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My mom would have been there, if she could, but she died when I was five. She'd gotten Rapunzelean cancer in high school, but she'd beaten it! She was one of the successes!

...Until it came back.

I don't remember much about her, but I remember that she loved me. Even as the golden tumors grew from her bare scalp and sucked the life out of her, she would sing to me, and she wrote me a series of letters for me as I grew up, just in case.

My stepmother took me to her grave sometimes. My dad does too, but it's nice that my stepmother is willing, you know? I had a breakdown one year when I couldn't find my mom's favorite flowers to take to her burial site, and my stepmom drove me all over town until we found one store that had them in the right color. (My dad was at the fairy godperson's office to get some pre-wards before we went to the cemetery. I found out later that his father had caught a curse shortly after my grandmother passed away, specifically geriatric onset donkeyskin, and my father was paranoid of following in his footsteps.)

My dad and my stepmom shuffled their shifts, so that one of them was with me in the morning before school, and one of them was there after, and then both were home for dinner. When I told them I wanted to study to be a fairy godperson, they took me seriously, even though I had wanted to be a pilot and a vet, and and a lawyer and and and - they always supported me, and soon I was being gifted books on the history of magicomedicine and cursebreaking. Some of them gave me nightmares - siren's disease freaked me out for a long time; something about the tongue swelling so much you would suffocate, and the agonizing images of ancient "cures" where the victim had to get their tongue cut out so they could breathe. I don't even know why! There were much worse ones! But something about that was so visceral to me. For the next month, any time my feet hurt even a little was convinced I was coming down with siren's disease.

I worried my parent's so much that they took me to Fairy Elena, my PCFP, and asked if she would be willing to go over how siren's is treated now. She gave me a quick rundown on intubation, pain medication, and told me about Prince's Blood Donations.

It was the first time I learned that magic can be tricked; according to legend, siren's disease could be cured by killing someone's true love and smearing their blood over the patient's legs. At least, that was one line of thought; another line of thought argued that it had to be the blood of royalty. Some fairy godpersons and magicoresearchers got together in the '80s and decided to research it methodically, going through every known case of siren's disease & what worked and what didn't. It turned out royalty was the key, but then it became a question of ethics. I didn't care too much at the time, that was all boring, grown-up stuff, but finally one researcher decided to just make a blood bank company, call it Prince's and see if that worked.    

And it did.

Magic can be tricked, and my mind was blown.

I also asked my dad if we could put that book away for a little, because it was too scary. He agreed, and we put it on the top shelf, where all the scary books went. I reread it recently, and honestly? I don't remember what I was so afraid of.

Things started changing when I turned 16.

For one, my hair, which had always been brown, started darkening to black. For another, I stopped being able to tan. It was like a light switch went off; magic was determined to turn me into something, and I hated it. My PCFP really went to bat for me, getting insurance to cover the cost of cosmetic glamours and professional tanning sprays. She wanted me to tell my parents, but I didn't want to, not yet, and she was bound by her oath to protect my privacy.   

She was right. But... I wanted to ignore it. I wanted to pretend everything was fine.

I didn't want to lose another mom.

And it worked for a while; managed to get to my senior year of high school before the world broke.

Stepmothers don't have the best reputation.

It fucking sucks, and it's not fair, but enough stories have been told about them that magic took an interest, and began manifesting curses that warp stepmothers until they follow the story.

We thought we were safe. My stepmother didn't bring any children into the marriage, so she was safe from the ash-girl curse variant, and I was a tanned brunette, so we were safe from the snow-daughter variant.

And she loved me.

She hid it too, I think. Not intentionally, but some of the symptoms are paranoia and anxiety.

I've done a lot of research. I don't think I'll ever be able to be a fairy godperson, but that doesn't mean I had to stop caring. I swapped my focus to researching curses from the history and literature side of things. I still work with researchers, we just come from different angles now.

