Warning - Torture, Dehumanization, Trauma, Dissociation.

Warning - Torture, dehumanization, trauma, dissociation.

Pain. That was what Danny had been waking up to ever since his parents found he was Phantom, and he started living in a cell in the GIW facility about a month ago.

Everything hurts, even with his enhanced healing, his body can't sustain the amount of damage his given in the daily. The lack of ambient ectoplasm in his cell doesn't help either. What's worse is that he knows this base line pain is nothing compared to how he'll feel before he goes to sleep that night.

Danny shrunk on himself, hugging his legs close to his chest. He wanted to try to go back to sleep, he had heard today's "session" was saved for the afternoon, something about the Fenton's wanting to prepare a special gift to honor their lost little boy's birthday.

Right, today was supposed to be his birthday, he had forgotten. It's not like it mattered, he was sure he wasn't going to like his pa- the Fenton's gift.

He hugged his legs with more force, shutting his eyes and trying to just drift away, forget everything.

Then, the pain stopped, not in the way it did when the numbness in his mind helped him forget there was pain. No, the pain disappeared, like it didn't exist to begin with. He didn't feel his constraints either, nor the cold of the floor, in fact, he's sitting in something soft... When did he sit down?

- kiddo, you there?

Danny shut his eyes open and looked to his side. A man in his mid-twenties with black hair and blue eyes was looking at him with a frown. He wasn't in a white suit, nor a hazmat suit, he wasn't from the GIW, what was he doing in his cell? Were they letting people come look at him like he was a circus attraction now?

- tt, were you asleep still? You're supposed to be prepared for this to happen. I can't believe Drake's soulmate is so incompetent.

A boy on the other side of the table said. A table? There weren't any tables in his cell, the only thing "decorating" his cell is a toilet...

Danny looked around, he wasn't in his cell anymore, he was at a dinner table, a huge dinner table. There were seven people sitting at the table with him, but Danny couldn't get himself to focus on anyone, he instead looked back at his hands, hands that weren't burning.

Not his hands. These were definitely not his hands. His hands had a plate drilled into them with his code as a GIW property.

They had found fascinating how his hands healed around the metal. They had found even more fascinating how it healed as good as new when they took it out, and how it healed around it again when they drilled a new one in.

These hands didn't have any metal drilled into it. They were paler than his in human form, but he was sure they were human hands, there weren't any green undertones.

- Did you not know about the soulmate swap? A mark should have appeared in your wrist, like, last week.

A blond girl sitting a couple chairs to his right said.

Soulmate swap? Fuck. He couldn't help when his hands started trembling. Of course he wouldn't know he had a soulmate, only 30% of people have one.

He looked at this body's wrists, his stylized combination of a D and P was sitting there. Ancients, that meant his wrists had some sort of mark from his soulmate, but with the constraints on his wrists...

The "swap bodies when the younger turns 16" being extremely low in Danny's priorities, so sue him if he didn't try checking either.

Hell, they were going to experiment on his body while some other person was in it! His soulmate will have to suffer being in a body that's in constant pain and they will have to go through whatever the Fenton's had prepared for that day.

Even if they screamed that they were not him, nor his par- the Fenton's nor the GIW believe him sentient enough to have a soulmate!

Danny was starting to feel light headed.

- Hey, hey, I need you to breathe with me kid.

Breath, right, breathing, this body needs to breathe. This body is completely alive, he can feel some liminality in it, but it isn't like his half death body. He can't just stop breathing to avoid hyperventilating as he usually does.

Danny tried to take deep breaths, following the man who had first talked to him when he got there. It was hard to not just start hyperventilating.

Fuck, the universe is really trying to kill him, isn't it? There's no way he's soulmate will know how to hide a core from crazy scientists experimenting on him. He probably doesn't even know what a core is! Danny had worked hard to keep it hidden all this time, had done his best to stop the GIW and the Fenton's from knowing cores even existed!

Wait... If they find his core, and somehow manage to shatter it while playing with it, will it even be him the one who died!? Was his soulmate gonna die in his body!?

... And he was hyperventilating now.

- Kid! Kid! Deep breaths, common, you can do this, deep breaths.

Danny tried to focus on breathing again, but the idea of his soulmate dying wouldn't leave him. So between shattered breaths he asked:

- W-what... Happens if one.... Of us dies... Whi- while in the other body!?

Even with his sight completely blurry, he was sure all the people at the table had stood up. The man who was helping him breath looked like he needed someone to help him through now.

