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Phantom slipped through the window of his apartment, barely managing to suppress another round of coughing. His whole body hurt now. When he first met Red Hood, he knew the man had been his soulmate, but Red Hood had been avoiding him. Well, him as Phantom. Red Hood didn’t even know Danny existed. It wasn’t until Danny had starting coughing up the flowers that he knew he was…in a word, fucked. Phantom let his transformation wash over him with a groan and dropped to the floor like a boulder.
And the reason that Phantom had known Hood was his soulmate was the mark that he’d seen on the other’s arm during the one time when their patrols had crossed. Phantom had only seen it for a moment, but it had been enough to identify Hood as his soulmate. One half of the Orion Constellation surrounding a red-glowing sword. Danny had the other half. If they lined up their forearms, the Constellation and Sword would be completed.
The first flower that Danny had coughed up had been a white stargazer lily. It had only been a few petals, but it had been enough for Danny to pull up a quick Google search to see what kind of flower it was and why he was hacking up flowers from his damn lungs.
Hanahaki disease.
A disease where flowers grew in the body, specifically the lungs, due to unrequited love, usually romantic but could be platonic (Danny didn’t think there was anything platonic about his feelings for Red Hood), and would continue to grow until one of two things happened. Either the party with hanahaki died, or the other party acknowledged the love and returned it. Either way, Danny was fucked.
Danny couldn’t approach Hood as Phantom because Hood had made it exceptionally clear that Phantom was to stay away from Crime Alley. And Danny wasn’t too sure that he could even venture out as Danny in his current condition. Phantom was the only keeping him alive…er well half-alive.
Because he was no longer JUST coughing up lilies. About three weeks after the first petal had appeared, he’d coughed up a full bloom. The second flower that appeared was a gardenia which Danny had learned represented secret love. Danny found it ironic considering the nature of the disease.
He was now three months into the progression of the hanahaki, and he’d been coughing up a veritable bouquet. Peonies. Orchids. Carnations. Roses by the dozens. And a gods-be-damned sunflower. That one had hurt the worst just because of how huge it was. As the flower came out, his whole body had seized in pain as the flower struggled to clear his airways. Once the flower had come out, he’d coughed up what looked like a whole pint of blood afterwards.
He didn’t know how he was going to clean the floor. Oh sure, he knew how clean up blood and ectoplasm (thank you years of experience of being Phantom and dodging his parents and their inventions). He just wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to move his body. His head felt floaty, like he’d taken entirely too much cold medicine or was high (he hadn’t taken anything), and his body was wracked with too much pain to move.
The worst part was the knocking.
Oh wait.
That was someone knocking at his door. With a cuss, he shoved his arms underneath him and forced himself to sit up. His legs wobbled as he used his rickety coffee table to stand, and his vision went spotty as he fully stood up. He braced himself against the wall as he hobbled over to the door. He had to lean against it for a moment before he could undo the multiple locks. By the time he was able to open the door, he thought he was going to murder the person on the other side. Because his head was pounding in time with the knocking, and his lungs were spasming to the same rhythm.
“Ye…yes?” He croaked out when he finally, finally got the damned door open. He was pretty sure he looked a hot mess. He knew there was tear track running down his face. Who knew what his hair looked like. Danny sure as hell didn’t. He was fairly certain there was blood splattered across his mouth because he hadn’t wiped it from the latest coughing fit. Not to mention that blood that likely visible pooling on the floor.
“WHAT. THE. FUCK.” Came the hardened voice from the man on the other side of the door.
Danny peaked up through his bangs which had gotten long and gasped. There, standing in the open doorway, in a pair of dark jeans, a Wonder Woman t-shirt, with a brown leather jacket slung over his shoulder was none other than Red Hood. Well, his civilian identity anyways. Danny could tell that the other man, a right proper brick shithouse, was just as shocked as Danny.
“Do you…uh…wanna come in?” Danny asked as he shuffled nervously.
The man (Danny staunchly refused to call him Hood because that was Secret Identities 101) snorted and then strode in. He took in Danny’s apartment with an appraising eye. Danny watched as the man stepped over the puddle of blood with a frown and then sat gingerly on the second-hand recliner that Danny had gotten from the abuela on the second floor.
It was only after the man had placed his jacket on the back of the recliner that he noticed Danny’s soulmate mark. He let out a string of curses that would have made Danny blush, but well, some of the ghosts were rather colorful in that department, so Danny had quite literally seen and heard it all. Nothing phased him.
“Well. Shit,” the man said in lieu of introduction. Danny let out a wet laugh. “But I thought that Phantom…How the fuck is that even possible?” He demanded reaching for a hidden gun. Danny had to force himself to NOT go invisible or intangible. After all, it wasn’t like the man had any weapons on him that could hurt him.
