#Danny gets to say Fuck

[five-rivers]

Stargazer, Moonweaver, Net

Hey, you. Yes, you. Have you ever wondered, hey, what would it look like if @five-rivers, @jackdaw-sprite, @seaglass-skies, @datawyrms, and @akela-nakamura all worked together on a fic for Phantasy Phest? No? Too specific? Well, if you had, it would look exactly like this fic here.

AO3 link

Tags: Lost Time, The portal accident, Phantasy Phest 2023, Alternate Universe - Modern Fantasy, Fairies, Blood Drinking, Moths, Clockwork has low opinions of the Fenton Parents, Transformation, Body Horror, Danny gets to say Fuck

Word Count: 11,197

Fic continues after cut.

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"Ohno. Oh, no, no no nooooooo."

The stars were bright tonight.

Danny could even see them from where he was at the edge of a large clearing, where the trees stopped to wreathe the base of a hill.

Unusually, Danny didn't care.

"Nooooo," he said again under his breath.

Danny pushed at the net again. It reeked of garlic and sage the same way his parents’ nets always did, and the cord was rough and knobbly between his fingers. They must have woven this one with something extra.

He needed to get out. But with his flashlight fallen somewhere he could barely see the net or where it might end.

His flashlight. Where was his flashlight? Danny crouched, and began to grope at the ground around him. It couldn't have rolled too far, right?

The net folded up into his face, scratchy and unexpected. Danny flinched back but kept going, moving his hands in a circle. They met dead leaves and earth, and more than once he touched slimy and wet things he hoped were slugs.

He didn't find anything that felt like a flashlight.

"Heck," said Danny.

He sat down on the ground. The damp seeped into his pants but at this point that was a distant concern.

Maybe he could just find the edge of the net. It was a net. It had an edge. And his parents weren't always great at traps.

Danny pulled the net hand over hand in one direction and stopped when he felt something thicker cross over an arm.

He groped at it. It felt like the edge. Or an edge. One side didn't have all the net stuff. With mounting relief he followed it with his fingers–and discovered that it was attached to an opening only about large enough to slip a hand through.

There wasn't a tie that he could feel.

He couldn't find any other holes in it.

The relief withered. He was caught, alone, in the dead of night, in one of his parents' stupid monster catching nets. Without a flashlight.

And his parents, at best, might find him in the morning.

"Heck," said Danny, again.

Then he remembered he was alone, deep in the woods in the middle of the night, and no one would hear him.

"Fuck."

If only, Danny thought a while later, he'd brought his pocket knife. Or literally any knife. Something sharp to cut through the ropes.

None of the rocks he could reach had worked, though that was probably a little because he still couldn't see much of anything. It was really hard to wear through rope when you were doing it with a rock, blind. And through a net.

He was cold. His butt was colder from sitting in the leaves earlier. He kind of wanted to do it again, as a measure of his suffering. He wanted to be home, dry, and warm even more.

Maybe he could just wait for morning. Maybe his parents would know the trap had gone off, and come to check it. Maybe they'd check it anyway. They were the town crackpots for a reason. They didn't just believe in fictional creatures, they did so enthusiastically and with the kind of prejudice that made them set net traps in the woods. For one of their own innocent children to get caught in when he was only trying to stargaze on a clear night before school started in a few weeks. See some constellations, spot a few meteors, maybe a handful of planets, that kind of thing.  

Never mind that he’d maybe snuck out. Because he knew they’d freak out about him going into the woods alone. Because they believed in faeries.

Gosh, he hoped this didn't get back to Dash.

At least the stars were bright tonight.

He sighed and looked up, eyes automatically picking out familiar constellations.  The Big Dipper was easiest, although finding the rest of Ursa Major was less familiar.  All seven stars of Ursa Minor were easily visible, which again highlighted how good the seeing was. Then there were the other circumpolars.  Draco, Cepheus, Cassiopeia…  He could see the V of Andromeda, where it blended with Pegasus, and he could almost convince himself that–

An owl - he thought it was an owl - hooted somewhere nearby.  He jumped, which had the side effect of reminding him that, yes, he was still in a net.  He rubbed his shoulders and neck where they’d been rammed into the net.  Straining against rope shouldn’t have felt like running into a wall, but he supposed he did have his weight on the bottom of it.  

But he soon had other things to worry about than his parents’ irrational net design.

(Seriously, why was there enough room to stand up in this net?  What were they even trying to catch?  At first, he’d thought he could just walk away, back to town, even inside the net, but it was tied to something.  Maybe one of the trees?)

Sounds started to rise up from all around the clearing.  First the high-pitched chirr of crickets, then croaking, buzzing, and chirping.  Small noises, from small things.  

But with those small noises, Danny started to notice rustling and creaking and–  Was that a dog howling or a wolf?  Were there even any wolves here?  He remembered a unit in science last year where the teacher talked about wolves going extinct in some states.

The stars were bright tonight.  The woods around him?  Not so much.  

“People spend nights outside all the time,” he said out loud.  The word probably would have been more impactful if they weren’t whispered.  “All the time.  People go camping and hiking and stuff for fun.”  Never mind that they were usually more prepared to do so than Danny currently was.  And that most of the time, they could decide to just leave and go home or get a hotel room if camping got to be too much for them.  He continued, more loudly, “I just have to wait for morning.  They’ll find me in the morning.  And– and if they don’t, I’ll be able to see.  I’ll be able to get myself out.  I’ll be fine.”

If nothing ate him first.  

No.  No.  That was–  What out here could even eat him, anyway?  Wolves, yeah, okay, but were there wolves?  Still unclear.  Bears?  If there weren’t wolves, he doubted there were bears.  He’d never heard of any bears out here, anyway.  What else could eat a human who wasn’t, well, already dead?  Cougars?  That one school, a couple districts over, had a cougar for a mascot, didn’t they?  That didn’t really mean anything, though.  What else, what else…  Feral pigs?  Those were supposed to be invasive around here, weren’t they?  Danny had kind of laughed at the idea of it in class, but, here, now, in the dark, was a different story.   

He was pretty sure anything else was too small.  So.  Three things out of how many animals?  Thousands?  Yeah.  Yeah, the odds of those three specific animals showing up to bother him were low.  Yes.  Nothing wrong with the math there.  No siree.  

(And the stuff his parents were worried about, the stuff they’d set this trap for, that stuff didn’t exist at all, so he didn’t have to worry about it.  There were no werewolves, no chimerae, no hobgoblins, and definitely no fairies.  Wasn’t even worth thinking about.)

A branch snapped.  Then another.

He’d thought the owl was close, but this sounded closer.  And those didn’t sound like small branches.  

A deer?  There definitely were deer here.  Sam talked about deer resistant and repellent garden plants, sometimes.  Deer could get big.  Like, reindeer were huge, right?

It was dark under the trees, but by starlight alone Danny could still perceive a shadow moving among other shadows.  Something tall.  Something not shaped anything like a deer.

The shadow came closer.  

Danny held his breath and shrunk down against the nearest tree.  He couldn’t fight a bear.  Not even when he wasn’t caught in a net.

"Hello."

"Hi," said Danny back, on autopilot.

Danny continued staring at the shadow for several more tense moments before it occurred to him that it had talked.

"Wait, you can talk?" Danny asked.

"It would appear so," said the shadow, and did not move.  Now that Danny was looking and thinking rather than just freaking out, the shadow looked, well, pretty humanoid.  Tall, sure, and wearing a long coat with a hood - or maybe a dress?  And that could be long hair.  Significantly less weird in the middle of the summer than a coat - but humanoid.  

Human, he should say.  Outside of, like, parrots, there weren’t a lot of other things that could talk.  No matter what his parents said.  

"Um. I'm a little stuck," said Danny.

"Really?" The shadow did not sound surprised.

"Can you, I don't know, cut the net loose? Please?"

The shadow hummed. "I think the more interesting question is why you're stuck in the first place.  One does not frequently encounter those such as yourself in the woods so late at night."

Oh, wow.  Danny could empathize with the curiosity.  He really could.  This was a weird situation to come across, and whoever this was, they must be just as confused as Danny.  But he also really didn’t want to explain anything about this to a stranger.  And he would really rather be out while talking to what was, yet again, a complete stranger.  

… Humans were pretty dangerous themselves, come to think of it.  

“Yeah, I guess not.”  He swallowed.  “Why are you out here, anyway?”  Maybe he was being rude, but the shadow had asked first.

The shadow shifted, looking up.  Starlight limned pale skin and a sharp, straight nose in shades of gray.  “The stars.  The sun is too bright during the day.  It is easier to see them at night.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  Maybe, hopefully, not a murderer, then.  Just another person out stargazing.  A weird person but…  Danny didn’t exactly have room to talk.  “Yeah.  Me, too.  Since the moon isn’t up and all.  I just, uh, ran into this.  Trap.  Thing.”  He tugged at the net.  “And now I can’t get out.”

The shadow’s head tipped back down.  “Can’t you?”

“I really can’t.  I can’t even figure out how it’s tied on.  Do you, like, have a flashlight or something?”

“I do not.”

“Not even, like, one on your phone?”

“No.”  The shadow leaned forward, and might have held out a hand, but if they did, they didn’t touch anything that Danny could feel.  “What a curious and terrible thing,” murmured the shadow.  “What cruelty and carelessness, to leave it to trap the unwary.”

Danny winced.  Yeah.  Yeah, okay, it kind of was, and it was probably a small miracle that no one else had ever gotten trapped in one of these things.  

That Danny knew of.  

He pushed the thought of his parents absent-mindedly forgetting to check one of these traps, or only checking them once a week, out of his mind.  His parents were crazy and kind of forgetful and… well, the point was, he would have heard if something had… happened.  

They wouldn’t do that, anyway.  

“Yeah.  But, um.  Even without the flashlight, please, help?  Just, maybe if you could untie me, or if you have…”  Did he really want this guy to have a knife?  Not really.  Still.  “Something to cut with, maybe?”

“I cannot cut the net in which you find yourself.”  The shadow shifted again.  “However, I will stay with you until you are free.”

“Maybe if you tried some of the knots, you could get me out, though,” pointed out Danny.  

“I have encountered ropes like this in the past.  They do not agree with my skin.”

“What, like, you're allergic?” asked Danny.  

“Something like that.”

Just his luck.  He was found, but the person to find him was… incredibly strange.  And not very useful.  And had possibly run into his parents’ nets before and had a reaction to them.  

“Okay.  But maybe you could call for help?  I mean, I know you said you don’t have a phone, but you could go get someone who can get me out?”

“Child,” said the shadow, with a touch of amusement, “there are things in these woods that would eat you whole.  I am equipped to deal with them.  You are not.  It would be irresponsible of me to leave you while they wander.”  They settled themselves nearby.  “Besides, I can see the stars here as well as I could elsewhere in these woods.”

“Eat me?” squeaked Danny.  He'd thought about bears earlier, but not, like, out loud.  Talking about them out loud was different. He cleared his throat. “You mean like bears?”

“In some respects,” said the shadow, still amused.

"Okay, um." Danny really did not like confirmation that there were bears around. He could have gone without knowing that. Except he probably should know. Considering he was in a net.

The net.

Which the stranger somehow thought he'd be able to escape on his own?

"Hey, um. I have been trying to get out for a while," said Danny. "It hasn't been working. You're sure you can't do anything to help?"

"There is more than one kind of trap here."

Danny blinked.

Crap.  That would be just like his parents, wouldn’t it?  They couldn’t leave it at just one stupid trap in a public space, they have more.  “Where?”

“You will not be able to see it from your perspective, but I have no doubt it would close were I to attempt to free you.”  

