#thodf

Danny needed time coming to terms with the effects the event had on his body.

The hearing aids weren’t that bad, actually. He had a feeling that maybe that was because they’d been provided by the Justice League, but once he’d gotten used to having them in, they weren’t bad. It was even nice when riding the subway to be able to turn off the aid part, cut out some of the people noise, and use them as headphones. He was almost used to putting them in every morning too.

The tremor in his limbs was harder to get used to. Mostly it was when he was tired, though, and the better he got the less he got. He’d been warned that it would likely never go way, though, even after he finished the occupational therapy he had started. He’d just… have to meter his time a little more. He did that already with his chronic aches. He could manage.

He just needed the seizures to stay away.

(So far so good.)

Besides the mess that was his corporeal form, Danny also needed time coming to terms with the fact that he was apparently dating two people.

It was nothing to do with Wally and Dick—not exactly. They were both wonderful people and Danny would feel lucky to date just one of them. But Wally had fallen for Danny when he was isolated, in danger, and desperate. Dick had agreed to the arrangement when saying anything to Wally must have been a relief. And Danny had said yes while his life was not so slowly bleeding away to keep Wally there.

It wasn’t exactly the healthiest basis to form a relationship on.

Danny had wanted to take some time away from Dick and Wally to center himself and evaluate. What he found was that he missed them. He missed their easy, back-and-forth chatter. He missed how tactile they both were. He missed how they listened to him, even if what he was saying wasn’t important.

He missed them.

The design was slightly warped now, like it had been melted on the one side, and the once bright gold was tarnished. Danny was pretty sure that the tarnish was from his blood and ectoplasm.

Fourth time dying and still not the charm.

Which Danny was damn glad for, of course, but it was still his fourth time dying. Fifth, if alternate timelines counted.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Mina said as she set down the tray of tea.

Danny eyed it.

“It’s just normal tea,” Mina assured him with a little huff. “Early grey, to be specific. You like it with honey and milk.”

Danny smiled slightly. “I do. And thank you for having me over for it. I needed to just not… be busy with tests and people worrying and… just not there. Does that make me horrible?”

“Of course not!” Mine said. She set the honey pot down a bit forcefully. “Danny, you’ve been away from home for weeks and weeks now. You had to drop out of your classes this semester. I know there’s probably a new job or two you missed. It’s totally understandable that you need a break from that.”

“Okay, okay good,” Danny sighed. “I was just worried? I mean, I’ve basically been doted on by my boyfriends for weeks now, that should be good.”

“Boyfriends who you started dating under extreme stress.” Mina passed Danny his cup and a hard look at the same time. “Besides, you’re not Penny, you don’t fall for someone and become inseparable. You still need your own space.”

“They’re both so cuddly, Mina,” Danny whined. “And I love it! But also sometimes I just need a little bit of space.”

“You’re allowed to be overwhelmed, especially after dying.”

“Again,” Danny added.

“Again,” Mina agreed. “Since you’re half ghost! And never told me!”

“Oddly, does not come up much in normal conversation,” Danny said.

“As if we’re normal,” Mina pointed out.

“Never,” Danny agreed. He took a long sip of the tea. It was good, even if maybe he had tea trauma. “But I could maybe use a little bit of normalcy.”

“Go back to your own place,” Mina said, “get used to your hearing aids, and take some time to breathe. Read a book or something.”

Danny arched his brow over a pointed sip of his tea.

Mina rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine, play a video game. Point is, relax and just let yourself recenter. I’ll send you home with a crystal.”

“You know those don’t do anything,” Danny pointed out.

“Yeah, but they’re pretty,” Mina said with a little sigh.

Chuckling, Danny shook his head. “Okay, fine. But before I go to find my zen or whatever, tell me about the latest fortune telling drama.”

“Well, the good news is, your eyes are dilating and have no issue with movement. They’re just far too dilated. We’ll need to get you to an ophthalmologist to be sure, but I suspect that your vision will return to normal as the side effects of the event fade.”

“‘kay,” Danny rasped. He took a grateful sip from the cup Wally passed him before he tried to continue, “Same on the hearing, or…?”

Danny didn’t much like the way the doctor frowned.

“It could be,” the doctor said. It was clear the effort she was putting in to speak loudly and articulately enough, “but hearing doesn’t bounce back the way eyes can. I think it would be good to at least be braced for bad news. The good news, even if it’s bad news, is that you seem to still have some hearing in both ears, so you should be a good candidate for hearing aids.”

Danny rubbed at his face with a shaky hand. “Right. Thank you. What do we think about the hand tremors?”

“Another wait and see. But we’ll start you on some physical and occupational therapy. You and the Flash can be be PT buddies,” the doctor said with a little smile. She really was doing her best. “I also want everyone to watch for signs of seizures, especially more minor ones. Like a lot of the cases here, you’re a one off, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t do everything that we can to take care of you.”

