#dpxmcu

Ok so I’ve seen 2 versions of Corpse AU. One where there’s just the one body from his original death, and one where he leaves a corpse every time he goes ghost.

So for the first version, Danny decided he wanted to be an organ donor before the accident. Then he dies, and his body is found before he could figure out how to turn back human and hide cover it all up. Danny is declared dead and his organs are given to compatible patients.

This is where it gets interesting. Everyone thinks Danny is dead. Heck, even Danny thinks he’s dead. Before all this he didn’t think ghosts were even real so who’s to say they don’t have the ability to mimic life? That sounds like something his parents would believe evil ghosts could do. He figures he’s just a ghost with the ability to pretend to be alive. But that feels mean and cruel. Everyone already knows he’s dead so what’s the point in pretending otherwise? Danny doesn’t want to be like the evil ghosts his parents speak of. So now he’s just Phantom. Only Sam and Tucker who saw it happen know that Phantom is the ghost of their friend Danny.

(Huh kinda like a reverse “no one knows” AU. Instead of being secretly dead, he’s secretly alive.)

Meanwhile the patients who received the organs of Danny Fenton are experiencing weird symptoms. Because technically, each and every one of them is both part Halfa and also a living grave to the Halfa who made them so. And a ghost always knows where their grave is. They can feel if it is desecrated. So what does it mean that Danny’s grave is a bunch of people? A bunch of people he never met, people whose lives he saved, people who are now mysteriously developing ghost powers after their operations. Phantom knows where each of these strangers are at all times and he can feel if they are in danger.

Does this turn into a religion? A cult? Do any of the organ recipients resent what they have become? Who begins to investigate why people are developing ghost powers? SHIELD? Justice League Dark? MACUSA? (ETC Insert crossover of your choice here) or just the plain old GIW?

It would make an interesting story no matter what you pick.

Now on to the second version. Danny dies and leaves behind a corpse every time he goes ghost. That adds up to a lot of bodies. A lot of organs. A lot of lives he could save. And also a lot of evidence to hide.

Like damn, not only is Danny a teenage vigilante dealing with school and bullies and crazy ghosts and ghost hunting parents and a frootloop godfather, but he also on top of all that, has to dispose of a ton of bodies. Sam and Tucker are great at stuffing dead Danny into closets whenever a ghost attacks but he isn’t gonna make them dig graves with him.

Vlad has his own crematorium but like hell is Danny gonna ask him for help. Besides, it just feels like such a waste. People die every day waiting for organ transplants and he’s just throwing them away. But Danny is only 14. He can’t start his own shady medical practice or black alley organ trade. Sure, maybe when he’s older he will make his own organization so that he can make sure things are run as ethically and safely as possible. But for now? He can’t do that.

Tucker goes onto the dark web to find criminals who deal in organs. Sam uses her rich girl skills to bargain and set up the business. Danny works on the practicals for times and pipeline of shipments. And now there’s a new owner of the ice-cream shop. Sam and Tucker have keys to the giant cooler there. “Ice cream” trucks stop by frequently to make pick ups.

Sam, Tucker and Danny are making bank. Danny does feel guilty that the money is coming from people so desperate they’re willing to buy black market organs, but he at least knows that he’s saving people. And he figures that every organ he donates is one less that the criminals would just steal out of some poor victim’s body. He donates most of his money and keeps what he can pass off as savings from odd jobs. Tucker invests his share. Sam doesn’t need the cash but she puts some away in an emergency fund in case they need to go on the run.

Now as before, the fun comes from the consequences of all this. Do some superheroes bust the organ smuggling ring and the huge quantity of merchandise leads them to suspect human trafficking? Do they realize the organs are all genetically identical and conclude it’s byproducts of a cloning facility? Is this how they find out that Danny really is a clone of one of the superheroes? Do the transplants still give ghost powers and are people clamoring to get one even if they don’t need a transplant? Is some villain (HYDRA, LoA insert crossover here) making an army of super ghost powered soldiers?

Because, and this is something I really love to play with, Danny could totally pass as a metahuman. He doesn't need to be in his ghost form to use his powers. We see it a lot in prompts and fics: Danny could create a new identity for himself, shedding Phantom and the prejudice against ghosts (and his unfortunate reputation) along with it. And yet, knowing what we know about his parents, that wouldn't even necessarily protect him from their scrutiny.

So when you put DP together with another franchise with serious politics about alien superheroes and superpowered humans, I really don't think their crusade would end with just ghosts.