“Great,” said Danny.  He took in a shuddering breath.  “Great.  And you, what, think I’ll be able to avoid it on my own?  When I can’t even see it?  Or is this a ‘wait until morning’ thing?”

“You will, at least, be less liable to be eaten by wild animals at that point.  And more able to untie knots with the light of day.”

Okay, yeah.  Danny had been thinking both of those things as well, but with someone here, he’d hoped… 

He rubbed his eyes, tiredly, and, to his absolute horror, his stomach rumbled.

“Are you hungry?” asked the shadow, as if Danny wasn’t already embarrassed enough.  

Danny mumbled something indistinct.  He had eaten.  Just…  The main course had…  Well, some things were better left unsaid.  The salad (courtesy of Jazz) had been okay, and so had the carrots.  He’d felt full right after dinner.  He had.  

But, yeah.  He was hungry.  Dinner had been hours and hours ago at this point. 

“I have food enough to share.”

“Uh,” said Danny.  “Okay?”

Something moved under his nose, and he flinched.  He hadn’t seen the shadow move.  

“Um, I’m not sure I can…”  He tried to wedge his fingers into one of the holes of the net.  He’d lost track of the opening.  

“They are small.  They will fit.  Hold out your hands.”

Danny, only a little skeptical, held out his hands. As promised, several round, slightly damp things, like largeish marbles, were dropped into them through the holes in the net.

“What are these?”

“Star jelly.”

“Like, from starfruit or something?” asked Danny, interested.  He squished one between his fingers.  It was springy, like a gummy.  But still.  Damp.

“Or something,” said the stranger.

“Why is it damp?”

“It hasn’t dried.”

Well. That was almost no information at all.

“But it’s edible?”

“I enjoy them regularly.”

Danny huffed slightly.  This guy was weird.  Again, that was the pot calling the kettle black, but Danny didn’t go around offering weird food to strangers.

No, he went around getting trapped in nets.

And he was hungry.

And it wasn’t like he hadn’t eaten weirder things. His parents could be creative.

Maybe he wasn’t supposed to accept food from strangers, but…  This guy was his getting caught in a net buddy.  And he had to admit, he was pretty mad at his parents right now.  It’d serve them right, that Danny was eating someone else’s food.  

Did that make sense?  Maybe not.  But it wasn’t like any of the stuff Sam or Jazz did made any sense, either.

Plus, it had ‘star’ in the name.  He basically had to try out at least one.

He squished the smallest between his fingers one last time, then popped it in his mouth.  

He chewed.

There was no burst of flavor. It tasted… pretty bland, actually. All the way through. But the texture was okay.  Mostly.  It was at least better than what had happened to the chicken fated for dinner.

So.  Probably not poison.  

(Although why anyone would bother to poison him when he was quite literally trapped in a net was beyond him.)

“I also have a variety of mushrooms.”  

Who was this guy? The last hippie in Amity Park? A revolutionary war survivor?

“Do you have hardtack, too?” asked Danny, unable to help himself.

“I have biscuits.”

Oh thank goodness. Normal food.

“Can I have one?”

Something distinctly cracker-like was placed in his hand.

Danny didn’t even bother snarking, he just ate it. The texture was flaky, the flavor nutty and buttery and just salty enough to coat the whole of his tongue with flavor. He crunched into it again and the layers almost shattered between his teeth, then melted in his mouth like butter in a hot pan.

Danny swallowed. He’d never had a cracker that good.

“Can I have another?” he asked. Then, as more fell into his hands, “Where did you even get these? They’re great.”

“I baked them myself.”

Well.  That explained why he didn’t have a phone.  He was a hippie of some variety.  Danny didn’t comment aloud, though, too busy plowing his way through another cracker. He spent a little while chewing in blissful silence before he could swallow.

“They’re great,” Danny repeated, and had another one. And another.

“Ah,” said the shadow, “I believe that was the first proper shooting star of the night.” 

“What?” said Danny, looking up from his impromptu meal.  He licked his fingers, then stretched out the net, the better to see through it.  “Really?  Where?”  

“From the neighborhood of Cassiopeia, crossing her and going north.”  A pointed finger stood out in silhouette against the slightly brighter sky, tracing an imaginary line.

Danny sighed.  “I can’t believe I missed it.”  The Perseid meteor shower was, after all, one of the main reasons he risked sneaking out.  

“Many meteor showers reach their peak shortly before dawn,” said the shadow.  “As we will be here for some time yet, I believe you will have the opportunity to see many more.”

“But the first one…” Danny said, trailing off.

“The first from our perspective.  This shower has been going on for some time.  For someone to our east, perhaps it is, instead, the last.”

Danny grumbled.  

First the net and now this…  

Something golden green streaked across the sky and he perked up.  That one had been nice.  A breath later, a smaller, shorter one flashed at the edge of his vision, a tiny needle of light.  

“See?  There will be more for you to wish on.”

“That’s really not why I wanted to see them,” said Danny, wrinkling his nose.  Wishing was, well.  It was the sort of thing little kids did.  It wasn’t scientific.  It was the kind of thing his parents strictly forbade.

“It isn’t?”

“I…they’re cool. And it’s nice. Or it would be, if it weren’t for this net.”

“What would it hurt to make a wish?”

Danny sighed.  It wasn’t like they were wrong.  This situation was stupid and illogical.  So.  

“I wish I could get out of this stupid net. Before my parents find out about any of this.”

The stranger hummed in interest. “They don’t know?”

“They sure know about the net,” griped Danny.  He didn’t take his eyes off the sky, but he did tug on the ropes to make his point.  The rope was homemade, twisted with nonstandard fibers along with more common silk and hemp, rubbed with garlic and sage.  It was distinctive.  It was familiar.  It was something he'd probably tripped on a dozen times when it was left half-finished on the living-room floor.  “But it's not like I told them I was sneaking out. Like, who's going to tell their parents they're breaking rules?”  

The shadow hummed again.  "That is true."

Danny was distracted from replying or continuing by a pale, oddly oblong blur to the north.  It stayed in place, even as colorful shooting stars passed it by.  

"Is that–?" gasped Danny.  He leaned forward against the tension in the ropes and a similar, less tangible ache in his chest, as if he could get closer to the sky.  

The oblong blur widened into several similar streaks, like thumbprints on glass.  Green, pink, and purple began to seep into them.  

"There must have been a solar storm I didn't know about," said Danny as meteors shot through the undulating curtain of the Aurora. Delight was dancing in his stomach and thrumming along his limbs at the sight. "We hardly ever get the Aurora this far south." 

"It is an auspicious night for stargazing, then," said the shadow, "and one I am indeed glad to share, despite the circumstances."  

The thing was, they were right.  Despite the net, stargazing with someone who liked it as much as he did was nice.  It was really nice, despite the net.  Nice enough to wish, quite sincerely, and on a meteor that fell across the sky in that very moment, that they could do it again.  It probably would have been nice even without the Perseids and the Aurora, but with them he was practically giddy.

Briefly, Danny imagined how this meeting might have gone sans net.  

Okay.  Honestly, Danny probably would have run for it.  Weird adult in the middle of the night, after all.  He had briefly wondered if the guy was an axe murderer. 

He rolled his shoulders.  His back was starting to get sore - probably a combination of the net and how long he'd been looking up, but he didn't want to take his eyes off the light show even for a second.  

"My name's Danny, by the way."  They were kind of sort of friends now.  Stargazing buddies.  Net buddies, even.  Danny couldn't refer to the as 'the shadow' or as 'the guy who sat with me all night the time I was trapped in one of my parents' nets' forever, and he doubted the shadow wanted to keep mentally referring to him as 'that weirdo kid who got stuck in a net' for eternity, either.  

"I am honored that you would trust me with your name," said the shadow, tone strangely formal. 

"Uh, you're welcome?" Danny said.

"I go by Clockwork."

Wow. This guy really was strange, huh?  Was that his legal name?  Just a nickname?  A screen name?  Had he changed his legal name to that?

"Nice to meet you, Clockwork," said Danny, for lack of a better response.

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, as well."

Pleased to make your acquaintance. Well. Danny's parents were eccentric too (see also: net. see also also: believing said net was going to catch faeries and demons.) and he was now almost eighty percent sure this guy wasn't an axe murderer.

Danny shifted under the net. He could try and shake hands, but the excitement and delight hadn't faded much at all and it was hard to focus on formalities when so much of him was full of so much energy.

Wait.

That was weird, wasn't it? Danny frowned. Should he have taken random food from a stranger? Clockwork had mushrooms, too. Had the star jelly been not just edible but an edible?

Was he high right now?

"Clockwork," Danny began, and the Aurora bloomed across the sky. The moment filled with shared murmurs of admiration, and by the time it died the thought had passed.

Even if the energy hadn't.

He flexed his fingers.  Maybe he’d run through some kind of itchy plant?  That might explain the tingle on his skin.  

There was a hollow, almost melodic popping noise from the vicinity of the shadow.  The vicinity of Clockwork, he corrected himself.  

“You should try to stay hydrated,” said Clockwork.  

A scent both floral and salty wafted up to Danny’s nose.  The green glimmer of the Aurora reflected off the glassy lip of a bottle.  “Is– Is that alcohol?” asked Danny.  “Are you offering me alcohol?  Wine?”

“I am not,” said Clockwork.  “This is far more nourishing.”

“‘This’ being what, exactly?” asked Danny, still vaguely suspicious.  

“It is mostly sugar and water.  Fruit juice, salt, nectar, among other things. As you would call them, electrolytes. You have exerted yourself.  It has not been purposefully fermented.” 

This guy and his weird food. Still, that didn’t seem…bad, exactly. Danny was thirsty, and he liked gatorade, and that was kind of similar, right? And he was curious.

The crackers had been good.  And even the star jelly had been edible.

It took some experimentation to hold the bottle firmly through the net.  The body of it was too large to fit through any of the holes.  But the mouth and neck of the bottle could go through, and Clockwork seemed content to hold it until Danny figured it out.  

The liquid inside was thicker than he had expected.  Sweeter and saltier, too.  The flavor was… interesting.  A little sour, a little bitter, a little… savory?  It definitely tasted like flowers smelled.  Only, it also tasted like something else?  A lot of something elses.  

He pulled the bottle back and licked his lips thoughtfully.  He… didn’t hate it.  It sure wasn’t something he’d just drink on his own, though.  On the other hand, taking that sip had made him realize how thirsty he actually was.  Which was very thirsty.  He must have gotten more dried out than he’d thought, first walking here and then fighting the net for who knew how long.  

He took another sip, trying to focus on the flavors he hadn’t quite been able to name.

And another.

Something in him settled as he drank. He hadn’t realized how nervous he’d been. Was it nervousness? He’d thought it was excitement. Delight. Something positive.  But now it was settling into something softer. Calmer. And yet the sky was no less compelling.

Maybe it was a different sort of happiness, now that the unexpected relief and delight of a fellow stargazer out here had calmed his nerves. Maybe he hadn’t managed to calm down until now, and the drink was finally letting him?

Regardless, his limbs weren't so tense anymore, and breaths he hadn’t realized had become so short were drawing long and even now, and that was a relief.

He alternated sips with looking up at the stars.  The Aurora undulated slowly, and was periodically pierced by meteors.  The stars behind the curtains of light were harder to see, but he could still pick out his favorites coming and going, first hidden, then not.  The motion of the lights almost made them seem as if they were moving. It was hypnotizing. 

He tilted the bottle back once more, and made a disappointed sound deep in his throat when he realized it was empty.  Huh.  He must have liked it alright after all.  That wasn’t a small bottle.  In fact, it was bigger than he’d originally thought when Clockwork had first given it to him.  

