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Danny was floating above Central City. It wasn’t that far from his own home of Amity Park. They didn’t really know about ghosts here, so he could play fetch with Cujo and fly with his undead dog with no worries. Sure, he got a few strange looks, but it was late at night. He also wasn’t hurting anyone, so the few people that did see him did nothing. The night was going along like usual, until Danny spotted a lone cat. It was sitting below him, in the lush park looking up at him.
Danny floated down, landing a foot or two away from the cat. He extended his gloved hand to let the feline sniff him. Surprisingly, it liked what it smelled and rubbed its face against his hand. Cujo came bounding back, a ball of ectoplasm in his maw. Danny yelped as the friendly tabby began to climb the pant leg of his hazmat suit and into his arms, purring all the while. Cujo… didn’t mind? The dog could be a bit possessive of his half dead master.
Danny sat in the grass, keeping the cat close to him. Taking the ball from Cujo, they continued to play fetch. The cat didn’t mind, kneading Danny’s thighs. Should he try and bring the cat home? Sam would love the fact that he had a cat. Could he really doom another living creature to getting infected due to all the ectoplasm that was around his parent’s house.
“Teekl!” someone in the distance yelled. “Teekl, where are you?” What a weird name for a kid. Should he help look? This was his chill time, where he didn’t have to focus on being a hero. He could just be a kid with his ghostly dog. Not that that was super normal.
“Teekl! There you are! What are you doing with this random - oh. You’re not a normal meatbag, are you?”
Danny turned to look at a boy his age. His black hair was spiked up to make two points on either side of the head. Almost like horns. It reminded him of Plasmius’s hair. Except this kid could pull it off. He looked put together in the suit. Oh man, were those claws? Clawed fingernails? Those were… those were really nice. He shifted slightly, hoping his interest wasn’t becoming obvious. Stupid hazmat suits which hid nothing .
“Is this your cat?” Danny asked dumbly.
“Familiar, but yes. Ohhhh. You’re one of those Lords of Balance. Better than an annoying Lord of Order. Come Teekl.” The cat meowed, but didn’t move. It gave the boy an unimpressed look.
“What do you mean?! Introduce myself!?!” There was another meow. “Fine. I’m Klarion. Happy now?” Teekl just purred.
“Klarion. That’s a unique name. I’m Danny,” he might as well tell the boy his name, since he’d given Danny his. Danny stood up and handed Klarion his cat. Cujo bounded over, tail wagging. He dropped the ectoplasm ball at Klarion’s feet, not Danny’s. Klarion looked unsure.
“He just wants you to throw it. You don’t have to.” Klarion, still holding Teekl, bent down, grabbed the ball, and then threw it. It zoomed far off in the distance. Damn, it was probably miles away at this point. Klarion looked at Danny and grinned with a too large smile.
“Oh no. It’s too far. You should get your dog,” Klarion cackled. Danny just gave him a deadpan look, unamused by the other teen’s antics. Yeah, Klarion had no idea what exactly Cujo was. He probably hadn’t looked hard enough.
Sure enough, the excited puppy returned around thirty seconds later, barking and yapping excitedly. Cujo dropped the ball at Klairon’s feet before jumping on him and barking, tail wagging like crazy. Klarion looked dumbfounded.
“Well. Looks like you’re going to have to keep throwing,” Danny told him with a smirk.
“Whatever. You can’t be that bad of company,” Klarion gumbled. He threw the ball again, then turned to look at Danny.
“So. What do you do for fun in this boring place?”
“Here? Nothing. I don’t live here though. I live a couple towns over. Amity Park.” Klarion’s eyes widened and he grinned. It looked more natural this time.
“OOoooh! I’ve heard about that place! Lots of natural chaos! I haven’t visited, since I figured other places needed more sugar! Ow! Spice! I meant spice!” Teekl had given Klarion a hiss and a nip on the ear from their place around Klarion’s neck.
“Well. You can hit me up anytime,” Danny offered, feeling the burn of a blush on his face. Ugh, here he was, flirting with a random powerful boy and his cat.
“I might take you up on that, ghostie.”
Klarion and Danny chatted and flirted the rest of the evening, until the sun was poking its head up from the horizon.
***
Danny…. Had a twin. And he was fucking Damian Wayne. What was his life? He’d had vague memories of living with his mom and twin in a hot and sandy place. He’d assumed they were all just dreams though. Nope. The trio of friends had been shocked when it had only taken Tucker seconds using a facial recognition algorithm to find someone who’s face matched Danny’s. Since Damian was so prominent, it’d been stupid easy. Danny had visited a few times over the summer between his junior and senior year. He’d wanted to finish his final year at Casper High and with his adopted parents.