“So, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Danny. You’ve seen me around as Phantom,” he said with a small neck rub.
The other ran a hand through his black hair that had a peculiar white stripe at the forefront. Almost like Phantom’s white hair. That thought made Danny gasp. Again. Because if the man had a death stripe, like Phantom, then it would make the rumors of the second Robin dying true.
“Jason,” skunk-stripe finally introduced himself. He did NOT hold out his hand for a handshake. But at least he hadn’t outright rejected the soul bond. Danny had to force himself to bite back yet another gasp. Because sitting in his living room was Jason Todd-Wayne, second Robin, currently Red Hood. It appeared that rumors of his death weren’t as exaggerated as the Wayne family would have the public believe. But then again, the normal public weren’t as liminal as Danny and the rest of Amity Park either.
“So…um…you know that…um…” Danny attempted to stutter out.
“That’s an awfully large puddle of blood over there,” Jason pointed out the very obvious with his chin.
Danny huffed and crossed his arms over his chest in a defensive posture. He didn’t know how to explain the blood. Did he just come out and say it was because of the man sitting before him? Did he try and talk around it? Did he deflect? Did he lie? Danny reached up and pulled his hair, hard, trying to get his brain to tell him what to do.
When he looked up, it was to blue-green eyes kneeling in front of him. “Whoa. Hey, there. Don’t…don’t do that. I’m not so good at this comfort shit, but maybe don’t hurt yourself, yah?”
Danny shook himself and took a deep breath as he made his decision. “You know we’re soulmates. But it’s ok. You can just reject me. I already have hanahaki, and well, I’m dying. I think for real this time. I don’t have much…”
He was interrupted by a coughing up as not one, not two, but a whole slew of them, daisies to be exact came tumbling out of his mouth, followed by more blood. They were in a variety of colors too. White. Lavender. Pink. Red. Yellow. Jason rubbed Danny’s back as the coughing persisted, and then helped the shorter man clean himself off with a wet rag. Danny leaned back against the cough, breaths coming in ragged gasps.
Jason finally felt comfortable enough to sit back in his own chair. He ran his hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up on its ends. He sat in stupefied horror for a few minutes before speaking. “Let me get this straight. You’ve known we were soulmates?” Danny nodded. “Back up. Since when?”
Danny jerked like he’d been shot. “Since the first time we met. I saw your mark.”
“And you didn’t say anything?!?!” Jason exclaimed.
Danny shrank in on himself. “You made it VERY clear I was to stay away from you.”
“FUCK! I didn’t mean…I never wanted…This is NOT how I pictured this conversation going,” Jason said as he ran his fingers through his hair yet again. He took a deep breath to center himself and to picture the words he wanted to say. He couldn’t afford to fuck this up anymore.
“First off, I died. Like really died. The story that are told to the public was that I was in a coma in a hospital in Europe, and when I woke up, I had amnesia. That the body that was buried was misidentified. That’s all a load of horseshit. I got some bad intel and was sold out by my egg donor to the Joker. He beat me bloody and then blew me up in warehouse in Ethiopia. Batman was too late to save me. Somehow, six months later I woke up in my grave and dug myself out. I was found in catatonic state walking around Gotham. A super shady organization took me and dunked me in what they call the Lazarus Pit in hopes that it would ‘cure’ me. And sure it ‘cured’ me; it also gave me a growth spurt and one hell of a rage issue. When I came back, I never thought that I would meet my soulmate,” Jason finished with a sigh. He looked up at the other, waiting for him to say something.
“I remember when the soul mark came in. I was so happy. The day it faded to gray I cried for hours. But then it somehow regained its colors. I was so happy. It was probably one of the happiest days of my life. Until I realized what happened to when I transformed into Phantom. Every time I transformed into Phantom, it would fade out. I realized that whoever my soulmate was would think I was dying and coming back to life. Repeatedly. I realized that I didn’t want to inflict that on my soulmate. Perhaps, it would be best if I never met them,” Danny said with clenched fists.
“Do you really believe that?” Jason asked incredulously.
“I wanted to. Before I met you. The ghosts talk about you, you know. The Avenger of the Dead. Gotham’s Damned. Red Hood, Protector of the Child and Street Walker. And when I saw you for the first time and realized that you were my soulmate, I realized that maybe you could handle me being Phantom.”
“What changed?” But Jason already knew. He eyed the puddle of blood that was growing darker as it dried. He knew he was the cause of Danny changing his mind.
“You told me to stay away. I couldn't even get two words in edgewise.”
“FUCK!” Jason snarled, his eyes flashing ectoplasmic green.
