Short DPXDC Prompts #468

Part 7: Work Day

Part 7 is finallly here!! thank you so much for you patience and all the love and support during this month

plus an extra thanks to @xmaruu11 not only for being there for me but for doing the flat colours for the comic!!

PREV // MASTERPOST // NEXT

Extra: the interview of cuteguy by reporter pearl!

“Hello, Mr. Wayne. I’m calling on behalf of the Amity Park police department. I… god, there’s no easy way to say this. We found a dead body, and genetic tests identified you as the next of kin.”

A mixture of icy fear and confusion pooled in Bruce’s chest, and he felt himself lean against a wall for support. “What? Who? But, Damian was just here!”

“Don’t worry, it’s not him.”

“He’s the only blood relative I have.”

The officer sighed. “I dunno what to tell you. We don’t know. Kid was dead for months before we dug ‘im up, so identifying any other details towards his previous identity has been… difficult. Doesn’t even match any missing persons reports. Quite frankly, we were hoping you’d know something, ‘cause we’ve been coming up blank.”

“I will,” Bruce rushed out unthinkingly, his mind still caught up on the word ‘kid’.

“What?”

“I’ll help however I can. Amity Park, you said? Where is that? I’ll book a flight right away."

“No, really, sir. I appreciate it, but you don’t need to do that. No offense, Mr Wayne, but you’re not a forensic analyst.”

The words ‘yes I am’ balanced on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t say them. Batman was the detective, not Brucie Wayne. But Batman didn’t have any reason to travel so far afield to investigate a single dead kid, so Bruce Wayne would have to do.

“I at least want to take a look.”

Ra's al Ghul, caught in a rare moment of weakness, is being pulled apart piece by piece.

A pair of mad scientists, just the kind of deranged he would hire normally, had built weapons that were...far more effective on him than he'd anticipated. Also, he hadn't been there to fight them at all. They were a true unknown, coming out of nowhere equipped to deal with the Demon Head himself.

Ironically, from what they had started shouting, he wasn't who they were hunting.

He'd been knocked unconscious by what could only be described as pure dumb luck.

He woke up strapped to a table, as those selfsame scientists started peeling him apart with scalpels.

His torture is interrupted when a young boy walks into the basement, sees what his torturers are doing to him, and screams.

Then the boy pivots, and off the top of his head, creates a distraction to pull his parents away from trying to see how Ra's works.

It's admirable; someone so untrained able to think so quickly. It's clumsy; the equivalent of a child pointing at something and screaming as a distraction.

It's just what was required for the boy to remove his restraints and hand him...a vial of the purest Lazarus Water he's ever seen.

"You're already like, really liminal, so it shouldn't kill you, just heal you. But you need to drink it fast, before they come back!"

And like that, it clicks.

The mad scientists are hunting someone as 'liminal' as him. Their son's eyes are glowing green.

Normally, Ra's would drink the Lazarus Waters and slaughter the scientists and anyone they were allied with.

But.

This is a debt.

He'd been waiting for the two scientists to leave so he could free himself, but this boy had stepped in.

Now he owes the child.

He can tell just by looking at the boy that killing his parents is not going to be considered paying back the debt.

However.

This boy is in clear and present danger with those two lunatics about.

So.

As the adult, is it not Ra's responsibility to make sure the boy is safe, whether he wants it or not?

Instead of killing the scientist parents, he knocks the boy unconscious and takes him to Nanda Parbat.

After all, there is nowhere safer than under the Demon Head's protection.

Just to be sure, he adopts the boy as his grandchild.

Now nobody will dare to touch the little hero.

~~~~~~

Danny wakes up in an assassin compound so soaked in Ectoplasm that he can't phase through it, and the ectoplasm in question is so contaminated that it's making him sick, so he can't punch or blast through it either.

He's trapped in a gilded cage by a madman who's insisting that it's all "for Daniel's own good", and his only chance at escaping is telling the little kid, Damian, stories about Amity. Stories about his friends and family.

Stories that he can't make obvious are cries for help, but entertaining enough for a kid to pay attention to.

Stories that will, hopefully, make it to the kid's father.

Who is, apparently, the Goddamn Batman.

Somewhere along the way, the kid starts calling them brothers. It sounds like the kid believes it with his whole heart.

And Danny...Danny's too selfish to correct it.

He lets Damian believe that Danny is his older brother by blood.