His siblings had been nice. Damian had been… cordial. That was a nice way to put it. He clearly wasn’t impressed with his twin. Whatever. Danny was happy with his life. Was it the best? No. But it was far better than what he’d thought his life would end up like. He was going to Gotham for a full ride mechanical engineering scholarship. Danny was going to dual major in aerospace engineering too. Alfred had been so happy when he’d mentioned all of this, mentioning how he’d be the first person to graduate from college since his grandfather, Thomas Wayne.
Really, his bio family was nice.
Could they handle his boyfriend though?
Danny and Klarion had been friends for about two and a half years now, dating for one.
He’d mentioned that he had a boyfriend to his bio family. Dick, Tim, and Duke were really nice and supportive. Jason, Steph, Cass, and Damian had all asked Danny questions that made him think they wanted to hunt Klarion down and interrogate him. Which would have been hilarious to watch. Regular humans against a chaos lord? Yeah, they’d lose. Klarion wouldn’t kill them because he knew Danny cared about them.
Danny decided he’d wait until about halfway through the semester before he invited Klari over. After midterms and he had less to stress about. Not only that, he’d spend more time with his bio family and get a better judge on how they’d handle a chaos lord in the mix. Klarion was an acquired taste, although he got along with both Sam and Tucker like a house on fire.
***
Dick was humming to himself. Today Danny’s boyfriend was coming over! They’d agreed to try and not overwhelm the poor guy. It would just be Bruce, Damian, Dick, and Cass tonight. Bruce and Damian because they’d insisted. Dick and Cass because they could be calm and try to diffused whenever Damian or Bruce put their foot in their mouths. Dick loved them, he did, but they were very emotionally stunted. Damian had claimed for a while that Danny was nothing like Bruce or Talia, insisting the DNA test had been wrong in some way.
Alfred had put that to rest immediately, explaining that Danny’s personality was very similar to both Thomas and Martha Wayne. Bruce had hid in the cave for days brooding after that revelation. Damian had been silent in his protests about his twin after that. Dick was just so, so happy to finally have someone with some emotional intelligence in the family. He was getting tired of all of that being put on him. So so tired of it. Not that Danny could take all of that burden from him.
Danny had no clue about their double lives as vigilantes.
Once the comparisons to Bruce’s parents started, and the fact that Danny was actually going to college, it was pretty clear that Alfred was going to be deeply disappointed if they tried including Danny. Danny was going to be the normal one. The one kid no one really had to worry about. It had been hard at times, during the summer to keep their hero identities secret. Worth it though.
Dick made his way through the halls to the study Danny had claimed as his own. Alfred had already switched out most of the books in there for ones on the stars and astronomy. The gilded picture frames with their oil paintings had been replaced with gorgeous prints of galaxies and nebulas in bronze metal frames. Everything a budding college student would need. Danny was oh so smart too. He’d been talking to Tim, theorizing about different fuels and designs to power spacecrafts. Tim had been muttering later about how those hypothetical designs could make better Javelins and space travel much faster. That was before Danny had even started college classes!
Dick was so proud of his little brother!
Smiling, he opened the door to Danny’s study, not bothering to knock. Alfred had said that Danny’s boyfriend hadn’t arrived yet, so he was probably in there reading one of his astronomy books or playing the space shuttle simulator for the upteenth time.
“Danny! I’m so excited to mee- oh.” Dick’s smile faded. There, on the couch, snuggling up with his little brother was another teen. Not just any teen. It was Klarion. Klarion the Witch Boy. One of the members of the Light. Teekl was there too. The cat was sitting on Danny making biscuits on his stomach. Danny looked up from his book. Klarion stopped petting Danny’s hair.
“Dick.” Danny looked a little flushed and embarrassed. “Um. This is my boyfriend, Klarion. Klarion, this is my older, adoptive brother Dick. Uh, I was going to bring this up at dinner, but Klarion isn’t… exactly human. Surprise?”
“Okay. That would explain why Alfred hadn’t seen him yet. Sorry about bursting in. I thought you were alone,” Dick apologized. What else could he do? His brain was still stuck on the fact that Klarion was dating his younger, civilian brother. Was there just something about the Wayne blood that drew in the strange and unusual?
“I’ll leave and give you guys some privacy. I’ll totally pretend I didn’t get a sneak peak at your beau before anyone else. Damian would stab me if he knew,” Dick joked. Retreat. He needed to retreat and tell the others. They needed to figure out something, and FAST. Danny looked relieved. Klarion looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t.
“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks Dick!”
“Bye guys!”
As he was closing the door, he heard Klarion comment and Teekl meow.
“Why is your brother named after human generals? Genitalia, I knew that!”