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Chapter Text

The sky outside the car window was washed in the heavy gray of a Gotham afternoon. The clouds were pressing low over the skyline like they could smother the world if they tried hard enough.

Danny’s breath fogged the glass as he leaned his forehead against it, watching buildings whip by. Gotham was only built with dark bricks, steel beams, and flickering neon signs. It all felt foreign and cold. Like the city already knew he didn’t belong.

The hum of the engine filled the silence inside the car. It was a steady reminder for Danny that there was no turning back now.

Across from him sat Bruce Wayne who was silent, and who just stared at Danny. His long coat was folded neatly beside him, sleeves of his black dress shirt rolled to his forearms, a watch ticking steadily on his wrist. His phone sat dark on the seat between them. Bruce hadn’t looked at it since they’d left the airport.

Danny glanced at him from under his bangs. Bruce noticed. “You warm enough?” Bruce asked, voice low but not unkind.

Danny gave a quick nod and tightened his grip on the frayed strap of his duffel bag. It was faded blue, too small for a proper suitcase, and stuffed with everything he’d brought. Two shirts, a photo of his mom, a space magazine she used to read with him, and a book with the corner chewed by a long-dead hamster.

Bruce watched him for a second longer, then looked back out his own window.

Alfred was the one driving. He hadn’t said much since they’d pulled away from the curb, but his eyes met Danny’s in the rearview mirror with a small, gentle smile. “Wayne Manor isn’t far now, Master Daniel. I think you’ll find it… quiet.”

Danny didn’t know if that was a good thing. And he wished for them to just call him Danny, like his mom did.

He sat back in the seat, the leather too smooth and too soft. He felt like he was going to slide right out of it.

“I know this isn’t easy,” Bruce said suddenly, voice quiet enough to make Danny turn toward him. “I wish things had happened differently.”

Danny blinked.

Bruce cleared his throat. “Your mother… she and I didn’t get along. But I didn’t want this to be how you meet me. She kept you away because she thought it was safer. Maybe she was right.” He glanced down at his hands. “But I should’ve tried harder to see you.”

Danny didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t expected that. He’d expected coldness, silence. Maybe even irritation. Not… guilt.

Danny looked away.

The car turned, and the road grew longer and darker. Trees lined the sides now, tall and shadowed, branches bare from early spring. The sky threatened rain, but held back, like it wanted to wait until Danny was inside before it cried for him.

“Do I have to call you ‘Dad’?” Danny asked quietly.

Bruce hesitated. “No. Only if you want to.”

Danny shrugged. “Okay.” Another silence. But this one didn’t feel as heavy.

They passed an iron gate that opened on its own, and the car crunched over gravel as the road curved. Danny’s breath hitched. Wayne Manor was huge.

Not just big, not just rich person house that was big. It was massive. A castle. The windows stretched up like watchful eyes, the front doors towering and dark, ivy curling along the stone walls like the house had been trying to hold itself together for centuries.

Danny’s stomach dropped. This wasn’t his home that he was used to.

The car pulled to a stop, and Alfred stepped out first, opening Danny’s door like he was royalty. Danny blinked up at him, and the older man gave him a reassuring nod.

“I’ll take your bag, Master Daniel.”

“I’ve got it,” Danny mumbled, clutching it to his chest and stepping out.

The front steps loomed. Bruce walked beside him now, his hand brushing lightly against Danny’s back, slightly pushing Danny forward.

Inside, the manor was even crazier than he imagined. The ceilings were impossibly high, chandeliers glittering above, and paintings that looked older than time lined the walls. Every footstep echoed when someone took a step.

Danny didn’t say anything. He just tried to breathe.

“You’ll have your own room,” Bruce said. “It’s upstairs, down the hall from mine. The other boys are around here somewhere. I can introduce you later, if you’d like.”

“Okay,” Danny said again, his voice barely there.

Bruce crouched in front of him, surprising Danny. Bruce looked him in the eyes, blue meeting blue.

“I know you don’t know me, not personally. But I’m here now. I’m not perfect, and I probably won’t get this right all the time.” A pause. “But I’m glad you’re here Danny, truly.”

Danny stared at him, unsure if he believed him, unsure if he could believe him. His fingers tightened around the strap of his bag. “Okay.”

Bruce gave a small nod, then stood. “Alfred can show you to your room. I’ll be in my study if you need me.”

As Bruce walked away, his footsteps echoing down the long marble hall, Danny watched him go, heart heavy, thoughts spinning.

He didn’t know what he expected when he was told he would meet his father. But it wasn’t this.

— - - —

The bedroom was bigger than Danny’s whole apartment back in Wisconsin.

He stood in the doorway awkwardly, bag clutched to his chest like a shield, as Alfred opened the wide double doors and stepped aside with a soft, “This will be yours, Master Daniel.”

The walls were painted a soft, warm gray, not cold and sterile like he feared. A tall window stretched up to the ceiling, light filtered through heavy curtains, and the bed looked… impossibly large. Too much space. Too much room for someone who felt this small.

There was a desk already stacked with notebooks and sharpened pencils. A few books lined the shelf with some classics, some comics, and one astronomy guide. A telescope sat near the window, covered in a thin layer of dust, like it hadn’t been touched in a while.

“Master Bruce asked me to prepare the room myself,” Alfred said, following Danny’s gaze to the books. “He wasn’t sure what you liked, but he remembered your mother once mentioned your fascination with the stars.”

Danny’s throat tightened. “She did?”

Alfred smiled kindly. “She was very proud of you.”
Danny nodded, eyes dropping to the floor.

“Take your time to settle in. I’ll return in a moment with something warm to eat.” He left the door slightly open.

Danny dropped his duffel on the bed and stood there for a long minute. Then he walked slowly around the room, dragging his fingers across the desk, tracing the edges of the bookshelf, the smooth curve of the telescope. Everything felt touched but untouched. Like someone had tried, but didn’t know how.

He sat on the edge of the bed, feet swinging a few inches above the ground, and looked out the window.

It finally started raining.

The knock came ten minutes later. Lighter than Alfred’s. Before Danny could answer, the door opened and a teenager poked his head in. He had dark hair, blue eyes, tall and grinning.

“Hey,” he said, stepping in fully. “You must be Danny.”
Danny nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“I’m Dick.” The teen offered a hand, then seemed to realize Danny was still seated and dropped it sheepishly. “Right. Sorry. Uh, I’m kind of your older brother. Technically. I mean, Bruce adopted me a while ago. Before you came.”

Danny’s eyebrows pulled together, his voice soft. “How many of you are there?”

Dick chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “Right now? Two. Me and Jason. You’ll meet him in a second. He’s a little… much.”

As if summoned, another voice called from the hallway. “You better not be scaring the new kid, Dick!”
Then the second brother entered who was shorter than Dick, maybe fourteen or so, with a cocky grin and a leather jacket thrown over a hoodie.

“Yo. You’re Danny?” Jason asked, hands in his pockets, scanning him from head to toe like he was trying to size him up.

Danny gave a small nod. Jason shrugged, then grinned. “Cool. You don’t look annoying as I thought you would be.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “Jason.”

“What? I’m being honest.”

Danny blinked, uncertain. But then, for the first time since arriving, something tugged at the corner of his mouth. Just barely. “Thanks, I guess.”

Jason smirked. “You’re welcome.”

Dick sat down next to him on the bed. “You doing okay? We know it’s a lot at the beginning.”

Danny hesitated. Then: “It’s really big and quite here.” His mom always has some type of noise on around their apartment.

Jason flopped onto the carpet, arms stretched. “Yeah, well, it won’t be when I’m around.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Dick added. “He’s always this loud.”

Danny looked between them. They were just two boys who were strangers, but they didn’t feel not inclusive. Just… real Kids. They weren’t trying to act like his family. Not yet at least. And that made it easier for Danny to breathe.

“You like video games?” Jason asked suddenly.

Danny blinked. “Yeah.”

“Cool. We got a console downstairs. I’ll destroy you later at Mario kart.”

Danny’s lips twitched. “We’ll see.”

Dick stood. “Come downstairs when you’re ready Danny. Alfred’s making grilled cheese. And Bruce is trying not to hover you, but he’s terrible at it.”
Jason grinned at that. “Guy’s like a ghost. Just appears when you least expect it.”

They moved toward the door. But before Jason stepped out, he glanced back and said, a little quieter, “You don’t have to talk about anything if you don’t want to. You can just… hang out. Or not. It’s your call.”

Danny looked at him. At both of them. And for the first time, he didn’t feel like he was drowning in loneliness.

“Okay,” he said. “Maybe in a bit.”

Jason nodded. “We’ll be around.” The door shut gently behind them.

Danny looked out at the rain again, listening to the soft tapping on the window. His hand went to his duffel, fingers brushing against the photo of his mom, tucked safely in the side pocket.

For now, he stayed sitting. But the air didn’t feel quite so cold as it did when he first walked in.

— - - —

Chapter Text

It has been a couple days since Danny came to live with his dad.

The dining room in Wayne Manor was very long. Danny sat at one end of a long dinning table. The wood was dark and polished. It stretched so far he felt like he was in a different room from the other wall. A chandelier hung above. Its crystals caught the dim light and threw tiny specks on the walls. They looked like stars but not the kind Danny was used to. These were cold and sharp, and very fancy.

The room smelled like roast chicken and warm bread. Alfred had set the table with plates that looked too fancy to touch. Danny’s hands stayed in his lap. He didn’t want to break anything.

Bruce sat at the head of the table. His suit was neat but his tie was loose. He looked tired. His eyes were blue like Danny’s but they didn’t stay on him long. Bruce kept glancing at his watch or out the window. The glass showed only darkness and rain. Bruce picked up his fork and cut a piece of chicken. He chewed slowly. Nobody spoke. The clink of his fork on the plate was loud. Danny’s stomach twisted. He didn’t feel hungry even though he hadn’t eaten since morning.

Dick was on Danny’s left. He was eighteen. His dark hair fell over his eyes. He pushed it back with a quick hand. Dick’s plate was half empty but he wasn’t eating now. He stared at his food like it had done something wrong. His shoulders were tight. Dick hadn’t said much since Danny got here. Just a quick hi and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Danny looked down at his own plate. The chicken looked dry. He poked it with his fork.

Jason was across from Danny. He was around thirteen. His leather jacket was slung over the back of his chair. He wore a red hoodie underneath. Jason was eating fast like he was starving. He looked up and caught Danny staring at the lights. Jason grinned. His teeth were a little crooked. “Yo kid these chandeliers are creepy right?” he said. His voice was loud in the quiet room. Danny blinked. He hadn’t thought about the chandeliers like that. He looked up again. They did look kind of creepy. Like they were watching them. A tiny smile tugged at his mouth. He nodded. Jason’s grin got bigger. “Told you” he said.

Bruce looked at Jason. His face didn’t change but his eyes softened a little. Then he turned to Danny. “How was your old school Danny?” he asked. His voice was low. It wasn’t mean but it wasn’t warm either. Danny froze. He hadn’t gone to school since his mom died. He didn’t know what to say. “It was okay” he mumbled.

He didn’t look at Bruce. Bruce nodded like that was enough. He took another bite of chicken. Danny’s hands curled into fists under the table. He wished Bruce would ask something else. He pushed his chicken around his plate. He didn’t want to eat it.

Alfred walked in with a pitcher of water. He moved quiet like he didn’t want to bother anyone. His suit was perfect not a wrinkle. He filled Danny’s glass first. The water was cold and clear. “Master Daniel do you enjoy astronomy?” Alfred asked. His voice was kind. Danny’s throat got tight. Nobody had asked about that since his mom. “Yeah” Danny said soft. “My mom liked stars. We used to look at them.” Alfred smiled. It was small but real. “She was quite fond of the cosmos” he said. “Perhaps you’ll find the telescope in your room useful.” Danny nodded. He hadn’t tried the telescope yet. The clouds were too thick. Alfred moved to fill Bruce’s glass.

Dick pushed his plate away. The scrape of it was sharp. Everyone looked at him. His jaw was tight. He didn’t look back at anyone. “I’m done” he said. He stood up fast. His chair creaked against the floor. Bruce’s hand stopped mid-air with his fork. “Dick” he said. His voice was low like a warning. Dick didn’t stop. He walked out of the room. His footsteps echoed down the hall. The door didn’t slam but it felt like it should have. Danny’s heart beat fast. He looked at Bruce. Bruce’s face was blank but his eyes were hard. He set his fork down. Danny wanted to disappear.

Jason snorted. “Drama queen” he said. He took a big bite of bread. Crumbs fell on the table. Bruce gave him a look but didn’t say anything. Jason ignored it. He looked at Danny again. “Don’t worry about Dick kid. He’s just in a mood.” Danny nodded but he didn’t feel better. He wondered if Dick was mad because he was here. The thought made Danny’s stomach hurt more.

Bruce cleared his throat. “Danny do you like to read?” he asked. Danny looked up. Bruce was trying to smile but it looked wrong. Like he wasn’t sure how. Danny shrugged. “Sometimes” he said. He liked books about space but he didn’t want to say that. Bruce nodded again. “There’s a library here. You can look tomorrow.” Danny didn’t say anything. He didn’t know if he’d go to the library.

A phone buzzed. It was loud against the table. Bruce looked down. His hand moved fast to pick it up. He stood. “I need to take this” he said. He didn’t look at Danny or Jason. He walked out of the room. His steps were quick. The door closed behind him. Danny stared at the empty chair. His chest felt heavy. Danny’s fork dropped. It clinked loud on the plate. He didn’t pick it up.

Jason leaned back in his chair. “Typical” he said. He sounded annoyed but not surprised. He looked at Danny. “You okay kid?” Danny didn’t know how to answer. He nodded. Jason didn’t look like he believed him. But he didn’t push. “Finish your chicken” he said. “Alfred’s cooking is the best.” Danny looked at his plate. He picked up his fork. He took a small bite. It tasted good but it didn’t make him feel better.

Alfred came back. He looked at the empty chairs. His eyes were sad. He picked up Dick’s plate. “I’ll save this for Master Dick” he said. He looked at Danny. “Would you like dessert Master Daniel?” Danny shook his head. “No thank you” he said. His voice was small. Alfred nodded. “Very well. I’ll check on you later.” He walked out with the plate. Danny watched him go. He felt alone even with Jason there.

Jason stood up. He grabbed his jacket. “I’m gonna find something fun to do” he said. He looked at Danny. “You wanna come? We could play cards or something.” Danny hesitated. He wanted to say yes. Jason was nice. But he felt tired. “Maybe tomorrow” he said. Jason shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll be around.” He walked out. His steps were loud like he didn’t care who heard. Danny sat alone at the table. The chandelier’s light flickered. The room felt colder. He looked out the window. The rain was heavier now. It tapped against the glass.

— - - —

Danny couldn’t sleep. The manor was too quiet, not like his old apartment with its creaky pipes and humming fridge. His room felt too big also. His new bed was too soft. He kicked off the blankets and got up. His bare feet hit the cold marble floor. He shivered but didn’t grab a sweater. He wanted to move, to feel something other than the heavy ache in his chest. The hallway outside his room was dark. The walls were lined with old paintings, their eyes seeming to follow him. He walked slow, keeping his steps light. He didn’t want anyone to hear.

Voices came from somewhere ahead. They were low but sharp, cutting through the silence. Danny froze. He recognized Bruce’s voice, deep and steady. The other was Dick’s, louder and angry. They were in a room down the hall, maybe a study. The door was cracked open, letting out a thin line of light. Danny crept closer, his heart beating fast. He shouldn’t listen, but he couldn’t stop. “You can’t keep me here forever, Bruce,” Dick said. His words were hard, like he was spitting them out. “This isn’t about me ‘controlling’ you Dick.,” Bruce answered. His voice was calm but tight, like he was holding something back. Danny’s stomach twisted. He didn’t know what they were fighting about, but it felt big. He backed away, scared they’d catch him listening.

His shoulder bumped into something solid. He gasped and spun around. Jason stood there, hands in his pockets, a half-eaten cookie in one hand. He was in his hoodie, his hair messy like he’d been up for hours. “Are you lost Danny?” Jason asked, his grin crooked. Danny’s face got hot. He shook his head fast. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Jason said. “I’m sneaking snacks. Come on.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just started walking. Danny hesitated, then followed. Jason’s steps were loud, like he didn’t care who heard. It made Danny feel braver.

They ended up in the library. It was smaller than the dining room, but still huge. Bookshelves stretched to the ceiling, packed with books that looked older than Danny’s whole life. A big window showed the rainy night outside. The room smelled like leather and dust. Jason flopped onto a couch, kicking his feet up on a table. He pulled a GameBoy from his pocket, its screen scratched but glowing. “You play any games?” he asked, holding it out. Danny nodded, a little unsure. “Yeah, some,” he said, his voice small. He sat next to Jason, the couch sinking under him. Jason handed over the GameBoy. It was warm from his hand. “Pick something,” Jason said. Danny chose a Pokémon game, his fingers clumsy on the buttons. Jason leaned over, pointing at the screen. “Go for Pikachu, he’s tough,” he said. Danny smiled, just a little. “I like Charmander better,” he said, picking it. Jason raised an eyebrow. “Bold choice. Let’s see if you’re any good.”

Danny played, his eyes on the screen. Jason kept talking, his voice filling the quiet. “Dick’s moving out soon,” he said, munching his cookie. “Doesn’t like Bruce’s rules. Always fighting with him on everything.” Danny’s smile faded. “Why’s he so mad?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the game. Jason shrugged. “Dick wants to do his own thing. Bruce wants to keep him close. It’s a mess.” Danny’s fingers slipped, and his Charmander got hit. He frowned. “Does everyone leave?” he asked, softer. Jason looked at him, his grin gone for a second. “Nah, not everyone,” he said. “I’m sticking around. You’re stuck with me, kid.” Danny’s chest warmed, but he wasn’t sure he believed it.

Jason leaned back, watching Danny play. “You’re not bad,” he said, when Danny won a battle. “You play a lot back home?” Danny nodded. “Me and my friend had a GameBoy,” he said. “We’d trade Pokémon after school. He had this Bulbasaur he was obsessed with.” Jason laughed. “Bulbasaur? Lame. Charmander is way cooler than that Brussel sprout.” Danny’s lips twitched. “I said that too,” he said. “But I beat him all the time, just because his was a plant type.” Jason grinned. “Nice. You gotta show me more of your skills.” Danny’s hands felt steadier now. He liked talking about games, it was about something normal. It made the manor feel less heavy, since Danny has moved in.

Jason grabbed another cookie from his pocket, offering half to Danny. “Want some?” he asked. Danny took it, the chocolate chips sweet on his tongue. “Thanks,” he said. Jason waved it off. “Don’t tell Alfred I stole these,” he said, winking. Danny almost laughed. “I won’t,” he promised. Jason pointed at the screen. “Watch out, that Pidgey’s gonna mess you up,” he said. Danny dodged just in time, and Jason cheered. “Not bad Danny!” he said. Danny’s smile grew, but his mind went back to Dick and Bruce. Their voices still buzzed in his head.

Jason stretched, yawning. “You get quiet sometimes,” he said, not looking at Danny. “You doing okay in this place?” Danny’s throat got tight. He didn’t know how to say he felt lost, like he didn’t belong. “It’s weird,” he said, picking his words slow. “Everything’s so big. I don’t know where I fit.” Jason nodded, like he got it. “This place is a maze,” he said. “But you’ll figure it out soon. You can stick with me, I know all the good spots around here.” Danny looked at him. Jason’s grin was back, and it felt like a lifeline. “Like where?” Danny asked, curious. Jason leaned in, like he was sharing a secret. “There’s a room upstairs with old arcade games,” he said. “I’ll show you tomorrow. We’ll beat some high scores.” Danny’s eyes lit up. “Really?” he asked. Jason nodded. “Yup. Just don’t tell Bruce we are coming for his titles.”

Jason stood, tossing the GameBoy onto the couch. “Keep that,” he said. “You need something to do in this boring place.” Danny’s eyes went wide. “For real?” he asked. Jason smirked. “Don’t break it,” he said, heading for the door. “And practice, ‘cause I’m gonna destroy you next time.” Danny clutched the GameBoy tight. “We’ll see,” he said, his voice stronger. Jason laughed, waving over his shoulder. The library door clicked shut. Danny sat there, the game’s music looping softly. He looked at the window, at the rain streaking down. The stars were still hidden, but the GameBoy’s glow felt like enough for now.

— - - —

Danny sat by his window. The rain tapped against the glass, a steady rhythm that filled the silence of his room. Gotham’s sky was still filled with clouds. Those stupid thick and gray clouds that hid every star in the sky.

He held his mom’s photo in his hands, her smile soft in the flicker of a bedside lamp. Her eyes were bright, like she knew something wonderful. Danny’s chest ached. He missed her voice, her laugh, the way she’d hum off-key while making dinner.

The space magazine lay open on his lap, its pages soft and worn from years of love. His mom’s handwriting curled in the margins, little notes about constellations, planets, and her dreams. “Orion’s Belt shines for you Danny,” one said.

He traced it with his finger, slow and careful. His eyes burned, but he wouldn’t let the tears fall. Not here, in this strange house where he felt like a stranger .

The telescope stood by the window, its lens cold and useless. Danny set the photo down being very gentle, like it might break. He adjusted the telescope’s knobs, the way his mom taught him on clear Wisconsin nights.

He squinted through the eyepiece. Nothing but gray. The clouds were a wall, locking the stars away. He pushed the telescope back, his hands shaking. “I can’t see you, Mom,” he whispered. His voice cracked, too small for the room.

He grabbed the magazine again. It was open to Mars, her favorite planet. She’d called it the brave planet, all red and alone in the dark. Danny didn’t feel brave. He felt like he was crumbling, piece by piece, with no one to catch him anymore.

A knock came at the door. Danny flinched, shutting the magazine fast. Alfred stepped in, his suit crisp despite the late hours. He held a black umbrella, its handle gleaming like polished stone. “Master Daniel, would you care for a walk?” he asked. His voice was warm, steady, like a hand reaching out.

Danny’s throat tightened. He didn’t want to leave the room. He didn’t want to face the world outside. But Alfred’s eyes were kind, patient. “Okay,” Danny said, his voice barely there. He grabbed his mom’s old jacket, too big for his small frame. The sleeves hung past his hands. It smelled faintly of her lavender perfume, faint but enough to make his heart twist.

They walked to the garden outside. The air was sharp, wet with mist that clung to Danny’s skin. Alfred held the umbrella high, shielding them both. The manor’s garden was huge, its stone paths winding through bare trees and clipped hedges.

The hedges stood like silent guards, their edges sharp in the dim light. Rain pattered on the umbrella, a soft drumbeat. Danny’s sneakers squished on the wet gravel, the sound loud in the quiet. His hands stayed deep in his pockets, fingers curled tight. The cold seeped through his jacket, but he didn’t mind. It matched the ache inside him. Alfred walked slow, his steps measured, like he knew Danny needed time.

“Master Bruce was a young boy once,” Alfred said, after a long silence. His voice was calm, like telling a bedtime story. “He loved this garden. He’d hide here when his heart grew heavy.” Danny looked up, his hood slipping back a little. “What made him start coming here?” he asked. Alfred’s lips curved, not quite a smile. “He lost his parents very young,” he said. “This place became his refuge.” Danny nodded, his eyes on the trees.

Their branches were black against the stormy sky, reaching like they wanted to escape. He wondered if Bruce still came here, if he still felt that kind of sad. Danny didn’t think so. Bruce seemed too far away, too busy for gardens or for grief.

They stopped by a stone bench, its surface slick with rain. Alfred didn’t sit, but he looked at it, his eyes distant. “This house holds many stories,” he said. “Yours is one of them now.” Danny’s chest tightened. He wanted to believe he belonged, that this cold manor could be home.

But it felt like a lie. The house was too big, too empty, its walls swallowing him whole. He stared at a puddle on the path, its surface rippling with rain. It reflected the manor’s lights, fractured and faint. He felt like that puddle, broken into pieces. He didn’t say it. He just stood there, letting the rain’s rhythm fill the quiet.

They walked back inside. Danny’s jacket was damp, clinging to his arms like a second skin. Alfred shook out the umbrella, water dripping onto the marble floor. “I’ll bring you tea later,” he said, his voice gentle. Danny nodded. “Thanks,” he said, meaning it more than he could show. Alfred gave a small nod and left, his steps fading down the hall. Danny climbed the stairs to his room, the air warmer but still heavy. He sat on the bed, the magazine still slightly open to Mars. Its red glow seemed to pulse through the page, like it was alive.

Bruce knocked, startling Danny. He stood in the doorway, his tie gone, shirt sleeves rolled up. His face was tired, and he had shadows under his eyes. He saw the telescope and stepped closer, his hands in his pockets. “You like the telescope?” he asked, trying to sound soft. Danny nodded, his fingers gripping the magazine. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s… nice.” He didn’t say that he can’t use it because of Gotham’s air pollution.

Bruce’s face softened, like he saw something in Danny’s eyes. “There’s a planetarium in Gotham,” he said. “We could go sometime. If you’d like to.” Danny’s heart lifted, a tiny spark. “Really?” he asked, his voice small but hopeful. Bruce nodded, a faint smile starting. “Yeah, I’ll make us a time to go,” he said. But then his phone buzzed, loud in his pocket. He pulled it out, his face closing off. “I need to take this,” he said, already turning. “I’ll be right back, Danny.” He walked out, the door clicking shut behind him.

Danny waited, his eyes on the door. He sat still, the magazine heavy in his lap. Minutes dragged on. The rain kept tapping, louder now, like it was getting angry. Bruce didn’t come back to Danny’s room that night.

Danny’s spark soon died, and it was replaced by a cold weight. His mom would’ve stayed with him. She’d have sat with him, talked about new space discoveries, and make the night feel safer. But she was gone, and Bruce was somewhere else. He seemed to always be somewhere else.

Danny grabbed a pencil from the desk, its wood smooth under his fingers. He opened the magazine to a blank spot and wrote, slow and careful. “I’ll find the stars, Mom. I’ll keep looking.” His hand shook, but he pressed harder, making the words dark.

It was a promise to her, and to himself. He set the pencil down and curled up on the bed, and pulled her jacket over him. The room was still quiet, but Danny’s grief was louder. And it was slowly filling every dark corner.

Chapter Text

Danny trudged home from Gotham Academy, his backpack sagging under the weight of soaked books. He asked Alfred if he can walk home instead of being picked up. He likes to have some time walking in the city to think.

The rain came down hard suddenly, and was drenching his uniform and plastering his hair to his forehead. His tie hung crooked around his neck, it was half undone, and his sneakers slapped through puddles, causing it to splash his ankles with dirty water.

He kept his head down. The buildings around him loomed like stone giants, windows like a hundred cold, staring eyes. Luckily he was still in the good side of Gotham.

At the curb of the school cars waited,  with warm lights glowing through the downpour. Parents leaned out, calling for their kids to hurry. Danny walked past them all. Nobody was waiting for him. And he could only take so many silent and awkward car rides with just Alfred.

He was ten now. He was getting taller now, but still small compared to everyone else. He thought about pulling out his mom’s jacket in his bag it out, but he didn’t want to risk ruining it. So he kept walking, arms wrapped around himself, legs aching with every step. The manor was still a long way off.

Why does Gotham always rain?

Every day was the same. He got up early, hoping to find Bruce at breakfast. It was always Alfred instead, setting toast and juice neatly at the table, giving him that soft, polite smile that somehow made Danny feel even lonelier.

Bruce was always already gone: meetings, work, something important. Danny ate alone, the dining room cavernous and echoing, way too big for just one person. Sometimes Jason was there but his school starts earlier than his.

School wasn’t much better. Gotham Academy was polished and expensive, with shiny floors and teachers who called him Daniel Wayne like it meant something. He didn’t feel like a Wayne. He sat at the back of the classroom, answering when he was called on, blending into the walls the rest of the time.

His grades were great. His favorite was science and he was great at it, but it didn’t seem to matter. He kept waiting for Bruce to ask, to care about something other than ‘How was school’, but he never did.

It had been almost a year and a half since he’d come to live here. When he was eight, he used to try so hard to get Bruce’s attention. He remembered showing Bruce a drawing he’d made of space, or blueprints of something he wants to create. Bruce smiled and said “Nice job,”  then his phone rang and he walked away without another word. That’s always how it goes.

Danny built a model rocket after that, spent weeks on it. It flew a whole ten feet. Bruce clapped once, he was distracted and already halfway out the door. Danny had cleaned his room spotless, studied until his head hurt, and even practiced smiling in the mirror so he wouldn’t seem like a burden to the press. Nothing worked. Bruce was always busy. Always somewhere else.

Little by little, that spark inside Danny, the one that kept him trying, started to dim. But he still dreamed about it sometimes. Dreamed about Bruce actually taking an interest, or about being part of the family for real.

It felt stupid now, like believing in fairy tales, but he couldn’t make himself let go of it. He knew his dad was busy and his brothers, but he still wanted to be included. It felt like they where always together out, because when Bruce left Jason somehow always follows in absence.

He finally made it to the manor. The tall black gates loomed in the misty grayness. No cars in the driveway. He pushed open the heavy front door, shivering as the cold swallowed him up.

His wet sneakers squeaked on the marble. He dropped his bag by the stairs, water dripping down his sleeves. Alfred was there almost immediately, a towel already in his hands.

“Master Danny, you’re drenched,” Alfred said, his voice gentle. Danny took the towel without meeting his eyes. “Thank you Alfred,” he mumbled.

Alfred led him to the dining room. A bowl of pasta waited for him on the table, steam curling into the chilly air. The chandelier overhead was too bright. That thing always made shadows that caused the huge room feel even emptier.

Danny sat down at the massive table. All the other chairs were empty, stretching down forever. He picked at the noodles, forcing it down even though he wasn’t hungry.

Dick wasn’t around anymore. He was off at college or wherever he was now. Jason was hardly ever home either, always busy with whatever secret thing he was doing. The manor felt hollow without them, all their noise and laughter sucked out of the walls. Danny missed his brothers.

Danny pulled out his journal. A battered  notebook he’d been writing in since last year, its many pages dog eared and smudged. He flipped it open to a blank page and started to write, his hand trembling a little. He likes to write little notes about his day.

Still no Bruce today. I got an A in science, and I am top of my grade. I am still waiting to hear back from many youth programs I entered.

He stared at the words, heart squeezing. Then he added, I want Dad to be proud, Mom. I’m still trying.

He thought about her still. He knew he probably shouldn’t because she’s never coming back. He thinks about the photo sitting by his bed, the old space magazine, and the way she used to read to him.

She loved the stars. She would have known the constellations he pointed out, the ones he tried to memorize just to feel closer to her. Orion. Sirius. The Pleiades. She would have been proud of him. She would have listened. She was the reason he wanted to be an astronaut.

But she wasn’t here anymore. And Bruce wasn’t either.

Every silent breakfast, every missed science fair, every phone call that pulled Bruce away. Every one chipped away at the tiny bit of hope he was still clinging to.

But he couldn’t let it go completely. Some part of him still dreamed that maybe tomorrow Bruce would stay. Would smile at him,  would ruffle his hair, and say I’m proud of you, Danny.”

Alfred came back quietly and set a glass of water down next to him. “Will you be alright, Master Daniel? I have to go help your father.” he asked softly.

Danny nodded, his throat too tight to say much. “Yeah,” he whispered.

Alfred lingered a moment, his expression sad, like he wanted to say more. But he didn’t. He just gave Danny’s shoulder a brief, careful squeeze and walked away.

Danny finished half his pasta, packed up his journal, and grabbed his dripping backpack. He climbed the stairs slowly, his footsteps echoing in the house.

Somewhere out there, Bruce was living his life. Probably not thinking about him at all. Danny’s spark flickered, low and weak. But he held onto it anyway.

Maybe tomorrow.

— - - —

Danny sat at the long dining room table, his empty plate pushed to the side. The chandelier overhead flickered, its cold light throwing sharp reflections off the polished wood. His journal lay open in front of him, pen resting beside it. In his hand, he clutched a crisp letter from Gotham Academy.

His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his ears.

Tonight was rare, Bruce was actually home. Danny’s palms were sweating, the letter almost slipping from his fingers. He couldn’t stop smiling, he couldn’t even sit still. He’d gotten in. At ten years old, he was accepted into a NASA youth program for his constellation project. The youngest kid ever picked. He could be a real scientist or astronaut someday.

Maybe this was it. Maybe Bruce would finally see him and not just the kid that tagged along behind, not just “Daniel Wayne” on some school roll sheet—but as his son. Someone who was worth noticing.

Bruce sat across from him, flipping through a newspaper. His suit was perfect as always, but his face was tired, worn down in a way Danny didn’t know how to read.

Danny took a shaky breath. He couldn’t wait. He had to say it now, before Bruce disappeared again. “Dad,” he said, his voice cracking a little.

Bruce lowered the paper, one brow lifting slightly. “What’s that, Danny?” His voice was calm. Curious, maybe. Danny pushed the letter across the table, his fingers shaking.

“I… I got into this NASA program,” he rushed out. “It’s for the project I did, about Orion’s Belt and mapping stars and stuff. They said I’m the youngest kid they picked. Like… ever.” His words tumbled over each other, his eyes searching Bruce’s face for something—anything.

Bruce picked up the letter, scanning it quickly. For a second, just a second, his mouth twitched like he might smile.

“NASA, huh?” Bruce said, and his voice was a little warmer now. “That’s impressive, Danny. Really impressive.”

Danny felt it light up inside him. It was a fire he thought might finally catch. He nodded eagerly.

“Yeah! They’re gonna teach us about space travel, maybe even let us use their telescopes,” he said, barely breathing. “I stayed up late working on it, like, every night. I thought you’d… you know. I thought you’d like it.”

Bruce set the letter down carefully. His eyes met Danny’s for a moment, steady and real.

“I do like it,” he said. “You should be proud of yourself. That’s a real accomplishment.”

Danny’s face hurt from how hard he was smiling. This was it. Bruce was seeing him. Finally. Maybe he wasn’t invisible after all.

Then that stupid phone buzzed. The loud rattle on the table made Danny flinch.

Bruce’s whole face shifted. He glanced at the screen, already standing up. “Hold on,” he said, voice clipped. “I need to take this. We’ll talk more about NASA later, okay?”

He didn’t wait for Danny to answer. He was already walking out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him.

Danny sat there, staring at the empty chair across from him. The letter lay there too, forgotten. His smile slipped, falling off his face like a broken mask.

He picked up his pen with a hand that wouldn’t stop shaking. In his journal, he wrote:

“Told Dad about NASA. He still left. He said he was proud. For a second, I thought he meant it. I thought maybe it would be different this time. I thought maybe he’d stay and talk to be about it. I don’t know why I keep hoping. It hurts more every time I do. I wish you were here, Mom. You would’ve cared. You would’ve made this feel important. I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending it doesn’t matter.”

He stared at the words until they blurred. They looked small. Stupid. Just like him.

He closed the journal and grabbed his backpack, the chair scraping loudly against the floor as he stood up. The manor felt huge and hollow around him, swallowing him up.

He made his way to the library, the only place that didn’t feel like a fancy museum. It smelled like old books and leather. It was warm and safe in a way the rest of the house wasn’t. He slumped onto the couch, pulling out the GameBoy Jason had given him.

The screen glowed in the dim room, but Danny didn’t press any buttons. He just held it, waiting. Waiting for someone who might not show up.

The door slammed open and Jason stumbled in. His hoodie soaked through and a fresh bruise blooming across his cheekbone.

“Just a stupid fight at school,” Jason muttered when he caught Danny staring. He raked a hand through his wet hair and grinned, lopsided.

He tossed a comic book onto the couch next to Danny.“Check it out. It’s got Aliens, spaceships, explosions. Your kind of thing.”

Danny caught the comic, his lips twitching up a little.“Looks cool,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.

Jason plopped down beside him, stealing the GameBoy with a laugh. “You still suck at this, right?” he teased, already starting a game.

“I’m still better than you,” he said, nudging Jason’s shoulder. It felt good, normal, like maybe he wasn’t completely alone.

Danny hesitated, fingers brushing the folded letter still stuffed in his pocket. He pulled it out, the paper soft and bent now.

“Jase… I got into a NASA program,” he said, voice low, like if he said it too loud it would disappear. “For the star project. I’m the youngest they picked.”

Jason’s head jerked up, eyes wide.

“No way,” he said, a huge grin splitting his face. He put Danny lightly in an armlock. “You’re a freaking genius! NASA at ten years old? Man, you’re gonna leave us all in the dust.”

Danny’s chest swelled, a slow warmth blooming there. “It’s not like that,” he said, cheeks burning. “Its just learning stuff, constellations and orbits. But… it’s big, right?”

Jason sobered up, nodding seriously. “It’s huge,” he said. “Like… world-changing. You told Bruce?”

Danny’s smile faltered. He looked down at the comic book in his lap. “Yeah,” he said. “He said it was great. Then his phone rang. He just left again.”

Jason’s fingers tightened around the GameBoy. His jaw clenched. “Figures,” he muttered. He leaned back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling like he could punch a hole through it just by looking at it.

“I busted my ass this week,” Jason said after a second. “Ace my history test, helped Alfred clean out the garage. Bruce didn’t notice either. He’s always got somewhere else to be.”

Danny nodded slowly, the comic book getting heavier in his hands. “I thought NASA would be enough,” he whispered. “I thought maybe he’d be proud.”

Jason looked over at him, all the usual teasing stripped away. “I get it, kid,” he said. His voice was low, steady. “I used to think the same thing. Like if I just tried harder, he’d finally see me. But no matter what… it’s like we’re not even there.”

Danny swallowed hard. His chest hurt. He flipped open his journal and showed Jason the last thing he wrote.

“Jason is the only one here, and he is definitely my favorite.”

Jason’s mouth pulled into a small, real smile. “You’re not alone, Danny,” he said. “You will always have me. We see each other. That’s what matters now.” Danny wanted to believe him. He really did.

Jason stood, glancing at his watch. “Gotta run,” he said, ruffling Danny’s hair. “But tomorrow we should go and watch that new action movie that came out. Deal?”

Danny nodded, heart sinking even though he forced a smile. “Deal,” he said.

Jason was already halfway out the door. The room went quiet again, the GameBoy’s soft music looping endlessly.

He wished his mom were here. She would’ve grabbed him up in a hug, called everyone she knew, made him pancakes in the shape of stars. She would have made this feel like the biggest thing in the world. But she still wasn’t here.

Danny clutched the GameBoy to his chest, closing his eyes. The dream, that tiny stupid dream, clung to his heart anyway.

Maybe tomorrow?

— - - —

Danny sat in the dining room again. The chandelier’s light was dim, casting long shadows on the walls. His plate held a cold slice of chicken, untouched. His journal was open, its pages full of days like this, days where Bruce was gone, days where Danny felt like nothing.

Tonight was different, though. Bruce was here, sitting at the head of the table, his fork moving slow. Danny’s heart beat fast, his hands sweaty under the table. He wanted to talk, to make Bruce see him, to be his son. But the words wouldn’t come.

He thought of his NASA letter, how he’d hoped it would change things. It didn’t. Bruce had left then, and Danny’s spark was gone, his dream of being noticed fading.

Bruce cleared his throat, setting his fork down. Danny looked up, his breath catching. “Danny,” Bruce said, his voice low, serious. “I’ve been thinking about you, and about Gotham.” Danny’s stomach twisted, but he kept still, waiting. Bruce leaned forward, his eyes meeting Danny’s for the first time in weeks. “This city’s getting too dangerous,” he said. “It’s not safe for you here. Your uncle Jack and aunt Maddie, they’re good people. They live in Amity Park. I think it’s a good idea for you to live with them.” The words hit like a punch.

Danny’s mouth went dry, his fingers cold. He nodded, barely moving. “Okay,” he said, his voice small, like it didn’t belong to him. Bruce’s face softened, almost like a smile. “It’s for the best,” he said. He stood, his phone already buzzing, and walked out, the door clicking shut.

Danny stared at the table, the chicken blurring as his eyes stung. His heart hurt, a deep ache that spread to his bones. Bruce didn’t want him. Not after the NASA program, not after his A’s, not after two years of trying to be a perfect son. He was sending him away, like Danny was just a problem to solve.

His dream of being a Wayne, of Bruce calling him son, crumbled to dust. He grabbed his journal, his pen shaking. He wrote, “Dad doesn’t want me, Mom. I was never his son.” The ink smeared, his hand too tight. He wanted to cry, to scream, but he sat still, the manor’s silence swallowing him.

He couldn’t stay in the dining room. He took his journal and wandered the halls, his sneakers quiet on the marble floor. The manor was dark, its paintings watching him pass. He didn’t know where he was going, he just needed to move, to escape the weight in his chest.

A light glowed under Bruce’s study door with voices leaking through. Danny stopped, his breath hitching. It was Bruce talking on the phone, his voice low but clear. “It’s safer for Danny to be with you,” he said. “Gotham’s not right for him. I can’t keep him here anymore.”

Danny’s heart stopped, the words cutting deeper than the dinner talk. Bruce wasn’t just suggesting it. He meant it. He was planning it, like he wanted to give Danny away. The phone call ended, but Danny didn’t move, his feet felt frozen. He thought of his NASA letter, his grades, every time he tried to make Bruce proud. None of it mattered. He was nothing.

He ran, his sneakers slipping on the floor. His room was a blur as he shut the door, his breath fast and loud. Tears fell now, hot and silent, soaking his cheeks. He dropped his journal on the bed and pulled out his duffel bag, the one he’d brought two years ago.

He packed fast with his hands shaking: his mom’s photo, her space magazine, the GameBoy from Jason, the comic, his journal…. He wanted to be ready. He didn’t want to beg to stay where he wasn’t wanted.

He sat on the floor, the duffel beside him, and held his mom’s photo. “Dad doesn’t want me,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “I tried, Mom. I tried so hard.”

A knock came, soft but firm. Danny wiped his face, but his eyes were red. Jason opened the door, his hoodie loose, a new bruise on his knuckles. He saw Danny’s face and stopped, his grin fading. “Hey, kid, what’s wrong?” he asked, stepping closer. His voice was rough but warm, like he cared.

Danny’s throat burned. He couldn’t say it, couldn’t tell Jason he was being sent away. “Just tired,” he lied, his voice flat. Jason didn’t buy it, his eyes narrowing. He sat on the bed, close to Danny. “Come on, you look like you saw someone kick a puppy,” he said, trying to lighten it. “Spill it, Danny. I’m here for you.”

Danny shook his head, his hands gripping the photo. Jason sighed, leaning back. “Alright, fine,” he said. “But you know I get it, right? Trying to make Bruce notice, feeling like you’re yelling into a void. I’m there too.” Danny nodded, the words hitting home.

Jason was like him, chasing Bruce’s pride and coming up empty. “I thought you were busy,” Danny said, soft, almost accusing. Jason winced, rubbing his neck. “Yeah, I’ve been caught up, school stuff, you know,” he said. “But I’m not ditching you, kid. We’re a team.” Danny wanted to believe it, but his heart was too raw. “Okay,” he said.

Jason pulled a candy bar from his pocket, splitting it in half. “Eat this,” he said, tossing Danny’s piece. “You need sugar, you’re all mopey.” Danny caught it, his lips twitching despite everything. He took a bite, the chocolate sweet but not enough to help what he’s feeling.

Jason stayed. He was talking about a dumb movie he’d seen in school, trying to make Danny laugh. It didn’t work, but it was something, a small light in the dark.

“I’m here, kid,” Jason said again, before standing. “Get some sleep, yeah? We’ll hit the arcade tomorrow.” Danny nodded, his voice gone. Jason left, the door closing soft. Danny opened his journal, writing, “I’m nobody here. I tried everything.” His tears fell on the page, smudging the ink. His mom’s photo stared back, her smile all he had left. Bruce didn’t want him, and even Jason couldn’t fix that. His dream was dead, but it still hurt.

— - - —

Danny stood in the manor’s front hall. His duffel bag sat at his feet, its straps frayed from two years of holding his life. The marble floor gleamed, cold under his sneakers. Rain tapped the tall windows, Gotham’s gray light filtering through. He was ten, but he felt smaller, like the manor was swallowing him whole.

His mom’s jacket hung loose on his shoulders, her lavender scent was gone now. He clutched his journal, its pages heavy with words about Bruce, about trying, about failing. His heart was a stone, his dream of being a noticed Wayne gone. Bruce was sending him away, and today was the day.

Alfred stood close, adjusting Danny’s collar with careful hands. His eyes were sad, his usual calm cracked just a little. “Will you be warm enough, Master Danny?” he asked, voice soft.

Danny nodded, his throat too tight to speak. “Yeah,” he said, barely a whisper.

Alfred’s hands lingered, like he wanted to say more. Danny looked away, his eyes on the duffel. Inside were his mom’s photo, her space magazine, clothes, Jason’s GameBoy, and the comic from last night. He’d packed them fast, after Jason’s visit last night, after the tears and the truth. Bruce just didn’t want him.

Bruce was there, standing stiff in his suit. His face was blank, but his eyes flickered, like he was searching for words. He stepped forward, hands in his pockets.

“Danny,” he said, his voice low, “the Fentons will keep you safe. Jack and Maddie, they’re your family. Amity Park’s a good place for you.”

Danny’s chest burned, the words safe and your family cutting deep. Safe from what? From him? He wanted to ask, to yell, but he just nodded, eyes on the floor.

“Okay,” he said, his voice flat. Bruce’s jaw tightened, like he heard the hurt but didn’t know how to fix it.

“It’s for the best,” he said, softer now. Danny thought, Best for you. He didn’t look up, he didn’t want to see Bruce’s face.

Jason appeared then, his hoodie rumpled, his hair plastered to his forehead from the rain. His eyes were red, the rims swollen, and he clutched a baseball cap tightly in his hands. He shoved it onto Danny’s head with rough fingers, his hand lingering a second longer than it needed to.

“Keep this, kid,” he said, voice hoarse, almost breaking. “Makes you look cool.”

Now, Jason’s usual grin was twisted, broken at the edges, his mouth fighting the shake in his chin. He blinked hard, but a tear slipped down anyway. He swiped it away furiously with his sleeve, pretending it wasn’t there.

He pulled Danny into a hug, burying his face into the top of Danny’s head for a heartbeat before stepping back.

“Text me, alright?” he said, his voice cracking halfway through. “I’m gonna visit you, and ima mail you so much that you’ll be swamp with comics. You’re not getting rid of me, ok…..”

Danny’s throat closed. He wanted to believe Jason, wanted it more than anything, but the manor taught him to never get his hopes up. He nodded. “Sure,” he said, meaning it.

Jason turned a little, facing Bruce now. His shoulders squared, but his face hardened, cold. He didn’t look at Bruce directly. He wouldn’t his jaw clenched so tight it trembled.

Bruce moved like he might say something to Jason, might offer some kind of comfort. But Jason shifted his body away sharply, hands jammed into his pockets, a wall slamming down between them.

Without a word and without a glance, Jason walked off, disappearing deeper into the manor’s shadows, his back stiff.

Alfred picked up the duffel, leading them to the car. Bruce followed, his steps heavy. Danny quickly left to go back to his room to leave his journal in a safe place. If he was leaving he wanted to leave his thoughts behind too. He started that journal to process his mother’s death. Now he wants nothing but to forget that he was ever here.

—

The drive to the airport was quiet, rain streaking the windows.  His eyes stung, but he wouldn’t cry, not with Bruce in the front seat.

The airport was loud, full of people rushing, voices echoing. Bruce walked him to the gate, his hand hovering like he might touch Danny’s shoulder. He didn’t.

“You’ll be okay,” Bruce said, his voice almost gentle.

Danny nodded, his heart cold. He looked back, one last time hoping Bruce would stop him. To say he’d changed his mind.

Bruce just waved, his face unreadable, his eyes far away. Danny turned, boarding the plane, his duffel heavy in his hand.

—

In Amity Park, the airport was smaller. Jack and Maddie Fenton waited, their smiles wide. Jack was huge, his laugh booming as he pulled Danny into a bear hug.

“Danny, my boy!” he said, too loud.

Maddie was softer, her red hair neat, her eyes kind but strange. “We’re so happy you’re here,” she said, touching his arm.

Danny just nodded, his voice was gone.

They drove to Fenton Works. It was a house buzzing with machine and wires spilling from tables. His room was small, cluttered with ghost-hunting gear that will be moved to the lab downstairs. It was very different from the manor.

He unpacked slow, setting his mom’s photo on the desk, the magazine beside it. He put his clothes into the closet as well.

He looked out the window. Amity’s sky was clear, a single star shining bright. His heart lifted just for a second, but then sank deeper than before.

He thought of his mom, her love for stars, her voice naming them, tracing the constellations with gentle fingers.

She was his home, not Bruce. Not Gotham. Not the manor. Not Amity. He whispered, “I’ll live for you, Mom.”

His dream of living with Bruce was dead, buried in Gotham’s rain. He wouldn’t need them now. He wouldn’t chase them.

He pulled Jason’s baseball cap low over his eyes, shielding himself from his reality of right now. The machines hummed below, but Danny didn’t care.

He was alone. But somehow, some part of him still wanted to kept going. Maybe it was just because he didn’t know how to stop.

— - - —

Chapter Text

The next morning.

The door of Fenton Works Lab slammed shut behind him, and Danny flinched at the loud bang. Jack Fenton didn’t even notice. He was already halfway down the hall, dragging Danny with him after he walked out of his room.

“Ugh I’m so excited to have you here, kiddo!” Jack boomed, his voice bouncing off the mismatched walls. “You’re gonna love it here! Ghost-free, monster-proof, totally safe! I hope you got some rest!”

Danny just walked with his uncle through the house. The house was… definitely a lot different then what he has seen. Bright orange walls, green tiles, wires snaking along the ceiling, blinking machines humming in the corners like they were alive. It was the opposite of Wayne Manor’s cold and careful halls. This place buzzed, and creaked, and breathed with excitement.

Maddie Fenton appeared beside him, tugging off her gloves with a sharp snap. She smiled down at him, the corner of her mouth twitching like she was holding back the urge to pinch his cheeks. “We’re so excited you’re here, sweetie,” she said. “It’s been too quiet around here!”

Danny doubted that. Nothing about this house was quiet. He shifted his feet closer to each other, feeling small and stiff. “Thanks,” he said, voice thin.

Maddie clapped her hands. “Jack, why don’t you give Danny the grand tour? He has only seen his room.”

Before Danny could think of an excuse, the front door swung open  with a gust of cooler air rushing in. A girl stepped inside, tugging her backpack off one shoulder. She was tall, around fourteen, with long frizzy red hair pulled into a loose ponytail and a blue jacket with college logos patched across it. She looked tired and a little startled by all the noise.

“Jazzy!” Jack bellowed. “Meet your cousin! Danny, this is Jazz!”

The girl, Jazz, blinked at Danny for a second, then her face broke into a real warm smile. Not the forced kind adults gave when they were trying too hard. It was a slow, gentle kind of smile, like she already liked him and didn’t expect anything back from him.

“Hi,” she said, voice soft and easy. She crouched a little, putting herself at Danny’s eye level. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

Danny swallowed, his throat dry. She wasn’t towering over him, wasn’t pulling him into some suffocating hug like Jack. She was just… there. Waiting for him to be ready to get to know her.

He nodded. He suddenly felt very shy and she asked, almost whispering, “Can I hug you?”

For a second, Danny’s heart squeezed tight. It had been a long time since someone asked first. He hesitated, then nodded again. Jazz leaned in carefully, wrapping her arms around him in a soft, quick hug. It was not tight, it was not trapping. It was just a warm hug. It felt like his mom’s almost….

She pulled back, her smile still steady. “Welcome to the madhouse,” she joked lightly. “I’ll show you the safe zones.” Danny’s mouth twitched. Almost a smile. Almost.

Jack clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, and Danny nearly staggered under the weight. “First, how about a town tour?!” he boomed. “In the Fenton RV!”

Maddie clapped excitedly. “Oh, perfect! You’ll see all the best parts of Amity!”

Jazz muttered under her breath, just loud enough for Danny to hear: “And all the ways to die of secondhand embarrassment.”

Danny stared at them. He opened his mouth to say he was tired or maybe later, but Jack was already herding him back out the door like a lost sheep. Jazz grabbed her jacket, shooting Danny a look that was half apology, half amusement.

“You’ll survive,” she said under her breath. “Probably.” What did Bruce get Danny into?

The RV was impossible to miss. Bright green with orange trim, it had “FENTON WORKS: GHOST HUNTERS EXTRAORDINAIRE!” painted across the side in giant comic book letters. The engine roared like a dying walrus as Jack started it up, belching black smoke into the cloudy sky.

Danny didn’t think this was road certified….

Danny slid into a seat beside Jazz, slouching low so he could hide behind the window frame. If Gotham was cold and gray, Amity was bright and painfully awake. And now everyone was staring. Well who wouldn’t look at this train reck.

Jack leaned out the window as they rolled down the street, waving wildly at random strangers. “Hey there, Mrs. Thompson! Still seeing that poltergeist in your attic?”

Maddie, in the passenger seat, pointed excitedly at a small shop. “That’s the best frozen yogurt place! We think it’s haunted, too!”

Danny ducked lower. Jazz covered her mouth with her hand like she was coughing, but Danny caught the glitter of laughter in her eyes. Danny doesn’t know how his Aunt and Uncle were able to talk about ghost in almost every conversation.

“This is the library!” Jack shouted, steering with one hand while gesturing wildly. “Supposedly built on cursed ground. Pretty neat, huh, Danny-boy?”

Danny nodded stiffly, cheeks burning. A group of kids on bikes pointed at the RV and burst into laughter. He felt like he was melting into the seat, wishing he could disappear completely.

Jazz leaned closer, her voice dry. “Just pretend you’re invisible. It’s what I do.” Danny shot her a sideways glance. She winked.

They rumbled past the movie theater, the bowling alley, the school. Jazz pointed out landmarks under her breath, “That’s the only coffee shop worth your time. Avoid the south side bathrooms, trust me,” “That hill’s the best sledding spot in winter.”

By the time they finally turned back toward home, Danny’s stomach hurt, not from fear or sadness, but from holding in a kind of laughter. Jazz made it bearable.

Jack parked the RV with a screech of brakes that made every window rattle. He climbed out, pounding on the side of the van like it was a beloved pet.

“Wasn’t that great?” he bellowed.

Danny climbed out slowly, the baseball cap Jason gave him pulled low over his eyes. His heart was still heavy, but it wasn’t crushing him the way it had been this morning.

Jazz bumped his shoulder gently with hers. “Survived your first Fenton outing,” she said. “You’re basically one of us now.”

Danny didn’t answer. He just nodded, stuffing his hands deep into his jacket pockets, and followed them inside.

— - - —

Danny trudged up the stairs, his legs asleep from the endless RV “tour” of Amity Park. Jazz followed close behind, the two of them escaping the noise of Jack and Maddie debating whether the “ghost readings” at the library were just faulty wiring.

The moment they stepped into the hallway, the floorboards creaked under their weight, but it was blessedly quiet compared to downstairs. Danny didn’t say anything, just shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and stared at his sneakers.

Jazz touched his elbow lightly, guiding him toward his room. The familiar sticker on the door, DANNY’S ROOM!!!, made him wince again with secondhand embarrassment, but he said nothing. It looked like his uncle’s handwriting. Inside, the room felt a little more like his now, even though it still smelled faintly like paint and old carpet.

Jazz closed the door behind them, muffling the sounds from below. She hesitated a second, like she wasn’t sure what to say, then finally plopped down cross-legged at the foot of his bed.

“So,” she said, in a voice that was trying hard to be casual but came out a little too eager, “you survived the Jack Fenton Amity Park RV Experience. That’s, like, a rite of passage in this family.”

Danny cracked a tiny smile before he could stop himself. He sat down too, a careful distance away. “Yeah,” he said, voice dry. “Barely.”

Jazz grinned, leaning back on her hands. “Trust me, you get used to it. Kind of. Maybe. Actually… you just learn to nod a lot and hope no one tries to make you wear matching jumpsuits.”

Danny snorted softly. He didn’t want to, but he did. A real laugh almost escaped before he bit it back. Jazz’s grin widened, very pleased with herself.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence for a moment. Danny glanced around the room. His duffel was shoved under the bed, his mom’s photo and magazine were neatly placed on the desk. Jason’s baseball cap hung on the bedpost, the only splash of color that felt real to him.

Jazz noticed his gaze. “You picked a good spot for your stuff,” she said gently. “Looks… nice. Cozy.” Danny shrugged, fiddling with the edge of the bedspread.

Jazz shifted, tucking her legs underneath her. “I know this probably feels super weird,” she said. “New place, new people… everything is upside down.”

Danny nodded, staring at the floor. “I just want you to know,” Jazz continued, her voice soft but certain, “I’m really glad you’re here.”

Danny looked up, startled.

“I mean it,” Jazz said, meeting his eyes. “I always wanted a little brother. Or someone close enough.” She shrugged, a little self-conscious now. “I even used to bug Mom and Dad about it. Thought it’d be cool to have someone to teach stuff to, to… I don’t know. Just to not be alone all the time.”

Danny opened his mouth, then closed it again. The lump in his throat made it hard to breathe.

“I know you’re not here because you chose to be,” Jazz said, quieter now. “And I’m not trying to replace anything you lost. I just… I guess I want you to know you’re not alone here. Not if you don’t want to be.”

Danny blinked fast, looking away. His hands clenched in his lap, knuckles white. Jazz didn’t push. She just sat there, picking at a loose thread on the bedspread, giving him space.

After a minute, Danny cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he said, voice hoarse.

Jazz smiled again, not the big and blinding smile she used with their parents, but something smaller, much more real. “Anytime,” she said.

Outside, the last of the sunset faded, stars beginning to pierce through the sky. Jazz leaned her head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling like she could see through it to the stars beyond.

“You like space?” she asked, casual but curious.

Danny blinked, caught off-guard. “Yeah,” he said after a second. “My mom… she used to take me stargazing. I also want to work for nasa one day.”

Jazz smiled, softer this time. “That’s awesome,” she said. “You’ll have to show me sometime. We don’t get a ton of supper clear nights, but when we do, it’s really pretty.”

