Ghostwriter Was Really Asking For Soup Time At This Point.

Danny turned his face up toward the sky, letting Gothams rain poor down his face. His husband, Tim, had loved this city-to the point of dying for it while wearing a mask.

The court of owls had been cowardly, and honestly Danny should have expected that from a bunch of entitled rich people. Many of the bats were there taking down the courts lackeys but there wasn't any signs of the Talons, which made sense since they seemed to act oddly around Phantom and just kinda flopped onto the ground and bared thier necks to him. Wierd.

Everyone was fighting, so no one noticed the tip of a snipers rifle poking out of a crag in the cave walls until it was too late. A shot was fired.

And Tim was on the floor

Danny didn't remember much after that. He remembers Nightwing holding his little brother while Batman came to his side. He remembers the other bats running off to find the sniper and Danny just...stood there. He stared at Tims blood splatter and the gray matter all over the floor. The bullet had went through his head had killed him quickly but this didn't comfort him. The scene was so gruesome but he couldn't bring himself to look away as his vision was consumed by green.

The next time he became aware Nightwing was in front of him, asking him to turn himself in. Confused, he asked what he had done only to learn he had hunted down every Court of Owls member like a man possessed and torn them to shreds. No one was sure how Phantom knew who was a member or not especially while he was in that state, but it didn't change the face that Phantom had killed so many people.

Danny was horrified. How could he had done this? He had never experienced the pit rage before and never thought he would. But here he was having lost almost two weeks of time and gaining more blood on his hands than he knew what to do with.

So Danny, not wanting to argue or-ancients forbid- fight his family-in-law while everyone was grieving, agreed to turn himself in.

So he did.

He never agreed to stick around for an interrogation or a trial though. So he didn't.

The cops never even learned of his true identity before he took off but he knew it wasn't safe to stay in Gotham anymore. Heck, it probably wasn't safe to stay on Earth anymore with all the heroes that would be after him if the bats so much as asked. And there was no way he could go back to his own dimensions Earth either.

...but that didn't mean all Earths where out of the question.

---

Danny had finally gotten settled in this new dimension. Starting over was always hard but he had done it before. Grabbing a gig as a freelance translator and editor for a few publication companies was pretty easy when you knew what cards to play and what people to call. Plus, Danny was really good at making false identities and translating, so that helped a ton.

At night he would keep a look out his window, trying to spot the bats of this world, as as much as it hurt him to do so, he always delighted in seeing this worlds Tim running along the rooftops.

This went on for a while until Danny started getting nauseous and intense pain in his chest and abdomen. It was bad enough that he sniffed out this worlds Dr Thomkins pretty quickly and asked her to give him a check up.

Upon doing an ultrasound she found a strange sphere in his chest, which he assured her was normal, and an embryo growing in his abdomen which was very much not. Danny laid on the examination table for a solid few seconds and Dr. Tomkins was about to start rattling off his options to him before her patient started crying. "Oh thank the stars."

Danny explained that this was the child of his late husband who was murdered and he was very happy to have this baby. Sure, he had most of his personal affects (he had cleaned out his and Tims shared home and safe houses on his way out of the dimension, much to the absolue ire of the other bats) but this was a little living piece of his husband, which was something so much more.

But this also meant he had to leave again. This worlds Tim was just like the one that he lost and he had no doubt that some way, some how, Tim would find out about this child. Could he explain this in a way that was satisfactory? Could he handle Tim coming in and out of his home to visit "his" child as he would undoubtedly do? Could he stand to see the face of a man who looked like his husband, talked like his husband, and acted like his husband, but wasn't? No. He couldn't do that to himself. He couldn't do that to Tim. He refused to replace one Tim for another. That was so callus and shallow. He would never do something like that, grief or no grief. He was strong. He'd be strong for Tim.

He paid the doctor and thanked her profusely before leaving and going back to his apartment. He hadn't even unpacked most of his stuff before he was packing it all back up again. He needed to find a world where:

1. Tim was nothing like the Tim he had known and loved

2. Tim was not old enough to take custody of thier child if he ever found out

3. Batman was not around

4. Damian didn't exist. He was usually pretty cool with the little gremlin but he doesn't think he could listen to him insult Tim and not throttle a literal child.

