Chapter Text

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You'll never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamed you’d never go away
When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
I could never keep you here

I’ll always love you and make you happy
Your smile shines bright like the sun
You are the best thing I’ve ever known, dear
You’ll outshine me now someday

You told me once, dear, you really loved me
I pray you’ll always know the same
My porch light’s on, dear, never to darken
Not so long as I’m alive

You are my baby, never forget it
You’ve made my life ever so bright
You’ll have a home here for e‘er and always
I love you now, I’ll love you then

Chapter Text

The kid suppressed the Pit Rage. (Seriously, the second the kid had been within 20 feet of him, Jason felt the Pit’s bubbling subside, sinking down to a barely noticeable simmer.) That was the only reason Jason was already planning on bringing him home, so he could keep planning his Great Revenge with a more clear head (that’s what he kept telling himself). It definitely wasn’t because the kid was tiny, terrified, and had risked blowing his own cover to let Jason in on the fact there was a secret government organization hunting both of them. Absolutely not because Jason saw too much of the scared little boy he’d been when Batman found him with a tire iron in his hand when he looked at the kid (and not just because of the black hair and blue eyes).

“What did you say this group was called?” Jason asked as softly as he could through the voice modulator on his helmet.

“The Guys in White.” The kid rocked back onto his heels. “I don’t remember what their real name is but they only wear white and they’re the GIW, so…Guys in White.”

“And how do you know they’re coming after me?” Under any other circumstances, Jason probably would have been suspicious. But this kid couldn’t be older than six. His cheeks were gaunt and filthy. And Jason would eat his boot if the kid weighed more than 40 pounds. He took his helmet off, tucking it under his arm.

“You’ve got ectoplasm in your blood. It’s all icky and corrupted but I don’t think the Guys in White will care.” The kid ran his fingers through his greasy hair. “So they’re gonna try and capture you. To study and experiment on you.”

That was…not what Jason was expecting. “What’s ectoplasm?”

“I don’t know, it’s ectoplasm! It’s green and glowy and can power stuff and helps heal.”

Pit Waters. There was no way he could let this kid out of his sight now (he was going to kill Talia, how had this child come into contact with a Pit?). His hands shook. He swallowed against a wave of anger (that felt red, red-hot, the way it had when he’d been Robin, not green the way everything had been green since he’d woken up). Damn it.

“How do you know that’s what they want?” Jason crouched, sitting on his heels.

The kid wound his fingers into the fabric of his over-sized NASA hoodie and stared at Jason’s boots.

“Did they do that to you?” The kid inhaled, sharp and quick. “Experiments?”

The kid nodded, still refusing to look Jason in the face. 

“What’s your name, bud?” Jason refused to allow even a hint of the rage boiling in his chest to enter his voice, setting the emotion aside the way Bru-Batman had taught him.

“I’m Danny.”

“Nice to meet you, Danny.” Jason extended a hand slowly, carefully, telegraphing the entire motion. Danny stared at it for a moment before extending his own to shake. “My name is Jason. Are you staying anywhere? With family? Or a foster home?”

Danny shook his head. Jason nodded.

“Would you like to come with me to mine? I can protect you from the Guys in White.”

“But then they’ll find you faster!” Danny shrank back a bit. “Cause they’re looking for me.”

“It sounds like they’re gonna find me either way, bud.” Jason carefully controlled his instinct to lean in towards the kid. “This way, I’ll know you’re safe.” Danny looked unsure. “If you don’t like it at my place, you can leave in the morning. How’s that sound?” If Jason could just get the kid through the door, he could worry about convincing him to stay long term later. “Just one night to start. You can take a shower, have a hot meal, sleep with a roof over your head, and decide in the morning.”

“Why?” Danny looked downright suspicious now. “Why would you want to help me? You don’t know me.” And wasn’t that feeling painfully familiar? At least Danny hadn’t tried to nail him with a tire iron. Yet.

Jason squinted as he considered his answer. “No kid should be on their own in Crime Alley.” He eventually settled on. ”Ever. I know what that’s like, and it sucks. Plus, if you’re under my protection, the Guys in White will be less likely to try something. And I’ll know right away if they do.” Danny looked skeptical but he was starting to tip forward on his toes. Jason played his trump card. “I’ll make hot chocolate.”

Danny deflated a little. “Yeah, okay.”

“Great.” Jason held out his arms. “Can I carry you? It’ll be faster to grapple across the city than trying to walk.”

Danny nodded his assent and held up his own arms. Jason picked him up, tucking the kid close to his chest. Danny wrapped his arms around Jason’s neck.

“Hold on tight.” Jason felt more than saw Danny nod again. With that, Jason took off.

— — —

The hot chocolate, after some brief confusion, went over swimmingly.

“But where’s the packet?” Danny asked as Jason scraped dark chocolate shavings into a pot of simmering milk.

“What do you mean, squirt?” Jason made sure to only put a little cayenne in. The kid sounded Midwestern, and Jason didn’t want to overwhelm him.

“The packet of hot chocolate powder.” Danny was sitting cross-legged on the counter next to the stove, watching with wide eyes. He was dressed in the smallest t-shirt Jason could find in the place, which meant it still fell clear past his knees but at least didn’t scrape the floor. A shower had revealed a small dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose, as if Jason wasn’t already completely endeared to the kid.

Jason laughed. “Kiddo, I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this but that’s not real hot chocolate.”

“Oh.” Danny peered into the pot. “But this is?”

“Absolutely, just like my abuela taught me.” Jason dipped a spoon in and held it out for Danny. “Enough sugar?”

Danny leaned forward a little to taste it. “I think so? How’s real hot chocolate supposed to taste?”

“However you like. This has cinnamon and a little bit of cayenne. My ma used to like vanilla. Does it taste good?”

Danny nodded eagerly. Jason smiled and pulled out two mugs. He carefully poured equal measures of the drink into each one.

“Thank you!” Danny wrapped his hands around the offered mug. He beamed, taking a sip as he…floated off the counter and over to the couch, still cross-legged. He settled down on the couch.

Jason wasn’t sure what his face was doing when Danny looked over at him but the kid’s face fell. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, sometimes that happens before I can think, the powers bubble up too much, I won’t do it again, I promise, I-“

“It’s okay!” Jason hurried over to the couch and sat down next to the panicking child. “You’re okay, Danny! It’s fine, totally cool. You just startled me, that's all.” He glanced over at the windows, making sure the curtains were drawn (not that anyone in Crime Alley would be looking or say anything to anyone if they happened to catch a glimpse of something, ‘mind your business’ is a mantra that beats in everyone’s very bones). “You’re safe here. You can let your power out, or whatever you need.”

“Really?” Danny brightened (Jason would do anything to keep the kid looking happy like that).

“Yeah, whatever you need, Danno.” Jason placed a hand on Danny’s shoulder. The kid leaned into it, scooting closer to Jason on the couch. “What else can you do?”

“Well, I can fly.” Danny took a sip of his hot chocolate as he thought. “I can go through walls and stuff, and be invisible, and I can shoot green blasts from my hands, and…I don’t know, lots of things.” Danny tentatively leaned on Jason. “I’m half-ghost or something. Least that’s what the GIW said I am. I don’t know.”

Jason…very suddenly realized just how much this little boy was trusting him. There was a secret government organization after him, and here he was, curled against Jason’s side drinking hot cocoa. Jason hesitantly wrapped his arm around Danny’s shoulder. The kid grinned up at him (were his teeth pointed now?). Jason smiled back as Danny snuggled into his grip (yeah, this kid wasn’t going anywhere). (He was going to have to call someone about a new apartment.)

— — —

Danny liked Gotham. The city had enough ambient ectoplasm that he didn’t even have to eat any blob ghosts. It also had a huge planetarium, not that he’d been able to go yet (being this small and having no money made it hard). But now Red Hood had apparently decided to take him in so maybe he’d get to go soon? (Danny was a little wary of possibly getting adopted by another Fruitloop but Red Hood wasn’t a billionaire so it should be fine.)

Jason (Red Hood’s real name was Jason) made amazing hot chocolate. Out of actual chocolate! And it was just a little bit spicy. Danny wasn’t sure about that part but it was only a little bit.

Danny’s Core didn’t like letting Jason out of his sight (especially when he knew Jason was doing dangerous things) so most nights when Jason went out as Red Hood Danny followed him secretly. He thought for sure Jason would feel his ecto-signature the way he could feel Jason’s but so far Jason hadn’t said anything. So maybe he was okay with it? (Danny wasn’t hurting anyone, after all, mostly just freezing people’s guns before they could shoot Jason.)

He just had to make sure he was always back in bed before Jason got home. Just in case Jason was only okay with it so long as he could pretend it wasn’t happening. He was pretty good at it too. He’d only cut it close one time but he’d been able to sneak past Jason to the bathroom and come out before Jason had freaked out too much.

Tonight was a meeting night. Jason and some of his guys had been talking about supply lines for like an hour in this warehouse. Danny was trying very hard to pay attention to the men surrounding Jason but it was just so boring. He glanced up at the skylight. Miraculously, the perpetual cloud-and-smog cover parted, just enough to see…

Stars. The Auriga constellation, specifically. Danny’s eyes widened as he traced the box of stars. The exact opposite of the center of the Milky Way, marked by Elnath. Home of Capella, the sixth brightest star in the sky, of three separate Messier objects, and of the Flaming Star Nebula.

Danny tore his gaze from the sky and looked back to the…empty warehouse. What? He flew a lap of the building. Nothing. Where did they go? The meeting couldn’t have ended, Danny had only zoned out for—the clocktower rang three times. Danny had zoned out for two hours. Jason had gone home almost 30 minutes ago.

Danny shot off towards the apartment as fast as he could. Maybe it was fine. Maybe Jason had found a bunch of muggings or a bank robbery or something and he wasn’t home yet. Maybe it was okay.

Yeah, right. Danny had never had luck that good.

His bad luck streak was unbroken as Danny approached the apartment building and could see Jason on the roof, frantically searching for something.

Danny made himself visible as he sheepishly landed in front of Jason. Who froze and stared like he’d never seen Danny before. 

“Is that you, Danny?” Danny had gotten pretty good at hearing the emotions in Jason’s voice even through the Red Hood helmet, and he was pretty sure Jason was scared. Which didn’t make sense because it was just Danny. He looked down at himself and—

“Oops.” Danny was in his full ghost form: black hazmat suit, no legs, fingers ending in claws, white hair standing up like right before a lightning strike, green eyes, too many teeth, skin tinged blue with ice and green with ectoplasm and white with death. He shifted back into his human form and settled down on the ground.

Jason heaved a sigh and dropped to his knees, wrapping Danny in a tight hug. “You scared me, squirt.”

“I’m sorry.” Danny hugged back, feeling a little lost as Jason took a few deep breaths. He shivered at a cold Gotham breeze (that’s why he’d been in ghost form, he couldn’t get cold dead) and pressed himself tighter against Jason.

“Shit, let’s get you inside.” Jason shifted his arms and picked Danny up, tucking Danny’s head under his chin.

Jason carried Danny down the fire escape to their apartment. As he closed and locked the window behind him, Danny peaked over his shoulder to see the bathroom door and the closet door had both been yanked nearly off their hinges.

“Like I said, squirt, you scared me. Gotham’s not a safe place, especially for kids.” Jason pulled his helmet off one-handed and tossed it onto the bed.

“Oh.” Danny gripped Jason’s jacket. “I’m okay though. I was just Protecting you.”

“You don’t need to protect me, kiddo. I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself.” Jason shifted Danny in his grip until he was propped on Jason’s hip instead of squished on his chest. Danny sat up on his arm as he pulled his domino mask off.

“But my Core hurts when I don’t.” Danny crossed his arms. “Jazz says that I gotta feed my Obsession or I’ll get sick.”

“What?” Jason froze as he was pulling the drapes shut.

Danny realized he hadn’t told Jason about Obsessions. Or Cores. Or anything about ghosts. It wasn’t his fault, though. The reflex to hide the information (from his parents and then the GIW) was just too strong.

Jason sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. We’re going to need some hot chocolate.” He carried Danny into the kitchen and set him on the counter next to the stove. Danny held out his hands for the cinnamon and cayenne, Jason handing them both to him as he set a pot on the burner.

Danny could see that there was a tension in Jason’s shoulders that was never there when he was making hot chocolate as he poured the milk and the chocolate chips. “Are you mad at me?” Danny asked as Jason pulled off his body armor.

“No, I’m not.” Jason ruffled Danny’s hair. “I just think that we need to have a serious talk, and serious talks are best with hot chocolate.”

“Oh. Okay.” Danny added a couple shakes of the cayenne and two sticks of cinnamon as Jason added the sugar. “What do you want to talk about?”

Jason stirred the milk as the chocolate melted. “I’ve been trying not to ask too many questions because I respect your privacy. But I need to know what these obsessions you’re talking about are.” He turned the heat on the burner down when the milk started to boil and grabbed two mugs.

Danny tensed. He set the spices down and pulled his knees up to his chest. Jason set the mugs down.

“I’m not mad at you.” He wrapped Danny in a tight hug (tight enough to remind him of Jazz). “I’m not sure what you’re scared of right now but I promise, whatever you tell me, I’m not going to make you leave, or give you to the GIW, or whatever you're thinking. I just want to make sure you’re as healthy as you can be.” He stroked his hand through Danny’s hair.

Danny pressed his face into Jason’s chest. If he concentrated, he could feel the man’s Core vibrating with concern-comfort-protect (even though it was still weaker than it should be. Jason’s Core had only just Healed enough to start producing his own ectoplasm, finally able to work the icky-spoiled-stinky ectoplasm out of his system thanks to Danny’s Help).

“What’s worrying you, Danny?” Jason asked softly.

“You’re gonna be scared of me.” Jason froze for a second, then pulled away and crouched down to look Danny straight in the face. He stared at Danny for a few seconds, eyes narrowed and lips pursed.

“No, you’re too cute to be scared of.” He tapped Danny’s nose.

Danny spluttered. “I’m not cute!” He’s not! He let his teeth fall into his fangs to prove it.

Jason laughed. “Too cute and too little.” He picked Danny up, setting him down on the floor. He held a hand out flat, at about chest high (at least a foot and a half above Danny’s head). “You got to be at least this tall to qualify as scary.”

Danny stopped listening to gravity and floated up until his head bumped against Jason’s hand.

“Feet on the ground or it doesn’t count, squirt.”

Danny growled (from his throat). “I might not be that big but I’ve fought ghosts way bigger than you!”

Jason kept laughing. “You sure about that? I’m pretty big.” He puffed out his chest.

“Yeah, but Skulker is bigger.” Danny concentrated and projected his ectoplasm out and away from his body until a perfect picture of Skulker surrounded him.

Jason stopped laughing. “You’ve fought that guy?”

“Uh-huh. Lots of times.” Danny let the ectoplasm return to his core. “He wants to skin me and make me a rug or something.”

Jason blinked a few times. Then he handed Danny his mug (Green Lantern cause it was so cool he could go to space) and gestured to the couch. “I think you better tell me everything you remember, squirt.”

So Danny did. He told Jason about the portal, about the accident, the ghost attacks, Vlad, the GIW. It all came out easier than he’d thought it would. The only times he stumbled were around Sam, Tuck, or Jazz but he’s pretty sure Jason got what had happened to them. He didn’t say anything about what the GIW had done while they had him. Jason seemed to agree that was a good idea since he didn’t ask any questions about it.

After nearly an hour of talking, Danny finally reached the present. He and Jason had finished their hot chocolate a while ago. Jason set his mug on the coffee table.

“Fucking hell, squirt, that’s quite the life you’ve led.” Jason stretched out an arm towards Danny. He took the invitation and curled into Jason’s side with a yawn. “Now I gotta ask you about obsessions.”

“Mmm but I’m tired.” Danny snuggled in closer to Jason. “Can we do it in the morning?”

Jason sighed. “I think we should do it tonight.”

“Mkay.” Danny’s eyelids were starting to weigh 10 pounds. His head lolled against Jason’s side every time he blinked.

“Oh, shit.” Danny was swept into the air against Jason’s chest. “You’re exhausted. Let’s get you to bed, squirt.” Danny stopped trying to hold his eyes open. Jason set him down gently on the bed.

Jason leaned over and gently kissed Danny’s forehead. He ran his fingers through Danny’s hair as he stepped away towards the couch.

Danny curled towards the retreating contact and reached out to try and grab the hand. He whined (don’t go-stay-please), the sound ripping out from his Core without thought.

Jason chuffed as his Core immediately reacted, pouring out comfort-concern-...surprise? (Danny supposed that was the first Core-sound he’d made). Danny let his grip on his Core loosen. It sent out waves of lonely-frightened-don’t go as he keened, still reaching out for Jason’s hand.

“What, you want me to stay?” Jason let his hand be pulled back to Danny’s hair.

Danny nodded. He felt vulnerable, flayed open in a way that had nothing to do with the matching Y-shaped scars on their chests.

“At least let me take off my boots.” Danny grumbled but he let Jason’s hand go. “We’re talking about whatever the hell that was tomorrow morning, too.” Danny trilled (acceptance-acknowledgement-affirmative). He scooted back against the wall, making room on the bed for Jason.

Who was taking entirely too long. Danny let out a soft whine (hurry up-lonely). Jason answered with another chuff (patience-coming) as he struggled to get his holsters off. He finally sat down on the edge of the bed, wearing pajama pants and a soft, worn t-shirt. He tentatively laid down.

Danny tucked himself against Jason’s side immediately. He chirped (happy-safety-warm) as Jason wrapped an arm around him. Jason rumbled (safe-warm-lov—). Danny purred (love-safe-tired) as he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Jason blinked awake when a single sunbeam managed to break through the ever present cloud cover of Gotham and land directly in his eyes. He lifted a hand to shade his eyes. Or, he tried to lift a hand. A small, warm lump cheeped (sleepy-comfy-don’t move) (and since when could he understand random animal noises?) and wiggled in closer to his chest when he moved his arm.

“Danny?” Jason squinted down at the kid. Danny was pressed so tightly against his chest he was practically on top of Jason. He was also still wearing the Superman t-shirt and jeans he had been last night.

Right. Last night.

Jason propped himself up on his elbow. Danny fell forward into the divot in the mattress, ending up face down and with his shoulder under Jason’s chest. He whined (sleep more-comfy-come back) and gripped at Jason’s shirt.

“Come on, squirt. We gotta have a little chat.” Jason shook Danny’s shoulder.

“No, we don’t.” Danny grabbed at the blanket, wrapping it tighter around himself. “We can stay here and talk about it tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.” Danny ignored him, content in his blanket burrito. Jason sighed (tried to sigh). It came out as more of a huffing sound (exasperated-get up-morning) which…was no less weird than it had been the night before.

The sound felt like it was coming from the center of his chest and radiating outwards instead of following a normal path. It felt oddly…cool, even to the touch when he placed his hand on the spot. It was completely localized to a circle about two inches in diameter right on top of his sternum.

Danny whined (fiiiiine-awake) again as he pushed himself up into a seated position. He rubbed his eyes.

“Come on, squirt.” Jason put aside the mystery for later and scooped Danny up. He carried the still sluggish kid into the kitchen. “What are we feeling this morning? Eggs? Cereal?”

“Pancakes?” Danny yawned as Jason set him down on the counter next to the stove. “And hot chocolate? For the serious talk?”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Jason chuckled. “Serious talks need hot chocolate, after all.” He busied himself collecting the ingredients for both, getting the batter mixed and handing it to Danny before starting the hot chocolate.

Working together (with Danny handling the pancake batter and Jason handling…everything else), they were able to put together a pretty nice breakfast. Jason flipped the last pancake onto a plate just as the drinks were finished. Danny helped carry everything over to the table and they sat down.

“So, Danny.” Jason took a sip of his hot chocolate.

“So, Jason.” Danny took a drink of his hot chocolate.

Jason fought off a smirk. The kid was even sitting on his knees so he could lean his elbows on the table like Jason. He swallowed down his amusement.

“We need to talk about you going out with me at night.” Danny deflated a little, leaning back against the chair. “Gotham is dangerous, Danny, especially at night. I can’t have you flying around and getting yourself hurt.”

“But I have to help!” Danny bounced back up on his knees. “If I don’t then my core will get sick!”

Jason sighed. “You mentioned something about that last night. Is that because of your…” (what had the kid called it…) “Obsession?”

Danny shrugged, taking another drink of his hot chocolate. “All ghosts have an obsession. Like Skulker’s obsession is hunting. And Ember’s is being famous.”

“And yours is protecting?”

“No.” Danny shook his head. “My obsession is space.”

“So…” Jason took a swig of his hot chocolate. “You don’t need to go out at night with me?”

Danny shook his head again. “No, I do!” He bounced back up onto his knees. “It’s just like…mmm I don’t know. It’s like…like…” He swung his hands around.

“Why don’t you tell me why you need to go out at night if it’s not because of your obsession?” Jason reached out and grabbed Danny’s hot chocolate before he dumped it on the floor.

“Cause I’m a protector spirit.” Danny let Jason pull the hot chocolate from his grip and instead reached for the pancakes in the center of the table.

“But protection’s not your obsession.” Jason set his coffee aside. He slid the plate of pancakes closer to Danny, who immediately served himself three.

“Yeah, exactly.” Danny reached for the peanut butter next.

“What’s the difference?” Jason helped Danny unscrew the peanut butter lid and handed him a butter knife. He set about spreading a thick layer of peanut butter over each of the pancakes.

“Well, one of them is what I am. And the other is my obsession.” Danny licked a small dollop of peanut butter off of his finger. “Is there cheese?”

“So you’re—what?”

“Is there cheese? For the pancakes?”

Jason blinked. “Cheese?”

“Yeah, like slices of cheese?”

“Uh, I think so?” Jason crossed over to the fridge, pulling it open. He did actually have a block of cheddar cheese. He pulled it out and sliced off a couple of pieces. “Is this enough?”

Danny floated up off his chair and over to Jason’s shoulder. “Uh-huh!” He grabbed the cheese and darted back to the table.

Jason shook his head, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth, as he put the block of cheese away. He crossed back over to the table and sat back down. Danny had layered the cheese on top of the peanut butter and was currently in the process of pouring syrup over the stack. Jason grabbed the syrup from him just before it spilled off of the plate.

He set the syrup down and picked his coffee back up. “So you’re a protector spirit but your obsession is space.”

“Yeah!” Danny took a massive bite of the strange concoction.

“Okay.” Jason ran a hand over his face. “What happens if you don’t fulfill your obsession?”

“I start to get really tired and my powers don’t work so well.”

“And if you don’t fulfill your need to protect?”

“I start to lose control of my powers.”

“Okay. Now Danny, I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. Your health is important and I want to do everything I can to make sure you’re getting the things you need. Alright?”

Danny nodded, cheeks protruding around another bite of cheesy-peanut-buttery-syrupy pancakes.

“What does losing control of your powers look like?” Danny swallowed heavily and set his fork down. His gaze locked on the stack of food in front of him.

“I stop being able to hold onto things, and sometimes I go invisible or fall through the floor.” He grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt, fidgeting with the hem. “And sometimes I’ll start floating away and go through the ceiling. And—” He cut himself off, shaking his head.

Jason chuffed (comfort-calm-gentle) (that was starting to feel more and more normal and comfortable with each sound that escaped him) as he reached out and set a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “It’s okay, kiddo. And what?”

Danny twisted the hem of his shirt. “S-sometimes, if it’s been a really long time, my ghost form changes and gets…angrier.”

“Angrier?”

Danny nodded. “My fingers and teeth get more pointy, but not like they usually are. They get all hard and big and sharp. And I’ll—“ Danny’s breath was speeding up. Jason slid out of his chair and knelt on the floor next to Danny. He remembered what Danny had said last night ("You’re gonna be scared of me.”) and just how nervous he’d been about it.

“Danny, can you look at me?” The kid dragged his eyes from where he’d been boring a hole through the table and locked eyes with Jason. “I’m not going to be scared of you, no matter what you tell me. I just need to understand so I can be prepared if something happens.”

Danny’s breathing was still too fast. Jason grabbed one of his hands and placed it on his own chest, right on that cool spot in the center.

“Deep breaths for me, okay, squirt?” He took a few exaggerated breaths, in and out, until Danny matched him. “It’s okay. You can’t scare me away.” Danny gripped tightly onto Jason’s shirt. He let out a sharp chirp (scared-worried-nervous). Jason felt something build behind that spot in his chest just like it had last night and let out a rumble (safe-love-calm).

Danny visibly relaxed. “Okay.” He took one more deep breath. “I’ll grab people that are important to me and kinda…bundle them up? The last time it happened I stuck Tucker and Sam and Jazz into a closet and I didn’t let anyone get close to it.”

“Okay.” Jason nodded. “Okay. So your protection instincts get stronger and you just do whatever you need to to protect your family.”

“Yeah, I guess so!” Danny perked up. “I’ve never thought about it like that before.”

“I told you you’re too little to be scary.” Danny grinned. “That’s not that bad then. Apart from the falling through the floor or floating through the ceiling stuff. Is there anything that can grab you? That you can’t go through?”

“I don’t think so.” Danny furrowed his brow. “Not that I know about.”

“Well, we’ll work on it. I’ll do some digging and see if there’s anything I can turn up. In the meantime, we need to set up some ground rules if you’re going to be going out with me at night.”

“I guess so.”

“I know so. Gotham is dangerous and we can’t have you getting hurt.”

“I heal really fast though!” Danny turned back to his pancakes. “And things can’t even touch me if I’m intanable.”

“Intangible?”

“Yeah, that.” Danny nodded sagely, taking another bite.

“Well then, how’s about that’ll be one of the rules?” Danny tilted his head, fork in his mouth still. “You have to be intangible for as much of the night as you can be.”

“But how am I supposed to fight people?”

“You’re not.” Danny took a breath to protest but Jason held up a hand. “You don’t know how to protect yourself. And you’re six years old. You’re safer intangible.” Danny looked disappointed. “Listen, think of it like a challenge. How many crimes can you stop even though you can’t touch the bad guys?”

“I guess.” Danny took the last bite of his pancakes and wiped at his face. All he did was smear the syrup and peanut butter around his cheeks. Jason grabbed a paper towel in one hand and Danny’s face with the other. “If I learn how to protect myself, can I fight people? Like you?”

The paper towel wasn’t doing anything to clean up Danny’s face. It kept getting stuck on the syrup and leaving little bits of paper. Jason spit on it, considering.

“If you let me teach you how for at least five hours a week then we can talk about it when you turn eight.” The damp spot on the paper towel was finally able to make some progress on Danny’s grubby cheeks.

“But that’s ages away!” Danny folded his arms and leaned against the back of his chair. “I don’t even turn seven till Christmas, and then I’d have to wait for a whole ‘nother year before I’m eight!”

“Your birthday is on Christmas?”

“Jason! That’s not the point.”

“Right, right.” Jason sighed. The kid’s face was as clean as it was going to get without properly washing it. He set the paper towel down on the table. And stared at it. (Had he just…he had, hadn’t he? And here he was, talking to the kid about something nearly two years away like it was a guarantee he would still be here.) A warmth blossomed in his chest.

“How about if I train for an hour every day then I can fight people starting in the summer time?” Danny leaned into Jason’s field of vision. “Every day.”

Jason shook his head. “If you train every day for an hour, we can talk about maybe, maybe, doing some fighting next summer.”

“That’s still ages away!”

“It’s that or nothing, squirt.” Jason stood up, holding his arms out towards Danny. “Can I wash your face?”

Danny held his arms up and let Jason swing him up onto his hip. “Is it cause I’m little? Cause I can make myself bigger.”

“It’s because you’re a kid, and kids shouldn’t be on the front lines of fights.” Jason growled (protect-anger-hurt).

“Is that why you don’t like Batman? Cause Robin’s a kid?” Jason stumbled over the bath mat. He kicked at it until it was laying flat in front of the tub again.

“I don’t…not like Batman.” He turned the sink on and stuck his hand under it. This apartment had such a shitty water heater it would probably be a couple minutes before it was warm.

“Yes you do. Every time he comes near the Alley you get angry and shoot-y. ‘You’re not welcome here, you big bat!’” Danny pitched his voice down as far as he could.

“You got me there.” Jason took a deep breath. “I used to be Robin. And I got…really hurt doing it.”

“When you died?” Jason’s breath stuttered for a second. He’d forgotten he didn’t have to talk around it with Danny. Danny had died too.

“Yeah, when I died. I don’t want you to get hurt like that. Ever.” Jason leaned over and rummaged through the cabinet under the sink. “We’ll talk about it again at Christmas. If you’ve followed all the rules, and are doing well in training…we’ll see.”

“Okay.” Danny obligingly leaned forward as Jason wet the washcloth he had found. He scrubbed it as gently as he could over the kid’s sticky cheeks. “Are there any other rules?”

Jason thought about it as he turned the water off. “If you can, stay invisible for most of the night. That way as few people as possible know about you. We’re less likely to attract attention that way.” Danny frowned but he nodded. “If I tell you to do something when we’re out, you have to do it. Right away. No questions, no arguing, no…you do it.”

“What kinds of things?”

“If I tell you to go home, or to hide, or to run.”

“But then you’d be all alone!”

“Non-negotiable, kid.” Some of the fights that broke out between the Bats and the Rogues would spill into the Alley. Jason would be better able to focus on that if he knew Danny was back at home, safe. “If you can’t do that then we’re going to have to figure something else out for fulfilling this need.”

“Fine.” Danny folded his arms. “But if you need help then I’m going to go to get help.”

“Fine.” Jason wouldn’t need help. But… “On that note, if you need help then you need to come get me right away.”

“What if I can’t find you?”

“Then find one of my guys. They’ll know how to find me.

“And if I can’t find one of them?” Danny looked up at him with wide eyes.

“Then I guess you should find a police officer. They won’t be much help but they’ll at least be easy for you to get away from if you need to.” He knew Danny was trying to nudge the conversation towards ‘Then you jump in and fight the guy’ but that wasn’t happening.

Danny looked a little disappointed. “Well, what if I can’t find a police officer either? Or the officer is too far away? What about that?”

