Exactly a year after Talia brought Damian to Bruce, she shows up again. With another child. That looks like a carbon copy of Damian. She introduces him as Danyal, Damian's twin that was in an undercover mission for the last few years.
Bruce's eye twitches, but he deals with it. At least it's not a clone - Damian proved his mother's words to be true, Danyal really is his twin brother. So the Bats are just kind of forced to accept the fact. And the kid.
Danyal is a literal fucking menace. Contrary to Damian, he doesn't stab or bite, but he is absolutely chaotic. And, in addition to that, he has zero self-preservation instincts. None of it. The only two people in the family he has a truce with are Cass and Steph. Cass, because he has yet to take her by surprise, and Steph, because she is his partner in crime. Tim, though, Tim is on the verge of going insane with two little assassin bats running around the manor.
A year later, on the anniversary of Damian and Danyal's arrival, Talia shows up again. With, you guessed it, another kid. This one is a bit older - sixteen or so - and he has an angry glare that can be compared only to Jason's on a warpath. Dante, he calls himself, and the Demon Twins narrow their eyes on him. Bruce knows this look intimately. Sibling rivalry at its finest.
The next year is full of said sibling rivalry, performed by three highly skilled assassins. Dick is constantly worried one day one of them will die, and not because of a Rogue attack. The kids are fucking wild, acting like rabid dogs on steroids. They destroyed a wall once by throwing Dante through it. Alfred gave them a lecture. It didn't help.
The next year, Bruce opens the door to Talia even before she rings the doorbell. He looks at the four-year-old girl that looks like a mirror image of Damian, Danyal and Dante, and asks, tired and defeated:
"How many more?"
Talia only smiles. The girl looks at him with big, innocent puppy eyes that don't fool Bruce anymore.
Tim, who watches the scene through the surveillance cameras in the Batcave, pulls up a file and starts drafting his last will.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Dan, after his parole of sorts, gets a second chance via reincarnation, along with his (ugh) siblings to keep an eye on him. Now he was actually excited about this, if only because a brand new world meant no reminders of his past or traumas. Someone up above in charge must be laughing though, because he wakes up in some sort of box-thing, with golden eyes, and distinctly undead.
Oh, and apparently this world is also full of heroes and villains along with both Danny and Ellie being well, tiny. And they’re apparently in some sort of cult or something. As undead assassins.
He has never been more tempted to let go of his no-killing rule, because he is getting them out of this place.
This has been posted on AO3 for a while, but I decided to post it here, too.
It's my gift fic to Arlie ( @arlieash-blog ) for the BatPham Secret Santa event of 2023.
AO3 Link
Summary: (2.4k words) There's a new ghost in town. Jason gets more than a little caught up in the chaos.
"Wake. Up. Wake. Up. Wake. Up." Each word said by a young unfamiliar feminine voice was punctuated by a bounce. "DaaAaaan..."
Jason's eyes snapped open. Not only is this an unfamiliar voice, but they're calling him by a name that’s not his or any of the aliases he uses.
On him, perched like a vengeful spirit, is a young teen (Maybe thirteen?). She? They? Let's go with they. With their black hair and blue eyes, they'd fit right into Brucie's little orphan collection. (They'd fit right in with all the gargoyles and grotesques of Gotham with the way they're hunched over to crouch on top of him) They're older than he expected from the childish words and tone, bigger than what he perceived from the weight of their body on his, too. Their grin is starting to fade more the longer Jason takes to respond. The longer he stares. He needs to figure out what is going on and preferably without letting some little gremlin know that something is off.
"What do you want?" It comes out harsher than he meant, but that doesn’t seem to phase the kid.
If anything, their grin grew wider, almost unnaturally so.
"Dan, Dan... Dan, my man. Don’t tell me you forgot what today is?"
There's something in their tone, a wicked little lilt. It almost almost convinces him to attempt to lie.
He pretends to mull it over before sighing.
"Fine, yes, I forgot."
The gleam in their eyes sends shivers up his spine.
"You forgo-ot~," they sing-song gleefully.
