wisteriavines

DPXDC Prompt

A soulmate au where one dies, the other follows.

Danny dies.

It’s a statement of fact. Everyone and everything dies at some point. Just another part of life you can’t do anything about.

So Danny dies.

He’s torn apart by the very thing his parents’ poured their soul into— their pride and joy for most of their lives. He’s destroyed by his parents’ love.

And Danny doesn’t stay dead.

He stands hunched over the bathroom sink with a white knuckled grip. Head bowed and eyes tightly shut. Breath a little too heavy and loud in the night’s silence.

He’s still in the outfit he…

He stayed holed up in his room all day, unwilling to see or been seen by anyone. Stayed curled up in bed, hiding away from the world and himself.

But now in the dead of night, locked in a bathroom with walls that softly glow from contamination, he slowly unravels. He doesn’t look as he peels off the suit, hands shaking once it’s pulled off his top half.

Danny died.

He breathes.

Danny is alive.

Which does the universe concern itself with most?

When he opens his eyes, is he going to find the name of a stranger on his wrist - a stranger he’ll never get to know and love, a stranger he killed..

Or will the universe be merciful and his wrist will be blank - his soulmate still alive.

Danny died.

In a moment of stupid teenage recklessness. It was his mistake.

Danny is alive.

They should be too, right?

What if the LOA had specific thoughts regarding soulmates?

I mean, if you die because your soulmate dies, that’s just a liability.

im going to stare at it

im going to grin like an idiot

i dont care if you think its bad or not

i love it

Danny’s new boyfriend didn’t exactly live in town. Danny really only knew that because they hadn’t seen him around before. Danny had asked once, at the urging of Jazz, about schooling, and Bart just explained he was home schooled, it worked better with his ADHD. It made sense to Danny. (He wished that he could be home schooled.)

(Maybe he could pass English that way.)

Sam was convinced that Bart was a ghost and had Jazz and Tucker mostly on board with the idea. Danny got the feeling that Tucker was only holding out because he felt beholden to be on Danny’s side. But Sam… Sam wanted Danny to ask Bart all of these questions to try and catch him out on being a ghost who was masquerading as human like Spectra. Danny didn’t want to. He didn’t want to dig into every little thing about Bart. Was it so bad to want to get to know his boyfriend like a normal person?

“Danny!”

Danny looked up from studying his shoelaces. He couldn’t have helped the grin that split his face if he had tried.

Bart was there.

He had been willing to come out to the stupid fall festival with Danny just because Danny needed every bit of extra credit he could get and so had to go. But Bart was there to help make it bearable. He was there, and he was adorable. Bart was almost always in bright colors, whites and reds and yellows. Today was no exception; his yellow shirt was splashed with stylized hangul characters. The white jean shorts were a braze choice for a county fair.

“Hey,” Danny greeted with a little duck of his head.

Bart, shorter than even Danny, just used it as an excuse to duck in and kiss Danny. The kisses had never been more than pecks, but each one felt electric in the best way.

“Hey to you,” Bart said back. “This place looks amazing!”

“Yeah? There are butter sculptures.”

“Butter sculptures?”

“As big as you,” Danny said as he took Bart’s hand.

Bart bounced on his toes. “Oh-meh-gee, that’s totally crash.”

Danny started to lead them to the entrance. He had already bought tickets for them, this date was his treat. He’d saved up allowance and everything. “And we can do the corn maze.”

“Absolutely.”

“And then we’ll see what fried food there is. The fried Oreos are great.”

“Fried Oreo? Best day,” Bart said.

#I think it’d be funny if they stumbled on whatever makes them reincarnate together#as strangers in the first life#so it’s not like love sustained through the ages#but falling in love over time ya knows#also in my mind the whole hero - Robin and phantom - thing is their ‘current’ life

The thought of these two spending centuries as each other's only companion

Starting off as strangers, of learning how to trust each other and failing because they blame each other for being in this situation and end up in opposing sides within new lifetimes

Only to realize that they're the only ones to understand each other's struggles and grief

The struggle of adapting to a new culture and lifestyle and knowledge and being hit with the realization that they're never gonna see their original communities and families and cultures and histories -- of having to grieve their pasts over and over again until they either become numb or find new ways to cope

Becoming tentative friends that struggle not to let past offenses get in the way of having genuine companionship and learning what it means to live -- igniting each other's passion for Life again and being relieved when they reunite each lifetime

Becoming each other's reasons to continue struggling because that's what it means to be Alive just so they can see each other again

Of falling in love and not knowing what to do about it because is it really love? Can they risk it if it is? If they break up- would they lose they're only companion? Can they survive if one dies before the other?

So imagine with me— Tim gets de-aged and only those of the family know about it

Leaving “civilian” Danny anxious about being ghosted by his boyfriend

But he’s an adult so he decides to head over to the Manor to get some answers

And what does he find instead of his *same age* boyfriend?

A child that looks like his boyfriend

It isn’t Danny that arrives to this ‘reasonable conclusion’— but the Batfam

They weren’t expecting Danny, a “civilian”, to show up seeking answers so soon

They were too preoccupied preparing to take care of de-aged Tim for the duration of the spell — thought they had more time to come up with an explanation for Tim’s “disappearance”

As part of his scheme to get someone to confess the truth, he acts like he's internally debating how he feels about Tim "cheating" (Danny knows and trusts Tim would never)- making the Batfam scramble to do damage control because its not like they can tell Danny he's wrong for his feelings but also they can't be the reason Tim and Danny break up when Tim never cheated and there isn't a secret child

They're living two very different versions of the same event

So imagine with me— Tim gets de-aged and only those of the family know about it

Leaving “civilian” Danny anxious about being ghosted by his boyfriend

But he’s an adult so he decides to head over to the Manor to get some answers

And what does he find instead of his *same age* boyfriend?

A child that looks like his boyfriend

It isn’t Danny that arrives to this ‘reasonable conclusion’— but the Batfam

They weren’t expecting Danny, a “civilian”, to show up seeking answers so soon

They were too preoccupied preparing to take care of de-aged Tim for the duration of the spell — thought they had more time to come up with an explanation for Tim’s “disappearance”

zero pressure to do it, this is not a request, just general curiosity!! i love ur stuff!!

It’d make time traveling missions both easier and more interesting

And what would that mean for Tim?

They met sporadically, and Tim always met him more than Danny, but they thought he was something similar to themselves that just liked to keep to himself

(It’s literal foreshadowing)

However once he meets Bruce in his current lifetime, and takes into account the Everything of the superhero world, he probably realizes Bruce is meant to time travel

And he knows it didn’t already happen before he became Robin— he asked

So every time he thinks this is it — it’s not

But when Bruce “dies” he thinks now that can’t be right he hasn’t time— oh

But he can’t just explain that to everyone else for as to why he knows Bruce isn’t dead

Is more annoyed and offended that he’s called crazy anyway when he brings up his beginning research

Omg wait wait

Ra’s

He and Danny have probably run in Ra’s at least once throughout the centuries

(They think he’s annoying but what child isn’t)

Also Danny gets involved because he met Bruce on his own a few times in the Past so Tim wants his knowledge to make a timeline and Danny decides to see this through

It’d make time traveling missions both easier and more interesting

They could hate it because they were physically there so it’s boring to “learn” about it and/or the lessons have incorrect facts/leaving things out that they consider to be important

Or they could love learning about things they weren’t able to witness firsthand but happened like across the world when they lived during that time