More de-aged Tim AU
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“You ever look at someone and wonder how hard it would be to get past their defenses and stab them.
Damian snapped his head to the side, looking at the young boy now standing beside him.
The boy put his hands up in front of him with a wince, “Not that I ever do that. Totally not, whaaaat???”
Damian huffed and turned back around to watch the gala participants.
“It’s just you kinda looked like you were contemplating the logistics of stabbing Mrs.Halterguild for squeezing your cheeks.”
Damian scowled. Then, after a moment’s beat, “It would not be very difficult. She is nearly blind in her left eye, I would be able to approach without repost.”
The kid hummed, turning back as well before motioning to another group to the far right, “What about Mr. Beckensmith, he’s a retired vet right?”
Damian rolled his eyes and scowled harder, “The man has only seen the battlefield of an office as he bribed his way from being fully enlisted and instead managed to pay for increasingly higher ranks and medals. He is a disgrace.”
The kid cocked his head to the side, looking suspicious for a second and then nodding with concession, “Fair enough, I bet I could get close enough too.”
Damian scoffed.
“What, don’t believe me?”
Damian leveled a doubtful glare at the civilian, making it clear by looking him up and down, “Hardly.”
The other smirked dangerously, “If I can get close enough to poke him and get away without being noticed, will you believe me?”
Damian narrowed his eyes but nodded succinctly and watched as the boy immediately took off, making a few loops around other people before finally backing up to Mr. Beckensmith and poking him on the opposite side as a group moved past.
Damian pursed his lips. Interesting. Certainly better than he would expect from an amateur. And an amateur civilian at that.
When the boy returns to his side Damian brushes off the asks of meaningless praise.
“Come on, I did it, now you have to go poke Mrs. Halterguild without getting caught.”
Damian sneers, “And why would I do that?”
“Because I don’t believe you either, the woman’s old but I bet she sees you and squeezes your cheeks again. Old ladies just have a sixth sense for that stuff you know.”
Damian nearly growls but sets off on his task. He makes sure to stay on her left side, but the woman turns at the last second, forcing Damian to use a passing waiter as cover to remain hidden and finally get close enough to poke her gaudy dress.
Then he sidles back up to the boy on the edges and provides his best ‘I am more capable than you’ scowl. The boy simply laughs and says, “Who’s next?”
They spend the night like that, choosing each other’s targets to attack non-lethally as though they were attempting to stab them, and Damian finds the gala going by in a significantly less tedious manner.
Right up until the boy laughs at him when he chooses a target. Only one bark of laughter escapes, but it is enough for Damian to consider stabbing him as well. If only with a butter knife.
Instead, Damian grinds his teeth and asks, “What is so different about Masters, do you really believe you would be unable to succeed?”
The other gives a breathless chuckle, “I’m pretty sure even you wouldn’t be able to successfully stab Vlad Masters,” The boy’s shoulders sag even as his jaw tightens with irritation, “He sees everything.”
Damian narrows his eyes. Something naws at the back of his brain but currently the critique of his capabilities takes precedence.
“I would be capable of stabbing Masters even without my favored sword,” Damian scowls and stands taller with annoyance.
“Sure you can, man,” At this, the boy quirks a sharp smile, “If you can actually get him, I’ll personally get you a magic sword,” he says with an air of amused indulgence. Like he thinks Damian is some insipid child saying he will find a fairy.
Damian grits his teeth and shakes the other’s hand, then immediately sets off after his target. How dare this civilian question him! He is the Son of the Bat, this is not even a challenge!
Damian growls as his approach is thwarted for the third time by the man turning in his direction and almost spotting him. How dare he! He will not fail!
Just as he reaches to jab the man in the side, already poised to make his escape, Masters whips around and clamps his fingers around Damian’s wrist with a vice grip.
“Really Daniel I thought we were over-“ Masters pauses, looking at Damian critically as he glares at the man’s offending hand, “You are not young Daniel.”
