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The Bats didn’t often make use of Soulmate Fears to take control of situations with Rogues on a rampage with zero alternative methods of subduing them, but sometimes they did have to. It was never a good feeling when it happened, but the Bats tried to be as respectful as they could about it whenever it happened.
Grundy was a villain that was well known to be Unafraid. Maybe not the most intelligent, but Unafraid and unkillable was nothing to laugh about. It often meant that they had to pray they could actually take Grundy down or hope that Grundy grew calm or bored with whatever he had been doing that brought them to fight the Bats in the first place.
The day they saw a hint of fear in Grundy’s eyes was the day they returned to the cave to reevaluate everything they knew to figure out exactly what it was. After twelve long hours post-patrol pouring over every ounce of info they had, the only answer they had come up with was Dick’s escrima sticks, but they had never bothered him before.
Grundy had a Soulmate after all.
Danny had been deeply fearful of things around his neck or being anywhere near his neck ever since his parents could remember, and gunshots seemed to really scare their son more than what they felt was normal.
It wasn’t hard to figure out that the Fentons’ youngest had a Soulmate, a very traumatized one, at that. Not that it made a difference to Maddie and Jack.
Though they definitely added a more science fiction-y flare to their ecto-weaponry for Danny so he wasn’t scared of it or his parents while they worked. Bullies learned quickly to not touch Danny’s neck or the Fenton’s would be up in arms over it, and any retaliation that Danny had gave in response would be forgiven due to special circumstances.
The Fentons had always been just a little protective of Danny. Extra large shirts so the neckline had enough room to not sit around his neck. No scarves. Winter coats had to be the style that had a bigger neck so Danny could still be protected from the cold. Danny removed any strings from his hoodies before he put them on, but Maddie and Jack made sure that the hoodies were always big enough that the hood itself didn’t trigger the Fear when it was down around his neck.
It was a very tragic Fear to have, and the Fentons had prepared Danny to live without a Soulmate on the likely chance that Danny's soulmate died in the events that lead to Danny’s Fears. Danny was alright with this, well, as alright as one could be.
The day of Danny’s portal accident, Danny felt strangely calm about being crushed by a whole fucking dimension until his atoms were nothing and the electric charge of the particles fusing killed and revived him.
Was it fucked up? Oh yeah, but Danny was just frustrated to constantly be falling through the floor and getting stuck in walls.
“Dude, you traumatized the hell out of your Soulmate!” Tucker laughed a few days later.
“They were already traumatized enough, in my opinion,” Danny grumbled as he rubbed his neck, “Besides, no one plans on dying like that.”
“Very true. I didn’t think it would actually work, to be honest,” Tucker said awkwardly even as Sam whacked him in the back of the head.
“Dude? Most of their crackpot inventions did nothing until the portal opened and the ectoplasm absorbed into their weapons.
“So, if I dip my computer into the green sauce, I’ll be good,” Tucker nodded along.
Danny snorted, “Dunk your soulmate into the land of the dead. They’ll last forever! Can you imagine if that was actually a thing people said.”
Sam shrugged as she waved her novel of the week in his face, “It is a fairly popular trope, but more like ‘your love is waiting for you’ and less ‘we both died and here we are’.”
“I,” Danny deadpanned as he looked over at Sam with a deadpan expression, “Hate you.”
“Love you too, buddy.”
In between fighting a million ghosts and keeping his town safe, Danny did, in actuality, manage to find some time to himself to complete his homework.
Not very well, but it was completed, and that's what mattered. He found a ghost fighting-school work balance. Did it mean he slept one hour a night and just had to deal with that in between a million power naps? Yes, but it was better than the alternative result of having failing grades and the no-sleep he'd had before.
Everything fell into place by the time Danny was sixteen and attempting to prepare for community college. He’d been working on another literary essay with his tv on in the background for static noise as he bullshitted a justification for the symbolism he was trying to defend in one of Sam’s horrible gothic novels. Sam said the symbolism wasn’t there, but neither was Danny’s ability to give a fuck. He wasn’t changing the topic of his essay.
Danny paid no mind to the flare of fear that rose as his shirt brushed against the back of his neck a he threw his head down into his arms and screeched, “Stupid Sam, stupid essay, stupid fucking Fear, I can’t think!”
The Fear that creeped up Danny’s spine grew worse and worse until Danny was forced to sit up and relieve his neck from the sensation of his own skin touching it. He took a breath and did his best to wait for the Fear to pass, but it didn’t. The Fear just grew, and Danny quickly found the air vanishing from his lungs. Tears fell from his eyes before he could realize he was crying. It felt like something was squeezing his neck and scratching as it grew tighter and tighter.
