Freelance Inventor Part 2
Dedicated to @jimmysorsprinkles
Thank you for enjoying my random dabbles. I saw that you wanted more Dads, Danny/Bruce, who are unknowingly co-parenting, so here it is! (set during the first prompt through the years of Danny just being a dad whenever he's home)
"I just don't know what to do," Bruce admits, watching Dick stomp about in tiny angry circles, muttering in his native tongue under his breath. He's been out there for about a half hour, doing laps in the yard. Danny knows he deliberately chose to do so under the window leading to Bruce's office.
The kid definitely wanted his guardian to know he was mad at him .
It was the fact Dick was unconsciously hunching his shoulders, curling his fist, and even raising his knee slightly higher than he needed for his stomps that were a nod to Bruce whenever the man was upset.
It seemed like Dick had picked up habits from Bruce during his short time here. If anything, Danny thought it rather cute if it weren't for the fact Dick was so upset.
"What happened?" He asked, standing beside Bruce, overlooking the pre-teen throwing a fit.
Bruce's frown is sharp and hinted with just the edge of uncertainty that anyone who didn't know him well would have dismissed. "He was being reckless in one of our extreme sports, and when I rightfully scolded him for it, he took it as me not trusting him."
Danny tilts his head, considering. It's been over three years since he became acquainted with the Waynes, and in that time- between his travels, his inventing, and his general desire to learn all he could in any way he could- he noticed that Dick was very quick to anger as a defensive mechanism.
This clashed horribly with Bruce's own mechanism- which was shutting down or at least emotionally wise. While Dick sneered and raged against the world, Bruce tried his best to forget he was human and detached himself from the situation.
Which wouldn't be so bad if it didn't feed into Dick's insecurities or Bruce's anxiety when they both reacted to adverse situations.
He has spoken to Jazz about it, and his sister has given him some advice that has helped him smooth things over with the young boy. Empathizing and paraphrasing the boy's issues was a big step in letting him feel heard and his feelings acknowledged.
For Bruce, he treated him like a ghost who had never seen a human. Plenty of ghosts were never human, were born in the ghost zone, or had been there for so long that they had forgotten what humans were like. Danny took time to explain why someone reacted the way they did- at least, why he thought so- and never made Bruce feel less for needing the help.
It was fun, in a way, to see Bruce's eyes lighten up with understanding and get him to talk about his rooted issues, but having to do so on carefully balanced tones and word choice. Phantom had so much practice de-escalating ghosts that it was a walk in the park with Bruce.
"I'll talk to him," Danny promised, leaning over to rest his hand on Bruce's shoulder and not batting an eye when the taller man landed down to rest his forehead on Danny's shoulder.
Where Bruce couldn't say in words, he yelled in his actions. It reminded him a bit of Wulf.
Bruce took a deep breath before nodding. "Thank you."
Danny hummed, reaching up to pet Bruce's hair like he would soothe Wulf, on days the werewolf would twitch too much at the door slamming, and suddenly his friend was mentally back in Walker's prison. "No problem. But, I will also be speaking to you later, and you are going to listen to Dick's side of the story without interrupting at dinner."
"Yes, Danny"
Alfred threw him an approving smile as he marched outside to meet Dick's rage-filled eyes and nervous hand twitching. He could catch the ending bits of whatever rant the boy was muttering.
"You're right. Bruce is an idiot sometimes." He starts grinning as the boy's eyes narrow further.
"You don't speak Romani."
"I may not understand what you're saying, but trust me, I feel it." Danny chirps, watching Dick's shoulder relax a little. " What did he do this time?"
"You won't even believe it!" Dick snaps, and then he's off, Danny keeping pace with him step by step as the boy works himself into another frenzy.
Later that night, Dick explained that he hated how Bruce made him feel so belittled and unimportant, his voice tight with a itch to fight, and Bruce carefully- with significant prompting from Danny- explained how he didn't mean it that way. He was only worried that he was about to watch Dick die in front of him, and he couldn't live through losing his family again.
Dick looked shocked to be considered family, and Danny swore he helped the boy sneak into Bruce's office, which so happened to have the adoption papers Bruce was hiding. Alfred gave him a large sample of pudding for dessert.
