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Chapter Text

Look, Ellie wasn’t exactly the smartest of sibling—soon to be siblings—daughter/cousin/child/person/clone/thing, not even compared to the rest of the weirdos that made up their dysfunctional “little” family.

For starters, despite the DNA making up her physical existence, Ellie was vastly different from any of her living body’s biological relatives. 

She could not make seemingly impossible—if not remarkably unnecessary and utterly needless—tech out of literal garbage scrap like Jack Fenton. There was no terrifying combat prowess—outside her halfa build and ghost powers—and knowledge of biology that allowed her to take apart anything remotely humanoid like Madison Fenton. No intense love and determined maturity that allowed—for as much as it was forced upon—her to raise a child despite being one herself like Jasmine—preferred name, Jazz—Fenton. Nor an obsessive adoration of the stars that somehow allowed Daniel—preferred name, Danny—Fenton to push through the dullness of modern education to easily skate through his classes with minimal effort. (She’s not entirely convinced about that last one having anything to do with stars, but it was admittedly impressive how well Danny had perfected the art and craft of excelling through the bare minimum.)

And—depending on which theory of her existence one was supporting—she certainly didn’t have the confidence (or love-brained foolishness) to bail out of a pristinely assured future to join in some mocked pseudoscience in hopes of getting laid like Vladmir Masters. She also certainly couldn’t effectively run a multimillion dollar company like said forty-or-something year old virgin after his questionable college history—though he absolutely would’ve been fucked running a criminal empire without his abilities as a Halfa and connections with ghosts.

Ellie’s entire existence was up in airs as a  whole Nature versus Nurture shebang if you will. And that was just pertaining to the past human counterparts of her biology, the Fenton family of four—plus the uninvited interloper that was Vlad— the ones that existed before the “Accident”. Well the “Portal Accident”—Danny’s Portal Accident, to be specific—that is. Ancients knew how little “Accident” helped anyone narrow down the timeline to a particular event when it’s associated with the Fentons.

Not that it mattered much—but the distinction between these periods and parts of their lives was and is important—especially when there was still plenty Ellie couldn’t do in comparison to the Nightingale family of six, nor the Phantom family of three—technically not including Cujo, and certainly not Plasmius.

(There was also some Auntie Lice—it was something along the lines of Alice or Laycie—that Ellie had only ever heard passing comments about which she took to mean the woman, despite her biological relations, was of no importance even compared to an interloper like Vlad.)

In terms of the Family of Nightgales’ Ellie certainly could not utterly discard and rework a lifetime of obsessive research without so much of an argument like Jack Nightingale out of love. Nor could she fight so utterly against her own—decade long—obsession to protect his kind like Vlad Nightgale-Masters did. There was no “jigsawing someone’s life” with only a few words the way Jazz—officially Jasmine—Nightingale could, especially considering Ellie’s own floundering tongue. No strength to hold on and fight for a place in the world after everything you thought you knew ended up false like Dante Nightingale-Masters did. And certainly not an intense empathy and desire to protect a world that had brought nothing but pain to her like Danny—officially Daniel—Nightingale.

As for the Phantoms’, Ellie absolutely could—and would—never be able to run an infinite expanse of universes—and a just as infinite amount of paperwork and bureaucracy—at only fifteen years old like Danny Phantom could (not that he actually wanted to). Nor could she act as a General and Advisor in War who could flip the tides of battle not only with a witty viciousness but with brute strength like Dan Phantom-Plasmius. And if she absolutely had to include him, nor did she dare to scheme against the natural order of her very species like Vlad Plasmius—though he certainly regrets it.

Outside of DNA though, excluding direct ghostly relatives and relations, Ellie still was not the smartest—read also as useful or remarkable—of the bunch of human-turned-liminal weirdos that made up their Found Family.

Tucker Foley was the most obvious example, with his steadfast loyalty and willingness to support Danny even if it meant giving up his own dreams and desires, not to mention his ability to both code and will a life-form into existence with a simple PDA—not that Ellie understood much about electronics—despite being a mere mortal and later fledgling liminal. There was no dogged-determination for vengeance, or ability to beat ghosts into submission—even without powers—like Valerie Gray. And it was with utmost grief that she admits she wasn’t half the storyteller or conspiracy theorist that was Wesley—affectionately known as Wes—Weston, who Danny and Tucker swore could solve the most implausible mysteries of the Realms with his imagination if given enough time and support.

(And it’s important to remember these were all things that they could do whilst still human, Ellie hadn’t even started on the utter bullshit they were now capable of with access to the Infinite Realms and Liminal Powers—or in Tucker’s case being a bloody reincarnated ancient Pharaoh.)

Even against those on the fringes of their “little” family like the A-listers and Cheerleaders were arguably more useful than her. Paulina Sanchez was at the center of the charge in the Casper Students’ Ride or Die Movement of adapting Amity Parkers’ to Liminal Life, with Star and Kwan right there with her. While bloody Dash Baxter had even become a prominent member of the Realms’ Sports Council somehow. And of course, one couldn’t forget an honorable mention of Mr. Lancer, who was now a close associate of Ghost Writer and shockingly Amity Park’s Ambassador. 

For Ancients Sake, the same could even be said for those they had less than stellar relations with at the moment like Samantha—formerly known as “Sam” before they lost all reason to even care about referring to her in the manner she preferred—Mason, who somehow perfectly cared for Overgrowth’s Garden of Extinction when Ellie couldn’t even keep a cactus alive for a week.

And Ancients, she hadn’t even gotten to Danny’s Gallery of Rouges turned Family and Friends yet but she was sure you could get the picture of where she was going with all of this.

The point was that Danielle—preferred name Ellie, with the official calling card Wraith—be she a Nightingale, Phantom, or moonlighting as a Fenton Cousin, couldn’t do a lot of things when compared to her family, friends, and even enemies.

She wasn’t the smartest, the most remarkable, or all that useful in the grand scheme of things, but none of that mattered. Ancients even the Ghost Investigation Ward (GIW), those bastards in white had their moments of unexpected competence so obviously Ellie would too. But even if she didn’t it was okay because her family was there to pick up the slack where she struggled. 

Sure, there were certainly moments when she’d question her worth—and no Jazz, she didn’t need anymore talks about “how it was okay that she hadn’t found her thing yet”—but Ellie understood better than anyone else, besides maybe Danny who was hyper aware of her existence, that for all she technically had the awareness and physical maturity of a fifteen year old that she was only 3 years old.

(Though logistically speaking even that wasn’t quite true, after all she’d only truly existed as Danielle Phantom for a year. The two years before that, they hadn’t even been aware that she hadn’t been a truly separate individual to Danny, her core never fully forming which was one of the reasons behind the constant threat of destabilization.)

As much as she hated to admit to it, for all she could rapidly age her body, emotionally and often mentally Ellie went through the world much like any other toddler—though one that was dangerously overpowered for how little it knew or understood about the world—and as a half-ghost her rate of maturity would always be far slower than any human toddler (though unlike some ghosts she at least wouldn’t be stuck as a 3-year-old forever, still able to mentally mature thankfully). But again that was okay because she had plenty of time to grow and learn, not to mention plenty of loved ones to support her through it.

Needless to say—no offense to Jazz—those moments when Ellie questioned her worth had less to do with teen angst and more to do with how a toddler might fret over how to get their parents’ attention—not that she needed to try in order to get Danny’s attention. 

(Not to say that in the midst of such fretting there weren’t moments where she’d wonder if she was being too much, too annoying and demanding, too insensitive and ungrateful for all Danny did for her. Wondering if Danny had ever even allowed himself one passing thought of resentment towards her, for the fact that she was free to do as she wished while he was chained down to a throne he never wanted with the inescapable weight of responsibility. Unlike her, Danny never got to live out his dreams, not with his remaining half-life, nor his present afterlife. And sure, he had time too but it wouldn’t be the same when all his innocence was lost.)

It went without saying that Danny, as her favorite parent/sibling/cousin/person, definitely lived up to the title.

He was always willing to set aside his own matters for her, and he never hesitated to make her cringe in embarrassment when telling her how much he adored and loved her for simply existing be it around him or as a concept.

In Danny’s eyes she could do no wrong—which was an absolute lie, Danny would always notice, giving her a chance to learn on her own and if she didn’t strictly but gently correct her—but even if she did there was nothing she could ever do that would make him love her any less. Ellie was pretty sure she could’ve turned him into the GIW herself, or killed Jazz and Danny would still love her fiercely and find it in himself to forgive her, even back when they hadn’t officially met yet.

Danny had told her so those three years ago, tucking her into bed—his bed that he was giving up after a rough week so she could sleep comfortably—the night before she left to explore the world. Back when she hadn’t even been comfortable calling him more than a cousin or template. His words echoing in her head as she wandered their world for two years.

“When I first found out about you I was terrified ,” he’d started with, “I had only just figured out I had an Ice Core but suddenly I had a temperature and I thought I was going to melt into a pile of goo with how warm and fuzzy my insides got at just the thought of you existing.”

Ellie had burst into a fit of silent giggles at that, remembering an earlier interaction with Frostbite—the Yeti-Ghost-Doctor that Danny introduced her to earlier—who had regaled her of an utterly panicked Danny bursting into his village clinic just a few days prior thinking he was dying. 

“Here I am confessing my heart and soul to you and your laughing at me.” Danny had snorted good-naturedly, before ever so gently flickering her forehead to quiet her. All of it done with such a soft and undeniably fond look in his ever expressive eyes, whose pulling pinched corners screamed exhaustion, leaving her insides pleasantly warm as it chased away the lingering chill from their visit to the Far Frozen. His next words whispered like he was confessing to an unpardonable sin, ”I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much love for something in my life. Not for my parents, not for any siblings or friends, not even for the Stars and Space that pull at my very core.”

Ellie remembers not understanding the importance of that confession, only that it had made her feel all fuzzy and warm inside—it had been a suffocating feeling that she had no outlet for, the trademark purr of a satisfied ghost meaning so much more, whose absence would have directed any experienced ghost to seek aid, but Danny had been new to it all and didn’t realize anything was wrong.

(And despite just meeting Frostbite, Ellie hadn’t been comfortable with being examined so soon after her time with Vlad.)

Even later—both still unaware of what they’d missed—Ellie would often feel incredulous and inadequate over the ridiculousness of his confession especially after learning about Ghost Obsessions. The mere idea that she could ever love anything more than her Obsession, the very thing that kept her anchored to existence, more than having self-autonomy and the freedom brought with it, sounding utterly absurd. For all her strength, for all her unique anatomy and budding title gave her wiggle worm, for all her love for Danny, not even she could possibly ignore, resist, fight, and actively defy her Obsession without it threatening to End her for good. For all the loopholes she could find in her own, she couldn’t ever truly give up her Obsession.

Such was the defining characteristic that made her so different as a Halfa compared to Danny and Vlad. Unlike Danny, whose living and ghost halves complimented each other perfectly with the ability to function independently to each other; Unlike Vlad, whose halves despite supporting each other were still mostly reliant on his living form; Ellie’s living half was entirely dependent on her ghost half.

Where they had more say in how and when to follow their Obsessions—Vlad, surprisingly, having the most freedom at of all of them—Ellie was as bond to her Obsession as any other ghost in the Living Realm.

That was the price of maintaining the cloned physical body of an already inherently unstable heretical existence. What this actually meant for her would have to be explained more in depth later. Suffice to say Ellie was more a ghost possessing a corpse—if the soulless husk could be called that—than a Halfa, just as Vlad was more a dying human with a foot in the grave than a Halfa. 

“You simply existing gives me hope, brings me comfort, and fills me with so much love I don’t know what to do with.” Danny had continued after shushing her disbelieving scoff that he loved her more than Jazz and Tucker. “I know you’re not comfortable with my part in your origins, but I want you to know there will always be a place for you at my side and in my heart. And I’ll be delighted to have you in my half-life and afterlife however you’ll allow me.”

Ellie, in her discomfort over such a heartfelt statement, had been quick to distract herself by making a joke about Alabama. Delighting in the way Danny had cringed, before rolling his eyes and ruffling her hair with a final amused snort, “You little shit, never change.”

And who was Ellie to deny the words of her beloved template and father. There was also the fact that Danny would tell her that she already found her thing, that her larger than life or death curiosity and desire to explore all the infinite universes had to offer without growing weary, was something that was unquestionably unique to herself amongst their many families. 

But that’s besides the point, in a way at least. After all, Ellie is basically a toddler! One that couldn’t just be handed off to just anyone—especially the liminal humans—to babysit. Sure, it’d been attempted in the beginning but it certainly could not be considered a success.

After all, baby-sitting toddlers was hard enough as it is, except this one is amongst the top 15 Strongest Beings of the Infinite Realms, and whose characteristic Ghostly Obsession revolves around Exploration—though supposedly it could one day evolve to encompass Freedom in general, Ellie didn’t know how she felt about that possibility, it felt like a possibly Ending contradiction that if she was obsessed with freedom than she wasn’t actually free given she had to follow said Obsession to maintain her existence.

With most experienced ghosts unable to emotionally keep up with her energy, and those capable of handling her tantrums too busy to oversee her, babysitting had become a bust. As such, Ellie was mostly left to her own devices these days, just as she’d been in her first year of existence.

And while she certainly hadn’t been a fan of being babysat, it could not be denied that Ellie lived—err died—for the chaos her very existence wrought upon the minds of mortals (and occasionally the rare muleheaded or bigot-obsessed ghost.)

Which brought us back to the many ways her Halfa existence differed from Danny’s perfect balance, and Vlad’s precarious “lean” toward the living. By ghost terms, she was considered a Neverborn, but even then she didn’t quite fit said category.

Most Neverborns came into existence with at least a barebones foundation in terms of their Core Identity, even those that didn’t at least had whispers of emotions and desires instilled in their  foundational ectoplasm.

Ellie technically didn’t have either when she first formed, starting out as little more than another of Danny’s Ectoplasmic Duplicates, though one throughly brainwashed by Vlad, basically possessing—because it couldn’t be called overshadowing if there was no soul to shadow—a horrendously unstable liminal human body. It was a whole thing. Suffice to say, it was only by the technicality that Ellie is considered a Halfa. 

That didn’t mean that Danny didn’t like to joke that of the Halfas, Ellie was the most fit representation of the concept behind Schrödinger's cat—though it’s more fitting for Danny to be the actual cat, given the cat had been alive when it was first placed in the box. And look Ellie doesn’t actually understand what the concept behind Schrödinger’s Cat actually is, as far as she’s aware it has to do with the fact she’s never been fully alive, nor fully dead, and that her very existence is in a way based around an observer’s perspective.

She’d been absolutely fine with leaving her understanding of the joke there (because all she really cared about was that Danny thought Schrödinger's cat was cool, which meant he thought she was cool. Plus cats were supposedly little shits which matched her being a little shit). As intrigued as she is by the world around her, that curiosity certainly didn’t extend to her actively pursuing knowledge independently on how her existence and species worked.

That was/is Danny’s thing, and for all he cared about it in terms of knowing for himself, he didn’t actually care where Ellie came from (nor even how) as long as she continued to exist where he could reach her (which was quite the impossible distance now that he was King), not withstanding that the knowledge would help him protect her.

So whenever Ellie had questions about the why’s and how’s of her existence, she just went to Danny because it was more likely than not that he’d already asked and answered the questions.

Like why Ellie was a biological female when Danny was—supposedly, according to Valerie and Vlad—a biological male?

After all, she was a literal clone. The genetic make up of her living half was exactly the same as Danny’s, and the very ectoplasm that formed her ghost half was Danny’s. Yet when Vlad had aged her up she’d somehow ended up a biological female—for all she knew, as one of Danny’s Dupilcates, she’d originally referred to herself a he/him or they/them but she was too disoriented at the time to recall and by the time she could she’d already been with Valerie for a while, who’d referred to them exclusively as she/her—organs and all. 

As you’d probably guessed, Ellie had first made the mistake of asking Vlad and later Valerie—as she’d yet to actually meet Danny then—why. Which left her with a hysterical Vlad mourning that his supposedly perfect son/heir/apprentice was Trans, and Valerie’s sexuality crisis over the exact same thing.

(Jazz later informed her, that no Valerie wasn’t against Trans people, but that biology could be extremely important to people, especially teenagers, when it came to what they found attractive. While Valerie had certainly been interested in Danny for his personality, and respected whatever “Trans identity” she believed he had, she’d found she was no longer sexually attracted to him. It may sound shallow to lose interest just because of the sex one is born as but it’s really not. After all, the Valerie back then had absolutely zero interest in the female body, and a preference for male bits—despite the girl having zero actual experience—nor was she comfortable with engaging or experimenting with it all.)

Ellie still didn’t really understand why any aspect of it was a big deal, but she did understand that gender and sex were two very different and important things at least for the living. Needless to say though, Danny is not Trans. 

(Unfortunately for him, Ellie’s existence would continue to bring people to the conclusion that he was. Not even stripping in front of his entire school would—nor had it—successfully convinced those doubting him.)

The next theory (that shouldn’t have even been proposed given it’d already been disproved) was that maybe Valerie’s DNA got caught up in the process. But Frostbite and Danny theorized that Ellie’s body would’ve been far more stable—less half dead and more liminal living—if that had been the case.

Along a similar vein, was the argued possibility that maybe the ectoplasm of one of Danny's female Rouges got mixed in. Which was also disproved given the clones that Vlad had experimented with mixing ectoplasm with all destabilized as fetuses. The only clone bodies that lasted long enough for Vlad to age-up were those grown with only Danny's DNA and nourished with his ectoplasm—but not even they lasted long without a soul or core with a strong enough identity to maintain equilibrium with such unstable DNA. The only reason Ellie had lasted so long was because she started as an Ectoplasmic Duplicate of Danny's, thus having the ability to connect with echoes of his Core to maintain her form. 

(Not to say, having Princess Dorathra or Valerie as a mother would be a bad thing. The Ellie of the past would've been thrilled with either given her relation to Valerie meant she was more like Vlad in terms of Halfa, while with Dorathea she'd be like any other Neverborn not having to worry about destabilizing with the bonus of being able to become a big ass dragon. Now though, Ellie took a lot of pride in the fact that she was solely Danny's. That it also meant Vlad, the Original Fruitloop, couldn't contest with Danny over guardianship certainly helped. )

And finally there was Danny’s simple answer of; she was female simply because it was easier. Well it was actually more complicated than that, he’d mentioned how all human embryos initially develop with female-like structures and in the period where she wasn’t entirely lucid given her lacking identity, the echo of his core probably instinctively dictated that she maintain the most cost effective form. And like a good majority the world, Ellie had been content in her lot and felt comfortable the way she was thus maintaining said form.

So, yeah, Ellie went to Danny with her questions. But just because she wasn’t really interested in the how’s and why’s of her existence, didn’t mean that she wasn’t interested in how mortals attempted to comprehend her—namely in the form of conspiracy theories. And Ancients did she love to stir the pot with wild theories of her own—all without care for spreading any falsehoods.  Conspiracy theories that nearly took up all the boards in Wesley’s room in the three months following her first official appearance as Wraith—a fact that Ellie took great pride in.

Over those short two years, Amity Parkers had spawned quite the variety of fun theories regarding Ellie’s—or in this case, Wraith’s—sudden appearance in both forms, namely regarding her relation to Phantom. Like Wraith actually being an alternate version of Phantom (debunked, but a reasonable assumption considering Dan’s debut). Wraith being Phantom’s twin (debunked, for starters they’d have to be the same age for that ), though in a similar vein, that she was Phantom’s long lost sibling (also debunked, though Danny had gotten suspiciously clammy about it). That she was an escaped GIW experiment of an attempt to clone Phantom (technically true, just not by the GIW). Another was that she was just an experimental duplicate of Phantom when he was feeling “girly” (technically true, not in the way one might think though).

The theories could get pretty wild given how little everyone knew about Ghost and Liminal Biology back then. 

And then there was Ellie’s personal favorite variety being that Wraith—and sometimes even Ellie, as in her living half—was the love-child of Phantom and Danny (which could not only get frighteningly accurate but was hilariously close to the truth at the same time).

There were actually a few Love Child Theories out there, from Wraith being the child of Phantom and Princess Dorathea (which there was technically “evidence” for later), with Kitty and Ember mentioned here and there as possible mothers given their constant relationship drama but time proved again and again those two were more likely to end up together than with Phantom, who also had no interest in them.

Of course, there were some less generic couples, like Johnny (+Shadow) and Phantom, or the abomination that is Plasmius and Phantom (which unfortunately also had “evidence” supporting it), given nobody really knew how ghost reproduction worked just that it was possible after Lunch Lady and Boxy had a kid. (There was also the self-pushed theory of Dash’s claiming that Wraith was Phantom and his kid.)

The most popular theory—before well everything—was that Wraith was the child of Phantom and Red Huntress. Most of the “evidence” for this theory being that even in her early steadfast Ghost-hating ways, Red Huntress had a clear soft spot for Wraith. It didn’t help that in the month following Wraith’s debut as Phantom’s stand-in, Red and Phantom were often heard arguing over what basically amounted to “parenting rights”.

Ancients though, did this specific pairing have theories—and bloody fanfics. Ranging from fluffy-romance of Enemies to Lovers, more angsty-tragedy Lovers to Enemies, and a horrific amount of god-awful Dead-Dove-Don’t-Eat type shit. Some portrayed Red as a necrophiliac who wouldn’t let Phantom rest in piece, or had even been the one to off him, others had Phantom acting like some sort of parasitic alien that forced Red to bear his young.

Needless to say, Ellie couldn’t stomach those specific theories—utterly hypocritical given she’d been enthusiastically spreading a similar alien pregnancy theory for the pairing of Phantom and Danny before the whole reveal.

Of course, the fact that in most theories and fanfics following said favorite pairing happened to include her—be it as Wraith or Ellie—as their children, or the hilariously true premise that Ellie, as their child, was a half-ghost with Wraith as her alter ego, obviously would leave her feeling partial for it.

And maybe, even after everything, it was still a guilty pleasure of hers to spread Pitch Pearl—the ship-name for Danny and Phantom—contraband across the Realms desperately wanting to share her OTP (One-True Pairing) with others. Paulina and her even held bimonthly club meetings to discuss how to spread the Pitch Pearl Agenda across the Realms with Ellie’s exploration.