Their giggle echoes eerily in the room as they practically float to their feet and dance across the bed. It's an unfamiliar bed, just like the room and the pushy little preteen.
"You officially have the title of worst brother a girl could have," she informs him with a mock seriousness that's immediately ruined by her picking up a pillow and chucking it at his face.
He sits up fast to avoid the pillow and hair slips into his face. It's his color, but it's far longer than what it's supposed to be. The errant thought distracts him from monitoring what he says next.
"Now that's uncalled for you little rat bastard." As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them. He's used to hurling insults at his siblings whenever they're being gremlins, so the response was almost automatic.
She's cackling and rolling off the bed, unaware of Jason’s guilty conscience and uncaring of his insults.
"Get up, Sleepyhead! It's time to go~o!" She sing-songs her way around the room as she fishes through drawers and the closet for clothes to chuck at Jason’s face.
"Might I, pffsh. Might I be re-eck! Hey! Quit that!" A pair of socks nailed him right between the eyes. He scowled at the little imp. "Remind me what we were supposed to do."
Her eyes, when they meet his again after digging around for shoes, have a glint to them that Jason doesn't like. If he'd been thinking, he would have carefully wheedled the information from her as they interacted. He should've known from the start that she'd enjoy holding information over his head.
~•~
He was right. Even after they left the apartment where this 'Dan' lived with the chaos goblin and two other people (based on the body language and points of similarity in the faces of the pictures, likely siblings), said chaos goblin still refused to give him any hints, simply grinning at him in mischievous glee.
In other news, Jason did have a brief chance to glance into a mirror before they left, and surprisingly enough, he recognized the person whose body he is currently inhabiting.
Dan Nightingale volunteers at several of Hood’s soup kitchens. Jason remembers how he first came in grumbling about community service and how he's supposed to 'think more about others.' Seeing as how Gotham's judicial system has yet to sentence any criminals to Hood’s kitchens, that meant that friends or family had likely been the ones to make him come. Despite that forced beginning, Dan had taken to the work readily and never complained. Sure there were a few times when he looked about ready to murder some asshole or another that came in to cause trouble, but he kept it to muttered curses and twice he up and picked up the trouble maker and set them outside like a misbehaving cat.
It's definitely not a crush. The man is memorable. What can Jason say?
He's pulled from his thoughts by a yank on his arm so strong it nearly knocks him off his feet. Little Monster is deceptively strong for someone so gangly looking. She's in that awkward growing stage where she's gained quite a bit of height, but the rest of her hasn't quite caught up.
She's dragging him into an alley, and he's pretty sure he'd be far more concerned about that if the body he was inhabiting was his own.
"Let off me, you little punk," he growls out anyway.
"Well, if you hate it so much, you shoulda grabbed a leash. I would have lost track of you five times over with the way you're spacing out today."
"I'm not your dog, brat," he warns.
"Then quit barking like one." As she sticks her tongue out, Jason has to squash the urge to throttle her. His glare is strong enough to stop a lesser man in his tracks.
Dan's little sister is not a lesser man. Jason’s half certain that she's some little demonic imp that has taken the form of a young girl to better mess with the world at large.
She rolls her eyes when she notices his glare.
"Scary eyes don't work on me, broski. I have them too." Jason has mere milliseconds to attempt to figure out what she means by those words when her eyes flash green. Green. That noxiously bright neon green of the pits, of his own eyes when the pit rage gets bad.
His hand jerks from her hold and he stumbles. His foot sinks into the ground (it's supposed to be solid pavement), and he falls back on his ass like a clumsy toddler.
There's a quiet pop, not unlike the sound a bubble makes when it bursts, and with it, a young man pops into existence. His face reminds Jason a little bit of Dan's and a lot of the eerie tween that claims to be Dan's sister. His everything else is different. White hair, Lazarus green eyes (but no, they're actually a few shades off the Lazarus pits and that certainly helps something in his chest relax a little), his skin carries an oddly blue tinge to it, plus there's the whole floating in mid air thing.
He appears worried, and he pulls the munchkin further away from Jason.
"Dani! Step back! That's not Dan," he warns.