“I…” Jason swallowed. “Then you should find one of the Bats. Robin would be the best.”

“Not Batman? Would he not help?”

“No, he would. But he also would insist on sticking his nose in my business after.”

“Oh.” Danny furrowed his brow. “Is that not good?”

Jason shrugged as he carried Danny back into the main room, hopping over the back of the couch. “I…I’m not up to seeing the Bat in my business right now.”

“Cause you used to be Robin?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Danny slid down Jason’s side to sit next to him. “Are you sure you’re not scared of me now?”

“Of course I’m sure, Danno. Why would I be scared of you?”

Danny shrugged, curling up under Jason’s arm. “The GIW said I was a monster when I was like that.”

“When you’re—You mean when you’re ghost form gets ‘angry’?” Danny nodded. “You’re not a monster, squirt. Like I said,” He bopped Danny’s nose, “You’re too little to be scary.”

“But—“

“I bet you’re too little even like that. I bet you’re the size of a kitten.”

“I’m bigger than a kitten!” Danny protested. He pulled away from Jason’s side to glare up at him.

“Just a little tiny baby ghost.”

“I’m not a baby!” But even as Danny shouted his protests, his smile grew wider.

Jason tousled his hair. “You’re a good kid. I promise, I’m not scared of you at all.”

Danny brightened. Literally. His freckles glowed, dusted across his cheeks like tiny stars, and light seemed to diffuse from every pore. It shimmered as it radiated out from him, like sunlight off of ice.

“Well, ain’t that something.” Jason smiled, wider than he had in years (probably since before his mother died). “You’re just a little ball of sunshine.”

Danny giggled. He settled back down against Jason’s side, sending rainbows across his shirt. “Can we watch Wall-E again?”

“Sure, Sunshine.”

— — —

Roy was spiraling again. He knew it. The sweatpants he’d been wearing for at least a week knew it. The grease in his hair from three days since his last shower knew it. And the spot on the floor he’d been staring at for the last 45 minutes knew it.

He’d forgotten to close the door at the end of the hall last night. If he lifted his eyes at all, he was going to be staring right into her room. And if that happened…Roy wasn’t positive what he’d do but it probably wouldn’t be good for staying clean.

But he couldn’t stay here, standing in his hallway like a ghost forever. And that’s what he’d been for the last few months. Just a ghost, haunting his home. He couldn’t help it, there were just too many reminders everywhere. Reminders of her, of how he’d failed her so utterly and completely.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself. He was just walking to the kitchen. So what he had to walk past her room? He could do this. He wrenched his gaze off the floor. He could do this. He could—

He couldn’t do this. The second he lifted his eyes they were pulled to the stuffed animal in the doorway like it was a magnet.

Mr. Bun-Bun sat looking forlornly up at him.

He could do this. He just had to walk past the toy rabbit. Her toy rabbit. Her favorite toy rabbit.

Roy lurched forward, landing on his knees in the doorway. His hand was trembling as he reached out to pick up Mr. Bun-Bun. He clutched it to his chest, doubling over as a vice constricted over his chest. He bit his lip to try and stop it but still a shuddering sob was ripped from his throat.

“I’m so sorry, Lian.” He sobbed to the empty air of her room. “I should have been there, I should have been faster, I should have—“ Tears were landing on the bright red rug Lian had picked out. ("Red, just like your costume, Daddy!”)

He shuddered. (“Can we have matching costumes when I learn how to shoot?”) She’d just gotten a proper sized bow for her birthday. There it was, ready for her in the corner. He’d been meaning to take her to the range but there just…hadn’t been time, there had never been enough time, there would never have been enough time, she was so young, why hadn’t he spent more time—

The stuffed rabbit in his hands didn’t say anything as he pressed his face against the door frame. How could it?

Her bed was still unmade from that morning, her favorite pajamas still strewn across the floor. Roy hadn’t been able to stand being in the room for long enough to clean any of it (and maybe, some small part of him was still hoping she’d come home; she’d hated a freshly made bed, said it was too tight). He crawled on his knees over to it and leaned back against it. He pressed his face into the mattress and wept.

Ages later, someone was knocking on his front door. He wasn’t sure how long he was there, only that the sun had moved, leaving the room dark.

“Roy? You there, buddy?”

Roy scrubbed at his face. He stood gingerly, his knees making it known they didn’t like the position he’d been in for who knows how long. Sniffling, he padded through the kitchen to the door.

“Hey, man.” Garth was wearing a light jacket against the April chill in the air. He cast a knowing eye over Roy. “I was going to ask how you’re doing but…I think I can tell.” Roy stared at him. “You gonna invite me in?”

Wordlessly, Roy stepped to the side. “Did we have plans?”

“No, I just figured you could use a friend right now.” He smiled softly. “I remember what a mess I was when…” He cleared his throat. “Anyways. Who’s that?” He nodded at the toy still clutched in Roy’s hands.

Roy cleared his throat. “Mr. Bun-Bun. He was Lia—her favorite.”

Garth nodded. “Cerdian had a little clown fish. We buried it with him but sometimes…” He shrugged off his jacket and hung it off the back of a chair. “Sometimes I wish I had kept it.”

“I…I couldn’t do it. I tried to leave him with her. She can’t sleep without h—couldn’t sleep without…” Roy felt his knees buckling again.

Garth, reliable, strong, and solid, was there to catch him. He guided them both gently to the floor.

“It’s okay, man.” He cupped the back of Roy’s head and held him steady. “I get it.”

Roy sobbed. He was getting tears and snot on Garth’s shoulder but he didn’t seem to care. He just let Roy cry.

After several moments, Roy was able to pull himself away from his friend. “I’m sorry we weren’t there for you more when Cerdian—“

“It’s okay.” Garth clapped him on the shoulder. “I retreated into myself and didn’t really leave Atlantis for far too long. And it’s not like you guys can come visit me down there.”

“We could have called more or something. Cause man, this is—“

“I know.”

“How do you do it?”

“One day at a time, friend.” Garth wrapped him back up. Roy closed his eyes and just…let his friend hold him up.

“One day at a time.”

— — —

Grocery shopping was one of Jason’s least favorite errands. Being around the many other customers, the fact that he couldn’t see over the aisles, the number of exits he didn’t know about…yeah, it sucked. Shopping with Danny made it slightly more bearable but the trade-off was the sheer number of moms that would come up to him to coo over the two of them. If one more middle-aged woman asked him how he was “handling ‘babysitting’ for his wife”, he was going to shoot someone. 

The chore was made significantly worse when their usual grocery store (the only one really near Crime Alley) was closed because of a failed stick-up. He and Danny had to trek across half the city to the next closest acceptable grocery store (if Jason had to suffer through shopping, he was at least going to make sure the options at the store were decent).

He and Danny had managed to streamline the process to near art over the last few months. Danny sat in the basket with the list, Jason would call out what would be in the aisles as they went past, and Danny would compare against the list. This resulted in as few back-tracking trips as possible.

Normally, at least. This new store was arranged, Jason was convinced, as stupidly as possible. Who the hell would put vinegar next to ketchup? Jason was getting frustrated and a little snappy, biting his tongue every time they had to turn around. He knew Danny was picking up on it. The kid was starting to shrink in on himself, shoulders curling in. He might also be slightly less visible than he was a few minutes ago. Fuck. Jason had to hurry this up.

“What’s next, Sunshine?” Jason kept as much anger out of his voice as he could.

Danny scanned over the list. “Just peanut butter, I think. Then we’re done.”

Jason nodded. He was pretty sure that was next to the bread, a few aisles down. He turned the cart around. Almost done. Then they could both get out of this fluorescent-lit hell, stop listening to the tinny, too-quiet-and-yet-somehow-too-loud top 40s music, and get away from the other stressed-out families with screaming children.

Except the peanut butter was not next to the bread. Jason grit his teeth. His grip around the handle of the cart tightened. Danny pulled his knees up to his chest, holding the small slip of paper like a lifeline.

“For fuck's sake.” Jason needed a second. He leaned over, setting his elbows on the cart, and covered his face with his hands as he tried to take a few deep breaths. “Why is this store so goddamn stupid?” He dragged his hands down his cheeks before freezing. 

There were eyes on him. More than just the lingering once over every neglected wife in the store gave. Someone was staring at him.

Danny sensed the shift in his mood (damn, the kid was too good at reading adults). He sat up on his knees and shifted closer to the side of the cart, making himself easier to grab.

Jason moved as quickly as he could without being suspicious. He pushed them out of the aisle, over one, out of it, down back the way he’d come two aisles further and down the random aisle. The weight of the eyes on him never left.

Time to switch tactics. Jason grabbed a random item from the shelf, holding it up and squinting at the label. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an elderly man in a suit with his own cart at the end of the aisle, about ten feet away. He was definitely staring at Jason.

It was Alfred Pennyworth.

Jason put the can back on the shelf. He turned his back on Alfred and leaned over the cart, elbows on the bar.

“Shit, shit shit shit.” He pulled at his hair. What was Alfred doing here? They were nowhere near Bristol.

His Core trembled. He couldn’t face the family. He couldn’t . Especially not now that it seemed like the Pit was gone. He hadn’t even been able to taunt Batman or Nightwing since it had quieted.

Everyone would be expecting the bright-eyed Jaylad, back from the dead. But he wasn’t that kid anymore. But neither was he the violent, Pit-driven-angry kid he had been when he’d come back to Gotham. Without the anger as a shield, he didn’t know how to approach any of them.

Danny trilled (confused-concerned-help?) and laid a hand on Jason’s arm, startling him out of his thoughts. Jason took a deep breath and ruffled the kid’s hair.

“If anything happens in the next few minutes, just stick close to me, got it?” Danny looked up at him, wide-eyed, and nodded. Jason nodded back. Alfred was still staring. Jason breathed, closing his eyes for a second. There was no reason for Alfred to think he was actually Jason Todd. He just had to play the part of a random doppelganger. He opened his eyes, pulling on all the acting he’d ever done. One wrong twitch, and the jig was up.

He spun around to face Alfred, locking eyes with him. “Can I help you, old man?” He asked loudly, loud enough to draw the attention of other shoppers in the area.

Alfred startled as if coming out of a trance. “I…” He brought a hand up and wiped at his cheek. “I apologize, young sir. I didn’t realize…You look just like my grandson. I’m afraid I lost my head for a moment.” A tear leaked out from Alfred’s eye.

Jason froze. Alfred was crying. Alfred Pennyworth. Was crying. Because Jason…

“Something happen to him?” Jason couldn’t keep the anger in his voice. He could barely keep his voice from shaking.

“He was in an…accident. Nearly seven years ago.” Alfred took a shaky breath. “I apologize for making you uncomfortable. I never expected to be able to see him all grown up, as it were.” With one more swipe of his hand, the British stiff upper lip was back. “I shall leave you and your boy to your shopping.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

Jason turned back around and leaned on the cart again. “Fuck.”

Danny stood up in the cart and carefully picked his way through the groceries to Jason. “Are you okay?”

Jason gave him a small smile. “Yeah, I’m fine, sport. Just didn’t know how that was gonna go.”

“Okay.” Danny placed a tentative hand on Jason’s forearm. “That old dude isn’t one of the Guys in White, if that’s what you were worried about. They wouldn’t have stared, just shot.”

“Thanks, Danny-boy.” Jason picked him up and set him on his hip, feeling a little on edge still. That thing in his chest settled as he felt Danny’s hands wind into his shirt.

Danny pressed his face into Jason’s shoulder. “Jason, I don’t like this store.”

“Yeah, me neither, Sunshine.” Jason put his back to the shelf. He wrapped his arms more securely around Danny, applying just a little bit of pressure across his back, just enough to be a solid reminder that he wasn’t alone. Danny sagged against him.

Jason tilted his head down and pressed his nose into Danny’s hair, breathing deeply (the watermelon kiddie shampoo Danny liked smelled good, sue him). He stood there for a few minutes, long enough for his Core to stop shivering, before straightening back up.

Danny looked up at him, grinning when he saw the soft smile on Jason’s face. Jason’s heart swelled, and he chuffed (love-happy-adorable) softly.

“Now let’s go find the peanut butter so we can get out of here.”

— — —

“Master Bruce.” Alfred called as he stepped off the elevator into the Cave.

“Over here.” Came an answering call from the Bat-Computer. Alfred’s steps echoed as he crossed the Cave floor.

Bruce was sitting back in the office chair with a mug of tea, watching Alfred walk over. On screen were the details of some case or another. He looked relaxed for once. Alfred hated to disturb one of his rare good moods but it had to be done.

“Master Bruce, did Jason have any living family?” Alfred saw the shutters close behind Bruce’s eyes, the way they always did when Jason was mentioned.

“No.” Bruce turned back to the computer. “I checked before I adopted him and again after I found out Catherine wasn’t his birth mother. There’s no one.”

Alfred hummed. “You’re positive?”

“100%. Why?”

Alfred pulled the chair away from the desk, leaning over Bruce, and pulled up the footage from the camera hidden in the lapel of his jacket.

Bruce dropped his tea. The mug shattered on the stone floor as he gaped at the screen, tears swimming in his eyes. Alfred knew exactly what he was feeling.

The young man in the store looked so much like Jason it hurt . The set of his chin, the shape of his nose, the slight pout in his lips, the tan of his skin (despite the near constant gloom of the city), the soft blue of his eyes, all were the exact same. If it weren’t for the fact this man was about a foot taller and over 100 lbs heavier, several years older (7 years older? A traitorous part of Alfred’s mind asked), and sporting a tuft of pure white hair on the top of his head it would be like looking at one of the family albums upstairs. Even the anger visible in the tension of his shoulders and the clench of his jaw was the same.

“I’ll check again.” Bruce’s voice was rough. Alfred nodded (because what other explanation could there be?).

— — —

Two sets of black leather shoes stepped out of a white van. Two pairs of pristine white pants stood above the shoes. These were beneath two pristine white suit jackets.

The men wearing the suits, both with severely intense looks on their faces, removed their sunglasses in the Gotham gloom. They looked around at the gray architecture, at the gray sky, at the gray citizens.

“I can’t believe we didn’t think of this location earlier.” The first man said. “This is one of the only areas in the country with enough ambient ectoplasm to support one of those half-things.”

“I believe the higher ups believe Batman will turn any of those things in. He does tend to stay on the good side of the law, apparently.” The second man replied. “I don’t agree.”

“This has to be where we’ll find Phantom.” The first man said. “We went to all that trouble to capture that little friend for it alive. Maybe it’ll be easier to contain with a cellmate.”

“That would require either of those things to be capable of real feeling.”

“True.” The first man reached back into the van and pulled out a strange, silver device with a radio dish on the front. It beeped softly.

“Incredibly powerful ghost detected in the area.” A robotic voice came from the device. “Please move closer to determine direction.”

“Of course the thing doesn’t have a lock on Phantom’s signature.” The second man took the device from the first and smacked the side of it lightly. “Guess we’ll have to start a grid pattern search to lock down its location in the city.”

“I’ll grab the back up. We’ll cover more ground if we split up.”

“Check in at 18.00.”

“Alternate code 7-Alpha.”

The two men nodded at each other.

“Let’s catch us a phantom.”

Chapter Text

“Leave me alone!” The voice pierced through the cold Gotham night.

Danny flew through the air over to the alley it came from. There was a man wearing a ski mask trying to mug a lady at the mouth of the alley. Danny cast an eye over the scene.

What he wanted to do was simply punch the man until he left the lady alone. But Jason said that wasn’t allowed. So Danny had to get a little bit more creative. He sank down to the alley ground behind the mugger.

There was a puddle of water under the man’s foot. Danny grinned mischievously. When the man lifted his foot to reposition it, Danny blew out a cold breath and froze the puddle. The man’s foot slid out to the side as he brought it back down. He hit the ground. The lady took the opportunity to run away.

“What the—?” The man crawled on his hands and knees over to the puddle. Danny quickly thawed it before he could see. “It’s just water, it shouldn’t have been that slippery.” The man said to himself.

Danny giggled, the sound louder than he’d expected. It bounced around the alley as the man’s eyes widened.

“Aw, I ain’t messing with this shit!” He pushed himself up onto his feet and ran. Danny giggled again as he floated back up into the sky, resuming his patrol.

— — —

Danny bounced on his toes as Jason pushed open the door with his hip. They were finally moving into a new place! One with bedrooms, and Jason said he could put stars on his ceiling and he could decorate with whatever kind of posters he wanted and he’d be able to get space sheets!

He darted into the apartment ahead of Jason, who swore behind him.

“Careful, Danny!” Jason called as Danny ran to explore the new space. “It’s hard to see you over the boxes, try to not get stepped on.”

There were two bedrooms in the new apartment. They were right across from each other down the hall. Danny ran into the first one.

This one was probably the one Jason would want, since it had a fire escape right outside the window and there were no windows on the building on the other side of the alley. Danny gave it a perfunctory glance over before turning and running across the hall to the other one.

“Woah!” The moving man jumped back a step as Danny went sprinting past. “Sorry, kiddo.”

“Danny, stay out of the movers way!” Jason shouted from the kitchen.

“Sorry!” Danny called over his shoulder. He stepped into the room and looked around.

It was smaller than the other one, but that’s fine because Danny is smaller too! It had a slight slope to the ceiling though, which meant his stars would be easier to plan out the placements of. It also had a little nook that would be perfect for his bed.

He darted back into the hallway to ask Jason if he could have this room. As he rounded the corner to the kitchen he smacked right into one of the movers. He felt something grab the back of his shirt as a box slipped out of the mover’s hands right above his head and suddenly he was in the air.

Jason crushed Danny against his chest. Danny wiggled until he could see Jason’s face, staring at where the box had just landed. Right where Danny had been standing.

Oops.

“Danny, are you okay?” Jason asked as he set Danny back down on the floor.

Danny nodded “I’m okay.” His Core was shaking from the adrenaline but he wasn’t hurt. “What happened?”

“What happened.” Jason’s hands tightened into fists. “Is you weren’t looking where you were going.” His voice was tight with anger and his Core was practically screaming protect-fury-anGRY .

Danny gulped. “I’m sorry.” He grabbed at the hem of his shirt, twisting it into his hands.

“Sorry? You almost had a box dropped on your head!” Jason’s voice picked up into a shout. “Do you know how seriously you could have been hurt?”

“Hey, man, the kid’s okay—“

Jason swatted the mover’s hand off of his shoulder. “You could have broken your neck, Danny! That’s why I was telling you to slow down!”

“I’m sorry.”

“You need to be more careful!” Jason moved his arm up and Danny—

“Eep!” (Fear-hurt-danger!)

Jason froze, hand at the bridge of his nose. Danny was breathing too hard, the world was too big, there were big men everywhere, was one of them his dad, someone was mov ing towards him he was right above him—

There was something pressing against his back, he was trapped no not again get away—

A hand above him, shouting in his ears, everything was too loud, his chest hurt—

A door, there! Danny ran for it, slamming it behind him. Alone, he sat on the floor. He burst into tears.

— — —

“Shit.” Jason balled his hand into a fist as he slowly lowered it from where he had reached out for Danny.

“Hmm.” One of the moving guys was still standing at Jason’s shoulder. “You on your own with him?”

Jason swallowed. “Yeah, just fou-got him back from his piece of shit mom.” The cover story they’d come up with came to mind almost a second too late.

“Figured.” The mover folded his arms across his chest. “I’m on my own with mine too. You want some advice?”

The man (what was his name? Mark? No, Mater) stared at him, perfectly steady. There was no judgment in his eyes.

Jason dropped his gaze to the floor with a sigh. “Please.”

Mater clapped him on the shoulder. “Look, I get it. It’s exhausting doing it all on your own. You’ve been managing this move, managing the kid, your job…It’s a lot. But you might want to lay off the yelling.”

Jason chewed on his lip.

“You gotta remember that he’s a lot littler than you. When he’s excited, it’s like he just can’t stay still cause he’s feeling the same amount of excitement as you or me but there’s just nowhere for it to go.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works.” Jason furrowed his brows.

“Sure it is. Trust me.”

“Okay?”

“Like I said, I get it. You didn’t mean to yell. You’re not really angry, but all of your emotions feel a lot bigger with him, right?”

Jason nodded. That’s certainly one way to put it.

“Every bit of fear or worry feels like it’s been turned up to 11. Cause you love him, and you couldn’t imagine your life if he got hurt. And because those emotions feel so much bigger, you need bigger outlets.” Mater pointed at the door Danny had slammed behind him. “Like him and all his excitement. So you yell. But he doesn’t know all of that. All he knows is that you’re yelling, and yelling is usually a bad thing.

“So just apologize for the yelling. Not for the being scared. Not for the being angry that he almost got hurt. Those are valid emotions. But apologize for the yelling. Try to explain why you yelled but know that he might not get it. Now,” Mater spun Jason around and gave him a little shove towards the door. “Go hug your kid. We got the rest of the truck.”

Jason sighed. The man was right. He stepped over to the door and knocked gently. After a few moments, he knocked again. The door cracked open and Danny peaked out.

The single eye that Jason could see was red-rimmed and watery. Danny was curled in on himself, and he won’t quite meet Jason’s eye.

Jason knelt down in front of the door. “I’m sorry I yelled, Danny. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Danny opened the door further. He stared up at Jason’s face with wide eyes.

Jason continued. “It just scared me, when the box almost fell on you. And I’ve never really had anyone that I’ve been that scared for so I didn’t know what to do—“

He cut himself off as 50 pounds (Danny was finally putting on some weight, his cheeks filling out with baby fat the way they’re supposed to be) of kid launched himself at his chest. He caught Danny and pressed his nose into his hair.

“I’m sorry, Sunshine.”

“It’s okay.” Danny crawled up and sat back on Jason’s arms. “You didn’t mean it.”

“That doesn’t make it okay, Sunshine.”

“No, but it does mean that you’re gonna try to not yell next time. And that’s what matters.” Danny wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand. Jason grabbed the bottom of his own shirt without thinking and raised it to help clean off his face. “And even if you do yell next time, you’ll yell less. And then the next time you’ll yell even less than that. That’s the important part.”

Jason smiled. “Is it?”

“Yeah!” Danny beamed. “Jazz used to say that apologies only matter if they mean you’re gonna try to be better. And you’re gonna try. So that’s what matters.”

“Jazz said that?” Jason pressed a gentle kiss on Danny’s forehead. “She sounds like she was pretty smart.”

“She was.” Danny said quietly. He gripped at Jason’s shirt. “I miss her.”

“I know you do, bud.” Jason buried his nose in Danny’s hair. “But it’s okay. She’s not completely gone, not so long as you remember the things she told you.”

“Cause she’s in my memories?”

“Exactly.” Jason wrapped his arms tighter around Danny. “So long as she’s in your memories she’s not gone.” Jason stood up, still holding Danny. “Now let’s go see if we can find the hot chocolate supplies.”

— — —

Danny was practically vibrating with excitement the entire ride to the library.  He had his stack of books from last visit on his lap and was kicking his heels into the car seat beneath his booster.

“Are we there yet?” He asked for the tenth time in as many minutes.

“Not quite, Sunshine.” Jason responded, yet again. “We just gotta get past this light, then two more turns.”

Danny huffed ( impatience-excitement-hurry up ) and bounced his feet off the seat again. “But what if the book is checked out?”

Jason sighed. “Then we’ll have to pick out a different book for this week.”  Jason couldn’t exactly enroll him in school, what with the being dead and apparently legally not a person thing, but he was determined to ‘foster a love of learning’, as the parenting books he’d been cramming through put it. The library was much less stringent on legal identity than the school system.

“But that’s the one I want to read!”

“And you’ll get to read it eventually. We can ask the librarians to hold it for us next time it comes in if it’s checked out.” The light finally turned green.

“Are we there yet?”

“Almost.” Jason sighed, again.”

Finally, after two more ‘are we there yet’s (and Jason definitely wasn’t having mild flashbacks to stake-outs with Batman and the endless ‘are we done yet’s), Jason made the turn into the library’s parking lot. It took just another minute to find a parking spot and for Jason to round the car to Danny’s door.

“Let me out, let me out!” Danny wiggled in his seat as Jason reached over him to click the buckle. He grabbed the stack of books and Danny’s backpack as Danny flew out of the car.

“Feet on the ground, remember?” Jason held a hand out to the kid who was currently floating about two inches up.

Danny sheepishly lowered himself to the pavement. He reached up and grabbed Jason’s hand before taking off towards the door. Jason allowed himself to be towed across the parking lot and inside. He barely managed to drop the books off in the return bin before he was tugged towards the reference section.

Danny finally came to a stop in front of the space section. He turned to face the shelf and looked through the books he could reach. “It’s not here!”

“Hold on there, Sunshine.” Jason picked Danny up, setting him on his shoulders. This put him about eye level with the top shelf. “See anything now?” He smirked as Danny leaned as far forward as he could and snagged the book in question.

“ Black Holes and Time Warps !” He squealed ( hurry up-excitement-joy ). He bounced on Jason’s shoulders.

“Okay, what else do we need then?”

“A dictionary!” Danny pointed in the vague direction of the appropriate section. Jason chuckled as he headed that way.

After collecting a dictionary, Jason headed for the children’s section, which everyone knows has the best seating options. They found a spot with a kid sized table right next to the more adult friendly reading chairs. Jason fished his own book ( Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier) out of Danny’s backpack before handing it to him.

“Get going. Let me know if you need any help.”

Danny nodded, pulling two notebooks (one green and one yellow, he’d been very particular about the colors) and a pencil out of the bag. He arranged the supplies carefully on the table in front of him before opening the highly sought after book to the first page and settling down to read. Jason did the same.

They sat there in mutual silence for a while. Danny would occasionally open the green notebook and mark down a page number and section, or the yellow notebook and dictionary and copy over a definition. But for the most part they just read together.

Jason was actually pretty proud of this little set up he’d come up with. Danny was able to fulfill his space Obsession without having to drive an hour and a half out of town or spend $20 to get into the Gotham Planetarium, expand his general knowledge of science, and work on his vocabulary all at once.

Time blurred together as Jason read about Mrs. De Winter struggling with the memories haunting Manderley and Danny read about black holes or whatever the book was covering.

“Excuse me.”

Jason jumped, nearly out of his seat, as a voice cut through the haze of focus. He looked around, gaze landing on a smallish librarian standing a little ways away from him, wearing an oversized sweater with a pin that said ‘They/Them’.

He blinked at them. “Can I help you?”

“Are you here with this young boy, sir?” They gestured at Danny, still engrossed in the book. Experience said only physically picking him up would break his focus before he was ready to emerge.

“Yeah, I am.” He slipped his bookmark back into Rebecca and closed the book. “Why? Are we doing something wrong?”

“Well, it’s just that I noticed he has a rather advanced level book.” They fiddled with their lanyard as they pointed at the book.

“Yeah, you should have seen how excited he was to get here today and start reading it. All the forums said it was a good starter book for astronomy for a layman.” Jason let a small smile lift the corners of his lips. Danny had been talking about this book for days.

“I don’t know if you realize but we do have a whole section on space here in the children’s section.”

“Oh, I know.”

“The books here in the children’s section would be more appropriate for his age and developmental level.”

“They were, before he read all of them.”

“If the children’s books are too simple for him there’s also a selection in the teen section.”

“Yeah, there are. He’s read all of those too.” Jason raised a hand, cutting off the librarian before they could say something else. “Why are you bringing this up?”

They sighed. “He’s going to be frustrated when he comes across words he doesn’t know. He may even get upset, especially with the number of words he doesn’t know, and want to stop learning.”

“I assure you, he’s not going to want to stop learning about space.” Jason stood up, stepping over to the table. “And he’s not going to be upset or frustrated, he’s going to be thrilled. Look.” Jason pointed at the dictionary and notebooks. “Whenever he comes across a word he doesn’t know, he looks it up and copies the definition into his yellow notebook. Then when we get home we go over the words he learned and review any that we need to.”

“That book has concepts that I’m not sure he’s able to comprehend.”

“That is how learning a new thing works, yes.” Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, what are you trying to accomplish here?”

The librarian stood straighter. “I am simply trying to make sure all library patrons are utilizing the library to its fullest capacity and aren’t trying to show off to anyone else.”

Jason squinted at them. “Aren’t…what?”

“Sir, it is not appropriate to try and force your child to read books far above their developmental level simply to show off to other parents.”

“What other parents?” Jason gestured around at the empty children’s section. “It’s 10:30 on a Wednesday, we’re the only ones here!”

“Sir, there’s no reason to get upset—“

“And I’m not forcing anything, he picked the book out himself. He loves space, and loves reading about it. He’s like a sponge—“

A small hand tugged on the bottom of Jason’s shirt. “Jason, look at this!”

He leveled the librarian with a look as he knelt down next to Danny. “What’d you find, Sunshine?”

“Did you know that scientists figured out quantum mechanics exists because of white dwarfs?”

“Really? How did they do that?” Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw the librarian sheepishly creeping away as Danny launched into an explanation.

— — —

“I’m coming!” Roy called at the incessant knocking. He’d been on the couch in the back when it had started and for some reason he lacked the energy to really hurry to the door.

“Roy!” A red blur launched itself at him as he opened the door and wrapped him in a vise grip. “How’re you doing, buddy?”

There were only so many red-heads that Roy knew, and even fewer who would show up at his house uninvited. “Wally?”

“Yeah, man!” Sure enough, the young Flash pulled back from the hug and clapped him on the shoulder. “I was in the neighborhood, figured I’d come over and say hi.”

“Did Garth call you?”

Wally deflated. “He…might have mentioned something. Figured you’d need some company.”

Roy rolled his eyes and stepped aside. Wally blew past him. And skidded to a stop facing the wrong way in the kitchen doorway. He stepped in close to Roy, staring him right in the eye.

Roy sighed. “I’m clean, Wally. I haven’t even contacted my old dealer.”

“Good.” Wally gently punched his shoulder. “I just wanted to check in, you know? Losing my kids was…one of the worst things I’ve ever felt.”

“Yeah.” Roy slung an arm across Wally’s shoulders. “It sucks.”

“That’s definitely one way to put it.” Wally leaned into Roy. “I’m sorry for not trusting you. You’re strong and I know that.”

