A twist on D-Stabilized.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18
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Maddie's cell phone vibrated on one of the lab counters, the name "Vlad Masters" lighting up as the caller ID.
"Vlad's calling," Maddie said to Jack, who stopped what he was doing at his workstation and joined her.
"Hey, Vlad," Maddie answered. "Jack's here, too."
"Maddie, always so lovely to hear your voice," said Vlad. "I'm calling with some great news."
"Really? How great?"
"I've located Daniel's female clone, Danielle."
Maddie gasped. "You did? Oh, thank God. Did you recapture her?"
"Not yet. But I've recruited Valerie Gray to bring her to me."
"Valerie? Why can't you just capture her yourself?"
"Danielle doesn't trust me anymore. I doubt she'd willingly let me get within ten feet of her. But she's never met Valerie, and I have no doubt Valerie can use her charms to trick Danielle back into my possession."
"If you really think that will work," said Maddie.
"I have also been working on a way to stabilize Danielle," said Vlad.
"She'll certainly be easier to study and run experiments on if she's stable," said Maddie. "We won't have to worry about accidentally melting her."
"Ah, yes, about that, I was thinking," said Vlad. "I know you wanted to study and dissect her like Daniel's other clones, but Daniel really seemed to take a liking to her. We could perhaps devise a way for Daniel himself to stabilize her, make him think he did it all on his own because he cares about her. And then she might be a useful part of your research objectives."
Maddie stuck out her bottom lip in thought. "What are you suggesting?"
"Once she's stable, she'll have a stable ecto-signature as well," explained Vlad. "Meaning we'll be able to track her easily no matter where she goes."
"Are you saying that we should allow her to continue roaming free?" asked Maddie.
"Why not?" asked Vlad. "She's Daniel's clone and yet so unique, and it would be interesting to see how she changes and interacts with Daniel, wouldn't you agree?"
"Hmm." Maddie lightly stroked her chin. "Yes, I see what you mean. I'd be interested in how Danny treats her. Perhaps they'd even team up in the future."
"And I can certainly create clones of Danielle if you really want to study her more closely," said Vlad. "I could take a sample of her mid-morph DNA while I'm stabilizing her."
"Yes, I think that's a good idea," said Maddie. "Jack? What do you think?"
Jack shrugged. "Does it really matter what I think, Mads? You're gonna do what you want no matter what I say, we both know that."
Maddie narrowed her eyes and redirected her attention to the phone. "Go ahead with that plan, Vlad. Let us know the minute you have her in your possession."
"Of course," said Vlad before disconnecting the line.
Maddie lowered her phone and glared at Jack. "Is there something you want to say to me, Jack? We're supposed to be partners in this, you know."
"Partners in murdering our son over and over again?" quipped Jack.
"We've never hurt Danny," said Maddie coolly. "Those clones were never real."
"Maddie, tell me you're not serious about cloning this little girl so we can find new and exotic ways to destroy her like we've been doing with Danny."
"She's not a little girl, Jack. She's a ghost, she's just another one of Danny's fake clones. She was never supposed to exist anyway."
"None of these clones are meant to exist, so why do we keep having Vlad create more?"
"Jack, I really thought you understood. Do I have to explain this to you again? About how we need to be able to study Danny's hybrid ghost biology in a way that would normally kill him?"
"It does kill him. We've killed him twenty-five times now."
"And soon it will be twenty-six. What's your point?"
Jack groaned. "Mads, I don't want to do this to this little girl either. All of these clones—you've seen them, you've heard them scream and beg for their lives. They think they're real. Their pain and suffering, their fear, that betrayal when they realize their own parents are the ones hurting them—that's all real, Maddie."
"They're not real."
"Just because they've been created for only one purpose doesn't mean we aren't killing children who are very aware of what's happening to them."
"Stop humanizing them," hissed Maddie. "This is your problem, Jack. You're thinking of them as human when they're not. They aren't human, they aren't people, they are not our son." Maddie shuddered and folded her arms. "Danny is safe in his bed or at school when we work on those clones. They're just copies."
"But they don't understand that," pleaded Jack.
"It can't be helped. You know it can't."
"It can, if we just stop—"
"No," thundered Maddie. "We've come too far to stop now. And if you're too squeamish to dissect a 'little girl' who's really just another clone, a fake, then I'll do it myself."