Danny nodded, something in his chest loosening a little more. Maybe this wouldn’t be his home. Not exactly. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt forever.

Jazz yawned, stretching like a cat. “Alright, I’m gonna let you get ready for bed and dinner. Big day tomorrow.”

Danny blinked. “Big day?”

She grinned. “Jack wants to build you your own personalized ghost-hunting helmet.” Danny made a face. Jazz just laughed.

“Don’t worry,” she said, standing and ruffling his hair lightly before he could dodge it. “I’ll save you.” With a final wink, she slipped out the door, leaving him alone in the quiet room.

Danny sat there for a long moment, staring at the door she had closed behind her. Then he turned and looked out the window, pulling Jason’s cap down low over his head. It still smelled like Jason….

The stars above Amity twinkled faintly, and Danny was glad he could see them again.

— - - —

Danny stayed sitting on the bed for a while after Jazz left, staring at the dark window. The stars above Amity Park looked smaller than Gotham’s heavy skies had allowed, but somehow sharper too.

He pulled Jason’s baseball cap tighter over his head, then finally pushed himself up, his stomach rumbling just enough to make him realize how long it had been since he actually ate.

He could hear the muffled chaos from downstairs — Jack’s booming laugh, Maddie’s excited chatter, and the occasional clattering crash of something ceramic meeting an unfortunate end. Jazz’s lighter voice floated through too, a steady thread trying to organize the chaos without much success.

Danny made his way down the stairs carefully, the old wood creaking under his sneakers. As he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he stopped and stared.

It looked like a storm had hit the place.

There were pots on every surface, pans stacked three deep in the sink, and a suspicious amount of marshmallows somehow involved in the “dinner prep.”

Jack stood proudly at the stove, wearing a bright orange apron that said Grillbuster trying to be like Ghostbuster while holding two spatulas like weapons. Maddie had what looked like a homemade flamethrower rig slung over one of her shoulders, and was attempting to frost a lopsided cake with blue icing that dripped down the sides.

Jazz caught Danny’s wide-eyed look and gave him a helpless shrug, mouthing, I’m sorry.

“Hey, sport!” Jack bellowed, spotting Danny. “You’re just in time! We’re making Fenton Family Welcome Surprise!”

Danny edged further into the kitchen, warily eyeing the suspicious “surprise,” which seemed to involve spaghetti, hot dogs cut into strange shapes, and… marshmallows?

“We wanted to make you feel right at home!” Maddie said, beaming as she smeared more icing across the cake — and part of the counter. “First impressions are so important for developing stable familial bonds in transitional home environments.”

Danny blinked. “Uh. Thanks?”

Jazz swooped in, grabbing a chair and clearing it off with one quick sweep of her arm. “Sit,” she said with a grin. “You’re the guest of honor.”

Danny sat, because honestly, there wasn’t much else he could do. He watched in disbelief as Jack dramatically plated up an enormous helping of the “surprise” and set it down in front of him with a flourish.

“Eat up!” Jack said. “It’s full of protein, carbohydrates, and ghost-fighting spirit!” He said as he quash a marshmallow in front of Danny’s face.

Danny looked down at the mess on his plate. A single, half-melted marshmallow stared back at him, stuck between two fork-stabbed hot dog octopuses.

Jazz slid into the chair next to him, nudging him with her elbow. “I’ll trade you two marshmallows for one hot dog,” she whispered conspiratorially.

Danny huffed a small laugh. It was stupid, but… it helped. A little bit. Was this even edible?

He picked up his fork and bravely took a bite. It tasted exactly as weird as it looked. It was too sweet, too salty, too… much. But when he glanced up, he saw Jack and Maddie watching him with wide, hopeful eyes, like he was about to pass some critical Fenton Family Test.

“It’s, uh… great,” Danny managed to gag out.

Jack let out a triumphant whoop, slapping Maddie on the back so hard she nearly dropped the frosting bowl. “I told you the marshmallows would be a hit!” Jack crowed.

Maddie wiped her hands on her jumpsuit, beaming. “We’re so glad you’re here, Danny. Really.”

Danny ducked his head, swallowing against the lump forming in his throat again. He didn’t know what to say to that, not when the weight of everything he left behind still sat heavy on his chest. But he stabbed another piece of weird pasta-and-hotdog mess onto his fork and kept eating.

Jazz kept chatting to Danny, asking about his favorite foods, his favorite video games, and whether he liked comic books.

After a few minutes, Danny noticed he wasn’t so tense anymore. The chaos was weird and loud, but it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t like the manor, where voices always stayed quiet and anger simmered under the surface.

Here, it was all out in the open. It was ridiculous, messy, but… honest.

When they finished the so-called dinner, Jack unveiled the lopsided cake. Danny braced himself, but Jazz handed him the first slice before her dad could try to do something insane like “slice it with a ghost saw.”

The blue icing stained his fingers, and the inside was a weird green color that definitely wasn’t intentional, but it still tasted sweet. Homemade.

Halfway through eating, Jack pulled out a giant map of Amity Park and started pointing out all the “critical paranormal hotspots” that Danny “absolutely had to see,” like the clock tower, the abandoned factory, and something called the Nasty Burger that Jack claimed had a 15% higher ghost-activity rate in their food.

Danny mostly listened, half-dazed with sugar and exhaustion, but he still nodded along letting Jack and Maddie’s wild stories wash over him. Jazz caught his eye once or twice and smiled, small and steady, like she was silently telling him I know it’s crazy.

For the first time since the airport, since Bruce turned away without saying anything that mattered, Danny let himself relax.

Maybe he was still floating. Maybe he still didn’t know where he fit.

But maybe… maybe it wasn’t the worst thing to have people who wanted him here — even if they were loud, weird, and completely incapable of normal food.

Maybe this was a new start.

— - - —

Chapter Text

Danny slumped into his usual seat at the cafeteria table, with the cracked plastic chair creaking under him. He shoved a limp french fry around on his tray. He’s not really hungry but he was needing something to do with his hands. The cafeteria smelled like overcooked mystery meat and sweaty gym socks. It was the perfect mix of the basic middle school charm.

Across from him, Tucker Foley sat hunched over his PDA, his thumbs moving at lightning speed. The little device beeped and whirred, a tiny oasis of chaos in the sea of shouting students.

“Almost got it,” Tucker muttered, eyes narrowed in concentration.

Next to him, Sam Manson picked at a sad-looking salad. She wore black today. Well she wore black every day, and her short hair stuck out in determined little spikes. She stabbed a cucumber slice like it had personally offended her.

“You know,” she said dryly, “if you spent half as much time studying as you do trying to hack the vending machine, you’d probably already be valedictorian.”

Tucker grinned without looking up. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Danny chuckled, low and easy. He hadn’t meant to at first, he hadn’t thought he even could anymore, but somehow it just slipped out. It was easy with them. Comfortable even. He didn’t have to pretend to be anything more than he was.

It still surprised him, sometimes, how fast he’d fallen into step with them. He hadn’t even been trying. It just… happened. Like something in him recognized something in them, like maybe none of them really fit anywhere else either.

Tucker jabbed a button with a triumphant beep! and a second later, a satisfying ka-chunk echoed from across the room. The vending machine by the wall coughed up not one, not two, but three candy bars into its tray.

Several kids turned to look, but Tucker just leaned back with a wide, smug smile. Sam arched an eyebrow. “Congratulations. You committed a felony for chocolate.”

Tucker shrugged, entirely unbothered. “Justice,” he said solemnly. “Sweet and sugary justice.”

He grabbed one of the bars and tossed it at Danny. “Here. For our fearless new kid.”

Danny fumbled the catch, laughing as the wrapper crinkled in his hand. “Fearless?” he repeated. “I screamed when I saw a wasp yesterday. And I’ve been going here for two months.”

“Exactly,” Tucker said with a wink. “You fit right in newbie!”

Sam snorted. “Welcome to the bottom of the social barrel.”

Danny smiled. He really smiled, not the fake polite kind he used to wear around Wayne Manor. He tore the wrapper open and took a bite, the chocolate was sweet . It was exactly what he needed.

The bell rang, loud and shrill, sending a wave of groans through the cafeteria. Students shoved their trays aside and gathered their bags. Danny stood with Tucker and Sam, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

Tucker was already rattling off ideas for a new app he wanted to make. Something about tracking teachers’ bathroom breaks to predict pop quizzes? Don’t ask Danny he just goes along with it. Sam rolled her eyes but offered sarcastic suggestions, and Danny found himself grinning along, tossing in a few of his own.

It was normal. It was stupid. But it was perfect.

As they walked down the hallway, kids jostling past them, Danny felt a strange. He wasn’t just tagging along, he belonged. It was a feeling he hadn’t even realized he was missing until he had it now.

Not like Gotham. Not like the manor.

There no matter how hard he tried, he was always the outsider. The charity case. The shadow no one knew what to do with. Bruce’s problem. The accident child no one wanted.

Here? With Tucker arguing over which snack foods counted as vegetables and Sam rolling her eyes so hard it was a miracle she could still see straight? He was just Danny Fenton.

No heavy expectations. No suffocating silence. No journals full of pages trying to prove he mattered. Just friends. Just school. Just a normal stupid school day.

Danny let the noise of the hallway wash over him, Tucker’s voice blending with Sam’s dry comments, and the occasional slamming locker punctuating the background. He caught his reflection in the glass case outside the library. He was a skinny kid in a hand-me-down hoodie and scuffed sneakers. With a candy bar in one hand, and a real smile tugging at his mouth.

For the first time in what felt like forever, he didn’t hate what he saw. “Hey, earth to Danny,” Sam said, snapping her fingers in front of his face.

He blinked. “Huh?”

“You spaced out,” Tucker said, nudging him with his elbow. “What were you thinking about?”

Danny hesitated for a second, then shrugged, smiling a little. “Just… how awesome it is that the vending machine is officially our minion now.”

Tucker beamed. “Darn right.”

Sam just shook her head, exasperated but fond. They veered toward their next class, their footsteps echoing together down the hall.

— - - -

The Fenton house was strangely quiet.

Danny dropped his backpack by the door, the loud thump echoing through the empty hall. His sneakers squeaked across the tile as he kicked them off carelessly in different directions. His body already heavy from a long day at school. The buzz of machines from the lab downstairs was a constant hum, but without Jack’s booming laugh or Maddie’s excited inventions crackling in the background, the place felt still.

He liked the quiet most days. It wasn’t like Gotham. Where silence always meant something bad was coming. Here, it usually just meant you can just breathe.

Dragging his feet into the living room, Danny collapsed onto the couch, letting the scratchy fabric catch him like a net. He sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair. The remote was half buried under an old blanket, and he grabbed it lazily flicking the TV on just to fill the silence.

Bright colors flashed across the screen. News channel. Some anchor talking way too seriously, a bold red “Breaking News” banner scrolling across the bottom.

Danny didn’t pay attention at first, his mind was drifting. He was still half on the math test he probably bombed, but something about the name, said with grim precision, sliced through his thinking.

“—official confirmation that Gotham’s Jason Todd, adopted son of billionaire Bruce Wayne, has been confirmed dead following a tragic terrorist bombing in Ethiopia.”

Danny blinked.

He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

The words hit harder than any punch he’d ever taken. And for a moment, the living room tilted around him. He stared at the screen as they showed Jason’s school photo. Jason looking rebellious and alive, tie crooked, hair messy, a half-smirk tugging at his mouth.

Alive.

Jason can’t be dead.

The remote slipped from his fingers, hitting the floor with a dull, distant thud. Danny barely heard it.

The anchor kept talking, each word like a nail driven into his chest. Jason had been searching for his biological mother. He’d died in the explosion. There were no survivors. Authorities were releasing official statements. Funeral details were pending.

Danny’s heart started to race, pounding against his ribs like a trapped bird.

He curled forward on the couch, arms wrapping around his stomach without thinking. He couldn’t catch his breath. The air felt too thin, too sharp. His fingers shook violently where they gripped the fabric of his hoodie.

“No, no, no, no—” he whispered, rocking slightly. His vision blurred as hot tears welled up and spilled down his cheeks.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

Jason had promised. Promised to visit. Promised to swamp him with comics. Promised he wasn’t going anywhere.

He promised….

Danny’s breath hitched, coming in short, painful gasps. His chest squeezed tight, like something huge and heavy was pressing down on him. His hands went to his face, trembling. He felt trapped and caged in his own skin.

He was spiraling, but he couldn’t stop it.

Jason was supposed to be invincible. He survived Gotham’s streets, he survived Bruce’s coldness, and he survived everything the world threw at him. He survived Danny’s worst days, the ones filled with silence and sadness and hopelessness by just by existing, by just being there.

Jason had been the one who made the dark places a little brighter.

Danny had always thought Jason hung the stars. Like he’d grabbed handfuls of them from the sky just to make the night less scary. Like he’d stitched together a place where Danny could feel safe.

He thought Jason was the best big brother anyone could ever have.

The kind who showed up when nobody else did. The kind who made you laugh when all you wanted to do was cry. The kind who promised you weren’t alone even when the whole world said otherwise. He was there for you.

Jason wasn’t supposed to leave. He was the one who stayed. He wasn’t supposed to die…

A broken ugly sob tore from Danny’s throat. It was too loud and too raw. He curled tighter into himself, the couch swallowing his small frame. His lungs ached, desperate for air he couldn’t seem to pull in.

Breathe, he told himself, but the command was lost in the rising wave of panic. How could he breathe when Jason was dead, and no one called him personally.

Everything hurt. His chest, his throat, his head. Memories of Jason slammed into him. Jason laughing as he shoved a comic into Danny’s arms, Jason ruffling his hair, Jason promising that he wouldn’t leave him behind.

Gone. He was just gone.

The word echoed in his mind on repeat.

Gone, gone, gone.

He squeezed his eyes shut so tight it hurt, but the tears kept coming anyway, soaking the sleeves of his hoodie. His body shook with the effort of trying to stay silent even as it broke apart at the seams.

He didn’t stop crying. He couldn’t. It just kept coming, wave after wave, a flood he had no way to hold back. Danny cried until he couldn’t see, until his face was red and burning, until his chest hurt from the sheer force of it.

He cried because Jason was gone.

He cried because the world was unfair.

He cried because once again, someone he loved had been ripped away from him.

And it hurt. It hurt more than he knew how to survive.

It was a very long time before the world started to settle again.

Slowly and painfully, Danny forced himself to uncurl. He pressed his palms flat against the couch cushions, grounding himself, feeling the rough fabric under his fingers. Real, he thought. This is real. I’m real. He wished what he heard wasn’t real.

He sucked in a shaky, ragged breath through his nose, then another. It wasn’t easy. His chest still felt tight, like someone had wrapped barbed wire around his lungs, but he could breathe. Sort of.

The TV kept playing, the bright images blurring into meaningless color and noise.

Danny wiped his face with the sleeve of his hoodie, blinking up at the ceiling. His head pounded. His hands still trembled faintly.

Outside the living room window, Amity Park was quiet. It bathed in the soft orange glow of streetlights. Above it, the sky was dark, one bright star blinking stubbornly through the clouds.

Danny stared at it, tears still slipping down his cheeks in silent rivers.

“I miss you so much, Jay,” he choked out, voice hoarse. His voice sounded too small, too broken, swallowed up by the empty house.

He pulled the blanket tighter around himself, shrinking into it like armor against the world. Danny had thought he was starting to belong here. That maybe  just maybe, he could have a real life again. How could he when his brother was dead and he didn’t even know what really happened. Danny could barely live with a weekly phone calls from Jason. How could he live without anything now. Danny had started to hope that living here wasn’t that bad.

But now with Jason dead…., a piece of that fragile hope crumbled into dust. And once again, he was reminded that the people he loved never stayed.

Chapter Text

Danny didn’t hear the alarm in his room when it went off. Or maybe he had and just ignored it. The blanket on him felt too heavy to push off, and the sunlight filtering through the curtains was too bright. He curled in on himself with his knees drawn to his chest, and his fists clenched against the ache in his chest.

The ache had taken up residence there since the news. Since the screen had blared that Jason Todd is dead like it wasn’t announcing the end of Danny’s world.

He lay like that until Jazz knocked gently on the door “Danny? Breakfast is ready.”

His throat burned, but he forced a soft, “Coming,” before she could get worried.

Mechanical. That was how his day went. He shuffled into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and got dressed. He even picked out his favorite hoodie. He’d worn it so many times the cuffs had frayed, but it was soft and comforting to him now.

Downstairs, Jack was already talking about some new parts he ordered for a type of ghost portal. Maddie waved a toaster in one hand and a blueprint in the other. They were buzzing with excitement about the lab, still unfinished but closer than ever.

“Danny-boy!” Jack beamed, slapping a plate of eggs and toast in front of him. “Guess what your old man figured out about ectoplasmic conductivity!”

Danny nodded, giving a weak smile. “That’s so cool Uncle Jack.” Danny didn’t even hear what he actually said. It was the same answer he gave every morning, but this time, his voice was flat. Hollow, and Jazz noticed.

She sat next to him, nudging his arm lightly. “You okay?”

He glanced at her. Jazz’s eyes were too smart for their own good. She noticed everything. But he wasn’t ready to break in front of her. Not yet.

“Yeah,” he lied. “Just tired.”

She didn’t believe him. He could tell. But she nodded and let it go.

-

At school, Sam and Tucker were waiting at the lockers.

“Hey Danny! Tucker downloaded that new horror movie with the haunted AI!” Sam declared, nudging his side. “Movie night at my place?”

“Yeah, you’re not getting out of it this time,” Tucker grinned. “We even got snacks this time. Like, actual food. That’s not just celery sticks, Sam.”

Danny managed a chuckle. Barely. “Sounds fun.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate them. Sam and Tuck were great. Probably the best thing about Amity Park. But they didn’t know. They couldn’t. How could he tell them he used to have a brother who made the world feel like it made sense, and how he was just gone and Danny never got to say a proper goodbye.

As the day dragged on, Danny found himself drifting in and out of memories.

Jason carrying him on his shoulders around the Manor, as he was pretending to be a dinosaur. Jason sitting on the floor of Danny’s room, holding a flashlight under his chin while reading horror comics in a spooky voice. Jason sneaking him cookies from Alfred’s stash and winking like it was the greatest conspiracy of their lives.

Jason telling him, “You’re not a burden, D. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel that way. Not even Bruce.”

Danny blinked hard. His eyes burned.

In chemistry class the teacher was talking about covalent bonds, but all Danny heard was Jason’s laugh. That loud, carefree cackle that filled every corner of a room.

He excused himself to the bathroom and locked himself in a stall. There, in the safety of cold tile and fluorescent lights he let a few tears fall.

Jason was the best big brother anyone could have. And it wasn’t just something people said when someone died. It was true. Jason was kind and wild and protective and everything Bruce had never been. When Danny was scared of thunderstorms, Jason had read to him. When Danny had nightmares, Jason had curled up on the floor next to his bed with a baseball bat “just in case.”

Jason never made him feel like a mistake. Danny just wiped his face and went back to class.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. When he got home, the house was quiet. The Fentons were in the basement, working on that portal again. He could hear Jack yelling about a capacitor and Maddie laughing as something sparked.

Jazz was out with her friends, and for once Danny didn’t have the energy to be jealous of that. The silence was almost welcome.

He dropped his bag at the door and collapsed on the couch. The TV was already on, someone must have forgotten to turn it off. The screen flickered with a news segment repeating the same headline from yesterday:

“Wayne Foundation issues statement: Jason Todd honored with memorial scholarship fund.”

Danny stared. The footage shifted to a grainy photo of Jason smiling beside Bruce Wayne. It was an older picture and Jason looked about fourteen, just a year or two older than when Danny had last seen him. He was smiling like he had the world in his hands.

Danny’s breath caught. He tried to stand, but is knees buckled. His hands couldn’t stop trembling.

The sob that escaped him was raw, like something was torn from his chest. He collapsed to the floor, fists pressed to his eyes.

“He didn’t deserve that,” Danny whispered. “He made everything feel okay. Why couldn’t I make him feel that way.” Danny always wondered if Bruce didn’t send Danny away, if Jason’s death would’ve have had happened. Danny would have been there for Jason.

More sobs followed. Ugly ones. Loud ones. He cried until his throat was sore and his face was wet and red. No one was there to see. No one to judge. Just him and the echo of a brother he had lost long before death claimed him.

And Danny didn’t know if he’d ever stop crying.

— - - —

The house was warm with the smell of grilled cheese and bacon when Danny trudged into the kitchen. His backpack hung heavy on his shoulder, even though it only held a couple of books and a crumpled homework sheet he barely remembered finishing.

His shoes scuffed against the tile as he made his way to the counter, where Jack Fenton stood proudly in front of the stove, humming something upbeat and completely off-key.

“Danno!” Jack beamed, flipping a sandwich with one hand and gesturing at the stove with the other like he was revealing a masterpiece. “Your Uncle Jack has made the ultimate comfort food! Bacon cheddar grilled cheese! Secret ingredient? Love, and bacon grease.”

Danny gave him a tired smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Sounds awesome.”

Jack slid the sandwich onto a plate with exaggerated flair, placing it in front of Danny like it was a prize. “You know, back in college, your Aunt and I practically lived off these. Nothing like gooey cheese to melt away your worries.”

Danny sat at the table and picked up half of the sandwich. The melted cheese stretched like strings between the slices before snapping. He took a bite, chewing slowly.

Jack leaned against the counter, watching him for a moment. “You’ve been quiet lately, kiddo. Quieter than usual. Everything alright at school? No bullies, right? Because I will invent a shrink ray and fire ‘em into the sun.”

Danny gave a dry chuckle. “No bullies uncle Jack. And school’s fine.”

Jack nodded, though his usual boisterous demeanor softened. “It’s okay if you’re not feeling okay. I know your folks… they were important. And I know you’ve been through a lot, even before you came to us.”

Danny didn’t answer right away. He stared down at his plate, one hand still loosely holding the sandwich. “Did you ever… think someone was gonna be in your life forever and then they just… weren’t?”

Jack blinked, caught off guard by the question. “Sure. Yeah. Lost some friends, and… well, family too. It’s never easy. Hurts like a ghost ray to the ribs.”

Danny’s voice was a whisper now. “I used to think my brother would always be there. Jason. He made everything better. Even when Bruce was busy or didn’t really look at me, Jason made me feel like I mattered.”

Jack stepped closer, pulling out a chair and sitting down across from him. His expression was surprisingly gentle, and surprisingly understanding. “You don’t have to talk about it if it hurts too much. But if you want to… I’ll listen.”

Danny shook his head slowly. “Thanks, Uncle Jack. Just… it’s been a hard day.”

Jack gave his shoulder a gentle pat. “We’ve all had those. You need anything—Maddie and I got your back. And Jazz too. She’s a great kid, huh?”

A faint smile tugged at Danny’s lips. “Yeah. She’s cool.”

Jack nodded, standing up again. “Well, I’ll be downstairs in the lab if you need me. Maddie’s working on the core stabilizer and I’m not allowed to touch it without supervision after the whole ‘mini implosion’ thing last week.” He winked and lumbered toward the basement door. “Remember, bacon fixes everything.”

Danny watched him go, the door swinging shut behind him with a light click.

He stayed at the table a few minutes longer, chewing the last bites of the sandwich though he barely tasted it. Eventually, he pushed the plate aside and made his way upstairs, each step feeling heavier than the last.

In his room, the afternoon light filtered through half closed curtains. Danny closed the door behind him softly and dropped his backpack to the floor with a quiet thud.

He collapsed onto his bed, curling sideways so he could see the screen of his phone on the nightstand. It was still lit, showing Alfred’s contact info. He stared at it for a long time.

His thumb hovered again over the call button. But he didn’t press it. His hand fell back to the bed. The silence in the room seemed to grow louder.

Why didn’t they call him?

He turned onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

Didn’t he matter enough to be told about a death in the family?

His chest tightened. His throat felt like it was closing. For a moment, he thought he might cry again, but the tears didn’t come this time. He just lay there trying not to think, trying not to feel, and failing at both.

Downstairs, faintly he could hear the sound of drills and the excited voices of Jack and Maddie echoing up through the floorboards. It was slightly comforting.

He rolled onto his side and faced the wall, wishing he could shut his emotions all out.

— - - —

The house was still. It was wrapped in the silence that only came after midnight. Somewhere deep in the basement, the soft hum of cooling machinery echoed faintly through the vents. Jack and Maddie must’ve finally shut down their work for the night.

The lights were off in every room but the living room, where the flickering blue glow of the television cast shadows on the walls.The volume was muted.

Danny sat curled in the far corner of the couch with his knees pulled up to his chest, and his arms wrapped around them. The TV screen flashed between infomercials and late-night reruns of old cartoons, the kind Jason used to voice-over with ridiculous commentary just to make him laugh.

His eyes didn’t really register what he was watching. They were glossy and heavy with exhaustion. The room felt very cold.

He didn’t notice the creak of the stairs or the soft steps padding into the room. Not until a warm, thick blanket was draped over his shoulders.

Danny flinched just a little, just enough to draw in a shaky breath before his eyes slid toward the person who sat beside him.

Jazz.

She didn’t say anything right away. She just tucked her knees under her and leaned back into the couch, close enough to offer warmth, but not crowding him. She watched the screen with him, though it was clear neither of them cared what was on.

Danny’s grip on his legs tightened. The blanket slipped down slightly, and he pulled it back up with fingers that trembled just barely.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, voice a hoarse whisper. “I didn’t want to be alone in my room.”

Jazz nodded slowly. “I get that.”

They sat like that for a while. Minutes ticking by in silence, and was broken only by the flicker of the TV and the soft buzz of the refrigerator down the hall.

Eventually Danny said, “Someone I loved died recently.”

Jazz’s breath caught. She turned to look at him, eyes gentle. “I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

Danny didn’t answer. His eyes stayed on the screen.

A long moment passed before he turned toward her, his face pale and raw with emotion. “He was my brother, Jazz.”

Something cracked in his voice, and the tears he hadn’t let fall earlier began to well again. He didn’t sob. He didn’t collapse into her arms. But he leaned against her shoulder like it was the only solid thing left in the world around him.

Jazz blinked back her own tears and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight. Not too tight, but just enough that he knew she was there.

“I’m so sorry, Danny,” she whispered. “I’m here, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

Danny nodded once, and let himself rest against her warmth. And for the first time that day, he didn’t feel like he was going to break apart alone.

— - - —

Chapter Text

The final bell rang with a high pitched ring. Students burst out of their classrooms, like a sea of backpacks and chatter flooding the hallways of Casper High. Danny Fenton drifted among them unnoticed, and easily passed through the mob of kids.

He was fourteen now. Officially a freshman. Supposedly a “new school beginning,” according to Jazz. But nothing had changed from middle school. Not really.

His hands were stuffed deep in the pockets of his hoodie. His eyes low and shoulders curled inward. He counted the floor tiles as he walked. Anything to keep from looking at the people around him. Anything to keep from remembering what month it was.

Four years. It has been four years since Jason. It has been four years since Bruce sent him away. Four years since he stopped being a son and became someone else’s burden.

“Hey! Fenturd!”

Danny’s stomach dropped. His shoulders tensed, but he didn’t stop walking. The voice came again, louder this time. “Yo, ghost Boy! Didn’t you hear me?”

Danny turned around slowly, already bracing himself.

Dash Baxter swaggered through the crowd, flanked by two of his football buddies. His varsity jacket practically gleamed under the fluorescent lights, and his smirk was already locked in place. A crowd of curious students started to gather, sensing a show about to start.

Dash stepped right up in front of Danny and was trying to intimidate him.

“You still hanging out in that freak show of a house?” he asked, and his voice was loud. “What’s it like living with the world’s biggest ghost hunting losers?”

Danny kept his mouth shut, but Dash wasn’t fazed. “Oh right, they’re not even your parents, are they?” he grinned. “More like… charity case babysitters. Man I remember now, your real family ditched you, huh?”

Laughter rippled through the crowd. Danny’s hands clenched into fists in his pockets, his heart pounding.

“And your aunt and uncle?” Dash sneered. “They’ve been chasing ghosts for, what, fifteen years? Still haven’t caught one. I mean, c’mon, that portal thing in their basement? Absolute garbage. Their life’s work is a joke, just like you.”

Danny flinched.

Dash leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Bet they regret wasting their lives on you just as much as they regret wasting it on all that fake ghost trash.”

Danny didn’t respond. Couldn’t. His throat was too tight. His chest was too heavy.

“Or maybe your real dad figured it out first,” Dash said, voice suddenly crueler. “Maybe that’s why he got rid of you.” That one stung.

Danny’s eyes burned. His vision blurred. It was not from anger, but it was from shame.

“Back off, Dash!” Sam’s voice cracked through the tension.

She shoved through the crowd, Tucker right behind her. Sam’s face was flushed with rage, her boots stomping hard against the floor.

Dash rolled his eyes. “Oh look, it’s the emo brigade.”

“Try me Dash,” Sam snapped, standing between him and Danny.

Tucker took his place beside her. “Real bold, picking on someone who’s smaller than you and twice as decent.”

Dash scoffed and was stepping back, but not before giving Danny one last shove. “Whatever nerd. Have fun chasing fairy tales, freaks.”

He stalked off, dragging his pack of grinning friends with him. The crowd dispersed just as quickly, like nothing had happened.

Sam turned to Danny. “Are you okay Danny?”

“I’m fine,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes.

Tucker frowned. “You’re not. You don’t have to lie to us Danny.”

“I said I’m fine,” Danny repeated, his voice sharper now.

Silence fell between them. Danny looked away, jaw tight and his eyes were shining with unshed tears. Sam reached out, but he pulled back before she could touch his arm.

“I just… I need a minute, okay? You guys can come over later if you two want. I just need a second of alone time.” he said quietly, barely above a whisper.

Without waiting for a reply, Danny turned and walked away. With his backpack sagging and his shoulders low. He didn’t hear Sam calling his name. He didn’t see Tucker trying to follow either.

He just needed to be alone right then.
— - - —
Danny pushed through the back doors of the school and into the lesser used stairwell near the janitor’s closet. It smelled faintly of floor wax and old metal, the fluorescent lights flickering every so often like the world was just barely holding itself together.

Kind of like him.

His footsteps echoed against the concrete walls as he sank onto the cold step near the bottom of the staircase. The silence was a strange sort of comfort. No bells. No yelling. No Dash. No expectations.

Just the sound of his breathing and the aching thump of his heart.

He curled his knees up and buried his face in them, clutching at the fabric of his hoodie like it could hold him together. He hated this feeling. He hated this wet, hot pressure behind his eyes, and this hollow ache in his chest that felt like something vital had been carved out of him.

Why did Dash’s words hurt so much? It wasn’t like he didn’t already think them.

He had replayed those thoughts in his head over and over again for years. Bruce Wayne hadn’t called once. Not for his birthday. Not for Christmas. Not even when Jason who his favorite person in the whole world had died. He tried to talk to dick to ask about the funeral but he never answered either…

He hadn’t heard a single word since the day Bruce dropped him off with the Fentons. Just one stupid, half hearted lie. “It’s for your safety, Danny. You’ll be happy here.”

Happy? He wasn’t happy.

The Fentons barely noticed him now, unless he got in the way of some invention or ghost theory. Maddie treated him like a research assistant, and Jack forgot his name sometimes.

He’d learned how to cook his own meals by the time he was eleven. Jazz did her best, but she was always buried in college prep and therapy books. She couldn’t fix this, and he didn’t expect her to fix it. No one could.

And Dash had just… said it. Out loud. In front of everyone. All the fears Danny tried to laugh off. All the doubts he swallowed down so he wouldn’t cry in public.

“Maybe your real dad figured it out first. Maybe that’s why he got rid of you.” Dash’s words just kept repeating in his head.

Danny curled in tighter, his hands clutching his arms as his body started to tremble. He told himself not to cry. Crying made it worse. It made the voices louder. The fear, the anger, the shame all more real.

But his body didn’t listen.

Tears slid hot and silent down his cheeks, his breath hitching in broken intervals. The pain wasn’t just emotional, it felt physical. His chest felt crushed, like a vice was squeezing the air out of his lungs. His ribs ached. His heart burned.

He wanted to scream, but the silence was the only thing holding him together.

“I miss you, Jason,” he whispered into the empty stairwell. “You’re the only one who ever made me feel like I mattered.”

The words cracked something open.

Danny bit his lip hard, trying to smother the sob that rose up. He failed. He knows he should have moved on from Jason’s death but he just couldn’t for some reason.

Tears kept falling, heavier now. Faster. It wasn’t just about Jason, or Bruce, or Dash. It was all of it. The loneliness. The memories. The aching sense of being wrong somehow.

He didn’t belong at school. He didn’t belong at home. He didn’t belong anywhere. And worst of all?

He was starting to believe Dash was right. Maybe he was just a mistake Bruce wanted to forget. Maybe the Fentons were wasting their lives on him. Maybe everyone who left him had the right idea.

His hands gripped the edges of the stairs, fingernails biting into the concrete. His breathing was shallow now, his pulse pounding in his ears like war drums.

Breathe. Just breathe. But it was way too late for that.

Danny let his forehead fall to his knees again, chest heaving. His fingers trembled. He couldn’t stop shaking.

“Why wasn’t I enough?” he choked out. The words echoed against the walls softly.

“Why couldn’t I be what they wanted?” For once, there were no sarcastic voices in his head. No rationalizations. No attempts to joke it away.

Just silence. Just empty and unforgiving silence.

Danny sat there for a long time. Maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe thirty. Time lost all meaning when the only thing he could feel was pain.

Eventually, he scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, wiping away the evidence even though his eyes were still red and puffy.

He didn’t want Sam and Tucker to see him like this. He didn’t want anyone to. Not the boy who cried over being replaced. Not as the kid who still hoped his dad would come back.

He stood slowly, muscles stiff from sitting on cold stone for too long. His limbs ached like he’d been in a long fight.

He started walking back toward the hall, past the vending machines and flickering lights, shoulders low and hoodie hood pulled tight over his head.

Because if he told them. If he really opened up then he might shatter. And if he shattered, he wasn’t sure he could put himself back together again.
— - - —
The house was quiet in a way that didn’t feel peaceful. It just felt empty.

Danny stood by the front window, arms folded tightly across his chest as he watched the Fenton family van back out of the driveway. Jazz was in the passenger seat, waving at him through the window with a warm smile he didn’t return. His parents were already arguing over which highway to take.

As the van disappeared down the street, the silence settled in like a thick fog. Danny turned away from the window and pulled out his phone.

Come over.
I wanna try something in the lab.

He hesitated, fingers hovering over the screen.

Just for a bit. It’s important to me. Please.

He hit send. Within moments, two dings lit up his screen.

Tucker: Be there in 10.
Sam: Danny… is this about today?

He ignored the second message. He didn’t want to talk about Dash or the hallway or the way his chest still ached when he thought about his bio dad.

Instead, he paced. His eyes flicked toward the basement door again and again, each time longer than the last. The portal was down there. It had always been the “someday” project. “Someday it’ll change the world.” “Someday we’ll turn it on.” “Someday, the Fentons will make history.”

But “someday” never came. Like every other promise. The doorbell rang. Danny flinched at the sound but quickly moved to answer it.

Tucker stepped inside first, pulling off his beanie and tucking his PDA into his hoodie pocket. “Hey, man. What’s up? You okay?”

Sam followed, her expression tight with concern. “Danny, if this is about what Dash said—”

“I’m fine,” Danny cut in, shutting the door behind them. “Thanks for coming over.”

“Your folks gone?” Tucker asked, glancing around the living room.

“Yeah. Ghost tech convention in Wisconsin. They’ll be back tomorrow night.” He gave a half shrug. “Jazz went with them. Figured she could use the break.”

Sam frowned. “So why are we here? What’s going on?”

Danny walked past them toward the basement door, the air around him almost vibrating with nervous energy. “I’ve been thinking about the portal. And… I think I know what’s wrong with it.”

Tucker and Sam exchanged a look. Tucker scratched the back of his neck. “Dude, no offense, but didn’t your dad say it was unstable? Like, explode and possibly kill everyone unstable?”

Danny turned back to face them. “Yeah. But I’ve been studying it, watching them work and reading their notes. I think I get it now. They’ve been missing something. I think I can fix it.”

Sam’s arms crossed immediately. “Danny.”

“No, just listen. I’m not saying we build a ghost army or anything. I just… I want to see it work.” His voice cracked slightly, betraying the desperation beneath. “I want to prove it’s not a total failure. That I’m not a total failure.”

That silenced them. Tucker looked away awkwardly. Sam softened just a bit. “You’re not a failure,” she said.

“You didn’t see Dash today,” Danny muttered. “Or hear what he said. Or how everyone laughed. Or how my dad—” He stopped himself and took a shaky breath. “Forget it. Just… just come downstairs. Please.”

Sam hesitated, clearly battling whether to argue or support him. She finally sighed. “If you blow something up, I’m telling Jazz.”

Danny offered a weak smile. “Deal.”

The three of them moved to the basement door. Danny opened it and flicked on the light, illuminating the metal stairs that led into the lab below. It was cold, sterile, and humming faintly with old energy.

As Danny started down the stairs, he didn’t see the way Sam paused at the top, frowning with unease. Something didn’t feel right about this. At all.
— - - —
The lab felt even colder than usual, like the walls themselves were holding their breath.

The ghost portal stood at the far end. Thick steel cables and power conduits snaked across the floor, while glowing green tubes pulsed faintly inside the arch. It looked like a gate to nowhere and everywhere.

Danny stepped up to the console beside it and began flipping switches, his fingers trembling.

“You’re sure about this?” Tucker asked, hovering near the steps.

“No,” Danny admitted. “But I’m done waiting. I need to know if it works.”

He pressed a button. A series of low mechanical whirrs echoed through the lab. Lights flickered on the console. The arch of the portal began to glow faintly, but nothing more.

Danny furrowed his brow, typing something into the old terminal. Sparks crackled briefly beneath the control panel.

“Still dead,” he muttered.

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Sam offered, keeping her distance. “Your parents are literally on a panel about portal safety right now.”

“They’ve been working on this for years, and it never turned on. But I’ve seen what they missed.” Danny pointed to a row of switches near the base of the console. “The stabilizer input’s not syncing with the main capacitor. If I can just manually reroute the feedback current—”

“English?” Tucker asked.

Danny sighed and gestured toward the arch. “I think it’s not working because the switch inside the portal, the internal activation node, was never installed properly. It needs someone to connect the circuit from inside.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “No. Nope. Absolutely not Danny.”

Danny was already walking toward the portal. “Danny!” she called, grabbing his sleeve. “This is not safe!”

“I’ll be careful,” he promised, trying to give her a reassuring smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ll just take a quick look.”

Tucker looked equally uneasy, but he said nothing as Danny stepped past the thick cables and climbed into the dark mouth of the portal.

Inside, it was cramped and metallic. It was filled with dust and half-finished wiring. The air smelled faintly of ozone as he went deeper. Panels were missing from the walls, and sparks still glimmered from a few exposed wires hanging just above head level.

Danny ducked carefully, flashlight in one hand, the other bracing against the wall. Outside, Sam and Tucker watched with them holding their breath.

“I don’t like this,” Sam muttered.

Tucker nodded. “Me either. I think—” A flash of green light lit up the inside of the portal.

“Danny?” Sam called, voice tightening.

“It’s fine!” Danny called back. “I think I see the internal switch. I just need to—” As he reached up to adjust a loose wire, and something slipped.

He didn’t even see it happen. His hand brushed against a cluster of exposed circuitry, and a surge of energy shot up his left arm. A blinding jolt of electricity raced through his nerves and heart. He gasped, seizing for half a second, and staggered backward—

Right into the hidden switch. Click. The portal roared to life.

Outside, alarms blared from the console. The green tubes along the arch flared to full brightness, and a cyclone of energy exploded outward from the center of the portal like a vortex being born.

“Danny!” Sam screamed.

Inside the portal, Danny was suspended in glowing green light flooding the chamber, electricity coursing around his body like lightning dancing across a storm. He couldn’t scream. Couldn’t move. Every nerve in his body was on fire.

The swirling green tore at him. It was ripping something apart and sewing something new in its place. His vision went white. His heart stopped and started and stopped again.

He wasn’t sure if he was alive anymore. And then—Silence. The light disappeared.

Danny crumpled forward, his body smoking was he hit the floor outside the portal with a hard thud.

Tucker raced to him first, skidding to his knees. “Danny?! Danny, say something!”

Sam was already on the phone, calling 911, her hands shaking too badly to hold it steady.

Danny’s chest rose with one shallow breath, then another. His eyes were wide open—but empty, and very unfocused. They soon closed with a whimpered breath.

“Danny?” Tucker whispered again. Still with no response.

Sam’s voice cracked. “Oh god. He’s not, he’s not waking up.” Outside, the lab lights flickered green once… twice…

Then Danny stopped breathing completely.
— - - —

Chapter Text

His back slammed against the big red button. There wasn’t even time for Danny to gasp. The Ghost Portal roared to life.

A whine like a dying beast shrieked from the metal arch as green light split the air around him. It was swallowing up the room and every breath in his lungs. Power surged through the machine with a horrible, keening scream. It wasn’t supposed to work. It wasn’t finished. His parents said it was a dud, and was just wires and failed math.

But it worked. It actually worked, and Danny was standing inside it. Who puts the on button inside the machine? The world soon exploded.

Something punched through him. It was a green types of lightning. It was sharp and alive. It cracked down his spine and folded him inward. The pain was instant and consuming. It was a living thing that crawled through his nerves and set every one of them on fire.

He didn’t even have time to scream.

It was like being ripped apart by every atom in his body, and then flayed open with electricity. The portal didn’t just zap him it was killing him. His chest arched as his muscles convulsed, his spine bending in unnatural angles, and his heels drumming against the steel floor of the chamber as electricity chewed through his sneakers and up his bones straight into his heart.

He tried to breathe, but nothing came. No air no sound, just the electric shriek and the sound of his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. Every beat sent fresh fire racing through him, like his blood had turned to molten lava. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t see. His eyes were open, but they didn’t work anymore. There was only light and noise and pure agony.

His mouth was open. He thought maybe he was screaming, but he couldn’t hear it over the roar of the energy filling the portal. A sick green light spiraled around him. It crackled across the walls like lightning. It touched everything, and when it touched him it didn’t let him go.

His fingers curled tight with his nails biting into his palms. His body had stopped obeying him, jerking uncontrollably like a puppet with tangled strings. He could feel his left arm seize up then go terrifyingly numb. His left leg followed seconds later. His whole side was shutting down, nerves overloaded and then dead. Gone.

He couldn’t feel his face anymore. He couldn’t move.

Danny wanted to call for help, for Sam, for Tucker, for Mom, Dad, Jazz, for someone. He wanted to say he made a mistake, to tell them he’s sorry, to scream that it hurts and he’s scared, and please don’t let him die like this.

But he couldn’t speak. His voice was gone, lost in the storm tearing him apart. His heart stuttered. And again. Every thump felt slower. Duller. Like it wasn’t his heart anymore. It felt just like an echo of something fading fast.

There were shapes in the light. Faces in the green, that were twisted and sharp. They were laughing and howling and whispering words he didn’t understand. They reached for him, brushing cold hands against his cheeks, his throat, and the center of his chest where the burn felt the deepest.

His body arched one last time. The air smelled like ozone and copper and fire. Then a pop. Something inside him gave out.

Danny’s body sagged in midair, he was suspended in the light. His limbs hung limp, mouth half open, and his eyes wide but so very blind.

He couldn’t feel anything. Not the floor. Not the pain. Not even the heat. He was weightless. Sound dulled, like he was underwater. No more screaming. No more lightning. Just the hollow ring of silence.

Danny’s thoughts slowed. He wasn’t sure if he was still thinking, or just remembering the idea of it. His brain felt fuzzy, like someone had stuffed it full of cotton. The pain was gone, but so was everything else.

His name didn’t seem important anymore. Was this dying? Was he dead?

He didn’t know. It didn’t hurt now. He didn’t feel scared. Just…cold and distant. When the green light dimmed, so did everything else.

His last thoughts weren’t really thoughts at all. It was just impressions. a soft bed. The smell of Alfred’s aftershave. Jason’s laugh. Bruce’s hand ruffling his hair that one time he let it. Jazz and her hugs. Tuck and him playing games. Sam and her rants about the environment.

And then it all just stopped.

— - - —

Danny woke up to softness sounding him.

Not the scratchy kind that came from old hospital sheets, or the plush of sleeping bags on camping trips, but something warm and gentle. The sheets brushed his skin like silk, and the mattress beneath him sinking perfectly to cradle his aching frame. It was a huge bed. It was far too big for someone his size, like the ones rich people owned in mansions with a dozen guest rooms.

Like the one Bruce used to have.

The thought barely formed before it slipped away, half-lost in the fog clouding his mind. He realized he couldn’t move.

That realization came slowly, drifting in like morning fog. Danny tried lifting his left arm, but it was like asking a corpse to stir. Nothing. He tried twitching his toes, rolling over, and blinking. It was like everything was either numb or burned like fire.

His body throbbed. He felt raw and sore in places he didn’t know could hurt. Especially the left side. His whole left side buzzed with distant static, heavy and dead and foreign, like it belonged to someone else now.

He made a small noise. It was more breath than voice. That alone exhausted him.

There were footsteps. Two sets. Not loud or rushed, but soft and measured. It was the kind adults made when they didn’t want to scare you. Danny’s vision was still blurry, the room a wash of white and green, but he caught movement. There were two shadows bending over him.

“Shh, it’s alright. You’re safe now,” a woman said gently.

Her voice was warm and very soothing. It was motherly. She sounded like…not Maddie, or not his mom. Someone else. Older maybe. Calmer. Like a grandma in those princess fairytales. A large cool hand touched his forehead, brushing damp bangs away with the kind of care that made Danny’s throat close up. He hadn’t been touched like that in years.

“We’ve got you, sport,” the man said, voice soft and rumbling like distant thunder. “Just rest. Don’t try to move. You’ve been through something awful these past days.”

Danny blinked slowly. The shapes above him began to clear.

A woman with soft gray-streaked brown hair and kind eyes smiled down at him. She wore a simple dress and a string of pearls around her neck, her fingers gentle as they brushed against his cheek. Beside her stood a tall man in a vest and collared shirt, dark hair swept back with a touch of silver. His eyes…those were the same kind of blue as Danny’s somehow. Sharp and heavy with quiet sorrow.

They weren’t strangers, not really. Or at least they kinda look familiar. They also felt like home. Danny’s cracked lips parted. “Wh… who—?”

“Shh,” the woman said again, her thumb stroking his temple. “No need for that right now. Just rest. You’re safe. You’re also very loved.”

Loved. That word hit him harder than the portal had.

He didn’t know them. He shouldn’t have trusted them. But their voices were gentle, their touch kind, and their eyes… their eyes didn’t look at him like he was broken or disappointing or an inconvenience. They looked at him like he was precious.

Something inside him physically cracked. “Who…who are you..”

The married couple looked at each other before answering Danny, while they still strived to soothe him. “My name is Martha and this is my husband Thomas, dear.”

Martha sat carefully on the bed’s edge, easing Danny gently onto his right side. He whimpered at the movement. His muscles were too sore, his nerves were frayed and screaming. His left arm dangled uselessly against his side, and his fingers limp.

“I know, baby, I know,” she whispered, placing a pillow to support his back. “You’ve been through so much. You’re going to be alright now.”

The man—Thomas—adjusted the blankets around him, tucking them close with slow, deliberate hands. “Your body’s still remembering the pain, but it’ll fade. We’ll take care of you until you wake up. You don’t have to go through it alone here. You are so strong, and you only will get stronger after this.”

Danny didn’t know what to say. His mouth moved, but no sound came. His throat was dry, raw from the electricity, from all that screaming he didn’t remember. A tear slid down his cheek without permission.

He hated this.

He hated being weak helpless and needing anyone. But something in this place, in these people disarmed all that. They weren’t asking anything of him. They weren’t pushing him to talk or explain or pretend. They were just… there. Holding him through the pain without needing anything in return.

And he needed that more than he could bear.

“I… it hurt,” he whispered, voice cracked and hoarse. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to die.”

“Oh, darling,” Martha murmured, brushing a tear from his temple. “You didn’t deserve what happened to you sweetheart. None of it was your fault.”

Thomas leaned forward, resting a steady hand over Danny’s trembling fingers. “You’ve been so strong for so long. You don’t have to be strong here. Let yourself feel it, let your body understand what happened to it.”

Feel what?

Danny didn’t even know anymore. Grief? Fear? Anger? He was too tired to untangle it. The knot in his chest tightened. The love in their voices was too much. It was too good. Too unreal. His body shook from it, from exhaustion and hunger and that awful, aching loneliness that had lived in him for years, eating away like rust.

And they saw it. They saw him. And they said they loved him.

Martha leaned forward and gently gathered him into her arms, careful not to disturb his injuries. Danny let her. His head rested against her shoulder, his body small and shaking as her hand rubbed soft circles into his back.

He didn’t even know he was crying until the tears soaked into her dress.

No sobs. No sounds. Just silent rivers sliding down his cheeks, soaking his lashes and leaking into the fabric beneath his face. He’d forgotten what it felt like to be held this way. Not because someone had to, but because they wanted to. Because he mattered to them.

He wanted to ask them why. Why did they care? Why did it feel like they loved him? But he couldn’t bring himself to speak. Not yet.

“We love you,” Martha said again, voice firm but kind. “We always have, since the moment you were born. We’re so sorry, Danny. So, so sorry. If we were there with you none of this would have happened to you, and it hurts my heart so much.”

Thomas pressed a kiss to the top of Danny’s head, then rested his forehead briefly against his grandson’s. “No more pain, kiddo. Not while you’re here with us. With your family.”

Danny wept until sleep took him again, and neither of kind strangers let him go.

— - - —

Beep Beep Beep …. B-Beep beep beep B-beep….

Danny’s eyes fluttered open, lashes crusted from all the sleep he got. The white ceiling above him was too bright, and way too sterile. The air smelled like antiseptic and faint lemon cleaner. His throat ached. His body was heavy, like his bones were filled with cement.

For a moment, he didn’t know where he was.

Then the pain came rushing back, like someone had carved the nerves out of the left side of his body and tried to sew them back in wrong. He let out a soft sound. It was barely a breath.

A chair creaked. “Danny?” That was Jazz!

Her voice cracked like she’d been holding back tears for weeks. Danny blinked again, eyes adjusting to the hospital room’s soft lighting. Jazz was beside him, in a wrinkled hoodie and dark circles under her eyes. Sam sat on his other side, gripping his hand tightly like she was afraid he might disappear. Tucker hovered behind them both, trying not to cry and but failing.

Danny opened his mouth, but no sound came. His throat was so dry it felt like sandpaper. “Oh my goodness,” Sam whispered. “You’re awake.”

Jazz leaned forward, brushing his bangs gently back. “Hey, baby brother. You’re okay. You’re safe. We’re here.”

Danny’s lips moved. “Wha…” His voice rasped.

“Don’t try to talk too much,” Tucker said quickly, wiping his eyes. “You’ve been out for weeks. You’ve got IVs and a feeding tube and—and stuff.”

“Four weeks,” Jazz clarified gently, eyes scanning his face like she was memorizing every twitch and blink. “You’ve been in a coma for a whole month. The doctors didn’t know when you would wake up.”

A fog lay thick in his mind. Four weeks? What happened? He remembered pain. It was blinding, white-hot, and endless. Then darkness. And after that…

Was a dream. A bed, soft as clouds. Kind hands. A woman’s voice telling him he was loved.

It slipped away the harder he tried to recall it, like grasping at fog. Had that been real? No. No, it couldn’t have been. Danny has been in a coma, not with the kind couple.

Danny shifted slightly, and the pain flared in his left side that left his nerves screaming. He winced and his jaw was tightening.

Jazz caught it immediately. “They said the nerve damage is… serious. Especially on your left. It’s going to take time, Danny. But they think you’ll regain partial function.”

“Function,” he croaked, the word tasting bitter. “I’m… paralyzed?”

“Not exactly,” Tucker offered hesitantly. “It’s more like… your nerves got scrambled. Like, electrocuted scrambled. Your muscles still work, kinda, but the connection is messed up. You can get therapy. You’ll heal. Eventually.”

Danny said nothing. Sam leaned closer. “You’re not alone. We’re gonna help you through this. Whatever you need. We’ve got you. Okay Danny?”

He nodded slightly, too exhausted to cry, and too numb to speak.

Jazz squeezed his hand. “Mom and Dad were here earlier. They had to run back to a friends house to check on something Fenton related. But they’ll be back tomorrow.”

That should’ve made him feel better. It didn’t.

Visitor time ended half an hour later, and the nurse gently ushered his friends out. Sam and Tucker lingered in the doorway, eyes lingering like they didn’t want to leave. Jazz kissed his forehead and promised she’d be back first thing in the morning.

And then Danny was alone. And the silence was deafening.

He turned his head slightly to the right. It was the only direction that didn’t send jolts of pain through him, and found the remote on his rolling tray. It took several tries to grab it, his fingers slow and clumsy. When he finally managed it, he turned on the small TV mounted in the corner of the room.

Static. Then a news anchor.

“—and in other news, billionaire Bruce Wayne has finalized the adoption of Gotham teenager Timothy Drake—”

Danny’s breath hitched. Hasn’t he have learned by now never watch the news..

The screen showed Bruce and a boy with bright blue eyes and a shy smile standing side by side, surrounded by reporters. Bruce had his hand on the kid’s shoulder. He was protective. And most of all, Bruce looked proud.

Danny felt like he’d been punched. So that was it. While he’d been dying, while he’d been screaming in pain. Bruce had been replacing him.

A lump formed in his throat, sharp and bitter.

He reached for the call button for a nurse. He then stopped when his phone buzzed from the tray beside the remote. It was a plain model, a cheap one he only used for emergencies. It buzzed again.

Incoming call: Alfred

Danny stared at the name for a long moment. His thumb hovered over the screen.

Alfred. Sweet, gentle Alfred. Who used to tuck him in when Bruce was too busy. Who made him cocoa with extra whipped cream. Who smiled with his eyes. Who still remembered to ship him a present on his birthday even after they stopped talking.

The ringing continued. Each buzz sent a jolt through Danny’s chest. He could answer. He could pick up. Say I’m alive, I almost died, I needed you.

But what would it change? They hadn’t come. Bruce hadn’t come. They had Tim now.

Danny’s thumb moved and just before the last ring, he hit decline. The phone went silent.

He turned his head away, eyes stinging. If they didn’t care about him anymore… then maybe he didn’t need to care about them either.

— - - —

Chapter Text

The soft beeping of machines faded into silence. It was replaced by the low hum of the fluorescent lights. Danny sat propped up in his hospital bed with the weight of the morning pressing down on him. His left side still throbbed with that deep ache.

It was sometimes sharp or  sometimes numb, like his body couldn’t decide how to punish him at the moment. His hospital gown was loose on his frame, and he hated how fragile it made him feel. He hated feeling this dependent.

Jazz stood by the window, nervously twisting a loose thread from her sweater. “They said you’re good to be discharged today,” she announced with a bright smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Isn’t that great?”

Danny blinked at her. “Already?”

“You’ve been in here for over a month, even if that was in a coma” she said gently, walking toward him. “You’re healing very well. And the doctors think some fresh air might help, along side mandatory physical therapy.”

Danny nodded slowly, rubbing his right hand along the stiff bend of his left elbow. He hated how it didn’t move right anymore. “Right. Fresh air. That’d be nice.” His voice was hoarse. It was like he hadn’t used it in years.

A nurse came in pushing a lightweight wheelchair. “Alright, Mr. Fenton. Ready for your big exit?”

He forced a weak smile. “As I’ll ever be.”

Jazz helped him into the chair. It hurt more than he let on, but he stayed quiet. Every bump in the hallway was a jolt up his spine, but he distracted himself by looking around. The walls weren’t familiar. It was not the same comforting grime of Amity General. These halls were brighter, and so much newer.

He narrowed his eyes. “Jazz… This isn’t Amity.”

She hesitated, hands tightening on the wheelchair handles. “No, it’s not. You’re in Wisconsin.”

Danny froze. “What? Why?”

“We thought—” Jazz took a deep breath. “After the accident, Mom and Dad thought it’d be better to get you out of town. Away from the lab. Away from that portal.”

“So they took me out of the state?”

“To a really good hospital. And… we’re staying with someone who offered to help. A friend of Dad’s from college. Vlad Masters.”

Danny’s skin prickled.

“Vlad?” he echoed. The name left a bitter taste in his mouth. Something about it felt wrong, even if he couldn’t say why.

“He’s rich, smart, and he’s offered to put us up in his mansion while you recover. And he’s been really generous, Danny. Paid for your care. He… he even arranged for Sam and Tucker to visit for the week at a close hotel. They’ll be here later today.”

Danny stared ahead, watching the walls blur past. It all felt like too much. It also felt way too convenient. He wanted to argue, to say he should be back in Amity where he ‘belonged’. But then he thought of the Fenton Lab. The scorch marks on the floor. The smell of burning ozone.

Maybe she was right about getting away for a bit.

When they rolled outside, the air was cold with the early temperatures. Frost dusted the pavement and sat like powdered sugar on the corners of buildings. It wasn’t Amity, but it was something.

The car was sleek and black, with heated seats and a driver who opened the door like they were royalty. Danny winced at the luxury. “Are we really staying with a billionaire?”

Jazz chuckled awkwardly. “You’ll see.”

The ride to Vlad’s estate took about half an hour. Trees lined the winding driveway, and the mansion looked like it emerged from the snowy forest looked like it belonged in a gothic movie. With its tall windows, grand staircases, and more chimneys than any house needed.

Vlad met them at the front door, all polished smiles and expensive cologne.

“Daniel!” he said, reaching out with a practiced warmth. “You look better already. Welcome to your new home for a while.”

Danny shifted in his seat. “Thanks, I guess… and nice to meet you…”

Vlad turned to Jazz. “Why don’t you go get settled? I’ll take Danny inside, make sure he’s comfortable in his new room.”

Jazz hesitated, but Danny gave her a small nod. “I’ll be fine,” he murmured.