… He hoped this didn’t make him have to pee.  He was in the woods, but standing next to, um.  Well.  An impromptu bathroom.  Until dawn, at least.  Would make the net thing much worse.

“Done already?” asked Clockwork.

“I guess I was thirstier than I thought.”

“You had been exerting yourself for some time.”  Clockwork plucked the bottle out of Danny’s hands.  “But I believe that you will soon see the fruits of your exertions.”

Danny sighed and leaned more deeply against the tree he was attached to.  Subtly, he rubbed his back against the bark.  The soreness was getting worse.  “Not unless you see a rescue party.”

Clockwork hummed. “I do not. But perhaps you will not need one. The weave of the net seems looser, now. Can your hands fit through?”

Danny tested it. His hand fit through one of the holes easily. And another. It was the same with the third he tried.

“What,” he said.

“It is progress, is it not?”

“I don’t know how,” Danny said. “It’s not like Mom and Dad don’t tie these things at every connection. I didn’t think they could slide.”

“And yet your hands can fit through.”

“Yeah. I just wish I knew how that happened.”

“Dawn will come,” said Clockwork. “You will be able to see it then. Perhaps you worked them loose with your straining.”

“I guess,” said Danny, still wondering.

“And with dawn, you will be free, one way or another. For now, shall we focus on this spectacular sky?”

“Yeah,” said Danny.

He’d never seen a night sky like this before, after all. Even if he was stuck under a net, he had a …not a friend. But a fellow stargazer who was just as appreciative. And he was full, and no longer thirsty, and even the cold of the wet earth beneath him wasn’t as cutting with Clockwork’s company.

He settled in again to watch the lightshow, and worried at the cords of the net as he did. It wasn’t like he couldn’t do both, after all.

The stars flashed.  The sky spun.  Clockwork and Danny both exclaimed and pointed at particularly impressive meteors.  Clockwork noted the visible planets and occasionally pointed out asterisms Danny had never heard of before.  The Veil, the Key, the Mistletoe, the Dancing Maidens, the Hive, the Moth.  He half suspected Clockwork was just making them, and the stories that went with them, up to entertain Danny.  But, then, Danny was entertained.  He couldn’t complain.  Even when Clockwork tried to get away with calling Libra The Balance, Danny found his objections were more laughter than indignation.

The eastern horizon began to blush pale. Danny found himself almost disappointed at the sight, even if he’d be able to get out of the net soon. And really see Clockwork. After stargazing for hours together, it felt odd that he still didn’t know what the man looked like even though his voice was becoming as familiar as a friend’s.

He rubbed one of the net cords between his fingers.  Was it just him, or did it seem… scratchier?  Thicker?

He stroked the skin on his palms. Did he have rope burn, maybe? He had been pulling on the cords for hours.  And who knew what his parents had soaked the nets in after they’d been woven?  Danny sure tried not to.  

More importantly, before too much longer the sun would drown out the meteors and the Aurora both.  He wanted to press this sight into his mind to keep forever and ever.  And not just the sight, but the feeling of…  He couldn’t put a name to it, to what he felt, sitting here with Clockwork

It just felt important.

A meteor fell.  He wished it would last.  Another meteor, brighter.  He wished that even after Clockwork inevitably found out who Danny’s parents were and what they were like in person, he would still want to be ‘acquaintances.’  Friends.  Whatever.  He was weird enough.  Probably.  Like Sam and Tucker.  

He wished–

A huge fireball bloomed directly overhead, a celestial arrow angling down, north, wreathed in blinding green.  It took Danny’s breath away.  

He wished he could do this again. He wished he could cast off the shadow of his parents’ weird fae traps and property damage and hatred of creatures that didn’t even exist. He wished he could have the space and time to figure out who he was and who he could be, whether that was an astronaut, an astronomer, a screw up, whatever Jazz was trying to convince him to be that week, or, heck, even someone just as strange as his parents and Clockwork.  He wished he could be himself, could just shed the image of what they and almost everyone else seemed to see in him.  

Also, the net.  

Some of the net fell heavily around Danny’s shoulders, then slid off them.  He didn’t look down, still entranced by the after-image.  Then pain, white hot and as sharp as a knife, drove into his temples and back.  It took his breath away.

He dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for air and squeezing his eyes so tightly that tears began to slip out.  What had happened?  What was wrong with him?  He hissed out a shaky breath that was dangerously close to a sob as the pain redoubled, strengthening and strengthening again until static pulsed in the dark of his shut eyes.

It felt as though his head were splitting open.

The pain lanced down his back and he revised the thought. It felt as though he were splitting open.

And then his face came apart.

And then there were only scattered fragments. Scratching.  Growing. Stretching. The feeling of fingers on earth. The feeling fingers of earth. Unfolding. Squeezing. Balance; a knife’s edge.

A great and overwhelming sense of space.

Like a leaf before a storm, Danny trembled.

Eventually, it ebbed.

He was clinging to the ground with all his might, which wasn’t much; the whatever-it-was had left him weak. His limbs felt like jelly and seemed half as cooperative. He was gasping for air, each breath harsh enough to sting his throat. There was a blanket over him and he had the halfway-delirious thought that if Clockwork had a blanket he’d have appreciated it sooner than this.

He couldn’t feel the net.

Had Clockwork gotten him out once it got light enough out? It seemed much brighter now, even if the thought of opening his eyes made Danny wince.

There was a painful, high-pitched chirr sound in the background.  It hurt Danny’s ears and made him wonder if there was an injured animal nearby.  

Something pressed down gently on the back of his neck, where the fuzzy, fluffy edge of the blanket rested.  It removed itself, then returned at the top of his head, whereupon it slid down to the top of his back.  

Oh.  Oh.  He was being petted.  Comforted.  That must be someone’s hand.  Clockwork’s?

It felt… unusually satisfying.  Especially when they fluffed the ruff of the blanket which Danny was strangely aware of.  

Very gradually, the tension in his body began to ease, and he was able to start cataloging the parts of his body that hurt, which was all of them.  But there were a few that hurt more.  His eyes.  His ears.  His temples and the sides of his head.  His entire back.  His shoulders, neck, ears, and large parts of his spine felt like every hair on them had been individually plucked out and then sandpapered.  Speaking of his spine, that felt as if it had been stretched, pulled to bits.  And his back still felt like it had been stabbed.  Multiple times.  Especially around his shoulder blades and at the base of his spine.  

Other than that, he was just sore, everywhere.  

The quality of the chirr sound he’d been hearing started to change, morphing into a sort of purr.  One that rose and fell in time with the hand petting Danny.  

Huh.  

His hand flexed on the ground.  Something was…  There was something very off here, beyond the pain, but that was getting better, and he was starting to feel almost… comfortable.

His weight shifted again, and the ground shifted under it.

It was warm.

It was…damp? Wet. There was something wet under his hands.  Carefully, worried that it would move again, Danny took one hand off the ground and brought it to his face to sniff.   

It smelled good. It smelled wonderful, salty and hearty and just a little bit like chicken soup.

He licked it.

“There we are,” said Clockwork, softly.  “Take as much as you need.”  

Danny needed a lot, right now. His throat was raw, and he was thirsty and suddenly starving, and beyond that the pain that was still leaving echoes through his body. This was warmth and comfort and he wanted both.

He lowered his head and began to lap directly from the source, and warmth and comfort steadily filled him like the morning sun.

He pulled back, not exactly satiated, but needing something else, something different, now.  He made a soft, pleading sound, more like a chirp or a keen than anything human.  He didn’t understand what was going on, but part of him trusted he would be cared for.  Loved.  He’d already been given so much he didn’t know he needed…

Another plea escaped his throat.  It blended with the softening chirr, fitting with it far better than Danny felt it should.  

Something soft and sweet-smelling tickled his cheeks, and Danny dove in, his tongue coming out to search for what he knew was there.

Sweet.

Sweet, but not in the way of candy or even sugar. This was softer, perfumed, more reminiscent of honey but lacking that sharp note.

He wanted more.

As he pushed his face deeper into the… container… something touched his…  Touched…  What?  It was touching his… not his head, but something over it, something attached, something he could feel, and now that he could feel it, was thinking about it, whatever it was, he could feel its movements, as even the sigh-soft breeze pushed it around. 

It– No, they were something fine.  Something soft and delicate.  Something light and flexible and oh so very sensitive.  

The hand, Clockwork’s hand, stroked down his back again, and Danny realized he could feel the fluff of the blanket the same way he’d been able to feel the things on his head. And it trailed past that, to his horribly sore back, and down, all the way down, past where his back should end.

Down, to where Danny could feel something laying across a foot. Down, to where he could feel a hard object under him.

Something twitched, and the thing across his foot fell away. The hard something vanished, too, replaced with the soft ground he found himself on.

Danny chirred, confused.

Oh.  He had been the one making that sound all along.  But.  That wasn’t a sound he could make.  It wasn’t.  

He had to see what was going on. 

Opening his eyes was, perhaps, the single hardest thing he had ever done.  It wasn’t that they were stuck closed or anything, they were just so heavy, and a large part of him just didn’t want to know, wanted to stay half asleep, wanted to keep being held and petted.

Red. A deep, rich red puddled around him on the strange, soft ground. And the ground was uneven, and covered with small ridges and creases where it didn’t vanish beneath the red. Which was welling up from the ground like a spring.

Danny was wrist-deep in it.

A short distance from his face lay the biggest flower Danny had ever seen.  It was bigger than his head, its pale petals stained liberally with the red.   Handprints.  The red stains were in the shape of handprints.  Danny’s handprints.  

The red looked– Well, it looked a lot like–  Like a scene from a horror movie–  But it was coming from the ground, it couldn’t be.  It couldn’t be blood.  

Danny had been drinking this.  What had he been thinking?

“Are you feeling better?” asked Clockwork.

Danny looked around for him.  Then, he looked up.  

The very first thing he noticed was that there were still stars in the sky.  It was still dark, the Aurora was still bright.  The meteors were still falling.

Why could he see?

Why could he see so much more?  He’d only ever seen the stars like this in long-exposure photographs.  The light pollution was way too strong this close to the city.  

There were other, closer things.  The leaves on the trees were green, but they weren’t just green.  Their veins seemed to glow with soft pinks and blues.  He could see insects and birds, too, all of them strangely bright to his eyes, like they had swallowed stars.  

Then, there was Clockwork.  It had to be Clockwork.  There wasn’t anything or anyone else it could be.

“I will interpret that as a yes,” said Clockwork, smiling down at him with love clear in all six eyes.

He had the nose Danny had seen before, yes, and long, silk-white hair, but everything else was so far beyond what Danny had imagined that it was hard to even comprehend.  

And yet it suited him perfectly.

His skin was blue, like summer twilight, warm and rich.

His face glowed in the same soft, steady way as the birds, and set in it, his eyes were a kindly red. There were four on his right side but his left had only two; a deep black scar tore its way down most of his face and left two empty sockets in its wake. It was interrupted only by his primary eye on that side, and Danny felt tender relief that the old wound hadn’t taken that one, too.

White filaments made up a thick ruff around the collar of his– No, that wasn't a cloak, those were wings.  Huge, dramatic, moth-like wings, layered over one another.  There had to be dozens of them, all the way down his back.  They were as dark and starry as the sky on the outside, but some were turned towards Danny to show the luminous, moon-pale undersides.

Below that–below that, Danny couldn’t see. The ground he was on was too high, and Clockwork too large. The ground–

He wasn’t on the ground.

Finally, like disjointed pieces of a puzzle, the details became whole. The uneven place where he lay, with its softness and whorls of ridges and creases. The warmth of it, and the placement.

The–the blood.

He was on Clockwork’s upturned hand.