Anyway, no one realized anything was wrong until she was french braiding my hair and the next thing I knew, she had locked herself in the bathroom sobbing while EMTs took me to the hospital for overnight observation. I don't actually know what happened. She turned herself over to the cops as soon I was loaded onto the ambulance, and she was taken to a hospital herself. She was sedated at first, as she was so wound up that she was hurting herself, and the hospital couldn't scan her for curses. Once she came out of sedation, she immediately called my dad and offered a divorce, he could take everything, she would leave immediately.

But we'd gotten the results of the scans, and I was fine. As best that the fairy godperson's could tell, the magic was frustrated that we didn't want to go down the snow-daughter route, and had lashed out in an attempt to force it. That was apparently what knocked me unconscious; magic poisoned the comb my stepmother was using in my hair.

That didn't mean she didn't feel guilty - but so did I. If I had told them earlier, would things have changed? If I hadn't tried to hide the signs that magic was fucking with us?

They don't blame me, and I don't blame her.  

She loves me. I know she does. We still talk, as best as we can. She can only hear my voice for ten minutes before the curse starts taking over. We can email, though, as long as the orderlies can prescreen the email for any curse triggers. She also can't hear about me directly, but my dad will go and visit her, and tell me how she's doing. He refused to divorce her. His insurance still covers her hospital stay. He says he's married, and wears his ring.

When I applied to college, I wrote about all three of my parents, and how much they had all taught me.

How much they all loved me.

Someday, my stepmother will get her curse lifted, I have to believe that. I've joined a multidisciplinary group of researchers based in the EU. Some of us are looking at ways to trick magic, some of us are looking at ways to rewrite the stories of the wicked stepmothers, and create a new path for the magic to follow. One group of researchers is looking into ways of simulating the punishments that stepmothers receive at the end of tales to see if "punishing" stepmothers would break the curse. Actually going through the punishments would cause any ethical review board to remove someone's license, and there's no way I would want my stepmom to dance in red hot metal shoes.

The absolute culmination of it comes one dark November evening, when the Fenton luck strikes again and Danny finds himself being a hostage in Joker's old as time performance: making Batman choose between saving Robin or saving a helpless civilian, both of them hanging over the tanks full of acid.

Only, midway through the madman's pathetic speech, they all get to see said civilian wake up, look around to realize what kind of situation he ended up in, and then excitedly say, "Sick, a jacuzzi!"

---

The mnashee were clad in their customary robes, dark cloth draped loosely over pale skin. Of course, it’s not exactly skin. It doesn’t really have cells. It’s not an organ. It’s just the edge of an idea. The boundary where death and grief meets human perception. So it looks like skin and it’s pale like a corpse.

What surprised me, though, were the placards they were holding. These were not exactly customary. They seemed to be made of mundane wood and cardboard - if I squinted, they stayed solid through the Veil - but the text and images seemed to have warped through close proximity with the spirits.

When things get warped, they tend to go one of two ways: spidery or squirrelly. The words had gone spidery, the words flowing into each other and splitting into vein-like strands, untethered from the cardboard. The pictures had gone squirrelly, seeming to shift and move and grow eyes that stared out at the world with feral, furtive energy.

I cleared my throat.

The keening of mnashee turned to look at me. They did not stop wailing. But the *flavour* of the wails changed. The sound was the same, but beneath it - above it, behind it, spat out of it - was a pattern. And that pattern was a meaning.

It was not communication, exactly. But it was a knowing.

So I knew, then, why they had descended upon parliament.

“It’s like I thought.” I said to the civil servant, thoughtfully. “The Act you’re trying to pass … many won’t survive it. They are just here to sing your grief.”

“The Act is necessary. The aetheric exchange is too volatile at the moment, we need to-”

“It doesn’t matter what you need. The route you’ve chosen to get there is blood-paved. This keening arrived when the first slow passing began. They will leave when the last ends.”

“We have run extensive projections and-”

“They don’t care how much you made the numbers dance.” I kept my voice politely neutral. “And I’m not here to judge you or tell you what to do. They sing what is true. Then I speak to that truth.”

“Can you make them leave or not?”

“Perhaps I could, but I will not. For it would not be honest to do to them. I will join them and I will continue to speak their knowings.”

The civil servant’s face was red, his biology betraying the lie of his perfect suit.