“Remove your hand from my person at once,” Damian growls.
Instead of listening to Damian’s very sensible directions, Masters tightens his grip and twists his arm, most likely in an attempt to hurt him.
“Now why is a child attempting to-“
Damian doesn’t wait to hear the rest of the man’s words, sliding a dagger into his other hand and swinging towards him, until that hand is caught mid-movement as well.
“Heh-Hey there!”
Damian snaps his head to the side just in time to see Grayson take his dagger and slide it into his pocket. He ignores the bark of laughter he hears from across the room.
Masters’ hand disappears from his arm suspiciously fast, “Mr. Wayne, what a pleasure!”
Damian looks over his other shoulder to see his father standing behind him, a thin smile on his face, “Vladimir!”
His father’s figure quickly obscures his vision, putting an arm over Masters’ shoulders in a way that clearly makes him irritated but forces him to follow as he is steered away.
“Dami, I thought we talked about the stabbing at formal events,” Grayson says through a strained smile as he looks over the crowd to make sure no else saw.
“Tt, it was merely a demonstration of my skills, he was in no real danger until he refused to release me. I simply sought to correct that mistake.”
Grayson pinchesthe bridge of his nose, “Demonstration for who, Dames? We all already know your skills.”
“Tt,” Damian scowls and turns away.
Instead of pushing it, Grayson simply sighs heavily, “Just stay out of trouble for the rest of the gala okay? We’re almost done.”
Damian scoffed and waited for Grayson to leave. Once he does, Damian finally looks over to where he had been lingering with the boy.
Gone.
Clearly he’d taken the cowards way out when he’d seen that Damian had been accosted by Masters.
Pitiful.
Damian spends the rest of the night scowling from the wall and looking serendipitously for a head of black hair and blue eyes unrelated to him.
Of course it’s not until they are actively leaving that Damian sees him and immediately splits off of from his family.
He approaches with irritation, preparing to grab the other by the shoulder when suddenly he turns around and blue eyes meet Damian’s green.
“You,” Damian sneers.
“Me,” The other shrugs. He has an amused smile on his face, though it was strained at the edges.
They stare in silence for a minute, before the other’s smile grows and sharpens once more, “I didn’t expect you to actually try to stab him, y’know,” A slight laugh escapes him, “Not that it was unwelcome by any means, but still, unexpected.”
Damian scowls again, glaring at this foolish civilian.
“Oh, I never introduced myself did I?!”
The boy exclaims and holds out a hand, smile dangerous, “Daniel Fenton. Or if we’re being technical,” a pause as Damian finally returns the gesture and finds his hand trapped, “Daniel Masters, a pleasure to meet you Damian.”
“Hurry up little badger,” A voice says beside them, and Damian notices that it is indeed Vladimir Masters.
The man approaches, placing a heavy hand on Fenton’s shoulder, making the boy go taut, and then they both step into a dark car, leaving Damian on the front steps.
Damian’s anger flares and he shoots a glare directly to the boy getting into the car. It dies the moment they meet eyes and Damian sees the fear hiding in the other’s eyes.
Fear that Damian is all too familiar with.
Fear that reminded Damian of himself. Reminded him of his own eyes when he’d been under his grandfather.
But why did Fenton look like that?
“Mom, there’s someone under the bed.” You bend down and see your son there instead and he whispers “Mom that’s not me up there!” You take a step back when someone tugs your shirt. You turn, your son is in the closet asking “who are they?” You suddenly hear him calling from downstairs “Mommy?”
You sigh, raising your voice so that all of your sons can hear you. “All right, everyone into the kitchen. Now.” Hearing a shuffle in the attic, you add, “Yes, Duncan, that includes you.”
You don’t see any movement as you go down the stairs, but you’re used to that. You know they’ll all be there by the time you walk through the kitchen door.