Think about... I won't speak of Superman (2025) because I know some mutuals of mine haven't seen it, but if you know you know. Think about the Anti-Metahuman Act in CW's Arrowverse. (Even the intergalactic metahuman trafficking in Young Justice.) Think about the Sentinel program in X-Men. And the flipside: Magento's message of mutant supremacy. Think about the MCU's Sokovia Accords.

Taking into account their beliefs and prejudices, it makes sense that Jack and Maddie would take the side that insists metas/aliens should be exterminated or, at the very least, monitored and tracked. And you wouldn't even have to characterize them as comically evil scientists; think about how contentious the Captain America: Civil War (ca:cw) was.

Tony Stark saw how much destruction he, his company, and his team could cause without restriction or oversight. So he relented and agreed to the Accords, because he did not think it was their place to make those decisions. On the other hand, Steve Rogers just came from an era of fascism and Nazi dictatorship. Before ca:cw, there was Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where Steve saw with his own eyes the corruption in the government and the Hydra agents placed in high positions. Of course it makes sense that Steve would protest the idea of the government choosing what countries should receive aid through the Avengers. Of course Steve would fight against any form of mutant or enhanced human registration when he remembered the Nuremburg Laws and the Star of David (Jewish identifier) in Nazi Germany.

And yet you know, in this very same situation, Jack and Maddie would probably believe that heroes should sign the Sokovia Accords. It can be as simple as worrying about a similar attack close to home. Meanwhile, Danny would fear for his life if those Accords passed.

In crossovers like these, there could be a huge, heavy conversation between Danny and his parents about their politics. Because even if Jack and Maddie believed that Danny is the One Good One, among all the rest, could Danny stomach his parents attacking other ghosts or aliens or mutants simply because they cannot fathom that these people, people just like Danny, could be good. And in some of these crossovers, the Fentons might have some semblance of ground to stand on because they actually have evidence of alien attackers (whereas in dp alone, they accused ghosts of being malicious even before they confirmed ghosts were real).

And just---it makes my head spin. Truly. Because it can be absolutely gutting to think that your parents would not choose you, would dehumanize you. But it would be just as tormenting to know that, even if your parents do choose you, they would still burn the rest. Because what makes you better? What makes you deserve to live when all these people just like you would die?

But then how do you stop them? How can you convince them when they've felt this way longer than you've been alive?

No, that wasn’t what he’d been trying to do.  He was trying to divide them.  Divide and conquer, as they said, and Loki would conquer them.  They were divided.  They…  The boy, the pharaoh, he would be against Iron Man, if nothing else.  His boy’s other young friends didn’t seem terribly enamored of the heroes, either.  Likely, they would spend as much time getting SHIELD’s way as Loki’s in an attempt to get their other friend back. 

Not as good as crashing their ridiculous airship, but not terrible, all things considered. 

“That was stupid,” said the boy.  “That whole thing was stupid.  If you’d just waited—”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Loki.  “We still have the original plan.”

“Which was terrible.  Maybe…”  The boy glanced at where Selvig was working and licked his lips.  “What if we spliced into the power cable in the ocean?  Keep everything out of New York?  If the army you’re bringing can deal with space they can deal with water, right?”

“They can do many things,” said Loki, vaguely.  “But we cannot breathe underwater.”

“I don’t need to breathe.”

“And the rest of us?”

“We can steal a boat.”

Loki raised an eyebrow.  “I must commend your dedication to…” he trailed off.  Thanos’s herald was plucking at the strings of his mind.  He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.  When was the last time he’d slept?  He’d have to meditate and see what the irritating and impatient creature wanted. 

He wanted- He needed—

Ice, invigorating and incongruous, washed over him, sweeping away the pull on his mind.  He breathed in through his teeth and rounded on the boy. 

“What did you do?”

“I helped you.  Mind control is unfriendly.”

Loki snarled.  “Boy, do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Yes.  But my name is Danny.”  He tilted his head.  “I’m pretty sure I’ve told you that before.”

“That is my contact with my army!”

“It isn’t really yours, though, is it?”

Loki raised his hand, intending to strike the boy for his impudence, but…  He dropped it.  There was no point to it.  Loki would merely have to find some way to instruct him not to interrupt the connection again without subverting his other, more important orders. 

Later, later.  Unless he was contacted again, it wasn’t a priority. 

“We could try to contact Jazz again.  I’d bet they took the equipment I asked for with them.”

“We are not talking to your sister.  We do not need any of that so-called equipment, regardless.”

“Yeah, sure, and do you really need an army from somewhere else?  I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but look at everything you’ve already done all by yourself!”  He spread his hands to either side.  “Why not just keep doing this?  I’m sure that by the time whoever is really in charge of that army gets here, you’ll have gotten Earth to the point where it can more than match them.”