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"Hey, kid," Danny whispered, watching Jason tense up momentarily. It's not overly noticeable, but Danny has grown used to seeing little ghost blobs show emotions by how they twisted and twirled over the years, so he could tell what the slight tightening of the fingers around the book meant.
Anxious.
It would be understandable if Jason had been present for another one of Dick's and Bruce's explosive arguments. He came from a household that had an older male figure beat him whenever Willis got in a mood, so while he knew that Bruce or Dick would never hit him, Jason still tried to make himself scarce.
Jazz was the one to point out Jason's usage of escapism in the form of books to comfort himself, and so Danny took whatever time he could manage to read the same books as Jason while on his travels.
"What?" The boy grunted, voice soft but weary.
Danny sits across from him, making sure to stay in Jason's eyesight at all times. He had realized in only his second visit after meeting Jason that the boy did not like having someone too close in his space.
He grew up on the streets where being weary of older men kept him alive- Danny would never fault him for what he had to do to survive.
Unlike Dick, who was always down to talk about why he was upset if only to rant, Jason preferred to have a distraction. So he offers him a smile that he hopes projects You're safe with me and pulls out a book from his bag.
Jason's eyes light up at the cover. "I had some theories on Mr. Darcy being in love with Mr.Bingley before he met Elizabeth, and Bruce won't agree with me. Help me find citations as proof?"
"It's so obvious that he was, how can the old man not see that!" Jason snorts, tilting his head in a cute habit that he picked up from Dick. He really looks up to his big brother no matter how tense things can get.
Danny is glad he's gotten Dick to explain to Jason that he didn't hate him, but he was going through a lot, and Jason as a street kid, understood on some level.
"The old just hate listening to other people's suggestions even when we're right!." Jason leans over to read the book Danny places between them, considering Jane Austin's work while Danny files away the real reason he's upset with Bruce.
Later, after Jason and he present a bemused Bruce with a report on why Mr.Darcy is bi and had feelings for his best friend before meeting his wife, he tells Bruce to explain why he didn't consider Jason's suggestion in their extreme sport.
Jason goes to bed that night with a better answer than "because I said so," and Danny forces Bruce to go up to his room and re-read Pride and Prejudice to connect with his youngest.
Alfred offers them extra blankets and pillows since the two get so caught up reading to each other that Danny just decides sleeping in Bruce's bed is easier than walking down two wings to the guest rooms.
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"I'm not going to bed," Tim snapped when Danny knocked on his door. His fingers are flying over the keyboard of his computer, his little face glowing from the computer screen, and Danny is almost reminded of himself whenever he gets caught up in his work.
It may worry Bruce and Alfred, but Danny is a Fenton. He knows what it's like to have his brain run over time and sacrifice sleep or meals to get his ideas into the world.
His mother is the same, his father is the same, his sister is the same, and even Danny's clone is the same. It's fitting that the little boy he caught following Batmam around with a camera is the same since he all but forced Bruce to adopt him.
He hadn't meant to.
He had been testing an air purifier when he returned to Gotham since Bruce and the kids were out of state, and his ghost hearing picked up the sound of a camera click.
Imagine his surprise that when he turned to the roof opposite him, he found the tiny little face of an eleven-year-old staring back, holding a camera, and Batman swinging away in the distance. Danny became attached to Tim that night, even after he chased the boy down to ask if he was safe.
He did not like the implications of his parents always "working" while Tim ran amok in Gotham.
It took almost two weeks of following Tim around Gotham to help him with his photos before the boy allowed him to take him to Wayne Manor. It took three more before Bruce realized that Danny wouldn't allow Tim's parents to win him back, and together, they took the Drakes to court.
Danny has never been more grateful that Bruce was loaded with money and that his inventions gained him contacts in high places that wouldn't mind taking the Drakes down.
Tim was a lot like Bruce- where he shut down- but he needed people to be around him more. Sometimes just sitting in the same room- where Tim could glance up and see him- was enough for the boy to be at ease.