Roy shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“It’s okay to not be fine.” Wally put his hands up and stepped back at the look Roy leveled at him. “I know. But it bears repeating.” He slowly lowered his hands. “When was the last time you ate?”

Roy shrugged again.

“Okay. I’ll run out and pick us up some pizza. How does that place in Keystone City sound?” There was a small smirk on Wally’s face that told Roy he was trying to start up their old playful argument about the best pizza. Roy was supposed to respond with a quip about how it’s ‘fine for swill’ but the place down the road here in Star City is so much better.

He took a deep breath before swallowing heavily. “Sounds fine.”

Wally’s face fell ever so slightly but he nodded. “Be back in a jiff.”

Roy watched the door close behind him. He was still staring blankly at the door when Wally sped back in, two boxes of pizza in his hands.

The skin around Wally’s mouth tightened. He set the pizza on the clean coffee table (clean, Roy had never been able to keep it clean before, a constant losing battle against crayons and paper and toys). Roy swallowed as Wally slung an arm around his shoulders and led him to the couch.

“You want to watch something?” Wally asked. Roy just shrugged. “Okay. I’ll pick something.” There was the sound of Wally navigating through menus and streaming options for a few minutes. “Oh, you like this one, right?”

Roy didn’t look up fast enough to see what he had picked. He watched through a few studio logos blankly before the opening scene of Point Break started playing. Automatically, he raised an arm for Lian to cuddle into his side and she—

Suddenly the numb coating that had been surrounding Roy’s mind shattered and he lurched forward with a sob. Wally’s arm came back up around his shoulders, holding tight. And once again he found himself sobbing into one of his best friend’s chests as he fell apart.

— — —

Barbara stretched her arms above her head, groaning as her shoulders and upper spine popped. She loved running the Gotham City Library but days like this made her wish she didn’t. 10 straight hours of paperwork could do that to anyone. She rolled her head back and forth across her shoulders, wincing as she felt the muscles protest at the motion after so long holding still.

She stretched her fingers last just before exiting the small and cramped office that had been her prison for the past day. It was closing time but there were still a couple stragglers lingering. Barbara smiled as she watched a man attempting to herd a hyperactive child to the checkout stations.

“Come on, Sunshine, you can read more once we’re home, I promise.”

“But I was just getting to the part about implosions!” The boy bounced up on his toes and grabbed at the top of the desk as his father took the book he’d been clutching to his chest. He had to practically lift himself off the floor but he managed to get up high enough to watch the book be scanned. “That’s how black holes are made, I think it’s going to talk about black holes after this.”

“Here, you can keep holding it.” The man turned to hand the book back to the boy. Barbara gasped as he did.

There was something painfully familiar about that jawline. The nose, the swoop of his eyebrows, the set of his eyes…she swallowed heavily as she looked at a carbon copy of Jason’s face.

This had to be the doppelganger Tim had mentioned a few weeks ago, the one Alfred had run into at the store. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him as he scanned a second book for checkout. Alfred had been right (he always was). This man was a dead-ringer for Jason, just all grown up.

Her cheeks were wet. Barbara wiped a hand over them.

She hadn’t been particularly close to Jason, pretty much only seeing him when their patrols crossed paths. She just wasn’t around the manor often enough to see him. Plus…she can’t deny that she had let her friendship and loyalty to Dick taint her relationship with the kid.

“Can we go now?” The kid was vibrating with excitement as he clutched his book to his chest again. “I wanna read about black holes!”

“Do you have everything?” And oh, Barbara recognized that soft smile the man had when he turned back to the kid. “Both notebooks and your pencil?” It was the same smile Jason used to use with frightened kids that Robin had just saved. A smile that said ‘I’d do anything to keep you safe and happy’.

There was no way for this to be Jason. It had to just be coincidence. They say there are seven people who look exactly like you out there, after all. It’s even possible this is some long lost relative of Jason’s that Bruce hadn’t been able to find due to simple distance. That would certainly explain the resemblance.

It would not, however, explain the tug in her gut when the man laughed at the kid’s excitement. Because that was a laugh she hadn’t heard in years. A laugh made of magic and joy and an overwhelming desire to bring that joy to others.

“Danny, slow down!” The man called as he hurried after the boy. And there, as he ran after Danny, there was a small hitch in his step, like he was about to jump. A hitch she had only seen in a few other places: one, in Dick as he ran around first the gym and then the roofs of Gotham; two, in Tim, having molded his entire physicality after Dick; and three, in Jason, having been taught how to run across roofs and streets by Dick.

She pressed a hand over her mouth to keep herself from crying out as the man scooped the child up onto his shoulders in exactly the same motion she had seen Bruce do with Jason. Danny settled on the man’s shoulders and laid his cheek on the top of that curly black hair that was so familiar.

The man smiled again. He had a snaggle tooth just to the left of his front teeth, just like Jason.

There was no way. But there were just too many similarities. And as the man cast an eye across the library as he headed for the door, his gaze landed on Barbara. His gentle, soft blue, painfully familiar gaze.

A spark of something behind his eyes before they shuttered. Recognition, maybe. His lips tightened for a split second.

“Have a good evening, ma’am.” The man even spoke in the same central Gotham lilt Jason had.

Barbara swallowed around a sudden lump in her throat. “Dr-Drive safe.” She managed to force past it. “Enjoy your books.”

The man nodded then quickened his pace. Just as the doors swung shut behind him, Barbara heard the kid speak up.

“Did you know her, Jason?”

She bit her lip. It was impossible. She kept repeating that to herself as she pulled a phone out of her pocket with shaking hands. Her fingers had dialed automatically, out of some deeply ingrained habit, with no input from her. She had no idea who was going to be on the other end of the line.

“Hey, Babs! What’s up?” Dick sounded out of breath. In the background, she could hear children laughing and the cheery pop Dick always played for his classes.

She choked on a sob.

“Sadie, I’ll be right back!” It sounded like he had pulled the phone away from his mouth to yell across the gym but she could still hear it. The background noise faded. A door closed.

“I’m sorry.” She gasped out. “I know you have class right now. I shouldn’t have called.”

“No, no, don’t apologize. We were just starting cool down stretches, Sadie can handle it for a little bit. What’s wrong?”

Barbara sniffed. “I saw that look-a-like Alfred saw here. At the library.”

“Look-a-like? Who’s?”

“Tim didn’t tell you?” She scrubbed at her cheeks, trying to keep the tear tracks from drying in to stiff lines.

“I’ve been busy the last couple weeks, haven’t had a chance to stop by the Manor.” She could practically hear him swipe a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he’d had his entire life. “The girls have an invite this weekend and I’ve been trying to set everything up.”

“You’re really taking this coaching thing seriously.”

“I’m loving it. Way more than being a cop, anyways.”

“You’re too much sunshine to last long on a police force.” She laughed wetly. “Dad always said it took a special kind of darkness inside to not let the darkness of the job seep in too much.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He huffed into the phone. “But you’re deflecting.”

She sighed. “I am.”

“Who’s look-a-like did you see?”

“It’s not important.” She waved a hand in the air. “I’m sorry I bothered you, you should—“

“Babs, I know you better than that.” And oh, she could hear the tightness around his eyes that always appeared when he was detective-ing. “You don’t call without good reason.”

She took a shuddering breath. “There’s a man here in Gotham who looks like Jason.” Dick gasped, a quick and sharp inhale. “Alfred saw him a couple weeks ago at the grocery store. Dick, he…he looks exactly like Jason. Exactly like Jason, just older. It’s like looking at Jason if…if he hadn’t…”

“Shit.” Dick breathed out. “I—“ He cleared his throat. “I can see where that would be a lot.”

Barbara laughed again, a harsh, punched out sound. “I don’t even know why I’m so freaked out by it. Just because he looks like Jason.” Looks, and laughs, and smiles, and talks, and walks. “A lot like Jason.”

“Babs—“

“Dick, he looked so much like Jason. He even walked like Jason, you know, with that little jump. I just—I…what if—?”

“Barbara, that’s impossible.”

“Weirder things have happened!”

“That doesn’t mean it makes sense for Jason to have come back from the dead!” Dick sighed. “Look, I get it. I saw Jason everywhere for a long time too. Maybe you’re just grieving differently now.”

“It’s more than that!” Barbara shouted. “Dick, he talked like Jason, he smiled like Jason, he—“

“I get it, Barbara. But it’s impossible.”

“But what if it’s him?”

“What if it’s not?” A beat of silence. “What if it’s not him and you’ve just put yourself through that heartbreak for nothing?”

Barbara said nothing.

“Exactly.” Dick sighed again. “I’ve got to go. I hear Sadie calling me.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll…I’ll try to come up this weekend. Maybe we can…look into it then.”

“Okay.”

Dick hung up. But not quite quickly enough that Barbara didn’t hear the soft, muffled sob.

— — —

Two men in white sat at a sidewalk table at a small cafe in the middle of the city. They had been in Gotham for two weeks with no significant leads.

“Maybe it’s not here?” One said.

“No, it’s here. I can feel it in my gut.” The second replied.

“Does your gut tell us where to find it?” The first said with a roll of his eyes that was hidden by sunglasses.

The second held up a hand.

“Excu—“

“Hush.”

A couple walking past them on the sidewalk was chatting. “I don’t know, I don’t really buy that there’s a ghost vigilante in Crime Alley.”

“Really? You don’t buy that there’s a meta with ghost-like powers that’s taken up protecting the Alley?”

“Oh, no I would buy that. Except that Hood is still active in the Alley and he doesn’t take too kindly to other masks in his turf.”

“I don’t know, my cousin says he’s been way more mellow the last couple months.”

“Okay, but even if that’s true, a ghost?”

“How would Hood stop one?”

“True. But come on. A ghost?”

“I don’t know what to tell you. My friend said that he heard it’s a ghost haunting the Alley. No one’s ever seen him but no one’s gotten mugged in weeks. All the muggers keep getting scared off by like, laughter or something.”

“What, like in a horror movie? Just a kid’s laughter from the darkness?”

“That what he said.”

“Citizens.” The second man in white stood up and approached them. They both looked startled. His partner was half a step behind him.

“We require all the information you have about the ghost-like entity in this so-called Crime Alley.”

“What, you some kind of cop?”

The first man in white produced an official looking badge. “Federal agent, under the authority of the Ghost Investigation Ward.”

“Seriously?” The pair of civilians laughed. “A ghost FBI?”

“Look, we don’t talk to cops.”

“Failure to comply is a violation of the federal Anti-Ecto Control Act.” The first man produced a pair of cuffs from his jacket pocket.

“Of the what?”

“Look, we don’t want any trouble. It’s just a silly rumor.”

“We will decide if it is a rumor or not.” The second man said.

“Some people are saying there’s some kind of ghost protecting people in Crime Alley. Lots of muggers have been tripping over air or feeling cold spots or hearing a kid laugh from nowhere. Stuff like that.”

“And where is this Crime Alley? There is no mention of it in city records.”

“It’s kinda a nickname?” Both men in white leveled the civilian with a stare. He swallowed before continuing. “It’s real name is Park Row.”

Both agents nodded. “Much obliged, citizen.”

The other snapped a notebook shut. “You may both go about your business.”

“Whatever.” The pair quickly walked away.

The agents turned back to each other. “Should we check this out?”

“Obviously. It must have heard we’re in town and is trying to get the public on its side before we can capture it. The timing is too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

The first nodded. “Maybe we’ll be back at home base before the week is out.”

“Don’t hold your breath.” The second chastised. “These things are slippery. Don’t forget the amount of trouble we had getting the one we have in custody. And that one can barely do anything.”

“Do you suppose it’s figured out it can go through walls yet?”

“I don’t really care.” The second shrugged. “Maybe it can’t. We don’t know much about the half-breeds.”

“The boys at the lab will figure it out before long.”

“I’m sure they will. In the meantime, we should check this out.”

“Search pattern delta-green?”

“That seems the most prudent option.”

They both nodded once at each other and turned in the direction of Crime Alley.

Chapter Text

Danny jolted upright. The last images of the nightmare were still playing in his head (Sam dead, Tucker dead, Jazz dead, Jason—) as he gasped around the lump in his throat. His dad Jason wasn’t dead. He was just across the hall (what if he’s not what if the GIW had found them Danny couldn’t fail again he had to Protect). Nothing had happened on patrol last nig—

The floor was cold under Danny’s bare feet. He walked through the door and then stopped across the hall.

This was not the first time Danny had had this nightmare. He had nightmares about how he’d failed his Haunt-mates pretty regularly at this point (it was his fault the Fentons had found out, his fault they’d needed to rescue him, his fault they hadn’t made it back out he was supposed to Protect them). Jason joining them was a rather new addition.

But this was the first time he hadn’t been able to just sit up to see that Jason was okay. In the studio apartment they’d been in for the last five months, Jason had been on the couch just across the room, visibly breathing (in fact, Jason’s health was better now than it had been when Danny had first found him, his core was actually starting to filter out the corruption in his ectoplasm). They’d finished moving today, though, and now each had their own bedroom and everything.

It would be okay, right? Danny’s really quiet, he probably wouldn’t even wake his dad Jason up if he just phased through the door. Just to make sure Jason’s okay (Danny just has to make sure, he can’t have failed again, he can’t have failed to Protect again).

Danny let out a small noise of frustration and took a deep breath. Before he could lose his nerve, he walked through the door.

Jason woke up almost the second Danny’s gaze landed on him. He jumped up, pulling a knife from under his pillow and settling into the guard position he’d been teaching Danny (“You have to know how to actually fight if you’re going to be coming with me, squirt.”), his eyes darting around the room.

His gaze landed on Danny. The knife disappeared as he crossed the room to kneel in front of Danny.

“Hey, Sunshine, what’s wrong?”

Danny realized he was crying. And trembling as Jason placed a steady hand on his shoulder. He sniffled and clamped down on a keen (scared-failure-help). He wasn’t sure what to say since he’d never thought he would wake Jason up. He’d just wanted to make sure Jason was alive and then he was going to go back to bed. He wasn’t going to bother Jason.

But now his dad Jason was right in front of him with open arms and concern in his eyes. He wasn’t angry even though he’d only been asleep for an hour or two after he got back from patrol. Danny was supposed to Protect but he was so tired and scared and the floor was cold and—Jason chuffed (safe-home-it’s okay).

Danny lurched forward. An ugly sob tore from his throat at the same time as a whine (sorrow-scared-grief) was pulled from his Core. Jason’s arms wrapped around Danny and pulled him in. He cried for the first time since he’d escaped the GIW. He knew he was getting tears and snot on Jason’s shirt but it felt so good to finally just cry that he couldn’t care. Jason held him tight, his Core rumbling (comfort-love-warmth). Danny had no idea how long it was until he’d cried himself out but Jason’s strong grip didn’t waver for a second. The steady pressure was grounding.

Eventually Danny had cried enough to calm down. He pulled back. Jason let him go.

“Feel a bit better, squirt?” Jason brought the hem of his shirt up and wiped Danny’s face dry. “I think you’ve been holding that in for a while.”

Danny shrugged, sniffling.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I just…had to make sure you weren’t dead.” Danny twisted the hem of his Martian Manhunter pajama shirt. “That the Guys in White didn’t get you like they got Sam and Tucker and Jazz.”

“Ah.” Jason pulled his (soaked, Danny winced) shirt off and threw it at the laundry basket. “How’s about you crash in here for the rest of the night then?” He gave Danny a soft smile as he rummaged through a box for a new shirt. “In case the nightmares come back?”

Danny sniffed again. He really didn’t want to go back to his room, back to being all alone (like his cell at the GI—). And he was still so tired.

Before he could lose his nerve, Danny chirped (please-yes-protect me) and raised his arms. Jason scooped him up, carrying him over to the bed. Once he’d laid down and settled, Danny rolled so his face was hidden in Jason’s his dad’s chest. He basked in simply feeling safe and purred (sleepy-safe-happy). Nothing could hurt him, not when his dad was here with him.

As he was drifting back to sleep, Danny felt a gentle kiss pressed into his hair. “Good night, Sunshine. Sweet dreams.”

“G’night, Daddy.” (If Jason had to have his own cry, silent and still to not wake Danny, his son, well, that’s his business.)

— — —

The sound of the security doors clanging open and then shut again startled Lian from the wakeful doze she had finally managed to fall into. She shrank back into the corner of her cell farthest from the door as one of those agents stormed past.

“Cell door 3!” The agent shouted over his shoulder. The door next to hers opened alongside the fizzling sound that accompanies their invisible green force fields. There was the sound of something being tossed into the cell. The door slammed shut again, almost obscuring the sound of the force field snapping back into place.

Lian held her breath (or tried to; it lacked the full tightness in her chest that she had always associated with it) as the agent headed back out of the hall. There were a few beats of silence.

“Oh, Ancients, these fuckers’ thermoses are smaller than the kid’s.” The voice sounded young but not as young as her. Maybe 20? Younger than her dad but older than her Uncle Connor.

She pressed herself further into the corner, biting her lip against the sob that was building in her chest at the thought of her dad. She was too slow, though, and the choked off sound echoed in the quiet, metal cell she was locked in.

“Hey, who’s there?” The voice drifted a little closer, grew in volume a little, like the owner had pressed themself against the adjoining wall. “Come on, don’t leave me hanging. It’s Johnny.” Quiet. “You know, the motorcycle dude. I’ve got Shadow?”

Another quiet sob managed to push itself out from her chest. She pressed a hand over her mouth.

“You sound really little. Youngblood, is that you?” Johnny made a strange chirping (curiosity-comfort-companionship) sound that seemed to settle in her chest.

A strange presence brushed against her chest. There was the impression of touch but none of the physical sensation of touch. Lian flinched away.

“Shit, Danny? I thought we got you out of here already. Did they grab you again?”

Lian said nothing.

“Danny, please. I know I’m not your favorite, not after that whole thing with Jazz, but we are stuck in here together.” Johnny sounded genuinely remorseful for whatever had happened with Jazz. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?” Johnny’s voice took on a slightly panicked quality.

Lian had to say something now. “I’m not Danny, sorry.” She managed to force it from her tight throat.

“Really? But you’ve got that whole ‘halfa’ feel.” That presence brushed along her chest again. “Huh. There’s more of you guys?”

“I don’t know what a halfa is.” That was what those agents had been calling her but she still didn’t know what it meant.

“You know, half human and half ghost. Halfa.”

“Half ghost?” That couldn’t be right. Lian was alive. She had to be. She looked down at herself. For the first time since she had woken up in this cell, she forced herself to really look. She mentally ran through the checklist Grandpa Ollie had taught her.

Two arms, two legs, five fingers, five toes (she could see just the barest hint of the floor through her feet). No bleeding anywhere (no heartbeat that she could feel). No pain. She tried to touch her hands to herself to see if there was any numbness.

Her fingers pressed through the fabric of her pants. Not into. Through. She tried to draw a panicked breath but there were no lungs for the air to enter.

“Am I dead?”

“Shit. I’m sorry, kiddo.” She scrambled to the shared wall. “I’m…not the best person to give you the low-down on everything. Frostbite’s the one who knows everything.”

“Is that why those agents grabbed me? Because I’m dead ?” Her dad was going to kill her (again apparently). Oh, God, her dad. Did he know she was dead? Was he okay? Was he dead too?

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re not completely dead, right? Half human and all.”

“How can I be half dead!” Lian slammed a hand against the wall. It passed partway through the metal before coming into contact with some kind of energy. It sparked up through her arm and straight to her chest.

She blinked back into awareness in the center of her cell, staring up at the ceiling. Every bit of her ached.

“Kid? Kid, you okay?” Johnny’s voice sounded really far away. And when had the room started spinning? Johnny let out a strange huffing (come here-comfort-it’s okay) sound.

Lian rolled over and pushed herself up on her hands and knees. “I’m okay, I think.” Her muscles loudly protested the motion but she could force them to move.

“Thank the Ancients.”

She crawled back over to the wall. This time when she touched it her hand stayed on the outside like it was supposed to. She carefully leaned against it, letting the cool metal soothe the pain.

“What’s your name, kid?” Johnny asked after a few minutes.

Lian looked down at her bare feet. Her dad had always said that even if you trust the person you’re talking to, you should never give your real name in a bad situation. (“You never know who else is listening, princess.”)

“I’m Shoes.” She said eventually.

“Nice to meet you, Shoes.” That presence brushed against her chest again. It felt different this time. She sniffled. It felt like her dad’s hugs (warm, strong, all-encompassing, safe ).

Johnny let out a croon (calm-warmth-reassurance) that seemed to tighten the presence on her chest somehow. Lian pressed closer against the wall.

“I miss my dad.” She whined (lonely-sad-miss you).

“It’s gonna be okay, Shoes.” Johnny rumbled (company-comfort-calm), low enough that she could feel it in her chest. “We’ll get you out, like we got Danny out.” The rumbling continued, settling into a steady rhythm.

(Johnny had no idea how they were going to get her out. With Danny, they’d had the help of the punk’s living friends to turn off the anti-ghost devices. But even though he was lying through his teeth, the kid on the other side of the wall seemed to take some comfort in it.)

“My dad will come help. I know he will.”

(Johnny’s purr stuttered in his Core. The kid hadn’t known she was (kinda) dead so whatever happened must have been traumatic and sudden. In all likelihood, her dad was out of commission too.)

“I’m sure he will.”

(No need to take whatever comfort the kid had from her. Johnny simply intensified his purr.)

— — —

The man looked up as the temperature dropped in the alley. Danny pressed a hand to his mouth to stop himself from giggling.

“I swear to God, if that ghost bullshit I’ve been hearing about is real I’m moving to Metropolis.” The man said to the air around him. “I’m not doing anything!”

That was, categorically, not true. Danny had been following the man for the last thirty minutes. In that time he had picked at least five pockets that Danny had seen. There was also the hilt of a knife sticking out from the top of his boot and his jacket wasn’t long enough to hide the handle of the gun he had stuck down the back of his pants.

Danny floated closer and tried to reign his Core in. Muggings were really down since he’d started his patrols through the Alley. People just didn’t want to risk it even if they didn’t believe he was a ghost. But he’d found another way to stop crime without breaking any of Jason’s rules.

He bit his lips to stifle the giggles that were still trying to escape. The man had been sticking the stolen wallets all in the right hand side of his jacket. Reaching out with one invisible hand, Danny turned the fabric invisible and watched the wallets fall through it. He let himself finally laugh as he caught them, speeding away towards the mouth of the alley.

The man shouted in alarm. “Fuck!” He took off after Danny.

Flying at a speed that let him stay well ahead of the man but not so far ahead that he gave up was hard but Danny was slowly learning what the limits of a normal human were. He managed to stay an enticing fifty feet away the entire way out of Red Hood’s territory to where he knew a cop was getting coffee at one of those all night stores.

Danny dropped the wallets on the cop’s head just as the pickpocket rounded the corner. He slammed into the cop, making the officer spill his coffee all over his shirt.

There was a beat of silence. “Evening.” The cop finally said. “I suppose you found all of these wallets, right?”

The pickpocket swallowed. “Uh, yeah. Yep. I was bringing them to you so you could get them back to the…rightful owners.”

“Of course.” The cop leaned over to pick them all up. “Of course, you’ll have to come back to the station with me to file a report. Wouldn’t want any misunderstandings with the credit card companies, you understand.”

The pickpocket turned whiter than Danny’s hair. Danny giggled again. This particular pickpocket, he knew, had several warrants out for something called ‘stalking’. Danny also knew this cop knew that, since he’d seen the cop looking at the pickpocket’s file earlier tonight.

“I…” The pickpocket looked at the steel in the cop’s eyes and the way his hand was drifting to the cuffs on his belt. His shoulders fell. “I guess not.”

The cop nodded. “Let’s go.”

The pickpocket dejectedly followed the cop back to his car and made sure to duck his head as he was pushed into the backseat.

Danny grinned to himself as he flew away.

— — —

Batman was idling on a low rooftop, taking a few moments to catch his breath and enjoy the cool night air. Robin was back in the Cave tonight attempting to break through the encryption on the data-stick they’d lifted from those unknown agents in white suits. Nightwing was down by the docks following a lead from one of his drug cases that had managed to cross the river.

All in all, it was a peaceful night, something Batman hadn’t experienced too much of over the years.

A pair of night workers passed beneath Batman. Their words drifted skyward, catching his attention.

“You heard about that ghost in the Alley?” Batman sighed, his peace shattered. There was precious little information leaving the Alley since Red Hood took over and he couldn’t afford to miss out on any of it. He paced the men from above.

“What, you mean the meta all those muggers are claiming is stopping them?” An unknown meta, in his city?

“No, it’s totally a ghost. Cold pockets of air, laughter from nowhere, phantom touches, the works.” Batman lifted a hand to the cowl, making sure the audio was still recording. (It was, of course. It always was.) “I even heard that one guy got lifted into the air.”

“No way, man. Ghosts aren’t real. It’s just some meta trying out their powers.”

“Then why has no one seen them?”

“Invisibility is a power.” It was. Bruce opened a line directly to the Batcomputer. The transmitting audio automatically triggered the speech-to-text program to open a new file.

“Yeah, but then explain the cold pockets.”

“There are also ice powers.”

“How many metas can you name with invisibility and ice powers?”

“How many metas can you name at all?” There were none coming up on Batman’s list as his data collecting program cross-referenced the abilities mentioned so far.

“Oh, shut up, man. Maybe the guy’s got ghost-themed powers.”

“You would rather believe that one meta has all of those powers than believe ghosts exist?”

“Look at how many powers Superman has!”

“He’s an alien!”

“Why would a meta do the creepy ‘child laughing’ thing when they could just freeze someone solid?”

“Everyone needs a schtick. Look at the Bats.”

The pair devolved into an argument on the gimmicks of the various heroes operating currently and in the past. There would be no more useful information from either of them. What they had already provided was invaluable.

There was a vigilante child operating in his city. He had to track them down before they hurt themself. He would have to be careful. Red Hood had shot (at) him the last time he had tried to enter the Alley. Though this had been months ago, when Red Hood’s grip on the Alley was much less stable. Maybe the man would be open to helping him?

No. Batman firmly placed that idea aside. Red Hood was dangerously unpredictable. Even his harshness (typically a reliable constant with people willing to kill) was unreliable. He hadn’t killed anyone over the last few months and there had been significantly fewer hospitalizations coming from the Alley.

Actually…when had the first reports of this ghost come in? Batman pulled up his wrist computer and sent an inquiry to Robin and to Commissioner Gordon. One or both of them would get back to him before morning.

Batman refused to discount the possibility there was a ghost operating somewhere in Gotham, though it was unlikely. After all, he regularly worked with several beings straight out of myths and legends. It wouldn’t do to dismiss a possibility out of pocket. Regardless, he needed to investigate further before he could make any decision.

He slid down a wall to the waiting Batmobile and set off towards the Cave. This was going to be an interesting few days.

— — —

“Red Hood, this is Oracle, the Bat’s Eyes.” Jason almost tripped over his feet as he suddenly heard Barbara’s voice in his ear. He’d only added a comms system to his helmet a couple days ago, after Danny had finally worn him down on doing solo patrols (in one of the quieter areas of the Alley, with strict rules on when he was and was not allowed to engage, the actions he could take, and several of Jason’s most trusted lieutenants also in the area and ready to jump in if anything got to hairy). He hadn’t realized it was even turned on since Danny was back home for the night already.

“Oracle, this line is private. How—”

“It’s my job.” Barbara cut him off. “I don’t have time for this. Nightwing is pinned down, surrounded by hostiles, at the docks on the edge of Crime Alley. He needs backup and Batman is too far away.” Dick’s in trouble? Jason grit his teeth.

“Why the hell should I care?” He turned towards the docks and activated his helmet’s telescopic lenses with a hand to the temple, zooming in as close as he could. There was something happening towards the center. He moved towards it, trying to get a better view.

“I can get you prototypes of the newest Bat-gadgets, whatever you want.” Jason could hear Barbara typing as she talked. “And Batman is offering a favor, no questions asked.”

“I don’t need any help from the Bat.” Jason snapped. “Least of all a favor.” He spat the last word harder than he meant to (but there was no green. Jason took a second to marvel.). He had to check in on Danny at home (to make sure he had finished his patrol and gone home the way he was supposed to) in just under an hour, he didn’t have time for this (Dick’s gotten himself out of tighter spots before, Golden Boy will be fine).

“Please, Hood, it’s an emergency. These guys have already killed over a dozen people and they have Nightwing.” And damn if Barbara didn’t sound…desperate. He didn’t think he had ever heard her sound like that. “They’ve been smuggling drugs from Gotham to Bludhaven using kids.”

Jason sighed (no one can manipulate like a big sister). “Fine.” He took off running towards the docks. “Any details?” Jason asked as he vaulted an alleyway. He’d have to make this quick to meet Danny in time.

“There’s 15 goons, all armed with guns of various kinds.” Barbara pulled some photos up on his helmet’s HUD (how did she even know he had one?). “Or at least there were 15 when I lost contact with Nightwing.”

“Got it.” The clacking of Barbara’s keyboard over his comm was a soothing background noise as he made his way across town.

He entered the docks on assassin-trained feet. “I lost him 60 yards ahead and to the south.” Barbara said. Jason tapped his comm once in silent acknowledgment. He adjusted course to match her instructions. He scaled a pile of shipping containers near the indicated area.

From above, he could finally see the mess Dick had gotten himself into. He was being held down on his knees with his hands cuffed behind his back and a gun pressed to the back of his head. The rest of the goons were circled around him. Jason clicked on a long-range mic.

“—wanted me on my knees for you, all you had to do was ask.” Dick was saying. Jason bit off a gag. Good to know nothing had changed.

“Shut up!” One of the guys kicked Dick in the stomach. He grunted and curled in on himself, panting.

The man holding the gun leaned over Dick’s head to whisper to the man holding him. “God, can we just shoot him already? He’s Bat-trained, he’s never gonna tell the boss anything.”

The other sighed. “Probably best if we do. This one especially is real slippery.”

“Fina—” The guy crumpled as blood spurted from his shoulder. Jason leapt into the air and came down hard on another’s head. He glanced over at the center of the group to see Dick had taken advantage of the distraction to slip his cuffs.

