan both pout at the man: Binghe, for interrupting their goodbye, and Shen Yuan for denying his need to care for (spoil) Binghe with his Logic. Still, the logic was sound. Binghe had to convince Shen Yuan not to give him his entire coin pouch as a parting gift.

(Binghe loves this man. He's too young to know what kind of love it is at the moment, but when he's fifteen and discovering the existence of romance for the first time, he'll think back on these long weeks with Shen Yuan and Know.)

It takes awhile for Shen Yuan to drag himself away. Binghe doesn't even try to put distance between them, watching Shen Yuan mount his horse like- like a man off to war.

The procession leaves slowly, each soldier yelling out their own farwell as they pass. Binghe waves to them as they call, but his eyes cling to Shen Yuan, not wanting to miss a second.

Shen Yuan glances back frequently over his shoulder. Their eyes meet more than once, and each time Binghe feels a jolt in his heart. Will Shen Yuan turn around? Will he take him with him after all?

He never does. Eventually the soldiers take a turn on the path and disappear behind the trees.

Alone, Binghe makes his way to Cang Qiong Mountain.

--

There's a phrase he hears on Qing Jing that doesn't quite process until he’s knee deep in the demon realm, amassing power at an alarming rate: "A General must follow an Emperor."

His thoughts drift away from his mother, to a different kind face. "When another does you a kindness," he does not fidget, his mind distant but focused on this moment. "You need strength."

He pauses. "No...when someone is kind, they can only give as much as they have, and you can only return as much as you have."

He breathes in, forcing his voice not to waver. "And when someone is kind, but weak," his mind flashes to his mother, health waning in sickness. "Strong, but still outpowered," Shen Yuan, smiling even as he marched towards his end, "then they die, and their kindness, their protection, ends."

He smiles, then, eyes focusing back in the world near around him. "So if you want to repay them, you have to be strong. You have to not only protect them, but keep protecting them. You have to survive."

Danny moves to Gotham and buys an apartment building.

It was more just a fun project for him to fix up the building, seeing as how after he took over VladCo, and cleaning up operations, Danny was making more money than ever, even after donating to various charities. So yeah, he was bored and just wanted to get his hands dirty and personally repair the appartments.

Once everything was fixed up, he opened the appartments for rent. He didn't really want to charge people, especially in such an area as Crime Alley, but not charging someone rent is way more sketchy than just asking them to pay whatever they could or wanted to. He ended up just setting the money aside to use on the appartments should it need any upgrades or repairs. He doesn't only take money either, while he denies "physical" payments and/or narcotics, he'll take lessons, like the man in 2B teaching him to sew, or the woman in 5A teaching him how to cook, or the two kids who give him very interesting shiny rocks as payment, there was even a few people who paid by cleaning the appartment building's shared places. One teenager paid rent one month by giving Danny a pair of sickly black and white kittens they found outside(they're named Casper, and Specter, and they're the Building's Managers in Pest Apprehension, and Danny loves them).

Because the appartments are so close to where the working girls/boys run, they make up most of his tenants, so Danny asks them to not bring clients back to the apartments, its dangerous to let their clients know where they live, especially because there are other tenants, including children, in the building so its a safety risk. They all agree, they don't really want their clients knowing where they live anyway.

Some do get stalkers though, and Danny is quick to get rid of them. Or when burglars manage to break in, Danny stops them before they can take anything, and if he managed to miss the burglar, he'll personally replace whatever was stolen until they could get the original stuff back. (Maybe he should adopt a gaurd dog, at least for the intimidation factor. Cane Corso's are medium sized*, hes sure he could get away with getting something like that. Something to think about later.)

A lot of his tenants say Danny is really kind, but thats not how Danny sees it, and its something he loudly denies. He's a bored rich person who was taking advantage of his wealth. Him providing them a safe place to live, and a little bit of comfort isn't kindness, its basic human decency. He's not some saint who is doing this of his own kind heart, he's a normal guy who was bored and just decided to do something helpful opposed to harmful, and he shouldn't be praised for that.

If he can fix some plot points and get things less chaotic (airplane seriously just crept adding stuff that made zero sense to get more sex scenes) so SY will fix that and make things less bad for Binghe...

He ends up taking over the entire abyss without realizing. Man is emperor of the abyss.

Xin Mo has been begging SY to wield it but SY is like 'i'm not touching the protagonists golden finger, why would I do that i'm just an NPC'

SY has not realized he's the feared emperor of the abyss, tales of his power have even reached outside texts, he is the great terror that rules over all others and untied all the creatures under his power.