“Well, you can forget about the *generous* compensation package…”

“Fine. But you will still pay my call-out fee.” I sat down and prepared to wait. “Unless you want to break a bargain, that is?”

---

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"Hello, this is Jim Gordon." He said as he answered. There was no response at first, only the sound of someone breathing on the other end. He clicked the button that started a recording of the phone call in case this was another threat that Batman would need to investigate. Barbara watched him from the corner of her eye.

"U-uncle Jim?" A young and scared sounding voice finally responded. Jim took a seat at the dining table as he tried to piece together who this could be.

"Jasmine?"

"Uh, actually I go by Jazz now."

Jasmine Fenton, Jazz now, the young niece on his dearly departed wife's side of the family from a branch that the rest of the family had thoroughly cut off some time ago.

"Well, Jazz, what can I do for you at... three in the morning?" It was only two where she lived, but still far too late for a young woman who was probably still in high school to be awake.

"Well, you remember my... sibling? Right?"

Jim noted her odd hesitation in that sentence.

"Yes, I do." The Fentons shared the family curse of only having girls apparently.

"Well he goes by Danny now." Or maybe not. So Jazz's brother is trans? Good to know, but not quite worth a 3 AM call across the country to someone she had spoken to maybe three times. "And he's not... he's not safe here anymore!"

Jim snapped his fingers to get Barbara's full attention. She glared at him for snapping at her like he would with his officers, but pulled up her laptop and with a few key presses had joined the call with her headphones in, though she remained silent and listening for now.

"Really? I never would have taken your parents for the type." Jim said, mostly to keep Jazz talking.

"Nobody thinks they're the type! And that's the problem!" Her voice cracked and jumped an octave in fury, and bordering on hysteria. "He's in danger here and nobody believes him and I can't keep them distracted forever! And please, I just need someone to believe me!"

"I believe you Jazz." Jim said quickly. This kind of distress couldn't be faked. She thought her brother was in a real danger for his life. He didn't want to lose the thin thread of trust she was extending him right now. "How can I help?"

Jazz gasped and muffled a sob that they could both still hear. Jim always hated it when kids had been forced to train themselves to cry silently. Barbara scribbled something on a pad of paper and flipped it so he could read it. 'Who?' Jim took the pencil from her and wrote out, 'Jasmine Fenton, Parents Jack and Madeline, Amity Park.' and slid it back to her. That should be all the information Babs needed to do the work he would continue to not ask questions about, even though it was currently helping him.

Once Jazz had collected herself, Jim asked again. "What can I do to help you two? Do you have a safe adult closer who you can talk to?"

"NO! Everyone here believes them, or wouldn't be safe either. I already had to drive four hours just to make this call, not it has to be someone out of state."

Barbara looked at him with her eyebrows raised. Jim grimaced, but kept his voice even.

"Alright, well you can't get much out of state than New Jersey. So what do you need me to do?"

"I keep a detailed list of all our estranged blood relatives just in case." Jazz started, earning an impressed look from Barbara. "So I know you're with the Gotham City Police. I'm hoping you have some resources to get my parents investigated and keep Danny safe."

That implied a level of desperation that he wasn't wholly comfortable with, but he would never turn away someone in need if he could help them. He was about to respond when Jazz suddenly gasped.

"Jim! Is there someone else on the call?" Her voice sounded even more panicked. Barbara pressed a few more keys on her computer before speaking up.

"Yeah, sorry about that Jazz, this is Barbara, I guess we're technically cousins!" Babs said, keeping her voice serious but friendly.

"Jim?" Jazz asked, her voice sounding distance, like she was already backing away from the phone, ready to run if needed. Jim's concern some how just kept rising for her.

"Yep, that's Babs, she's my daughter."

"I'm much better with computer than my dad, so he added me to the call so I can start to plan a route to you." Barbara said.

"Oh thank the Ancients. Do you mean it? You'll really come?"

"Of course! It's high time for a family reunion anyways. We'll be on the road first thing in the morning!"

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! Now I really have to go, I can't be caught out here. Bye!"