Non understandable screams overlapped over each other for a minute or so, until someone screamed "Enough!" And silence fell once more over the table. The man recovered quickly, and kneeled in front of him, taking his hands and looking him in the eyes.

- Hey, I need you to breathe. We can solve whatever is giving you that worry, but I need you to calm first. Can you do that for me?

Danny wanted to laugh at the idea that they would be able to do anything. His friends broke in multiple times the first week, and failed every attempt, until the security grew to the point they couldn't come in.

His mo- Madeline bragged about the security finally stopping the brainwashed kids from coming in after the first week without alarms in the middle of a "session".

His friends were people used to breaking into GIW facilities in rescue missions, if they couldn't get him out, then how would these random people do it? It was an ignorant promise. But this man's eyes were full of worry that reminded him of his sister, so even if he knew it was hopeless, he nodded, and tried to calm down.

DpxDC soulmate swap

I keep seeing these soulmate AUs that when the younger one is a certain age the soulmates swap bodies.

Now, what about the vivisection/ bad reveal Danny, who is legally being experimented on by the GIW (NOT Ghost King AU), who wakes up during a family dinner, not realising he's awake at first, only for the family to tell him "Yes, this is a soulmate swap, and yes we ARE your soulmates family." He immediately goes to leave and says he will rescue himself- Que panicked family says that they'll get the heroes, only for Danny to laugh in their faces and go, "What are they going to do? Everything that's happening to me is completely legal. Me murdering my way to my body is not. Anyway, hopefully, my soulmate is screaming and thrashing around enough that they sedate them; I've grown numb to the pain, so they don't usually bother anymore". Danny just casually stealing a car/motorbike and driving away

I can't think of who would be the soulmate. Honestly, all of the cross-ship pairings could work.

One of the bats had the theory that the lack of emotion came from a meta-gene activating during the Joker attack and decided to try the meta collars (All the lab results were inconclusive so who's to say that isn't a probability?), just in case, they needed to try everything.

Danny feels like he's ecto-signal is being blocked by the meta collar and risks letting go of his emotions, just a bit, to test it's limits, but the collar doesn't block much, and is easier to just don't feel at all than trying to control how much he feels. So the bats get to see Danny's face gain some emotion (nervousness? Anxiety? Hope? Fear?) for a fraction of a second before he goes completely emotionless once more.

- Theory one: The meta-collar isn't strong enough somehow, let's try with one more powerful. -> Danny doesn't want to risk it again, so he stays emotionless.

- Theory two: Since Danny doesn't react with stronger meta-blockers, then something about the meta-collar gave Danny an emotion strong enough to come through for a second. Maybe it brought memories of something... something before the Joker attack? Was... Was Danny a victim of meta trafficking? Did they just re-traumatize their new little brother multiple times?

Duke feels especially guilty about this because as a meta, "he should have known better". The bats are not as eager to keep experimenting after that, but Danny continues to be emotionless, so eventually they have to try something else, right?

Danny's found a way to dodge GIW trackers, as well as his parents. Their equipment hunts ghosts, ghosts run on emotion; so as long as he keeps his under a tight lid and doesn't feel anything ever, they won't be able to track him.

It works!

He's able to run from them, and goes as far as New Jersey. The plan was to stow away on a ship, and go to literally any country that wasn't America. He goes to Gotham, which hosts the one harbor he knows where no one will ask any questions.

But because of how weird he acted (completely emotionless during a Joker attack), he was fingered by police immediately.

He's handed over to CPP. CPP doesn't know what to do with a teen literally so traumatized that they don't show any emotion at all, ever. He keeps just...walking out of his placements. Just leaves without a sound.

Luckily, he's always caught, due to those placement houses having quiet alarms and him refusing to run.

They call the one foster parent they know who does.

Bruce Wayne takes in the strange, nameless kid who refuses to talk.

On paper, they gave him the filler name of 'John Doe', for lack of anything better to do.

Bruce does everything he can to make the newest arrival feel at home. Damian, for as territorial as he is, actually breaks out of his shell sooner than expected just to try to get the new kid to speak. To emote. To do something. Duke tries the open approach, then tries the 'no one will ever know, everyone thinks I'm an innocent goody-two-shoes' approach. Nada.

Tim even tries to trick him into talking, but nothing works.

Enter Dick; Dick heard about Bruce's new ward, about the situation, and decided to see if he could get the kid to open up.

Danny though. Danny's in trouble.

