Circus Boy

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.

Halloween prompts no. 21

Phantom had died very young, a fact that both friend and foe mourned. It was unusual for an undead child as young as him to end up here, though his method of arrival as a toddler was likely to blame. His parents shouldn't have allowed thier children into the lab, even with custom fitted hasmat suits. They certainly shouldn't have taken thier eyes off of thier three year old to show his scared older sister the new inventions that would keep her safe.

He doesnt remember what he was thinking. He had saw the buttons inside the portal and decided to play with them. And then...there was a loud boom and pain everywhere. The zone wasn't all that bad at first. Sure, there were a lot of people fighting over him which since children were rare in the zone and unclaimed ones were much more so. This lead to him being very good at hiding and escaping.

Quickly he grew very powerful, so much so that he was taking out the likes of Undergrowth and Vortex by the time he was seven, but while the power made him feel safe and secure, it also isolated him as people were afraid of him. He was a halfa. An unknown. "The glitch" they called him, "an abomination" "deaths mistake" "unwanted by life and death alike" so many cruel things, yet he tried to not let it bother him too much. He often failed.

He was six, the first time he killed. A ghost named Skunker or something captured him for his "pelt" and Phantom escaped, setting all of Skunkers other prisoners free. Unfortunately Phantom was recaptured and the robot ghost set about trying to de-pelt him. It hurt and Danny screamed, causing his wail to manifest and destroyed skunkers mech suit and forcing the little gooball in the pilot seat to eject himself.

After that Skunker never stood a chance against Phantoms fury.

Phantom continued killing anyone that harmed him, such as that weird vampire wannabe and that dragon king guy. After many years of violence and destruction he began to dispise his afterlife and yearn for that faint memory of the sun.

At the age of fifteen he came up with a plan. One of his enemies had stolen some of an Ancients medalians, which gave the barer immunity from time manipulation and distortion. Phantom had shoved the medalian into his own chest after the other entity had dropped it so that he couldn't retrieve it. After the victory he kept it inside him for the added protection and so Clockwork couldn't see his future and meddle in his affairs anymore. He used this to his advantage.

He had located a portal door to the living realms. One where there were many people called "metas" that looked odd and had strange powers. He planned to use this as a cover when he moved in.

All he needed was to fake his End in one of the larger battles that would no doubt come.

----

Phantom stepped out into a small bricked place between two buildings. He lamented that the air wasn't nearly as "fresh" or "clean" as he would have liked, especially for his first taste of freedom, but the sun was shining so bright. He stood there for a solid few minutes just staring up at it through squinted eyes. A man in a red helmet that covered his entire head-face included-watched him warily but did nothing to stop him. Eventually he walked off to find a place to set up his new lair. This was so exciting! He was moving all around this crowded human place. Sure, the people were giving him strange looks, but he had been here for a whole two hours and not a single person had attacked him! He picked good!

He stopped in front of this building with many floors and went to investigate. The main entrance was blocked off with a bright yellow tape that had lettering on it. That didn't matter to him. He never learned how to read.

It was a small task to flood the building with his ice and energy. There were no humans to fight for this territory so all was well. Plus the collar around his neck changed his ecto signature so it didn't matter how much energy he used, no one would ever know he was the one here.

Phantom placed the purple door that lead him to this world against one of the walls and began removing the knobs. The interesting thing about the doors was that the worlds they lead to never had any natural portals to slip through, and by removing the knobs from them they can't be opened. So long as Phantom had the door and knobs no one from the Infinite Realms could get to him without making thier own portals and no portal maker would be able to portal to him with his ecto signature changed. It was brilliant!

Danny got to work on his lair, coating everything in ice and creating entire rooms and floors that were just solid ice but for the tight dark tunnels running through them leading to different places in the building. It was basically a maze.

Nodding to himself he went outside and created a balcony out of the ice. The thing was large and looked to be defying gravity, but still Phantom wasn't pleased with it. He wished for a large home, many children and a loving spouse. One of the things this fellow ghosts had talked about was "a large yard and picket fence." The balcony was large but he wasn't sure what classified as a "yard" not to mention he didn't know what a picket fence was. Hopefully it wasn't like the fences Walker had on his prisons, while it would be effective for corraling his potential children, it would look...distasteful...

Phantom tore himself away from those thoughts. Creating a flashy lair was the first step in telling others he was looking to settle down. Surely the large tower of shimmering ice would capture someone's attention.