As Vlad wheeled him inside, Danny couldn’t stop the shiver that crept up his spine. It was not from the cold, but from the feeling in the air. It was like walking into a lion’s den dressed as a steak dinner.

The house was silent. Every footstep that Vlad took echoed. Every creak in the walls felt intentional. Vlad brought him to a massive guest room. It was larger than his entire upper floor back home. The bed looked like something out of a palace with its soft blue linens and gold trim.

Danny stared at it. It reminded him of something, no someone. He didn’t realize his hands were shaking until Vlad spoke again.

“I’m very interested in what happened to you, Daniel. That accident… well, accidents like that are so rare. Tell me, do you remember anything?”

Danny forced himself to meet Vlad’s gaze. “No. Nothing. I just felt pain.”

Vlad studied him. “Mm. That’s a shame. Still… fascinating.”

Danny didn’t respond. He felt cold again. Like the world had shifted under him and he was the only one who noticed.

As Vlad left with a polite smile, Danny sank into the bed, tension curling around his chest.

Whatever this place was it wasn’t home. And he didn’t feel safe, like at all…

— - - —

The late afternoon light slanted through the tall windows of Danny’s room, casting golden rays across the carpet. He sat curled on the edge of the massive bed with his legs tucked beneath him, and his fingers twitching in his lap.

The weight of silence was starting to smother him when finally the door burst open.

“Danny!”

“Dude, finally!”

Sam and Tucker’s voices cut through the tension like sunlight splitting a storm. Danny barely had time to blink before they were both on him. Tucker was squeezing his shoulder, and Sam was pulling him into a careful but fierce hug.

“Ow, ow, left side, remember?” Danny grunted, a flash of pain arching through his body. But still, a real smile cracked across his face for the first time in what felt like weeks.

“Sorry!” Sam pulled back immediately, her eyes wide with guilt. “God, are you okay? You look like you need better pain medicine.”

Danny smirked weakly. “Feels about right.”

Tucker dropped his backpack by the door and pulled out a bottle of soda. “I brought sugar, video games, and sarcasm. The classic doctor Tucker’s prescribed recovery plan.”

Danny chuckled, and even though it hurt, it felt good. “Thanks, man. I can always count on you.”

The three of them settled carefully on the bed. Danny’s legs were tucked under the blanket, his left side nearly useless and throbbing with chronic pain. He shifted as best he could, trying not to show how much it still hurt.

Sam’s gaze swept the room. “This place gives me rich creep vibes.”

“Big time,” Tucker muttered. “It’s like Dracula’s summer home. The butler even offered me soup on a silver tray.”

Danny’s smile faded a little. “Vlad’s…weird. He keeps asking about what I remember from the accident. About the portal. About how I feel.”

“That’s not doctor-level concern,” Sam said sharply.

“No,” Danny murmured. “It’s something else.”

They fell quiet. A soft draft curled across Danny’s skin, and he exhaled slowly, watching as his breath misted visibly in front of him.

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “…Did it just get cold in here?”

Danny looked down at his lap. “Yeah. That keeps happening.”

He hesitated. Then decided if anyone deserved the truth, it was them.

“There’s more,” he said quietly.

Tucker leaned in. “More?”

Danny nodded. “Things have been… off sense I woke up at that hospital. Cold breath, static shocks. My phone shorts out if I hold it too long. Lights flicker when I pass them. And today, I dropped a spoon when eating my lunch… and it just floated. Like, hovered for a second with a slight glow.”

He looked down at his hands, flexing them slowly. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Tucker and Sam shared a quick, worried glance.

“You think it’s because of the portal?” Sam asked gently.

“I know it is,” Danny whispered. “Something changed when I was in there. I don’t feel… normal. I don’t feel correct in my own body, if that makes sense.”

“Have you told your parents?” Tucker asked, voice low.

Danny shook his head immediately. “No way. They’d freak. You know how obsessed they are with ghosts. They’d… they’d try to study me down in their lab.”

Sam reached out to place a firm hand on his knee. “Then we figure this out. The three of us. Together.”

Danny exhaled slowly, tension bleeding from his shoulders. He hadn’t realized how tightly he’d been holding himself until now.

“Thanks,” he said, voice cracking slightly. “Really.”

“Always,” Tucker said with a grin. “But uh… maybe don’t float things in front of Vlad also. Something about him screams ‘classic evil PowerPoint villain.’”

Danny barked a laugh and immediately winced. “Still hurts to laugh.”

Sam smiled sadly. “We’ll help however we can. And we’ll keep an eye on Vlad too.”

The sunlight had dimmed to a softer amber now, painting the room in dim shadows. Danny leaned back against the headboard. He was exhausted but strangely lighter.

Still, something churned inside him. Like static in his veins. Like there was frost creeping into the middle of his lungs. Danny knew something was happening to him. And it wasn’t normal.

— - - —

The mansion was too quiet at night, after his friends left and people went to bed.

It was the kind of quiet that rang in Danny’s ears like pressure building in the dark, just waiting to explode.

He should have been in bed. He was supposed to stay in his wheelchair. But for once, he felt… okay. Or okay enough. The aching that usually wrapped around his left side like barbed wire had dulled to something manageable. The meds had kicked in, or maybe it was just the adrenaline.

Either way Danny gripped the wall for balance, limping slowly down the upstairs hallway with trembling steps.

Just to stretch his legs, he told himself. Just to feel like a person again after these three days.

Each step hurt. A sharp, burning kind of pain that spiked up through the nerves along his hip and down his thigh. But he pushed through it. He hated how weak the wheelchair made him feel. He hated how trapped he was in this oversized mansion. If he could just walk a little more each day, maybe things would start to feel normal again to him.

The polished floor felt smooth underfoot as he padded past another set of tall curtained windows. A creak groaned beneath him.

He paused. Then the world gave out around him. One moment Danny was upright and staring down the hall with his stomach twisting with nausea. The next, his foot sank straight through the wood.

Then the other. And then he fell. No sound, no warning. He just phased through it, as if the floor had forgotten it was solid.

For a split second, it was like floating. Then he crashed.

Danny hit something hard and cold and flat. He cried out, and rolled onto his side as a fresh wave of pain tore through his back and left leg. His breath caught in his throat. Static raced up his spine like sparks under his skin. He could barely move.

What the hell just happened to him?

Wheezing, Danny pushed himself up onto his good elbow. The room spun around him. The flare-up in his side made him nauseous, and his limbs buzzed like static. But the longer he stayed on the ground, the worse it was getting.

He blinked, squinting into the shadows. This wasn’t a storage room. Or a normal basement. No this place was a type of hidden lab.

The walls were lined with machines humming softly with  power. There were steel tables. Scattered blueprints. And, dominating the far wall, a massive arch of reinforced steel and glowing wires stood out in the dark.

Danny’s stomach dropped. It was a portal. Just like the one in the Fenton Lab back in Amity.

He stared at it with blood draining from his face. The shape was the same. It was oval, towering, and was surrounded by thick cords that snaked into the walls. The dial on the right side was eerily familiar. Even the faint hum in the room felt the same, like some awful echo of home.

“What… the hell is this?” he whispered. His heart pounded as realization settled over him like ice.

Vlad had a ghost portal in his home. A fully built, professionally installed, and government-lab-grade portal.

Why? Why would he have one?

Danny’s thoughts were racing now, but none of them made sense. He struggled to stand, wobbling as he reached for a steel support column. His left side spasmed, nearly buckling his leg. But he needed to see it. Needed to get closer.

His breath fogged faintly in front of him. The air was colder down here.

His skin crawled with that same static charge that had plagued him since the accident. But now it felt sharper. Like the air itself recognized the tech in the room. Like he was reacting to the portal by just looking at it.

“He’s been asking me about the accident,” Danny murmured aloud, voice shaking. “About how I physically feel. About the portal—”

He staggered backward, nearly tripping over a thick power cable coiled behind him. This wasn’t coincidence.

Vlad wasn’t just curious. He knew something. And Danny didn’t want to find out what. He’s had enough with these crazy events that keep happening in his life.

Panic jolted through his chest. He had to tell Sam and Tucker. He had to get out of here. He had to get away from this whole twisted place.

Danny turned to leave, cradling his arm to his chest as the pain clawed through his ribs again. His thoughts raced, but one word pulsed above them all that he felt in his chest. Danger.

— - - —

Danny didn’t remember how he got back upstairs. Everything between the ghost portal and his bedroom came in flashes. By the time he collapsed into the armchair in his room, with sweat soaked through his clothes, and his fingers were trembling so badly he could barely unlock his phone.

He tapped Sam’s contact and hit call with shaking hands. It rang once. Twice.

“Danny?” Sam’s voice came through groggy but alert. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I—” He swallowed, wincing as he shifted in the chair. His whole body throbbed with aftershocks. “I—I fell. Through the floor. Not like tripped. I fell through it. Like it wasn’t solid. And I ended up in a type of basement.”

“You phased through it?” Tucker’s voice piped in now, clearly on speaker.

“Yeah,” Danny whispered. “And that’s not even the worst part.”

He looked toward his locked bedroom door, half expecting Vlad to be there already.

“There’s a portal down there,” Danny said, voice low and urgent. “Like ours. Like my parents’ one. I swear—it’s the same tech, the same size. It’s not on, but—Tucker, it was real.”

There was silence on the line for a second. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asked, worry thick in her voice. “You sound—”

“I’m in pain,” Danny admitted, “but I know what I saw. Vlad’s been asking weird questions since I got here. About the accident. The portal. And now this? He’s hiding something. Something big.”

“I knew he was shady,” Tucker muttered.

“I need to show you,” Danny said. “Can you guys come back now? I don’t care what time it is.”

“We’re already in the parking lot,” Sam said. “Give us five minutes.”

—

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them were huddled in the dark and hidden behind the thick velvet curtains outside the mansion’s main entrance.

Danny leaned heavily on his crutches jazz got him. His left leg screaming every time it touched the ground. Sam slung his backpack over one shoulder and kept a steadying hand on his back, while Tucker scoped out the hallway with his PDA’s night vision app.

“Coast is clear,” Tucker whispered.

They moved fast, slipping through the mansion’s halls like ghosts themselves.

Danny guided them to the basement stairwell with his pulse thudding like a drumbeat in his ears. Every step down sent lightning through his side, but he didn’t stop until they reached the bottom.

The hidden room loomed in front of them, and the moment Sam laid eyes on the dormant portal, she froze.

“Holy—”

“I told you,” Danny said breathlessly. “It’s the same. Exactly the same.”

Tucker wandered toward the control panel, running his fingers just above the dusty dials. At least the on button was on the outside.“This is some serious hardware. This had to cost, like government-level funding. Why would Vlad need something like this?”

“Maybe he wants to study ghosts like my parents,” Danny said, voice tight. “Or maybe—maybe he knows something.”

Sam turned to him slowly. “Danny… what if he knows what happened to you?”

Danny’s stomach twisted. “I’ve thought about that too.”

A low hum buzzed under the surface of the room, almost like the portal was reacting to them. Or to him.

He hugged his arms around his middle, shivering. “I don’t like this. We need to tell someone. Maybe my parents can shut this down. Or Jazz—”

Footsteps. Heavy and deliberate, and they were coming down the stairs.

All three of them froze. Danny’s breath caught in a panic. Voices. Vlad’s voice. Muffled but clear through the wall, and he was getting closer.

“Go,” Danny hissed. “Out the window. Now.”

“What about you?” Sam whispered fiercely.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll fake a fall or something. Just go. He can’t know you two were here too.”

Tucker hesitated, but Sam grabbed his sleeve. “We’ll come back. I promise.”

They slipped out through the narrow basement window just as the heavy door creaked open. Danny stumbled backward, knocking over a stack of empty crates as Vlad’s silhouette filled the doorway.

His eyes swept the room, landing on Danny. “Well, well,” Vlad said, tone cool and sharp. “I should’ve known you would make your way down here.”

Danny’s breath hitched.

“You shouldn’t be down here, Daniel.”

“I got lost,” Danny said quickly. “I—I fell. I didn’t know what this was.”

Vlad’s eyes narrowed. He stepped forward, the light catching the edge of his smile. “Oh, but I think you do.”

— - - —

Danny backed away from the glowing bulk of the ghost portal and Vlad. His breath catching in his throat. His foot snagged on a fallen box, and he stumbled causing him to crash down hard onto his side. Pain ricocheted through his ribs again, nerves sparking along his left arm like fire ants chewing on his bone.

Vlad descended the final step into the basement, each footfall deliberate and echoing. The door  shut behind him with a final click.

“You weren’t supposed to find this yet,” Vlad said softly, dusting imaginary lint from his sleeves as he crossed the floor. “Not until you were ready.”

Danny gritted his teeth, pushing himself upright with his good arm. “What is this?” he rasped. “Why do you have this? Why are you even interested in my accident?”

Vlad stopped a few feet away, hands folded behind his back. His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Because, dear boy, I’ve been where you are. I’ve felt that tearing and burning pain. The moment your cells split between life and death. You and I… we’re the same.”

Danny stared at him, heart thudding. “You’re—what?”

“A halfa,” Vlad said, the word like acid. “Half-ghost. Half-human. Cursed and gifted. And if you weren’t so pitifully broken right now, you’d feel it too. You do feel it, don’t you? Something that growing inside you.”

Danny’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. The cold breaths. The flickering lights. The floating spoon. His hands curled into fists.

“You knew this would happen.”

Vlad’s smile finally cracked into something real ugly and bitter. “I engineered it.”

Danny’s blood turned to ice. “You—what?”

“I replicated your parents’ idiotic design. I refined it. Improved it. I was hoping your mother would have taken that pain, so I could have had her. To show her that I am much better than her so called husband, Jack. But then you wasted the opportunity.”

Danny surged to his feet, nearly crumpling as the pain flared up his spine. “You think this is my fault? You built a death trap!”

“I built a gateway,” Vlad said coldly. “And you—you are an unstable and ungrateful little freak who doesn’t even understand what he’s become.”

Danny tried to step back, but his left leg buckled. Vlad moved in an instant grabbing him by the collar, and hauling him off the floor like a rag doll. Danny choked on the sudden pressure against his ribs.

“You have no idea what your kind is truly capable of,” Vlad snarled, face inches from Danny’s. “But I do. I’ve spent decades studying ghosts. Fighting them. Helping to control them, even in their own dimension.”

“I’m not your experiment,” Danny hissed, trying to pry Vlad’s fingers from his shirt. “Let me go!”

“You don’t get to demand anything from me,” Vlad said. His voice dropped lower, slick with menace. “You think I would ever share my legacy with a boy like you? A broken and sniveling halfa who doesn’t even know his power?”

“I didn’t ask for this!” Danny shouted.

“No,” Vlad agreed. “But perhaps it’s time I sent you back to where your kind belongs.”

He turned, still dragging Danny toward the ghost portal. Danny’s eyes widened. “Wait—wait, what are you doing?!”

Vlad slammed his palm against the activation panel. The ghost portal flared to life with a roar, lighting the basement in a familiar green glow. The swirling vortex of energy spun wildly within the ring, the air crackling with charged particles and ozone.

“You’ll survive it in there,” Vlad said over the roar. “Or you won’t. Frankly, I don’t care anymore. I hate halfas like you. Waste of my potential.”

“Vlad—!” Vlad flung Danny with supernatural strength straight into the vortex.

The last thing Danny heard before the world shattered around him was the crackling surge of energy and the cold, cruel voice:

“Say hello to your new reality, little badger.”

And then he felt nothing. Just the screaming wind, the hot green fire, and a suffocating sensation of being turned inside out.

Danny’s voice was lost to the storm around him. Then it all just stopped when he stopped falling.

— - - —

Chapter Text

The first thing Danny felt was the cold.

It clung to him like fog and was soaking through his skin, and down into his bones. He groaned softly, curling in on himself as a fresh spike of pain shot through his left side. Every nerve there still screamed. It was like fire and ice had fused together under his skin and decided to stay.

The second thing he noticed was the bed.

It was enormous. The mattress was firm and had very unfamiliar fabric. The sheets beneath him were smooth and stiff, like silk starched to the point of discomfort. A heavy blanket rested over him, and was pressing on his aching chest like a weighted stuff animal. Slowly, Danny opened his eyes. Why does this always happen to him?

The ceiling stretched high above him. The dark stone was veined with glowing green. He blinked. That wasn’t paint. The veins pulsed gently, like they were breathing light. The little air in the room was very thin, and still was humming faintly with some kind of power. His heart beat started to beat faster.

Where the hell was he?

Danny tried to sit up and he nearly blacked out from the pain. His entire left side spasmed, muscles locking and nerves flaring. But instead of just his left it was his whole body. He gritted his teeth and rolled to his right instead, gasping as the flare dulled into a throb. His hand gripped the blankets like a lifeline.

The room was massive. Dark stone walls loomed all around him, broken only by arching green torch sconces and carved furniture that looked centuries old. Everything had this surreal and haunted elegance to it. The dresser was bone white with twisting vinework carved into it. The canopy above him was green silk, its edges embroidered in languages he couldn’t read. Ghost writing, maybe.

He shivered, with reality sinking in that he actually in another dimension.

The window caught his eye next. It spanned nearly the entire far wall. It was an arched gothic design, rimmed in black metal, and with glass like polished emerald. Through it, Danny saw a swirling void of green. Wisps of glowing green floated by like jellyfish in deep space. Distant shapes moved across the horizon. Some too big to be anything but buildings, and they were floating free in the sky. The gravity was…gone.

Danny’s breath caught in his throat.

“This… This is the Ghost Zone…”

There was no doubt. He recognized the energy, the sky, and the color. He’d fallen through a portal at home. Then again with Vlad’s portal.

His heart hammered and how he got here caught back up to him. Why did Vlad send him here, it can’t be anything good.

Carefully with his trembling arms, Danny pushed himself upright. He didn’t bother trying to use his legs. He was still in a wheelchair for most days, and his body wasn’t about to forget it now. But he needed answers.

The room had no door. At least, not at first glance. Danny squinted at the far wall. There was one something hidden behind a long emerald curtain. It was a seam in the stone. A hidden panel, maybe?

He shuffled off the bed, the cold floor biting at his bare feet. The room swayed around him, vision darkening at the edges, but he forced himself forward with one slow step at a time. Every breath sent a ripple of fire down his body. It was like the nerves there had rewired themselves wrong. There was pain where there were there shouldn’t be pain.

The curtain brushed his fingers. Danny yanked it back.

A tall rectangular door stood behind it, sealed tight but outlined with that same glowing green energy. No handle. No lock. Just faint pulses along the seam, it was like it was waiting for something.

Danny hesitated. Then impulsively, he pressed his palm against it. For a second, nothing happened. Then the air rippled. His hand flickered through the door. And without warning, his body phased straight through the door.

He stumbled, crashing to his knees on the other side. The hallway beyond was cold and dark, lit only by those same eerie flames in sconces that burned green instead of yellow. The walls were the same pulsing black stone. The silence was absolute. There was no wind, no footsteps, and no breathing. Not even his own echoed.

Danny sat there panting with his heart hammering. Wherever he was, it wasn’t his Earth. And it wasn’t anywhere safe.

He pushed himself to his feet slowly. Carefully. His legs where shaking, his body aching, and his head spinning. The only thing that kept him upright was adrenaline.

Where the hell had Vlad sent him? And more importantly… how was he going to get back to his dimension?

— - - —

Danny crept along the cold stone hallway, each step a war against the aching burn in his chest. His legs trembled under his weight, because they were still unsteady and sore from the nerve damage, but he kept going. He had to know where the portal had taken him exactly.

The corridor twisted like a snake, the green torchlight casting long shadows along the walls. Strange symbols were carved into the stone. They looked foreign annd very ancient. Occasionally, windows opened out into an impossible sky. The sky was very vast and churning, it shimmered with greens and blues and was dotted with floating landmasses tethered by jagged beams of light.

The Ghost Zone was definitely something he has never seen before. But it’s not like anything he’d seen in his parents’ research.

This place he was in was old, dark, and clearly ruled by a monarch. He followed the corridor until it curved to a stop at a massive archway. He heard voices that sounded like they were pretty angry.

Carefully, Danny eased himself forward and peered through and hid around the corner. The throne room beyond made his stomach twist.

The chamber was huge and shaped like a cathedral. Glowing banners fluttered above rows of ghostly soldiers in black armor. A cracked obsidian throne sat at the far end of a long carpet—like a black flame frozen in the stone. And sitting atop it was a ghost that radiated such oppressive power that Danny couldn’t breathe for a second.

This had to be the ghost king, like the one on the banners he has seen. His armor gleamed like oil under the torchlight, and his eyes burned like wildfire.

He was furious. “You plot treason beneath my roof? You worms whisper rebellion and think I will not hear?!”

Before him, a group of ghosts knelt in chains. Some of them were strong-looking, others frail and gray, and they were all dressed in tattered clothes. One of them dared to lift his head and speak back.

“We only wanted peace, King Pariah Dark..” the ghost said, trembling. “You starve the outer rings, drain our cores, and call it your rule. What is this but a tyranny?”

Pariah stood from the throne, towering over them like a storm. His voice shook the air.

“You call it tyranny because you are weak. You forget who gave you this order—who carved stability from chaos! Without me, this zone would still tear itself apart!”

“You are why it tears,” another ghost cried. A hush fell across the hall.

Pariah’s gaze narrowed. He lifted one clawed hand, and the defiant ghost was yanked off his feet by some invisible force.

“You will be made an example,” the king said coldly. “All of you will.”

“No—please!” cried one of the others. “Spare the children—!”

But Pariah was already closing his fist. The captured ghosts disappeared in a pulse of green energy. They were banished to who knew where.

Danny’s stomach churned. These weren’t criminals. They were desperate. Starving, pleading, and afraid people.

What kind of ruler did this? A tyrant. A monster. Danny had to get out. He needed to find that portal and leave now, before he was found.

He turned and limped away. He was sticking to the shadows, and biting back groans as his joints flared with every hurried step. The pain in his chest worsened with each breath, but his fear gave him momentum. He retraced his path back toward the bedchamber he’d fallen into, counting turns in the corridor he had taken.

The door appeared just ahead.

He pressed his hand against it and phased through barely. His head spun from the exertion. He stumbled into the room and froze. Someone was waiting for him.

A tall, cloaked figure stood by the bed. Not armored like the guards. Not flickering like a normal ghost. They were still, deliberate, and somehow sharper than everything else in the room. They were like they were carved from shadow and purpose.

Danny’s breath caught in his throat.

Before he could speak, the figure tilted their head slightly and said in a calm and wise voice:

“I’ve been waiting a long time for you, Daniel.”

— - - —

Chapter Text

The room was quiet except for the soft crackle of the lights dancing across the runes in the stone walls. The air shimmered faintly with ectoplasm. It was cool and humming with barely contained energy. Danny stood stiffly near the entrance, his legs shaky, body aching, and his ghost side simmering just beneath his skin. The cloaked figure stood across from him, faceless in the shadows, yet calm… and very patient.

On a pedestal between them rested a shallow of a bowl. Green light pulsed from within it. It looked thick and slow like syrup. Whatever was inside looked like molten emeralds swirling in liquid form. Danny squinted at it kinda concerned with it being there.

“What… is that?” he asked. His voice was dry and it cracked.

The figure didn’t answer at first. Instead, they raised their hands and slowly lifted the bowl. They were cradling it like it was something sacred.

“You’ve crossed a threshold few ever actually do,” the figure said, voice quiet but was confident. “You’ve died, yet you live. You’ve awakened a part of yourself that cannot be undone. This”—they tilted the bowl slightly toward him—“is the next step. Drink it, Daniel.”

Danny took a half-step back. “What the hell. Why? What is it going to do to me? Who are you?”

“It will not harm you,” the figure said calmly. “It will help you understand what you’ve become. The pain inside you—the confusion, the imbalance—you carry the mark of the in between. You are no longer just human Daniel. But you are not yet whole.”

Danny stared at them, heart pounding. “You didn’t answer my question. Who are you?”

The figure bowed their head slightly. “All in due time. Your questions will be answered, but first… you must drink.”

Danny looked from the figure to the bowl, the green goo swirling hypnotically. Every instinct in him screamed don’t trust it, but… something else deep inside him tugged at him. Like whatever was in that bowl was calling to something in him that didn’t exist before. Something new. Something that felt very raw.

He stepped forward slowly with his legs still trembling beneath his weight. His nerve pain flared the closer he got, especially on his left side. He hissed softly and leaned on the pedestal with his right hand, just to stay upright.

“Fine,” he muttered. “But if I explode or melt or something, I’m haunting you forever. Even if you and I are already a ghost”

He took the bowl in both hands. It was warm. No it was hot, and it seemed to hum softly. He hesitated one more second, then raised it to his lips and drank.

The liquid was thick, but was not that unpleasant. It tasted like mint and copper and something electric. As it slid down his throat, it burned. It felt sharp and cold and alive—like someone was pouring life back into his chest. Danny gasped and nearly dropped the bowl. His knees buckled.

A new warmth bloomed behind his ribs. It was deep and pulsing, not painful but intense. His vision blurred. Something in his chest pulsed once, then again. It was like a second heartbeat.

He dropped the bowl. The figure caught him before he hit the floor. “What’s… happening…” Danny rasped, clutching his chest.

“You are stabilizing,” the figure said softly. “Your core has awakened.”

“Core?” Danny panted, blinking tears from his eyes.

“You now carry a ghost core inside you. The heart of your ectoplasmic version of yourself,” the figure explained gently, their hand still on Danny’s shoulder to steady him. “It is what gives ghosts their powers, their shape, and their nature. It is who you are, beneath your skin and your thought.”

Danny’s breath stuttered. The warmth in his chest was constant now, like a steady ember. “I have a second heart?” he asked.

“In a way,” the figure said. “It’s energy. A soul reborn through death. A halfa’s core is special—it must find balance between the living and the dead. Yours is still forming. But it will grow stronger, more defined, and the more you understand yourself you will get better.”

Danny was quiet for a long moment, his body sagging against the figure, still trembling but no longer in pain. Just… different. He felt like something inside him had shifted. Like he was finally able to feel real again, but also not himself at all.

“I didn’t ask for this,” he whispered.

“No one ever does,” the figure said. “But you survived it. That makes you strong.”

Danny didn’t know what to say.

He stared down at his hands, and this time, when a flicker of green light danced across his fingertips, he didn’t flinch.

— - - —

Danny sat slumped against the cold stone wall, his body still trembling with aftershocks of the ectoplasmic surge. His breathing had evened out, but the heat of the new core inside his chest pulsed like a second sun, yet it felt frozen. It wasn’t painful… it was just there, unmistakable and very real. What was his life turning into? The figure knelt beside him, cloak pooling like shadows on the floor.

“You said I’m a halfa,” Danny mumbled. “What… what exactly does that mean?”

“You are a hybrid,” the figure replied gently. “Half-living, half-ghost. Two pieces of your soul is sharing the same interchanging vessel. It’s Rare, powerful, and can be very dangerous.”

Danny stared, confused. “Dangerous to who?”

The figure’s silence was heavy.

“To others?” Danny asked, frowning. “Or to me?”

“Both,” the figure said. “To those who fear change, you are an abomination. To the dead, you are a threat to their past rule. To the living, you are proof that the boundary between life and death can be broken. You walk the in-between. And many will try to control you… or destroy you.”

Danny looked down. The taste of the green goo still clung to his tongue, faintly metallic.

“Like Pariah Dark?”

At that, the figure’s shoulders stiffened.

“Yes. The king rules the Ghost Zone through fear. His reign is brittle. It is held together by chains and screams. Another halfa… you…one untouched by his control… threatens that. You in time can match his power, and he doesn’t like that.”

Danny’s eyes widened. “So he’d kill me if he knew I was here?”

The figure nodded. “Without any hesitation.”

Danny swallowed. The warmth in his chest dimmed slightly under the weight of fear.

“Then what do I do?” he asked. “I can’t stay here. I don’t even know where here is. I don’t know how to use this—this core thing. I don’t know anything about being… being a Halfa….”

“You will learn,” the figure said, rising slowly. “But not here.”

Danny glanced up, confused. “Then where—?”

The floor beneath him rippled. It was glowing with a pale blue circle of runes. A portal began to open very slow, swirling with blue and green, and it was very quiet. Its glow lit up the underside of the figure’s hood, revealing the faintest glimpse of a jawline made of smoke and a scar on his face.

“Come with me,” they said. “You are not safe in this palace. I will take you to a place where no one will find you. Where you can rest. Learn. Heal.”

Danny didn’t move right away. “You’re asking me to trust you.”

“I am,” the figure said. “But the choice is yours, Daniel.”

He hesitated. Then pushed himself to his feet slowly, carefully. The nerve pain in his leg flared up, and he winced, nearly toppling. The figure caught his arm again. They were gentler this time.

Danny looked into the swirling portal. “If this drops me into a lava pit, I will haunt you. I’m not joking.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” the figure said, and for the first time, there was the faintest trace of amusement in their voice.

Danny nodded once. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Together, they stepped into the portal, and the castle faded away behind them.

— - - —

Danny stumbled as he exited the portal, catching himself on the figure’s arm before fully collapsing. The floor beneath his feet wasn’t stone or dirt. It shimmered like glass, but didn’t reflect. The air smelled like ozone and something sweet, like old books and something like lightning.

They were inside a big and circular room. High above, the ceiling arched into shadow, domed and carved with countless rotating gears and rings that shifted silently. Clocks of all shapes and sizes lined the curved walls—tall grandfather clocks, glowing hourglasses suspended in the air, and strange alien timepieces that ticked in reverse. A massive pendulum swung slowly in the center of the space, slicing the room into a rhythm Danny could feel in his chest.

“This… is not Kansas,” he muttered a joke with his eyes wide.

“No, it is not.” the figure agreed, releasing his arm. “This place lies outside time, beyond the pull of Pariah Dark’s rule. It is where time is studied, watched, and… sometimes it is guided.”

Danny turned slowly in place, taking it all in. “Is this… your house?”

“In a manner of speaking,” the figure said. “Few know of it. Fewer are welcome. You are the first most living soul to stand here in centuries.”

Danny moved to a bench along the wall and sat down carefully. His legs ached, and his left side had started to throb with a familiar, dull burn. The new core in his chest hummed quietly. It felt almost in sync with the pendulum overhead. Yet Danny was feeling better.

He glanced at the figure. “Why me?”

The figure tilted their head slightly. “Because you were meant to exist. Because there are forces at work that will use you if they can. And because I do not believe in letting children suffer alone.”

Danny blinked. “I’m not a child.”

“You were fourteen when you died, Daniel. You are still fourteen now. You are at most a month old in ghost age. That matters.”

Danny looked down, his fists tightening. “So I’m really dead.”

“You are not alive. But you are not fully dead, either. You exist between both states. That is what a halfa is.”

Danny exhaled. “You said I had a core now. What I do with that?”

The figure walked to a table near the edge of the room and returned with something in their hand. A small, glowing orb. It was a soft green and faintly translucent, and it hovered above their palm.

“This is a specter core,” they explained. “It is the heart of every ghost. A fusion of will, energy, memory, and identity. Yours was formed the moment you died in the portal… but it remained dormant until now.”

Danny looked down at his chest. “And mine’s inside me?”

“Yes. Yours is unique. Tied to both life and death. That makes it… powerful. Unstable. But also full of personal potential.”

Danny leaned back against the wall on a bench, trying to absorb everything. “So what now? Am I supposed to go back to that creepy palace? Keep hiding?”

“No,” the figure said, gently but firmly. “You are not safe there. You are not ready yet to face Pariah Dark or the other ghosts who serve him.”

“Then what do I do?”

The figure walked a slow circle around the room, the sound of their steps echoing like seconds ticking.

“You rest,” they said. “You learn. You understand what you are, and you prepare for what’s coming.”

Danny glanced up. “What is coming?”

The figure’s hood shifted, just barely.

“War,” they said simply. “ I am Clockwork the Ancient of time, and I have seen a storm between worlds. And you, Daniel, are at its center.”

Danny went still. For the first time, the weight of all this—the accident, the powers, the cold breath, the pain, his core—truly settled on him.

And he whispered, “Why me?”

Clockwork crouched before him and said softly, “Because no one else can.”

— - - —

Danny sat in stunned silence long after the Clockwork had spoken. The ticking clocks seemed louder now, like a thousand tiny hammers tapping at the edges of his skull. His fingers trembled. His breath came fast. The glow from the strange ceiling gears blurred around the edges of his vision. He could feel his core? It was buzzing and restless. It was flaring with something wild under his skin.

“I can’t—” he rasped. Then louder: “I can’t do this.”

He shoved himself off the bench, stumbling forward a few steps before wheeling around to face the hooded figure. “I’m not some kind of… chosen one! I didn’t ask for this!” Danny felt like crashing out.

Clockwork said nothing, his hands folded calmly behind his back.

Danny’s voice rose higher. “You say I’m in the middle of a war?! What war? Why me?! I was just trying to— I didn’t even mean to turn the thing on! I died because I was stupid, okay? I died!”

The pain from his chest flared sharply, but he didn’t stop.

“I don’t know how to be this hero! I don’t even know what this is! I have powers I don’t understand, a core that feels like it’s burning and freezing me from the inside out, and some glowing weirdo in a cloak telling me I’m the key to some ghost war?! Are you kidding me?!”

Danny paced wildly now. He kept running a hand through his hair, and his voice was shaking with rage and fear.

“I didn’t want this! I wanted to go to school and play video games and… and have a family who didn’t lie to me! I didn’t want to die in some stupid lab accident and turn into a freak!”

He stopped abruptly, with his chest heaving. “And my real dad? He didn’t even want me either. Just gave me away like I was some dirty secret he needed to hide. Never even told me why he kept me way from him and not the others. My dad is not coming back for me. He just sent me off like I was in his way.”

His voice cracked.

“I called Maddie and Jack ‘Mom and Dad’ because they raised me. Because they made me laugh. Because they told me they loved me. But now?” He laughed bitterly. “Now I’m just another thing they want to cut open and study if I tell them. I’ll be just another ghost to lock in a cage. I won’t be their nephew, and I definitely won’t be anyone’s son.”

Danny’s hands curled into fists. “I’m not even a person to them anymore. I’ll become just data. A freak accident they want to control.”

He looked up at the ticking ceiling, his face twisting with something raw. “So what does that make me? My dad didn’t want me. The people who felt like parents don’t care unless they can measure me. Jason’s dead. Jazz is going to be scared of me now. And I’m just— I’m just some stupid, unwanted kid with a glowing heart who can’t even die right!”

He kicked the side of the bench, the pain lancing up his leg only feeding the growing burn in his core.

“I lost everything. Everyone that mattered. And now I’m here— in some kind of nightmare dimension—because fate thinks I can handle this?!”

He turned to Clockwork, eyes burning. “I can’t even handle being alive.”

Still, Clockwork didn’t speak. He simply stood quietly, as if he was rooted in the floor.

Danny’s breath hitched. His legs gave out, and he dropped to his knees, fists clenched so tight they trembled. “I just want to go home,” he whispered. “I just want my life back…”

The clocks ticked.

For a long moment the only sound in the room was Danny’s breathing. It came out ragged and harsh as he shook with the aftershock of it all.

Then softly, Clockwork moved. He stepped closer, and knelt beside Danny with his patience that came with all his ages.

“You are not weak for being afraid, Daniel,” he said gently. “You are not broken for wanting peace. Your pain is not a failure.”

Danny didn’t look at him. He was still shaking on the floor.

“You did not choose this,” Clockwork continued. “But you are still here. That means something.”

Danny exhaled raggedly. For the first time, his shoulders sagged not just from pain, but from release.

“You feel abandoned. Forgotten. But you are not defined by those who failed to see your worth.”

Danny’s voice was small, hoarse. “Then what am I?”

Clockwork’s tone remained calm, constant. “You are proof that there is balance. That life and death can coexist. That even something broken can grow strong. You are a type of hope people dream of.”

“You are not alone Daniel.”

Danny closed his eyes. “Then why does it feel like I am?”

“Because you have not yet seen what lies ahead,” Clockwork said. “But I have. And I will help you walk there.”

Danny swallowed hard. His arms ached. His body throbbed. But in his heart for just a moment, something settled.

“…Okay,” he found himself whispering.

And Clockwork simply sat beside him. He was a quiet presence in a room that was outside time, and Danny finally let the silence hold him without fearing it.

— - - — 

Chapter Text

Clockwork watched the new halfa boy sleep.

Daniel had cried until there was nothing left in him. He had curled in on himself like a star caving in on its own from the weight of gravity. His body had trembled with shock until he was able to rest.

Clockwork wondered if the boy knew he was flickering between human and ghost while crying, until it finally gave in and settled as a ghost. Then Daniel had passed out from the trauma that was put on his body.

Clockwork had stayed beside him the whole time. He had not said a word. There had been no need, because sometimes silence can say more things than anything else.

Daniel’s breathing was gone now. He was curled up tight on the floor, and his face was turned into his arm. His white hair was messy. His skin had gone very pale. There were dried tear streaks down his cheeks from all that he was feeling.

Daniel looked like a child, because he was one. He was a child forced to carry too much.

Clockwork shifted between his forms and chose the younger adult one. He sat near the boy and folded his legs. His cloak rested quietly around him. The platform floated through the stillness of his realm.

There was no ticking here. There were no sound of time around the pair. It was just the soft beat of Daniel’s ghost core. Clockwork listened intently for the new core’s hum, to see how well it was forming.

The beat was weak, but it was still steady. Clockwork closed his eyes for a moment to just listen.

He was not meant to feel the same way Daniel did. The ancients had long stepped away from human feelings. Time shaped them until they were something else. Something that was apart from reality. Emotions still passed through them, but they did not linger. Not like pain lingered in that boy’s chest. It was not like the feeling of heartbreak that bled into every word.

Clockwork should not feel guilt, but he did. He had chosen Daniel himself. It was not out of kindness. And it was not out of hope. But because the timeline had demanded it.

If Daniel had not become what he was now, everything would have broken. Reality itself would have started to unravel. The Ghost Zone would collapse from painful ruling. Earth’s very future would shatter. The multiverse would begin to fold into itself like a paper in a fire.

There had been no other choice.

Clockwork could still remember that day. He had looked through thousands of threads. Billions of outcomes. All of them failed. Until he found one. A boy. A future halfa. A human who died wrong and lived again. A boy who could become the King of the Dead and still keep a heart that felt.

Daniel.

A child already weighed down by loss. It had felt cruel, and it was cruel. Clockwork had chosen him anyway. Because time is not fair. And fate is not gentle.

He looked down at Daniel now. The boy’s hand twitched in his sleep. His soul kept flickering gently, like it was trying to heal itself. The ectoplasm that Clockwork had given Daniel must be helping now.

Clockwork sighed. He wished it could have been anyone else. But no one else would have made it this far.

Daniel stirred. His eyes opened. They were green and very glossy. They blinked up at the ceiling for a bit. Then he turned and saw Clockwork beside him.

He flinched.

“You’re still here,” Daniel whispered. “It wasn’t a dream..”

“Yes,” Clockwork said. “I am always here. It is my real after all.”

Daniel sat up slowly. His shoulders were tight. His eyes looked very worn down even after sleep.

“I thought maybe… after what I said…” he mumbled.

“I listened to you,” Clockwork said. “That is all.”

Daniel looked at his hands. His fingers curled and uncurled. “I didn’t mean to yell,” he said gently.

“I know.”

“I just—” Daniel swallowed. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Clockwork tilted his head.

“You are Daniel,” he said. “You are a new halfa. You are a child who has suffered more than he should have. And you are still standing straight. That is who you are.”

Daniel stared at him. “That doesn’t feel like who I am.”

“It will haft to do for now.”

Daniel looked away. His voice was small when he spoke again. “Why does it still hurt? My death.”

Clockwork looked at him. He answered with as much care as he could.

“Because hurt does not follow rules. It is not a switch you turn off. It is a path you have to walk. Some days it is short. Other days it stretches far. But every step forward counts to something, whether it be healing or more pain.”

Daniel looked at the floor. “Am I broken?”

Clockwork shook his head.

“No,” he said. “You are healing. That is different from breaking, and it will take much longer.”

Daniel was quiet.

Clockwork studied him. He did not let his face change. He could not let himself look as sad as he felt. Time was meant to watch. It was not meant to mourn.

He hated this part of his role. He always had.

The boy had not asked to be chosen. He had not asked to die. He had not asked to become the future ruler of the dead. Or a child no one believed in. Or is forced to be a secret kept by people who still cares about him.

But he had become all of those things, and he still wanted to protect annd care for others.

Clockwork stood and held out his hand. Daniel blinked at it. Then reached up and took it.

“I have prepared a room for you,” Clockwork said. “A place for you to rest. You may stay as long as you need.”

Daniel said nothing, but he still followed. The halls moved around them. Walls shifted and doors appeared where they had not been before.

Clockwork opened one of them. Inside was quiet and small.

A soft bed hovered in the center. Ghost light filled the corners. The air felt safe. It smelled like old paper and it was chilly. A desk stood in the corner that had some papers on it.

Daniel stepped inside. “Did you make this?”

“Yes.”

“For me?”

“For you.”

Daniel sat on the bed. He touched the blanket like he was not sure it was real.

“It’s nice,” he said.

“You may stay here whenever you wish. This place is yours.”

Daniel laid down. He pulled the blanket over himself to get comfortable. His form flickered once again, then it stayed solid.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You are welcome,” Clockwork replied. He stood by the door and watched the boy fall asleep again.

Then he stepped out the door and closed it behind him. The clocks in his tower turned again. He looked at a dozen futures. Some still burned. Some were cold. Some were covered in a green fire.

But in all of them, Daniel was at the center of this time period. Clockwork folded his hands in thought, and he waited to find the best possible outcome.

— - - —

Danny woke slowly.

The silence was comforting in this warm bed. No humming of fluorescent lights above him. No distant machinery in a lab. No voice shouting his name for him to do something. It was the kind of silence that made his breath feel too loud, even though he didn’t feel like he was actually breathing.

He lay there for a while and was staring at the ceiling. He didn’t try to move. Time didn’t feel real here in this moment of peace. Eventually, something in him stirred. Danny moved his fingers.

They twitched like they were asleep, but not with pins and needles but with something that felt colder. Something that felt wrong.

Danny finally sat up.

The blanket slipped from his shoulders, and for a moment he didn’t notice anything strange. The bed was warm. The room was calm. His mind felt heavy still, like he hadn’t really come back yet from sleep.

Then he looked down. And everything in him stopped.

The suit clinging to his body was black, simple , and tight. It was stitched at the neck like a second skin. A wide white belt sat heavy at his waist. White gloves covered his hands. His boots were spotless, like he’d never walked through dirt with them on.

It was familiar. It was so familiar it made his stomach turn. This was the jumpsuit. The one from the lab. The one he’d been wearing when—

He slid out of bed. The floor was steady under his boots. Danny moved very slowly, as if he was afraid of what he might see.

There was a mirror across the room. He stood before it, and he stared at the boy who didn’t look like him from before.

He had white hair, pale glowing skin, and green eyes that didn’t look like they belonged to any human being. Danny reached for his reflection with one hand. His hand shimmered through the mirror .

He yanked his hand back, and began breathing too hard. It felt like his chest should hurt, but it didn’t. There was no ache where his heart should be. There was just a hum. It was strange pulse deep in the middle of his chest, like the slow beat of a drum underwater.

He pressed a palm to his chest. There was no heartbeat. Only that steady hum. He stared at the glowing symbol on his chest. The sharp letter “D,” was white as his hair.

This wasn’t a costume. This was part of him now. Danny backed away from the mirror.

“No,” he whispered.

He reached for his arms. His body. His throat. Anything that still felt like his old self. But his hands passed over skin that didn’t warm beneath his touch. His limbs were too light. His fingers buzzed with green light he hadn’t had before.

The mirror still showed him what he looked like. It didn’t lie to him.

He grabbed something from the table. It was a tiny glass tool, and he hurled it at the mirror. It vanished from his hands before he threw it, and landed on the floor with a clink.

Danny crumpled to his knees. He pressed his face into his hands and felt nothing but cold. There were no tears in his eyes. It felt like his body didn’t work that way anymore.

“What am I?” he asked the floor.

The silence answered in his mind. Freak. It whispered like an old friend. Monster. It hissed from somewhere just behind him. He was not a person, at least not anymore.

He curled his arms around himself and tried to think of anything good. Something warm. Something that didn’t hurt. But every memory was stained now. His body with this glowing skin and this cold fire inside him, it was permanent. There was no waking up from this now.

He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to be seen.

A soft sound made him flinch, and to come out from his thoughts. The door had opened. Footsteps were walking to him as Clockwork entered.

“You are awake,” he said.

Danny didn’t look up. “Am I?” He laughed. “I don’t feel awake. I feel like a… like a bad dream that someone forgot to end.”

Clockwork came to stand beside him. Danny glanced at the mirror again. His white hair. His burning green eyes. The skin that wasn’t his normal skin.

“That’s not me,” he said. “It can’t be.”

“It is,” Clockwork said gently.

Danny finally looked at him. “Tell me the truth. Is this what I am now?”

Clockwork bowed his head. “Yes. It is apart of you now.”Danny didn’t answer.

Danny turned away. The humming in his chest was louder now, it was a deep throb of a reminder that he was something that was not alive, but was not dead either.

“I’m not supposed to exist,” he said.

Clockwork knelt, his robe folding like falling behind him. “No. You were not supposed to. But the world changed. And only one path remained.”

“Why me?”

Clockwork looked at him again. “Because no one else could bear it.”

Danny looked down. “I don’t want to bear it.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know.”

“I hate it,” Danny whispered. He hated himself.

Clockwork closed his eyes. “I wish I could say I do not feel guilt. Ancients like me were never meant to feel anything at all. But I have watched your life, Daniel. I have seen every step. And in you, I feel your sorrow.”

Danny blinked. He had expected silence. Maybe a cold shoulder, but not this.

“I’m sorry,” Clockwork said. “I am sorry fate chose you. But I will not leave you to carry it alone when you are here.” Danny didn’t answer.

— - - —

The silence sat between them for a long time. Danny did not ask what time it was. He was beginning to understand that time didn’t mean the same thing here as the living world. There was no sun in the sky to show a new day, and that meant no growing older. Only the endless hush of the Ghost Zone. And the weight of what he now was.

Clockwork rose first. He moved like water in a slow river, he was quiet and his robes whispering against the floor. Danny watched him without speaking.

“I will not rush you,” Clockwork said. “But your core is young. It has begun to awaken. If left untrained, it may become unstable.”

Danny blinked. “My core can become unstable?”

Clockwork nodded. “Yes. It is your center, your life, your soul, and your power.”

Danny looked down at his chest, at the faint glow beneath his skin. “I thought that was just… whatever keeps me alive…well half alive.”

“It is more than that. A ghost’s core is not merely just meant for survival. It is yourself.”

Danny’s fingers curled over the glowing symbol on his suit. The jagged “D” felt more like a scar than a name.

“I don’t want one” he said.

Clockwork did not flinch at Danny’s tone. “Want has nothing to do with it. It is yours, Daniel.”

“Fine,” he muttered. “How do I make it… stop? Or whatever.”

“You cannot silence it,” Clockwork said. “But you can learn to speak with it.”

Danny frowned. “Speak with it?” What the hell.

Clockwork lifted one hand. A slow circle of blue-green light shimmered into being in the air.

“Focus,” he said. “Close your eyes, and think only of what burns beneath your ribs. It will listen to you.”

Danny hesitated. “And what if it doesn’t?”

“Then we will try again. There is no shame in waiting and learning at your own pace. I have made it so you can have as much time as you need.”

Danny swallowed, then he closed his eyes. And waited. At first, he felt nothing different. Then there was a flicker of feeling.

A twitch of energy deep inside his chest. It was just… awareness. It was like someone was tapping on the inside of a door.

He reached for it. And the world tilted. He gasped and was staggering back, as green light burst from his hands like a wave. It crackled in the air, and it was very uncontrollable. He stumbled as the glow was blinding him.

“Stop it!” Danny cried. “I can’t— I don’t—” The light surged harder. It licked the walls. It bent the space around them.

“I said stop!” And it did. All at once, the power just vanished.

Danny stood trembling with his hands still raised, and they were smoking faintly. His boots scuffed the floor where he had nearly fallen.

He looked at Clockwork, breathing in a way that didn’t move his chest.

“I can’t do this,” he said.

Clockwork was quiet. “You did do it.”

Danny shook his head. “I lost control. I freaked out. I could have— I don’t even know what I did.”

“You called your core,” Clockwork said, gently. “And when it frightened you, you told it to stop. And it obeyed.”

Danny stared at his hands. The fingers hidden by gloves didn’t look like his. The green light still echoed behind his eyes.

He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. “I’m still a freak.”

Clockwork’s voice softened. “You are different, yes. But not broken. And you are not a freak Daniel.”

Danny gave a bitter laugh. “Try telling that to that mirror I looked into this morning.”

“I have watched mirrors lie before,” Clockwork said. “They just show a face, and not the soul.”

Danny stared at the floor. The hum inside him was still there. He could still feel it.

“Does it ever stop feeling like this?” he asked. “Like I’m someone else that is wearing my own skin?”

Clockwork looked at him. “No. But one day, you will stop fearing that feeling. One day, you will name it.”

Danny didn’t speak. He didn’t know what name he would give himself anymore. The boy he had been in the lab accident felt a thousand miles away. That boy was dead, and yet somehow he was still here.

“Do you hate me?” Danny asked suddenly. “For messing things up? For being… like this?”

Clockwork tilted his head. “I do not hate you, Daniel.”

Danny’s voice cracked. “But I did something, didn’t I? Something that was important in the timeline or something. That is why I’m being punished like this.”

“Yes,” Clockwork said. “But only because the world was already dying. Your existence saved it.”

Danny looked up. “Saved it?”

Clockwork stepped closer to the new halfa. “You changed the shape of time. You bent the collapse away from its destruction. You turned the tide.”

“But I didn’t mean to.”

“No great turning is ever meant to be,” Clockwork said. “The river does not ask before it carves the mountain.”

Danny was quiet for a long time. Then he looked down at his hands again. They no longer glowed.

“I don’t think I’m ready.”

“You are not.”

Danny just blinked at the lack of motivation from the being of time.

“But,” Clockwork said as he started to walk out of the room, “you are learning. And that will help you soon..”

— - - —

Danny followed Clockwork up the spiraling staircase of stone. He was floating a few steps behind. His boots didn’t touch the ground. He wasn’t sure if he was walking or gliding, or if it even mattered anymore. He wasn’t 100% sure how he’s doing this.

Above was a circular doorway that opened into a soft light. When they passed through, the world dropped out beneath their feet.

Danny gasped at what he saw.

They stepped onto a wide stone balcony that jutted into a green void, if it could be called that. Space twisted around them like green fog. Towering rocks floated in every direction. Great structures like castles and half-formed machines drifted through the air. No sky. No ground. There was just color and motion and silence.

He turned in place slowly. “This is…”

Clockwork who was standing beside him spoke with calm clarity. “This is the Ghost Zone, Daniel. It is a dimension layered against your own. It is one that brushes the folds of time and space where memory and meaning cling long after the body fades, or what is created.”

Danny’s eyes were wide. “It’s huge. And—how does it even stay like this? Where’s the gravity? Why isn’t everything falling apart?”

Clockwork gestured out toward the floating horizon, where glowing rivers wove through clouds of stardust and light. “Matter behaves differently here. Gravity is shaped more by thought and emotion than by mass or inertia. Structures remain not because they are built, but because they are remembered. Form survives where their memory is strong.”

Danny blinked. His brain was already spinning. “So it’s like… a kind of cognitive resonance? Places and objects exist because something believes they still should?”

“You are thinking along the right path,” Clockwork said. “Here, physics is not ignored it is reinterpreted. This realm listens more to the heart than the base atom.”

Danny stepped forward slowly. The platform curved into open space, and it was held up by nothing. He glanced down at the endless drop below and frowned. “But it’s still consistent. Everything’s floating. Things are rotating constantly. They still follow patterns.”

Danny pointed to a far clump of islands that are spiraling slowly around each other. “See that? That’s orbital behavior. That’s a type of structure.”

Clockwork gave a faint smile. “You see order where others see chaos. That will serve you well in your future.”

Danny lowered his hand. “But it’s still not right. None of this should exist. I mean, we’re basically in a vacuum. No pressure. No oxygen. And yet I can talk. I can hear. I can float. I can feel. That’s not just physics being weird. That’s… me not being human anymore.”

Danny turned to Clockwork, jaw tense still not coming to terms with his death. “Am I still a human or am I not now?”

The ancient ghost looked at him for a long moment. His  eyes were unreadable. “You died, Daniel. But your soul did not pass on. The explosion that struck you was filled with ectoplasm. It burned your body but bound your life’s essence. It was forcing a fusion between your physical self and your spectral potential.”

Danny rubbed his arm. “So I’m a chemical accident with consciousness.”

“You are a miracle of balance,” Clockwork said. “A fracture that chose to hold itself together. The universe does not often create what you are. When it does, it listens very closely to what that being becomes later in its life.”

Danny turned away, staring at the horizon again. After a moment, he asked quietly, “Do other ghosts think I’m a freak too?”

Clockwork was silent.

Danny crossed his arms. “You didn’t answer. That is basically an answer itself.”

“They will fear what they do not understand,” Clockwork said at last. “Some will hate you for it. Others may try to use you. You are both ghost and human remember that, and that makes you powerful. Yet it also makes you different. And different things are always first met with suspicion.”

Danny scowled. “Great. So even among dead people, I don’t belong.”

Clockwork’s voice was calm but firm. “Look again, Daniel.” Danny raised his head to look.

The Ghost Zone was stretched endlessly before him. It was a shifting dream of light and motion. Rivers of memory. Islands of sorrow. Towers made of frozen screams and hollowed out dreams.

Clockwork raised a hand. “Everything you see, from the smallest drifting shard of memory to the palaces of ancient kings was shaped by emotion, by will, and by echoes of life. Wherever thought endures, it’s form remains.”

He turned to Danny. “This place does not belong to the dead. It belongs to those who cannot let go. The Ghost Zone is not the end. It is a question left unanswered to most.”

Danny stared into the green depths, his voice very soft. “And I’m the answer?”

“No,” Clockwork said. “You are a new question entirely.”

That made Danny pause.

The sky overhead pulsed softly with energy. Ghosts moved in the distance. None of them paying attention to the two figures that were on the platform. Danny watched one that looked like a trail of fire streak between two floating towers.

His voice dropped lower. “They’re all so different.”

“They reflect what mattered most to them,” Clockwork said. “Some cling to pain. Others to love. A few remember only the moment they died. But you…” He looked down at Danny. “You still remember everything. And you are still changing.”

Danny looked at his hands again. He was looking at his white gloves. The glowing lines under his skin pulsed faintly through the fabric. He didn’t feel the cold around him. He didn’t feel anything, not like before.

But he wasn’t numb either. He was still aware. Slowly, Danny nodded. “Okay.”

Clockwork tilted his head. “Do you accept this as your new self yet?”

“No, of course not” Danny said. “But I’m going to figure it out how to deal with it anyway.”

— - - —

Danny walked around the edge of the platform in thought. He looked at everything around him, but he was not really seeing it. Thinking about shapes and facts helped him calm down. Numbers made more sense than his own feelings to him right now.

“I should’ve died,” Danny said quietly. “Like, really died. That blast—it should’ve fried me.”

“Yes,” Clockwork said. “But your body changed with the help of that pain. It held on.”

Danny turned to look at him, arms crossed. “Why me? Other kids mess around with stuff all the time. There are explosions in labs. Freak accidents. Why did I get the privilege to live through it?”

“Because you were already split,” Clockwork answered.

Danny frowned. “What does that even mean?”

Clockwork started walking around the large sphere. His long robes flowed behind him.

“It was not your body, or your mind that was split. It was your soul Daniel. You were born between two lives. A child from two worlds. Yet hidden from both. You were sent away for safety and left without answers of who you could have became. That split shaped your life.”

Danny stood still. Does that mean his life would have been different if he was never sent to his uncles place? Would he not be standing here right now where ghost live?

“You were divided long before the accident,” Clockwork said. “The portal only made the break show physically and spiritually.”

Danny’s fists clenched. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” Clockwork agreed. “It isn’t and it will never be.”

Danny walked back to the edge of the platform. His eyes were on the strange lights below. “So this wasn’t just an accident. It was planned. So what, I was picked in a way?”

“Not picked,” Clockwork said. “Needed.” Danny flinched like he’d been slapped.

“That’s worse,” Danny said. “Being picked means someone wants you. Being needed means you’re just a tool to help.”

Clockwork didn’t argue with him.

Danny’s voice shook. “Do you know what it’s like to wake up glowing a type of green under your skin? To see white hair in the mirror and not know who it belongs to? To look at your hands and feel like they belong to a stranger?”

Clockwork tilted his head slightly. “You are grieving your humanity. That is normal in your ghost progression.”

Danny laughed. “Normal? I died, Clockwork. I’m dead. But somehow I’m still talking yet I can’t breathe right”

“You are not dead,” Clockwork said. “But you are not only alive either. You live between both worlds. That is rare, and it is dangerous.”

Danny blinked. “Dangerous how?”

“The ghosts here… some were alive once. Now they are echoes of their souls. But you are something new. You still have a living body. A living mind, with a ghost core. That’s never happened like this in many many years.”

“So I’m the only one like this right now?” Danny asked.

Clockwork nodded. “Yes. You are the only one of your kind, during this time period.”

Danny’s stomach twisted. “That’s… that’s not good.”

“No. It means you must be careful. You must not talk to the other ghosts. Not yet at least.”

Danny looked up fast. “What? Why?”

“You are not ready. They will not understand you. Some will fear you. Others will want to use you. And many will try to destroy you. To them, you are a threat to their normal and their power.”

Danny’s mouth was dry. “So I’m supposed to hide?”

“For now,” Clockwork said. “Until you can defend yourself. Until you learn to control your gifts.”

“Okay,” Danny said softly after a moment of thinking. “No ghosts yet. That is fine with me.”

Clockwork stood beside him now. “The Realms can feel your presence. You must learn to hide your energy signal. To be able to move through this world unseen.”

