Rereading Harry Potter Trying To Figure Out What Makes Him Special. Is He Charismatic? Kind? Perceptive?

DPxDC Mechanical Engineer Danny

Danny caught the attention of Batman while studying at Gotham University for his alternative energy projects. He’s hired right out of college to work on the Watchtower.

He shows absolutely no tell of his abilities till there’s a dire situation- Flash’s electric discharge messes with one of his projects in progress and the whole base would have lost air pressure if he hadn’t done a quick fix using telekinesis and ice.

Of course Batman notices.

Batman assumes the worst- he suspects Danny’s a rogue of some kind, someone who has infiltrated the Justice League with an ulterior motive. But he can’t just fire Danny now- he’s the only one who knows how the new Watchtower energy source works. Plus, he’s not letting Danny go anywhere until he’s figured out his true motives.

Cue Batman subtly testing Danny- tossing things at him to trigger inhuman fast reflexes, having him lift too-heavy machinery, setting up convenient opportunities to steal or snoop or otherwise be up to no good. Danny does take advantage but only once, to use a computer terminal with unlocked clearance. He didn’t plant any bugs that Barman could find, and he otherwise kept up his powerless civilian act perfectly.

Still, Batman’s not satisfied. He brings an infrasonic sound emitter to Danny’s lab one day, and that, of all things, is what gets Danny to break.

“I know what you’re doing,” Danny admits with a sigh, finally. “If you’re really that suspicious of me, I can leave, but I kinda like my job so I’d prefer not to. The benefits are insane compared to what’s standard.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure. yeah. How about you turn off the freaking noise generator and we can talk?”

“Hm.” Batman obliges, and he takes the stool next to Danny at his gesture.

“Number one, I’m not a meta. Despite all the data and conclusions you’ve probably drawn otherwise. Number two, I’m on your side. I’m here to work on the base, that’s it. I follow your rules to the letter.”

“The-“

“The classified files I looked at? Yeah that was the one exception. You already know what I looked at, I’m sure, but maybe you haven’t figured out why. It goes back to point one- I may not be a meta, but I am something that organization, the GIW, cares about. I looked at your files on them to sus out your relations. Seeing as I don’t particularly love being the victim to twelve degrees of human rights violations if I can avoid it.”

“Hm.” The Ghost Intelligence Ward was one of many government agencies that the Justice League hadn’t worked closely with. But they also hadn’t been flagged for Justice League investigation. Danny’s comments made him doubt that call.

“Any other questions?”

“If you’re not a meta, what are you?”

“I’m an engineer. A pretty decent one. And I’d really, really like it to stay that way.”

Batman considers, and ultimately lets him stay. He likes Danny (everyone likes Danny), and it would be a massive pain in the ass to replace him. He really is a good engineer.

It’s only much later that his faith in Danny is repaid in spades.

Batman finds Danny on the Watchtower command bridge. Alarms are blaring, the station has been knocked out of orbit, out the window there’s shrapnel floating everywhere as a space battle rages around them.

On the station it’s chaos. Technicians run around, shouts from the med bay, sparks from the walls.

Batman and Danny stand at the main controls, watching the battle outside, stoic, unmoving.

Wonder Woman’s harried voice crackles through on coms: “We need backup.”

“There is no more backup.” Batman replies, while looking pointedly at Danny.

“What?”

Batman doesn’t move.

“What.”

“The impact from Darkseid’s initial attack should have sent this station on a terminal trajectory toward the planet.”

“Well. We aren’t currently plummeting to our deaths, so turns out it didn’t do that.”

“You did something.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re lying.”

“Maybe Superman nudged us back on course in all the chaos.”

“I’ve been watching the trackers. No one else with the capability has come near the station.”

“Can’t you just be grateful we got lucky?”

Sounds of peril screech over the coms. Danny’s face scrunches.

“Luck had nothing to do with it. As it is now, we are going to lose this fight.”

“Isn’t there anyone else you can call?”

“I’m asking you. You can help, can’t you?”

The glare-off lasts a long moment more before Danny breaks.