This was great for Bruce, who thought he didn't need to do much to make Tim happy- until Danny reminded him that Tim was a poor boy who was gutted for any form of parental approval.
He had to almost punch Bruce after overhearing him tell Tim he was proud of him, but there was room for improvement. Bruce meant it as helpful, constructive criticism, but Tim- whose parents all but drilled how useless he was- only heard criticism.
Only heard, he was not enough.
So now Tim was going, who knew how many hours without sleep, trying to fix whatever issue he thought he had caused. How a fourteen-year-old could have caused issues at his adoptive dad's multimillion-dollar company was beyond Danny, but it meant a lot to Tim, so he didn't need to understand it.
He just needed to respect it.
"Don't want you to," Danny grunts, throwing himself on Tim's queen-sized bed. "I just wanted to know if I could crash here. Bruce pissed me off."
Tim's fingers pause. "What did he do?"
"He tried to tell me how to handle my inventions' payment. I'm a freelancer! I know how to do that." Danny complains while twisting under the covers. Tim slowly turns around to look at him, but he acts like he doesn't notice. "I know he'll try to talk to me in the guest rooms, but he won't find me here. I just don't want to listen to another "I can do it better" lecture."
After a moment's pause, Tim admits. "He did the same to me and my team."
He means Cassie, Bart, and Conner. The little team of photography buddies Bruce introduced Tim back when they started homeschooling him. Dani suggested pulling Tim out of school is one of the best advice his clone ever gave him.
Tim took the pictures, Cassie and Conner modeled, and Bart made the clothes. Their work was slowly gaining traction online, and Tim seemed to glow whenever the Team was mentioned.
"Course he did." Danny sigh. He leans back into the pillow. "Know why he did it, too. Bruce doesn't want me to be taken advantage of, but it's hard not to hear him think I can't keep up, especially when my family is doing the same thing."
"Yeah," Tim's voice is soft. "It's frustrating that all your hard work is overshadowed or that everything you've done so far doesn't prove that you know you can."
Bingo. Danny discovered Tim's issue; now he just needs to bring it home.
"I know I'm great at what I do. You said so yourself- my past proves I am crazy good at work. I leave other people breathless in awe all the time. I can adapt and overcome so much faster than others. Bruce can see that, but he forgets to praise it." Danny huffs like he's trying not to be forgiving, and it causes a smile to unwillingly appear on Tim's face.
"I'll talk to him tomorrow but today I'm being petty and hiding. Thanks for letting me sleep here"
"You're welcome, Danny." Tim goes back to his typing, but only after a minute or two of Danny asking if he can turn off the light does the boy save his work and shut his computer down.
The room is plunged into darkness but Danny doesn't need the light to see how Tim sinks into his mattress. Tim is smart- crazy smart that every part of him that's Fenton crows with pride- and he can easily see through Danny.
"Thank you Danny" He doesn't say what for but he doesn't need to.
Danny reaches over, grabs the blankets, and makes sure they cover the small shoulder, tucking Tim in properly. "Any time kid"
The next morning, Bruce wakes them up with a powerpoint of all the things he thought were impressive about Tim and his team's last photo session. A powerpoint for Pete's sake.
But it makes Tim smile so much that Danny lets it slide. At least he listened when Danny chewed him out for forgetting to praise Tim.
Alfred offers Danny some of his private tea jars, which according to Dick, means Danny is in for life as Tim, Jason, and Bruce go over the PowerPoint again. Jason has begone to heal for his bitch of a mother's betrayal a few months ago.
Thankfully, Danny was in the area when he called and reminded the lady why she should not mess with Bruce's kids. Dani paying her a visit in her jail cell was just the Fentons' sending their regards.
(His dad gave Dani the ani-creep stick, and his mom hacked the cameras to loop. Jazz just watched hours of her to realize what made the woman scream and cry before sending the clone on her way. It was a good family bonding moment)
No one believed the woman claiming to be haunted that her son was Robin. Honestly, where on earth she got that idea Danny would never know.
His Jason, the sweet school-loving boy who graduated as valedictorian, running around punching criminals? Honestly, what was she going to claim next?
Bruce being Batman?!
Please.