As usual, your children have all fitted themselves into the kitchen. The dimensions of the room are a little wobbly with so many of them present, but you’ve long ago learned to ignore how the laws of physics only occasionally apply to them. A host of little faces look up at you anxiously, and you smile gently.
“It’s okay, none of you are in trouble,” you reassure them. They relax - and how astonishing is it, that they trust you so much? You’re so proud of their progress.
One, however, still looks nervous. You beckon him forward, and he comes reluctantly, shoved by his identical older brothers.
“Are you new?” you ask carefully.
He nods, and you drop to one knee. “It’s okay, sweetie,” you tell him firmly. “I love all of my sons, even ones I haven’t met before. Ask your brothers, they’ll tell you.”
“’m here because I heard you were nice,” he says in a tiny voice.
You open your arms, offering a hug but waiting to let him decide whether he wants one. This child must have seen hugs before, because he flings himself into your arms and starts crying. That’s good. Some of your sons are traumatised from what they’ve seen, knowing more slaps than kisses.
Eventually, the sobs dry up, your other kids patiently waiting for your attention again. “Why do we look like this?” he asks, curious.
“Because this is what the first of you looked like - Wilson, where are you?”
A hand raises from the crowd and waves energetically.
“Wilson took on my son’s form to play Child or Double. Calling from downstairs when my son was in bed, getting tucked in when the child I bore was playing out in the garden. Once I figured it out, I hugged him and told him that as far as I was concerned, I now had twins. It took him some time before he believed me.”
Wilson shrugs unrepentantly.
“When my son died, Wilson stayed. It helped, having one of my sons with me while I grieved. Then another of you began to turn up, and I had twins again. Then more. Until now, when I have more of you than will technically fit in my kitchen.” You give your sons a look of motherly disapproval, but they only giggle. They know you don’t mind.
“It’s not like you need to feed us!” calls out one of your bolder sons. Eric, probably. Your newest, unnamed child looks up hesitantly, then steps out of your arms to join his brothers. Lucas might be a nice name, you think idly. You don’t have a Lucas yet.
“That does help,” you admit. You put steel into your next words. “However, there are Rules in this house, and one of them is no messing around at bedtime. I know that bedtime is a traditional time for the Child or Double game, but four of you is pushing it.”
You’d say more, but there’s a knock at your back door. You turn to answer it, knowing that your sons will have evaporated before your fingers grasp the handle, and brace against the cold night air as you pull the door open.
Two identical little girls stand there. One has a bruise on her cheek, and has clearly been crying recently. The other - the other is a Doubler, just like your sons. After this long, you can tell the difference.
“Please,” the Doubler says, and her voice trembles on the word. “Please. She needs somewhere to stay.”
Part of you is shocked, already looking ahead to the potential legal issues. The rest of you is all mother, and you whisk her into the nice warm kitchen and get her a glass of water.
Your son’s bed will be occupied by someone else tonight. You think he’d have been okay with that.
Can we get some Dark Dan and Jazz?
oh you absolutely can. these siblings are not alright.
Danny moves to Gotham, hear him out! There's really good jobs there that pay through the nose and the cost of living is cheap!
Plus, the city is riddled with heroes and vilains! It's so easy to slip under the radar!
Unfortunately, there are so many civilian casualties. Like, all the time. Even in Metropolis!
So Danny, for his first year in Gotham, opens small portals to the Far Frozen and gets schooled on being a field medic. None of his powers can really be used for healing, but they can make people feel better. He just has to be careful to be as far removed from the Phantom moniker as possible, so he can't use any obvious powers.
He gets a bit of a reputation in Gotham; a small time hero of the people, for the people. A hero not invested in fighting, but in dragging civilians away from the danger. He doesn't even have a moniker; people are too busy arguing over the best one for him.
So while aliens are attacking both Metropolis and Gotham, Danny is out in full kit; a gas mask to hide his face, all black, repurposed kevlar from the vests the GCPD did not properly dispose of, no identifying markers.
