Ancient Of Space

Apprentice of the Butler

AKA "Alfred Pennyworth hires an interim butler while he recuperates from a Rogue attack. Who better than adoption bait Danny Fenton?" prompt!!

Okay, so imagine Danny moves to Gotham to pursue astrophysics at Gotham-U but he's having a surprisingly difficult time keeping a job. Every time he gets hired, the place gets burned down or blown up by Rogues; it's like he's catnip for trouble. Somehow, he's always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And Alfred Pennyworth also happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He's at the Gotham Market Co-op, where Danny's been recently hired, and suddenly it's gassed by Scarecrow's Fear Toxin. All the employees and customers scramble to put on their gas masks, but Danny's new enough that he has no idea what's happening. He's suddenly seeing Fright Knight, Dark Pariah, and the GIW. So, he Goes Ghost, defeats all of Scarecrow's goonies, and saves the day! If only his boss would think so, too.

Uh, no. Apparently Danny's now on a Wanted List as an undocumented meta?? And his boss can't be investigated by the GCPD (he's, like, four years behind on taxes and has been dodging the IRS for longer), so he regretfully has to let Danny go. But, hey! Maybe if he becomes a documented meta, he can get hired back. Except Danny can't because the GIW can access the meta registration database and he'll be found out faster than he can leave Gotham.

So, Danny's fired again.

And Alfred "Pride & Honor" Pennyworth?? He's not gonna let the child who saved him (because Scarecrow absolutely was going to snatch the Wayne's butler, who better to take hostage than a billionaire's publicly beloved Father Figure??) possibly become homeless. It's clear the kid is a college student and is barely scraping by, probably paying way too much for room and board at Gotham-U. And... maybe his wrist hurts a bit from a fall. He's older now, it's not impossible that he'd get a sprain or a broken bone. (Plus, Alfred knows the look. The same one as Dick, Jason, Tim, even Bruce. There's an immense grief in those small shoulders, fear and loneliness.)

Cue Alfred hiring Danny on as an interim butler while he recuperates (oh, he's terribly injured, thank you so much for helping me, my boy-). And Danny can't say no. I mean, this old man got injured during the Rogue attack he was apart of! And he's asking for help! And it's also nice to have some money. And a bed and... oh, God, he's working for a billionaire frootloop. Uh-oh.

(Alfred absolutely doesn't tell Bruce about his new son apprentice. It's worth it to see Bruce's eyes glaze over as sees a black-haired teenager standing in the kitchen with Alfred, then doing a double take when he realizes it isn't Jason. And the others are banned from the kitchen, so who is this child in his house?? It's not Kon or Jon either??)

Meanwhile, Danny is actually having a great time with Mr. Pennyworth!! The older man is kind, soft-spoken, and really knows his stuff. Danny really enjoys learning how to cook, especially because none of the food comes alive to fight him. Eventually the Batfam just become used to seeing Danny in the kitchens, gardens, around the house with Alfred. He's a cute kid, always smiling and talking about his college classes. He has effortless sarcastic banter with both Damian and Jason, bonds with Tim about some kind of difficult mechanical mathematics or something, trades dad jokes with Dick. He even manages to win over Cass, Steph, Duke, and Babs.

The only one Danny doesn't truly seem to like is Bruce Wayne, although he never outright disrespects him, since he pays the bills and Danny's midwestern manners kick in. Bruce is confused and very concerned because why is this kid literally glaring daggers at him all the time?? Is he going to poison Bruce's coffee?? Danny's just trying to figure out if Bruce Wayne is a "collects vintage dentures" or "keeps teenagers locked in his basement" type of billionaire frootloop. (He'd kinda prefer the kidnapping, Danny does not want to go looking for a wine cellar and find an entire basement of old teeth.)

Bonus if Bruce tries to subtly win the boy over and Danny's just like, squinting at him, white-knuckling a frying pan and muttering, "That's exactly what someone who collects teeth would say..."

Danny in a trench coat and sunglasses: Psshhh, hey, kid Damian: Yes? Danny: Do you want to buy some candy? Damian, gripping a knife behind his back: Sure Danny opening trench coat: Okay, I have chocolate clusters, gummy bears covered in candy rocks, and spicy taffy. Damian: Oh, you meant real candy. Danny: Of course. Why else would you be standing in an alley with a trench coat? Damian: Are you not hearing yourself right now? Danny: I actually heard it. But I have to do it this way. See, I'm hiding from- Jason: THERE YOU ARE! Danny: Leave me alone! I told you I ran out of mini-donuts! Jason: YOU LIE Damian watching his brother chase a street vendor down the road: This is a good mental simulation for him. He needs this.

