Flatline
(Repost)
After graduating high school, he tried college. He did. But the thing was, it felt like all those ghosts that found him in Amity Park seemed to follow him. And it turns out, they literally did. The rift that let them loose in the first place followed Danny around like an invisible puppy that caused havoc no matter where he ended up. Which meant there was no retiring when it came to being Phantom. He suspected it was because he was the new Ghost King but honestly? If they knew he would beat them anyways why did they try?
It wasn’t like Danny actually had to do any ruling yet, he wasn’t eligible to fully take his place in the throne until he died fully so for now he was just the crown prince who was essentially waiting for his coronation. But he was still super fucking powerful and had the abilities of the king so the ghosts coming after him really didn’t stand any sort of chance that was worth it. There were some that came to him seeking help with their obsessions that had gotten out of hand but most of them were just wanting to take his crown before he even got a chance to put it on.
So Danny dropped out. Ended up joining a traveling circus so that the ghosts following him wouldn’t terrorize the same place more than once. It was safer if he just kept on moving you know? He was hired as one of the “freak shows” because he was half dead obviously. He could make his heart flatline without dying and it was a huge spectacle for people. He’d hook himself up to a heart monitor and then stop his breathing and flatline his heart for everyone to see. Then they’de call up a volunteer to come check him for a pulse which he wouldn’t have until he restarted his heart again. People thought it was crazy that he could do something so dangerous without ever looking like he’d done anything at all. He did several shows a day but they couldn’t be very long since he tended to fall asleep if he went too long flatlining. It was the most relaxed state he could be in as a halfa since he had to actively remember to make his heart beat and to breathe.
While he wasn’t entertaining people, he fought the ghosts that followed him. Phantom became known as the circus ghost that protected the troupe. Nobody knew it was him. Or at least, if they did, no one said anything. But while Danny tried his best to make no one in his new family got hurt, he couldn’t always be there in time. He couldn’t always avoid someone getting hit with an ecto blast or rammed into a tent pole. He couldn’t be everywhere at once.
That fateful night…. ghosts were messing with the rigging. Danny tried to fix it after the fight, he tried to make sure everything was secure. But he missed one of the cables they started to try to chew through. It was his fault the Flying Graysons fell. If all happened so fast, Danny didn’t even have time to react. Danny just… froze. This was the first time anybody had truly died because he couldn’t save them. He didn’t really know how to process that.
He stood there frozen for several minutes, his breathing stopped and his heart flatlining. He didn’t have the mental bandwidth to remember to do those human things. He could only watch when he saw little Dick crying. He was crying. And someone was consoling him? Danny didn’t really know. He was just… frozen. He’d had panic attacks before but nothing like this. He’d never fucked up like this. Danny didn’t know how to fix it. Could he fix it? Could he undo it? Maybe Clockwork could… Danny felt his muscles start to relax and his body start to crumble as he started to lose consciousness.
Next thing he knew, he was in a lavish bed with a shadow looming over him, “Ducky?” He mumbled. It kind of looked like Dick’s hair. His mother always called the boy Robin but to Danny he always acted more like a duck.
“You’re alive again! Yay!” the boy smiled wide, the happiness on his lips not meeting his sad sunken eyes that were swollen from crying.
Danny sat up, trying to get a sense of his surroundings, “Ducky, where are we?” He asked the question in a soft tone, not sure if there were others around.
“We are at Bruce’s house,” he said, shrugging.
Bruce? They didn’t know a Bruce. Who the fuck is Bruce?
Danny tried to get out of bed but he was pulled back down by wires and needles connecting his body to the wall, “What the hell-”
Dick began to unplug him from the heart monitor, “I told Bruce you were gonna be okay. You die all the time.” He said it so nonchalantly.
“I don’t think you should be casually telling people that kiddo,” he said, pulling the iv out of his arm and willing his core to make the wound heal, “Who is Bruce and why did he take us Dick?” Danny did not like the luxurious environment they were in. It reminded him too much of fruitloops of the past.
“I’m not holding you captive if that’s what you’re worried about,” Danny turned to the door the voice was coming from. It was a young man around his own age with dark hair and blue eyes. He was built, his body very obviously trained to be as physically fit as it could get. He had the body of a fighter. That didn’t make Danny feel any better.
“I was hoping that I could give Dick a new life. Make him my ward,” the man said, casually walking from the door way to the foot of the bed.
Danny didn’t like that. Not at all. This man had Vlad vibes written all over him. Besides, Danny had promised Dick’s parents that he would take care of him if anything ever happened to them. Danny was the closest thing to a godparent he had. He wasn’t just going to hand the child over to some rich guy with a manic look on his eye. There was no way.
But there was also no way Danny could feasibly keep Dick either…. He had no home, no roots. And he couldn’t make any if he didn’t find out how to make the ghosts stop coming. He couldn’t subject Dick to the kind of life he himself had with caretakers that ran off whenever to fight ghosts, neglecting the needs of the child. He couldn’t do that. It was wrong. But that didn’t mean he wanted Bruce to have him either.
“I’m the closest thing Dick has to a guardian. So he should be staying with me. Why do you want him?” Okay so maybe Danny was a little bit defensive but he had played these games before and he was not gonna get burned again. Lat time he even slightly, remotely even interacted with a fruitloop, the fucker had violated Danny’s autonomy and created a clone without his consent.
“Well no offense but you don’t exactly have a stable life to offer him and I have money and power and can provide anything he needs. I don’t want him to go into the system. It’s notorious for mistreatment. And to be honest? I understand what he’s going through and I want to help,” Bruce said. He didn’t try to be suave or convincing. He just sat down on the foot of the bed, leveling with Danny, and was sincere in his words.
It was enough to ease Danny’s nerves the slightest bit. Only the slightest bit. Dick could stay here for a trail run. But the moment anything at all happened that Danny didn’t like, he was pulling him out and they were gonna get as far from the fruitloop as possible. Hell Danny might even flatline and frame him for murder if he needed to. Danny was not above that anymore. It wouldn’t be the first time he crawled out of a grave.
