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To Play Pretend

(PhantomVision Revised)

Let me out! Let me out!

This is isn’t real! It’s not real! Accept it, play along play along. Get out! Convince him, you have to convince him! Get out! Wake up! Snap out of it! Play along play along play along

Wake up! It’s not real wake up wake up accept it wake up wake up wake up get up get up get up

Bruce sits bolt upright with a haze of fog still between his skin and his mind. Immediately, his gut feels off, the way his shoulders are loose with the lack of anxiety and paranoia that he’s grown used to, the way his vision is not quite aligned to his senses.

And yet.. he can’t seem to raise the right sense of alarm. His mind stays slow and calm, even as he mentally screams to start investigating. Someone, something is messing with his mind.

He turns his head to the side of the bed he’s in-another thing he does not recognize- surprised to find Diana laying next to him.

How is she here? No, they were on a mission, investigating.. something. Why can’t he remember? He’d had Oracle on comms, Wonder Woman at his side, it was a Justice League mission- why is he-

Bruce winces, sharp pain running across the front of his brain. What was-

The door slams open, a boy he doesn’t recognize standing there, dark black hair, and blue-green-blue eyes. His mind jumps to son, a shallow feeling of family bubbling up that makes Bruce want to recoil, this isn’t Damian, it’s not Tim or Jason or Dick or Cass- this isn’t his son! This isn’t his family! he wants to yell out.

And yet, his mouth calls him Danny, a name he doesn’t know and says with such familiarity.

“Dad! Babs is being a know it all again!”

Bruce feels his face smile without his permission just as he sees Barbara step around the doorframe.

She’s standing, she’s younger, she looks just a little different, hair pushed back by a teal blue headband- Bruce wants to scream, something is wrong!- instead he smiles more as she ruffles Danny’s hair.

“Little Brother, you’re going to be late for school,” Barbara says, despite the fact that she had always, always been an only child.

Diana sits up beside him, and Bruce can’t even turn away from the two in front of him, no matter how much he tries, barely managing a wide eye look from his peripheral. He can’t tell if Diana even catches it. He can’t move, can’t interrogate the only unknown here, kid or not, can’t research or ask Oracle for more information. Barbara hasn’t been able to reply to him any more than he has.

Within a blink, they’re downstairs-how did they get here, what’s happening, is there a time distortion as well?- and Bruce is standing at the stove top, a pan of broken eggs with small bits of shells in them in front of him.

It’s manageable. He could still finish these eggs- unbidden he steps aside, a jovial laugh as Diana goodnaturedly scolds his cooking abilities, emptying the pan and starting anew.

Bruce turns. Danny and Barbara are both sitting at the table, Danny the picture of teenage recklessness, homework spread in front of him.

Every word looks like scribbles, staring too hard makes his brain hurt.

The toaster dings. Danny looks up at it, glaring. Bruce swears his eyes flash green-

“All done! Enjoy!” The clink of plates hitting the table makes them both look over as Diana sets them down.

Barbara and Diana share a look even as Diana stiffly turns back to the counters.

Bruce looks at the toaster.

Empty.

“Come on, Babs we’re gonna be late for school!”

Barbara hesitates, a pained look hidden just behind her eyes, “Danny, I- my legs hurt right now okay? I can’t drive us to-“ The words sound like a struggle to get out. And Danny stands stock still in the living room, looking at her with unnatural stillness.

“But you always drive us to school.”

Bruce watches Barbara’s body snap back to that same stiffness as before as she moves to stand from the kitchen table.

Bruce forces a step forward, smile on his face, “How about I drive you today, kiddo?”

“Okay, Dad!” Danny smiles, movement returning to the room. He moves to grab his backpack left against the wall and Bruce throws another look at Barbara from the side of his eye. She’s okay for now, body more natural as she returns the look with wide eyes herself.

Still, she stands and follows after them as his feet lead them to the car out front.

It’s an old station wagon, a stereotypical family car.

Even as Bruce walks around to the driver door, keys somehow already in his pocket, he catches Danny staring at the car with narrowed eyes and suspicion.

Bruce looked back at the car- truck, had it always been a truck, no, no, no, it changed it changed, things were changing.

Danny climbed into the backseat like nothing was different and Bruce did the same, Barbara behind him in the backseat.

His body is autonomous on the drive, even as Bruce tries futilely to jerk the wheel or slam the pedals, they continue to go forward on the road, Bruce’s face as calm as ever. It’s almost familiar, the two of them bickering in the back seat, chattering like his own children, there were his own- no! They weren’t! His kids were out there! Not here! Not here not here-

Bruce stops, awareness heightening abruptly, his limbs his own.

They’re at a stop light, despite there being no other cars around.

The backseat is silent.

Bruce turns back, surprised to see Danny staring silently out the window. He looks at Barbara next, grateful to see real emotion, pain, panic, on her face, not just hidden behind wide empty eyes.

Danny continues to stare out the window.

Bruce follows his line of sight across the street to a closed down burger restaurant. The outside looks clean, but the sign looks burnt and destroyed. Yellow caution tape flaps in the wind across the entrance.

“Danny, what are you looking at?” He asks, surprised to hear the words come out, completely of his own volition.

Danny doesn’t move.

“We don’t go there anymore.”

Bruce narrows his eyes, clues filing into order, “Why, Danny. What is that place?”

“We just don’t.”

“Why Danny, why is that place so-“

“We just DON’T, okay!” Danny shouts, face angry as he turns around to yell, and there- his eyes, that flash of neon-

Bruce is facing forward again. The light is green. The car moves, sound resumes.

His chance is gone.

Bruce wants to grit his teeth, clench the leather of his gauntlets beneath his fists. He barely manages to tighten his hands around the steering wheel.

Too quickly they arrive at the school. Barbara slowly getting out even as Danny practically races up the steps. Bruce wants to help her, surprisingly, his body follows. Allow him to support her under a hug, a fatherly hand on her opposite shoulder, fingers supporting her armpit as they go up the stairs.

Danny looks at them with a tilt of his head and furrowed brows.

Words fall from Bruce’s mouth, unbidden, as his feet force him backwards, “See you after school, Danno! Bye, Babsy-pants!”

The look vanishes from Danny’s face.

Seconds later, a man approaches them, eyes zeroed in on Danny.

“Ah, Daniel, glad to see you’re on time!” The man says, and Danny looks at him, blinking harshly with confusion apparent.

“You must be young Daniel’s father… Jack, was it?” The man smiles slightly and turns to Bruce, grey hair tied in a ponytail behind him, “I am his teacher, Mr. Lancer.”

Bruce’s neck tingles, an odd sense of familiar paranoia prickling his nerves, “It’s Bruce, a pleasure to meet you,” he shakes the offered hand automatically, watching as the man’s smile sharpens at the edges.