“Great,” Danny muttered. “Even the world thinks I’m weird.”

Clockwork looked out at the Realms. “Everything here watches. And some of it remembers. Until you understand how to protect yourself, it’s safer to stay out of its sight.”

Danny didn’t answer right away. He stared at the glowing cities in the distance. They didn’t look real, but maybe neither did he.

“You said I had to learn,” Danny said. “What exactly am I supposed to learn?”

“You will learn what you are,” Clockwork said. “And how to live as both ghost and human. But not today. Your training begins later.”

Danny looked up. “When?”

“When you are ready to listen. And not just with your mind, but with your core.”

Danny looked confused. “My core can listen?”

“You will feel it in time,” Clockwork said. “But for now, rest. There is still much to understand about your new self.”

Danny nodded slowly. “Okay. Just… one step at a time. Right?”

“Yes,” Clockwork said. “That is the only way forward Daniel.”

Chapter Text

The chamber that held the time line was quiet that moment. The great orb at the center of the room pulsed with its shifting colors, that was casting ghostly reflections to be seen across the walls. Time flickered inside it like glass bending under heat. It was an entire world suspended in a moment inside.

Clockwork stood near the sphere. He was very still and tall in his elder form. His hands folded neatly behind his back. He did not turn when Danny stepped in.

“You called for me?” Danny asked.

Clockwork nodded. “Yes, Daniel. Come closer.”

Danny approached slowly, his eyes drawn to the glowing orb. Inside it, the time line was frozen. A scene played on a slow loop with Vlad Masters in his underground lab. Danny stopped walking. His face drained of color at what he was seeing.

“That’s Vlads house,” he said.

“Yes,” Clockwork replied. “Or more specifically, beneath it as you remember it.”

Danny stepped closer and was just staring at the picture. In the image, he saw his own body falling backward through a swirling green portal, with his arms flailing. Vlad stood at the console, face twisted in cold intent.

Danny’s voice was quiet. “That’s when he pushed me in.”

“Yes.”

“But… why would he even have a portal?” Danny turned sharply toward Clockwork. “Why did he have one at all? I thought my parents invented the only one. How did he even know what it was supposed to do?”

Clockwork remained calm. “Because it was not originally just a scientific invention to him. It was his rebirth.”

Danny’s brows pinched together. “Wwwhaaat?”

Clockwork stepped forward as he started tapping the staff against the floor. The sphere shifted, showing another scene of a younger Vlad in a different lab that was surrounded by scorched metal. He was collapsed against the wall bleeding. Then the image shimmered and it started to show a ghostly energy pouring over him, and it started twisting him or starting changing him.

Danny’s breath caught. “He was in an accident. Like me.”

“Yes,” Clockwork said. “But unlike you, he did not survive intact. His body was destroyed beyond repair. His spirit might have passed on, had it not been caught by a greater power.”

“Pariah Dark,” Danny whispered. Clockwork only nodded.

The scene showed Vlad again with his eyes glowing faintly blue, but his form mostly human. A puppet in fine clothes. He was alive, but not truly living.

“Pariah used his own power to keep Vlad anchored in the living world,” Clockwork said. “He had use for a spy. And Vlad who was obsessed with power, and was desperate for the affection of your mother’s sister in law. He was eager to accept the offer.”

Danny shook his head. “So he’s… not even human?”

“Not truly,” Clockwork replied. “He is a ghost held in a human’s skin. His failure made him hollow. Your success made you dangerous to him.”

Danny looked back at the image of himself falling into the portal. “He wanted me dead.”

“He wanted you delivered,” Clockwork corrected. “To King Pariah. The moment your core stabilized, you became a threat to them. The prophecy of a halfa, the one who would unseat the King, has long been feared had came to pass.”

Danny stood very still. His throat was dry. “So… the second I became this… this thing… I was marked for death.”

“You were marked for destiny,” Clockwork said. “But yes. If I had not intervened back at the castle, Pariah would have taken you. And you would not have survived what he had planned.”

Danny wrapped his arms around himself. His voice was low. “Why me again? Why did it work for me and not Vlad?”

“Because you were already fractured,” Clockwork said. “I told you once before.”

Danny exhaled hard and looked at the time stream again. “You just stopped it. All of time, in the whole world.”

“I did,” Clockwork confirmed. “The moment Vlad pushed you through that portal, I froze time in the living world. Not one second has passed there since.”

Danny’s eyes widened. “That’s… that’s changing everything.”

“Yes,” Clockwork said. “But it was necessary. You were not ready. If time had moved on, the damage would have spread far beyond your family. Beyond your city. Perhaps beyond your dimension.”

Danny shook his head again. “When I go back… will I be older? Different?”

“No,” Clockwork said gently. “Time will continue exactly where it left off. No one will notice the difference. But you will return changed in ways they cannot see.”

Danny glanced down at his hands. He flexed them, thinking of the way energy now pulsed under his skin.

“And if I’m never ready?”

“You will be,” Clockwork said. “Because you must be.”

Danny looked at him. The orb behind them glowed brighter for a moment, and then it dimmed again. Somewhere in the stillness of time, the future waited and Danny turned and walked out of the room.

— - - —

Danny sat alone on one of the upper walkways with his knees pulled to his chest, and his arms wrapped tightly around them. The cold stone beneath him didn’t register to his senses.

His eyes were fixed outward across the endless sweep of the Ghost Zone. Its pale green sky pulsed like a breath, it was always moving and was always humming. It was truly endless, it was just like space.

He was quieter now after that thought.

He hadn’t spoken since he left the room of time. Clockwork hadn’t followed when he left ether, and he didn’t need to. Danny knew the ghost would give him space.

That part was nice, at least.

He rested his chin on his knees, with his hair falling into his eyes. It was still white. His skin still was faintly glowing. His white boots and the jumpsuit was still black and silver from the lab. He still hadn’t changed out of it.

Didn’t seem like he could.

He hated how quiet it was here sometimes though. He hated how much he could hear himself think, with only having clockwork to talk to here.

He watched the horizon flicker and slowly leaned back against the cold wall. A portal shimmered in the distance as someone was coming or going. But not to Earth, not anymore. Earth was… paused for a while. And for some reason that made Danny relax with the idea that he had some time to come to terms with what needs to happen.

The idea should have felt big. But it didn’t. It felt very numb. “Half-ghost,” Danny muttered to himself. “That’s a new thing now, apparently.”

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with that.

“I didn’t ask for this,” he said, louder. The sky didn’t answer. “I didn’t even know Vlad had a portal. Why would he—” He cut off and sighed.

There was no one here to answer his questions. Except Clockwork. And Danny wasn’t sure he wanted more answers. He wasn’t sure he could take them.

He laid back on the walkway with his eyes to the ghostly sky, and his arms were still crossed over his chest like they might hold something in. His heart? His fear? His questions?

He didn’t know.

He tried to imagine going back. Going home. Walking through the front door like nothing had changed. Seeing Jazz. Seeing Sam and Tucker.

But would they even recognize him? Would he recognize them, or would he not like how he doesn’t recognize himself? He turned his hand in front of his face. It shimmered faintly.

“I don’t even know if I’m still me.”

A slow pulse echoed through the air. He turned his head and saw a new shape far across the sky. It was like a watchtower, but with no doors that he could see from where he was.

Another part of Clockworks realm he hadn’t explored yet. He sat up with excitement.

“Guess that’s my life now,” he muttered. “Exploring haunted castles with a green sky above me, oh an I’m also in another real in another dimension.”

He stood, brushing dust from his pants, though they never seemed to get dirty here. Ghost physics were very weird.

The Watchtower loomed ahead. Its base floated miles away, but he could feel the pull. A call without hearing anything. Was this his core telling him something?

He didn’t question it. There were no roads here. No paths to follow. Just his instinct and will to help him.

So Danny closed his eyes and focused on the tower, and then he let the world move beneath him. The air shimmered as space started folding, and he appeared on the bridge before its gate.

When he opened his eyes again, the door was already swinging wide for him to come in.

— - - —

The tower was quiet when Danny stepped inside.

It looked small from the outside. It looked just like another smooth structure built from glowing stone and green crystal. But inside, it stretched tall and wide like a hollow shell of a peanut.

At the very center of the space stood a tall crystal column. It was very transparent and it did not move, it was like a frozen flame.

Danny stepped closer to it. It pulsed in response. A soft hum vibrated in his chest, like the air itself recognized him.

The surface flickered, and then suddenly images formed inside the crystal.

At first, he saw himself. Well his human self walking beside Sam and Tucker, laughing and shoving each other like always. Tucker waved a PDA above his head, while Sam rolled her eyes and kicked at a locker. It looked like a normal afternoon. Danny realized that this was a memory.

Danny’s lips parted. He didn’t touch the crystal. He didn’t want to make it go away.He missed his friends. But it shifted anyway.

Now, Danny could see a backyard on a sunny day. A younger boy stood near a wooden fence, with his dark hair falling into his sharp eyes. His smile was crooked but it was very warm. The boy looked up almost directly at Danny.

Jason. Danny took a step back, startled. He hasn’t seen Jason’s face for a while. The crystal pulsed again.

A rooftop appeared.

An older boy was crouched near a kid that was maybe ten years old, and the kid had  black hair and bright green eyes. They were both focused on something between them. The kid held a tiny bird, and was cupping it in his small hands like it would break. The older boy smiled as he adjusted the kid’s hands gently.

Danny blinked. The older one looked like Dick. And Danny soon realized that was Dick, but just older.

But the younger one? Danny didn’t know him. Something in the kids eyes made Danny’s heart tug strangely. He didn’t know why he felt this way. Dick moved out pretty soon after Danny moved into the manor. Danny realized that he missed Dick a lot more than he though he did, when he watched the interaction of the two.

The crystal dimmed, and the images faded. “You are drawn to those who have shaped you,” a deep voice said behind him. Danny turned, and Clockwork stood at the base of the platform with his  arms folded behind his back.

“What is this place?” Danny asked.

Clockwork stepped beside him. “This is the part of the palace of Space. Yet this tower is a chamber of resonance, and is linked to the larger structure that orbits beyond the inner limits of time.”

Danny frowned. “Wait—this place is in space?”

“No it is space itself.”

“But… why? What does space have to do with your realm?”

Clockwork’s eyes twinkled slightly, the closest he ever came to smiling. “Time and space are bound together, Daniel. One cannot move without affecting the other. Even the smallest second has distance, annd even the furthest star has an age.”

Danny looked up at the spiraling walkways. “So this place it not just a memory projector?”

“No. It is more than just memory. It shows reflections of who you are, and what you carry close to you. Sometimes past, or sometimes it’s the future. Sometimes it’s  things that have never come to be… and never will come to be.”

Danny’s eyes widened. “You mean I could see things that haven’t happened yet?”

“Possibly. Or things that are simply possible.”

Danny stared into the crystal again. “That’s… that’s so cool.” He smiled. Really smiled.

“I love space,” he said softly. “I always have. I used to drag my telescope onto the roof every clear ish night just to find Saturn or Mars.”

Clockwork rested a hand gently on Danny’s shoulder. “Then you will feel at home here. This tower listens to you well, Daniel. Let it show you what you need to see.”

Danny nodded slowly. The tower pulsed again behind them.

— - - —

Danny stood in the center of clockwork’s training room. The crystal floor was smooth and cold beneath him. The air was still as he sat. Clockwork watched him from a few steps away. He looked calm like how he always does.

Danny shifted his weight and shook out his hands. His ghost form came easy to be in now. The white hair, green eyes, and glowing skin, was starting to feel normal.

But he still couldn’t change back to his human form on command. Not without feeling pain, or he just can’t do it.

“I want to try again,” Danny said.

Clockwork gave a small nod. “Go ahead.”

Danny took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and thought of his human self. Blue eyes with now green in them. Black hair. Pale skin that bruised easy and got sunburns. The kind of body that scraped its knees. The one he’d thought he lost.

He reached for it, and then he pulled. The shift slammed into him hard. Heat burst through his chest. His back arched as pain ripped down his left side.

“Ah—!”

He dropped to his elbows. His hands hit the floor so fast that all he could do was curl up. Everything burned. His ribs lit up with fire, a it was like every nerve was screaming inside him.

Clockwork knelt beside him fast. His hand landed gently on Danny’s back. “Daniel. Tell me where it hurts.”

Danny couldn’t speak right away. He gritted his teeth and pressed a shaking hand to his ribs.

“Left side. It felt like something tore. It—it hurts so bad. His hands were human again. His hair was dark. The shift had worked. But it felt like it cost him a piece of himself.

Clockwork’s face was calm but focused. “You’re back in your human form. But your body isn’t ready for sudden changes, and the trauma that it goes with.”

“I’ve been drinking the ectoplasm you give me to heal,” Danny said through clenched teeth. “I’ve been careful. And I have been doing everything that you said could help, every day.”

Clockwork’s eyes softened. “Then the damage is deeper than we thought.”

Danny sat back with his legs out in front of him. His breath came shallow puffs. Sweat clung to his shirt that made him uncomfortable. The sharp throb in his side was familiar, but he wanted it to go away.

“It’s the same spot,” Danny said. “Every time.”

“Scar tissue,” Clockwork murmured. “Damaged nerves. The energy from the accident left deep marks on your body, than I thought.”

Danny didn’t say anything. He hated how his voice shook after feeling that type of pain. He hated the pain more though than his voice. He felt great in his ghost form. Why does his human self always have to hurt him?

Clockwork stood. He held out his hand again to Daniel. Danny took it and pulled himself up slow. He swayed a little but he didn’t fall.

“I want you to meet someone today,” Clockwork said.

Danny looked at him. “Who?”

“A doctor,” Clockwork said. “A ghost who’s helped many spirits recover after death. He understands your kind of pain.”

Danny blinked. “There are ghost doctors?”

“Yes,” Clockwork said. “This one lives in the Far North. He’s old, powerful, but very kind. Some call him Frostbite.”

Danny tilted his head. “That’s… actually a pretty cool name.”

Clockwork’s mouth twitched, almost smiling. “He’s something of a legend. He is part healer, and part warrior. He’s protected his village for centuries.”

Danny’s eyes lit up. “So he’s like—what, a warrior ghost doctor?”

Clockwork gave a slow nod. “In a way. Yes, he is also what you humans call a yeti.”

Danny couldn’t help it. He grinned. “Okay that’s kind of badass.”

Clockwork turned and began walking toward the far end of the room where a portal shimmered in the wall.

Danny followed, still sore but curious now. His side ached with every step, but the idea of meeting someone who could actually help him made it easier to ignore.

“Do you think he can really fix this?” Danny asked.

Clockwork looked back. “I think he’s the best one to try. And that statement was enough for Danny.

He didn’t know what waited for him in the Far North. He didn’t know who this Frostbite guy really was. But for the first time in a while, he felt like maybe someone out there could help him understand what he had become.

And maybe, just maybe they can make his pain stop.

— - - — 

Chapter Text

Danny followed Clockwork through a swirling portal of pale blue light. The moment they stepped through, the world changed around them. Everything they could see was white.

Snow stretched for miles in every direction. The sky was a soft blue and silver. A quiet wind moved through the air. It didn’t sting his skin like the wind back in Amity Park. It felt rather… calm.

Danny looked down at his boots. The snow didn’t sink under his feet. It was packed firm, and it was glowing faintly with ghostly light.

“Where are we?” Danny asked. His breath fogged in front of his face, but he didn’t feel cold.

“This is the Far Frozen,” Clockwork said. He stood beside Danny, with his hands folded behind his back. “It is a place of peace and healing.”

Danny looked around slowly. In the distance, he saw something shimmer like glass. As they walked closer, he realized it was a city. Tall towers of smooth ice rose into the sky. Paths were carved from snow and polished crystal. Lights moved under the ice that was glowing a soft blue.

“It’s beautiful,” Danny whispered.

He noticed the cold again, but it didn’t feel bad. It wrapped around him like a blanket. It was not warm, but not painful either. It felt… right to be here.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen snow like this,” he said.

Clockwork gave a small nod. “This snow is made from ectoplasm. It does not melt. It does not freeze, but it is still very cold. It is alive in its own way.”

Danny blinked. “That’s kinda weird, but it’s still cool.” As they reached the city gates, a large shape moved steady toward them.

Danny’s eyes widened. A towering figure stepped into view. It was covered in thick white fur, and it had long tusks curling from the sides of its face. Its eyes glowed with kindness, and its presence was calm but you can tell they are very strong.

“Woah,” Danny said under his breath.

Clockwork smiled. “This is Frostbite. He is the healer of this city. He has agreed to help you.”

Frostbite bowed slightly. “Welcome, young halfa. I have heard much about you.”

Danny blinked up at him. “You’re the ghost doctor?”

Frostbite let out a deep, gentle laugh. “Yes. I suppose that is a good way to put it.”

Danny smiled a little. “You’re kinda low key badass from the stories clockwork told me.”

Frostbite laughed again. “Thank you. That is a new compliment for me.”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. I just didn’t expect a giant yeti with tusks to be the one helping me with my pain.”

“And yet, here we are,” Frostbite said kindly. “You have come far already. Your journey has not been easy.”

Danny’s smile faded a little. “Yeah. I’ve been hurting a lot lately, and not just the new ghost stuff. My body hurts too. When I turn back into human, it feels like something’s burning under my skin.”

Frostbite’s face grew serious. “Then we must begin soon. But first, you should rest. The city is ready to welcome you.”

Danny looked around again. He saw ghost and yeti children playing in the snow, their laughter was very soft in the cold air. A few waved at him with big smiles when they saw him. He waved back.

“This place doesn’t feel like the Ghost Zone,” Danny said.

“It is part of the Zone,” Clockwork said. “But it is different. The Far Frozen was made for balance, not battle. But don’t be fooled every realm has its place for violence still.”

Danny nodded slowly. “It feels safe here.”

“That is good,” Frostbite said. “Because here, you will learn what it means to live with a new core. And how to heal from what has hurt you in your living life.”

Danny looked up at him again. “You think you can help with the nerve pain?”

“I will try my best,” Frostbite said. “But healing takes time and strength. Both from others and from within yourself.”

Danny took a deep breath. He looked at his hands. “Okay. I’m ready to try.”

Frostbite stepped aside and motioned toward the city. “Then come, Daniel. Your journey in the Far Frozen begins today.”

Danny followed him, the snow crunching softly beneath his boots. For the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel scared. He felt… hopeful.

— - - —

The room was cold. It was made of glowing ice and soft light. Strange ghost machines hummed quietly around the edges, and their crystal panels were blinking in a soft green and blue tone. Danny stood in the middle of it all, inside a tall glass like tube that was open in the front. He crossed his arms over his chest and shifted awkwardly as the machine scanned him from head to toe.

The soft whir of energy moved up and down his body. A thin blue beam followed it, as it was lighting up his human form. He could see little pulses of light flicker where the scanner touched his skin.

“It feels weird,” Danny mumbled. “It feels like I’m standing in a freezer with a bunch of ghost Wi-Fi signals hitting me.”

Clockwork stood off to the side with Frostbite. The two of them watched a large panel on the wall that was filled with lines, circles, and ghost symbols Danny couldn’t read. Frostbite had a serious look on his face as he studied the results. Clockwork stayed quiet, hands behind his back as always.

Danny shifted again. “Everything okay over there?”

Frostbite didn’t answer at first. He leaned in closer to the screen. His hand moved across the panel, tapping at several glowing runes.

Clockwork looked at him. “What is it?”

Frostbite’s voice was low. “His core… it looks like it’s starving.”

Danny frowned. “Wait. What?”

Frostbite turned to him and gave a small gentle smile. “You may step out now, young one.”

Danny stepped out of the scanning tube and rubbed his arms. “What do you mean starving? I’ve been drinking the green goo stuff like Clockwork told me to.”

Frostbite nodded. “Yes. The ectoplasm is helping your body heal, especially with your scars. But it’s not enough. Or at least not enough for your core.”

Danny blinked. “Okay… so what else do I need?”

Frostbite walked over to him and knelt slightly to meet his eyes. “Ghosts need to feed their cores with their obsession. It is what gives us purpose. It is what keeps us together.”

Danny scratched his head. “Obsession? You mean, like… a hobby?”

Frostbite shook his head. “No. It is deeper than that. It is something that anchors your ghost half. Something you care about so much it shapes your very being.”

Danny looked down at his hands. “I… I don’t know what that is.”

“That is normal,” Frostbite said kindly. “Many young ghosts do not know right away. Some take years to find it. But you must begin to listen to yourself. Think of what makes your heart burn the brightest. What makes you feel whole.”

Danny looked over at Clockwork. “Do you know what mine is?”

Clockwork didn’t answer. He simply tilted his head slightly and gave a soft smile. “Only you can truly know.”

Danny groaned ant his answer and sat on the edge of a glowing bench. “Great. So I’m starving and I don’t even know how to eat.”

Frostbite chuckled softly. “That is one way to put it.”

Danny looked up again. “So… what happens if I don’t figure it out?”

Frostbite’s face grew serious again. “Then your core will weaken. Your ghost powers will fail. And because your body is already very damaged by your death, it will struggle to hold itself together.”

Danny swallowed hard. “That… sounds pretty bad.”

“It is,” Frostbite said. “But we will not let that happen.”

Danny looked down again, he was suddenly tired. “I thought I was doing okay.”

“You are doing your best,” Frostbite said. “But there is more to healing than resting and drinking ectoplasm.”

Danny sat quietly for a moment. Then he asked, “So what do I do now?”

Frostbite stepped closer. “Your scans also show something else. You need connection. Physical bonding. That is something your body and your core are both asking you for.”

Danny blinked. “What does that mean?”

“It means you need comfort. Touch. People, or your family around you.” Frostbite said. “Your human side needs healing just as much as your ghost half. The nerve pain, the memories, the fear… they leave deep marks in your body’s trauma.”

Danny didn’t know what to say. He felt small again, and weak.

Frostbite opened his arms. “May I?”

Danny hesitated. Then nodded once to the doctor. Frostbite pulled him gently into a hug. Danny didn’t expect it to feel like anything.

But the moment he was wrapped in soft fur, he felt warmth fill his chest. The yeti did not of heat exactly. He was giving more of like calm feeling. The pain in his back and legs softened. His body didn’t go numb, but it hurt less. And his chest felt… lighter. Like he could breathe better.

He let out a small breath and leaned into the hug. Just for a moment.

“You are not broken,” Frostbite said softly. “You are healing. And you do not have to do it alone.” Danny stayed there for a while. He didn’t speak to anyone. He just let himself rest in the yeti’s arms.

— - - —

Danny sat on a low bench of glowing ice, with his legs swinging slightly. His body still ached in places, but the hug from Frostbite had helped more than he wanted to admit. Across from him, Frostbite moved slowly through the room, adjusting the light, checking the energy levels, and setting down a small floating crystal tray that shimmered with soft light.

Clockwork stood near the far wall, silent as usual but watching with calm eyes.

Frostbite turned toward Danny. “There is something more I need to do.”

Danny sat up straighter. “Yeah? What is it?”

“I must examine your core directly,” Frostbite said. “It will help me understand the damage better and tell us what your body truly needs.”

Danny blinked. “You mean… like look inside me?”

Frostbite chuckled kindly. “Not exactly. I need you to bring your core outside of your chest so I may see it clearly.”

Danny’s eyes widened. “I can do that?”

“Yes,” Frostbite said. “It is a natural ability for ghosts. You must focus on the feeling of your center. Your energy. Picture it moving forward. Reaching out of you.”

Danny looked down at his chest. “Uh… is it gonna hurt?”

“It may feel strange,” Frostbite said. “But it should not cause pain. I will guide you through it.”

Danny nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll try.”

He took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure why he did that because he didn’t need air really anymore in any form, but it still helped him focus. He closed his eyes and placed a hand over his chest. He tried to feel something. Anything.

“Clear your mind,” Frostbite said gently. “Listen to the quiet in yourself. Your core will respond to you if you speak with it from the inside.”

Danny breathed out. He pictured the blue energy inside of him. The way it moved. The chill in his blood. He imagined it growing brighter. He imagined it pushing forward.

Then something shifted inside his chest.

A pressure built in his chest. It wasn’t painful, but it made his heart race, or whatever ghost part he had that acted like a heart. A soft light pressed against his ribs, and then slowly something began to form just in front of his body.

Danny opened his eyes.

A glowing pale blue orb hovered just a few inches out from his chest. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat made of ice and light. The surface shimmered with frost and fog, with small flakes spinning slowly inside it.

“Whoa,” Danny whispered.

Frostbite stepped closer, his eyes wide with focus. “You have done well.”

Danny stared at it. “That’s… that’s my core?”

“Yes,” Frostbite said. “It is very rare to see an ice core in someone so young.”

Danny swallowed. “It looks… kind of fragile.”

Frostbite nodded slowly. “It is. Your death left deep marks. Your core is still forming, still recovering. The light is there, but it is thin. You have survived more than most ghosts ever do.”

Danny looked at it. It floated right in front of him and was still connected by a thin glowing strand that reached back into his chest. It felt warm and cold at the same time. It felt… alive. It felt like him. But it also felt wrong.

His stomach twisted, and he slowly curled his arms around the orb, and was drawing it closer to himself. He didn’t pull it back in completely, but he cradled it against his chest like a fragile glass ball.

“I don’t like it out,” he said softly.

Frostbite tilted his head. “May I ask why?”

“It feels… exposed,” Danny said. “Like something could break it.”

Frostbite gave a slow nod. “That is normal. You are still learning to trust this part of yourself. It is your center. Your soul. It is natural to want to protect it.”

Danny looked down at the soft light pressed to his chest. “Can I keep it close but not put it all the way back yet?”

“Yes,” Frostbite said. “Keep it where it feels safe. You are not rushing anything.”

Danny gave a small nod. The light hummed softly against his body. It made his chest ache a little, but not in a bad way. It felt… real. Like the part of him he had always known was there but didn’t have a name for.

Clockwork stepped forward now. “This is a beginning.”

Danny glanced at him. “What happens next?”

“You learn,” Frostbite said. “About your core. Your powers. Your obsession. And yourself.”

Danny let out a slow breath. He looked at the orb again and then back up at Frostbite.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

— - - —

Danny still sat on a ledge made of glowing ice. His legs dangled off the edge, and his breath puffed out in little clouds even though he wasn’t sure if he was breathing in the normal way anymore. His core still hovered just under the skin of his chest. Not inside. Not out. Just… close to him. It glowed softly through his shirt like a distant star. He loved it.

Frostbite sat beside him with a quiet sigh. The yeti doctor had been silent for a few minutes now, and was watching the shimmer of the frozen city beyond them. Danny didn’t mind the quiet. It felt different here. It was definitely softer. But it also was still heavy, like there was something Frostbite was still trying to figure out how to say.

Finally, the yeti turned to him.

“Daniel,” he said gently, “I want to explain something important.”

Danny looked up, his hands curled loosely in his lap. “Okay. Shoot.”

Frostbite offered a small smile, then grew serious again. “Your core is still healing from your death. But because you are a halfa that healing is not simple. The connection between your core and your living body is still very unstable.”

Danny frowned. “Unstable how?”

“It flickers,” Frostbite said. “Like a flame caught between two winds. Your ghost half is trying to stabilize, but your human half is damaged in ways that make that hard. Your nerves, your tissues… they were hurt during your transformation. Some of those injuries go beyond what ghost healing can fix. It is almost impossible to heal what has killed you.”

Danny stared down at his hands. “So my nerve pain… it’s permanent?”

Frostbite hesitated. “The pain may always be a part of you, yes. But pain is not the whole truth. With training and care, your body can become stronger. Your ghost half can learn to carry the human half better.”

Danny didn’t say anything right away. He shifted on the ledge, drawing his legs up a little. “It’s weird,” he murmured. “I’m used to something hurting. Like, I don’t remember the last time I didn’t feel sore or tired or just mentally off. But hearing that it might never go away? That really sucks.”

Frostbite didn’t argue. He simply nodded. “Yes. It does.”

Danny looked out across the city. Everything here sparkled like glass, but it didn’t feel cold. It felt warm in a way he couldn’t explain, like the place itself was alive and breathing with quiet energy. Maybe it was because of him having an ice core.

“I thought becoming a ghost would fix everything,” Danny said softly. “Like… I thought it’d make me stronger. Maybe untouchable, but I just feel broken.”

Frostbite placed a gentle hand on Danny’s back. “You are not broken, young one. You were torn in half yes. But you are still here. You still are healing, and that takes a lot of strength.”

Danny sat with those words for a while. They didn’t fix anything, but they didn’t hurt hearing them either.

“So what now?” he asked.

“Now,” Frostbite said, “you stay here. I train you. We strengthen your core. We find ways to ease your pain, ant not just ignore it. You do not have to do this alone while you are within our care.”

Danny gave a tired little laugh. “I’ve been alone a long time.”

Frostbite gave his shoulder a soft squeeze. “Not anymore.”

Danny didn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth twitched up. A real smile almost made it through.

They stood, and Frostbite motioned for him to follow. Together they walked deeper into the city, past tall towers of ice and glowing paths that lit up under their feet.

Danny walked slowly with one hand pressed to his chest where his core still floated under the surface. He could feel it now, and not just the chill or the slight hum, but something else too. It was a quiet pull. It was a promise to himself.

It didn’t take away the ache in his limbs or the fire in his nerves. But for the first time in a long while, Danny felt something stronger than pain. He felt like he had potential.

Chapter Text

The ice crunched softly under Danny’s boots as he walked across the glowing field of the Far Frozen. Pale blue mist curled around his feet and shimmered in the light from the local ice towers.

His breath fogged the air, but not from the cold but from his habit of still breathing when he doesn’t need to. The cold didn’t bite him anymore after he died. It felt like something he belonged to now, like it had welcomed him into its chilly embrace.

Training had been hard that day. It had been hard for weeks, or was it months. Time moved strangely in the Far Frozen, but Danny knew he had been here long enough to grow into someone new. His muscles ached in that satisfying way that came from putting in real effort. His movements were sharper, and way more precise. He had earned the respect of the warriors who once doubted him when he started.

He rolled his shoulder slowly, and wincing as the nerves between them twinged. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it used to be. The chronic pain still flared up, but sometimes it is so bad it will knocked the air out of him, but those days were fewer in between now.

Frostbite said it was a very good sign. Danny was finally healing. Little by little but hey it’s something. The scarred nerves in his left side no longer burned him constantly, but it still just spasms when he was tired or pushed too hard.

He looked down at his gloved hands and let a green glow that spread across his fingers. His core responded with a steady pulse beneath his ribs, like it was a heartbeat that didn’t beat with blood but with something else. It was quiet. It was calm. And that stillness and that centered rhythm inside him, it made the world feel less sharp and less chaotic.

Danny smiled, a small curve of his mouth that felt real this time. He started to enjoy his life here in the infinity realms.

He had learned so much. Not just about his ghost powers, but about his body. About himself. About what it meant to be something in between living and death. He could shift into his ghost form now with ease and return to his human self without much fear. It had taken time, so much time, and a lot of painful trial and error. But he had done it. He hadn’t given up on himself.

He paused just before the edge of the training field and glanced back one last time. Frostbite stood near the center, and was speaking with two younger warriors who had come to respect Danny like one of their own. They had given him a name. That meant more than they realized. It wasn’t just a title. It was a name of belonging here within their society.

Phantom.

Danny placed a hand on his chest where his core rested.  They called me Phantom, he thought to himself with a small grin. Not as a nickname, but like… a real name. A ghost name. The thought came soft in his head, and he was letting the words settle in his mind like they were something sacred.

It had been during a ceremony after one of the major sparring tournaments. Frostbite had declared it himself, placing a crystal pendant around Danny’s neck. It was shaped like a snowflake with a glowing center.

Phantom… the half ghost, and the ice warrior from the living world. He had stood tall that day, even with his legs shaking from effort, and even with the memories of his death still clinging to his skin like frost.

Danny had felt very honored to receive a ghost name. Humbled, even. It was the first time in a long time he felt proud of himself for something that wasn’t just him surviving. He hadn’t just endured pain. He had thrived. He had fought tooth and nail to be more than a victim, and to be more than just a mistake.

He stepped up to the shimmering arch of a frozen portal. The frame was carved from living ice and hummed with quiet power. One of Frostbite’s warriors stood to the side and nodded to him. Her horns were etched with symbols he still couldn’t read, but her expression was warm.

“You’ve earned your rest definitely after today, Phantom,” she said, bowing her head slightly.

Danny nodded back at her. “Thanks. I’ll be back soon,” he promised. And he meant it. The Far Frozen had become something close to home.

With that, he stepped into the portal. The air shifted around him. He felt the familiar cold and bright light that filled the air with the strange softness of moving between his favorite dimensions. He exhaled slowly as the Far Frozen faded away, and the sounds of the wind and ice giving way to something slower that had more rhythm of a clock.

The moment he stepped out of the portal, the familiar ticking of Clockwork’s tower surrounded him fully again. The air here was still and ageless. Time sat on the walls like dust just being patient and waiting. It made his skin prickle, like the silence was watching him. He was starting to get used to that feeling.

Danny took a small breath and looked around. He was back in the realm where it had all started. Clockwork’s home. His sanctuary. The place that had given him his first glimpse of what he was, and what he could become.

His boots clicked lightly as he walked down the hall with his muscles still sore but they were starting to relax. He rubbed the back of his neck and stretched a little as he walked. The ache in his shoulder reminded him he was real. That he was alive and fighting.

I still can’t believe how far I’ve come, he thought to himself. I can fight now. I can fly without shaking. My core doesn’t feel like it’s going to crack open every time I get emotional. And I earned a ghost name. That’s… wild to think about.

He smiled again, this time more to himself. “Phantom,” he whispered. It felt right. Like that name had been waiting for him all along. Like it had always been his, even before he knew what he was becoming. He felt complete.

As he walked deeper into the tower, with a light wind that still stirred behind him from the open portal. He closed his eyes for just a moment and let the quiet of the time realm settle around him. The pain was still there in his nerves, a low ache like an old scar, but it no longer controlled him. He controlled it now.

And now, for the first time since the accident, he was ready to move forward. He didn’t know what the next step would look like. He didn’t know if his family would be part of it. But he knew who he was now. That had to count for something hopefully.

Danny opened his eyes again and started walking toward the heart of the tower where he usually found his mentor.

— - - —

Danny moved quietly through the winding halls of the tower, his fingers brushing the smooth stone walls. The soft ticking in the air wasn’t mechanical, like it wasn’t like a clock in the human world. Yet it reminded him of time moving, or maybe time watching. It didn’t scare him like it used to.

After all, Clockwork wasn’t just the Master of Time. He was the first person who had looked at Danny as Danny. He didn’t look at have like Phantom, not a halfa, not a weapon, and he simply had seen a kid who needed some help.

The winding corridors bent space around him. What looked like a short hallway could stretch on forever if the tower wished, and some corners led to other times entirely. But Danny knew the way to the main chamber. Clockwork had shown him the way around. It was a quiet and trusting gesture, like he was saying to Danny, “You belong here.” Danny didn’t take it lightly for clockworks hospitality.

As he rounded the last corner, he slowed down. His steps became silent as nervous instinct curled in his chest like smoke. The chamber doors were cracked open. That wasn’t normal. Clockwork always left them closed when he was working, and only few is aloud inside where the time line is. And through the thin space between the doors, Danny saw something that made his heart seize.

Clockwork stood tall in his ancient form, barely floating calmly above the time pedestal. His staff hovered beside him, and it was still pulsing with a deep blue glow. Across the room, a familiar presence loomed. It was a figure wrapped in dark green armor with long, trailing ribbons of shadow and a hollow jagged crown.

Pariah Dark.

Danny’s entire body tensed. His ice core reacted immediately, sending a chill up his spine that had nothing to do with the temperature. Instinct screamed at him to leave, to vanish, to not let Pariah sense him. He ducked back into the hallway and pressed flat against the wall with his heart hammering.

Pariah’s voice slithered through the door like poison. “You hide something from me, Timekeeper.”

Clockwork remained silent. He didn’t move, not even as Pariah’s armored form stalked closer with his dark energy pulsing from his crown. The floor vibrated with each slow step.l of the evil king.

“I can feel it,” Pariah growled, his voice echoing unnaturally in the chamber. “A shift in the current. A tremor in the threads. Time is stopped, and yet something is moving. Something that is threatening me is still breathing. You think you can keep secrets from me?”

“I think you enjoy hearing yourself talk,” Clockwork said calmly, though his voice lacked the usual sharp amusement it held in other moments. “You are mistaken. Time is never still. It simply flows where I choose it to.”

“Liar.” Pariah’s word was a whip crack. “You bent it and you twist it, so you can hide something. I demand to know what that is.”

Clockwork’s eyes narrowed slightly. “There is nothing for you here, Pariah. Return to your throne and leave this place.”

Pariah stepped closer, green mist curling from his gauntlets. “You will kneel before me, Chronos. I am your King.”

“I kneel to no tyrant that threatens the time stream.”

“You will,” Pariah said darkly and with a wave of his hand, a wave of green energy surged forward. It struck Clockwork in the chest with a hollow boom. The force sent him crashing to the floor, and dropping from his hovering position onto one knee.

Danny’s eyes widened. He slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from making a sound. His body pulsed with energy. He felt fear and instinct and fury all tangled together inside his chest, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t let the king know that he is here.

Clockwork gasped as he pushed up slowly, back straightening. “Your threats are old, Pariah. I’ve heard them before.”

“Then listen now,” Pariah snarled. “I feel your fear, Ancient. I see it in your eyes. You tremble, and not just from my power, but from what you hide. Tell me what it is. Tell me why time bends in this place.”

Clockwork didn’t answer. His eyes flicked once barely and quickly toward the open doorway. Towards where Danny is hidden. He could feel his fear. Pariah missed the look, but Danny didn’t.

He shrank back just an inch more and turned invisible, praying the shadows of the corridor would swallow him whole. He didn’t dare breathe. The air around him felt too thick and too cold. Clockwork had told him long ago that Pariah’s presence warped reality like gravity. Now he felt it firsthand, and it was pulling at him like a nightmare.

Pariah loomed over the kneeling timekeeper with his teeth bared behind his broken mouth. “You fear for something. Not me or your life, but something else. Something fragile and precious to you.”

Clockwork’s expression twitched, just slightly. His shoulders were tight with tension. He hadn’t felt fear in centuries, but he felt it now. Not for himself, but for Danny. If Pariah knew of Danny’s whereabouts then the future would be gone. That is why he felt the fear he did.

And Pariah saw that fear, but misunderstood it.

He laughed. “You’re afraid because you know your time is ending. My reign will stay. My armies will rise. This realm, your little sanctuary will burn soon. The living have grown complacent, and I will remind them what terror is.”

Clockwork’s voice was quiet. “You would declare war on the living?”

“I already have,” Pariah said, stepping back. “I am only waiting for the last gear to click into place. You’ve stalled me long enough.”

Without another word, he raised his gauntlet and fired a bolt of glowing green energy. It struck Clockwork square in the chest. Danny nearly cried out for his friend.

Clockwork’s form buckled, the blast knocking him from one knee to all fours. His staff clattered to the ground beside him. He gasped as smoke curled from his chest, and his breath ragged and was full of pain.

“Stay down,” Pariah growled. “And remember this mercy.”

And then as suddenly as he’d come, the tyrant king turned away from the time keeper. With a final sneer, Pariah vanished in a swirl of corrupted green energy. The room trembled in his wake and of his leave. Silence crashed down like a hammer on Danny’s heart.

Danny waited and he was still invisible, but he still felt  frozen in fear.

Clockwork didn’t rise right away. He stayed there for a while, hunched on the floor breathing heavily. One trembling hand reached for his staff. When he finally spoke, it was not with power or precision. It was a whisper.

“Daniel… are you still there?”

Danny became visible as he rushed into the room, eyes wide and his voice hoarse. “I’m here.”

Clockwork closed his eyes in relief. “You weren’t supposed to see that,” he murmured.

“I couldn’t leave,” Danny said, dropping to his knees beside him. “I couldn’t let him hurt you alone, because of me.”

Clockwork looked up at him with a rare pain in his ancient eyes. “No. But he would have killed you if he saw you.”

Danny swallowed. His throat burning. “I know.”

And he did. He knew now more than ever, that the world he was caught between wasn’t safe. That even here in one of the safest place he had ever known, danger still found a way in.

But he also knew one thing more. Clockwork hadn’t bowed because Pariah demanded it. He had bowed because protecting Danny mattered more than his pride.

And Danny would never forget that. He knows he can help stop the pain that that king is causing. It was prophesied, but is he fully capable yet?

Chapter Text

The echo of Pariah’s blast still hung in the air. It rang like a fading alarm inside Danny’s head. Smoke twisted in the corners of the room that started curling up towards the ceiling in long thin tendrils. The green light had burned into his eyes, and it had left spots in his vision even after it faded.

Clockwork was still on his knees.

Danny couldn’t move at first. His brain couldn’t process what he was seeing fast enough. Clockwork. An ancient, a powerful being, and someone who was always in control was kneeling.

His hands gripping his staff to stay somewhat upright. His shoulders were bent forward, and for the first time since Danny had met him… Clockwork looked… hurt. Not just physically, but in a way that made Danny’s chest ache with sadness….

That wasn’t supposed to happen. That wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Why does Danny feel so responsible for his friends pain…. Why does it hurt him like he was the one that was blasted.

Danny stepped into the room without thinking. His fear of being seen was gone now, and it was replaced with something deeper and stronger.

“Clockwork?” Danny said. His voice came out small. “Are you okay?”

Danny dropped to his knees besides his mentor reaching out without hesitation. Clockwork looked up at him, his eyes dim but still clear.

“I will recover,” he said slowly. “In time.”

Danny nodded, though his heart didn’t calm down. “He hit you hard. I—I didn’t even know that could happen to you.”

Clockwork gave him a faint smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Even time can be wounded Daniel.”

Danny helped him shift to sit back against the base of the time pedestal. It was a strange feeling. Usually, Clockwork hovered or moved like he wasn’t really part of the floor or the air around him. But now he was grounded, and leaning against the stone like any other person. Like someone who needed to rest.

Danny sat beside him folding his legs underneath him. He wasn’t sure what to say. His hands were shaking a little, and he pressed them together in his lap to make it stop.

“What was that?” he finally asked. “Why was Pariah here? Why now?”

Clockwork didn’t speak right away. He looked up at the time stream above them. The swirling lights moved slower than usual. It looked like the whole world had taken a breath and wasn’t letting it out.

“He suspects something,” Clockwork said at last. “He does not yet know what… but he knows I’m keeping something from him.”

Danny’s chest tightened. “You mean me.”

“Yes.”

Danny’s heart dropped. It wasn’t surprising, it really wasn’t. But it still felt heavy hearing it out loud.

“He’s going to come back,” Danny said. “Isn’t he?”

Clockwork nodded. “Yes. Sooner than we hoped.”

Danny didn’t speak for a moment. He looked at the floor and at the cracks in the stone, and then at the pulse of Clockwork’s staff still glowing faintly next to them. His thoughts were spinning too fast to catch.

“So what do we do?” he asked quietly. “What do I do?”

Clockwork turned to look at him. “We prepare,” he said gently. “There’s something I must show you now. Something you need to see for yourself.”

He lifted a hand toward the time pedestal. The swirling lights inside it began to shift and sharpen. It began showing images that hadn’t been there before. Fires. Crumbling cities. Green skies tearing open like paper. People screaming. Ghosts pouring into the world of the living.

Danny stared. He felt cold all over, but it wasn’t from the ice in his core. It was something worse. Something much much deeper.

“Is that… the future?”

“It is one of many,” Clockwork said. “But if Pariah rises unchecked, it is the one most likely to come true.”

Danny didn’t respond right away. He looked down at his hands again. They were still shaking.

His core stirred in his chest. It pulsed, not like pain, but like a whisper. A word echoed from deep inside him, so soft it didn’t feel like it came from his mind. Protection was the word.

Danny blinked. “Did you… hear that?” It’s official he’s gone wacko.

Clockwork gave him a long look. “No but your core is awakening. It’s starting to know what drives you.”

Danny’s hands tightened. His voice dropped low.

“I can’t be fates chosen one,” he said. “I’m just a stupid dead kid who didn’t get a choice.”

Clockwork didn’t interrupt.

“I’m not strong enough to be what the prophecy demands,” Danny whispered. “It chose me, but it feels like it’s breaking me apart. Being chosen… it doesn’t feel like a gift. It feels like a punishment. If I fail I fail everyone and I have already failed to much.” The only sound after was the hum of time itself, steady but waiting for them to decide.

— - - —

The silence stretched between them for a long time. Danny didn’t look up from his hands. He felt like something inside him had cracked open. Not shattered, but something had split. He was still holding himself together, but barely.

Clockwork shifted beside him. The hum of the time pedestal was soft, steady, and somehow made the room feel less empty.

“When the prophecy was first formed,” Clockwork said gently, “it was nothing more than a whisper in time. It was just a small ripple. But ripples can grow into waves.”

Danny didn’t say anything. His eyes stayed on the floor.

“There are many prophecies that speak of danger,” Clockwork continued. “Destruction. Heros. Family members. Kings rising. Ghosts returning. But only one speaks of someone who can stop the Ghost King if he ever chooses to rule over the living.”

Danny swallowed hard. “And that’s me.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t get it,” Danny muttered. “Why me? I wasn’t born with powers. I didn’t train my whole life to be a hero. I just… got shocked in a lab. I wasn’t chosen because I was special. I became this because of a stupid accident. I’m just fates accident..”

Clockwork didn’t argue. He simply waited. Danny’s voice got smaller. “I know I say this a lot but I really didn’t ask for this.”

“No,” Clockwork agreed. “You didn’t.”

Danny’s throat tightened. He hated how raw it felt saying it out loud. “The prophecy… it chose me. But I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like I’m just trying to survive this mess I got myself into.”

He felt his core pulse again. A soft hum, it was like a heartbeat that echoed deep inside him. Protection. It said the word again. A little clearer this time.

Clockwork turned to him. “You were never asked to be a warrior. You were never meant to become a weapon. But the future… it doesn’t care who wants the burden Daniel. It only wants who it knows who will be able to carry it.”

Danny leaned back against the pedestal. His shoulders ached. His body still hadn’t fully recovered from the months he spent from the accident. His scars still burned sometimes. Some of them never stopped in the first place.

“So what happens if I don’t fight him?” he asked, voice rough.

Clockwork looked up at the time stream, and it shifted again. More visions of blinding green skies, ghost armies flooding through broken barriers, and buildings collapsing under dark energy.

“If Pariah is not stopped,” Clockwork said, “the world of the living will fall. The veil between realms will shatter. Ghosts will pour through without end. No human nor ghost will be safe. No sanctuary will last this attack.”

Danny looked away. “That’s not fair for them.”

“No,” Clockwork said. “It isn’t.”

“I’m not ready,” Danny whispered. “I’m not strong enough. I can barely hold myself together some days. I—I don’t sleep. I have nightmares. My powers still glitch. Sometimes I look in the mirror and don’t even recognize my own eyes.” Danny felt like he was hyperventilating.

Clockwork was quiet. Then softly, “You  need to be ready right now. You  need to keep walking towards the path that was meant for you.”

Danny shut his eyes. His core pulsed again. It didn’t hurt. It just felt… real. Like something inside him was calling out. Protection. It whispered again, warm and steady against his rushing nerves.

“I don’t want to hurt people with what I can do,” he said, barely audible.

“I know.”

“I just want to protect them. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.. I think….”

Clockwork placed a hand gently on Danny’s shoulder. “And that is exactly why the prophecy found you.”

Danny’s eyes burned, but he didn’t let the tears fall. He felt like if he started crying, he might never stop.

“So what do we do next?” he asked, his voice steadier than he expected.

Clockwork gave him a small, tired smile. “We train. We prepare. And when the time comes… you will not be alone.”

Danny looked up, blinking. “You’ll be there?”

Clockwork nodded. “Always.” He said as he started to walk towards the training area.

Danny breathed in slow. His chest still felt heavy, but the cold in his core didn’t scare him anymore. It was still humming. Still whispering.….Protection. But not as a command, and not as a curse. But as a promise

— - - —

The air in Clockwork’s tower shifted after their conversation. It felt heavier somehow. Not in a bad way it just felt more real. Like time itself was holding its breath waiting for the outcome.

Danny stood in the center of the main training chamber, stretching his arms and shaking out the stiffness in his shoulders. His hoodie was tossed to the side, and his breath puffed faintly in the cool air.

Clockwork had been guiding him through light combat drills for hours. It wasn’t anything fancy. It was mostly footwork, dodging, reacting, but even those basics left his muscles aching.

Still, Danny didn’t complain. Training meant he was doing something. Training meant he wasn’t helpless. Training will help him prepare for probably the biggest fight of his life.

“Enough for now,” Clockwork said, his voice echoing gently through the chamber.

Danny lowered his stance and let out a breath. “Thank Ancients.”

Clockwork didn’t respond. Instead, he floated down from his usual spot by the pedestal and he was holding something wrapped in soft white cloth.

Danny tilted his head. “What’s that?”

Clockwork landed in front of him and offered it with both hands. “For you.”

Danny hesitated, then reached out and took it carefully. The cloth was cool to the touch. As he unwrapped it, his breath caught.

It was a sword.

The hilt gleamed gold at the base, and it was smooth and warm under his fingers. The handle was wrapped in silver with a leather pattern with textured that looked worn, and like it had seen time itself. But the blade. That’s what made Danny freeze.

The blade shimmered like a galaxy. Deep green light swirled within the metal, and it was speckled with tiny stars and streaks of blue mist that moved like wisps in water. Golden runes traced along the sides in delicate, looping script he couldn’t read.

It pulsed softly in his hands, like it knew him. “Whoa,” Danny breathed. “This is… this sword it crazy cool.”

“It was forged for you,” Clockwork said. “From pieces of time, fragments of stars, and a core of obsidian tempered in the Far Frozen. It was made in connection to you and your powers.”

Danny turned the sword slightly. It was longer than he expected, maybe a little too long. The tip nearly scraped the floor if he didn’t hold it right.

“It’s kind of big.”

“It will grow with you along your path,” Clockwork said. “Just as you will grow into it.”

Danny glanced up, brow furrowed. “Is that some kind of metaphor?”

Clockwork gave a rare small smile. “In your case, both.”

Danny turned the sword over in his hands again, still half in awe. “It feels… right. Like it’s apart of me.” Danny sounds crazy but it really does feel like he understands this blade.

“It is.”

Danny paused. The weight of the blade wasn’t too heavy, but it wasn’t light either. “Why does it hum like that?” he asked. “It’s not just the core. It’s like… it’s singing.”

“It’s attuned to you,” Clockwork said. “Your soul and  your path. It hears your intent and your core.”

Danny nodded slowly, then blinked when Clockwork stepped a little closer.

“This fight is in you, Daniel,” Clockwork said quietly. “It was always been In your blood. You come from a path of both a hero and royalty.”

Danny stared. “Okay, what the hell does that mean?”

Clockwork just looked amused. “All in time.”

Danny groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Of course it is.”

Clockwork didn’t answer. He only turned toward the glowing time stream and opened a swirling blue portal with a wave of his hand.

“We leave for the Far Frozen,” he said. “There’s a meeting you must attend.”

Danny squinted. “A meeting?”

“With those who will help shape what comes next.”

Danny looked down at the sword again, and then up at the portal. He didn’t feel ready. But maybe that didn’t matter anymore. He slipped the sword into the sling Clockwork handed him and stepped forward.

“Let’s go,” he said. And together, they vanished into the light

— - - —

Danny stepped out of the portal and into the welcoming cold.

The Far Frozen looked the same as always. With its endless snow, icy mountains, pale skies, but it felt different now. Not colder or not harsher. It was just heavier. Like something big was waiting in the air for the other shoe to drop.

Clockwork floated ahead in silence, and Danny followed without asking questions. His new sword was strapped to his back, and it was a steady weight between his shoulder blades. He hadn’t touched it since they left the tower.

A group of yetis and ghosts stood waiting near the base of the ice cliffs. Danny recognized Frostbite among them immediately. The others looked older, and much rougher. Some wore armor. A few carried weapons. But all of them turned as he approached.

“Welcome, young warrior,” Frostbite said with a smile, stepping forward. “We are honored to stand beside you.”

Danny gave a small nod. “Hey, Frostbite.”

Clockwork floated up beside him. “We don’t have much time. Pariah is moving his army to the portal to the living. We need to prepare him.”

One of the elder ghosts stepped forward. His face was lined, his fur streaked with silver. “You bring him now? So soon?”

“There’s no choice,” Clockwork said. “Time is shifting faster than it should.”

This was actually happening.

Frostbite stayed at his side while Clockwork spoke with the other ghosts. The ice doctor watched Danny quietly, as if trying to see through his silence.

“You’re thinking very hard about something, great one,” Frostbite said softly.

Danny gave a faint nod. “Just trying to figure out how to stop someone like Pariah Dark.”

“You do not have to stop him alone.”

“I know that. But I have to be the one fighting him when it counts.”

Clockwork floated back over, with his hands behind his back. His usual calm was much sharper now, like a clock ticking down on a bomb.

“The window is opening,” he said. “I have a plan.”

Danny looked up. “Let’s hear it.”

Clockwork turned, and with a wave of his staff he summoned a glowing map in the air. It was an outline of Pariah’s fortress, the outer Ghost Zone, and the surrounding frozen wastelands.

“Pariah expects me to bring you,” Clockwork said. “He sensed my worry and assumed I was hiding something. He was right. But what he doesn’t realize is that we’ll use his arrogance against him.”

Danny crossed his arms. “Hold on, so I’m the bait.”

“Yes,” Clockwork said. “You will come with me to his throne chamber as expected. He will want to make a show of it. Of breaking the one who was meant to beat him, and of proving his power to the ghosts who still resist.”

Frostbite stepped in. “And while he gives his speech and basks in his delusions of victory, the forces we’ve gathered will surround the castle. My warriors and other rebels from the outer zones. The ones you spoke to. They are ready.”

Danny nodded. “He’ll be so focused on me he won’t sense the others until it’s too late.”

“Exactly,” Clockwork said. “And when he makes his move…when he attempts to end you, that’s when you strike back. That is the signal.”

Danny tightened his fists. “He won’t expect me to fight back?”

“He’ll expect you to beg for his mercy like the others,” Frostbite said darkly.

Danny’s eyes narrowed. “Well…He’s not going to get that.”

Clockwork studied him for a moment, something unreadable in his expression. “You’ve changed.”

Danny didn’t look away. “I’m not afraid of him. Not anymore. I don’t like what I have to do, but that doesn’t matter. This isn’t about me. It’s about stopping him before anyone else gets hurt.” Danny knows he can’t panic or keep thinking that he’s going to fail when so much is on the line.

Frostbite smiled with pride. “Spoken like a true protector.”

Danny felt his core hum again. That same word echoed in the back of his mind. Protection. It didn’t hurt this time. It didn’t scare him. If anything that word grounded him.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Clockwork said. “At the exact moment his power is at its peak. He’ll be drunk on it, and will be careless. But that also means you must be ready. You must strike with everything you have Daniel.”

Danny looked back at the map. “What happens after?”

“If we win,” Clockwork said, “the realms will be free again. The living and the dead. Pariah’s shadow will lift. And you… you….. you will have done what no one else could.”

Danny didn’t answer right away. His fingers reached up to brush the hilt of the sword at his back.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” he said. “We have to stop him tomorrow, before he goes after the living.”

No more running. No more doubt. He wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t the chosen one in his heart. But he was the one who needed to stand there, and he would.

For the people who never got the chance. For the kid he used to be. For the ones who were gone to early. For everyone. For the ghost who have been chained in misery and for the living that only gets their one chance at life. He can’t fail them.

— - - —

Danny sat alone at the edge of the stone balcony with his back at time’s tower. His legs were pulled up to his chest, annd his arms wrapped loosely around them. The sky overhead was a soft and still that strange green. The sky here never really changed, no matter how long you stared. There was no sunrise here, no birds chirping or wind brushing trees. But it still felt like morning. Just 2 more hours until he’s walking to what could be his end.

His body ached in quiet places. The kind of ache that lingered after too many sleepless nights and too many heavy thoughts. He didn’t try to push it away. He just let it be there, like they were apart of him now. Maybe it was.

He’d been through a lot.

Not just in the last few weeks. His whole life felt like a long stretch of trying to hold things together. Trying to smile when things felt off. Trying not to feel forgotten. Trying not to feel like he was a mistake.

Danny looked out across the horizon, where clouds rolled in slow and impossible patterns. His breath came in soft puffs. The silence wasn’t empty. It was just…calm.

He used to wake up to the sound of Jazz clinking dishes in the kitchen. Or the hum of the lab under the floorboards. Sometimes, he’d hear his Aunt arguing with his uncle about the latest ghost theory over breakfast, even when he didn’t understand a word of it. He missed that noise now.

He missed the feeling of knowing what the day would look like. Missed having math homework to put off and bike rides to the park and to watch dumb cartoons with Tucker after school. He missed the little things. The easy things.

He stared down at his hands. His fingers were pale against his dark sleeves. They didn’t shake, not really or at least anymore. But they looked different now. Stronger. Older. Like they belonged to someone who’d had to grow up faster than they wanted.

“I’m not their chosen one,” he whispered. “I’m just a kid who didn’t get a choice.” He knew he needed to stop complaining and come to terms with what he needs to do, but it just happened so fast.

The words stung a little, even if they were true. He didn’t feel chosen. He felt thrown into something bigger than him and was told to swim.

He leaned his head back against the stone behind him and closed his eyes. Hes definitely not strong enough to be what the prophecy demands. And yet, here he was. He was not running away, and he was still breathing.

He remembered riding his bike down the hill near the academy, just to feel like he was flying. He remembered sneaking ice cream into the garage fridge because his dad would forget it was there and he would steal it with Jason. He remembered when he used to believe nothing bad could really happen if he was home by dinner.

Those days felt like another life that he never actually lived in.

He opened his eyes again. The horizon hadn’t changed. The strange clouds still drifted very slow and heavy. Somewhere, far off in the castle behind him people were waking up and preparing to leave.