Was it weird that Ellie shipped her father with himself—obviously, but she’d rather that than witnessing his periodic heartache over each of his failed romances that devolved into Friends-with-Benefits or just plain old fuck-buddies. From Valerie, Tucker, Wes, to brief stints with Samantha, Paulina, Dash, and even coupling with Johnny and Kitty once, Danny had basically “dated” every one in their little circle or in the very least had “relations” with them.

(Ellie certainly hadn’t wanted to know about Danny’s sex life but apparently the combination of a living teen’s hormonal changes paired with the inherently emotionally-driven state of ghosts could lead to a rather intense need for physical intimacy—be that meaning sex or an utterly brutal fight—as an outlet. Ellie wasn’t looking forward to potentially going through it, but hopefully her more inherent lean towards death would mean it’d be far less intense than what Danny was going through.)

On another but still related note, Ellie hadn’t been pleased when Dan’s continued existence put a damper on said Pitch Pearl agenda.

Because as it would turn out, Dan is actually Ellie’s half-sibling. And not in the way that Jazz and Danny accepted him as their sibling, but in a Dan is Danny’s child in the same way that Ellie is…

(As if having to differentiate between the Fenton, Nightingale, and Phantom Family’s wasn’t difficult enough, the various adventures through the timeline did not make figuring out the sibling hierarchy any easier. After all, in a linear timeline Ellie as Danny’s first child—depending on if you included the time she was still but a Duplicate—was older, but because of the whole time-travel aspect Dan was also technically ten in ghost years compared to Danny’s four and Ellie’s three. The whole thing was a convoluted mess. And this was also based solely on them ignoring their biological appearance age. All of this and they weren’t even taking into account that they all were still considered “baby ghosts”.)

How did they uncover such a revelation? As with many things, it was Danny’s fault. For one, that he’d even deigned to release Dan from his Time-out at Clockwork’s in the first place. Two, Danny was too thorough in his work, especially regarding potential future conflicts, leading him to discover that Dan was actually a Neverborn, meaning he’d been a full-fledged ghost at his birth. Which Danny was decidedly not—even taking into consideration that Danny might have completely died after consuming Vlad’s core and becoming Dan, he still wouldn’t be considered a Neverborn given he’d been alive at one point. And three, Danny had foolishly hauled all their involved asses—meaning Danny, Ellie, Dan, and Vlad—to corner Clockwork for the truth.

Apparently, Clockwork—being the little shit Ellie aspired to be like—had kept the fact that Dan was actually Danny and Vlad’s child from Danny.

(Wes was owed an unfair amount of cash for somehow predicting it all. According to him it’d been obvious, given the unique nature of Ghosts, it shouldn’t have even been possible for Dan—as a future version of Danny—to travel back in time to a period where Danny existed and was present in the Living Realm as a Halfa or Full-fledged Ghost, without destabilizing or simply becoming one with said Past-Danny. Even arguing that with how big of an Obsession change Dan experienced there was no way the supposed Core Cannibalism was actually successful, which meant Dan was more an amalgamation of Vlad and Danny into a whole new Ghost, than a future version of Danny.

Needless to say, Danny hadn’t been happy that of all the conspiracies Wes had kept his silence on it had been this one. So he also had to help Danny with paperwork—though Ellie was certain that wasn’t all he helped with given the spring in the redhead’s step paired with Danny’s occasional limp—for two weeks to make up for keeping quiet about the whole matter.)

A misunderstanding that led to Danny’s whole frantic existential crisis on how cheating on some stupid test resulted in him becoming a blood-thirsty Fruitloop.

Because for some reason, Clockwork thought it’d be a good lesson for Danny to learn to control himself (read: the bastard was content with Danny’s misinterpretation and was too lazy to explain if it got the job done). Let it never be said that Clockwork was the most reliable of guardians a fledging ghost—let alone a halfa—could have, especially if one wanted to be raised with little trauma.

And hadn’t that been a disturbing discovery for all parties involved. Ellie still got a bit green in the face at the very thought of such a cursed pairing—it didn’t matter that ghosts didn’t need physical intimacy to procreate, it was still an intimate and involved process—but at least she hadn’t had a mental breakdown like Dan did, nor did she actually throw up like Danny and Vlad did every time they saw each other for months afterwards when they weren’t both fighting over custody of Dan—fights eerily reminiscent to the ones between Red Huntress and Phantom over Wraith which set off a whole new wave of conspiracies within Amity even during the aftermath of everything.

Ancients, Dan’s “mental breakdown” had lasted two straight “weeks” with him curled up in a dark corner of the Keep library questioning his existence and very purpose in life. Which—yeah, reasonable reaction after finding out that he was not who he thought he was. But it was also absolutely hilariously overdramatic and something Ellie would hold over his head for eternity especially since she’d managed to build a ceiling high wall of books around the dissociating ghost without his notice.

She will admit that back than she’d already disliked—more bordering hate toward—Dan, not only for the trust Danny placed in him by giving him an actual Title, but also for taking up so much of Danny’s time. So the sudden realization that she now had a legitimate rival for Danny’s fatherly attention had not been welcome.

Admittedly—after Dan had gotten a little too close to Fading—she’d felt a bit ashamed with her behavior, especially after Danny had scolded her over her insensitivity reminding her that’d she’d once been in the same position as Dan. But she couldn’t say for certain if she’d been ashamed because of her actions or because she’d gotten caught — back than it was likely more the latter.

(It certainly didn’t help that for as stern as Danny was in his scolding about plotting fratricide, he’d also seemed fondly amused if not resigned to it all.)

As of now, Dan had definitely grown on her especially since he helps cover up any of her mischief that gets out of had. She does find it unfortunate to announce that Dan has to spend every other “month” with Vlad and has technically been adopted by the Fruitloop.

How was all of this possible in the first place? Basically, the unconscious will of a dying Danny, who’d forcefully “devoured” Vlad’s core—Ellie could still hear Jazz yelling about at the two about consent as if it hadn’t, much like the first time with Ellie, been entirely Vlad’s fault.

(For all Jazz was the therapist, that didn’t mean she was without her faults. And her propensity to treat others as toddlers in need of lecturing was just one such fault.) 

Now, normally a successful traditional Core Cannibalism—as long as one was stronger than the devoured individual—wouldn’t have such a drastic impact on a ghost that the theory of Dan being Danny implied besides a power boost. Which obviously means that Danny didn’t perform a traditional Cannibalism—makes since given it turned out Danny hadn’t even initiated the whole thing, rather it was a Fading Vlad foolishly hoping to save himself by devouring Danny’s Core.

Instead, the dying Danny, who’d already lost everyone he cared about, even with nothing to remain for could not be overpowered by Vlad but he also didn’t want to be the last one left—Ellie tried not to think about what happened to her in such a timeline—so he used the last of their combined existence to create someone who’d remember their loved ones. Thus Dan was born! Yada yada yada, boring.

Anyways, she’d gotten way off topic, but she swears this will all be relevant later. 

What is important is the fact that the three Halfas—though one was more alive than dead and another was more dead than alive—suddenly became extremely conscious about the fact they had the potential to accidentally will a child into existence.

Now, Ellie hadn’t been particularly taken off guard by this revelation. For starters, by the time they’d found out about it, Ellie had already long been subjected to “The Talk” by Jazz—much to Danny absolute irritation for not only having such an important parenting milestone being stolen from him, but also Jazz’s utter insensitivity back than to consider Ellie’s unique biology—so Ellie wasn’t a stranger to the idea that the typical female body could grow another life in it.

Like any three-year-old though, she had no interest in the whole process and she certainly didn’t want or plan to have any kids of her own—if she even could, while Neverborns were always an option with another ghost or by herself, if she’d be able to have living liminal children was up in airs for now.  

Needless to say, the revelation didn’t change much for Ellie, at least in terms of her own identity in her mind. The same could NOT be said for Danny and Vlad, but especially Danny. After all, it’d been his will and desires that brought both Dan and her into existence.

As hilariously horrid and nauseating the idea of a pregnant Vlad was, for as powerful as Vlad was it actually wasn’t of much concern. Until he became a full ghost—which won’t happen for another few decades or so—Vlad wouldn’t have to worry about it much besides the possibility of accidentally starting the process in his Ghost Half, but he’d still have to put conscious effort and power to finish it like any other ghost. After all, Vlad was closer to Liminal than Halfa, just as Ellie was more Neverborn than Halfa. 

Still the old former virgin—information she absolutely didn’t need to know—hadn’t taken it well in the beginning. On the other hand, Danny had taken it all too well—likely on account of the fact that he’d already experienced a “pregnancy” even before learning all this.

Which was worrying, because Danny—the mini-godling that he is—is far more powerful than Vlad, Ellie, and Dan will ever be. As the High King of the Infinite Realms, Danny’s enormous surplus of ectoplasm was already used to assist and guide the creation and growth of not only the Neverborns but all Denizens in the Realms, and as a Protector/Guardian Spirit his ectoplasm already had the disposition to “raise” others—all of which meant it was all the easier and entirely plausible for a wildly careless thought of his packed with desire to spontaneously bring a Neverborn child of his into existence.

But it’d also been proven that due to his nature and power as a true Halfa, depending on his desires at the time any Ghost Pregnancy he typically experienced could be extended to his Living-Half. Ellie was the best example of this.

She’d mentioned it a few times before, but Ellie started as one of Danny’s Ectoplasmic Duplicates possessing an unstable clone body. It was only Danny’s acknowledgment of her as an individual that separated her from the rest of his duplicates, and the echoes of his Core that sustained her long enough to promote the beginnings of a core of her own.

But the beginnings of a fledgling core are not enough to support the energy consumption of a Halfa, let alone an artificial one that’d never been alive to know how to maintain a living-form. So unless she remained in the Realms, she constantly faced the risk of destabilizing whenever Danny couldn’t spare his own ectoplasm to her through their link as his Duplicate.

(Not that they’d been aware of this. What with Danny still being new to his new dead status and powers, and Ellie too excited to explore the living world for a purpose of her own. A purpose of her own, which was not to be confused with her purpose. She knew why she’d been created, the meaning behind her existence for others, especially for Danny. But Danny, her dad brother, had been very clear that Ellie needed to find a purpose of her own, to explore why she wanted to continue to exist for herself, and not for anybody else.)

Of course, once they learned the reason behind her periodic destabilization was her incomplete core and the disconnect between it and her clone body, it was an easy fix to have Danny “host” her in himself. There his Core and Will were present to help direct and support Ellie’s own core to develop properly, while also redesigning her living body to help teach her how to maintain it.

She preferred to think of it as a purposeful fix, and not a severely panicked Danny risking his own existence by stuffing her core into the exposed cavity of his chest guarded by his own fractured core praying that it would save her.

And seeing as Danny spent the entire pregnancy in the Realms, she was essentially the child of Danny and the Infinite Realms, that meant she was basically double royalty—not that bloodline meant anything when it came to inheriting the High King’s Throne. Such was a story for another time though.

Which again brought up why Ellie was a bit worried she might end up with more siblings—besides Dan—popping up here and there (she mourned the genetic deaths of her clone siblings, but again they were all basically soulless husks and she enjoyed having Danny’s attention focused solely on her to much).

Because basically speaking, Danny had already experienced something worse than a ghostly pregnancy—in terms of physically invasive dysmorphic intimacy—being a living pregnancy in an incompatible body. Not to mention, he’d experienced it during one of the most difficult recovery periods of his afterlife. So after experiencing the stress of a pregnancy during a time like that, she wouldn’t put it past Danny to underestimate the stress of pregnancy in a time of lesser difficulties. 

Thankfully, Jazz giving ALL of them—yes, even Vlad “I’ll just clone myself a kid then” Masters, as well as Tucker “Bro! Imagine the brains of a kid with our combined brains” Foley—the birds and the bees talk, together with an in-depth five hour long lecture on responsible parenting (followed by a two hour lecture on the difficulties of teen parenting), seemed to put Danny off of the idea for now.

(Valerie had laughed herself silly over it for months after she’d walked in on it. It was not so funny later when said teased group left her to the wolves of Jazz’s ten hour lecture and presentation on consent, with a well timed comment of Val’s part in Ellie’s creation.)

But the point was that Danny could NEVER be trusted to make smart decisions when he was lonely, which brought us closer to her current opsie. Which again, was at least partly—if not entirely—Danny’s fault!

<Everything after this is Subject to Editing>

Ellie was Danny’s pride and joy! Literally, Danny liked to brag to anyone who could listen, that Ellie was born to be a contrary little shit and he was here for it. Listening to him gush about Ellie was almost as annoying as listening to Vlad brag about Danny, though Danny was significantly less creepy about it. (She is pointedly ignoring the fact that Danny does much the same with Dan).

And Ellie was never one to disappoint Danny. Even back when they hadn’t settled into their roles as father and daughter. 

As such, Ellie was perfectly willing to use her status as Danny’s favorite child—no matter what Dan said—to trick her dad template/father/brother into signing a document that Clockwork said was some kind of contract to hire a secretary.

(She wouldn’t have to trick him if he’d just give them Titles beyond being members of his council. But her template was as stubborn as ever about everything being his responsibility, like it wasn’t humanity’s idiocy that caused everything. Honestly, Danny held this incomprehensible belief that they would all desire to create a life in the mortal realm again, even after everything, and thus didn’t want to tie them down to the Realms. No matter the mental gymnastics she performed to try and understand his thought process, Ellie couldn’t comprehend his bullshit logic.)

Of course, it’d been a while back (as in shortly after she’d even been created) when Danny was just starting to take over his duties as King, and Ellie had asked when she knew he’d been reading paperwork long enough that the words would start blending together or move about the page.

(It had been a mistake on Danny’s part to trust that Ellie wouldn’t ask him to sign something that would drown him in more bullshit.)

Though, even if she hadn’t asked in that specific moment, there was so much going on back then that she was sure Danny wouldn’t have minded having a secretary during it all (especially since back then he still didn’t completely understand what it meant to have a specific title in the afterlife). 

Once the paper had been signed, she’d tried to give it back to Clockwork. But the ghost had simply stated that he’d be leaving the choice of Danny’s secretary up to her. There had been rules though:

1. That it couldn’t be any one that Danny already considered to be of the family.

2. They could not be a ghost, and most preferably they weren’t any kind of denizen of the Infinite Realms (ie. they didn’t live in the cracks between universes and dimensions). It’d be best if they were a mortal citizen of the living.

3. That the contract and selection was a matter of utmost secrecy, so until it was signed no one was to know about it.

And finally,

4. The choice was to be based solely of Ellie’s opinion.

Back then, Ellie had thought the rules had been reasonable. Sure, it would’ve made more sense for Jazz to pick a secretary for Danny, especially given she had more life experience and would have Danny’s best interests in mind. Ancients, while Vlad wasn’t exactly on friendly terms with all of them yet even he probably would’ve been a better choice given his experience (that is if he could’ve been trusted to not actively attempt to sabotage Danny).

But Ellie was definitely a better option than Sam (Ellie hadn’t known the girl well, but even she knew better than to expect Sam to put her personal opinions aside for Danny) or Valerie would’ve been. Compared to them, even Wesley would’ve made a better choice. Though Ellie would say the only reason she beat out Tucker was because Ellie personally knew what it was like to be a Halfa.

Still, Ellie had been extremely pleased that Clockwork decided to trust her to choose someone to fill what sounded like such an important position. (Even if she systematically forgot about the contract’s existence.)

When she did remember its existence, she took the job very seriously, even mulling over the rules with severe consideration to ensure she didn’t miss any potential hints from Clockwork about the best timeline. 

Back then the second rule wasn’t so suspicious given, as smart as it would’ve been to have a secretary that knew all the information Danny was lacking regarding Ghost Culture, most ghosts that Danny trusted weren’t suited for such a position. Now, three living years later when Danny desperately needed a secretary, it was basically impossible to find one given the Realms had closed themselves off after Danny’s last year amongst the living.

(She says “living year” because time doesn’t pass in a calculable manner within the Realms as it held no meaning. Ancients, even big events were held at random when their hosts felt like it was time. While events like Christmas were only organized when the Realms had an open stable connection to a living universe. Originally they had believed they could calculate it based on how the liminal mortals now living in the Realms aged, but no one had aged since Amity Park was taken into the Realms.)

That reasoning went hand in hand with the first rule, about it not being someone Danny considered family. Back when she’d gotten the contract signed, everybody had been busy with their own lives and planning for the future.

Jazz was on track to entering her dream college, but she suddenly had to rework all her previous plans surrounding Danny and their parents. It suddenly wasn’t enough to just make up a lie when she was 18 and drag Danny with her, now she was desperately researching law in order to build a case against her parents (and even against Vlad) in hopes she could get official custody of Danny. But she was also constantly in an internal conflict of logic and emotions with herself for doubting their parents love for them (Jazz had confided in them all later how exhausting it was to know the logic and reasoning behind her emotions and the effects of their parents neglect, yet still having to battle with her subconscious denial in it all). 

(Jazz and Danny had gotten into a huge fight over Jazz’s plans. Ellie had understood both of their sides. Jazz reasonably wanted to get Danny away from their parents, and that desire only got more intense when she learned Danny had died and the Fentons suddenly weren’t just a proximity threat in theory. Meanwhile, Danny as mad as he was that Jazz had planned to uproot him from his life without consent, he was more mad at himself for being what he perceived as a burden on Jazz.)

Besides Jazz, Tucker was an absolute mess himself. The PDA-lover had already been struggling in his classes (not as much as Danny though) due to the grief of Danny, his best friend, pulling away from him, not to mention the subsequent strain it brought in his relationship with Sam as they no longer had Danny to meditate. That strain only worsened when he learned Danny had died, as did his grades (this time enough that his desired career path was at risk, but compared to staying with Danny that meant nothing). The sudden appearance of the Ghost Investigation Ward (GIW) and the passing of the Anti-Ecto Acts, only lit a fire under Tucker as he put all his free time between school and helping Danny with patrols into improving his coding and hacking skills. Not to mention, the extra classes that he took on first aid. 

(Tucker absolutely mourned the future he could’ve had if the portal never opened, but he didn’t regret his decisions or the path he’d taken since it did. He’d never regret choosing Danny.)

The less said about Sam the better, but Ellie knew Danny was still hurt by her rejection of his Halfa status. While they all respected her decision in the beginning, her random bouts of hypocrisy and attacks on Danny after learning his status as King were not welcome. 

At that point in time, Valerie was still rather dead set in her belief that Phantom needed to be put down to stop the ghosts. While Wesley was struggling with his social and academic life at school due to no one believing him about Phantom’s identity, and as smart as he was he was still oblivious to the potential consequences of exposing Danny. 

Compared to all of them, Ellie was the only one with no personal obligations tying her down, and her Halfa status meant Danny wasn’t allowed to act like he was destroying her future (he’d never regret her creation but he would mourn the fact she’d never get to have a normal childhood either alive or dead). But Ellie was also aware, that not only was she unfit to be Danny’s secretary, but that it wasn’t a job she wanted to have so early in her afterlife.

With everyone so busy with their lives, trying to cope with the changes brought by Danny’s death and having to decide what they valued more for their future, it wasn’t plausible for any member of Danny’s family to be his secretary. 

Not to mention, Danny would never be able to live with the nonsensical guilt for having “robbed them of their lives and humanity”.

Ancients, Ellie had long decided to exclude Amity Parkers in her selection, even before the town ended up semi-permanently residing in the Infinite Realms and they’d become aware of the consequences of prolonged ecto-contamination, as none of the town’s citizens—now, liminal denizens of the Realms—had the capabilities nor desire to help run the Realms.

Yet even now Danny was drowning himself in that bullshit belief of his. It wasn’t like Danny had been aware there were consequences to long term exposure to pure ectoplasm, nor could he have predicted human idiocy and bigotry when he’d never lived to adulthood. 

(It wasn’t like Danny had known that merely four years after the portal opened, everyone who had resided in Amity Park for a minimum of three months, would be forced flee into the Realms, due to even the slightest levels of liminality. Ancients, a good majority of those refugees ought to be grateful Danny even let them in after the way they had treated him.

Ellie had eagerly joined the group of volunteer ghosts that taught the new liminal mortals about the Realms, happy to show them that the Infinite Realms was WAY cooler than the living world. And sure there were a few that bitched and moaned like toddlers about it, but the benefits of living in the Realms silenced most of them, and those it didn’t were dealt with so as to ensure they wouldn’t endanger Danny or the Realms with any stupid plots.)

It wouldn’t be until a long while after she got the contract, that Ellie would realize how little sense it made for Danny’s secretary to be mortal. Beyond the fact that basically any ghost would eagerly volunteer to assist Danny, but only especially strong willed ones would be able to resist giving way to Danny’s every whim both due to Danny’s likability as well as the pressure of the crown. It made even less sense now that that the Infinite Realms had completely cut off contact with the living realm beyond what was required for the dead to pass on and keep universes stable. The only mortals Ellie had contact with now were liminals, and while all the living would eventually fall under Danny’s authority with their death, liminals were basically destined to become permanent residents of the Realms upon the death of their mortal flesh, and thus were especially conscious of their status as Danny’s subjects.

And sure, Ellie could see the appeal of a mortal secretary likely forcing Danny to pay attention to the matters of living mortals again. But as much as Ellie wished she could explore amongst the living again, like the majority of the Infinite Realms she no longer looked fondly at the matters of the living world, let alone trusted living mortals.

Not that many ever had, the living made even the simplest of things so complicated. Which was only proven by  the number of the liminals seeking therapy due to internal conflicts brought about by trying to apply living logic to the dead and unliving.

Ancients, most of the conflict brought by Amity’s change in residence was due to liminals trying to adapt to the more flexible yet simple thinking of the dead. While most native Amity Parkers were able to compromise with the their values in order to adopt ones more in line with the dead, there were still a few who’d been in accepting of the change even despite fleeing into the Realms. It was actually a sad sight to witness, the way these people were so unaccepting of their new reality that they ended up isolating themselves entirely, or growing so desperate to return to the living that they became a threat to others.

As merciful as Danny was, the Infinite Realms themselves were not, especially to those who threatened her Champion. And in light of recent events, the very Realms had grown a steady (and reasonable in Ellie’s not so humble opinion) hatred for the living. In agreement with that wrath, Danny’s Council (ie his Team) pushed for Danny to tighten the reigns while in such a period of danger. 

