The Boy king and The Dark Knights

II

"How  not to deal with stalkers"
By Jason Todd
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WHEN DANNY WOKE UP, he couldn’t remember how old he was.

He knew he was sixteen, a high school drop out and ghost royalty and having lived a life so full of action and growing with so many great and horrible times he could never forget-

But at the same time he had just had his seventh birthday and he was just a boy who knew nothing about the world and didn’t believe in ghosts and was so dependent on his sister and friends-

Danny lifted his too small body off of the ground, trying to open his eyes without disturbing his pounding head. He saw what seemed like a wall in front of him, so he turned his body and pushed his back up against it, not standing but happy to be off the floor.

Once he got over the slowly receding headache, Danny became more aware of his body, and kinda wanted the headache back.

He felt like he had been stretched like taffy and then squished into a small box. It reminded him a bit of being stuck in the Fenton thermos, and the memory of that terrible day sent a shiver down his spine.

He held his unusually small hands up to his face and came to a conclusion.

Clockwork had fucking de-aged him.

The bastard.

Danny flung his fist into the wall that was supporting him in anger, then immediately flinched away when he heard a metallic crunching sound.

Childlike panic filled his small body as he looked at the bowling ball size dent he had made in what he could now tell was a dumpster.

Danny quickly realized that clockwork definitely did not just plain de-age him, as he could feel the ectoplasm racing through his body and he still had his memories somewhat intact.

Danny shoved his head into his hands and groaned. He knew clockwork would never do anything truly malicious to him, but ancients he wished the ghost was more transparent (heh, ghost pun) with him.

Danny stewed in his thoughts until his ghost sense started bubbling in the back of his throat. He quickly looked around himself, but the alleyway was dark and still.

It took Danny a moment to realize that while he could definitely feel the blue smog in the back of his throat, it wasn’t leaving his mouth. Deciding that whatever this anomaly was, it was probably what Clockwork wanted him to investigate, Danny set off.

—

Jason Todd was annoyed. He hadn’t been annoyed all day, in fact up until about a few hours ago his day had been pretty decent. Then the scarecrow decided to make a mess a bit too close to crime alley and Jason had to work together with the replacement to beat him down.