Forget the rest of it.  When, and how, did Clockwork get so big?  

Danny chirred a question. Wordless, overwhelmed and wondering.

(And why was Clockwork bleeding?)

“You are safe, little one. My little one.”

Danny chirred again, a little cross. That didn’t answer anything.

Clockwork only smiled, and then there was a gentle rocking motion as they moved. Like clouds, the trees in the distance slid sideways with deceptive speed. 

Danny settled, feeling sleepy, slow, and stupid, but still safe.  Like he should be able to make this all make sense, like this should make sense, if he was just a little more awake and aware, but that it didn’t matter if he couldn’t, because he would be protected.

And then, Clockwork tilted, and his hand jostled, and though he didn’t become more visible, they were suddenly surrounded by great spikes of grass and flowers, stories tall. Some of them drooped, heavy with seeds or droplets of dew. They hung huge and heavy from the stalks, like fruit ripe to bursting.

Danny blinked. Frowned. Blinked again.

There was something, an idea, that made sense. But it hung just out of reach, blurry, and every time he reached for it, the thought passed through his mental fingers like the morning mist.

It was, it should have been, obvious.

Clockwork would know. Danny chirred his question again.

“It will come to you,” Clockwork said. ”Give it time.”

Clockwork cleaned him off gently with a huge, damp cloth, taking special care with his ruff, antennae, and wings. He mopped up the blood pooling beneath Danny as well, with a reassurance that Danny was welcome to more if he needed it. With another hand, he laid another huge flower down next to him. The stem where Clockwork had held it glowed briefly, before it faded into the relative dark of early morning, leaving the flower with the same odd coloration as the tree leaves earlier.

Dawn was still hours off. He wasn’t in the net.

Danny looked up.

He’d wondered what it would be like to stargaze with Clockwork without the net.  Apparently, the answer was wonderful.

The stars were still so beautiful. More beautiful, now. There was such an incredible array of color and brightness in the sky, like a living painting. There was scarcely any black left in it.

Danny blinked, slow.  He rubbed his face with his hands, lingering over his ears - which felt long and soft, like a cat’s or a rabbit’s, he must really be sleepy - and the long fluffy things that had sprouted from his head.  They twitched under his fingers.  

He looked up at Clockwork, still hoping for an answer and… Clockwork had things growing from his head, too, now that he looked.  He’d mistaken them for hair, before, but while Clockwork certainly had plenty of that, braided, beaded, and beribboned, that wasn’t all he had.  

They were antennae.  Four of them.  White, fluffy, and softly glowing.  They were much longer, compared to Clockwork’s body, than Danny’s were compared to his.  Danny raised his hands to feel his again.  He had two.  And, maybe, behind each, a ticklish little nub.

It felt…right, that they should both have antennae, though. Satisfying. Comforting, like a hug. Like the stroking had been, and the blood.

What else did Danny and Clockwork share, now?

Danny’s eyes trailed carefully over Clockwork’s face.

Danny was pretty sure he only had two eyes, but he touched his face again, just to make sure.  Then his ears…  Clockwork had big, long ears, too, the edges of them soft with white fur. Just like his ruff.  Danny’s ruff was black shot with silver and… it was growing from his skin.  It wasn’t part of a blanket, which meant…

He twisted his head to check.

There was no blanket.  Danny had wings.  They were wrinkled and slightly damp, but they were wings, just like Clockwork’s, although he didn’t have nearly as many.  Two sets, to Clockwork’s uncountably many.  

He also had a tail. And only two arms, to Clockwork’s four. Somehow, in the moment, this seemed less important than the wings.

His eyes kept returning to his wings.

The outsides looked just like the darker parts of the sky did now, streaked with meteor silver and edged with Auroral green.  The insides were the same vivid colors as the Aurora itself.  Pinks, purples, blues, and greens all dancing together.

They were beautiful.  He definitely, definitely should not have them.

He wanted them.

He shouldn’t want them.  

He did.  

He drew them close to his body and looked up.

There was a huff of fond laughter. “Remember to fan them out, my little fledgeling. We want them to dry well.”

Oh. Right. Danny unfolded his wings again, a little embarrassed he’d forgotten.  

And then he returned his attention to the stars. He was determined to enjoy this for however much longer this might last.  Maybe this would all make sense in the morning.  Maybe all of this would be taken away from him.  Either way, neither was true now.

Now, Danny was here with Clockwork, looking up.

Now, the sky was vast and beautiful.  

Later, his eyes started to feel heavy again.  He pulled the flower close, and began to absent-mindedly chew on the petals in an attempt to stay awake.  He didn’t want to miss anything else.

Despite his efforts, his eyes began to droop. His head kept falling into his neck fluff, and the flower tumbled from his hands.

Clockwork plucked it from where it fell, and replaced it with a blanket, just Danny’s size.

“Some inevitabilities we must fight,” said Clockwork, “but this isn’t one of them, my dear child.”

For another few moments, he kept his eyes stubbornly on the sky.  Another pair of meteors fell, and he wished, perhaps selfishly, that this could last forever.  

But, he admitted to himself with a sigh, he was very tired.  

Danny curled up in Clockwork’s hand, tucking his head under the wings he was careful to keep fanned, and his tail around his head.

“Rest, my little one,” said Clockwork’s voice, already distant. “We can talk more when you are rested.”

And Danny did.

Dawn.

The kiss of the sun on the horizon.  The beginning of a new day.  The banishment of all things of the night.  

Danny jackknifed straight up as if its fire had been poured directly into his veins, heart pounding.  He woke just in time to see his new wings, his beautiful, terrible, fully spread wings evaporate like the morning dew.  

The antennae, the tail, and the fur that had grown around his neck and shoulders and down his spine stayed.  

More concerningly from Danny’s perspective, his perspective didn’t change.  He stayed small, just the right size to fit snugly in the palm of Clockwork’s hand.  

Clockwork’s wings stayed.  So did his extra eyes, his antennae, his skin color, and everything.  

This wasn’t a dream.  

Or there really had been drugs in the food Clockwork gave him. 

Why, oh why, was that the best case scenario right now?  Why was the best possible answer to the question of what was happening that he was just really really high?  

Because if he was just drugged, that meant he was only normal human stupid.  People took stupid drugs accidentally and on purpose all the time.  But if it wasn’t drugs, if this was real… That meant he’d somehow wandered into a world where his parents were right, had always been right, and he was probably about to get eaten.  

“I would not, and will not, eat you,” said Clockwork.  “I never would.”

“I don’t know what you would or wouldn’t do!” hissed Danny, pulling on his hair. “You turned me into some kind of– of moth boy.”  

“You would have turned regardless, trapped so thoroughly and so long on a faerie door on a night like that. I simply made sure that it was kinder.”

“Kinder than what?”

“Any number of things. Any number of fates. They do not give much more mind to cruelty than your parents.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It was their trap you fell into, dear one.  Without their actions, you could be human, still; safe and warm at home.  Though,” and here Clockwork smiled so gently that Danny couldn’t help but be comforted despite himself. “You are safe, and you are warm. And you could be home as well.”

Danny hunched his shoulders.  “What,” he squeaked, “is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean that as you are, you would be in danger with those who made the net that trapped you. I mean that you would be welcome in my home, and cared for, and safe. You are not the first lost and lonely child I have found. Nor the first with parents who should have protected them, and did not.”

“You’ve kidnapped other kids?”

“I have adopted other children. Other children, who were not cared for as they should have been, not loved as they deserved. As you deserve.”

“My parents love me just fine,” Danny snapped.

“I see,” said Clockwork, and he seemed sad. “And your presence here in the night? Alone, without even a light to see by?”

“I snuck out. And I brought a flashlight with me.”

“Alone,” said Clockwork.

“I thought the woods were safe.”

“Why? Did your parents tell you they were?” asked Clockwork, eyes narrowed and nose flaring.

“No! No, they said they were full of monsters.”

“So they didn’t teach you we could be dangerous?”

“No, I–I didn’t believe them.”

“My child, humans can be dangerous. Even to other humans. Surely, you know–”

“I know that,” interrupted Danny. “I didn’t think you existed.”

Clockwork frowned. “Your parents set cruel traps for the unwary.”

“Because they are crazy. Were crazy?” Danny moaned, burying his head in his hands.  He resisted the urge to start preening his antennae and fluff. “I don’t even know anymore.”

“Their cruelty is the same,” said Clockwork, “Regardless of whether you believed the target existed. And they let you go hungry.”

“That wasn’t their fault.  They made dinner.  It just… didn’t work out.”

“Then whose fault was it?” asked Clockwork.  “Yours?  Your sister’s?  As parents, they should provide for you, not leave you to fend for yourself.”

“They didn’t leave us to fend for ourselves,” scoffed Danny, crossing his arms.  

“What do you call them leaving to go test what was left of that chicken?”

“That was– Okay, but what happened to the chicken was really weird–”

“It was not the first time, or the only time, that they abandoned you in favor of crafting their weapons and traps.”

Danny shook his head.  “They love us.  They love me.”

“Sometimes, that is not enough.”

“Sometimes it is.  Of course it is. They love me. They love me enough to–” Danny swallowed, fighting down grief and horror. “I’m not leaving them.  Or Jazz.”

Swallowing hadn’t helped. It had only shoved the churning knot of emotion down into his chest where it could reach awful vines around his heart and squeeze.

His hands were shaking.

God, what would Jazz do if he randomly disappeared?  They annoyed the heck out of each other, and Jazz definitely held some of the things she did for him over his head for guilt trips, but he didn’t doubt she loved him. He didn’t doubt she would be frantic if he vanished.

He chirred again, mournfully, and only looked up again at Clockwork’s light touch.

“If love is enough,” said Clockwork, softly, ”then shouldn’t it be enough that I love you?”

“I–I don’t know,” said Danny.

Because the thing was, he didn’t doubt that Clockwork loved him. Nor that Clockwork would nurture and protect him, as he already had. It was easy, terribly easy, to imagine snuggling under Clockwork’s wings or into his ruff and trusting that he would be safe.

Danny pinched his eyes shut. “I’m going back.”

“As you are?  Knowing how they would treat those they consider monsters?”

“Yes.  They’re my parents.  They love me.”

“Through this forest, and all of its dangers?”

“Yes.”

“Through all the hazards of that human city?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing I can do will dissuade you?”

“No.”  Although, Danny reflected, Clockwork could certainly stop him physically.  All he would have to do was hold him.  But Danny would fight him.  He’d fight, and he’d never stop fighting, and trying to get back home, no matter what.  No matter how much Clockwork seemed to care for him, or how gentle and kind he was.  

Clockwork sighed.  “Then I have no choice.  I will let you return.”

“You– You will?” asked Danny, suspiciously.  It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

“Yes.  But I would not have you killed out of hand, my child, as would certainly happen if you were to return as you are now.  First, let me show you how to change.”

“I don’t want to change anymore,” said Danny.  “I don’t.  I don’t.” The fear was a beating heart inside of him, the idea of more change, unknown and untraveled. 

“Perhaps I should say, change back.”

“I can be human again?” A needle of hope lanced through his chest. But would he ever see Clockwork again? 

“Not precisely,” said Clockwork, before Danny could dwell.  “No more than you are now.  But it was the doorway that changed you, and doorways are of the between rather than here or there.  Thus, you are of both sides of the door, not just one.  You are still half human.”

Danny sat down.  “I am?” he asked, voice wavering.  He wasn’t going to cry.  Not now.

“Yes,” said Clockwork.  “You are half human… and half faerie.  Half of their house, and half of mine, tied by blood, if not birth.”

Danny remembered.  He remembered drinking Clockwork’s blood (again, what had he been thinking?) and how good it had tasted.  