In the end, it was Clockwork and the High King’s Court who forced Danny to give those people a cold ultimatum; one, could get their shit together and patiently wait until the Realms could safely open back up to the living and Danny found a universe to relocate Amity that wouldn’t threaten them; two, leave their mortal flesh behind and move on to their next life before they were too liminal to do so, or move on to their life as a full ghost, which would result in an easier mental transition; or three, be Ended as Danny wasn’t willing to risk the safety of his citizens for the happiness of a few he didn’t even consider family.

Sam had been one of those few, not that it had been a surprise. Months before the Realms closed she’d already hammered in the final nail to the coffin that was her relationship with Danny and the Team. When during an argument over how Danny used his powers as King, she demanded Danny go against his very being to simply force the world into submission. Despite the nasty end to their friendship, Danny had been grateful Sam chose the first option and left Amity to stay with Overgrowth deeper in the zone.

(Ellie could still remember wanting to tear the goth apart for some of the things she said to Danny after the Infinite Realms’ Declaration of War against their home universe. Ellie couldn’t believe the gull of the girl to suggest they were all being unreasonable.

Sam hadn’t been the one to find Danny chained to a surgical table, nor had it been Sam’s melting fingers being the sole barrier keeping Danny’s—her dad brother—organs from spilling out of the cavity of his chest. Sam wasn’t the one who had to exist with the fact that she’d gone on a war path without regard for her afterlife or idiotic human morals and ethics to rescue Danny only to be forced to watch as said torturously injured brother ended up having to rescue her.

For a liminal mortal like herself to have the guts to say it was unreasonable to go to war over the mindless torture of a loved one. To say that as if the world didn’t deserve to suffer because it had been Danny, who had power over all of them, that had been caught and cut open again and again, when the Ancients know the world had been lucky it had been Danny, who was merciful to those who harmed him but held nothing back for those who harmed the ones he considered his.

Sam who hadn’t even bothered to tell anyone in the know about witnessing Maddie Fenton turn Danny over to the GIW. Sam, whose ass had been saved a dozen times over by Danny, yet had dared try and hinder Wesley in his urgency to let the Team know about Jack’s message.

Sam had been lucky Ellie, Fright Knight, and the High Court hadn’t demanded her End for such blatant treason.)

No matter Danny’s feelings regarding her choice however, the Court (with the support of Danny’s Council) had unanimously agreed that the goth would be monitored. Meanwhile, Ellie was patiently waiting for the day Sam became a full ghost so she could show the goth her place in the Realms.

(As someone once said, “None held a grudge quite like the Dead” and Ellie wasn’t afraid to live up to it. It was only reasonable that they held grudges when their very being was made up of emotions. And when one’s very obsession fueled said grudge there was no such thing as pettiness.)

Anyways—she’d gotten severely off topic—of the rules regarding the selection of Danny’s secretary, Ellie had originally the least questions about the last two. She was the family’s little shit after all! Chaos was her craft! And she’d been worried if anyone knew about the contract, they’d try to take it from her due to her inexperience.

Now however, she realized those last two questions should have made her question the whole thing. Danny, as much faith as he held in Clockwork, had constantly warned Ellie against taking Clockwork’s words at face value. He had always reminded Ellie and the team that while Clockwork cared for Danny, the Ghost’s perceived “best timeline” could lead much to be desired.

It hadn’t been until Danny had been captured, when Ellie met Jack Fenton for the first time as the man burst into the Keep hysterically shouting for help to rescue Danny from Maddie, that Ellie saw the first glimpse of what Danny meant.

It was there in the way Clockwork had superficially decided that Danny needed to be tortured, and torn apart at the hands of his own mother for three living months and who knows how long in the depths of the Infinite Realms before Danny’s will weakened enough that the Realms were finally able to notify its subjects something was wrong. Yet, she’d had only a glimpse of understanding it after their siege on the GIW fortress in the the Realms was proving futile, as it only led the bastards to move Danny back to the living world where Danny was too weak for the Realms to track.

Ellie had threatened to release Dan, to release Pariah Dark, and do everything in her power to destroy the very Realms, if Clockwork refused to give her Danny’s location.

(Not that it was very helpful, given all he’d told her was the portal in the Realms GIW base would take her to Danny, and without thought nor hesitation she led a solo suicide mission into the base and through that stupid third portal to get to Danny, nearly Ending herself in the process.)

Yet it was only as Danny held her melting form in his trembling bloodied arms, stumbling towards the blasted GIW Portal, Ellie knowing that her End was drawing near but praying that Fright Knight, Dorothea and the others had managed to breach the facility on the other side so that Danny would be safe, that Ellie finally realized why Danny had warned them about Clockwork.

Ellie (or anyone else that Danny loved) may no longer exist in Clockwork’s supposed “best timeline”. Danny could have complete faith that Clockwork would never allow him to stray from the best timeline, but Danny didn’t trust that would mean that those he cared about would make it there with him.

It had made her laugh hysterically in that moment. She probably looked like she’d utterly lost it, melting there in Danny’s arms, laughing to the point of tears, but Danny hadn’t cared only tightening his hold to give her forehead a heartbreakingly fond and understanding kiss. One would think with how much Ellie was willing to sacrifice in order for Danny to live and be happy, she’d be okay with dying for such a timeline. But Ellie was selfish, she’d always been selfish.

And she refused to believe that the Ending of her or any of their family would be necessary for the best—and wasn’t that hilarious, it was the best, not the happiest, or safest for Danny, simply the best—timeline. 

After having such a realization, one would think Ellie would be more suspicious of Clockwork’s intentions. But while Ellie was selfish, and she sure as hell didn’t trust the bastard with her or anyone else’s afterlife, she trusted the ghost with Danny’s. 

She trusted that the embodiment of Time wouldn’t let her make a decision that would result in Danny’s End.

Not that that was really an excuse for her to have never read the contract, but Ellie was sure even if she’d tried she wouldn’t have understood a word of the ancient legal jargon. And again, Ellie prided herself on being Danny’s daughter/sister/cousin, and Danny hadn’t read it either, so again everything that happened is technically Danny’s fault!

(Well actually Danny had tried to read it just to make sure it wasn’t anything that would hurt Ellie, but the fucking document changed languages every few words in such a manner that it would’ve taken Danny hours to understand it even with the help of Ghost Speak and while he would’ve been willing to suffer through the headache Ellie had said she needed to turn it in within the hour.

He had still tried to get the gist of it, and it seemed harmless enough, it was about Ellie trying to apply as the secretary of something, or that she was trying to hire a secretary. Either option left him curious but he was sure it wouldn’t be long before he found the reason for it, and if something went wrong he could always use his status as King to null it. Ellie had just been happy to let him assume.)

Back to the matter at hand—because Ellie could never stay on topic—it all began (technically three years prior but she already covered that) because she might have gotten a bit—just a bit—carried away in the universe she’d been visiting.

The specific universe was UN#387JL1, one of the rare numbered universes that had its own sector in Clockwork’s Time Pocket, where the ghost occasionally experimented with different timelines.

(The timelines in this Pocket were what mortals referred to often as the Multiverse, though unless Clockwork and the other Ancients allowed these timelines to come about they only held to title of universe in name and are simply shadows of ectoplasm molded to mimic life. It was this that Ellie was referring to when she said that Danny was the only True Danny, the multiverse didn’t exist as anything more than an ectoplasmic shadow of Time super imposed on reality. It was a whole mess that absolutely broke Tucker and Danny’s brains let alone Ellie’s, but suffice to say every soul is unique and that the multiverse doesn’t exist yet, and Ellie will strangle Danny if he dares to make it real.)

Anyway, it was a special occasion, as not only was it her first time universe hopping, it would be the first time a citizen of the Infinite Realms entered the living world after who knows how long (cause again Time, as mortals view it, is irrelevant in the Realms). So it was only right that Ellie chose somewhere special!

And what could be more special than a universe where there was a clone like herself!

Unsurprisingly, though still unfortunate, the cursed luck of her very own template would follow her (she knew it was Clockwork’s fault as he’d been the one to direct her to this specific portal but she needed to keep her story straight to direct the blame to Danny), and she arrived just as the clone died!

It was so unfair! Ellie honestly had wanted to fly back to the Keep and demand cuddles from Danny while she cried, but she didn’t because if she did Danny probably wouldn’t let her go universe hopping alone in the future.

So instead, she’d decided to stalk the clone’s—Kon’s, his name is was Kon—best friend. A boy by the name Timothy Drake-Wayne, though his hero name was Robin.

If Tim just so happened to remind her a bit too much of Danny—it wasn’t like that was the only reason she chose to stalk him—then it was nobody’s business.

Ancients were they similar, Ellie wouldn’t have been surprised if Clockwork suddenly appeared and informed her that this Tim Drake fellow was her template’s counterpart in this universe if she hadn’t already known that her Danny was the only true Danny in all existence.

There was certainly a resemblance though, and it wasn’t just because Ellie was looking for Danny in the mortal.

Tim Drake resembled her doting template’s original human form to a scary yet hilarious degree (especially after she saw the boy’s “family”). Raven black hair though Tim’s was actually styled compared to Danny’s own roguish locks. They both had pretty blue eyes—even though the shades were different—that were brought out by frighteningly prominent eye-bags. Tim’s body was lean like Danny’s but not so much as to be a twink as Tucker called her template. Tim’s muscles were more prominent as well but not unnaturally so. She was pretty sure Danny was an inch or so taller than Tim though. And beyond their physical similarities, Tim was a vigilante—not a hero, because Danny was the only one worthy of that title in her eyes—similar to how Danny had been a hero once upon a time.

The guy even shared her template’s idiotic belief that everything was his responsibility.

(Not to mention it seemed he shared her Template’s horrendous luck. Like Ancients did it seem like the universe had it out for this kid. His life was just one tragedy after another.)

Anyway, she was getting off-topic.

So she might have gotten a bit carried away with her stalking, and maybe she’d started to panic when the vigilante—who was bleeding out—focused on rescuing his teammate and getting them to safety.

How was she supposed to know the scene would trigger her memories of a period of nightmares.

(She could still vividly remember how she’d left that portal covered in wounds but with an unstoppable determination to rescue Danny, only for it to end with Danny stumbling over to it having rescued her. She can still remember his rage-filled roar when Maddie had so much as dared to turn her scalpels toward her, the way Danny had not hesitated for a second to eliminate any threat in their path the moment Ellie freed him from his cuffs and he’d noticed her destabilizing. It was an absolute nightmare. And the way her false core purred brokenly at his willingness to throw away his morals for her would haunt her, because she knew it had nearly Ended him back then in that time where he hadn’t yet learned how focus his obsessions and he was being torn apart by them. It had nearly Ended them both.)

And maybe in her panic, she accidentally kidnapped the slowly dying duo and tied them up in an abandoned warehouse.

And maybe, she had also dumped the bodies of their dead companions into the Realms to speed up the process of their rebirth as ghosts. She may have also threatened to hold those baby ghosts captive to get the Pru girl to cooperate and finish her recovery in the Realms.

(Sue her, Ellie had gotten attached to the assassin trio and she absolutely was going to steal them to form her own Adventure Squad!)

Obviously, Ellie could get away with using her ectoplasm to heal Pru, because Pru was already liminal to such a degree where she’d certainly become a ghost. Which meant, Pru’s body wouldn’t protest to the early construction of what basically amounted to a ghostly reconstruction of her throat and voice box.

The vigilante was the problem though. He wasn’t even the slightest bit liminal, which meant that his body would view her ectoplasm as an invading force it needed to eliminate and the guy wasn’t exactly in a position where he’d survive such an internal conflict. Which meant the best she could do was take him to Frostbite.

(And even if he had been liminal, Ellie didn’t have precise enough control of her ectoplasm to repair an entire organ. The only reason she could repair Pru’s throat and voice box was because Ember had forced Danny and her to learn its anatomy incase their Wail damaged their human body.)

But as much as the Realms loved her, they wouldn’t allow such a high-level risk like the vigilante to enter them, especially when the Realms appeared to hold little regard for this universe.

(Like Ellie honestly wanted to know what this universe did to the Realms, that the very glue of reality held a grudge.)

Even if she could manage to convince them, this guy was too smart. He’d immediately realize something had changed in him, and with no explanation he’d search until he found the truth whether it should be known or not.

Not to mention, if the rest of the Batfamily caught wind of it. They were the exact type of nosey assholes the Realms hated the most. It could also cause Danny trouble if the so-called Justice League caught wind of the Infinite Realms existence.

(And boy, if Ellie thought the Infinite Realms grudge on this universe was oddly strong it had nothing on the grudge Danny had against the Justice League. But Ellie trusted Danny’s judgment.

It didn’t help that Ellie wouldn’t but it past Batman to try and find a way to eliminate Danny, which even if it was just to create one of those contingency plans, was absolutely unacceptable. After every thing living mortals had put Danny through trying to control what they had no right too, the Realms—whether that referred to the citizens or to its literal consciousness—wouldn’t hesitate to obliterate them. And unfortunately if that happened Danny would probably blame himself.)

Despite knowing all of this, Ellie’s core was demanding she save the vigilante in front of her. And she trusted that Clockwork would interfere if her actions would lead to Danny getting hurt irreparably. 

Which of course brought us to the cause of all of this, her singular solution. The “secretary” contract, she’d forgotten about until that Clockwork had reminded her of it before she entered this particular universe.

The embodiment of Time reminding her that while she was exploring and meeting new people she should take the opportunity to find Danny a “secretary of sorts”, who could help Danny with his duties as King and keep him company while everyone else was busy. 

Which yeah that was pretty vague, so she probably should’ve actually read the contract before using it, but it wasn’t exactly her best moment especially when all she could think about when she looked at the vigilante teen was Danny slowly dying in her arms.

And besides, this hadn’t been the first time she’d thought Tim would be a perfect secretary companion (read : mortal pet) for Danny. Tim would’ve made a great secretary for Danny!

The guy was 16 or 17 and basically ran a multimillion dollar company, he was easily the Greatest Detective in the World (because Batman sucked in Ellie’s not so quiet opinion), but most importantly he was willing to do basically ANYTHING for his family. 

Plus despite how similar Tim was to Batman, unlike the furry bat, Tim cared more for his family than he did the world.  So once Tim got to know Danny, Ellie was sure Tim would completely agree with her that any kind of contingency plan to lock Danny up or End him wasn’t allowed to exist in the hands of any mortal (or undead) universe. 

(Ancients, Danny had created enough of his own for the family to use against him if he started to become a tyrant like Pariah, and some of them were so cruel, that Jazz actually had to sit him down and discuss Danny’s self-hatred and suicidal tendencies. For Ancients sake, there was a number of them that Danny would absolutely End a universe for with zero regret if it was done to one of his subjects, yet he’d been more than willing to consider as a plausible solution for dealing with himself.)

She was sure Tim would thank her for introducing him to Danny too! There was no doubt in her mind that Tim would be easily and eagerly adopted into their little family. And unlike Tim’s present family, they actually knew how to appreciate each other and communicate (ignoring the fact that ghosts were basically made of emotions thus making it severely impractical and uncomfortable to hide your feelings from others).

With all of that in mind, she subtly threatened convinced the boy to sign the contract and then eagerly dragged his bleeding ass through a portal to the Far Frozen.

Which brought us to now, where she sat on a visitor bench in the medical center thinking about how to get Danny to lessen her inevitable punishment. Because Frostbite had just referred to an unconscious Tim, who was deposited on a cosy medical cot receiving treatment, as the Great One’s Betrothed.

Danny was sooooo going to ground her.

Chapter Text

Sand, Tim decided, was a nuisance. His belt pouches must be half full of the stuff. He wasn’t looking forward to the moment he’d need to retrieve something from it, pouring out the sand in a hopeless attempt to relieve the weight resulting in a cartoonish pile of the stuff at his feet. The mental image had him swallowing back an unreasonable chuckle (and the scream that seemed to crawl up his throat, the one he kept forcing back down.) The sand was burning hot, which only furthered the fact that it was the bane of his existence. 

 

Well, that and the stab wound. But he wasn’t thinking about that. Tim wasn’t thinking about the way he could hear the sound of his own heart and the pulsating beats echoing in his ears. He wasn’t thinking of the searing agony each step brought as he dragged Pru along with him. (He had to compartmentalize. He couldn’t focus on the pain because if he did, he wouldn’t be able to do anything. He wouldn’t be able to save Pru, save himself, save Bruce .)

 

Unlike his injuries, however, the sand could have been bearable. Could have been demoted to a mere annoyance if the sand scorching hot and carried by the winds seemingly directly into his eyes. That was what made the desert different, what made it such a challenge. Because the desert’s heat wasn’t like that of in the jungles or forests; there the sunbeams shone through the leaves of the canopy, the shade a respite from the humid warmth of air. In the jungle, the shadows held dangers but also allowed for cooling relief. 

 

But the desert held no relief, no way to shield one from the relentless beating of the sun. The air of the desert was dry, arid, almost hard, and solid. The winds carried grains of the infernal sand and made every gush of air feel like a physical blow to Tim’s skin. It made every breath a thousand times harder. 

 

Every lift of his foot, every step he took, had Tim pushing against the wind. Had sand flying up from his boots, blown back to hit his body, and cement itself as part of his attire. Tim had the feeling that he was more sand than a person by this point. He certainly felt like it. 

 

It seemed like Tim had been walking for an eternity now. How hadn’t he reached the Jeep yet? Was it even worth the journey? The throbbing pain of his wound and the sand on his skin was a tortuous combo. With every movement, Tim felt coarse grains shifting on his arms like ants crawling up a branch. He felt the blood slip out from the pressure patch and trickle down his abdomen, mingling with the sand that was already stuck to his skin, becoming an uncomfortable mixture of blood, sweat, and sand. (That’s what Tim was putting into his quest for Bruce: Blood, Sweat, and Sand. He should make that into a nice decorative sign. Maybe he’ll gift it to Ra’s.)

 

But if Tim focused on the landscape before him, he could push out the pain radiating throughout his body, no longer sharp and concentrated to where the sword had sliced through him. (He had to push out the feeling of his health dwindling, of his life-blood flickering in and out of existence.) Tim grounded himself with the feeling of the infernal sand. A necessary evil.

 

Wiping the wind-blown sand out of his eyes was a fruitless gesture as his hands seemed caked with the stuff, resulting in an endless loop. Instead, Tim just blinked away the grittiness and black ants dancing across his vision, adjusted his grip on Pru, and continued his trying trek, cursing Ra’s existence while keeping himself from crying out.

---

 

Tim slipped behind the wheel and adjusted the seat and mirrors, checking with a quick glance to make sure that Pru was secured. 

 

“Hold on,” He muttered, gritting his teeth and pressing down on the pressure pads on his abdomen. For a moment, Tim just breathed, through the pain, through the grief, through the tears that leaked from the corner of his eyes. 

 

Part of him wanted to just push his head back against the seat, wanted to just let his eyelids fall close, and check out entirely. He wanted the pain to stop, to cease, to mellow out into nothingness. But Tim couldn’t, he couldn’t rest. There was too much to do. Too much resting on his shoulders. 

 

Pru needed him. Bruce… 

 

Pru needed him.

 

Tim just needed a second, just for one brief moment to get his bearings and push past the vertigo. He squeezed his eyes shut against the world that spun in front of him. He didn’t know how much blood he had lost, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Pru, and getting them the hell out of this fucking desert.

 

“Breathe,” Tim reminded himself and released a shaky breath. He took in another more steady now, and focused—not on the pain, but on survival. 

 

Tim checked the clutch, pressed down gently on the accelerator, and eased the car into rolling. As soon as the wheels were turning across the sand, Tim pushed the car into second gear. He gave it gas, putting the full weight of the engine behind the acceleration, and moved the car into third, fourth, fifth, until he was on sixth and was pushing the jeep as far as it could go. Tim moved them as far across the expanse as he could, doing his very best to get them back to civilization. He had to get them medical attention. Pru was hurt and bleeding—just bleeding, not bleeding out, she wasn’t dying. She wasn’t dead—.

 

“Brace yourself,” He muttered, voice calm. Tim shifted the gears, touching the brakes and pushing them sideways into a skid, the wheels of the car sliding before he caught the balance and pulled them out of it. Tim flicked the gear again, and the car’s wheels caught with a whine, shooting them forward.

 

Beside him, Pru jerked into consciousness, gasping around the blood in her mouth. Her hands flew up to her neck, where Tim had operated the best first aid he could manage in the middle of the fucking desert.

 

Tim flicked a glance towards her, distantly taking in speed and position, and hit the gas. “Pru?” he asked, his voice calm over the roaring of the engine.

 

Tim’s mind was focused on calculations, on the speed, the accelerations, the physics of the weight. He was mentally mapping out his route, his thoughts turning into a shield against passing out from pain. His senses were consumed with the thrumming of the car’s engine, the shaking of the gear stick in his palm, and the way it fell into place under his command. 

 

Tim controlled the car. If he could control the car, he could control himself, and could get them to safety. 

 

Pru made a wheezy, strangled sound from beside him. Her mouth flapped open and closed, but she made no sound.

 

“Hold on,” Tim said again, voice clipped. He shifted gears, adjusting the gas and clutch. Then he turned the wheel with enough force to make sure they didn’t miss the turn towards civilization. The engine strained for a second, but leveled out with Tim’s efforts. 

 

“You good, Pru?” 

 

Her hazy eyes sharpened a bit at his prompting, “Don’t. Scratch. The. Paint. Boss.” She tapped out in morse code, her fingers shaky. 

 

“Pru,” Tim huffed his amusement through his nose, his palm over the top of the gear shift. He sucked in a slow breath, “Quit mouthing off,” He chided, the joke hiding the worry for her vocal cords.

 

She masked her pain by rolling her eyes, “Don’t. Tell. Me. What…”

 

“To do?” Tim finished for her, “Yeah, yeah whatever,” Tim kept the amusement on his face, letting it cover his worry, “We’re almost there.”

 

Pru tapped out a shaky “ok” before falling back into unconsciousness. 

 

Tim focused his eyes on the windshield, sighing out another “we’re almost there. ” His vision greyed at the edges and his eyelids grew heavier and heavier. But Tim hadn’t survived this long just to bleed out in this desert. 

 

“Stay awake, Drake,” Tim ordered himself, “Stay awake.”

 

His world narrowed to the route in front of him.

— Chapter One of Blood, Sweat, and Sand by tmarauder101

The first thing Tim registered upon waking up was the pain in his side piercing through his lightheadedness.

His head rolling back expecting to be caught by the cushion of the car seat, only to startle as it hit nothing. Blood-shot eyes snapping open to welcome an incomprehensible blurry scenery as a wave of nausea and vertigo swept over him.