With a click the line went dead. Jim flexed his hand and wished for a cigarette, even though Barbara had banned him from smoking in the house. She typed away at her laptop, the furrow growing between her brows. Whatever she was finding wasn't pretty.

He sighed and set the phone down on the table before standing up.

"I'm going to pack some things, then hit the hay. I'll take the first driving shift if you take the second?" He asked, but also hoped. He could comfort a victim and he could investigate a case, but he could already tell that this one was going to be more than any one man could do, so he desperately hoped his daughter would be there to help, even without the extra help she would be providing that he wouldn't ask any questions about. If Batman just happened to show up in Amity Park he wasn't going to question his good fortune.

"Yep! I'll head to bed in a couple of minutes, I just want to finish a few more things." Babs said with a small tired smile.

Obviously Jim had made some bad assumptions during the call and Danny was not necessarily in danger because he was trans, but he was still in danger. Jim's contacts ran into red tape as a powerful government organization blocked any attempts at investigating through above board means. Barbara's searches only managed to get a little more of the picture before she too was shut down, but rumors of a government lock down, of attacks from some extra planar threat, of the whole city getting sucked into a different dimension. This was all over his pay grade, but someone there had asked for his help, and he was going to give it.

He pulled to a stop just a few miles away from where his GPS showed only a blacked out square. He didn't know what he was about to drive into, but he had been raised in Gotham and he knew to follow his gut. Barbara looked at him curiously as he pulled off to the side of the road and unbuckled his seat belt.

"Get in contact with your cousin. Tell her to pack a bag for herself and Danny. We're not going to be stayer than it takes."

Then he stepped out and dialed a number he had memorized, but only used when things were the most dire. As always it rang twice before the other line picked up, and as always there was no response.

"Batman, this is Jim Gordon. The Justice League is needed in Amity Park, Illinois. I don't know what exactly is happening, but it goes against every moral in my body. I'm going to be extracting a pair of at risk teens. If I don't call again in a couple of hours send in the cavalry."

There was a couple of seconds of silence before Batman responded in his usual growling voice, "Understood."

Jim hung up and got back in the car just as Barbara was putting her own phone back in her pocket. He buckled up, and gripped the steering wheel, like he could choke the life out of it before stepping on the gas.

The two of them approached the city limits, the GPS blaring at them to turn around before Barbara reached over and shut it off. Just outside they saw the unmistakable sign of a government blockade. But Jim had lived through No Man's Land in Gotham. He knew how to deal with a blockade. His old car was a rough monstrosity compared to most of the world, but it was designed to survive in Gotham and modified without his consent by his caped allies. They blasted through the blockade with his middle finger pressed to the his window as he passed the government goons all in white.

They honked and shouted and green energy weapons flashed behind them, but Jim was already hurtling down the road into Amity. He grimaced as the air seemed to take on a green haze so even the sun seemed dim. He reached over to the glove box and opened it.

"Put your mask on." He ordered Barbara even as he pulled his own out from the central console. He put his on without stopping, years of dealing with the Joker and Scarecrow coming in handy as he drove with his knee on the wheel while he secured the mask.

Barbara had her own mask on and a map in her hand as she gave him instructions on how to navigate the city. Jim couldn't help that Amity looked almost worse than Gotham had during No Man's Land. The streets were torn up and covered in craters. The buildings were boarded up, or half bulldozed like the city had seen a fight between Superman and a dozen aliens. The few civilians walked scared, with their heads down, and hurried from place to place. Concernedly they did not have any masks, but Jim wasn't going to trust Barbara's health just because others didn't see the risk.

His tires squealed as he turned the final corner. He could clearly see the monstrosity that his wife's brother and his wife had built on top of their house. He could only imagine what exactly they had gotten up to in that thing. He stopped his car in front of the house and was out, marching up to the door with the engine still running almost before Barbara had finished bracing from the sudden stop.

He pounded his fist against the door for a few minutes. He stepped back ready to kick the door down when it was opened from the inside. He could see the orange hair, and a wide panicked eye of his niece through the crack of the door.

"Jazz, let's go, its time to leave. Where's your brother? Where's your parents?" Jim was tempted to stay around and let his brother and sister in law have a few choice words, but right now he needed to get the kids to safety.