The two of them sat in heavy silence for a few minutes. Jason listened to Danny’s gasping, knowing he wasn’t getting a full breath, wanting to take the smaller man into his arms and soothe his aches and pains away. He wanted to march into the kitchen and cook something, anything, that would make all this better. But he didn’t think he had the right to do that.
“Do you think we can start over?” Jason asked tentatively.
Danny looked at Jason as if he’d hung the moon. “I’d like that. My name’s Danny. Danny Fenton. My vigilante name’s Phantom. I love anything to do with space and the color red.”
“My name’s Jason Todd-Wayne. I was the second Robin, now I’m Red Hood. I love reading and guns, and my favorite color is blue, though if you tell my brother that, I’ll deny everything.”
Danny laughed. It was a wet, weak thing. But Jason could tell it was genuine. Jason gently cupped Danny’s face, and the younger man leaned into the touch. Jason couldn’t help it; he lunged forward and wrapped his tree-trunk arms around the walking twig that was Danny. Danny laid his head against the warmth that was radiating from Jason’s chest and breathed deep. Things hadn’t settled, not properly. They still had things to talk about, but Jason wanted him. OH ANCIENTS! Jason WANTED him.
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Jason looked over at Danny who was sleeping soundly for once in the week that they’d been together. His color had returned, and his breathing was slowly starting to even out. He still coughed up the occasional flower, but the amount of flowers and the number of coughing spells were getting fewer and further apart. Jason didn’t know what he would have done if hadn’t heard either the horrible cough or the thump indicating a body hitting floor a week ago. Because if he hadn’t heard it, it would have meant that he would have lost Danny before he ever found him. Without ever knowing what, exactly, he’d lost.
Since Jason had fully recognized Danny as his soulmate, their bond had flourished. But even so, Danny could use a little more meat on his bones. He’d lost what little extra weight he had due to the hanahaki. Jason was determined to make up for it. Thus, Jason was standing in his kitchen while Danny slept soundly on Jason’s couch contemplating what to cook. Then, like lightning striking his brain in a sudden epiphany, he knew just what to cook. Danny had always said he wanted to try Olive Garden’s chicken gnocchi soup.
And well, who was Jason to disappoint. While it wouldn’t be Olive Garden’s recipe because fuck that place. Jason could make gnocchi from scratch. The Nonna three apartments down (she’d come from Italy nearly sixty years ago) had insisted in teaching Jason how to make them. And Jason had all of the other ingredients necessary to make a filling and healthy soup for the slumbering Danny.
Jason gently shook Danny awake, hating to interrupt his beauty sleep, but also needing to wake him so he could eat. “Hey, Starling. Need you to wake up so you can eat,” Jason said softly as he rubbed circles in Danny’s shoulders.
“Hmm. Wazzit?” Danny mumbled sleepily, reaching up to rub his eyes.
“I made gnocchi soup,” Jason rumbled.
Danny perked up. “Soup?”
“Yes, Soup. Now, let’s get you situated at the table, Starling,” Jason chuckled as he pulled Danny up and then let the younger man lean on him as he limped over to the table.
“Thank you, Green Eyes,” Danny murmured as Jason placed a bowl in front of him. Jason pressed a kiss to Danny’s forehead.
The first time Danny had called Jason by the nickname, Jason thought he would have gotten mad. Usually any reference to Jason’s change in eye color after his death resulted in a Pit Episode, but with Danny it was different. Danny made the reference in a loving way. Said that the eyes made him think of Phantom. Made him think of safety. Never once made him think of rage or being hurt. Danny saying that had helped to heal something in both of them.
“Eat up, and there’s brownies for dessert,” Jason said as he sat down next to Danny.
Yes, they still had a long way to go. But they were determined to see this through. The next step would be to introduce Danny to the family, even though that wouldn’t happen for a few months. Jason wanted to make sure that Danny was fully healed from the hanahaki as possible. He’d already scheduled an appointment with Leslie, much to Danny’s consternation. But Jason had promised to be there the whole time. They just had to take things one step at a time.
That night, as they were watching some cheesy rom-com, Danny leaning against Jason’s bulk, Jason gave his thanks to any deity that was listening for bringing him Danny Phantom. He pressed a kiss to Danny’s temple, and Danny burrowed into Jason’s side. Danny’s core began to purr, and Jason hugged the other closer, glad that he could make Danny so happy. Jason pulled the sleepy Danny into his arms and wrapped a blanket around them.
It didn’t take long before the sound of the TV lulled him to sleep as well. For the first time in a really long time, Jason was truly happy. And he hoped Danny was too. But he thought he was, if the purring emanating from him was any indication. The last thought in Jason’s brain before he fell asleep was that he was glad things had turned out the way they had. In the end.