Ghost of a Chance

Gotham was not a city known for its kindness. Rain slicked the alleyways like a second skin, and shadows crept where sunlight dared not linger. Alfred Pennyworth had seen a great many things in this city. Muggers, monsters, and masked madmen were just part of the nightly routine. What he hadn't expected, however, was to be saved by a ghost.

Or something very much like one.

It was supposed to be a quick errand—a quiet evening walk to clear his head. But halfway down Burnside, three desperate men with more bravado than brains cornered him. Alfred had been ready to disarm the first and disable the second, but he never got the chance. A blur of white and black swooped in, accompanied by the distant, bone-deep hum of unnatural power. The muggers were down in seconds—one frozen to the wall, another knocked out cold, and the third suspended midair by a glowing hand that flickered green.

The boy was there and gone just as fast. Alfred barely had time to register the tattered hoodie, the hollow cheeks, the white hair and green eyes that didn’t seem quite human.

"Wait—!" Alfred had called, but the boy was already gone, melting into the shadows like smoke.

The encounter would’ve ended there—just another strange chapter in Gotham’s nightbook—if it hadn’t kept happening.

Twice more, the mysterious young man appeared. Once to stop a purse snatcher near the theater. Another time to drag a lost child out of a crumbling building during a fire. Always fast, always silent. Always gone before Alfred could properly speak to him.

And always too thin.

It was the kind of thin that spoke of long nights without food. Hollow cheeks, knobby elbows, a belt cinched too tight around jeans that barely stayed up. It reminded Alfred of the early days—of Dick, of Jason, of Tim, of Damian. Of boys who had learned to survive instead of live.

Alfred Pennyworth had a rule: no one went hungry on his watch.

And so began his campaign.

At first, it was subtle. A wrapped sandwich left behind after one of the ghost-boy’s heroic appearances. A thermos of hot tea left conveniently near a rooftop perch. A backpack, clean and durable, filled with protein bars and fresh socks. Most of it vanished, though Alfred never saw it happen.

Then came the note, scrawled in messy, tired handwriting:

“Thanks. You didn’t have to. I’m not sticking around though. It’s safer for you if I don’t.”

The next day, Alfred left a response tucked in the same spot:

“You are not a danger, young man. I’ve seen far worse, and fed far worse. If you insist on continuing your streak of rooftop chivalry, I insist you do so on a full stomach.”

He added a slice of quiche. It was gone by morning.

Bruce raised an eyebrow the first time he caught Alfred baking two loaves of banana bread instead of one. Tim said nothing when the supply order mysteriously included a half dozen extra protein shakes and thermal gloves in medium size. Damian made a snide comment—something about stray ghosts haunting the pantry—but Alfred didn’t dignify it with a reply.

Then came the night it changed.

A patrol gone wrong. Batman caught in a collapsing parking garage. The comms went dead. Nightwing was too far. Red Hood was tracking Penguin. The only one nearby—untraceable, unregistered, and undeniably powerful—was the boy Alfred had been feeding for weeks.

He left the beacon on the rooftop.

“Help him. Please. –A.P.”

Within minutes, Bruce stumbled through the Batcave entrance, soot-smudged and breathing, but alive. Behind him, almost hidden in the shadows, was the boy. White hair. Green eyes. Shivering slightly, but still on his feet.

“I didn’t do it for favors,” the boy said. His voice was hoarse, too young for his haunted face. “I just... couldn’t let him die.”

“I know,” Alfred said gently. “Which is precisely why the offer of dinner still stands.”

“…I shouldn’t.” But his eyes drifted toward the warm lights of the manor beyond the cave, toward the smell of fresh bread and something sweet baking in the oven.

“No one escapes me forever, dear boy,” Alfred said with a small smile. “Not even slippery ghosts.”

The boy stared at him for a long moment. Then finally, like a candle burning out, he sagged.

“…Okay. Just for tonight.”

“Of course,” Alfred said, already turning toward the kitchen. “We’ll start with soup.”

Behind him, the boy whispered a name like an afterthought—like something long buried finally being said aloud.

“Danny. My name’s Danny.”

“Well then, Master Danny,” Alfred said, with the same fondness he reserved for all his wayward sons, “welcome home.”

God I love unconventional and crack pairings so much 🤣

You know what would be deadass funny. Jack Drake comes back from the dead and in “revenge” adopts either Jason as his kid, or Damian or both and Bruce and him have dad offs to who is a better father to their adopted children. They both fail at fatherhood in their own special ways. Anyway 50k slowburn jack/bruce, the robins all end up traumatized because they did not ask to be pulled into this bullshit.

Bruce: The new neighbors are....odd.

Jason: What neighbors?

Tim: The ones who bought my old house. They're washing their cars on thier lawn

Jason: Oh heaven, forbidden rich people do chores you privileged-

Tim: They're using water guns.