“And the same to you… Mr. Fenton.”

The name rings hollow in his memory, barely scratching a memory before it is buried under fog and stuffed cotton.

“I just have so much to teach him,” Mr. Lancer smiles again, watching as Danny finally walks fully through the school doors, turning down a hallway.

Even under whatever spell this is, Bruce is wary of this teacher, though he can do nothing to show it, even feel it past a surface notion of wrongness. But still, his feet carry him down the steps without his permission, away from a kid he is ostentatiously supposed to protect.

As he gets closer to the car, Bruce feels the cloud over his thoughts get thicker, step by step, each clogging his mind more.

He catches sight of the school’s announcement sign, the date.

Mid-October, the numbers hard to read, but he caught enough.

They were months into the school year already. How long had he been here? How long before he’d even woken up enough to know it? How long had he been away from his family?

His fingers clasp around the cool metal of the door handle.

Bruce blinks.

The bell rings.

Faceless, unfamiliar kids flood out of the doors and Bruce gets out of the truck- car, it was a car, it was a car-greeting Danny with a hug, Barbara with a helping hand.

They leave almost immediately, the two of them in the backseat as Bruce drives.

Occasionally, Bruce will look in the rear view mirror and find a completely different sight, the road cracked and broken, buildings abandoned, streets empty; and yet when he checks again, it’s gone. The reflection the same as the road before him.

He can only see it like a translucent image in his peripheral.

Somehow their route home does not take them back past the burger restaurant again. Bruce has used and discarded three different mind strengthening techniques by the time they are back in front of the house.

He parks, noticing for the first time how the air shimmers in front and top of it, the light shifting like a curtain covering furniture when he doesn’t look directly at it.

Diana is sitting on the couch in the living room when they come in, a laptop perched on her lap, looking for all the world like a stay at home worker.

The seemingly blank pieces of paper on the coffee table are discarded as she gets up and moves towards the kitchen.

“Welcome home Danny, how was school Babs?” She says, food preparations already set out around her.

Bruce walks towards her, a hand across her shoulders; the picture of loving parents.

He hopes the feeling of solidarity gleams through anyways.

Freedom of movement snaps through his body so suddenly he nearly staggers. He looks at Diana, a thousand words in one glance, then turns to Danny.

The boy is staring at the door on the side of the kitchen. By its placement, Bruce would guess storage, a pantry, a basement maybe. He hesitates to break the unnatural stillness in the air.

Diana is already halfway to the door, Barbara is at the table, thumbs flying across her phone screen.

He makes a decision, throwing away the facade, “Danny, where are we? Why are we here?”

Danny’s face furrows, head tilting in confusion, but his eyes don’t leave the basement door, green light seeping from the edges.

“We’re… at home. Right? I just wanted… I wanted to go home..” Danny says, eyes flickering that damning bright green.

Bruce presses on, he needs answers, “What happened here Danny? What is this? Why are we here?”

“I…” Danny’s face furrows further, “I don’t…”

The doorbell rings, snapping Danny’s attention to it. Taking with it his mind and movement, fog sliding over his senses.

Bruce’s looks at the basement door from the side of his vision, any hint of green light gone.

“Danny, your friends are here!” Diana’s voice calls out.

Bruce’s vision jumps to the front door, thankful that he follows Danny as he leaves the kitchen.

No no no.. no no.. not them, leave them alone, leave them out of this!

Tim and Stephanie stand at the door, plastic smiles on their faces as they high-five Danny.

“Hey guys! Ready to play Doom?!” Danny says, a wide smile on his face, leading them both inside.

Straight past Bruce.

They walk right past him, shallow words and teenage garble trading between them like it’s natural, like it’s real. Why wouldn’t it be?

NO! Not them! None of it’s real! Let them go!

“You know it Danny! I got new mods, maybe we’ll finally beat Steph!” Tim says, loud in way he never is, pulling a bulky PDA from his pocket.

Stephanie laughs, elbowing the both of them, “Not in a million years, T!”

Bruce watches, helpless to stop them as they go past him, raging against his own body.

Tim casts a desperate look over his shoulder before they disappear up the stairs.

He manages a glance at both Diana and Barbara, each returning the tense undercurrent of urgency that runs through them all.

Even as the fog thickens, submerging his thoughts like polluted waters, he forces his mind to center on one thought, even if that’s all he can do for now, he will not be locked back into this lie they are trapped in.

He will fix this.

Somehow.

I saw a post a few months ago (and damn was it really months? In PLURAL?) that was a cracky dpxdc au where the LOS were making Damian clones but the clones kept getting snatched by ghost portals and dropped into Danny’s lap and Danny just goes “ok ig this is my life now” and takes care of each one until he has his own mini army of Damian Clones.

And I remembered it a few days ago, and now I've been thinking about it again. Because I love clone aus (see: clone danny au, the 'danny is thomas wayne' au) because it itches the part of my mind that loves exploring personhood and the exploration of identity and what it means to be clone.

(What do you do when nothing about you is unique? When your face, your eyes, your hands, your hair, your voice, all the way down to your heart, all belong to someone else?)

(When it comes to nature vs nurture what of you came from your environment and your experiences, and what of you was already programmed into you from the DNA that made you?)

(What do you do to make it unique? What do you do to make you unique?)

And if I could remember who made that post I'd @ them right now because it was their original post that inspired this, but I'm just thinking of if the au only had One Singular Damian clone that fell into Danny's life.

(a read more because im apparently incapable of making posts that are less than 1k words...)

One Damian who knew he was a clone and knew that he was to either bring the original back to base or kill him to take his place, who was being trained the same way but kept getting compared to his original over and over again. Like an older sibling who you can never match up to. Who is still a child who craves adult affection and validation and praise, and can't get it because nothing about him is original.

One Damian who, at six years old, in a twist of fate is sucked through a swirling portal and lands in Amity Park, directly on top of, in front of, or in line of sight of one Daniel Fenton, half-ghost extraordinaire and local hero.

What happens next?

Well, for one, Danny recognizes him immediately. He would recognize the face of Damian Wayne anywhere because his best friend was ranting about him all week about Damian Wayne's environmental stuff he does.

And for two, he would recognize that the Damian Wayne in front of him was not Damian Wayne. Because Damian Wayne was a teenager. And the Damian Wayne in front of him is a child. Six years old.

Getting this not-Damian but also-Damian to go along with Danny is not, not an easy task. The tiny Damian is aggressive, regal, and at this point in time, six years old, barely understanding english. He also has a sword.

It takes all day and a google translator to get this Tiny Damian to finally agree to go home with Danny. It's a miracle. Seriously. A tried and true miracle. And its also only when Danny has to fight a ghost does he finally agree, saying something in arabic that Danny doesn't understand.

