#dogposts

Smooth Collie

So it took me long enough, but friends have encouraged me to post some of my DP/DPxDC artworks up on Redbubble as stickers and prints!

My store can be found here!

Not even an eldritch, fully-realized Ghost King Danny-- just a short, 5′1″ ghost child. 

The gross, corrupted ectoplasm in Jason’s system just gives him immediate red flags whenever something with pure ectoplasm is in the vicinity. Jason freezes up the first time he meets Danny and has to resist the urge to run. He tells the family that there is something deeply wrong and terrifying about the kid, and Dick just thinks it’s funny-- especially once he realizes the ghost kid is actually a friendly goofball who is easily bribed by burgers.

Things only worsen when Jason encounters Danny, Bruce’s latest adoptee, and just-- leaves. Turns around and walks out of the Manor and doesn’t stop walking until his heart stops pounding.

Danny can sense the gross ectoplasm in Jason and keeps trying to corner him to help, but Jason can sense when Danny is anywhere remotely nearby and books it. 

He's 24 and has been Ghost King since turning 18. Danny has been estranged from his parents ever since he destroyed their portal. It was his first act as king.

Danny shares an apartment with Sam and Tucker. Sam works with nonprofits in the city, while Tucker gets involved in WE with his genius programming skills.

Danny makes ice sculptures and sells them around Gotham for fun. He sometimes helps out with crime when he thinks he can do it quietly, but otherwise Danny lets Batman and the police handle it. He has enough work to do in the Ghost Zone as it is.

In his free time Danny likes to explore the Ghost Zone. He’s long-since given up dreams of exploring space. Danny can always fly to space if he wants to, but being able to rip open a portal to the Infinite Realms offers even more exploration opportunities than his child self could have dreamed of.

It’s during one of these explorations into the Ghost Zone that Danny finds a teenager sitting on a floating island. Danny rushes over to investigate, noticing that the kid looks very much alive, but as he draws near the kid’s arm turns invisible and he begins to panic.

Danny quickly realizes he’s faced with another halfa. The kid is a wreck. He looks barely older than Danny was when he died-- hell, he even looks like him with his black hair (with a shock of white) and blue eyes. It’s like looking into a mirror for Danny, and he immediately decides to take the kid under his wing.

It’s slow going at first. The kid, Jason, doesn’t remember much of his life, let alone his death. He’s scared and confused, with far too many questions. It takes Danny showing him his human form for Jason to trust Danny enough to go with him.

Danny takes Jason back to the apartment and introduces him to Sam and Tucker. They don’t pester him for answers, and instead jump at the chance to answer any questions Jason has. They help him understand his situation and learn about his new powers.

Over the next year, Jason becomes their kid. The trio homeschool him, with some help from several of the ghosts in in the GZ. They offer to help Jason figure out who he was, but he asks them not to. All Jason can remember of his death is that it was very violent and he’s hesitant to fill those memories in.

If Jason ever remembers more than that, he doesn’t tell them.

Jason’s a handful, but he’s their handful. He spends a lot of his time in the Ghost Zone (annoying Danny’s ghost friends, his adopted aunts and uncles) while they’re at work. Whenever Dani’s in town, the two are a force to be reckoned with.

Danny spends a lot of time visiting WE to annoy Tucker. He also becomes somewhat well known around town for his little ice sculptures. More than once, Danny finds himself in the accidental company of Bruce Wayne.

Bruce is curious about the strange young man. He has a lot of scars, and Bruce can’t make heads or tails of the strange ice he sells. He starts talking to him-- Danny-- to try and figure out if he’s a meta and/or potentially dangerous.

What Bruce figures out instead is that the kid is surprisingly quick-witted and funny. He’s also apparently a dad, raising a kid with his partners. Bruce still suspects that Danny might secretly be a meta, but he develops a pleasant rapport with him. They commiserate together about raising kids over coffee. Two unlikely friends.

Danny never mention’s Jason’s name. He has about a hundred nicknames for the kid and often calls him Magpie (partly due to his black and white hair, and partly due to his habit of bringing home random shit from the Ghost Zone). He’s very wary of using the kid’s real name around Gotham, in any case. They try to keep a low profile where Jason is concerned.

Bruce also never mentions Jason. His loss is still too much of a gaping wound and he doesn’t want to unload that on his young friend, let alone wallow in those memories.

One day Danny is wandering Gotham with Jason in tow, running some errands. They stop by WE to drop something off for Tucker and he spots Bruce. Danny decides it’s about time he introduced his kid to the man.