"Who- Wait, Uncle Jim?" She opened the door a little more, naked relief showing through the signs of terror on her face.

"Yes. I told you I would come for you, didn't I?" He said.

Jazz stepped back, her shoulders shaking, though no tears showed. She opened the door fully and turned away.

"Danny is leading our parents away. I'll call him while I grab our bags." She turned away and ran back into the house, putting in a strange ear piece as she climbed the stairs.

Jim looked around the living room, his concern growing for these kids with each glance. There were weapons, whole and in pieces on every bit of furniture. There were puddles and stains of some strange green fluid all over the floor, and some was actively dripping from a leak on the ceiling. The refrigerator shook and wobbled like there was something alive inside that was actively trying to escape. He wanted to stay to take pictures for evidence, but he would just have to trust that Batman had taken his warning seriously and would take over.

Jazz came clattering down the stairs a few minutes later, duffel bags over each shoulder, a bag in her hand, and a pack on her back. Jim reached for his gun as the backdoor slid open, but hid the motion when Danny stumbled in, clutching a bleeding wound on his side.

"Jazz, wha-" He looked in concern at Jim, especially with his gas mask, but neither of them were giving the boy a moment to process.

Jim took a handful of Jazz's bags while she grabbed her brother and pushed him out the door. Jazz shoved Danny into back seat, and the two of them arranged the bags around Barbara's wheelchair. Jazz looked like she was about to try have them leave her behind for whatever self-sacrificing reason she had come up, but Jim wasn't about to have that and pushed her in next to her brother. She looked at him betrayed for a moment as the child locks prevented either of them from opening the back doors. He didn't care. She could be angry at him later, once they were all out of this city.

By the time he was back in the drivers seat, Barbara had pulled the big first aid kit out from under her seat and was passing it back to Jazz to get Danny taken care of. He pulled away from the curb and raced to the end of the street. He squealed around the corner just as some kind of fucking tank pulled around the corner behind them.

"Are you going to be able to get us out of the city?" Jazz asked, her voice panicked as Danny turned around to watch the tank immediately give chase.

"Please, I'm an officer in Gotham City. This is just a Thursday for us." Jim said without taking his eyes off the road.

Jim Gordon might not have powers, or the training that the Bats have, but he had experience, and his car had been modified a thousand times. He knew it was the weird love language of the Gotham Vigilantes, trying to keep him safe in the hell that was being a good cop in GPD.

He needed every ounce of his decades of experience to navigate Amity and stay ahead of the tank that was taking shots at them whenever they could. He snarled as he caught a glimpse of the Fenton logo on the side. The elder Fentons didn't even care that they were taking out street signs and mailboxes. Jim was sure that if there were any citizens out on the road, they would have been run down by the reckless driving.

Barbara typed away on her computer, while Jazz tried to patch up her brother in the backseat of the moving car. Jim didn't know what his daughter was doing, but knew better than to ask questions. The tank behind them suddenly taking a hard right into a mostly demolished building as she cheered showed she was successful.

"I hacked their steering." Barbara said triumphantly.

"That probably won't hold them long." Danny said.

"It doesn't need to." Jim said, and he let his foot fall harder on the accelerator.

After out driving the Fentons, the government blockade was easy to bypass, and once they were on the open road, Jim really let the lead out and took off pushing 90. He was an officer of the law, the highway was empty and he had two scared and injured kids in the car, plus his daughter. He could be forgiven for breaking a few speeding laws.

A few miles outside of the city the crackle of static from his radio signaled that they were successfully outside the government quarantine. They had made it.

The most contaminated exhibited abilities akin to a low level meta, enhanced strength, senses, and healing. Empathic communication. The worse seemed to be the psychological effects, inducing paranoia, obsession, and aggression. It was a cocktail worse than Fear Gas and made interacting with those infected a lesson in patience or a hazard.

The entire situation wasn't helped by the fact that each member of the League seemed to have their powers effected differently. Any empathic or telepathic members couldn't approach without debilitating feedback from the city. Raven couldn't get closer than the forward base without being over run with emotions and Martian Manhunter had only been able to hear terrified and tortured screaming in his mind.