Danny flies them both home, carrying Tiny Damian like a koala. The ensuing conversation in his room is not any better. It is tiring, long, and exhausting. Tiny Damian is six years old, and every single thing he says when Danny asks where he came from is met with a poorly translated "that's classified".

Danny keeps an eye on the news. There are no reports of Damian Wayne going missing, in fact he's been rather public. Bruce Wayne is not one to lie about his children going missing, and Damian's secretive behavior and young age draws Danny to one conclusion: Damian is a clone.

He doesn't know why Damian Wayne is being cloned. Frankly he doesn't really wanna know, because whatever organization that did it doesn't seem too pure-of-heart if tiny-Damian's immediate attempt of murder when they first met is of any indication. But he's too busy taking care of his city, that he doesn't have time to deal with whatever shady business Tiny-Damian was produced from.

In the end though, he decides that this Tiny-Damian is not going back to whatever place he came from. Tiny Damian disagrees. It is a long, nebulous problem of Damian trying to run away, Danny catching him, and Danny pulling him back home.

In that time, Danny downloads a language app and starts learning Arabic so that they can talk to each other properly. Damian slowly, slowly, starts picking up English.

In that time, Danny also has to inform his friends and his sister about Damian. Tiny Damian is not a fan of this. That is another argument they have. Tiny Damian does not like Sam or Tucker for a long, long while. He only really "listens" to Danny, citing something in arabic that Danny still cannot understand, but has a repeated use of the word "lieazir". It's the only word that Danny can catch in a sentence immediately, because its what little Damian calls Danny.

Tiny Damian, in that front, is very interested in Danny's powers and in his parents work. He finds tubberware of ectoplasm in the fridge once while they're down in the kitchen and calls it something with the word lieazir in it. The other word is something that Danny later learns means water in arabic.

It makes him feel even more uneasy of whatever place little Damian came from.

It takes weeks for little Damian to finally give up on escaping, and then a few weeks more for him to almost entirely lose his spunk. Danny isn't sure what started it. It was as if he'd been flipped with an off-switch.

(Damian had been so confident that the League would go looking for him after his disappearance. He was wrong, and he is crushed. He is still a child, alone, in a country very big and very busy, where nobody understands what he's saying. He feels powerless, helpless.)

(The lazarus boy who calls himself Danyal is nice to him in a way the league has never been, and he's making an effort to learn Damian's language. But he leaves for hours at a time and Damian doesn't have much else to do but wait in this house for him to come back.)

(He tried leaving, many many times, but he doesn't understand the street signs, the roads, the people. He doesn't know where he is, and he feels scared in a way that he's not felt in the League. Danny finds him every single time, hours later when Damian is lost somewhere in Amity Park)

(And he never yells at him. Never. The first time this happens, Damian puffs himself up and prepares himself for this strange lazarus boy to yell at him. Damian feels like he's tripped on the last step of the stairs when Danyal doesn't yell at him.)

(He can tell he's frustrated by the tone of his voice, but when Danyal lays eyes on him he just looks relieved. He gets scolded on the flight home, but Damian doesn't understand any of it other than Danyal just sounds worried. Not angry. He gets a proper scolding once they get back, with Danyal typing into the google translator and playing it for Damian to hear.)

(This happens every single time until Damian finally agrees to stop running away.)

It's with Jazz's help that Danny finally realizes that Damian was depressed. It's with her help again that Danny tries helping with it. It's like trying to get a stray cat to trust him. And with everything else they've done, it takes a long time.

And it is so, so worth it when it all works out.

Tiny Damian doesn't really like Sam, or Tucker, but he likes Danny. And he finally starts calling him his name. His full name, but his name nonetheless. Danny doesn't bother correcting him. He's not looking a gift horse in the mouth. And it's endearing hearing Damian call him Danyal.

Damian in this time, also begins to take more initiative into learning English. And they teach each other words they know. Danny buys flash cards and writes the english alphabet on them, and then finds a book on arabic to teach himself and Damian. Sam and Tucker and Jazz start learning as well.

And then when Danny knows enough arabic and Damian knows enough english, and Damian trusts Danny, Damian tells him he's a clone. It's a quiet moment, late at night when Danny takes Damian up to the ops center to look at what stars they could see through the light pollution.

It'd be very easy for Danny to tell him, "I know. I could tell from the start.". He doesn't, it's not the time nor the place, and Danny's matured enough to know when to open his mouth and when to keep it shut. He lets Damian, almost seven now, tell him that he's a clone of Damian Wayne. Lets him tell him why he was made, what his purpose was.

(Danny will need a minute later to process the fact that Damian Wayne originally came from some kind of... assassin league with an obsession with immortality. But he's focused on Damian.)

In the end, he puts an arm around Damian Wayne's clone and pulls him into his side. Thanks him for trusting him, it must've been hard to tell him, that he's brave for being able to. And if he wants to, they can find a way to get into contact with the Waynes and let Wayne know about him.

Damian hides his face in Danny's ribs and holds him tight, and tells him he doesn't want to. Danny leaves it at that.

Perhaps it would be more morally ethical to alert Damian Wayne that there was a clone of him running around, that his... uh, grandfather was making clones of him. Hell, Danny would have liked it. But little Damian has asked him not to say anything, and little Damian needs someone to rely on; someone he can trust.

And in the end, its not that hard of a decision to make. Danny knows little Damian more than he knows Damian Wayne, and while Danny likes to think he's a good person, he knows he's not a great one. Nor a perfect one. He cares more about someone he knows than someone he doesn't.

If Sam tries to argue with him about it, then Danny will just double down. If Damian doesn't want to tell Wayne about his existence, then it's not their place to say otherwise.

There's a lot more to talk about over Damian's cloning, like what he wants to do moving forward. But that's a long conversation not meant to be one taken late at night. Little Damian is falling asleep at his side, seemingly much more relaxed than he did before, and Danny wasn't gonna ruin that.

And later he's right, it is a long conversation, and a slow one. Talking with Jazz about it helps him figure out what to do moving forward, and their best bet is to let Damian figure out what he wants to do. So he sits Damian down at the dinner table the next morning and tells him before breakfast that he doesn't need to be Damian Wayne.

He doesn't need to learn all the same things Damian Wayne did. He doesn't need to do anything that Damian Wayne does. And little Damian is seven, and he's smart, but Danny still has to word it in a way that's not too complex for him to realize.

And in the end, what he says essentially boils down to "You are not Damian Wayne, you are just you. Don't be anyone else but you." and it'll take more time to drill that into his mind when all he's ever heard and learned from is that he was a copy of Damian Wayne, and he must act like Damian Wayne. But it'll happen.

