The “insane” Twin

I have the urge to add on, but don't know what to write-

House and Haunt(ed Home) A DPxDC ficlet.

Humans like to interpret the afterlife as some unreachable place, or some distant time. But they also like to describe the transition between living and dead as passing through gates, passages, doors, veils. And that rather implies the afterlife is simply the next room over, not some whole other house.

The thing about ghosts is, everyone eventually dies. Everyone. And most everyone stays dead. They leave one room - the room of the living - and never enter it again. But ghosts will knock on the walls, tap on windows, play their music far too loudly at two am, thump and bump and generally annoy the living into acknowledging their continued existence.

They wander the halls and yards of existence without going back into the living room, and never quite let you forget they were still there.

As a half ghost, that was especially true of Danny. And his Lair reflected it.

While the interiors of Lairs were generally contained to the Ghost Zone, they existed at the points where one reality intersected the other. Their walls were the walls between living and dead.

Danny, being both living and dead, had a Lair more liminal than most. It sauntered down side streets, and peeked into other people's houses; it made itself comfortable on the couches of neighbours, and invaded public parks. Most of FentonWorks was his Lair, but so were certain halls of his school, a booth at the Nastyburger, and the sky over Amity Park.

And when Danny moved out, left Amity and started university in Gotham, his Lair went with him.

Let me say it again - this metaphysical space of liminality, that claimed a city's whole sky, several building interiors, and nearly entire neighbourhoods - moved to Gotham.

This was a bit of problem for the local vigilantes.

There were new streets. New parks. New rooftops with accompanying buildings that could only be accessed from above. There was a mystery booth at the Batburger nearest Gotham U that only seemed to exist on certain days of the week, with a menu to a place that didn't exist and music that hadn't seen airtime since the 90's.

You could see the stars from Crime Alley, even on cloudy nights.

Granted, Danny couldn't exactly control where his Lair manifested physically.

It hovered around his apartment in Park Row, putting his childhood bedroom up the hall from his new, adult bedroom. It added halls to GU, then claimed new ones as Danny progressed through his degree. It collapsed dead end alleyways into small town green spaces, and made sure at least some of the exits lead back to Gotham.

The vigilantes particularly disliked that little feature. For all that Danny's Lair was adding features to Gotham, it wasn't removing them from Amity Park. So when you entered a "new" building from a rooftop in Gotham, the street level exit left you hundreds of miles away in a city in an entirely different State.

The average citizen adapted, of course. It was nice to take your lunch break in a peaceful (if a bit spooky) park that cancelled out all the city noise of downtown Gotham, and still be able to get back to work on time. And Gotham U was already such a maze, a few non-euclidean hallways that cut across campus was seen as a godsend. So what if they looked like they came from a movie about high school in the 80's?

It only really became a problem for Danny when his Lair opened itself a door between his kitchen, and a mansion he'd never even visited before.

Because now Batman was in his apartment, and Danny had no way to explain that he hadn't intentionally started haunting Wayne Manor.

I love in DPxDC crossovers when Danny/ghosts are enthusiastic about Damian because he comes across as a baby ghost and they think his aggression is cute attempts to initiate play fighting.

But now I want to see fics where the whole batfam (or most) is liminal/ghostly, and due to his life-long exposure to the puts/Gotham’s ambient exoplasm, Damian is actually the oldest ghost in the batfam. Realms beings telling Batman to be quiet, adults are talking, and then turning to Robin for his opinion.

DpxDc AU: Tim as a child was never given a lot of information regarding the scribbling messy handwriting that appeared over night all over his arms- naturally he came to his own conclusions.

Tim Drake was home entirely alone at 9 years old and was about to go out for the night to test his brand new long exposure camera lens when he sees the writing on his arm. It’s not English, like he assumed it was at first, but it was using the alphabet to represent… Tim isn’t bad at math but this formula is complex for his little genius brain.

Looking at his camera, he decides he can spare a moment to look it up, solve it, and get back out into old town Gotham in time for Batman and Robin’s final patrol lap. He does just that, finding the problem to relate to some aerospace engineering and then quickly deduces what laws and theorems need to be applied. He finds a pen, writes down his findings in much neater handwriting onto his arm, and goes out. It’s barely a remarkable night at all. He gets a much more memorable photo of Robin roundhouse kicking a hench person.