“Fuck. Fuckity fuck.” Danny runs his hands through his hair. “Shit. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking you to save this and countless other worlds from a genocide. I’m also asking you to save my friends.”

Danny looks at him, hard, weary, and with a kind of deep resolve that feels far too ancient to be on the face of a supposed twenty-something.

“Fine. Fine. Okay.” He steps back and transforms. If Batman is surprised when he shakes off his human appearance like an old coat, he doesn’t show it. But what’s undeniable is the being in Danny’s place has the unmistakable presence of power.

“No one else can know.” His voice echoes in a way that’s sonically impossible, both sounding closer and further away than he should be.

He pulls a gear-shaped medallion seemingly out of thin air and puts it over his head in one motion.

“If I get in trouble for this, I’m blaming you.”

He vanishes. Outside, the shape of the battle changes instantly. The stars seem to glow brighter as the arms of the galaxy flash with the colors of the aurora. Then it’s like the void of space itself comes alive. It moves the spaceships back like they’re toys, plucking them from one side of the field to the other. It finds Darkseid at the heart of the chaos and massive arms of nothingness and darkness wrap around him. He’s screaming as it swallows him whole.

His armies scatter. The battle turns. The JL deal with the stragglers, but the air of relief is palpable.

Danny reappears next to Batman, once again donning his grease-stained coveralls. Arms folded.

“Happy?”

It took all of five minutes. Less, probably. Batman tamps down a thousand questions.

“Thank you.”

“I’m gonna need two weeks off minimum.” Danny snaps. “One to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare you’ve just caused me, and another to recover from the headache.”

Batman blanks. “Granted.”

Danny sighs. “And I’m not fixing the station until I’m back. It won’t fall out of the sky as is. Make up whatever excuse you want.”

“Done.” He considers. “I would prefer to tell them the truth. That you saved us.”

Danny glares. “I’m not supposed to save you. I made a pact not to use my power to influence the mortal realm.”

“A pact with who?”

Danny rolls his eyes. “The embodiment of Time. The concept of Justice. Among others.” He smirks at Batman’s confusion.

“And what, exactly, does that make you?”

He stands, framed by the space window, haloed by the stars. “I’ll give you three guesses.”

Batman frowns.

“Look. I like you guys. I like working on your base. I like supporting the work you do. But you can not go factoring me in to any of your plans or contingencies. This was a one time thing.

“So to answer your question again: I’m an engineer.”

Feral McGee™

It starts with the Joker. 

His goons picked up Tim Drake. Not specifically because it was Tim Drake, he just so happened to be in the Joker’s neighborhood, and we'll, he can't pass up that opportunity now can he? 

Except Tim Drake is watching, along with the rest of Gotham, at the Batcomputer. He’s nursing a broken foot and has been put on monitor duty until he's cleared for field work again. 

The guy looks enough like him, though. Black hair, blue eyes, and bags under his eyes for days. He's also got the same lean sort of build like he does. 

It happens like this. 

The Joker is doing his monologue thing where he explains whatever twisted game he's come up with this time. He takes up the majority of the screen, so nobody can see Not-Tim behind him, not until the big reveal. Then he covers the screen again, getting up close and personal, before stepping back. In those quick few seconds, Not-Tim is no longer sitting there tied to the chair. 

Someone off camera lets the Joker know, and he whirls around, confused as the rest of Gotham. 

And then Not-Tim comes in with the steel chair. 

Or, well, a crowbar, but the reference holds up. 

He takes out one of Joker’s knees before punching him in the face. The Joker drops like a bag of stones, out cold. 

Then he looks towards the camera. 

“Hey there. I'm not really sure where I am, but also if he was after Tim Drake, he got the wrong guy. I'm not him, I'm just some dude. Anyway, I'll just-yep-” he carefully steps over the unconscious Joker, gives the camera a little wave, and then leaves. 

Batman and Nightwing enter shortly after, with the Joker and his goons out cold and tied up. The knots were complicated enough where, in the end, the police resorted to cutting the ties off of them so they could be properly cuffed and taken to Arkham. 

“A constrictor knot,” Batman tells Nightwing as they watch the villain be taken away. “Often used by sailors to temporarily tie things together to keep something in a bag, or to hold something to glue it back together.”

