Chapter Text
Just over two decades before the events that happened on a fateful day in an unassuming town in the south of the United States of America, with the name Amity Park, an alien capsule with a babe in it landed in a small and unassuming town in the south of the United States of America with the name Smallville. A young couple found a baby with bright blue eyes and wavy black hair in the capsule and raised him as their own.
He would be known to the world as Clark Kent.
He would be known to the world and far beyond it as Superman, the man of Steel.
He would be known to his family and close friends as Kal-El, the last natural born full blooded Kryptonian male of the house of El.
Not the world and certainly not Superman knew that was not the truth at all, for before Kal-El was sent away to escape Krypton's impending doom, his older twin brother had been sent away. Twins were extremely rare in Krypton and for a good reason: it was believed Rao had a dislike for them, and thus, they were seen as a bad omen. As Kryptonians generally were not born naturally, this had not been a problem for most of them.
Dan-El and Kal-El, however, were born in the natural way.
Not only were they twins, but they were identical twins. As Dan-El was the eldest, and thus was born before anyone else could find out there was more than one baby, he was hidden from the entirety of Krypton but his own parents.
Unfortunately, that had more unwanted side-effects than their parents could have ever imagined. Unlike his twin brother, Kal-El, who was sent away when he was six months old and Krypton died, Dan-El was sent away at the same time the dog Krypto was sent away when he was only three months old. From that moment, his parents couldn't do anything for him anymore but pray to Rao he would survive and eventually find a way to a family that would take him in and love him as their own son.
Unfortunately for Dan-El, his life would be as far as his parents had ever wanted it to be. He did not live long, for he died at the mere age of fourteen years old, even before his Kryptonian powers could truly begon to develop like they did with his brother during puberty, and although his parents cared about him in their own way, they would hunt their own son unknowingly at every possibility with the ambition to vivisect him molecule by molecule.
*******
Ironically enough, it had been the night after Jazz's seventh birthday. Jack and Maddie had tried to give her anything her little heart had desired, but the red-haired girl had only wanted to have a little brother. A sister would do too.
Even that had been something Maddie and Jack had tried to give their daughter, but their many experiments with ectoplasm unfortunately had made them both sterile. Adopting or fostering a child would never work, as they were both very well aware of the fact they had a secret lab in their house.
Jazz had tried to not show it, as she was a sweet girl, but both Jack and Maddie had noticed her obvious disappointment. The little girl was deep in the land of Morpheus when Jack and Maddie saw a blinding light in their backyard. Naturally, they immediately ran toward it to discover what had happened.
Whoever had been awake in the neighborhood had merely sighed at the blinding light and muttered 'typical, the Fentons' before drinking a glass of water and going back to sleep.
Jack, having the build and strength of a wild bear, arrived first at the light, only to stand still and drop his makeshift, untested anti-ghost weapon on the grass.
There was a large, pure silver capsule right in front of him.
Naturally, he did the first thing he could think of, call his wife. "Maddie!"
Maddie, who had already been running toward him, stopped right next to him. "This could be a sign we are getting close to making the portal work!" She hissed triumphantly. "The Ghost scum won't be able to scare us off, though!"
Jack nodded gravely. They had been working on their portal for so long now and even their good friend, Vlad, had been wounded and stayed in the hospital for a while because of it. This was their lifework. They would not allow themselves to be intimidated and scared off.
"Perhaps we can use this, though." Jack replied. "Imagine it, my love, we could use the trap the Ghost scum tried to trap us with to ensure their destruction!"
Maddie grinned viciously. "That seems like a wonderful plan, my dear."
Jack didn't need to be told more and calmly walked toward the capsule. He tried to open it with his brute force at first, but when that didn't work, he quickly discovered the lid of the capsule needed to be pulled to the right and then he needed to pull it.
"Maddie, quick, grab the camera!" He shouted.
Maddie huffed. "I took it with me, Jack. Who do you take me for?!" She answered just as loudly, before she started to film.
Jack pulled the lid with all his strength, only for it to break off. He threw it on the ground and grabbed the anti-ghost weapon again. Anything could happen and he would be ready for it.
