#a second life

Tucker and Sam enjoyed being carried by Superman to the manor. Danny got to snuggle with his sister. He did make himself lighter, so it wouldn’t be as hard for her. Jazz reassured him the entire flight over Gotham, telling him his reaction was totally reasonable if he was having a flashback and a tough time. Also, that she loved him. A lot. 

Danny already knew that though. 

Great Grandpa - Grandad (he needed to remember to use that more!) was expecting them, ushering them inside. Grandad was reluctant to let Clark take over the kitchen, but he eventually relented. The other three were absolutely THRILLED that they were not only meeting Superman, but getting to know him as Clark and making brownies with the man. There was something comforting about the chocolate. About the fudginess of the brownies. It brought unshed tears to his eyes. Jazz noticed, and hugged him. 

“It’s okay to cry, Danny. Fudge reminds me of him too. Of our dad in our past life.” 

Is that what was causing this? More things from the past? He probably wouldn’t have cried and been so upset if he hadn’t seen his older self in the mirror, the one that waved back at him. He was getting tired of this. Danny had been running away, kinda, from the past memories. Not wanting to see them. Not wanting to learn more. Willingly to go along and pretend they were his dad’s memories and not his own, not his from a past life. 

Danny needed to confront his past. 

***

Danny sat down on the couch across from Mrs. Canary. He hadn’t seen her for a little bit, as he hadn’t really needed her. This was actually the first time he’d ever asked Mom and Dad to see her. Jazz had been super supportive, giving him extra hugs and cuddles, telling him how proud she was. It was a bit much. 

“Hi Danny. Nice to see you. Dick mentioned that you really wanted to see me. What’s on your mind?” 

“I want to look into my past. I want to talk to past me. I want to understand. I want to stop being… being surprised at whatever just comes into my mind and to know why. Why did past me choose this? Why did they choose my dad? Did past me really set all of this up?” Mrs. Canary leaned back, nodding slowly. 

“Those are a lot of questions. What question, out of all of those, is the most important for you?” Oh. He hadn’t considered that. Danny hummed. 

“I think… I think I want to know why I came here. I remember some of it. I remember wanting to leave my previous dimension. I remember being pushed. But I don’t… I don’t think the reasons I remember are right? Other me, in my memories, said he wanted to be a hero, that he wanted to learn from them. But I don’t want to be a hero! I think heroes are cool, and that they protect society and that it takes a LOT, so much more than other jobs. Plus, people usually have a day job on top of the hero night job. So yeah. Do you… do you know how I can talk to the other me?” 

“I can give you suggestions on how to talk to your past self, but there is no guarantee that it will work. Or that it won’t take multiple tries for you to establish a connection. Before I do that, has there been anything that brought the memories up? What makes you think you can talk to your past self?”

“The other day, when my sister, my friends, and I got caught up with the Riddler. In the mirror maze, my reflection waved back at me. The mirror was one of those warped ones, so the mirror me looked older. Bleh,” Danny stuck out his tongue. “This is getting confusing with so many mes. Past me. Mirror me. I want them to go away. I just want to be Danny. I want to be the only Danny.” Mrs. Canary got up, dusting off imaginary dust off of her pants. She put her hand on her hip and smiled at him. “Well. Let’s talk to Alfred to see if we can move to a room with a mirror. If you saw a version of yourself that moved, maybe doing something like that again might help.” 

It was easy to move to a different, unused room in the manor. This one had a massive mirror though. Mrs. Canary sat down on the floor, criss cross applesauce just to the right of it. She patted the floor. Danny sat down, facing the mirror. His reflection stared back at him. 

It didn’t move. 

“It’s not moving,” he reported glumly. “You said that you looked older in the warped mirror, right? Why don’t you try putting a layer of ice over the mirror and changing its thickness in certain places until you see an older version of yourself.” Oh! That was brilliant! 

“Yeah! Thanks!” 

It took a few minutes, but he was able to move and change the ice until he was mostly able to see an older version of himself in the mirror. Danny’s breath hitched as the reflection smiled and waved at him. 