“Huh,” Nightwing says, scratching the back of his head. “Go figure.”

—

The next time it happens, it’s the Riddler. 

He’s laughing, giving his riddles to the Bats and recording himself to all of Gotham while his victim, one of the Wayne brats, hangs over a vat of something. From a distance, he looks like Tim Drake, or maybe a lankier Dick Grayson. And he’s not the only victim, they’re all scattered across the city, but he thought an important figure such as a Wayne should be under the Riddler’s direct supervision while he enacts his schemes. 

While the Riddler cackles and plots and waves his cane around, in the background all of Gotham can see the figure escape. Several Gothamites recognize him as the kid from before, who clocked the Joker. They all watch with bated breath as he sort of wiggles his way out of the ropes holding him up. Once he’s free, he climbs the rope and gets himself down safely. 

Gotham holds their breath as the kid casually walks up to the Riddler, who’s mid-rant. He politely taps him on the shoulder, and as the Riddler is turning around, the kid clocks him just as brutally as he had the Joker. He’s down with one punch. 

They think he’s going to say another sort of awkward goodbye, but instead he pats the Riddler down until he finds a piece of paper tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. 

“Right,” the kid says, looking at the list. There’s a lot more static overlay now, and several wonder if it’s damage to the cameras. “Uh, the Clocktower, the Docks, and-” he squints at the page for a moment-”Mama Nacaroni’s? What the fuck is that? Anyway, uh. See you later, I guess. Oh! And we’re at the Gotham Arena. Have fun with him, I guess.”

The kid tosses the paper off to the side before the camera cuts to black. 

Just like last time, everyone is out cold and tied up. The Riddler himself is sporting a pretty bad shiner, but well deserved nonetheless. 

“Stop it,” Red Hood tells him. Batman just looks at him, and though Hood can’t see the top half of his face, he can tell that his eyebrow is raised. “You know exactly what I mean, B. Put the adoption papers away.”

“Hn.”

—

After that, it sorta becomes a game. The rogues of Gotham are no longer after a Wayne, or after anybody who holds any kind of social status like usual. They’re all going after this one kid, all determined to be the one to hold him. And each one is televised. 

Mr. Freeze freezes him in a block of ice, but due to the cameras glitching out, nobody can really see how he got free. They do, however, see the kid suplex Mr. Freeze. It should seem impossible, given his lanky figure, but he evidently has more muscle than he’s originally let on. 

Two-Face gets a hold of him, using chains and some power-dampening cuffs just on the off-chance that he’s a meta. They all watch as the kid leans down, pulls a bobby pin out of his hair, and picks the locks on his cuffs. One punch, and Two-Face is down. 

Gothamites are going wild for the kid. They’ve dubbed him Feral McGee™ (an online poll, of course), because every time he goes in for the punch he gets this feral look in his eyes. Also, just the fact that he casually goes up to these rogues and takes them out with all the casualness of doing something incredibly mundane? Incredible. The Gothamites are eating it up. However, despite the video evidence, nobody has been able to properly identify the kid. They know he has black hair and bright eyes, but any time he gets near a camera, it’s like there’s this weird, sort of warped quality the camera takes on. It doesn’t usually calm down until the fight is done-as one sided as they usually are-before he awkwardly skedaddles away.  

He gets kidnapped by the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (though that was more just a friendly chat than anything), Mad Hatter, and the Riddler again. 

And then the Joker escapes. 

It’s no surprise as to who he’s going to go after. 

Due to one too many careless goons, they manage to find their way to the Joker’s hideout pretty quickly. This time, it’s all Bats on deck, and they all hide away in the rafters as Feral McGee™ is hung over a vat of acid. His whole body is tied up, hardly a single inch of exposed skin to be seen except for the neck up. 

They watch the goons, they watch the Joker, and they watch Feral McGee™. 

The Joker is monologuing, practically begging the bats to come find him before the timer runs out. When it does, the kid gets dumped into the vat of acid. 

Despite these stakes, the kid seems to be only mildly annoyed. 