5. It was not impossible to raise a child

The list could probably use some work but that was the gist of it for now.

-------

Danny had finally found his perfect Gotham after weeks or interdimentional travel and countless jumps. Well, perfect probably wasn't the right word for a place like Gotham but his point still stands.

He once again found himself sitting on the edge of a rooftop overlooking the city. He and his husband had liked to sit and chat in these kinds of places when patrol was slow. Now Danny was sitting alone in the rain in one of Tims old jackets reminiscing. Suddenly hearing a grapple line connect with the building startled him out of his thoughts.

Nightwing landed nearby and for a moment Danny thought he was here to insist Danny turns himself in again before he was reminded that this wasn't the same Nightwing and Danny hadn't committed any crimes here. Well. No violent ones at least. Forging a fake identity requires much criming as it turns out.

Nightwing approached him slowly and cautiously as if he expected Danny to bolt at any second. That wasn't comforting. "Hey," the big bird greeted calmly, "How about you step away from the edge? If there's something on your mind I'm sure we can talk it out, alright?"

Danny opened his mouth and then shut it again. Opening it again he blurted out, "I'm not gonna jump."

Looking doubtful, Nightwing gestured for him to come toward him and away from the edge, and if Nightwing were anyone other than a bat he would not have obliged as he did. Once Danny was safely away from falling to his doom the vigilante began asking questions.

After everything was answered and birdy was sure Danny was safe, he made a comment about the jacket and Danny told him it belonged to his late husband who past away recently. This led to Dick egging Danny on as he talked about his husband and grieved.

It was then that Danny showed Nightwing his baby bump and the vigilante was excited for him.

Somehow he and the various bats kept running into eachother around the city and one thing let to another. Before he knew it the bats where coming and going in his apartment to "check up on him"

This worlds Tim was still 16 and loved his role as Robin. He was grieving the loss of Bruce but...this version of Tim was different. Full of light. His smile was brighter and came more often. His humor wasn't as dark and...he was...smol. He began seeing this Tim more like his child than as an alternate version of his lover. Needless to say he planned on spoiling Robin rotten.

Everything seemed to be falling into place. He had a steady income, an apartment, some new friends, and was slowly unpacking.

It was smooth sailing up until his dead husband appeared in his apartment in the middle of the night staring him down with Lazarus green eyes. How had this happened? He was Tims husband and he made absolutely sure Tims body had been cremated (another thing the bats were mad about since Bruce and Tim were Jewish). Tim has specifically asked for cremation to avoid a situation like this where Ras got his creepy little hands on him.

But why would Ras send Tim here? How did Tim get here? How did Tim find him? Why did Tim show up in his apartment on random nights and then disappear into the city when he tried to ask him answers? Why did Tim barely speak? Was this a clone or the original?

Was this even real? Or was he finally losing his mind?

AU where Danny doesn't know what his ghost form means, and is terrified of it.

When Danny had his accident, he managed to keep the full extent of his powers a secret from everyone. He knew it was irrational, but what if Sam and Tucker agreed with his mom and dad about ghosts after seeing his ghost form?

More importantly; how could he ever let Sam and Tucker know that when they'd egged him on, at least a part of him had died? Neither of them would ever forgive themselves for it.

However, suppressing such a huge part of himself resulted in more accidents, and he had to at least concede that he was a meta. A strong one.

The powers that got leaked were; intangibility, flight, ecto-blasts, frost breath, invisibility, and tactile telekinesis disguised as enhanced strength.

That was, naturally, huge. Those were some dangerous powers, and his mom and dad wanted to make sure he got all the help he could.

They signed him up for a Big Brother program run by the Justice League, to put him into contact with another super-powered hero to provide guidance. To help him get used to his powers.

Maybe take him on a few training runs.

Danny let it happen, and kept his ghost form a secret from his mentor as well. He knew that if he went full ghost, the powers he was already displaying would be magnified, and that terrified him.