But one of the clean up crews notices something insanely worrying; the geiger counter they have to point at alien spaceship parts? Yeah. Yeah, it's going off when they point it at the new small-time hero.
That hero's power is radioactivity. Holy shit. It's not at a level that will hurt people, but when he's dodging through fighting the level goes up.
The clean up crew concludes and shares via Twitter that the medic-hero is only a danger to others if he gets too stressed.
Word spreads fast, and pretty soon the absolute second Danny shows up on a scene, all fighting stops.
After all, no one wants to piss off the living Nuclear Bomb.
Basically, Danny's ghost-everything sets off Geiger counters, and now absolutely everyone is convinced that the medic-themed hero only refuses to fight because his meta power is just...being radioactive.
But he isn't.
So now, because it's the perfect cover and completely disassociated from Phantom, he has to play along and pretend like yes; that is his power.
When Danny had been forced to ditch his dimension, life, name, and home, he'd set his sights on a place so far removed from what he was used to, and a name he was so far removed from, that he would never be reminded of what he left behind.
With Clockwork's help, he constructed a fake Identity, got himself a decent three bedroom apartment, and settled into Gotham. Sure it was a shit hole, a terrible place full of terrible people, but it was so infested with crime that fulfilling his obsession could be easily achieved without ever going ghost.
So he settled in, laid back, and used his first few months to enjoy his new life and adjust. With his coffers as High King, he doesn't have to work, he just fashioned himself an ID as a trust fund baby and moved forward.
Then he gets a knock on his door.
It's Child Protective Services.
They're looking for Eddie Daniel Drake, his new identity. Apparently, his nephews last living parent died and Eddie was listed as the next in line to get the kid.
Problem
This is a fake Identity.
He doesn't have a brother who recently died, and he certainly doesn't have a nephew.
Which means that someone falsified documents, and the're trying to get to the kid.
So.
Shit.
Danny has a kid now.
And given how weirdly attached Bruce Wayne is, and how connected that guy is, he's kinda starting to think that maybe Mr. Wayne has something to do with the falsified documents.
@simplestoryteller
The thing is, the kid is tiny, even in photographs.
Danny's human instincts are blaring, let alone his ghostly ones, which are already booming klaxlons of findprotectdefend and he agrees to meet the kid before he's even fully aware of exactly what it means for him to be doing this.
Whoever's after him is good, to have things set up so well, so quickly after the kid's, Tim's, parents deaths. It probably couldn't compare to the work done by the collective administration of the Infinite Realms and the God of Time for his documents, but the fact that it came pretty damn close was...worrying.
In any case, it's fine. It should be fine. He's already kind of a dad right? And he's surely faced worse than a ten year old orphan.
Sure Danielle ended up more of a sister than a daughter, but again, this kid was already a couple years grown! Had a chronologically experienced life and everything!
How hard could it be?
Tim is very confused. He... Was pretty sure those details were meant to be fake? But he accidentally forged documents to this random stranger.
a random stranger who immediately agreed to take him in. Clearly knowing this was fake. Just because he was a kid who needed help. Which is... A bit mind boggling really.
sojfchjfksjxhd accidental identity unfraud 🤣 Please Tim would try to flee as quickly as possible, realize that fleeing leaves him vulnerable to Being Cared About by Bruce, and then run back the way he came so that at least Batman doesn't have to be emotionally involved sjhxhxjsjdbbdh. I'm dying.
Danny just parenting this random teen he got given by accident. He is gonna be the best guardian can! He goes to parenting classes! Online forums. Whatever he can. He will do better than his parents did. And if I'm the way he applied to be a foster? He just likes kids ok.
After a few months, it’s obvious that Tim is thriving in this new environment. His eye bags have almost completely disappeared, he started to actually gain some decent weight, and he’s never bored! Not even for a second!