(A small part of him was grateful for the dim lighting which saved him from being momentarily stunned, and helped ease the pressure of his headache.)

The gears of his brain spun as he tried to force himself into awareness. He needed to remember what happened, needed to know where he was.

As another wave of nausea hit, he tried to raise a hand to message his throbbing temple, only to find his arm bound. Dread began to fill him, the awareness he’d craved finally appeared, only to sink deeper in his stomach as he took stock of his surroundings and situation.

He was sitting on something hard—likely a wooden chair, though it spoke of his dire situation that he’d somehow mistaken it for the warm cushioned support of the car seat. With squinted eyes he tried to make out the knots of rope which bound his arms at the wrist and elbows. He couldn’t make out his legs but the slightest wiggle of his protesting body told him they’d been tied down as well at the ankles and knees based on the minute pressure.

The only reward for the movement was the knowledge that whoever tied him up knew their stuff, together with a piercing reminder in his side that he was on the clock and losing a concerning amount of blood.

As he tried to gather his bearing, a muffled angry croak sounded a distance from him in his blind spot.

“Pru, you there?” He forced the words from his parched throat, cringing at the pain.

The increased sound of struggling behind him was all he needed for an answer. Pru was here, though it sounded as if she’d been gagged, but she was alive .

She wasn’t dead.

Not yet…

(She couldn’t die. Owens and Z were already gone, Tim had left their bodies to rot in the desert sun, bile rose in his throat at the image.)

No longer at the luxury to take his time figuring out his situation, Tim forced his eyes to focus. Despite the shadows being his home, Tim couldn’t help but curse at the way in which they swallowed the edges of the warehouse here.

‘Damnit!’ Tim swore in his mind, as he maneuvered his wrist to where he hid a knife only to come up empty handed, biting down on his lips to force down the frustrated scream that wanted to escape.

He could hear the voices of his “siblings” in his mind. There was the way he could hear Jason chuckle laughing at him for getting caught in the first place, and Cass who’d give an understanding smile while walking him through how to free himself.

Then those fond musing twisted as he could hear Damian calling him pathetic and useless, the way Dick would shake his head with that look in his eyes that said he thought Tim was hopeless.

Tears were building in his eyes, blurring his already iffy vision more. ‘ Fuck! ’

He’d been so fucking close. He’d left Gotham, left San Fran, left the Titans, left the Bats, left Robin, left his name . He’d ran away thrown it all away, taking up a another name, one he could use without sullying its legacy or that of the Bats. One where he can do what he needs to do no matter what.

So he’d become Red Robin.

(It wasn’t the most creative name, he’d admit, but he’d take what he could get. After all, while Jason was known for his dramatic flair, he certainly lacked creativity.)

Spending months searching the world for clues, and when he met the limit of his own resources with no way to push forward, he even been willing to make a deal with the Devil, the fucking Demon’s Head.

( What would Bruce say? Tim could imagine it. But it didn't matter, the world needed Batman, so Tim was going to do everything in his power to get him back, even if B would never approve of it, he'd cross that bridge when it comes. )

He had too, because nobody believed him. Nobody believed that Bruce was alive. They thought Tim was insane, that he’d absolutely lost it in his grief.

He didn’t want to blame them, he knew how crazy it would sound to someone who couldn’t see the clues, who refused to see the clues.

And, sure, what happened these past few months of his life could make anyone a little crazy, but it wasn’t like anyone helped him with it all.

First his dad dies, then Kon and Bart, then Steph, then his sibling tried to kill him, and B goes missing, Tim literally couldn’t catch a break.

And Dick was absolutely no help with any of it, especially after the asshat took Robin, the only thing keeping him steady, away and gave it to the Demon Brat who’d probably ruin Robin’s Legacy within two weeks in the suit.

But Tim had thought the heroes would understand, would trust him more. After all how many times had one of them died only to come back to life!? It happened all the time, or at least enough that they should all have a healthy dose of skepticism when someone died and actually confirm it.

Yet, his so-called “family” didn’t believe him, his teammates didn’t believe him, the heroes didn’t believe him.

If he were anybody else, he’d have started to doubt himself (and maybe he did just a bit), but he’s not. He’s Timothy Drake-Wayne, whose intelligence rivaled Bruce’s, he is was Robin. He wouldn’t doubt himself, not when all the evidence pointed to B being missing, not dead.

And god, he’d been so fucking close. He’d found the last bit of evidence he needed, and all that was left was to figure out how to rescue Bruce.

Yet he passed out at such a crucial time and got himself captured. He was now stuck bleeding out in some unknown warehouse, and Pru and Bruce were going to suffer not die for his carelessness.

He grit his teeth as a breeze blew against his aching side. How useless, utterly pathetic.

After everything he’d done to gather the evidence, and yet it looked like he was going to bleed to death before he could even pass the information off.

Another breeze swept through the warehouse taking some of the sand that clung to him along with it, though this one unnaturally cool for the hot desert.

Snapping him from his spiraling thoughts, before he could even ponder on its origin, a glowing pair of vibrant green eyes emerged from the shadows of the warehouse.

Tim tensed as those eyes appeared to settle on something behind him and sure enough, Pru’s struggling ceased the moment that green glow was directed at her.

Just as swiftly as those eyes appeared they blinked out of existence, only Tim had a very solid hunch on where they went. Especially when the unnaturally breeze picked up in the warehouse and suddenly all he could hear was the wind of the controlled typhoon.

(Tim had a guess of what it was. One of those pit demons that the trio would whisper about at night. It was said that on rare occasion those who were swallowed by the pit would emerge as malevolent beasts without flesh to shower the League with blood. Tim had thought they were referring to the supposed Pit Madness but now he knew they hadn’t been.)

A familiar feeling of hopeless fear and helplessness swarmed Tim as he found himself unable to protect the last of his team, the trio had already been cut to one, he couldn’t lose Pru too.

“Hey-!” He started, trying to call out, to grab that things attention despite every fiber of his being protesting against doing that, but he choked on the dryness of his throat.

Every second that passed had him increase his struggles. He needed to save Pru. She couldn’t die. Tim couldn’t handle anymore loss.

His struggles were in vain however as a brillant green glow illuminated the space and the wind began to die. The only thing he could hear from behind him, where Pru had been, was a satisfied humming.

Damnit. Damnit. Damnit!

Tim froze, his whole body tensing as it forgot about the pain in the presence of a mortal’s predator, as a pair chill hands—if you could call the clawed appendages that—pressed on his shoulders.

“Hey,”a cool breeze tickling his ear, as a mischievous cold voice that sounded vaguely female echoed in the warehouse, “do you want to live?”

Yes! But despite thinking so, Tim couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth and answer. His mind having stopped turning with Pru’s silence, because that she was dead.

“Of course, you do. You wouldn’t want all this suffering to have been for nothing.” The creature didn’t seem to care as it continued. “And wouldn’t you like to see that trio of yours? That girl, Pru I believe, was more than happy to accept.”

“What?” The mention of Pru got his brain back online. Was Pru not dead? Had Owen and Z been saved by this creature? Or was it tricking Tim, saying he could see the trio and if he said yes it’d just kill him to “reunite” them all.

“I mean, I went through a lot of effort too keep those two you left behind alive, you did a pretty okay job saving Pru but if she didn’t accept my help she would’ve lost use of her voice.” The creature chattered on, and based on their voice Tim wouldn’t have felt it would be out of place if it had been admiring its nails. “I just need you to sign this contract here.”

The vigilante did his best to keep from flinching as invisible limbs wrapped around his neck to mimic a backward hug, and while he was distracted from the creature resting its jaw on top of his head a parchment paper and pen blinked into existence in front of him.

“What kind of contract is it?” Tim managed to squeak out the question to try and cover up the fact that he couldn’t actually read what was written on the paper. Maybe he had a concussion, because he would swear that the words were jumping across the page while every other word was a different language.

“Hmm, it’s a secretary application!” The creature happily chirped and Tim’s brain stalled. “Our king is VERY stubborn and has been refusing to accept help, so I was chosen to go find him a secretary! It’s been super hard though, because I was required to choose a mortal for the position but you’d be perfect for it! And don’t worry it shouldn’t change much in your day to day life in the mortal realm! But employee benefits are excellent!”

What the fuck?

He wasn’t given any time to think it through though, between the creature’s impatience and his rapidly depleting blood levels.

“I do recommend you sign if you wish to continue your existence.”

“Fine.” Tim managed through gritted teeth. Everything about this interaction went against his very nature but he’d already made a deal with a devil once in the form of Ra’s, he doubted this would be much worse.

But of course he jinxed himself because the moment he signed, he found himself being dragged through a Lazarus Pit tear in reality by the demon.

 
The last thing he could register after after a nauseating change in pressure was Green, before everything went black as he collapsed, biting at his lips as he writhed at the overwhelming pain before he lost consciousness.

Chapter Text

Towards the borders of the Far Frozen, was the remains of a floating island which had been severed from its zone by the wiles of mankind.

The whole fragmented island looked out of place, with the simplistic cubic structure that built up a fortress of bad omens. The red-veined walls were dotted with black char from blast residue.

Whilst the white halls inside carried scars from desperate clawing, piercing ice stakes, and blast residue similar to outside.

It was a place of terrible history, and the scars and signs of struggle would remain in remembrance and respect, even as it had been repurposed by the will of those lost here.

Ellie would rather be anywhere else, especially after the episode she just had. She didn’t want to see the scars lining the disgustingly white walls, didn’t want to see the odd splatter of red or green where blood had stained the ever-starving material. Ellie didn’t want to be reminded of how much they had failed Danny back then. Didn’t want to be reminded of their futile siege and attempts at rescue.

Unfortunately, this was the only place equipped to handle her current problem.

Ellie glared across the hall where behind closed doors, Frostbite was with a small team of ghost doctors inspecting the damage done to a certain unconscious vigilante.

Beside her, a giant four-armed woman in  Grecian garb paused in serious study of the very contract that had caused this all. “I know it is hard for you to be here, young Wind Sprite. But you must admit it is impressive.”

Ellie huffed, even as her core hummed in content at the familiar title, but Pandora was right. As much as Ellie wished they could’ve just decimated this accursed facility, Danny had done an amazing job reclaiming and repurposing a place that Ellie knew he still had nightmares about.

(The very fact that his unmelting ice spikes remained in place was proof enough that Danny had yet to recover from the trauma inflicted upon him by the wretched living. It’d be impossible to just brush off what’d he’d been through no matter how much he may have wanted to.)

It had been a small show of the power her template would eventually grow into as the Ancient of Space, as well as a display of Danny’s values and how he’d rule.

A cruel space that had been designed for and by invading humans, on land that had been stolen from the Realms and used to torture her Champion, had been completely redesigned at Danny’s hand into a Liminal Infirmary something the Realms lacked.

Danny had been stubborn about it, gathering the deceased ghosts of doctors of all manner of species in order to properly research how to care effectively for the living as well as Liminals.

Ellie hadn’t seen the particular point in having an Infirmary like this at the border of Far Frozen and Realms Core, especially when the Realms were no longer open to the living world.

But she was definitely grateful for it now, especially given due to the material which made up the Infirmary, this place was basically a pocket of the living world with its low ectoplasm levels, which meant that neither the Realms or Danny could feel or see inside without being here.

(Of course, this meant there was also the downside that no one could open a portal or teleport inside, though you could teleport port out. Which was why a certain unconscious vigilante wasn’t being monitored for his spleen, as that had already been handled, but rather for how the guy was coping with basically an overdose of the pure ectoplasm making up the center of the Realms for the five seconds it took Ellie to get the passed out guy into the building.)

So as traumatizing the buildings properties were to her senses, it was god sent as it meant Danny was still wholly unaware of what Ellie just got him in too.

As grateful as she was, it didn’t mean she was any less frustrated at being here, nor less annoyed with the vigilante for getting her into this mess.

Stupid vigilantes.

Stupid birds and assassins.

Stupid Red Robin for reminding her of Danny.

Ellie was screwed. She could accept being grounded, but what about Danny? Her core pulsed uncomfortably as it released a low whine at the thought of how this might hurt Danny. There were just too many ways this could go wrong.

(A small part of her hoped the bird didn’t survive the ectoplasm overdose, that if he died coming back as a ghost, or passing on it would nullify the contract based on Clockwork’s ground rules. She’d like to say him coming back as liminal would be enough but Clockwork had merely said it’d be preferable that they weren’t so not that they couldn’t be.)

Sure, Ellie had been certain that Danny and Tim would get along, but she doubted they’d be willing too given they’d both essentially been unwillingly entered into an arranged marriage. And sure, Ellie knew Danny wouldn’t let an unwanted engagement get in the way of friendship, but she also knew that he wouldn’t put up a fuss about it keeping his feelings silent.

After all, that’s exactly what he did when the Observants pressured him into an engagement back when he was sixteen and had finally gotten a bit comfortable with his duties to the Realms. Danny had been loud in his dismissal and refusal, but the moment the Court explained the benefits a core marriage would bring to the Realms Danny had held his tongue and agreed.

In the end, Danny had agreed to an engagement with Dorothea as the Princess was experienced in the ways of ruling and would be a great support. Plus Danny trusted her not to take advantage of his ignorance in Ghost Culture.

The engagement had lasted six months before Jazz found out and rallied Danny’s Council into giving the Court and Observants hell for pressuring Danny, a baby ghost, into something so serious and twisting its sacred origin.

(Because Core marriage was serious. It was a rare sacred event where a pair or more ghosts decided to connect their very identity and souls together for eternity. But it was also dangerous as any core-altering event would be. If the ghosts weren’t on the same page in will, or they had differing power levels and the stronger struggled with control, the ritual could fail ending up being a traumatic tragedy. Which was why it was so rare, not many couples were willing to risk cannibalising their partner’s core. And while Danny and Dora were simply engaged, they did so with the end goal of a core marriage and that intent would be enough for their cores to start the process of testing each other. Despite how powerful Danny was already however, his will would easily overwhelm Dora’s by the time they reached enough of an understanding of each other to perform the ritual. Not to mention, the power gap was just too big for a solely platonic bond to survive such a joining.)

As resigned to it as Danny had been, he’d been utterly appalled at the possibility he might accidentally End her by consuming her core. While Dora had been furious to learn that the Observants had pressured Danny into such a marriage without educating him on it properly.

(It was this incident that had Princess Dorothea actively requesting Danny’s aid in removing the influence of her brother from her kingdom. It was also around then that Danny decided to shift management and create a court of his own that he could trust, Dora obviously was given a seat.)

The two had separated amicably, not that it was a surprise, as they’d never been intent on any romantic involvement and they’d already been close friends. The two often look back on the period as Dora educating Danny in the romantic nuances of Ghost Culture from basic courting rituals shared by all dead no matter previous species, to more specie specific ones.

When Danny wasn’t expressing the horror he felt over what could’ve happened to Dora, he liked to joke that it had been the best dating and relationship experience of his afterlife. The best part was that Valerie couldn’t even argue with him over it, and how Tucker would always moan about Danny “cheating” on him.

So it wasn’t the arrangement of it all that was the problem (though it did bother Ellie that her brother was willing to subject himself to a loveless marriage that changed his very being if it was for the good of the Realms).

No, the problem was that Danny had actually been seriously considering following through with an arranged core marriage since the Realms had closed off.

All because he didn’t like the idea of the Realms being unprotected and without a clear figure to lead in the event he was captured again. (And Ancients did his following logic make Ellie want to puke.)

If Danny had been core married with someone while captured the bond could’ve used to locate him, and if worse came to worse, Danny could’ve transferred his power to his bonded essentially Ending himself while passing over his Status and power as High King.

Ellie hated that he was even considering it, that his perceived responsibilities as High King were setting him up to be an eternal martyr, as he used his very soul for the betterment of the Realm. Ellie hated that Danny considered his own happiness and future in his plans even less than he did before to the point his well-being only mattered in terms of ensuring he could effectively protect the Realms.

She hated it all, but she had been glad that Danny at least had a bit of say in who his bonded partner would be. Yet now, it was looking like she’d taken that little bit of control away from him, and even worse, she’d stuck him to a very much alive human who had no place in ruling the Realms at Danny’s side for eternity.

Ellie wanted to cry.

Prudence, or as she preferred to be called Pru, had been a member of the League of Assassins for four years now. 

And she wasn’t talking about those members who basically amounted to combat puppets without individual thought.

She sure as Hell wouldn’t be demoted to such a level to become one of those mindless shadows. Even if she was more of a gun user, and didn’t quite have any long range or hand to hand combat prowess.

She was still one of the rare few whose potential and talent granted her certain privileges .

One of which was that she’d been placed in a team of assassins—Z and Owens—that could cover whatever she lacked.

The biggest of the privileges however was that she was allowed to keep her identity. Sure she had to learn to control her emotions and all that jazz, but outside of missions she was allowed to have a personality. 

It might not seem like such a big deal, but it was because there were only a few of them left especially now that Z and Owens were—not gone, but still—dead.

There used to be a lot more of them, of those free from the generic brainwashing of the League, used to be a whole faction of them rivaling even Talia and Ra’s own factions.

(Though while Pru had never gotten the chance to fully integrate herself into the fraction, unlike Z and Owens, she’d still taken pride in how personalized their fraction had been compared to the mindless drones. She still took pride in it, just more quietly, fearing possible retaliation by Ra’s or Talia should they question her loyalty.) 

She never got to learn about the truth behind the cause of the fraction’s decline, but she knew vaguely why and when . Not to mention the fucking rumors.

It all came done to the boiling green sludge pit, a missing heir, and the fucking Pit Demons.

Even after spending a year training beside the Pit, and three years staying periodically in Nanda Parbat between missions, Pru had only ever really heard rumors about Pit Demons. 

The fact that there were rumors about it in the first place probably should've told her enough about the validity of them, given the Demon Head had little tolerance for displays of human weakness in his assassins. 

Pit Demons, however, were something that the older members of the League had been taught to fear by the Demon Head himself.

In her early months of training, she had heard whispers that it was because not even the Demon Head, who could cow even Pit Madness, could fell the demons.

The rabid beasts that on rare occasion were said to burst from the boiling green ooze, carting fangs and claws in-proportionate to their eldritch forms, that the human mind was never meant to perceive, howling in the voices of those lost to the pit.

Malevolent fleshless beasts that would shower the League in red, as those present could only pray to be overlooked by its rage and bloodlust as the horror could not be touched.

Made worse as the Pits would flare warning the arrival of something as tentacles would spring from the liquid in a mindless search for its escaped captive. And if one was lucky—or unlucky—enough to survive the demon they could only pray those tentacles wouldn’t snatch them in its pursuit of its prisoner. As those who were caught would be dragged into the Pits and devoured.

It had supposedly been a normal but very rare occurrence (as in happening every ten years or so) since the Demon Head had discovered the Pit. At least until 17 years ago, where it was happening so often that the League had been forced to retreat from the Pits for nearly two years. Three years ago however the emergence of Pit Demons had suddenly ceased.

Prudence had been quick to point out that the drastic change in frequency could easily be connected to the missing Heir, who had not only been born 17 years ago but had also gone missing three years ago.

The moment the Heir was mentioned Owens and Z would always become frantic about keeping her quiet. And hey as much as Pru enjoyed messing with them, she did understand somewhat why it was all hush hush.

It wasn’t exactly a secret that the which heir had been the favorite in regard to the matter of succession. Of Talia’s two sons, the Demon Head had never been subtle about his partiality toward the older. It could be seen in the way the boy had basically been the Head’s shadow.

Hell, just about everyone in the League was partial to the older heir. Even Pru herself was partial to him—not that it was a hard choice to make, the older was like the very sun compared to dullness of the younger—and she’d only known the heir for a few months while training under him.

Despite Pru having taken a liking to the boy, she could not deny that there was just something inherently off about him. She supposed it only made sense, after all there was no way a sunshine boy like him could be the Demon Head’s favorite.

But….

There had been rumors, though they’d long been silenced since then, about the boy.

Some were lighter not even mentioning the Pit, like the boy’s odd knowledge of the star, his excellence in training, weird ability to always return to the League with gaggles of new recruits, or of culprit-less pranks on older members.

(Darker ones often spoke of ruthless retaliation against those who spoke ill of the younger heir, or those under his command, how not even the command of the Demon Head could sway the boy from taking your head.)

More often than not though, they spoke of the boy’s otherness .

How his foot steps were too quiet. The discomfortingly swift changes in personality. The frightening pressure of his mere presence. His canines being just a bit too sharp, his ears pointed, and his skin too pale. Most unnerving however was his connection to the Pits.

He was drawn to them. And holy shit, it was fucking mutual .

The way those with Pit Madness deferred easily to him compared to the Demon Head. The way the Pit Tentacles always seemed to reach out to him specifically, yet the Pit Demons appeared to fear him.

The boy could sometimes be seen reading or simply talking to the Pits, and the boiling green would fucking respond .

The Demon Head had been absolutely thrilled, Pru had been told, that the heir was given more leeway and freedom due to that inhuman connection. Z had said that favor oftentimes extended to those under the heir’s command or protection.

It was unsurprising that a new faction was born under the Heir, bringing whispers of a change in the League’s Hierarchy, of its rules and practices. While foolish members would speak hopefully of a more swift change in leadership allowing  the League to become a force of good in the world.

It had brought more severe rumors along in the face of the Heir’s sudden disappearance. Many whispered about the younger heir disposing of his brother in jealousy, and younger members spoke of avenging the Heir.

(Those members were often disciplined by their elders, as it hadn’t exactly been a secret how much the Heir adored his younger brother.)

Others gossiped about the possibility that the Demon Head had sacrificed the Heir to the Pits to calm the Demons.

(Whilst there may be some truth to this one, the Demon Head’s rage following the Heir’s disappearance was an answer enough. Plus if the Demon Head had planned to use the Heir to calm the Pits he wouldn’t have focused his efforts on training the older, it would’ve made more sense to sacrifice the younger.)

The more accepted rumor in the faction, was that the Pit had finally managed to catch the Heir and had taken him somewhere unknown. Which brings Pru to when the Heir’s faction in the League began to decline.

Of those who believed that last rumor, none believed the Heir to be truly dead, it just did not make sense given the boy’s affinity to the Pit, thus they were divided into three groups:

1. Those who desired to follow the Heir, being a good number of the Heir’s most trusted as well as his devotees, and thus had actually thrown themselves into the Pits not long after the Heir vanished as though they’d received some kind of beckoning.