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Rewatched book 1 after watching the live action and here is a list of everything that wasn’t in the live action that I think should have been :
Sokkas war paint
Saying the words “hair loopies”
Barely seeing the boomerang
Katara being able to calm down aang during the avatar state
The comet
Importance of mastering all 4 elements
Sokka dressing in kyoshi warrior clothing and learning the strength of women (removing and growing from his sexist beliefs)
Zukos honor /destiny (think it’s mentioned once?)
Mouthfoaming guy
Aang water bending
Roku manifesting and telling jeong jeong to teach aang firebending
Aang trying fire bending too soon and burning katara which leads to him being hesitant on learning firebending in book 3
Katara finding out about her healing abilities
Aang being selfish by keeping location of Sokka and kataras father from them
Aangs crush on katara
Aang doing everything he Can to heal his friends in the swamp
"Miyuki, did you get in trouble with Fire Nation again?”
Rokus dragon
Aang dealing with the guilt of leaving the southern air temple and all his people getting killed and not accepting his role as avatar
Sokkas intuition for recognizing Jets deceit
Sokka being a natural inventor (it’s barely even touched in the live action) Sokka is smart and creative
Katara’s dedication to learning water bending by stealing the scroll
Katara’s jealousy of aang being able to bend and learn faster than her
Kataras fierce determination and her take no shit personality
The cruelty of the fire nation by imprisoning earth benders into work camps (this is just one example)
Katara’s selflessness and bravery by getting herself imprisoned in the war camp and saving all the prisoners shows how much empathy Katara feels for people and always wanting to help those who can’t help themselves
Showing how master jeong jeong and others left the fire nations army because of its cruelty (fire nation people can be good and recognize the evil in their own ranks)
How aang feels upset about the disrespect and condition of the northern air temple/legacy of his people but accepts it in the end knowing they need this temple as their home
Using the fallen war balloon to create a fleet of airships in the final battle with Ozai
Appa being a badass and also fighting to protect aang multiple times
Iroh and his white lotus tile (this is important foreshadowing for later seasons)
The healer in the northern water tribe recognizing the betrothal necklace and realizing it belonged to her friend and kataras grandmother, kanna, who was engaged to master pakku of the northern tribe but left to live in the South Pole
Katara confronting pakku and telling him “I’ll be outside if you’re man enough to fight me” ( the challenge is off screen in live action, dumb choice tbh just glad we got to see the physical fight at least)
Pakku finding the betrothal necklace and talking about kanna and katara saying her gran left because “she wouldn’t let your stupid tribes customs control her life” which in turn makes pakku reconsider and start teaching katara waterbending
Pakku complementing kataras skill saying she’s has advanced faster than any other student he has trained (this shows how great and powerful of a water bender she truly is)
How strong the water benders are at night especially during the full moon
How the moon was the first water bender
Zuko kidnapping aangs body while he is in the spirit world
“You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun”
Not showing emotion to koh cause he’ll steal your face
Zuko talking to unconscious aang telling him how everything always came easy to his sister, she’s a firebending prodigy. Ozai telling Zuko that azula was “born lucky while Zuko was lucky to be born” (another instance of ozai’s cruelty as a father)
Talking about how iroh has been to the Spirit world
Zuko trying to challenge katara during a FULL MOON” “Here for a rematch?” “Trust me Zuko it’s not going to be much of a match” and then her kicking his ass in 5 seconds
Aang showing compassion to Zuko by saving him again despite Zuko kidnapping his body
Iroh staying with katara Sokka and yue after the moon spirit is killed (this shows his heart)
Yues body disappearing and her spirit kissing Sokka and her saying “I’ll always be with you”
The ocean spirit grabbing zhao and dragging him into the sea
Pakku wanting to help rebuild the southern water tribe
Pakku Calling her Master katara and saying she’ll train aang from now on
Azula appearing at the end and Ozai sending her on a task because Zuko is a failure and iroh is a traitor
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Tucker finds a game installed on his pda one day.
He didn't know where it came from, nor what it was supposed to be and it looked more high quality than a few other games he's seen. So what did he do with it? Surely he should've not touched it and tried to delete it, right?
