Chapter Text
The dead were restless. Very little happened in the graveyard, save for new arrivals. Tonight was different. Lightning cracked and rain fell, soaking the shifting earth.
"He's alive!" Mary cried, falling to her knees and trying to dig. At first, the others only stood around and watched. Mary, after all, had been buried alive herself in 1829, only to dig herself out and die properly in 1879. She had since been a bit paranoid about checking their new residents for true death. She had checked this resident, too. (It's sad when they're young, she had muttered after checking the coffin). It had taken time for the boy to join them, but they had seen the truth of her words eventually. It was sad, but it was the way of life and afterlife alike.
Watching Mary provoked a different kind of sadness in her watchers. Her madness grew with each passing year. Her descent was slow but tangible, much like her effort to manipulate the earth. The few grains of dirt she managed to fling behind her were a pitiful reward for a desperate effort.
Then, fingers breached the top layer of soil. Dirt fell into the hole they made, attempting to obscure them again, but the fingers fought and scrabbled back. The assembled ghosts gasped. Those who had their senses fell to their knees and attempted to help Mary, weak as their efforts were. Eventually, a boy climbed out of his hole in the ground, helped by figures no one else could see. He collapsed, shaking and gulping in air with burning lungs. A gentleman in stepped out of the crowd surrounding him and knelt to examine the boy's swollen, discolored face.
"Thomas?" his wife asked anxiously. She clutched her pearls with one hand and his shoulder with the other.
"It's him," the deceased doctor said wondrously. "It's Jason."
Whispers traveled through the crowd. Those who frequently haunted the graveyard knew Jason well enough. He had taken as well as could be expected to Thomas and Martha's company, and the rest of the graveyard had been delighted to hear stories of Batman and Robin. In turn, they kept the ghost who had been given residence beside him quite far away. Even now, they did not allow themselves to be distracted by the hubbub and kept Sheila Haywood at distance.
"What do we do?" someone asked.
"Can we get help?" a suggestion was shouted. It was unlikely. None of the ghosts here could manipulate the physical world well.
The boy on the ground moaned, startling several of them. They weren't used to urgency anymore and had forgotten the need for it now.
"Bruce." Jason pushed out the word through his chattering teeth. He looked around him, barely registering his surroundings. He pushed himself up on broken hands and started to shuffle towards the road. Thomas grabbed him and steered him away. To his great surprise, Jason followed.
"The guard shack," Martha said urgently, ushering them in the right direction. Jason was living now, and he needed living help. Walking was painful for Jason. He grunted, and groaned, and occasionally whimpered for his father. Even though it was safer, the guard shack was further than the road. Martha's dead heart hurt with every sound of pain coming from her grandson. She would have spared him if she could.
Unfortunately for Jason, safer did not mean completely safe. The living were uncomfortable in the dark, doubly so in graveyards where the inexplicable mysteries of life and death lurked just beyond their perception. The guard had a gun, and Martha would be damned if she saw her grandson shot.
She stepped in front of him, laying on icy hand on his cheek. "You need to call for help, darling. It's the only way." Jason blinked at her uncomprehendingly and groaned in pain again.
Thomas looked worriedly at the boy's chest. He had an arm under the boy's shoulders, trying to support him, but it was not clear how much that was helping.
"I don't think he can yell, dear."
They would have to take things into their own hands, then. Martha dashed ahead, screaming her head off in a way her parents would have called unladylike.
"Help! Help!" She shouted at the top of her voice, grateful, for once, that she did not need air and her vocal cords did not need a break. She needed every decibel to break through the guard on duty. She slammed her hands against the windows of the shack, praying that this would work. Miracle of miracles, the glass rattled, and the guard looked at her.
"Help!" Martha screamed. The guard ignored her, but he did step out of the shack. Hand on his gun, he swept his flashlight across the dim ground. The light caught on Jason.
"Stop where you are!" the guard shouted. Martha saw his hand tighten on the gun and flinched.
Jason only moaned, but Thomas picked up where Martha had left off. "He's just a boy! He needs help!"
Martha joined in his pleading until she saw the guard loosen his grip on the gun and reach up to the radio on his shoulder.
"I need an ambulance at the Crest Hill Cemetery. It's a kid. He looks bad."