“Fuck this, I have homework I still need to finish,” they hear him say. 

They all watch, amazed and confused, as the kid starts gnawing through the ropes. Human teeth shouldn’t be able to do that so easily, but one bit after the other, and soon enough the kid’s got himself freed enough to just climb up the rest of the rope. When he’s at the top of the crane holding him up, Batman lets down a rope and pulls the kid up and out of danger. 

“Oh, cool, you’re all here,” the kid says casually, as if meeting the entire Bat Clan is just a normal Tuesday. And then he pulls out a notepad and pen and hands it to Red Hood. 

“Can I get an autograph? You’re dope as fuck, dude.”

Red Hood has to look away and hide his face in his arms for a few moments to not give away their location with his laughter before signing. And then, one by one, the others do as well. They pass along the kid’s notebook with shit-eating grins and barely contained snickers despite the fact that the Joker is still right below them. Even Batman signs it, after his children don’t stop hounding him about it. 

In their distraction, they didn’t see the kid sneak away. He’s far away from them now, nearly right over the Joker. Danny waits, though, until the Joker has turned around as the timer almost runs out. They watch as he snickers at Joker’s flabbergasted look. The Joker comically looks back and forth and under objects the kid obviously isn’t under. However, before he can do or say anything else, the kid drops from the rafters and right on top of the Joker. He crumples to the ground, unconscious. The kid, however, just brushes the dust off of himself. Despite the fall he took, there isn’t a scratch on him. 

When the bats join him, they give his notepad back to him, barely able to contain their laughter at the absurdity of it all. The kid, too, joins in the camaraderie, laughing and joking along with them as Batman secures the Joker. 

“Okay, okay, but I gotta ask, dude,” Red Hood says at one point, looking at the kid. “How do you keep getting kidnapped?”

The kid just shrugs. “I get distracted easily. And I’m sleep deprived, so you know. Social awareness is kind of at an all time low right now.”

“Why are you sleep deprived?” Nightwing asks, barely hidden concern in his voice. 

 “Finals are kinda kicking my ass right now. Especially this dumb English homework I have. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Oh, lucky for you,” Red Hood says, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders as he walks them out of the warehouse, “I happen to know a lot about English. So, it is Shakespeare?”

“Yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

As they walk off, Batman calmly watches, though the rest of the bats can see his jaw twitching. Nightwing comes up behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. 

“If you don’t adopt him, I will.”

“Hn.”

Notes for what I'm writing are so funny >.<,,

I genuinely think I'm the funniest MF ever LMAOO

I was just thinking about Dannys hatred for Christmas and how funny / odd itd be if Amity's citizens start noticing how snappy and overly emotional and aggressive Danny gets in December and start to collectively think it's because he died in December and is still having a hard time processing it.

At some point, Damian fucks up. It’s while he’s still new to Gotham and is trying to win the approval of his father and adopted siblings, but ten years of training is not easy to deprogrammed if it’s all you know and Bruce takes it out in Damian and Dick isn’t around and Damian “I act like I’m older but I’m still just a 10 year old with repressed emotions” Al Gul leaves. Runs away if you will. He leaves Gotham because he’ll be found in Gotham and he would like to not be found thank you very much.

He end up in central city (which at some point was claimed to be in Illinois) where he’s happened upon by one Danny Fenton who now lives in the city and works R&D at Star Labs creating a sustainable energy source by filtering ectoplasm that naturally exists in this plane of existence.

Needless to say he’s a well established individual, incredibly smart, and can easily take in a child when he happens across Damian in a park.

Danny has one conversation with this emotionally repressed child who very clearly ran away from home and is also hiding weapons on his person and is like

“Guess your mine now.”

Damian does not cave at first. He accepts Danny’s offer of a place to stay for the night and then once they arrive at Danny’s apartment, Cujo arrives and Damian is sold. Ghosts exist, they’re not talked about a lot outside of certain circles, but it’s not a secret. And after saving enough of the right people as a ghost, the anti ecto acts were rescinded so Danny is home free and is taking after his parents in the study of ecto-everything. He’s also the king and can do what he wants with the ectoplasm he collects. So a ghost dog being in his apartment isn’t weird, but Danny’s grateful Cujo can come and go freely without threat now.