It was easier than Jason had expected for the two of them to take out the group. Though it probably shouldn’t have been so surprising. They had both been trained by B. Jason slipped into the heavy-hitter/tank role of Batman with barely a thought, while Dick flipped and jumped as if he were still 12 and dressed like a traffic light, drawing fire and creating openings for Jason to use.

Jason ducked under a punch and watched as the goon’s fist slammed into his buddy who had been trying to sneak up behind Jason. Dick landed on the first goon’s shoulders and took him to the ground, a wry grin on his face. He nodded at Jason before launching himself at the next goon.

There was just one guy left when Jason spun and froze. Dick made eye contact with Jason over the guy’s arm which was wrapped around Dick’s neck, gun pressed to Dick’s temple. Before any of them could make a move, the guy’s head jerked back as if hit, blood spurting from his nose.

Dick immediately ducked out of the hold, rolling away and up to his feet.“What the—” Jason lunged for the guy.

“Phantom!” Jason knocked the guy out with a well placed pistol-whip. “You’re supposed to be in bed!”

Danny faded into view, white hair floating around his head and green eyes wide. “‘M sorry, Da—Red Hood.” He said as he landed on the concrete. Jason lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose only to run into his helmet. Lord give him strength.

“Kid, what’s the rule?”

“Muggings or guys with knives only.” Danny looked sheepishly at the ground.

“That’s right. Does this look—“ Dick cleared his throat. Jason jumped. He’d forgotten the man was there.

“Not that this isn’t adorable but we need to get moving before the police show up.” Dick gestured at the road where red and blue lights were starting to appear.

“Goddamn it.” Jason whirled to face Danny before he had a chance to disappear. “Straight home.” He jabbed a finger at the kid. “We’ll talk about this when I get back.”

“Okay.” Danny slumped in on himself. Jason sighed. He wrapped Danny in a quick hug.

“You’re in trouble but I’m not angry, got it, squirt?” He murmured.

Danny gave him a squeeze and chirped (acceptance-scared?-love?). Jason chuffed (of course love-worried-stay safe) as he pulled away. With that Danny flew off.

Jason barely made it out of the docks before police descended on the area. He joined Dick on a nearby roof.

“Thanks for the assist, Hood.” Dick ran a hand through his hair. “That could have been bad.”

Jason scoffed. “‘Could have been’? Big Bird, if I’d been thirty seconds slower your brains would be painting the ground.”

Dick’s mouth tightened at the nickname (it had just slipped out, an old habit). “Probably.”

“Wow.” Jason raised his eyebrows (not that Dick could see). “Not even going to give me a lecture on killing?” (Even though he hadn’t needed to in months.) “What would the Bat think?”

“I couldn’t care less what Batman thinks.” And that…that’s new.

“Really? Here I thought you were his loyal little minion.” He had been. Dick had always taken Bruce’s orders, followed Bruce’s rules, let Bruce take the lead.

Dick folded his arms. “I got fed up with his secret keeping bullshit. Anyways, what do you care? If you hate the Bat so much, why did you help me?”

“Oracle said it was an emergency.” Jason shrugged. “Figured she’d only contact me if it was desperate.”

Everything was taken care of. Dick was safe. Jason should leave, head back home, make sure Danny’s okay.

“Watch your back, Big Wing. I ain’t a bird-sitter.” He swung away before he was tempted to do something stupid (like beg his brother for one of his famous octopus hugs).

— — —

A crow flying above the streets of Crime Alley landed on the top of a light pole just in time for a pair of bulky men in pure white suits to walk under the light. It turned a watchful eye towards them.

The grass and weeds sprouting from the cracks in the sidewalk could feel the malice in them with every step that came too close for comfort to squashing it.

The wind carried the sound of their conversation (not that they were trying to hide it) up to the ears of a gargoyle across town.

“We’ve got to be getting close.” The voices were accompanied by the harsh and artificial beeping of the strange device they carried. A pigeon on the newspaper box nearby saw the red light flashing in time.

Lady Gotham typically rolled its consciousness across the entirety of its Domain without touching anything. It tried not to get involved in the day to day lives of itself. (People come and go but so long as some remain, Lady Gotham would persist.) But this was a threat to one of its honorable knights, the one who had sprung from its own bosom, who had been snuffed out too far away for it to help, who had miraculously returned to its fold.

Its knights could, as a whole, take care of themselves. Lady Gotham rarely had to intervene. But these interlopers were treading too close to a knight’s home, his Domain within Lady Gotham’s. This could not stand.

Lady Gotham gathered its consciousness. It reached a tendril of energy towards the agents.

A rat twitched its ears as the strange device fell silent.

“What the hell?” The agent hit the device against his hand.

Lady Gotham pursed its lips and blew a wind (as cold as it could manage though it came nowhere near the chill of a true Ice Core) across the back of their necks. They both snapped to attention.

The chill led them down the road. Lady Gotham steered them towards its harbors. Another of her knights, the wayward one that had also taken its sister Bludhaven under his wing, was down there. He could handle the interlopers.

Satisfied, Lady Gotham let itself relax back across its domain. Its knights were safe. It was safe. All was well.

Chapter Text

Roy jolted awake. He had to…there was…his legs were tangled in a blanket, not rope. He was wearing pajamas, not his suit.

He glanced around the room he was in. It was definitely not a stone cell in the Middle East. It was…that’s his dresser, the one Lian covered the side of in princess puppy stickers. He was at home, in Star City.

He took a few deep breaths. The dream itself was already slipping away but his heart rate was refusing to come down. Something was wrong but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Sighing, he rolled out of bed. This wasn’t going to go away until he’d seen with his own eyes that everything in the house was okay.

The lock up circuit was so ingrained in his bones he could have done it blindfolded. Front door, locked. Alarm system, armed. Kitchen window, living room window, back door, basement window. Everything was locked up tight and secured. None of his traps had been triggered.

Back upstairs. Bathroom window, too small for an adult to climb through and also still locked. Down the hallway, window in his room locked. Only one room left.

He cracked open Lian’s door as quietly as he could. If he woke her up now, he’d never get her back to sleep and she had school in the morning. Except…

Her bed was empty. A jolt of panic shot through his chest like lightning. He vaulted across the room. Her window was still locked, all the traps and triggers still set from the inside. The house was empty where—he had put her to bed just hours ago there was no way—he had to find her before—

The bed was still made.

Right.

The panic still beating through his veins turned ice cold as his mind caught up with reality. He shivered.

The worst had already happened. His worst case scenario, the one thing he had guarded against, why he had secured this house tighter than a supervillain prison, it had already come to pass. Lian was gone.

He blinked at the empty room.

He wrapped his arms around himself.

He went back to bed.

Nothing in the house was okay.

— — —

Something about Red Hood had rubbed Barbara…not the wrong way but certainly not the right way. And it wasn’t even the presence of a child (purportedly his child) on the battlefield. Or the way no one had noticed the child until he’d taken out one of the goons on his own. It wasn’t even the way he had used nearly appropriate force for taking them down.

It was the way that his fighting style had matched Bruce’s so closely.

She’d had a pretty good view of the fight once she’d managed to get into Hood’s helmet camera. And she recognized the way Dick had been fighting right away. It was, after all, the same way he had fought back when she had first started as Batgirl. Back when he had been Robin, before he’d had to adapt his style to accommodate the lack of a bruiser to take hits for him.

For some reason, Red Hood was able to match that style perfectly. A style that by all rights he should have no idea how to match. A style that had been carefully created by both Dick and Bruce. A style they had forged and crafted and honed on their own.

Even Dick had noticed, specifically mentioning it in his report of the evening. It had felt like he was fighting alongside Batman again.

It didn’t fit with the footage she had managed to find of Red Hood patrolling on his own. What little there was that wasn’t unbelievably corrupted showed him fighting more like a Robin himself. He flew through the air with that very specific hook in his steps, the one that spoke of seeking out an acrobats bar. The one Dick walked with to this day.

The one that man in the library also had.

He never talked to her. He would talk to other librarians, about what he was reading, about what his son was reading, about what either of them should read next, but he never even so much as looked at her. He wouldn’t use the self checkout, unless she was the one checking people out.

She knew it was inappropriate but she had resorted to setting up a program on the computers to ping her phone if his card was used or if any of his checked out books were returned. So far, it seemed like he kept a fairly regular schedule. He was in every Wednesday and Friday mornings. Unless she was at the front desk at his normal arrival time. Then he wouldn’t come in that day.

The system listed his name as ‘Jay Peters’. Who did not exist. No matter how deep she dug. It was like he was a ghost. The only documents proving he existed were the library registration card and the lease at the apartment he had listed as his address.

The kid, ‘Danny Peters’ according to the registration card Jay had filled out, also did not exist. He wasn’t registered at any schools (though it did look like Jay was homeschooling him). There were no hospital or pediatric office records of him. There wasn’t even a birth certificate. Either they had appeared out of nowhere a few months ago or someone had intentionally erased them from existence.

Or, the names were fake.

What were the odds that, at the same time a new vigilante fighting in a style he had no business knowing appeared on scene, a doppelganger of the one person who would have been trained in that style (and was currently unaccounted for) also appeared in Gotham?

The whole thing was too much of a coincidence for her to ignore.

So she kept digging. She hacked into the Gotham City street cameras and followed the pair home. She hacked the postal services limited computer system to track their mail and the names it was delivered under. She even paid a homeless man $50 to dig through their trash for a month.

It would have seemed excessive (even for her) except that it had produced results. Well, a single result. She had managed to find a PO box Jay sometimes had mail delivered to. The PO box was registered to a ‘Charles Darcy’. And Charles Darcy had a different address, in a completely different part of town. One that, according to the camera feeds she’d been able to find, he hadn’t visited in months.

If that wasn’t a red flag, she must be colorblind.

“Are you sure I have to do this?” Tim complained into the comm.

“I would do it myself except that I’m a little stuck in the Clocktower.”

“Yeah but you don’t even have any evidence this guy is Red Hood. Just that he has a different name on this apartment lease.” Tim was approaching the building from the south. According to building blueprints, that’s the side the fire escape window was on.

“Name one reason someone other than a vigilante would have an apartment across town under a different name.”

“Cheating.”

“You came up with that way too quickly. But this guy isn’t married.” The child’s mother didn’t seem to exist at all. “Who’s he cheating on?”

Tim was silent for a few minutes. “Fine, I’ll admit it’s suspicious.”

“And aren’t you dying to know why Red Hood was threatening you for two months?” Barbara knew it was a bit of a low blow but the truth was that none of them knew why he had been threatening Robin or why he had stopped. Though it seemed to coincide with the first appearances of Phantom.

“Oh, my God, is everyone going to bring that up for the rest of my life?”

“You tried to set up a confrontation with him in the middle of his territory right after he threatened your life.” Barbara reminded him. “So yes, we are. Make sure you check the window for traps.”

“I know, I know.” Robin’s mask didn’t have a camera feed (because his face was too small for it to house both the camera and the satellite chip to stream the feed without the mask looking awkwardly big) but she could hear him fiddling around with something over the comms. “Huh, that’s weird.”

“What’s weird?” Tim didn’t respond. “Robin, what’s weird?” Still nothing. “Robin, I will call Batman, so help me—“

“The trap set up on this window is the same one B teaches. Or at least, the base of it is. It’s got some other stuff built on top of it but I’d recognize that anywhere.”

Barbara moved her hand away from the big, red ‘SOS’ button that lived next to her keyboard. “Don’t give me a heart attack like that, kid.”

“Sorry.” Tim didn’t sound very sorry. “I was just thinking.”

Barbara rolled her eyes. “Are you in the apartment yet?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been inside for a couple minutes.”

“For the love of—okay.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. She would never understand why Bruce thought a child sidekick was a good idea. “What do you see?”

“This place is definitely a safe house for someone.” She could hear Robin rummaging through cabinets. “There’s a huge stock of non-perishable foods, medical supplies, and weapons. All meticulously sorted. Like, really meticulously. If it weren’t for the guns I would think this is one of B’s safehouses. But there’s guns. So…”

“So it probably is Red Hood’s.” Barbara’s fingers flew as she logged the information. There was an audio recording program running that was transcribing Tim’s exact words into text documents but she had always preferred her own notes. “I don’t know of any other vigilantes operating in Gotham that would use guns.”

“Me neither.” A window closed on the other end of comms. Tim reappeared on the nearest camera feed (a gas station a little ways down the road). “I’m out.” He waved at the camera.

“I’ve got you.” Barbara sighed.

“Did you need anything else?”

“No, thanks.” Barbara returned Tim’s comms to the general channel.

Tim saluted the camera before launching off the roof in the direction of his next patrol check in. Barbara sat back in her chair as she watched him swing along.

Either this Jay Peters was close enough friends with an underground crime lord/vigilante to use his PO box (unlikely, given everything they’d observed about Red Hood) or he was Red Hood. And, as much as she was hesitant to admit it, the evidence that Jay Peters was in some way connected to Jason Todd was mounting. Not just anyone knew how Batman guarded his windows.

She should bring this information to Bruce, along with her suspicion. But a little voice in the back of her head stopped her. If she went to Bruce with this information and this possibility, and it wasn’t Jason…Bruce was stable now. He hadn’t been for so long she had almost forgotten what it looked like.

No, she should keep looking into it. She shouldn’t go to Bruce until she had something concrete. Whatever is going on can wait a few more weeks for her to gather more information.

— — —

Lian woke and automatically reached for Johnny with her Core, just like they had been practicing. It was finally starting to get easier to manipulate the energies of her Core (Johnny thought it had been so difficult for her at first because she had developed entirely alone; apparently baby Cores like hers learned how to function by mimicking the functions of the adult Cores they’re around and since the GIW had been keeping her far away from all the other ghosts they had captured, she’d been too far away for her Core to do so) but it still didn’t fell completely natural to her, though, which is why she didn’t initially panic when her gentle probing didn’t find Johnny. He was probably just on the far side of his cell, farther than she usually searched in the mornings.

She extended the reach of her energy as far as she could. She had to be probing halfway down the hallway by now but she still couldn’t feel Johnny’s Core.

“Johnny?” She called out tentatively. Her father had impressed on her the importance of limiting what a captor knew about you and the other prisoners if (when) she ever were captured (“Any information you give them, princess, is information that they can use against you. So you have to make sure you keep things close to your chest.”)

There was no response.

“Johnny?” She tried again, louder.

Breath coming more rapidly now, Lian pressed herself into the corner by their shared wall. She rested her forehead against the wall and tried to extend her awareness to the entire cell next door.

Nothing.

Where was he? Had she somehow slept through the GIW coming to get him? Or through a rescue attempt (Johnny would never leave without her, right?) or an escape (he wouldn’t , he wouldn’t leave her here)? Had he passed out somehow? Or…or passed on ? (Johnny had said that wasn’t how they worked, she wasn’t going to stop existing just because she fulfilled some kind of unfinished business and neither was he but where was he was he okay—)

The door next to hers slid open with a loud clang. A few seconds later it slammed shut again.

“Johnny?” Lian pushed her awareness into his cell again and nearly sobbed in relief when she felt his familiar presence. “Are you okay?”

Johnny groaned (tired-exhausted-drained). “I’m okay, Munchkin.”

“Why did they take you away?”

“Some kind of ectoplasm level check or something, I don’t know.” He chuckled bitterly. “Not like they told me.”

“Yeah.” Lian presses herself somehow closer to the wall. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault, Munchkin.” Johnny extended his energy out towards her, brushing against her panic. “You okay?”

“I woke up and you weren’t here and I didn’t know where you were.” Lian pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself, the closest she could get to a hug here.

“Ah.” Johnny’s energy wrapped around her like a blanket. “Well, just remember that I’m a tough SOB. It’ll take more than some putzes wearing white after Labor Day to take me out.”

Lian sniffled (lonely-scared-afraid). “I guess.”

“I mean it. My old lady always says I got a thick skull.” There was a cartoonish bonk sound that made Lian giggle. “And she’s wicked smart so you know she’s right.”

Lian tried to wrap her own energy around him as it chilled slightly with miss you-longing-sorrow . She wasn’t very good at it but Johnny’s energy warmed anyways. She let out a soft chirp (lonely too-together-sad).

“Yeah, we’re in this together.” Johnny chuffed (comfort-together). They settled into a companionable silence, wrapped around each other in the only way they could be.

“Do you think your mom is looking for you?” Lian asked after a long moment.

“My mom?” Johnny felt confused-puzzled.

“You said your old lady said you have a thick skull.”

“Ooooohhhhhh.” Johnny chuckled. “My old lady ain’t my mom.”

Lian furrowed her brow. “Then who is it?”

“You know, my sweetie.” Johnny said it like it was obvious but Lian had no idea what he was talking about.

“Huh?”

“The apple of my eye.” Lian tried her hardest to project the level of confused-bewildered- confused she was feeling. “My better half? My best girl.”

That one rang a bell, from the Captain America movies she’d watched with her grandpa. “Like…a girlfriend?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Why didn’t you just say girlfriend then?”

“It’s…” Johnny laughed. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“My daddy says that’s what grown ups say when they don’t know what they mean.”

“Probably.” Johnny laughed again. “But what would you know about it, Half-Pint?”

“You know, I’m not that small.” Lian protested. “Dad says I’m perfectly average sized.”

“Of course he says that. He’s your dad, he doesn’t want you to feel bad about being itty bitty.”

“But I’m not itty bitty, that’s what I’m saying!” She bristled. “I’m not small.”

“I bet you wouldn’t even come up to my belly button.”

“I would too!”

“Nah, I don’t think so.”

“Well, how would you know? You’ve never seen me!”

“What can I say? You just give off half-pint energy.”

Lian fumed. Johnny laughed, huge belly laughs, at whatever she was projecting. She stuck her tongue out at the wall that separated them. Somehow that just made Johnny laugh harder.

(The Half-Pint’s a good kid, Johnny thought to himself as he wiped away tears of laughter. He frequently found himself wishing, fervently, out loud (while she was sleeping), that her dad was looking for her. As much as he hoped Kitty wasn’t looking for him, wasn’t putting herself in danger, he hoped Lian’s dad was. Then maybe the kid would get out of here okay.)

— — —

Danny giggled as he watched the muggers run down the alley away from their would-be victims. He’d barely had to do anything to scare them away. Once he had dropped the temperature in the area, one of the muggers had shouted, “It’s the ghost!” and turned to run. And then one of the guys he had saved thanked him! (Well, thanked the air around him. Since Danny was invisible.)

He swooped up towards the roof, perching on one of the air conditioners. He’d been flying for nearly three hours so he pulled one of the high-calorie snack bars his dad had made from his belt pouch (that Jason had also made for him since the hazmat suit hadn’t had any storage before).

He faded into visibility as he ate. For several minutes he just sat on the roof and enjoyed the quiet. The special lenses in the mask Jason had made for him made the area look bright as day so he munched on his snack and looked at the art on the walls.

Footsteps landing on the roof behind him made him jump into the air.

He snapped back into invisibility and spun in the air. Batman was standing on the edge of the roof, looking at him.

Looking right at him. Like he could see where he was. Danny raised a hand to waive.

Batman waived back.

Danny let the invisibility drop again. He floated at about eye level with Batman.

“Hello, Phantom.”

“Hi, Mr. Batman. How could you see me?”

“I have infrared lenses in my mask.” He raised a hand and tapped the side of it. The brightness of his mask lenses dimmed. “You’re very cold and it makes the air around you cold as well.”

“Oh.” Danny fidgeted with his snack bar. “So…what’s up?”

“Do you need any help moving on?”

“What?” Danny almost fell out of the air. “Moving on with what?”

“You seem to be…stuck here. I haven’t been able to find much information but if you can tell me how that…came to be, I can help you move on.” Batman shuffled awkwardly. He wrapped his cape tightly around himself.

“Move on with what?” Batman wasn’t making any sense. Unless…did he want him to leave Gotham? People said that Batman didn’t like metas and Danny’s not a meta but he kinda looks like a meta if you don’t know he’s a ghost.

“I can help you…leave this place. And go where you’re supposed to be.”

Oh, no, Batman did want him to leave. He couldn’t leave. He didn’t have anywhere else to go and he didn’t want to leave Jason. He liked living with Jason. He made him feel safe and loved and part of a family for the first time in years (and if he leaves, then Jason isn’t going to have access to ectoplasm the way he does now and he’s going to get Angry again). Danny growled ( anger-fear-go away ) at the thought.

“You’re not supposed to be here anymore.” Batman continued as if he couldn’t hear the warning Danny was giving off. “I can help you get to where you’re supposed to be.”

“You can’t make me leave!” Danny shouted, accidentally squishing the snack bar still in his hands. “I can’t leave my daddy alone because he’ll get all messed up and angry and hurting again. So you can’t make me leave. You have to let me stay!”

“Phantom…” Batman took a step forward.

Danny panicked and flickered out of visibility. He flew away as fast as he could, shooting off towards the center of Jason’s Haunt. He could feel the moment he crossed from the fringes of Jason’s territory into the Heart and sighed as the strong warmth of Jason’s energy washed over him.

He beelined for the apartment. He was almost there when a voice that sounded a lot like Sam told him to stop. (“Never lead them back to your home base.”) He veered off towards the warehouse Jason did a lot of his business out of.

There was some kind of meeting going on when he phased through the wall. Red Hood was sitting in a chair at the head of a table with all of his lieutenants around him. Danny didn’t care to listen to what they were saying.

His dad tilted his head and flicked his fingers in a quick signal (I know you’re here) when Danny drifted down to sit on his shoulders. He stayed invisible, letting himself slump against the helmet. His dad knew that he would tap out a specific signal on his helmet if it was urgent. So Jason continued the meeting.

Danny was content to simply lie against the cool metal of the helmet and bask in his father’s presence. He could feel the raw, protective power of Jason’s Core swirling out and around him, around the Haunt. He closed his eyes and reveled in the feeling of absolute safety that came with being near his dad.

 A vague amount of time passed with Danny happily drifting before something poked him in the leg. He grumbled (go away-comfy-content) and kicked out at whatever had disturbed him.

Jason chirped (wake up-let’s go) at him. He reluctantly pulled himself up and into the air. The meeting had ended at some point and all of Jason’s men had already left.

“Something up, squirt?” Jason asked as he cleaned off the table, collecting the leftover snacks. “Figured you’d go home after your patrol.”

Danny shrugged.

“Uh-oh.” Jason crossed his arms and leaned against the table. “What happened?”

“Batman can see me when I’m invisible.”

Whatever Jason was expecting, it wasn’t that. He froze, whites of his helmet staring at Danny. With exaggerated slowness, he reached up and pulled it off, revealing his domino.

“What do you mean?” He asked after a long moment.

Danny dragged a toe through the air. “Batman found me on the edge of the Alley and he could see me even though I was invisible.”

Jason pinched at the bridge of his nose. “What did Batman want?”

“I think he wanted me to leave Gotham.”

“Why do y—“

“Cause I think he thinks I’m a meta and he doesn’t like metas.” Danny drifted closer to his dad, ending up floating just above his shoulder.

“Okay.” Jason took a deep breath as Danny settled back on his shoulders. “What exactly did he say?” Danny thought back over the conversation with Batman and fervently wished they had found a way to hide a camera in his domino without it just breaking from ectoplasm exposure.

“He said that he could help me move. To somewhere else. Cause I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Shit.” Jason wrapped a hand around Danny’s ankles. “I can’t believe…no, I can believe. The old man’s always had control issues.” He sighed. “You’re going to have to be more careful for the next few weeks. Hopefully something will come up that will take all of B’s attention. Then he might be distracted long enough for this to go on the back burner.” He ran his free hand through his hair. “Fuck, I didn’t…I really…shit.”

Danny wrapped his arms around his dad’s forehead (as much of it as his arms would wrap around, anyways) and pressed his face into his hair. He trilled (safe?-okay?).

Jason sighed again. “I don’t know, Sunshine. We’ll figure something out.”

Danny keened (danger?-run?). He gripped at Jason’s hair.

Jason rumbled (safe-love-okay). “We don’t have to leave right now. I’ll..I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.”

“Okay.” Danny mumbled into his dad’s hair.

“Let’s get you to bed.” Jason reached up and pulled Danny off his shoulders, tucking him instead against his chest. Danny eagerly burrowed in under the leather jacket. He was really tired, now that Jason had mentioned it. So he closed his eyes and let his dad take him home.

The next thing he was aware of was Jason pressing a soft kiss to his forehead as he pulled the blankets up over him. “Goodnight, squirt.”

“Night, Daddy.” Danny replied on instinct, already drifting back off to sleep.

— — —

Batman had not intended to follow the child ghost home. He had approached him with the intent of offering to help him, nothing more. But he’d seemed so upset as he flew away that Bruce hadn’t been able to help himself.

It wasn’t difficult to follow him if you knew what to look for. The flickering cold spot, the camera distortion, the slightly unsettling feeling that belonged to the middle of January at 3:30 in the morning, when it had been dark for far too long and wasn’t going to become light for several more hours still and the wind was the only movement through the otherwise deathly still air.

But regardless of the troubling feelings following him, Phantom was still a child. A (potentially) dead child, but a child nonetheless. Some instinct compelled Bruce to follow him.

He remained as far back as he could without losing the trail, which turned out to be about a block and a half with the speed Phantom moved. He turned over what Phantom had said as he ran across the rooftops that Phantom simply flew over.

(“You can’t make me leave! I can’t leave my daddy alone because he’ll get all messed up and angry and hurting again!”)

It seemed a reasonable conclusion that Phantom’s father had taken the death of his child hard, something Bruce could sympathize with (oh, he could sympathize; there was still a hole in his heart that ached whenever he thought about—anyways). The ‘return’ of his child, if being haunted by a ghost could be called that (it couldn’t, in Bruce’s…experienced opinion), had served to calm him down some.

Red Hood seemed the logical conclusion. The pseudo-vigilante/crime lord had appeared out of nowhere several months ago with a rise to power marked by incredible violence. And yet, his first act with that power had been to enforce a blanket ban on involving children in the shadier aspects of Crime Alley. No more child drug-runners, lookouts, dealers, nothing. He had even stepped in to stop several children from having to work the streets in a way that turned Bruce’s stomach to think about. Additionally, his violence had taken a marked hit in frequency just a few months into his reign, approximately lining up with the first sightings of Phantom.

A rational conclusion, to be sure, though it made Bruce’s heart ache to think that he’d failed the Alley so spectacularly. He’d taken on the burden of being Gotham’s protector and everyone he failed to protect was a weight on his shoulders.

His hunch was proven correct (as they often were) when Phantom flew unchallenged into a warehouse known to be one of Hood’s bases of operation. Batman scaled the building’s wall to perch on a windowsill near the roof.

The cold spot that was Phantom settled itself around Red Hood’s shoulders. The man gave no indication anything was wrong, though he did shiver slightly.

The meeting itself was of no interest to Batman. Everything said was still recorded by the cowl but it seemed like they were talking about efforts to greatly improve life in the Alley (shelters, food banks, supply stations, things that Bruce Wayne had been trying to get implemented in the area for years but had been constantly blocked by mountains of red tape). Bruce was far more interested in what it looked like was occurring between Phantom and Red Hood.

The cold spot appeared to…snuggle was probably the best word for it. Phantom appeared to snuggle up against Red Hood’s helmet. The air around it dropped significantly in temperature, consistent with Phantom staying in one spot for an extended period of time. It also seemed he was completely relaxed as he flickered in and out of visibility. The brief flashes of visibility showed the small, white-haired child slumped against the metal of the helmet with his eyes closed, almost like he had fallen asleep.

Batman tensed the first time Phantom could be seen, ready to intervene if it seemed the child was in danger (ghost or not). The lieutenants around the table all took visible notice of the dozing child sitting on Red Hood’s shoulders but not a single one of them commented on it nor made any move towards him.

So, Phantom was indeed Red Hood’s child before he passed. Given the voracity with which Hood protected the children in the Alley, it was likely he had passed due to some kind of drug or gang violence. Possibly both, given the way Hood had inserted himself into the middle of the power structure.

Under normal circumstances, Batman would have been willing to leave this be. A grieving father could hardly be said to be in a sound state of mind (Bruce shuddered at the reminder of things he had almost done in those weeks following…) and Red Hood had settled into something of an antihero, working closely enough to Bruce’s own goals for the Alley that he would be willing to overlook the use of excessive force, providing the killing stayed at the near nonexistent level it had decreased to in the past few months.

But these were not normal circumstances. Batman had consulted with the JLD once he had realized there were no spikes of the usual readings surrounding metas at the scenes Phantom was reported at, which had indicated that Phantom was a real and true ghost (or at least could be). Constantine had impressed on him the importance of helping spirits pass on to the next world as remaining on this one would drive even the most well-intentioned of spirits more than a little mad.

Batman was going to have to speak to Red Hood about helping Phantom move on since it seemed Phantom wasn’t even aware that he was dead (something Constantine said was mostly normal; apparently trauma-related amnesia was not exclusive to living brains). Surely the man could be reasoned with, especially once Batman explained that everyone in the Alley would be in danger (a small voice in Bruce’s head asked if he could be reasoned with if the situation were reversed and it was him who had the ghost of Jason haunting him, if it were his son seemingly back from the dead) (Bruce firmly told that voice to shut up).

The meeting ended just as he was deciding to return to the Cave for the night. Hood hung back as his lieutenants filed out of the building. Batman decided he could stay out for a few more minutes.

The conversation between Hood and Phantom certainly seemed like one between a father and son. In many ways, it reminded Bruce specifically of how he had spoken to Jason when the boy had come home from school upset. And Phantom certainly didn’t seem uncomfortable around Red Hood.

Further evidence showing his conclusion was correct. A tad unnecessary but all evidence was good evidence. Bruce turned to leave, to go home and hug the one child he had left under his roof. He paused as he saw Red Hood raise a hand to the helmet, undoing the clasps and pulling it—

Batman hadn’t fallen in years, not since before Bruce had taken Dick in. It was nice to know the training on catching himself was still ingrained in his muscle memory.

