Phandom United

Aunt Alicia had always been an oddball. She was a loner who kept to herself after her divorce. Chose to live in a small cabin in Arkansas in the middle of nowhere, and celebrate her independence from her ex.

Except what if none of that was actually true?

Yes, Alicia and Maddie were sisters; Alicia was a few years older than Maddie, with very different views of life. Alicia had been living this lie for so long that she almost forgot it wasn’t true.

Alicia might have been her true identity, but it wasn’t her only identity. She had once been known as Martha Wayne, and had a son. But after her “death”, she knew she needed to stay away. The death was a set up, a warning from the court of Owls. She knew this, but she didn’t want to put her son in danger. So she kept her distance.

Alicia had survived because of Maddie, she had kept Alicia alive with ectoplasm. Alicia had become a halfa from the exposure—the second of her kind.

When Danny was 14 and Bruce was 30, everything changed. Danny found out his Aunt’s secret after his accident, and Bruce found out his mother had been alive and he had more relatives than he had known about.

The heroes have lost.

Superman, Wonder Woman, and Shazam are dead. The only thing that’s kept Batman alive was his wit, but that’s not enough.

His wit didn’t save his children.

His wit didn’t save Alfred.

His wit didn’t stop the world from burning.

He’s become desperate for a miracle. He had never been desperate before, but all hope had been lost. He was one of the last teams of heroes that had survived the initial onslaught. He had no contingency plans, nothing he could invent. No weapon, no weakness.

His desperate plea was so strong it went through the fabric of the dimensions. Clockwork, who normally had no intention of looking into that dimension, decided to look at the timeline. He didn’t like what he saw, so he appeared before Bruce Wayne in the middle of the night. After a brief discussion, he decided to send Bruce back in time.

When Bruce opened his eyes next, he scrambled to find the date. He almost laughed in relief when he realized that this was the day he had become Batman. The day he had first donned the cowl. He was over twenty years in the past, and he still had the knowledge of what had brought the timeline to the brink of disaster last time.

Clockwork gave him a gift. A son named Danny, to be raised by Bruce. The boy was a newborn infant, with a head full of black hair and startling blue eyes. He didn’t know what Danny’s backstory was, or why Clockwork had possession of the infant, but he wasn’t going to ask questions. His world was safe, and he had another chance to prevent the end of the world twenty years early.

He would love his son as if he was his own flesh and blood. Then he would be the best Batman the world had ever seen.

In an effort to try to get Damian not to be so formal, Bruce tells Damian that he can call him Dad instead of Father. Damian detests this, but decides to put his own twist on it.

The morning after their talk, Damian strides into the dining room for breakfast. “Salutations, male paternal figure. Where is your adoptive paternal figure? I wish to request bananas with my avocado this morning.”

Bruce slowly puts down the newspaper he had been reading. “Damian, why are you like this?”

Damian hid a smirk and appeared his best to look innocent. “I do not know what you mean, male parent.”

Bruce sighs.

One of the Batkids is hiding a secret. Nobody is sure who it is, and nobody will confess. It started with a book. The book was what to expect with a pregnancy. Then odd things started to turn up around the manor. One of the spare bedrooms had been turned into a nursery, a baby blanket was found in the library, and multiple pacifiers, bottles, and burp cloths had been hidden around the manor.

Bruce was going to go insane if he didn’t figure it out. It had been over a month now. The only one he knew that couldn’t be the culprit was Damian, since he was only 10. The rest of them were suspects.

Combination of two things. 1. It’s all fun and games until someone (or someone else) gets hurt and 2. I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.

Cut to Danny throwing Dan out a window. Dan throwing Danny across the city. Dani throwing Danny. Danny throwing Jazz into Dan’s waiting arms (she was fine.)

The four siblings keep their games up, but instead of throwing each other, they throw objects when in human form in public.

It’s all fun and games until you hit Brucie Wayne in the face with a stapler.

Bruce was sitting in front of a fire. He had just gotten done cooking his dinner, and had began eating. A teen he didn’t recognize sat next to him. Bruce barely paid the teen any attention; in this time period, kids were more fiercely independent than the teens of his age were.

“So,” The teen drawled, getting his attention.

Bruce internally growled. He didn’t want to make small talk. Just as he was about to tell the teen off, the teen continued speaking.

“What’s Bruce Wayne doing in 1732?”

He choked on his food. He hadn’t heard that name in years. He had gotten stuck in the past during a League mission, and apparently, nobody could save him… or maybe they didn’t know when to look. He had covered his tracks well, since he didn’t want to disturb the timeline too much.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He deflected.

“Oh? So we’re playing it like that?” The teen hummed, swinging his legs. “You won’t be born for over two hundred years, in a city that doesn’t exist yet, to fight crime as the vigilante known as Batman.”

The teenager was a time traveller. Hope sparked him his chest. Maybe… maybe he could go home. “You’re a time traveller.” He chose to ignore the part where the teen knew he was Batman.

“Yeah,” The teen said. “I’m Danny. I’m from your future, about, uh, five years after you vanished? Dick adopted me. Found me dead in an alley and brought me back to life. Brought me into the fold, and stuff. I have powers, and one of them is to travel in time. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to find where you went.”

The teen looked like adoption bait. He could understand why Dick would’ve adopted him. But then again, he was still stuck on the part where Dick had adopted a kid at the same age he had adopted Dick.

“Are you here to take me home?” He asked.

“If you want to.” Danny hummed, “But uh, can’t be to the time you left. Timeline disruptions and all that, yknow? I can take you to my time. It’s like… ten years after you vanished.”

“Please.” Bruce begged. And how far had he fallen to beg a teen?

Danny grinned. “Dad’s going to be so jazzed!”

Early JL days. Except one change: Jazz Fenton is Green Lantern instead of Hal Jordan or John Stewart. When the alien crashed in the desert , Jazz tried to save him but wasn’t successful. Jazz had spent the majority of her time off planet with Danny exploring the universe after he became Ghost King. She didn’t even know the last time she had been to Earth. She had pretty much given up her life as a human, which she was okay with. She had nothing left there anyways.

So when Jazz becomes GL, this leads Bruce to knowing nothing about her or her human identity. She had nothing recent. Bruce hates this unknown, and vows to learn everything about her.

He never planned to fall in love with her.

Danny was adopted by Bruce. Everything was going right for him, for the first time in forever. He was getting good grades in school, he had friends, he didn’t have to be Phantom (unless he wanted to). He has to go to the Ghost Zone on some business (could be ghost king or not). But humans can’t come with him because they wouldn’t survive a long time in the Ghost Zone. So Danny says goodbye to his father and siblings for his few day trip into the Zone.

When he comes out of the Zone, he looks for his family only to find their gravesite because he wasn’t there to help save them.