His computer screen blurred as he pushed back from his desk as if giving himself more space within his bedroom would stop the almost-ever-present Fear. Even as the world swirled around him, the tv on his wall remained everclear, and his eyes caught the shaky camera work of a reporter who definitely should have absconded from the area for not having good enough benefits for being on ground zero of a villain attack.
It was a horrible shot of some ruined street that Danny vaguely recognized as Gotham because Batman and his hoard of side kicks were zooming around the street. It was a weird feeling, but Danny wasn’t paying attention to that even as the darkness crept in from the sides of his vision.
Danny’s hands were shaking. Was it just his hands? Because it felt like everything was trembling uncontrollably.
His eyes stayed locked onto the infamous Solomon Grundy as a cord wrapped around his neck and actively being pulled by the stupid fucking Batmobile.
The rope probably didn’t feel the same, Danny faintly noted as the world grew darker and darker, but he couldn’t breath anyways. The Fear in his chest was all encompassing. Even as the air refused to re-enter Danny’s lungs, and dizziness took over, Danny uselessly tried to work through the Fear like always.
It didn’t work. Danny pitched forward and fell from his chair, and helplessly watched everything fade to black as he watched his Soulmate, and felt the panic response his Soulmate would otherwise be experiencing in the moment.
Jack and Maddie found their son on the floor an hour later, passed out from Fear, with shaky, fluttery, shallow breaths, and paler than snow.
It wasn’t hard for Danny to figure out that Solomon Grundy was his Soulmate. He kind of wished he didn’t know. The man’s history was online for all to see, and seeing the noose that rested around his neck was enough to feel like there were worms wriggling just below his skin. More research into Grundy’s accounted for injuries told Danny all he needed to know about his other fears. Lynched and shot at while hanging there dying told Danny exactly why his Fears were so terrible.
His parents had been right, but his Soulmate, apparently, got up and walked it off just like Danny.
He aced the essay and turned his grades around. He was getting into Gotham University even if it killed him, just so he could meet his Soulmate.
Gotham University offered a pretty fucking great mechanical engineering degree, and since Danny had years of experience with crazy weaponry and inventions that had no business functioning, let alone functioning well.
Danny’s professors hated him, but that was fine. Danny was thriving in his element, and if his professors couldn’t figure out how he managed to make his broken toaster inventions work, that was on them.
He didn’t stay in a dorm. Safety hazard: Danny had breakdowns on the daily, and everyone felt better with Danny having a space for himself. The bonus came with the fact that he didn’t have to hide being a ghost or being a dead superhero.
It was exam season before Danny heard anything about Solomon Grundy, and by that he meant that he finished his last practical exam on no sleep and was blankly trying to go home hen he’d literally heard his Soulmate.
The sunset over Gotham was a gorgeous way to end his semester, and the shouts and screams of a voice he’d heard hundreds of times online whenever he looked up news clips of his Soulmate.
He was already headed in the direction he could hear them fighting when lightning seemed to shoot off from the sky.
Having been in Gotham for the better part of a year and experiencing too many Rogue attacks already where Danny wasn't responsible for anything other than keeping himself safe, it felt weird to head straight towards the weirdly controlled lightning and pissed off sounds of Solomon and whoever pissed his hot headed Soulmate off.
Danny wasn't actually sure if Solomon was a hot head, but, as he sprinted down the sidewalk and around the corner, he realized he was about to find out.
Solomon Grundy was different when Danny wasn't looking at him through a screen.
Danny wasn't exactly sure who Grundy was fighting, but the frantic shots of lightning reminded Danny a lot of his portal accident as he ran into the streets where a weird Faraday-looking-cage was set up, along with villains Danny didn’t recognize as being from Gotham. From the shouts of some of the Bats, he could be pretty sure that, at the very least, the green dude on top of the lightning rod who was commanding the lightning was definitely not a Gotham Rogue.
“Flash!” Danny peered over at Red Robin across the Square as he shouted over the wind that whipped through the open space, “You really gotta keep your crazy Rogues out of Gotham!”
“It’s not my fault my Rogues sometimes are also international Criminals, okay?!” The famous speedster shouted as he ran in the opposite direction of the wind to manage it as best as he possibly could so everyone else could manage the situation.
“Yeah, well they’re messing with our villains, and I don’t know if you’ve met Grundy before, but he’s not one we like to have to deal with!” Red Robin screamed back louder as Grundy roared across the space.