He hoped that wasn’t going to be, like, a recurring thing.  

“So, what do I do?” he asked.  

“First,” said Clockwork, “you ought to take off your clothing, so it doesn’t tear.”

“So it doesn’t…?”  Danny looked down at himself.  Maybe he should have realized earlier, but he wasn’t wearing the clothes he’d put on yesterday.  Which made sense.  At his current size, they would have been far too big.  Instead, he was wearing simple white layered robes that had openings in the back for his wings and tail.  

“I will have to get you something enchanted to change sizes, or to come when you transform, should you choose to remain and change often,” continued Clockwork.  “But I was able to make these on short notice, and they were suitable for the night.”

“You made these?” asked Danny, oddly touched.  He was supposed to be mad at Clockwork.  He was supposed to be afraid of him.  But both of those feelings just ran out of his hands like water out of a fist.  

“I did,” said Clockwork.  

“What happened to my clothes?”

Clockwork shifted one of his wings, showing what was beneath it.  Silver buckles and pocket watches shone brightly against dark silk and leather.  Other things, like bottles, herbs, and what looked like a small spyglass hung from belts or were secreted in pockets.  Danny’s ratty jeans and t-shirt stood out like a sore thumb.  

“Oh,” said Danny.  “Okay.  Um.”  His hands curled around the edge of the tunic-like top portion of the robes.  “Don’t look.”

Clockwork closed his eyes. 

“Now what?” asked Danny, who very much was not enjoying being naked in the open like this.  

“We are creatures of the night sky,” said Clockwork, eyes still shut.  “We are of the Stars and the Moon.”

“The moon is up during the day, too.  It’s up right now.”

“So it is,” agreed Clockwork.  “But so is the Sun that drowns out the Stars.”

“The sun is also a star.”

“So it is.  But it is not like other Stars.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It is not like other stars to us, or to humans.  It is the light by which so many see.  It is what divides day from night.  It is, you see, what has clipped your wings.” Danny shifted slightly, the missing weight of his wings both foreign and familiar. 

(There was so much to unpack.  He hadn’t any time.)

“Why is it different?”

“Its proximity, perhaps. We can discuss it at a later time, if you wish. I would enjoy such a conversation.”

Danny hadn’t really thought about there being a ‘later’ with Clockwork, but…  The thought of never seeing Clockwork again made his heart squeeze painfully, so he shoved it away.  

“In any case,” continued Clockwork, “for those like yourself to change, you reach for one or the other.  For the day or the night.  The light or the dark.  The Moon or the Sun.  However you would like to think about it.  You give precedence within yourself to one or the other.”

“Is it harder when they’re close to one another in the sky, like now?” Danny asked.

Clockwork smiled, though he kept his eyes shut. “As I do not transform that way, I do not know myself. My other children may have more comparable experiences, and we all are more comfortable under the phase we were born under.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be running into your children any time soon,” said Danny.  Seeing them would, after all, mean that Clockwork had succeeded in kidnapping Danny, too.  Even if it meant that he’d see Clockwork again…

“Even so.  You will be able to see for yourself before long.  Reach out, now.  Can you feel them?”

Clockwork had a lot of confidence in Danny being able to figure this out quickly, huh.  

(Despite still being mad at Clockwork - he was mad, he was - Danny didn’t want to disappoint him.)

Reach out… to something inside himself.  Which was also outside himself?  He wasn’t entirely clear on how literal the connection to the moon and sun was.  But…  Right.  Okay.  He could do this.  He didn’t want to be a little gremlin moth thing that Clockwork - or, heck, an average bird - could carry off at a moment’s notice.  

He closed his eyes.  

Day and night.  Light and Dark.  Moon and sun.  This was the kind of Yin and Yang stuff Sam sometimes got into.  Balance and changing balance.  

If he was reaching for the sun - for the Sun, the idea of the Sun - he should reach for heat, shouldn’t he?  Heat and life and truth.  

He could feel it, on his skin, warming him, cutting through the coolness of the morning.  He imagined that warmth sinking through him, filling him up.  

But there was warmth inside him, too.  It built in his chest and left his lungs with every breath. It churned in his heart and coursed through his veins like the blood that helped to carry it.  It was easy to take that, and imagine light to accompany it, centered at his heart.  To imagine it reaching out as the sunlight reached in.  He imagined it growing, brightening, pushing out against the inside of his skin, chasing away the dark, chasing away the moonlight and starlight and Aurora.  Gold, chasing out black and silver.

Except… not entirely.

The sun was also a star, and all moonlight had once been sunlight.  They mixed at the edges, blending comfortably, linked inexorably.  

(There was magic he would be able to touch through this link that few others could.  He understood this instinctively - but he was not yet ready for it, and the feeling was pushed away, put aside for a later, more appropriate day.)

This was the Sun, a tiny spark of it held within himself.  

(There was the Moon, dark but no less itself, no less present and pulling for its invisibility during the day.)

And… the balance shifted.  

He wouldn’t be able to explain what it felt like, to fall back into his skin.  Not now.  Not today.

Maybe not even if he lived a hundred years.

(Maybe he would, something whispered in his ear. Who knew how long moth-things lived?)

But he found himself at his proper human teenager size, cradled in Clockwork’s arms, no fluff or tail in sight.  

Still naked, though.  

He snatched his clothes from Clockwork, and, blushing furiously, ran behind a tree to change.  

It was strange, walking next to Clockwork.  The… Danny wasn’t actually sure what Clockwork was.  Mothman?  Moth monster?  Anyway, Clockwork was still way taller than him, and the way his ruff and wings made him seem bulkier made Danny feel a little bit better about initially mistaking him for a bear.  

The walk itself was still weird and awkward.  Danny kept drifting closer to Clockwork, and then when Clockwork’s wings ruffled out towards him, as if to part or turn back to let him shelter under them, he flinched away, walking as far apart as the trees would allow.  

Danny wondered if one of the things Clockwork had given him to eat had been some kind of… family love potion, and if it would ever wear off.  Despite no longer having any fur, his skin still itched for Clockwork to touch him, pet him, hold him.  

Although, for that to be perfect, he’d need to change back.  Shrink back down until Clockwork could hold him securely in one hand and pet him, head to tail, with the other.  

Which– No.  No.  He was never going to turn back into a moth.  He wasn’t going to think about it.  He wasn’t ever going to have antennae, or wings, or a tail ever again.  

… Clockwork had a tail.  A long one, longer than Danny’s had been, compared to his body.  It trailed on the ground like the train of a dress, and both the left and right side of it was completely lined with moth wings, as opposed to Danny’s where there were only wings next to the little bulb at the end.  Which Clockwork also had.  It flickered with light, like a lightning-bug’s tail.

Danny wondered if his tail would do that, too, under the right circumstances.  

Not that it mattered.  Again, weird fairy door magic or whatever, he was going to be human from now on.  Yep.  

(Wow, the more he thought that, the less convincing he got.  That was sad, actually.)

They reached the edge of the forest.  Amity Park seemed to sparkle in the light.  Too bright.  Too artificial.  Unreal, after the events of the night.

“Here is where we part, for now,” said Clockwork.  “If you need me, you will be able to find me.” Could he say anything that didn’t sound ominous and weighty?

“Right,” said Danny.  He hesitated, then, impulsively, hugged Clockwork.  He shouldn’t have.  Clockwork was exactly the kind of monster his parents had always warned him about, and was an admitted serial kidnapper who had spied on his family and turned him into a moth.  

But he couldn’t imagine leaving without hugging Clockwork.  Just once.  

Clockwork hugged him back, with all four arms and what had to be a dozen wings.  It was the best hug he’d ever had - even if it was also the most terrifying.  

Then, Clockwork leaned down so that his lips were next to Danny’s ear.  He whispered to him a simple handful of words.  Most of them were familiar.  His name.  His full name, the one on his birth certificate, the one his parents and sister used when they were really upset with him.  But… one of them he hadn’t heard before.  Not once.  Not ever.  

It was still his name.  

He knew this with the same surety as he knew the rest of his name.  He also knew it hadn’t been his name before last night.  

It was his name… because it was Clockwork’s.  It was a family name, belonging to him as indelibly and as truly as the name ‘Fenton,’ one that bound him not only to Clockwork, but to the rest of Clockwork’s kin.  

It did more than that, too.  When Clockwork spoke his name, his true, full name, it was as if every molecule in his body had been magnetized and his name was a magnet.  He was held still by it, at perfect attention.  Whatever Clockwork wanted to say, whatever he wanted to do, Danny had no choice but compliance.  

Not that, in the moment, he wanted another choice.  

“Follow your conscience, my dear, sweet child,” said Clockwork.  “I want that for you, always.  But when you do, please…  Have a care for yourself, too.  Do not needlessly throw yourself into deadly danger.”

Danny, pinned to Clockwork’s chest, nodded.  

Clockwork, with palpable reluctance, released him, hands tracing along his cheeks before falling away.  “Be safe, Danny.”

Danny nodded again, and stepped backwards, out of the trees and into the sunlight.  He didn’t know why he felt so sad, all of a sudden.  He was going home.  He’d avoided being permanently kidnapped or eaten.  He was fine.  

He turned away.  

He was going home. 

Stay tuned for the sequel. :)

#danny phantom #Lost Time #The portal accident #Phantasy Phest 2023 #Clockwork has low opinions of the Fenton Parents #Body Horror #Danny gets to say Fuck #tw: blood drinking #tw: moths

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 185

No one could get into contact with Constantine. 

Now usually that wasn’t that big of a deal, the man constantly disappeared for a few days at a time doing something or other, but he’d been completely silent and unseen for months. Usually he’ll at least answer a call to tell them to fuck off or something. 

And they really need his expertise and are getting incredibly worried for their grumpy team member. Yes he’s an asshole, but he’s their asshole, y’know? And he has a habit of getting into Situations (sure he also usually gets out of them, but what if he didn’t this time?!) 

So they’re desperate. Kind of really desperate. Desperate enough to use the summoning sigil they found on his fridge. They’d checked it, multiple times, and it should summon the hellblazer. 

“You’re not Constantine.” . 

The white-haired teen in the circle yawned, stretching and blinking at them blandly with familiar blue eyes before sighing. “Actually I am,” he stuffed his hands into his hoodie as he looked down at the summoning circle. “Well, technically just one of the many Laughing Magicians currently in the Realms.” 

He gave a grin, looking more amused than annoyed. “Pretty much every one of us is in the Realms right now for family reunion lol. (Did he just say lol out loud??) So like, you’re gonna have to specify which of us you’re tryin’ to summon. Honestly perfect timing for me thanks, the fruitloop keeps flirting with John and it’s horrific so.” 

… That was probably their John, wasn’t it…

#dcxdp #dpxdc #prompts #The Constantine Family exists for fucking over entities & manipulating luck #They adore this scrappy halfa who is doing the same with twice the feral #Danny: Yeah I’m like the changeling child that ended up in the middle of them and they just kept me for the laughs lol #Danny: I’m not allowed to join in the drinking competitions #Danny: Oh no it’s not a responsibility thing; alcohol doesn’t affect me and they say it’s cheating #Why Yes Vlad IS flirting with their Constantine #He’s started his redemption but let’s be honest he’s also a con-man & John is all for fucking over the rich #Danny is disgusted at how well they’re getting along and wanted to get away from their flirting while everyone else ribbed at em #Hence why when they all felt the summoning he decided to go #Well that and also for the laughs because he’s learning magic Undead Constantine style #”Fuckin 'ell yeah the family 'as a necromancer in 'he line again look a' 'im go!” (Lots of ghost & living people drunken cheering) #Danny only half fucking with people: Yeah I’m like their collective undead fae child lmao #danny fenton #john constantine

[soarrenbluejay]

Supervillains for a community. (Well, except those jerks over in Gotham, insular lot, but they’re they’re one problem) Of course they do- supervillains are a group defined by strong opinions and a willingness to see them through, often with a healthy dash of societal failures and trauma as a catalyst.