He cast a frantic eye over the man—no, boy, barely older than 20. To anyone else, the domino would have been an effective method of concealing an identity. But Bruce had been there, had watched and helped and gave advice hard-won from years of experience, as Jason had shaped his first domino. It might seem simple to the layman but a properly fitting domino was the difference between instant recognition and total anonymity. It had to descend far enough from beneath the eyes to completely cover the tops of the cheekbones, creating the illusion of a much shorter face. Additionally, it had to climb high enough past the eyebrows to hide any distinctive brow shape.

Each and every person’s domino had to be shaped slightly differently to accommodate these needs. And the domino Red Hood was wearing under his helmet was Jason’s domino. Exactly. There was no doubt in Bruce’s mind. He had machined enough of those masks himself, carefully shaping them to conceal the camera and microphone and tracker while not compromising the disguise, to recognize it anywhere.

Jason…

Bruce fled the scene. As fast as he could. There was no way but…

Coincidences he had dismissed from a few months ago sprang to the front of his mind. Red Hood had been just a little bit too familiar with Batman’s patrol routes, knowing when he would split off from Robin to confront either of them alone. Some of the insults he’d launched had landed just slightly too close to home (“Are you even going to pretend to care when you fail this Robin too? Or will you just move on to birdy number four?”). Dick’s report from a couple weeks ago, about the save from Red Hood and how his combat style had been nearly identical to Batman’s own. And he would know, better than Batman himself.

It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. If it were possible then Jason had…Bruce hadn’t…

First things first. Batman turned towards Gotham Cemetery. He had to eliminate the impossible, to find the remaining truth.

Chapter Text

Roy was trying to muscle up the courage to clean Lian’s room. (It was getting too dusty and she was allergic. Every time he walked past the room, he could all but hear her coughing from it.) He was standing in front of the door, cleaning products in hand, and took a deep breath. And then there was a knock on the door, providing a solid excuse to walk away.

He set the cleaner on the counter as he crossed over to the door.

“Roy!” He was greeted by four arms being thrown around him, too quickly for him to see who it was.

“Uh.” Roy looked down at the two heads of black hair. “Donna? Dick?”

“Sorry it took so long for us to visit.” Dick pulled away first, clapping him on the shoulder as he did. “I was waiting for a quiet moment in Gotham and…well, you know how it is.”

“And I’m afraid I had obligations on Themyscira that could not wait.” Donna kissed him on the cheek before stepping back.

“How’re you doing, man?” Dick stepped past him into the kitchen. Roy winced a little as he looked around.

He hadn’t been able to do any cleaning at all for the last couple weeks, not since the dust in Lian’s room had started to build up. Any time he tried to start doing any cleaning, he just ended up standing at the doorway to her room, staring into it, unable to move away from it but unable to enter it either.

Dick and Donna locked eyes with each other over Roy’s shoulder. (They had always been freaky close, even compared to the rest of the Titans. Roy used to be jealous of it, before he had realized that they were just Like That. They weren’t better friends with each other than with everyone else, just on the same wavelength.) They nodded (in sync, because Freaky Close).

Donna slung an arm over Roy’s shoulder and steered him towards his bedroom. He glanced back at the kitchen to see Dick rolling up his sleeves.

“You and I are going to go on a grocery run.” She sat him down on the edge of his bed and immediately started rummaging through his dresser. “We’re going to buy lots of snacks, and then we’re inviting everyone else over for dinner, and Wally is going to cook those amazing ribs he learned from his father, and Dick is going to make several of those meal recipes he knows and put them in the freezer for you.”

“We are?” Roy asked. Donna threw clean clothes at him. He caught each item on instinct, staring at her.

“Yes, we are.” She turned around so he could change. He did so, staring at the back of her head quizzically. “Are you finished?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Donna spun back around and grabbed his shoulders again. She frog-marched him back into the kitchen. Dick was elbow deep in the sink, with the dishwasher already running. Roy blinked at him.

“How—“ He’d only been down the hall for a few minutes but his kitchen already showed marked improvement.

Dick flashed him a grin over his shoulder. “You and Donna have fun at the store!” He stuck a hip out towards Donna as she pushed Roy past him. Without looking, she fished his wallet out of his back pocket, extracted a black card, and stuck the wallet back into his pocket. All without breaking a step.

Roy quickly found himself outside and in the passenger seat of a rented car. Donna didn’t even look at him as she pulled up the nearest grocery store on the GPS.

Doing anything with Donna is doing it as efficiently as possible. They moved through the store with absolute purpose, never once having to backtrack. Donna threw things into the cart as Roy pushed it along behind her. She apparently already knew all of his favorite comfort foods (though he probably shouldn’t be surprised by that; they were all observant by necessity but Donna had always been a step above them in that) and never once let him put anything back on the shelf.

By the time they reached the checkout, the cart was completely full of snack foods, non-perishables, paper plates and cups, and plastic utensils. Donna handed over the black card she had taken from Dick’s wallet before Roy could even make a move for his pockets, almost before the cashier had finished ringing everything up.

Dick had been moving with similar efficiency, apparently. He’d completed a deep clean of the kitchen and bathroom by the time they got back, and was halfway through the living room. The door to Lian’s room was once again closed.

Roy’s hand twitched towards the handle as he walked past it. Dick suddenly appeared between him and the door, smoothly intercepting and directing him back towards the kitchen. The two of them helped Donna put away the groceries. Once that was done, Donna stalked into the living room with a determined look on her face. Dick sat Roy down at the kitchen table.

“Let us help you.” He said after pushing Roy back into his seat when he tried to stand up. “Trust me, it’s no trouble.”

Roy sighed. “It’s just…”

“Hard?” Dick asked as he moved through Roy’s kitchen with the same level of grace he did everything in life.

“I mean, Donna’s lost a kid of her own. Hell, everyone has, except you.” Roy put his hands in his head.

Dick hummed. “Which is why everyone knows how much you need help from us right now.”

“I just feel like a piece of shit for needing this much help from them when I couldn’t help after their own kids.”

“You had Lian to take care of then, and they know that.” Dick slid over to the fridge and pulled out a few more ingredients he had apparently forgotten. “Plus, most of them pulled away from us after it happened. Like you’re trying to.” He sent Roy a side-eyed glance.

“Sorry.”

Dick shrugged. “Why do you think we all keep coming over? They know how much you want to pull away right now and we’re not going to let you do that.”

Roy sighed. (He’d been doing that a lot recently.) He laid his head down on his forearms.

“You’re not a piece of shit for needing our help, Roy. Or for trying to pull away from that help.” Dick laid a hand on Roy’s shoulder. “We all know how much you’re hurting right now.” There was something in Dick’s voice, a wetness, a deeply seeded pain, that made Roy suddenly remember something.

“Shit, I didn’t even think about how much you…” He trailed off.

“Miss Lian too?” Dick laughed morosely. “It’s okay. You’re kinda dealing with your own shit right now.”

“But you…”

Uncle Dick had been the one to help Roy get Lian back after Jade disappeared. He’d paid for Roy’s lawyer, been on site for all of the home inspections, had helped Roy in ways that Roy hadn’t even known he would need. He’d been the one to watch Lian anytime Roy had to go on a mission (unless he was on his own). He’d taken her to movies, for ice cream, had stopped by pretty much anytime he was on this side of the country to sweep her into his arms and declare the rest of the day an “uncle-niece” date day only to come back hours later with glitter in their hair and bags of treats and toys.

His own grief must be nearly overwhelming.

Dick smiled gently at him, tears swimming in his eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

“I’m so sorry.” Roy lurched forward and wrapped Dick in a tight hug. “I should have realized, especially after Jason.”

Dick hugged him back. “I think it’s because this is after Jason that I’m doing better. I have experience with this kind of pain, you know?” He sniffed. “It’s…I’m not okay but I’m functional.”

Roy squeezed him, feeling tears on his cheek at the same time as on his shirt.

Donna came back into the kitchen then. She cast a judgment free eye over the pair of them, wrapped around each other and crying, and stepped over to the stove.

“Dick, is this supposed to be turning black?”

“Shit.” Dick pulled away, wiping at his cheeks. “We got a little distracted.”

“You sure Bruce’s kitchen talents aren’t just wearing off on you?” Roy asked, scrubbing at his own cheeks.

“Affectionately, fuck you Roy.”

Roy laughed. For the first time in weeks, the weight of his grief felt almost manageable.

— — —

“Hey, Munchkin.” Johnny’s voice broke through the daze Lian had fallen into.

She blinked blearily and pushed her energy into Johnny’s cell.

Well, tried to push her energy into his cell. She’d forgotten that the stupid agents had done something to the stupid cells and the stupid energy walls inside the cell walls. She was ungraciously reminded of that fact as she stared up at the ceiling from where she had been thrown by the electric blast.

“Don’t forget about the upgrades.” Johnny almost sounded like he was laughing.

“You’re so mean.”

Johnny laughed out loud at that. Lian pouted and leaned against the wall again, carefully keeping her energy inside her Core. She closed her eyes.

“Shoes.”

Lian jumped. “What do you want?” She whined (sleepy-lonely-sad). “I just want to go to sleep.”

Johnny’s head thumped against the wall. “You’ve already slept all day. I’m wor—I’m bored over here.”

“That’s because there’s nothing to do here.”

“We could play a game.”

“What, like ‘I Spy’?” Lian looked around the cell. There wasn’t even any furniture that would maybe make that game interesting.

“Okay, so maybe not that game.” Johnny rumbled (frustrated-tired-bored). “But there’s gotta be other games we could play.”

“Like what?” Lian pulled her knees to her chest.

“Uh…” Johnny hummed (thinking-curious-tired). “Kitty and I used to play this game about story-telling on road trips. You go back and forth, each saying a sentence to the story.”

“I don’t think I’d be very good at that game.”

“No one’s bad at this game.” Johnny was quiet for a moment, waiting for Lian to say something. “I’ll start, how’s that sound, Munchkin?”

Lian shrugged, forgetting for a moment that Johnny couldn’t see her.

“Okay. Well, once upon a time…uh…there was…shit. Kitty usually started them.” Johnny gulped. “Guess neither of us are actually good at this.”

Lian whimpered (lonely-sad-miss you).

“You okay?” Johnny asked.

“Just thinking.” She sniffed against the tears that welled up in her eyes. “My dad’s really good at telling stories.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She hugged her knees. “He’d be really good at this game.”

“Do you remember any of his stories?”

“Um.” Lian thought back over the stories her dad had told her over the years. There were a lot of them. “Like, what kind of story?”

“What’s your favorite story he told you?”

“The one where the frog makes it rain.” She replied immediately.

“Tell me that one.”

“Okay.” Lian cleared her throat. “One time, when the First People were still living by the mountain, fire escaped from the top of the mountain. It ran down the side and towards the First People’s homes.” She closed her eyes and tried to picture the way her dad always sat when he told stories.

“Cardinal saw it and flew as fast as he could to First Woman. But he flew too close to the fire and it turned him all red.” The story itself came easily to her, with the number of times she had asked her dad to tell it to her. “But so when Cardinal got to First Woman, he told her that the fire was coming. And First Woman said ‘What are we going to do?’

“Then First Man said ‘Water will stop the fire, we just have to put it out.’

“So First Woman made a bottle and filled it with water, and Robin flew it over the fire. But he got a little too close and burned his chest red, like Cardinal and he had to run away before he could put out the whole fire. And the bottle didn’t hold enough water anyways, so the fire was still coming for the First People’s home.

“First Woman asked the Land People, like bear and bobcat and wolf, for help but they wouldn’t.” She faltered for a moment. “I asked my dad one time why they wouldn’t help and he didn’t know, but I think it’s because they couldn’t get above the fire the way Robin could.  Plus, they don’t have thumbs so it would have been really hard for them to hold the bottle.”

“Makes sense.” Johnny said as she took a deep breath. She could almost see her dad behind her eyelids, sitting on the floor next to her bed the way he always did when telling her a bedtime story. She swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her throat.

“But anyways,” she cleared her throat again, “Then First Woman asked the River People, like turtle and snail and beaver, but they told her that they couldn’t help because without the water their home would turn into desert and they need water.

“First Woman asked all the people she could find but no one would help her. Until she asked Frog and he said that he and Crane would help her.

“Frog sat in his swamp and sucked in as much water as he could. And then Crane flew him over the fire and he let out all the water through his skin. And the water fell down on the fire and put it out and so the First People’s homes were saved.”

“That’s a good story.” Johnny said after a moment. “You must have gotten your storytelling from your dad.”

Lian shook her head. “He’s so much better at it. Like, he gets into a whole rhythm that I can’t do, and it’s really relaxing to listen to.” She sniffled (lonely-depressed-sorrow). “Maybe…maybe when we get out of here then he can tell you a story. And then you’ll see how much better at it he is.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Johnny rumbled (comfort-sorrow-lonely). “We’d have to get out of here, though.”

“I told you, we can’t leave. Then my dad wouldn’t be able to find us!” (“If anyone ever grabs you, Princess, just stay where you are.”)

“We could go find him, once we’re out.”

“But what if we don’t get out?” (“I’ll come and get you, no matter where they take you.”) If we try and we can’t get out then they’ll make it harder for us to try again, and make it harder for my dad to get to us.” (“I promise.”)

“And what if your dad isn’t coming?” Johnny snapped (frustrated-anger-desperate).

Lian clapped her hands over her ears. “No, he’s coming, he promised!”

“We can’t just stay here!”

“No!” Lian wailed (stop it-stop it-STOP IT), loud enough the walls sparked as the ghostly energy pressed against them.

(Johnny was thrown across his cell by the force of the blast. He blinked dazedly from his position flat on his back. That was new. And reminded him of Danny. ‘Must be a halfa thing.’)

“Fine.” Johnny said after a moment. “We’ll hunker down and wait.”

(This place was already wearing her down. Johnny could tell in the way she was getting quieter and spending more time asleep. If When the GIW finally made a mistake, he was going to get her out. Even if he had to throw her over his shoulder and carry her out. He’s positive her dad would understand.) 

— — —

Dick set the popcorn on the coffee table with the other snacks before crossing the living room to the blanket chest. It wasn’t often he managed to convince everyone (including even Babs) to take a night off and just watch some movies together but somehow he had pulled it off and he was going to make it the best movie night he could. Harley had agreed to keep an eye on the city and let them know if anything came up. But she’d also had a certain glint in her eye when he’d asked for help setting up the night of rest that made him worry for the safety of any rogue who dared try anything tonight.

Sorting through the blankets was pretty easy. They were either an absolutely itchy monstrosity or they were one of the softest things he had ever touched and he pretty much already knew which ones were which. He pulled out the soft ones, distributing them evenly between the couches and recliners in the den, and left the itchy ones in the chest so he wasn’t tempted to take them out back and burn them.

Next was pillows. The throw pillows that lived on the couches were more decorative than comfy. It had taken Dick several years but eventually he had manged to convince Alfred of the benefit of super soft throw pillows that could be used on the couches. He hid them in the linen closet in the hallway. Dick swapped out the lumpy-but-nice-looking pillows for the comfy-and-squishy pillows.

Finally, a couple of strategically placed fans to ensure optimum airflow through the room would make sure no one got too warm and that everyone would have an opportunity to sit with a nice breeze on their face if they wanted.

Babs rolled in just as Dick stood back with his hands on his hips to admire his success for a moment. She settled herself on the love seat, legs stretched out in front of her. He tossed her favorite blanket at her. Perfect.

As soon as everyone else arrived, that is.

Dick checked his watch. No one was late yet but it was getting pretty close. He settled down on the couch to wait, comfortable to sit in silence with Babs.

Cass was the first one to arrive, followed shortly by Alfred. Which made complete sense. Punctuality was important to both of them. What was surprising was Steph arriving next, on time. She didn’t live in the Manor (even though she had a bedroom there just like the rest of them) and was usually late for patrol briefings.

Steph immediately grabbed the softest of the blankets and Cass’s hand, dragging the older to opposite end of the couch Dick had claimed. She settled them both down and pressed tightly against Cass, tight enough that the other was pinned against the arm of a couch (not that it looked like she cared). Alfred, as was to be expected, sat himself in the recliner closest to the lamp and pulled his knitting bag out from behind it.

Only Bruce and Tim then.

Dick queued up the first movie of the night while they waited. And waited. He was about to storm down to the Cave and retrieve both of them when Tim padded in. He stood in the entry way for a brief moment, glancing at the seating options, before Cass’s hand shot out from under the blanket and seized his wrist. She pulled at him until he (grumblingly) acquiesced and sat down between Steph and Dick.

Dick automatically raised his arm. Tim looked at him for a moment, expression unreadable, before turning sideways to lean backwards against Dick’s chest. He stuck his feet under the pile that had become Steph and Cass.

Now they were just waiting on Bruce.

Shockingly, they didn’t have to wait too long before Bruce came into the room, towel still around his neck from his shower. Alfred glared at him over the sweater he was knitting until Bruce sheepishly stepped back down the hall to place it in a hamper.

“We all ready?” Dick asked when Bruce had sat himself in the second recliner. After several affirmatives, he hit play and snuggled down onto the couch to enjoy the time with his family.

The first movie played through without a hitch. At some point during it, Bruce migrated over to the couch, ending up with Dick sitting sideways leaning against his arm, Tim sitting curled up between Dick’s legs, and Cass and Steph squished between Tim and the arm of the couch. Alfred stayed where he was under the lamp, making significant progress on his sweater.

Bruce hit the button to start the second movie Dick had chosen for the night. Tim reached up and pulled a blanket down off the back of the couch, tucking it in around him and Dick. The air in the room was comfortably warm and Dick could feel himself starting to drift off, completely relaxed for the first time in way too long.

They’d all had a rough few months. It was part of why he had insisted on setting up tonight. Tim had only managed to hack into the drive they’d stolen from the federal agents in all white a few days ago, after beating his head against it for months. Cass had been trying very hard to learn to read but she seemed to have hit a wall on progress shortly after learning the alphabet. Steph’s father had been trying to come around and talk to her again, which was never a fun time for anyone.

And then, of course, there were the Jason doppelganger sightings that had Babs, Alfred, and Bruce freaked out. Babs had seen him a few more times at the library, calling Dick near tears after each one. Alfred just couldn’t seem to let go of the idea that the man needed help raising his son, Jason or no. And Bruce had been flipping between obsessing over the doppelganger and the Red Hood non-stop.

Dick had been stretching himself to the max trying to keep some level of sanity going in the manor. Somehow, he’d managed to make sure Tim and Steph both went to school every day, that Cass had materials to practice reading and writing with, that Bruce and Babs were both eating. He’d even managed to find time to go visit Roy and force some comfort on him after…

Thinking about Lian hurt so much (just another example of a child who’d looked to him for help and love that he’d failed, just like Jason) but sometimes he couldn’t stop himself. He could hear her tinkling laughter in the soundtrack of movies, could feel her tugging at his hand whenever he walked past the candy shop in the mall, in the exact same way he could still hear Jay making sarcastic comments about the 1% every time Bruce did something too rich for his blood, see his crooked grin whenever Tim or Steph managed to land a flip they’d been working on. Dick pressed harder into the pocket of warmth created by Bruce, Tim, and the blanket.

Feeling him shifting, Bruce lifted an arm and set it gently across Dick’s chest. Dick turned his head to press his face into Bruce’s bicep. He was not going to cry. He wasn’t. He’d cried more these past few months than he had in years (seven years, to be precise). Tonight was supposed to be about enjoying time with the family that he has left, about spending time with them and not the ghosts he constantly saw out of the corner of his eyes.

The movie played on as Dick took a moment to compose himself. When he was finally able to remove himself from the safety of Bruce’s arm, he pushed himself up into more of a seated position. Tim protested weakly at being jostled. Peace settled over the room.

Someone banged on the front door.

Six highly trained vigilantes were immediately at the ready. A quick glance at Alfred confirmed that no one was expected at this hour and that the gate sensors hadn’t been set off.

More knocking.

Bruce led the way down the hall to the door with Dick hot on his heels. Tim and Steph took up the rear as Cass melted into the shadows. Dick knew without checking that Babs had grabbed her laptop and was pulling up the security footage from the entryway.

“Bruce!” Bang, bang, bang! “Come on, Bruce, I know you’re in there!” There was something painfully familiar about their voice that gripped at Dick’s heart.

Dick grabbed for Bruce’s arm as the man nearly collapsed. Back in the living room, Dick heard Babs.

“Oh, no.”

Whoever it was was still banging on the door as if their life depended on it. Dick motioned to Steph and Tim to hang back as he stepped around Bruce, who seemed to be frozen, staring at the door.

“Please, Bruce, I need your help.” Dick paused, hand on the door handle. Whoever was on the other side sounded desperate, their voice thick with emotions.  “Dad.” They choked out around a sob. “Please!”

Dick ripped open the door. The man standing in the rain (when had it started raining?) looked up from where he’d been pounding on the door. And…Dick owed Alfred and Babs an apology. The Jason-doppelganger that had been haunting their steps looked so much like Jason that Dick’s brain automatically superimposed the image of his little brother over top of the man. There was something that even felt like Jason, some near indescribable quality, an energy surrounding him that just radiated Jason.

“Dick.” The man pushed his dripping shock-white bangs out of his eyes. They were greener than Jason’s had been but that was where the differences ended. They were the same shape, had the same steely core hidden behind them, they were even reddened around the eyes (Jay had never been able to make himself stop rubbing at his eyes when he cried, not wanting anyone to see the tears and instead scraping the skin nearly raw).

After a moment, Dick became aware that he was staring. Gaping, really. The man shifted his weight right and left and right again in a nervous tick that was exactly the same as Jason’s. He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and hunched his shoulders. Dick gasped involuntarily, one hand coming up to cover his mouth.

“Can I come in?” Not-Jason (couldn’t be Jason, Jason’s dead, that would be impossible) asked.

Dick dumbly stepped to the side. The man who could not possibly be his little brother quickly stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He seemed to instinctively twist the doorknob to ensure it shut almost silently (just like Jay, a habit he had never cared to break).

Jason Jason’s double cast a discerning eye over the small group gathered in the entryway. Bruce took a shaky step towards him when his gaze passed over him.

“Hey, Old Man.” Jason’s shoulders (not Jason, what was he thinking) hitched further up, nearly pressing against his ears.

Bruce didn’t so much lunge towards the man as he fell forwards and wrapped himself around him. “Jaylad, my boy.”

Not-Jason Jason (because who else could it be, really, and if even Bruce thought so…) brought his arms up around Bruce, clinging to the back of his shirt. Bruce cupped the back of Jason’s head with one hand and that’s when Dick’s eyes stopped working. Blinking only cleared his vision for a few seconds at a time before it was quickly overtaken by a watery film.

“Little Wing?” Dick could barely recognize his own voice. Jason twisted his head, meeting Dick’s eyes.

“Hey, Dickie-Bird.” He mumbled. “You gonna get in here?”

Dick didn’t have to be told twice.

Chapter Text

He didn’t have a choice. That’s what Jason told himself as he walked up to the wrought-iron gate of the one place he had sworn he would never return to. He was out of options and Danny had been in GIW custody for two and a half days. He’d already killed his motorcycle trying to chase them across Gotham. Their zero regard for civilian casualties meant they’d been able to get out of town ahead of him, especially after his engine had overheated and seized. He’d barely managed to get back to the Alley to pick up a second bike, and by the time he had they were gone.

He’d spent the next day and a half sprinting back and forth across Gotham, chasing down dead end after dead end. No one had any idea where the GIW might take Danny. Most people didn’t even know who the GIW were, if Gordon’s reaction had been anything to go off of.

The gate loomed above him, just as intimidating as it had been when he’d first seen it at 11. He swallowed as he stepped up to the code box, not expecting much. He’d probably have to buzz up to the house—

The light flashed green.

Jason’s gate code hadn’t been changed. Even after everything that had happened, everything Jason had done, Bruce had never taken his codes out of the system. (Jason blamed the fact that he’d been up for nearly 60 hours for the tears that joined the rain on his cheeks.)

The driveway was just as long as he remembered. Made worse by the fact the gentle drizzle picked up into a torrential downpour when he was about halfway there. He hiked his shoulders up around his ears as his hair was flattened down to his forehead.

He finally made it up to the front door, stepping under the overhang and out of the rain with relief. The door was still shut. Apparently, his gate code even still deactivated the driveway sensors.

Ringing the doorbell would immediately activate all the home defenses, since anyone who was expected would either have a key or would have been picked up by the driveway sensors. Jason stared at it for a moment, weighing the chances of someone being too far away from the front door to hear knocking with the chance of setting off an alarm he didn’t know about. Eventually, he settled on knocking.

No one answered for a long moment. So Jason knocked again, harder.

Still nothing.

“Bruce!” He shouted, banging on the door as hard as he could. “Come on, Bruce, I know you’re in there!” His men had confirmed Batman wasn’t out tonight, and Brucie hadn’t been called away on any business trips.

“Please, Bruce, I need your help.” Jason had once thought himself above begging, especially for help, especially from Bruce (he’d once thought he’d never have to beg for help from Bruce). But Danny had been in GIW custody and out of the city for nearly 60 hours. At this point, Jason would do a whole lot worse than beg.

He heard movement on the other side of the door but it still didn't open. He rested his forehead on the cold wood in front of him.

“Dad.” He choked out around a sob. “Please!”

The door shot open beneath his forehead. He rocked back a step to keep himself from falling into the Manor. Dick Grayson stood in the doorway, looking more than a little bit shocked. Jason swallowed under the heavy (disapproving) gaze of the man who had once been his older brother. (Why had he come here, this was a bad idea)

“Dick.” Jason pushed his hair back out of his face as he caught a glimpse of Alfred behind Dick, a childish need to look presentable in front of the man rearing up. “Can I come in?” He said after a moment of loaded silence. (Focus, he had to focus. This was for Danny, for Danny.)

Dick stepped to the side, openly gaping at him (why had he bothered to come, he was a criminal why would they help him they shouldn’t help him). Jason glanced around the small entry room.

Alfred was standing in the doorway to the family area of the home, mouth gaping in a rare display of shock (probably that Jason had the audacity to come here, to knock on the door like he was family like he was wanted ) (for Danny, Danny needed his help, their help). The Replacement Tim was in front of Alfred, with a blonde girl Jason didn’t know standing shoulder to shoulder with him. And Jason could feel the eyes of another person but couldn’t see anyone else. Bruce was hovering behind Dick’s shoulder, eyes wet and lips pressed together.

Bruce took a jerking step forward when Jason’s eyes passed over him. He felt his shoulders rise further under the scrutiny of an entire colony of bats.

 “Hey, Old Man.” The words were barely in the air when powerful (dangerous warm ) arms were wrapped around him and Bruce was sobbing into his shoulder (safe arms, had always been safe, he was Safe Here).

“Jaylad, my boy.” Jason brought his arms up around Bruce, pressing his face into his father’s the man’s shoulder. Bruce buried his fingers in the hairs at the nape of Jason’s neck, holding him tighter.

“Little Wing?” It shook him to his Core to hear Dick’s voice sound so…broken. The man’s eyes were running over when Jason looked at him.

“Hey, Dickie-Bird.” He mumbled into Bruce’s shoulder. “You gonna get in here?”

And that was definitely (not) a mistake because now Jason had the arms of two sobbing vigilantes wrapped around him, holding him tight (holding him safe). And he had come here for a reason, he knew he had but in the face of this warmth he had been denying himself, it was pushed to the back of his mind.

Dick had a way of wrapping his entire body around whoever he was hugging, like an octopus engulfing its prey. It was just as comforting as Jason remembered it.

He could hear the others moving around and whispering. And he knew he would have to face that eventually, would have to deal with the inevitable ‘Why didn’t you’s and ‘How could you’s but…For just a moment, he wanted to pretend things were okay. Just a moment of feeling safe and wanted before Bruce and Dick remembered what he’d been doing for the last year or so. Before Alfred would look at him with that disappointment in his eyes. He closed his eyes against the well of tears that threatened to spill over.

Jason reached a hand out to grab Danny, to bring him into this and let him meet Bruce and Dick. His hand passed through empty air.

Right. A painful jolt shot through Jason’s Core, hot guilt sliding into his stomach (how could he have forgotten this wasn’t a social visit Danny needed him). He bit back a whine (frustration-fear-anger) and pulled himself out of the embrace (that small part of his mind cried with the loss of the warmth and safety).

“What’s wrong?” Dick sniffled and wiped at his cheeks.

“I…” Jason swallowed. “I need help.”

“Whatever it is,” Bruce said as he stepped forward, arms outstretched to pull Jason into another hug, “I’m sure it can wait for—“

“No, it can’t, they’ve had him for…” Jason paused, struggling to remember how long it had been. Exhaustion was starting to fog his mind.

“Who?” Jason wasn’t sure who asked that as he focused on the emotions rolling through his Core, letting it wake him back up and chase away the fatigue.

“Danny! They-They grabbed him during patrol, I was too far away to catch them, I don’t know where they took him but it’s out of the city  and I can’t-I don’t—“ Jason knew his breathing was speeding up but he couldn’t get it under control (the carefully honed focus he had come here with had been swept away by the overwhelming feeling of safety but he couldn’t collapse, he had to get them to help him, he couldn’t lose Danny couldn’t let anything happen to him, he needed—)

“Jaylad, take a deep breath.” Bruce’s hand landed on his shoulder. Jason forced himself to do so. “Good. Now, tell us what happened.”

“My son’s been abducted.” Everyone gasped. Jason ran a hand through his hair. “We were on patrol. He was on the border of Crime Alley and I was near the docks. I usually never go that far in when he’s out but there were some drugs being moved into the city that I had to intercept. He knows he’s only allowed to interfere in muggings or snatch and grabs, stuff like that, and the GIW hasn’t been spotted in the area in a couple weeks so I figured it’d be okay.” Jason clenched his hands into fists, rage bubbling in his throat. “I was too far away to catch up to them.”

“Okay.” Bruce stepped back, tilting his chin down. To anyone else, it would look intimidating. Jason knew better. (Everyone in the room knew better, snapping to attention as they saw Bruce settle into Batman.)

“Might I suggest,” Alfred cut in before Bruce could start really interrogating Jason, “that we move this to the basement? We would be better able to examine traffic cam footage and aid in the search from there.”

