#i don't blame him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

avelnfear · 11 months

Text

Chapter Ten

Masterlist

Damian wondered if it would be okay to give into the urge to tackle Danny for cuddles now. He’d held back during the entire plane trip back, and he had snuggled with his mother rather than Danny when he’d found where they’d been fighting. He’d spent way too long pretending that he didn’t know such an important person in his life, and it was getting hard, he could practically feel himself vibrating in place. Damian was staring at Danny as he tried to figure it out, even though he knew that he could be considered rude for doing so.

Nellie was curled into one side, so the other was open for snuggling and there was enough room on the couch. Finally after twelve centuries, it was only five minutes according to his internal clock, Danny noticed him staring and smiled an okay. Still, Damian waited until Nellie gave her consent too before diving at Danny.

There were gasps around the room, and Damian heard at least one person yell his most common nickname in the tone that said they thought he was about to hurt somebody. He ignored all of them in favor of finally, finally, curling up into Danny’s side, one arm reaching behind them to tangle his fingers with Nellie’s. Damian’s eyes slipped closed as he let out a noise of contentment, but he knew that there were shocked looks directed at him from almost every member of his family. It wasn’t his fault that acting like the well adjusted person he used to be would have doomed the world to ending, so he didn’t feel like the gazes were quite warranted.

“So. How about I start out with a brief backstory and then we can get into your questions?” Danny’s voice sent soft rumbles through Damian with how close he was to them. It made Damian let out another sound filled with how content he was to be right where he wanted to be.

“That would be acceptable.” Father’s voice was tense enough that Damian knew him being so close to someone Father considered an unknown probable threat wasn’t giving everyone else the same comfort it was giving him. Oh well.

Danny took in a deep breath, telling Damian which story they were going to tell before they even started. “This is not the first life we’ve lived together. At first, we didn’t really know each other. Tim and I were online friends who discussed superheroes, but we didn’t know each other irl, we didn’t want to. In those days Amity Park, my hometown, was a neighboring city to Gotham, only about an hour or so away. I was adopted at around the age of ten by the Fenton family, in that life at least. I met Jason about eight years later when a government agency picked up signs of contamination on both of us. They called us ghost scum even though the actual term coined by the species we were technically a part of is Existences. Jason and I had both died at least once, brought back at different times and in different ways, but it meant we showed up on their scanners.”

“They’re called the GIW and they’re nearly nonexistent.” Nellie sounded sleepy, but Damian refused to open his eyes to double check.

“Yes, I was getting to that, but thank you.” Danny was surely smiling at Elle, but Damian knew it would drop as soon as the story continued, this was a hard time to relive for all of them who were there and remember. “The GIW did horrible experiments on us with a secondary purpose of killing us eventually. One of the worst things they did was make us believe we were being rescued utilizing some sort of hallucinogen that would make us see and hear whatever we wanted to see and hear then pretending to break us out only to punish us for attempting to escape. It took too long for us to be found, so by the time a real breakout was actually happening-”

“Jason flinched at his own guns.” Damian interrupted, finally opening his eyes to stare at Jason as the memory of that day played in his head. “He only realized it was a real gun when he used it to save us from an agent who was sneaking up on us. The hope and fear that lit up his face at that moment will always stay with me. No one got mad at me when I started to use excessive force, mainly because they were too busy doing the same. By the time we realized Da and Pops were gone, we’d basically destroyed the entire base, leaving the crippled remnants of their agents behind.” Damian saw the horror in Jason’s eyes, and all it did was remind him of that fateful day.

Danny ran their fingers through his hair, and he let it relax him enough for his eye to drift closed, leaning into the point of contact. “We didn’t fully trust that it was actually real, so Jason and I ran to Clockwork and Frostbite, two Existences who live in the dimension all Existences can call home, the Infinite Realms. We stayed there for a couple months to a couple years, time is hard to judge around Clockwork. When we got back, we couldn’t be separated from each other for too long because that typically meant the next experiment would be absolutely awful. Jason and I lived that life to an end that was a long time coming, dying side by side in the same way we’d always lived. It was a good life. Jack and Maddie were good in that one, we managed to rescue Talia from the mind control and brainwashing she was under, and we lived a full life that was full of love and joy.”