Jason: What?

Tim: The Fentons are washing their cars using water guns. Granted, they are using automatic water guns, but still. They shoot like it's a execution firing squad.

Danny in the distance: BE. CLEAN. WEEP BEFORE YOUR FOUR WHEEL CHILDREN .

Jason: Wtf?

Bruce: Like I said, they're odd.

Robin!Jason, seeing Dick with the Teen Titans: Is that Dickhead taking care of people? Barbara: Yeah. Don't laugh when they call him responsible. They don't know why that's hilarious.

"He's part of the Family Business, don't worry!"

First

Damian was glad him and Danny were finally at the zoo, being around the animals calmed him especially since he took great care to make sure the animals were held in accomodating enclosures.

There was also Danny's frankly terrifying guardian, Damian was sure even his grandfather would fear the man. It wasn't that he looked scary, or did anything apart from scowl at him, but the moment he met the man's eyes it was like fear had a tight grip on him.

He glanced at Danny's hand, should he take it? Danny was grinning at the otters running around.

"Danny?"

"Hm?"

"Your guardian..."

"Frank? What about him?" Clear blue eyes met green ones, Damian swallowed his nervousness down.

"How are you related?" Danny looked up, as if in thought.

"Well, we aren't related, really. He's just... part of the Family Business, you know? Dad was worried and thought I shouldn't go alone to study in the crime capital." Damian nodded, that sounded normal enough. It did.

"What's your family business? I don't remember you talking about if before?"

"Ah... well..." Danny seemed to avoid his eyes. "It's more my business that my family has their fingers in as well due to overlapping interests."

"Hm." That answered nothing! Damned be Grayson! Damian should have done the background check like he initially wanted to. But no! Grayson had convinced him to have "a real expierence!"

Tt. Grayson will regret their next training session!

"But Damian don't worry! Frank is more like a bodyguard. And a cook... and maybe a maid... you know what he's most like a housekeeper. But don't tell him I said that! He's sensitive about his job!"

"Of course I would never! Come let's go see the penguin feeding."

He did it, he took Danny's hand! Okay, normal breathing, this is a date, of course they'll hold hands! If he get's a second date they may even kiss! Right now he should focus on his date, he could find out about the scetchy sounding background after. And if he had to rescue Danny from his mob family he would!

Surely father would understand that he needed to marry his beloved as soon as possible to help him. He would accept a house as their wedding gift as long as he had enough space for his animals. And Danny's meta dog of course.

I got Fright Knights name from this fic, it's a Jason is Danny's father while having to deal with Fright Knight and the fact that lazarus waters are Danny's other parent.

Single Dad Dead on Main

AKA "Danny is the ghost-equivalent of a foster parent for de-aged Dani and Dan. Jason's just wondering who the hell these two feral meta children are." prompt idea!

Danny thinks he's doing an okay job at being a single dad of two. They're living in a quaint two bedroom apartment in Park Row, he's managing his Ghost King money well, and the kids haven't died (again). (He's definitely not getting a "World's Greatest Dad" mug anytime soon, but, hey, at least the house hasn't burned down yet!)

...Until he wakes up from his nap to an eerily silent apartment.

If there's one thing he's learned over the last few months, it's that silence is not good. He's scrambling off the couch fast enough to give himself a headache, practically flying down the hallway so he can get to the kids' room. Ellie is wedged halfway under her bunk bed. Dan's also squished under the bed but quickly squirms out when he realizes Danny's standing in the door way. He's holding... a socket wrench??

"...do I want to know what you two are doing?" Danny deadpans.

Ellie scrambles out as well, smears of something oily on her cheek. For a seven and eight year old, they have surprisingly convincing I'm innocent! expressions.

"I dunno," Ellie singsongs while Dan simultaneously barks, "Nothing!"

Danny squints. The kids squint back. Yeah, there's definitely something under the bed that's not supposed to be there. Since Dan's holding a wrench (and where the hell did he get that?? Danny doesn't even own any tools aside from maybe a little rubber mallet he found in the hallway closet), Danny hopes thinks it's not an animal.

It takes a minute of arguing in which Danny promises not to be mad, let them eat ice cream, and let them stay up an hour later than curfew for the kids to even let him near the bed without biting him. (Jokes on them, the ice cream is sugar free and Danny's going to reset the clocks to an hour before. Check and mate, bitch! Parenting is so easy.)

And then Danny pulls out... a tire. No, a rim. Two tire rims. Oh, Ancients. Engraved on the tire rim is a red Bat symbol. His stomach nearly drops to the floor; everybody in Crime Alley knows what the Red Hood's symbol looks like. "Eight Heads in a Duffle Bag," Crime Prince of Gotham with a gang big enough to take over all of Park Row. And yeah, Danny could easily beat the guy, but that doesn't mean he wants to. He doesn't want to uproot Dan and Ellie from their schools, move cities, run from yet another organization that wants them dead.

