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She doesn’t know how it happened. One day, she was the youngest of three siblings, welcomed into a family that wasn’t hers until it was, forgiven by a boy who’d been hurt more times than she could wrap her head around back then. Welcomed, even, by her template-cousin-brother’s friends, by the only people more fiercely protective of him than his own parents. And eventually, she’d been welcomed by then, too.
One day, she had a family. Not perfect, far from it, but healthy and thriving and (mostly) alive.
And the next… she was alone.
No, really. Alone. As in everyone else was gone.
Three weeks visiting Pandora in the Infinite Realms, two days that turned to two weeks at Frostbite’s because she’d noticed her energy levels tanking more than they had in ages, and another week and a half at Clockwork’s because his tower decided to materialize in front of her while she was in the middle of racing Johnny through the wild wastes near the Fenton portal.
Six and a half weeks, in total. Not even two months from Dani’s last visit to Amity Park – to the living world – and that was… apparently all it took for the world to end.
She stepped through the portal to a massive crater full of debris and a blackened sky raining ash. The air tasted like fire. And for a long, long moment, she wondered if she’d somehow stepped into the wrong portal.
But then she’d turned around and seen the familiar portal frame, and it hit her like a full-powered ecto-blast to the heart.
She knew what she would see long before she pushed off from the ground and soared into the skies above the city she’d been starting to love. Nothing. Nothing at all. Only rubble, and ash, and flickering fire.
Amity Park was gone.
Dani doesn’t know how long she spent frantically searching for someone, anyone at all, who’d made it. How long she spent digging through rubble, shoving and blasting at broken wood and concrete hoping she’d find something different.
She found her family’s bodies on the third day. The less said about that, the better. But she knew Danny would never forgive her if she let that be the end, if she didn’t at least try to save- anyone.
It took three months and three days of flying all over the country, all over the world, for her to conclude that there was no left to save.
That left one option, and it was one she didn’t like thinking about because Danny had told her what happened the last time he tried to take it, the last time he tried to mess with things he really didn’t and frankly didn’t want to understand.
She wondered, as she flew her way back to Amity Park, if this was why Clockwork gave her an extra tub of cookies for the road, all those weeks ago.
The first and only time Dani heard Clockwork say the words “this is not how things should be” happened three months and six days after she learned the world had ended. Four days before she shook Pandora’s enormous hand and accepted the armor and weaponry of the warrior she never thought she’d become.
Five days before she set off to save the world.
Anyone who says time travel is easy is a liar. She’s not sure if anyone has ever actually said that, but she stands by it.
She already had a fuzzy at best grasp of human history. And it wasn’t just human history she had to alter.
It was hard, and grueling, and confusing, and terrifying. And that’s all she’ll say on that.
But… it wasn’t all bad. Some of it was pretty cool, actually.
Danny would be beyond jealous to know that she knew what Krypton’s sky looked like. He’d shit a brick if he knew she’d gotten to spar with a Tamaranean on Tamaran.
She won’t be telling him how that thought alone was enough for her to nearly lose the spar. That just imagining how thrilled he’d have been to be there was enough for her to break down crying in that same Tamaranean’s arms.
She’ll only tell him the good parts, when she gets him back. Because she will. Because she’s awesome like that.
Because she refuses to be anything else.
She’ll tell him about the time she pulled off a heist in ancient Rome, and the time she cooked fresh bread with the best baker in Pompeii (or so he claimed). She’ll tell him about the time she learned what a pterodactyl’s wings felt like, and how she managed to end up preening them.
She’ll tell Jazz about what the library of Alexandria was like in all its glory, and all the new words and languages she’s learned by traveling further than she’s ever traveled before.
She’ll tell Val about the amazing weapons she saw in Themyscira, about the Amazonians who taught her how to fight with a spear and then taught her how to craft armor even cooler than what Pandora gave her (not that she’d tell the elder ghost that, of course).
She’ll tell Tucker about all of the foods she got to try, and Sam about all the awesome plants she saw gliding through California’s redwood forests back when the redwoods were young.
She’ll tell her parents she missed them.
She’ll tell everyone she missed them.
As soon as she gets them back.