The two large, curious bright blue eyes that looked at him, was something neither Maddie or he had been ready for, however. It was a child he would guess of five years old, with wavy black hair. If Jack were honest, he would say the child resembled him an awful lot.
The child walked out of the capsule on his own, looked around with wonder in his eyes, and murmured something they couldn't understand, before he looked around and stared at the stars.
While Jack was looking at the wide-eyed child, who was now laying on his back and marveling at the stars, Maddie had walked toward the capsule and was inspecting it.
"Jack, come and see this," She shouted excitedly.
The inside of the bright silver capsule was inscripted with clear letters that spelled a name:
Dan - El
"Dan-El," Maddie mused out loud. "It is an odd name, but then again, this is an alien we're dealing with. For all we know, his name might be absolutely ordinary where he comes from. I do wonder though; why would anyone send a child away all on his own? Is that normal for his species? Did his parents just not like him? Was he born out of wedlock? Do people of his species even marry? What does the name Dan-El mean? We might never know."
Jack chuckled amusedly at his wife's antics and couldn't help but fall in love with her all over again. "Ah, Maddie, I see what's going on here! Just like how the alien ship opened, the hyphen should be turned a quarter to the right, which makes his name not Dan-El, but Daniel!"
The child looked up at the name, which made Jack smile in triumph. "See! His name is Daniel! Daniel Fenton!"
Maddie hummed affirmatively. "That would make sense," she said absentmindedly, obviously still pondering about the alien culture her new son came from. After a minute of silence, she sighed regretfully. "It is a shame the capsule was filled with an alien child though, and not with a ghost we could use to experiment on in order to further our research on the portal, but he does look like you and Jazz has always wanted to have a little brother."
When a week later, a five year old boy who couldn't speak, understand or write English with the name Daniel Fenton suddenly appeared at the public elementary school and was listed as their biological son, the residents of Amity Park just shook their heads exasperatedly while muttering 'Typical, the Fentons'.
*******
The Ancient of Time, often known as Clockwork, but also known as Destiny of the Endless, smiled regretfully at that moment. Dan-El, or Daniel as he was now known, had not had an easy existence. Normally he couldn't care less about the tragic fate of yet another random mortal, but Destiny had foreseen how one day, he himself, would care about the boy as if he were his own son. That was something that had never happened before, and it made him feel uneasy.
Why would he ever care about a mortal being in such a way? He wasn't his brother Dream, who for some reason he couldn't fathom, just loved to be around them. Nor was he his sister, Death, who wasn't much better.
What was so special about the boy besides him being fated to be the Ghost King and being one of the last of an otherwise dead species? Perhaps it was his tragic life? He was born adored by his parents, but unknown to everyone else on Krypton and was separated from them at the mere age of three months to be sent away in a capsule, and therefore missed five years of his existence, and was fated to die at his tender age of fourteen.
Although tragic, Krypton was destined to die the way it did. Kal-El was destined to become Superman, and Dan-El to become The High King of the Infinite Realms. It would be better for him if the one he would one day care about as a son wouldn't have to suffer so much.
Of course, he knew better than anyone to mess with time and destiny, as it never went well, and that some things were simply fixed points in every possible timeline in every universe (and beyond), lest the universe itself would collapse and everything and everyone in it would die, or cease to ever have existed in the first place, as he would need to erase it from existence. It had been something he had done in the past out of necessity and was something he undoubtedly had to do in the future.
Especially with all those annoying Flashes. Destiny did not understand what the Speedforce saw in them, but alas, some things were simply fated to be. Young Daniel's death was one of them. As was Dan's existence and Danielle's. As was Daniel's ascendance as the High king of the Infinite Realms.
What truly interested and worried him though, was that he could not foresee the fate of the one he would one day see as his own son beyond that. His ascendance as the Ghost King was where Daniel's story ended in the book of Destiny and no matter how much he tried, even he was unable to see beyond it.
It should have been impossible, and yet, it was. Perhaps this, too, was destined to happen.