But right now, it was just him. And inside, something stirred. It was quiet at first and it was barely more than a whisper, like the feeling before a storm or the moment just before a light flicked on.

Protection. His chest felt tight, but not with fear. With purpose. With something that settled deep and didn’t waver. “I don’t feel ready,” he admitted to no one but himself. “But I don’t think anyone ever does truly feel ready.”

He stood up slowly, brushing the dust from his pants. His limbs were stiff, but he moved with more certainty now. Off to the kings castle he goes, and hopefully Danny won’t have to be put back together again after this.

— - - —

Chapter Text

The throne room of Pariah Dark was colder than Danny remember when he first came to the ghost zone.

The tall stone walls stretched up into shadows, and it was too high to see the ceiling. Dim green light flickered from the torches that lined the path ahead. The light wasn’t warm. It was sickly, cold, and casted long shadows that made everything feel just a little unreal. The floor beneath Danny’s boots was smooth and polished like glass. Every step echoed, and it was loud in the silence.

Chains hung from his wrists clinking softly as he walked. They were more for show than anything else. He could’ve phased through them if he wanted to, but not yet. For now he played the part.

Danny kept his head down.

Clockwork walked beside him. He was quiet and unreadable as always. His hands were folded behind his back. He didn’t glance at Danny but Danny could feel the pressure of his presence, like a solid weight holding everything together. Without him, this whole plan would probably fall apart before it even started.

Ahead of them, Pariah Dark sat on his throne.

The king looked as monstrous as ever. His armor was jagged and thick, colored in a dark green that pulsed like it was alive. Shadows clung to him like cloaks. They were curling and twisting behind the throne in long lazy ribbons.

His crown sat crooked on his head. The metal sharp and broken looking, like it had been forged from scraps of war. His eyes glowed from behind his helm with the same poisonous light that filled the room.

Danny didn’t look up. But he could feel the king’s gaze.

“Well, well,” Pariah said, his voice loud and slow, soaked in amusement. “So the Master of Time finally bends the knee to my power.”

Clockwork didn’t respond at first. He took a few more steps forward, and then came to a stop at the base of the throne. He bowed his head.

Danny stopped beside him. He didn’t speak. He didn’t even move. His chains rattled slightly when he shifted his weight.

“I see you brought me a gift,” Pariah continued. “How thoughtful.”

Clockwork’s voice was calm and even. “As you requested, your highness.”

Pariah leaned back in his seat with one of his arms resting lazily on the throne’s edge. “This is the child of prophecy? The thorn in my side. At last, and you are delivered to me in chains.”

Danny felt his stomach twist, but he didn’t react. He let his hair fall forward over his face and kept his eyes on the floor. His fingers were cold, but his hands didn’t shake. His chest rose and fell in steady rhythm. One beat, two beats, three. He focused on the counting.

“I must admit,” Pariah went on, “I expected you to be more stubborn. All that talk of destiny and fate. But perhaps even Time itself knows when to surrender.”

Clockwork said nothing.

Danny could almost hear the smirk in the king’s voice. “The prophecy ends today.” Another pause.

Danny kept breathing. He let the silence stretch. It was heavy and tense. He felt his ghost core hum softly in his chest, like it was a low thrum of warning and energy. It wasn’t time yet. The signal hadn’t come.

Not yet. He was just a prisoner for right now. Just a broken halfa that was too weak to fight. That’s what Pariah needed to believe.

So Danny kept his head down, and he waited.

— - - —

The silence stretched thick between them, the kind of silence that weighed on your chest and made it hard to breathe. Then slowly, Pariah Dark stood from his throne.

His armor groaned with the motion. The metal grinding against itself like a beast waking up. Shadows twisted around his form. They were crawling along the floor and slithering up the columns behind him. He looked massive from where Danny stood, still with his head down and his wrists bound. The throne room felt smaller all of a sudden. Like the non existent air had been sucked out.

Pariah took a step forward, then another until he stood just a few feet above them on the dais. His voice cut through the stillness like a blade.

“For too long, the Realms have been fractured,” he began, loud and full of grim pride. “For too long, we have drifted apart, scattered, and leaderless. But that time is over. I have become the leader the zone had beaded for decades.”

His voice echoed off the stone walls. It wasn’t a yell, but it carried like thunder. Every syllable was sharp and confident. He sounded like someone who didn’t just believe he was right, but knew it deep down in his ghost bones.

“In my absence,” Pariah continued, “this place has grown soft. Pathetic. There was once honor in our power, in our fear. We ruled from strength. Now? We hide in shadows. We beg for scraps. We lower ourselves to peace without an absolute king.”

He spat the word like it was poison. Danny didn’t move. He kept his head bowed, let his shoulders slump like he was too exhausted to care. But his jaw clenched tightly behind his silence.

“I will return this realm to what it was meant to be,” Pariah said. “Not just the Ghost Zone, but all of existence. The Realms, the in-between, the mortal plane. The living and the dead alike will kneel. Time, fate, memory, and none of it will stop me. I am the rightful king, and the crown will not be denied.”

Danny shifted just slightly. Not enough to be noticed, but enough to brace himself.

“The prophecy,” Pariah said stepping down from the dais now, slowly descending the stairs. “That pathetic little whisper of rebellion. A child born of two worlds. A ‘chosen one.’” His voice dripped with contempt. “Lies. All of it. Desperate hope from desperate fools. You were wrong to believe it. All of you.”

He stopped just a few feet from Danny now. Towering. Glaring. Danny felt the heat of his gaze burning into the top of his head. Still, he didn’t look up.

Pariah’s hand lifted slowly into the air.

“This thing,” he said, motioning toward Danny like he was nothing but a bug, “this child, is no king. No savior. No prophecy.”

His voice rose now, growing louder, bolder.

“He is nothing.”

Danny’s fists clenched in the chains, still low at his sides.

Pariah turned and was facing the wide hall of shadows and empty seats, like he was addressing all those long dead and long gone rulers still watching from the void and in the throne room.

“Let this weak thing be the first to fall in my new era of expansion!” Pariah shouted. And then the glow began.

From the palm of his raised hand, a massive swirl of green energy began to form. The light twisted and pulsed, brighter and hotter with each second. It crackled around his armor and sparked against the stone floor. The shadows curled back in fear from it, and the air itself grew sharp.

Danny’s heart picked up. Not from fear, but in readiness. He’d waited for this. The signal was clear now.

He breathed in once, and for the first time in what felt like forever, his core didn’t hum in fear. It hummed in warning. In focus. In his strength.

The blast swelled to the size of a boulder now, and was shaking the floor beneath them. Pariah’s hand pulled back slightly, about to throw the energy beam at Danny.

The chains around Danny’s wrists rattled again. But this time, they weren’t just for show. They were the last thing holding back the fight.

— - - —

The world exploded in green when the king sent the blast.

Pariah Dark hurled the blast with the full force of his rage, and was expecting it to crush whatever resistance remained in Danny’s fragile human looking frame. The energy roared across the stone floor lighting the room in a burning glow that cast violent shadows over the columns and throne.

It should’ve been the end to Danny. But the moment the energy hit, the chains snapped.

With a crack like shattering ice the metal around Danny’s wrists burst apart. A pulse of pale blue light surged outward from his chest. He moved faster than any of the specters in the room had ever seen. He was a blur of frost and light slicing through the blast like it was fog.

Danny phased through the attack without hesitation. The beam sliding through where he’d stood only a second before. It hit the wall behind him, and was vaporizing part of the stone in a blast of boiling heat and light.

Danny reappeared ten feet away landing lightly on one foot crouched and balanced like a seasoned fighter. His breath came out in white mist that was curling from his lips and rising into the air. His core was burning bright beneath his ribs, and it shone through his chest with a steady blue light.

He stood up slowly. His voice was low, steady, and clear “Yeah… I’m not that easy to kill anymore.”

Pariah Dark didn’t move. For the first time real shock flickered across his face. His hand was still crackling with residual energy, and he trembled.

Clockwork remained still behind Danny, but his staff suddenly flared to life with a bright red pulse. The glow cast streaks of crimson across the floor, and time itself seemed to hum in warning.

Danny stepped forward with his eyes glowing softly, and frost beginning to form beneath his boots.

“I gave you the benefit of the doubt at first,” he said. “Thought maybe you’d just rant and puff your chest for a bit.” He shrugged. “Guess I should’ve known better.”

There was a soft sound, but Danny’s ears were already trained on it. The click of secret doors opening behind the throne. The thud of boots on polished stone. The distant growl of war cries.

Pariah turned sharply, sensing the change in air pressure. But it was too late. The walls exploded inward from both sides. A blast of wind swept through the room as the rebels surged in.

Frostbite roared from the right flank with his massive form cloaked in ice, and he was leading warriors from the Far Frozen armed with spears of crystallized ectoplasm.

Pariah’s throne room fell into chaos.

Screams, blasts, and the clash of metal echoed through the vast space. His guards fought back, but they were caught off guard. They were disorganized and overwhelmed by the sudden storm of resistance.

And at the center of it all Danny shot into the air with his hands glowing, and his ice was spiraling in a tight cyclone around his arms. His eyes burned with a brilliant blue, and they were no longer soft or unsure.cHe wasn’t a prisoner anymore. He was a storm.

Danny flew over the throne striking down a pair of guards trying to regroup. He twisted mid air and flung a wave of ice toward the back of the hall, that was freezing the archway and sealing off any type of escape.

Pariah roared in anger. He soon was hurling another blast toward Frostbite’s flank, but Clockwork intercepted it. He was raising his staff with a grunt and absorbing the energy with a flash of red.

“You dare—!” Pariah shouted.

“Yes,” Clockwork said flatly. “We do dare.”

Danny dropped back down, landing near Frostbite’s side and nodded. “This is it,” he said. “We end this now.” There wasn’t time to argue.

Around them, rebels pushed forward annd were inching closer to the throne. Pariah’s glow grew darker, and much more wilder.

He raised both arms and screamed, sending out a shockwave, but the lines were already breaking. And Danny was already moving forward.

— - - —

The throne room was in absolute chaos.

Smoke, frost, and green ectoplasmic light filled the air like a storm trapped inside stone walls. Screams and shouts echoed off the columns. Energy bolts cracked like lightning. Chunks of marble and ghost forged steel littered the once pristine floor.

And in the center of it all, two figures clashed. The first one glowing with violent green light, and the other radiating frost blue wisps of magic.

Danny flew upward and twisting in mid air as Pariah Dark hurled a column of energy at him. The blast missed him by inches and scorched a line down the far wall.

Danny flipped once then dove low with his ice gathering at his hands. He flung the power down, not at Pariah, but at the floor. He was trying to raise a wall of thick frost between the king and a group of rebel fighters behind him.

His core hummed louder now. Louder than it ever had before. The word wasn’t just a feeling anymore it was a presence.

Protection.

It was the beat of his heart, the pull of his instincts, and the truth that had always been there even before he knew what a ghost core was. He didn’t want to rule. He didn’t want glory. He just wanted to keep people safe and protected.

“You fight like a scared whelp!” Pariah bellowed, flying toward him like a boulder launched from a catapult. His hands burned with ectoplasmic fire. “You are nothing but a child pretending to be strong!”

Danny spun in the air and blocked the incoming attack with a barrier of jagged ice. The blast hit the shield and cracking it but not breaking through.

“I never said I wasn’t a kid!” Danny shouted, his voice cutting through the thunder around them. “But that doesn’t make me weak!”

He thrust his hands forward, and the shattered wall of ice turned into hundreds of shards that shot forward like a storm of glass. Pariah dodged most of them, but a few struck true and was slicing across his arm and shoulder.

“You are unworthy!” Pariah snarled, grabbing a massive piece of broken stone from the floor and hurling it toward a group of rebels in the corner.

Danny didn’t think.

He bolted forward, slammed into the air in front of the stone, and caught it with a blast of concentrated cold. The rock froze mid-air, and Danny shattered it with a punch, sending dust raining down instead of rubble.

His hands trembled slightly from the impact, but he stayed upright.

“I never wanted power,” he shouted at Pariah, flying up to meet him again. “I just wanted to survive this life that has been given to me!”

Their fists met in a clash of light. Green and blue energy burst around them like fireworks. The pressure knocked debris loose from the ceiling. The throne room cracked, groaned, and trembled beneath them.

Pariah flew back and roared in frustration. “You were chosen by a mistake! A flawed prophecy written in fear!”

Danny narrowed his eyes. “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I won’t finish what fate started for me.”

He charged again. This time, he didn’t hold back.

Every lesson from Frostbite. Every quiet truth from Clockwork. Every moment of pain, fear, and loss. Danny carried it all, not like a burden but like a type of armor.

Ice spiraled around him that was laced with ectoplasmic light. He raised both hands and pushed his core to its limit. The air dropped in temperature so fast that frost bloomed across the broken tiles below.

Pariah fired another blast. Danny ducked below it as he flew straight at the king, and drove both fists into the center of his chest.

The freezing energy exploded.

Pariah roared and was staggering back. Ice formed across his chest, and then down his arms. It raced across his armor, seeping into the cracks, crawling toward his neck, and then up to his crown.

He clawed at it trying to break free, but Danny’s strike had been too strong. The frost spread faster than Pariah could fight it.

Within seconds the mighty king was on one knee, and he was covered in thick glowing ice that pulsed with Danny’s energy.

His breaths came in ragged gasps. His eyes burned with fury, but there was fear now too. The throne room fell into stunned silence.

And Danny floated above the broken floor, core humming like a heartbeat. His hands still glowed faintly. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths.

He had done it. Pariah Dark was defeated.

— - - —

Pariah Dark snarled, and the sound echoing through the throne room like thunder in a cavern.

Cracks split the ice shell imprisoning him as he strained against it. His armor sparked, but his eyes still burned with his wrath.

“You think… this ends with me?” he growled, one foot dragging forward as he forced himself upright. “You think you’ve won?”

Danny hovered just above the ground still panting, and his hands were still cold and glowing. He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The battle was already decided.

Pariah staggered again with his chest heaving. “I should have killed you,” he hissed, his voice low and venomous, “the moment your mother was punished to have you during her exile.”

Danny froze. His breath hitched in his throat, his body locking up midair.

“…What?” he said, barely a whisper.

Pariah laughed, bitter and victorious despite his defeat. “Oh, he doesn’t even know,” he said, lifting his head toward the broken ceiling. “You poor, ignorant boy. Everyone here knows the truth but you halfa.”

Danny landed heavily on the fractured floor. “What are you talking about?” he snapped with his fists clenching. “What does that mean? What do you know about my mom?”

But Pariah just smiled wider, even as his legs buckled under him. “Ask your precious Clockwork. Or any of them. Ask them what she did to deserve you.”

“Tell me!” Danny shouted as he was stepping forward, the air around him crackling with cold.

“Ah…” Pariah sighed very smug to the last word. “Your trust will all fall apart soon enough.”

That was it. Danny’s hands lit up again and the frost was surging stronger than ever. His core thrummed inside his chest like a war drum.

Clockwork stepped forward now, his staff gleaming with symbols that glowed blue and gold. “The time has come,” he said calmly, but firmly. “This ends now.”

Ancient runes bloomed in the air around Pariah. Rings of energy locked around his arms and legs. He tried to tear free, but each time he moved the runes only grew brighter.

Pariah roared. “No! You think this can hold me? I AM THE KING!”

Danny stood tall. “Not anymore you arnt.”

With one final movement, he raised both hands and let his core’s coldest strike pour out. The blast surged into the glowing runes.

Chains wrapped around Pariah’s form. They were glowing, pulsing, and unbreakable. A prism of energy enclosed him like a coffin of light, and was crackling with eternal sleep.

Pariah’s mouth moved with a final threat or curse, but the prism sealed shut before the words could escape. Silence fell.

And Pariah Dark, the old ancient tyrant of the Ghost Zone, was locked away. Not in death, but in sleep. He will be powerless and bound for countless years to come.

Danny stood still for a long moment with the cold mist swirling around his shoulders, and his eyes locked on the containment prism. His heart still raced, but not from the fight but from the words Pariah had said.

His mother…? But no one spoke to him about his questions.

— - - —

The air felt heavier now. Not with fear, but with something almost unfamiliar.

It was Hope.

The rebels slowly straightened, with their shoulders still tense, and they were still waiting to see if it was truly over. One by one their eyes turned to Danny who was standing in front of the sealed prism, and with his breath still visible in the cold air.

Frostbite limped forward from the side, and was pressing a fist to his chest in a gesture of deep respect. “It is done,” he said quietly. “The Realms… are free now.”

Danny looked around, startled to realize just how many ghosts had gathered. There were fighters, builders, scholars, and even ghosts who had once stood with Pariah.

A murmur rippled through them throughout the crowded room. Then a voice rose up from the back. An elder ghost with glowing white hair and three pairs of arms stepped forward.

“You’ve done what no one else could,” he said, his voice echoing through the cracked throne room. “You defeated the Undying King. You stood alone, and you protected us all.”

He dropped to one knee. And then another voice called out: “Hail to our new king!”

Danny’s eyes widened. More voices joined. One after another. Dozens. Then hundreds.

“Long live the new king!”

“Long live the king!”

They chanted it again and again, they kept rising in volume until the stone beneath Danny’s boots seemed to vibrate with it.

He stood frozen, unsure what to do, his core flickering like a confused heartbeat. Danny blinked.

“Wait.”

The room quieted, just a little. He turned slowly toward Clockwork. “Wait… what?”

Clockwork offered a small smile, as if this had always been the plan from the beginning. “You earned the right of conquest,” he said. “By defeating Pariah Dark in battle, the throne is now yours by ancient law.”

Danny’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.

“…What?”

He looked around at the ghosts still kneeling, chanting, and waiting on his word. His hands came up, like he could physically push the words away.

“Hold on. Wait a damn minute.”

— - - — 

Chapter Text

D anny stood in the center of the shattered throne room. He was very still and quiet, like if he moved too fast it would all become real way to fast. Did Danny feel like he could possibly be spiraling. Yes. Was Danny going to ignore what he was feeling. Also yes.

The ground beneath his feet was cracked in spiderweb lines cutting through black stone where Pariah Dark’s last strike had landed. The throne was a cold, jagged, and towering shadow that sat untouched ahead of him.

It shimmered faintly in the dim green light of the Ghost Zone. The metal and bone that was fused together looked like something in it was alive. A heavy silence filled the room now. The kind that presses on your ears and chest, it was like a storm waiting to break the seas.

He hadn’t changed out of the battle gear yet. His gloves were stiff with dried ectoplasm, and the torn edges of his tunic fluttering slightly in the chilled air. His left wrist still ached from where the chains had been too tight, and there was dried blood beneath his chin.

He looked down at his hands and flexed them slowly, as if trying to remind himself they were still his. They were covered in ectoplasm. Ghost blood… all over his hands. Blood was on his hand….. even if he knew he didn’t kill anyone. There was blood on him that wasn’t his own and it’s making him feel very uneasy.

His boots scraped slightly as he stepped forward. Only a few feet away on a pedestal made of dark crystal, sat the crown.

It didn’t look like something meant to be worn. It looked like something meant to control you. Its surface shimmered with the faintest hum of ghost energy, and it was pulsing in time with the realm itself. It didn’t call to him, not exactly but it felt like it was waiting. Patiently almost. Like it already knew what came next.

Danny turned away. He didn’t feel like a king. He didn’t even feel like himself at the moment.

I’m just a kid from Amity Park, he thought. I don’t even know how to pay taxes. And now I’m supposed to rule this place? And what the hell is a mortgage.

He slowly sat down on the edge of a collapsed pillar. His legs ached more than he expected, but he didn’t wince as much as he felt like he deserved. There was a bruise blooming just under his ribs where Pariah’s strike had nearly broken through. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, which was still stiff from dried frost. A few strands clung to his forehead that was damp with sweat.

Danny let his head drop forward into his hands. He could still hear it. “All hail the new king.”

They meant it. They really meant it. Hundreds of ghosts warriors, healers, inventors, and even those who once feared him… just bowed their heads like they believed in him. Like he was something more than just a half dead teen who’d stumbled into destiny with ice in his lungs and a gut full of fear.

But I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t come here to rule. I just… I wanted to stop him. To protect them. They didn’t deserve that harsh rain on them. It hurt Danny deeply to see that.

His core still hummed faintly buried in his chest. “Protection,” it whispered. Not in words he heard with his ears, but somewhere deeper. Somewhere so bone deep. It had grown louder during the fight. More focused. Clearer. Like his ghost side had decided once and for all who he was supposed to be.

And maybe that’s what made it worse. Because even if he did know who he was supposed to be, it didn’t mean he wanted to be him.

A faint creak echoed across the throne room as a breeze passed through the cracked stained glass windows above. It stirred dust into the air. The dust was soft and gold in the green light. It felt like a church after the funeral. Like the echo of something that had just ended.

Danny looked up again at the throne. He didn’t hate it. Not really. But it terrified him. Not because he didn’t think he could handle it… but because part of him knew he could. And he didn’t want to mess that up.

And once he sat in that throne….once he accepted it….he didn’t know if he could ever leave. So he didn’t move.

He just sat there with his elbows on his knees, and staring at the crown trying to remember what it felt like when life was simple. When things like coronations and rebellions and ancient ghost kings didn’t exist. When his biggest worry was finishing homework or sneaking out with Tucker and Sam.

And for a long quiet moment, Danny just breathed. He hadn’t had time to do that in days.

— - - —

Danny’s boots echoed down the cold stone hallway. Each step was a dull thud in the empty space. The ghostly blue torchlight flickered against ancient green walls, and they were casting long shadows that reached like claws toward him as he walked. He didn’t look at them. He couldn’t.

Every time he passed a ghost whether it be a soldier, servant, or stranger they dipped their heads to him. Some bowed. Some just stepped aside with their eyes downcast, like his gaze could strike them down for just being there. But most said nothing.

Well almost nothing. Danny could hear them. Whispers drifted after him like smoke. They weee soft enough they probably thought he wouldn’t catch them.

“Is it true?”

“That’s the prophecy child.”

“He doesn’t look like much.”

“Not now, maybe. But the Queen’s boy…”

Danny’s pace slowed. His brow furrowed. He stopped at the edge of a stone archway and leaned against the cold wall so he can listen harder. A pair of elder ghosts that were thin, draped in old noble robes, and stood near a shattered statue just beyond the hall.

“He really looks like her,” one said, voice barely above a breath.

“Her defiance cost the Realms everything,” the other murmured. “She turned on the High King in his moment of conquest. Then she was gone.”

“They say she vanished,” the first one added, “and bore her downfall in a way her culture would hate her.”

Danny’s breath caught in his chest. The Queen…?

Was that what Pariah had meant? That cryptic threat before he was sealed. The whole “I should’ve killed you when your mother was punished to have you…” monologue thing.

Danny stepped into the archway. “Excuse me,” he called, trying to keep his voice even. The two ghosts snapped to attention, and very startled.

“What did you mean?” Danny asked, walking toward them. “The Queen… who is she that you speak of?”

They both bowed low, one even sinking to a knee. “Forgive us, Your Highness. We spoke out of turn—”

“No,” Danny said, firmer now. “I’m asking you something important. What do you know about her?”

But they were already retreating. “We are not worthy to speak of such things,” the elder stammered, backing away.

Danny reached out, but they vanished into the wall before he could say another word. All that was left was silence, and a hollow pit forming in his stomach.

He turned and kept walking, slower now. The whisper of old stories clung to him like a second skin. Every face he passed turned away just a little too quickly. Every bow felt more like a fear response than respect.

They know something, he thought. Everyone here knows something I don’t.

By the time he reached the large balcony at the far end of the castle, he was so wrapped in his thoughts he didn’t even notice the other presence until a shadow shifted behind him.

“Great one,” Frostbite said gently.

Danny turned, arms folded tightly across his chest. “Hey.”

Frostbite gave a short nod, and then he looked out over the Realms below. The skies swirled in steady hues of emerald and violet. It was peaceful in a way that didn’t match the twisting pain in Danny’s gut.

“The Council of Ancients are growing impatient,” Frostbite said, after a beat of silence. “They believe the Realms need stability. They are requesting a formal coronation… very soon.”

Danny looked away.

“I know this is sudden,” Frostbite added with his voice low. “But the Realms believe in signs. In symbols. In your legacy.”

Danny didn’t answer at first. His eyes drifted to the throne room tower that he just left behind. It stood jagged, cracked, like it was a wound that hadn’t fully healed yet.

“I haven’t even sat in the chair yet,” he muttered.

Frostbite blinked. “You don’t need to yet. But they need to see you accept the title. That you’re willing to lead us.”

Danny still didn’t move.

The silence stretched again. Then Frostbite bowed slightly and stepped away giving him space.

Alone again, Danny leaned on the railing and looked out at the swirling skies. Danny has been finding himself alone a lot more often lately.

— - - —

The ticking was louder in here than anywhere else in the realm, at least that’s what Danny thought.

Thousands of clocks filled the chamber. There were wall mounted ones, floating ones, ones tucked into nooks, and ones with gears and corners that where time practically folded in on itself. Each tick was its own sound. Some fast, some slow. Some like a heartbeat. Others like a hammer to your skull.

Danny stood in the doorway and he was barely breathing.

Clockwork stood at the center of it all with his staff floating beside him, and was trying to mend a massive gear split down its center. With each soft movement of his hand, a glowing thread wove into the crack pulling it closed stitch by stitch. His eyes didn’t lift from his work.

Danny stepped inside. “You knew,” he said quietly. “About all of it.”

The ticking didn’t stop. Neither did Clockwork’s working hands.

“Yes,” the ghost said simply. “I did.”

Danny felt that word hit something in his chest. Not like a punch. More like a slow squeeze.

He didn’t yell. He didn’t even sound angry. Just… he was so tired. “You knew who my mom is. What Pariah meant. You knew before all of this, didn’t you?”

Clockwork finally looked up. His expression was calm, unreadable, but softer than usual. “Yes,” he said again. “But knowledge delivered too soon becomes a weapon, Daniel. And you were not ready for it.”

Danny laughed, but it was dry and bitter. “Not ready? That’s your excuse to me?”

He paced toward the center of the room, the light from the gears glinting off the frost that still clung to his boots. “Everyone here knows who she is except me. They whisper about her. They stare at me like I’m some piece of her, that I am some… ghost of her legacy.”

He stopped pacing and looked at Clockwork directly. “Pariah said she was punished to have me. That he should’ve killed me when I was born. What does that even mean?”

The room answered only with more ticking. Danny’s fists clenched. “Why would he say something like that unless he knew her? Unless everyone did?”

Clockwork was still for a long time. His form shifted slowly-aging up just a little, becoming more regal, and more serious. The massive gear behind him clicked into place with a final echoing chunk.

Then he spoke.

“Your mother made her choices,” he said softly, “that threatened Pariah’s rule. She was powerful. Wise. And unafraid to challenge the order of things. She believed the Realms could be more than what they were. That freedom and change were worth fighting for.”

Danny’s throat felt tight. He didn’t move.

“For that,” Clockwork continued, “she paid a price. Pariah casted her out. Silenced her. Erased her name from most records. He sent her to a place where her own people would hate her, and the only way she could get back was to have a child. When she found out she would have a son… she knew that it would be frowned upon from almost all, but she chose to bear you anyway knowing what it would cost her.”

Danny stared at him, heart pounding. “So… she’s gone? Dead?”

Clockwork’s gaze didn’t waver. “No,” he said. “But she is not mine to reveal. We have been band to say, and she is somewhere no one can find…she couldn’t stand the heartbreak so she hid herself away.”

Danny stepped forward. “You’re seriously going to keep hiding this from me?”

“I am protecting you from truths that can harm more than help, Daniel,” Clockwork said gently. “Not forever. But for now.”

Danny shook his head. “She’s my mother. And I have no idea who she is. What she believed in. What she gave up. And I’m just… supposed to wear a crown she probably died trying to avoid?” He loves his mom so much and hearing this makes him want to scream until his already dead lungs give out.

His voice rose, not in anger  but pain. “You keep saying I’ve earned this. That it’s my destiny to rule. But I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t ask to be born into this war. I didn’t ask to be king.”

His core buzzed in his chest, low and pulsing. A distant hum of cold light building behind his ribs. Protection. It whispered through him like an instinct he always had.

“I just wanted to go home,” Danny added, softer now. “That’s all I wanted. Safety. A place where no one was trying to kill me or crown me or use me.”

Clockwork floated down to the ground and placed his feet gently on the tiled floor.

“Then we wait,” he said. “You do not have to take the throne today, or tomorrow. But the Realms know your core. They feel your purpose. Your claim was earned through battle yes, but also through sacrifice, compassion, and your won choice.”

He stepped closer. “You are already a protector, Daniel. Whether you sit on a throne or not.”

Danny looked away. He didn’t want to cry. He really didn’t. But his eyes burned anyway.

“I don’t feel like a protector,” he mumbled. “I feel like a kid who’s way out of his depth.”

Clockwork offered the faintest of smiles. “Even the greatest kings began that way.”

Danny looked up at him, then back at the wall of shifting timepieces. The ticking had changed.

It felt faster now. Not because time was broken, but because Danny was starting to understand just how much of it he doesn’t have control over his own life.

Not yet, anyway. Not anytime soon when he was in the ghost zone. Danny turned and looked at clockwork again.

”I want to go back to the living.”

That’s all he had to say. In a blink of an eye, there was a portal behind him and time started to move again.

— - - —

Chapter Text

“You’ll survive it in there,” Vlad said over the roar. “Or you won’t. Frankly, I don’t care anymore. I hate halfas like you. Waste of my potential.”

The swirling mouth of the ghost portal pulsed behind Danny. It was a chaotic storm of green and black energy. It hissed and screamed like a living thing, and rattling the walls of the underground lab. The air was thick with static. Each spark of ectoplasm lit the space in violent flashes, and throwing Vlad’s sharp features into sharper cruelty.

Danny’s feet dragged against the concrete floor as Vlad yanked him forward by the front of his shirt. His legs were still weak. His body was so so sore. But none of that mattered right now. His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. He didn’t fight back against Vlads hold.

Not yet at least. Oh boy did Danny want to fight this rich fruit loop.

Vlad’s eyes burned with something ugly. He had finally let the mask drop. No smug grin. No false sweetness. Just bitterness. Just his own rage. His hand was tight against Danny’s chest, and the other one was reaching for the control panel.

And then everything just stopped.

Vlad froze mid motion. The hiss of the portal, the flicker of the lights, the crackle of energy—it all became very silent.

Danny blinked slowly. The roar in his ears disappeared. His heart was the only thing moving. Clockwork had kept his promise. Time was frozen when he got back.

Danny looked up into Vlad’s face. His lip was curled in contempt, but his expression was trapped. Motionless. The cold fury in his eyes stayed fixed on a target that was no longer helpless.

Danny reached up and carefully peeled Vlad’s fingers off his shirt. Each finger gave way with a small resistance, like breaking out of tar. The moment felt surreal. Too quiet. Too calm for something that could have sent him back to the zone.

Once free, Danny took a step away. His shoes scraped against the cement. The sound seemed too loud in the frozen silence. He stared at Vlad for a long moment.

“I wanted to trust you,” Danny said softly, even though he knew Vlad couldn’t hear him. “I actually thought maybe you could change your weird vibe hopefully.”

His fists curled at his sides.

“You tried to make me a dead kid twice by sending me to someone who wanted my final death. You lied to my parents. You lied to everyone.”

The fury in Danny’s chest didn’t feel hot. It was cold. It settled into him like frozen snow. He stepped forward again and swung.

His fist connected hard with Vlad’s jaw. There was a sickening crunch as Vlad’s head snapped to the side. His body fell to the ground with a dull thud.

The silence swallowed everything. Danny stood over him for a second, with his chest rising and falling. His hand ached from the punch.

He whispered, almost to himself, “Not this time.”

The lights flickered on again. The portal behind him began to pulse again. And time began to move normally.

— - - —

Danny didn’t hesitate for a second. His instincts of flight kicked in after his fight.

He darted away from Vlad’s limp body with his heart pounding hard in his chest. The portal was unpredictable now. Lightning crackled dangerously close. One wrong step could mean getting caught in the chaos again.

He kept his feet moving fast, dodging and weaving through the blasts of energy that snapped and sizzled around him. The basement was cramped and cluttered with old equipment and broken ghost gadgets, but he moved like he knew every inch of the place.

He had to get out of this stupid mansion.

Danny made a conscious choice: no ghost powers unless absolutely necessary. This time, he couldn’t risk drawing attention. He wanted to slip away unnoticed, like a ghost in the night. That last thought almost made him laugh.

His hands clenched tightly at his sides. The familiar tingling of ectoplasm begged to flare up, but he resisted.

The roar of the portal chased him, but he pushed harder, sprinting toward the exit stairs. His breath came out in short and sharp bursts. His muscles burned, but he forced himself to keep moving.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, a locked metal door blocked his path to the manor’s basement.

He closed his eyes briefly and reached forward. Phasing just enough to slip through solid matter and quickly. Someone please keep Danny away from this man for the rest of his life.

His body shimmered and blurred for a moment as he passed through the cold steel door. He felt the familiar strange sensation of slipping between worlds, but he kept it brief. No one could see him. No one would hear a thing.

On the other side, the night air rushed to meet him. The air was sharp and cold against his skin, as he stepped out into the darkness of Wisconsin’s countryside.

The moon was high, and was casting a pale glow on the trees lining the property. The quiet was absolute except for the occasional rustle of leaves and the distant hoot of an owl.

Danny breathed in the cool air, trying to steady his racing heart. The air felt nice in his lungs after so long of not needing to breathe.

No night alarms had sounded. He looked back at the manor one last time, its silhouette dark and silent beneath the stars.

A question rose in his mind. Were the Fentons looking for him by now or are they still in bed? Would Sam or Tucker notice he was different? Would they wonder what he had to do to get away from vlad?

He didn’t know. He hadn’t been around for a long time. They had no idea what he had been through. For now, he just wanted to find his friends.

Danny pushed off into the woods, the cold crunch of leaves underfoot fading as he disappeared deeper into the night.

His mind spun with everything that had just happened—the betrayal, the fight, and the escape. But one thing was clear.

He was free. For the first time in a long time, he was free to make his own choices. Before someone drags him back to the zone to solve the whole right of kings stuff.

And he would have to be careful. Careful not to let anyone know the full truth of who he really was. Because even though he still had his ghost powers, he couldn’t risk revealing them now. He didn’t have a good feeling that would go very well in a house of ghost hunters.

— - - —

Danny had decided to just walk for a while to try and calm his panic.

He didn’t know how many miles it was. He didn’t care. The cold didn’t bite as much anymore. It just clung to him, and was soaking through his hoodie and jeans. Snow stuck to his shoes, and was melting down into his socks. His legs were shaking, but he didn’t stop.

Each step felt weird. Like he was here, but not. Everything around him moved like normal. Cars passed by. A guy shoveled his driveway so he doesn’t have to do it in the morning. A woman walked her dog before returning home for bed. A kid rode his bike past down the street, wrapped up in a thick scarf.

It was like the world just… kept going. Nothing had changed. But everything inside Danny had.

He stopped in front of a locked newspaper stand, staring down at the headline. The paper was dry and stiff, like it was just recently printed. The date on it? It was the same day. The same hour was on the clock.

He blinked and backed up, and he was rubbing his eyes like that would change anything. But no it was still the same exact day he left. He felt a little nervous being back here when so much of him has changed. It felt like major déjà vu. He felt very exposed.

“I was gone for months…,” Danny whispered, his voice hoarse and cracked. “They have no idea I was gone…”

He looked around again. His hands were still trembling. His core felt hollow without anyone near him. The world felt too fast, and way too loud. But it was still here.

And he had to go find his friends. The motel wasn’t far now. Just a few more blocks.

— - - —

When he had finally reached the door to Sam and Tucker’s room and he decided to not knock. He just phased straight through the wall, with his last bit of energy burning out in the process.

He stumbled into the room and almost fell. Dang who knew fighting a ghost king and returning to the living could take so much energy out of someone.

“Danny?!” Sam screamed, clutching her chest like her heart had jumped.

Tucker yelped and dropped his phone. It clattered against the carpet and slid under the bed.

“What the heck?!”

Danny barely stayed standing. His eyes were dull. His skin was pale. Snow still clung to the ends of his sleeves that he had tried to get off.

“Dude, how did you get away from Vlad?” Tucker asked, still wide eyed at the appearance of his friend.

“You were just—” Sam pointed toward the door. “We just got here. We were talking about what to do next. How did you get here so fast?!”

Danny didn’t answer. His legs gave out on him. He hit his knees, then sat down hard on the motel carpet.

“Holy crap—Danny!” Tucker dropped down beside him.

Sam rushed over and grabbed a blanket from the bed, wrapping it around his shoulders.

“Are you okay? You’re freezing!”

Danny didn’t answer right away. He let her fuss over him. He just leaned into the warmth of the blanket. Tucker shoved a water bottle into his hands and sat back on his heels, with his face full of worry.

Danny looked between them both. They were scared, but not the kind of scared they should’ve been. Not scared like people who had been missing their best friend for weeks. They were reacting like he had just slipped away five minutes ago.

Because for them… it had been five minutes.

Danny stared down at the water bottle in his hands. His fingers were shaking too much to open it.

He took a breath. “I need to tell you guys something,” he said quietly.

Sam and Tucker looked at him. He looked up at them, eyes tired and so very hollow, and finally said it again.

“I was gone. I wasn’t just gone for a little while. It was months. Well for me it was months.”

Silence. Tucker blinked. “What?”

Danny swallowed hard. “Clockwork… he’s the ghost of time. He froze time here. Oh yeah so Vlads a ghost by the way who owns a portal. And when Vlad tried to throw me into the portal. Everything out here stopped. But I didn’t. I— I was still moving. Still living well living in my afterlife I guess. I’ve been in the Ghost Zone. For months. I fought. I trained. I almost died more than once in a battle to the end to stop a crazy king. But to you guys, nothing changed. Time never moved.” Danny basically blurted everything out.

Sam sat down slowly, like her legs couldn’t hold her anymore. “Oh my God…”

Danny ran a hand through his damp hair, wiping snow from his scalp. “I’m not the same anymore. I’m not… just Danny. But I didn’t want to tell anyone. Not yet… I don’t feel like it would be a good thing to have everyone know about yet. Well maybe I should tell a trusted adult but i havnt had one yet that cares so I probably have to tell jazzy soon. But that’s for another time”

Tucker’s mouth opened, then closed again. He couldn’t find the words.

Danny looked at both of them, his voice low and fragile. “I just wanted to come home. I want to go back to amity and just live like I used to.”

And for a moment they all just sat there. Sam and Tucker on the motel floor beside him. They were all quiet and wide eyed, as the heater hummed softly in the background.

The world hadn’t changed. But Danny had. And now, he had to figure out what to do next. He has a feeling that he should call Jazz as the next step so she knows where he is. He doesn’t want to deal with her worrying about him when she can’t find him in his bed at vlads.

Chapter Text

Amity Park was quiet, except for the occasional wind or passing car. Cold stars blinked above the streetlights. Danny flew over the rooftops of the town, and the low hum of his ghost core steady and warm inside his chest.

He had just finished chasing off a stray ghost. They were a new one that didn’t know the rules yet. Nothing major. Just a flicker of claws, some yelling, and a cracked mailbox. Danny handled it quickly, and it was fast to pull the ghost back by the wrist and guiding them into the Fenton portal like someone putting a kid in time out.

“Don’t come back unless you’re ready to play nice,” he’d said.

The ghost had grumbled but didn’t fight him. They knew who he was. Most of them did now. He was the crown prince of death basically now.

Up in the air again, Danny hovered above the town and looked down. The buildings glowed with soft orange lights. He could see the water tower, the school roof, and even his parents’ lab from here. It had been one full year since he’d come back from death. One year of ghosts slipping into the living world, and one year of fixing what he could when they caused trouble.

One year since Clockwork restarted time and never froze it again.

When he first returned, it had been weird. The Fentons didn’t even realize he’d been missing from his bed in the morning. But they noticed the portal, and something had changed with it after Danny’s accident. Ever since he died in that lab accident, ghosts had started leaking out more and more. The portal was unstable and dangerous.

His parents were thrilled though. More ghosts meant more hunting. More studying. They hadn’t questioned why it had started. They were too distracted. Jazz and Danny slipped under the radar easily. It wasn’t hard. They were used to being ignored by now.

Danny sighed. His breath fogged in the cold air. His black and white suit rippled slightly with wind. The glow around his hands dimmed as he landed gently on a rooftop.

He was Phantom now. The ghosts had called him that after his training, and it stuck. At first he wasn’t sure about it, but the name felt like it fit now. Phantom wasn’t just a name. It was who he became when he had to lead. It was the face he wore when someone had to protect in both worlds.

He wasn’t king yet. Not officially. But he’d made a promise to the Ghost Zone. When he was grown by their standards, he’d take the throne with no trouble. He hadn’t figured out what that meant yet, “grown” in ghost years. But they’d called him the crowned prince ever since. So he thinks it hopes he has like seventeen more years before any kingly orders.

And somehow… it didn’t feel like pressure. It felt like something he could handle later on in his life.

Below him he saw a group of kids walking home from a movie theater. One of them looked up and pointed. “It’s Phantom!” she said.

Two of them waved. The others crossed the street, clearly nervous.

Danny gave a small smile, raised one hand back, then let himself go invisible.

“I guess that’s fair I would be wary too,” he whispered, then drifted off into the sky.

— - - —

The kitchen smelled like burned toast and solder when he got home. The table was covered in wires, empty coffee mugs, and blueprints for a new ghost trap. Maddie sat on the floor next to the counter tinkering with a handheld scanner while Jack leaned over her shoulder, and was excitedly shouting about “ghost migration patterns” and “a breakthrough in spectral tracking.”

Danny stood in the hallway, and was mostly out of sight. He watched them talk and laugh like nothing had changed. But everything had.

He could hear the humming of the ghost portal in the basement. It was louder now than it had been a year ago. Ever since he died in there, the machine had changed. It didn’t wait for people to press buttons anymore. It turned on by itself. Sometimes at random. Sometimes when ghosts got too close. It was a rip in the world now. And ghosts were slipping through without needing a real reason.

Maddie and Jack saw it as a win. They called it progress. “We finally got the settings right!” Maddie had said last week. “Look at that surge activity—there’s a pattern!”

Danny wanted to scream. But instead, he just walked upstairs quietly.

He didn’t live here the same way anymore. Jazz helped him sneak in and out. She kept the window to his room unlocked, and she made sure no one noticed when gadgets went missing or somehow the ghost detectors turned off when he left.

She was waiting for him in the hallway outside her room now, and was holding a cup of tea and wearing a hoodie two sizes too big.

“You’re back early,” she said softly.

Danny nodded and leaned against the wall. “Light ghost. Just a kid throwing chairs around downtown.”

Jazz handed him the tea. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She gave him a look.

“I’m tired,” he admitted.

Jazz nodded and leaned against the wall next to him. “You can sleep in my room tonight if you want. Your mattress still stinks after the ectoplasm incident.”

Danny chuckled a little. “Thanks.”

There weren’t a lot of words between them these days. They didn’t need them. Jazz had found out about Phantom last winter after catching Danny sneaking in through the window, and he was bleeding green and glowing faintly. She didn’t scream. She didn’t freak out. She just closed the door behind him and helped him sit down. Well there was the older sister mother hen freak out later but we don’t talk about it.

She had been there for him ever since.

“Mom and Dad are going to the lab all night again,” Jazz said after a moment. “There was a new spike at 2 a.m. last night. The scanner broke.”

Danny looked down at his tea. “That’s not a spike. That’s Skulker trying to scare off an oil truck.”

“Did you stop him?”

“Yeah. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. Just being too loud and annoying.”

Jazz let out a slow breath. “They think it’s a breach. A security threat. They don’t know it’s just you and the others.”

“They think it’s proof their work matters.”

“They don’t know it’s you Danny….”

Danny flinched, just a little. “They don’t even know I died at all.”

Jazz nodded. “I know.”

They stood there in silence for a long time. The house creaked. Somewhere downstairs Jack laughed at something Maddie said.

Danny set the tea down on the hallway table and rubbed the back of his neck. “Home doesn’t feel like home anymore.”

Jazz put a hand on his shoulder. “But you’re still here. And so am I.”

Danny looked at her, then gave a small, real smile. “Thanks, Jazz.”

Home wasn’t safe for him anymore. But it wasn’t empty either.

— - - —

The Ghost Zone felt more lively now.

The old king was gone. Pariah Dark was sealed back into his sarcophagus with deep under layers of ice and wards and ancient chains. Danny had made sure of it himself.

Now, things floated a little more slowly. The green fog didn’t feel as sharp in his lungs. The gravity in some areas wasn’t as heavy. The screaming islands drifted with a kind of a new rhythm, it was like the Zone was breathing again.

Danny stood on a stone balcony jutting from Clockwork’s tower, and was just watching ectoplasm clouds swirl over the horizon. There were buildings out there now. There were homes, shelters, and new gathering places. Ghosts were building again. It was weirdly hopeful feeling for Danny. He was doing something good.

He didn’t wear his crown. He didn’t really like it that much.

Behind him a tall ghost shaped like a knight with no face saluted with a spear made of light. “Your futureness. A minor incident near the Human Zone 73. A young specter was seen moving through a gas station.”

Danny sighed and turned around. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No, your futureness. He stole a soda and scared two raccoons.”

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Just bring him back and talk to him. No punishments unless it happens again.”

“Yes, young majesty.” The knight ghost vanished into a ripple of light.

Danny looked back at the sky and let out a long breath. He never thought he’d be doing this. He didn’t even want to be king. Not really. He just… couldn’t let the Zone fall into chaos again. Someone had to keep it fair. Someone had to stop ghosts from hurting people or each other.

And now that someone was him apparently.

He visited the Zone once or twice a week, but usually it was at night. Time didn’t move the same way here, but it was still easy to lose track. He’d talk to the stronger ghosts like Skulker, Ember, and sometimes Technus. He’d set rules. Limits. He told them hospitals, schools, and homes were off-limits. Hauntings were fine, but no crazy violence. No mind games. And no hurting kids on purpose.

He always gave them a chance first. He didn’t want to rule with fear. Most listened to him though. But even those ghosts had started calling him “young majesty” or “your highness” or “our prince.”

He didn’t correct them anymore because those titles are true.

When Clockwork asked if he was ready to take the crown for good, Danny said no. Not until he was older, and by ghost terms. Maybe in a few more years. Maybe when the worlds were more stable.

Still, he felt the weight of it now. He knows he needs to help as much as he can, but he wants to slowly add himself in and learn how to do it.

He saw how much the ghosts wanted someone who understood them but also didn’t let them run wild. They didn’t want another tyrant. They didn’t want another war. They just wanted to exist. To feed their obsessions. To haunt what felt like home. And most importantly to visit their loved one who were still living and didn’t feel like moving on yet.

Danny understood them better now he feels like.

A ghost’s obsession was like their heart. If they didn’t feed it, they will start to rot from the inside. He could feel it in himself sometimes, like a crackle in his chest when he ignored it too long. His own obsession was still becoming clear, but protecting people, keeping balance, keeping peace, and of course anything with space made him feel so much better.

“I get it now,” he’d said once to Frostbite. “They’re not evil. They’re just… hungry for what makes them well them.”

“Hungry for meaning,” Frostbite had replied. “And you, young prince, have become a reason for many to behave.”

Danny didn’t like that kind of pressure. But he accepted it. Because if he didn’t do it, someone worse could.

So for now, he watched over both worlds. He was trying to be fair, trying to be kind, and trying to make sure no one ever felt as lost as he did when he first died.

— - - —

Danny came back from patrol after visiting the zone a little after midnight.

His hoodie was wet with leftover rain, and he had half a burger in one hand from a gas station he stopped at on the way. He still had dirt on his jeans from wrestling a ghost who thought it was funny to knock over headstones at the old cemetery.

The room was quiet when he walked in. Then he saw the very familiar glow.

Clockwork was already there, and was floating just a little above the floor with his arms behind his back like always. He looked calm, but there was something serious in his eyes.

Danny shut the door behind him and tossed the burger on his desk. “Let me guess. It’s time for something that involves a big change of fate or something.”

Clockwork gave a small nod. “It’s time for your first princely timeline interception Daniel.”

Danny sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I figured you’d show up eventually with something like that for me to do.”

Without a word, Clockwork reached into a fold in his cloak and pulled out a sealed scroll. The paper shimmered with faint green light. Ancient ecto runes twisted across the surface, and it was glowing a little stronger when Danny touched it.

“What’s this?” he asked, looking at the scroll like it might bite him.

“A path,” Clockwork said. “And a could be warning.”

Danny sat on the floor of his room while Clockwork hovered near the window. The scroll was unrolled between them, revealing a map he didn’t recognize. It was old land masses, marks in ghost language, and pulsing spots glowing bright green.

“This looks like Earth,” Danny said slowly. “But wrong.”

“It’s Earth,” Clockwork confirmed. “But long before your time. Before most of your species kept written records.”

Danny frowned. “Okay, so what am I looking at?”

“Poison,” Clockwork said. “Toxic ectoplasm. Buried deep in the Earth. There are traces left over from the beginning of the veil between life and death. It wasn’t meant to be touched.”

Danny glanced at the glowing pools on the map. “But someone is touching it.”

Clockwork nodded once. “And pulling it to the surface. One culture was able to be protectors of it but in recent years they have become greedy with power. Using it to cheat death, to build armies, and to twist nature.”

Danny’s eyes narrowed. “Lazarus Pits.”

Clockwork didn’t look surprised. “Yes. The substance is ancient ghost matter that is corrupted by time and emotion. Its use tears open the boundary. It calls death and then sends it back.”

“Let me guess Ra’s al Ghul.” Danny has learned a little about the league and the pits with his prince studies of early ectoplasm in the living world.

“He is more than a man,” Clockwork said softly. “He is a scar in time. One who has taken more than he’s owed.”

Danny leaned back against the wall. “So what, I’m supposed to stop the guy who’s been bathing in ghost goo for centuries just so he can live forever and be weird about it?”

“Yes you must tell him to behave or he will lose what he wants,” Clockwork said. “And more.”

Danny looked up. “There’s always a ‘more’ with you.”

Clockwork gave a faint smile. “You must collect a sample. The core ectoplasm from one of the earliest pools. If it still retains its original state, we may learn how to purify it. Perhaps even use it for healing or balance later. It’s unstable, but very valuable.”

Danny nodded. “Cool. Okay. Steal magic ghost water and stop an immortal power hungry cult leader. Got it.”

He looked back at the scroll again. “So when am I going?”

Clockwork turned to look at him fully now. His expression didn’t change, but something in the air felt heavier.

“Back far enough in time.”

Danny stared. “That’s… not an answer.”

“It’s enough,” Clockwork said.

Danny blew out a breath. “Great. Can’t wait to meet cavemen with swords.”

“Don’t worry it’s not that far,” Clockwork added, “You’ll have help. Some timelines echos so remember to not give away much. You may see familiar faces as well from your past or your future.”

“Helpful ones?”

Clockwork raised an eyebrow. “That depends on your choices.”

Danny rolled his eyes and stood up. “Alright. Let’s do this before I change my mind.”

He folded the scroll carefully and slid it into his backpack. Then he looked out the window for a second. The sky was dark.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d be gone. But he was ready for a mission back in time. Like hello that’s pretty exciting

Chapter Text

The training arena was quiet except for the sounds of footsteps and dull strikes. Stone columns lined the walls around the small gathering. Shadows curled in the corners filled with hiding places. The scent of dust and sweat clung to the air.

Talia stood still with her arms folded behind her. Her face gave nothing away as usual.

Beside her stood her son. The boy was still small yet he was sharp and watchful. Damian was only six years old. His chin was tilted up just a little. His dark eyes didn’t blink as he watched the sparring going on in front of him.

Talia let herself look at him for a moment. There was a feeling of pride in her chest for the boy her son was becoming, but she didn’t show it.

Damian was fast and smarter than the others. He moved like someone older, like someone born for this. Still, there were things in him that were still soft. Still parts of him that were very childish that she tried to beat out oh him. That softness annoyed her sometimes. It also worried her too.

He would need to be sharper than a blade one day, to rule humanity into something great.

Her gaze slid back to the training floor of the arena. Redbird was fighting again. Training, if you could call it that. He moved like a machine. He was strong, fast, but very hollow. His body remembered more than his own mind did. Every strike had power behind it but no heart. He never said anything unless he was ordered.

Talia watched him without blinking. There was something in his silence that made others nervous, but not her.

He had once been something (someone’s) else in this cruel world. She had pulled him from the earth were he dig himself out. She had shaped him into what he was now. He was being rebuilt by her design. She was not foolish enough to think he had no hate in him. He did. But he pointed it where she told him to. The Batman.

Damian watched Redbird too. His head tilted as he took in the details of the fight. There was something almost eager in his stare. He didn’t speak about it. He didn’t ask questions. But Talia saw the questions in his eyes. She didn’t tell him the answers, because he must learn on his own.

They stood together in silence for a while. A mother and her son. A child and his guardian watching the death of a boy fight like his life depended on it. Because let’s be honest it did.

Talia let the quiet wrap around them like smoke. Her thoughts drifted more often now. She looked at the two of them and thought, They both belong to her in different ways. One by blood. One by rebirth. Both by her beloved.

A shout echoed through the hall and halted all movements and thoughts.

She turned to see a young assassin ran toward them. He was out of breath. His face was pale, and sweat clung to his hairline. Distasteful in her eyes truly.

Talia straightened. Her heart didn’t skip but her eyes sharpened. He stopped in front of her, and bowed low.

“The Pits,” he said. His voice strong. “Something’s happening. You must come. Now.”

Talia didn’t move for a moment. Her mind snapped into place like a drawn bow. She looked once more at Redbird. He had stopped fighting.

Then she looked at her son. Damian was staring at the assassin with wide eyes. Talia touched his shoulder briefly.

“Come, both of you,” she said. And then they walked into the dark.

— - - —

The Lazarus Chamber was unusually crowded. Dark stone walls stretched high, and was lit only by flickering torches. The air was heavy and thick with the unknown tension.

Elite guards stood close with their eyes sharp and very wary. Their hands never left their weapons on their sides. The usual quiet calm of the place was gone.

At the center of the room lay the Lazarus Pits. Pools of toxic green water surrounded by cracked stone. Today, they were restless. They have never been seen this alive.

The surface boiled and hissed. Steam rose like smoke from the pits, and the smoke was twisting and curling toward the ceiling. The bubbling was wild, harsh, and very unnatural. It felt like the earth itself was angry.

The assassins who were known for their cold discipline, shifted uneasily. Some glanced at each other with thinly veiled concern. This was no ordinary pit stirring.

A low steady sound rumbled through the chamber. It was the pit’s fury, and it was a warning from something ancient and powerful bubbling below the surface.

Ra’s al Ghul entered without a sound. His presence filled the room like a king. His long robes brushed the floor as he moved forward with slow and measured steps.

His eyes scanned the boiling water. Then they locked on Talia.

There was no greetings and no words shared. Only a dangerous look. His gaze was sharp and cold. It was filled with suspicion and warning. His face was set like stone.

His eyes asked what he wouldn’t say aloud: Is this the work of your Redbird’s rebirth? He got no answer. But the accusation hung in the air.

Talia met his gaze and lifted her chin. She did not reply. There was nothing to say , because she did not know.

Around them, the bubbling of the pits grew louder. It was almost a like a roar now. The water churned with fierce power. Then suddenly, it stopped.

The sound vanished. The bubbling ceased. The steam faded. The surface of the pit finally went still how it usually was. The silence was deep, and it almost seemed as if the chamber was holding its breath too.

Then the cold settled in. The room grew quiet except for the distant drip of water somewhere deep beneath the stone.

Ra’s al Ghul’s eyes flicked back to Talia once more. His warning was clear in that look: If this chaos is tied to your Redbird account without my knowledge, you have brought danger down upon us all.

— - - —

The heavy heat that had filled the Lazarus Chamber moments ago began to fade. The air shifted, and cool air was starting to creep in like a slow tide washing over sand. The sweltering annd almost suffocating warmth of the pits gave way to a sudden chill that wrapped itself around the guards and assassins standing watch.

A ripple ran across the surface of the water. It was quiet but it was a clear sign of movement. It was a smooth wave that spread outward in slow circles throughout the pit. The motion seemed graceful, it was almost like a silent signal from deep below.

Beneath the dark liquid, a shape of a person began to take form. That put everything more on edge because the pits have not been used since Talia revived Jason without telling anyone.

It was a shadow at first. It was just an outline shifting against the opaque depth of the water. It moved steadily upward, not with haste but with a calm and steady type of elegance. The ripples grew larger as the silhouette rose, and was reaching closer to the surface with each passing second.

The elite guards at the chamber’s edge stiffened immediately. Hands went to hilts and weapons unsheathed with precise and a practiced motion. Their eyes sharpened, scanning, tracking the emerging figure. Muscle tensed and minds sharpened in an instant.

“Pit demon,” a voice whispered from the shadows.

“No,” another whispered back. “A pit guardian.” The figure broke the surface of the pit water. They saw him then.

Pure white hair drifted gently in the water around his face. It shone with a different type of light that was stark against the dark water. His eyes glowed as well. The color was an intense green that seemed to pulse with life and power. There was a calm strength to him, and a quiet energy that radiated from his very being.

He started to float slowly upward with his hands relaxed by his sides. No hostility showed in his stance, but the room was tense. Every guard’s muscles remained coiled, every eye alert for any sudden movement.

Ra’s al Ghul narrowed his eyes. He was watching the figure with a sharp intensity that demanded control over the situation.

The newcomer’s presence was unlike any pit demon or creature they had seen before. There was a nobility type of power wrapped in stillness that set him apart. The swirling ectoplasm particles that filled the air seemed to respond to him. It was as if he was a part of the very pit itself, and yet apart from its chaos.

No one spoke. No one moved closer. Then the figure’s gaze swept the room, pausing briefly on each person. His calm green eyes seeming to measure their intent, their strength, and their will.

It was a silent moment filled with unspoken questions. Who was this? What did he want? Was he a friend or a foe?

Ra’s al Ghul’s hand moved almost imperceptibly, signaling the guards to hold their ground but stay ready. The air thickened with anticipation. This was no ordinary visitor.