2. Those who had only joined or remained in the League for the Heir and left to follow the Heir’s will with the Demon Head’s blessing.

3. Those like Pru, Z and Owens, who believed the Heir would eventually return to the League and wanted to ensure his practices remained alive in the League.

Pru had been giving up hope that the Heir would return to the League, it had been three years after all and the Pits hadn’t stirred once. And then their team had been sent to assassinate someone called Red Robin, and for a moment they had thought the Heir had returned.

It had been a bit disappointing that it wasn’t the Heir but rather Tim, but in the face of Tim’s surety that Batman or whoever was alive, it had reignited her own hope.

And what do you know! Looking at the familiar shadow standing unnoticed behind the fifteen year old gender swapped carbon copy of the Heir—who was freaking out whatever contract she’d gotten Tim to sign—Pru knew she hadn’t been wrong believing the Heir was alive.

Pandora couldn’t help the tired sigh that escaped her, dripping with fond exasperation, as her words failed to distract the young clone from her mind.

Despite the two sharing an identical genetic makeup, Pandora’s two students had always been rather different from each other.

Of the Phantom bloodline—not including Danny—Ellie had the most potential of becoming an Ancient one day. Potential that the clone’s father—the Realms’ Beloved King—had recognized swiftly upon the development of a proper core, thus placing her under Pandora’s care in hopes she’d thrive.

And thrive she did. Long before the young clone had developed an affinity with an element, citizens of the Realms had granted Ellie the title of Wind Sprite, due to her adventurous mischief. Given her free nature, it had only been a matter of time before Wind would claim her. Neither had it been surprising when a claim upon her core was not enough and the young princess became one with the Wind.

Even now though, Princess Ellie lived up to the title bestowed upon her by the Fae Court, Windswept Wanderings, with her ever present curiosity and desire to explore what existence had to offer. She matched it even in her impulsiveness and impish nature, followed by bouts of air-headedness brought by the naivety of her youth.

(Her temperament matched the wind as well with its ever shifting tone, from a soft breeze, to the howling of typhoons and disasters brought by Vortex.)

In the face of Ellie’s ever-shifting nature, many a ghost experienced whiplash from  Danny’s own more solidifying absence of nature.

The Beloved High King of the Infinite Realms was an existence which baffled even the oldest of the Ancients in a way unlike Ellie’s own.

Pandora was sure only Clockwork had the slightest idea as to what made Danny so special even amongst the Ancients.

The Ancient woman of Greece was sure the Ancient of Time would never share his knowledge, though.

However, the contract before her would be  enough to give her at least an idea of what it was.

Before she continued with her deciphering, she sent out a small pulse of intent—which despite its lightness should’ve been picked up by the Princess—to Ellie’s Shadow.

It was only Pandora’s wisdom and knowledge of herself that allowed her to catch the practically nonexistent push of foreign intent in her mind. An answer of acceptance, as the Shadow vanished with nary a warning, following her request to ask for the presence of a certain ghost.

Before Pandora had met Danny personally, she’d thought of the Shadows as annoyances along the lines of the Observants, though significantly less annoying as the Shadows at least tried to hide their presence. She would also admit to having a grudging respect for their ability to hide their presence, even momentarily, from an Ancient as powerful and old as herself.

After meeting Danny, she’d immediately noticed a shift in the Shadows behavior as they assisted her in guarding her box. Despite how subtle the shift from simply observing to lending a hand had been, Pandora had quickly caught on to the Shadows’ connection to Danny.

From there, the Ancient Greek warrior couldn’t help but find the Shadows adorable for rallying so swiftly behind an existence previously thought impossible.

That fondness of hers only grew as she learned the depths of their loyalty to Danny—not the Realms, not to the High King, not to even Danny’s own power, just Danny himself—as the Shadows easily brushed aside the commands of the previous High King Pariah Dark.

And the longer she spent with Danny, the more her curiosity grew as she came to recognize the oddness of his claim on them.

They only became more adorable following the months of Pariah’s defeat, as the fledgling godling subjected the Old Court to long winded prattling about how unfit he was to be High King, as though the Ancients hadn’t bore witness to the efficiency and ease which he commanded those numerous Shadows of his over the his first living year as a Halfa.

Yet despite the Ancients’ knowledge of them, Danny had never revealed their existence to others nor even confirmed their connection to himself. He had not even alluded to either.

Despite her own original annoyance at Danny’s constant denial of them, she’d been proud of Danny for keeping some cards close to his chest, hidden even from his Council.

Back to the contract however, she wondered how much Danny knew about it.

Sure, Ellie had told her all about it, but Pandora knew that Danny, like every other ghost parent, even at fifteen tended to humor Ellie’s ego in an effort to support the development of her identity.

Even if Danny had just been getting used to legal jargon and had been practically hallucinating due to all the paperwork, Pandora highly doubted Danny couldn’t read between the lines to figure out the contract’s intent—pardon her slip, the intent of the contracts .

Based solely on Ellie’s description, Pandora would have been led to believe there was only one present in the mess of words and papers.

Yet from a brief skim of the first few pages, Pandora could make out statements that basically boiled down to what Danny—and yes, it referred to Danny specifically, not by name or blood but by his very Core and Soul which could not be replicated—would allow and expect his significant other to assist him with regarding his duties namely as High King, though there were a few more personal ones as well.

All in all, it was not a very damning contract. In fact, Pandora quite liked the rigid approach and straightforward demands in the statements beneath the cryptic words, she was sure Danny would agree with her. Especially compared to last one Danny had signed haphazardly for the marriage agreement between Dorothea and him, which had been extremely unclear and loose, often resulting in conflicts between their individual duties and interests.

In fact, once one managed to ignore the unnecessary crypticness of the words, the  intent behind each statement was startling direct. So much so that Pandora wouldn’t be surprised if Danny had written this with the help of Ghostwriter and Clockwork.

It was the accessory contract that was the damning one. To summarize it basically stated that Danny would forfeit his right to choose his significant other—and core-bonded too be—as long as they were chosen at the sole discretion of his daughter Ellie Phantasm-Wraith, and then were judged by his Council and the Realms to be capable of abiding by and thriving under the statements outlined in the previously signed contract.

Of course, it wasn’t as simple as the summary made it seem. But in even simpler terms, Ellie was to choose a marriage candidate and get them to sign. By signing the contract, the candidate, who would then be recognized as Danny’s Betrothed, was agreeing to be tested and judged based on the outline of duties Danny set previously to determine if they were qualified.

It sounds simple enough for them to simply say this Red Robin boy was unfit, but both the magic of the contract and the neutrality of the Realms would sense any attempts to deceive the judgements. Not to mention that bastard Clockwork went into great detail about when tests would be considered valid or invalid.

And Ancients was Clockwork’s involvement was too obvious, just looking at the annoying way the written language would change every few words, together with the cryptic way it was written, and finally a humorously useless spell that prevented the use of translation spells (not that they would’ve been helpful in the first place unless you wanted to cast it for every single change in language).

If that wasn’t enough for Danny to recognize Clockwork’s handiwork, Pandora would be solely disappointed. That Danny’s Shadow had been so unbothered—beyond slight dissatisfaction at the presence of Red Robin—by Ellie’s emotional spiel upon Pandora’s arrival, told her that Danny was aware enough of Clockwork’s schemes that he’d at least briefed the Shadows on the contract’s existence, though likely not the purpose of it.

The question now was why had Danny allowed it? If it was as Pandora suspected though, then Danny had signed these contracts fully aware of their contents and intent.

So the contracts couldn’t be argued to be nullified because of either party being unaware. (Pandora doubted Clockwork wouldn’t have covered loopholes like that anyways.)

Another sigh escaped her. She’d simply have to wait for Dan to arrive, as the young prince would hopefully have more information or insight on the matter.

The last three living years had just been one existential crisis after another.

One would think that the destroyer of a world had seen most of what the world had to offer.

Dan couldn’t even say humanity had offered much of a challenge, the GIW’s efforts were honestly laughable buying mankind a few months at best before Dan wiped them out.

Ancients, of his ten years of existence, his actual war against the living had barely taken a year. The rest of those nine living years were spent at war with that bastard Ancient of Time.

Dan had been so sure of his identity as Danny, so preoccupied with the fucking clock bastard’s schemes constantly getting in Dan’s way of completely wiping out the living infecting his world, that he hadn’t even noticed how differently the Realms and ghosts he was so certain he was the ruler of treated him compared to the Danny of his memories.

It wasn’t until he managed to out smart that damn clock, that he met his supposed past self, that he began to question himself.

Of course, when he first met Danny he’d been too focused on ensuring his own inevitable creation that he hadn’t noticed the differences between them.

It wasn’t until he tried to call upon the Realms as Danny was winning, as he felt them refuse him, that he realized something was wrong.

By then it was too late as he was trapped in a Thermos and handed off to that bastard Clockwork, as sure that Dan was that he was inevitable he’d resigned himself to being trapped in that damn thermos for centuries.

So you could imagine his surprise when a year and a half into his brooding, he was released from his timeout at the hands of a group of unfamiliar acting upon Danny’s own orders.

And what a cluster-fuck the next few months were.

Dan’s release was kept a secret from everyone, even Danny’s Council, and it was meant to be kept that way until Danny had been rescued.

Because according to these Corvus Court bastards, they had been ordered by Danny to release Dan and have him secretly take over the management of the Realms in Danny’s stead.

Quite the whiplash to get out of a year and a half of timeout only to be told your “enemy” had been captured and apparently made you his Heir.

Ancients, did he have questions. Like who the fuck were these shadow bird bastards? Why hadn’t they ever assisted Dan in the future? Just how had Danny managed to keep an entire force secret from even those closest to him? And why?

Despite his initial protests, he ended up agreeing if only to get answers about what made Danny and him so different.

(And no, it had absolutely nothing to do with the way his core ached at the trust Danny was showing him. Absolutely nothing to do with the smugness brought by the knowledge, that Danny had only revealed this secret court of his to Dan.)

Answers he wouldn’t get until—a for ancients sake, newly pregnant seventeen year old—Danny returned barely hanging on, because those Ravens were tight-lipped bastards.

(The reminder of Danielle’s existence struck Dan upside the head. He’d been so preoccupied with his own rage and grief in the future that he’d completely forgotten about her, his core squeezed at the thought that she likely destabilized alone without realizing what was happening to her.)

Dan refused to admit that his core had quivered at the sight of Danny passed out in a Shadow’s arms as the ghost brought the High King to the Keep’s Infirmary. That his core had warmed at the relieved hug Danny gave him upon waking up, nor would he ever admit to the tinge of discomfort when Danny instructed Dan to lie about managing to escape from the Thermos and deciding to rescue Danny and Ellie.

(Dan knew why that lie had made him uncomfortable. It was because Dan had been fully aware of Danny’s location the entire time, but the Shadows had been under strict orders focus on rescuing any other captured ghosts and to leave him until he said otherwise.)

Dan would absolutely admit to the overwhelming rage that possessed him when he finally saw the damage that he’d listened to the Shadows report. He’d admit to the pride he felt as he filled Danny in on his war preparations as the other had requested, while the Shadows patch Danny up. He’d admit to the smug purr of his core at the disbelieving faces of Danny’s Council as he repeated the lie as instructed.

There was also no reason to deny the warm smug pride engulfing him as Danny brushed off any of his Council’s concerns over Danny making Dan his General and Heir.

Beyond that lie regarding Dan’s presence outside the thermos, Danny hadn’t lied after all. Out of Danny’s entire Council and Court, beyond Pandora, Dan was the best choice for Danny’s General.

Dan had already led a war against the living after all. Plus the only reason his war ran so long was due to the Observants ordering Clockwork to interfere. Sure, the present living were a bit more competent due to how long they’d been able to experiment with Danny, but Danny was smart enough to know how led the bastards astray from any discoveries of major importance.

(Nobody, not even Dan, had liked the way Danny had said it as though his suffering wouldn’t have mattered if he’d spilled major secrets. But Dan appeared to be the only one who caught onto the implication that Danny had been in control the entire time he was captured and had allowed it all.)

It helped that Dan had been, unbeknownst to others, outside the thermos since Danny had been captured, going over  strategies with Danny’s Shadows and preparing for a number of scenarios.

(Eat shit, Clockwork! Dan didn’t think anything would ever beat the sour look on the Ancient’s face at the sight of Dan. His opinion on the Shadows definitely went up exponentially given Clockwork hadn’t even been aware they’d stolen Dan from under his ugly ass cluttered Clocktower. It also suddenly explained a shit ton about why Dan was to not leave the Realms, and was to preferably remain in the Keep.)

Especially when it gave him an edge over Pandora, who unlike Dan did not have access to an implausibly efficient information network. Not to mention, with Danny out of commission, recovering from his injuries as well as his pregnancy with Ellie, Dan was the strongest player left besides Vlad.

The begrudgingly impressed looks on the faces of Danny’s Council, as Dan explained his plan to close the Realms off to other living universes so they could focus completely on eliminating the world—the whole universe should be eliminated in Dan’s opinion but he’d start small for now—that was a threat to them, absolutely would be a highlight of his afterlife.

Now, one would think that with a war going on there would be a pause in existential crises.

But nooooo….

Danny, as Dan would swiftly learn, had even less common sense than Dan remembered. Like honestly, who the fuck would choose their supposedly future “evil” self to be their confidant.

Danny, apparently! Ancients, Dan wouldn’t be surprised if out of Danny’s entire Council and Court, he knew the most about Danny. Maybe even more than Clockwork did.

And of course, it’d been accidental. Danny had assumed, Dan was already aware of everything which was part of why he’d made Dan his momentary Heir.

But Dan wasn’t aware. In none of his memories of his time Danny, did Dan know about some Corvus Court, or his status as an Ancient of Space. Ancients, Dan hadn’t even been aware of how closely connected Danny was to the Realms.

With such a large chunk of apparent memories missing, it was honestly surprising it had taken Danny so long to realize something was wrong. By the time he did however, Danny had little choice left but to explain.

It was during a typical solo report with Dan explaining the happenings outside the Realms, Danny began to scold him for an open attack against the US government. The bed-ridden teen going on and on about Dan knowing better than to be so open when there was an opportunity to frame the enemy.

Dan had been absolutely lost, and had said as much. Danny had frowned, and with a nary a pulse of his mending Core, a Shadow appeared at his bedside giving Danny a run through of apparently a bunch of other mistakes in Dan’s planning.

Dan would have bristled at the disrespect, especially as the Shadows had never corrected him when he recounted his plans to them, if it hadn’t been for the way wisps of Danny’s intent gathered at Dan’s core for a concerned inspection.

Instead, Dan stood silently until the Shadow was dismissed, and Danny had him take a seat beside him. From there Danny had apologized for his insensitive scolding, stated that from that moment on Dan would be entrusted with Danny’s deepest secrets, and hoped Dan would keep what he learned to himself.

To say Dan didn’t immediately jump at the opportunity to obtain information not even Ellie, let alone the Council knew, would be a lie. Though, Dan could firmly say it would’ve been smarter for them to say he wished he’d waited for more peaceful times given the identity crisis it gave him.

From there, Danny regaled Dan tales of assassin cults, boiling ectoplasmic sewage, interrupted rituals, kidnapping by the hands of a certain meddling Ancient, followed by another childhood completely unaware of the past, until the Portal Accident.

Basically, the majority of Dan’s own memories as Danny were false.

Sam and Tucker hadn’t stayed outside the Portal long enough to see Danny in ghost form, even if they had contrary to what Dan remembered, Danny had been spit out into the Realms and assaulted by the memories of his past. During which he’d swiftly been found by his Shadows only, he was still mostly still thinking as Daniel Fenton and he’d fled, returning to the living realm just in time for his ghost form to give as Tucker burst back down to the labs with Jazz.

There was a lot that was contrary to Dan’s memories, like how Danny wasn’t close to Sam anymore, how Tucker had been the first to realize Danny had died a month later when Lunch Lady attacked.

Danny had theorized that when Dan formed as a full ghost, Dan had forgotten their life as Danyal al Ghul instead of their life as Daniel Fenton given some ghosts forgot their past especially when the event of their formation was traumatic.

Seeing as Dan only remembered Vlad’s life since after the man became a Halfa, it made sense. Especially after Danny admitted that since remembering his time as an al Ghul, he’d been viewing his life as Daniel Fenton as a form of afterlife.

So they had clarified that Dan had no memories of Danny’s identity as Danyal al Ghul. The only thing that didn’t make sense was why so much of his memories as Daniel Fenton had changed.

Danny was of the opinion, that was likely due to Dan having built his own identity around solely Daniel Fenton. Any behavior that didn’t fit the way he viewed Daniel with the biased input of Vlad would have likely been erased, and his mind came up with events he thought to be more plausible with his limited resources.

While they’d both learn that their initial theory had been wrong, Danny’s thought process wasn’t far off from the truth.

(Damn Clockwork for not knowing how to take a beating with grace. Dan had been so thrilled when Danny gave him a power boost with an official title as General, followed by the order to finally punish Clockwork for his scheme to release Danny that had nearly resulted in Ellie’s End. Yet the bastard couldn’t let them all enjoy the Ancient’s punishment without dropping one existential crisis after another.)

The reality that Dan was the Neverborn son of Danny and Vlad, came out of left field. Not to mention severely unwelcome.

(Don’t get Dan wrong, he would be fine with Danny being his dad, even if it was looking that Danny would mentally be a perpetual 18-year-old. Ancients, the Vlad of now would be okay too, but the Vlad Danny knew at 15 was just eww.)

If Danny and Vlad hadn’t been present to support him—even as the two couldn’t look at each other without getting sick—Dan was sure his core would’ve shattered.

It had been a striking reminder to them all how important a ghosts identity was to their existence.

Thankfully, the revelation had come at a time where Dan had already been spreading the roots of his identity, that he was more than a future version of Daniel Fenton.

Now Dan had comfortably grown into his own identity. He was the Neverborn child of High King Phantom and Court Advisor Plasmius, and half-sibling of Danielle Phantom. He was the First General of the Infinite Realms Army, and Heir-apparent to the High King’s Throne.

(Ellie had been thrilled to learn she wasn’t Heir-apparent despite technically being born first, let alone the fact she was the child of the High King and the very Realms.)

The title he held with most pride however was, High King Phantom’s Most Trusted Confidant.

(The looks of outrage when the rest of Danny’s Council felt the title attached to his core was glorious! Tucker and Valerie especially, Dan held a grudge against the Red Huntress for stalling his fight against mankind in the nonexistent future. As for Tucker, there was just a sense of euphoria in witnessing his father’s best friend moan about nepotism, and maybe Dan was just a bit uncomfortable with the fact that Tucker had been his dad’s fuck-buddy.

Admittedly, there was also some creeping discomfort from the knowing look in Wesley’s eyes as the teen started muttering about different conspiracies, some more frighteningly accurate than others.)

Which brings us to the current matter.

Dan was in the training hall of the Keep overseeing the development of the two newborn Assassin Ghosts that Ellie had deposited at his feet before running off.

Owens and Z, these newbies were called, though based on the report of Ellie’s Shadow there was another, a liminal named Prudence. They belonged to UN#387JL1, which if Dan remembered correctly happened to be the very Universe Danny was from.

He bet they were members of that assassin cult Danny grew up in. Likely a part of Danny’s faction too based on  the barest hint of a claim hidden beneath the unsubtlety of Ellie’s own, that Dan recognized from its presence on the cores of the rest of the Shadows.

Dan could feel the makings of a headache, a common symptom of Ellie’s shenanigans. His older-younger sister was an absolute handful, and Danny’s spoiling of her did not help, not that Dan would have it any other way.

Ellie’s claim over the two dead assassins and liminal weren’t even the problem, Danny would have no complaints over Ellie having guards that could follow her openly. No, it was the fact that Ellie just so happened to be visiting UN#387JL1 that was the problem.

It screamed that bastard Clockwork’s involvement. There was just no other way that Ellie would have settled on that universe for her first destination in universe-hopping, unless Clockwork had done something to convince her.

Because as much as Ellie was a little shit, she respected the opinions of her parents too much to completely dismiss their words. And Ellie was completely aware of the grudge both Danny and the Realms held against UN#387JL1.

Sure, Danny had never gone in depth of the reasoning behind the grudge, but he’d been very thorough in making them all understand that UN#387JL1 could very easily become a threat to the Realms.

Given that, Ellie wasn’t one to willingly put her parents and home at risk as an act of rebellion. Thus Dan could infer that Clockwork had specifically pointed out something that Ellie would see as potentially benefiting her in her search for purpose.

Now, Clockwork’s involvement in most matters left much to be desired, even now that the man was free of the commands of the Observants. The man only ever really prioritized Danny’s life, which was a commendable goal.

Unfortunately, the Ancient of Time didn’t quite understand what could be considered a happy ending by the living, and Clockwork’s version of prioritizing Danny often didn’t account for his mental health, as much as it did ensure he’d remain a Halfa.

The man had been doing just marginally better by assisting Danny with getting that marriage contract signed, after Danny and Dorothea found themselves tangled in the Old Courts schemes, thus allowing Danny to use that contract that he’d signed at 15 to nullify their engagement.

But then the man had directed Ellie down a path that had nearly Ended her. The Ancient was lucky Danny had managed to save her, else there was no where for the Ancient to hide from Danny’s wrath.

(Dan would rarely ever be so pleased as he had when learning that because time did not need to exist in the Infinite Realms, Clockwork couldn’t predict shit that happened in the Realms. Not unless Danny and him worked together to subject the very Realms to Time. Not to mention, Clockwork already had quite the contrary relationship with the Realms, as the Realms held a grudge against the Ancient for stealing Danny from her.

Of the two of them, Clockwork was only omnipresent and omniscient in the Living Realm and his own domain. Meanwhile, Danny as the Ancient of Space, and that was not just in terms of outer space, purposefully limited in omnipresence, omniscience to the Infinite Realms, paying no mind to the Living Realm beyond.)

It was moments like this that had Dan wishing Danny would tell everyone else about his secrets, than Dan wouldn’t be stuck constantly having to cover for Danny.

Then again, Dan was at home in his selfishness and he liked that he was the only one Danny trusted with his deepest secrets.

There was the added bonus of having the power to punish even the Ancients, namely Clockwork, too.

Anyways, Dan had been overseeing the training of the two new ghosts at the hands of the Shadows of Corvus Court. When he felt a minute shift in the Realms, similar to what the Shadows had described when Danny and Dorothea had gotten engaged.