“Stop,” said Loki.  That was all irrelevant.  It was meaningless.  He could not—No.  Fighting Thanos was impossible.  All he could do was this.  All he could do… 

But the boy’s suggestion had merit.  Somewhat.  He had—He could—

His skin felt like it was crawling off.  Memories of—

He had made a mistake, and it would be—

There was much a god could endure—

Falling—

Danny put his hand on Loki’s arm and ice pricked at his skin.  It was like holding the Casket of Ancient Winters.  It was like touching a blizzard.  It was like the chill in his own blood. 

He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, gently.  “Danny,” he said, voice soft, “this is the only way.  This is the only choice.  Everything else… is worse.”

“Sometimes, the right choice only seems worse.  Sometimes, the worse choice is the only one you can live with making.  The only one that won’t haunt you forever.”

“Then you understand me perfectly.”  He patted Danny on the shoulder, then turned away.  “We are going to Stark Tower.”

.

“Like some kind of prisoner exchange?” asked Jazz. 

“No,” said Tucker.  “Because of the whole HYDRA thing, they don’t want the really awesome people who are partially famous for being nazi haters to be here.  But they need a place to deal with the alien problem.”

Well, they weren’t the only ones.  Jazz would even say that the alien problem was her top priority right now, right after not bleeding out or crashing.  She looked back at Barton. 

“And you’re sure arrow boy isn’t a nazi?”

“I’m not sure,” said Tucker.  “But based on what I’ve seen behind the curtain, I doubt it.  Unless he’s one of these codename guys.  There’s… a lot of double, triple security on everything and some of it is in languages I don’t speak.  They didn’t put sensitive stuff where the GIW could get it easily.  I guess the GIW were sort of the idiot cousins in all this.  Too loyal and know too much to completely brush off or take out when they have so few people comparatively, but too incompetent to put on anything they thought was real or important.”

“And no one believes in ghosts,” said Jazz. 

“You’d think that people would be more credulous, considering the whole super-soldier thing was decades ago and Thor is, you know, around.  Existing.  All those aliens.  Oh, and they’re not even—” He broke off.  “Okay, yeah, I know you don’t want me to talk about it, but who do you think was the first person I showed when I hacked you?  Get off my back.  There are so many other aliens.  There are even shape shifting aliens, just living here.  Like a Men in Black situation.”  Something in the background of Tucker’s call got very loud and annoyed looking. 

“And you’re sure none of these people are nazis?”

“Pretty sure.  The one woman is Russian, though.  Maybe.  Her accent is really good.  And Thor’s…  He’s not actually Scandinavian.  It’s whatever.  Look, I’ve only met, like, Stark.  And the Russian.  So, you aren’t exactly getting a personal vetting, here.”

Jazz sighed.  A personal vetting probably wouldn’t be all that useful, anyway, given the circumstances.  These were spies that could fool other spies.  Not people who would have trouble fooling Tucker. 

“But they’re all those heroes, right?” asked Sam.  “Not people that are coming out of nowhere.”

“Except the Russian.  And I’m not sure Dr. Banner really counts as a hero.  Except in, like, the pioneer in the field of science sense.”

“I don’t know,” said Sam, “there were some things on the internet way back.”

“Yeah,” said Tucker.  “I think we can at least be sure Captain America isn’t some kind of sleeper agent.  Or Mr. Stark.  I mean, whatever plan would involve making a really awesome weapons dealer billionaire in their pocket dump the weapons part and give eighty percent of his income to charity and spend his spare time tracking down terrorists and curing malaria would have to be really convoluted.”

“The malaria thing wasn’t actually me—”

“And, like.  Thor’s an alien.  So maybe he’s whatever the space equivalent of nazis is, but at least he’s not an Earth nazi, and—”

“Okay,” said Jazz.  “Tucker, you’re rambling.”

“Right, I don’t think these particular guys are HYDRA.”

“Great,” said Jazz.  “So, what do they actually want?”

“Like I said, they don’t want the, uh, the Avengers to be around the potential nazis.  Probable nazis.  HYDRA agents.  Whatever you want to call them.  But they still need a place to work.  They want that place to be the Ops Center.”

Jazz bit her lip.  She wasn’t enthusiastic about letting a bunch of heavily armed strangers who were buddies with the guy who had shot her into their space.  But while they could use the ops center to track Danny if he was using his powers and capture him with the onboard equipment and shields, if Loki had more people like arrow boy and the weaponry to back them up…  Jazz didn’t think the ops center would do all that well against, say, a grenade launcher.  It wasn’t built with that kind of weaponry in mind. 