“If only it could have lasted into the next.” Elle’s voice was so miserable that Damian scooted closer to Danny to tangle the fingers of their spare hands together, giving his precious ghoul as much comfort as he could.

“Elle is right, the next life was absolutely awful. Damian was never born because Talia died early, Tim died as a tiny child, almost everyone we knew and loved were dying left and right. A combination of having to personally see most of those deaths, Fear Toxin, Joker Venom, and being constantly dipped into the Lazarus Pit drove the Dick of that life to such insanity he eventually blew up the entire universe, forcefully making everyone in that universe move on. Jason and I remembered our first life for the entirety of our second, but I didn’t remember either life we’d lived until I reached what I think is eighteen years of mortal life and full maturity as an Existence. Existences don’t age or count maturity in the same way that mortals do, so Elle is technically my adult child even though she’s only about sixteen-ish in mortal years.”

Elle hummed. “Jack’s a piece of shit in this life though.”

Danny groaned playfully. “You’re so lucky that you can swear because you weren’t there when most of the town got soul cursed because of that stupid wish.”

“What, you gonna tell me I’m strawberry crepe grounded because you’re jealous I can say fuck?” Elle was probably smirking, if the teasing frame of voice was anything to go by. Damian just stayed floating in the void of black behind his eyes, letting the voices of his loved ones wash over him as the sense of peace rocked him to sleep so suddenly that he barely registered when it happened.

~`~`~

“I’ve never seen Demon Brat go to sleep like that before.” Jason’s voice was quiet and full of shock, managing to express himself while still making sure he didn’t wake his brother up.

“You mean you don’t remember him sleeping like this before, just like you don’t remember him ever calling you Pops before.” There was a slight smirk on Danny’s face that Jason saw in the corner of his eye as he kept staring at Damian, half expecting him to wake up because Danny hadn’t lowered their voice at all. “Don’t worry he won’t wake up.”

Dick shifted, drawing Jason’s attention to the stiff way he was sitting. “Why did he call you Da and Jason Pops?”

“Because that’s what I call them!” Nellie chirped.

Danny chuckled. “He married Nellie here in our first life, so we were his in-laws. Talia is his mother, Bruce is his father, Jason is his pops, I’m his da, and you, Dick, are his dad. He just didn’t have a chance to address you as such before falling asleep.”

“How does he remember? Is there a way that we could remember?” Tim sounded like he wanted to ask more, but Jason respected his ability to cut his questions off, staying silent because he didn’t think he could do the same.

“I think he made a deal with Clockwork to prevent the chaos of our second life, taking upon himself the burden of remembering for us. I don’t think he remembers the second, because I don’t know if he ever existed in the second. As for a way that you could remember… Jason will remember eventually, as soon as the Pit’s Influence finally leaves him behind. As for the rest of you… only if you become an Existence, of which there are many types. If you’re asking to see if you managed to solve your case before, you didn’t.” Danny looked so sad at the end there that Jason couldn’t help what blurted out of his mouth next.

“What happened to Tim with the twin case?”

Danny looked even closer to tears, and Jason felt like kicking himself at seeing that expression on their face. “He died.” Shock kept the room completely still and silent. “He didn’t share it, adding another massive project on top of his work in his civilian life and his vigilante life. The rest of you, not knowing what was bothering him and not wanting to push him too hard just tried to pick up the slack in a desperate attempt at giving him a break. It didn’t work. The more time he had off from his other obligations, the more he sunk into the twin case, but he never found anything.” The words poured out of Danny like a waterfall of agony, paralyzing everyone else in the room with the sheer depth and intensity of the feeling. “It.. It got to the point that we all tried to bench him, but he grabbed a spare suit and snuck out. On route to the Twin Case Safehouse, which is where I live now, he ran into the Joker, who killed him. We.” Danny paused, taking in a deep, fortifying breath that had Jason stiffening in fear for what would be said next. “We managed to keep Tim alive and back to the Cave. He was the right kind of personality and in the right kind of space to become an Existence after death, but he-” Tears started leaking from Danny’s eyes, as he broke off to do some calming breathing techniques. A minute of silence later, he picked the thread of the story back up again. “He said that he didn’t want to continue existing, that he didn’t deserve to, because he’d never finished his case. He said that the only solution he could come to is that his target was already dead and he refused to continue living in any way when they’d already passed into Limbo. He was the first to die.”