The fentons, while not active even on the online message boards, are well known and explosive when they do show up, full of fascinating insights and hours long rants on mad science on hair pin turns courtesy of that ADHD attention span. Bit of the cryptids you feel honored to bump into kind of deal. Besides, like a good quarter of the community as it aged, they’d settled down and had kids (not necessarily in that order) and taken it very seriously! Out in the middle of nowhere, where even the most fearsome government outpost members, the local branch of the IRS, quake before them in fear. Out of the way.

Reveal gone okay-ish, Danny moves to Gotham still to get some air bc now things are Akward and he landed that engineering scholarship which is loads better than any other college would give him with his track record. So- the mysterious Fenton children are finally crawling out of hiding! Everyone is psyched! And roll in to Gotham en masse to witness the fireworks!

Except Danny is Determined To Be Normal. He’s had enough of the throwing himself into harms way shit for a lifetime- he wants to be free to peacefully built Rube Goldberg machines and unintentional increasingly complex bombs to his hearts content. JAZZ, on the other hand- the coveted token Normal One, has finally snapped! She’s watched her baby brother she practically raised throw himself into danger over and over and could do nothing, and now that she’s exposed to this whole network of superheroes outside of small town Amnity, some of those uglier emotions are coming out. And boy is she pissed! And can’t afford to show it much while filing the paperwork to have Arkham legally razed to the ground!

See I love this idea of like, niches in superhero society. A villain the heroes know they can plop their kiddo down with for an exciting afternoon brawl while they take care of a particularly grisly case and come back to a few hours later ranting about some new life lesson and a new move they really want to try. A villain who has a functioning moral compass despite their somewhat batshit long term goal and you can contact to fuck with another villains’s plan so they can laugh at them and you can have an easy afternoon. One who pries up hostile architecture and fills in pot holes, idk man. Get creative here, there’s such potential!

So Jazz becomes a Training villain- someone the heroes know their sidekicks will walk away from in a fight 100% of the time, usually with some new lesson to ponder and only a couple of bruises. Sometimes even snacks!

She also absolutely ambushes mentors to check that they’re worth the kiddo, which they appreciate once they get over being jumped in a dark alley by a 7 foot Amazon trained force of nature. They are not used to being on that side of the jumping, it’s a little unnerving.

(Yes, she low key adopts Shazam upon checking in with him on cursory ‘is the main hero of this city and asshole’ checkin. Yes, the super clones get yoinked out from under Superman’s negligent thumb to go have a blast with Ellie. What about it?)

This however only encourages more assorted weirdos to crawl out of the woodwork. It’s not often one of their own forfeits their potential spot for the running of the coveted Most Normal I Swear prize, but when they do it’s bound to be good! But jazz is off hounding various heroes and punching the faces in of pedophiles and shit whenever there’s no cape within easy reach, and so is a mite bit harder to contact than Danny, who has innocently gotten an apprenticeship under a clockworker for access to their workshop and is gleefully going about doing nerdy shit with great abandon.

Plus this is Gotham. No one gives a shit if someone in the Mad Alchemist uniform and still smoking from their latest experiment pokes their head in a window to bother the local shrimp teen- none of the usual social rules apply, everyone’s crazy here! So everyone drops any and all attempts at masking and just acts their genuine unhinged selves, much to the alarm of the Bats and frustration of Danny.

Bc he cannot get these mfers to go. Away. Even liberal use of the creep stick has little effect when the interloper is calibrated for an opponent with super speed or laser vision or whatever, and he’s trying to maintain his guise as a Normal College Student Do No Investigate.

So he calls in the big guns. He’s not super active in the supervillain kids group chat ever since things in amnity calmed the fuck down post becoming King and then immediately using a loophole that says he will not take the throne until he is grown, as defined by finishing learning his trade a la the medieval standards Pariah set up. So he can just take his sweet ass time with his graduate degree and out of inter dimensional bull shit that much longer! Point is, he hasn’t taken the chance to rant over there in a while, so his Crazy friends are getting a lil worried.

The change to come over and shout at their batshit crazy but (mostly) well meaning parent AND see Danny? Score!

The bats, however, are getting awfully suspicious about this one kid that villains from all over the country are flocking to, especially young and upcoming ones as of recently! And he’s acting his engineering course- all the worst rogues are known to have flown through their PhD studies prior to Cracking. They seem to have a real problem on their hands with this Fenton guy.

#dp x dc #dc x dp #mad science #supervillain community #bonus points if you can pull out some super niche comic villain #justice for kite man #local child of a crazy chemist: so you know that trick you showed me with the soda and the reaction that could turn into just like all foam #Danny: yeah and also back the fuck up #lcoacc: so it’s been like my comfort food right but like I started wondering what you could do #danny: oh no (he says while making what amounts of an overachieving smoke bomb) #lcoacc: so I was like what if I add more of a base to it so it could be solid and then maybe just like a LIL acid to see what happens #Danny: oh ancients #lcoacc: but then the killjoy supes came in a ruined everything from where I was ruining lex Luther’s day #Danny:… did you get in on camera #lcoacc: OF COURSE. oh also like everyone ever if coming over for a sleepover lol #Danny: WHAT I CANT FEED YOU MONSTERS #lcoacc: no worrries we’ll rob a bulk store or something lol #Danny: nO

[ew-selfish-art]

DPxDC AU: Ellie was going to beat the shit out of this space cop if he was lying…she might just do it anyway but, like, fr she’ll throw down on Danny’s behalf.

Enter scene following a bad tandem clone + identity reveal where in Danny is captured and wounded, Ellie escaping just narrowly. She manages to get Sam and Tucker on her side and together the three of them save Danny. (Where was Jazz? Why couldn’t she find Jazz?)

Ellie has traveled all over the world, has seen its hospitality just as much as its hostility- besides Danny liked space right? Mostly, Ellie is panicking and, being unable to think of a place to take Danny while he’s bleeding out on her, she just goes… up. Out of the atmosphere and just beyond the satellites. It finally feels far enough away, tho she didn’t take them beyond the moon, she has limits to her paranoia thank you.

Imagine to her annoyance that apparently someone actually watches for biological materials leaving and re-entering the earth! Total Bullshit! She’s needed to make a number of trips back and forth to get Danny food and water and medical supplies- and she’s doing a damn good job of getting him stable. Too bad she hadn’t realized the ring guy following her sooner.

Turns out he’s “made a report” and “will find them justice” and “wants to help”. Yeah right. She throws down with him as best she can, and he clearly doesn’t want to hurt her so he keeps letting her get away with Danny in tow. Danny is sleeping through most of this but a few times he lets out a woop or a go get ‘em.

Eventually Hal calls the only person on the team with a single paternal bone in his body (even if it was only a single one most days). Pulling Batman into a spacesuit, into a ship and across the atmosphere shouldn’t have been that easy- though it was obvious how his agreement came immediately after Hal mentioned the wounded and entirely isolated twins he’d found.

#dcxdp #dpxdc #dc x dp #dp x dc #danny phantom #dc crossover #dp crossover #danielle #plz continue #I beg #by the time danny is recovered/comes to Ellie has fought all of his alien hero idols and he dies a second time #Ellie: if the green guy didn’t want to get punched he should’ve stayed in his own mind #Danny: el. that’s Martian man Hunter. el please say you didn’t #ellie regrets nothing and now Danny’s new coworkers all know where they stand #mixed results for bat adoption lmao #gl might even adopt tbh just to keep a better eye on her the guy seems chill #oh wait the male twin is over powered and has zero chill wait fuck batman give that one back

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCXDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 5)

—

Tw: torture scene (GiW agent receiving), general angst, canon-typical violence (DC), nobody is having a good time

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually

(Masterlist/subscription post)

—

It was pretty easy for Danny to forget that Dr. Crane was a rogue at times.

Most of the time he wasn’t comically evil, like what he’d expect of a Gotham rogue. He was helping Danny, even if only because he didn’t want to be taken in by the GiW as well. He was even downright nice most of the time, or at least neutral.

Sure, he had a strange obsession with fear and psychology, but that wasn’t really out of the ordinary for Danny. It didn’t feel like living with a rogue, just like…staying with a distant relative, or something.

He seemed like just an ordinary person.

Today, though, Danny was brought back to reality.

The GiW agent they’d tracked down together writhed on the ground, screaming in pain and terror. Scarecrow was sat a few feet away, setting up a syringe of the antidote he’d made.

After a few more moments, he injected the man with the antidote, watching him like a hawk the entire time.

Suddenly, the man surged forward, lunging at Scarecrow with a feral scream.

Unluckily for him, though, he was still weak from the fear toxin in his system, and from the beatings he’d received prior. Scarecrow easily wrestled him to the ground, settling himself on the broad part of the agent’s back with a vice grip on one of his arms.

“Let’s try again,” he said sharply, all of the warmth Danny had grown used to gone from his voice. “Where is the GiW base of operations?”

The agent took several shuddering breaths before spitting at Scarecrow, defiance and hatred written all over his face.

For just a moment, the room was utterly silent.

“Fine, have it your way.”

Scarecrow began to twist the man’s arm further. It wasn’t long before the agent began to squirm, then writhe, beneath him. Danny’s stomach churned.

“You know,” Scarecrow began, almost conversationally, “there are plenty of jobs that one can get without the use of their legs, especially with the level of education you have. Anything that doesn’t involve hard labor, really.”

The man’s face was beginning to turn red in his struggle not to scream. He took in gasping breaths, the way that his mouth moved almost reminding Danny of a goldfish.

(He felt awful for the comparison, but it was true.)

“However,” Scarecrow continued, “I find you’d be rather hard-pressed to find a job without the use of your arms. Especially in a place like Gotham, where you can always be replaced by someone eager to do your job for even less money. Of course, you could most likely coast off of savings and severance pay for a while, but…”

He leaned closer to the man’s head, his voice lowering.

“Would you be able to live like that? To live with yourself, if you no longer have a purpose?”

He allowed the agent a few seconds of rest before increasing the pressure on his arm. The agent gasped, letting out a strangled hiss. His arm bones were making fascinating noises in response to the strain. Danny felt sick.

“You seem like a rather driven young man. I’m sure your family would hate to see you unmotivated, directionless. Would they resent you, do you think?”

“Fuck you, you—”

The man was cut off by his own scream as Scarecrow finally allowed his arm to break, audibly splintering into thousands of useless shards of bone.

He had the exact pressure memorized. Clearly, he had done this before.

This was wrong. This was wrong.

Shouldn’t Danny step in, do something?

“That won’t heal cleanly. Even with the best medical care in the world, you’ll end up with permanent damage.”

The man below him wheezed and sobbed, choking on air as Scarecrow let go of his arm carelessly, letting it flop back onto the ground.

“Just the sort of thing something like you deserves,” Scarecrow hissed, his voice cold.

“You tortured a child, and you enjoyed it. You laughed with your friends about it. In your notes, one of your friends complained about the screaming,” Scarecrow brought his leg around, grinding his boot into the man’s broken arm. He howled in agony, writhing uncontrollably.

“Was it inconvenient to him, do you think? Too loud? If you were joking about it, clearly you thought so, too. I could fix that as well.”

He drew out another needle, this one once again filled with fear toxin.

“Scarecrow, wait,” Danny choked out.

Scarecrow turned to look at him.