For that matter, it wouldn’t do all that well against the GIW if they decided to attack.  They didn’t have Danny to drive them off this time. 

(And Loki had held his ground against Tucker while he was in the full grip of Duulaman.  Danny had trouble with Duulaman.  His power couldn’t be dismissed.)

“How many of them are there again?”

“Five,” said Tucker.  “Not counting arrow guy.  Barton.”

Then they’d outnumber her, Sam and Tucker by two to one.  And three of them were soldiers trained to fight, another could pull a Cujo if he got even the least bit annoyed, one was armed to the teeth, and one was at least the inspiration for a god. 

“Oh!  And Valerie is here.  Not sure why, but.  You know.”

“Well that’s something,” said Jazz.  She wasn’t thrilled about Valerie being involved, and she didn’t know what side she’d come down on in a fight, but…  Yeah.  It was something. 

“She knows.  Actually, all of these guys do.  About Danny.”

Jazz closed her eyes.  She’d known that, but getting it confirmed had a different effect.

There was a way to even those odds, at least a little bit.  She didn’t like it. 

“Where do they want to meet?” she asked. 

Tucker rattled off a set of coordinates.  Jazz started shaking her head before he was done.

“No,” she said.  “Tell them to meet us at Lake Eerie.”

.

“Are you thinking it’s a trap?” asked Sam. 

“No,” said Jazz, “but the GAV still has to follow roads.  Mostly.”

“Oh, no,” said Sam. 

Jazz shrugged.  “We don’t have a lot of options.  Mom and Dad…  I don’t even know what they know.  They’re working for SHIELD somehow, too, so they probably know.”

“They might still be okay with—” She looked at arrow boy.  Barton.  Annoying guy.  Whatever.  “With the whole molecule by molecule thing.  More than okay with it.  We don’t know.  We can’t bring them into this situation.”

“Yeah,” said Jazz, “but they’ll defend us.  We’re the ones who’re here, and to help others you have to take care of yourself.  We can cross any other bridges when we get to them.”

Sam wasn’t so sure about that.  In fact, she was the opposite of sure about that.  “I don’t want them to be in a situation where shooting at Danny while knowing he’s Danny is something they have to do.  I don’t want them…”  She trailed off. 

“I get what you’re saying.  I do.  He’s my brother.  They’re my parents.  But… I don’t think they will.  Not like that.”

“If I can put my two cents in,” called Barton from across the room.

“No,” snapped Sam. 

“I did meet the Fentons.”

“Great,” said Sam, “so have I.  You’re not special.”

“Yes, but I have a bit of an outside perspective.  You know how that goes.  I’ve met Danny, too.”

“Did you shoot him, too?”

“Sam…”

“No, that’s a good point.  But no.  I met them, and the only thing they talked about more than their work was their kids.  Maybe not the best thing to do when you’re being hired by spies, but…”  He shrugged, the motion cut short by the handcuffs.  “They care.”

“That was never in doubt,” said Jazz, as cold as Sam ever heard her. 

“Hey, we’re on the same side, now, right?  I’m just trying to be helpful.  The more comfortable you are, the better.” 

“The better to ambush us, you mean?”

“Still not helpful,” said Jazz.

Sam crossed her arms and tapped her foot.  She was just trying to look at all the perspectives.  Danny loved his parents.  But there were reasons that, despite everything, he hadn’t trusted them.  And anyone who worked with SHIELD could by HYDRA.  Anyone. 

If it were just up to Sam, she wouldn’t work with any of them.  Danny had allies in the Ghost Zone.  If nothing else, his enemies wouldn’t like him being occupied.  They were awfully territorial over him sometimes.  They just had to, you know, make a portal…  travel through the Zone…  hope the portal opened somewhere useful… find the necessary ghosts… convince them to come back… make another portal to a useful place… the porta-portal and Fenton Bazooka portals didn’t last that long, after all. 

Yeah, that was totally doable. 

Absolutely workable despite Jazz’s arrow wound, the assassin/hostage, Sam’s relative inexperience with the technology they had on hand, and the lack of Zone-ready transportation. 

Yeah, right. 

She couldn’t even say all that stuff in her own head without it sounding sarcastic. 

Even if they could do all of that and got an army of ghosts, Loki could bring his army over first.  There was no guarantee that an army of ghosts could beat an army of aliens.  They didn’t even knew how big Loki’s army was, except that he expected it to be able to conquer the planet with it.  They needed backup, regardless.

“Okay.  Fine.  Call them.  We’ll meet up with the superpowered boy band, too.  But you know what people who are used to being in charge are like.  This is going to go wrong, and it’s going to go wrong fast.”

“And then you’ll say I told you so?”