The Wayne Manor is weirdly secure, and he can't just walk away like he did his other placements. He can't use ghost powers or the GIW and his parents will immediately know where he is.

He really, really wants to take Bruce up on his offer and just spend the day relaxing. Respond to Damian's attempts to provoke him. Overshare about space facts with Tim.

But most of all, he really, desperately wants to get in a Pun Competition with Dick. He wants to laugh at Dick's jokes, and learn coolass gymnastic tricks!

But he can't!

If he relaxes with Bruce, he'll be content, which is an emotion. If he argues with Damian, he'll get annoyed, which is an emotion. If he sneaks out with Duke and breaks the rules, he'll get happy, which, again, emotion. If he overshares with Tim, he'll get excited, which is, yet again, an emotion!

The worst sin of all, he can't even show proper appreciation of the food the Butler keeps making him!

And now there's even more people coming over!

There's a quiet girl who keeps reading his body language and trying to get him to dance ballet, a blonde girl who keeps trying to kidnap him to take him to BatBurger, a guy with a stripe of white who wants to take him to a shooting range, and it just...he really, really wants to!

He wants to do all these cool things with them!

But he fucking can't!

Especially if Danny is looking to the Shade while doing it. From Nightwing perspective,

The teen that just witnessed a murder is looking at nothing in front of him, describing the scene with such a plain and calm voice, he's clearly not doing okay.

Once the kids finish his retelling of the murder he says - I'm sorry you had to die this way. - while still looking at nothing.

Then, turning to Nightwing, says casually. - Hope you're able to find the killer, so that they can rest in peace. - and starts walking away.

- W-wait!

The teen turns around to look once more at the vigilante. - Yeah?

- I'll take you home.

- Um, thanks, but, shouldn't you be looking for the killer? - He turns his head a bit to the side.

And Nightwing should, but he doesn't want to leave this teen alone after what happened. If possible, he wants to be there when the shock passes and the kid finally processes what he's seen.

- I already have someone working on it. I'll come back and help with the search once you're home, what do you think?

It's not a complete lie. He's comm had been open all this time. Oracle has the description the kid gave him, and the call for a hand is implicit in his speech, he can trust that someone will start searching on the perimeter while he accompanies this kid home.

The kid looks at him seemingly confused for a minute, then finally shrugs, and keeps walking, Nightwing follows.

DPxDC What's the Big Deal with the Dead

TW, I guess: corpses and mild gore(?)

Due to his life circumstances, Danny is absolutely unfazed by the dead things. Be it a still barely warm body in the alleyway or a half-decomposed rat in the dumpster. He is just okay with them.

That is not to say he doesn't respect the dead, he does, but he respects the contents, not the package. He is polite and gentle with the shades of those recently passed away, he understands their burial preferences, and sometimes he helps the souls to either find their way to the afterlife or bring justice to the ones who murdered them, or anything else if they need it and he is able to do it.

Granted, he lives in Gotham, no one here is really that fazed by dead things, but what I'm trying to say is Danny lacks that first reaction kind of instinct, the disgust and repulsion and the horror that people feel when they see a dead body.

So, one night on patrol, one of the Bats, let's say Nightwing, finds him crouching beside a body. He can see the blood on the pavement and the bullet wound on the chest of said body, and this is yet another innocent life that has been taken, and he couldn't stop it, he was too late.

Meanwhile, Danny just turns his head towards him, waves, and goes, "s'up".

Ellie(Dani) didn't realize how dangerous Danny's home was for him until he was more worried about her when she got her own home. - Prompt I think(?)

Ellie wasn't sure how to feel when Danny excitedly animated her to accept Arthur's invitation to live in Atlantis.

"Just if you want of course, but you'll get a stable home, and Frostbite said living underwater might be good for your water cores stability."

She had already been planning to accept the offer. Once she gave the guy an opportunity to have some sort of conversation, the guy was pretty chill, and the castle was pretty cool. So yeah, she was going to accept the offer.

But for some reason Danny's eagerness for her to go with Arthur hurt. It felt like he was trying to get rid of her.

She knew that was ridiculous, she didn't even live with Danny. He looked out for her, and was always a call away but, as much as Danny parents her, he was just a child like her. It made sense he was happy to give away the responsibility of taking care of her.

So when Ellie moved into Atlantis, she was expecting to hear less from Danny. After all, she had settle down, and he didn't need to worry about her adventures anymore. That was Arthur's and Mera's job now.