Danny didn't use his ghost form at all if he could help it. He didn't like the concept of what it was, didn't like that it stripped him of his humanity, didn't like how it felt just as natural to him as his human form. What if he got stuck one day?

What if he used his powers so much, that he died for real?

The potential strength of his own powers scared him so much that his mentor spotted it, and Danny told a very abridged version of why he was so delicate with his own powers; that he'd gotten them from dying. That all of them were a form of death magic. That if he leaned too far into them, would he lose himself?

He didn't know.

He didn't want to find out.

He couldn't bring himself to tell his mentor about his ghost form, not wanting them to grieve a person still very much there.

His mentor, while not agreeing with fearing what was a part of him, did agree to take it slow with their trainings, so as not to overwhelm the fourteen year old.

But superheroes lead turbulent lives.

Danny and his mentor are on a training trip, and one of the mentors villains shows up. But the villain has a new tactic; they have a way to deflect all of Danny and his mentor's abilities.

Or at least the villain thinks they do.

Danny realizes that if he wants to get out of this alive, then ironically, he's going to have to die.

"...I have to win, right? No matter the cost." Danny mutters, dragging himself up.

"No. No, whatever you're about to do, don't!"

Danny ignores his mentor and, with a bright flash of light, lets the cool calm of death wash over him.

Danny goes ghost, in front of his mentor.

Danny's mentor just watched the kid under their watch get consumed by the powers he'd so feared.

Au where the Fenton parents shenanigans cause the entire city (minus Vlad) get transported to the dc universe.

Everything is not fine as now Phantom has to keep human crime out of his city instead of the ghosts. The portals are still open but nothing can pass through without getting fried. Rip Skulker. So Danny can't escape or transport his city back home. Sam was away attending a gala in another state with her parents and Jazz was at collage, luckily Tucker and Dani were able to back him up.

More bad news, Superman appearently keeps "overhearing" things, more specifically the things his parents say, which, yikes.

The real kicker is after talking about the batfamily in an mid superhero fight interview where he was cornered by Lois Lane one (1) time there became a sudden influx of Phantom/Red Robin fanfiction. Mostly coffee shop aus at first but then there came the Phantom/Robin shippers and before he knew it there was a massive shipping war going on

Phantom makes the mistake of sending a note to both of them asking them to "please stay away from me" and adding a candy bar or something as a bribe. Now the bats are curious.

Danny keeps getting summoned to Gotham of all places but it keeps happening at night while he's wearing his Red Robin Pajamas. Worse. He's getting summoned as Fenton.

The first time it happened Danny appeared in the summoning circle started and looked around to see Gothams vigilantes standing over some very knocked out cultists. He locks eyes with Red Robin and makes a face. "Well, this is embarrassing."

The problem is that this keeps happening. The forth time it happened he had been in the middle of brushing his teeth. He accused the bats of doing this on purpose before breaking the circle again and sending himself back. Each time Danny is summoned he's wearing a completely different set of RR pajamas. No one even knew there were that many variations of it.

Steph made a bet that "Tim's simp" probably has a RR themed bed. They found out when the kid gets summoned while asleep in bed. Tough luck for her, Dannys bed was star/constellation themed. The bats takes his fingerprints and DNA while he's out cold and find out who he is.

Danny had been following...ok, stalking his bio dad for a while now. He didn't have anywhere to go after Amity blew up and Clockwork just came out of no where almost a week after the initial incident to pretty much say, "Hey! You're adopted! Also you're a clone baby! This is the name and main alias of your parent and here's how you get to your home dimension!" Then he was gone.

Ancients.

Again, its not like he had anywhere to go and he had nothing better to do. So following around his fourteen year old father (his original?) and his scary bat mentor around a gross crime filled city at night seemed better than nothing. It felt kinda wierd calling him dad in his head but at the same time he didn't want to call him anything else. His inner Jazz said it might be his subconscious grasping for any safe or familial connections it can find, but whatever. He'll call him dad. Who will ever know?

He knows Clockwork told him not to interfere with any of the battles here. He was only ever meant to be a fly on the wall (actually he wasn't even supposed to be here but the old stopwatch couldn't really stop him) but it was so frustrating to see this Red Hood guy appear one day and start hurting his dad and not being able to do anything without exposing himself.