"How did you get this?" Danny asks, utterly dumbfounded.

"I dunno," Ellie says, just as Dan's saying, "Nowhere."

(Danny takes it back. Parenting is definitely not easy.)

"Danielle. Daniel. Where did you get these tire rims?" Danny asks again, more stern this time, to which he only gets shrugs. And that's when he notices the window is open and the screen his missing. "You're kidding me. Did you climb out the window? We're on the third floor!"

"We flew, duh." Ellie rolls her eyes, only shooting a wide-eyed, guilty look to Dan when he elbows her with a vicious shuddup!

"I-okay. Here's what we're going to do. We'll... just return the rims. It's not like the Red Hood saw you two steal them-," Danny stops when Ellie and Dan give each other a side-eye. He knows that look. It's the same look he and Jazz used to give each other when they had a silent agreement about something. Oh, no. No, no, no.

"...he didn't see you, did he?"

Another side-eye look. Oh, Ancients. At least there's no way the Red Hood knows where they are, right?

(Jason stares at the kids playing with his bike. He's not stupid enough to think they couldn't have been paid to sabotage it, but the way the little girl hikes herself up onto the seat and pretends to rev the engine makes him think otherwise. It's cute. The boy mostly seems interested in the engraved bat symbol on his tire rims, scraping at it like it's a 3D decal.

"I wanna be a bicycle-rider when I get bigger. I'll wear the jacket and everything!" The little girl laughs, deepening her voice before saying, "I'm a bicycle-rider! I'll beat you up!"

Jason snorts. He's leaning against the fire escape balcony overhead and it's dark enough for them not to see him, but they both freeze at the soft sound. When nothing happens, the kids relax again.

"It's a motorist, stupid. C'mon, help me take this off and I'll build you one."

"You wanna take the tire? Why?"

"'Cus of the symbol! It's the Batman symbol, do you know how scared people are of 'em? Show 'em this and nobody'll mess with us."

The kid's got a point. Crime Alley knows Red Hood's symbol like the back of their hand, but somehow Jason doesn't think rolling around a tire rim is going to have the same effect. Jason's about to step in when the kid bends the fucking metal with his bare hand. His fucking bike. It looks like the kid barely broke a sweat, too; just wiped his hands on his jeans and started prying apart front of his motorcycle.

Jason's voice is more biting than he means for it to when he shouts, "Hey!" He swings over the fire escape, landing with a heavy thud, before hauling ass towards the kids. Almost immediately the boy yanks the girl behind him and snarls... and his eyes go Lazarus-green. Jason stops abruptly. His voice is softer, gentler, when he tries again.

"Hey, kid. Don't you know not to go tearing apart people's bikes? C'mon, at least do it the right way."

That makes the boy pause, looking momentarily baffled and the green turning into bright blue. Jason takes that as an in and says, "Y'know, it's a lot faster when you use tools. I've got a wrench in my bag. If you use it like this..."

Jason spends the next thirty-five minutes helping the kids steal his own damn rims. He shouldn't. But he's curious about who these meta kids are and they're almost painfully easy to talk with, they just blabber like they've never heard of keeping a secret before in their lives. They talk about their dad, school, their favorite tv show. And then they talk about "the bad men" and Jason's stomach drops. "The bad men" who drive white vans, capture people, and experiment on them. And that sounds an awful lot like a meta-trafficking ring in his city, dead set on coming after the kids and their dad.

Then he's very, very grateful he's letting the kids take his rims home. After all, what Bat doesn't put GPS trackers in their symbols?)

Ever get absolutely blindsided by a fixation

Dead on main x omegaverse

Danny had met plenty of knot head alphas who had either flirted with him since he was an omega or bullied him since he was a male omega. He had resigned himself to being alone, especially since he had died.

Then, he met Red Hood, an Alpha who was known for not putting up with knot heads in his haunt, known for protecting omegas on the run from knot heads who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Danny had to fight back a blush.

Jason had met plenty of omegas in his life who acted like fainting flowers, reinforcing the stereotypes that people like Bruce and Dick had to fight to break through for most of their lives. He hated those kinds of omegas.

Then, he met Danny, a scrappy omega who broke the Joker’s nose during their first meeting and protected a bunch of street kids by volunteering to be dosed with fear gas during their second meeting. Jason was never so glad he wore a helmet.

Crime Alley knew that the new scrappy meta had a crush on Red Hood. All of Red Hood’s goons knew Red Hood had a crush on the meta who bit Scarecrow on one occasion.

It was everyone’s mission to get those two together.