~~~~~~

Damian has an older brother, hidden away in Nanda Parbat, who is sickly and weak, and to whom the Demon Head himself is indebted.

Damian has always thought that Danyal was in the best place for him; away from the unnamed hunters that Grandfather said stalked him outside of the compound.

Recently, though, Damian is. Rethinking this.

Why was Danyal so sickly? Why did he always look so sad and desperate?

Perhaps it is time to tell father of his sickly older brother who physically could never meet Grandfather and Mother's standards to meet the Bat.

Apprentice of the Butler

AKA "Alfred Pennyworth hires an interim butler while he recuperates from a Rogue attack. Who better than adoption bait Danny Fenton?" prompt!!

Okay, so imagine Danny moves to Gotham to pursue astrophysics at Gotham-U but he's having a surprisingly difficult time keeping a job. Every time he gets hired, the place gets burned down or blown up by Rogues; it's like he's catnip for trouble. Somehow, he's always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And Alfred Pennyworth also happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He's at the Gotham Market Co-op, where Danny's been recently hired, and suddenly it's gassed by Scarecrow's Fear Toxin. All the employees and customers scramble to put on their gas masks, but Danny's new enough that he has no idea what's happening. He's suddenly seeing Fright Knight, Dark Pariah, and the GIW. So, he Goes Ghost, defeats all of Scarecrow's goonies, and saves the day! If only his boss would think so, too.

Uh, no. Apparently Danny's now on a Wanted List as an undocumented meta?? And his boss can't be investigated by the GCPD (he's, like, four years behind on taxes and has been dodging the IRS for longer), so he regretfully has to let Danny go. But, hey! Maybe if he becomes a documented meta, he can get hired back. Except Danny can't because the GIW can access the meta registration database and he'll be found out faster than he can leave Gotham.

So, Danny's fired again.

And Alfred "Pride & Honor" Pennyworth?? He's not gonna let the child who saved him (because Scarecrow absolutely was going to snatch the Wayne's butler, who better to take hostage than a billionaire's publicly beloved Father Figure??) possibly become homeless. It's clear the kid is a college student and is barely scraping by, probably paying way too much for room and board at Gotham-U. And... maybe his wrist hurts a bit from a fall. He's older now, it's not impossible that he'd get a sprain or a broken bone. (Plus, Alfred knows the look. The same one as Dick, Jason, Tim, even Bruce. There's an immense grief in those small shoulders, fear and loneliness.)

Cue Alfred hiring Danny on as an interim butler while he recuperates (oh, he's terribly injured, thank you so much for helping me, my boy-). And Danny can't say no. I mean, this old man got injured during the Rogue attack he was apart of! And he's asking for help! And it's also nice to have some money. And a bed and... oh, God, he's working for a billionaire frootloop. Uh-oh.

(Alfred absolutely doesn't tell Bruce about his new son apprentice. It's worth it to see Bruce's eyes glaze over as sees a black-haired teenager standing in the kitchen with Alfred, then doing a double take when he realizes it isn't Jason. And the others are banned from the kitchen, so who is this child in his house?? It's not Kon or Jon either??)

Meanwhile, Danny is actually having a great time with Mr. Pennyworth!! The older man is kind, soft-spoken, and really knows his stuff. Danny really enjoys learning how to cook, especially because none of the food comes alive to fight him. Eventually the Batfam just become used to seeing Danny in the kitchens, gardens, around the house with Alfred. He's a cute kid, always smiling and talking about his college classes. He has effortless sarcastic banter with both Damian and Jason, bonds with Tim about some kind of difficult mechanical mathematics or something, trades dad jokes with Dick. He even manages to win over Cass, Steph, Duke, and Babs.

The only one Danny doesn't truly seem to like is Bruce Wayne, although he never outright disrespects him, since he pays the bills and Danny's midwestern manners kick in. Bruce is confused and very concerned because why is this kid literally glaring daggers at him all the time?? Is he going to poison Bruce's coffee?? Danny's just trying to figure out if Bruce Wayne is a "collects vintage dentures" or "keeps teenagers locked in his basement" type of billionaire frootloop. (He'd kinda prefer the kidnapping, Danny does not want to go looking for a wine cellar and find an entire basement of old teeth.)