With a sigh, he gestured for an idle, well as idle as the assassins ever allowed themselves to be even in death, Shadow to inform Danny that he’d take care of it.

Dan felt his hopes for Ellie’s continued peace of mind dying. And sure enough, shortly after receiving a pulse of acceptance from Danny, Ellie’s Shadow appeared to report.

Ellie had traveled to UN#387JL1, with the intent to meet a clone of Superman, named Kon-el, and going by Superboy. Only contrary to what Clockwork promised her, Ellie arrived moments after the clone “passed”.

(Dan once again couldn’t help but marvel at Ellie’s struggle to sense truths, especially those pertaining to death, as far as Dan was aware there hadn’t been any substantial hero deaths recently. And Dan would know because they often became troublesome ghosts, which Danny often sent Dan or Fright Knight to handle.)

The Shadow recounted that he had hoped Ellie would return to the Realms after, but instead the young Princess had begun to stalk the clone’s hero friend. She’d been following the vigilante periodically for an entire UN#387JL1 living year.

Which was fine, the Shadow had remarked, the Princess had proved capable of showing great restraint in regards to her desire to interfere, especially given the vigilante’s life had only appeared to be going downhill since even before her arrival.

It was only during most recent events that problems arose, in that the vigilante’s dire situation triggered a PTSD episode in Ellie as apparently the vigilante reminded her of Danny. Which resulted in Ellie kidnapping the injured vigilante and his companion, and in order to get the Realms to open a portal for the vigilante Ellie had gotten the delirious guy to sign what she’d believed to be a secretary contract.

Beyond that, the liminal Assassin had quickly sensed the presence of Ellie’s Shadow, so the Corvus Court would surely be pleased with her potential and determine her worthy of guarding the Princess.

As of now, however, Ellie had gotten the guy into the Liminal Infirmary, but Red Robin was taken care of but currently unconscious dealing with ectoplasm overdose. Ellie was in the middle of panicking but had requested Pandora’s presence, likely to look over the contract in hopes of a way to nullify it.

Dan groaned, cursing himself for having forgotten about that contact. Damage control would’ve been so simple if it’d been in the hands of anyone but Ellie. But his big-little sister was a really good judge of character and she wouldn’t have saved  the vigilante with the contract unless she was certain he met whatever qualifications Clockwork had given her.

But just because the guy happened to meet the basic requirements didn’t mean Dan nor the Corvus Court would be satisfied with Ellie’s pick.

And Ancients, Dan could feel the dissatisfaction radiating from Ellie’s Shadow at her pick, he couldn’t even scold the Shadow for sending out pulses to his fellows informing them of everything as well.

The dissatisfaction of the Shadows was reasonable (in Dan’s opinion, after all, he also didn’t want some stranger taking up a ton of Danny’s time) given, the crazy bastards had jumped into the equivalent of centuries worth of emotional sewage, literally killing themselves to remain with Danny. And while Danny kept them hidden, he spoiled the bastards rotten compared to how he treated the rest of the Ghost League of Assassins. 

It all came down to the universe. Why the fuck did it have to be a hero from that universe?!

With a defeated sigh, Dan sent the Shadow back to Ellie’s side and began to make preparations for when Pandora eventually requested his presence.

Dan would love to strangle Ellie, he’d refrain though as he knew she was probably already beating herself up over this, that didn’t mean he’d help her get out of her eventually punishment though.

It was about time Ellie learned there were consequences to her actions, especially while she hadn’t unlocked her potential to become an Ancient. Dan refused to have another Clockwork running around.

Calling Z and Owens over he filled them in, and once Ellie’s Shadow returned to pass along Pandora’s request, they departed for the Infirmary (the slow way in order for Ellie to ruminate in her guilt longer).

Chapter Text

“Hmm.” Danny hummed as he shifted through the endless pile of documents, paying no mind to arguing Observants that had barged into his office without notice upon Ellie’s return from her most recent adventure with visitors.

“—how can you simply sit there despite that thing daring to arrange such an unbeneficial engagement between some worthless mortal and you!” One of the irreverent eyeballs finally turned to direct their wrath upon him.

Without lifting his head from the document in front of him, a spear of ice pierced through the eyeball’s pupil.

“It’d do you well to remember that thing is my daughter. The likes of you may only address her as First Princess . ” Danny started uncaring for the pained screeching of the offending ghost. “Unless you wish to be reminded of how your own schemes regarding my previous engagement ended you will hold your tongue.”

It was only Danny’s fury at the Observants disrespect of his daughter that kept him from cracking up at him word choice. He’d definitely share a laugh with Clockwork later though, given the Observants unfortunately had no tongue to hold.

“As both  an heir to the High Throne of the Realms, and my daughter, she is fully in her rights to choose potential candidates for my would-be-bonded.” Turning his gaze from the mindless complaints document, Danny lightened his glare as he took in the sight of the Observants’ slumped figures quivering beneath the pressure of his anger. “Given the origins of this particular candidate, however, I can assure you that the First Princess will be suitably punished for making light of the sacredness of Core-Marriage out of impulsiveness.”

“Furthermore, Clockwork will similarly be punished for daring to hide the truth of a contract meant to establish a core-marriage,”he didn’t allow the blasted meddlers any satisfaction however, “similarly, the Observants as a whole will be punished for failing to inform me, your king, of the blatant violation of my decree that under no circumstances was the Realms to be opened to UN#387JL1.”

“If you have any complaints regarding punishments, you are to go through the proper channels to request an audience.” Danny frowned at the eyeballs, gesturing to the office door. “Now, I unfortunately have much left to do so you will have to see yourselves out.”

The eyeballs bristled at his blatant dismissal but Danny had no fucks left to give to the bastards. And without remorse he let a snarl escape his throat, his core pulsing as it promised pain if they didn’t get out of his sight and preferably the very Keep.

Watching them skedaddle lifted his mood back to where it had been upon the moment he’d felt the minute shift in the Realms.

Danny easily recognized it for what it was, being the Realms’ acknowledgement of his would-be-betrothed. But as easy as it would be for Danny to push his awareness enough to learn the identity of said betrothed, he resisted the urge to sate his curiosity given their origins.

He’d like to stay as far from UN#387JL1 and its constant problems as he reasonably could. So unless it was absolutely necessary, Danny was more than willing to leave his Ellie to clean up her mess. And if she was lucky she might be able to ask for Dan and the rest of the Council to help her.

He’d given the poor soul his regards and maybe if this candidate proved able to survive his Family’s brand of chaos, Danny would seek the other out again. 

Until then, Danny let Dan know as much sending a pulse of acceptance through their bond. With a grateful smile, he dismissed the Shadow of his beloved Corvus Court to go enjoy a treat in the kitchens. Before turning his attention back to the never-ending stack of complaints, unable to help but roll his eyes at the utter ridiculousness of some of them.

Not to mention, in the back of his mind, while she had acknowledged and allowed even the arrival of the poor soul Clockwork conned Ellie into conning into signing her marriage contract. Infi had immediately come forward to complain to him about the guest their daughter had forced her into accepting.

Listening to the conscious of his beloved home, rarely failed to bring a smile to his face despite being the cause of his eternal damnation addressing such tedious matters.

As he began to lock back into his work, he made a note to get back in contact with an old mentor of his.

Tim groaned. He felt so unbearably hot and every breath felt like liquid fire down to his lungs.

No matter which way he twisted and turned there was no relief to be found.

“Oh, sweetheart,” an unfamiliar voice sounded around him. Tim couldn’t determine where it came from the closest was it was in his head. Not that he cared when there was a distinct chill brought just by the sound of it, like a light snowfall. Tim wanted nothing more than for the owner of that voice to come closer.

“You’re burning up, oh dear.” As if understanding his desire, a brilliantly cold hand rested against his forehead and Tim didn’t bother to withhold his relieved moan at the soothing temperature.

The owner of the hand froze at the noise and moved to take back their hand. Tim was having absolutely none of that though as his sweaty palms shot up to grab hold of the cool hand. Dragging it back to face he nuzzled into the coolness, and if Tim had thought the man’s voice—because even delirious Tim could tell based on the feel of their hand, the long slender fingers and deceptively smooth skin for the firmness of their grip—sent delightful chills through his overheating body it had absolutely nothing on the amused yet tender purr that sounded upon Tim nuzzling his face into their hand.

The minuscule vibration of the cool hand had Tim forcing his eyes open, and he’d absolutely be blaming the fact that he’d been delirious from a fever for the way he’d only had eyes for the teen sitting beside him on what was likely a medical cot.

The teen was absolutely breathtaking, even in Tim’s unfocused vision. Despite Tim’s express wishing to burn the sight into his mind all that stuck was fluffy white hair and eyes that shifted between gorgeous blues and greens like the Northern Lights.

As lovely as the teen was to look at, most of Present Tim’s attention was caught on the wonderful purr erupting from the others test, and not even under the threat of torture would Tim admit to his embarrassing attempt to replicate it in that moment.

The soft icy—because warm was bad right now when he was so hot—chuckle it earned him however made the future embarrassment worthwhile, especially when the brought his free hand to card through Tim’s icky hair.

Tim moaned again at the relieving chill brought by the other, tugging more on the teen’s hand, allowing his eyes to close once again. The delirious part of him hoped if he whined and tugged enough on the hand that the teen would lay down beside him so Tim could curl into the others cold form and rest his head against the source of that delightfully cool purr.

“Sorry, darling,” the teen cooed apologetically trailing an icy hand down Tim’s cheek, “maybe next time. But until then I’ll wish you luck and leave you with a little gift that should help you.”

Even as he felt a pair of ice cold lips press against his forehead immediately sending a lasting coolness through him, Tim whined, as he felt the other beginning to pull away. He didn’t want the other to leave. It’d been so long that someone had touched him with care.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I won’t be far,” the teen was quick to respond to his reluctance, “even if you don’t pass you’ll always have a place here, whether it’s beside me or amongst my people.”

A heartbroken whine left Tim as he felt the cool hand he’d been nuzzling escaped his grasp giving one last shuffle through his hair before it left his side.

Tim had barely experienced the teen’s care yet now that it was gone he missed it so badly it was embarrassing. Tears unconsciously pooling in his eyes even as he returned to unconsciousness now that the cold presence of the teen vanished.

As he drifted off again, though this time blessedly cool, Tim swore he’d find that teen again. Even if it was just to experience five minutes of that unconditional care again.

Upon arriving at the Liminal Infirmary, Dan was greeted by the sight of a frenzied human Ellie being restrained at her armpits by two of Pandora’s arms. The sight threatened his frown as his lips twitched.

Pandora was the first to spot him, giving him a light nod of acknowledgment which Dan returned. The Ancient Greek Warrior was one of the few who had his respect, it was only reasonable given the woman had helped trained Danny and Ellie.

Anyone who could survive training those two little shits deserved at least that much.

Turning away from the humorous sight of his sister, he moved his attention to the frozen liminal, Prudence.

The woman’s were crooked into a relieved grin and Dan could feel her desire to hug her friends from across the hall. Turning to the vibrating Z and Owens, Dan sent them a pulse of acceptance that had them turning their attention back to him.

With a minute nod, the two grinned zooming over to tackle Prudence. Dan couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the emotions the trio were radiating for all to feel.

Z and Owens were doing rather well adapting to being ghosts, they were still learning to not project their emotions though. And judging by the embarrassment and shock coming from Prudence at the content purr escaping her throat, she likely still needed to see Jazz.

Dan would leave that task to Ellie, as he sure as hell did not want to subject himself to his Aunt’s enthusiastic practices. It was honestly disturbing how swiftly Jazz adapted her desired future as a mental health professional to fit in the Infinite Realms.

Of Danny’s Council, Jazz was the most busy given the ungodly amount of jobs she’d taken. She had taken full advantage of Tucker and Technus recording all the information on the internet in their origin universe, plus some bribery to Ghostwriter for some textbooks, to ensure she could finish her degree.

As of now, Jazz had opened a psychology practice with Spectra and a few other ghosts, where they all studied ghost psychology but also acted as therapists for the Realms. It was a surprisingly in high demand, Dan personally didn’t see the appeal, but Jazz also acted as a Liminal Instructor as she was the oldest in terms of liminality in the Realms at present, thus she knew the ropes of helping liminals adjust to their new state of existence.

But moral of that tangent was Aunt Jazz was fucking busy, not often having time to be with the family outside of planned events. And Dan was perfectly happy with that if it meant he wouldn’t be needled into unnecessary reflection. Danny felt the same even if he did miss his sister often.

Speaking of Danny, Dan frowned as he directed his attention to the room he knew the unconscious vigilante to be.

A quick glance at Pandora had him seeing her helpless smile, and a silent questioning  pulse to Ellie’s Shadow was all that was needed to feel the Shadow’s discontent.

Damnit, Danny. Dan dragged a hand down his face, even as moved toward Pandora’s side. Of course, his father wouldn’t stay put when he was told too.

As he plucked Ellie from the giant Greek’s arms, he gestured Pandora to follow him into the vigilante’s room. And sure enough as they stepped into the room, they were enveloped by the remains of Danny’s presence.

“I believe it is safe to assume he knows.” Pandora snorted, the actual meaning of her words going over Ellie’s head even as it snapped her back to reality.

Her head swerved to Dan her was holding her neck like a misbehaving kitten, eyes going wide like a deer in headlights.

“Dan!? It’s so nice to see you—” Ellie’s eyes trailed away from his face as they always did when she lied, only this time they ended up following on the vigilante’s annoyingly soothed face causing her to flail desperately in an attempt to distract him. “Err—What are you doing here, little brother? I thought you’d be busy training my new adventure companions!”

“Knows indeed” Dan sighed looking at Pandora, before training his glare on Ellie, his deadpan face causing his sister to deflate.

“Look technically, this is all Danny’s fault…” Ellie started before trailing off at the combined weight of Pandora and his glare. Shoulders hunched she looked at the floor, squeaking weakly. “It was an accident.”

“I know.” Dan started but he didn’t allow Ellie time to perk up, “Still doesn’t change the fact that it happened. So what are you going to do about it?”

“Uhh—“ Ellie shuffled about as Dan finally set her down.

“ Surely,” Dan drawled with a raised brow, “you’ve had plenty of time to think of possible solutions?”

“Err—“ Ellie averted her eyes momentarily, and Dan knew the second they landed on the vigilante. Her eyes suddenly brightened with that look of beginning frenzy as she perked up if a fire was lit under her, “What if we kill him? If we’re all here consuming the ectoplasm around us, even if we’re in the Realms surely there wouldn’t be enough to allow him to manifest as a ghost?”

Dan blinked. One second, two seconds, and Ellie was still looking at him as if she was waiting for praise for her genius.

“Sure, that could work if you’re willing to defend yourself against charges of treason.”

“Well…”The fact that his words only left her looking thoughtful, told him everything. His sister was an idiot. Not that that was new information.

Dan turned away from his sister’s hopeful eyes to pinch the bridge of his nose. Pandora taking pity on him.

“Unfortunately, Princess not even you and the young Prince would be able to avoid charges of treason for the murder of the Betrothed of the Realm’s Beloved.”

“But—“

“As loved as you are by your mother and father, dear, the matter of core-marriage is extremely sacred to being of eternity like ourselves. Distinct Bonds of Family like those between the King and his Family are rare, but they ultimately do not influence the Realms like a core-marriage would.”

“So…”Ellie deflated, sounding so lost that Dan’s core squeezed painfully, “Danny will just be forced to go through this core-marriage and just have to hope it works out because of my mistake?”

(Dan didn’t know why he’d been so surprised, Ellie remembered how undesirable a failed core-marriage would be for Danny. He knew his sister well enough now to know that she took Danny’s happiness very seriously.

Ancients, Danny’s entire Council had been forced to sit through a lecture on Bonds, but it had been Ellie, Tucker, Valerie, and Wesley who had been specifically educated on core-marriage in order for them to understand why Danny couldn’t just do it with one of them.

Honestly, they should have encouraged Ellie to see Jazz in regard to her extreme attachment to Danny. But everything was still too fresh for anyone being willing to risk either Danny or Ellie’s health. )

“I do not believe that to be the case, Princess.” Pandora interjected, expanding her presence to comfort them with her core. “At least from what I understood of the contracts. There was a reason I requested the young Prince’s presence.“

“Indeed.” In the face of their inquiring eyes, Dan gave up his goal of making Ellie suffer a bit more. “While this Robin or whatever is technically Danny’s Betrothed, it’s more like the guy has agreed to be tested for his  qualifications, worthiness, and capability to be Danny’s partner.”

“Okay, sounds easy enough!” Ellie nodded, with a determined look in her eyes. “So how do we make him fail?”

“It’s not that simple, Ellie.” Dan wished it was though, “If we purposefully go about judging and testing him with the intent to have him fail, then the contract will render our judgments invalid.”

“So we can’t just say he failed?” Ellie groaned, turning to glare at the vigilante. “What if we just erase his memories and throw him back into the living realm?”

Dan sighed utterly exasperated. Honestly, if Ellie hadn’t brought the damn guy into the Realms than that might have worked, at least for the rest of the guy’s living life, and if they were lucky he would never be exposed to enough ectoplasm to become a ghost.

That would’ve been a perfect world. Unfortunately, Ellie had brought the vigilante to the Realms, meaning Danny was notified in advance by Infi of a potential core-marriage candidate.

So not only had the vigilante gotten the Realms’ acknowledgment but he’d also gotten Danny’s. As if that wasn’t bad enough, apparently Dan hadn’t been fast enough in informing Danny he’d take care of everything, because their fucking father had been here.

The fact that Ellie hadn’t noticed the way the vigilante was saturated in Danny’s ectoplasm was concerning, but he figured Ellie was consciously ignoring it as though it didn’t exist if she didn’t acknowledge it. Ancients, Dan wanted to strange his dad.

Ellie’s Shadow had reported that the vigilante was currently experiencing an extreme fever as his body fought against the overdose of ectoplasm. Frostbite and the other doctors had done everything they could, but the vigilante’s Will was strong and was putting up quite the fight against the ectoplasm trying to change his biology.

Ancients, originally the plan had been to restore the boy’s spleen with ectoplasm, but the boy had been fighting against it too much so they ended up having to removed his spleen. Dan could see it in the corner of his eye in a vat of ectoplasm that was working to repair it.

Without his spleen, the boy’s fever had skyrocketed and Frostbite did his best to get his temperature back down, that was all he could do though.

As things were going, Ellie’s desire for the teen’s death didn’t seem so far out of reach.

Yet here the teen was barely even flushed, body back to room temperature as the internal conflict of his body ceased.

Dan should’ve realized Danny had already intervened from his easy acceptance before.

Even across the room however he could feel Danny’s blessing and claim on the teen assisting the teen’s will in keeping the ectoplasm trying the invade his body contained into a mark on his forehead.

Dan made a mental note to ask what the fuck Danny did. He’d never heard of it being possible to keep someone from turning liminal.

“Honestly,” Dan turned his attention back to Ellie and Pandora, “you’re not that far off. We will not be keeping him in the Realms while he is being tested. The main question is how much do we tell him?”

“We are not telling Danny anything!” Ellie protested.

“Obviously.” Dan rolled his eyes, both Pandora and him refraining from mentioning that Danny already knew everything. “I was referring to our guest over there.”

“Ohh.” Ellie turned to glare at the guy. It was honestly amusing to see the constant shifts in her attitude towards the guy. “Do we really have to tell him anything? Won’t he be more likely to fail if he knows nothing? There’s no way he won’t try to succeed if he knows about Danny!”

Honestly, Ellie’s idea wasn’t far off from Dan’s own. It’d be easier to test the guy if he didn’t know they were testing him. Pretending as though the bird had really only signed a secretary contract could work in their favor.

As for Ellie’s hopes of keeping the guy away from Danny, they weren’t exactly wrong. Danny had grown into an absolutely gorgeous specimen according to his old classmates. Dan was honestly disgusted with how easily Danny managed to honeytrap mortals during the war.

The less said about ghosts, dead-adjacent, and Liminals, the better. They all instinctively found power attractive, and Danny’s status as High King of the Infinite Realms said enough about the power he possessed.

Pandora and Dan both turned away from Ellie’s determined gaze. They couldn’t bear to tell Ellie that it was likely already too late.

Dan could feel it in the claim on the vigilante that the teen definitely had Danny’s attention already.

“I believe, the young Prince already has a plan Princess.” Pandora started, sending Dan a knowing smile as she moved to dismiss herself. “As my presence is no longer required at the moment, I will take my leave. I wish you both luck.”

Bidding the Ancient farewell, Dan pulled his sister over to the chairs at the teen’s side and began to fill her in on his plan.

Chapter Text

Tim wasn’t burning anymore.

He wasn’t entirely sure when that changed, long having lost his sense of time, the only points of reference being the aching pain, unbearable fever heat, and the constant green glow engulfing his vision. At some point, though, the effects of being exposed to whatever the fuck had been through that Lazarus water green portal had faded.

Tim was pretty sure he'd woken up a few times, the heat threatening to cook him alive as though he'd been shoved into an oven. With only the buzz and thrumming of his heart in his head, he swore he'd go insane until the delightful sound of clinking ice and chiming bells formed into words. The words accompanied by a soft sound, almost a purr, that Tim would swear lowered the very temperature around him, and a blessedly icy hand rested against his burning skin.

That chilly voice and adoring touch had taken away the unbearable heat. In fact, he wasn’t really hurting anymore. Of course, there was an ache around his stomach where the sword had gone right through him, but it was along the lines of an aching sore of healing tissue. 

His first thought was of inspecting the wound, looking it over to see how far along the healing process was so he'd be able to get on with his mission, only to smacked over the head with how heavy his limbs felt. Slowly but surely, with excruciating effort he had his hand twitching a few inches, as though his brain was trying to remember how to control it. It was moving, though. A relieving first sign since being dragged into that portal that he was anything more than a bundle of pain without form or substance.

He had substance—God, he'd never thought that could be so relieving—he could feel his limbs and body, however heavy and slow they were to respond. There was no more of that disconcerting feeling as though gravity had released him and he was separated from the physical plane. Now he was resting on something solid but soft—heavenly levels of soft.

A coffin, a morbid part of his mind suggested.

Tim suppressed a grimace at the possibility that he may need to dig out of his own grave like Jason had too. Thankfully, there was definitely light shining through his eyelids, meaning he hadn't been buried yet.