Martha sagged in relief and fled back to Jason. "Stay with us, sweetheart," she said, brushing a hand through his damp bangs. When the ambulance came, Martha and Thomas tried to go with Jason. They did not make it past the gates before being sent back to their graves. The lights of Jason's ambulance flashed through the trees. Martha seized Thomas's hand.
"Bruce," she said urgently. "We have to go to Bruce." Appearing in their home was a matter of a moment's concentration. Unfortunately, Bruce was out. Martha was proud of her son (and worried, god, so worried) and of the difference he made, but they needed him here, not stalking through Gotham's street as a bat.
The problem, as it stood, was two-fold. Home was an easy place to haunt (such a gauche word, in Martha's opinion). The manor positively dripped residue from their lifetimes- the good memories, the bad memories, the little moments in between. It was easy to stick there, for the want of a better turn of phrase.
Bruce, as previously established, was not at home. Instead, he was likely doing his own haunting of a gloomy, gritty rooftop. A fine locale for sons turned bats, but not so for ghosts with no connection to such a place. Trying to appear to him there would be like trying to grasp onto a wall of glass. Walking would be easier- like slogging through waist deep muck- as long as Bruce was their destination. He was their son, and even though their state of affairs was different, their connection was strong. He anchored them to this world, like toy boats on a vast and stormy ocean.
Searching the city step by agonizing step would be easier, if Jason had the time for it. Mr. Pennyworth was likely just in the cave below, but reaching out to him was more difficult than reaching out to Bruce. Mr. Pennyworth, dear as he was to their boy, simply was not enough to anchor them. Getting to him would take just as much energy as finding Bruce while he was out god-knew-where. Martha exchanged a glance with her husband.
"Split up?"
"I'll talk to Bruce."
He was gone in a moment. Martha steeled herself, walking down the passageway into the cave. Each step was a trial. By the end, she felt like she was dragging weights behind her.
"Mr. Pennyworth!" she panted as she reached his seat in front of the computers. "Alfred!" She could her son on his screens. Thomas was a blip, a faint discoloration by his shoulder, easily dismissed.
"Please, you must tell him to go to the hospital." Mr. Pennyworth did not hear her. She laid a hand on his shoulder. He shuddered lightly, but he still remained ignorant of her words. She pleaded with him until she felt like she was about to disintegrate. With a sinking feeling of defeat, she closed her eyes and released her hold on the here and now.
Martha reconstituted with the morning dew, just as ephemeral. Thomas sat on her headstone, waiting for her. She reached out and grabbed his hands.
"How did it go?" she asked quietly. He only shook his head. Worry gripped Martha, and she fell into Thomas's embrace. Yes, Jason was having his wounds cared for. Yes, he was safe for now. But, they both had their doubts about whether the hospital would connect the living boy in their care to the dead boy in the papers. Without his family, how would Jason fare? Martha feared the answer.
"One of us must go to him," she murmured into her husband's chest. She felt him nod into her hair.
"Tonight," he told her. "Once you've regained your strength."
When evening fell and the city existed only under the orange street lamps, Martha reached out for Jason. It was not a smooth process- she felt herself go in bits and pieces until she was stumbling dizzily at the foot of a hospital bed.
"Jason? Sweetheart?" she called out. She used the bed railing the make her way towards his head. She wondered if she would be this out of breath if she had lungs. Jason was unrecognizable when she looked down at him. The harsh, halogen lights didn't make him look any better than the graveyard had. His head was wrapped in bandages, and she doubted there was an unbruised inch of skin. He had been brought back, but only barely. She reached out to touch his cheek. He did not stir, nor did the monitors give any sign of awakening.
"Jason," she said insistently, laying her whole palm against his face. Still nothing. Wearily, she dragged herself to end of his bed where his chart lay. She focused her eyes on the scrawled words, trying to stay together long enough to understand. She was not the doctor, but one word was clear enough.
Coma.
She closed her eyes and let go.
Jason was in a coma for four weeks. Thomas checked in on him every few days. He was the doctor, after all. From what he told Martha, the coma was to be expected from those type of injuries. His doctors said he was lucky to be alive. They had no idea how much.