Bonus if Bruce tries to subtly win the boy over and Danny's just like, squinting at him, white-knuckling a frying pan and muttering, "That's exactly what someone who collects teeth would say..."

How i imagined svsss characters before i saw fanarts :)

Mini Prompt: Teach me to be like you

Damian (who I’m thinking is 16-18ish) learns that he has a younger half-brother named Danny.

Now Damian can still be very blunt and brash at times, but has matured greatly when it comes to family relations. So when he learns about Danny he is momentarily miffed at the thought of no longer being the only blood son, but that surprisingly changes when he learns that Danny is going to be living in the manor.

Because Damian sees himself in Danny. A young kid having to leave behind the life and people he grew up with to live in a house filled with strangers.

So, wanting to make that experience easier for Danny can only think of one person to ask for help; his big brother Dick.

Please let me do my job

Danny somehow manages to get a job working as a server during a gala event. The uniform sucks, but he wasn’t about to complain when he was desperate for any job right now. He had to flee from Amity after his parents discovered that he was Phantom with almost nothing, but the clothes on his back. So the uniform was definitely worth it with how much he was getting paid. 

What wasn’t worth it though was the amount of rich fruitloops that have approached him. Everytime he turned around someone was there and wanted to ask him questions. Asking things like why he was dressed as a server, and calling him by the name of Tim. It wasn't hard to figure out that everyone thought he was Tim Drake-Wayne. 

He knows that the Waynes are known for black hair and blue eyes, but for him to be getting this much attention for it is just getting ridiculous at this point. Danny would have just brushed it under the rug as it being a rich people are just weird thing. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Dick Grayson, the oldest Wayne child, had grabbed him coming out of the kitchen and into a secluded area. 

“Tim, what are you doing; why are you dressed as a server? Everyone here knows your face, now is not the time to be going undercover!” Dick whispers while looking for anyone that might be watching them. “Go change back into your normal clothes. Well talk about whatever this is back in the cave ok?” 

The fact that Tim Drake goes undercover was probably not something Danny was supposed to know. Also, did he say cave? As in the Bat-Cave? A rock settles in Danny stomach as he realizes that the Wayne's are the bats. Which is definitely not something he should know.

Before Danny can think of anything to say that will get him out of this situation without any problems a voice is already calling out, "Dick! What are you doing back here?"

The owner of the voice is of course none other than Tim Drake himself. This wasn’t going to end well Danny thought to himself as he watch Dick looked between himself and Tim.

How did this become his life.

Date night after patrol

Maybe I'll Write This Later:

My Son and Your Son are Twins?

Redemption arc Vlad adopts Danny after his parents find out that he is Phantom. They then have to run away to Gotham to get away from the GIW who are now trying to hunt Danny down with the help of his parents.

While in Gotham Vlad and Bruce somehow end up meeting each other. The two can either have a brother relationship or start dating one another. Regardless, the two bond by talking about being fathers to crazy kids who can't seem to stay out of trouble.

It's been a few weeks after the two have met when they decide to introduce one another to their families. When they do it leads to a big 'WTF is going on moment' because Danny and Damian look exactly alike. It gets even stranger when the two boys seem to know each other.

This is where Vlad and BatFamily discover that Danny and Damian are twins. Turns out Talia sent Danny away; faking his death with clear instructions to never let Damian know that he was still alive. Danny on the other hand still thought Damian was under the LoA control.

No one is prepared for the chaos of the twins now that they are together again.

Marzipan Boy part 1

Tim shot a quick message to Tam, letting her know that he would be busy for a while, and then he shoved his headphones on and pushed the button to darken the windows of his office.

Tam thought he was taking a nap, and encouraged his daily hour of “dark time”.

Tim was NOT taking a nap, he was watching the love of his life play video games (sue him, he might doze off once or twice during the stream, but it wasn’t on purpose.)

“Good afternoon, gamers. It’s NightenGames here, and I have not had enough coffee.”

Chuckling at the semi-regular intro, Tim took a sip of his dark roast and settled back into his desk chair.

“Today we’re playing Elder Ring- My friend PharaohTuck finally finished setting up my mods.”

Tim wasn’t entirely sure what exactly the mods NightenGames used did, but apparently they were necessary for him to play. The Yeddit threads were full of speculation- from control mods meant for metahumans/aliens, to cheats to make the games easier.

Very few fans believed that one- Nighten died too many times to be cheating with his mods.