He wouldn't be apart of team phantom if he didn't also embody the "Fuck it we ball" energy.
So he plays it, finds it to be some dating sim based on the title screen and went through a good fair portion of it, it was fairly normal, if not really up his alleyway of games. But it had its moments though.
Then came Monika.
He didn't know what to do with her, in all honesty. She seemed to be a sapient Ai trapped in a dating sim, which was weird but not that weird compared to everything else in all honesty. She also killed off her friends, though her reasoning was because they weren't real and that it was the only way for her to have a romance route.
Kinda extra in his opinion, but he can see the reasoning.
So what does he do? Rummage around in the game's coding and makes a route for her.
(He swore he saw another pair of hands indirectly helping him when he did it, too.)
Monika was downright ecstatic when he was finished with it, he outlined a route for her but then she just took control of it, coding in events, mini-games, gifts and other sorts of things for her route. She thanked him immensely for outlining a route for her, since even with all of her control she couldn't directly go against core programming when it came to herself like that.
He was glad to help her out, really, she seemed like a pretty nice person, pushed outside of her core programming because of her sapience. He even coded Monika outside of the game and let her roam around in his pda, which accidentally added another layer of protection to his firewalls, but he isn't complaining.
Then she wondered how it would be like in the real world, with him and everyone else.
It really just went off from there.
Jack and Maddie are genius inventors, and now that they no longer have such a driving, blinding hatred towards ghost due to their son being revealed as a halfa, they no longer spend all of their time on ghost themed weapons and stuff.
So he went to them, showed them Monika (Which they were extremely impressed with) and decided to help him in building her a body! Probably also because they liked the challenge of building a body too, but meh.
Tucker drew up a design based on Monika's wishes, and tweaked it a bit here and there to ensure perfect human functionality.
Monika told Jack and Maddie that they didn't need to spend too much effort on it, since she would be fine with just a body, but Jack went no and they went all in. Did Tucker know what they were using to built her body? No, no he did not.
Apparently they made her body out of some rare metal they obtained from Vlad, who is trying very hard to redeem and put himself back in the Fenton's good graces after having some sense knocked into him, a rare metal called nth metal that Vlad apparently lost a lot trying to get, even had to use less then clean methods to get, but not anything he can't make back in a while.
Her blood was ectoplasm, with a fully functional heart made from the same metal and basically every other organs as well. Her brain was basically a supercomputer that'll let her connect to the internet whenever she wants, as well as allow her access to wifi from virtually wherever.
Her skin was made from another metal, one that imitated the feel and look of human skin, while also being more durable. They also added in features that'll simulate touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing as well!
Monika was honestly floored when she was downloaded into the body, it was much, much more than she had asked for and she didn't even know if she could repay them for it. To which Jack and Maddie just waved off because the chance to make a body from scratch out of a rare metal that was basically just gonna lie there for a sapient Ai wasn't one that would come often, so the experience was invaluable honestly!
Monika tried out everything she could after that, just happy to be among real people after becoming aware. She could finally be with her boyfriend, physically, no longer bound by a wall between them.
Then a while later, she may have accidentally hacked into what Tucker later told her was the Justice League Watchtower. It wasn't even her fault, she just wanted to hack into a nearby satellite, honest!
It's not like Tucker could talk, really. He's been hacking into the local government database for a while now, and why, it's not like he could do better, could he?
He saw a challenge when he saw one, and he should shy away from it because it was the Justice League.
But
So then the both of them competed to see who could hack into the Justice League database the fastest. A romance game Ai who grew sapience and got into the real world, versus a guy who's insanely smart and good at hacking who got her into the real world.
Of course it couldn't have been that easy, though, and really, it wouldn't have been a true challenge is they didn't engage in a cyber battle against the people they're hacking into, right?
Meanwhile, the Justice League is watching as Batman, Tim, and Oracle is fighting against two unknowns hacking into their database and having what is no doubt a cyber battle of such intensity they're wondering how the hell that keyboard is still standing against how fast their fingers are flying across it.
Some of them can swear they can see Batman release an aura of impressed, annoyed, and amused all at once.
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