But nothing prepared him for the new Robin.

He hated the new Robin. He had everything Danny ever wanted and he chose to treat his family like that? The anger he felt towards RH was nothing compared to what he felt towards the new little bird. Damian would look around whenever he was alone, likely feeling they eyes on him from Phantoms intense glare. Good. He wanted the kid to know he was unwelcome.

Danny may have died at eight and become a superhero, but that didn't mean he couldn't hate another child vigilante if he was given enough reason to. Danny stopped aging after the explosion that ruined his afterlife and his inner Jazz had a lot of theories about that but in reality he knew why.

He had been waiting.

He knew the bats were mortal and one day Batman would be too old to fight and Robin -now Red Robin- would need a protégé of his own, right? Then he'd pop in and reveal himself as Tim Drakes long lost clone son and everything would be perfect.

Damian didn't just put a wrench in those plans. He ruined them entirely! If Batman is replaced by Damian than Red Robin will likely always be a sidekick.

And sidekicks don't need sidekicks of thier own.

So Phantom made it his afterlifes mission to make Damians stay in Gotham as miserable as possible to make him leave. He would make sure Damian would go back to whereever he came from at the first available opportunity, even if he had to possess the whole city to do it.

----

Danny took cover with some other kids in a nearby clothing store. The riddler was one of Batmans common rogues and was dangerous. He and the others watched in horror as a third party, likely a gang of some kind that didn't appreciate a hero battle on thier turf, stupidly fired a freaking rocket launcher at the two of them. The projectile missed the mark by a large margin and hit a nearby business tower, sending rubble and debris down of the two fighters. Riddler was quickly pinned while Batman eventually got pinned after a few really cool evasive maneuvers. Red Robin went to assist while Robin went to fight the gang members. A lucky shot from one of the gang members got RR in the leg, sending him down momentarily.

Danny managed to rally the other kids to help dig Batman and Riddler out from where they were trapped by stealing a bunch of black hoodies for them to wear and ripping up a black shirt for them to wear as blindfolds. They could see out of them just fine, but it would hide thier identities from all parties.

Together they rescued the pair and Danny silently rejoiced at helping Red Robin limp away and treat his wound at a safer location. As much as he wanted to let this interaction last, he knew he had to bouce once RR started asking him questions.

Phantom later looked at himself in the reflection of a piece of building material. He had been told before that a ghosts appearance could change based on significant events in thier afterlives. Seeing his former symbol on his chest had disappeared and the smooth crisp edges of the black blindfold that had materialized on his face he knew what had happened. And he knew he would do anything to be with his father again.

His efforts to get rid of Damian intensified.

Prerobin Tim

I understand the appeal of wanting every adult hero to instinctively adopt teenage Peter Parker, but can it really beat the hilarity of acknowledging that at 15 Peter was 5'10", unusually buff, went by a moniker with Man in it, wore a creepy full face mask, and had a tightly guarded secret identity and probably a Queens accent thick enough to have come out of a jello mold, and adult heroes reasonably responded to him by going, “Wow, this grown man is an immature asshole for no reason.”

Another Peter Parker in Gotham AU with Dick as Richard Parker: Peter tells the bats that a magic spell made everyone forget about him. He just says this as an explanation for why he is not trying hard to get back to his dimension, no one remembers him anymore after all! Dick is freaking out fully believing that he forgot his son's existence.

Danny was tired. It had been a week since he fell into this crazy dimention full of people with superpowers. It was tough learning to survive with nothing but the clothes on his back and a thermos that was thankfully empty of ghosts but he managed. Oh, did he mention he hadn't slept more than five hours since then?

Needless to say Dannys tolerance for shenanigans has been thoroughly depleted, so when one of the local vigilantes, Red Robin came flying in through the new hole in the ceiling of the abandoned apartment he had been squatting in he was done.

He looked over at the knocked out hero lying on the bed next to him and after checking his pulse and confirming he was alright he angrily grumbled, "I am not dealing with this." before wrapping another blanket around the sleeping bird and tucking him in. Danny then crawled back into bed and rolled over, content to pretend this didn't happen and hope Mr. Burger Joint would be gone in the morning.