“Ooooh, what a fancy character creator! Alright, folks- who should we mock this time? I’m seeing a lot of votes for Lex Luthor in the chat, a few for Bruce Wayne- which, let me remind you, I’ve already done both Wayne and Luthor in the last month, so they’re out.”

This was why Tim had originally followed NightenGames- the streamer would pick a rich person and then pretend to be them for the entire stream, as if they were playing the game. Yeddit had checked- most of the quotes Nighten used were straight from public videos of the target.

“Tim Drake, huh? CEO of Wayne Industries? Isn’t he, like, the same age as me? I dunno, guys- like, nepo baby for suresies, but…”

Tim startled at the sound of his own name, and swooned a little at the way it rang out in Nighten’s rich baritone.

“You’re right, BarleyWater32, I have not picked on Tim Drake yet. In my defense… I have no defense. He’s hot and I’d smash. Don’t want to spoil my minuscule chances, right? Right. Anyways. Oh! Oliver Queen, I can do him. Well, not DO him, but- make me shut up.”

Blinking at his computer, Tim couldn’t help but flush at the knowledge that his internet crush thought he was “hot and would smash”.

Tim would smash too, honestly. He’d done his research. Daniel ‘Danny’ Nightengale was VERY attractive behind the virtual avatars he used.

“Let me pull up Ollie-boy’s avatar- ah ha! Can’t miss that mustache anywhere.”

The avatar finally popped up in the video- Nighten didn’t usually have one up until the chat had chosen a victim, even if he did have a standard avatar for after he was done gaming.

If he had to pick, Tim liked the avatar for Queen the best. He wore a silly pair of green sunglasses, and his matching green mustache twirled far beyond his face- the real Oliver would never, but the mockery was funny.

“Ahem. Yes. Hello. My name is Ollie Queen and I’m richer than anyone else in this city. Let’s get this bread!”

Elder Ring went well- through some chance Nighten picked an archery build for his run through, which Tim thought was quite ironic- and the stream went on for a whole hour before Nighten switched to his standard avatar.

“Okay, folks, I’m going to shut down now- and Tim Drake? If you’re watching? DM me.”

Nighten chuckled a little, like he’d made an impossible request, but Tim was vibrating in his seat, reaching for his phone to DM the streamer.

The video ended abruptly, and Tim’s autotimer on the darkened windows ran out.

Tam was standing expectantly outside of the door, smiling serenely in- but her arms were full of folders that she undoubtedly need signatures on.

With a sigh, Tim took off his headphones, dropped his cell on his desk, and waved her in. Work waited for no man.

~~~

“Danny, are you sure you don’t want me to make you an avatar for one Tim Drake?”

“Positive, Tuck.”

Tucker pouted and draped himself over the back of the couch, leaning his head into Danny’s space as he worked on his essay.

“It would give you an excuse to watch videos of your cruuuuush!”

Danny felt his face go hot, and he shoved Tucker’s face away from his ear.

“Get off, man. I have to finish this paper before midnight.”

His friend stood straight, presumably looking at the clock on the oven.

“Oof, bro.”

10:30PM wasn’t a great time to be writing an essay. Danny knew he should have done it earlier, but, well. He had to film and edit a video for his second channel. UTube wasn’t earning him money yet, but hopefully soon?

Who was he kidding? He would probably have to go back to Vlad for money soon, and he hated the thought of it.

It was hard enough to live in this ramshackle Gotham apartment with both Tucker and Sam, keep up with UTube and streaming, and get through school, without having to cater to Vlad’s whims on top of it.

Sam had only promised to help with his portion of rent for two years, and he was almost hitting that deadline. He hated taking advantage of her guilt for getting him killed in the first place, but she had insisted, even if she couldn’t sustain it for their whole college career.

Danny groaned and turned his attention back to his paper.

11:15 rolled around, and Danny finished checking his paper for mistakes before sending it in. He shut his laptop, planning to brush his teeth before crashing out on the couch.

Tucker had already gone to bed, and Sam was out on an internship trip for the week, so he didn’t have to worry too much about being disturbed after he fell asleep.

His phone chimed with a donation notification and he lazily opened the message.

Tucker came running out of his and Sam’s bedroom, wrapped in a bathrobe and wielding a Creep Stick at Danny’s resulting screech.

“TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS? FROM TIMOTHY DRAKE-WAYNE?”