It's a hard task when Danny's the only person Damian really trusts and he can't be by his side all the time, but he starts to warm up to the rest of Danny's family. The Fenton parents know of him, it's hard to keep a six year old child a secret for as long as Danny did without eventually having to come clean about it. His parents, much to Danny's relief, are very welcoming to Damian.

Damian figures out what he likes. Slowly. He's six years old, almost seven, and nobody expects of him to figure out who he is immediately. No child knows who they are right off the bat. So like any child he begins to explore. His english is better but still rough, and he struggles to read said language, but the Fenton family are happy to help even if Damian learns words that no normal seven year old does. (Many of them scientific.)

Damian realizes he likes stars, even if said interest is influenced by the association to Danny. Danny is all too delighted to tell him all about them, and in the process takes him flying out somewhere where the light pollution doesn't reach and showing him where constellations are.

Damian is six-almost-seven, so he doesn't find all of them, but Danny helps him figure out the easier ones. He tells him the scientific facts behind them, and then tells him about the mythos of the constellations. Later on they make their own constellations and make up stories about what they are.

(Damian adores Danny out of anyone else in the Fenton Family. The name Danyal turns to Dany. If anyone asks, Daniel Fenton is Damian's big brother.)

(He still refers to Jazz as Jazmine, and Danny's parents as Mrs. and Mr. Fenton.)

He realizes that, like his original, he loves animals, and he becomes vegetarian too. Sam is smug and Tucker is disappointed, but Damian doesn't super care about their opinions. ...he's getting better at liking them, even if he thinks Manson is a bit snobby and Foley is too much at times.

Its inevitable that the conversation of school comes into play. Damian can't stay home all day and he needs proper schooling. So after a long talk with Damian, they agree to send him to elementary school.

...And before they can do that the Fenton Family goes through with legally adopting Damian into the family as Damian Fenton. It takes convincing to get the administration to enroll him into the first grade without a proper schooling background.

(On his adoption form, Damian asks to change his birthday to the day he met Danny. Perhaps its not the most responsible thing to agree to, but Danny wants Damian to find himself. And its not like they know when his actual birthday was.)

And despite where he learned it from, Damian quite likes sparring. And he quite likes sparring with Danny in particular. Danny makes it fun, something that was foreign in his old league training, and Danny never hurts him. It's a lot like roughhousing.

Danny tells Damian how he got his powers, and how his parents don't know. Damian wakes up late at night to Danny sneaking out of the room (their house is not big enough to give Damian an individual room, and Danny agreed to share his) to go fight ghosts.

It's upsetting. Damian knows that Danny gets injured in those fights, even if Danny never comes home until after those injuries have been fixed up. He wants to help, and he voices it, and Danny shoots him down.

It becomes an argument, something that has happened less and less over the months.

Damian is experienced.

Damian is a child.

Damian knows how to fight.

Damian is mortal and fragile. He is a tiny, squishy human boy and the people Danny fights are ghosts who are near-indestructible. Who are intimately acquainted with death but also do not remember that humans are capable of it. Especially when they're fighting.

Damian says that Batman's rogues are capable of the same thing, that he lets his Robins help him fight.

And Danny says he is not Batman and he will not allow Damian to fight ghosts with him. Those ghosts will kill him and it will hurt. Dying hurts in a way that is terrifying and unimaginable and he will not risk Damian experiencing it. Not even Sam and Tucker help him in his fights most of the time, they are not able to. Not in the way Danny can.

Damian doesn't talk to him all day the following morning, but Danny does not budge on his decision. Damian tries to follow him out the next night, and Danny catches him and takes him back. Over, and over, and over again.

Until finally he gets intercepted by Skulker while taking Damian back home and is forced to fight him in front of Damian. (If it had been his choice, he would not have let Damian see it at all.)

It's not pretty. Skulker has new weapons, weapons that hurt, a lot. Danny is stuck between trying to take him down and trying to protect Damian from Skulker's attacks at him and from all the debris being created from the fight. It's with Damian's quick thinking and fast feet that finally helps Danny take Skulker out. But Danny is badly injured in the aftermath.

He doesn't have time to take Damian home and get medical attention. So he takes Damian with him to wherever he has his supplies stashed. He doesn't call Sam or Tucker or Jazz, and has to stitch himself up alone, with Damian watching.

Damian is quiet the entire time, he feels awful. Danny's not mad at him -- well, he is. But not because he had to protect him. He's just tired, and a little disappointed in him. Damian doesn't sneak out again. But he still feels helpless.

Danny tells him that that is why he doesn't want Damian to help him. Ghosts, his ghosts, are hard to fight. They are powerful, and his 'rogues' are mean. They will not care that Damian is a mortal child, if he picks a fight with them, they will fight back. And Damian is not immune to certain ghost powers like Danny is.

Damian is silent. He wants to help. But Danny is right: he is a squishy, mortal, living child. There is not much he can do to help Danny. Not without any gear to do it. Not without any powers to do it. He wants to help. He cannot.

Damian, almost-seven-years old, begins to cry. It is the last thing Danny was expecting, and for a moment he is at a loss of what to do.

Damian reaches for him -- in the Fenton family, physical affection is expected. Damian is getting used to it, but Danny is the only one he likes touching him -- and then stops, cringing away like he only just remembered that Danny was hurt.

He only cries harder.

Danny meets him halfway and pulls him into his arms, situating Damian between his knees from where he's sitting. Through his tears, Damian says he wants to help. He wants to help. He doesn't want Danny to get hurt anymore. He doesn't want Danny to fight ghosts alone anymore. He's scared that Danny will stop coming back.

Danny doesn't have anything to say to reassure him. Can't say anything to reassure him. It'll all just be lies. He's not going to stop fighting ghosts, he can't. He's not going to stop getting hurt, he can't. He's not going to bring Damian with him, he can't. He'd never be able to live with himself.

"I'll always come back." He says though, because that is something he can promise. Whether dead or alive, he'll come back.

When the tears finally stop, Damian doesn't say anything again. He sniffles, and presses his ear to Danny's chest, listening to the steady, slow heartbeat. If he puts his ear to his sternum and strains his ear, Damian would almost hear the low hum of Danny's ghost core, like a small dwarf sun.

"If you die, I'll drag you to the Lazarus pools myself." Damian mumbles eventually, his voice sleep-full. It's spoken in arabic, and Danny only understands half of it.

He laughs quietly, and smoothes his hand over Damian's hair. He hasn't had a haircut since he arrived, it's gotten long and there are curls beginning to form. "Okay."

Damian falls asleep shortly after, and with much consideration to his own injuries and Damian's sleeping form, Danny flies them back home.

It's hard to say, but not much changes in routine afterwards. Damian hovers close to Danny, more than usual. Danny still goes out at night, he still stitches himself up before going back, he still goes back home where Damian is waiting worriedly for him. Damian doesn't like falling asleep without knowing Danny is there.