He just keeps thinking this is just to make things easier for Binghe... he's mentioned a few times about LBH and his subjects have heard a heavenly demon hat will fall in who SY talks about with adoration.

Clearly they all decide SY is a seer (it would explain a lot) and LBH is their future bride.

LBH falls into abyss ready to start revenge arc... only to get scooped up by first demons who see him and take him palace to apparently 'future husband' LBH is ready to start killing... until he meets SY.

Empress of the abyss suddenly sounds very appealing.

SY: I can help Binghe go though this arc with less trauma and then i'm sure he'll leave and become emperor

No takeover in any demonic lands, no plots as cultivation sects and no wives appear to have been acquired.

He has no idea what's happening, where's the plot? where's the revenge? wheres the harem?

Stallion protagonist is missing in action and SQH is confused. The script is out the window and his system seems to have just given up? No missions or anything.

MBJ is taking over territory and expanding power... he no longer wants a spy (he has no need for one since the sect isn't of any importance to him without LBH revenge) SQH thinks he's gonna die earlier... only MBJ just scoops him up and is keeping in in North permanently... (he's been bridenapped and hasn't figured it out yet)

It's only when SQH is arranging meeting with abyssal emperor (who SQH is 99% sure he never wrote but he didn't have a lot of lore in notes that he had to throw out because the lore wasn't selling with anyone other than peerless cucumber)

When in meeting he sees emperor and his empress... who is his stallion protagonist.

SY, experiencing cute aggression with the power of 1,000 suns (internally): OHHHHH MY GOD THAT IS THE CUTEST THING IVE EVER HEARD OF, THE GAP MOE IS TOO POWERFUL!!!!!! RAGHGGGG IM GONNA DIE FROM CUTE OVERLOAD!!!!!!!!!!!!

SY (out loud): Pinkie is a great horse name, I’d love to see it sometime. Reminds me of the stuffed cat I used to sleep with, named Kitty. :)

LMY (internally): Damnit…

Where SY is one og Bingge's wives and basically running everything trying to take burden off Bingge. Not that's he's ever noticed. He is full on running the realms while LBH is away. People have to stop themselves slipping up and calling SY emperor/empress.

Bingge doesn't notice and SY is just overlooked constantly he tries not to let it bother him, it's fine he's able to fix for things for Bingge he's busy... it's been years and he hasn't even tried to see him once or notice but it's fine. Really it's fine he's fine.

So what if he's the one running the country, and the one who sits by Bingge's bedside when he does get injured (Only he had to leave for 1 moment to sort out a court issue and in that time Bingge woke up alone and called for one of his other wives to fix the issue because of course he was affected by a papapa plot plant) and so what if when Bingge does walk past him he doesn't even look at him. It's fine, SY is fine...

Only then the Bingmei Vs Bingge extra happens. Bingge is laser focused on getting a kind shizun as his empress...

So to clear harem he starts divorcing wives, including SY.

SY just shattered and it's. OK IT'S NOT FINE HE'S UPSET AND PISSED AND FUCK THIS SHIT.

SY leaves and goes back to wherever the wives family is.

... it doesn't take a week for everything to go to shit.

Advisors and nobles and every member of palace staff is freaking out everything's broken.

Bingge is pulled out of his Shziun focus tasks only to find everything almost on fire and what is happening? why isn't this stuff done? wait he's meant to do this? He's never done this? He doesn't know how to do this?

Cue him having to run realms and figure out how this has just broken whose been doing this before? How much of his job have they been doing? What do you mean it was a wife?

He goes to find wife and finds very upset and unhappy SY who is not coming back and refuses a proposal. Bingge having to woo him and slowly realizing he did have a kind Shziun.

He was married to his kind Shziun.

He divorced his kind Shziun.

Not that anyone remembers.

Because SQH forgot. (Intentionally)

He knew any alliance would need to give LBH a wife and so added a distant Mobei cousin. But he FINALLY had reached arc where he could write about his favorite character, so entire marriage was throw away line in middle of epic chapters of fighting (First bit of PIDW he enjoyed writing in ages) it was so forgotten SQH added another marriage at end of arc with the required papapa.

(If SY is character is male could be because SQH was rushing through so much originally put wrong pronoun and no description)

So not only is LBH kingdom in chaos but now MBJ is not showing up because alliance broken. And MBJ has been everything SY was doing and thought LBH had told her and was favoring him giving her responsibilities and just not talking about anything sexual he did like he did with other wives because that is his cousin.

Bruce: What? I have friends.