Even his posture was different than usual. He looked… stiff, more like an animal than a man. When he tilted his head at Danny in a silent question, it looked like something in his neck had snapped, his head lolling to the side.

Danny wondered if he was consciously moving like that, or if it was habit at this point.

“You—we don’t have to do this. We can get information some other way, right? You don’t have to…”

Danny looked down at the GiW agent below Scarecrow. He didn’t even have it in him to glare up at Danny like he had before. Instead he laid limply on the ground, tremors rolling through his body uncontrollably.

“We’ve exhausted every other option and you know it,” Scarecrow said, his voice low, “this is the only way we can move forward.”

“Still, I—I don’t,” Danny swallowed, his throat tight, “this isn’t—this isn’t right. Isn’t there some other way to do this? Like—a truth serum, or something?”

“Truth serums are notoriously unreliable. They’re almost as bad as lie detectors. We’re much more likely to get a reliable result from this.”

Danny just stared at the GiW agent and his splintered, ruined arm. He began to weakly wriggle in Scarecrow’s grasp, which was graciously ignored.

He vaguely remembered himself doing the same thing when he was on the operating table; even if he knew there was no chance of escape, he still thrashed and screamed, desperate to get away. The jagged I-shaped incision on his torso felt uncomfortably warm.

What was there left to say?

“The Bat does the same thing at times, you know,” Scarecrow said, “him and the rest of his brood. By using my toxin, I’m actually lessening the amount of permanent damage that I’m doing. Physically.”

“Still, that doesn’t make it right,” Danny said desperately. “Even if—even if everyone in the world did this, it wouldn’t make it right.”

Scarecrow hummed.

They were both silent for a moment.

His next words were gentle, absurdly so when compared to the scene in front of him.

“I would love an alternative. But…”

He shrugged, hand coming to rest on the break in the GiW agent’s arm. Even without applying any pressure, the man stopped squirming immediately.

“There aren’t any other options,” Danny repeated, his voice flat and his body numb.

“Yes,” Scarecrow said. “I’m sorry.”

There was a pause. No one moved a muscle. Eventually Scarecrow spoke again, his voice strangely empty.

“You can stand outside and keep watch, if you’d like. At such a short distance their radars won’t pick us up.”

Danny said nothing, leaving the room silently.

He sat outside for quite a while.

He was grateful that Scarecrow had, with his help, dragged the agent to one of his previous hideouts. It was soundproofed, after all.

He was glad that he didn’t have to hear the rest of what Scarecrow did to the man.

After what felt like an eternity, Dr. Crane left the building, joining him outside. He guided Danny back to his beat up old truck and they drove home in silence.

“Did you at least…do you know where they are, now?” Danny asked as they entered the apartment, his voice small.

“They didn’t share the details of all of their locations with any one person. I know where one of their locations are, but not their main base of operations.”

Danny felt disgusted. With himself, with Dr. Crane, with the GiW.

He was disgusted by the agent, too. Did he just hate the restless dead so much that he would prefer to be tortured than to give them the upper hand? Did he really think he was in the right?

Was there a chance that he was?

Danny felt very, very small, and very stupid. Stupid and weak and cowardly.

“Danny,” Dr. Crane spoke, his voice soft.

“I’m truly sorry that this is happening to you. I really, truly wish that you didn’t have to endure my company. I…”

He fell quiet. Danny wondered if he was just saying this to pacify him, or if he truly meant it. He wondered if it really mattered in the end.

After a few moments of silence, Dr. Crane sighed, looking truly pained.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Danny was quiet.

“I’m going to bed early,” he finally said, turning away and leaving without a second glance.

—

#dcxdp #dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #dc x dp fic #liminal scarecrow #this kinda shit is how the fic got its name btw. #like yeah obviously it’s also in reference to the contrast between crane and danny’s actual parents #but it’s also about doing what you need to survive vs what is best for the people dependent on you #tshirt that says I love moral quandaries I love when no matter what you do you lose I love torturing characters #Scarecrow: why isn’t torturing everyone who wronged you healing this child. it worked for ME #meanwhile Danny is undergoing the torment nexus #and red hood is doing some doomguy shit #getting swarmed by GiW agents bc he’s one of the only ones showing up on the radar #Tucker voice Wow Mr red hood this is kinda fucked up. can I use the bat computer to hack the pentagon btw

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #82

Harley Quinn and Bruce Wayne accidentally have a one night stand after Harley is reformed. Harley gets pregnant but hides it, she can’t let anyone know about this. She gives him up for adoption and doesn’t tell Bruce. She can’t risk this getting back to the Joker who would definitely target the boy. Joker would definitely use her son against her, he’d be furious. so she gives Danny up for adoption. Who knew the Fentons were the wrong people to let adopt.

16 years go by and Harley begins to regret her choices and she decides to visit the home. She heard their eldest daughter Jasmine was getting into psychology and she’d figured she’d give her some pointers especially since they were kind of family. What she didn’t expect was for the Fenton Parents torturing and Vivisecting a ghost in their basement. Harley doesn’t know who this ghost Phantom is but she’s getting him out of their.

Danny finally comes too after the rescue to Harley Quinn of all people. He knows she’s reformed but he’s still cautious.

#dp x dc prompt #dp x dc #dc x dp #writing prompt #danny fenton #danny phantom #Danny is the son of Harley and Bruce #Danny gets vivisected #poor danny #Danny gets saved by Harley Quinn #Eventually Danny says fuck it and reveals he’s half ghost to her #Harley Quinn goes on a killing spree #She adopts Jazz afterwards why wouldn’t she want a kid that’s into psychology like she is? #Harley loves her kids and would do anything for them #Danny didn’t realize he was adopted #Danny being way smarter than people give him credit for #Honestly same #Id rather people underestimate me because if people knew they’d take advantage

[weirdfishy]

John “oh my nephew gave me this thermos that souped your ghost problem” Constantine

vs

Tim “what the fuck do you MEAN your nephew gave you a ghost-eradicating thermos why have i never heard of this gimme the tech” Drake

#john will never admit to danny that he /does/ use his weird terminology and will in danny's presence say 'oh yeah i vacuumed a ghost' #while danny tears out his hair bc 'we HAVE a vacuum it's DIFFERENT' #constantine used to fucking just. summon the ghost KING to deal with like. boxy fucking with the JL/D so danny was just like. DUDE HERE #tim is confused bc when the fuck did constantine get a nephew it would have been in his file #dp #dc #dp x dc #dc x dp #fishy’s bubbles #john constantine #tim drake #constantine just says nephew bc wtf is he /supposed/ to say?? the KING of the GHOSTS gave him a WEAPON AGAINST GHOSTS?? #well technically it's not like he shatters their cores...just puts them in a time out room

[shower-phantom-ideas]

More au stuf lets gooooooooo

Danny keeps masks of each superhero for when he visits their citys/towns/wtfe to wear while heroing there.

He 100% knows it just Amity Parks problem that they don’t connect Fenton and Phantom and he doesn’t wanna be outed and chanced around by the government in both forms. So he needs a mask. Well he has shit taste and both Sam and Tucker dismissed any he made so he said “fuck it ill use theirs” and just gets cheap costume masks for all the heros.

Why is he going from town to town though? Dani is taking him on a tour of all the best and weirdest food trucks she has found on her travels. Who cares if CW also has some missions for him while hes in those towns. Hes here for the food 100% sorry Clocky u r a side quest.

#danny phantom #danny phantom au #didn’t say if it was dp x dc or dp x mcu #ill tag both #dp x dc #dp x mcu #get a fuck #imagine though danny coming face to face with batmon while wearing his mask #or ironman xD #who are you kid #i am ironman #and I have a case of ligma #would tony stark fall for ligma? probably #batman wouldnt though #he has kids

[stealingyourbones]

Short DPXDC Prompts #592

Harvey is mid bank heist when he hears “Harv? Is that you? It’s been so long!” From one of his hostages. Oh that voice was so incredibly familiar there’s no way-

Well he’ll be damned. Jack and Maddie Fenton, the couple he had a momentary fling with in college were pushing through the crowds and fully ignoring his goons pointing half a dozen guns at them as they made their way towards him.

———

Harvey couldn’t believe it. Jack and Maddie were still deeply in love and as crazy as ever, but they kept reaching out to him. They didn’t seem to mind him as the broken man that he is unlike another college friend. They treated him like a person. They didn’t expect his therapy and treatment to magically change him back to how he was, they just were happy that he was happy.

They mentioned once before that they messed up with how they treated their son but they realized their mistake and did their absolute damndest to make it up to their kids. They weren’t going to villainize their college ex. They were going to support him and be for him every step of the way.

#dpxdc #dp x dc #danny phantom #bones writes in the tags #bones prompts #what I’m saying is Harvey/Maddie/Jack could be a really cool pairing #college era fwb or college fling maybe? either way: they are in love #Harvey is a bastard who doesn’t understand that Maddie and Jack’s weapons and inventions they’re giving him #to cause chaos and crime in gotham is their way of showing their love towards him #they’re trying to help and they’re doing their best and their best is actually pretty damn good #they treat Two-Face and Harvey both like real people and they aren’t afraid of him. it’s a nice change of pace #Batman captures Jack and Maddie and they tell him that they’re shocked that Bruce didn’t get together with Harvey after college #first of all: holy fuck they know his identity #second of all: They’re just talking to him like an old college buddy who they haven’t caught up with in ages

[lexosaurus]

THE MOON'S HAUNTED

Damn that sucks for the moon someone should call Jack Fenton about it

#ask #cue danny clicking on the news #only to see #BREAKING NEWS: MAN PORTALS TO THE MOON? #and it cuts to an image of Jack who somehow built a functioning portal and went to the moon to ‘get that ghost’ #except it wasn’t a ghost #it was just a rock formation that looked like a ghost #jack fights it anyway #and regales the story at dinner #meanwhile danny is still just trying to figure out how in the everloving fuck his dad built a functioning portal to the moon #bonus: he DOES ask his dad this who just waves him off saying ‘simple quantum mechanics!’ #and then goes back to talking about ghosts

[tales-of-the-ghost-zone]

DP x MCU crossover

Sometime after Howard and Maria Stark’s death, Hydra decides to try and make a clone of Tony Stark, that’s infused with Super Soldier serum. They were hoping to get a super smart super soldier that they could control.

And thus Danny was born.

At some point when he’s like 2 or 3 one of the Hydra agents whose been his handler since he was born grows a conscious after witnessing the most recent experiment the other scientists in the lab put Danny through. They take Danny and run away from the lab. They don’t get away clean tho, they had to fight their way out of the lab and they were injured in the process. They wind up in Amity Park with baby Danny and come across the Fenton Parents. They hand Danny over to them and tell them to protect and look after the kid. And then they die.

The Fenton parents adopt Danny and raise him as their own. Danny grows up not knowing he’s adopted or that he’s a clone and a super soldier. The ghost portal accident happens when he’s 14 like cannon. The reason he survived and only half died is because of the super soldier serum in his blood.

Eventually, after the whole events of the Danny Phantom series has passed (minus Phantom Planet because fuck that horrible ending to the series). Danny, after defeating Pariah Dark, is now the king of the ghost zone. He still doesn’t realize he’s a clone of Tony Stark. Despite the fact that he looks exactly like a 17 year old version of the man!!!

And then New York happens. A portal opens up in the skies above New York, and aliens come pouring out of it! You bet your ass Danny hightailed it over to New York to help out the group of heroes that were trying to stop the aliens. He’s super hyped to fight aliens!!! He’s just having a blast zooming through the skies of New York, around skyscrapers, throwing punches and ecto-blasts at aliens, helping out the other heroes.