Now the hard question is: when does little Damian finally meet the Waynes for the first time? There's plenty of ways to go about it, both easy and hard. Perhaps we go this way:

The Fenton family are visiting Maddie's sister in Arkansas. And Damian is dragging Danny around through the surrounding forest. It's his first time being in a forest this large since he moved in with the Fentons. Safe to say he is delighted by all of the nature, and he's dragging Danny along with him.

Danny likes the peace and quiet it gives him, he's found that he enjoys the rural area more than he likes the city. He's happy to let Damian point out every plant he recognizes, even if some of it is in arabic.

They walk around all day until Damian gets tired, and then at night when the sky is clear Danny and him go look at the stars. It's peaceful at first.

On the third day of their visit, Damian drags Danny out far from the house. It's slightly worrying, but Danny can always fly them back if it gets too late.

It's in the woods that Danny and Damian stray much too far from Alicia's house, and from there in the early evening that they run into Batman and Red Robin, both of them in rough 'just got out of a fight' shape.

Safe to say, it was the last thing any of them expected to run into. Damian and Danny had stopped at a small crik to rest, and the two vigilantes came through the tree line on the other side.

It was... quite the staring contest.

Damian, now seven years old at this point, forgot to mention that the Waynes were vigilantes when he told Danny he was a clone. But he was told that Batman was his original's father.

Before anyone can say anything, little Damian wraps his arms tight around Danny's middle and stares Batman and Red Robin down. His sharp edges have softened around the Fentons. But he makes no exceptions to anyone else outside of Danny's immediate social circle.

Danny's arm automatically goes around Damian's shoulders, and he looks between both Red and Batman uneasily. If they were here then it meant that there was something unsafe nearby. Danny did not fight the living, and he wasn't going to put Damian in the crosshairs of anything that does.

"Should... should we leave?" He asks, brows knotted together with a frown. He stands. "Is there something going on nearby?"

Batman suddenly grunts, and looks at him. "It's been handled." He says, and his voice is gruffer than Danny imagined it. Lower. Danny is not all that comfortable with that answer.

"Do you guys live nearby?" Red Robin asks, and Danny can't help but notice that he keeps looking at Damian. Warily. In fact, so is Batman.

He pushes Damian behind him slightly, and Damian's grip tightens on him. "Not... exactly." He says, his eyes narrowing slightly. "My family's visiting my Aunt and my brother wanted to explore since it's his first time out of the city, I guess we wandered too far away if we're running into you."

There's no visible indication of whether or not both Bats reacted to him calling Damian his brother. But he can all but feel little Damian preen at the title, it makes Danny's mouth twitch into a smile as his hand finds Damian's hair.

"Would we be able to go back with you?" Red Robin asks, startling both Danny and seemingly Batman, who looks at him instantly.

"Red Robin." He growls out, and Red Robin throws Batman a look of annoyance.

"We are lost, B. They jammed the comms and our trackers back there and it hasn't come back on yet, his aunt may have the signal we need to let the others know where we are."

They end up walking back with Danny and Damian. It's silent, and awkward, and Danny has Damian walking on his opposite side so he's not near the vigilantes. Red Robin is fiddling with a phone but still can't get a signal.

Batman is silently brooding.

Red eventually gives up and shoves the phone into a pocket on his belt, then turns to make conversation with Danny. "I never thanked you for letting us walk with you. Thanks, by the way."

Danny blinks at him, and smiles awkwardly. "No problem, man," he says, "I'm uh, Danny." He glances down at Damian, who looks up at him with big green eyes, and Damian nods quietly.

He looks back at Red Robin, and says, "This is my little brother, Damian." And Damian peers over his side and glares at Red Robin -- and Batman, who looks over when Danny says his name.

"He looks like Damian Wayne," Red Robin notes, head tilting like he's inspecting him.

Danny huffs dryly, "We get that a lot."

Red Robin smiles at him, its a tilted thing. It makes Danny uneasy. "Where did you say you were from?"

"I didn't," Danny says bluntly, and he really doesn't want to tell them where he's from. Not when Red Robin was acting strange, but they're vigilantes and notorious for their detective skills. If he's suspicious, they'll look into him. "But I'm from Amity Park."

Damian in that moment, peers around Danny again and scowls at Red Robin. Full on scowls at him, as if it were the first months when he met Danny. "You're being nosy." He sneers, his hand squeezing Danny's.

"Damian," Danny hisses, suppressing a smile. Damian jumps like he's been startled, and looks up at him with big green eyes. "He's just being curious."

(He lets his smile slip through briefly, just to let Damian know he's not that upset. A tension leaves his little brother's shoulders.)

"But he is." Damian continues, a whine leaking into his voice. Danny jabs him in the ribs with his fingers, and Damian jumps, swatting away his hand with a squeak.

"Would you rather have us walk in dead silence, Dames?" He goes for Damian's ribs again, a grin stretching across his face as Damian jumps back again and swats his hand. "Hm? Hm? We could just walk in awkward silence for the entire trip back, I know you just love awkward silence, little brother."

(It's funny, saying little brother always sounds so uncomfortable when he reads it in books and watches it on tv. But Jazz always makes it sound so natural when she does it, and Danny finds that he sounds the same too.)

Damian continues to bat away his hands, but it's not enough to prevent him from squealing with laughter when Danny gets a good hold on him and starts tickling him. Danny's grin only gets bigger, and he swoops Damian up with his arm and holds him like a football.

"Is that it? Huh? Me, you, and two vigilantes walking back to Aunt Alicia's cabin in complete, utter silence." He says, "You won't get to hear any of my amazing jokes."

Damian's wriggling, trying to pound on Danny's ribs, he's giggling uncontrollably. It's the best sound Danny's ever heard. "Your jokes are awful! Laeazir! Put me down!" He cries, grinning from ear to ear.

(From the side, both Red Robin and Batman tense up.)

Danny chuckles, and through a short series of flips, has Damian sitting on his shoulders. "I will not. You're sitting up in air jail for insulting my hilarious jokes."

Damian tugs on his hair in revenge, harrumphing at him but making no move to get down. Danny squeezes his ankles playfully, and looks back to Batman and Red Robin.

Both vigilantes look at him like he's grown a second head.

....Red Robin looks at him like he's grown a second head. Batman just stares, and then looks away. Danny tilts his head at them, his smile waning. "You guys look like you've seen a ghost or something."

(Damian tugs on his hair again. A silent boo at him.)

Red Robin jerks, "Oh, sorry." He says, not sounding all that sorry. "It's just... I've lost count to how many times I've saved Damian Wayne from the occasional kidnapping and he's always been very... serious. It's just weird seeing a kid that looks like him be... not serious."

