DP x DC prompt where Danny winds up in Gotham and, after expressing that he’s all alone and just wandering the city aimlessly, he finds himself adopted by Bruce– as Phantom.
Because if you’ve already adopted a bunch of kids, why not throw a ghost into the mix?
Danny just goes along with it, nervous but not really having any other options. If Bruce Wayne wants to adopt a ghost and feed him, why not humor the man? If they figure out he’s not actually a full ghost, he can always skip town and they’ll never see him again.
Only… Danny’s not sure how he keeps up the charade as long as he does. The moment he finds out he’s not only been adopted by Bruce Wayne, but the Batman, Danny’s just waiting for the inevitable. Surely, Batman will eventually find out who he is.
But it just… doesn’t happen. The family doesn’t really have any reason to assume that a ghost is somehow still alive. They assumed he might be a meta at first, but the kid literally has no pulse and doesn’t breathe. And sure, Danny disappears sometimes (to sleep) and it’s a little weird he eats– but he also speaks in tongues and can fly through the ceiling, so what do they know? Constantine’s been no help, claiming he “doesn’t want to touch this situation with a ten foot pole”, so they’re just sort of figuring out ghost brother shenanigans on the fly.
They’re more curious who Danny was while living, but (due to a mixture of ghostly interference in Amity, Tucker purging files, the GIW fucking with Amity Park’s exposure to the outside world, and Danny giving them no answers), the bats haven’t been able to find jackshit about Phantom and it’s a bit of a sore spot where egos are concerned. There’s a secret race going on to find info on Phantom first. Danny is aware of it and thinks it’s very endearing and funny. He also desperately wants one of them to succeed already.
The longer it takes for them to (not) figure it out, Danny gets more and more annoyed. At the very start he wanted to keep his identity a secret– new place, new people, how was he supposed to know how they’d react?– but he quickly grew enamored with the family and now trusts them. Besides, they’ve already accepted him as a ghost so, really, what’s there to lose? He’s pretty sure one of his new brothers is like ¼ ghost anyway.
Now Danny’s just been waiting– begging– for them to figure it out. He could just tell them. It would be so easy, but god he’s so committed to this now. Why is this taking so long.
It really starts to come to a head once the family develops non-ghost related nicknames for Danny. Jason in particular likes to joke about how Danny has severely broken the “blue-eyed, black-haired” mold and gives him nicknames like “Wildcard”, “Dove”, and “Uno Reverse”.
Danny is about ready to snap.
One day, a few of them are about to head out on a mission and Danny asks to tag along. Jason jokingly says, “Sorry Dove, black hair club only.”
Danny just transforms on the spot, keeping his face comically neutral (as much as he can while watching his new family have a collective breakdown.)