Things just continued on that way. Tim would find some complex math, physics or chemistry prompt on his arm (surrounded by various question marks or notes or sad faces)- he’d answer it as best he could and move on with his life. Perhaps his parents were manifesting these pop quizzes? Perhaps his subconscious felt guilty about abandoning his studies for more Bat related pursuits? Tim really didn’t care to think much about it once he became Robin- there was too much on his plate and too many peoples problems for him to fix.

Notably, however, after the attack at the Tower, the pop quiz appeared and Tim wrote back that he wouldn’t be able to find an answer to this one. It was the only time Tim questioned the markings appearance and it was because the next thing that appeared was “Hope you feel better soon.”

… his parents wouldn’t include that on a pop quiz. Cursed then. Tim decided it must be a curse, whatever, he’d deal with the implications later in life.

Tim then has the worst year of his life, hes 15, no longer Robin and the questions from his curse are getting less math oriented and more… philosophical. A lot of mentions of death that, in hindsight helped him actually grieve, and a lot of theories about dark matter and souls. Tim answers back as best he can but he’s drained and his answers aren’t very good in his opinion. He gets minimal feedback.

It all comes to a point that he’s at a family dinner, Bruce is at the head of the table, Jason has promised just to stay for dessert, Damian hasn’t thrown a single insult his way and Steph was laughing at him- when a new theoretical model appears on his arm.

“You’re just as bad as Bruce, Timberly. Hiding a soulmate from all of us, how fucking typical.” Jason points out, while watching Tim scribble back some math with a question mark onto his arm.

“A what? No, this is just a curse. I get pop quizzes every now and then.” Tim bats away Steph who rapidly approaches and began to analyze his arm (the rest of the family isn’t far behind).

“Drake. Explain how you came to this conclusion.” Damian seems more curious than anything, if his lack of insults was anything to go off of.

“Since I was young I’ve had at least weekly math check ins, I never had a parent or anyone else around so I assumed my parents had me cursed to ensure I stayed on top of my studies. Sometimes it’s physics or chemistry, for a while there it was a ton of philosophy and behavioral psychology.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“Master Tim, I believe the lack of adults in your life has led you towards a false conclusion. That is most certainly a soulmate mark. The individual to whom you are responding is undoubtedly your other half.” Alfred attempts to calm the room before explaining to Tim. Tim isnt sure if he believes the butler, though Alfred only very rarely lied, so he grabs the pen once more. He writes his first question back: “Who am I to you?”

The room waits in anticipation and within moments a brand new line appears on Tim’s arm and he is vindicated: “We do math together???”

——

The reason Danny is failing English is because his built in homework helper sucks ass at metaphors and has apparently never read any classic literature. The tutor on his arm is great at puzzles and math tho.

Danny gets a reply back one night that he wasn’t expecting (Who am I to you?) and he mentions it to Jazz. Who goes insane that Danny didn’t even question it and just went with “meh, probably haunted” as his explanation for the phenomenon for all these years.

Apparently, if Jazz was right, he had a soulmate who was uh, super fucking smart. That was an overwhelming thought.

The next day Danny is in crisis mode and writes back “Wait, WHAT AM I TO YOU??? Can I help on your homework??”

Danny gets vindicated when the writing on his arm presents a shit ton of dates and information for an unsolved Gotham cold case. See, Haunted.

———

Eventually between Danny becoming the top candidate for astrophysics at Wayne Enterprises and Tim Drake being outed as having contributed tips to the GCPD that solved cold cases- they meet and realize just how dumb they’ve been.

This just popped into my head lol

———————————————

Wishes

Batfam fighting cultists but they are actually somewhat competent at magic. They manage to hold them off and finish the summoning.

Danny: *is summoned*

Head Cultist: Great Ghost King, we have summoned you to grant our wish. Please cleanse this world to add to your kingdom.

Danny, full King regalia: *immense power crushes down like increased gravity* You wish? You wish?! I am not a d*mn genie!!! Be glad I am a Benevolent King who isn’t inclined to kill you for this slight! Take heed that when you die and join my kingdom I have already marked you for punishment! *poofs away*

Cultists and Batfam are frozen.

Danny, later: Hahahaha the looks on their faces!

Go read the reblogs, there’s so many gems in there and I couldn’t pick a thread to share. ✨

The Viewers

Danny and Tucker move in together for college in Gotham

Tucker decided to make tiktoks just for fun, he could teach people about technology and help give tips.

He didn't realize that his viewers could see Danny in the background in some clips.

Danny being Danny was never caught doing something normal instead it was always something weird.