Bruce spun on his heel and marched for the study. Everyone filed behind him. Jason hung back with Alfred.

“I wish it were under better circumstances,” the old butler said, side-eying Jason, “but it is good to see you, my boy.”

Jason felt a small smile quirk up the corners of his lips, despite the circumstances. “It’s good to see you, too, Alfie.”

“We will, of course, be having a discussion about the ruse you felt the need to pull on an old man simply doing his grocery shopping.”

Jason winced at the chill reminder. “Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose we will.”

“And,” Barbara’s voice chimed in from the doorway to the den, “about the way you’ve been coming to my library for months and haven’t once stopped by to say hi.”

Jason blinked. “Is everyone here tonight?”

“Yeah.” Barbara rolled out into the hallway. “Dick wanted to have a family movie night.”

She kept talking as they moved down the hallway to the study but Jason stopped hearing. He was too focused on keeping his steps even, on placing one foot in front of the other (in a way Barbara couldn’t). He was too busy trying to make sure he wasn’t staring, that his gaze wasn’t burning a hole in the back of her wheelchair because…since when had she needed a wheelchair?

He frantically thought back over every scrap of intel he’d found and overheard on the Bats since his return to Gotham. Over everything Talia had said to him before sending him on his worldwide tour.  There had been no mention of Batgirl being injured, let alone as severely as this. He’d known Barbara was working more behind the scenes now, ever since Oracle had begged him to help Dick (Barbara would never have moved behind the scenes willingly, he should have known something was up).

“Master Jason, is there something the matter?” Alfred asked as Jason pulled his gaze from it for the fifth time in as many seconds (had the elevator to the Cave always been this slow?).

“I…It’s just…”

Barbara’s fingers tightened on the arm rests. “Jason, you’ve seen me at the library.”

“You’re always behind the desk.” He forced out. It sounded lame, even to him, but what else was there to say?

“Oh. Right.” She let go of the wheelchair with one hand, reaching out to take his. “But you must remember what happened. When the Joker—“ Her eyes widened. “No, you wouldn’t remember.”

Jason shook his head, frantic. “I think I would remember…something like that.”

Alfred set a steady hand on Jason’s shoulder. “I suppose that did occur after we…lost you.”

Jason swallowed. An ember of his old rage, of the hurt and betrayal that the Joker was still around to hurt people, sparked in his Core. “The Joker?”

“He shot me, a few months after…well, after.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m not sure why but he wasn’t even there for me as Batgirl. He was there for Barbara Gordon.”

Alfred gripped his shoulder, pushing the small trio forward as the elevator dinged its return. “It’s in the past.”

Jason almost laughed. A small ember of his old rage, the hurt, the betrayal, the disbelief that Joker had been allowed to keep living, suddenly roared back to life (and isn’t that just the thing about rage? It never goes away, not completely. It’s always right there, no matter how much you think you’ve healed, it’s always ready to come back and threaten to overwhelm you to burn you away to erase everything you’ve worked so hard for to—).

He bit his cheek. Now wasn’t the time. The Joker could be dealt with later. Right now, Danny needed help. That had to take priority.

The elevator doors closed, starting their descent to the Cave. Jason reminded himself to keep breathing. For Danny.

— — —

Danny sat up and rubbed his forehead. He looked around the harsh metal cell, a sinking feeling in his gut. The walls were pure white. The door was almost invisible except for the small window set at eye level in it.

His breath caught in his throat, settled heavily somewhere on top of his chest, forcing him to breathe faster and faster, shallower and shallower. Frantically, he launched himself at a wall, trying to phase through it. The resulting shock left him staring at the ceiling.

Once he was able, he sat up and pushed himself into the corner farthest from the door. He grabbed at his hair and buried his face in his knees. This couldn’t be happening.

He thought back to the last thing he remembered. He’d been flying over Crime Alley’s edge, listening to the shouts that Lady Gotham sometimes sent him on the wind. There’d been some kind of noise. Like an almost scream? But not quite. He’d banked towards it.

The wind had changed, he remembered that. It got really hard to fly. But then someone had really screamed from the same spot so he’d pushed himself as hard as he could. And then…

He fell? He was falling out of the air somehow. Had he hit something? He couldn’t have, right? But then what had happened?

He’d woken up here next.

He keened (frustrated-scared-confused) and pulled at his hair. He couldn’t remember what happened after that! He tried to think but his head was starting to hurt. His chest still hurt, his tummy hurt, the room was too small, it was getting smaller he couldn’t breath he couldn’t—

Step 1: Pause and breathe. Don’t panic.

His dad’s voice played through the fog of panic. They’d gone over what to do if he was captured so many times that even the memory of Jason’s voice was comforting.

Danny closed his eyes. He forced his fingers back from the panicked claws to normal, and to let go of his hair. His breathing was harder to slow down but he carefully counted out the beats (“In-two-three-four, Out-two-three-four. Great job, squirt.”). It took him a few minutes but eventually he was able to calm himself down enough to take another look around his cell.

Step 2: Evaluate.

The door was in the middle of the wall directly in front of him. There was nothing in the cell, not even a cot. (“Remember, if there’s a door, then they want to be able to get you out of wherever you are again. And that means there’s a way to escape.”)

Danny pushed himself off the ground and drifted over to the door. There was no food slot but the window was big enough for him to see a little ways down the hallway in both directions. He couldn’t see any other doors or windows. Which made sense. They’d kept him isolated the last time they had him too.

Panic was trying to creep back up his throat but he forced it away again with more breathing. He ran his fingers along the edges of the door (“You just have to find the cracks that you can wiggle out of.”). It was flush with the wall, with nowhere that he could slip even a finger nail in to try and wiggle it open. He let his hands drop to his sides, trying to think.

A growl (frustrated-scared-lonely) slipped out from his Core. As it did, the ghost shield embedded in the walls flared, like it was trying to shock him. He was too far away to get shocked but…

Had that been a crack in the shield?

(“Your body doesn’t really exist when you're in ghost form, right? Not the way your human body or my body does.”

“Right.”

“So you can be any shape you need to be? And any size?”

“I can only get a little bit bigger than this. I’ve tried before and I start getting really stretched out.”

“But what about smaller? Can you shrink?”)

Step 3: Make a plan.

Danny growled (scared-testing-maybe? ) again, making sure he was still far enough away that the shocks couldn’t reach him. The shield glowed a bright green the whole time he made the sound. A chirp (excitement-idea-thinking) bubbled up. He could see the shield! And more importantly, he could see the small crack between two layers.

It was a fraction of an inch wide. Whoever had designed the walls and shields had clearly thought they’d overlapped the two pieces correctly but either they’d forgotten to align them in the third dimension or whoever had built it had messed up the alignment.

Danny squeezed his body as thin as he could make it. He had to stretch some in the other direction, lengthening himself at the same time, but if he could manage to get just a little bit thinner—got it!

Like a snake, Danny was able to wiggle out between the two layers without being shocked. He took off down the hallway to the right, making sure he was as invisible as he could be.

(“Once they’ve got you in a cell, they’re going to get cocky. They never think about how to keep you from escaping the building, only the cell.”)

Danny giggled to himself as Jason’s words were proven right. There wasn’t even a ghost alarm on the hallway door! He slipped right through it with no problems. He was going to make it out! Just a few more walls and he’d be free from—

Someone was crying down the hall to the left. Someone young, but not familiar. Danny floated in the middle of the intersection. He should keep going, get out of here, and find Jason. His dad’d be able to burn this place to the ground, like he’d done to those people who’d kidnapped a bunch of kids from the Alley a couple months ago, and save everyone in here.

But what if the GIW moved them?

There weren’t any alarms going off, which meant they had no idea Danny had managed to escape his cell. So surely it wouldn’t hurt just to look? Maybe he could break them out too and they could escape together!

Decision made, he turned to follow the sound down the hallway. Once he was a little closer, he started hearing other sounds too. Soothing chirps (calm-not alone-protection) and a voice he could almost recognize saying, “I’m sure he’s coming, Munchkin.”

“But it’s been months!” Whoever was crying let out a keen (scared-lonely-where are you??). Danny flew as fast as he could. He rounded a corner and saw another hallway, only this one had multiple cells going down each side. He tried to listen and find out which ones the voices were coming from but the sounds were echoing too much.

Danny chirped (here-protect-help?). The quiet sobs stopped immediately.

A sharp whistle (over here-help?-who?) came from the left-hand wall. Danny floated towards it.

“Danny? Is that you?” Johnny’s face appeared in one of the windows.

Danny let out a soft warble (it’s me!-help?-who?). He cast a glance over the hallway. There was a camera pointing right at Johnny’s door.

“Kid, what the fu-reak are you doing back here?” Johnny crossed his arms.

Danny growled (wait-testing-helping!). The shield in the cell walls sprang to life.

Johnny shot back into the middle of his cell, cursing. “What the hell, kid?”

The shields for these cells were even more improperly aligned than the ones for his. There was a gap nearly a quarter inch wide between all of the walls, especially where the cells met. Danny was able to wriggle through it even faster than he’d managed to escape.

“Wha...Kid, how did you do that?” Johnny asked as Danny snapped back into visibility. “And, uh, why are you smaller?”

Danny shrugged. “I just woke up like this after…” After they’d broken him out, he didn’t say. (That would mean thinking about Sam and Tucker and Jazz and that still hurt too much.)

“Huh.” Johnny circled him slowly. “Is it on purpose?” When Danny shook his head, Johnny  asked, “Did they hurt your Core?”

“No.” Danny folded his legs to sit midair.

“Well, that’s the only thing I know that can force someone to change shape.” Johnny shook his head. “So what are you doing here? Did Shoes’s dad send you?”

“Who’s Shoes?” Danny straightened.

“She’s next door.” Johnny jerked his thumb at the wall.

“Oh, is she who was crying?” Danny floated over to the wall, remembering why he had come down this way. He glanced over his shoulder at Johnny before lengthening himself again to squeeze into the next cell.

Shoes was curled up against the back wall of her cell. Her light blue hair was singed on the ends, like it had been partially burned away. She looked like she was a couple years older than Danny, maybe 8 or 9.

“Hi.” Danny waved.

Shoes looked up at him, eyes narrow. Danny fidgeted awkwardly under the intensity of her gaze. After a few moments, he slid down through the air to sit in front of her.

“I’m Danny.” (“When someone’s scared of you, you just have to be patient so they can learn you’re not a threat.”)

“You’re the one who’s half dead, right?” Shoes said after another long moment. “That’s what Johnny said, at least.”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Danny nodded. “I had an accident with Mr. Fenton’s ghost portal. But my dad thinks the ectoplasm just changed my DNA and gave me powers, like other metas.”

“Wait, I thought Fenton is your old man.” Johnny said, having managed to half-wiggle through the same gap Danny had. It looked like it had been a lot harder for him since he was panting.

Danny shook his head. “Jason says that just cause he’s my sperm donor doesn’t mean he gets to be my dad if he’s doing a bad job.” Danny wasn’t sure what ‘sperm donor’ meant, exactly, but Johnny laughed.

“Is your dad a superhero too?” Shoes asked as they both watched Johnny try to pull himself the rest of the way through the gap.

“Uh-huh!” Danny shifted around on the floor so he could see Johnny and Shoes. “He’s the hero of Crime Alley in Gotham!”

Shoes perked up. “Does he know my Uncle Nightwing?”

“Yeah!” Danny grinned. “Mr. Nightwing is pretty nice. He leaves snacks on the roofs for me.”

“So do you know my dad then? Is he looking for me?” Shoes put her hands on the ground, pushing herself up onto her knees.

“Who’s your dad? Mr. Batman?”

Shoes shook her head. “His name is Speedy.”

“Um.” Danny thought over the heroes he knew. “I don’t think he knows a Speedy. But I’m sure he’s looking for you!” He added quickly, seeing Shoes’s face fall.

Johnny had managed to get himself out of the gap. He drifted behind Shoes and settled on the floor. She sniffled (scared-lonely-afraid) before leaning back into him, pulling her knees up and hiding in his jacket. He wrapped an arm around her.

“Look, Munchkin, I know you don’t want to miss your dad, but I think we should get out of here. Danny can get us out.”

Shoes shook her head again, harder this time. “Dad said to stay put if I’m lost. I can’t go somewhere else.”

“Shoes, you need to be safe. I’m sure your dad would understand—“

“They haven’t even done anything!” She stood up and stepped away from Johnny. Danny cocked his head to the side.

“They haven’t?”

“They’ve been waiting until they had two of you guys!” Johnny said, throwing his hands up. “I’ve been listening to them whenever they take me. And now they have two of you.”

“Two of who?” Danny asked.

“You know, halfas.” Danny whirled his head back to Shoes. He reached out with his Core.

“You’re a halfa too!” Danny jumped into the air. “That’s so cool!”

Shoes stopped pacing, looking at Johnny. “We should get you out though. You should go with Danny, and then there will only be one of us again.”

“No!” Johnny stood up too, towering over Shoes and Danny. “I’m not leaving a kid alone with those freaks!”

“I’m not leaving! My dad’s coming for me!”

“All three of us can leave right now, and then we can go find your dad.”

Danny looked at the pair as they argued back and forth. He looked at the way Johnny was floating several inches above the floor, the way his shadow flickered even though Danny couldn’t feel Shadow, the way the faint sound of a motorcycle could be heard under every word he shouted, the way his body shifted and squirmed in ways humans can’t do. He looked at the way Shoes was standing flat on the ground, the way her hair was still, the way her Core was barely glowing, the way her form was still. It reminded him of himself, before the Lunch Lady had shown up and started throwing power around. Before his Core had learned under fire how to fight and Protect others in a way he hadn’t been able to figure out for himself.

“Shoes, do you know how to fly yet?”

They both turned to look at him.

“What?” Johnny asked. “Of course she can, she’s a ghost, we all know how to do that when we form.”

“Not us.” Danny floated off the ground until he was eye-level with Shoes. “Cause we still have human brains. Frostbite said it messes with the ghost instincts developing.”

Shoes scuffed the floor with her bare toes. “I didn’t know I was supposed to learn how to fly.”

Danny nodded. “Can you stretch yourself really thin? Like this?” He pulled at his form until he was the same long worm he needed to be to get into and out of the cells.

Shoes screwed up her face in concentration as she tried. Her neck got a little bit longer but nothing else happened.

"Yeah, I figured that you couldn’t yet.” Danny reformed and crossed his legs. “I couldn’t do anything for a long time after my accident.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Johnny asked from where he had drifted closer to the gap.

“It means I can’t get out of this cell until I figure out how to do that.” Shoes answered, sliding down the wall to sit back down.

Danny nodded. “So that means that me and her have to stay here so I can teach her.” He looked over at Johnny. “You’re gonna have to go find our dads.”

“Woah, woah. No.” Johnny cut his hands through the air. “I already said I’m not leaving a kid alone here, I’m definitely not leaving two alone!”

“But you can’t teach Shoes how to do ghost things cause you never had to learn how to do them!”

“Okay, so we’re all staying!”

“But then how are our dads gonna find us?” Danny folded his arms. “You have to go find them and tell them where we are, and then they’ll come get us! If they find us fast enough we might not even need to escape!”

“I can’t just leave you two here!” Johnny snarled (refusal-frustrated-worried). He floated back and forth, like he was pacing. “Danny, you get out and get your dad. Then I can stay with Shoes to try and keep her safe.”

“But then who’s going to teach her?” Danny threw his arms out. He huffed (frustrated-upset-angry). “Besides, I don’t know how to get to Gotham from here.” Or if he could even fly that far. He had no idea where they were but it was probably a different facility than the one he’d been in the first time. He’d just barely been able to make it to Gotham from that facility. If this one was farther away, he’d never make it.

“How am I even supposed to find your dads?” Johnny crossed his arms but he sounded more resigned to the idea. “And what if they don’t believe me? What then? I should stay here.”

“Jason told me some codes that I can tell you so he’ll believe you. And then he can help you find Shoes’s dad! Right, Shoes?” Danny turned around to look at her. She was staring at the floor. “Shoes?” He flew over to her side.

She jumped a little. “Sorry, I was just thinking.” She looked over at Johnny. “Our best chance of escape is if you go find Danny’s dad.” Johnny’s shoulders fell. “Danny said his dad knows my Uncle Nightwing. So if you go to Mr. Wayne’s house in Gotham then you should be able to find him, and he can help you find my dad. If Danny’s dad believes you about him then Uncle Nightwing will believe you about me.”

Johnny sighed. “I’m not going to be able to convince you two otherwise, am I?”

They both shook their heads.

“Fine.” He made eye contact with Danny. “But you better keep her safe, you hear me you little twerp?”

(Danny was one of the strongest and most helpful ghosts Johnny had ever encountered. If anyone could keep Shoes safe in this hell-place it was him, of that he had no doubt.)

— — —

Seeing Jason walk into the Cave again was like something out of a dream. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d had this exact dream before, watching Jason walk out of the elevator with Barbara on one side and Alfred on the other.

Tim looked up from the computer for just a moment when he heard the elevator ding before burying himself further in the video feeds from Gotham’s traffic cameras. Steph was with him, helping to identify where there might be another angle to look at.

“Jason!” Dick seemed to materialize from the shadows as he draped himself over his little brother.

“Christ, Dick-head, I’m not about to disappear.” Jason grumbled as he crossed the Cave to the computers. “Those assholes in white grabbed him from 18th and 25th about 60 hours ago.”

Tim nodded, fingers flying as he pulled up the closest camera to that location. Bruce moved to stand behind the chair as they all watched the event play out.

The two agents that had been terrifying a good portion of Gotham both stepped out of an all white van (at least they knew how to stick to a theme) with a strange looking device, presumably a locater of some kind, given how closely they were watching it. The agent holding it turned in place a few times before pointing at an empty spot about halfway down the road.

They both rushed towards the spot, though there was still nothing there. Twin blasters glowing an ominous (and specifically familiar) green appeared in their hands and they both shot seemingly randomly into the air. The blasts all exited the camera’s field of view unobstructed until one of them seemed to strike something.

Phantom fell out of the air, smacking heavily into the ground. The two agents converged on his small body, quickly obscuring him from view. Then they hurried back over to their van and peeled out of there as quickly as they could.

Barbara pushed Tim’s chair out of the way as the scene ended. She immediately pulled up the neighboring cameras and started following the van out of the city. Bruce’s throat felt tight as he looked over to Jason, who was standing very still, fists clenched.

Bruce swallowed. He’d been afraid that this was the case. Phantom being the son Jason had mentioned introduced a whole new host of problems, namely changing the possible motivation for the abduction. He stepped closer to Jason.

“That’s where I lost the trail.” He was saying, pointing to the monitor. The white van was taking a corner at a reckless speed, nearly running over several pedestrians. A few moments later, Red Hood’s motorcycle went past the same intersection but the van had been too far ahead for him to see which direction they’d gone.

“Jason.” Bruce put a hand on his son’s shoulder as he straightened up. “Have you considered that these agents took Phantom to help him?”

“What are you talking about?” Jason stepped back, slapping his hand away. “How would—what?”

“Jaylad, Phantom’s dead.” Bruce said as gently as he could manage. “They could be—“

“No, he’s not.” Jason cut him off. Bruce took a deep breath.

“Bruce—“ Tim looked up from the laptop he’d pulled from somewhere.

“Son, I know, I know how much this must hurt. Believe me, I understand.” He held his hands out (and oh, Bruce understood intimately). “These agents call themselves the Ghost Investigation Ward, they wouldn’t have been targeting Phantom if he wasn’t a ghost.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jason folded his arms. “I promise, I’m very aware of my son’s condition. But he’s not dead.”

“Jaylad, they might be trying to help Phantom to move on.” It was a conclusion he had come to weeks ago, after Tim had managed to decode enough of the data to identify the group they were dealing with. While Bruce didn’t approve of their methods, he had to prepare Jason for the possibility his son is already gone again. “We should be focusing on ways to hel—“

A fist connected with Bruce’s cheek. He wasn’t expecting it, and he staggered back a few feet from the impact. It was only with Cass’s quick help that he was able to remain on his feet.

“Woah!” Dick stepped smoothly between the two of them. (Bruce remembered Jason doing the same, once, trying to make peace between Batman and Nightwing, nearly a decade ago. It sent a pang of pain through Bruce’s heart.) “Deep breaths.” Bruce could feel Cass’s presence behind him.

“B, if you won’t help I will call Talia, I don’t want to b—“

“Woah! There’s no need for that. Of course we’re going to help!” He cast a dirty look over his shoulder at Bruce, which felt entirely unwarranted.

“I’m trying to help.” Bruce reached up to feel his cheek (nothing was broken but he was going to have a hell of a bruise if the tenderness was anything to go off of). “The GIW has a very valid safety concern about a ghost powerful enough to manifest a physical form. It’s for the best if Jason can accept that—“

“He’s not a danger to anyone! He’s six years old and—“

“Bruce, you know Phantom’s a different kind of ghost than Deadman, right?” Tim interrupted. “He’s barely even a ghost by modern definitions.”

“What?” Bruce’s gaze snapped over to him.

“I logged a report on it last week. Phantom’s more of a meta than a ghost.” Tim tapped at the keyboard and the data appeared on the Batcomputer’s screen. “The GIW is chasing down people who’ve been exposed to a specific kind of extra-dimensional radiation that a pair of scientists in Illinois discovered and called ‘ectoplasm’. They’re trying to harness this radiation as a new kind of energy for weapons for the army.” Bruce leaned forward, reading through the information as quickly as he could.

“And they’ve been torturing everyone that’s been exposed to enough of it to register on their little Geiger-radar things to try and figure out how it works.” Jason spat at Bruce, pressing against Dick’s hand on his chest. “Including innocent children who have never hurt anyone, and never would!”

“Okay, so we’ve established that the small child is not a threat. How are we going to find him?” Steph asked from where she was lounging on an office chair. “Also, nice right hook, Dead Robin #1.”

“What did you call me?” Jason spun around to stare at her. Dick grabbed his shoulders to keep him from stalking forward.

“Dead Robin #1.” Steph grinned up at him. She kicked at the ground and rolled the chair across the cave floor. “I’m Dead Robin #2.”  She stuck a hand out towards Jason. “Stephanie Brown.”

Jason stared at her. Bruce saw a flicker of movement in his peripheral as Cass went to stand behind Steph.

“Jesus!” Jason jumped as Cass seemed to appear from nowhere. “Who the fuck are you?”

“This is Cass.” Steph retracted her hand. Bruce tried to tune out the conversation to read Tim’s report faster but unfortunately he was too used to having to listen in on all of his children’s conversations in case he needed to intervene. “So, Dead Robin #1, you gonna teach me how to take B off guard like that?”

“Don’t call me that.” Jason snapped.

“I can’t follow the van after they leave the city.” Barbara announced over the bickering. “It’s too generic of a vehicle to find in other cities. All I can say is they were heading west.”

“Great. Not like most of the country is to the west or anything.” Dick, having apparently decided Jason wasn’t about to attack the girls, leaned over the back of Barbara’s chair. “Tim, is there anything in the drive about where they might take a prisoner like Phantom?”

“There’s way too much about where they might take him.” Tim pulled up a map with dozens of small red dots covering the entire continental United States. “They’ve got bases in almost every state and most of them are capable of keeping prisoners. I have no idea how we’re going to narrow it down.”

Bruce sighed as he finished reading through the report (he needed to have a conversation with Constantine about this but that could wait until after). He took a moment to pivot his thinking from attempting to console Jason to search and rescue. Then he straightened up.

“We should bring the League in on this.”

“What the fuck, why?” Jason broke off from whatever he was arguing with Steph about. “What is your troop of Boy Scouts going to do about this?”

“For one, we’re going to put pressure on the government to repeal whatever this Anti-Ecto Act the GIW is operating under.” Bruce pointed at the screen. “They’re a blatant violation of the Meta Rights Act and we fought too hard to get those passed to let this stand. For two, the more manpower we have the more of these bases we can start investigating.”

“The JL is too high profile to start hitting military bases on US soil without cause.” Dick rubbed his chin. “Maybe they’d be able to help in a couple weeks, as some kind of ultimatum to the feds. In the meantime, my Titans could start working they’re way through the bases.”

“I can ask Young Justice to help too.” Tim chimed in. “It doesn’t look like the bases are too heavily guarded, we should be able to get through them pretty quickly.”

“That’s still going to take forever, going through them one by one like that.” Jason folded his arms. “We can’t narrow the bases down at all?”

Tim shook his head. “Not that I can see. Unless you know something I don’t?”

“Danny’s broken out of one of them before.” Jason pulled the laptop away from Tim and highlighted a dot in Illinois. “This one, I think. Does that help?”

“I can start cross-referencing the information about that one with the other bases, see if anything comes up?” Tim grabbed the laptop back. “If there are any similar enough we can start with those and then branch out from there.”

“We should definitely have the JL put the screws to the feds.” Dick said thoughtfully. “I think we should also consider getting the public on our side in this. Maybe by making an adorable little boy the public face of the movement?”

“You want to put my kid’s face on the news?”

“Pair that with a weeping father, begging for the return of his son…” Steph stood up and ran  to Dick’s side. “That would really turn up the heat to get something done quickly.”

“You want to put my face on the news?”

“Show the world the people being affected by the policy.”

“And who could possibly go on record as supporting the imprisonment and torture of a six year old?” Barbara turned her chair around. “It would tank any chance of re-election for any official.”

“Perfect!” Dick pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Clark right now. If we move fast enough we can get this on the front page of the Planet for tomorrow, set the conference up for tomorrow evening…” He turned towards the elevator, presumably to head back up where he’d be able to get cell service (or possibly just yell for Clark, Bruce knew the Kryptonian had never not come when Dick yelled).

“Wait, I haven’t agreed to this!” Jason grabbed Dick’s shoulder before he could get more than a couple steps away. “I’m going to be recognized as the dead Wayne kid if I go on TV! Do you have an explanation for that?”

Dick shrugged. “We can just say it’s private.”

“Like that’s ever worked!”

“Look, Jason, this might be our best shot at getting Phantom back quickly.” Barbara set a hand on Jason’s wrist. “If the president orders the GIW to release him, they can either go rogue, in which case the JL will have full authority to retaliate against them, or they release him and we don’t have to send the Titans through dozens of bases one by one.”

Jason sighed. “Fine. But only because it would be faster.”

Bruce set a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “It’s for the best.”

“Oh, shut up, Old Man, I’m still mad about those ‘they’re helping him’ comments.” Jason smacked Bruce’s hand.

Bruce winced. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I was misinformed about the situation.”

Jason gaped. Barbara gasped. Even Cass covered her mouth.

“Holy headstrong, Batman! Did you just admit you were wrong?”

Chapter Text

(The following is a transcript of the press conference held at Wayne Manor.)

5:59 PM - Wayne Manor Front Door

[A small podium has been set up at the foot of a small set of stairs. In front of it are roughly a dozen folding chairs, each filled with a different member of the press. The Daily Planet is there represented by award-winning reporter Lois Lane, as is the Gotham Gazette, CNN, NBC, Fox News, and several others. The reporters are all sitting quietly, waiting. The camera is set up so the podium is in the center of the shot with the members of the press filling the bottom half of the screen.]

6:00 PM - Wayne Manor Front Door

[A tall and bulky man wearing a blue bodysuit emblazoned with a red and yellow ‘S’ and a red cape. He is carrying a file folder. He stops at the podium and faces the reporters. The few members of the press who had been whispering to each other immediately fall silent. The man clears his throat.]

Superman: Good evening.

[He opens the folder and removes an 8x10 picture of a small boy, just barely old enough for school. The boy also has black hair but otherwise looks very different from Superman himself. The boy has freckles spreading across the bridge of his nose and onto his cheekbones. He has an upturned, button nose. His blue eyes are crinkled from the massive smile that stretches across his face, showing one of his bottom front teeth is missing. He appears to be laughing at something out of frame of the photo.]

Superman: This is Danny Todd. Almost four days ago, he was captured by an organization calling themselves the GIW, or Ghost Investigation Ward. The Justice League reached out to them this morning, once we were made aware of this situation, in an attempt to mediate a peaceful solution. This organization claims to be operating with government approval to “arrest” (he makes finger quotes with his free hand) anyone suspected of being a ghost. They claim they are a legitimate para-military force, granted authorization to operate on US soil by the federal government under something called the ‘Anti-Ecto Acts’. This act classify ghosts as non-sentient beings not deserving of basic human rights, like the right to exist, and believe anyone who they deem to be a ghost to be a danger to all of mankind.

[Superman sets the photo face down on the podium.]

Superman: Danny was exposed to large amounts of a radioactive substance called ‘ectoplasm’ during the formative years of his life due to the lax lab safety protocols of the couple his biological mother left him with after she decided she was unable to care for him herself. It is on the research of this couple, the Drs. Fenton, that the Anti-Ecto Acts appear to rest.

[Superman pauses for a second, appearing to take a deep breath.]

Superman: The Drs. Fenton and the GIW say this exposure to ectoplasm is enough to deem this boy a non-human entity, and that justifies his unlawful capture. We also suspect they are or will be performing unlawful and unethical experiments on those in their custody under the guise of scientific advancement.

Superman: I’m sure I don’t have to remind you all that we, that is to say the Justice League, campaigned hard for the passing of a bill dubbed the Meta Protection Acts that guaranteed that even those who might otherwise be classified as non-human, such as myself, and those granted super-human abilities by life-threatening accidents, such as my colleagues Flash or Cyborg, the same basic protections any sapient being can expect within the borders of the United States.

[Superman takes another deep breath. He lays both hands palm down on the podium, appearing to barely touch it. It still sinks approximately an inch into the ground.]

Superman: The Anti-Ecto Acts fly in the face of the Meta Protection Acts, and seem to actually encourage the unethical behavior we fought so hard to ensure remained illegal, even to those the government deems undesirable.

Superman: Now, I would like to introduce you to the boy’s father, Jason Todd-Wayne. Please hold all questions for the end.

[Superman steps to the left side of the podium, folding his arms across his chest. Another man enters the frame and crosses over to the podium. This man is not quite as tall as Superman but he does seem broader. He also has black hair, with a shock-white streak right above his forehead. He looks exhausted, like he hasn’t slept in several days, with dark bags beneath both eyes. He sets a piece of printer paper down on the podium.]

