I do not own either the DC or Marvel universes, but I do own this fictional story.
The sounds of the waves hitting the shore line and the feeling of wet sand filled the six year old senses hit young Jonathan like a ton of bricks. Followed by the misty sea air, gasping, he started to remember as that thing that crashed inside his room and almost kill the boy. Feelings of fear clouded his young mind, and making it so his body began to wake.
"Mom, Dad! Marry!" the boy cried as blue eyes, contrast to his auburn red hair, opened wide, sitting up with a start.
"W-what… where am I?" the boy questioned, taking in his surroundings.
The first thing the child saw was dark sand covered the shore line and more covered the beach. Not the natural tan he typically saw around the lake that his daddy always takes him to go fishing every summer. No, it was dark gray, almost black even. He looked to the sea for hopes of some normalcy, but all he saw was nothing but inky blackness just like its granule earth counterpart with gray brine foaming from the wake. The only source of light he could find was the ambient glow of the pale moon on the horizon making a perfect line of symmetry along the waters; he kept panning his vision and found black, thorn like structures made up of some unknown material that edged the surrounding area. Farther still, his eyes came across a figure cloaked in black sitting on a rock formation seemingly gazing at the moon.
Carefully, Jonathan stood and made his way over to the obvious masculine figure, if the broad shoulders and the golden brown bread and mustache that could be seen from the shadow cast from the man's hood were any indications.
"H-hello?" the boy said awkwardly, waved slightly to the man.
"Hmm," the stranger broke out of his trance as the sound of approaching footsteps came closer and closer, he turned his head sideways just in time to see a waving child came into full view. "Why hello strange one, it's not often I receive visitors." the cloaked man said in a deep baritone voice.
"Please mister," the six yr old pleaded, "Can you help me, I don't know where I am or how I got here?"
"Hmm… what's your name boy?" the man asked.
"Jonathan… but my friends call Jonny." For some reason or another, it was quite easy to talk to the man, almost like talking to his father in a way.
The man contemplated on what he was going to say next. Finally after some time, the man returned to his moon gazing, "Well boy... I can tell you this is my second time on these shores. Unfortunately, much like the first, I do not remember who I am or whence I came. Everything was washed away in whatever currents carried me here. So I don't know how I can be much help to you."
"Oh…" the boy said, broken hearted. "T-thank you any w-way mister." With that the boy went into a sitting position and hugged his knees and started to sob quietly, thinking that he would never see his friend or family again.
While still crying, the boy felt a gentle squeeze on his shoulder. Looking up through teary eyes, he saw something strange. A hand, but not just any hand, a shadow hand the size of his own. Jumping back in surprise, he cried out, "Ahh!"
Noticing his distress, the cloaked man turned just in time to catch a silhouette of the boy's hand before seeping back into his shadow. "Strange," the man thought out loud, "it seems that the darkness has found its host." He said ominously.
"What do you mean?" Jonathan asked, confused.
Gazing once more to the moon, he says "But what to name it, I wonder?" tugging at the whisker's, he ignoring the child's previous question in favor of thinking.
The child was about to repeat the question to the weird man in the black coat, but something even stranger happened. Voices, a lot of them called out to the boy. Looking around, he found no one that could justify having that many voices at once, and in that moment he realized the voices weren't calling him from outside, but inside. They started out as a whisper to a near shout, with them all encouraging him to say one word, a name.
"Nero?" the rosette said finally, not having to continue to plug his ears with his palms because the voices all stopped at once.
"Nero hmm," he said as if testing the potency of the word. "Hmm, yes I do believe that is a good name for your other have, your shadow." He finished by gesturing to an open space next to the child. Just then, the sand came alive. The black sand formed into a perfect silhouette version of the boy. Staring at each other, white eyes peered into a pair of surprised blue ones with curiosity.
Not sure what to do, the boy cranes his neck to the man for help, but as he is doing that, his shadow mimed his movements. Turning back, he out stretched his left hand and sure enough, his mimic did the same. Pulling back he tried something new. With the same hand, he placed it towards the never blinking sand boy and what happened next when we made contact was by far the strangest thing to happen to this date to the youth. Once the shadow boy grasped pale flesh, it started to dissolve into the shocked six yr old.
"The connection has been complete." The hooded man said, watching the interaction from the side lines.
"What happened to us?" the rosette said, not realizing he just used himself in the plural sense.
"You and the being that was inside the object that crash into your room, Nero, have bonded as one single entity now. You both have one mind and body now with the shared experiences of many." He said, making a panning gesture to other sand constructs of many different sentient beings across the beach and back to the boy "Now that it is done, you must wake up, I sense your mother and father approaching, they're quite worried."
The boy tilted his head to the side in confusion, "How do we do that mister?"
"Well boy, as I said this in not my first time on these shores, I may not know who I am or whence I came but I do know how one leaves this place," he then points to the sea, "the current brought you onto these and only way to wake up is to go diving back in."
Ready to go back to reality, the boy sprinted over to water, making foot imprints as he was running along. Before he jumped in, he turned back to the only other person present to give his thanks, "Thank you for all your help…Alfred."
"Alfred?"
Shrugging, the boy replied. "Well we need to call you something, right? So we thought that you look like an Alfred."
"…I see…Thank you b-Jonathan."
"No problem Al, we hope we see you again." the rosette responded before diving back into the inky black waters and woke up.