~

Tucker: "So you just switch this piece here-"

Danny in the background more than half his body in the fridge, the fridge is very noticeably growling

Tucker who is so used to it, it doesn't even register in his mind that it's not normal.

~

Tucker fan-boying about the new Wayne tech

His viewers looking behind him at Danny

Danny running around fighting his food which is also growling & flying

~

Tucker modifying his tech for the viewers

Danny's voice in the distance: "Bye Tuck, I need to go soup this guy real quick!"

Viewers: "Cannibalism?!"

~

Tucker: "Ah yes a very normal video!"

His viewers watching Danny:

~

Just an Idea

Enemy to Parent; John Constantine and Dan edition.

Dan, after getting a clone human body to call his own and stabilize him, makes it a point to antagonize the Laughing Magician.

Not in a way to like, actually hurt the man. He's not out to get in trouble with his twerpier half again.

Just to inconvenience and fuck with the man.

It may or may not be pent up aggression regarding just how annoying John Constantine was to deal with when Dan razed the world. Sure, he's not out to do that anymore, but the sight of Constantine's face is enough to make feelings of pure resentment and pettiness swell in his chest.

It's all fun and games until one day, on his way to go fuck with the Hellblazer, Dan ends up needing to do a sacrifice play so Danny can escape, and gets caught by the GIW.

~~~~~~

John Constantine has had an Infinite Realms thorn in his side for literal months, so when the thorn doesn't show up for a couple of days, he...gets concerned.

He looks up how to summon an Infinite Realms ghost.

Just to make sure the little shit is okay.

Beautiful! I love it!

DPxDC Heritance

There's not much left for Tim in his parents' wills. Or, well, not much by his standards - the rest of the family, barring Bruce and Damian, think he is absolutely loaded and too full of himself to care. Which is maybe a little bit true; receiving about a dozen properties across the world, a trust fund and a wide collection of artifacts that his parents have accumulated through years of their archeological escapades is a lot by middle class standards.

But Tim knows how much money Drakes actually had, and a few old houses and an assembly of junk seems like not much in comparison.

In any case, it's all rather useless in Tim's position. He has no interest in traveling aside from when he has to for a mission, and he couldn't give less shits about archeology even if he tried. The trust fund is fine, he guesses, but it's not like he needs it, what with being the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and one of the Wayne Wards.

So, as morbid as it is, the best reaction he can muster at his inheritance is a shrug and a mention in his mile-long list of 'things I need to figure out when I have time'. Which basically means he'll maybe get to it when he's old and retired, and not any sooner, because Tim Drake the CEO and Red Robin the vigilante are both very, very busy people who never have time.

Naturally, his life has other plans, and it's only two or three months later that Tim finds himself breaking through the balcony window of his own apartment in Praha.

It's at that moment, when he's lying on top of a soft persian rug, surrounded by glass shards and wondering if this move was enough to lose his tail that he realizes his inheritance might be slightly more than just a few properties and some boxes with old things.

Because, through his own heavy breathing, he hears a thoughtful, slightly sarcastic voice from inside the room, "I guess the door was too hard to figure out for you, wasn't it."

He sits up, turning his head so sharply it almost snaps. His eyes immediately fall on a boy not much older than him, sitting with one leg thrown over the other on the dark red couch near the wall. He looks like he clearly belongs here: white, vintage collar shirt and black, high-waist trousers, a silver ring on his thumb that looks too old to have been bought in this century, dark raven hair and perfect porcelain skin.

And he is reading a newspaper. Like a slightly bleeding costumed guy in a domino mask breaking the window and falling onto the carpet is just another Tuesday.

Hold on, this is Tim's house! He double-checked the address, there's no mistake!

"Who are you?" He demands, frowning, as his hands reach to the birdarangs out of habit.

"Keeper of Doors," the boy answers, not looking up and flipping the page, "And you're the Drakes' heir, I assume."

Tim blinks. The response provides no actual answers, it only creates more questions. "What doors?" He asks because the rest of the points can most likely be addressed later. Like the issue of his busted secret identity, right.

The boy sighs and closes the newspaper, folding it in half and uncrossing his legs to sit a bit straighter. "Doors, capital 'D'. The ones that lead everywhere you want."

"The what?.." Tim repeats, dumbfounded and lost in this unexpected nonsense. The boy gives him a truly unimpressed look, his eyebrow twitching. Then, he stands up - Tim's fingers close around the birdarang again - and steps towards the nearest door, grabbing the handle. His feet make absolutely no sound.