Weirdly enough, it was the complete opposite.

Now that Ellie was living with adults, Danny seemed MORE worried for her. They went from a call once a week or so, to almost daily calls in the afternoons. He would be more insistent about her telling him if anything was wrong.

He would ask specifics about the food she was eating, and her activities of the day, and her room, and the castles security...

Sam had told her that it was because he used to be able to monitor if she was eating well through the transactions of the debit card they had given her. Tuck had told her that he used to evaluate how safe she was through the phones location, and the hotels receipts.

And well, maybe she underestimated how much attention Danny put on her before, but the way the calls went made it seem like he thought she might be in more danger now that she had a stable home.

Which made no sense, because unlike him, she didn't even need to hide her ghostlines. Anything that was out of normal for Atlanteans was excused with meta-abilities, she didn't need to worry about being classified as a non-sentient species.

That was when it caught up to her. Danny was worried now that she was in a stable home because his stable home had always been dangerous for him. It isn't even a think of it being dangerous now that his a ghost, it has been dangerous ever since he was a child. She remembers all of Jazz's rants about how unreliable their parents have always been.

The food has always been contaminated. The security now attacked him directly, but there had always been a possibility of it malfunctioning and hurting the residents. Him and Jazz had always had the responsibilities of not only keeping the house clean, but the lab as well. If she tops it with the house security system attacking him, and his parents been ghost hunters...

Ellie hadn't found it too dangerous back then, Danny mocked Jazz rants with her, and Jack and Maddie were kind when they interacted with her in her human form. The Fentons neglect seemed liberating in comparison to Vlad overly controlling nature. But thinking about it now, after two months living in Atlantis, she doesn't like the picture.

She doesn't like the idea of Danny being somewhere so unsafe, but where would he go? He doesn't have a water core like her, and even if he had gotten sorta used to shapeshifting, he isn't good enough to live in a second form, which isn't recommendable either way. So he wouldn't be able to move underwater with her.

More so, she doubts that Danny would like to leave his Amity, he had taken the sole responsibilities of dealing with the whole humans - ghost conflicts. With the anti-ecto acts, there's no way he would leave the portal unsupervised.

What should she do now? Should she talk with Arthur about it? He said he was part of the heros friend group, what if they already know about the anti-ecto acts and are okay with it? What if they change hoe they act with her when she tells them she isn't actually an atlatean meta?

Danny doesn't have time for this. Whatever this is, he doesn't have time for it. He has his Infinite realms history class with Dora in like 10 min, and he refuses to be late again. Last time he was late, Dora gave him such a disappointed look that he almost wished to disappear out loud.

He isn't even in charge of political meetings yet! Hell, he hasn't even started those classes with Pandora. Why did they call him and not his council? Why is Wonder Woman on the front continuing to talk formally? Can't she see he's just a teenager?

"... therefore, the Justice league, has summoned you, High King Phantom of the infinite realms, to discuss the possibility of an alliance agreement."

That welcomed discourse was unnecessarily long, seeing as it could have been summarized in one sentence. Will he have to do things like that in the future? He definitely isn't looking up to it.

The room is completely silent and everyone is looking at him with expectant looks. Shit, what is he supposed to do now?

"Um..."

Yeah, no, this isn't Danny's business. Danny has places to be and classes to take. He's not dealing with this.

"Look, it's cool that you want an alliance with the infinite realms, but you'll have to talk it out with the council."

There was a minute of silence in the room, and the heroes looked at each other before a man in a trench coat proceeded to talk.

"Are you not the High King Phantom of the infinite realms?"

"No, I'm Prince Phantom of the infinite realms, not the king yet. I- Ugh, I don't have time for this, I will be late for class."

Danny joins his hands and a green light shines within them. He can see all the heroes take defensive positions, probably expecting an attack. Which is stupid, if he wanted to attack them he wouldn't have waited for Wonder Woman to finish her discourse. All in all Danny thinks he's doing a pretty good job at the whole being diplomatic thing, for someone with no training.

When Danny opens his hands, he lets a green orb float in front of him. He gives it a small nudge and it floats to the guy in a trench coat as everyone looks at it with apprehensive looks. The guy in a trench coat doesn't seem interested in touching it whatsoever, but that's not Danny's problem.

"Use that to get a meeting with the council." Danny says as he lowers to the ground to activate the return sigil in the summoning circle. He activates the returning sigil and before he disappears he says. "Heads up, you should probably look into the anti-ecto acts before trying an alliance. You're welcome."