Yet, instead of looking shocked or betrayed or concerned, the mighty midget (Dani) just looks annoyed.
"Come on, Danny," she whines, "we were just getting to the good part."
""You KNEW about this?!"" Meta Danny (because really?? They're both Danny? That's gotta get confusing. Poor Dan) and Jason manage to say it at exactly the same time.
"Who am I kidding," Meta Danny admits in a tone sounding far too defeated in Jason’s humble opinion. "Of course you knew."
Little devil Dani scoffs. "Of course I knew. It took me like 3 forevers to track Swip-Swap down."
"Oh my ancients... you even know her name... Dani, why?" Danny, the older, looked at the end of his rope. He slowly lowers until his feet touch the ground.
He shoves a hand over her mouth when she opens it to answer and Jason has no words as he watches bitty bitey one gnaw on the hand blocking her freedom of speech.
There's even blood? If the other Danny bleeds green then yeah, it's blood. Danny, the iron willed, shows no indication of discomfort despite the carnage Little Shop of Horror is creating.
"Don't answer that." His gaze lifts to Jason, apologetic "I'm so sorry, Mr. Not Dan."
"Ewww your ecto is in my mouth," Tiny Terror interrupts after finally getting her mouth away from Toxic Waste Man's hand.
"Maybe you shouldn't try to eat my hand then," he comments coolly. "But more importantly, we have the 'confuse don't abuse' pranking rule for a reason."
"Dan won't be that mad."
"But what about the person you had Swip-Swap put into Dan's body?"
The Terrible Terror opens her mouth, probably to make some snappy comeback but then her eyes meet Jason’s and she sinks down limply in the grip of Savior Danny.
He pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Just please tell me you weren't pulling a Vlad."
"I wasn't pulling a Vlad," she swore solemnly. Then brightening, "I only wanted them to bond through shared suffering so I could have another brother-dad."
"Dani..." Responsible Danny pinches the bridge of his nose. "We talked about this. We have to respect people's boundaries and communicate. No using supernatural methods to manipulate people. That's something the Fruitloop would do."
Freezing up in horror, Chaos Dani starts looking more and more like a kicked puppy.
She looks up to Danny pleadingly and says, "no..." her voice small.
Her jailer sets her down and pats the top of her head, probably trying to console her.
"I'm afraid so."
"Okay, this is a very touching family teaching moment," Jason admits, "but can we fast forward to the part where I get my body back?" He's still very confused and would like to figure it all out while back in his own body, thanks.
Dani the smaller, let's out an odd keening sound and flies (Literally FLIES) into him.
"I'm SO sorry Jason!" She's nearly sobbing, her arms locked tight around his body.
Before he can get a word in edgewise, non-crying Danny says (more to himself but Jason hears it anyway), "wait...Jason, as in like-us Jason? The one Dan can't seem to talk to?"
And doesn't that just create so many more questions than it answers?
A bright light flashes from Glowy Danny suddenly, blinding Jason (which he definitely does NOT appreciate). Once his vision clears, he curses, using a couple of very creative epithets that he hasn't used in a number of years, because standing there is an older, masculine presenting version of Cling-wrap Dani. They're not just similar, they're basically the same person (he recognizes his face from the photo in their apartment).
"Please tell me one of you as another name you go by to differentiate you. You are allowed tolook the same OR have the same name, not both."
The twins that aren't twins make eye contact, Dani the Clingy craning her neck around to meet her elder self's gaze.
After long prolonged eye contact, Magical Boy Danny breaks the stare off to say, "she goes by Ellie when she's not being a little chaos gremlin."
"Danny! Nuooooooooooo."
"Which is almost never," he admits, ignoring the feral growling coming from the newly dubbed, Ellie.
Jason would put his hand over her mouth to shut her up, but he saw what happened to Danny.
Actually, said hand is looking remarkably normal.
Weird.
Focus Jason.
"Okay then, Ellie. How am I supposed to get my body back?"
Her head snaps around but the moment her eyes meet his, her gaze shifts away and she presses her lips together tightly.
Well shit...
"Sooo, about that..."
Danny groans, dragging a hand down his face.