Jason: Hi.

[He takes a deep breath.]

Jason: I’m supposed to try and humanize Danny to you all, to show the way these Anti-Ecto Acts are impacting actual people. At first, I wasn’t sure how to do that. I’ve never thought about how I would…humanize my son to the masses. I never anticipated being in a situation where that might be necessary.

Jason: I asked Superman for advice on how to approach this…speech of sorts. What I should tell you all so that you might feel enough sympathy to reach out to your Congressperson or join in a letter writing campaign or sign an online petition or however these things are handled now. He said I should say things that might make people relate to Danny. To see him as a little boy instead of the faceless victim of circumstance.

[Jason wipes the back of his hand across his eyes.]

Jason: So here goes. Danny is six years old. He grew up in Illinois. I didn’t know he existed for the first five and a half years of his life but from the first time I met him I knew that I love him with my whole heart, my entire being. I know a lot of parents say that, that from the moment they held their child they knew there was nothing they wouldn’t do for them. And I used to think it was an overused cliche, too. Surely no single event could shake the foundation of your worldview so completely. I know better now.

Jason: Danny likes space. Loves space, excuse me. He’s read every book on space available in the Gotham City Public Library’s children's and teen’s sections. He finished reading Black Holes and Time Warps in just a few days. He’s working on Astrophysics for People in a Hurry right now, and no, I can’t keep up with him anymore when he’s telling me about what he’s read. I’m more of a classic literature kind of guy. I still listen to every word because the light of pure joy in his eyes when he gets going is worth every second of confusion.

[Jason flips the paper he had set on the podium over.]

Jason: He’s just a normal little kid. He likes to watch cartoons. He likes cinnamon and marshmallows in his hot chocolate. His favorite breakfast food is pancakes with peanut butter and cheese, and I still haven’t figured out if that’s an Illinois thing or just a Danny thing. He’s planning on—

[A few seconds of silence, with Jason taking a couple shakey breaths.]

Jason: His favorite superhero is Green Lantern, because he works in space. But his most favoritest superhero is Martian Manhunter. Because he’s from Mars and “isn’t that just the coolest thing, Dad? Do you think the constellations look different from Mars? Or do you think it’s close enough to Earth that they look the same?”

Jason: He wants to be an astronaut for Halloween. He has a Christmas wish list he keeps updated for when it’s time to send to Santa. He wants to be an astrophysicist when he—he grows up.

[Jason’s voice cracks and he leans over the podium on his elbows. Superman places a hand on his back and whispers to him. Jason shakes his head and Superman seems to rub his back before gesturing at someone off camera. Timothy Drake, the third Wayne child adopted, hurries into frame. He takes Jason’s elbow and leads him off stage. Superman steps back up to the podium.]

Superman: We are asking for the public’s help in pressuring the federal government for answers on these heinous Acts, and for Danny’s immediate release. If we have received no communication from officials this by the end of this week, we will take it as a federal refusal of aid and act appropriately. Thank you.

[The journalists all jump to their feet as he walks away. Bruce Wayne hurries to the podium as they start to shout questions. Bruce points at one.]

1: Where has Jason been for the last seven years?

Bruce: We’re not entirely sure. He was amnesiac for many years and only recently recovered memories from before the…incident. We are following medical advice to not push.

[He points at another reporter before the shouting could start again.]

2: Where did Danny come from?

[Bruce gives the reporter a strange look.]

Bruce: I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that if you don’t already know the answer.

[The reporter looks embarrassed but presses on.]

2: Superman said he was raised by a scientist couple in Illinois, how did he get from Gotham to there and back?

Bruce: Ah. We’re not sure on that either. As Jason said, he was unaware that Danny existed until earlier this year. We think learning of Danny might have been part of what triggered his memories as that’s when he came home, and asked for help gaining custody of him.

Bruce: Yes, you.

3: Mr. Wayne, who did you bury at the funeral?

Bruce: It was an empty casket. You?

4: How are you so sure this is actually Jason and not someone trying to cash in on the Wayne inheritance?

Bruce: Are you asking me how I know my own son?

Bruce: You.

Lois Lane: Mr. Wayne, why did you wait half a week to alert the public to Danny’s disappearance?

Bruce: We, the Justice League and I, had hoped this could be handled quietly, without calling attention to this grave oversight on the part of the federal government. We’ve been absolutely stonewalled by officials so far. We’re hoping this will put enough pressure on them to speed things up and get Danny back home as quickly as possible.

5: Is there any truth to the idea that the rumored ‘Ghost of Crime Alley’ could be Danny acting as a vigilante?

Bruce: I have no idea where you could have gotten that idea from. I've never heard of that vigilante, and besides, Danny is only six years old, I don’t think he would even know what a vigilante is.

Bruce: I’m afraid that’s all the time we have right now. Any further questions can be forwarded to my secretary at Wayne Enterprises. Thank you.

[He walks out of frame, ignoring the continued shouting for his attention.]

(End of transcript.)

Chapter Text

“Robin, are you sure this program is finished?” Jason was sitting at the Batcomputer looking through the potential GIW bases Tim’s algorithm had finally sorted through. Everyone else was out on patrol for the night.

“It should be. Why?”

“Well, it’s just pulled a lot of bases.” Jason scrolled through the list.

“Like how many?”

Jason did a quick count. “It looks like it was only able to rule out a dozen or so.”

“Oof. That is a lot left still, yeah. I guess that’s the best it can do with the information we have.”

Jason sighed. “You know we’re going to have to visit every site on this list.” Danny was being held in one of them.

“The Titans are already checking a bunch of them.” Dick chimed in. “And from what Donna was saying, it sounds like a lot of the bases have been completely decommissioned for a while.”

“Decommissioned how?” There had been no mention of decommissioning in the data Tim had cracked but then, it had last been updated over a year ago, before Danny had escaped. It was possible they’d had their budget slashed after he’d made it out.

“Decommissioned as in no evidence anyone’s been to them in at least a year, possibly long—Hey, you!” Dick’s microphone muted as he (presumably) jumped into a fight.

“Is anyone else seeing what I’m seeing?” Steph (as Jason had learned the blonde girl was named) asked. Jason quickly closed the list of bases, looking for where Barbara said he’d be able to tap into people’s camera feeds.

“Depends on what you’re seeing.” Tim said. “If you’re seeing a small group of goons absolutely fail at being discrete, then yes. Otherwise—“

Barbara cut him off. “Spoiler, I’m picking up a moving disturbance on the cameras in Crime Alley, going pretty fast.”

“Yeah, that’d be what I’m seeing. It looks like a dude on a motorcycle? But his bike’s nowhere near loud enough for the chopper it looks like.”

“That’s…weird.” Jason could hear Barbara typing over the comms. “I don’t know of anyone in that area that would have the technology to create a pocket of static like this.”

“Ectoplasm does that.” Jason chimed in. “Especially concentrated, like in a ghost.”

“Hood, do you think I should approach?” Steph asked.

“Why’re you asking me? You’re the one on the ground.” He managed to find the cameras and pulled them up, the four feeds filling the screen. Steph’s was showing a familiar view of the east side of Crime Alley. She seemed to be moving pretty quickly. Probably trying to keep apace with the biker.

Jason quickly glanced at everyone else’s feeds. Tim seemed to be stationary above the business district, with Bruce across the street. And it looked like Dick was trying to retrieve a purse from a snatcher.

“Oh. Right.” The idea of people actually listening to what he had to say was still pretty new, and he’d forgotten about it entirely.

Thankfully, B decided to chime in. “What does it seem like he’s doing?”

“It looks like the guy is just driving around in circles.” The figure sped along the road to Steph’s right. Jason was only able to catch a glimpse but the guy had certainly looked ghostly, with the slight green glow.

“Try approaching and see what happens. If he moves to flee, let him. I’m on my way over there.”

“You got it, boss.”

Jason watched in tense silence as Steph moved in. As she got closer, the biker seemed to sense her presence. He slowed down and looked around.

“Hey!” He shouted as his gaze landed on Steph. “Are you a hero? Like with the Judgment League?”

“I’m not with the JL but I like to think I’m still pretty heroic.” Steph came to a stop a safe hundred or so feet from the biker.

“Do you know the guy who’s usually here?”

“Where? Gotham?”

“This place, Crime Alley or whatever.” The biker pulled up closer, giving Steph’s camera a clearer view of him. He wasn’t very tall, or very big, but still managed to cut an intimidating figure with the black leather duster and boots. “I think his name’s Jason?”

“What the fuck?” Jason leaned forward. “Is he talking about me?”

“Uh…” Steph hesitated, seeming to rock back on her heels. “I might. It would depend—“

“Oh, wait, or maybe you know the other guy I’m looking for?” The man slid off his bike and leaned against it. “I’m supposed to ask for an,” he cleared his throat, glancing around, “‘Unky Ni-wing’?”

Dick’s camera jolted sideways and dropped. Jason snapped his eyes to that section of the monitor. “Big Bird, you okay?”

“Fine.” Dick pushed himself back up to his feet. He threw the purse snatcher down with brutal efficiency and slapped on restraints.

“I might be able to help you.” Steph continued, expertly ignoring the conversation happening on comms. “Why do you need to talk to them?”

“I’m not sure how safe it is to talk here, where anyone might overhear, ya dig?” The biker shifted on his feet, crossing his arms. “Can’t you just trust me that I really need to talk to them?”

“Spoiler, do you have a read on him?” Bruce asked, swinging across the city in the direction of Crime Alley. “If he is a ghost, it’s possible the GIW are hunting him.”

“He is a ghost, and he might know something about Danny.” Jason snapped.

“Okay, okay.” Steph held out a hand. “I think I know what you’re talking about. And I think you know I know. So I have one question that I think will prove to us both that we both know, yeah?”

“Uh, sure?” The biker tilted his head to the side, brow furrowed. “I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down?”

“If you’re asking for those guys for the reason I think you are, then what’s the kid’s name?”

“What, you mean Danny? Or Shoes?”

Jason’s breath left him in a whoosh. This man, this ghost, knew where Danny was. He’d be able to help them find Danny, rescue him from the custody of the GIW, they’d be able to shut down the whole operation, save everyone…including the second child. Somehow, those white-after-labor-day fuckers had gotten their hands on a second child. Who was also in need of help.

Good thing Jason had some experience in channeling blinding rage.

— — —

Dick would like to say that the purse snatcher had gotten a lucky hit. That he was experienced enough as a vigilante to not be caught off guard by someone who barely knew how to throw a punch without breaking their fingers. That he could compartmentalize well enough to not let things affect his state of mind.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t really say any of that. He had been thrown off by what he’d overheard on the comms. By what the biker Steph had found had said.

( “I’m supposed to ask for an ‘Unky Ni-wing’?” )

Only one person had ever called him that. And not even Roy had known that it had stuck even after Lian had learned to say his names properly.

Dick had resigned himself to never hearing that particular nickname ever again (no matter how much it made him feel like a part of a larger family, bigger than his siblings and Bruce, with aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, like he’d had before Bruce, at Haly’s). He would never have been able to stomach hearing it from anyone else.

No one should have known to ask for him by that particular name.

Except…ghosts were apparently real. Really real. Real enough for there to be a whole top-secret super-evil maybe-government organization after them, for his brother to come back to life and find one to adopt, for…other people to come back?

He vaguely heard someone asking him a question over the comms. “Fine.” He spat out, unsure what the question really was, if that was an appropriate response. He had to get to the Belfry, connect to the JLA satellite base and check the footage from the morgue (he’d seen her body himself, he was positive she had been there, if something had happened to her it would have been after).

The purse snatcher went down with one serious hit. Dick watched his hands snap restraints on the guy, numbly detached in a way that he couldn’t really feel the metal through his gloves.

The chattering continued on comms (something about a pair of shoes?) as Dick mounted his bike. The Belfry wasn’t far away but it wasn’t close either. It was certainly farther away than the seven minutes it took him to get there. Dick wasn’t really sure how he’d managed that but he wasn’t going to question it. He just climbed up the stairs to the computer.

“Dick? What are you doing here?” Babs asked as she turned to face him.

“Need to see the JLA cameras.”

“From the satellite? I know I’m good but I’m not that—“

“I know Bruce’s log in.” He said as he pushed past her to the keyboard, typing it in. Bruce had been using the same formula for creating passwords since he was Robin. And he’d known that formula for almost as long.

There were few times Dick appreciated Bruce’s (probably) issues. In fact, most of the time he hated the paranoia that infected every interaction with the man, the need to control every aspect of his surroundings, to know everything that had, would, and could happen. But if it was good for anything, it was keeping files on hand. The surveillance footage archive went all the way back to when the satellite was being built. A handful of months ago was easy enough to find.

That didn’t make it any easier to watch, though. Dick remembered the day well enough but…

Watching Ollie carry Lian into the Tower morgue hurt just as much the second time. She was so small, lying limp in his arms. She barely took up half of the embalming table he laid her on. Dick’s vision blurred as Ollie covered her with a sheet.

Babs reached around him and set the video to fast forward. He blinked, tears filling the lenses of his domino, as Ollie appeared to speed walk out of the morgue.

“Dick, Roy buried her.”

“He buried something.” He rubbed a hand across his checks where the tears were starting to leak through the adhesive. “We never tested h—it’s DNA.” He kept his gaze glued to the screen, watching as the only thing that changed was the time in the corner.

His past self sped into frame before freezing at her side. He stood there for so long, perfectly still, that Dick actually had to check the footage was still playing. He didn’t remember standing there for nearly two hours. Or, at least, he hadn’t thought he had stood for so long. It had been hard to tell how much time was passing while he’d been trying desperately not to scream until his throat bled. To rip out his hair just to make the pain something external. To chase down the men responsible and make them pay . Eventually (he remembered getting a call that Roy had been brought to the hospital wing), he finally walked out of the room.

Several more hours of footage in which nothing happened sped by. Not even a puff of air from the vents against the sheet.

Eventually, a familiar head of red hair stumbled into the room. Roy ripped the sheet back, away from her face. He froze for several moments before falling to his knees. Dick could remember the sound Roy had made when they’d first told him Lian had…(he swallows heavily, forces his thoughts farther down the track) died, how it had ripped from Roy’s throat like he’d been hit in the gut, how every word of denial had felt like a punch to his own with the image of her still fresh in his mind.

He was glad Babs had turned the sound off as he watched one of his best friends fall to his knees. He didn’t need to hear that sound again. Roy was clutching one of Lian’s hands in his own, held above his head like in supplication as he struggled to hold his head up even a few inches above the floor.

Dick cleared his throat against the sudden lump and refused to look away. Not even for a second. Depending on how, whoever took (might have taken) Lian’s body could have done it at any point. Even the slightest unaccounted for flicker of the screen could indicate the swap. He couldn’t look away (he would never forget the sight of Roy’s shoulders shaking as he pulled Lian’s body into his arms, curled around her and pressed his face into the floor, like he couldn’t stand to look at or let her go).

Nothing. Dinah came in after a long while, putting a hand on Roy’s shoulder and coaxing him into laying Lian back on the table. (Dick could vividly remember his breakdown in the closet down the hall from the morgue. Roy had asked him to visit her body with him and he just…couldn’t. He’d reached the branch in the hallway and hadn’t been able to make himself take another step.) (He still regretted it to this day.) She pulled him to his feet and gently led him out of the room.

Hours more of footage. There hadn’t been an autopsy done (Dick sent a quiet prayer of thanks to a God he wasn’t sure he believed in that he didn’t have to watch that) so Lian had just laid there, unattended, for hours before Roy had been able to arrange for her to be taken to a funeral home.

It was almost over. Only one more hour before she was taken away. Thirty minutes. Fifteen minutes. Ten. Five.

A flash.

Dick rewound the footage, slowed it down to normal speed. A green flash, only three minutes before she’d been moved.

A very specific green flash.

He slowed the footage down, then slowed it down again. The cameras were designed with speedsters in mind. They could capture over 100 trillion frames a second.

It was barely fast enough.

When brought down to the slowest speed the cameras could play (without switching to just frame by frame), playing at a speed that elongated a fraction of a second to nearly a minute, the green flash revealed itself to be a floating disk of swirling green energy. Two figures stepped (floated?) out of the portal.

One was wearing a purple cloak and carrying a strange, metallic-looking staff topped with a clock. He seemed to be ancient beyond measure and younger than Tim at the same time (or maybe he was changing? Shifting between ages the way some shift posture). The other was wreathed in purple flames, wearing cruel black metal armor. He had a cloth-wrapped bundle tossed over his shoulder. A very small bundle.

The one in the cloak turned to make eye-contact with the camera. He pointed at his ears, in a near-universal gesture. Dick turned the sound on.

“Hello, Nightwing.” Behind him, the armored one threw the bundle down onto the table next to Lian and began arranging it (Or…not next to Lian, on top of Lian. Through Lian?) just so. “Or, should I call you Dick Grayson this Time? The lines between superhero identities get so blurry when Family is involved.”

Dick would rather he not call him anything. This was a recording from months ago. Whoever this was was moving faster than should be possible for anyone (if Did hadn’t been so used to working with Wally, he might not have even noticed the flash). But here he was, talking directly through the screen to Dick.

“I’m sure you have questions, Dick, but I’m afraid they’ll have to wait. You see, I don’t have much Time. As ironic as that is.” He stopped and laughed at himself.

“If you don’t have much time, then get to the point,” Dick muttered under his breath before he could stop himself.

“You’re right. I should get to the point.” Dick blinked in surprise. “No, I can’t hear you. I have simply been Watching All for longer than you could comprehend, experienced though you are, and eventually you realize that humans are rather…predictable.” The figure behind him stood up straight, Lian cradled in his arms. On the table was also Lian. Despite the detail this camera was capable of capturing, there were absolutely no differences between the two.

“Sir, my task is complete.” He said to the one speaking to (at?) Dick.

“Excellent.” The purple-cloaked man turned slightly to talk over his shoulder. “Take the child to Frostbite, please. He knows what to do.”

Dick grit his teeth. If Lian could have been…revived? Healed? (he hoped healed) Whatever, then this man should have just—

“You are doubtless thinking that I should have simply informed all of you of how to heal the child, for as you have no doubt surmised she is not dead. Well, not quite. But I ask you this. Would you really have trusted me? The child must be taken to somewhere deep in the Infinite Realms, somewhere humans would struggle to even reach, let alone exist. My associate is flying her there now. Would you, or the child’s father, truly have given me such faith?”

Probably not. Dick pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Precisely. Besides, the child must Then be taken to a facility to await the arrival of Phantom, one of the only others of her kind..” He sighed. “I wish it could be different but I’m afraid this is the only way to ensure the safety of our entire Realm. I have Looked for ages and have found aught else. But I’m afraid I am now out of Time.” The figure turned and floated back towards the portal.

Just before entering it, he paused and turned to look at the camera. “My name is Clockwork, by the way. And you should probably call Mr. Harper now.” The portal closed behind him.

Dick scrambled for his phone.

— — —

Having something to focus on outside of the house was helping Roy more than he wanted to admit, considering how many times he’d been told as much by various people in his life (mostly Dinah). The fact that he was focusing on a rescue mission for Dick’s nephew…wasn’t helping as much but that had more to do with the fact that Jason was apparently back from the dead. While Lian was…she was still—

Roy shook himself to stop the thoughts. He was happy, really and truly, that his friend had his little brother back. The ugly little green monster in the back of his head was just that. At the back of his head. (Why did good things always happen to Dick? Better mentor, better father, better relationships, and now this —)

He had just finished scoping out one of the GIW bases down in Oregon. No one was there. Hadn’t been there for a while, and cleared out in a hurry, exactly the same as the last couple he’d been to in Washington. It was starting to look like the organization had pulled off of the West Coast entirely. But until they were able to confirm Danny’s location, he and the rest of the Titans would continue whittling down the number of bases he could be at.

Roy sighed as he was finally able to close the motel door behind himself. He pulled his mask off, heedless of the sting of the adhesive pulling at his skin, and collapsed on the bed. Just five minutes to decompress and then he’d call Dick. Just fiv—

And his phone was ringing. Stupid Bats, needing everything right now this very second. Probably had Roy chipped so he would know exactly where and how Roy was. (The idea didn’t bother him as much as it really should. Stalking is, after all, the Bats’ primary love language.) He groaned as he fished the phone out of the waterproof pouch he kept it in.

“I was just about to call you, Nightwing, I swear.”

“Roy.” And uh-oh. Names in the field. Dick breaking protocol (well, that particular protocol) was never a good thing. “Are you sitting down?”

“Am I—yes. Yeah, I’m sitting down.”

“Good.” And if Roy didn’t know any better, he’d say Dick sounded nervous. Which was impossible of course. His fearless leader never got nervous.

“What’s going on?” Silence. A slight inhale? Maybe? Like Dick was stealing himself for something. “You’re really starting to freak me out.

“I’m pretty freaked out myself.” Dick admitted. And wow, if that wasn’t comforting. “And I swear, I had no idea. I just found out, I promise I would have told you if I’d known…”

“Known what?” More silence. “Rob, you’re scaring me.” Worst case scenarios were running through his head. The kid was already dead (dead again? If he remembered the briefing correctly?), the kid was worse than dead, had something happened to Connor? To Mia?

Dick inhaled sharply. “There’s a second child being held at the same facility as Danny.”

“A secon—do we know who it is? How the GIW got the—”

“It’s Lian.”

“What.” Roy was very glad he was sitting down. Even sitting, he felt his knees try to give out. “What did you just…Grayson, I swear to God—“

“I’m not fucking with you. I swear. It’s Lian.”

“How sure ar—“

“100%. I…I haven’t confirmed it but I’m positive.”

“What do you mean you haven’t confirmed it.” Roy’s mind was silent. He couldn’t feel his hands or feet, was only holding his phone to his ear by pure muscle memory. Even his heart seemed to still.

“There’s a ghostly unknown in the Cave right now.”

“Patch me through.” Roy demanded. He stepped over to his backpack, pulling out his laptop.

“Roy…”

“Patch. Me. Through.” He said, ripping open the laptop. He knew Dick would be able to connect to his laptop.

Dick sighed. “Patching through.”

“Look, old man.” An unknown voice came through the computer. “I don’t know what else I can tell you. I was nabbed by the freaks in white. When they let me out of the thermos, there was a kid in the next cell over. I thought she was the halfa kid, cause she’s got that not-quite-dead feeling but she said her name was Shoes.” The video feed kicked in, revealing a biker guy who must have been the unknown Dick had been talking about in front of Batman, Robin (the third), and an absolute brick shit-house of a man Roy didn’t recognize (at least from the back), who was somehow taller and wider than Batman. “Then the halfa-pint showed up and busted me out, said to go get help for him and Shoes.”

“But surely you realized that that’s a fake name.” Robin said from Batman’s shadow.

“Kid, one of my best friends is named Skulker. And there’s that weirdo Box Ghost. Shoes is not that weird a name.”

“What do you know about Shoes?” None of the Bats on screen jumped at his voice.

“Who the hell are you?” The unknown looked around. “Where are you?”

“Shoes.” Roy redirected. “Tell me about her.”

“Like what?” He crossed his arms.

“Any…” Roy swallowed heavily. There was a lump in his throat. He desperately needed to know and also never wanted to ask. “Anything identifiable.”

“Fucking-I’ve got no idea what’s identifiable to a human anymore, do you know how long it’s been since I had to know that?” The guy muttered under his breath. “She’s like…blue?”

“We don’t have time for this.” The massive man next to Batman said, throwing his hands up. “We’re going to grab her alongside Danny, so let’s focus on that!” Roy realized that it must be Jason.

Robin pulled up the map of GIW bases on the Batcomputer. “Johnny, do you remember what facility you were being held in?”

“It was, like, that way.” The guy (Johnny apparently) said, pointing vaguely west. “There were a lot of trees and junk? And it was higher up than here.”

“For the love of—“ Jason stomped over. “That could be anywhere in Appalachia.”

“Well, maybe if we pull up satellite footage of the areas around the potential bases in the mountains?” Robin was tapping at the keyboard. Batman moved to stand behind the chair and look over Jason’s shoulder.

“Johnny.” Roy said before Robin could pull the ghost into an interrogation. The ghost looked around again. “Please, anything you know about the little girl.”

Johnny chewed on his lip. “Why do you care?”

“I…I think she’s my daughter.”

“You think .” A strange growl seemed to come from Johnny (it was difficult to tell from the microphone feeds). What definitely happened was his shoulders drawing inward and his lip curling up in a snarl. “You know, that little girl has been waiting for her father to rescue her for months. She wouldn’t even try to escape, too convinced her superhero daddy was coming for her.”

Roy’s chest tightened. ( “If anyone ever grabs you, Princess, just stay where you are. I’ll come and get you, no matter where they take you.” ) Something hot and heavy had settled right behind his rib cage, burning him and suffocating him simultaneously. He refused to call it hope because if this hope was dashed, he’d never recover. But if it turned out this was Lian…

“Please.” He managed to gather enough breath to force the words out. “ Anything .”

Johnny sighed. “Her old man’s super-name or whatever was Speedy.”

The world dropped out from under Roy. His stomach vanished, leaving a gaping, empty hole in the middle of his torso. His lungs seemed to be missing too, going by the way he couldn’t breath.

The feed on his laptop screen cut out. “Roy?” Dick was saying over the speaker of his phone. “Roy, are you with me?”

He lifted the phone with a numb arm. “Dick.” He choked out. “ Dick .”

“I know, Roy.” Dick was crying, he could hear it in the thickness of his voice. “I…we’re gonna get her. We’re gonna…we’re gonna burn them to the ground.”

“Dick.” Roy’s stomach reappeared and immediately made itself known by lurching up. He dropped the phone as he scrambled for the bathroom.

It couldn’t be. They had to be wrong, someone had to be mistaken, Johnny was lying, they had to have missed something there’s no way—

Lian was alive . His little girl was alive , she’s not gone, she’s just…she’s in the hands of those monsters and oh, this hideous rage was familiar, the heat in his fingertips, the burn under his skin, the way it bubbled and frothed at the back of his mouth…no, that was more vomit.

“I’m sending Wally.” Dick sounded louder than he should given that the phone was in the other room.

Roy tried to protest through his retching but all that came out was a sob. He folded his arms and let his head loll in the toilet. Distantly, he registered someone talking in the other room.

“Yeah, man, I’m here. Yeah, I got this.” The bathroom light turned on.

Wally (because of course it was Wally) slid down the wall behind Roy, settling comfortably with his legs outstretched. One foot rested gently against Roy’s leg. (It was a familiar position, for both of them. Wally had been the one to sit with Roy through a lot of the worst of his detox.) His presence was a solid warmth at Roy’s back, anchoring him in the middle of the maelstrom in his head.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Wally asked.

Roy slumped against the wall of the tub, one arm still on the toilet seat. He pressed a hand over his eyes and sobbed.

“Mm. I see.” Roy saw Wally nod through his fingers. “I can see how that would be hard.”

(Wally had built up an immunity to Roy’s glares during the detoxes.)

“No, I’m definitely not immune to the old Harper glare.” Wally hummed. “It’s just a little hard to take you seriously right now.”

Roy sniffed. “Dick…Dick didn’t fill you in?”

“Eh, might’ve. Didn’t really look at the text past ‘Roy needs help, asap’.”

Roy bit his lip. “Li—“ Nausea surged up through his throat again. He bent over the toilet, though nothing was left to come up.

Wally just waited patiently.

“Lian’s—“

Wally’s eyes widened. “The GIW has Lian?”

Roy had never been more glad to be friends with geniuses in his life. He crumbled and Wally was right there.

(Dick would contact them as soon as there was a new plan, Wally knew. He and his family would be going over every new detail of this information for every scrap of useful intelligence, every supposition, conjuncture, hypothesis, deduction, even speculation. Wally knew the benefit of moving quickly, how could he not, but he also knew how important it was to take a few moments whenever you could.

So he let Roy take these moments to hurt, to break down. There was no rush.)

Chapter Text

“No, no, no!” Danny said from near the ceiling. He’d taken to floating upside down so he could better ‘see what she was doing’ or something. Lian figured he was just antsy.

“What?” She glared up at him.

“You gotta, like, grab your Core from underneath and lift!” He made a lifting gesture with his hands, as if that would help. “It’s like nn-auh!”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Lian folded her arms across her chest. “How did you figure out how to fly if that’s how your brain works?”

“The Lunch Lady threw me through the ceiling.” Danny shrugged. “But that’s not really an option here.”

Lian looked at the ceiling. “You could try dropping me from up there?”

“Mmm.” Danny stretched out. “I don’t think it’s high enough to work super well. I’d probably be dropping you for like, hours.”

“Maybe we try that in a little bit then.” Lian folded her arms and plopped down to the floor. “I just don’t understand what I’m doing wrong!”

Danny descended down towards the floor. He shrugged once he was low enough to be in her eye line. “I can’t tell either. It feels like you’re doing everything right. Like your Core is all ready to lift up and then you just don’t.”

“Maybe I just can’t fly.”

Danny was shaking his head before she had finished saying it. “All ghosts can fly. It’s cause your ghost body isn’t actually real the way a human body is.”

“How do you know?” Lian hunched her shoulders. “Have you met all the ghosts?”

“Well, no, but even Cujo can fly. And he’s just a dog.” Danny rotated until he was facing the right ways up and sat on the floor next to her.

Lian pressed her face into her arms, pulling her legs up to her chest. “Then why can’t I?”

“Well, you really haven’t done any ghosty things since I’ve gotten here.” Danny put a finger on his chin and tilted his head, humming ( thinking-curiosity-maybe? ). “Maybe you’re just out of ectoplasm?”

“I thought I was made out of ectoplasm.”

“That’s a different kind of ectoplasm.”

“There’s different kinds of ectoplasm?”

“I dunno.” Danny shrugged again. “But you gotta do something to recharge the kind you need to fly.”

“What kind of something?” There really wasn’t much she could do inside the metal cell.

“Well, to recharge I gotta go stargazing or learn about space or something. It’s called your Obsession. And every ghost has one.”

Lian slumped onto her knees. “But I don’t know what mine is.”