His first guest entered through an open window on the third floor and Phantom flew down to meet them. They were friendly, if a bit wary of him. Understandable, no world is without danger after all. This man was strong, talented and funny. He wasn't bad looking either. The only real problem he had was that Nightwing was so much older than him and kept calling him a "kid" Phantom was both powerful enough to be considered an adult even before he reached the adult threshold of 13, a fact that he shared with the blue bird. The man looked shocked and tried to convince him to talk to a doctor. He didn't understand. He was perfectly healthy!

Irritated, he flew through he cieling and abandoned the conversation.

The second guest was a green woman with firey hair who was lounging on the balcony. She was inspecting the plants whos roots dug into the ice and fed off of the energy he gave them. He told her this when asked and she was just as confused by him as the blue bird man, but began teaching him about plants and thier various wonders. Phantom listened because back in the Infinite Realms knowledge was power and power was hoarded and kept away from others. If she was willing to give him knowledge so freely he would not turn her away.

His third guest was a younger boy named Robin who tried to kill him with a mortal blade. He responded by phasing the blade into the floor and pinning him to the wall. After a chat in which Robin demanded to know why he was there, Phantom responded with the truth. He left the violence of his home world behind hoping to turn over a new leaf. He wished to start a family and live here happily. Thankfully the child excepted this. Phantom also told him about the flashyness of the ice was a indication he was looking for a spouse and that entering was an indication that one was interested and Robin was too young for marriage

The boy grumbled about Phantom also being too young which Phantom found odd. That was three separate people who all claimed he was too young. Sure, this ye old tradition wasn't in common use anymore and ghosts rarely coupled nowadays but...was he really too young? What was the age of adulthood here?

Not for the first time he envied the other ghosts for thier knowledge. The Undead carry memory from thier first lives, which Phantom is lacking due to his own having been cut so short. Neverborne come into being with knowledge of both worlds and the Deathborne are born from two entities of death creating a child together. These beings are taught about both worlds from thier parents. Another thing Phantom lacks.

----

Meanwhile, the batfam are freaking out at this "undead" pit child that Jason is terrified of. They all feel the need to parent him and try to get him away from all this marriage talk. Maybe let himself be a kid.

After a few weeks they manage to get him to go out to places with them, with Red Robin being the most successful. Appearently the kid found the red coloring of Tim's suit to be "beautiful" and "nothing like the muting reds and pinks from the Infinite Realms" and they planned on putting a pin in that info for later.

For now they needed to focus on rehabilitating this feral child who has lived like a wild animal most of his (after?)life.

Just: Danny never walking as Phantom so when he transforms into his human form he falls on his face cause he doesn't know how to walk.

Phantom doesn't like his human form because he has "constant pain in his stomach area" and they discovered that Phantom hadn't eaten anything at all in the twelve years he's been in the Infinite Realms

Alfred and Bruce teaching him to shower, brush his teeth, and other basic things that he never had to do before as a ghost. Dick and Tim are right behind him with a camera for all of it and are making a "baby book" of all his firsts. They even convince Jason to help teach him to read.

Danny eventually stops flirting with people and tells the family he's happy being a child instead of a father. Dick cries and hugs him.

Danny, tired of being the absolute last priority in his friends and families lives, runs away after a major fight with one of them which causes him to realize all his living relationships are toxic.

Danny lands in a new world and decides to get a new parent or parents. How? Not through the foster system of course but through admittedly more sinister means. He picked someone he liked and altered the memories of them and thier loved ones to convince them that this kid was always thier son and created false legal paperwork and school records along with implanting memories into his new classmates. He even went so far let the person give him a new name so it would be more believable and it would be one less connection to his past.

The only problem is one (1) Jason Todd, who is appearently immune to his mind tricks. Jason only managed to get Tim to see the truth by pointing out Danny isnt mentioned anywhere in the batcomputer and things start falling apart from there.

Danny just wants someone to love him :(

Pandora was right, taking baths out in the wilderness was great! He could see the stars and point out the constellations as he scrubbed himself and practiced his singing where no one could hear him. This did not stop him from wearing swim trunks, so hess a litte paranoid. Sue him.

Pandora had been very clear about going deep into the wilderness where no one could hear him sing, because if they heard the siren song of a halfa and fled they would be haunted by it forever or until he himself tracked them down and sang a song strong enough to free them.

Ancients she knew him so well.

He had been minding his own business playing in the water with his multitude of floating duck candles, a purchase he begged Sam for when he was drugged out of his mind after a very devastating injury, and practicing one of the songs Pandora put on the "study list" called The Fairy King. If he didn't know any better he would think she was making fun of him.

He scrubbed his arm with a washcloth as he sung watching as the ducks floated around in the little super hero costumes Tucker had 3d printed for them. "Huh. It almost looks like they're dancing."