Red Hood watched all this go down from aforementioned hole in the ceiling that he had made when fighting his brother and decided he liked this kid.

For his guts if nothing else.

Next thing Danny knows the guy was not in the crappy apartment. Unfortunately neither is he. Getting up and exploring the new and non crappy apartment he come face to helmet with Red Hood.

That can't be good.

Danny had been following...ok, stalking his bio dad for a while now. He didn't have anywhere to go after Amity blew up and Clockwork just came out of no where almost a week after the initial incident to pretty much say, "Hey! You're adopted! Also you're a clone baby! This is the name and main alias of your parent and here's how you get to your home dimension!" Then he was gone.

Ancients.

Again, its not like he had anywhere to go and he had nothing better to do. So following around his fourteen year old father (his original?) and his scary bat mentor around a gross crime filled city at night seemed better than nothing. It felt kinda wierd calling him dad in his head but at the same time he didn't want to call him anything else. His inner Jazz said it might be his subconscious grasping for any safe or familial connections it can find, but whatever. He'll call him dad. Who will ever know?

He knows Clockwork told him not to interfere with any of the battles here. He was only ever meant to be a fly on the wall (actually he wasn't even supposed to be here but the old stopwatch couldn't really stop him) but it was so frustrating to see this Red Hood guy appear one day and start hurting his dad and not being able to do anything without exposing himself.

But nothing prepared him for the new Robin.

He hated the new Robin. He had everything Danny ever wanted and he chose to treat his family like that? The anger he felt towards RH was nothing compared to what he felt towards the new little bird. Damian would look around whenever he was alone, likely feeling they eyes on him from Phantoms intense glare. Good. He wanted the kid to know he was unwelcome.

Danny may have died at eight and become a superhero, but that didn't mean he couldn't hate another child vigilante if he was given enough reason to. Danny stopped aging after the explosion that ruined his afterlife and his inner Jazz had a lot of theories about that but in reality he knew why.

He had been waiting.

He knew the bats were mortal and one day Batman would be too old to fight and Robin -now Red Robin- would need a protégé of his own, right? Then he'd pop in and reveal himself as Tim Drakes long lost clone son and everything would be perfect.

Damian didn't just put a wrench in those plans. He ruined them entirely! If Batman is replaced by Damian than Red Robin will likely always be a sidekick.

And sidekicks don't need sidekicks of thier own.

So Phantom made it his afterlifes mission to make Damians stay in Gotham as miserable as possible to make him leave. He would make sure Damian would go back to whereever he came from at the first available opportunity, even if he had to possess the whole city to do it.

----

Danny took cover with some other kids in a nearby clothing store. The riddler was one of Batmans common rogues and was dangerous. He and the others watched in horror as a third party, likely a gang of some kind that didn't appreciate a hero battle on thier turf, stupidly fired a freaking rocket launcher at the two of them. The projectile missed the mark by a large margin and hit a nearby business tower, sending rubble and debris down of the two fighters. Riddler was quickly pinned while Batman eventually got pinned after a few really cool evasive maneuvers. Red Robin went to assist while Robin went to fight the gang members. A lucky shot from one of the gang members got RR in the leg, sending him down momentarily.

Danny managed to rally the other kids to help dig Batman and Riddler out from where they were trapped by stealing a bunch of black hoodies for them to wear and ripping up a black shirt for them to wear as blindfolds. They could see out of them just fine, but it would hide thier identities from all parties.

Together they rescued the pair and Danny silently rejoiced at helping Red Robin limp away and treat his wound at a safer location. As much as he wanted to let this interaction last, he knew he had to bouce once RR started asking him questions.

Phantom later looked at himself in the reflection of a piece of building material. He had been told before that a ghosts appearance could change based on significant events in thier afterlives. Seeing his former symbol on his chest had disappeared and the smooth crisp edges of the black blindfold that had materialized on his face he knew what had happened. And he knew he would do anything to be with his father again.

His efforts to get rid of Damian intensified.