The figure rose further from the pit. There were droplets falling from his hair like tiny sparks. His body shimmered faintly with ghostly light. He looked translucent in places, yet solid in others.

As he floated fully from the pit the coldness around the chamber deepened, and was sending a shiver through even the most hardened assassins.

The figure’s voice broke the silence.  “I am Phantom and I am the guardian of these pits,” he said. “I come with a purpose that needs to be fulfilled.”

The room remained silent but alert. Ra’s studied the newcomer closely. His eyes were sharp with suspicion and respect.

The battle was not yet declared, but everyone knew the moment was fragile. One wrong move could ignite the chamber into chaos.

The figure’s presence was a challenge and a promise, held in the cold air. And in that frozen silence, the true power of the Lazarus Pits was about to be revealed.

— - - —

The water’s surface broke slowly as Danny pushed upward through the dark depths of the Lazarus Pit. The thick liquid slipped off him like ink spreading in water, and the ectoplasm was shimmering faintly on his ghost form. His white hair floated around his head like gravity had no hold as he rose. There was no rush or panic to his movements. Just slow and steady movement as he broke free from the pit’s grip.

He floated up effortless. His cloak trailed behind him like a shadow. Around him the chamber remained very tense, and it was filled with eyes that watched every inch of him.

For a long moment Danny said nothing. He simply hovered with his ghost form shimmering faintly, and was just looking at everyone trying to figure out how to go about this.

His eyes swept slowly across the gathered crowd. The elite guards were standing with their weapons drawn, and their hands tight on hilts and blades. The cold metal glinting sharply under the flickering torchlight. The suspicion heavy in the air. It was thick enough to feel like a weight pressing down on top of him.

Danny’s gaze moved past the guards and the gathered assassins, and moving to the figure standing apart from the rest…Ra’s al Ghul. The man’s dark eyes met Danny’s, and in that instant the air between them charged.

Danny’s look was steady and cold. It looked almost ancient. It was as if he carried centuries of silent warning behind his green eyes. He could thank clockwork for his stare. His gaze dared Ra’s to make a move, to test him, and to challenge his presence.

For a long moment, neither blinked. Then Ra’s lifted his hand slowly as a silent command. The guards hesitated just a fraction of a second, and then they lowered their blades. The room seemed to release a collective breath as the tension eased just slightly.

Danny hovered in place for a few more seconds. His ghost glow pulsing softly around him, before descending to land on the cold stone floor. He touched down fully in his ghost form with faint authority and quiet power.

The chamber was still. No one spoke and no one moved. Then Danny’s voice echoed out softly, the sound was like wind slipping through a hollow cave.

“I am not here to harm you.” He paused, letting the words settle into the silence.

“I am the Guardian of the Pits.” He didn’t really understand what that title meant to these people, but that was one of the first thing he heard when he come here. It was only half the truth, but it was enough to carry weight here.

“I’ve come to see what has been disturbed.”

Ra’s watched him carefully. His dark eyes sharp and calculating. He stepped forward, and breaking the quiet that had hung over the chamber.

“You claim the title of Guardian,” Ra’s said. His voice was deep and calm, like a slow river cutting through rock. “That is a heavy claim in these halls.”

Danny’s eyes did not waver. “The pits have been stirred by forces they should not answer to. I have come to make and understanding.”

Ra’s nodded slowly. “Then you will find the answers you seek….but not today.”

He turned to the nearest guards, speaking in a quiet but firm tone. “Prepare the chambers. This one is our guest, and he will be treated as such.”

The guards exchanged glances but did not argue. They moved silently to obey. Ra then turned to another in a red masked and said. “You will show our guest to his room of rest when it’s done being prepared.” The assassin in red just nodded and bowed slightly.

Ra’s returned his gaze to Danny. “We will speak later tonight. When the shadows are deeper, and the others have retired.”

Danny’s eyes flicked to the corners of the chamber, noting the silent and watchful faces of the assassins who surrounded them. “And your trusted will be there in guessing,” he said with his voice low. “The ones who guide you in this dark path.”

Ra’s inclined his head once. “Yes. They will be present.”

Danny felt the cold weight of the room’s attention. Yet there was something else. There was a careful respect that even the cold assassins could not hide.

“I will wait then,” Danny said simply.

Ra’s turned and began to lead the way, his footsteps echoing softly on the stone floor. And Danny turned to face the assassin in red and followed him to another hall.

The chamber doors closed behind them with a heavy thud, and sealed away the cold air and the ghosts of the pits for now.

The meeting would come soon.

— - - —

The hall was quiet. The kind of quiet that felt like it wasn’t supposed to exist. No footsteps echoed behind them. No whispers from the assassins. Just Phantom’s steady float beside him. He was like a shadow that didn’t care about gravity.

Jason didn’t say a word. He didn’t know what to say, nor did he feel like it with the emotions in his chest.

He’d been told to escort the pit guardian to one of the resting chambers. It was one of the few that didn’t reek of herbs or blood or training sweat. It was just a plain stone room with a low bed and heavy curtains.

Phantom hadn’t spoken either. He just hovered a little above the floor, like he wasn’t bound by the rules of anything down here. He looked too young for the weight he carried. But Jason had trained with enough killers to know that age meant nothing in the eyes.

And Phantom’s eyes were ancient. They hadn’t stopped glowing since they left the chamber.

They walked…well Jason walked through the last curve of the hall. The air felt colder the longer they went, like the pit’s unnatural chill clung to Phantom’s form and left a trail in his wake.

When they stopped in front of the door Phantom lowered slightly, and was just enough to meet the floor with the barest touch of his boots.

Jason reached for the handle, then hesitated. For a long moment neither of them moved.

Phantom turned his head slowly, and his green eyes locked onto Jason’s like he was trying to read something deeper, something that was buried. Jason met his gaze without thinking. And then the stillness stretched on, and Jason couldn’t look away.

There was something sharp in Phantom’s stare. Not unkind. It was familiar in a way that made no sense to him. It felt like being seen….actually seen for the first time in years. Not just as a weapon. Not as a project. Not even as Redbird.

Just… seen.

Phantom tilted his head slightly, just enough for strands of his white hair to shift across his face. There was no judgment in his expression. No emotion Jason could name.

But something about it still hit him like a memory he couldn’t place. It started to make Jason feel uncomfortable with the way he feels like he knows phantom.

Jason opened the door slowly, and they both were still silent.

Phantom looked away then, and into the room. It was very bare. A bed carved into the wall with a few folded blankets on top. A small torch bracket burned low in one corner. That was all in the room.

Jason stepped aside to let him in. Phantom paused at the threshold, still not crossing.

He looked back one last time, and meeting Jason’s eyes again. And this time Jason felt something move in his chest. It was not like rage, and not like anger. It was something closer to—Grief.

It didn’t make any sense. He didn’t know this guy. He didn’t even know what he was, let alone who. And yet— It physically hurt to leave him here in the room alone. It hurt to leave the guardian alone in general. It felt like Jason was forcing himself to leave the young pit spirit behind.

It hurt in a way Jason hadn’t felt since he woke up for the first time after the pit. It was if something in him knew that closing this door would mean a type of goodbye. And that goodbye would matter a lot. But at the same time it felt like they already had a goodbye.

Jason’s hand clenched at his side and he held his breath. His chest ached so badly, it was like something was breaking but hadn’t snapped yet. And worse….it felt like it wasn’t his pain.

It felt like it belonged to both of them. Like if Phantom got hurt, he would feel it. Like upsetting this stranger would be like kicking his own ribs in. It also didn’t help that this spirit looked so much younger than Jason did.

It made no sense to him, and that scared him a lot. So he stepped back fast. And he turned around before he could stop himself.

Phantom watched him go with an almost identical expression of pure confusion on his face.

Jason didn’t look back. He couldn’t. If he did, he wasn’t sure what he’d feel. And whatever it was, it already had its claws in him. Jason had always had a soft spot for kids, but this felt so much more personal.

The door stayed open for a moment longer before closing with a soft, final thud behind him. And Jason walked faster than he needed to. Hands shaking slightly. Not from fear. Not from the familiar feeling of rage.

But from something else entirely. And that scared him more than anything ever had in this place. Jason just felt so lost and confused.

— - - — 

Chapter Text

“Holy cow, that assassin is a revenant.” Danny stared at the door almost awestruck long after it had clicked shut behind the masked figure in red and black.

The silence in the room was thick, but his core still buzzed like a live wire. But it wasn’t buzzing in a type of warning. Danny didn’t even feel fear. It was more like… resonance. Like something old had brushed up against something fragile inside him, and now the air was humming with the aftershock.

He sat back on the narrow mattress with the stiff blankets crackling beneath him, and dragged his fingers through his hair.

What even was that? Also that had to be one of his craziest entrances he has ever had in his whole half life.

His ghost sense hadn’t flared up exactly when he was alone with the assassin. Not the way it did when an actual ghost appeared. There was no icy breath, no alarm bell, it was just a weight in his chest. It felt like a steady thrum in his chest, like someone had whispered into his core without saying a word.

That assassin… or well he should probably call him Redbird instead of assassin….that would be a better choice, his mind supplied.

Yeah. That guy wasn’t alive in the normal way. Something about him was… thin around the edges. Danny didn’t know how else to explain it. Redbird was solid sure…. and clearly alive in all the ways that counted. But underneath that and behind the mask, his soul was shredded around the seams. Like someone had glued it back together too fast, and the cracks were still leaking.

A revenant. Someone who’d died and came back. That much Danny was sure of now. His ghost sense might not be sharp right bow, but it didn’t lie. And this place… this whole damn mountain, had been pinging at him since the moment he stepped foot inside it.

Only it didn’t ping the way it should. His ghost sense wasn’t a metal detector, it wasn’t precise like that. It was more like… a mood ring with anxiety issues. It flared when something undead or death-touched was nearby, but it didn’t come with a handy label or a how to guide.

And here? In this toxic ectoplasm soaked place? Everything felt wrong to Danny that it almost made his skin crawl.

The walls felt old in a way he couldn’t put his finger on. Ancient and tired and hungry. His core curled tighter the deeper into the compound he went. But it was always Ra’s that made his skin crawl the most here. Ra’s felt like a corpse pretending to be a man. He was cold, calculated, and staring through him like he was meat on a hook.

Redbird didn’t feel like that at all…

He wasn’t a warm and fuzzy feeling, exactly. But Danny hadn’t felt watched around him. He’d felt… steady if that made any sense. The assassin’s presence had been like a stone in a raging river. His soul felt firm, unshaken, and still to Danny even if the man was damaged. The closer Danny got to him, the quieter his core had gotten.

It didn’t make any sense.

Redbird was trained to be violent, and was clearly dangerous. But Danny’s ghost half hadn’t reacted with alarm…it had been curious if anything. It almost was drawn in with comfort.

Why?

He leaned forward and resting his elbows on his knees with hands laced together. The smell of Lazarus water still lingered in his nose. It was burning green and slightly sweet, like rotting lilies?

Is this what Clockwork meant during his training that one day? he wondered. That being the future Ghost King doesn’t make me a compass? That it makes me more… receptive to others?

The thought didn’t help. He wasn’t trained for this. Frostbite had taught him about ghost cores and obsessions and identity. Clockwork had nudged him toward prophecy and responsibility. But no one had prepared him for this….for being dropped into a pit of half dead assassins and old magic and masked revenants who made his chest ache just by standing still.

And Redbird….god, Redbird felt familiar in a way that scraped something raw inside him. Like the way a voice on an old recording sounds too close to home. Like seeing a ghost from your past that you have missed to damn much.

It made no sense. None of this did. Goddess Danny hates emotional conflict….

Danny stood and started pacing a slow loop around the room with his hands fidgeting at his sides. The room was small, but the weight of everything outside pressed in anyway. He closed his eyes.

In the darkness, the memory of Redbird’s aura clung to him. It was filled with grief and fire. Rage buried under discipline. Something shattered held together by force of their own will.

And Danny’s core hadn’t shrunk away from it. It had leaned in.

Why? he asked again, not even sure who he was talking to anymore. He opened his eyes and stared at the wall.

Maybe being in a place soaked with Lazarus magic was throwing everything off. Maybe his ghost core was just scrambled from being in all that toxic waste. Maybe the whole “half dead assassin who doesn’t feel scary” vibe was just a trap.

But his instincts said no. His instincts whispered something far more confusing.

You know him. That was an impossible thought .

Danny had never been here before. Had never met anyone like Redbird. He would remember someone like that. Someone who moved like a weapon but carried a storm of sorrow under his armor. Someone whose silence made him feel safe, somehow. And for crying out loud Danny is in the past and redbird is probably on his death bed in the present or has already died…again…

I shouldn’t feel safe, he thought scowling. I’m in the League of Assassins’ stronghold. I shouldn’t be relaxed around anyone, least of all a guy who probably killed three people before breakfast.

But his core wouldn’t let it go. Redbird didn’t feel like a threat. He felt more like a puzzle. And worse… he felt like home. Danny dropped onto the bed again, hands clenched in the scratchy blanket.

Maybe he was just tired. Or maybe his core was acting up. Or maybe just maybe there was something deeper going on that he wasn’t ready to face. Whatever it was, he didn’t have the answers to them.

But he was going to find them one way or another. Even if it meant getting closer to the one person in this place who didn’t scare him… even if he should be…

— - - —

The room was too quiet and his thoughts were too loud.

Danny let out a heavy sigh and dragged a hand down his face. His head was starting to ache. It was either from all the overthinking or maybe because his core was acting up again. Hard to say. Everything felt weird here, like he was off balance and stuck in a fog at the same time.

Lying around wasn’t doing anything to help.

He stood up with his feet hitting the cold floor with a soft thud. The air smelled like incense, old stone, and something sterile. It made his nose wrinkle.

Creepy murder monk smell… very classy….

Danny shuffled over to the small window in the corner. It was narrow and framed by thick bars. It definitely was not decorative. Just a polite reminder that this wasn’t a hotel.

He leaned forward, squinting through the foggy glass. Wait… is that sunlight? He blinked, rubbed his eyes, then squinted again.

Yep. The sky outside was pale gray, brushed with soft pink streaks. A few birds chirped in the distance. The world was waking up.

It wasn’t night. It was morning. “…Seriously?”

Danny stared, trying to remember when he even laid down. Did he fall asleep? Or just zone out for a few hours?

“Time’s doing that soup thing again,” he mumbled. “Love that.”

He sighed, dragging his hand down his face again. Danny was an idiot teen boy at his core. Danny must have thought he was teleported here at night but it was just very very early in the morning he guessed.

“At least this gives me some time to figure out how to tell Fruit Loop #2 that dunking people in toxic ghost juice isn’t the big brain move he thinks it is.”

He leaned his forehead against the cold window frame, and letting his eyes fall shut. The pit energy here was way too thick. His core hated it. And maybe it was just his imagination, but something about being around so much… death was messing with him.

Behind him, the softest shuffle of movement made every nerve in Danny’s body tense. His ghost sense twitched, but not in alarm. Just… someone was there.

Danny turned slowly. There perched on the bed like a smug little gargoyle, was a kid.

Danny blinked. “Okay. Neat trick kid.”

The kids arms were folded across his chest. He was watching Danny with a look that was one part judgment, and two parts curiosity.

“You didn’t notice me enter,” Damian said, voice calm and matter of fact.

“Nope,” Danny said. “You got me… So what’s your name kiddo.”

The boy raised a single eyebrow. “I will first have you know I will not go by such childish insults, and will go by my name Damian. I had also assumed someone with your… unusual aura would be more alert.”

Danny snorted. “Yeah, well. I’m having an off day. Long week.”

Damian narrowed his eyes slightly, studying him. “What are you, exactly?”

Danny tilted his head. “That’s a pretty direct question.”

“I find that most adults waste time avoiding the truth. I prefer efficiency.”

Danny chuckled. “Alright, fair. But what if I’m not exactly sure how to answer that yet?”

Damian didn’t react much, but his eyes narrowed just a little more.

“You are not an ordinary put creature I have read about. Your energy is controlled, and your presence flickers.”

“…Thanks?”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Didn’t think it was.”

Danny moved to sit down on the window ledge. Damian didn’t move from the bed. He just kept watching, like he was trying to figure out a puzzle he didn’t like not knowing the answer to.

“So,” Danny said casually, “do you sneak into all the guest rooms, or am I just special?”

Damian’s chin lifted slightly. “You’re suspicious.”

Danny raised his eyebrows. “Suspicious, huh?”

“You appeared without warning. You have no known background. Grandfather allows you access to sensitive areas. That makes you… noteworthy.”

Danny gave a slow nod. “Wow. You’re really intense for a five year old.”

“I’m six and a half,” Damian corrected dead serious.

Danny couldn’t help the small laugh that slipped out. “Right. My bad.”

They sat in a slightly awkward silence for a few seconds. Then Damian asked, “Why did you come here?”

Danny blinked. “That’s also pretty direct.”

“I told you. I prefer directness.”

Danny hesitated. “I guess… I’m here to check out the Pits.”

Damian tilted his head again, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Why?”

Danny shrugged. “They’re dangerous. I’m not really a fan of people using them for… whatever this place is using them for.”

“Resurrection?”

“Among other things.”

There was a pause. Then softly, Damian asked, “Do you believe the dead should stay dead?”

Danny glanced over at him. “That’s… complicated.”

Damian watched him carefully. “You’ve lost someone.”

Danny’s chest twisted, but he didn’t say anything.

“Others have too,” Damian added, a little quieter.

Danny looked down at the floor. His voice came out softer than he meant it to. “Yeah. I figured.”

They sat there for a few seconds longer, the morning light creeping slowly across the stone floor. The quiet wasn’t awkward anymore. Just… still.

Danny looked over at the kid again, and something in his chest tugged. He didn’t know why. There was a weird feeling there… like he knew this boy’s face from somewhere. It didn’t make sense. And plus Danny never had known a Damian in the present.

Don’t get attached, he reminded himself. You don’t know how far back you are. This could be a hundred years ago. You’ll probably never see this kid again.

But the feeling was already settling deep into his core… he’s getting attached, even though this kid’s probably going to stab him in the back… This place was still giving him bad vibes though. But the kid? The kid made it a little easier to breathe for Danny when he needed to act like a king here.

— - - —

Danny stood near the door for a moment, debating with himself. The silence in the room was starting to feel too loud again. He didn’t want to just sit here and stew in his own thoughts.

He glanced at Damian, who was still sitting on the edge of the bed with his arms crossed, like he had nothing better to do than stare holes through people.

“Hey,” Danny said, trying to keep his tone light, “am I, uh… allowed to walk around? Or is this one of those places where asking means I just volunteered to get stabbed?”

Damian gave him a look like he’d asked if the sky was wet. “You’re our guest,” he said flatly. “Not a prisoner.”

Danny shrugged. “Could’ve fooled me with the window bars.”

“They’re for security.”

“Mmhm. Sure they are.”

Still, when Danny moved to the door Damian didn’t stop him. He slid off the bed and walked ahead like it had been his idea the whole time.

They stepped into the hallway, the thick stone walls closing in a little. The League compound was nothing if not dramatic. It had long halls, torches mounted alongside sleek motion sensor lights, and corners that looked like they were designed specifically for ambushes.

Danny stayed quiet for the most part, and just letting Damian lead. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, and honestly he was still feeling out the space. There were too many places here that made his ghost sense buzz in his chest. It was like his core couldn’t decide whether to be on high alert or just quietly freak out in the background.

The further they walked, the weirder it all felt.

The compound was ancient. You could feel the age in the walls, in the floor, and in the air itself. But everything was also spotless and disciplined. There was no clutter and no warmth. It was just all control.

“Do you all live down here?” Danny asked eventually, voice low.

Damian didn’t glance back. “Not all the time. There are multiple compounds. This is the one my grandfather prefers.”

Danny nodded slowly. “Right. Of course he does.”

Eventually, they reached a side corridor that smelled like herbs and spices and something warm. Danny’s stomach growled before he even realized he was hungry.

Damian stopped in front of a heavy wooden door and pushed it open without hesitation. Inside was a small  well organized kitchen.

Damian moved with purpose, going to a corner pantry and pulling out a small flatbread wrapped in a cloth. There was something spread over it. It was greenish, oily, and fragrant. He also grabbed a plate of dark brown stuffed dates and brought both over to the table like this was normal.

He set the food down in front of Danny without ceremony.

“It’s mana’eesh,” Damian said, voice clipped like he was reading off a flashcard. “With za’atar. The dates are filled with almond paste.”

Danny blinked. “Okay, you didn’t have to flex your vocabulary like that.”

Damian didn’t react to his choice of words. Just waited,  and clearly was expecting him to eat.

Danny picked up the flatbread and took a cautious bite. He paused. “…Whoa.”

Damian tilted his head slightly.

“This is really good,” Danny said honestly, chewing slowly. “Like—seriously. Way better than I thought it’d be.”

Damian gave a very subtle nod. He didn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched like he wanted to. Just a little.

They ate in relative silence. It was the kind that was surprisingly comfortable.

Danny tried one of the stuffed dates next. Sticky, sweet, and very soft. The kind of thing you could accidentally eat ten of without realizing.

“You’ve got good taste,” Danny muttered around a mouthful.

“I’m aware,” Damian replied.

Once they’d finished, Damian stood and dusted off his hands like they had somewhere to be. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you the training grounds.”

Danny followed without argument. He was still getting used to the kid’s rhythm. Damian was half soldier, half kid genius, but the more time he spent with him the more it felt… weirdly easy to get along. Even with their almost ten year age gap…

They passed through another long hallway, and then turned into a wide open chamber that looked like a full on dojo that was on steroids. Padded floors, targets, obstacle courses, and even a small weapons rack off to the side.

“This is for hand to hand combat,” Damian said pointing. “Over there is weapons training. Beyond that is the endurance track.”

Danny gave a low whistle. “You guys don’t mess around.”

“No. We don’t.”

He started explaining the types of drills they did, throwing out terms like “live steel” and “bone lock technique” like it was a normal part of childhood. Danny listened, half interested and half distracted by the way his ghost sense was still doing this low, vibrating hum in his chest.

Then— A roar echoing through the stone halls like a monster had just been unleashed. Danny froze. So did Damian.

“What was that?” Danny asked, already tensing.

Damian’s jaw tightened. “Redbird.”

Danny blinked. “Wait, the guy from the Pit?”

Damian didn’t look at him, and just stared toward the sound with something unreadable on his face.

“He’s having another one of his rage episodes,” Damian said. “They happen… sometimes. Ever since Mother revived him.”

Danny’s stomach dropped. “…What do you mean rage episodes?”

Damian’s tone stayed steady, like he was reading from a book. “He can’t always control it. The Pit changes people. Some more than others.”

Danny swallowed hard. “That’s not… that’s not normal. That’s not what resurrection’s supposed to do.”

“Maybe not for you,” Damian said. “But it’s how it is here.”

Danny turned toward the direction of the scream just in time to see several guards run past the hallway opening fast. Like they were panicked. It was like they’d drawn the short straw.

A minute later, Redbird came into view.

He wasn’t walking. He was dragging seven men behind him, all of them straining to hold him down with thick leather straps and steel cords. His face was twisted in fury. His body was trembling with raw power and fury and—

Danny couldn’t move. His core screamed in warning, but not because of fear. Because of something else. He didn’t know this man, but something in him did.

His chest ached. His heart squeezed. And somewhere deep inside, a voice whispered: He shouldn’t be like this. He was never meant to be like this. He never was like this….

Danny barely registered Damian grabbing his wrist and pulling him back. “Come on,” Damian said, voice low. “Don’t get in the way. They’ll handle it.”

Danny let himself be pulled, but he didn’t stop staring. He couldn’t and it hurt him to see the man like that…

— - - —

Chapter Text

Damian didn’t so much as walk as he stormed ahead of phantom after the training rooms. He glanced back only once to ensure Phantom was still following, which he was. The unbothered floating that was grated on Damian’s sense of self discipline.

“Must you float?” Damian asked with his tone clipped, and was not slowing his pace. “You look like a lazy specter drifting on draft winds.”

Danny snorted under his breath but didn’t stop. “ well I am a ghost.” Danny just wonders why Damian’s went from being more relaxed to being a puffed up cat.

“Tch,” Damian muttered looking back once again. “You’re more than that….”

Phantom tilted his head slightly. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He got no answer from the boy.

The marble corridors of the League compound were quiet like how they always are. The carved walls around them told stories of assassins that are long gone, silent vigilants, and monsters that were slain or tamed. Danny didn’t need to read the engravings to feel the history pushing down around them. It was kinda cool he had to admit.

Damian finally stopped at a pair of heavy double doors carved from  wood. He pressed his palm flat to a sensor hidden behind a dragon etching, and the doors creaked open with weight to it.

The library was a vault of books and papers filled by their age. Every surface was carved, worn, and looked to be sacred. Towering shelves curled in spirals around a central pit of plush cushions and sunken seating. Scrolls and tomes filled the air with the scent of dust and ink.

Damian stepped inside with his spine straight. Phantom hesitated at the door, and something inside him flickering. The place felt like the Realms in a type of an old memory kind of way. It was like the Zone’s magic had kissed this place once and left some behind.

“You’ve been reading all of this?” Phantom asked. He was still glancing around, and floating slowly in behind Damian who had been looking for a book.

“Yes,” Damian said curtly and was already making his way to a central table stacked with half open books and notes. He reached for one that was thick and bound in dark green leather and held it out. “Pit Creature Cultures. Compiled by League scholars over centuries.”

Phantom’s eyes caught on the cover, and something unreadable flickering across his face. “And you’re reading this… why?”

Honestly Danny shouldn’t be this surprised. This kid is literally an assassin that could probably find a way to kill him out of pure dedication.

Damian gave him a look like the answer should’ve been obvious. “You don’t exactly come with a rulebook. I don’t intend to accidentally offend a sovereign ghost monarch with a careless gesture.”

Phantom blinked at him. “You think I’m gonna smite you for having bad table manners?”

“Would you?” Damian said evenly. “This book says some do.”

Danny took the book and started to open it cautiously. He was flipping past illustrations of beings he recognized as the Ancients. Beings who had ruled long before he had even existed. Frost giants, bone dragons, and horned wraiths carved from marble and starlight.

“I know most of these,” he said softly with his gaze distant. “Fright Knight. Frostbite. Clockwork. They are all real and this is mostly accurate.”

Damian’s eyes sharpened. “Mostly? You’re saying our research has been flawed?”

Danny didn’t answer right away, and was still flipping a few more pages before stopping on one that made his breath hitch. It was a page dedicated to ‘The Phantom’ and it was written in gold ink. The sketch was rough. It was a poor imitation of his true scary ghost form, but the eyes were disturbingly accurate.

“Who wrote this part?” Danny asked with his voice quiet.

“A League elder. He’s long dead by now,” Damian said watching him closely. “Does it bother you?”

Danny shrugged with his eyes fixed on the entry of him. “Just weird seeing myself in a book.” Danny guessed that him becoming phantom was really supposed to happen if it was already written here in the past…

Damian’s expression twitched but he didn’t interrupt the page turning.

Danny flipped again and paused this time at a beautifully inked page of a towering woman crowned in gold and blue flame. Her face half hidden behind a veil of carved steel.

“Lady Pandora,” Damian said coming to stand beside him. “An ancient warrior queen. Possibly a goddess of the Amazon’s. It’s debated who she really ruled over.”

Danny stared. “…Never heard of her.”

“She defied the last king a lot in this book,” Damian explained. “Then she was exiled to the human realm as punishment. Some believe she still lives, but is hidden among us. Her legend’s fragmented into many parts, but she’s said to have sealed something away that could hurt the king. She hid something powerful before her disappearance.”

Something about her made the air feel tight around him. Danny couldn’t place it. “Can I borrow this?” he asked without looking up.

Damian narrowed his eyes. “As long as it’s returned in perfect condition.”

Danny nodded and said as a joke. “Of course my princeling.”

Damian frowned at the nickname but said nothing. He crossed his arms. “Why don’t you act like a king?”

Danny blinked. “What?”

“You avoid leadership, defer responsibility in a childish way, and you speak casually to those beneath your rank…. it’s unusual.”

Danny’s shoulders tensed. He looked at Damian with something close to sadness. “How would you know how a king should act?”

“Because I’m going to lead humanity one day,” Damian said firmly. “That’s why I was born. That’s why I train.”

Danny’s smile faltered. “And how do you expect to lead humanity… if you’ve never been part of it?” He really feels bad for this kid to have grown up with that thinking.

Damian went still and silence was curling between them like smoke. Danny didn’t wait for a reply from Damian. He tucked the book under his arm and quietly left the library to go back to his room.

— - - —

The guest room was the kind of space that felt like it was only ever meant to be temporary. The bed looked like it hadn’t been used in years, and the only thing making it feel even a little bit alive was the soft glow from a lantern, but Danny didn’t complain.

Danny sat on the floor with his back resting against the side of the bed with his legs crossed, and the old book open in front of him. He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

The pages were very worn with the edges yellow and stiff, but the ink was still readable. This book was filled with detailed sketches, ghostly symbols, and was written  in a language he could barely read without mentally translating it all the time.

He turned another page and there was Lady Pandora again. He stilled his page turning like he did in the library.

She was hand drawn in fading charcoal with silver accents, she was in tattered robes, long hair like wildfire braided behind her shoulders, and eyes hidden behind a mask. She looked like someone you’d kneel for out of respect.

Danny didn’t know why, but she made his chest hurt. He ran his fingers lightly over the page. Not to memorize it. Just… to feel closer to her story. He understood where she was coming from.

Her story didn’t feel like the others. Most of the ancient ghosts in this book were conquerors, warriors, and monsters that were given titles…. But not her. She was said to be the goddess of the Amazons. That’s pretty badass.

Pandora stood up to Pariah Dark, which was insane enough and she didn’t do it for power. She’d tried to protect her people and other ghosts. She lost of course and got banished from the Zone, the stripped of her power and was forced to walk among the living of men.

And that’s where it got worse. She wasn’t allowed to just live through her punishment. She had to obey the ghost kings rules that he set for her daily.

One line hit him harder than the rest as he continued reading.. “To live as a woman in a world ruled by men was not mercy, it was punishment and execution of her own culture.”

Danny leaned his head back against the bed with his eyes closed. A different kind of quiet settled in the room as he went back to the page. It was well known that the Amazons had a very strong distaste for men. And to have their goddess be sentenced to live among them must have been heartbreaking. Because apparently when you leave you can’t come back.

The last part of her story was written very rushed. It was talking about some kind of lie she told that was a type of betrayal to Pariah. She lied to protect something from the kings eyes that could harm him. Whatever she had hidden he punished her for it.

The book said that she was sealed away to never be seen again. Her last act in the world before being turned into a myth was her defiance. Danny didn’t know her, but he felt like he did when he was reading her story.

There was something in the way she carried herself in the drawing. Something in the way her story was told that made it hard to look away from. She’d stood tall in the face of fear, and made choices that cost her everything. Yet she never stopped trying to protect what mattered. That made Danny respect her greatly.

It didn’t say what she’d lied about, or what she was protecting. Danny could only guess. He let the book rest against his chest with his eyes still on the ceiling.

Danny needs to look into her when he gets back to the zone to see if there is a way to help her, because she didn’t deserve this fate…

— - - —

After he was done with reading the book for the day. Danny decided to get out and just take a fly around the compound to clear his thoughts before the meeting.

Danny floated slowly over the stone archways of the compound with the old book hugged to his chest. The air was cool against his face, and it felt nice.  Shadows stretched long across the courtyard below him from the setting sun. The League’s torches flickered with their orange glow in the stillness of the compound. Danny didn’t know where he was headed. He just wanted space from that room for a bit.

The book Damian had shown him weighed heavy in his hands, but not because of its actual weight. The pages were still buzzing around in his head. The names, the stories, and the creatures that weren’t creatures at all. It was just more about the Ancients he’d had started to grow up around. Only through the League’s perspective, they felt… much larger and scarier then he knows them as. It was way more myth than memory to Danny.

And then there was her.…. Lady Pandora.

Her page hadn’t stopped spinning in his mind since he first saw it. She was a queen, a warrior, and a rebel. She was banished  for standing against Pariah. She was trapped in the world of men and was forced to be someone she wasn’t. Her story struck something deep in his core that he couldn’t quite name.

He rounded the far edge of the compound, and rising slowly to where the walls became towers. The wind picked up the higher he went. Then he saw him. Redbird.

Sitting alone on the topmost ledge with his boots braced against the stone, and his gloved hands folded loosely in his lap.

Danny hovered there for a second and was half hidden by an archway and was just watching him. He was not spying. He was just… existing nearby. There was a comfort to it for some strange reason.

Danny drifted forward a little, just enough to let his presence be known. Redbird turned slowly and his eyes behind the mask locking onto Danny’s.

The air changed immediately, and neither of them said anything.

It wasn’t hostile, and it wasn’t even uncomfortable. It was like something had suspended then in time. Phantom hovered a few feet away, and Redbird didn’t move from where he was sitting.

Their eyes were locked, and were searching for something in the silence. Maybe it was for recognition or maybe understanding. Maybe it was for nothing at all and one of them just has a staring problem.

Danny exhaled slowly and floated over, and his legs folding under him as he settled at the edge of the stone ledge just a few feet away. He didn’t look directly at Redbird at first.

He glanced up at the sky instead. Stars just beginning to form. “So,” Danny started his voice was quieter than he expected, “Nice weather we’re having, huh?”

It was such a stupid thing to say. The moment the words left his mouth he regretted them. But it made Redbird let out a short snort. A sound that felt like it might’ve been a laugh if it weren’t so quiet.

“Yeah,” Redbird said dryly. “Yeah the cold and unforgiving weather is always on theme here.”

Danny huffed something like a chuckle. “Figures.”

The wind moved again and was brushing against them. They didn’t speak for a while after that. The silence still wasn’t awkward though. It was comfortable in a strange way. Like they were both used to it by now.

Eventually, Redbird tilted his head toward Danny. “Did you read all of that?” he asked, nodding slightly toward the thick book still resting in Phantom’s hands.

Danny looked down at it with his fingers absently tightening on the worn leather cover. “Trying to,” he said softly. “It’s… a lot to think about.”

“You like reading?”

Danny’s mouth twitched. Something like a smile but not quite. “Used to hate it actually,” he admitted. “English, too.  Well all of it really.”

Redbird didn’t reply immediately. Just gave him a look that said: Then why are you reading that massive monster of a book right now?

Danny brushed his thumb over the spine. “Someone changed my mind about it a while back.”

“Yeah?” Redbird’s voice was casual, but there was a curiosity in it.

Danny nodded once. “They loved it. Books, stories, literature, and poetry. They loved everything to do with English, and they were really stubborn about it. They basically forced me into this little… unofficial book club. I only went along with it at first to shut them up.”

“And then?” Redbird asked, a flicker of something softer in his tone.

Danny’s gaze dropped to the edge of the stone beneath his boots. “And then I started looking forward to it. Not the books…. gosh I didn’t understand half of them. It was more about just… the time we spent together, and the conversations after. They made it matter to me.”

The wind picked up again, pulling the ends of Danny’s cloak over his shoulders. Redbird didn’t say anything for a long moment.

Then just a quiet, “They sound important.”

Danny smiled faintly, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah,” he whispered. “They really were.”

The stars were out now, faint pinpricks above the compound walls. The world felt very distant to Danny in this moment. He felt smaller, and it was like nothing beyond this ledge could touch them for a moment.

Then Danny couldn’t keep his curiosity to himself anymore.

The stars had long since scattered across the sky, and the cold night pressed in closer now that filled the rooftop with shadows. They hadn’t spoken in a while. Not since the conversation about books, and not since Danny had seen the way Redbird’s shoulders slumped just slightly when the topic of that memory came too close.

Danny shifted with his boots scraping softly against the stone. He hesitated then glanced over with his voice low “Earlier during training,” he began carefully, “when you… when you lost control a little. What was that?”

Redbird didn’t answer right away, but the tension in his body returned. It was the kind of tension that made your breath hitch in your throat before your fists clenched.

Danny softened his voice more. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I just… I’ve never seen something like it before with others who are death touched.”

That caught Redbird’s attention. “They call it pit rage,” Redbird said finally. His voice was very flat, but there was something buried in it. “Or something close to it. I feel it suddenly sometimes. Or It builds up slow, and then it’s just… fire. Its In my hands and in my head I can’t always stop it.”

Danny nodded once. He didn’t interrupt. Redbird continued, slower now, like every word was scraped out of him. “I wasn’t like that before. Not until I— my death wasn’t a very nice one… I-” He stopped. The words hovered on the edge of his teeth.

Jason’s jaw tensed and his throat was bobbing as he swallowed it down. “It happened after when I came back. There’s something in me now that… burns. I try to fight it. I really do, but it’s like I’m already too far gone.”

Danny reached out then. He placed a gentle hand on Redbird’s arm. “You don’t have to tell me that part,” Danny said voice gentle. “How it happened. That’s sacred in ghost culture, we don’t ask about death unless it’s you are willing to offer. It’s yours to hold and it’s not mine to take from you.”

Jason blinked in surprise under his mask. He felt something in his face that cracked.

Danny scooted just a little closer with his hand still resting lightly on Redbirds arm. “But I want you to know something,” he said, looking out at the stars again. “If that rage ever gets too much… if it feels like it’s going to win… you don’t have to fight it alone. I’m not scared of you, and I want to help you find a way to get rid of it. Because this shouldn’t be happening and it’s the right thing for me to do as future king of the dead.”

Redbird turned his face away sharply pulling his arm back like the contact burned. Jason was feeling very panicked when phantom said he will help him. No one has helped him before and he knows that he can’t be helped. “You should be scared,” he said bitterly. “I’m not safe. I’m not stable. I’m not—” He stopped, biting the words off like they tasted foul. “I’m not worth it, Phantom. It’s not worth it to try and help. They have always been right. I’m just a—” His voice cracked. “A losing dog.”

The words hit harder than Danny expected. Not because they were loud, but because they weren’t… they were quiet and sincere. It was a truth that Redbird had told himself so many times that it started to sound like fact.

Danny’s breath caught, and a tight knot was forming in his chest. The air suddenly felt too thin and way too cold.

Redbird’s hands trembled. His breathing started to quicken. Danny recognized it immediately, it was a spiraling kind of blind panic.

Redbird stood abruptly, and the stone beneath his boots scuffing loud in the stillness. “Don’t follow me… I don’t need your help…,” he said through clenched teeth. “Please. I just— I need space. I can’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”

Before Danny could move redbird was gone. Danny sat frozen at the rooftop’s edge and was just staring at the empty space where Redbird had stood. His hands were cold and the book sat forgotten in his lap.

— - - —

Chapter Text

The courtyard was quiet at this time of night. A little wind moved through the stone archways and was carrying the scent of ash and something earthy.

Phantom sat in the middle of the garden with his legs crossed on the cold ground, his hands resting on his knees, and with his eyes closed.

Damian hesitated in the doorway. He watched the strange boy…well the pit spirit for a few moments. He was unsure if he was meditating or… doing whatever ghosts did when they weren’t being watched.

He cleared his throat. Phantom didn’t open his eyes, but he said, “I know you’re there Damian.”

Damian stiffened, unsure if he should speak. Phantom opened his eyes slowly and turned his head. “You have come to get me for the meeting I’m guessing?,” he said gently.

“Yes. Grandfather has summoned you.”

Phantom stood without rushing. “Of course he has.”

They started walking to the meeting room. Phantom didn’t seem bothered by the weight of where they were headed. Damian kept stealing glances at him, like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how to start.

After a while, he just said, “In the library… the other day. I didn’t mean to insult you if I did.”

“You didn’t,” Phantom replied, voice calm. “You were curious. I like your questions more than your silence.”

They walked a little farther. “What’s it like?” Damian asked, glancing up at him. “To die?”

Phantom looked straight ahead, thoughtful. “For most, it is very quiet. But you do not feel empty when you leave the living. There’s a type of weight to it. It is like falling asleep underwater. You stop fighting, and then everything’s still.”

Damian nodded slowly. “Do you remember everything?”

“More than I want to.”

Damian frowned. “Can anyone come back from it? Properly? Without… corruption?”

Phantom looked at him. “You’re not really asking about anyone, are you?”

Damian said nothing.

“It depends,” Phantom said softly. “On why they come back. On who pulls them back from their rest. On whether they want to stay or come back. But the world… it doesn’t let you cheat death for free. There’s always a cost.”

Damian’s hands clenched behind his back. They kept walking in silence for a while. The halls were growing darker with no sun. Soft torchlight flickered along the walls.

Damian asked  more abruptly this time, “Once again,…Why do you act the way you do? I still do not understand why.”

Phantom raised a brow. “What way is that?”

“You’re not scared of anyone here. You’re not angry. You don’t even seem to care that Grandfather might—” He cut himself off. “You just walk around like you don’t owe anything to anyone.”

“I don’t,” Phantom said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about anything that’s happening around me.”

Damian’s expression shifted. “I don’t understand.”

Phantom smiled a little. “That’s okay. I’m still figuring it out myself.”

Damian looked away. “I shouldn’t be asking so many questions…. I apologize.” Phantom stopped walking. Damian did too.

“You don’t owe me your silence,” Phantom said gently. “I won’t hold you to any standard but your own. You’re allowed to ask me anything, Damian. You’re still a child that is curious. You should be allowed to be one.”

Damian blinked at him. Something in his face shifted…. surprise maybe? Or a kind of tired relief he didn’t know he’d been carrying.

They started walking again. After a few more steps, Phantom asked, “Do you have any hobbies? Other than learning how to kill, I mean.”

Damian gave him a look. “I learn many things in my training.”

“Yeah?” Phantom tilted his head. “Like what?”

“…Botany. Classical art history. Origami. I’ve read all the works of Machiavelli. And I’m studying Latin.”

Phantom hummed. “That’s a lot.”

“I don’t waste my time.”

“Still sounds kind of lonely.”

Damian didn’t respond, but he didn’t bristle either. So Phantom takes that as a plus.

When they turned the final corner before the chamber doors, Damian said, quieter, “You don’t belong to anyone here….. But you… you care more than people here do.”

Phantom looked down at him. “I do care about every soul that is living or not. I just don’t think love should come with chains of expectations.”

Damian’s posture softened. Just a little bit. His arms were still behind his back, but his shoulders had eased. He looked up just once at the strange guardian spirit walking beside him, and he didn’t look away right away.

Maybe he wouldn’t say it, but there was something like trust starting to form. He has been taught not to trust anyone outside of the league…. But this spirit feels more sincere then what his mother has said to him in private.

They reached the doors and the moment passed. Damian stepped forward and knocked twice, and then he opened them. Phantom followed the kid inside.

— - - —

Damian walked ahead when they entered and went to stand by his mother at the end. When he reached the end of the chamber, he dipped his head ant his grandfather and stepped into the shadows in front of the gathered assassins.

Then Phantom entered behind him more slowly.

He didn’t announce himself due to everyone knowing who he is. The air changed around them before he even spoke. His boots echoed on the stone floor. He was too quiet to be threatening, and too calm to be scared. He walked through the feeling of death without blinking. It curled around him like it recognized what he was.

Ra’s watched him with interest that bordered on amusement.

Talia stood with one hand resting on the hilt of a ceremonial blade, and her posture was elegant but wary. Redbird lingered to her side still as a statue. Assassins flanked the walls. Everyone watched Phantom as he walked to the center of the room and stopped a few feet short of the throne.

He didn’t bow to Ra’s.

“I must admit you are… difficult to categorize,” Ra’s said finally. His voice was smooth. It was the practiced rhythm of someone used to being listened to. “My grandson reports a strange energy clinging to you. Are you here to threaten me in my own compound?”

Danny’s answer was quiet but unflinching. “I’m not here to threaten you Ra’s. I’m here because the dead asked me to be.”

A low chuckle from the throne. “The dead?” Ra’s raised a brow. “The dead cannot speak. They are silent… That’s why we leave them behind us.”

Danny took a step forward and the green glow in his eyes was increasing. “Perhaps… but the dead watch. And they remember almost everything. Every time you tear someone back through the veil… they see it. Every Lazarus dunk, every corrupted resurrection…. you’ve been making withdrawals with no intention of paying back the cost of their pain for a long time.”

The amusement drained from Ra’s like heat from a cooling blade. “I have made no pact with death,” he said, voice clipped. “The Pits are mine by right. I earned them with my blood.”

“You actually did make a pact.” Danny’s voice was lower now. He didn’t raise it because he didn’t need to. The quiet carried more weight than shouting ever could. “You just didn’t know it. You opened a door you were never meant to touch, and the balance has been tipping ever since.”

“You presume to lecture me on balance?” Ra’s leaned forward, eyes sharp. “You? A child?”

“I’m not just a child because I look like one,” Danny replied. “The dead doesn’t count age the way the living do. Time stops meaning anything when it can’t run out. And I’m not here to be a guest of your League that will follow your command.”

He took another step forward. “I’m here because the line between life and death is breaking under your feet. And you’re too arrogant to notice the damages.”

The chamber grew still at Phantom’s words . The fires crackled louder for a moment, then they slowly dimmed.

Ra’s was quiet for a beat longer than comfort allowed. “…What exactly do you claim to be?”

Danny tilted his head like he was listening to something Ra’s couldn’t hear. Then he spoke.

“I’m someone who hears the screaming when you pull someone back to the living wrong,” he said. “I’m someone who can feel the way the Pits burn holes in the world out of pain. I’m someone who can see and hear the dead you abandoned to chase your immortality.”

Redbird shifted behind Ra’s. Talia’s fingers tightened slightly on her blade. Ra’s finally said but quieter this time, “You are not of this Earth.”

Danny met his eyes. “Maybe not anymore. But I still care what happens to it. That includes what you’re poisoning it with.”

Ra’s held his gaze. But something behind his expression cracked. It was just a hairline fracture, but it was there.

Danny let the silence stretch before he added, calm and final, “If you keep warping this world to fit your vision… if you keep pulling the power of dead where it doesn’t belong… eventually the dead will come collect their due.”

His voice dropped just slightly. “And they’ll start with you.”

There was nothing else to say. He turned and asked Damian to show him back to his room. Damian stepped out from the shadows without a word and followed.

The chamber didn’t speak again until Phantom’s footsteps had long faded. But something had shifted in the meeting room. And even Ra’s could feel it’s dangers.

— - - —

Their walks have been really silent today, but how could Danny say to Damian that it’s not him it’s his crazy grandfather.

Damian stayed a pace behind Danny the entire way. He didn’t speak, didn’t glance around at the guards, and he didn’t shift his weight like he usually did when restless. His arms were crossed, but it felt defensive now. It was more like he was holding himself together after everything.

Danny opened the door to his room and stepped aside. “Come in Damian,” he said softly. His voice was still strange from the weight of the meeting. “Just for a moment.”

Damian hesitated. Then nodded once and stepped into the guest room.

Danny didn’t bother with the lights on the wall as you could see just fine with the moonlight. There was a low bench near the window and a trunk at the foot of the bed, and everything felt a little colder than it should.

Danny moved to the trunk and was kneeling to unlatch it. He didn’t say anything right away. He just pulled out a simple black box. It was wide, flat, and a bit worn at the edges.

“I was going to give this to you later,” he said after a beat. “But I think… maybe now’s the right time.”

Danny stood and held it out Damian. “Here.”

Damian blinked at it, and was clearly unsure about the box. His hands didn’t move at first, but then he stepped forward slowly and took the box. He was careful like it might break if he handled it wrong when he opened it.

Inside was a small collection of sketch paper, mini canvases, charcoal paints, sticks, brushes, and a few sharpened sketch pencils. Everything was neatly organized.

Damian just stared down at it.

“When I was your age,” Danny said, sitting back on the bench, “back when I was still… alive….. I found stillness in writing. It was journaling mostly, some were letters I never sent, and just dumb stuff. But it made all the constant noise quieter.”

He looked at Damian gently. “I think painting might suit you better though.”

Damian swallowed. His grip on the box tightened just slightly. The silence stretched long between them. It was the kind of silence that holds more words than sound ever could.

Danny took a leap of faith and ruffled Damians hair softly, just once though. It was a small and tender motion. It was a faint brush of fingers through Damian’s hair strands. Danny was still a little nervous about getting bitten but oh well he’s already dead….

Damian’s shoulders rose at the touch. For a second he didn’t move at the feeling. Then he turned away from Danny. He didn’t say anything at all and Danny was starting to worry about the kid’s breathing. He just stared at the wall for a few a bit, and his  jaw locked tightly like he was biting back every emotion at once.

Then he turned and looked at Danny again.

And then Damian leaned into Danny’s body. It was not a full hug, not like he’d ever ask… but he stepped close to Danny’s cold body. He was close enough for his forehead to press lightly against Danny’s stomach. Yet it was close enough that the box of art supplies rested between them like a buffer. And it was close enough to listen to a heartbeat that  Danny didn’t have in this form.

Danny didn’t say anything to Damian. He just rested a hand gently on Damian’s back. There was no pressure or demand for anything more in the gesture.

After a long moment, Damian completely stepped away. He didn’t look back at Danny. He just nodded once, arms wrapped around the box, and slipped out the door in silence.

And Danny sat on the Bed alone with his hands still resting in his lap, and hoping that his gift the he got for the kid would help him realize that it’s ok to fail and make mistakes… For art you can’t make mistakes.. but you can create something.

— - - — 

Chapter Text

Redbird stood just outside the meeting room’s doors.

He hadn’t meant to stay outside after the meeting was done. He should’ve left with Phantom and Damian when they left. He should’ve headed back toward the training grounds. He should have done something useful that would have gotten rid of the shaking in his chest, and the fire in his blood.

But yet his feet wouldn’t move….

Phantom’s voice still echoed in his head. The calm way he spoke to Ra’s. Like he wasn’t afraid and angry. He was just…. steady, like someone who didn’t need to shout to be heard.

That kind of calm defiance stuck to people. It didn’t make sense, at least not in this place. But it had stayed with Jason like a splinter in his ribs. Something was wrong.

And something felt too familiar about the way Ra’s was looking at Phantom.

He leaned one shoulder against the stone and stared at the floor. His head hurt. His chest…. Well it wasn’t his heart exactly, but whatever was left behind from the Pits…. it was buzzing. It wasn’t in fear, but it was buzzing in warning. It was like something inside him already knew something bad was about to happen.

Jason just tried close his eyes and focus on his breathing. He needed to calm down.

Then he heard it. Ra’s’ voice. His cold voice slipping through the narrow space between the carved doors “He’s unbound to reality. He is not tethered to any single place, and is not fully of this world. He’s an opportunity Talia. An unharvested well of Lazarus aligned power.”

Jason froze. They were talking about Phantom. His hands curled into fists before he could stop them. His knuckles went pale under the gloves.

“If we contain him,” Ra’s continued, voice still deadly, “study him… perhaps even harness him and his power—”

Jason gritted his teeth. He wanted to punch something. His chest felt too small. It felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Contain him? Study him? Harness him?

That wasn’t strategy. That was purely possession. That was what people said before they dragged you into a lab and broke your bones for the sake of some data. That was what the League said before they put you in chains for the good of the world, and you will never know peace again.

“We could unlock permanence,” Talia added. “A source of power that is not tied to madness or to blood. A throne in the making, if guided correctly. If not… he can be broken apart and studied.”

Broken apart. Jason’s vision went red for a second.

His body remembered what it was like to be dragged back from the dead. How cold it was and how painful. All the confusion afterwards. The screaming that lived in your bones forever.

Phantom didn’t seem like the type to scream. It felt weird to imagine him doing it. Phantom stood with his head high and spoke how death itself had taught him to.

And now they were going to destroy him, and worse hurt him…

“Prepare containment teams,” Ra’s said to a group of assassins. “If he resists then sedate him. You can also use the seal from the scrolls if needed. He must not leave our grasp. The next phase begins now.”

Jason’s blood turned to fire. He didn’t even wait. He didn’t stop to think. He turned on his heel and ran.

His boots pounding against stone. Every echo bouncing back like gunfire. His breath came in short and worried breaths. His thoughts didn’t though. They raced.

They’re going to take him. They’re going to strip him down like a machine. They’re going to hurt him.

The hallway around Jason blurred. He didn’t care who saw him. He didn’t care about the consequences. Because something inside Jason… something deeper in him was screaming.

Protect him. Protect him now. Go and protect him.

He didn’t know what Phantom was. He was a ghost, a child, a king—maybe a mix of all of it. Maybe even something more. But Jason knew what it felt like to be seen as a thing or an it. As something to be used.

And Phantom hadn’t flinched once. Not even under Ra’s. That kind of strength deserved protection in Jason’s book.

Jason wasn’t going to let it happen again. Not to someone like him. Not to his—

He stopped thinking after that. He just ran faster straight toward Phantom’s room.

— - - —

Phantom sat on the windowsill with one leg phased through and dangling over the ledge. His arms were folded on top of his bent knee, and his chin just rested there.

His glow was faint tonight. It was almost dim, like his thoughts were too far away and was pulling his energy with them.

The moonlight outside lit the courtyard in a soft silver tone. No one was out there during this hour. The stars overhead felt too quiet and distant, yet he could name them all.

Something in his chest thudded quietly. His core had been humming since the meeting. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t peaceful either. It was almost getting annoying. It felt like it was trying to speak but didn’t have the words.

It had started when Redbird had looked at him when he entered behind Damian. It was not in the way most people did. It wasn’t suspicious or defensive. It had been almost familiar. It had held something that made Phantom feel watched in a way that didn’t scare him. Something suddenly settled in the corner of his chest and wouldn’t leave him alone.

Then the door flew open with a bang. Phantom flinched at the sound. He turned his head sharply toward the door.

Redbird stood there breathing hard. His hood was down yet his mask was still on, and his hair was wild from the wind or maybe from running. His body language was filled with a lot of emotions, but rage was definitely one of the big ones.

He didn’t speak right away. His jaw was clenched and his shoulders were tight. It looked like it took everything in him not to break something.

Danny sat up a little straighter. “…Hey. You okay there dude?”

Redbird didn’t answer. He walked straight across the room and stopped in front of Phantom. He simply reached out and grabbed Phantom’s wrist.

He didn’t grab it rough to hurt Phantom, but just to be strong enough to be seen as urgent. It was the kind of grip that said we don’t have time to argue.

“Move,” Redbird said, his voice low and intense. “We have to go. Now.”

Danny blinked, confused. “What? Go where?”

“They’re going to try to contain you,” Redbird said. His words came fast now, like he’d been holding them in. “Ra’s and Talia. They’re calling in a team to come and get you. They mentioned sedatives, magic seals, and whatever it takes to contain you. They’re going to keep you like some kind of lab project.”

Danny stared at him. “Are you sure?”

“I heard them. I stayed behind after the meeting. I didn’t mean to—” Redbird shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I heard enough. They don’t want you to leave without your power.”

Danny didn’t move at first. His feet were still planted by the windowsill. But something in his chest pulled tight. That humming in his core got stronger. It wasn’t warning him. It was pushing him. It felt warm and was focused on Redbird. It trusted Redbird even before Danny did.

His eyes flicked down to where Redbird was still holding his wrist. There was no fear in that grip. There was only urgency. And under that something else too. Something almost like protective.

“Why are you helping me?” Danny asked, voice quiet but real.

Redbird didn’t look at him when he answered. His voice dropped lower, like it was something pulled out from under years of dirt.

“Because I wished someone would have helped me.”

Danny’s chest went still. His core responded like someone had spoken to it directly. It was like something in Redbird’s voice rang through Danny like a memory that hadn’t happened yet.

Redbird let go but only once Phantom had started moving on his own. He didn’t push again. He didn’t need to explain himself.

And Danny didn’t ask again. He didn’t need to. He just followed him out the door.

— - - —

They ran fast.

Danny barely had any time to think. His boots hit the stone hard, and the sound was echoing down the narrow halls. The walls were rough and the ceilings were low in places.

These weren’t the normal corridors. These were the paths people weren’t supposed to see. They were secret paths through the League’s compound. They were passageways only someone born in this place would know how to move through without getting lost.

Redbird knew them all.

He didn’t speak when they were running. He didn’t turn back to check on Phantom. But his every motion screamed protectiveness. His knife was already in his hand, and he kept his body angled just enough in front of Phantom as they ran. It was like he was shielding him from sharp corners, from ambushes, and from the very walls.

Danny clutched a small cloth pouch in both hands as they moved. It was tied tight with red string, and still faintly warm with Clockwork’s magic. If he opened it, and if he paired it with a Lazarus sample it would open a time portal. It was a one way back to the present. It was his only way home.

But first they had to survive. They reached the final turn. The last hallway opened wide to the Lazarus chamber. The pit was just ahead. The pit glowed like it was alive. It was still churning green and bubbling like it felt their approach.

Danny barely got two steps inside before shadows dropped from the ceiling. Five assassins with their weapons in their hands ready to fight.

One started speaking in a language Danny didn’t know, but he could feel the power behind it. It slid over his skin like cold oil. It was a sealing spell meant to trap things that didn’t belong in the world of the living.

Redbird stepped forward without hesitation. His body blocked the whole view of Phantom’s now. The full face mask made it impossible to read his expression, but Danny could feel the anger in every line of him. It rolled off Redbird’s shoulders like fire waiting to catch.

He pulled a longer dagger from his belt. “Stay behind me.”

Danny blinked. “What—”

“I’ll hold them off,” Redbird said, voice low but sure. “Get what you need. I’m not letting them put you in a cage.”

Danny’s chest tightened. “You could be killed.”

Redbird didn’t flinch. He didn’t look back. “I’ve already died once.” His voice was steady. “At least this time I have a choice in it.”

Danny’s core thudded hard inside him.

It was singing again. It felt like it knew this masked man, like it trusted him without needing proof. It whispered things Danny didn’t understand but couldn’t ignore. It wanted to protect him back.

Danny hesitated—but only for a second. Then he ran to the pit.

The glow made his vision swim with green. The power in the air felt almost electric. He pulled a small vial from the pouch and filled it fast with the green liquid. He was careful not to spill even a drop. He could already feel the magic shifting. The portal was waking up.