Anyway I saw a tag somewhere about how “sometimes a family is an ex-assassin, a random guy, and their ghost dog.” So that’s what this is.

Danny doesn’t ask questions. Damian’s old family hurt him? Didn’t trust him? Neglects him unintentionally? That’s not conductive to a happy healthy childhood. Do you want to be my family? I have a cousin around you age, you two would probably get along great whenever she visit. Also you seem to have a lot of pent up energy. I know a place we can go and brawl it out of your system. No you won’t hurt me if you don’t hold back, yes I promise I won’t get mad at you for fighting.

For ghosts, fighting is like a social activity. Danny takes Damian into the ghost zone for these brawls, probably uses one of skulkers islands so Damian can have the full benefits of a diverse terrain because this little gremlin is trained and Danny will ask someday, but not today.

I’m sure at other points other ghosts show up as well and are like, we’re play fighting with Phantom’s kid? Hell yeah! Danny probably finds some dead LOA assassins at some point who inform him about the kid he’s adopted and that the LOA will probably come after him again at some point. And Danny just laughs because Damian’s his now. Danny would like to see anyone try to take his kid and live to tell the tale.

The bright side of that interaction is that Damian gets introduced to an entire zone in the realm that’s made up of denizens he can learn his heritage and culture from. He ends up with a ghost sword and spars somewhat regularly with old LOA members who have chilled out in the afterlife.

Obviously they don’t live in the zone. Danny has a job, and Damian, as soon as Tucker creates the most airtight new identity in the history of man kind and hides Damian behind a ghost firewall, has school. He is now Damian Al Mir Fenton (the ghosts started calling him Almir as a nickname because he is the son of the ghost king and a prince so Damian decided to adopt it as his middle name). They get away with this for a while because Damian spend enough time around Danny and in the zone that he’s liminal adjacent and that causes camera’s to not quite capture his likeness correctly, so when the bat clan finally starts looking for him he doesn’t show up on face recognition scans they use.

It’s like, a year or two before they eventually get a lead. One of Damian’s clones arrive and either fools then bats into believing he’s Damian, or gets captured and Batman’s giving a briefing in the watchtower about the LOA. Either way it happens on the watchtower.

Either Flash see’s the clone of Damian or see’s a photo of the clone and blue screens for a minute before loudly declaring “why are clones of Fenton’s kid being sent after you?” And then Batman blue screens because who the fuck is Fenton and why does flash think Damian is his kid?

And so flash goes on the explain That Danny works with him at Star labs and he’s got a kid name Damian who arrived a few years ago because his mother passed away and apparently he’d never told him she was pregnant. So obviously he took him no questions asked. Honestly the two of them are great together. I know there was a bit of a rough patch at the start, I can’t imagine what it’s like for a kid to be uprooted from everything he knows and loves to be placed in a new place with a basic stranger, but the two of them seemed to work it out. Barry invited them over for holiday dinners sometimes they’re a sweet family.

And now Bruce is blue screening for another reason because some civilian took in a ten year old assassin and is still alive but also has a thriving relationship with Damian? He doesn’t believe it.

So when Bruce returns to the cave he looks up Fenton, finds a whole lot of questionable things about his family, but none of them apply to him. Guys just a dude working on renewable energy sources. And he see’s pictures of Danny with his son and yeah, that’s definitely Damian Wayne, except this Damian has a small smile on his face and an exasperated look of fondness as 30 year old Fenton hugs him from behind.

Another photo shows Danny decked out in fan gear sporting Damian’s name as the now 11-12 year old hides his head in embarrassment. Damian in question is wearing a martial arts uniform. A later post shows he was at a competition and won. Bruce half expected to find articles about major injury caused to opponents Damian competed against, but video’s of the competition show intense fighting, sure, but nothing lethal and no unessessary damage. Damian is respectful as one should be in this environment and Bruce isn’t convinced he’s looking at the same feral 10 year old that was dropped at his door step.