"I've already spent half the morning trying to track down Swip-Swap. Did you know that she body swapped Vickie Vale and Bruce Wayne? Vickie keeps trying to break into different departments of Wayne Enterprises. Then while Signal and Red Robin were doing damage control, Swip-Swap switched them too. Bruce Wayne keeps trying to seduce people as Vickie Vale and who knows who else Swip-Swap has switched along the way, so the next words put of your mouth better not be 'we need to get Swip-Swap to put them all back' or ancients help me I will throw you all the way to Pluto."
Ellie doesn't say anything at all which is just as much of an answer.
"You know what? No. You made this mess. You have to track down Swip-Swap and either convince her to put everyone back or soup her so we can deal with her together, but YOU are going to be the one doing the work. I will help track down everyone affected and round them up with Dan's help but that's it."
Ellie nods, "Okay. Sorry Danny."
"No," Danny says, "don't apologize to me. Apologize to Jason and everyone else when you fix this."
Her gaze meets Jason’s then.
"I promise I'll fix it and apologize again."
And she looks so much like a sad baby seal that Jason almost wants to help her.
Almost...
"Kay kid. I'll help Danny round everyone up. You just focus on finding that wacko."
She nods seriously and then proceeds to blind him with a flashing lightshow just like her 'brother'? Apparently she has her own magical girl transformation and she looks a lot like Danny did when he arrived.
She flies off through the nearest building (that's something that Jason is going to save and unpack later).
A crash and clattering accompanied by groaning has both Danny and Jason turning to the mouth of the alley.
Out of the garbage cans and bags bursts...
Well...
Jason.
Or at least his body. It's probably Dan and man does he look pissed off.
"Finally found you chucklefucks. You better have a stellar explanation for this bullshit and a solution. If I have to spend even five more minutes in this rage-drunk body I'm gonna-"
"Woah! Dan, breathe." Danny steps so he's between Dan and Jason. "We found the problem and Ellie is working on the solution now."
Dan's eyes glow green but instead of punching or stabbing Danny, he takes a deep breath and then another.
His now blue eyes (Jason’s blue eyes) meet Jason’s (or technically Dan's?? It's really starting to become confusing).
"It is Jason there, right?" He manages the question in a mostly civil tone.
"Yeah," Jason replies.
"Let me just say, and I mean this in the most disrespectful way possible...Bitch you live like this?!"
There must be something about the sheer indignation Dan's tone, or the fact that he says it in Jason’s voice. Or maybe it's just this whole absolutely batshit day finally getting to Jason and he's snapped.
But instead of responding, Jason bursts out laughing.
"Oh ancients...Danny I think I broke him," Dan stage whispers which only deepens Jason’s laughing fit. It's starting to sound a little hysterical, his laugh cracking around the edges.
"Nah, I'm pretty sure it's like 95% Dani's fault."
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
They beheld each other at the same time. In this moment understanding passed between them. Now they were working together. Same nose, same mouth, same confident smirk. Same face, someone who understands at last.
Together, they faced Him.
Later they faced each other in the sky, surrounded by countless stars. He held her face so gently in his hands.
“You are loved, don’t forget that.”
She threw her arms around him in embrace, thrilled that she had someone she could love, someone who loved her no matter what, her own found family.
Laughter filled the night sky as they examined each other once more. Fingers held together-smaller, but so similar to his, maybe a little cleaner and more neatly trimmed nails. Her hair was softer, silky and long, but the color and thickness was the same.
They had no need to pretend with each other, she was his purest reflection, somehow still innocent despite her troubled beginning.
They parted ways with a fond farewell, kindred spirits who will meet again.
So does anyone know Soul Eater? Reapers with partners who can turn into weapons? Hear me out:
DCxDP crossover where the phantom siblings have to flee and end up in Gotham, specifically in a certain Alley.
Now the batfam aren’t entirely sure why Jason has started to talk gently to his favorite pair of guns or carefully clean them practically daily. Or why he treats him like they’re babies, but it’s getting more than a little concerning. And why did he name them Danny and Dani?
And why does he have a rifle that he calls Dan that seems to set itself on fire?!