Sure, his new uncle was suspicious as all hell. Tim had “borrowed” the Batcomputer more than once trying to track down his real name. (His uncle had even said his real name wasn’t Eddie!) But despite his efforts, “Uncle Eddie” was technically in the system, and therefore untraceable. He had all the right paperwork you’d need to live, and nothing more than that.
notes from @zetrashguardian
#danny just stepping up and being a good dad#giving tim the love he deserves#i like to imagine that Danny is willing#and has#threatened batman over tims safety
lmfao can you imagine; Bruce tries to do another mind fuckey test on Tim, only for Danny to show up in the Batcave, eyes glowing, and say in the creepiest, glitchiest voice possible
"If you ever try to do something like this again; I will go to the afterlife and find Jason's soul to drag out of it, just so you can hear him tell you how much like his biological father you are becoming."
Bruce makes normal tests after that.
😭 Danny goes to find Jason anyways -for some reason- only to not find him in the realms and realize that something funky is going on. Eventually, maybe before LoA finds Jason wandering around lost in all the ways and just ¡yoink! Second son that needs even more help!
What if, two for one trip Son deal, Danny yoinks Damian as well as Jason?
Let me be clear, Danny has no clue this stabbly 8 year old is Bruce's kid, he just thinks a creepy ninja death cult is No Place for a Child!
Also the kid is giving off some of the same weird ectoplasm vibes that Jason has that he absolutly need to help with, so its also for his own good! If only he'd stop loosing all of his good knives in Danny...
Dami stops being quite so Stabby once Cujo decides to make an appearence.
redesign of my magical girl spidersona!! 🍰
bonus ratty version of them outside of their transformation:
Once I knew about the existence of Meows Morales & Spider-guin my hand just moved on it's own
Ok. But. Imagine Dick had that idea. He signed every single thing for school himself.
Then he left and Jason got adopted. Dick didn't want any of the teachers to catch on when "Bruce's" signature suddenly changes. (Because Dick was like 8, so he didn't copy Bruce's signature at all, just signed his name a particular way and stuck with it because changing it would cause issues and it was still working) So Dick goes to Jason and tells him all about it... and proceeds to sign everything for Jason with Bruce's name too. Eventually teaching him to forge it himself etc. (But it's still that fake-ass signature that Dick came up with at 8)
And then comes Tim. Who doesn't want to bother Bruce anyway so when Dick offers to teach him the signature? He's delighted.
Finally. Damian. Dick is his guardian. So Dick signs. (His own name.) And with all the Bruce is dead/battle for the cowl/Bruce is alive-drama going on he honestly... just kinda forgets about the signature.
Until. Damian mentions in passing that Bruce signed the field trip permission slip he turned in.
All the blood leaves Dick's face. A ruse they kept going for almost twenty goddamn years. Ruined. And they're about to be caught. Because his Bruce signature? Pretty damn far from the original.
Bruce gets called by the school. He gets toled Damian tried to forge his signature. He's confused. He did sign that. But he decides to investigate first. Bruce asks the teacher if he can see some samples of the different signatures.
At the school Bruce realises what a dumbass he is never having questioned that he didn't need to sign anything for any of his kids.
He tells the teacher he'll talk to Damian, but he still has permission to go on the field trip.
At home.... Bruce tries to learn his own fake signature.
(Sorry for hijacking your quote)
one thing I like is when people take the fact Cass learned a lot of her language skills from 2000’s trash TV and apply it to different time periods, like having her learn from YouTube or plays
Bruce: *has a code against killing*
Cass: he’s just like me for real
Cass, turning to Steph: well that just happened
gods you're so right
What if everyone in Gotham knows who Batman is? They all know, they just don’t say anything. It’s not something that is spoken of or acknowledged in any way, other than the occasional glance or shared look of understanding. But they all know. Except for Brucie Wayne. Lord bless their himbo sunshine child, but he seems to be the only person in Gotham that doesn’t know who Batman is. He must be protected at all costs.
Everyone in Gotham knows who Batman is. (They’re wrong)