“It worked. He’s moving.”

“Ask him a question. You might not hear his voice out loud, it might be in your head if he speaks at all. Also, Danny, can you hold my hand? I want to ground you.” Her hand was warm, and it was nice to know that someone else was there. Gulping, he turned back to face the man in the mirror. 

“Hi. What can I call you? You can’t be Danny. I’m Danny.” The reflection was clearly laughing at him. Danny pouted. 

You can call me Fenton. 

Danny jerked as he heard the words inside himself. 

“Danny? Are you alright?” Her hand squeezed his

“Y-Yeah,” he reassured her. “I know you warned me, but I wasn’t really expecting him to talk inside me. Oh, he wants to be called Fenton. Um. Fenton. You came here wanting to be a hero, right? But I don’t. And I refuse to be one! Are you… mad about that?” 

No. I’m not mad about that at all. When we, I, came to this world, I thought I would keep being a hero. That I’d be Phantom once more and fight alongside Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the Justice League. You… I’m just memories. I’m you. Living a new life… where there are already heroes… You helped me, your past, realized that you… I… am tired. 

We did what we had to do, in our past world. We were the ONLY hero. 

There were no others. 

It… destroyed our life, in a way. We couldn’t be an astronaut. We didn’t feel comfortable getting into a romantic relationship with the people we loved, because we knew they would die, and we would be alone. 

You’re free from that. 

Free to do whatever you want. 

That… that makes me so happy. 

This is… so much more than we’d ever hoped from a new life. Supportive, attentive parents. A dog. Our friends and our sister with us again. The best food we have every eaten in our lives. Seriously. Grandad’s food is better than anything I’ve ever tasted. 

“If you’re so happy with everything I’ve been doing, when am I getting flashes of your memories!” Danny accused. Fenton looked a little flustered, rubbing the back of his neck. 

It’s not on purpose! There’s a crack in the wall shielding you from all of our memories. It’s gotten bigger, and there’s a hole, in a sense. And… well… stuff leaks through. Also. There’s two walls. One is all of the memories from our past life. The other… is… Well, it’s what few traumatic memories we have from this life. From CADMUS. 

Memories from both are bad, but the ones from our past life are slightly better. That’s mainly just some mild parental neglect, lots of loneliness and sadness. The ones from this life? Ancients. It’s bad. 

“What do you think I can do to stop the memories from coming through?

Like I said, I’m sending you the better ones. Or the ones that get brought up from things you’ve done. I don’t exactly have a lot of time between when a trigger happens and a memory goes through. I… don’t really know how to deal with that, or how to stop it. But! You do have a therapist right there who can help you. Yeah, I know our past memories. But I’m YOU. I know as much as you do. If you don’t know something, then I don’t know it either. Honestly, how all of this is happening is confusing to me. Like, am I your subconscious? Am I just a collection of memories? No idea. 

“That makes sense,” Danny turned to look at Mrs. Canary. “Fenton doesn’t know how to stop the memories. He only knows what I know, plus all of my hidden memories. You can help me deal with them, right?” She nodded. 

“Yes Danny. I can help you with them. You didn’t want to address them before, but if you feel you’re ready, we can definitely work on that.” She had a small smile on her face. Mrs. Canary was always so nice, and she always listened to him. 

“I’m ready. I want to deal with them. This life… It's about being happy and living how I want to live.” 

***

Processing memories was a lot of work. It drained him. Dad and Grandad gave him ice cream though after his sessions. Jazz had started her hero training in the Batcave while Danny talked to Mrs. Canary. Sam and Tucker did some training too, but not as often as Jazz did. He did find out more of what happened to the Riddler. Dad had broken the man’s arm. Harley, after she’d finished being mad, wanted to keep the Riddler around. Danny was pretty sure his family was against it, but Harley, Ivy, and Ivo were for it. Life was moving fast, and it was almost Tucker’s birthday. 