The Kryptonians had their powers sapped to human levels, though without the pain and sickness of kyrptonite. The Lanterns had control of their wrested away from them, almost as if the entire city was filled with a will even greater than their own. The Flashes weren't impacted, but did feel as if there every move was being watched, like if they made one wrong move it would cost them everything.

For some reason those who gained their power from a connection to the Greek Pantheon were not only completely unaffected, the city and its citizens treated them with respect bordering on reverence. Wonder Woman and Donna Troy were operating as the forward command trying to get a handle on the situation.

Fully human members of the League seemed to be able to able to function without too much difficulty, but even a few hours of contamination could start to cause changes in their behavior. Batman set a limit of four hours before heroes had to return to the forward base for magical decon. He knew how obsessive members of the League were even on good days, the last thing they needed was fighting amongst themselves.

None of this would have gotten to this level if it weren't for the Ghost Investigation Ward. An off branch of the US Department of Paranormal Research that had been deployed to the city during the earliest months of the crisis. Their focus had been research, capture and extermination, already a monstrous mission, but within a few weeks the members started to become contaminated as well, driving their obsession with destroying ghosts to genocidal heights. Instead of calling their men back the DPR created a massive coverup to keep the Justice League from discovering what had happened, which allowed the GIW to impose martial law.

Batman had Nightwing, Signal, and the Question investigating everyone who could have a part in the decision. Within the city Young Justice under Red Robin's leadership took point. Apparently a resistance against the GIW had formed among the most contaminated of the high school youth and YJ were uniquely qualified to ingratiate themselves to these teens who seemed to know the most about what had happened.

Bruce could admit at least in his mind that he was worried about what would happen if Tim became contaminated and had been strictly monitoring his time in the city and his mental state during decon. Bruce also had similar processes for himself and had Black Bat keeping and eye on his own mental state.

"You don't understand! All of this is Phantom's fault! That dirty spook killed our son!"

Batman sighed again as the shouting once again started up. The Drs Fenton, Jack and Madeline. All evidence pointed to them having caused all of the harm in this city. Red Robin had taken all of 15 minutes talking with the Amity High teens to deduce that Danny Fenton was the ghostly hero Danny Phantom. They had still had their own son's blood on their hands when Diana and Donna came to arrest them.

However the more he looked around the more he didn't think that this was because of Vlad. For one thing, this room was way better decorated than Vlad could ever do. He didn't trust even other people's opinions enough to hire a decorator or designer.

Danny moved to the closets and found clothes tailored for Danny's body there. So this definitely wasn't a kidnapping attempt. No way would Vlad spend this kind of money on Danny without some way to show it off.

He reached for his ghost core and came up empty. Certainly this body was still liminal, in fact more liminal than even the average Amity Parker, though not as bad as Jazz, Tucker or Sam. So if he didn't have hist ghost form, was this not his body?

He stepped in the in-suite bathroom next. The face looking back at him in the mirror looked like his, but also different, scars in different places than what he remembered. This body was only a few years older if Danny were to guess, but more muscular. Danny never had a need to work out and build muscle, he could rely on his ghost strength for that.

If anything this body's build reminded Danny a lot of Dan's. Ancients he hoped this wasn't an evil future version of himself again.

Remembering his earlier pain he lifted up his shirt to find carefully and skillfully wrapped ribs and several other precisely patched injuries. What they hell did this body get up to without a ghost core that they were so injured? Though at least the wrappings showed that they had someone who cared about them enough to take care of them after.

Danny stepped back out into the bedroom, as he tried to put his plan together. This was clearly some kind of body swap situation. Considering this body seemed to be an alternate version of his own, he would guess a dimension swap. Nothing he hadn't dealt with before.

Sam and Tucker would quickly figure out he was replaced then restrain his more dangerous powers. They had his improved version of the Plasmius Maxmimus if they needed. Jazz would notify Fright Knight and use her abilities as Regent to keep the ghosts in line. He would just need to figure out he was, play the part for long enough to find a way back into the Realms to unite with his family.