Meanwhile every time he helps one of the Avengers they all double take when they finally get a look at his face. Cause like yes this floating glowing child has glowing green eyes and Snow White hair, but the rest of his face looks like a very young Tony Stark. After each encounter with the boy the different Avengers call Tony over the coms to ask his status and to reassure themselves that Tony hadn’t been de-aged and given super powers mid battle.

Tony is the last one of them that meets Danny. He’s super annoyed at the fact everyone keeps calling him over the coms to ask his status. Like yeah he’s not a super soldier and doesn’t have powers, but neither does Romanoff or Barton!!! And unlike them he has his own super suit to protect him. So why is everyone calling in to check on him?!!!

And then finally Danny comes zooming around a building chasing after Loki’s chariot, shouting sarcastic quips at the god, while firing green blasts from his fists. And Tony just kind of blue screens for a minute. Jarvis has to take over piloting the suit for a minute while Tony reboots. He’s def got the surprised Pikachu face going on. Finally he reboots but Danny’s already flown off to deal with something else.

The battle comes to an end, the portal closes, the world is safe, and all the Avengers all head towards Stark tower. Danny sees them and where they’re headed and decides to meet them there. He’s been the only super hero around for a while and he wants to actually properly interact with these new hero’s!

Imagine his shock when he actually finally comes face to face with Tony Stark and finally realizes how much he looks like the man. He starts panicking thinking his mom had an affair with the man 17 years ago and just passed him off as Jack Fenton’s son.

Absolute chaos ensues as assumptions are made. DNA tests happen. They realize that no he is not Tony’s kid, he’s Tony’s clone. More assumptions are made. No body is having a good time.

#danny phantom #marvel #mcu #dp x mcu #tony stark #Hydra #clones #ghost king danny #misunderstandings #assumptions are made #maybe some everlasting trio added in on the side #on a side note #Tucker Sam and Jazz are all liminal as hell #they all have their own ghost powers/halves at this point #because fuck it why not #Tony is having a panic attack at the thought he had a kid he never knew about #and his kid is a ghost #his kid died #apparently when he was like 14 cause that’s how old this ghost kid in front of him looks #Danny is 17 but his ghost half still looks 14 #his human half looks his proper age #it’s just his ghost half that hasn’t aged #Danny’s having a panic attack thinking his mom cheated on his dad #and then he has a panic attack thinking his parents cloned him in their lab using Tony’s DNA #he calls Jazz hysterical and crying about the whole thing #Jazz can barely make out what he’s saying #all she gets is her baby brother is calling her in hysterics #after fighting aliens #and joining the super heroes in their tower #she grabs Tucker and Sam and hightails it to the tower ready to kick some ass and defend her baby brother

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 210

The battle had been long. Long and destructive, power rolling from both combatants as they launched at each other and tore through armor and flesh alike. 

Islands fell from the skies with every clash, swaths of utter annihilation following as they fought long after their armies had finished. Wings swept great gales of wind that shadows raced to block, fire meeting fire and claws meeting blade as two beasts brawled. 

Finess was no longer a thing needed- this was all about who could last longer now. One who fought for itself, for its legacy of tyranny, and another who fought together, as one. 

The battle was long, no one quite sure how long but enough to be called as such. It could have been hours, it could have been days, it could have even been centuries in this mauling of what was and what could be.  

And finally, the One-That-Was-Many rose victorious over the king before it, dead once more at its talons, wings spread to usher in a new era for the realms. 

Or at least, that was how the tale went, according to Marvel. Even he wasn’t sure what parts of it were true or simply legend, but it was an interesting story all the same. It kept the kids entertained at least, and caught the others attention so there was that.

#DCxDP #DPxDC #Prompts #The Class Pulls a Tiamat #Why let there be a Ghost King when they can split it between the nine of them #Dora helped them a lot in the beginning in getting used to battling in the form of a hydra #Clockwork helped with figuring out how to do things with a hivemind of sorts #Pandora helped them train in using multiple arms in their humanoid fusion form #Frostbite made sure they stayed healthy and didn’t push themselves with Nocturne’s help #I need yall to know that they give off galaxy vibes in both forms #The zetas were shut down so people decided to start telling stories & mythology came up at some point #Billy likes to read the books in the Rock of Eternity & found the story there #Jordan & Ellie are the prince & princess of the Infinite Realms & are learning how to do the whole Fusion deal #I say this to give people the most amount of things to be able to use this prompt for #Does this count as Ghost King Danny? #Fuck it this is now a shared monarchy via this loophole of them sharing a body when defeating Pariah

[wildwren]

Danny and Paul Cho // Beef (2023)

screaming, crying, chewing the drywall etc.

#beef netflix #beef #beef spoilers #danny cho #paul cho #PAIn PAIn PAIn #not to get personal on main but #as a youngest sibling who has a VERy complicated relationship with my sole (same gender) older sibling #and who generally gets told that older siblings are more oppressed #THEY WERE SO REAL FOR THIS #DO YOU UnDERSTAnD HOW FUCKInG REAL THEY WERE FOR THIS #this is not me saying Danny's the villain #just #ITS COMPLICATED #anyway #THIS FUCKInG SHOW #elmo fire.gif

[nerdpoe]

Danny's retired. The ghost of a little girl doesn't particularly care about that.

He's in Star City, attending college, trying to keep his shit together after some huge villain attack that almost leveled the city.

And the ghost of a little girl stops him in his tracks.

Normally, ghosts leave him alone. They know when someone's too strong to fuck with, and they know he doesn't want to get involved in hero shit.

The exception being murder victims who want him to help point cops in the direction of their murderers....

...and this one little girl.

She bears the marks of death by collateral, so clearly not a murder victim.

Danny tries to brush past her.

She reappears.

This happens again. And again. And again.

"Look, kid, if I help you then every single ghost is gonna be on my ass for making an exception. You need to move on, for your sake and your family's-"

"My name is Lian Harper," the little girl interrupts, kicking him in the shin, "An' you're gonna help my dad, whether you like it or not."

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc #dc x dp #phanfic #story prompt #dead child tw #danny's fucking done #lian has something to say about that #mainly that no he's not #get back in the game and go be a hero again #grief tw #because holy shit is Roy grieving rn

[ew-selfish-art]

Dp x dc AU where Dick adopts teenage Danny into his family with Kor’i and Mar’i

Mar’i had always wanted a sibling, all seven years of her life in fact!! Toys and play times with friends couldnt possibly compare to having a brother or a sister, and she knew this as a fact from some of her school mates.

So when her dad brings home a kid that was all cut up and bruised, and her mom patches him up because something about his “biology” was weird- Mar’i sees this as an opportunity in the making!

Danny is healing up slowly but surely in Nightwings house, and he feels like a total intrusion. He’s now seen their faces and it feels like so much trust has been placed in him with no way for him to repay it. So he’s moping a bit, hanging in his room reading a book based on his video game series when a small child walks in, her arms filled with board games and toys.

“Hello, will you be my big brother?” Is all she asks him with a straight face, her eyes incredibly serious for someone so small.

“Er, im just here until-“

“Want to play a game?” Mar’i changes the subject favoring a specific board game in her hands. Rule number one of negotiation is to never let them say no- her uncle Damian taught her that.

“…yeah, sure.” Danny accepts because honestly? He could at least repay Nightwing and Starfire by babysitting right? They play a few games and then dinner gets brought in and for once, Danny feels like he’s having a normal family meal.

Next time she comes into his room, he’s focused on healing one of his larger wounds from the power in his core- he’s floating and his eyes are green. Mar’i is ECSTATIC. He fits in PERFECTLY.

“WILL YOU PLEASE BE MY BIG BROTHER?!?” Mar’i persistently asks every single day. Danny laughs and smiles and pats her head.

Once he’s feeling better, he starts patrolling with Nightwing, just to pay him back. Not that he’s having fun bashing goons and getting solid hero advice for the first time in his life.

Then he goes to Tameran with Kor’i for a diplomatic mission (his royal ambdassadorship/ king titles tbd) to discuss the Infinite Realms and why they absolutely need to abandon their attempts to use ghost artifacts. Kor’i explains how proud she is of him as they fly home.

He gets invited to all their family outings now, and he is overwhelmed by how accepted he is. How much the Bats all seem to leave him space for boundaries but invite him to do things very much to his interests (they are detectives after all). Once its safe, Jazz comes every now and then from her Ivy League college to hang out with them all and spend time with Danny. She gives him the advice he needed to hear about accepting good things into his life and deserving happiness.

One day Mar’i has a bad day at school, and when Danny gets home from his own community college classes- he brings her into a big hug, makes her a cup of tea from her mom’s home planet and once she’s comforted and happy again he says “hey, what are big brothers for?”

#dc x dp #danny phantom #dp x dc #dc universe #Danny is a big brother AU #dick adopts danny AU #Nightwing is married to starfire #danny got fucked up by his parents and gets rescued by Nightwing #implied bad parent drs Fenton #Mari sees him send a green energy blast from his hands and says ‘he’s like me fr fr’ #they all want him to be part of the family but mari is NOT SUBTLE #dpxdc #Dcxdp #Dick brings home danny and tells Kori that he’s gotta call Bruce and she’s like ‘why? that’s our kid now.’

[camellcat]

WTFFF I thought thirteen would be my new girl crush love of my life heart eyes wife you-came-after-twelve-you-must-be-better-than-they're-all-saying bbygirl and then I had to sit down and watch as she told a man who (if he were not a murderer, of course) literally every regeneration before her would've LOVED and FULLY SUPPORTED that "the systems aren't the problem. how people use and exploit the system, that's the problem. people like you" </33333 !?!?

#WHERE IS THAT POST THAT SAID NINE WOULD KILL THIRTEEN FOR BEING A CLASS TRAITOR #WHY WOULD YOU SAY “ERODE PEOPLE'S TRUST IN AUTOMATION” ALL WORRIED AND CONCERNED LIKE THAT??? #WHEN DID YOU START LIKING AUTOMATION OVER PEOPLE THINKING AND DOING THINGS FOR THEMSELVES??? #AND WHY ARE YOU TRAVELING WITH A COPPER??? WE HATE COPPERS?????? #did we FORGET into the dalek?? how about how he treated danny?? god there's so much more I can't even remember off the top of my head #(I understand soldiers are different from cops but c'mon don't even PRETEND twelve would've been any nicer if blue or danny were just COPS) #also a bit off topic bUT MAY I JUST TALK ABOUT ARACHNIDS IN THE UK FOR HALF A GODAMNED SECOND— #I know the companions are usually the ones to do the doctor's dirty work here but like #I just can't see the other doctors NOT having the business man lure the spider for being so fuckin annoying about it #like I was genuinely surprised when they had him do that whole song and dance about not doing it and then he actually just. didn't do it #the doctor LOVES fucking with evil rich business men this is PERFECT. plus why not get back at him for being awful to their companions? #absolutely gobsmacked thirteen let him act like that. I am wrong in thinking that the others would've shut his shit down a LOT quicker?? #anyways. I love jodie whittaker and it's just so upsetting to have her doctor do something so wildly off #THIRTEEN PLEASE I HAD SUCH FAITH IN YOUUU I WAS IGNORING THE HATERS AND FOR WHAT #I can SEE the other doctors in her still I can FEEL them they're there she's doing an AMAZING job but. oh my god. what did they make her do #I can't even say she feels ooc as a whole because jodie is bloody brilliant. it's just these... moments. that don't make ANY sense to me... #especially coming off of twelve?? I get the radical personality switch but that belief is a core part of the doctor. or at least I THOUGHT #thirteenth doctor #doctor who #I still love all of you who love her and reading ur posts/fics but I. will not be making any myself. I do not think.