Alfred: Your coworkers and children do not count, though I do prefer that you spend more time with them. Master Bruce, you need to make a friend who has nothing to do with the nightlife. Now I know you won't go on your own, so I took the liberty of signing you up for an event that guarantees you to make one friend that shares a common interest outside of Batman.

Bruce: There is no event that I would ever bother to-

Alfred: It's a fan meet up for the Grey Ghost fanatics

Bruce: *Gasp* I CAN COSPLAY AS THE GREY GHOST!

Alfred: Yes. Yes you can.

Three nights later.

Bruce: I'm home.

Alfred: Welcome home! Did you make a friend?

Bruce: Yes I did.

Dick: Good for you B- who is that?

Danny dressed as a mini Grey Ghost: Hi!

Bruce: This young boy is a fan of the Grey Ghost. He was alone at the fan meet-up.

Jason: Oh no.

Bruce: He also happens to be orphan.

Tim: It's not possible. How did he find one in the wild like that?

Bruce: So I offered to take him in!

Damian: What is happening?

Bruce: Met your new brother and my new friend! Danny Fenton.

Alfred covering his face: I'm never going to mardy that boy off am I? He can't even make friends....

Danny whispering to Bruce: When do I get my two hundred dollars?

“That’s the polite descriptor?” Bruce turned to meet blue eyes, “I shudder to imagine the impolite version.”

The room had been empty. He’d made sure of it before allowing Dick to move their… argument. There were no signs of life on this or the next five floors down. Yet, there he was. A beautiful man, too many years his junior for his thoughts to go straight to the man’s looks, sitting on a stool at a workbench.

“Oh, for sure, you definitely don’t want to hear what else I could describe that as.” The man nodded, bringing Bruce’s attention to the jewelry tucked into the man’s shirt and hidden by his hair. “Ignoring all the stuff I clearly shouldn’t have heard,” which meant he did, in fact, notice the Bat-based vocabulary, “you are terrible at communicating with your kids.”

“Oh?” Bruce strained to sound casual, trying not to give away what all he may have not already.

“Oh yeah. Like, clearly you love your kids. Right?” The man waited for acknowledgment, which Bruce begrudgingly gave, before he continued, “right, so, what’s stopping you from saying it? Just a simple, I’m worried about you going on that inter-dimensional mission because I love you and want you to be safe, would work great. Might even get you brownie points, you know? Instead of what you said, which implied a lack of trust and a sense of derision towards your son’s skills, and was never going to be taken well.” Well. That answered well enough what all the pretty man had heard.

“It’s not that easy,” Bruce frowned at him, debating how many NDAs he’d have to threaten the man into signing.

“Sure it is. Just open your mouth and say the words, let them sit there, and don’t take them back.” Blue met and held blue from across the room before the man rolled his eyes, “right, okay, would it help you to think of it as a series of undefined tasks or a science experiment?”

“The latter,” the former sounded like what he’d already been working with.

“Okay, so pull up a stool,” the man twirled a pen as he pulled over a loose sheet of paper, “and we’ll start with the scientific method: if the big bad Bat communicates ineffectively then his children will be upset because they don’t have empathic abilities. What about this sentence can we change to make it better?”

“My ability to communicate,” Bruce admitted.

“Very good,” the man praised and Bruce wondered if he could get away with slamming the man’s head into the table without it being workplace abuse. Probably not. “So, if the Bat communicates effectively, then…?”

“My children won’t be as upset.”

“Because…?”

“They’ll understand what I mean better.”

Look, I generally don't write fanfiction. I read a hell of a lot of it, but I don't write it. That said, this showed up almost complete in a dream, and I woke up just before I hit the publish button, so...

Jack Fenton had a ... complicated relationship with his family. He knew that his father was once The Flash, and he knew that his father had to give up his connection to the Speedforce due to something called the Black Flash. His Dad never went into details, but what Jack knew was this: the Black Flash was some form of ghost that hunted his father whenever Dad got fast enough, and 'fast enough' kept getting slower and slower, until one day Dad was doing chores around the house and that was enough to put him within arms reach of Baby Jack. After that, Dad found a way to sever his connection to the SpeedForce and retired the Flash, letting some time travelling kid from the future take up the role. Whatever. He had his Dad. But... he just couldn't stand the way his father would look at him sometimes! It felt like Dad was blaming HIM for every person who died because Dad was no longer the Fastest Man Alive. In a search for identity away from that, he went to the gym, if he was built like a brick wall instead of a speedster, maybe that would help?