A light bulb went off in his head. He began practicing with his telekinesis as he sang, making the ducks dance together in little twists and twirls. He doesn't think he's ever had this much fun in a bath before honestly.

----

Red Robin and Nightwing were sneaking through the foliage looking for a supervillians secret base when they heard it. The sound of a full symphony playing live off in the distance. They nodded at eachother before heading in the direction the sound was coming from. They were almost on top of it when they heard the singing begin,

"When the house is still i can hear his song, beckoning me out into the ga-ar-den" the boys froze, this didn't sound anything like thier villain, they turned back to the noise edging closer, "his lullaby- promises sweet- escaaape"

Nothing could have prepared them for what they saw once they parted the underbrush, a glowing white haired teenager was standing in chest deep water, haloed by the moon behind, offering them an ethereal scene "He says, 'come my drifting flower i will hold you tight. Listen to the chime of stars and moo-oonlight-'"

The teen lifted up a floating ducky that was dressed like Red Robin in one hand and placed the other of his chest as he continued singing, "take my hand-and feel here- my heaart"

Red Robin turned beat red and Nightwing moved to give him a comforting pat on the shoulder only to have a twig snap underneath his boot. The guy whirled around and locked eyes with Nightwing for only a moment before screaming and falling backwards into the water. Bubbles rose to the surface of the pond only for a few seconds before they vanished all together.

It felt like a spell was broken and the two vigilantes just stood there for a second before nightwing jumped in to save a possibly drowning teen. No matter how hard he searched he couldn't find any proof that the guy was ever even there, save for the duck candles (?) that Red Robin had already finished collecting from around the pond.

RR didn't seem surprised that the guy had vanished and was examining the ducks. More specifically the bottoms. Dick went to see what was going on only for his younger brother to show him the bottom of the Nightwing duck.

There, in messy handwriting, was the ducks name: Duckwing

Dick laughed and started going through the ducks names, Quack-Hood, Bat-Bill, Red-Drake (which was kinda concerning and brought up the question of whether or not this guy knew any of thier identities) and funniest of all, a Robin one with a little plastic katana simply named Stabby.

----

Danny hid his face in his pillow after accidentally teleporting home. This was awful.

He waited until the heat in his face disappeared before taking a few deep breaths and thinking about how he was going to handle this. He obviously needed to track down the two Gotham vigilantes (what were they doing out there?) and break the spell on them before they become obsessed with him.

Then he remembered his ducks, "Aw man. What are the chances they didn't take my ducks?" Teleporting back to the pond after a full hour of being away showed a dark and duckless pond, much to his disappointment.

Now he added "recue the ducks" to his mental checklist.

Unbeknownst to him the vigilantes weren't the only ones to hear his song...

I’m nothing like Batman.

- Every single batchild at some point before they proceed to behave exactly like Batman

A failed prank attempt because Tim Drake is already a horror show.

At first he'd been overjoyed that the cloning had worked. Then, as the weeks went by, he realized just how messed up of a thing he had done. Tim still remembered the faces of everyone after he told them. There were mixes of shock, horror and disappointment. He'd been unable to face both Bruce and Clark for a while after that.

Now Tim sat in a rocking chair within the newly decorated nursery. He looked down at the baby in his lap, who returned his gaze with a blank one of his own.

He sighed as he turned to peer out the window. It was a full moon tonight. "They're mad at me, I know," he finally spoke. "I can't really blame them either. It wasn't fair to Conner. To his memory."

Tim turned to look at the baby once more. He stared into the baby's eyes. Those painfully familiar eyes that were at the same time new and foreign.

"It wasn't fair to you either."

Tim reached down and brushed a bang out of the baby's eyes. "But I swear I'm going to make it up," he continued. "Starting by giving you your own proper name."

Until now, that baby had been referred to as just that. Baby. If not that it was the clone, the child or Conner's clone. But now that Tim had firmly decided he was raising the baby, the kid needed a proper name.

"Hmm," Tim pondered. "What about.... Kevin?"

He received yet another blank look.

"Okay... how about Alex, Wes, Kyle? Timothy Jr?"

Blank stare.

"You could be Douglas. Doug for short."

At that the baby seemed to almost quirk up his eyebrow. As if to say, "Are you serious?" Though that was probably Tim's mind playing tricks on him.

"Yeah," he said with a soft chuckle. "I wasn't really feeling that one either."

Tim closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. "Mark, Luke, Ezekiel, Thomas, Elijah..." Great, now he was just listing off Bible names.

"Daniel..." he muttered absently.

Suddenly, Tim heard a giggle. He looked back down at the baby to see him cooing softly.

"Wait, you like that? Daniel?"