A sharp shout behind him made him turn. One of the assassins had broken from the group. He wasn’t going for Phantom though. His blade was arcing straight for Redbird’s side fast and silent.

Everything seemed to slow. Danny opened his mouth to shout, but someone beat him to it.

A voice from the hallway that sounded almost like Damian had shouted. “Jason!” Redbird had almost completely stopped after hearing that name.

He froze like someone had yanked the floor out from under him. His mask turned slightly, and it was just enough for Phantom to see how his shoulders tensed and his grip faltered.

Danny’s heart slammed once. That name echoed through him. Jason?

He didn’t get time to think. The portal flared open at his feet. The pull sucked at his clock and was pulling him backwards. Time magic twisted around his arms, his waist, and his chest.

He looked at Redbird one last time. Their eyes met through the small slits in the mask. And in that heartbeat, Phantom’s core pulsed the truth up through his bones with a single word.

Brother.

Then the pull took him fully then, and Danny had vanished into the green portal in denial.

Chapter Text

Danny fell from the ghost portal like he was being spit out by the world.

He landed on his bed with a soft thud, and with his limbs hitting the mattress at strange angles. The room didn’t spin, but it felt like it should have. His breaths were short, and his ghostly glow dimmed almost instantly.

The portal snapped shut above him. Then it everything was just quiet.

His room in Amity Park was just as he left it. The only light coming from the soft glow of the streetlamp outside and the flickering blue of the TV screen. He hadn’t remembered to turn it off before he left. He didn’t care now though.

He didn’t feel like he could move. The TV murmured on, and the voices of the newscasters blurred like underwater static.

“…Ghost Investigation Ward confirms increased patrol presence in Amity Park…”

“…Emergency containment zones now active…”

“…All known spectral entities will be removed or destroyed on sight…”

Danny didn’t even blink or really hear what was said it was all just background noise to him.

He sat up slowly. He moved like his body wasn’t really his. He curled in on himself with his arms tight around his knees, and his head tipped back to rest on the wall. His breath hitched.

His core didn’t stop pulsing. It buzzed low and restless in his chest, like something in him was trying to mourn without words.

“Jason is dead,” Danny whispered. His voice cracked on the name. His mouth tasted like ash.

He repeated it softer. “Jason was dead….?”

His core flared in protest, and it hurt. It actually hurt. The pulse from his chest shot through his whole body like a wave that was hot and desperate and so full of grief that it didn’t know where to go. His shoulders jerked with it.

And then he started shaking. His hands moved to his hair and grabbed at the roots. He dug his fingers in like he could hold his thoughts still. But they kept racing.

Jason is Redbird. Redbird fought like he’d been doing it forever. Redbird stood in front of him and said “because someone should have helped me.”

Did he know? Did he know that his brother was phantom. But Danny didn’t even know him. Danny hadn’t seen it. Hadn’t known. Hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t even really reached out.

“I didn’t even know it was him,” Danny whispered, like it was a confession. “I didn’t know. I didn’t—” He doubled over.

Tears fell fast and without any warning. He tried to wipe them away, but they just kept coming faster than he could stop them. His breathing hitched again, and then again. It turned to gasping.

“I didn’t know—I didn’t know—why didn’t I know—”

His chest burned with grief. His arms wrapped tighter around himself, like he could hold his core together with just pressure. But it was breaking open. It pulsed again and was full of memories that weren’t even his. Grief, longing, and mourning for something that is lost.

It whispered Brother. Brother. Brother. But Jason was dead. Jason had been dead. So who had stood in front of him? Why did his core know? Why did it hurt like he’d just lost him again?

Danny couldn’t breathe.

His vision blurred and the room spun this time. It tilted at angles that didn’t make sense. His sobs were quiet, but they wrecked him in full body shakes, hands trembling, chest aching, and his core was screaming.

“I saw the news,” Danny rasped. “He died. I saw the date. It was real. It was real…” But his core didn’t care. His core knew. And that truth was too big for him at the moment. It was too impossible and too painful.

He started rocking back and forth slowly trying to soothe himself.

“I didn’t say thank you,” he mumbled. “He helped me and I didn’t say thank you and I didn’t ask—why didn’t I ask who he was—”

More tears fell. His glow dimmed and flickered like a dying star. His head dropped to his knees.

“I think—I think I lost my brother again,” he whispered. “But I didn’t even know I had him.” The TV kept playing.

Outside, sirens blared faintly in the distance. Inside, Danny cried until his voice was gone and his core was hollow. And the name Jason wouldn’t stop echoing in his head.

— - - —

Danny didn’t sleep. Well more of like he couldn’t.

His eyes were red and dry by the time the sky outside turned gray. The TV was still on, and was replaying old GIW broadcasts like a looped threat. His fingers twitched every time they said “containment,” and every time they said “exterminate.”

He got up slowly and his body was stiff. His core was quiet now, but not calm. It felt… hollow. Like the echo that was left after a scream.

He didn’t bother changing his clothes. The vial with the Lazarus Pit sample sat untouched on his desk. He stared at it for a long time before picking it up.

It was warm in his hand. And felt it was alive and was able to remember death.  Just like his core.

“I need to get this to Frostbite,” he muttered, mostly to fill the air, and to give him motivation.

The portal opened easier than usual. He didn’t know if it was because of the vial or the fact that Clockwork probably already knew he was coming. He didn’t want to ask.

He flew through slowly and not rushing the trip. The Far Frozen welcomed him with its usual hush of snow and it quiet cold breath. He touched down at the edge of the village with barely a sound.

Frostbite was waiting outside the main temple with his arms crossed, and his eyes calm but watchful.

“Great One,” Frostbite greeted warmly  stepping forward. “You arrived right on time.”

Danny nodded once. His hand opened to reveal the vial resting in his palm. “It’s the sample from the Lazarus Pit from the past.”

Frostbite took it carefully, and was holding it up to the pale blue light. “Yes. Just as Clockwork suspected. This may tell us much about the fractures between life and death that the living have.” He paused annd his eyes were narrowing slightly. “You were able to retrieve it safely?”

“Yeah,” Danny said. “It was… a lot though.”

Frostbite looked at him. Liked really looked. He frowned at what he found. “Your glow…” he said softer now. “It’s very dim.”

Danny blinked and was a little startled. “Huh?”

Frostbite’s expression turned more serious th more he looked at Danny. He set the vial into a containment pod nearby, then stepped forward and knelt slightly so his eyes were more level with Danny’s.

“It is your light Great One. Your core’s glow…. it’s not just dulled. It’s almost like it’s…. Emotionally hurt.” His tone was gentle, but edged with concern. “That’s not inherently bad. Grief and anger is a part of your being. But for young ghosts… it can become dangerous if it lasts too long.”

Danny shifted uncomfortably. His arms started to wrap around himself like he was cold even in here. “Why could it be dangerous?”

Frostbite’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “A ghost’s core is tied to everything we are. Emotion, memory, instinct, and your healing—it flows from the health of your glow. When the light dims too long, the body begins to… quiet along with it. Warnings of your surroundings can become slow. Recovery can weaken or not heal correctly. You just stop listening to your needs.” His voice lowered. “And sometimes, the core can try to force your being into itself for a type of last defense.”

Danny’s stomach twisted. His hands trembled slightly at his sides with what could happen if he didn’t start feeling better.

Frostbite tilted his head. “Is your core alright, Great One?”

Danny tried to answer. His mouth opened. Nothing came out. His throat felt tight. His eyes were burning agin. He bit the inside of his cheek hard, and still the words almost cracked when they finally broke loose.

“I think… I think I lost my brother again.” The air fell completely still in the palace.

Frostbite’s gaze didn’t waver. He just nodded once slowly. “Would you… allow me to connect with your core? It can only be briefly if you prefer.”

Danny nodded not trusting his voice. His glow flickered at the edges of his hands.

Frostbite leaned forward and pressed his forehead gently to Danny’s. Their cold fur and skin met with a soft hiss of energy, and Danny felt it almost immediately.

There was a pulse. It was a steady rhythm that felt of calm love, of gentle friendship, and of warmth. Not physical warmth but emotional comfort.

Frostbite sent it all through the connection. I see you. I’m with you. You are not alone.

Danny’s breath hitched and his glow twitched. Then his body slumped slightly forward, and a tiny  sound escaped his throat. It was barely a purr… it sounded so broken and weak.

His core was responding, but it still hurt. It still remembered the loss Danny has gone through.

Frostbite’s own core rumbled back. It was a deep low hum that settled over Danny’s skin like a heavy blanket. His purr was ancient and full of strength, and it was something Danny’s smaller core leaned into without thinking.

The connection deepened. It wasn’t a connection of a king to his healer… but as family.

Danny didn’t realize he was crying again until Frostbite gently wrapped his arms around him and cradled him close. He lifted Danny without effort. It was like he was holding something precious.

Danny curled into him, with his forehead still pressed close, and his fists were bunching into Frostbite’s chest wrap like he was trying to hold on to solid ground.

The purring didn’t stop from either of them. Danny’s purr stayed quiet and broken from his crying, and Frostbite’s stayed steady and loving.

“It’s okay,” Frostbite whispered. “You don’t have to carry it alone when I am here.”

Danny couldn’t answer him back. But for the first time since leaving the League, his core didn’t feel like it was screaming…. But it definitely was still hurting.

— - - —

Danny had stayed with Frostbite for a little while longer after their connection. He hadn’t said much due to his voice still feeling weak. It was like using it would make everything real again.

But Frostbite didn’t push him. He offered Danny hot ecto tea and let him rest in the quiet warmth of the med-bay chamber. He also had promised to begin analyzing the Lazarus sample immediately.

Danny didn’t stay long after he finished his tea.

He told Frostbite he needed to go take a fly. Not to go anywhere in particular. Just… to move. To get the weight off his chest for a little while.

Frostbite had rested a heavy hand on his shoulder and nodded, though concern still lingered in the old ghost’s eyes.

“Be gentle with yourself, Great One,” he had said. “Even air needs space to breathe.”

So Danny flew through a portal back home. He didn’t go invisible. He didn’t even mask his presence of his Phantom form. He didn’t even care who saw him tonight.

The air over Amity was cold, but nothing like the Far Frozen. It was thicker here though, and felt like it was pressed in close against his skin. The wind caught in his hair, tugged at his cloak, and had some sort of cooling effect…. but he welcomed it.

He flew above rooftops, past streetlights and silent neighborhoods, and over schools and parks and shops that used to feel safe. But nothing felt real anymore.

His core still ached. It was quieter than before. It was not screaming at him anymore, but it felt like a bruise. Like a hollow spot in his chest had been scooped out and filled with nothingness.

He stopped above the lake, and was hovering above the water’s dark surface. It was always quiet here. The gentle waves below were lapping and rolling with the night breeze.

Danny’s breath fogged in the air in front of him, though he wasn’t sure if that was from the cold or his powers. Maybe both.

Jason….

His hands clenched at his sides. The name echoed over and over in his head. Jason… his brother. Redbird. The masked League assassin who had grabbed him by the wrist and said  Move  with that voice of his. That protective, steady, and hurting voice that he had.

“I thought you were dead,” Danny whispered, as if Jason could hear him from this far away… or from this far further in time.

The wind didn’t answer him. But his core pulsed, low and flickering like a candle about to die. He remembered the last moment in the pit chamber before the portal pulled him away.

It was Jason.

Damian had screamed the name it like he was scared. Like he cared for him. Jason had frozen like it meant something, like it broke something open inside him. And Danny had looked back—

He’d locked eyes with his brother even with that stupid mask between them.

Danny scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm,  and was frustrated with all his tears. They kept coming, even when he told them not to.

“Why were you there?” he asked the empty sky. “Why were you with them? Why were you trained to fight like that? Why didn’t anyone tell me you were still alive?”

But the questions didn’t help. They just dug in deeper. His chest shook as he tried to breathe.

“Why didn’t I know it was you?”

And the worst part was… he still wasn’t sure.  It didn’t make sense. Jason had died so long ago with no signs of becoming a ghost. The news even said so. The funeral files on his desk in his ghost castle said so. His grave was real. He had died.

But Redbird had felt like his Jason. And his core had known but he didn’t understand.

“I can’t do this again,” Danny whispered. His hands trembled.

“I can’t lose you again…..”

The wind picked up and was lifting his cloak. Lights flickered on the horizon. But Danny didn’t see the danger coming. He didn’t hear the net launch from below until it was already wrapped around him.

Ectoplasmic lines snapped tight, and electricity was crackling through the woven ghost tech. Danny screamed. It was a sound more broken than it was loud. His body seized as volts tore through his form. It was short circuiting his powers and yanking him out of the air.

He crashed hard onto the concrete near the dock of the lake. Before he could phase or vanish or even breathe, a voice called from the shadows.

“Good job, Maddie! You got him!”

Danny’s head whipped around, disoriented. That voice. He knew that voice.

Another blast of an anti ghost ray gun hit him clean between the shoulders. His body spasmed once again. He hit the ground again face first with stars exploding behind his eyes.

His uncle’s voice was the last thing he heard. “Target acquired.”

And then there was nothing.

— - - — 

Chapter Text

Danny woke up gasping and was trying to intake as much air as he could, even if this form didn’t need it.

He could feel cold metal pressing against his back. His arms wouldn’t move, his legs wouldn’t move ether, and his neck wouldn’t turn. Panic surged through him before his eyes could even focus on anything.

His vision cleared into blinding white lights above him. The walls were sterile and very smooth. There were no windows. Machines were beeping around him. And there were metal trays that clattered somewhere close to him.

Restraints dug into his wrists, ankles, and neck. They were thick leather straps lined with what feels like blood blossoms. His ghost form sparked and he did not feel good near these blossoms. He felt like he was fading in and out. He was powerless and trapped.

His chest hurt. His core pulsed weakly like his heartbeat was too far away. He also really felt like he was going to throw up.

Muffled voices soon echoed around him. There were people in white coats that moved past the edges of his sight. They didn’t look at him. Didn’t talk to him. They spoke around him like he wasn’t there and like he was just something. Not someone.. he was just an it to them.

There were scanners, surgical trays, glowing ecto tools, needles filled with glowing green liquid, and power drills. A glass tank of toxic ectoplasm bubbled beside a heavy table stacked with restraints and straps.

Danny’s breathing hitched suddenly. His fingers twitched against the restraints. His core sparked weakly in his chest, like it was crying for help he couldn’t give.

Then… There was a voice. A voice so familiar it didn’t feel real.

“Bring the molecular splitter. I want to check the ecto-signatures against the last specimen.”

His stomach dropped and his throat closed up. No. No. No…

Another voice that was louder and more cheerful. “Sure thing, Mads!”

His head jerked toward the sound as much as the neck restraint would allow.

It was Aunt Maddie and Uncle Jack.

His family. His own aunt and uncle. Dressed in full lab gear. Gloves. Goggles. Coats. Masks over their mouths. But their voices were unmistakable even in Danny’s condition.

“Aunt Maddie!” His voice cracked, his throat was raw from dryness. “Uncle Jack! It’s me… It’s Danny!”

For a second… just for half a second… Maddie looked up. Her eyes blinked behind her glasses. Then… nothing.

“Fascinating,” she said with her voice sharp but smooth. “It’s mimicking human speech perfectly. Even memory triggers. That’s a new trick.”

Jack walked into view. He adjusted something on a tablet. “Must’ve recognized the genetic bond,” he said, scratching his chin. “They evolve faster when cornered. Never seen one do this before.”

Danny’s mouth opened, but nothing came out but breath. His heart slammed in his chest. His core throbbed in slow, weak, and painful thumps.

“No—no—please—no—it’s me—” His voice trembled. “It’s me. I’m your nephew. I’m your Danny.”

But they weren’t listening to him. They were talking over him. Around him, like he wasn’t there.

“Start with an energy cross section,” Maddie said, scribbling notes. “Record how it reacts to tissue punctures. I want to know if the biological makeup is a stable mimic or a true hybrid.”

Jack pulled a heavy metal cart closer. “On it!”

A mechanical arm extended from the ceiling, buzzing to life. The whine of a drill followed. A scanner pulsed with red lights across Danny’s chest. His back arched against the restraints as cold needles jammed into his arms. His body trembled.

Pain. Sharp, deep, and ripping pain. His breath hitched again, and the glow around his form flickered violently. He could feel the blood blossoms burning against his wrists like fire.

“Stop. Please—Stop—It’s me—I’m real—I’m real—” Danny sobbed. His voice cracked into something that sounded very raw. “I’m your nephew—I’m your family—”

Maddie didn’t even flinch. “You hear it trying to manipulate us? Emotional mimicry. Desperate response coding.”

Jack nodded. “Classic spectral defense. It’s trying to sound human.”

Danny’s head thumped back against the table. His core hurt. It hurt so bad. It squeezed in his chest, sending jolts of grief, panic, and pain through every nerve in his body.

“No—please—I don’t want to die again—I don’t—”

His glow flickered again. His ghost form trembled, his limbs spasmed, and his core stuttered like it couldn’t hold itself together. Then suddenly his glow stopped entirely.

He turned human. His turned back to his bruised, bloody, and crying human body.

“Look at me… Please… Look at me…” His voice barely made sound. “It’s me… Danny… your nephew… please…”

“It’s adapting,” Maddie said coldly. “This is… disturbing. Advanced mimicry of an actual human form. It is possibly trying to elicit sympathy. Jack, take blood samples. Confirm contamination.”

“On it Mads!”

Danny’s heart shattered completely. His core was flickering, and was pulsing like a dying star. He shook against the restraints as the machine arms started moving again with sharp tools.

“N-no … please… help me… someone… please…” Danny didn’t  deserved this… Right?

No one answered Danny’s pleas as they started to cut into him.

— - - —

-Time skip around a year and a half-

The night reeked of old beer, rain, cigarette smoke, and a night of bad decisions.

John Constantine shoved open the pub’s back door,  and was flicking his lighter to life. “Cursed mirrors, drunk angels, and bleeding drunk fuckers…” he muttered, taking a drag. “This job’s gonna kill me. Again...”

It was supposed to be a quiet night with no demons, no magic, no human idiocy. But of course it never goes his way.

CRASH. A crate exploded into the street in front of him.

John flinched, and barely dodging as another box materialized midair and shattered against the pavement. Splinters flew everywhere.

“BEWAAAAARE!! FOR I AM… THE BOX GHOST!!”

John groaned. “Oh for the love of—” He shoved his hands in his coat pockets, and was eyeing the flailing figure in the middle of the road.

A squat, blue, and box obsessed ghost spun wildly, waving his arms as packaging peanuts burst around him like confetti.

John frowned but tipped his head respectfully, muttering under his breath, “Haven’t seen one of you in ages… Based on the things I’ve heard I would have thought your lot were staying put since the new king took the throne.”

Box Ghost turned mid flail, and was noticing him for the first time. “AHA!” he bellowed. “A MORTAL! YOU STAND BEFORE THE MAGNIFICENT, THE MIGHTY, THE… THE—BOX GHOST!!”

John sighed but didn’t dismiss him. “Yeah, yeah, I know who you are, mate.” He waved the smoke away. “Question is… why’re you here? And this far out? Your realms don’t usually leak past the Veil these days and leak into the mortal realm.” His tone was cautious and not trying to sound too mocking.

The ghost’s eyes went wide. “OH! IT’S TERRIBLE! IT’S CATASTROPHIC!! IT’S—”

John held up a hand. “Slow done mate. Deep breath. Uh well metaphorically…. What happened?”

Box Ghost spun in a jittery circle. “I TRIED! I DID!! I HAD DELIVERIES!! BOXES TO MOVE!! PACKAGES TO PROTECT!! But—BUT—” His arms flailed. “THE PORTALS WOULDN’T OPEN!! NONE OF THEM WILL!!”

John’s face hardened. “Portals? As in… the Infinite Realms’ gateways?”

“YES!! THEY’RE ALL CLOSED!!” Box Ghost wailed, and was flinging a cardboard flap for emphasis. “SHUT!! LOCKED!! LIKE A PACKAGE RETURNED TO SENDER!!”

John’s stomach knotted. “…That’s not normal.” He muttered more quietly, half to himself, “Based on the last time I paid attention to ghost politics… The Realms haven’t locked like that since before the new reign…”

Box Ghost continued spinning in a panic. “I TRIED THE SIDE DOORS! THE BACK DOORS! EVEN THE SECRET THIRD FLOOR DELIVERY CHUTE!! BUT NOTHING!!”

John pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright, alright, calm down. Could be a temporary seal of magic, or the king is having maintenance done. Or an internal conflict… I don’t meddle in ghost politics. It’s not my realm of knowledge…. Literally.”

Box Ghost stopped mid spin, and was still waving his hands frantically. “NO! IT’S WORSE!!”

John narrowed his eyes. “…Worse how?”

“The Realms…they…they feel wrong!! Time is… BENDING!! Space is… SHRINKING!! BOXES ARE SPILLING OUT OF ORDER!!”

John dragged a hand through his hair. “Bloody hell… Time distortion? That’s not… that’s not just because of closed gates. That’s structural collapse kind of bad…” He stared at Box Ghost. “Why are you here? What do you need?”

Box Ghost wrung his hands. “I… I didn’t want to say… because if I say it, it becomes… real.. it’s been a very long time…”

John stepped forward with his voice dead serious. “Say it.”

The ghost trembled. His glow dimmed. He finally whispered to the sad man. “…They took him.”

John blinked. “Took…who?”

Box Ghost’s teeth clenched. “THE KING.”

John’s cigarette fell from his lips in pure panic. “…The…what?”

Box Ghost threw his arms in the air. “THE KING IS GONE!!! THEY TOOK THE KING!!”

John stumbled back and he could feel the cold horror rushing through his veins. “BLOODY HELL!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE KING IS GONE?!”

— - - — 

Chapter Text

The Watchtower conference room was dead silent, except for the low hum of the hologram projectors. A faint blue light painted the table and was casting reflections off polished steel and armored boots.

Most of the Justice League sat around the meeting table. The members in attendance were Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, Zatanna, and Martian Manhunter. Their expressions were very mixed expressions. Some were confused, some were tense, and  others were visibly annoyed with this sudden meeting.

The hologram in the center flickered once, then settled into focus. John Constantine appeared on the screen.

He was disheveled as ever with a cigarette hanging from his lips, and his trench coat was slightly damp like he’d just walked out of the rain. He didn’t bother with any greetings.

“Right. Listen up,” he started, exhaling a plume of smoke. “This ain’t one of my usual calls. Trust me, I wouldn’t bother you lot if it weren’t bad.”

Batman crossed his arms, sharp and unimpressed. “Then skip to the part where it becomes bad.”

John snorted. “Yeah, yeah. Patience Bats.”

He reached off screen and was fiddling with something. “Had a little…incident last night. Was mindin’ my own business. Just wrapped up a nasty deal with a cursed jukebox. Walkin’ outta a pub, when—”

The holo projector blinked and then lit up with a shaky and glitched video feed.

It was a street that was dimly lit with crack pavements. The camera jolted violently as something slammed down onto a pile of crates.

“BEWARE!!” a voice howled. “FOR I AM… THE BOX GHOST!!”

A massive crate flew across the street smashing into a fire hydrant.

Half the League blinked.

Flash leaned forward. “…Are you serious right now?”

On screen Box Ghost flailed dramatically. His blocky arms waved in circles, and his voice was panicked. “HEED MY WARNING, YOU FOOLS OF THE MATERIAL WORLD!! THE EVIL HUMANS!! THE ONES WHO WEAR NOTHING BUT WHITE!! THEY TOOK HIM!! THEY STOLE HIM!! THEY TOOK THE GREAT ONE!! I CANT DELIVER MY PACKAGES WITHOUT HIM!!! MY BOXES!!!”

The footage glitched worse as the being moved around. A mailbox exploded in the background. Box Ghost spiraled midair like a malfunctioning balloon screeching, “THE KING IS GONE!!” before phasing straight through the sidewalk and vanishing.

The feed cut. There was only silence from the hero’s.

Green Lantern scrubbed a hand over his face. “That… was a cartoon blob.”

Flash glanced around. “We’re really having a meeting over a guy yelling about boxes?”

Even Zatanna raised a brow. She was half very worried, and half amused from her teammates reactions to their first ghost.

John dragged the cigarette from his mouth with smoke curling between his fingers. His voice dropped low and sharp. “Yeah. Laugh it up. But if that blubberin’ idiot’s leavin’ the Realms to come find me, it’s bad. Worse than bad.”

Superman folded his arms. He was calm but firm. “John. There haven’t been any confirmed ghost incidents in years. Since—well, since the last Rift Event. You really expect us to panic over this one ghost?”

Constantine’s expression flattened. His eyes were serious now. “You don’t get it. None of you do.”

He waved a hand and another holo lit up, this one was messier. It was old journal scans, arcane symbols, maps marked Restricted Zones, and sketches of glowing green portals and diagrams labeled THE INFINITE REALMS in crooked handwriting.

John jabbed a finger at it. “This—this is the part no one in your cushy tower likes talkin’ about. The Infinite Realms. It’s definitely real. It’s a whole dimension layered on top of ours. Call it the afterlife, call it Limbo, or call it ghost territory—I don’t care. It’s real and it’s full.”

Batman leaned forward with his gaze narrowing. “Full of what?”

“Full of dead things,” John said flatly. “Souls, Ghosts, Entities made of memories, of energy, of your passed on loved ones, and of whatever’s left when the meat sack gives out. It’s got its own rules with Its own laws. It even has their own bloody king.”

Wonder Woman’s brow furrowed. “There is a king… of the afterlife?”

“Of the Realms,” John corrected. “And you should be bloody glad there is a new one. The last one? Pariah Dark. Pure maniac. He tried to bring down the walls between death and life. Would’ve flooded this world with the dead if he hadn’t been locked away.”

His face darkened. “But the new one… he’s different. He much more peaceful and really tries to keep the Realms stable. If he keeps the Veil intact.. then he keeps their mess out of ours.”

Martian Manhunter tilted his head. “And you believe… this ‘box ghost’ is telling you something happened to this king?”

John flicked his ash into thin air, his jaw was tight. “Yeah. And if that’s true… we’re all in deep shit.”

Flash scoffed, leaning back in his chair. “Come on. A haunted box shows up screaming about a could be missing king and now the world’s ending?”

John’s gaze snapped to him. “You arrogant little—” He dragged a hand down his face, restraining himself from a man who only believes in science. “Listen. You don’t understand the scale of this.”

His fingers tapped the holo map. Lines representing dimensional barriers flickered. Some were glitching and some cracking.

“The Realms have been locked down apparently. No ghosts are able to cross over. There was been no new hauntings. For almost two years. That’s not normal. That’s not good for balance. That’s someone choking the system shut by taking the person who manages it.”

Batman’s voice was lower now, but grim as he starts to make connections. “And if the king is really missing…”

John snapped his fingers and was pointing at him. “Exactly. The Veil gets thinner…. And the things that shouldn’t get out… will. There are things worse beings than ghosts. Things that can chew on time. Things that can even rewrite the rules of reality if left unchecked.”

He ground the cigarette under his boot. “And the Realms? They’ll blame the humans. Boxie didn’t come screaming about something an human did on accident. He came screaming about the ones in white.”

Wonder Woman’s eyes sharpened. “A faction.”

“Or worse.” John shoved his hands into his pockets. “And if the Realms think humans took their king…”

His voice dipped to something low, something cold.

“…We’re one breath away from an interdimensional war.”

Silence pressed heavy over the room as the information they have been given settles.

Then Batman leaned forward with his fingers steepled. “If what you’re saying is true… if the Ghost King has been taken… then we’re sitting on a powder keg.”

“Exactly,” Constantine said exhaling a tight breath he was holding. “It’s not a maybe. It’s a when. Those barriers between life and death? They’re not metaphors. They are very real and important. And if they snap… it’s not gonna be ghosts scarin’ kids. It’s gonna be full-scale dimensional collapse.”

Superman’s hands curled into tight fists against the table. His expression had shifted. He was no longer skeptical, but calculating. “Who took him?” he asked, voice low. “The ‘ones in white.’ Who are they?”

John blew out smoke, his lip curling. “What I was able to find out from very scarce sources… there is a little U.S. government project called the Ghost Investigation Ward. They are real quiet when it come to outside information. They also don’t answer to anyone and think they are above the law. They have been playin’ with tech and rituals they barely understand, for the name of science. They think ghosts are just… freak weather patterns with teeth that can’t feel anything.”

Batman pulled the Watchtower files to the holo to see if he can find additional information. “I’ve never have heard of them. Everything seems to be mostly redacted.”

“Yeah, well,” John muttered, “someone high up wants it that way.”

Wonder Woman stood slowly with her eyes hard. “This… GIW… they kidnapped the King of an entire realm?” The princess think is absurd that these mortals are harming the dead.

“That’s what Boxie thinks.” John ground his teeth. “And given how spooked that idiot was… yeah I bloody believe him.”

Green Lantern crossed his arms with tension bristling under his skin. “Do they even know what they’ve done?”

“No,” John snapped. “That’s the problem. They think ghosts are pests. They see them as animals or tools for research. They don’t realize the King ain’t just some title. He’s the lock and the key. He might as well be the damn foundation.”

Martian Manhunter leaned in with his voice grave. “What happens if the Ghost King is… destroyed?”

John went dead quiet for a second. Then he said, “You can’t destroy him. Well not fully to my knowledge. But you can break him. And if that happens… the Realms stop behaving. The Veil can collapse that can cause dead things flood the living world. Time fractures are a big one. The laws that keep this universe stable… Gone.”

Zatanna who had stayed quiet until now finally spoke. Her voice shook just slightly. “If the last king was Pariah Dark… and he nearly brought down the Veil… what happens if this king falls and there’s no one to hold it?”

John’s jaw locked. “Then the Realms will come here. All of them… and all at once.”

Batman stood. “Then this is no longer optional. We have to act.”

Flash raised a hand. “Okay, hold on. How? This isn’t punching bad guys. This isn’t alien invasions. This is apparently the afterlife.”

Superman cut in. “Then we learn their rules and fast.”

John nodded grimly. “I’ve got some contacts. Not many though. Most of the Realms keeps their distance from mortals. But they liked this king. He was… stabilizing and was not a tyrant.”

“Who is he?” Diana asked. “Do we know anything about him?”

John hesitated. “…Not much. Everyone who knows him is really secretive. I do know that he took the crown young. Rumors say that the kid got dragged into the throne by fate, and not by his choice. But he’s kept the realms peaceful for nearly three years now. There has been no false crossovers, no mass hauntings, and the veil has been holding strong.”

Batman’s eyes narrowed. “Then why haven’t we heard of him?”

“Because he wanted it that way,” John said exasperated. “The quieter the realms are, the safer our world is. You think that balance holds itself? Nah. He’s been working overtime from the shadows.”

Superman’s voice went hard. “Then this is worse than we thought.”

Green Lantern pressed his knuckles against the table. “We’ve got a government agency committing what amounts to interdimensional kidnapping… and they don’t even know it.”

“And the Realms are gonna blame all of humanity,” John said flatly.

Batman pulled up a data stream and was already working. “If this escalates into a war between realms… it won’t be like anything we’ve prepared for.”

Zatanna nodded with her hands trembling as she muttered protection wards under her breath. “The dead outnumber the living by a factor of thousands to one. If the Veil breaks…”

“…The dead will drown the world in chaos,” Martian Manhunter finished.

A grim silence once again settled in.

Then John jabbed a finger at the screen. “So, we’ve got two options. Either we sit on our hands and let this spiral, and deal with the consequences—”

“—Or,” Batman cut in with eyes sharp, “we locate the Ghost King. Fast. And we rescue him.”

Diana’s jaw set. “Then where do we start?”

John grimaced. “That’s the hardest part of this. No one really knows where their base is.”

“Do we have that someone that can help? Or do we need to pull some government strings.” Superman asked.

John reached into his coat muttering under his breath, and he flicked his cigarette away to stomp it under his boot. And with deadly seriousness muttered “I don’t care what it takes if we don’t find him soon… we won’t have a world left to save.”

Chapter Text

Danny blinked awake. His body sprawled out on grass that felt way too soft to be real. His breath caught in his throat. Where was he?

He looked all around him. The sky was a soft blue haze, and it was cloudless and looked endless. Glowing mountains stood in the distance and it was like something out of a dream, their peaks bathed in pale golden light from the sun. A gentle breeze danced across the open field, and was carrying the scent of something sweet and clean…. It smelt like jasmine and cold air.

He sat up slowly in wonder.

The world around him shimmered with peace. It was so peaceful and quiet. It was the kind of silence that felt like it had no weight to it. His fingers dug into the cool grass, but there was no pain or no ache… there was just sensation.

He didn’t remember how he got here. His head felt… light and hazy. It was Like he was missing something important but couldn’t name what.

A roar echoed through the air and through his ears. There was running water somewhere. He turned to find the source of where it’s coming from.

A towering waterfall poured from a cliffside not far off, crashing into a wide pond below. The water sparkled like liquid moonlight, and was rippling outward in slow even waves. Danny rose to his feet. He was barefoot apparently. The ground beneath him was cool and damp and felt so real.

He walked toward the pond slowly. The waterfall’s mist kissed his skin like little snowflakes. He sat on the edge of the pond and was staring into the water and watching the ripples. They moved in gentle circular pulses. It was kinda like a heartbeat.

Like his core… He stared for a long time. Then—

“Welcome my little star.”

Danny’s body tensed. The voice was gentle, melodic, and was with a quiet warmth that curled into his ribs before he could stop it. He turned his head to the voice.

A woman stood behind him not too far off.

She was tall and regal, her silver robes flowing around her like moonlight spun into cloth. Her hair was long, dark, and glossy braided in elegant strands that shimmered with faint green light. Her eyes… Her eyes were the thing that got him. They were soft and so heartbreakingly kind. She looked at him like he mattered.

Danny blinked. “Do I… know you?”

She smiled gently. “No… not like this…. But I know you, Daniel.”

He hesitated. “Where am I?”

“You’re safe I promise,” she said. “You are somewhere your pain cannot reach you for now.”

Danny looked down at his hands. “I don’t feel… hurt.”

She stepped closer. “You do. You’ve just forgotten how badly when you are here.”

Danny looked at her, confusion pulling at his brows. “Why am I here?”

“Because I wanted to see you.” Her voice wavered slightly. “And because you needed to be seen.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“You’ve been through more than anyone should,” she said softly. “And no one’s been there to hold you through it. Not like how you needed.”

Danny swallowed. The words hit something deep and raw inside of him. But he shook his head. “I don’t… even know who you are.”

She knelt in front of him, and placed her hands on either side of his face. They were so warm and so gentle. Her thumbs brushed his cheeks, and Danny without meaning to… leaned into the kind touch.

“I’ve watched you grow,” she whispered. “Watched you laugh. Cry. Fight. Fade.”

His chest tightened. “Why?”

“Because I love you.”

Danny’s throat caught. His heart kicked like it was trying to escape. “But… you don’t even know me.”

Her eyes shimmered, not with power… but with grief. “That’s not true… and I am so very sorry.”

He stared, like really stared. Something about her mouth. Her eyes. Her hands. There was a familiarity forming in his chest. It was almost like a long-lost echo finally coming home.

“…Why are you apologizing?” he asked quietly.

“Because I should have been there.” Her voice trembled. “Because I never wanted you to be alone. Because he took you from me. Because I couldn’t stop it.”

Danny’s hands trembled. “Who…?” She didn’t answer him.

Instead, her form shimmered. The silver robes fell away. The ghostly glow dimmed. And suddenly, she looked very… human.

Her face was younger. Her hair still dark, but tied up in a messy bun. She wore a simple green dress. Her features were familiar in a way that shattered him.

Danny’s breath left him all at once. His eyes filled with tears before he could stop them. “Mama?” he choked out.

Her face crumpled, and she reached forward to pull him into her arms. Danny didn’t fight it nor did he want to. He collapsed into her chest sobbing, and his hands were gripping her dress like she’d vanish if he let go.

“I’m here baby,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

Danny curled into her lap with his chest heaving with silent cries, and her fingers were stroking his hair. He couldn’t form words. It was only that word… Mama.

He was with his mom again…

She rocked him gently, murmuring words in a language he didn’t know but still fully understood. And in her heart… her fury burned. Clockwork will pay for making her son suffer. For letting him forget he was so dearly loved.

But now… now she held her baby. And for now, she would not let go.

— - - —

The corridor reeked of scorched steel and ozone.

Batman moved first with his cape trailing behind him as the Justice League fanned out through the narrow, reinforced hallway. The walls were reinforced titanium or well they had been, before something had caved them inward like soft metal. The lights flickered red in uneven pulses. Ice crusted the corners and were blooming in sharp and unnatural growths across the floor and wall seams. Residual magic energy crackled faintly in the air.

This was the facility John had warned them about. Ghost Investigation Ward. They were completely off book and almost officially non-existent. The Watchtower had nothing but a name, and Constantine’s fragmented warnings to go on. Still even Bruce hadn’t expected this.

He tapped his cowl’s internal scanner. “Nothing in our systems matches this facility’s schematics.”

“They’re off the grid,” Constantine said from behind him with his voice low. “And if they’re hiding information about what they are doing this deep, they’ve got a reason.”

Zatanna moved beside them and was whispering protective wards under her breath. Her fingers trembled slightly.

They pushed on deeper into the base. Charred doors hung off their hinges. Machinery sparked. There were signs of a firefight or something worse.

They soon reached what to be seen as the containment wing.

The room opened wide. It was a huge steel chamber with blackened white tile and jagged streaks of frost slicing through the walls like claw marks.

The centerpiece was impossible to miss: a massive metal containment cell embedded into the ground, that was now torn wide open from the inside. The door hung askew and were warped outwards. Its interior was coated in frost and green glowing claw marks that raked across the blast doors.

Red glittery residue smeared the seals. Ghost warding symbols had been scrawled in chalk and scorched through with violent energy.

Batman stepped closer and was examining the door’s warping, and the pattern of the damage. “Whatever was inside… fought like hell to get out. And it looked liked it succeeded.”

Constantine crouched near a patch of shattered ice, fingers brushing the surface. He hissed quietly. “It’s still warm from use. You can feel the residual core energy. It had recently discharged.” He looked up at Batman grimly. “This ghost wasn’t escaping. It was surviving.”

Zatanna murmured an incantation and the chamber responded just barely. A thin echo of ectoplasmic energy shimmered across the walls before fading. “The signatures are unstable. And seemed to be wounded almost, but they were here.”

“Then this could’ve been it,” Batman muttered. “The King’s cell.”

A comm click sounded in his ear. Superman’s voice broke through and was sharper than usual.

“I found someone. They are still breathing. They seem to be fully human, I think. They’re also unconscious.”

Batman’s head snapped up. “Repeat. Civilian or staff?”

“Too young to be staff,” Clark said after a pause. “He’s just a kid.”

Constantine stood slowly, his face going pale. “A kid? In this place?”

“There vitals are unstable,” Superman continued. “Burns, bruising, wounds that need stitches, and dehydration. He’s not in good shape. I’m taking him to the Watchtower now… he won’t make it without treatment.”

“Go,” Batman ordered, already switching his attention back to the busted containment cell. “Send any scans to my line.”

The connection clicked out.

Martian Manhunter floated near the opposite wall, and was hovering over bodies in scorched lab coats. “These men are frozen mid motion. Their faces are locked in expressions of fear.”

“They died running,” Constantine said flatly.

Batman stepped into the cell. More red patches had fallen apart into shriveled petals on the floor, their power must have been spent. He crouched by the deepest ice burn against the back wall.

“Whatever was held here was in distress. These claw marks—” he traced a gloved hand over them— “they’re from the inside. Something was restrained that didn’t want to be.”

Constantine moved beside him his voice quieter. “This wasn’t research. This was just pure dissection. You don’t build a room like this unless you’re planning to take something apart.”

Batman stood again, his cowl lens narrowing. “The King was here.”

“Yeah,” Constantine muttered. “Or whatever’s left of him.”

Another crackle in the comms.

“He’s stable, but not conscious,” Superman said from somewhere high in the sky. “Medical team’s ready at the Watchtower. I’ll update you as soon as I get anything.”

Batman exhaled through his nose. The picture was coming together and it was worse than he’d thought.

The broken cell. The ghost tech scattered and half melted. The destroyed paper records. The frozen scientists. A living child that was barely hanging on. And no sign of the Ghost King except for the wreckage left behind. Bruce hopes that he had gotten out at least.

He turned to Constantine. “No digital files?”

“All gone. Either burned or stripped. These bastards went analog.”

Batman’s eyes returned to the claw marks. Ice. Ectoplasm. Wild power that was carved into steel. And still, no answers.

He tapped his communicator again. “Download everything left in this facility. Paper trails, samples, and even recovered tools. I want every surviving scientist brought in. If this is where the King was being held, we’re running out of time.”

Martian Manhunter’s voice was low. “And if that child… is connected?”

“We find out,” Batman said. “And fast.”

— - - —

White.… everything was too white.

The whiteness was blinding and endless. It was so sharp it pierced behind his eyelids even when they were closed. The sterile smell of antiseptic clung to the air. It always smelled cold and bitter and like something used to scrub away blood and silence his screams. Danny floated in and out of it conciseness. It was kinda nice to adrift on the edge of waking.

Everything hurt he realized.

Not in sharp bursts but in that slow grinding way that crept into your bones. His arms were lead. His legs might as well have been stone. There was glass in his chest he was sure of it, because every breath he took scraped with effort. His mouth was dry, and when he tried to swallow even his throat protested.

His fingers twitched. That was a big mistake. The pain flared through his hand like lightning. He gasped, or tried to and barely made a sound.

Then he remembered her.

The memory returned so vividly it almost knocked him out again. The waterfall. The still pond. Her arms around him. A voice like lullabies woven from starlight. Mama. That’s what he’d called her.

He remembered her holding him like he was something worth keeping. He wanted to go back to his mother in the dream. It had to be a dream right? He hoped it wasn’t…

His eyes cracked open with a painful blink. Light smeared across his vision like watercolors left in the rain. Everything swam and the brightness blurring the edges of what should be solid.

He didn’t know where he was.

A voice broke through the silence. It was low, gentle, reverent, and it was like a prayer said through broken glass.

“Hey… it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Danny tried to move just a little to turn toward the sound, but his body didn’t listen. His muscles trembled uselessly. His breathing hitched as panic started to creep in.

Then he saw him.

Someone sat at his bedside. A figure in black and deep blue. It was not typical GIW white that the agents would wear. There was also not a mask of cruelty, but a domino mask with soft and clearly wet eyes behind it.

His black hair was a mess. It was unruly in a way that screamed exhaustion and stress. He was shaking, his shoulders were hunched, like just being there was taking everything out of him.

Danny couldn’t speak. Couldn’t ask who he was or why he looked so… sad.

Then the man reached out with his gloved hand trembling, and brushed the back of his fingers against Danny’s cheek.

It was the gentlest thing Danny had felt in over a year. He leaned into it instinctively. He didn’t even think about it… his core pulled him toward the touch like a flower to sunlight.

His entire body sighed, or it would have if it had the strength. Something cracked inside him, just a little.

The man was crying.

Tears tracked silently down his face, and was catching at the edge of his mask. They fell like they didn’t even belong to him. Like they came from somewhere deeper.

Danny wanted to ask why. Why is a GIW agent crying over him? But the words wouldn’t come. His throat was sand, and his lungs didn’t obey him.

Still, he soaked it in… the warmth, the contact, and the nice voice that followed.

“I should’ve fought harder…”

Danny’s eyebrows twitched. He heard the words, but they made no sense.

“Should’ve gone against what they had said to us…”

The gloved hand shifted to stroke his hair and was brushing strands gently away from his face, just like his mom had done in that dream.

“I let them take you… I’m so sorry…”

Danny didn’t know what he meant. The words were foggy and blurred around the edges, like everything else in this too white world. But the emotion behind the that he felt. It was like a tremor against the edges of his broken core.

The man spoke to him like he was sacred. Like he mattered. No one had done that to him in so long.

Danny’s eyes slipped closed again. He didn’t want to, but his body gave him no choice. He was too tired and too weak. But if sleep meant falling back into the dream… back into warm arms by the waterfall… then maybe it wasn’t so bad.

His limbs relaxed. The touch still lingered. Fingers were still carding slowly through his hair, with a rhythm like a lullaby.

And just before the world slipped away again, he heard it.

It was a nickname that was spoken with a voice cracked by grief, and that was weighted with love.

“Sleep easy, Little Dipper.”

Danny didn’t know what it meant. But somehow, it made him feel safe.

Like someone out there still remembered who he was. And maybe just maybe he wasn’t alone anymore when he was in the GIW.

— - - — 

Chapter Text

The med bay was unusually quiet compared to the noise when they first brought the kid in.

Dim blue light glowed from recessed panels along the ceiling, and was reflecting off polished surfaces and casting long shadows across the sterile floors. Monitors clicked softly with the kids data. Diagnostic drones floated in and out of their stations, and was scanning the still form on the central bio bed.

The boy had been brought in by Superman nearly two hours ago. He was burned, severely dehydrated, unconscious, and barely breathing.

He hadn’t fully woken once.

A senior Watchtower medic Dr. Hoshino stood beside the primary console with her arms crossed. Her face was drawn tight in concentration as she read the vitals.

“Heart rate… 37 beats per minute. Core temperature 83.2. Neural activity…. erratic but stable,” she murmured, almost to herself. “He’s… alive. But something’s off. These readings don’t make sense if…..”

Nearby, Martian Manhunter hovered quietly with his eyes narrowed. He hadn’t spoken since they began the scans. He was still mentally connected to the Watchtower’s central AI systems and was quietly absorbing the data as it updated.

The scans were unlike anything he’d seen from a human patient. The boy’s systems weren’t crashing exactly. But something deeper was wrong, like the pieces didn’t quite fit together.

“He’s in a hypometabolic state,” Hoshino said frowning. “But not naturally. It’s like his body wants to shut itself down, but something’s still fighting to keep him here.”

“Possibly trauma induced stasis,” J’onn offered quietly. “Or something that is artificial.” He glanced at the faint shimmer just beneath the boy’s skin. “There is energy here… but not from this world…. Or from what I have been in contact with before.” He also thinks he should add this kid to suicidal watch if the kid wakes up how his aura feels right now.

Dr. Hoshino was already typing in a deeper bioscan. “We should have the DNA analysis by now.” With perfect timing the DNA machine beeped.

A holographic file flickered into view above the central table. Medical records auto populated with basic biochemistry, genetic markers, mitochondrial lineage And then the screen flashed.

DNA MATCH CONFIRMED

Subject: Daniel James Wayne. Biological Parent: Bruce Thomas Wayne. Genetic Match Probability: 99.98%

The room froze. This kid was the child of their biggest funder.  No one moved after what was announced. The drone near the ceiling bumped quietly into a wall before auto correcting.

Dr. Hoshino blinked. “That… can’t be right… why would he be there.” She reran the scan.

MATCH CONFIRMED.

J’onn’s expression darkened. He stepped forward and read the full analysis silently. Then with no change in his expression he turned and sent a silent ping to Batman’s private comm. It was coded red with priority override.

He didn’t have to wait long. The medbay doors hissed open with what felt like. less than a minute later.

But this time there was no dramatic entrance, it was just Batman. In full gear with his cowl still on, but without the theatrics. He moved like he had already known. Or like he was afraid he did.

Every head in the room turned.

Batman said nothing as he walked through the stunned medical staff and some of his fellow heroes who came to see who Superman brought in. His footsteps echoed sharply against the metal floor. He didn’t look at anyone. He didn’t ask questions.

He walked straight to the bed.

He stopped just beside it and was staring down at the boy’s bruised and motionless form. There were fresh IV lines in his arms. Bruises ran down the edges of his ribs. There were surgical scars barely beginning to close.

The monitor continued its slow beep… ba-beep… beep…

Bruce’s fists clenched at his sides. He read the screen. All of it. His breath caught as he read about the state the kid was in.

And for one long unbearable second Batman didn’t move. Then he turned to the room.

“Everyone but authorized medical League personnel: out.” His voice was low.

Dr. Hoshino looked up. “We’re still stabilizing him. With respect, we can’t just—”

“I said out.” The tone dropped like a hammer.

One of the League members Green lantern near the back stepped forward. “Wait—what’s going on? Who is he? Is he dangerous? Why is Batman—”

Batman turned. “I said out.” The way he said it didn’t leave room for argument.

People scrambled. No one wanted to test him twice.

Zatanna who had arrived late and hadn’t even spoken yet turned to J’onn as she walked past. “What the hell is happening?” she whispered.

J’onn didn’t answer. He simply glanced at the boy on the bed then at Batman with his expression unreadable.

Within moments, the room was cleared.

Only J’onn remained with some doctors, and they were silent and respectful at the far end of the medbay as they watched.

— - - —

Bruce turned back to the bed.

The boy’s face was pale and sickly. It looked hollowed out like something inside him had been scooped out and replaced with pain. He was not just injured, he was…. broken.

He reached out slowly, as if afraid the touch would break what little remained. Gloved fingers hovered over the boy’s temple, but he didn’t make contact.

He could hear the shallow breaths. He could see the tiny tremors.

His voice when it came was just a whisper, “…Danny.”

There was no response. Of course not. But the machines hummed, and the boy’s vitals steady but weak.

Bruce shut his eyes behind the cowl. Not in thought but in agony.

He had sent his son away for protection. He had believed at the time, that it was the safest choice for his son. That removing Danny from Gotham’s shadows and his personal enemies would give him a life free of masks and blood and danger.

But this? This wasn’t any type of protection.

This was failure.

And for the first time in years, the Batman felt something crack. He stepped forward to stand over the bed, and pressed one gloved hand gently to Danny’s shoulder.

“I’m here,” he whispered low and his voice was trembling. “And I’m not leaving you again.”

— - - —

Consciousness came to Danny in many tiny shards.

It was nothing like a steady return that was filled with clarity. It was just fragments. It was like shattered glass rising slowly through black water.

Then there was the light.

It was way too bright for Danny, and was too sterile. The overhead fluorescents buzzed faintly, and was burning behind his eyelids. He didn’t open his eyes…. Well it felt like he couldn’t. It hurt too much.

Now that he thought about it. His everything hurt.

His body felt like it wasn’t his. It was too heavy, too soft in places, and then too raw in others. He was numb and aching all at once, like nerves that had been yanked from the socket and was left to just hang there.

He didn’t know where he was. And for a long thick moment, Danny wasn’t even sure who he was.

His pulse kicked in his chest. He flinched barely. His body too weak to really move. His mind was scrambled and was latching onto whatever it could when he slowly opened his eyes.

White. There was too much of it.

White walls. White sheets. White light. White noise ringing in his ears. It crowded everything else around him. The scent of antiseptic was strong as well. It was the clean metal and cold air he got used to.

Please, not again….

His core throbbed and was muffled like a scream underwater. He tried to reach for it instinctively and found… nothing. It was just dull static. It was silence in the place where he used to burn.

His heart stuttered. Not again. Not them. He couldn’t do it again. He just wants the pain to stop…

Then— Footsteps.

His instincts coiled tighter and his breathing hitched. He didn’t move and closed his eyes in a hurry.

There was the faint scrape of a chair being pulled up beside the bed. It was a shift in air of somethings presence.

Someone sat next to him. He forced one eye open again. Everything was still blurred, but he tried so hard to focus.

His vision swam with pain sparking behind his lashes. But he saw shapes. It was a figure. They were large and very still…… but they were dark.

They were not white.

The gloves were black. The chestplate was matte black too. The cowl was shaped sharp, with pointed ears like a shadow carved out of night. The figure wasn’t looming over him. It was just sitting there and watching?

Danny blinked again, but slower. The figure didn’t move then either.

He didn’t know the shape. Didn’t know the mask. But he knew one thing for sure… it wasn’t white.

It was not the white of clean gloves digging into his wrists. Not the white coats hovering over him with cold smiles and sharp instruments. Not the white boots stomping as he screamed and thrashed and phased through chains to no avail.

Not the white that meant pain.

This was black. Black meant… Maybe. Maybe safer.

His cracked mind whispered that it could be better. Black blended into the dark. It didn’t sear the edges of his vision like bleach. It didn’t hurt to look at. It wasn’t loud either to look at.

Danny exhaled.

The figure didn’t speak. But it also didn’t touch him. It also didn’t leave him or take any notes.

Danny stared a second longer, and then his eyelids sank. They were too heavy, and it was still painful to keep them open.

He didn’t know who was sitting beside him. But they didn’t feel like the ones who wore white.

And that was enough for him at the moment. So he let himself fall back into the dark, hoping that maybe something had changed.

That maybe, just maybe someone else had come. And maybe… they’d stay with him for a little longer as he slept.

— - - —

The medbay door slid open with a soft hiss, and Dick stepped through as quietly as he could. There were no words or no greeting. It was just the hush of boots on tile, and the weight of grief tightening around his ribs.

He’d already cried his tears when he was in private. It was somewhere between the first comm alert and seeing his little brother’s name on his med report. But none of that prepared him for this.

Danny was laying in the sterile white bed and was curled slightly to one side beneath the blanket. He was so still. So quiet. There were bruises layered on top of bruises of yellows and deep purple and angry red.

There were needle marks in his arms. There were some that were fresh, and some that were faded. His skin was pale. A surgical scar ran under his ribs that looked like a clean cute, but was meant to be cruel. There were too many monitors, and way too many IVs. His chest rose and fell too shallow and way too slow.

It didn’t look like he was sleeping. It looked like he was surrendering. It broke Dick’s heart.

Bruce sat beside the bed unmoving.

His cape was gone, and his cowl was rested on the table beside him untouched. He wore the batsuit still, but the man inside it looked old and exhausted. It was like the grief had reached something under his armor and hollowed him out.

Dick didn’t say anything at first. He just eased into the chair on the other side of the bed and folded his hands into his lap, staring down at the IV line snaking from Danny’s wrist. It felt too clinical and cold. He hated it so much.

He tried to think of something light. Something easy to say. Instead his voice came out hoarse and rough.

“He always hated hospitals, you know.”

Bruce still didn’t move.

Dick swallowed and looked over at the boy lying between them. “He used to pretend to faint if Alfred even mentioned bloodwork. Would drop like a brick in the middle of the hallway.” A breathless huff. It was almost a laugh. “You remember that time he tried to fake a fever with the toaster?”

Still no answer. Dick looked down again.

“I don’t just miss the eight year old B,” he said softly. “I just miss him. This version too. The one we never got to meet.”

The words felt too heavy for the air around them. He waited for Bruce to say something. Anything. But nothing came.

Dick’s jaw clenched. “What if this version of him doesn’t come back?” he asked even quieter. “Or what if he doesn’t want to?”

That’s when Bruce shifted. It wasn’t much. It was just a slight turn of his body angling the barest bit toward Dick, but it was enough to see it.

Bruce’s shoulders were shaking. Not visibly or dramatically. But the tremble was there.

It hit Dick like a punch. He sat back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, and let the guilt claw up his throat like fire.

“I should’ve been there for him more,” he said, barely above a whisper. “When he first came to live with us, I was just—angry. I was angry at everything.”

He pressed a hand to his chest like he could smother the ache there. “I pushed him away when I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to hate him… I didn’t hate him at all. I just… I didn’t want to love someone else who could be taken away again.”

His eyes burned. He blinked fast to stop the water from falling.

“Jason was the one who really took to him. Jason was the one who made him laugh. Who let him ride on his shoulders and sneaked him cookies when Alfred said no. And me? I just kept my distance when I could. I was too scared of losing someone again, or somehow hurting him with my anger.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “But I never hated him. I never could. I just… didn’t know how to be his brother when I was still figuring out how to be myself.”

Danny shifted faintly in the bed. He was not waking up. It was just a twitch and a sigh. Dick went still. He leaned forward a little and was just watching.

Then he smiled…. barely.

“He looks so much like you,” he murmured to Bruce. “I used to joke he was your clone. But he was the softer and more willing to show his kindness version. But still a version of you.”

Still no response from Bruce. That was okay.

Dick reached out and laid his hand gently over Danny’s arm, and was very careful of the bruises. His fingers shook. But he steadied them.

He wouldn’t be angry in front of Danny. He wouldn’t let the kid, even in unconsciousness, think for a second that he was in trouble. That he was unwanted.

He wanted his little brother to feel safe. Even now. Especially now.

“You hear me, kid?” Dick said softly with his voice cracking just a little. “You’re still my brother. Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been gone. Doesn’t matter how old you are now. You’re still my family.”

He brushed a strand of hair back from Danny’s forehead.

“Come home to me, little star.”

And for the first time in a very long time, Bruce turned his head to look at Dick.

He didn’t say anything. But the look in his eyes said enough. They’d failed. But they weren’t going to fail again.

— - - —

The med bay felt like it was calmer. Even the machines had quieted to background murmurs of soft beeps. Dim light glowed against sterile walls, and was casting pale shadows across the floor.

Everyone was gone now. Even Dick had returned to the manor reluctantly, brokenhearted, and with a look in his eyes Bruce hadn’t seen since he told him they buried Jason.

It was just Bruce and his boy.

His boy who shouldn’t be here. His boy who shouldn’t have been hurt. His boy whose chest rose in tiny shallow breaths that would’ve gone unnoticed if Bruce weren’t watching with the intensity of someone who had nothing left to lose.

Bruce sat alone at the side of the medical bed, still in the armored suit with his hands braced against his knees like he might crumble without the tension holding him upright.

He looked down. Daniel James Wayne. His son. His first born baby boy.

His skin was pale, his lips split, and there were bruises climbing like vines up his neck and collarbone. There were burns in patterns that screamed of restraint and voltage. Bruce knew the look of torture. This was worse. This was sustained, surgical, and intentional.

He remembered the day he let him go.

Danny had been ten years old. A little small for his age. All messy black hair and nervous smiles. He’d clung to Bruce’s leg at the airport, little hands tight behind his waist.

“I’ll be good for Uncle Jack,” he’d whispered. “Will you write me?”

Bruce hadn’t sent any.

He’d told himself it was for Danny’s own good. That letters just upset him. That maybe it would be easier for the boy to settle into his new life if he didn’t feel torn between two worlds. Or at least that’s what the Fentons had said as much in his weekly check ups.

So Bruce had made a decision. A hard one. He had chosen distance, and that meant he hadn’t protected him.