Now to figure out who the hell this body belonged to. He looked carefully throughout the room. There was very little personal accoutrement in the room. Which was weird because the bedroom Danny shared with Tucker and Sam was filled with their personal touches. Only one nightstand had any personal effects, two framed photos, a phone and a wallet.

Danny reached for the phone first as that could provide the most information. However it was locked and didn't have either fingerprint or facial unlocking, instead had an eight digit password needed. Eight digits! 1,000,000,000 possible combinations. Paranoid much?

Well to be fair, Danny's phone was locked to his ecto signature so only he and Ellie could unlock his phone, a privilege she used to gift herself roblox money, order pizzas with his credit card and change his lock screen to an embarrassing picture of him asleep with his mouth open and a blob ghost napping in his open mouth. How she kept finding that picture despite his many attempts to purge any trace of it, he would never know.

Tossing the phone onto the bed as a later problem, though slightly worried about the number of notifications on he could see but not access or read, Danny focused on the wallet instead. Here at least he struck gold. The credit cards were all under the name Bruce Wayne. Considering the heavy weight of the cards, he doubted the Waynes were hurting for the money as if the ornate room weren't evidence enough.

There was a collection of business cards that said Bruce Wayne was the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Jeez. Hopefully Wayne Enterprises was find handling things on their own for a little while, Tucker and Sam were the business brains behind the former Fentonworks, now rebranded to Realms Tech. He was always more of an inventor.

There was also a collection of photos. He lifted the wallet as the clear photo holders unfolded. Quite the collection of photos. There were numerous pictures of Bruce Wayne with different kids, and even more with just the kids themselves. Many of them had black hair, but there was one red head girl in a wheel chair and a blonde girl as well.

Bruce Wayne had kids. Danny couldn't help a warm smile from gracing his lips. A lot of kids apparently. After having to deage Ellie so she could stabilize Danny and his partners had taken on the responsibility (and wonderful gift honestly) of raising her back to adulthood. It had given them the baby bug a bit. But with Sam refusing to be pregnant it left them with limited options. Unfortunately they were afraid of adopting because of their liminality and how the ecto radiation would effect the kids. It was nice to know that an alternate version of the Danny ended up with Danny's dream of a big family.

None of the pictures were labeled, so Danny couldn't figure out the names for his alternate's many children. So he turned his attention to the two framed photos. One of was a group shot that seemed to have all the kids from the wallet photos.

Bruce was front and center in an arm chair, and there were kids all over him. The eldest, who had been photographed in gymnastics attire was draped across Bruce's shoulders. Another boy was suppressing a smile with a surly look as he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, some of his hair dyed white. His look was mirrored by the youngest looking child, the only one who seemed to share any traits with Bruce, standing on his other side.

The blonde from earlier was leaning heavily on an asian girl, knocking her into a boy who looked like hadn't slept in a week. All three of them had smiles of different sizes, but all looked happy and relaxed. An african-american boy leaned against the red head's wheelchair and was subtly holding up rabbit ears behind the youngest's head.

Danny's smile threatened to strain his facial muscles. This man was loved. Even the frame itself had its corners worn down to show how often it was handled.

It was only signed with "Remember you're not alone, Old Man! ~ D." Danny didn't know which one of the kids was D, but he hoped Bruce took the reminder to heart. It was so easy to lose this.

The other photo was of Bruce standing with a very proper looking older gentleman. Both men were giving the same small, tired smiles and leaning on each other slightly. The back read, "Alfred and Master Bruce." Master Bruce? A butler perhaps? But obviously one loved and treated like family. This picture was a few years old and sat with Bruce's other family at his bedside table.

A soft knock at the bedroom door was the only warning Danny had before Alfred himself walked in, before stopping in surprise.

"Ah, already awake Master Bruce? I was afraid I would have to drag you out of bed for breakfast." Alfred said with a British accent, then he glanced at the picture frames in Danny's hands. "Feeling sentimental this morning?"

Danny smiled and set the two photos down on the nightstand. Then he patted Alfred on the shoulder.