From his shoulders he feels Damian hide his smile in his hair, that's another thing they can put on their "Things That Damian Does That Damian Wayne Does Not" list. It started as a joke, but it's been surprisingly helpful for when Damian is questioning himself.

However, Danny is not a fan of the comparison, and he smiles widely, perhaps a tad passive-aggressive. "It's a good thing that my Damian isn't Damian Wayne then." He says, giving him the slight stink eye.

Red Robin picks up on it quickly, and nods.

The rest of the way is spent in idle conversation. It's oddly casual, even if most of the conversation is Danny talking about himself. It's annoying, but he unfortunately understands the reason. Secret identities and all that.

Damian interjects a few times, some parts to talk to Danny, and other parts to throw shade at Batman and Red Robin. Mostly Red Robin, who seems begrudgingly used to it.

("I'm surprised you haven't asked me much about myself." Red Robin says at one point into the conversation. Over his shoulder Batman glares at Red Robin. "A lot of civilians do when they're able."

Danny stares at him. "You're a vigilante." He says, frowning, "Isn't it superhero 101 that you don't ask superheroes for their secret identity?"

"You'd be surprised."

"Huh. Well, no. I'm not gonna ask you about yourself. I quite like talking all about me.")

When they finally reach the cabin, it's late into the night and Danny has moved Damian from his shoulders to his front in a koala-like carry. Damian's fast asleep with his head on Danny's shoulder.

His family was also frantically searching for him, and Jazz sees him first. She immediately turns behind her and yells "I FOUND HIM!". And then sprints over to him, his parents thundering not too far behind.

Both vigilantes are subsequently ignored as Jazz dotes over him and Danny, and soon enough so is his mom and dad. They're all talking all at once, asking him where he was, they were worried sick, did he know how late it was.

He shushes all of them, loudly. And whispers that Damian is sleeping. His family then immediately quiet themselves, and go back to yelling at him in a more appropriate manner.

"Me and Damian walked too far by accident." Danny finally says when he can get a word in, and then he jabs his thumb in Red Robin and Batman's direction. "We also found two superheroes who need assistance."

The speed of which his family all snap their heads over to the direction he's pointing is almost comical. As is all of their expressions of shock.

His mother is the first to regain her senses, and she sighs at him. She sighs! "Only you, Danny." She says, and Jazz snorts into her arm.

I can never understand how Snape apologetics can stand up for him when he CANONICALLY does this shit.

I can maybe, maybe, understand those who haven’t read the books standing up for him, because honestly the movies don’t cover all the horrible stuff he does. But those who have read the books and still stick up for him baffle me.

I mean, you don’t see anyone sticking up for the Dursley’s or Umbridge, when they do the same stuff to Harry as Snape. How is Snape any different?

Marinette's House

During Miraculous Ladybug, Marinette is often put down for being a baker's girl and a poor girl amongst her millionaire peers but then I looked at her home and thought to myself, "Aren't homes with more than two floors expensive? Especially if they include a walkable balcony?" Which led me down a road of frustration as I couldn't find the concrete cost of the bakery it's based on nor the house prices in any arrondissements.

However, I decided to make a poor man's attempt at an estimate with what I could find on the internet that wasn't advertising the real life bakery it's based on, Instagram posts, or the prices of baked goods.

I will explain my workings out below the "read more", but be warned of questionable reasoning and less than accurate findings. Please don't take this post as fact as I know I'm far from the truth.

Warning: maths ahead.

Since you've consented to read my shenanigans, I'll attempt to explain my thought process.

Since I couldn't find the cost of the IRL bakery, I searched for the Average Home Price in Paris. Results:

$1,150 per square foot.

A start, more than expected and in dollars, but a start. So, what's the dollar to euro exchange?

0.96 euros to 1 dollar.

We'll save that for later, but good to know for now. Next, since it's a bakery, I searched for the Average Sized Bakery:

At least 800 square feet, ideal being 1,200 square feet.

Alright, that gives us a boundary for the lowest and highest result with leeway for head canons. So, how many floors is the Dupain Cheng bakery? This is to know how many times we multiply the floor space. From top to bottom:

5F: Rooftop balcony

4F: Marinette's room / attic

3F: Living Room and kitchen

2F: Tom and Sabine's room

1F: The Bakery Itself

So five floors. For my sanity I didn't include the stairwell extension from the 1st to 3rd floor, not how the attic curves in, I'm taking excessive liberties to stop myself weeping. Now comes the maths of it all, starting with the smaller possibility.

$1,150 × 800 = $920,000 per floor.

$920,000 × 5 = $4,600,000 altogether.

A steep number, it shocked me as well the first time I calculated it, then I remembered that was the smaller guess, the larger being:

$1150 × 1,200 = $1,380,000 per floor.

$1,380,000 × 5 = $6,900,000 altogether.

Both well in the millions, to my shock, then remembered about the dollar to euro exchange rates so bunged those through a calculator to reach the following results:

€4,416,000 for the 800 square feet

€6,624,000 for the 1,200 square feet

Still in the millions. I'm still reeling from the final results of all this. I nearly forgot why I started looking for the cost of Marinette's house while looking at the numbers.

Ok, Marinette's family is absolutely loaded if they could afford to live in the bakery if someone considered my numbers, whether they rent or purchased the building outright, they're still wealthy regardless.

For being "a normal girl with a normal life", Marinette sure is oblivious to the wealth she walks on.

I'm not going into detail about the cost of her hobbies or the trip to Shanghai, those can be separate posts I can make as I recover from how her house may cost millions.

We might have misunderstood Hogwarts Houses for years

I have a theory that the valued quality of each of the four Houses isn’t really about the personality of its students.

The valued quality of each of the four Houses has to do with how they perceive magic.

Stick with me a second: Hogwarts is a school to study magic. Magic as Hogwarts teaches it can be seen as many things: a natural talent, a gift, a weapon, etc.

So how you believe magic should be used will both reflect your personality and change how you handle that power.

“Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart,” Gryffindors perceive magic as a weapon. Gryffindors tend to excel in aggressive forms of magic, like offensive and defensive spells, and they are good at dueling. But a true Gryffindor knows that the power is a responsibility, and so they must always use their powers to stand up for what’s right. They are the sword of the righteous, which makes them as good at Defense Against the Dark Arts as they are at combat magic.

Hufflepuffs believe that magic is a gift and that the best gifts are to be given away. Hufflepuffs, “loyal and just,” would naturally abhor the idea of jealously guarding magic or using it to hurt someone else. So Hufflepuffs share their magic to benefit of Muggles, like the Fat Friar, to protect the overlooked, like Newt Scamander with his creatures, or to oppose those who would use magic to torment and bully, like the Hufflepuffs who stood with the DA and the battle of Hogwarts.