Danny and Jazz were giving him some Tamaranian and Kryptonian tech. Jazz had gotten the Tamaranian tech from Kori. She came by every once in a while to visit, usually with Uncle Jay, Roy, and Lian. Not a lot, and just small things. Danny knew that Tucker was going to love it! Clark and Conner had given him the Kryptonian tech after he’d asked for a small piece. They’d been helping Danny practice some of his Kryptonian powers. Danny had flight, super strength, and super senses like they did. He had eye beams too, but his did ice, not hot lasers like theirs did. Danny’s skin also wasn’t as tough as theirs. 

Tucker didn’t want to have a huge birthday party, just his best friends and PDA. Tucker couldn’t exactly show off his robotic monkey, even if he had made a smaller form for her. Danny’s birthday wasn’t that long after. He’d never had a birthday before. While he was super, super excited about his birthday and turning eight, he suspected that his family was going to go a little overboard. It was wild to think that he was going to be one year old soon. But first, Tucker’s birthday!

They celebrated Tucker’s birthday in class, Mr. Ivo bringing in a chocolate ice cream cake. It was so, so good! They sang happy birthday and then Tucker blew out the candles. Mr. Ivo brought goodie bags with toy cars and action figures. They were great! The next day, on Saturday, Danny and his immediate family went to the condo that Tucker and his Pa lived in. Danny had wrapped his gift himself! It was a little lopsided, but it worked! Jazz had just put hers in a bag with tissue paper. Danny had to put more effort in, since it was his best friend! 

It wasn’t much of a party. They just played Just Dance, Mario Kart, Mario Party, and a few other games. None of them wanted to touch Maze of the Minotuar since what had happened a few weekends ago. This time, instead of an ice cream cake, there was a massive, massive cookie that was about the size of a pizza! The adults ate it too. After that, it was time for presents! Tucker screamed in happiness upon seeing the alien tech, jumping up and down before tackling Danny and his sister. He felt a little bad, as Tucker wasn’t as excited for Sam’s gift or Ivo’s gift. 

The four of them fell asleep in front of the TV in the living room, PDA standing guard over them. 

Danny hoped that Tucker’d had a great birthday. 

Notes: A lot happened this chapter! And we’re getting more explanations of things. The end is nigh. 

ALSO

I would like to invite you all to the Haunting Heroes Discord server! I’m one of the mods for it! It’s an 18+ SFW DPxDC server. If you’re interested in joining, you can DM me here on tumblr or send an ask to the server’s tumblr for an invite. 🙂

On “Lennette,” a portmanteau of Tristano and Coleman, Kohlhase combines the harmonic complexity of the former with the latter’s free approach to structure and melody. Beginning with each player sounding off a two-note motif, the Explorers Club blasts off with a series of fanfares before breaking down into smaller units to duel. The interlude between Hofbauer and Bishop a particular joy. “Airport Station” strolls along on Newton’s lock step beat as Hofbauer bends his guitar through a mazy solo. The reed and brass players mingle and part in brief nocturnal encounters, those late night, cancelled flight consultations, the participants buoying each other.

The cover versions too provide plenty of space for celebration. Kohlhase’s arrangement of Ornette Coleman’s rare 1969 single “Man on the Moon” becomes an eleven plus minute cosmic blowout that references the double quartet of Coleman’s 1961 landmark Free Jazz. The octet hits the main theme hard between breaks for various combinations of interlocking solos with Leva and Newton working double time in support. The duel between Reibstein and Kohlhase a particular delight leading into a frantic revisitation of the main theme and an outro of rocket wake through space. Their reading of Tchicai’s “Berlin Ballad” retains the original’s tender lyricism and hint of “Yesterday” whilst capturing something of Tchicai’s freer side. They close with Roswell Rudd’s “Tetraktys.” After running through the theme, a series of brief interlocking solos, before the band members put aside their instruments one by one to sing the theme in growing unison, a sort “So Long, Farewell” in reverse that brings a wonderful album to a lovely end.