Once his back in the realms, Danny proceeds to break his own record in speed flying. He makes it just in time for class.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I feel like this is a bit underwhelming... It was funnier and better in my mind, but oh well.

DPxDC Prompt

The justice league was informed by a dark member that the infinite realms crowned a new monarch and they are eager to summon them to do a threat assessment and possibly strike up an alliance, depending on how similar they are to their predecessor.

The issue?

Danny is the new crown prince, but he isn't old enough to take the throne at 15, he needs to be at least 25 years old in human years or fully dead. So right now he has no power in the realms, he is just a figure head with no authority. He technically doesn't know a single thing about how the realms are run…

All that ruling stuff is handled by the council, the observants and the ancients.

Fast forward to Danny forced into full royal regalia by summoning magic and summoned into what looks like a meeting room. Blinking he turns his attention to the colorful cast of characters that have summoned him and is greeted by a very diplomatic sounding woman in a cape.

Maybe he shouldn't have decided to wait till he was eighteen to start those diplomatic lessons with Pandora… because right now he feels like he just walked into somewhere that he really needed them…

Duke was just about to start today's patrol, when he's boyfriend rushes through he's window and clashes against him. Duke doesn't have time to even question anything, because Danny is shaking in his arms. His shaking, and his crying, and he looks so scared.

Duke decides that he's not patrolling today.

He scoops his boyfriend in his arms, whispering quite comforts. He may not know the details, but he can still tell he's boyfriend that he's safe now. Duke takes him to his bed, and covers him in the galaxy blanket that Danny loves so much. He spares a second to tell the other bats that he isn't going on patrol and then centers all his attention on Danny. Caressing his fingers through his head and letting him get it all out.

He's never seen him so scared. They've talked about their past, their fears, their trauma, but Danny always treated everything with a certain casualness that made it seem like he had moved from it. Even while talking about his death, he didn't trembled this bad.

Duke didn't know what to do other than keep hugging him and telling him that he was okay, that Duke will keep him safe.

Eventually, Danny stops trembling, and melts into Dukes embrace, holding his head against Dukes shoulder he finally talks.

-Sorry for breaking in just before your patrol started...

-No, Danny, I'm happy to receive whenever you need me. You'll always be before my job as a bat. Always.

Duke can feel Danny do a small nod in his shoulder as he keeps caressing his head.

-Can I ask you what happened? If you don't feel ready to talk about it you don't have to, but I'm here to listen if you want sweetheart.

Danny takes a shuddering breath before speaking.

-My... parents, just showed up on my door.

Duke holds Danny tighter. He had heard all the stories about how the Fentons had treated Danny. How they used to follow him around with ghost hunting equipment when he was a teen. How when they found out he was the teen they've been hunting they screamed that he wasn't their son anymore. How they screamed that he was just a monster that they wanted out of their house, and out of Amity at that second.

-Did they- Did they hurt you?

Danny shook his head.

- I- I wasn't expecting them. They were not able to say a single word before I flee... I didn't even know they knew were I was...

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Don't know how to continue from there. I'm not good writing this sort of scenes, haha.

Tagging people who wanted Duke/Danny:

@blueboybot @leloudlizbirb @bluerosefox

Feeling a bit angsty so I had this idea.

Danny is dating one of the Bats/Birds, and everything is going great, amazing even! They know each other secrets (from powers to everything etc), they have a wonderful place to live (even if its in Gotham), Danny is in college on the way to becoming a space engineer (and he does side jobs for unrestful ghosts), he's actually getting sleep again since leaving Amity Park, gets along with their friends and family (those who Danny or his partner still talk to, up to the writer), there is even talk about marriage and perhaps adoption/kids in the future between Danny and the Bat/Bird he's dating!

Everything is setting up for a good life in his future, something Danny didn't think could have after his accident. He was happy finally, and currently packing up his old apartment because he's moving in with his partner in a few days.

So he felt like his core was being pulled out of him when he opens his apartment door one day receiving a knock to find his parents, who had hadn't seen since they kicked him out of the house after coming clean about being Phantom (their words of anger and denial that their son was 'dead' and now a monster, still hurt)

Sure they didn't attack him or proclaim he's dead but still their last words and anger HURT.

Danny didn't give them a chance to open their mouths, both looking nervous and guilty, before he slams the door close and turns invisible, grabs his phone, and fly's out of his apartment to his partner's place in a panic attack.

His partner, isn't happy.