Slytherins are the opposite: they believe their magic is a treasure that they have been entrusted to protect. The Slytherin fascination with purity, with advantage, with cunning and secrecy–all of which were perverted by the Death Eaters–comes from the idea that people with magic in their veins have been given something special that it is their duty to protect at all costs. And perhaps they aren’t entirely wrong: power in the wrong hands can be dangerous. And power interfering at will with Muggle affairs is a gross presumption that could turn the course of history. Though the series shows some of the worst that Slytherin can be, “evil,” is not a natural Slytherin tendency. “Cautious,” is.

Ravenclaws believe that magic is an art form, one that is beautiful and should be appreciated and studied for its own sake. If “wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” then asking what magic is for is useless. It’s more important to immerse oneself in magic for its own sake. Ravenclaws push the boundaries of magic to see if they can, hence Hermione’s spell experiment on the DA coins being dubbed a Ravenclaw quality, but like Luna Lovegood in the pursuit of extraordinary creatures: they can also be content to plumb the depths of what already exists.

So while you can see where personalities will overlap over Houses, perhaps in Sorting we should be asking ourselves less what we think we are and more what we think we believe. 

Dani is hunted by the JL

So dani was traveling around the infinite realms and came across a universe that she and danny would LOVE

Their are super heros, and clones and wizards, and alians

Dani send danny hlthe location of the universe with the caption:THE WORLD OF HEROS AND ALIANS WHICH WILL YOU MEET FIRST

Danny texted her back a voice massage of his screaming thw word alians

.

.

.

Do dani was exploring this new universe wjen she saw asshole.1 berating a teenager about how he's not fit for this life

The asshole.2 chimes in and AGREES with asshole.1, at this point the kid looks upset

and dani could understand teenagers in the superhero business is not the best(she asked) and sometimes tough love is what it takes so she was going to leave

Then she heard asshole.1 say" clones should just be terminated to save everyone problems like this"...

No...dani didnt hold back in teaching asshole.1 a lesson in clone rights via: trial by fist

.

.

.

But now 3 months later she decided to ask the assholes what they want and why they keep harassing her

She didnt expect a rant about how an unsupervised meta(and a clone asshole.1(whos name is superman WTF is super about him))

Then they all had a meeting about her IN front of her

The options ranger from finding her original to termination to imprisonment to forcing her to be a superhero

They eventually decided to make her a superhero in training...

These people are IDIOTS, if you dont trush her why put her WITH A TEAM, why not just let her leave, the most she did was get payback for the insensitive shit superman was saying but the sheer notion she was a clone was enough to FOECE her into a life she dosent want...

Oh hell no

So when the JL and clones in the background came up to tell her that they decided to give her a chance at "redemption"

She looked then in the eyes, sniled a too sharp smile said:no

Then she screamed

PAPA

.

.

.

The next thing anyone knowes is the watchtower is in an unknown location with a person that looked scarily similar to the unknown clone

And then he said

WHY DO YOU HAVE MY DAUGHTER

The Worst Branch in the Country

The GIW knows Amity Park is a huge fraud. The “most haunted city in the US”, really? They’ve been checking the place out for decades with nary a peep aside from that couple of crazy scientists that moved into town around twenty years prior.

Because of this, the town became a punishment duty. One of their agents causes trouble? They get put in time out and sent to work for a while in Amity Park. Let those idiots chase after pointless rumors while the actually competent agents work with the more important ghosts. The reports back from the town get barely more than a cursory glance before getting tossed in the shredder.

…Which really came back to bite them when ghosts did actually start to show up, and they didn’t realize until after the Amity Park branch had royally screwed up the situation.

Fuck, they really hope this doesn’t start a war.

Optional DPxDC addition: they call in the Justice League Dark for help with negotiation and taking down their rogue members

Surprise husbands + "How are you real?" ; requested by @vehan-tikkun-olam-and-stuff!

They may not have planned to get married, or even wanted it all too much at the beginning, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to treat each other right. It was rough going, with both of them coming out of relationships and having secret identities, but time had softened the hurt feelings and allowed them to actually get to know each other.

And Danny, Duke has discovered, is a really good husband. 

Neither of them ever saw themselves as married at 20, but sometimes life throws horrible curses at you and the embodiment of balance and life and death swoops in to save your life. Via marriage. 

His life is weird, okay? Duke has made his peace with it.

The thing is, if they had met naturally and started off as friends, Duke could see himself falling for Danny and asking him to marry him in a far off future. Instead, they’re doing everything backwards: married, then going on dates to know each other, and finally feeling close enough to be friends. 

It helps that Danny does his best to communicate and that helps Duke find the words he needs as well. 

He’s sweet, too, so kind and doting and affectionate. Like a really lovable cat, honestly. Duke’s never been cuddled so much in his life and he’s loving every minute of it. 

He… might be falling in love with his husband. What a revelation.

“Duke?” 

He blinks, looking up from his half-empty plate, pulled out of his thoughts suddenly. Tim and Dick stare at him, concerned, and he realizes he’s missed the entire conversation because he was so preoccupied thinking about Danny. In his defense, it was their one year anniversary the night before and Danny had kissed him for the first time after a date night spent playing video games and talking shit about their respective rogues. 

Tim snaps a finger in front of his face, and Duke startles. He got distracted by his Danny Thoughts again.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“You okay? You’ve been out of it all day,” Dick says, clearly concerned.

“Oh, uh, yeah, it’s all good. Just… adjusting.”

“To what? Did something happen?”

Duke shrugs, scooping up another forkful of pasta to shove in his mouth. “Yeah, I… this is going to sound kind of stupid, but I think I’m in love with my husband.”

Tim, taking an ill-timed drink, chokes and spits out his Zesti. Dick springs back, trying to get out of the spray zone but doesn’t move far, shocked still by Duke’s words.

“Oh, yeah,” Duke realizes, “I didn’t tell you guys, did I?”

“You’re married?!” Tim shrieks as Dick clutches at his chest, eyes wide.

“You didn’t tell me?” Dick asks, offended.

“Seriously? That’s what you focus on?”

Duke smiles as they begin to bicker. They do it constantly, but this time it’s halfhearted, as if they’re just going through the motions of something familiar to distract themselves from the bomb he’s dropped on them.

In all fairness, Duke did forget that he didn’t tell them that he’s married to Danny. He’s also only mentioned Danny once or twice and heavily implied that Danny was just a classmate at GCU. And then forgot that he didn’t tell them, assuming that they’d figure it out eventually being Batman trained detectives, after all.

Well. 

Oops.

Clearly that is not the case. Duke hurries to finish his pasta before Tim and Dick finish their joint freak out and get their senses back together enough to interrogate him. He can’t escape it, but he refuses to have this discussion with an empty stomach. 

He just barely manages to scrape the last mouthful off the plate when his fork is being yanked out of his hands. Tim and Dick close in on him, standing to either side of him, trapping him in place, and look at him with knife-sharp smiles.

