The heroes have lost.
Superman, Wonder Woman, and Shazam are dead. The only thing that’s kept Batman alive was his wit, but that’s not enough.
His wit didn’t save his children.
His wit didn’t save Alfred.
His wit didn’t stop the world from burning.
He’s become desperate for a miracle. He had never been desperate before, but all hope had been lost. He was one of the last teams of heroes that had survived the initial onslaught. He had no contingency plans, nothing he could invent. No weapon, no weakness.
His desperate plea was so strong it went through the fabric of the dimensions. Clockwork, who normally had no intention of looking into that dimension, decided to look at the timeline. He didn’t like what he saw, so he appeared before Bruce Wayne in the middle of the night. After a brief discussion, he decided to send Bruce back in time.
When Bruce opened his eyes next, he scrambled to find the date. He almost laughed in relief when he realized that this was the day he had become Batman. The day he had first donned the cowl. He was over twenty years in the past, and he still had the knowledge of what had brought the timeline to the brink of disaster last time.
Clockwork gave him a gift. A son named Danny, to be raised by Bruce. The boy was a newborn infant, with a head full of black hair and startling blue eyes. He didn’t know what Danny’s backstory was, or why Clockwork had possession of the infant, but he wasn’t going to ask questions. His world was safe, and he had another chance to prevent the end of the world twenty years early.
He would love his son as if he was his own flesh and blood. Then he would be the best Batman the world had ever seen.
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Sea Cryptic! Danny AU- Pt. 7
[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.4] [Pt.5] [Pt.6]
“I’m having a child.”
Danny stared at Batman.
“…Uh, congrats?”
Batman whips out a stack of paper and a pen. “It’s you. Sign here and initial the highlighted spots.”
Danny instinctively, from years of dealing with Vlad, whacked the stack right out of Batman’s hands and into the bay. He doesn’t even feel bad about littering this time because, “Begone, fruitloop!”
Wait, no, that’s not what he meant.
“I mean- I have parents!”
“Not for long.” Batman muttered and then did a double take. “You have parents? How?”
Danny gasped, placing a hand on his chest to clutch his metaphorical pearls. He ignored Batman’s mutters. Everyone knows the vigilante has an adoption problem. At least, everyone who lived in Gotham did, as everyone who didn’t was somehow convinced that he “worked alone” or some bullshit like that. “Are you naturally this insensitive or were you dropped on your head as a baby? Obviously I had to come from somewhere.”
“They’re still… alive?”
“And kicking,” Danny said, inching away from yet another rich weird guy trying to adopt him. “Mostly the kicking part, though.” He said, remembering the sparring sessions. His mom could kick his as six ways to Sunday with nothing but jiu-jitsu and still have time to work in the lab.
“I see.”
“I’m charging you extra for the emotional upheaval. I have trauma regarding rich people trying to adopt me.”
Batman sullenly handed over a thousand.
“Sweet. There’s a group of shades down here asking if you could find their murderer. Apparently the serial killer is still at large.” Danny pointed.
“Of course. Tell me everything.”
The adoption papers disappeared as Batman went into detective mode.
Danny shoved the cash into his glowing chest and breathed a sigh of relief. He needed to make rent this month so it was a windfall running into Batman.
——
“Hey, Tim?”
Tim woke up from his Power Nap. “Huh?”
“Phantom’s complaining that Batman kept trying to adopt him.”
Tim blinked. “Uh.. what does that have to do with me?”
Danny stared at him, a patiently amused smile on his face. “Just in case the rumor about the Wayne’s sugar-daddy-into the Bats was a thing. Other than that, we might have to confront Batman to get him off of Phantom’s back. ”
“You… want to confront Batman.”
“Hey, man, Phantom’s a friend and it’s ride or die.” Danny snickered. It was literally die, with his Phantom side of things. He held two fists up, and wound them, like Popeye right after eating spinach or something. “And if Batman bothers Phantom, we ride at dawn.”
“Batman doesn’t come out unless it’s dark, though? Or for the Justice League.” Tim grinned. He mentally classified Danny under his “to go to” list. That’s where Bart, Bernard, Cassie, Kon, and Garfield were. If he starts shit, he could count on them to have his back and cause even more shit. Danny, wanting to fistfight Bruce over the man making Phantom uncomfortable? He absolutely is making that list.
“Then we ride at, like, dusk. Or uh, like 10PM. I gotta get my beauty sleep.”
“You’ll definitely need it,” Tim inconspicuously texted the group chat, which quickly blew up.
“Shut up,” Danny playfully shoved Tim. “Wait, can Batman even legally adopt? Isn’t being a vigilante illegal? And how can he adopt someone dead?”
Tim dramatically flailed and splayed over Danny’s carpeted living room. “Dunno about his identity,” he lied to Danny, like a liar. “But Gotham has a bunch of laws for the undead/restored to life people so there’s probably enough gray space there.”
Danny spluttered. “You guys have undead friendly laws?”
“Yeah, geht do you think Grundy just chills out? Plus, we have like a minor resurrection event every few years. It usually doesn’t stick but sometimes it does. Bruce pushed for those laws when Jason came back to life, except he doesn’t actually want people to know he’s like, alive.”
“Jason died?” Danny blinked. Well, that would explain the vibes. “Huh. So what’s up with his rank vibes then?”
“Rank vibes?” Tim pressed record on his phone.
Danny nodded. “Yeah, you know how Phantom’s got like a really chill green vibe?” Inwardly, Danny snickered at his pun. Chill. Yeah, he meant that very literally. “Jason’s got kind of a rank green vibe. He’s kind of stinky? Definitely never introduce him to Phantom.” Danny’s senses got worse in his ghost form.
“Jason regularly showers, though?!”
“Not smell! Like, a spiritual smell?”
“You can smell souls?!” Tim sat up. “Bro, you’re a meta?!”
“Uh.” Danny hesitated. “Yeah. I can smell souls. It’s a thing. Everyone from my town can do it.”
“What?!” Tim paused. “Wait, can Phantom smell souls?”
“Yeah. We’re, uh, from the same town.”
“Danny, what the fuck?”
“Hey, don’t look at me like that, you’re the one with a soul-sick brother! Not to mention, you’re kinda stinky too!”
“Hey!”
“Soul-stinky nerd man!”
——
“I stink?!” Jason spluttered out, extremely offended.
“The Lazarus pits. He’s most likely smelling traces of Lazarus pit on you, you imbecile.”
“We need to speak to Phantom. This instant.”
“I dunno, B. Danny sounded like he was gonna break your face if you bothered Phantom anymore.” Dick snickered.
“Yeah,” Tim chimed in, from his seat in front of the Bat-computer. “He was pretty serious.”
“Are we just gonna glaze over the fact that they’re from the same town?!” Stephanie exclaimed, practicing her moves on a training dummy.
“How does that even work? What does that mean? I thought Phantom was an immortal?” Duke asked.
“We also can’t rule out time-travel.” Barbara slammed her baton into a training dummy, twisting her wheelchair in an agile maneuver that left the dummy on the floor.
“No bothering Phantom.” Cass proclaimed.
“That’s quite right. You all have a warm dinner sitting above your cave and should it remain uneaten, I assure you that sherbet Sunday and crêpe Tuesday shall be canceled.” Alfred stepped in. The Bats, threatened, scrambled to ditch their gear and go upstairs.
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