Dick makes the first move when word gets out, naturally. He shows up in Central City and makes his way to Star Labs where he requests a meeting with Danny. He explains that Damian is his younger adoptive brother. That when he went missing it cause a rift between Dick and Bruce (“Bruce Wayne?” Danny asks for clarification then laughs “knew there was a reason I didn’t like billionaires.” And Dick almost laughs at that). Dick had been looking for Damian all this time and would like a chance to reconnect with him. He understands if that’s not an option, Damian seems like he’s happy and healthy and knowing how he was treated when he first arrived, Dick is almost relieved, but if there’s a chance to see his baby brother he wants to take it.

Danny nods and says he’ll bring it up with Damian. Leave me your number and I’ll message you what he thinks.

Damian takes a week, but decides to meet up with Grayson. Their first meeting is at a local cafe. They sit alone at the table, but Danny is a few away just out hearing distance (if he had normal hearing) being a silent support for his son. The next visit Danny invites him over for Dinner. They’d moved into a house by now and Damian had an entire room dedicated to swords he collects. “I don’t use them much, but they’re part of a history I belong to and having them feels right.” They also have a sparing room because in Danny’s words “he has too much energy for his tiny body. Once we found a way for him to regularly let it out he calmed down a lot.”

Dick is completely charmed. Tells Bruce that Damian is happy where he is and to fuck off, but he expresses it over many words.

Of course that doesn’t stop Bruce. Who approaches Danny out of the blue, practically Cornnering him and says he’ll charge him with kidnapping if he doesn’t return Damian to him. That danny has no idea who or what Damian is or what he comes from.

Danny, in return, just laughs. “Kidnapping charges won’t stick,” is all he says. “And I know more about who Damian is and where he came from than you do. More importantly, I was able to see past it and treat him like the slightly feral ten year old he is. Let me guess? You tried to change him? Cut off his beliefs and ideologies cold turkey? Got frustrated when he couldn’t turn off ten years of learned habits like a light switch? How they keep letting you adopt children is beyond me Bruce, but your not taking my kid I can promise you that.”

Bruce still tries. Sends his lawyers after Danny and Danny sends back a legal document signed by Talia that passed guardianship of Damian over to him. Talia had tried to come collect her son at some point. If he wasn’t with Bruce then he would be by her side. Danny Ghost King Fenton, said this is my kid and you aren’t taking him before beating down almost an entire legion of assassins and Talia herself. “You abandoned him, even if out of love, and his father rejected him. Damian’s mine now.” And Talia recognizes strength when she sees it and knows her son will be safe, but also see’s the way that Danny is encouraging her son’s connection to his heritage and not forcing him to change, just calm down. So she signs the papers and leaves them with Danny because she does love her son in her own weird ways and she will see him safe and happy, it’s unfortunate she believed bruce would be up to the task.

The adoption is airtight. Since Talia raised him and Brice didn’t know he was real (and also ghost lawyers are crazy good) Damian stays a Fenton and Thrives.

Thalia swings through sometimes to visit. Sometimes she meets up with damian, other times she meets up with Danny and hears about how her son is doing. If anyone asks, Thalia is Damian’s aunt, who travels and couldn’t take him in after his mother passed so she tracked down Danny.

Bruce is furious, but also resigned. Outside of kidnapping, there’s not much else he can do. And even if he chose to push even harder on the legal route, the arrival of Dick in Fenton’s social media would cause issues because Dick would voice his support for Danny no doubt and also speak on the initial attitude bruce had towards Damian when he first arrived. So no. He has to content himself watching his son be raised by someone else who was able to do for Damian what Bruce failed to do.

all Bucky wanted to do was get some more tea and now this. Thanks a lot, Sam. You had to fuckin’ tell him, you ass.

TIL that a recent study out of the University of Kansas found that it takes about 50 hours of socializing to go from acquaintance to casual friend, an additional 40 hours to become a “real” friend, and a total of 200 hours to become a close friend.

via reddit.com

I’ve made a carrd!!!

Ahhhh, this is so exciting, it’s my first time setting something like this up!

Here’s the link, for anyone who wants it:

Mae's Writing

Mae's Writing

Hi! I’m Mae, a freelance writer.