So, the coffin hadn't been closed yet—that morbid part snarked. Tim prepared himself to put an end to that line of thought only to freeze.

“Hey!” That was a voice, but not one he knew. No, that wasn’t quite right — he had heard it before, at some point while he was burning up, speaking with someone else about things Tim’s mind had failed to comprehend. But it also sounded oddly similar to the chilly voice that had cooled him down, more airy though like whistling winds. “Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

Tim tried to reply, really he did, but his mouth was struggling to form anything even resembling words. He managed a strangled sound, though, something between a groan and a whine, filled with the confusion he desperately wanted to hide. Tim hated not knowing something, he was even worse about it then Bruce was sometimes, mainly when it concerned his obsessions cases. 

“Oh good. I was going to smack you if you took any longer." The words were accompanied by a deeper snort ringing out from another direction, and a harsh pat on Tim's face. "Earth to the birdbrain! Focus will you! We've got a lot we need to cover!"

At first, Tim didn’t know who the “we” was supposed to be, didn’t know if he could trust them or if he even should. But within moments the memories about making a contract with some Pit Demon were rushing to the front and Tim was bolting up despite his aching body's protest. 

"Great!" Without regard for Tim's dawning horror at the appearance of what he could only describe as a genderbent Demon Spawn—though there were little discrepancies like the speckled-green blue eyes and deathly pale skin tone—the girl clapped with a grin that made Tim regret everything. "Now, if Danny was here he'd probably give you time to rest, but he's not and I don't care! Here's what you need to know—"

Tim's head was spinning as information was dumped on him, the girl giving zero fucks about his pleas for her to slow down or answer his questions. Before he even started to process the first bit he was being tossed through another green portal along with Pru. The pair landing back in the warehouse just in time for a group of League Assassins to restrain them and carry them off to Ra's.

All that Tim got from that information dump being he'd be tested for his qualifications of being a secretary and to expect Pit Demons to be intruding in his life now.

Tim swore. "What the fuck..."

It’s not exactly news that John Constantine HATED people, and the less said about the Justice League as a whole the better.

It came with the job—well if you’d could fucking call it a job, not like it paid well—of dealing with the supernatural. You could only clean up the mess of a bunch of drunk of their asses college students accidentally summoning a demon, and cult-ish slumber parties hosted by girls trying to commune with the dead before you eventually lost hope for humanity as a whole.

Like Constantine wasn’t one to judge—he absolutely was—but you’d think humanity would actually hesitate when treating the supernatural like fucking fairytales when fucking SUPERHEROES existed.

Apparently that was too much to ask though!

More than half of the time Constantine got called in, it was to clean up the unsightly demise of people way in over their heads—and again unfortunately having to save the soul of some poor kid that was “scarified” for laughs at a party.

The rest of the time, he was typically dealing desperate people. Of course, the term desperate was rather loose, covering quite the wide variety of fuckers John had the misfortune of having to deal with.

From narcissists who believed they outwit fate with a smile or charm their way out of a horrible death or servitude with a wink—as if the otherworldly beings they were dealing with were bound by the same beauty standards as man. To of course, skeptics that believed dealing with the Devil was merely fable, and failed to acknowledge what was right in front of them.

The worst of the lot were actually desperate people. People who would give anything for more—be it a single chance, just one more breath, or simply a wish for power—because you could never be sure where those people started from.

(John didn’t often allow himself to feel much empathy for those dealing with the supernatural. But even he’d admit to the way his heart would squeeze in the face of a child or parent warped beyond repair by a deal made with misplaced faith and manipulated hope.)

Anyways, John Constantine had known a lot of desperate people in his lifetime, so you’d think he’d have a harder time picking which of those encounters finally made him lose hope for humanity, and yet…

It is with utmost irritation—bordering on murderous rage—that John Constantine had the absolute misfortune of regularly dealing with the Justice League, who somehow manage to tick every bloody box.

And that had to say something about the utter hopelessness of the universe he lived in.

Fuck, at this point John was running on alcohol, cigarettes, and absolute spite—plus a healthy dose of fear regarding the inevitable consequences of his dealings with the supernatural that would arrive with his death.

The formation of Justice League Dark, only made everything worse, what with John now being forced to constantly deal with idealistic idiots due to that bastard Bat wrapping a metaphorical chain around his neck with blackmail.

And John would like to clarify that he did NOT give in to the Batman’s pathetic attempt to use mortal blackmail against him—John was, well not pleased but close enough, to say he’d long ago abandoned thoughts about dignity and shame especially in the face of creatures that could peer into your very soul.

No, John had caved on the fact that the rest of the bloody fucks that were to be in this supposed Justice League Dark were absolute push overs in the face of the common League—sorry not sorry, Zatanna. It was the truth and she knew it. John, as much as he hated humanity, would rather not allow paranoid impulsive fucks like the common League to have complete access to the supernatural.

And yeah, he knows . He’d been told a hundred times by a trusted source that the name was pathetic. Mind you, and John will quote these words directly to Batsy’s eternally constipated face, “It’s pitiful—slightly cooler than the plain old Justice League, but still pathetic—like soooo pathetic,”

He’d end the quote there when he eventually threw it in the damn Bat’s face, which was a shame since John had to admit his source was right on the money with the rest of it going along the lines of, “—especially for those in the know . It’s not exactly a secret that Batman trained with the League of Assassins. Like the man couldn’t even base it on his roots? But noooo , he just had to pick an equally generic lame-ass name as the group that trained him, at least the Court of Owls sounds original!“

Which brings us to the only good thing resigning himself to cleaning up after super-powered paranoid idiots brought him! His wonderful trusted source who also happened to be his apprentice!

The irony was unfortunately not lost to him that he had the Bat to thank for the only light in his life, in more ways than one, not that it would stop him from cursing the damn Bat in increasingly petty ways.

See, John had survived as long as he had dealing with the supernatural by taking the words of “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” to heart, along with “ignorance is bliss” to a certain degree.

After all, with the vast infinity of universes that the supernatural had at their finger—in a manner of speaking—tips, most of the serious threats wouldn’t descend upon them without an invitation .

Unfortunately, Batman had absolutely no respect for that. And apparently neither did most of the bloody tyrant’s associates.

Because one moment, John was finally able to drink himself into unconsciousness. In the next, he was tied to a chair, in some random ass warehouse, surrounded by generic ass ninja-assassins, as a pretty—in human standards at least—raven-haired woman demanded everything he knew about supernatural claims on souls.

Did he forget to mention that a knife was being held to his throat by the very same pretty lady, who also happened to have one of the most confusing aura of death  he’d ever experienced. What about the fact that basically everyone else had that same aura though significantly weaker.

He couldn’t even play dumb, because apparently these bastards knew the Bat.

And look, you could throw around insults at John all you wanted but to insinuate his only usefulness was to be a pretty—which was a rather nice way to describe John’s scruffy appearance—face for Batman was just bloody rude.

John had taste , thank you very much. And paranoid emo’s with an eternally constipated face, and an unrealistic idealistic moral code, sure as fuck wasn’t something even a monster-fucker like John wanted to touch with a nine-foot pole.

Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing for him to say aloud, given the circumstances, but John would say it rather well given he was still alive.

His long-winded vitriol at the simple implication he’d willingly fuck the Bat that brought him so much grief, as he went off on a tangent on all the ways dear old Batsy and his crew nearly fucked the universe over, was absolutely a side effect of all the alcohol he drank loosening his brain to mouth filter.

But it’d turn out he was in good company—as in a fellow Batman hater’s—as his rant was rewarded with an amused snort from the lady and having the blade removed from his throat.

Of course, he didn’t manage to escape the whole interrogation but he’d in the very least have a bit more warning before he died. And then the lady went on and on about finding him for advice on a specific matter.

(Because apparently that was a thing . Kidnap and threaten the guy you hoped would be able to help you.)

Anyways, John was in a slightly better mood—not really, but he’d take what he could get—so he listened and then kindly informed the unfortunate woman that it sounded like her child was fucked unless she managed to find something of equal value to replace them as a sacrifice.

Needless to say, the pretty woman had not taken that information well and John now had a gnarly gash in his thigh, not to mention the throbbing headache and stench of garbage clinging to him after they knocked him out and threw him in a dumpster.

Fuck—no actually, may the bloody old Batsy face damnation in the pettiest of ways.

John had been more than happy to toss the whole miserable exchange behind him, even if he felt it was regrettable he didn’t get the lady’s number to at least have someone to share his grievances against the Bat into the world with.

But bloody hell, John could never have nice things.

It started a week after he’d woken up in a dumpster with a killer hangover. He’d been in the middle of a routine demon banishment when the most horrifying aura he’d ever experienced swallowed him, the sudden pressure nearly sending him to his knees.

Whatever it was had one of the most fucking irreverent and powerful imps John had ever had the displeasure of dealing with willingly sever a binding contract to in order to flee. And fuck did that mean Constantine wanted to just ignore it and go about his business as if nothing happened, so he did just that.

Unfortunately, John had already made the mistake of looking at it . He didn’t even know where to start in regard to how much he wished it was possible to bleach his brain and eyes.

The closest thing John could get to describing it was along the lines of an unholy octopus and squid hybrid with dagger-tooth barbed tentacles with beady eyes covering the expanse of its green flesh. Yet such a description did not do justice to the horrific nightmare-inducing eldritch entity he’d glimpsed.

As if the thing‘s appearance wasn’t enough to haunt his nightmares, the thing had taken to following him.

And it’d been great the first day or two as the things presence made his job so much easier given everything he encountered was deathly afraid of whatever it was. But then it wasn’t leaving—fuck, not even the House of Mystery allowed him to ditch the thing long.

By the time a month had passed, the creature had stalked him through a good portion of Europe even despite John’s constant use of the House.

(In hindsight, John probably should have suspected the House was messing with him too.)

And fuck, John was suddenly all too conscious of eyes following him now. He’d swear the bloody thing was playing hide and seek with him, he hadn’t exactly been wrong about that either.

It took two months—two fucking months, which was rather embarrassing on John’s part for letting it go on for so long—before he finally noticed something off about the creature. Though that was probably because he never allowed himself to look at it for long enough to notice.

When he finally did, it was honestly because John just wanted the thing to get on with whatever it was planning.

Despite following him around for months, the entity rarely actually trained its thousands of eyes at him, even when he often thought it looked at him most of the eyes remained focused on the same thing.

Upon realizing that, John started to subject himself to actually looking at the cursed thing. And before long he realized that the majority of the things limbs were wrapped around something as if trying to swallow it with a smothering embrace.

Now it should be noted at this point, John was working on very very little sleep due to paranoia that the blasted thing would do something. So he may have been slightly insane, when he finally yelled at the thing after it scared away an informant. “Bloody Hell! You absolute git , I’ve bloody had it with you! It’s been months, what do you fucking want from me?!”

He remembers fighting to remain standing as for the first time the thing actually looked at him. His knees threatening to buckle as the pressure of a thousands of eyes fixed on him with dissatisfaction, that horrifying yet confusing aura of death multiplying.

In that moment as bristling limbs unfurled toward him intent to end a threat, as they caught the murderous intent in his words, John thought’d that would be the end of his life.

And then, the moment was pierced by a giggling voice that echoed through the abandoned alleyway. “Wow, she really scared you, huh?”

Fuck, Constantine had never liked kids, nor was he particularly soft with them, but in that moment his heart fucking jumped into his throat when the thing moved toward the voice. Despite the relief of those thousands of eyes leaving him, it was solely instinct that had him immediately dashing forward to tackle whatever stinking brat wandered over.

It was only when he’d gotten his arms around the kid, and the pressure of the eyes returned with a vengeance, that the kid spoke up again though his voice was more breathless with wonder.

“You really do see her, don’t you?”

“What are you talking about brat?” And just as he’d done two months ago, John made the mistake of looking.

The boy was certainly going to be a looker—he didn’t mean that in a weird way either—honestly the boy reminded him quite a bit of the lady that kidnap him a while ago. And it was that thought combined with the brillant neon green sigil crawling up the boy’s left arm that the pieces came together in his sleep-deprived and panicked head.

A quick glance over at the thing hovering just a bit away glaring at him and focusing solely on his feelings of protection for the kid in his arms, was enough to give him confirmation of his thoughts as the being’s limbs retreated and the pressure lessened severely.

“Bloody Hell, I need a drink…” John cursed releasing the boy before allowing himself to plop gracelessly against the dirty alley floor.

The raven haired brat rolled his brillant blue eyes, scrunching his little nose up at the fact John willing lay on the grim-covered ground.

In the crevices of his mind that weren’t preoccupied with the revelation that just smacked him over the head, John made note that this kid needed to be kept away from the damn Bat least the bastard turn another kid into a soldier.

Though he supposed if his thoughts were correct the kid probably already was one, and one whose life was already on a timer.

And that is how John met his impish nine-year-old apprentice, Danyal Al Ghul, or simply Danny.

Well it’d actually take a few more months before John caved to an absolutely peeving amount of petty pranks, and if it hadn’t been the pranks it would’ve probably been to escape Infi’s—because of course the thing had a name—pressuring gaze not that the brat’s was much better.

It’d been against his better judgment to willingly allow himself to get attached to a kid with an expiration date that was inching closer with every passing day. Let alone one with origins as complicated as the brat’s.

Though he would say it’d been an absolutely wonderful ego-boost to be able to spend many a long nights bitching about Batman, with the emo’s sunshine child who was all to happy to throw shade on the Big Bat as well!

(Danny had definitely taken after Diana in terms of personality.)

It was hard though. Watching his brat grow, eagerly sucking in everything John taught him like a human sponge, and yet constantly have the reminder that his kid was on the clock thanks to that damn glowing sigil stating an indisputable claim on the boy’s soul.

Against his better judgment, John had gotten in contact with his brat’s mother, Talia, in hopes they could work together to find out how to save Danny.

It’d not been too shocking to learn his apprentice was part of a cult of Assassins.  It was however a shock to learn his sunshine brat was the Heir, and not only that but the kid had three parents. Something that John theorized was only possible thanks to the heavy influence that green liquid the cult called Lazarus Water had on the boy.

The fact that the liquid was basically the only thing keeping him physical body stable, was probably also how whatever entity that dwelled in the Pits could stake claim to the Boy’s soul.

John had two working theories; one, the Pits had gifted Danny to the League for a price they’d yet to meet; or two, that the League had somehow accidentally stolen Danny’s soul from the Pits and they wanted him back.

Unfortunately, John was leaning towards the second theory. And it was later proven true when the Pits snatched his fourteen year old apprentice up.

Talia wasn’t a great mother—anyone who said otherwise was simply spouting platitudes—she knew she wasn’t.

She loved Damien. Really, she did. Damien was a wonderful son, looking remarkably like herself. Though he was a bit of a prideful hardhead like his father, but despite this he did his utmost to obey and please her.

But being his mother was second to ensuring he met the standards of the League, not to mention trying to meet the expectations of her Father.

Yet, while Talia would never ask for a better son, the truth was that she never had too…

The reality was, that while Damien was raised to be an adequate successor to the Demon Head, he had never been considered for the position.

In fact, Damien had never been seen as exceptional in the League’s eyes. Her son met the standards of the League, even exceeded his peers, but it wasn’t and wouldn’t ever be enough.

This lacking of his had never been a point of serious contention, not until Talia was forced to address the enormous chasm her son was left to fill.

God, Talia loved Damien. She was content with calling him her son. It wasn’t enough though. Damien wasn’t enough, as much as it hurt her to say.

Where Damien was the moon that would shine in the night, Danyal Al Ghul was the very sun that allowed the moon to shine.

Danyal had been her first true child—in this timeline at least—as accidental as he had been. Talia had been in the midst of trying to create an heir between Wonder Woman and herself. The possibility of the League’s heir being a demigod too good to pass up, especially when Talia had managed to get a perfectly good egg from Wonder Woman.

It had been an error on her part to have forgotten about it after falling into bed with Bruce—even if she’d been eager to steal his sperm.

It was a thought constantly on her mind, if she had already been pregnant when that mission went wrong and she’d been dunked into the pits. Even once she’d emerged from the pits, they’d be unaware of her pregnancy until three months after she’d slept with Bruce.

Danyal had not been expected, shouldn’t have been possible for him to survive given the circumstances, but Ra’s and her had thought it was in good fortune to allow the pregnancy to come to terms.

It would be the first and only pregnancy Talia would ever experience. After all the League couldn’t afford to have her out of action constantly for nine months straight.

It also meant, the emotions attached to each of her sons’ births were drastically different.

Whereas, Talia spent nine months consciously assisting Danyal develop in her womb and experiencing the wonders and misery of pregnancy, Damien had been far more hands off as he’d been developed in an incubation tube and Talia did not need to be conscious of it.

Talia had never felt such unconditional love for another life so strongly until a giggling Danyal had been placed in her arms after a difficult labor.

Danyal had been the sun in her life, giving Talia a taste of freedom she’d never known she’d desired. Freedom that was now allowed given Danyal had her Father wrapped around his fingers the moment he was born.

Beside such an experience, it was honestly embarrassing to admit that she’d been rather indifferent to Damien’s birth. The most reaction from her being the desire to let Danyal know he was now an older brother. Besides that moment where she held baby Damien to show him to Danyal, she’d left his care to the nursemaids contrary to how she’d handled Danyal.

It was only through Danyal’s efforts that she’d later even come to love Damien as more than a spare, let alone actively refer to him as her son.

Despite growing to love Damien however, it did not change the fact that being his mother had never been her priority as it had been for Danyal.

Before Mother and Son, it was always Superior and Subordinate.

She could only be grateful that Damien had never held it against her, though she knew he craved that unconditional love from her. It was just an accepted fact between them that Danyal would always be first choice for them both. Affirmed in the face of what essentially amounted to a timed noose around Danyal’s neck.

Just because Damien held no hard feelings about it didn’t mean her beloved eldest was the same.

The differing nature of her love for each of her sons, had been the only consistent source of contention between Danyal and her.

But Talia had been trying! She was trying so damn hard to love Damien as the boy deserved and as her eldest wished.

It was hard though, so hard when a part of her knew that Damien was part of the reason Danyal was gone.

She knew it wasn’t her youngest’s fault. She knew that! If it was anyone’s fault it would be Ra’s and hers.

After all, they’d created Damien in hopes the boy could act as a replacement for Danyal to be sacrificed to the Pits. They should’ve made sure Danyal never got attached to the spare.

This did not change the fact that Damien had been involved in Danyal’s disappearance, and that her youngest refused to tell her what happened.

All she could do was keep her youngest from her sight, somewhat safe with his father, before she did something her eldest would never forgive her for.

So yes. Talia knew she wasn’t fit to be a mother, but god was she trying despite her own nature.

Chapter Text

Danny had been a very active kid.

As a Fenton, it went without saying that he’d taken classes for almost every type of self-defence that Amity Park offered. Maddie had thought it imperative that Jazz and him knew how to properly defend themselves. It was the only time the woman was even the slightest bit motherly, though it was often ruined by her mentioning not wanting them to get in the way during a fight.

After Jazz became interested in psychology, she’d often tell Danny that women were supposed to develop a maternal instinct that would assist them in raising children, it happened for men too but societal pressures often stamped it out. Jazz said that there were occasions when a mother didn’t develop those instincts though, needless to say, Maddie had been one of those mothers.

Before he was old enough to truly acknowledge what that meant, Danny had found it humorous how many of the gender norms the Fentons’ contradicted. Maddie had been the physical one in the family, and not in terms of affection, rather in the might makes right way. On the other hand, Jack had been both the intellectual parent, despite his hulking form and preference for hugs, not to mention the only one Jazz and him could rely on for emotional support.

Honestly, the pair of siblings had spent many a nights, the older they got, wondering how their parents ever managed to marry.

Of course, as all things did with the Fentons, it all came down to the ghosts, and the oddly familiar green liquid Danny’s parents called Ectoplasm.

Maddie and Jack Fenton were obsessed with ghosts. To the point that calling it an obsession was too mild a word.

And hell did that obsession make them absolutely blind to how miserable of a couple they were.

While Jazz and him had been less than enthused by the subject of their parents obsession, it was more so Jazz than Danny. Danny was of the opinion that there could be worse things for their parents to be obsessed with.

The then thirteen-almost-fourteen year old would choose ghosts any day over let’s say demons .

Hell, it had been a miracle the siblings had survived as long as they did while suffering the consequences of their parents’ lacking lab safety and common sense. Dead people weren’t a great option, and Danny was sure they’d end up brutally murdered at some point whether by an angry neighbor or a whatever spirits did exist, but at least Danny didn’t have to worry about his parents sacrificing his soul  or virginity to some demon.

Thankfully instead of cult gatherings, and blood sacrifices in the name of family bonding, Danny got camping trips to long abandoned areas where he could see the stars and quality tinkering time with Jack in the lab as well as the garage’s workshop.

Yeah, the bullying, general isolation, slight humiliation, and all that jazz—hah, see what he did there Jazz—sucked ass, but Danny was alive .

Not only was he alive, but he was on track to accomplish his dreams of becoming an astronaut. He’d even been taking gymnastics classes and been running to increase his endurance!

And the best part is that his family completely supported his dream! Despite how utterly obsessed his parents were with ghosts they did not expect Danny or Jazz to follow in their footsteps.

(Well Jack didn’t. Maddie they couldn’t be sure, Danny didn’t think she’d ever bothered herself with learning what Jazz and him wanted to do with their lives. It was rather sad that within six-months time, Danny would later be able to say his arch-nemesis knew more about him than his own mother.)

Danny should’ve known better though.

He couldn’t quite place what event had left him with the belief that something was bound to go wrong when he felt his life was coming together, but it was one of the many things he never looked to deeply into.

(There were others, like how little he looked like his parents. He looked similar enough to Jack with his coloring, and his frame was close to Maddie’s but that was where the similarities ended. There was no evidence of adoption or surrogacy though. And Jazz had made him swear to never mention it to their parents, specifically Maddie.

Learning that for the last fourteen years, his—“ghosts don’t exist”—older sister had firmly believed he was a changeling, had been exactly what Danny needed to let Jazz back into his life.

Jazz certainly wasn’t one to believe in supernatural nonsense like the Fae, but she hadn’t been willing to risk the possibility of her parents, namely Maddie, believing Danny to be a changeling.

Much to Danny’s disappointment though, he was not in fact a changeling but the idea certainly made him laugh. )

Sure, enough his happy—if not semi-irregular but certainly not healthy—family life, and well just life in general, came crashing down around him with enough electricity to power a city the size of New York and then some.