Here we go, Duke thinks tiredly, and resigns himself to clearing up this misunderstanding.

Somehow, he manages to explain the situation (I got cursed, he saved my life, we ended up married because magic is bullshit, he treats me so well) and Tim and Dick both agree to not hunt down Danny to show him the wrath of older brothers on one condition: Danny has to join them for a family dinner.

“Don’t worry, we’ll catch everyone up on your… situation,” Dick says, pulling on his jacket to head out. Tim is already on his phone, no doubt telling someone already. 

“Great,” Duke says, unenthused. “You’ll also be answering all the questions because I’m not in the mood. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to figure out a day that works for all of us, and then I’m going to kick my husband’s ass in Mario Cart.”

He walks out the door, grinning as he hears them scramble after him, then twists the ring on his finger (not a wedding ring, but a magic portal making gift) and steps into the portal. It closes quietly behind him, leaving him in Danny’s lair, a comfortable, spacious house with high ceilings and little bits of his personality scattered about. There are soft rugs with geometric patterns on them, star maps on the wall, stained glass windows that throw colors across the floor, and a giant couch and pillow pit in the living room.

Danny’s asleep in it, curled up and looking completely at peace. Duke toes off his shoes and carefully makes his way over, footsteps silent so he doesn’t wake him up, all plans of Mario Cart fading away instantly.

Danny doesn’t get much sleep, with the stress of school and an internship and ghost fights to worry about. It’s why his lair is so quiet and comfortable; it’s what he needs, and he doesn’t let anyone else in without invitation, rare as it is.

Duke is allowed to waltz right in thanks to the ring Danny gave him. It never stops making him feel overwhelmed by how much trust Danny puts in him to allow him unlimited access to what is his only true sanctuary, letting his lair be a place of safety and respite for Duke as well. 

He crawls into the pillow pit, There’s no way to do this without waking Danny up since he can’t fly, so he isn’t surprised to see Danny blink his eyes open, still looking soft and content. He smiles when he sees Duke, reaching a hand out to him that Duke gladly takes, bringing it up to his mouth to kiss his palm.

Sitting up, Danny tilts his head up in a silent request. Duke happily obliges, still reeling over the fact that he’s allowed to do this! He can kiss his husband whenever he wants! 

Yeah, he’s going to be riding that high for a while.

“Hey,” Danny murmurs, sleepy and quietly pleased to see him.

“Hi honey,” Duke returns fondly, “Have a nice nap?”

Danny nods, leaning into Duke and closing his eyes again. “Mhm. How long are you staying? I wanna cuddle.”

“I got nothing going on today. I’m all yours, baby.”

“C’mon,” Danny tries to tug him down. Duke goes slowly, covering Danny’s body with his own, but holds himself with one hand before he blankets his husband completely.

“Wait. There’s something we need to talk about.”

Immediately, the sleepy haze is fading from Danny’s eyes, leaving him alert. “What’s up? Is something wrong?”

“Not really? You know how we agreed to keep our marriage a secret until we weren’t in danger anymore and all those cultists and sorcerers were taken care of?”

“...Yes?”

“Well.” Duke sucks in a breath and offers a bashful smile. “Guess who forgot to tell people we were married after that whole mess was dealt with?”

The nervousness clears from Danny’s gaze as he stares up at Duke with incredulous amusement. “No. No way.”

“Yeah. Kinda dropped a bomb on them and they started freaking out over me being married. Anyways, they want you to come to dinner?”

“When?”

Duke leans back, sitting on his heels. “Let me check.” He pulls out his phone and sends a quick text to the group chat asking for a day they could have a family meal to meet his husband.

His phone is bombarded with texts and calls immediately until Barbara, bless her entire soul, forcibly mutes all of them and puts in a poll with a few dates, setting the poll to close in 24 hours.

“Okay, well, they’re deciding now, but probably soon.”

Danny nods. “Alright. I know these aren’t normal circumstances at all, but I’m so excited to meet the Bats.”

“You do not mean that after hearing all my stories about them.”

“No, I do!” Danny laughs, surging up to wrap his arms around Duke and pull him back down to lay among the giant pillows with him. “They sound nice!”

“The Bats sound nice?!” Duke repeats in horror. “Did you hit your head?”

“They do sound nice! You talk about them so fondly, and yeah they have problems and are dysfunctional, but they’re heroes. Of course they have problems. Even with all their baggage, they’re kind. And you clearly love them, so I do too.”

It’s hard to resist the urge to hug Danny tight enough to make him squeak while peppering his face with kisses, so Duke doesn’t. He just goes and does it, because he’s allowed to shower his husband (!) with affection (!!!) as much as he pleases.

“How are you real?” he says against the corner of Danny’s lips. “How are you so perfect! To me specifically! Honey, if we weren’t already married, I’d be going down on one knee right now.”

“I mean, you still can. We never got a proper wedding either. Think if we offer them a chance to help plan our wedding, they’ll forgive us for secretly being married for so long?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Duke says. He’s already giddy, just imagining what their wedding will look like, what song they’ll play for their first dance, where they’ll have the ceremony… He should create a Pinterest account to start putting ideas together. 

Later, though. He wants to woo Danny properly and take him on so many dates.

Dates which include dinner with the Waynes and Wayne-adjacents, apparently.

“You sure you’re okay with meeting them over dinner?” he asks, just to be sure. He knows how intense they can be, even when pretending to be normal civilians. It took him years to get used to them, himself, and he doesn’t want to push Danny into doing something he’s not ready to do.

Danny cups Duke’s face in his hands and gives him a quick, reassuring kiss. “I’m sure. If nothing else, it’ll be fun to see how long it takes for them to realize I’m not fully human.”

“I really am glad it’s you.”

“Yeah, me too. I’d choose you all over again if given the choice.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Duke laughs, wrapping an arm around Danny’s waist.

“Can we nap now? Now that you’re here and holding me, it’s taking everything I’ve got to stay awake.”

“Yeah, we can nap now.” Duke settles into the pillows, Danny cradled in his arms and closes his eyes to bask in the quiet easiness of it all. 

He really couldn’t ask for a better husband, unexpected as he was. The others will see that too, once they meet him. It’s impossible to not love Danny once you meet him; Duke knows this all too well.

He loves his husband.

And his husband loves him back.

Duke is fully prepared to keep making that choice for the rest of his life.

as someone who has gone long stretches without electricity, let alone an internet connection

BACK UP YOUR WORK---YES, EVEN PHYSICAL COPIES. HAVE OFFLINE RESOURCES. KEEP YOUR LANDLINE. CARRY CASH. DON'T GET IMPORTANT APPLIANCES THAT RUN ON WIFI. LEARN TO READ A PAPER MAP