"Drake manor," the boy announces and pushes the door open. He doesn't step through, however, instead just standing in the doorway and turning back to Tim, gesturing for him to look.

Tim does.

Seeing the familiar hall, the one he's seen so many times, the one he walked through every day before he moved out, makes him realize a few things at once. One, he needs to revise the list of houses he inherited since it looks like they are not just properties but a map of teleportation points, most likely. Two, his parents knew full well he didn't need the trust fund, it wasn't for him, it was probably for this boy, who may or may not be the, well, gatekeeper. Three, if the first part of his inheritance turned out to be this, he is going to need to call in Zatanna to sort through the collection of his parents' artifacts lest something turns out to be actually cursed in there.

Four, he's been staring at the boy and gaping like a fish for longer than its socially acceptable.

"...What's your name?" He asks, suddenly conscious about the fact he was kind of rude before. The boy snorts, a ghost of a smile on his lips as he closes the door back.

"Danny," he introduces and snaps his fingers. The glass shards around Tim move all at once, rising from the ground and going back towards the window, like a reversed video recording. A second later, the balcony window looks as good as new, not a crack in the glass. "And you?"

"Red Ro-" Tim starts, but then pauses. Fuck it, he might as well, "Tim."

Danny waves his hand in the air, like snatching something out of nowhere, and, just like that, there's a box that looks suspiciously like a first-aid kit in his hands.

"Nice to meet you, Tim. Now, get over here and stop ruining my carpet with your blood."

DPxDC Prompt

Danny doesn't have the best spatial awareness, you'd think he would given his bout as a vigilante, but his rogues all had the convenient ability of setting off his ghost sense and letting him know when to turn on his awareness.

So when he was taken in by Bruce Wayne in Gotham, far away from any ghosts or portals, he just didn't have any reason to be on guard. It worked well for him since his vigilante days were over and he could put all his focus on school again.

But you see, when he was first taken in, it was just him and his foster brother Tim staying at the manor.

Fast forward to now, Danny gets home from school to find not only Bruce waiting at the table for dinner, but a kid who looks surprisingly like Bruce??? The kid is small, rude and trying to be threatening in a way Danny doesn't really see as such, like the kid is like 8 how much could they really do???

Turns out a lot.

After Danny and Tim sat down and the introductions were made, Bruce filled them in on the situation that was Damian. Tim seemed to take it as a new puzzle, looking to Damian and Bruce periodically as if he could get answers simply by staring. Danny took it in stride, it isn't that unusually for a rich guy to have secret flings that result in children down the line.

Dinner was in full swing when it happened, there had been some bantering the entire time and many threats of bodily harm coming from Damian which weren't met with as many reprimands as Danny assumed it should. A distinct thunk sound was heard after a particularly harsh threat and Danny looked over to see a knife now embedded in Tim's chair where his head once was.

Before he could react, Bruce was standing with a sharp reprimand and Danny collided harshly with his chair as a new knife embedded itself in his shoulder. He cried out in shock, it has been over a year since his last ghost fight and honestly he forgot how much that hurts!

Aka, Bruce and Dick are forced to take Damian's threats more seriously when the civilian Danny is in the crossfire instead of just the trained vigilante Tim.

Doctor Danny Prompt

Danny Fenton is largely regarded as an ignorant slacker as a result of his schoolwork and study time consistently being interrupted by ghost attacks. Thankfully after Danny is crowned high king of the ghost zone he is able to reign the ghosts in and makes them all swear an oath not to cause trouble, they are still allowed to visit the human world of coarse, some even mask themselves as human and lead ordinary loves even while being dead.

With more time on his hands and little to no ghosts attacks Danny misses the rush he used to get. Then one day a man collapsed in front of him, Danny is able to save the man using CPR and he discovers his new affinity. Medical practice.

Danny goes to college and gets into a hospital as a resident after interning, not long after though the Amity Park hospital closes due to lack of funding and he is forced to find another hospital.

He got a good recommendation from his previous hospital to work at a hospital in Gotham, definitely far from home, but he doesn't let that stop him.

Soon after working there he finds the influx of patients to care for refreshing, he becomes widely known as a genius miracle doctor.

One day he's taking a leisurely walk when he found an injured vigilante, the Red Hood, hes not conscious and therefore unable to give consent for treatment. Danny cares for Red Hoods injuries privately away from a hospital so as to keep the vigilantes identity a secret.