"Surely you can allow an old man a moment of sentimentality?" Danny allowed the smile to fade from his face, clearly his alternate was much of a smiler. "What were you saying about breakfast?"

"I was just informing you that breakfast will be ready soon. It's a full house, so do try to make yourself presentable." Alfred said, with his same precise diction, as he looked Danny up and down.

"Of course. I'll be down in a moment, Alfred." Danny said and Alfred gave a quick nod before leaving, closing the door behind him as he went.

The person to his right, Sam apparently, snorted as she roused, and sat up a little to look him over. Bruce risked opening his eyes, he was trapped between two people, tangled in sheets and in a completely unknown situation, even with all his training this would be a bad situation if he had to fight his way out.

"He looks like Danny, Tucker, is he overshadowed?" Sam asked.

Sam was pale, with a black faux-hawk and purple eyes. She was completely naked and wasn't shy about her body. Tucker had dark skin and black hair. He had his hair styled in long dreads with multiple golden charms clasped to the locks. Bruce watched as his eyes flashed gold for a second before a sensation like sand gently pouring over his skin swept across his body.

"Oh, body swap. Looks like this soul is from a different dimension." Tucker said, declaring such an absurd situation with such certainty that Bruce could only guess that they had experienced something like this before. "Is your name still Danny in your universe?"

"My name is Bruce, Bruce Wayne." Bruce said, finally speaking and sitting up.

"Oh! Danny's alternate is rich!" Sam said with a cheer as she stood up and walked over to the closet. "Listen to that posh diction."

Bruce averted his eyes from his alternate's partner and looked ready to deny it when Tucker patted his shoulder.

"Don't worry, Bruce. Sam knows rich people. Her parents were millionaires." He whispered the last like it was a secret. "We've handled this sort of thing before, so we'll get you all sorted out and back in your proper body in no time."

Bruce jumped as an electrical charged arced across his body, he turned, ready to defend himself and he found Sam once more standing next to him, a small taser in her hand. Some how he hadn't even heard her approach.

"Sorry about that, our Danny's got some powers that we don't want you to hurt yourself with. That just disables them for a few hours." She had a sharp grin and still hadn't put on any clothes.

"You keep something to disable your partner in your closet?" Bruce couldn't help the question. Sam's smile grew even sharper, bordering on inhuman at the question.

"Of course! How else am I supposed to have him bound and begging before me?"

.

Danny had a sense when something strange was going on. It wasn't his ghost sense, or even from his accident. If anything it was a family trait. Jack and Maddie used it to find ghosts and haunted locations long before their tech could actually pick up on ecto, Jazz used to suss out when Danny had lied to her about eating his vegetables, and Danny used it whenever he had to work with the non ghostly members of the Infinite Realms. There was just this tingling in the back of his mind that told him that everything was not as it seemed.

So when he walked into the dinning room to find it full of Bruce Wayne's kids who all looked at him with concern then pretended everything was fine, that sense started going off. As they all began clearly speaking in different coded phrases while subtly (though not subtly enough) checking in on him, the sense grew even stronger.

Finally Danny set his fork down after eating some of the delicious breakfast that Alfred had prepared for him and looked around the room. All of Bruce's kids tensed and looked like they were trying to pretend that they weren't readying for a fight. He let himself smile at all of them.

"So it's clear this alternate gets up to some kind of weirdness." Danny said, his smile widening as the others tried to parse his words. "Now I don't need to know everything, its not my business, but I would like you all to know, that I am an alternate version of your father from a different dimension and I've dealt with some weirdness myself. I'm certain my partners are already working on getting everybody back in their proper bodies."

It was clear the others hadn't expected him to just come out and admit that he was body swapped, but just as clear that they had all figured out he wasn't their father. He wondered what gave him away, but let it go as he picked his fork back up and continued eating for a few more bites. When the silent conversations that were happening across the table started to grow panicked he spoke up again.

"Is there some where you would like me to wait where there aren't any secrets until my partners get this situation sorted? You are of course more than welcome to continue to observe me for any suspicious behavior, though I would like to get to know my alternate's children if you would allow me."