The baby giggled again. This time reaching up towards Tim. Hesitantly, he raised his hand towards the child. He couldn't help the soft gasp that escaped him as the child grabbed onto his pointer finger.

"Ok, Daniel it is."

Except for something still didn't feel right. Tim leaned back and stared at the ceiling as his tried to pinpoint the feeling of wrongness. Then it hit him. He hated whenever people used his full name. It always felt stuffy and formal. It reminded him too much of disappointed looks. Of hands gripping his shoulders or pulling at his ears, telling him to behave.

"Say," he murmured. "Mind if I give you a nickname buddy? How about Dan?"

Daniel scrunched up his eyebrows. "Ok ok, you don't like that one. I get it. Then how about Danny?"

Daniel seemed to appreciate that nickname a whole lot more as him went back to cooing contently. Tim couldn't help as a smile of his own crept onto his face. "It's settled then," he grinned, holding his child up in the air. "Welcome to the family Danny Drake-Wayne!"

He then pulled Danny close into an embrace, closing his eyes as he took in the scent of baby powder and formula. "I promise, you'll have a better childhood than either I or Kon did. I'll make sure of it."

Edit: original prompt for anyone interested

peter parker in gotham au where he runs a red robin fanpage and posts oddly close photos of red robin in action. no one believes tim for a while but once they realize it's true all of the robins (+ batgirls and duke) start teasing him & asking how it feels to be on the opposite end.

Danny reincarnates into a test tube, with a grief-stricken Timothy Drake staring at him in shock. The 100th cloning attempt worked.

Danny, having been dead for a very long time, decided to reincarnate, because I love that trope.

He reincarnated into the clone baby of Kon that Tim was trying to make. But Tim couldn't ever get over the hurdle that kept making the clones inviable, so the 100th was just half his DNA and half Kon's.

Danny is the son of a teenage father, who is grieving the death of his other father, and apparently a lot of other people if the ghosts surrounding the teen hero have anything to say.

Danny had reincarnated for a go at a lazy, nice life. Just relive being mortal for a bit.

Instead, he's kidnapped by Ra's Al Ghul to force Red Robin to take care of the Council of Spiders.

Danny steals Jason

Danny was the newbiest of noobs on the street rat scene. Poor kid isn't cut out for the cut-throat culture of Gotham homelessness. His soft heart and mid-western manners means he ends up giving up the lion's share of what he does manage to scavenge.

It concerned Jason. Being soft like that was a great way to get killed. Danny was chum in the shark infested waters. Hood asked one of the older alley kids how Danny hadn't gotten eaten alive.

"It's like taking candy from a baby" she confided in Hood. "Easy as fuck, but you can't help but feel bad about it."

Now, Red Hood has a deal with the alley kids. If anyone manages to steal from all of the Waynes without getting caught, he will pay for all their necessities until they turn 18.

Really, it's a win-win. Bruce and his brood get extra awareness training and more incentive to stay out of Jason's territory. The kids get bought a meal after they're inevitably caught. Jason gets to laugh at his family.

He never expected his deal to be taken advantage of by Danny of all kids.

"Psst! Red Hood!"

Jason glanced over to see Danny beckoning him over. Curious, and a bit wary at the nervous look on the boy's face, he approached. "What's up kid?"

"C'mon! Over here!" Danny insisted, moving further away.

Jason followed. "What's this about?"

Danny didn't answer. Instead he just grabbed his hand and sped up. He kept glancing back at him and it was making Jason nervous. Did the kid get in over his head and coerced into luring Red Hood into a trap?

"Kid?" He asked again, tension leaking into his voice.

"Not yet. Almost there."

Abruptly they stopped on a random street corner. Jason noted that it was tactically a poor place for an assassination. Still, if something was gonna go down, he'd have to make sure the kid made it to safety.

"Danny-"

"I abducted you." Danny interrupted, confirming Jason's suspicious. "I used persuasion to get you someplace you don't wanna be," He pointed at the ground at that, presumably for emphasis. "Which counts as abduction. And I didn't get caught by the Bats."

"Okay? Danny, you-"

"You're sort of a bat which means I stole you from the bats!" the kid interrupted again. "And the bats are the Waynes. So I stole from all the Waynes without getting caught! I won the challenge!"

As Jason's brain rebooted all he could manage to say was, "What makes this spot someplace I don't wanna be?"

Danny just grinned and pointed at the ground again.

Jason looked down. He was standing in a chalk outline with lots of arrows titling it the "Stupid Circle"

Based on these two posts:

Pickpocket for Hire:

Jason gets 'kidnapped':

@queeniewithabeanie @apatheticsunday @im-totally-not-an-alien-2