“Who else died to the Joker?” Bruce’s voice was quiet and fearful, yet steady, like he was horrified of the potential answers but needed to know regardless. Jason needed to know too, Danny had come home exhausted every time he’d been assigned to guard the clown. Jason needed to know how bad it was.

“Jason and I in our second life, Bruce, Tim, Dick, Duke, and Steph in our first life. He ordered the bomb set that killed Jazz, Tuck, Sam, and Jack in that first life as well. He was at least involved in the situations that killed most of you in the second life as well. He blinded Dick only a month before he killed him, so there’s that. He baited Scarecrow into the attack that killed Alfred. He tortured Jon into silence and a near coma, and he was at least part of a lot of the hero deaths that occurred in that first life, although most of those weren’t the most well known of heroes. Every time I see him, I refuse to give him any satisfaction, locking my emotions and feelings deep inside to present a blank mask to him all the while fighting back my natural instincts to kill him,” Danny’s face and voice were as dark as the topic, “To torture him and show him just what he put my family through in a life he no longer remembers, to show him what true fear really is, to make him the focus of every joke he once pulled, to-” Danny cut off when Damian stirred in his sleep, automatically brightening as he turned a little more towards Damian to pass their fingers through his hair again, muttering things that Jason couldn’t hear that caused Damian to sigh and relax back into sleep.

“We’re movin on from this topic. You guys can go discuss whatever ya want to in another room, but I’m gonna set this couch up inta the bed it can become and Ma, Damian, n I will be takin a nap. Don’t disturb us for your own safety, now shoo.” Nellie glared at them while flapping her hands until everyone had left and closed the door.

Jason was worried for Danny, that was a heavy topic and a heavy burden to carry. He was worried for Damian too, carrying the same weight for so long must have been exhausting. Talia was waiting for them in the sitting room that everyone settled into for the post questioning discussion. She took one look at their faces and gave them all an understanding smile.

“I remember everything too. Jason and Danny both needed a stand in to take the burden of remembering everything in order for this whole thing to work. Ask all your remaining questions to me, I’ll answer what I can.” At the disbelieving looks she received, she let out a short bark of laughter. “I swear on my loyalty to High King Phantom that I will not lie to any of you for this discussion.” The words sent a feeling of power through the room. “Believe me now?”

Taglist: @blacksea21090 @chrysanthemum9484 @samgirl98 @may-rbi @justwannaseesomebrozawa @serasvictoria02 @treepainting @fluffykster @enderglace @sigdexae @persephoneblackrose @angelofsongsoteira @lazy-bouqet @littlefeather345 @icedbluesoul @autumnwulf @thefearfullone @alixanterm @skulld3mort-1fan @dulceringo @vidimirrayne @betinaplayingwriter @the-legal-shipper @currant-owo @crystalqueertea @fisticuffsatapplebees @bugaboo25 @dannyphantomphan @botwadtict @kyrianclawraith @mnemovoid @lyra689 @demiourgias @d4ydr34min9 @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @emeraldcorpral @bobred18 @emergentpanda-blog @apointlessbox @pastalavistamf @v-inari @shadow-otaku20 @hellomygay

#ttac(wygiaf)#Damian Wayne #Jason Todd #danny fenton #danielle fenton #Talia al Ghul #bruce wayne #Tim Drake #dick grayson #we finally got some backstory in #DeadOnMain #dcxdp #dpxdc #jason todd x danny fenton #i've been wanting to do a chapter or segment from damian's perspective for a while #it finally felt like it fit #Reincarnation AU #we get some insight into why danny hates the joker so much #i don't blame him #danny definitely glossed over a lot of important details #he didn't really want to answer questions about it #i mean #who tells your family that doesn't remember you like you remember them that you aren't fully alive and that you are a king of the afterlife #that isn't quite the casual news he was trying to make his life out to be #poor damian had to be touch starved of his own choice this life #because clockwork told him it would kill the world if done at incorrect times

87 notes · View notes