Red Hood is cautious and rude at first, but slowly he learns to open up to the doctor and even get continuously treated by Danny.

Danny is just finishing a shift when he hears about Superman being shot with a kryptonite bullet. Despite using his powers occasionally to treat patients, he's been able to keep his ghost gene a secret.

However that's about to change. He arrives on the seen and pushes his way through the police using a bit of his powers discreetly to get through.

The heroes aren't sure what to do.

"My name's Daniel Fenton, I am an attending physician at Gotham General Hospital, I specialize in supernatural anatomy, Cardiology and Endocrinology"

"All due respect doctor, his skin is impenetrable, you won't be able to operate on him"

Danny kept a cool face.

"That would be true for a normal human, I can't explain right now, every moment we wait is time we could be using to save the patient"

Danny used his ghost powers to see inside Superman body.

Several heroes gasped as they witnessed the doctors eyes turn a glowing green and then his arm became transparent. Danny stick his hand on Superman chest and pulled out the bullet.

As soon as the bullet was out Superman's skin began healing and restoring itself.

Danny let out a breath of relief before letting the superheroes escort him to the hall of justice where they sat with him.

"I would like to begin with we all can't thank you enough Dr" Batman said.

"wow, Mr tall dark and broody is being nice" flash whispered.

"Yes but I'm sure you still have questions for me."

Several heads nodded.

"are you of an alien race?"

Danny chuckled.

"No, nothing like that. My parents were scientists who were obsessed with the study of the paranormal, specifically ghosts. When I was young, around the age of fourteen I would say, my friends convinced me to go inside the newly constructed portal shell that my parents had tested earlier that day."

He paused waiting for them to take in his words before continuing.

"It had failed to operate then so I went in thinking it was safe. I was wrong. My parents had unknowingly instilled the charge to start the portal on the inside of the shell. I didn't know it was even there until I tripped on some tangled exposed wire and my hand pressed it"

"did it hurt?" Flash asked. He got a few dirty looks for that question but Danny just gave him a friendly smile.

"in a word, yes. It was excruciating. I was electrocuted for a half a minute. On top of that I had accidentally started the charge to the portal shell while being inside. This caused an outside substance called ectoplasm to enter my DNA sequence permanently changing it"

"ectoplasm" Batman muttered.

"in simpler terms, I'm half ghost."

"That's not possible! You would have to be half dead to be-" Flashs words were silenced with a swift smack to the back of the head by wonder women.

"Yes, I am technically half dead. I had to battle these ghost entities for a while to make sure they didn't wreck havoc in the small town o grew up in."

"Forgive me, but of that's true why aren't you there now"

Danny chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck a little nervous of their soon to be reactions.

"After I was forced to defeat the current ghost king and put him back onto the sarcophagus of forever sleep, the title became mine. I gained respect and control over the ghosts who were causing trouble amd was able to make them stop"

"Your a king" Batman stated.

"i don't refer to myself as such, on truth many ghosts helped imprison the old king, I received the title on a technicality."

He looked down at his hands.

"after the peace had settled in I had begun to feel as though a part of me was missing so I took up the career I have currently."

He smiled at them sweetly as he explained.

"My battle instincts help me when I'm in a crisis situation with a critical patient. With my powers I can calm them and safely restrain them if need be. As you saw today I can also better treat meta humans and alien races with these abilities as well"

"you went from being a hero to being a doctor, that's commendable"

Danny shook his head.

"Not really. I'm doing a selfless thing for selfish reasons"

The league smiled upon him. From then on he was world renowned for his worldly expertise and protected.

Should I make this into a whole fanfiction or not? Because I want to go into more detail but I want to know what you all think first.

"Um, danny, why is there a floating girl following you?"

"This is Raven." Danny pointed out, slurping his smoothie.

"Hi."

"Her dad is Trigon."

"Oh, that the guy who-" tucker spoke up.

"Yea, same guy who kept trying to invite himself into my annual ball each year in the infinite realm? Yea, that guy." Danny said as went straight for his burger.

"And that his daughter or si-

"Yea, his daughter, supposedly some secret weapon to try and invite into my home dimension to go to the party. I just put one of my spare anti trigon rings on her, disconnecting the line between him to her when she reverse summoned me for a bargain for something, and she kept following me ever since" Danny said, munching on his burger then sipping the remaining of his smoothie.

"Danny, I think you accidentally married trigon's daughter." Tucker flat out said as danny choked on his smoothie.