“I thought I was doing what was best,” Bruce said now, voice barely above a whisper. It sounded foreign in his own throat. “I thought… if I kept you away, you’d be safe. That I was the danger. But I didn’t protect you. I delivered you to monsters instead.”

He pressed both palms against his face like he could shove the memory back into the dark. Like he could pretend this wasn’t real. The his son wasn’t broken, dissected, and discarded by people who thought he wasn’t worth saving.

But he couldn’t escape it, so he stood and walked to the side of the bed.

He sank into the chair that was closer beside the bed like gravity had tripled. His hands hovered for a moment… he was scared to touch, and scared to shatter the stillness… but finally they moved.

He reached out gently, and cupped the back of Danny’s head like it was something sacred. His fingers threaded into tangled hair. The boy didn’t wake. But his head tilted ever so slightly into the touch.

That was all it took. Bruce exhaled. It was a sound stuck somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

And then he broke.

His forehead lowered to the mattress, pressed against his son’s arm. One hand tangled in Danny’s hair, the other curled around the boy’s small bandaged hand. His shoulders were hunched forward, and his body curving over Danny’s like a shield.

And Bruce started to sob. It was not the sound of Batman. It was not the growl of Gotham’s shadow. But the sound of a father who had failed his son. It was the sound of every year lost, and every letter never sent.

Every moment he had chosen silence over love, and fear over closeness.

“I’m so sorry, Danny,” he whispered into the sheets. “I’m here now. I’m here. You’re safe. You’re safe. I promise. I promise…”

He squeezed Danny’s hand. The boy didn’t squeeze back.

Bruce reached for his comm and his voice was barely steady enough to trigger the system. “Activate medical bay lockdown. Authorization: Batman.”

The bay doors slid shut with a quiet hiss and a final click that echoed like a vow. No one else would enter tonight. No one would disturb them, at least not until Bruce could pull himself together.

Not until he could be more than just the man who had failed. He would be here now. Every second. Every breath. Every beat. Even if his son never woke again. He bowed his head again over the broken body of his boy. His own child.

The only sound left in the room was the hum of the machines. And the low ragged breathing of a father who was holding on to his son.

— - - — 

Chapter Text

Tim never stopped watching.

That was the first thing he told himself when he caught Bruce and Dick sneaking off at odd hours, and how they were moving at home with that practiced stealth that only the Bat family seemed to master on patrol.

It wasn’t exactly like he didn’t notice before. Bruce was always working on something, and Dick was always on edge. But lately? There was an almost palpable tension in the air. Something behind the scenes that Tim hadn’t been invited into.

And Tim wasn’t about to be left in the dark.

He had learned early on that the title “greatest detective” wasn’t just a flashy nickname. It was a lifestyle. It was watching the cracks in people’s movements, catching the silences louder than shouts, and it was piecing together the fragments no one else bothered to see.

So of course when Bruce and Dick began their secretive side missions, Tim made it his personal project to find out what was going on.

Nothing was happening in plain sight, but Tim had a knack for noticing patterns that didn’t belong. From strange phone calls, to hushed conversations that cut off when he entered the room, and when the shadows are moving too quickly down halls he’d just walked through. Every time he tried to catch them in the act, Bruce and Dick slipped away just in time.

So when the others went low, Tim went lower.

He started combing through the Bat computer’s public archives of files Bruce probably didn’t expect Tim to touch. It was a risky game, but Tim was meticulous and he knew Bruce better than most. What he found first was a curiosity of a detailed info profiler. It was a dossier with no photo but only a name of one Daniel Fenton.

The name didn’t ring a bell at first, so Tim cross checked school records. There was a Danny Fenton listed a grade below him that matches the profile. Tim scanned pages on Danny’s school life, his commendations for bravery, and the reports on a student who had apparently saved an endangered species of gorilla during a field trip.

There were mention of ghosts and some supernatural tours that he sometimes helped with during Halloween. Which of course, Tim dismissed entirely.

What did catch his eye was how unusually detailed the file was. It had information no civilian report should have. There was psychological evaluations, medical records, and even some extracurricular activities marked with an odd symbol he didn’t recognize. None of it explained why such an extensive dossier existed on a kid who, by all accounts was just an ordinary student on the bat computer.

Curiosity quickly morphed into obsession for Tim.

Next, Tim hacked into the deeper layers of the Bat computer’s databases. It was not the first time he’d pushed past limits, but he had to know why Bruce and Dick were so cagey about this kid. His searches turned up an address too. The kid was from a place called Amity Park.

Amity Park.

The name sounded like something out of a horror story. Tim had never been, but it was known as “the most haunted town in America.” Ghost sightings, strange disappearances, and myths of weird government experiments near by. It was all urban legends, but enough for the media to keep it blacklisted.

That’s where things started getting weird.

When Tim tried searching for anything about Amity Park outside the Bat computer’s restricted access the information dried up completely. It was like the Government enforced a media blackout of just the town.

The blackout was on everything. There was no news, no official records, and even no social media posts past a certain date. Even satellite scans were fuzzy in certain areas. Tim’s gut tightened with confusion and frustration.

There was no was this wasn’t just a quiet town with bad PR.

He dove back into the Bat computer servers, and was hacking deeper into the server to locate what allowed it to bypass the blackout. Somewhere in the core files was something blocking outside access. It was a locked file buried so deep that only the highest security clearance could get through it.

After several hours that was stretching well past midnight, Tim finally cracked the encryption. The file was titled: Danny Wayne…. not Fenton, even if it was listen under the name D Fenton.

Inside the file was a profile almost identical to Daniel Fenton’s, but with far more sensitive information. Tim frowned at the official photo attached and froze. It was the same kid. The exact same face of the photos they have hanging up in the manor.

Danny Wayne. Bruce Wayne’s firstborn son.

A cold chill ran down Tim’s spine. Suddenly, everything made sense. The secretive missions. The panic in Bruce’s voice when he tried to cover things up. The way Dick had looked so broken the last time Tim saw him near the medical bay.

But what shocked Tim the most wasn’t that Danny Wayne existed or that he was hidden away under a different name. It was the next part of the file.

A red emblem sat stamped next to the name. It was the symbol of the League of Assassins. And beneath it was a chilling statement:

“Target: Daniel Wayne. Capture and drain blood supply. High priority kill order. Mission objective: Terminate threat and disable legacy.”

Tim’s breath caught. Why the League? Why would they want to kill Bruce Wayne’s son? And why hide Danny under the Fenton name?

He scrolled through the reports linked to the file, piecing together what little they said. The League had been after Danny for years, and was hunting him like a rabbit.

Tim felt his fists clench. If the League found out Danny was living under a different name Bruce probably would have lost it, and maybe he would’ve fought harder to protect him. But why the secrecy? Was Bruce hiding Danny to keep him safe from the League or from his own family?

Tim couldn’t shake the feeling that Danny was caught in the crossfire of something bigger than he could ever think of.

Still he was confused. Tim leaned back in his chair in thought. The more he uncovered the more his questions grew. Why was the knowledge of Danny kept away from Bruce until he was eight years old? Did Bruce ever try to train him? Did he ever prepare Danny for the dark legacy he’d inherited by just being born?

The file further down hinted at some arrangement… it seemed almost like a will that was a request from Danny’s biological mother to keep him away from Bruce’s double life. But details were very vague. Tim remembered the last conversation with Bruce when he’d asked about Danny.

Bruce had looked away almost ashamed and said, “No. I never told him about our night life. She never wanted him to know and I respected it.”

Tim swallowed the knot in his throat. The thought of Danny being kept away in the dark, and with so little support… it hurt him more than he wanted to admit.

Suddenly, a knock on his door startled him as the door was opened. He didn’t closed the file in time.

“Drake, where’s Grayson?” Damian’s voice was cold and clipped like always.

Tim turned to him with his heart still racing from the discovery. Damian stepped inside, eyes narrowing as they landed on the open laptop.

“What are you doing with a picture of the Defect Heir?” Damian’s voice was sharp.

Tim sighed. “You need to get over being Bruce’s only blood son.”

Damian’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing as Tim motioned to the screen.

Damian’s eyes narrowed into slits as he stared to read. “Tt. I don’t recall asking for your opinion, Drake.”

Tim rolled his eyes, swiveling his laptop so Damian could see the paused file better. “Yeah, well, maybe it’s time you got one. Look.”

Damian stalked forward like a storm in miniature, his cape fluttering behind him as he stopped beside the desk. His gaze zeroed in on the screen. There was a long silence between them.

“…This is Father’s private server,” he said slowly. “You hacked into it.”

“Yeah, I did.” Tim leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed. “Because Bruce and Dick are hiding something. And now I know what it is.”

Damian’s face curled in disgust. “Daniel Wayne.”

“Did the league ever talk about him, when you were still living there?”

Damian scoffed. “Of course. Grandfather mentioned him a couple times when I was still in the League. ‘The shameful bloodline mistake.’ That’s what he called him. Grandfather said that Father had a child he cast aside like a coward. One not worthy of the Demon’s legacy.”

Tim stared. “So you hate him… because Ra’s did?”

“I hate him for more reasons then just that Drake,” Damian said coldly, “because he is weak. Because Father kept him hidden like some fragile glass heir no one could touch. Because the first time I even hear of a sibling by blood, I find out he’s not trained, not prepared, and not even that well known amongst the elites.”

Tim’s brows knit. “That’s not Danny’s fault.” Tim always got frustrated when Damian showed disgust towards Danny.

“Then whose is it?” Damian hissed. “Father’s? The weaklings mother’s? The point is he is a Wayne in name only. He did not earn any type of title.”

Tim didn’t respond immediately. He turned back to the laptop with his eyes flicking across the encrypted logs, and some were still processing. “Maybe you’re right,” he said quietly. “But maybe none of that actually matters, and maybe it never did because he is still Bruce’s son… and our brother.”

Damian folded his arms and tilted his head wanting to move pass this conversation. “What did you find?”

Tim sighed and gestured to the first file. “I started with this, a profile under the name Daniel Fenton. But it didn’t make sense why Bruce had this. It was way too detailed for a random civilian. There are School records, town demographics, and even government redactions. It was like someone was watching him very, very closely.”

“Fenton,” Damian echoed. “That is his alias?”

“Yeah. He’s been going by that name since he moved out. The system flagged his location in Amity Park.”

Damian scrunched his nose in thought. “I have never heard of a place called that before. Is there anything that is wrong about that place?”

Tim nodded. “Oh you know just a full blown government blackout. They completely did a media freeze. I tried pulling information from the public web but got nothing. Every outlet’s has been scrubbed clean. But the Batcomputer has data… just even then it’s only barely.”

He clicked a few keys and scrolled. “This file was deep in Bruce’s encrypted archives. It finally gave me access to a photo. That’s when I realized Daniel Fenton is Danny Wayne.”

Damian leaned closer with his scowl deepening in thought. “What else?”

“There’s a target on his back,” Tim said. “The League of Assassins has a high priority kill order out for Danny Wayne. But not for Danny Fenton. They want Danny Wayne. I don’t think they even knew he has been living under another name.”

Damian’s frown faltered, just slightly.

“Why?” he asked after a beat. “Why would they want him dead? He’s not in the field. He’s no threat to anyone.”

“That’s what I thought too. The file says something about ‘bloodline threat’ and ‘legacy disruption.’” Tim tapped the screen. “I think the League sees Danny as a potential risk to Ra’s al Ghul’s long term succession plans.”

“They see me as the heir,” Damian growled.

“And maybe they think Danny could have changed that.”

Damian turned away and started pacing the room like a cornered wolf. “Why would drain his blood. They said so, didn’t they?”

Tim nodded grimly. “To study it maybe, or there are worse reasons. Maybe there’s something about Danny. Maybe his genes, his potential, or maybe his bloodline that they want to use. Or to destroy.”

Damian was quiet with his fists clenched. His voice dropped.

“Father knew.”

Tim glanced up.

“He’s known for weeks. That’s why he and Grayson have been vanishing.”

“Yeah,” Tim said softly. “I figured it out when I saw this.”

He clicked again pulling up the medical tab in the profile. A new file had been added to the Bat server two days ago. It was marked: Justice League Medical Bay Wayne, Daniel J. Tim hasn’t looked at this one yet.

Damian stepped closer, and was watching as the scan loaded.

The screen lit up with vital statistics. Words flooded the display: Low temperature. Critically slow heart rate. Full body trauma. Evidence of surgical invasion. Suspected organ damage. Neural stress. Scar tissue formation. Malnutrition. Severe nerve damage. Core temperature degradation.

Tim’s face turned pale. “God…”

Damian didn’t speak. He just stared at the screen. Then he saw it. It was a picture that was taken from the observation feed.

There was Danny.

He was unconscious on the medical bed. His skin was pale as moonlight. IVs were in both of his arms. Surgical scars marked his torso like violent brushstrokes. His chest barely moved. His face was too thin. His body looked half frozen.

Tim’s throat worked uselessly. “That’s why Bruce and Dick have been gone. He’s in the Watchtower receiving medical treatment. They brought him there.”

Damian didn’t even blink.

“I thought he was kept away to be safe from our world,” Tim murmured. “That they sent him to live a normal life because he wasn’t like us. But look at this. This isn’t safety… He was been suffering.”

Damian finally moved and stepping back, with his arms at his sides trembling slightly.

“I was told,” he said with his voice cold and quiet, “that I would be the one Father trained. That I was the heir because I was meant to be. That the other boy, the quiet one and the civilian, was too soft to do what must be done.”

He looked away. “But… even I was never hurt like that.”

There was a long silence between them.

Then Tim said, carefully, “You hate him.”

“I still do,” Damian whispered. “I do hate him. I hate the idea of him. He was a brother I never knew, but he was who lived in Father’s shadow first, and he was too weak to continue to live with Father..”

Tim just looked back at the screen. “…But no one deserves this, no matter what they could have done.” And now Tim is ready to fight whoever did this to his younger brother.

Chapter Text

The Watchtower’s medical bay was quiet, well too quiet for the amount of panic that has been following Danny’s medical treatments for the past two months.

Most patients didn’t stay long enough to notice the way the lights dimmed automatically every six hours or how the cooling system hummed like a heartbeat through the floor panels. But Room 3B had been occupied for over two months now, and the boy inside still hadn’t spoken a single word.

Dr. Hoshino stood at the foot of the bed with a tablet clutched in both of her hands, and her eyes drifting from screen to subject and back again.

Daniel Wayne.

Age: 16.

Legal status: protected minor.

Medical status: Verbally unresponsive.

The kids core body temperature remained dangerously low, and was still fluctuating somewhere between 82–85°F despite all external efforts to warm him up. His heartbeat was slow but steady, which was a good thing.

His brain activity showed consistent even if is faint, and he was responses to environmental stimuli— the monitor started to beep with live brain waves. He was conscious now… she was sure of it now—but he still hadn’t spoken, he hadn’t moved yet, and he hadn’t even opened his eyes for more than a few seconds.

Surgical scars still lined his sides, his back, and the underside of his ribs. They were clean cuts that were clearly clinical. Some faded though, but some still looked so fresh.

Every scan showed damage to organs that should’ve been fatal (his liver, lungs, kidneys) yet somehow, the boy kept stabilizing himself enough to start his regenerating.

At first, she’d wondered if it was some undisclosed meta gene. But there was something off about the energy he gave off. It hummed differently beneath the skin, and it was threaded into every nerve like a foreign current.

Every attempt at using traditional surgical tools had failed. Stitches they had used had melted. Clamps dissolved into goo. Even high grade regenerative foam simply fizzled away on contact. In the end, they’d resorted to equipment meant for alien biology and volatile metas… even then it was barely enough.

Still somehow the kid survived. Only God knew how.

They had decided to kept him in a controlled medical coma for most of it, just to give his body a chance to rest—to heal. And while he was improving, it was too slow. But it was understandable because his body could only focus on healing so much at one time…

Now, his mind stirred beneath the surface. It must still not be enough to speak, or not enough to look her in the eye. But it was enough to show that he was aware of things around him even if he didn’t have a full understanding yet.

She exhaled and tapped the comm. “Dr. Hoshino to Martian Manhunter.”

A moment of static. Then his calm voice: “Yes?”

“We need someone who can reach him gently… someone who can be a friend without making him speak and to see if there is anything he knows that can help us heal him.”

Another pause. Then, “I’m on my way.”

She looked at the fragile boy again. His face was still, his body bruised, but his fingers twitched once. And that gave the doctor hope that this kid is still fighting to keep going.

— - - —

J’onn stood behind the glass of the medical observation window with his arms folded loosely and with his eyes soft. The boy, Daniel Wayne, was laying unmoving in the center of the bed, and was surrounded by a quiet storm of machines.

He’d studied hundreds of minds in his lifetime. Angry ones. Broken ones. Ones filled with guilt and grief and noise. But this one—this boy’s mind—was something much different.

The initial feeling John got was fragile and thin. The boys mind was walled up so tight it barely flickered. It was almost like a candle under glass gasping for air surrounded by water. It also felt like the kid had just had given up in understanding what was happening around him and was just disconnected.

J’onn’s brows drew together. It wasn’t just the kids physical trauma. This was a type of self suppression. The kind of instinctual defense built by someone who had been forced to survive in silence. There were no clear thoughts in Danny’s outer mind, and there was only vague pulses of emotion of fear, exhaustion, ache, and above all else…

Loneliness.

J’onn knew that feeling all too well. Loneliness was not just the absence of people. It was the absence of being understood, and it was the kind of hollow ache that came from speaking and not being heard, and from reaching and finding no one reaching back.

It could unravel a person from the inside out, piece by piece, until even their thoughts curled in on themselves for protection. He had felt it after Mars fell, and when the silence was his only company for years. It was when the grief of being the last left him emotionally fractured.

Seeing it now in a child… this fragile echo of his own pain sealed behind instinct and fear…. was like staring at a mirror fogged with frost. J’onn didn’t need to dig into Danny’s mind to understand the weight he carried. The boy had buried himself so deeply, even his own thoughts had gone quiet, just like his did once.

He glanced down at the tablet again and was rereading the medical logs: surgical trauma, organ stress, scarring consistent with systemic experimentation. There were notes from Dr. Hoshino about persistent startle reflexes, unexplained aversions to color, and silent terror in response to voices too loud or rooms too bright.

And now the boy was awake. Well he was not alert and he was still not verbally responsive, but he was still awake in the way that mattered.

J’onn exhaled slowly. He could forcefully push himself into the boy’s thoughts. He had been given clearance. The League Doctors had even asked him to.

But he didn’t like it, and he knew others that would agree with him on this… especially a certain worried father. Yet he wants to help the boy… even if it’s just being able to communicate with someone else other than his thoughts until his physical voice healed.

This child had been poked and prodded enough for his human life. What kind of peace could grow if even his mind wasn’t his own?

No. He wouldn’t dig into the mind of the human child.

J’onn tapped the side panel beside the glass and keyed in for privacy. A quiet chime sounded overhead. The medbay lights dimmed slightly, and the cameras powered down.

He entered the room almost without any sound.

Inside, the sterile air clung to his shoulders like static. Danny didn’t move at first. He was curled slightly on his side with his arms drawn in tight, and with one of his hands twitching every so often under the edge of the blanket. He was so small, even for his age— he was thinner  than he should’ve been, and it was the kind of thin that wasn’t natural.

His skin looked nearly translucent in the light with dark circles bruised under his lashes.

As J’onn stepped closer, the boy’s body tensed. His shoulders drew in tighter. His heart rate, subtle as it was spiked just enough to register on the machine.

J’onn stopped several feet from the bed. Softly, he spoke aloud, careful not to startle the poor boy. “You are safe here. I will not harm you.”

He waited and he watched the trembling settle just slightly. “My name is J’onn. And I’m not a doctor nor am I not here to run any tests on you. I came to sit with you, if that’s alright.”

There was a faint shift in Danny that was barely noticeable.

“May I stay?”

Still no words or any movement. But the tightness in the boy’s chest relaxed, if only by a thread. That was enough for J’onn.

J’onn crossed the room and took the chair near the side of the bed. He sat slowly with his hands resting open in his lap.

He didn’t try to press into Danny’s mind yet.

Instead, he simply spoke with quiet warmth and with gentleness about the station, about the Earth below, and about stars and moons and how Saturn’s rings hum in frequencies only Martians can hear.

And as he talked, he felt something subtle in the boy’s mind reach back. It was not a voice or any words. But it was the emotion of curiosity. It was a glimmer of interest beneath the boys exhaustion.

He likes space J’onn realized as he continued. He let his voice lift just slightly with awe as he described asteroid fields and gravity currents and solar winds. He told stories, not as a hero or a telepath, but as a visitor from far away.

And when he spoke of home—his lost planet, its soft red sands and blue-tinged sky—he felt something in Danny’s emotions ache in response.

He didn’t ask about the scars. He didn’t ask why Danny flinched at certain shadows or why the doctors made his pulse spike.

But he saw it, and he understood.

Eventually, he spoke directly into the boy’s mind. Still just as gently. “I won’t go where I’m not invited. But if it becomes too loud in there, you can speak here. Just to me. No one else will hear us.”

For a second, he felt something flicker. It was a burst of shy and startled energy. It was not fear. Danny was just… surprised. It also seemed that Danny has woken up more the more he spoke to the boy, and it seemed he was really trying to hear what J’onn was saying.

J’onn waited. And after a long pause there was a single faint thought of emotion that floated back to him. It was very quiet and hesitant. It looked like Danny was able to talk through more than just emotion.

“You’re real?”

J’onn smiled softly with his eyes still warm. He leaned forward just a bit and answered aloud:

“I am very real Little one, and I am very glad to meet you.”

And for the first time in months, the boy let himself believe it.

J’onn let them sit in silence for a little bit to let Danny figure out his thoughts at the moment. The hum of the medical machines was quiet white noise in the background, and it was almost soothing in the stillness.

J’onn sat calmly at Danny’s bedside, fingers lightly laced in his lap, gaze gentle as he observed the faint, flickering signals of the boy’s mind begin to shift.

There you are, J’onn thought warmly.

He leaned in slightly, not physically but mentally, and he let his presence press against the edges of Danny’s consciousness like sunlight against a closed curtain.

“Daniel,” he said silently in the mind link, his voice in the mind as smooth and kind as it had been aloud. “I’m here again, if you’d like to talk this way. It’s quieter and safer. I won’t go further than you want me to.”

There was a moment of silence. Then—a flutter or a small ripple. And then there was a faint voice that raw and unsure but reaching.

“…Hi.”

J’onn smiled. He didn’t push, he just opened the channel wider for a quiet space between minds.

“Hi.”

Danny’s thoughts grew clearer and sharper now that the connection was fully allowed. A warmth spread through the link in not just thought, but in relief.

“It’s not loud in here,” Danny thought. “Not like… before.”

J’onn felt something clench faintly in the back of his own mind.

“That’s good,” J’onn answered gently. “Then maybe we can talk. Or just think. Either way is fine with me.”

Danny hesitated. Then with faint curiosity, “You’re not like the others.”

“No,” J’onn said truthfully. “I’m not. I’m… not from here.”

That caught the boys attention. J’onn felt the sudden spike in Danny’s awareness, and the brief mental lurch like a chair tipping back.

“…What?”

“I don’t think you were understanding me before so I will repeat what I have said. I am from Mars. I lived there long ago. I travel among the stars until I reached earth.”

There was a beat of silence. And then—

“WAIT—”

It hit like a psychic shout. It was not fear like he was used to, but it was In absolute awe.

Danny’s energy burst in J’onn’s mind, but he was still too weak to move physically, but suddenly so emotionally bright that it made J’onn blink.

“You’re from SPACE?! Like—real space?! Actual Mars? Did you live in domes? Do you float? Is your blood green? Is that rude to ask? OH MY GOSH YOUR SKIN IS GREEN??”

The excitement was so overwhelming and so pure, that J’onn couldn’t help it. He laughed aloud, but it was soft and he was surprised.

Danny startled at the sound and mentally shrank a little.

“Sorry. Was that too much? I didn’t mean—”

“No,” J’onn said warmly, still smiling. “It’s just… very refreshing. No one’s asked me that with so much enthusiasm about my home in a long long time.”

Danny was quiet for a second then a small almost shy thought reached out again.

“…Can you tell me more? Please? About space. Stars. Planets. Galaxies. Nebulae….. Everything.”

“Of course young one.” So J’onn began.

He described the Martian sky. The twilight blue streaked with gold, how the twin moons glided in silence, and how the ground sang with psionic hums during the dust tides.

He spoke of sailing through asteroid fields in League transports, of seeing Saturn’s rings curve like silver ribbons in the dark, and of a comet that left trails of crystal behind like smoke.

Danny clung to every word like they were his lifelines. His tired broken little mind didn’t need to understand all of it… he just needed the child like wonder. It was truly something beautiful. It was something that felt big and distant and untouched by pain.

His eyes fluttered closed, and a small, contented pulse echoed down the link. “Wish I could see it.”

J’onn paused… then reached forward, slowly and carefully in the psychic space, like offering a hand across water.

“Then let me show you.” And gently—so gently—J’onn projected a single memory into the hurt mind.

It was not too overwhelming, it was just filled with light and awe.

In Danny’s mind the white room vanished. The machines, the pain, and the cold all fell away.

And in its place was… A sky unlike anything he had ever seen.

Mars painted in deep violet and sun washed amber. Twin moons hung low on the horizon like pearls. J’onn’s memory took him drifting just above the surface. There was no pain, no gravity, there was just floating. Miles of red dust dunes stretching like waves. The air shimmered with psychic currents, and stars blinked slowly above.

Danny gasped aloud without realizing. In the psychic space, his voice came out as a whisper. “…It’s beautiful.”

“It was my favorite place as a child,” J’onn said softly. “I used to float there when I couldn’t sleep.”

Danny reached out with a thought like a fingertip brushing glass. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

And for the first time in a long time—maybe in years—Danny felt something inside him unclench. The fear didn’t leave, and his pain was still there. But it was quieter. Quieter than it had been in a long time.

And J’onn just stayed there with him, letting him float under alien skies until the boy’s thoughts were beginning to dim again.

J’onn stayed still and quiet beside the bed. He was simply listening to the soft mental pulses that flickered in and out of clarity. Danny’s mind, even in near sleep, hummed with quiet static. It was like the child was trying to stay awake through sheer force of will, and was too scared to let go.

Then, a whisper that was trailing the edges of exhaustion. “Why is everything here so white?”

J’onn’s brow furrowed slightly. The words weren’t sharp or frantic, but they carried something deeply rooted. It felt like a curl of fear, that was cold and instinctive, and was rising behind the thought like steam from a cracked floorboard.

He let the silence settle for a moment before gently, carefully asking, “Does white make you afraid, Daniel?”

There was hesitation. Then, a tiny thought… well it was more of a memory, shivered into the link.White coats. White lights. White gloves. Pain. Those things kept replaying in Danny’s mind.

Another pause happened between them. Then almost inaudible, “I don’t want to be in the white anymore.”

J’onn’s chest tightened with something deep and quiet. Not the pain of battle. Not rage. It was something softer and something older. It was that ancient sorrow he carried every time he found another wounded child in a world that didn’t deserve them.

He turned his head slightly toward the medbay’s central AI panel and spoke aloud with his voice as low and calm as ever, “Dim the lights to 40%. Change ceiling color to… blue. Sky blue and make it cloudless.”

A brief hum of compliance passed through the room, and the harsh white lights above faded into a cool soothing blue. The ceiling above Danny’s bed no longer resembled a sterile lab but a pale peaceful morning…. Minus the white walls around them….

J’onn felt the change at once and Danny’s tension eased. And then like a mental exhale was a whisper of thanks drifted into his mind, “Thank you….”

J’onn smiled faintly and was raising his hand above Danny’s brow not to touch, but just letting the air ripple softly with his presence.

“You’re welcome, little one.”

Danny’s thoughts slowed again, and his mind began folding into something quiet and fragile. But J’onn stayed alert. He was starting to reach not deeper in Danny’s mind, but around with his mind. Looking not for answers, but for any patterns.

What he found wasn’t what he expected.

The boy’s consciousness was like a locked garden with walls grown high and thick with instinct, and was built not by design but by necessity. There were no memories laid bare. No screams or vivid pain carved into open thought. Just layers of containment that was reinforced from within.

It was just a boy who had learned through all his pain to wall himself in.

His mind has learned retreat, J’onn thought quietly. It isn’t hiding from me. It’s hiding from the world.

Danny’s psychic energy was fractured. Not shattered into chaos, but delicately broken like a stained glass window with half the lead stripped out. With the pieces holding together only because they didn’t know how to fall apart.

He didn’t push past the image… instead he whispered along the mental thread, “You are safe now, Daniel. I will not dig into your mind. When you are ready, I will still be here if you want to talk.”

A soft pause again.Then a small sleepy thought, “You’re kind…. I like you…. I hope you don’t disappear too.”

J’onn let out a slow breath, and was touched more deeply than he’d expected. He had heard many things in many minds over the centuries. But rarely something as tender and quite as quietly longing as that.

“I will not disappear on you… nor will the others. I promise.”

Danny tried to stay awake after that. J’onn could feel it. His thoughts looped with small sparks of curiosity, and tiny attempts at keeping the connection open. But his strength was nearly gone, and his body was still too worn to carry him further.

Still, a few thoughts eked their way out in soft pulses, “I want to go to space one day. Real space.”

J’onn leaned in slightly, “Maybe one day, little one. Sleep now so you may rest.”

Danny’s breath began to even out. His heartbeat began to slow but it was still stable . His hands that once was curled tight with tension relaxed, yet the boys body was still scared.

And so J’onn did what he hadn’t done in decades. He sang.

It was low and soft tune. It was a lullaby in ancient Martian and was a melody made for sleeping children in gravity less cradles beneath red skies. A sound made of memory and peace and planets long gone.

The song settled over Danny like starlight. And sleep took him gently. J’onn stayed with him a moment longer, watching the rise and fall of the boy’s chest.

Then silently, he stood. The room remained blue above them. He stepped outside the medbay doors and paused, just long enough to nod at Dr. Hoshino through the glass.

“Tell Batman,” he said quietly, “the child fears white…  Deeply.”

Dr. Hoshino blinked. “Does he associate it with the lab pro haps?”

“I believe he associates it with pain. With captivity. I recommend relocating him somewhere warmer and darker.”

“I’ll log it,” she said, already making notes. “He’s healing physically very well.. but I’m starting to worry about his mental healing.”

J’onn nodded. “As long as he dreams of happy thoughts among the stars he enjoys… I believe he will start to show improvement.”

And with that, the Martian turned and walked down the corridor leaving the white and blue light behind. He has a good idea where the child could be moved to heal better. And with a plus there will be no white insight.

— - - — 

Chapter Text

The air shimmered, like candlelight reflected on water. This wasn’t the Ghost Zone, nor this wasn’t the mortal world either. It was the place between. It was known as the dream space, where time thinned and minds touched at the edges between life.

Pandora stepped through a broken arch of glowing stone with her cloak dragging behind her like smoke. She did not walk so much as glide, with her feet barely making contact with the shifting ground. Her eyes burned a bright gold. Her hands were tight fists at her sides, and her jaw was clenched.

She was angry.

No—she was beyond angry. Her fury was something no one would ever want to come into contact with.

She had followed her son’s mind as far as she could. Ever since he’d been taken from her, ever since the GIW dragged him away, she had been searching for cracks in the veil and for any way in. This dream space was the first thread of connection she’d been able to reach.

And he wasn’t even here.

Of course he wasn’t. He was sleeping too deeply in a medical coma. He was too broken. And he was still healing. She could feel his pain that was muted but seemed to be endless, like a humming cord tied to her spine.

But he was here.

Clockwork stood at the center of the dream. Time twisted around his shoulders like a worn scarf. His form flickered between child, old man, and middle age. His eyes were calm. They were always too calm.

Pandora’s lip curled. “You.”

Clockwork looked up and was unsurprised at her visit. “Pandora.”

She moved forward with barely restrained fury. Her boots struck the ground now with sharp and loud blows. “You let him suffer.”

He didn’t flinch. “It was necessary.”

The words hit her like cold water. She stopped, and she was trembling. “Necessary?”

She took another step. The air around her rippled with heat. “Do you know what they did to him?”

Clockwork’s hands folded neatly behind his back. “Yes.”

“They broke his bones,” she spat. “They split him open. They silenced his voice and tied his limbs. They stripped him of his own name.”

Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. “They treated him like a creature. Like a weapon. And you—you watched. You did nothing to help him.”

“I did not intervene directly, no,” he said calmly. “Because I could not.”

She laughed, but it was a sharp and broken sound. “Could not? Or would not?”

Clockwork’s expression didn’t change. “The timelines that required his survival also required his suffering. It honed his instincts. It tempered his power.”

“He’s a child!” Pandora screamed.

The dream shook. The golden light flickered around them. “He is not your pawn. He is not your tool! He is my son!”

“I know.”

“No. You don’t,” she said, voice shaking now with something closer to grief. “You don’t know what it was like—pretending not to care, pretending not to love him, pretending I would let Pariah raise him for slaughter… JUST SO HE COULD LIVE.”

Clockwork’s eyes narrowed just slightly.

“I carried him under constant threat once they heard of me destined to carry the new king in the coming future,” she said. “Vlad tried to kill me six times while I was pregnant with him. Pariah ordered poison in my food. I had to wear a mask of indifference just so they wouldn’t destroy him before he was even born, so that they think I was the one being punished.”

Her hands curled again into fists. “And you—you sent him to the Fentons. The Fentons, Clockwork. The same people Vlad obsesses over. The same ones who nearly opened the veil of Oblivion twice. The same ones you made me share mortal blood with.”

“They were the only ones Bruce would let go of him for that had connections to our world,” Clockwork replied. “I needed Bruce to believe it was his idea.”

Pandora’s face drained of color.

“…You… what?”

Clockwork met her eyes. “I planted the idea. He was resisting fate. I had to make a call. I even had to pretended to be the Fentons over calls. He took the bait with my meddling.”

“You lied to him?” she whispered.

“I manipulated him,” Clockwork said, “so the boy would survive.”

Pandora’s hands shook. “So that he would survive by being tortured?! That was your grand plan?!”

Clockwork said nothing.

She moved forward suddenly and struck him across the face. The sound cracked the dream open. Time itself jolted, and it was flickering like a stuttering projector.

Clockwork blinked slowly, his head turned slightly from the force of it.

Pandora’s voice broke as she said, “He should have been loved. That was all he ever wanted. And you—you turned every hand into a chain. You made Bruce give him up. You made me disappear. You robbed him of everything.”

Clockwork straightened. His eyes were darker now.

“Do you think I don’t feel a bit of guilt?” he said sharply. “Do you think it didn’t make me feel guilty that I had to split him from his father? To erase the minds of the friends who gave him joy?”

Pandora stiffened. “You erased Danny from his friend sam and Tucker…. You wiped Jazz’s memories too.”

“She was going to follow him,” Clockwork said. “They were going to fight the GIW alone. They would’ve died. You want to know why they don’t remember him? Because I decided to save them, too.”

“You stole their love, Clockwork.”

“I gave them life!” he bellowed. For the first time, his voice boomed like thunder, shaking the world around them. “And I saved your son from the path that killed him in every other future I have seen.”

Pandora looked stunned. Clockwork’s hands dropped to his sides. “You think I wanted this? I couldn’t risk him becoming what we fear!”

“I think you let him be broken and called it ‘fate.’” She took another step. “You let the world crush him again and again—and now you want to call it victory?”

Clockwork’s mouth was a hard line.

“You made him a king before he ever got to be a prince… a boy...”

“I made him a successful future ruler,” Clockwork whispered.

She didn’t hesitate. “At what cost?”

The silence between them was heavy.

She drew herself up again with female fury. “If I had my full strength, I’d tear your tower apart gear by gear.”

Clockwork finally raised his hand. Pandora felt the shift—her powers were dimming.

“No,” she said, trying to push against it. “No—don’t you dare—”

“You cannot interfere. You’ve said too much already.”

“Let me see him!”

“You’ll poison the timeline. He needs stability.”

“I don’t care about the damn timeline—he is hurting! He needs his mother!”

“I am sorry, Pandora. But you’ll only slow his recovery.”

She snarled, “You care more about your plans than his own soul.”

His expression cracked for the first time. Not with anger, but with guilt. “I wish that weren’t true.”

Pandora’s form flickered. The dream around her pulled like mist in a drain.

“Mark me, Timekeeper,” she said, her voice trembling with rage and grief. “If he dies again—if he breaks—you will answer to more than just a grieving mother.”

Then she was gone. Clockwork stood alone in the stillness. The dream stitched itself back together around him. He exhaled slowly.

He whispered to the space she had vanished from, “He already has.”

— - - —

Something felt… different. It was the feeling of warmth that surrounded Danny.

That was the first thing Danny noticed. The air around him didn’t sting. It didn’t smell like metal or bleach or burnt ozone. It wasn’t humming with the sharp bite of electricity.

For the first time in— Ancients, he didn’t even know how long… Danny didn’t wake to pain, alarms, or hands dragging him toward needles. There were no buzzes, no boots on tile, and no straps across his arms. He also felt much more mentally and physically aware.

The bed under him was soft. It was way too soft to be a hospital bed, or a lab gurney.

His fingers twitched. He could feel a blanket. A real one. One that was made from cotton, and not paper thin mesh. And it smelled faintly like lavender and dust, and not toxic antiseptic.

His eyes blinked open, slowly. He expected the brightness. The blinding white light. He even braced for it.

But… it didn’t come.

The ceiling was dark wood with some blue. The walls were soft gray. A bookshelf lined one side of the room with actual books, and not charts or reports or patient folders. There were even stars painted above the bed.

He blinked again.

There was way less machines around him. There were no straps. No bright lights in his eyes. No cold clamps on his chest or wires running down his neck.

He tried to sit up, and pain hit him like a punch. His whole body ached. His shoulders screamed. His ribs were tight, like they were still stitched too close.

He let out a shaky breath and fell back against the pillows. But even that… even that was better than what he felt before.

He wasn’t burning from the inside out anymore. He wasn’t cold. Not that bone deep cold that curled around his core like frostbite.

His chest still hurt. But it wasn’t screaming. It was just… sore.

He stared up at the painted stars. This wasn’t the Watchtower. This wasn’t the GIW.

He didn’t know where he was.

Danny turned his head slowly and carefully around the room. A low groan escaped him, that was more breath than sound. He caught sight of a telescope by the window. Books about constellations stacked beside it. Posters of the Milky Way and NASA launches. There were string lights above the headboard that were shaped like tiny planets.

It hit him all at once. This was his room. His room at the manor. The one in Gotham.

He knew that telescope. He used to name all the moons he could find. He’d sit up for hours tracking satellites like they were stars, and whispering their numbers to himself like wishes.

This was the place Bruce gave him. This was supposed to be his home. And he’d almost forgotten it existed.

Tears blurred his vision. He didn’t want them. He didn’t mean to cry. But they came anyway.

One after the other, hot and silent tears were trailing down his temples into his hair. His lips trembled. His shoulders shook even though they hurt to move. His hand curled weakly in the blanket.

It was like something inside him broke. Not all at once but slowly., like ice cracking. Like a dam that’d been holding too much water for too long. Every breath dragged the tears out faster.

He turned his face into the pillow and started to sob.

It was ugly crying raw, wet, and muffled crying. His throat clenched too tight to scream, but every inhale hurt. And every exhale felt like breaking glass.

He cried because this place felt safe. He cried because it felt like it used to. He cried because it didn’t feel like it used to. He cried because he doesn’t know if he wanted to be here. Because part of him was terrified this was a dream. A new illusion. Another test. Another trick.

The GIW liked to do that. They made him think he was free once, just to see what he’d do. He’d run. They’d dragged him back. And then they laughed.

White rooms. White lights. White gloves.

“Subject,” they called him. “Just an It.” He didn’t have a name for so long.

They didn’t care when he screamed. They didn’t care when he begged. The Fentons didn’t care either—not when they handed him over. Jack had looked at him and said, “We’re just doing what’s right ghost scum.”

Then they turned away. He’d been nothing to them. Just a science experiment with their dead nephews face that they had saw as a son.

And Bruce—his bio dad—wasn’t there. Bruce didn’t come. So Danny stopped waiting, but now he was here.

Back in his room. Back in Gotham. His body still throbbed, but not like before. His chest didn’t buzz with static. His mind wasn’t foggy.

He could feel. And all he could feel was sick.

Sick with grief. Sick with rage. Sick with the weight of everything that had happened. Sick with the fact that he was still here. That he’d lived. That he kept being passed around like a toy nobody wanted to keep.

His mom died. So he moved in with his bio dad.

Bruce gave him up. So he was forced to move to Amity.

The Fentons used him and neglected him. So they captured him as his alto ego and didn’t believe him and gave him up for testing.

The GIW broke him. So he had to mentally escape when he physically couldn’t.

And now—now he was back to were he started. He didn’t even know how. Or why. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be anywhere.

Maybe he should go to the Ghost Zone and just stay there. Let Gotham forget he ever existed. Let Bruce and the rest of his children that he wanted move on. Let the League find someone else to be their charity case.

Let the world spin without him. He wasn’t strong anymore. He wasn’t even fully alive anymore.

He didn’t know who he was. Was he Danny Fenton? Danny Wayne? Phantom? A lab rat? A king?

He didn’t feel like any of those things. He felt like a ghost trying to pretend to be human. Again.

But the stars were still there on the roof. And the ceiling was still partially blue. And the room—
his room— didn’t smell like bleach.

So he curled tighter into the pillow, pulling the blanket up over his ears, and whispered something he hadn’t dared say in months.

“…Please let this be real.” Because he would rather be here than where he was, and he knows that is a crazy low bar.

Chapter Text

The manor was too quiet.

Bruce sat in his study with the lights dimmed, fingers curled around a cold cup of coffee he had no intention of drinking. His tablet rested on the desk in front of him, and it was lit with League movement reports, metadata scans, and long forgotten aliases from back in the day. But none of it held his attention.

Not really.

He had read the same paragraph five times, and he was blinking like he might force it into coherence if he stared long enough.

Jason’s file was still open on the corner of his desk along with every other league file he has that could be a connection to why they want Danny so badly. Danny’s own name was listed under the Fenton’s and the Justice leagues ongoing investigation of the missing ghost king, who they think was able to escape before they got there. He hadn’t updated it when he should’ve because he has been so busy.

A low sound broke through the air.

Bruce froze. He leaned slightly in his chair, head angling toward the hallway. It was very faint. It was the kind of sound the old walls sometimes made when the pipes shifted, or when someone breathed too loud.

Then it came again but Bruce could hear it better. It was a choked and wet sound, like someone was swallowing sobs. Bruce stood before he thought to.

His boots were soundless on the carpeted floor as he left the study and walked slowly down the hallway, with a sense of dread thickening around his ribs. The sound got clearer as he passed the portraits. The faint hum of the ancient grandfather clock, and the distant city noise barely bleeding in through the windows.

And then he stopped outside a door he had opened more times he could count in weeks. It was Danny’s door.

The sound was unmistakable now. It was the sound of crying. It sounded so desperate and bone deep with just a door between them. It was the kind that came from the center of the soul.

Bruce’s throat tightened. He hadn’t heard that kind of crying in maybe six years. Not since Jason. Not since his world shattered the last time.

With a careful hand, he slowly opened the door.

Soft light greeted him. The star lights were still on with the faint glowing planets dangling from the ceiling in orbit above a room that looked more like a memory than a home.

And in the center of the bed, curled so tightly into himself he might’ve been trying to disappear, was Danny.

He was alive and awake, and he was sobbing like his world had just ended.

Bruce didn’t know when he moved, but he crossed the room slowly and was unsure of his own breath. Every step was a question. Every second he hesitated felt like a sin.

Danny was whispering something low and in pieces.

“Please… please let this be real… please not again…”

His body was trembling so violently that the bed shook. His shoulders were hunched with his fingers fisted in the sheets, and his breathing was ragged and raw. His entire frame was tight with some emotion Bruce didn’t know how to name but he could feel it — the grief, panic, and heartbreak. Maybe all of it.

He didn’t know what to do. So he knelt beside the bed. And with a trembling hand Bruce reached out slowly and deliberate, as if he was approaching a wild animal who was scared of humans.

His fingers found Danny’s back, and he rubbed it with gentle circles back and forth.

Bruce couldn’t find the words to say to help his son, so he was just trying to be there. Danny didn’t flinch this time. Well not as much, but his sobs kept coming.

Then Bruce’s other hand lifted, and was brushing back his son’s sweat dampened hair. His palm cupped the side of Danny’s head lightly with his thumb stroking down his temple. He didn’t push and he didn’t pull for anything. He just stayed there.

Danny made a sound then, it was a choked keening noise like he was dying all over again. He curled tighter, practically pressing himself into the mattress.

And Bruce still stayed. He didn’t know how long he rubbed Danny’s back, but it felt like hours.

— - - —

Danny didn’t know what was happening to him. He could feel himself spiraling, and for all of ancients why can’t he stop crying!

His body ached. His skin felt like it was trying to peel off. His chest hurt. His back throbbed. His core was humming weakly inside him like it was scared.

He was crying. He knew that. But he couldn’t stop. He didn’t know if he wanted to. He didn’t even know where he was at first, but he would always know this room. It was his room.

He was back at Wayne Manor. He wanted to scream, but he didn’t. Because something warm touched his back — something so slow and steady — and it didn’t hurt him. I actually felt nice.

Danny flinched instinctively despite the nice feeling, his heart was kicking, but the hand on his back didn’t strike. It didn’t grab. It didn’t do anything except rub soft circles between his shoulders like he was something fragile. Like someone cared if he broke.

Then a hand found his head. Fingers slid through his tangled hair, light and slow. It just made Danny sobbed harder. His whole body shook, and the tears started burning now, carving paths down his cheeks like fire.

He hadn’t been touched like this in— He didn’t remember. He didn’t think he’d ever be touched like this again. So he cried. Harder than before and he was glad he didn’t need air, or else he would have passed out.

He felt something shift beside him…. It was a dip in the bed. And then carefully, so so so carefully arms slipped beneath him. Danny whimpered, but he didn’t resist.

Because it was soft, like they treated him like he was glass. He was pulled into a chest. A body. A warm, solid, and steady body that was alive…. And was cradling him?

He was soon being rocked back and forth, like a lullaby. It felt like safety.…Like it was filled of love.

Danny choked.

His fingers clenched weakly in the blanket. He was still trembling, still sobbing, but his body was reacting before his brain caught up.

It felt safe.… It felt safe. Why did it feel safe? He turned his head just enough, and saw the face of the warm body.

It was Bruce. His father. Danny gasped and everything in his chest felt like it folded in on itself.

He didn’t know what he expected — maybe that Bruce wouldn’t come, maybe that he wouldn’t care that he was back. That someone else, anyone else, would be there. But not him.

Not the man who left him. Not the man who never wrote. Not the man who never came back. He wanted to scream. To yell. To ask why.

But he couldn’t. Because his hands were still so soft and gentle. And the arms were still warm. And Bruce had never cut him open. Never shocked him. Never strapped him to a table. Never tried to kill—

Danny bit down on his tongue hard, too hard. Blood soon filled his mouth. He didn’t mean to bite through his tongue — the ghost wail was rising and he didn’t want to let it out. Not here and definitely not now. He doesn’t need another adult to see him like a freak of nature…

Bruce stiffened just slightly, when he saw the blood. He then reached over to the bedside table and picked up the emergency blanket folded at the edge.

It was made of soft wool. He rolled it gently and pressed it into Danny’s hands, guiding it toward his mouth.

Danny blinked through tears, confused. Bruce didn’t speak, he just looked down at him and nodded.

Danny bit into the blanket instead. The pressure was enough to stop the wail from bubbling up. The blanket also helped him not bite his tongue further.

His body kept crying, and his soul kept hurting. But he didn’t scream. And Bruce didn’t leave…

He just kept rocking him back and forth back and forth, like if he stopped Danny would shatter…. Shatter… maybe Danny was shattered… he felt like his core shattered when the white found it hidden beneath his ribs…

WHY CANT HE STOP CRYING!

— - - —

Bruce hadn’t said a word. He couldn’t, and he didn’t think Danny was in the right state to respond clearly.

His throat burned with everything he wanted to say, but none of it would make sense. None of it would help. There were no apologies big enough. No explanations kind enough.

So he stayed silent. His hand never stopped moving though. Neither did the rocking.

And Danny — gods, Danny was still crying in his arms like he hadn’t been held in years. Maybe he hadn’t….

Bruce remembered the last time he hugged him. Vaguely. Danny had gotten accepted into that science program — NASA camp, the youngest in Gotham to do it. Bruce had been very proud, then the league put the hit one him at the same moment.

He thought distance would protect him. That Danny would be safer somewhere else away from Bruce’s own enemies. That he’d have a normal life.

He hadn’t checked in… the Fentons said it would only hurt Danny more. Bruce was also afraid of leaving a trail to Danny that would end up killing another one of his sons.

He hadn’t seen what the Fentons were doing. What Danny became. What he suffered. And now— This was what was left.

His child was shaking in his arms, and he was crying like he was starving for love. Bruce looked down and saw blood on Danny’s mouth. He wiped it gently with the corner of his sleeve.

Danny didn’t look at him. He didn’t speak, didn’t fight, he just clung to him. It was like that was all he could do. Like if he let go, the world would end.

So Bruce held on tighter. Because for the first time in six years, his son was home. And Bruce would hold him as long as it took to keep him that way.

— - - —

The Batmobile hummed low through Gotham’s back roads. The rain had turned the streets slick and reflective, like the city was trying to drown itself in its own light.

Tim sat in the passenger seat, with his eyes flicking over the nav feed then to the side.

Dick hadn’t said a word since they left the cave. That… wasn’t normal.

Sure, Nightwing could be serious when he had to be. But this wasn’t focused silence. This was grief or some type of anger. This was his type of quiet that curled inwards in him until he explodes. And that wasn’t Dick’s normal. Not unless something had gone very, very wrong.

Tim tried to stay patient. He watched the familiar skyline flicker past, and neon signs bleeding color across the wet glass.

Dick gripped the wheel tighter than necessary. Not death grip tight, but controlled. Too clean and too careful.

“…You gonna make me do all the talking tonight?” Tim finally said. Kept his tone light. Not pressing. Just… a slight prod.

Tim received no answer at first. The wipers clicked once. Twice. Then, softly “You remember that first mission we ran together?”

Tim blinked. “The smuggling ring during Ramon Bracuda?”

“Yeah. You slipped on the docks and nearly took me out with that grapple line.”

“Okay, you slipped—”

“You landed on top of me.”

“You screamed—”

“I grunted. Like a man.”

Tim smirked. “It was definitely a shriek.”

That earned him a ghost of a smile. But just for a second. Then the silence pressed in again, but thicker this time.

Dick exhaled and finally pulled the car over beneath a crumbling overpass. Shadows clung to the concrete. Water ran down the walls in thin and steady streams.

He didn’t look at Tim. Just stared through the windshield “I didn’t know it was going to hit me like this,” Dick murmured.

Tim waited.

“He’s a kid, Tim,” Dick said. “Just a kid. And I looked at him in that med bay, and he looked—God—he looked worn through. Like he’d been held together by duct tape and nothing else.”

Tim’s throat tightened.

“I keep thinking,” Dick went on, “if it were me—if I was the one taken, experimented on, locked up—I’d want someone to burn the world down to find me.”

“You would burn the world down,” Tim said gently.

Dick leaned forward with his forearms resting on the wheel. “Yeah. But I didn’t even know he was missing. None of us did.”

“That’s not only on you.”

“Isn’t it?”

There was no heat in the question. Just hollow weight.

“Bruce told me once,” Tim said quietly, “that grief hits hardest when you feel like you should’ve seen it coming.”

Dick turned toward him then, just a glance. Dick was being honest and he looks so tired.

“Danny—he doesn’t want to talk. He barely looks up. He flinches when anyone gets close. That’s not something I can undo with a warm blanket and good intentions Tim...”

“No,” Tim agreed. “But it’s a place to start.”

Dick leaned back in the seat and scrubbed a hand down his face. “He asked me if we were real.”

Tim blinked. “What?”

“Earlier. In the Manor. When I was helping Alfred settle him into his room. He asked me if I was real.. if I was real. Like he didn’t believe any of this was happening.”

“…Jesus.”

Dick nodded slowly. “And I just keep thinking… how long was he in that place, believing he’d been forgotten? That no one was coming to help him?”

Tim didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say.

Dick looked down at his gloves. “I’ve been Robin. Nightwing. Batman. I’ve fought gods and monsters. But I couldn’t tell that a kid was missing. My own brother, apparently.”

Tim hesitated. Then, carefully, he said, “You’re not perfect, Dick. None of us are. But you’re here for him now.”

Dick’s smile was brittle. “I know its not enough.”

Tim reached over and tapped the comm for a brief scan of the area—just a reflex. Something to do with his hands. Something to cut through the static of helplessness.

“I get it,” he said after a moment. “I’ve been the one watching people fall apart before I knew how to stop it. But Danny’s still breathing. He is still here and he is alive Dick. We have time and the knowledge that we can help him.”

Dick didn’t answer right away. Then, “You think he’ll want to stay?”

Tim’s fingers paused on the console. “I don’t know.”

Dick nodded slowly. “Me neither, I don’t blame him if would want to leave.”

The rain ticked against the roof of the Batmobile. In the distance thunder rolled low across the city, and was just loud enough to rumble in the chest.

“You know,” Tim said, softer now, “it’s kind of terrifying when you’re the quiet one.”

Dick huffed a breath. “Yeah. I’m not great at bottling it up.”

“You’re doing a bang-up job.”

Dick cracked a small smile and finally looked at Tim fully. “Thanks for riding with me tonight.”

“Always.”

They sat there for a little longer.

Then Dick started the engine, hands steady this time. The Batmobile pulled away from the curb, cutting through the storm lit streets of Gotham with the kind of quiet that wasn’t about failure anymore.

It was the quiet before rebuilding. The quiet held for maybe a minute before a thought popped into Tim’s head.

Then Tim spoke again but now with his voice careful. “Did you tell Jason yet?”

Dick didn’t answer. Tim frowned and glanced over. “Dick.”

Still nothing.

“About Danny,” Tim clarified, quieter now. “Did you tell Jason about Danny?”

Dick’s jaw shifted. His grip on the wheel tightened again, the clean lines of his shoulders going rigid. “I was going to,” he said eventually. “I mean to soon.”

Tim waited, but Dick didn’t follow up.

“Okay,” Tim said slowly. “So… when?” Another beat of silence passed that was heavier now.

Tim exhaled through his nose, carefully schooling his voice. “Are we going to tell Danny? That Jason’s alive? That his older brother is alive?”

The words hung in the air like live wires. Dick didn’t look at him. His voice was low. “I don’t know.”

That stopped Tim cold. “What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?”

“I mean—” Dick inhaled sharply, like the words cost him. “I mean I don’t know if he’s ready. Or if Jason is.”

Tim blinked. “Danny thinks he’s dead, Dick.”

“I know.”

“He’s probably still grieving him.”

“I know.”

“And Jason—” Tim’s voice broke slightly, not with anger, but with raw disbelief. “Jason’s out there walking around, fully alive, and you’re just — sitting on that?”

“Tim—”

“No,” Tim said, voice rising. “You can’t do that to him. Not after everything they both have been through.”

Dick’s hands were white-knuckled on the wheel now, but he didn’t say anything.

“Danny deserves the truth,” Tim pressed. “They were close. I saw it. The way he talked about him, the way they looked at each other when I saw them on the news. I know his death had to have broken something in him when they were so close.”

Dick’s voice was rough when he finally spoke. “And what happens if Jason sees him and snaps into another pit rage?”

Tim stilled.

“I’m serious,” Dick continued barely above a whisper. “We’ve all seen it—what the Pit does to him when he spirals. He’s better, yeah, but he’s still not stable, Tim. Not around us. Not around people like Danny who touch that kind of power. You felt it at the Watchtower. The aura Danny puts off and the new details of him maybe being a meta. That’s something new about him. What if they both get out of control.”

“I know,” Tim said. Quiet again now. But still firm. “But Danny’s not just some kid caught in the crossfire. He knows death. He lived through it. Maybe not in the same was Jason did, but I bet they both could understand going through torture.”

“I don’t want a repeat of what happened at the Tower with you,” Dick said, almost to himself. “I can’t—if Danny gets hurt again—”

“He’s already hurting,” Tim snapped. “He thinks Jason died without ever seeing him again when he was sent away. Without ever saying goodbye before dying. Do you really think keeping this secret protects him?”

Dick didn’t respond. He didn’t really move ether.

Tim exhaled hard and leaned back in the seat. “You’re trying to protect him. I get that. But sometimes protecting someone means letting them face the truth—even if it hurts.”

Dick’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. His voice, when it finally came, was fragile. “I just… I don’t know if he’d survive losing Jason again, especially to himself.”

Tim looked over at him. “Then maybe we help make sure he doesn’t have to.”

The Batmobile cut through the storm-slick street in silence, but it was no longer empty. It was heavy with the truth neither of them wanted to carry.

But they both knew soon, they wouldn’t have a choice. And Tim knew if Dick didn’t act fast… then Tim would have to make a call.

Chapter Text

The hum in Danny’s chest woke him like a siren calling out to fishermen in the deep sea. It wasn’t his ghost sense. Not even really his human instincts. It was a warning that rolled through his ribcage like a storm tide.

He sat up groggy but aware, and was blinking the room into shape. It was very quiet when he woke up. The steady rhythm of the heart monitor that used to keep him company was gone, it was unhooked days ago. The moonlight slanted through the high windows, leaving pale silver light on dark wood. No sound but the whisper of wind brushing glass outside.

And then there was a figure watching him.

They were still as stone in the corner near his desk, where the desk chair had been moved. It had been rolled from its usual spot, and was casually claimed to watch him. Danny’s eyes narrowed, and his pulse skipped. The silhouette was compact. Not bulky or tall like Bruce. Not gentle like Alfred. Not curious like any of the other nurses he’d glimpsed from his bed.

Then—shhkk.

A knife was being sharpening. The sound was the slow drag of steel on stone.