“Thanks, really,” Danny said. “I think I’m just here for right now, so whatever works for those appointments? You can let Nightwing know when they are if I’ve crashed again or not remembering or something.”

“The memory issues should go away as you stay awake and get oriented, but I’ll make sure that Nightwing knows of all appointments also. I know it’s easy to lose track of time when you’re healing.” The doctor stood and rolled her gloves off. “Make sure to eat and hydrate while you’re awake, but rest when you need and keep the oxygen in when you’re resting. Flash—stay put and keep that IV in.”

“Yes ma’am!” Wally chirped as Dick showed her out.

Wally hooked his chin over Danny’s shoulder and pulled him back against his chest. Danny let himself slump back into the hold with a sigh. He found the straw to sip at just so that he didn’t have to say anything right away.

“Alright!” Dick said with a clap of his hands. “Food! As long as Wally drinks his smoothies and stays on that IV, we’re not on a restrictive diet, so Danny, what are you thinking?”

“Trash,” Danny decided. “Nuggets and fries and like a shake or something. Just salty trash.”

“Deal! Shake flavor and dipping sauce?”

“Strawberry I guess and like, honey mustard? Honey something. Surprise me.”

“Can do,” Dick said complete with a little salute. “I’m going to to let the others know you’re awake awake and get their food order too, okay? But I’ll keep the horde away for now.”

“Thanks,” Danny said with a grateful smile. He liked the all the Titans, but he really just couldn’t right then, not with his senses all off. Two was just enough. After Dick left, Danny leaned a little more firmly against Wally. “Nice to be able to finally touch you.”

Wally said something then cleared his throat and said more clearly, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Even though… just… some of those things might be permanent,” Wally said, voice almost dipping too long a few times.

“Yeah,” Danny sighed. “I really hope the vision isn’t. I’d like the tremors not to be too, you know? And the seizures would suck if they’re as bad, but I bet there’d be medication for that at least.”

When Wally sighed, it was with his whole body. “You’re so calm about it. I—Danny, you got hurt bringing me back, maybe for good. That… doesn’t that make you mad?”

Danny played with Wally’s fingers as he thought about how to answer that. “You’ve had to have been hurt as Flash.”

“I heal fast,” Wally pouted.

“Okay, lucky guy,” Danny said with a little snort. “But you have or Dick has. You know it’s part of being a hero.”

“You’re a civi right now. You’re a civi and I’m not. I know that even heroes can need rescuing, but you shouldn’t have been hurt because I fucked up!”

Ah, that was it.

Danny brought up Wally’s fingers and kissed them lightly. “Everyone fucks up. And part of me will always be that stupid teen who was a hero. I’ll deal with what this got me just like I deal with the aches and pains I already have. I don’t blame you.”

“You should.”

“I don’t,” Danny insisted. “And you have to respect me enough to know that I went into this willingly and with open eyes. If you can’t do that, then our date when we’re free from here needs to be a friendly dinner instead. I’m not going to be with someone who doesn’t respect my right to decide.”

Wally left out a huff of air like he was deflating. “Sorry. I didn’t mean too… just… hero guilt.”

“I get it, really I do,” Danny said. “But shove it aside, okay? Because both of us are here and alive and I think that’s a damn good outcome when dealing with unknowable forces of the space time continuum.”

“Nerd,” Wally teased.

“Oh like you aren’t.”

“No, I totally am,” Wally said, “but now I have someone to curl up and watch Star Trek with. I love Dick, but he’s an absolute pop culture heathen. He swings between cartoons and reality tv.”

Danny held back a laugh and nodded wisely instead. “Well, we’ll put on ‘The Voyage Home’, and he can fall asleep to the dulcet whale songs.”

“Flash, it’s been weeks,” Danny said. He dropped his voice to a soft murmur between them. “We need to do this now, Walls, before I can’t anymore.”

Wally rubbed at his arm and glanced away. “I don’t want to be why you die.”

“I was dead before you knew me, time boy,” Danny teased. “Trust your team to bring me back.”

Wally gave a wet sounding chuckle. “You’re never afraid, are you?”

“Plenty, but not about death, I’ve walked with it too long,” Danny said. “So no tears for me, okay? Start planning our date instead. You have a lot of catching up to do.”

“I still can’t believe he got to kiss you first.”

“You get stuck in the timeline, you lose,” Danny said. “Now are you ready? You can’t hesitate.”

Wally searched Danny’s gaze for a moment longer before he squared his shoulders and nodded. “Ready.”

Danny turned and gave two thumbs up towards the observation room.

A moment later, Dick’s voice rang out over the comms. “We’re go then. Danny, time to show us Phantom.”

Danny backed up from Wally, hands held out to his side. “Cover your eyes!”