(Which looking back on it, the Fenton’s had absolutely no business having access to that much electricity. He’d bet the only reason they never got a visit from the CIA or FBI was because of the GIW.)

One moment, he was Daniel “Danny” Fenton showing off the lab and failed portal to Tucker, his best friend of seven years, and their newer friend Sam, due to Sam pressuring him.

In the next, Danny was posing for a photo in the portal when he saw a discomfortingly familiar symbol, and the next he was falling.

His outstretched hand, from the moment he’d raised it to check out the symbol, grabbing at the symbol after one of the fucking wires to come alive—he swears it did, he’d never been allowed the luxury to be clumsy and he’d been extremely conscious about where he stepped—and wrap around his ankle, only to hear it make the decisive click of an On switch.

Then there was loud mechanic whirling, and Danny didn’t have enough time to make out what Tucker was screaming about, before it was just pain and green. A familiar comforting green that forced itself painfully through every orifice of his body as if it was determined to turn him inside out.

And despite how utterly painful it all was Danny was suddenly reminded of a very similar time. Only Danny had accepted the pain in order to protect his little brother—but he didn’t have a brother, only because he’d given that up to ensure the other lived—now he needed to protect Jazz, Tucker, and Sam.

Just a few days shy of his fourteenth birthday, Daniel James Fenton died again and again and again and again and again and again and again in the Portal that his parents had spent their lives creating. And remembered his equally short lifetime as Danyal Al Ghul, when the Infinite Realms welcomed him home with open arms.

Needless, to say experiencing such a traumatically painful welcome—to a home he had never made it too—did not endear either Dannys to Infi, not even Danyal’s fond memories of the other could soothe the ache from what felt like an absolute betrayal.

So Danny had fled back to the Living World, rocketing through the portal just as he returned to human form to find Sam missing and Tucker sobbing as he desperately tried to turn off the power.

Tucker had nearly squeezed the remaining life out of him, thanking the heaven that Danny was alive, and Danny didn’t have the heart to tell the other the truth, simply making a joke that it looked liked his parents did end up sacrificing him for some otherworldly power before he passed out.

Upon looking in the bathroom mirror following the accident, and his body being an exact match to the fourteen year old body of Danyal Al Ghul, Danny knew the truth.

Daniel James Fenton had never existed as anything more than a name, a civilian identity if you would. Danny had surprised himself with how easily he’d thrown the name away.

Ignoring the following month of narily a wink of sleep, spent reconciling the differences of his two lifetimes and coming to terms with who he truly was—not who he wanted to be, nor needed to be.

Feeling utterly isolated in a way he’d never experienced in either of his short lifetimes. And the less than hero-like ideal choices he’d made because of it.

He supposed it made sense though, his only attachment to it had been due to fears that Jazz and Tucker would reject him as Danyal Al Ghul.

(Danny would later lie to Dan, by telling the other that the process of getting his memories of his life as an Al Ghul been a smooth transition.

As though Danny hadn’t been devastated at the thought of losing either of the families he’d created for himself.

As though he hadn’t spent a living month—and who knows how long in the Realms—trying to find his original universe to make sure his mother, little brother, and people were okay.

The fact that he’d knowing left his most trusted subordinates with a message  on how to find him despite knowing it’d kill them painfully and trap them in the same miserable eternity.

Instead, he’d tell the other that he’d been greeted by his Shadows the moment he was on the other side, and had simply run away due to still being in the Fentons’ mindset of ghosts equals bad.)

They never rejected him though, and Danny was pretty sure they had suspicions him too especially after they all learned Tucker was the reincarnation of a Pharaoh. They never confronted him about it though, simply reminding him that they loved him as he is at his core.

In fact, the two had gone through a humorous amount of effort in order to compile evidence of how little he had changed from before and after the Portal.

It had been eye-opening for sure to learn that even with a completely different childhood he’d acted the exact same, if not lighter and feeling more free.

Jazz had fucking mourned the fact that his death had burdened him with responsibilities he never wanted.

It had definitely allowed Danny to feel comfortable sharing bits about himself that he only knew because of his other life, even if he never specifically confirmed or referred to it as such.

Like the fact he could say with absolute certainty that he had been a very active kid.

Both as a Fenton and an Al Ghul, he hated having to sit still.

One would think that such a quality would be beaten out of the Heir to an Assassin Cult—the thought made him giggle—and you’d be right, but Danny would never deny the fact that his grandfather had allowed him more leeway compared to others.

Just as he wouldn’t lie and say that leeway wasn’t earned through him proving time and again that his will and stubbornness was far superior to his grandfather’s no matter how often the other attempted to beat the quality out of him.

Don’t get him wrong, Danny could do his part as an absolutely flawless heir, he could mask his emotions, and end a life without a thought. But at the day’s end he was still Danny, and not even the Demon Head could cow the individuality in Danny, nor could the man inspire absolute obedience—which he demanded from the rest of the League, be they family or numbers to the ranks—in him.

It had left Danny with a form of freedom wholly different from the kind he’d experienced as a Fenton. Freedom in the knowledge that his position in life had already been determined and reserved, and all that was left was for him to enjoy the world as he bettered himself.

Of course, it had been that freedom that had blinded him from realizing how precarious his little brother’s position was. Yet as cruel as it sounds, Danny was glad he never noticed until it was almost too late.

Because otherwise he’d never experienced life as a Fenton, would never have met Jazz or Tucker and everyone else be they mortals or ghosts that would one day be part of his little family.

He’d known Clockwork’s scheme from all those years ago would catch up with him someday, and as annoying as the Ancient was, Danny was grateful for his interference.

He’d still never call the guy his mentor though. To call him so would be an absolute disrespect to John and Selina, who despite not being the most conventional of mentors at least cared enough about his opinion before involving him in their schemes.

Here’s to praying that they didn’t yell at him too much for suddenly vanishing on them all those months ago.

The day had been difficult. Not even in a way that Constantine could blame on the usual mischief of the Supernatural, not when even the imps were somber.

One would think, John would be grateful for the opportunity to drown himself at the bottom of a bottle. But silence in the midst of hyperactive Supernaturals was never a good thing. Only this time there really seemed to be no scheme that Constantine could find, hell every avenue he tried came up empty.

And bloody hell, he’d even called his coworkers to see if they had anything he could work on. The inactivity was driving him insane when he couldn’t even indulge in his usual routine of drinking himself to oblivion. He would finally be able to break the streak today, but he’d have to wait.

Blasted Gods, John hadn’t had a drop of the liquid ambrosia that was basically his life blood, in a bloody month. A painful, absolutely miserable month of sobriety eased only by an even heavier use of cigarettes.

It sure hadn’t been an entirely voluntary choice either. Nah, it had started as a bloody useless stress response that even daring to think of drinking had John nearly hacking up his guts and even getting the slightest buzz sent him spiraling into a panic attack. Not that something like that could stop him, but in return for information on those blasted pits it had been a sacrifice he’d been all too willing to make.

And fuck had he needed a drink the entire bloody month of February. The whole month had been an absolute nightmare.

First, John was experiencing a forced month of sobriety for the third year in a row, then there was drama in the Bat family as the blasted Bat picked up an absolute demon of a brat. As if that wasn’t enough younger heroes were dying left and right, and then there was that whole thing with Darkseid.

The Justice League was an absolute mess because apparently the damn Bat was dead—yeah right—and then the Bat’s replacement replaced the only Robin John had ever tolerated with an intolerably snotty Demon Brat.

If that hadn’t been annoying enough, then it was the fact the damn good-to-shoes of the League chased away the only lead John had on the Bloody Bat’s location and status.

And don’t get John wrong, he hated the Bat, but he hated the rest of the League more, at least the old Bat typically kept his nose out of Constantine’s shit.

Drinking had been the only thing keeping him sane in the middle of all nonsense, so trauma suddenly preventing him from doing just that was threatening to drown him.

But as stressful as the situation with the League was it had absolutely nothing on the stress brought by even daring to think about taking a drink in February.

Danny would’ve turned seventeen on the 12 of February had the mischievous sunshine still been around. And it was impossible to drink without remembering how he’d failed his apprentice three years ago, too drunk off his ass to assist him when he needed it so the brat had run off and gotten tangled up in something bigger than anything John could ever imagine.

It was January 1st, and by all rights John should have been at the bottom of a bottle  from the start of the morning, but while the thought of drinking in February was miserable, drinking alone on this particular day was absolutely forbidden.

With heavy steps, John pushed through the door of a dingy bar located in a rundown alley of Berlin, Germany. The slightest of smiles rising across his lips at the sight of the two woman at the counter who turned to greet him.

He doubted there would be a day he managed to beat either of them, then again he never really tried John would never be the most punctual person, not even to the end of the world if he could help it. 

Anyways, John wasn’t allowed to drink alone because today was the 3rd year anniversary of when they noticed they lost Danny. And when he says they, he is referring to his present best friends—as odd of a thought that was for him—one, crazy Talia al Ghul, and an equally insane Selina Kyle. Was it ironic that they both happened to be women who’d slept with bloody Batman, yeah it was.

As much as John hated the blasted Bat, even he found it humorous how the constipated man’s continued existence had ironically brought so much light into his dreary life.

Not that the Bat had anything to do with John’s friendship to the ladies, no the only thing John would thank Batman for was the role his genetics played in Danny’s existence.

It was Danny that had brought the unlikely trio together. Their budding friendship of three years, despite each of their conflicting walks of life, was a way of honoring their starlight.

Before Danny’s death—it was actually a lie to say John believed his apprentice was truly dead, like how Robin III was so sure the Bat lived, there was just too many little things that had happened since for John for him to not believe the brat was alive—the three of them rarely had any contact.

The most that John and Talia ever had was when they would exchange different ideas on how to save Danny from the claim, or when the woman would bring him Lazarus Water so he could study its origins.

John had only ever been in contact with Selina when the woman accidentally got cursed by something she stole. And hell that contact became even less after John introduced his apprentice to the thief and the damned woman tried to steal the boy from him.

(Danny had badgered John to introduce him to the thief for weeks. John had never been one to initiate contact with the woman though, so they had to wait until the thief came to John for help with a cursed item. John absolutely regretted letting Danny come along when the little shit begged Selina to train him right in front of John. And  badgered the woman to train him right in front of John. And no, he had not been pouting Selina!)

There had been absolutely no contact between Talia and Selina though, despite  Danny’s best efforts to set the two woman up.

(Honestly, John might have spent too much time listening to Danny go on and on about what an absolute power couple Talia and Selina would be if they got over their dumb little crush on a guy with the emotional intelligence of a brick wall. It was hilarious until Danny gave him suggestive brows at possible three-ways—why the kid knew what that was absolutely was John’s fault but it been taught in good faith, not what the kid had taken away from it—often making his skin crawl. John knew himself well, but he’d rather not risk his manhood in the face of two deadly women he knew to be extremely possessive. He did however suggest Diana as a possible third.)

It was only when both John and Selina had banded together to track down Talia after Danny hadn’t shown up for a while that they learned the truth. The realization that they all had bits of information that would have pointed towards Danny’s plan had they just bothered to share with each other, had not been a great revelation.

(The constant fighting between Talia and Selina that first year would’ve been unbearable if John hadn’t already been converted by Danny to shoot for the creation of the power couple of Batman’s nightmares.

Sure more than a few of their hangouts ended with John running with his tail between his legs after a knife thrown a bit to close to his throat for comfort, at a perfectly timed comment about third wheeling, but it’d been absolutely worth it to see the two unflappable woman turn a vibrant cherry red.

It was moments like those that John realized just how much his kid’s behavior and habits had rubbed off on him.)

“ So —“ He slides onto the barstool beside Selina, waving down the bartender to place an order. Taking a quick moment to observe the body language of the girls as he channeled his inner gremlin Danny. “—have you fucked yet?”

The response immediately as Talia choked on her drink, while Selina slapped him upside the head.

Despite the pain, John did his best to engrave the scene of the world’s two most apathetic women floundering about like school girls into his memory. It was a way of honoring his apprentice, as he tried to get any sort of reaction from them.

He could almost imagined the absolute manic grin that would’ve stretched across Danny’s face had he been with them.

The last two years had absolutely allowed John to understand the inherent sense of power and satisfaction Danny found through teasing others.

Like, who would’ve guessed that the Catwoman, who was known for her teasing seduction and puns, the woman who would talk in-detail about her more private encounters without a lick of embarrassment, would get so utterly flustered she turned a brilliant red when anyone mentioned her being involved with her crush.

Or that the tips of Talia’s ears would turn red when she was flustered and embarrassed.

John actually thought it was—disgustingly—cute.

Instead of saying so, John heaved a sigh of exaggerated disappointment, “You haven’t? That’s too bad maybe next time.”

It was Selina’s turn to choke, somehow becoming an even more brilliant red when Talia and her eyes accidentally met leaving the two swiftly turning away from each other.

“ You degenerate.” Talia bristled, but made no move to strangle him despite her flexing fingers showing how much she wanted too.

John raised a brow, with a roguish grin. “Was that ever in question?”

“Ahem—“ Selina cleared her throat, having managed to get her coughing under control. The thief always so quick to recover as she threw on a roguish grin of her own, “I admit defeat for the moment…”

And with a sly grin towards Talia, she leaned over to him as if sharing a secret. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

Talia sputtered, while John barely managed to keep his drink in his mouth as he snorted.

Once he managed to get his laughter under control, the three moved over to a booth in the bars corner. John taking note with an amused quirk of his brow how the two purposefully sat apart.

Pleasantries out of the way, John took a large swig of his drink before reaching into his coat to pull out a thin envelope.

The thing looked normal enough if you discounted the oddly glowing neon green ink.

Frowns became prominent on the girls faces as they looked at it.

“What’s with the letter? It’s still sealed so you haven’t read it yet so what’s with all the—“ Selina reached out to take it from him to inspect, only for him to yank it away from her grasps. “—Hey!”

“Ah-ah-ah.” John wagged his finger in front of the thief’s face, channeling Danny in him once more, “For shame, Selina! To not recognize the handwriting of your only apprentice! Danny would be absolutely devastated. Though maybe he was already aware of his place in your heart seeing as he contacted me first.”

He slipped from the booth the moment he finished narrowly dodging Selina as she dove for the envelope. He wasn’t quite so lucky the second time having forgotten about Talia who easily tripped him just as Selina lunged again, snatching the envelope from him.

“Oof—“ John stomach hit the ground hard as Selina tripped over him and fell on his back. Bloody hell, John was getting too old to be emulating his apprentice’s behavior. “Just because you took it from me doesn’t change the fact that I’m the one he decided to—“

He cut off his words at the pained look that flashed across Talia’s face as she looked at the clear address to John Constantine across the letter.

Talia had never told them expressly what had happened at the League that provided the Entity from the Pits—something they know knew acted as a portal to the Infinite Realm, which acted like the very glue between realities, but that was the extent of their knowledge despite John’s best efforts—from snatching Danny up. What both John and Selina did know was that the month before it happened Talia and Danny had gotten into a fight.

A fight bad enough that the then thirteen year old boy had actually moved in with John for a while before his grandfather ordered his return. The two had never really made up after it, they’d been making progress and Talia had been doing her absolute best, but she hadn’t even known something had happened to Danny until John and Selina went to seek her out in Russia.

Bloody hell, the only people who knew what happened were the Demon Head and Damian, but the two were extremely tightlipped about it—as in Damian’s body would literally cease functioning if he tried to talk about it or communicate the events in any way to someone, while Ra’s was just being a bastard.

Shoving Selina off of him, John took a risk as he grabbed Talia’s hand and pulled her back into the booth beside him. “You need to remember that wherever he is, contacting me was probably the easiest option given how many contracts I’ve made with demons alone. How likely do you think that Pit Demon or whatever the hell it was would let him anywhere near a portal home?”

The tension in Talia’s figure loosened a bit at his words, and with his mission accomplished John immediately moved to shut down the smug grin on Selina’s face.

“It does still mean I’m the favorite mentor though. After all, of the two of us I’m the most reliable.”

“—What happened to the you giving words of comfort?!”Selina scowled. “Reliable, my ass! Just because you’re a soul whore and basically every demon knows you does not make you reliable!”

“I’ve still been more useful than you.”

The two argued back and forth until Talia rolled her eyes and told them to knock it off so they could see what the letter was about.

John would absolutely admit that his fingers were shaking as he opened the letter, his heart squeezing painfully at the familiar scrawl.

“Ahem—“ clearing his throat he read the letter aloud. And by its end he was soundly distinctly reminded of why his drinking habits got worse after meeting the brat. “Bloody hell, brat…”

Damien Wayne is legally the fourth son of Bruce Wayne, notably the only Blood Son as he likes to remind the horde of other adopted children his father took in. 

Again legally, Damien has four older adopted siblings: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Cassandra Cain. But there’s a small handful of others that populate the manor that are basically his siblings too.

Now, Damien doesn’t particularly like any of these siblings of his. Cain and Grayson are tolerable, Todd is unreliable, and don’t get him started on Drake. As for the rest of the horde Damien is content with pretending they don’t exist.

At the end of the day though, Damien doesn’t want to consider any of them his older siblings—Cain can be excused but just barely—let alone his older brothers.

There’s a perfectly acceptable reason for his refusal to acknowledge any of them as well—and it is not because he was brainwashed by the League, or that he believes them unworthy of being a Wayne.

The reality is that he already has a perfectly acceptable older brother that the three layabouts—and Cain—can’t even begin to compare to. 

See, Damien Al Ghul is, contrary to what he had told father and his brood, not and never was the true Heir to the Demon Head. Nor was he, the Blood Son of Batman.

No, that title belonged to his beloved older brother, Danyal Al Ghul. The Sun to his Moon. 

Damien had grown up listening to comments about Danyal and his own relation to—in Danyal’s words, the star and “astronomical body that orbits the Earth as its only permanent natural satellite”—but it wasn’t until Danyal was gone that Damien truly empathized with such comparisons.

Even if Damien hadn’t been subjected to hour long rants about space courtesy of Danyal, it was common knowledge that the moon does not produce light of its own. 

Simply put, the Moon—ie. Damien— could only shine with the light of the Sun—ie. Danyal. 

It wasn’t the nicest comparison, truth be told, but it had been comforting to Damien. As Danyal would often tell him, Damien transformed Danyal’s harsh brilliance into a more comforting and compassionate light. 

It’d sure as hell been a confusing description given Damien didn’t particularly see himself as comforting or compassionate, at least back then. 

Upon being tossed away to their Father, Damien had started to understand just a bit what his brother had been talking about. It was like Batman and Robin. Robin was a source of comfort and warmth in the face of Batman’s cold paranoia.

And God, Damien hated to admit it but there was truth to Drake’s words that Batman needed Robin. Without a Robin (Moon), Batman (Sun) would burn Gotham (Earth) to the ground with its harsh light. 

Damien had been pleased with the idea that his existence was what allowed his brother to safely share his brilliance with the world.  

But then Danyal was gone, and with him the light of the Sun, which meant there was nothing for the Moon to reflect and share with the world.

And none of the brood their father had picked up could even begin to fill in the space of the Sun for Damien’s Moon. 

They each reminded Damien of his older brother in different ways, Grayson with his sunshine smile and puns, Todd with his sass and stubbornness, Cain with her insight and understanding. Hell, even Drake with his intelligent. 

(Damien hated Drake from the very beginning. The guy far too much like his beloved brother for comfort. It enraged him to see such a perfect mimicry.)

None of them could ever come close enough to shining bright enough that Damien could let loose and shine with his true potential. 

Though Damien didn’t really know where that potential led. When Mother had left him with Father, she’d only reminded him that Damien was supposed to be Robin.

Damien knew it was a lie, one that Mother had often told to Danyal so his brother didn’t feel the need to defend Damien’s existence. Maybe in another universe Ra’s would see it fit that the Heir grew further with Batman’s guidance, but Damien’s Brother was exceptional and there was nothing Batman could teach him. 

Danyal, had always been steadfast in the idea that Damien would become Robin, even when Damien knew his brother knew the adults were just lying to him. 

Damien had never wanted to be Robin, at least not Batman’s Robin, but he’d do it if it was what his brother wanted for him. Even when he knew no one but his brother would ever be good enough to have him as their Robin.

Grayson had tried. He’d gotten pretty close too, not close enough though. Not that Damien would have accepted him even if he had. 

Damien had grown to appreciate Grayson, but the oldest ex-Robin had a rather naive view of him. An honestly annoying view, where Damien could attempt to murder Tim in broad daylight and the oldest would somehow remain absolutely oblivious to his obvious intent. 

It was a type of love completely dissimilar to the unconditional love of his brother. Grayson’s love was born from his need to cling to Damien as a reminder of their father. 

A father Damien had never gotten completely attached too. It was a bit hard to get attached to a man that Damien had grown up listening to his older brother diss constantly. Even if it was a bit fun trying to spot any similarities between his father and brother, though he could now solidly say Danyal mostly took after Wonder Woman. 

It was a bit sad to say that Damien had only ever been attached to the idea of a loving father like Danyal. Reality was often disappointing however.

Batman was a lot like his Mother, in Damien’s opinion, if not worse. His “love” was suffocating and protective in the worst ways, without any of the freedom that came with Talia’s conditional love or Danyal’s unconditional love. 

The man was more emotionally constipated than most of the assassins Damien had met. And for a guy who’d taken in so many kids one would think he’d know the basics by now. Danyal would do better than Bruce, not that that was ever a question. 

God, for a family of detectives you’d think it’d be harder to turn everyone on Tim. But as Damien swiftly learned, Tim was apparently the family punching bag. 

Which had not been a fun realization given how similar Tim was to Danyal. The very thought that his father or his brood could’ve treated Danyal like they did Tim—not that Danyal would ever let them—made Damien’s blood boil.

(Damien didn’t feel bad for Tim. He never did, not when the other was a cruel mimicry of his brother. But Damien wouldn’t allow a bunch of nobodies to disrespect his beloved older brother, not even a bad mimicry of him.)

In the face of how easily Grayson tossed Tim out though after father’s death though, Damien kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t afford to lose the opportunity for a better life that his brother sacrificed himself for. 

Despite saying so, it was hard to keep his mouth shut in the face of the idiots his father kept around, and the less said about his brother’s band of fake parents the better.

But at least he could back talk Kyle and Constantine without worry of the consequences.