Danny couldn’t help but feel defensive as he stumbled through the wind to get closer, “Rude, much?!”
“Dude! Get out of here!” Red Robin shouted as he did a double take and the civilian in a baggy shirt and jeans hat had entered the Square, “It’s not safe! Grundy’s pissed and dealing with Soulmate Fear!”
“Seriously?!” Flash asked as he ran by.
Danny nodded solemnly as he kept walking closer to the reverse Faraday cage, “I know.”
He couldn’t hear Red Robin’s response over the lightning that struck the ground near him. He knew that if it was an enclosed space with green lightning and glowing substances, they’d have a much bigger problem than Grundy’s mild panic attack, but Danny knew well what prolonged Soulmate Fear drove people to do.
Danny knew because he was swallowing his own even as the wind that made his shirt brush against his neck made the panic come in waves.
“Solomon! Solomon Grundy!”
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted even as rings appeared around his waist and began to expand outwards.
“... Is he a Lantern?” Barry asked as he ran passed and watched the man’s clothes fade into a black and white jumpsuit.
“In what world do Lantern’s look like that?” Red Robin responds as he watches the black hair turn as white as Grundy’s own hair, “ Oh… Guys, guys, look! By the Weather Wizard.”
Tim had to Brace himself as Barry scooped him out of the way of a stray bolt of lightning. He could see Bruce, Dick, Damian, and Jason pause in trying to cut the power to the immediate area as they turned to see who had arrived only to see a random man with a Gotham U shirt transform into what they had hoped was a hero.
“I’m Danny!” Danny shouted as he floated in front of the Faraday cage. He ignored the irate man in green as his eyes locked with his Soulmate’s agitated ones, even as the lightning fired off around him constantly, “I’ve been looking for you!”
Danny reached forwards and gripped the metal of the cage as the next round of electricity fired off. In fairness, it was way less voltage than what had killed him the first time, but he watched the agitation in his Soulmate elevate as Danny redirected the charges toward himself instead of randomly into the open area around them.
“I’m okay! I’m alright, I promise!” Danny screamed as he watched Grundy’s anxiety fill the zombie with the need to lash out. Danny knew it was pointless to try and reassure him.
He could only imagine what he looked like as the lightning struck him and ravaged his body seemingly mercilessly.
“Dude! Can you fucking stop with the lightning?! You’re scaring my Soulmate!” Danny screamed up at the fucker in the green jumpsuit.
Danny reached up and snagged his ankle and released some of the charge into the man. He made sure he didn’t grab the jerk for any longer than five seconds even with Danny’s own body processing and insulation most of the electricity. He wasn’t trying to kill the villain.
He only let go of the Faraday when the Villain had fallen from the top and the shocks had subsided.
Danny barely noted how the metal had all frozen over as he pried his hands free and floated back. He ignored the bodily tremors as he moved towards the behemoth of a man who still looked like he was going to strike at any moment.
“Hi!” Danny croaked with a cheeky grin, “Sorry about that, but I… promise you’ll never have the full Fear Reaction? My… thing… is a little too rare to encounter outside of the right circumstances.”
Danny floated up a little more so Grundy didn’t lock onto the stupid lightning man more than he’d already been trying to.
“I’m Danny,” The ghost said softly, “I’ve been looking for you for a while. Sorry it took so long to get to you.”
“Solomon Grundy,” Came the gruff introduction.
Danny couldn’t help the laughter, “Yeah, I know. I had quite the realization when I was, like, sixteen and found out that you were my Soulmate.”
Danny let Solomon look him over, even letting him grab at his arms to check for damage. It was fine in Danny's books as long as he didn’t hurt him, and he strongly doubted it would be that kind of scenario.
He listened to the soft sound of a cape behind him. Danny looked over his shoulder and made the world’s awkwardest eye contact with Batman.
“So. I heard you don’t like metas, but, uh, hear me out?” Danny asked as he landed in front of Grundy on weak, shaky legs.
Batman just stared at him blankly for a moment, but Danny wasn’t sure if that was a yes or a no for the hearing him out.
“I just wanted to go to school and find my Soulmate,” Danny defended, “And you can’t tell me I can’t. Please, I just got to find him,” He begged softly.
“Solomon Grundy is a well known Rogue,” Bruce cautioned as he looked over the young man as he transformed back into his civilian identity, “If you, and Grundy, are willing to work with us and the Justice League, we will set up supports for you.”
Danny let out a breath and swayed back against Grundy. A pair of hands wrapped around and laid themselves against his chest to keep him safely standing and supported. He twisted his head and looked up to see steady steeled eyes looking back. Danny didn't think it would be emotional, and, really, it wasn't, but there was something so intensely freeing about locking eyes with your Soulmate and knowing without a doubt no one would understand him better.