The world went white, then dark, and then was washed faintly in green as it always was as Phantom. Wally stood out like a beacon, as if glowing under black light. Danny drifted up and around him in a circle. “Well, that is fascinating…”

“What is?” Nightwing asked.

“What? Oh, sorry. Flash is practically glowing for me,” Danny said. He pushed off the ground so he could hover at the same height as the observation room. “As is the other Flash, though not as bright. Best as we ever figured, I see things different as a ghost, like how insects see in infrared or all the mantis shrimp craziness. I think I’m seeing an effect from their timey wimey stuff.”

“Timey wimey stuff,” Constantine muttered.

Danny just smiled serenely back. “Raven, Constantine, and Zatanna have a glow too, but in different ways. That’s expected with them being magic users. Ghosts and magic aren’t that far apart and there are ghosts who actively use it. But that the Flashes having the effect, well, I think that just reinforces the theory that we’re going with.”

“Good, because if it went against it, I would be calling this,” Nightwing said.

Danny laughed, aware how the sound echoed on itself and swooped over to the window. “Calm, Nightwing. The plan is solid.”

“There’s still a high risk of death for you.”

“That’s the wonder of it, I’m already dead,” Danny said with a fanged grin. “Any issues with the readings or calculations?”

“Everything looks good,” Barry!Flash answered. “Your transformation hasn’t cause any issues with the readings. We’re still locked on to Flash.”

Danny nodded and floated back just a little from the window before he dug around in his chest for the medallion. He ignored the noises and reactions he got for reaching into himself like that. It was convenient. Besides, without it they would have never found Wally.

“That caused a spike,” Barry!Flash said, voice a little tight. “Give us ten to adjust.”

“More support to the theory though,” Danny said, mostly for Nightwing’s benefit.

“What all do you keep in there?” Nightwing asked with a little tilt of his head.

Danny placed his hands over his heart. “Aw, Nightwing, that’s third date sort of information.”

“Ghosts,” Constantine muttered.

“Oh, like you can talk, laughing magician,” Danny said with a more vicious baring of his fangs.

“Gentlemen,” Batman admonished.

“But to give a real answer,” Danny said to avoid picking a fight reight before he (probably died again, “things I always want on me like the medallion or things I only need as a being of the Infinite Realms. I have a phone that works over there, for example. It was more of a thing when I was an active hero.”

“Okay, Phantom, can you move around with the medallion?” Barry!Flash asked. “I want to make sure that we’re tracking it right.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Danny said. He made some slow, easy loops of the room, making sure to change elevation as well.

“That’s solid,” Barry!Flash said. “Nightwing?”

“Alright, stage two,” Nightwing said. “Flash, remember you have to hold the medallion with both hands. Grab it quickly and tightly. Don’t let go until you’re given the all clear.”

“Understood,” Wally said seriously as Danny landed lightly in front of him.

“Take a breath,” Danny said. “It will be alright. We have to believe that.”

Wally did as he was told, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “Right.”

Danny held the medallion out, gripped tightly in both of his hands. Wally took another breath before he reached out and grasped the medallion just like he had been told.

The world light up with lightening—brighter than it ever was as Phantom. Bright as it had been when Danny had died in the portal. And died again.

It felt like dying again.

Was he?

Probably.

The weird thing was, Constantine actually looked a little afraid. “They know what you are?”

“Okay,” Dick said as he moved between the two. He wasn’t afraid to push either of them back a little. “Yes, we know that Danny is a half ghost, but that’s not actually the important part here.”

Constantine blinked at Dick. “Say what, bruv?”

“I know, we had it backwards at first ourselves,” Dick said. “But if everyone will just sit down for a moment, we can talk through it.”

Constantine looked like he was actually going to argue before he took the chair next to Zatanna with an exaggerated huff. Bruce, who’d of course been standing off to the side, swept over to a seat himself. It was the signal that everyone else needed to sit. Dick took the head of the table with Danny nervously to one side and Wally flanking the other.

“As the Justice League knows, our Flash disappeared while on a solo investigative mission a little over three months ago. Initial investigations by both the Titans and the Justice League found nothing. During that time, the Flash managed to make contact with Danny Fenton,” Dick explained with a little motion towards Danny.

Danny rubbed at the back of his neck. “As Nightwing said, I’m Danny Fenton. For a few years as a teen, I was a local hero known as Phantom in Amity Park. The usual lab accident origin story gave me my powers. I’m half ghost. It’s along story and not actually important. Mostly these days I’m just a psychopomp; sometimes I get visited by ghosts and I make sure they move on.

“I assume that’s what Flash was once he showed up, but he also felt wrong right away. He also caused seizures if he touched me, which wasn’t great. That had me reaching out to Miss Wilhelmina Aleshire. She’s a local oracle and friend I made through the pyschopomp mess. After trying a tea she gave me, I was able to make clearer contact with Flash. He gave me a message to take to Titan Tower.”