Martha followed Bruce around constantly. She had the advantage of not being exhausted by hospital trips like her husband, so she was the persistent voice in her son's ear. She could swear she was making a difference- Bruce seemed to steer a little closer to the medical district every night. He was just was not close enough.
He had better things to do than listen to his mother, it seemed. There was a new boy in the house. Tim, she had gathered. She had been witness to his frightening first attempt at vigilantism, and Bruce subsequently acquiescing to train him. He was not Robin yet, but he would be, in time. She wondered how Jason would feel about that when he woke up. The poor boy loved being Robin. At least Dick came around, once. He was more receptive to her than his father, although, to her great frustration, he continually confused her for Jason when she tried to catch his attention.
Nightwing was not here tonight. Young Timothy had already been sent home. Tonight, it was just she and Bruce, flying above Gotham's dark streets. It wasn't something she had ever done in life, but it was strangely freeing. Bruce used his grapnel gun to ascend to rooftop. Martha floated up beside him. The robbers- run of the mill, poorly armed- were silent below them. They were unconscious, for certain, and Martha thought of Jason and his poor, wrapped head. She hoped it would not come to that. As it was, they would have to contend with their broken bones from behind bars.
Martha listened as Bruce called in his catch. To a living person, it might be background noise. To Martha, every moment of her son's voice was precious. She would be without it, one day. What would she do with eternity without her son? He could join her, but she hoped he didn't. Watching over him and the children was a balm, but her existence was remarkably dreary. And without a living anchor… well, some things were best not discussed, even among ghosts.
Bruce turned sharply. Martha almost missed it. She had been keeping up with the living for four weeks, but some things still took her by surprise. The bat signal was lit. They made their way to the GCPD in a hurry. Bruce lingered in the shadows. Martha shook her head fondly. He had always been a dramatic child. She had once harbored hope of seeing him on a stage, reciting Shakespeare. That had been a long time ago.
"Commissioner," he said lowly, never fully stepping out of the darkness. Jim Gordon startled but didn't give any other sign that he had been surprised. He turned off the bat signal with practiced fingers. He reached into his coat and handed over a sheet of paper.
"Hospital called," he said. Bruce took the paper and slipped it into his utility belt. "Said there's a boy there asking for the Batman. Beat all to hell, too." He sounded upset, and Bruce frowned. Martha knew a case with a child would weigh on them both, but her heart lifted.
"Bruce, it's Jason!" She threw herself onto him, hugging tightly. He was awake at last, and Thomas must have gotten through to him.
"Don't scare the kid with your-" Gordon gestured at what he could see of the suit and cowl. He glanced away in contemplation. "He's been through enough."
Bruce was gone before he finished speaking. Muttered curses followed him into the night as he landed on a nearby roof. He examined the details on the paper Gordon had given him. Martha smiled widely. Gotham General was Jason's hospital. Bruce frowned more deeply as he read. Martha wondered if the injuries were familiar to him. God knew how he had tortured himself over them in the aftermath. She reached out to touch his frown lines.
"It's okay," she reassured him. "He's okay now." Bruce did not look any happier, but he stowed the paper and headed toward the hospital. They entered through the window, of course. Martha phased through the glass while Bruce slid the pane open. Thomas lingered by Jason's head. He was transparent and spread thin to Martha's eyes, tired from reaching through to Jason. He must have been waiting for their arrival. When he saw them, he smiled weakly and faded away. She would see him tomorrow. Her concern now was Jason.
She put a hand on Bruce's shoulder and the other on his elbow, trying to rush him to Jason's side. He crept forward at his own pace, unmoved by her efforts. Jason looked like he was asleep. Bruce stopped to read his chart, gathering as much information as possible. Doubtlessly, he was also giving the child in the bed a few more moments of sleep. When he was done he moved forward silently. Martha flew to the other side of the bed before he could occupy her space. Bruce leaned over the railing and gasped.
"Jason?" Martha wiped at her eyes furiously, even though her tears never felt wet. Bruce pressed a tender, shaking hand to the boy's curls and slid down to cup his cheek. Jason shifted minutely, leaning into the leather.
"Bruce?" he mumbled. He looked at his father through slitted, hazy eyes. Bruce's voice cracked, and he leaned forward to press his forehead against the boy's.
"Son."