“... You okay with that?” Danny whispered softly, “It’s your call. Mechanical engineering is fun, and fucking with my professors is even more fun, but if you’re not comfortable, we can figure something else out.”
“... Grundy want to try,” The zombie whispered back, “Never had a Soulmate.”
“Nah, buddy, you had one. I think I was just late. Or maybe you were super early,” Danny teased as the other Bats began to gather.
“You realize he’s also super dead?” Nightwing grinned as he set his hands on his hips.
Danny laughed as he raised his arms in a shrug, “Same here, I mean, half-dead, but it counts,” Danny smiled tiredly and set his hands on top of Grundy’s. He patted the larger hands and gripped them carefully, “Speaking of, actually. Dude, no offense, but can you please, please, please take the noose off? It’s really upsetting for me, and I’m going to freak out soon…”
“Grundy can’t take it off,” Solomon attempted to sooth by gently pressing Danny against his torso, “Too tight.”
Bruce frowned as he watched the two Soulmates try to stabilize each other. He stepped forward before he could see Danny having a full Soulmate Fear crisis state when he was already able to endure and direct lightning and high voltage electricity.
“If you let me, I’ll help you cut it off,” Bruce offered gently, “I’ll be as quick as I can. I don’t want to cause you more Fear than necessary.”
Danny shrugged nonchalantly even as Grundy curled over Danny to better look into his eyes. Grundy nudged the side of Danny’s face with a careful arm, “Up to you. Danny okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” Danny shrugged, “I’ve handled worse. I can take it.”
Bruce waved a hand at Barry, clearing him to take his Rogue into custody as Dick and Tim helped Grundy to sit down with Danny securely sitting in his lap and chatting with Bruce’s sons softly as they tried to support him through the Soulmate Fear that was probably beginning to climb as Bruce took out a batarang and approached Grundy.
“If you wouldn’t mind leaning down, then I’ll be as quick as I can,” Bruce assured softly as he nodded toward Danny who’d begun chatting in earnest with Tim and Dick, “For his sake.”
Danny felt the moment Batman began to touch the noose because the tidal wave of panic filled Danny instantly instead of being just agitated waters that licked around his ankles. He squeezed Nightwing’s hand as he talked about engineering with Red Robin. Neither hero judged him when his sentences became more fractured and disjointed. They just kept trying to hold his focus over the horrible feeling encircling his neck and constricting around his heart.
Danny swallowed through the height of the panic and tremors.
When the noose fell from around Grundy’s neck, a peace unlike any Danny had ever known flooded his system.
It was…. Incredibly strange, Danny supposed, to move out of his apartment and into a house on the outskirts of Gotham at the Justice League’s request and dime.
Post-panic attack from Batman cutting the noose from Grundy’s neck, Danny found a gaggle of Bats in his living room. It was incredibly strange to have Robin, Red Robin, Red Hood, Nightwing, and Batman all piled around his tiny coffee table helping him figure out a living arrangement when Danny crawled out of bed the next morning.
It felt stupid pouring out orange juice for everyone, but Danny didn’t exactly know how to invite heroes into his home when they were already there.
“You realize that Solomon Grundy is an undead supervillain?” Robin had pointed out with a scowl, “We cannot simply ignore that you are Soulmates.”
“I would like to take this time to point out to you that I am a half-ghost superhero,” Danny said tiredly and patted Robin’s shoulder, “And I’m well aware of you not being able to ignore this. You broke into my apartment, and all of you are here.”
“I mean, I’m more here to see how this works out,” Red Hood piped up, “But I also came with some locations that you can stay within the outskirts of the city where Grundy isn’t that likely to raise concern.”
“I also have a list of locations, both in and out of town, that might work for the two of you,” Red Robin added as he set a tablet down on the second hand up-cycled table, “We understand that an actual decision can’t be made without Grundy, but we have too many options to bring to him. He might not like that we want to move him into a location that’s more easily monitored.”
Dan tilted his head back and forth as he nodded along, “yeah, maybe not. He’s not a fan of being controlled from what I’ve seen from other news articles.”
“Yeah, usually doesn’t go well,” Nightwing chuckled as he leaned over the table with his arms draped casually over his section of the table, “Usually, we try and do damage control or diffuse the situation.”