Then he met Maddie Waller in University, smart, driven, everything he ever wanted... and his Dad said Absolutely NOT, not Amanda Waller's daughter, son you don't know what you're doing! And that was that. When they got married, he went back to a grandmother's maiden name, a new start for both of them.

I just wanted to add that the reason I called this 3rd Gen Heroes is simple.

Barry Allen WAS a hero.

Danny Phantom IS a hero.

And Jack... Jack is Becoming a hero.

And frankly, when the dust from this dies down there's nothing stopping Barry from reforging his speedforce connection.

Any innacuracies about Black Flash is because Jack learned about him second hand, from childhood stories, and this is what he retained. That and I'm fairly unfamiliar with him.

I know it's a fairly comon fanon that Clockwork assigns Danny time-cop like assignments that we never saw on camera, in this AU it'd be because he's training a baby speedster how to Not Break The Timeline because Danny has the potential to royally fuck things up even more than a 'normal' speedster because of his extra powers.

Yes, Amanda Waller is black and Maddie is very much not, but sometimes a kid with a parent who's black and a parent who's white comes out looking VERY white. This scenario is exactly why Barry was going, "Son, No, NOT HER." Heroes gossip enough for him to know that Amanda Waller would not let family ties get in the way of what she defined as the Greater Good, and that she'd teach her kid the same.

Jason finds out Tim was turned into Joker Junior and was, in essence, Joker's adopted son for a while, and his first instinctual thought is 'alright well that kid has to be mine now.'

like, i don't think a lot of us take into account regarding the Joker that Jason isn't always just... terrified of everything Joker-centric. he straight up stole the Red Hood mantle from the guy. he loves jokerized seasoning on his fries. when he first came back to Gotham to kill the Joker he just kinda nabbed him and threw him in a closet all tied up for a while so he could go antagonise Bruce. like, Jason doesn't give a fuck. it's not always fear that fuels his rage against the Joker, it's fuckin' spite.

with that in mind, i think it would be funnier if Jason found out that Joker tried to make Tim into his son and instantly responded with 'ok well fuck the Joker, Tim is now MY son.' and Bruce just has to watch forlorn from the batcomputer as his kid is stolen by his other kid like. at least they aren't fighting this time?

i think Tim was supremely worried about Jason's reaction to Joker Junior stuff, too. like. he fully thought he'd spark a panic attack or get himself killed once Jason found out. instead he accidentally lets out a Joker-laugh one time and Jason's just like fuck yeah kid let it out.

Lately I'm having ideas before going to sleep... Another midnight prompt:

Jason thought it was funny.

He had been seeing this flyers everywhere about this tournament to win the right to adopt the prince of this place called the infinite realms, not realizing very few people seem to be able to see them. It was clearly some kind of joke, or maybe a reference for a new movie/game he hadn't heard of. So course Jason took a pen and wrote on one of them that Bruce Wayne was participating.

He thought it was funny. He still thinks it is, having the adoption addict in an adoption tournament it's funny! But he can admit, that the tournament being real, and very magical, make things a little complicated.

-_-_-_-

Danny will still be a ghostling for a long time, and elder ghosts in general have decided it would be healthy for him and Ellie to have an appropriate guardian, now that the prince and his mirrorborn were forced to leave their home dimension. Danny has met a lot of people he trusts at this point, and isn't so sure about choosing, or if he even wants any of these people as guardians. Look, he knows they're technically neons old, but a lot of them feel like peers, or older siblings, definitely not guardians. So. After a lot of whining from literally every ghost that was even a year older than him, Danny set up an adoption tournament to get them off his back. He'll surely be able to make up his mind by the time the tournament is done.

Swiping a hand down his face he did the only thing he could think to do. Call Dick.

"On a scale of one to ten, ten being the absolute worst how bad is it that I somehow signed B up for a magical tournament."

"Well hello to you Jason, my day was wonder- I'm sorry magical tournament?" Dick starts sarcastically before choking on his words. "Please explain."

(one explanation later)

"-And now he HAS to go." Jason collapsed onto his couch staring at the ceiling. Hearing nothing from the other end he is about to start getting angry when he gets his response.

"You put Bruce "let me just grab this child" Wayne in an adoption tournament, Jason." Dick says gravely, "Do you really think he is going to back out?"

“Wait—how do you know Lambert?” Geralt asked, the question slipping out sharp as a drawn blade, caught somewhere between suspicion and disbelief.

Jaskier blinked at him, entirely unbothered. “Oh, that? He’s my godfather,” he said, as casually as one might remark on the weather.