“And caused a heart attack,” Wally said, guilt heavy in his voice.

Danny just shrugged. “Not the first time my heart’s stopped. Anyways, once I was awake I checked myself out of the hospital, came here with the phrase, and got in contact with the Titans.”

“They called me in,” Barry picked up, “and we worked on using Danny’s connection as an anchor to isolate Flash’s reading. Main players were Danny, Raven, and myself. Obviously once we got Flash to the point that we could see and hear him, he helped also.”

“Obviously, not dead,” Wally said. “I’m trapped in the Speed Force. Unfortunately, my existing and using Danny as an anchor is continuing to cause health issues.”

“Which is fine,” Danny said with a little glare, “but when we got the signal as clear as it seemed to get, meant rethinking things. It’s when I realized that I’m not able to see Flash and serving as his anchor because of being a psychopomp. He’s right, he isn’t dead. One of my… mentors in the Infinite Realms is a being known currently as Clockwork. He’s basically a god of time. We call them Ancients there. He’s been pretty determined to take me under his wing. There might be some powers at play, but I’m certain that the bigger reason that I’m able to be Flash’s anchor is because I have a medallion of time as part of my being.”

“Wow, more of a freak than I thought,” Constantine said, squinting at Danny.

“Says the man with mince meat for a soul,” Danny snapped back.

“I can slap him for you, if you want,” Zatanna offered calmly.

Danny smiled sweetly at her. “Would you?”

“Ow!” Constantine squawked as Zatanna backhanded him right in the sternum. He rubbed at the spot with a pout. “We’re teammates, you’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I’m your teammate, but when you’re being an idiot I’m not on your side,” she said with a viciously pleasant smile.

“Anyways,” Dick interrupted. “Because we want to make sure that Danny survives—or at least revives from this process—we called in you all. Flash and Batman to continue to help us refine the signal isolation machine, Constantine and Zatanna to try and safeguard things from a magical perspective, and MM to keep a track on things mentally. Obviously our Flash, Cyborg, and Raven will continue to help. We have a medical team standing by. It’s my opinion that we should expect Danny’s heart to stop.”

“Nightwing… might be right about that. I seem to have an annoying habit of it,” Danny said with a little shrug.

“He’s also annoyingly unconcerned about it,” Wally added with a sigh.

“What exactly is the plan?” Bruce asked, finally speaking.

Dick gave him a nod. “We will set up in the reinforced training room and the connecting observation room. Danny will transform into Phantom and remove the medallion. Flash will make contact with both it and Phantom. We believe that while he’s doing so, his signal will become stable enough for us to isolate and lock into this timeline. Luckily, that’s science that we’ve done before for different reasons.”

“We have to expect a large amount of electrical discharge from that,” Wally added. “Which won’t effect me, but will Danny.”

“Lessened because I’ll be Phantom, but none of me gets along with electricity much. It’s likely to snap me back into this form which is where the heart stopping might occur,” Danny said.

“So, as soon as Flash is locked, we need everything can to protect Danny from the effects and then medical in there the second the secondary effects have died down,” Dick stressed. “Anything that we can plan in to help Danny, we need to plan in. We’re not making an exchange here. I expect both of them to be just as alive at the end of this as they should be. Understood?”

With a course of agreement, the teams split up into magical, medical, and science to brainstorm. There would need to be a lot of cross talk, and some like Raven and MM would jump between a few groups, but it was a place to start. Dick would play leader. At least it was a roll he was well used to.

Bruce slowed his steps to hang back from the science group and walk with Dick. “You care about him.”

“Danny? Yeah. Wally developed quite a crush on him, which I get. He’s kind, smart, funny—lots of things. We’re going to go on some dates once Wally’s solid enough to do so,” Dick said. “I don’t know if I’m gone like Wally, I’ve been more focused on getting him back, but that’s what dating is for, right?”

Bruce hummed in agreement. “But?”

Dick sighed. “But he has to survive, and I’m worried about that. There’s also some things that the Titans or the JL need to look into about ghosts. Danny has been through some shit and that’s with him only alluding to it as he tried to brush it off. I don’t know, I just… Wally has been isolated for months. Danny has anxiety about being a lab rat and for this to work we have to make him into one. I’m worried about both of them coming out of this aright.”

“You’ll be there for them,” Bruce said.

“Of course, but will I be enough?”

Bruce was silent for a bit, watching the group in front of them. “Maybe not. But the Titans are there too. As are the Wests. As your family is.”

Dick couldn’t help but smile a little. “Yeah, you going to explain polyamory to Damian?”

“I’ll make Tim do it.”

Dick snorted. “You just want to make Tim realize his own bullshit.”