Maddie swiftly turned her back on Jack and resumed her research at her workstation. Jack was unmoving behind her for a few moments, then she heard his heavy footsteps stomping away and up the stairs out of the basement lab.
Maddie pressed her palms to the counter and breathed in. When she heard the basement door slam shut, she breathed out and returned to her work. Because even if Jack wasn't one hundred percent committed to their research goals, she certainly was.
Part 20
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so hear me out
tim drake and danny fenton are twins
jack drake really did have a brother named eddie, once upon a time. eddie drake also had a wife, and she was expecting twins, but of course gotham is gotham. right before the twins would be born, eddie died, but his wife was brought to the hospital and lived long enough for the twins to be born.
jack and janet drake adopt the older twin, tim, because people knew that eddie and his wife were going to have a baby, and they had been considering having a kid themselves. but no one knew the drakes were expecting twins, and jack and janet don’t want two babies, so they arrange for the younger twin to be anonymously given up.
well, through some insane miscommunication, the other twin ends up in illinois, where he’s adopted a few months later by jack and maddie fenton. of course, because danny was given up anonymously, there’s no information whatsoever about his birth family
tim finds out he’s got a twin when he’s eleven or twelve by finding his birth certificate and an ultrasound print in his father’s safe. he starts looking for his twin, but doesn’t find a whole lot on his own.
(even when tim becomes robin, he never thinks of mentioning his twin to bruce.)
when they’re 14, tim meets sam manson at a gala in gotham. she’s originally from gotham as well, but moved to amity park as a kid, so this was her first time back in a long time. danny had just recently found out he was adopted, so of course when sam sees tim and he looks exactly like danny, she puts two and two together and approaches tim.
once sam gets back to amity, she puts danny and tim in contact. they agree that it sounds super unlikely on paper since danny was found in a hospital in chicago, while tim was born in gotham, and danny’s birthday is a couple days off from tim’s because no one knew exactly what day he was actually born, but they also look way too much alike for it to be coincidence.
of course, before they can get a dna test done, danny’s portal accident happens, and he gets super squirley about it after that whenever tim mentions it. plus they’re both minors and the drakes are never around to actually consent to it so it would be kinda weird for tim to insist on a dna test at that point.
but they stay in touch for the next few years, both expertly dodging any mention of their hero activities, and even manage to meet up for their sixteenth birthday. they hang out for a weekend in cleveland because it’s neutral ground, pretty much right smack in the middle between amity park and gotham. then, a few weeks after the events of d-stabilized, shit hits the fan.
valerie knows vlad is also plasmius, and after giving (dani) ellie a good head start, she starts going after him, outing him to the whole town in the process. of course, vlad assumes danny is the one who told valerie, so he outs danny as phantom as well. vlad manages to shake valerie, the fentons, and the giw, but danny isn’t so lucky, and gets captured by the giw.
of course, once they find out he’s been captured, sam, tucker, and jazz start planning to break him out and get him somewhere safe. obviously they can’t take danny to either the manson or foley houses, the giw would check there first, and they can’t take him to jazz’s college dorm either. gotham has a lot of ambient ectoplasm though, and the giw (probably) wouldn’t go anywhere near batman’s territory even with the anti-ecto acts, so sam calls tim and asks if they can take danny to him once they rescue him.
of course, tim had no idea about anything going on in amity park, not that team phantom knew that. turns out the giw have been covering things up forever, and the extremely high ectoplasm leaking from the fentons’ portal doesn’t help either. but of course sam assumes he knows because most of amity park is actively protesting against the giw and demanding danny’s release and it’s about to start getting violent any second now, and if it’s such big news in amity then of course tim knows danny is phantom by now, right?
but tim’s able to keep hold of himself long enough to let sam know that yes, danny can come to gotham, all of team phantom can come to gotham once they’ve rescued him, and once he’s let her go he immediately goes to the other bats and sounds the alarms
so queue the justice league showing up in amity park to deal with the giw, and inquiries about the legality of the anti-ecto acts and how they overlap with meta protection laws get raised, and danny gets rescued, and team phantom is evacuated to gotham.
once things have calmed down, tim tells danny about being red robin and they bond over hero stuff. danny fixes jason’s pit-induced anger problems because holy shit dude your ectoplasm is rancid. bruce of course takes on look at danny and decides to adopt him.
anyway, thanks for coming to my ted talk.
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