Geralt stared. Truly stared. His eyes widened until it seemed a wonder they did not tumble free and roll across the floor. “How,” he said slowly, “is that even remotely possible?”

“Well,” Jaskier began, with the air of someone about to recount a perfectly ordinary tale, “it all started when I was a baby, and a fae tried to curse me.”

Geralt’s brow furrowed. “A fae cursed you?”

“Tried,” Jaskier corrected, lifting a finger as though this distinction were sacred law. “Important difference. You see, the fae was hopelessly in love with my mother—tragic, really—who, inconveniently, was in love with my father. Then along came me, which did not improve matters. Jealousy, curses, the usual sort of thing.”

Geralt said nothing. He simply looked at him, face carved from stone, as Jaskier carried on, bright as birdsong.

“Anyway, it’s my first name-day, everyone’s celebrating, and this fae decides it’s the perfect moment for revenge. But—fortunate twist—Lettenhove had been dealing with drowners at the time, so my father had already hired a witcher.”

Geralt exhaled through his nose, the pieces clicking into place despite himself. “Lambert.”

Sam: You had a kid?

Tucker: Is it mine?

Danny, snorts and playfully kicks Tucker's shin: No, hes not yours. Hes not mine either. One of mom's old friends- Talia, or Tina? Something like that- couldn't take care of him anymore-between you guys and me, I think she escaped from a cult- and she asked mom if she and dad could raise him.

Sam: So why do you have him?

Danny: Sam after the last four, almost five, years of knowing my parents, would you trust them with another infant?

Sam: Fair point.

Tucker: So what's his name?

Danny: This is Damian, isn't he the cutest? Look as those pretty green eyes.

Tucker: Ugh look at his cute little grumpy face. Let me hold him.

Danny: *hands Damian to Tucker*

Sam: The teachers are okay with you just having a baby with you? What about after school? I thought you finally decided on a university.

Danny: There's only a few more months of school, so the teachers are fine with it. Then after graduation, me and Damian will be moving to Central City, my part time job is connected to S.T.A.R labs and they have a daycare thats willing to watch Damian during my collage courses and work hours. I thought this through Sam.

Sam: If you're sure.

Danny: I am. Besides, Damian is a little angel.

Tucker: Okay stop hitting my glasses please. *holds Damian away from him so he'll stop grabbing his glasses* Sam, you want to hold him?

Sam: No thank you. I don't like children, especially babies.

Tucker: *shrugs before passing Damian back to Danny, where Damian immediately calms down*

Danny: Come on, let's go to class before the halls get too rowdy.

Valerie: *gasp* Danny, you finally gave birth to our kid?!

Wes: Excuse you, Val, but thats obviously mine and Danny's kid.

Their early removal from talia being because their shape would not have allowed for natural birth, they were written off but talia begged for the chance to send them off in the lazarus pit.

By some bizarre miracle, before she turned to leave, two small bodies bobbed to the surface - identical in every way, except for the eyes. The previous blue eyes now split in two, one left, one right, and the new eyes, pit created, a bright green.

She took her child, her two children, and together, they survived.

Being removed prematurely, their early years were tough, but soon they blossomed into promising heirs for the league. In sync with every step, the closest of brothers, the league was certain the old fairy tale of twins being telepathic had been granted by the pit that separated them, the remnants of being born as one mind, one brain, one skull.

But then Danny had to flee, and leave his other half behind. Stretched by distance for the first time, the bond grew thin and stretched, and Damian grieved his brother as dead. When he started being sent on public missions, he hid his distinctive heterochromia, choosing the green in memory of the pit that had given him and his brother life.

Danny, hiding his pit aura in the ocean's worth that was Amity park, took to blue, the colour that he and Damian were born with.

Damian moves to Gotham, and continues to mourn his brother as dead, right until one day when he is twelve, when he learns what the death of your other half truly feels like.

-

Their reunion is a thing of family legend. Violence runs hot in both bloodlines, ghosts are highly emotional and prone to fighting a the drop of a hat for bonding, playing, testing, every reason under the green sun. Their training and play often consisted of friendly spars, competitive spars, furious spars, venting spars. Both have been exposed to unhealthy amounts of ecto since before their birth.

There is a long, long minute of staring, before they rip themselves away and lunge at each other like wolves.

The bat family are horrified by their brutally efficient youngest suddenly barreling towards a clone (?) and trying to claw his throat open with his bare hands while openly sobbing.

It ends with them wrapped around each other crying into the others shoulder as their minds finally meet again and relax from the painful stretch for the first time in years.