“We’re… trying to be fair here. You’re a university student, apparently a hero in your own right, and, technically, there is no federal law that can prosecute Grundy for his actions, so we wanna come up with a solution that lets you continue your life, and spend it with Grundy if that’s what you want to do, but it is also our responsibility to monitor you both now,” Red Robin said awkwardly. He ruffled his hair as he swiped through different housing options.
“Uh… I mean, yeah. Kinda surprised Amity Park never made it to the League’s attention considering me and a bunch of beings from another realm had to phase a meteorite through Earth a few years back,” Danny said as he looked at the places that flicked by, “Some… renovations are gonna be needed so he can fit through the doors? I can do it myself if I need to, but I don’t mind.”
“... That was you?!” Nightwing choked an his orange juice.
“Yeah? Ghosts can make things intangible. Hundreds of Ghosts working together can make a meteorite that would have absolutely destroyed Earth entirely intangible and let it pass through,” Danny placed a finger against the little table without warning. Three glasses of orange juice fell to the floor and splashed across the heroes’ legs. Danny blinked, and looked at where his own orange juice sat in his other hand, and glanced over to Nightwing taking a sip of his own juice, “... In my defense, I just got up. I’ve never had a night where I had no anxiety whatsoever. Sleep hit me hard.”
“It’s alright,” Batman acknowledged as the table faded back into view. He tapped it with a finger and nodded to his sons, “Would you be willing to tell us about your time as a hero, and whether or not you have retired?”
“Well, not retired, but everyone knows if they interrupt my schooling, it better be for a good reason. If I’m paying fifty thousand dollars a year, then the gloves are off if they’re going to disturb me,” Danny admitted flatly, “But usually, they’re just nuisances, except for stopping the apocalypse from taking over the Material Plane instead of Remaining in the Infinite Realms every so often.”
“... Trigon?” Nightwing asked unsurely at the description that scratched at something in his brain that Raven had told him years ago.
Danny squinted back, “... The nephew?”
“No?”
“Big, red, grouchy, multiple eyes, white hair, horns, hates pants, asshole?” Danny described unsurely.
“... Yeah?” Dick answered back, “He’s my friend’s dad, causes the apocalypse when he enters this dimension.”
“He’s a punk,” Danny snorted, “No, I mean his uncle, the one who’s entitled to all existence, which, while it makes sense as King of the Infinite Realms, I am kind of sick of kicking his ass to keep him in check.”
“Don’t know about you, B,” Hood said with a smirk, “But if we text Raven and get confirmation that Daddy has an uncle, then I think Danny here will be just fine with Grundy.”
“If you ask her, I’m not gonna get more unannounced visitors, am I?”
The short answer was yes. Down the road, Danny would get a kick out of heroes forcibly socializing his Soulmate via visiting Danny.
The house on the edge of Gotham that Danny and Solomon ended up picking had a main floor, an upstairs, and a basement. It was on the edge of Gotham closest to Slaughter Swamp for Grundy, and the Justice league covered Danny’s bus pass to get to University every day.
Grundy didn’t have much opinion on the colour of the outside, but Danny painted blue. Neither wanted a picket fence, but Danny did help Grundy try out gardening in the backyard.
Danny never bothered locking the doors or windows of the house, which may have been a stupid decision in Gotham, but Grundy never slept. They only locked the door when the zombie wasn’t home. Grundy was also the only one who bothered to carry a key around. Danny just phased through.
It was the month after Danny and Solomon had actually moved in that the doorbell chimed. It wasn’t unusual. Most of the Bats swung by every once and awhile. Danny shuffled his laptop to his new coffee table and shuffled over to the door.
He wasn’t expecting a lady in a cloak floating on the other side.
“Uh, hi? I’m Danny, can I… Help you?”
“I’m Raven, Nightwing said that you consider my Father a pest rather than a threat,” She said emotionlessly.
“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that,” Danny scratched his head, “I’m used to dealing with Pariah, so Trigon really is just a pest to me.”
“... You know his name,” Raven said as she pulled her hood down.
“Who? Pariah? Yeah, most Ghosts know his name,” Danny shrugged as he led her inside.
“Most people don’t. His name is forbidden knowledge in magic circles,” Raven said as she walked inside.
“News to me,” He shrugged, “I’m used to being the weird one for learning his name late. Come on in, there’s muffins in the oven, and having a reason to avoid homework while Grundy’s out in the garden sounds great.”
After that, Danny just did his best to prepare for unannounced visitors all the time. Sort of. Sometimes, he had to bribe his adoring Soulmate to let go of their visitor and not crack them in half like a stick of celery. Most of the time, Danny got a kick out of Solomon Grundy answering the door for some hero on the other end and scaring the crap out of them.