“Yeah.” Danny leaned against her. “Me neither.”

They fell into silence.

Lian growled ( frustrated-angry ). “How am I supposed to learn all of this stuff? There’s so much that I don’t know how to do.”

Danny crooned ( understanding-familiar-sad ). “Well, my Obsession is cause I want to be an astronaut when I grow up. What do you want to be?”

“A hero like my dad.” Lian had never had to think about her answer to that question. Because even when he wasn’t a masked hero, he was her hero. She had always just wanted to be like him.

“Okay, so maybe your Obsession is protecting? Like Jason’s is.”

“Maybe.” But something didn’t feel right about that. In her Core.

“Well, we can’t really test that in here.” Danny pressed himself closer to her arm. “Cause you’d have to get out of here to do anything to try it out.” He grumbled ( sorrow-lonely-tired ).

Lian pulled her arm out from under Danny’s head, wrapping it around his shoulders. He immediately curled into her.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

“I’m fine. There’s just no windows.” Danny shuddered as he folded himself somehow smaller. “I’ve gone longer without seeing stars.”

Lian frowned. “Do you have to see the stars? Or…you said that you can learn about the stars?”

Danny nodded into her shoulder.

“Would a story about stars help?”

Danny hummed (question-curious-story?).

“Well, cause. My dad once told me a story about when Coyote helped hang the stars.” Lian shifted so that Danny was more in front of her than beside her. She looked down at him.

He was staring up at her through his bangs, eyes wide as plates and glittering a little.

“Okay, okay.” She laughed. “So Coyote, he’s in a lot of the stories. He likes to play jokes, or test people, or teach lessons. He’s usually a bad guy in the story but sometimes he’s less bad. Like this one.”

She cleared her throat. She hadn’t heard this story anywhere near as many times as some of her dad’s other stories but she was pretty sure she remembered enough of it.

“First Man and First Woman were placing the pieces of stone left over from when they made the Sun and Moon in the sky as stars.” She looked up at the ceiling, wondering what stars were above them right now. “They wanted the stars to be laid out really carefully, so that everyone looking up would know where they are and where they’re going and stuff like that. And they hung all the constellations that there are in the sky.” She threw her free arm, the one not wrapped around Danny’s shoulders, into the air (her dad always moved with his stories, like they filled his whole body as he told them).

Danny had pressed against Lian’s chest as she started the story. When she glanced back down at him, his eyes were closed but his face was still turned up.

“So first, Coyote got a little jealous and he decided to hang a star as his own. So he snuck up to the blanket First Man and First Woman had all the stars laying on and he stole one, the brightest he could find. Then he ran up to the sky and hung it up. And that star is called Ma’ii Bizo’, Coyote’s Star.”

Danny trilled (curiosity-wonder-awe). He seemed to be relaxing a little bit with every breath he took. Something in Lian’s chest, something in her Core, lightened.

“After that, he decided to just watch First Man and First Woman work for a little bit. But eventually he got bored because they were very careful about where they hung the stars, and it was taking a long time.

“Coyote grabbed the corner of the blanket that the rest of the stars were sitting on and he threw them all into the sky. And the rest of the stars all stuck to the sky wherever they ended up. And that’s why most of the stars in the sky aren’t in a pattern.”

Lian let her free hand fall back to her side. She looked back down at Danny and immediately had to squint a little. The cells were technically lit (though she had never found where the lights actually were in them). And they really weren’t very bright, with barely enough light to see the far wall when you were leaning against one. But right now, Danny’s freckles were glowing and sparkling. It reminded her of the time her Uncle Dick had taken her skiing, and the sun had risen over the mountain.

("You see that there? On the trees?” Dick pointed through the lodge’s window. “That’s called hoarfrost. But don’t tell your dad I taught you that word.”

Lian giggled before winding her fingers into the collar of his shirt.

“Keep your little icicles off of me!” Dick wiggled his head as far away from her as he could, but he was holding her so there wasn’t very far to run. He didn’t put her down, though.)

She giggled again now, throwing her head back to look at the way the sparkling was bouncing off the ceiling. Which was…closer than it should be?

“Uh, Danny? Are you doing that?” She asked.

“Doing what?” He followed her gaze to the floor. The two of them were floating several feet off the ground.

Danny let out a mass of chirps ( amazement-wonder-excited! ) and jumped off of Lian’s lap. She was sent tumbling backwards but stayed in the air.

“I did it!”

“You did it!” Danny flew a tight loop around her.

She cheered (excitement-joy-success!!) even as she struggled to balance herself right-side up. They weren’t out of their cells yet but things were looking brighter.

— — —

Johnny had finally managed to sneak away from the extended mess that was Danny’s Family. Well, not entirely away. He shuddered to think what would happen if he actually left and they needed to ask him more questions or something. They’d probably find a way to track him down through even the Ghost Zone (if he could find a way back). (The little one with the staff and the spiky hair seemed especially like the type. Something about the glint in his eye made Johnny’s Core shudder.)

But he’d managed to find a small, secluded corner up by the stalactites of the cave. Private enough that he thought he wouldn’t even be heard back down on the ground.

“Kitty? Baby?” He tilted his hand until the ring on his finger caught the light. “You there?”

“Johnny!” Kitty’s face appeared in the gem of the ring and Johnny’s Core relaxed. Seeing her always did that. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Sorry, baby. Was shacked up with another cutie.” He tried to smirk, tried to laugh about it, the way she would be expecting.

By the way Kitty furrowed her brows he knew he hadn’t pulled it off.

“What happened?” Her voice was tight. To anyone else it might have sounded like she was angry. Like she actually believed that he would do that to her. Like she couldn’t believe he would have the audacity.

Johnny sighed. “I found a kid.”

“What, so you’ve been hanging out with Youngblood? Or you’ve been hanging out with Danny?” Johnny put a hand to his forehead. Kitty was so smart but sometimes she was so…dense.

“No, not hanging with a kid. Found a kid.” He looked at her through his fingers, begging her to put it together.

He saw the moment she did. Her eyes widened and she blanched. “There’s another kid?”

“Brand new. Only a couple months old when I found her.”

“Shit.” Kitty brushed her bangs aside. “And lemme guess, those fuckers have her.”

Johnny chewed on his lip. It was answer enough.

Kitty sighed. “Are you okay?”

“Physically yeah.” He shrugged.

“So how are you getting this message out?”

Johnny winced, palming the back of his neck. “Danny showed up and immediately knew how to get out, you know what I mean?” Kitty nodded. They all knew what he meant. The Punk had always been a quick study. “Yeah, anyways, he showed up and basically kicked me out. Said something about needing to teach Shoes the ropes or something?” He shrugged again.

“What does that mean?”  Kitty pulled a face.

“Apparently halfs don’t know how to do stuff?”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Like, any kind of stuff.”

“That doesn’t seem right.”

“Right?” Johnny slumped against a stalactite. “But anyways, Shoes can’t get out the way Dans and I can, and Danny insisted I get moving without them, since apparently I can’t teach Shoes? And someone had to go tell the Adults where the kids are?” He shook his head.

“Sounds like a good plan. I’m a little surprised you were able to come up with it.”

“Well actually the kids came up with—Hey!”

“Well, that makes sense then.” But Kitty was smiling softly at him. And there was worry in her eyes. And he had never wished more that their rings could share Speech. Because he knew he was Radiating love-softness-safe and he knew she was Feeling the same but its absence was a cold shard of empty-missing-lonely and he just wanted to Feel her.

“Master Jonathan?” A voice called up at him.

“Shit, gotta go, Kitty. I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

“You better.” She folded her arms as they let the connection fall away. “And you’d better introduce our kid!” She shouted as her image faded away.

He smiled and indulged himself in a chirrup (joy-content-love) before drifting back to the floor. The old dude (what was his name? Albert? Arthur? No, what was–)...

“Sup, old dude?” (Who needs names?) He stayed floating enough to be at eye level with the man. He looked so stuffy and proper-manners-Sit Up Straight! in his penguin suit, and Johnny knew he didn’t have a Core, no human did, but he would swear the guy’s gaze was screaming caution-protective-Protected on every channel he could hear.

Especially right now as he raised a single eyebrow. Johnny shrank into his coat.

He cleared his throat (sorry-apologize-repent). “What’s up, Grandpops?”

“I came to ask if you required any refreshments.”

“Ah, I actually don’t need to eat anything. Or drink anything. It’s a ghost thing.” Johnny rubbed the back of his neck. Turning the old man down felt…wrong somehow. Like he was breaking a Rule somehow.

The man raised an eyebrow. “Surely you must need sustenance of some kind.”

“Well, sure, but it ain’t something you can just get on a whim, ya dig?”

“Are you certain? Batman has access to a great many resources.” He gestured out towards the cave at large. And yeah, Johnny supposed this was the kind of thing only a really rich dude would be able to make in his basement. And really rich dudes usually were able to get their hands on most anything.

“I’m certain.” But the Punk had made sure the portals in Amity Park and Green Bay had been closed before he’d gone up against the White dudes. Before he’d gotten captured. “I’m pretty topped up anyways, don’t need much of it to go off of.”

The old man’s second eyebrow joined his first up by his hairline. “Indeed.” And okay, this dude had to have a Core, cause the level of disbelief-incredulity-resignation was just off the charts. “If you are certain…”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Don’t worry about ol’ Johnny 13. I’m made of tougher stuff than most.” Johnny thumped his chest. “Even the kid couldn’t take me out.” Not that Danny had been trying all that hard.

“I take that to mean you have fought young master Daniel?” See, now, Johnny was sure that was supposed to be a question. It tipped up at the end like a question. But the look on this old dude’s face said it was very much Not a question.

“Woah there, pops, calm down.” Johnny raised his hands. “That was before the Goons in Monochrome went nuclear on all of us. A-and!” He rushed to add at the steel in the old man’s eyes hardening, “it was just a little play fighting! How else’s a baby supposed to learn how to act?”

“I have found teaching to be rather successful.” But the cold-protective-fury-anger was gone from the air. “Do you know my grandson well, then?”

Johnny shrugged. “I’ve known him since before his Core finished coming in.” At the man’s blank stare, he continued. “In ghost terms that’s pretty much forever. He’s a good kid.”

“Oh,” and that, finally, got a small smile out of the old man. “Of that I have no doubt.”

— — —

“On my mark.” Roy heard Dick say over the comms. “We storm the front entrance. Batgirl will go for the cells since she can get there undetected. The rest of us distract as many of the guards as we can.”

“Yeah, we know the plan, Big Bird.” Jason drawled. “Can we go already?”

The four of them were spread out in the fringes of the forest surrounding the GIW base. Johnny had triple confirmed this was the base he had escaped from after Danny had been captured. It had only been a day so they were hoping the GIW weren’t expecting the raid yet.

“Hold, Red Hood.” Dick replied.

Roy swallowed. His hands were itching to hit something. Someone. Whoever had the misfortune of being the one between him and Lian. His grip on his bowstring twitched.

“What are we waiting for?” He shifted on the balls of his feet. “A fucking parade?”

“Just give me a goddamn second!” That’s when Roy saw Dick. He dropped out of a tree’s outstretched limb and onto the roof of the entryway. There was a particularly dark shadow still lingering in the leaves above him.

“Okay, since you both have more range, I’m going to break open the door and then hit the deck. Scatter fire in the doorway as much as possible for exactly five seconds, then hold for three seconds for Cass to enter. Advance on the door then breach with me after she’s slipped in.”

“Rob…” That hadn’t been the original plan. But, well, the door was made of wood. And opened inward. Basically begging to be kicked open.

“I called an audible when I saw the door. No need to sneak through if it’s unlocked.” Dick gave him a thumbs up from the building. “Ready?” He slithered down the wall to the door. “Three.” Positioned himself on the ground. “Two.” Raised a foot. “One.”

He slammed his foot into the door and dropped. It swung open with enough force to dent a wall.

Roy loosed an arrow through the opening. The entryway was immediately filled with smoke. Jason’s shots flew in, peppering the wall of smoke with small, rapidly disappearing divots. Roy fired another several arrows in rapid succession.

A perfect five count, then silence. The shadow from the tree dropped and vanished through the door. Three seconds, and Roy was moving for the entrance. Jason was right beside him.

Dick crossed the threshold first, Jason on his heels and Roy on Jason’s. Each of them was ready for whatever was waiting for them.

Except silence.

The base was empty.

“What the fuck?” Jason took several steps down the hallway, both guns trained at the end.

“Cells are empty.” Cass’s tone was clipped, even more so than usual.

“What the fuck!” There was a crashing sound from around the corner. Roy hurried down the hall to see Jason storming back out of an office. “Where are they?” He slammed himself against the next door.

Roy glanced into the office Jason had just left. It was clean. Suspiciously clean. He stepped through the broken door and dropped to one knee.

The trashcan under the desk was full. But not of shredded papers, of snack wrappers and coffee cups.

“These guys cleared out in a hurry.” He said into his comm line. “Maybe they left some clues to where they’re going.”

A blue and black blur sped past the doorway. Dick, doubtless looking for a computer system. Roy checked the drawers of the desk. (That numb feeling was starting to crawl up from his fingertips but if he just kept moving…)

They were packed with clutter but none of it looked useful. The first drawer only had standard office supplies. Staples, paper clips, an unopened pack of sticky notes. The second had what looked like a small drug store, packed to the brim with over-the-counter painkillers, antacids, and bandaids. The third was just a folder of receipts labeled “Not Turned In”.

The rest of the offices on the hallway (doors all hanging broken on their hinges, courtesy of Jason) were in much a similar state. Anything that might have given them the location of another base, or any kind of information on the GIW’s workings was gone while the generic supplies remained. Several of the offices even still had personal effects: a mug here, a calendar there, a few pens scattered across a desk. (He couldn’t feel his hands even as they rummaged through the desks.)

“Computer system is wiped.” Dick said. “Completely bombed. They won’t even turn on anymore. I’m a little surprised they didn’t just smash them with a hammer, would have had the same effect.”

“They must have cleared out as soon as Johnny bolted.” Roy hadn’t known Jason as Robin, had only met him once or twice. But even he could hear the rage simmering in the man’s voice. “Fuck!” There was a slamming sound, vaguely reminiscent of a desk hitting a wall.

“Little brother.” Cass said, tone completely even.

Jason screamed. Roy muted his comm. He headed down the hall back towards the front door. (Keep moving.) They hadn’t done a thorough search of the area around the base, hadn’t thought it was necessary. Maybe…maybe they could pick up a trail. His steps quickened to a run. (He could barely feel the ground beneath him.)

Once he was back outside, he sent up a small fleet of his Roy-bots to start scanning and photographing the area. Worst case scenario they gave them a better idea of what kind of environmental needs containment (he bit his tongue nearly hard enough to bleed at having to use that word for his little girl, even in his own head) required. He turned to start a loop of the building itself, to search for any other entrances or exits, or any outlying buildings.

Or, he tried to start a loop. He was having a little trouble seeing. He ripped his mask off to scrub at the lenses. (Keep moving, don't stop, don’t…)

His comm pinged with a manual override. “Arsenal, where did you go?”

“Outside. I’m…” He cleared his throat around a sudden lump. “I’m going to do a quick sweep of the outside here, look for vehicle tracks.” Anything of the sort would be out of place this deep into the mountains.

“Good idea.” Roy could hear Jason still screaming in the background. “I tried to get into their computer system manually. Or, well. I did get into their computer system manually. Managed to save one hard drive.”

“Broke the rest.” Cass said. “I found something.”

“What did you find?” A beat of silence. “Roy, get back in here. You’re gonna want to see this.”

Roy hurried back into the facility. Dick met him in the hallway, holding out a device of some kind.

“What is it?” Roy asked as he took it from Dick’s outstretched hand.

“I was hoping you could tell me.” Dick shrugged. “Batgirl found it in a cupboard near the back of the building. Must have been missed during evac.”

Roy turned the device over in his hands a couple times. There was no visible labeling but given the small radar, the small dish, the various antenna… “It looks like some kind of tracking device. But I can’t tell what it’s supposed to track without taking it apart.”

“Which would take more time than we have right now.” Dick put a hand on his chin.

“Are you fuckers just going to stand around all day?” Jason stormed down the hallway, practically radiating anger and aggression.

The device in Roy’s hand blinked to life. “Welcome to the Fenton Finder. An extremely hostile ghost is near. Thank you for using the Fenton Finder.”

All four of them stared at it. It remained silent, though there was a dot on the radar display in the direction of Jason. ( ...freeze.)

Dick cleared his throat. “Apparently it’s a ghost detector.”

Cass stepped closer. (The radar registered a second mark but the device didn’t speak again.) “Could the Fentons make a bigger one?” She asked quietly.

“Probably?” Roy handed it back to Dick as the other continued to talk. “If ghosts have a unique signature, they could probably build one to just track the kids. And if we could hook it up to the JL satellite scanners…”

Cass nodded, like that had been what she was thinking too. Or like she had read his mind. Or his body, however she worked.

“That would involve talking to the Fentons.” Jason spat the name. “They’re not going to help us if they think we’re going to rescue them.”

“They’re just kids.” Dick protested. “Surely they’d see—“

“The Fentons are the reason Danny had to escape from the GIW in the first place!” Jason slapped Dick’s hand away from where it was trying to settle on his shoulder. “The only bit of kindness they’ve ever given him once they realized he’d been ‘contaminated’ is having someone else hold the scalpel.”

Roy swallowed against a wave of nausea. His knees felt a little like they were about to buckle.

“But we still wouldn’t have a way to determine which ghosts being detected are Danny and Lian.” Dick ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he’d had since before Roy met him.

Roy sank to the ground.

“Could Johnny?” Cass asked.

Dick was still pulling at his hair. “We’d have to somehow get him up to the Satellite. I have a sneaking suspicion the teleporters won’t be able to move him.”

Jason growled. An actual animal sound that sparked a deep, primal fear in Roy. The detector in his hands whirred.

“If you are still in the area of the ghost, I would recommend running before you become a ghost.”

The glare Jason fixed the detector with could have melted stone. Roy was distantly (when had everything moved so far away?) glad he was no longer holding it.

“Thank you for using the Fenton Finder.” It chimed before appearing to turn off.

Dick sighed, folding his arms. “We’ll have a better idea of what we can and can’t do once we get back to Gotham, so let’s get a move on.” He set a hand (heavy, warm, real) on Roy's shoulder. "We're gonna find her, Roy." His fingers tightened as he knelt down in front of Roy. "I promise."

And when Dick Grayson makes a promise, he means it. Roy clung to that thought as they left.

— — —

Chapter Text

Alfred took great pride (and pleasure) in all aspects of the care and keeping of Wayne Manor. The carpets were vacuumed weekly and shampooed annually. The hardwood floors were swept daily, mopped monthly, and different areas were sanded and refinished on a rotating basis. The lawn was mowed weekly, the furnace filters were changed monthly, the fireplaces were inspected twice a year, and so on, and so forth.

Despite what some of the younger children seemed to think, Alfred does not perform all of this himself. Far from it, in fact. A full maid service came through every week to do a thorough clean with a few housekeepers coming every day to take care of the daily tasks. Regular visits were scheduled with several different companies, from plumbing to lawn care. Alfred’s primary job was coordinating those companies and their respective invoices.

The only duties he refused to relinquish were polishing the silver and dusting the china. Every day he dusted the cabinets and drawers, and once a month he pulled all the silver out from its designated places for a thorough polishing. Mrs. Wayne had taken a deep satisfaction from the maintenance of those pieces herself and Alfred couldn’t bear to pass the chore off to anyone else now that she was gone. Even in times of turmoil, even in times of great loss, on every fourth Wednesday, Alfred could be found in the small room off from the kitchen with the silver and the polish.

Jason’s death hadn’t been an exception, and Jason’s return would similarly not be an exception. After so many years of the chore, Alfred found it meditative in a way few other things were. And so, as he sat himself down, silver laid out on the table and polish in hand, he felt himself relax . It had been a trying few days and it was nice to sink into the familiar, repetitive motions of polishing.

Pick up the piece of silver, wet the cloth with polish, gently rub the entire piece down until it is gleaming, set the piece down, and repeat. Silver, cloth, rub, repeat, silver, cloth, rub, repeat. The intricacies of each piece left little room for a wandering mind.

(No matter the litany, thoughts always have a way of creeping in.)

Silver, cloth, rub, repeat. Silver, cloth, rub, repeat.

(A child looking up at him, too skinny by half, covered head to toe in dirt and dust, posture radiating anger but eyes screaming fear…)

Silver-cloth-rub-repeat-silver-cloth-rub-repeat.

(A child’s laughter filling the halls again, two familiar laughs joining in, the Manor filled with life and light and joy…)

Silverclothrubrepeatsilverclothrubrepeat.

(Master Bruce’s eyes filled with tears as he tried to work up the courage to deliver the worst news he’d ever had to share, a deep breath as he finally forced out “J-Jason–”)

Alfred set down the spoon.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Yes?” Alfred said.

Jason pushed the door open. He slowly walked into the room, crossing to stand next to the table. He stopped behind the open chair next to Alfred awkwardly, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye (and, oh, didn’t that hurt, watching his grandson hover like that).

“Hey.” Jason broke the silence after a few moments.

“Master Jason.” (The boy before him was a boy no longer, now a man fully grown, by rights graduated to Mister, as would be proper, but Alfred had always been more sentimental than proper, hadn’t he?)

Jason crossed his arms. Ran his fingers through his hair. Stuck his hands in his pockets. Alfred waited.

Jason finally took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Alfred.”

Alfred’s brow furrowed. “Whatever for, dear boy?”

“I shouldn’t have handled things at the…at the store the way I did. I should have…I should have been able to talk to you like a normal person. I should have–”

“Master Jason.” Alfred cut off what was turning into a frantic spill of words. “You did nothing wrong.”

Jason scoffed. “Pretty sure gaslighting is wrong.”

“Perhaps.” Alfred allowed. “But I am sure you had your reasons.”

“Not really.” Jason rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not even sure why I did it. I just…I couldn’t come home, I couldn’t face everyone.” (The resignation in his eyes when Master Richard had opened the door, the frantic way he’d begged for help, as if he hadn’t been sure it would be granted…Alfred knew why he’d done it even if the boy didn’t.)

“That’s alright.” Alfred stood, setting his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “You have been through a terrible ordeal. Worse than most ever encounter. And then to step up and become a father on top of that…” He allowed himself a moment of tenderness and swept Jason’s bangs out of his eyes. “You have done so well, my boy.”

Jason’s face crumpled and he pitched forward in Alfred’s arms. Alfred was ready to catch him. (He was always ready to catch them.)

— — —

Shoes was curled up in the corner again. She’d been going there more and more since she and Danny had been moved again. After they’d broken out Johnny, they hadn’t been in the same base for more than a few days at a time. (It should have been hard to tell, since all the walls were the same shade of white, but when you had nothing else to do but stare at them for hours at a time, you started to notice the small differences.)

( “Make sure you’re paying attention to everything you can, Sunshine. You never know what bit of information will tip the scales.” )

Danny let himself drift over to Shoes, bumping against her leg. She slowly raised her head and rested her chin on her knee. “Hey, Danny.”

“Hey, Shoes. You seem tired again.” She shrugged. “You wanna try stretching yourself again?”

Shoes keened ( tired-lonely-resigned ). “What’s the point? Even if we get out of here, we have no idea where here is.”

Danny cooed ( reassurance-tired-Right Here ). “Well, sure but…um…” He ran a hand through his hair. “We wouldn’t be in here anymore.” He offered at last.

“Sure, we’d just be stranded somewhere.” Shoes curled tighter around herself. “I miss my dad.”

Danny nodded, pressing himself against her. Her arm came up to rest on his shoulders. “It’s okay. I miss my dad, too.”

Shoes sniffled. She pulled Danny tighter against herself. He let her pull him onto her lap, curl around him, press her nose into his hair. It was a lot like how Jason would hold him when they got back from long patrols (it was a lot like how Da Mr. Fenton used to hold him, back when he was little, when he wasn’t—). He pressed himself closer to her chest. Her Core was humming ( gentle-soft-warm ).

( It was a lot like it but it wasn’t the same. )

“We’re gonna be okay.” Shoes said after a long, long moment. “Right?”

Danny nodded. “‘Course we are. Johnny went to get our dads, they’re gonna come get us, and then we’ll all go home, and the GIW won’t be able to find us again.”

She giggled. “I don’t think the GIW is going to be a problem after they find us.”

“Whaddya mean?” Danny wiggled in her lap until he could look up and see her small smile.

“Well…everyone’s gonna be really mad at them.”

“Uh-huh?” Danny nodded slowly, not quite sure what she meant. “I know my dad’s gonna be really upset.”

“Yeah. And mine. And Grandpa Arrow. And Ms. Canary. And Uncle Tempest and Auntie Wonder Girl and Uncle Flash and…and Uncle Nightwing .” The stress she put on the last name seemed significant but it flew over Danny’s head still.

“Yeah, probably.”

“And Mr. Batman’s gonna be upset they were in Gotham and he didn’t know.” Shoes raised a finger.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And since Uncle Tempest is gonna be mad, that means Mr. Aquaman’s gonna be mad.” She raised another finger. “And Ms. Wonder Woman, and Mr. Flash, and Mr. Superman.” She was counting off her hand.

“Oh.” Danny was starting to understand what she’d meant when she said ‘everyone’. “That’s a lot of people.”

“Uh-huh.” Shoes nodded. “And Uncle Nightwing knows a lot of people who would help if they need more people.”

“I don’t think they’re gonna need more people.”

She giggled again. “Probably not.” Then her face fell. “I don’t know how they’re gonna find us though. Cause they keep moving us.”

Danny shrugged. “I’m sure they can. They’re superheroes.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Hey.” Danny poked her cheek. “You wanna try stretching again? Maybe we can sneak out and leave a clue that we were here.”

“Let’s play!” Shoes jumped to her feet, forgetting that Danny was on her lap. He tumbled into the air but managed to catch himself before he hit the ground.

He drifted up until he was eye level with her. And then until he was about a foot above her.

Shoes' neck stretched until they were eye-level again.

Danny laughed and shot a few feet off to the side.

Shoes stretched her torso sideways.

They played like that, with Danny moving a few feet one way and then the other with Shoes following, for who knows how long. Sleep really wasn’t a concern to ghosts. Same with eating. Add in the windowless cell and time just sort of stopped existing.

It seemed like Shoes didn’t have a stretching limit, her body just endlessly pulling and pulling through space and around itself like a game of Snake. Once Danny didn’t have anywhere left to run to, Shoes laughed.

“I win!” She let her ectoplasm snap back into shape, head and feet whipping through the air until they met in the middle.

Danny stuck out his tongue. “I can still fly faster!”

“Nuh-uh!” Shoes joined him in the air, hands on her hips.

“Yeah-huh!” Danny made a circuit of the cell to prove it. He skidded back to a stop in front of her.

She rolled her eyes. “We don’t have a stopwatch so you can’t prove it!”

“We could have a race?”

Shoes shook her head. “The person closer to the walls would have a longer path so it wouldn’t be fair.”

“We could go out into the hallway.” Danny offered softly.

— — —

Lian was shaking her head before she had even really processed the question. “We don’t know what’s out in the hallway. What if there are guards? Or cameras? Or…or laser grids, or guns or tripwires or–”

“We’re never gonna know what’s in the hallway if we don’t go out there!” Danny folded his arms. 

They’d had this argument before. Several times, in fact. Ever since Lian had managed to press herself thinner than a noodle. (Danny kept calling it stretching but it was totally different! Stretching was pulling longer but in order to get thinner you had to press in on the sides of yourself.) But every time Lian looked through the tiny window slot in the door, a feeling of cold-Wrong-Wrong!-danger swept through her. She glanced at it, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead.

“What if I go out there and look to see if there’s anything dangerous?” Danny asked.

Lian blinked. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the sliver of glass.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” Danny was floating closer to the window. “That way we know if we can still escape. And maybe I can find a map or something and we can know where we are!” He was pressing himself thinner, stretching into a long worm. The sickening green of the ghost shield flared bright as he hummed ( testing-testing-one-two-three! ).

Lian’s Core lurched. She shot forward and grabbed Danny’s middle, pulling him away from the wall.

“Hey!” He protested, snapping back out into full size. “What’s the big idea?”

Lian’s hand was still fisted tightly around Danny (though just his arm now). It was trembling.

“You can’t go out there!” He’d be hurt, every time Johnny went out there (was dragged out there) he came back hurt-exhausted-Drained and she couldn’t let anything happen to Danny. He knew her Uncle Dick, that made them cousins, and “ Family protects family, princess, remember that ” and “‘ Of course I’d never let anything hurt you, Lian, your my favorite niece!’ ‘I’m your only niece, Uncle Dick!’ ‘All the more reason I’d never let you get hurt!’” and “You don’t have to worry about your dad, kiddo. He’s like my brother and I’m way too fast to let any of my family get hurt. ” and what if he got hurt? What kind of Family would Lian be if she let him get hurt?

“Shoes?” She’d been quiet too long again. Danny was leaning forward, she couldn’t see the window anymore.

“We have to stay here and wait for my dad to find us.” She said.

“We can’t just stay here and wait for the GIW to come for us!” Danny growled ( frustrated-exasperated-Dangerous! ). “What if they try to separate us? Then I couldn’t Protect you!”

Lian snarled ( Family-wait-Safe! ).

Protect-escape-run away

Will be found-have to stay still!

Have to Protect!

Wait for Family!

Danny ripped his arm out of her hold and shot for the wall.

“ WAIT !”

He could still fly faster than her.

Lian pressed herself against the back of the cell and wrapped her arms around herself. She pressed her face into her thighs.

— — —

“Thank you all for being here.” Superman started the meeting the way he started all Justice League meetings. “I know everyone here is busy so I appreciate you taking time out of your schedules to discuss–.”

“Supes, get to the point.” Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) was leaned forwards on his elbows. “We all know that we’re busy and we all know what’s happening. There are kids in danger, we should make this quick.”

“I agree.” Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) was fiddling with his bow. “Why are we even stopping the search to have this meeting?”

“Nightwing’s team are still on the search.” Superman assured him. “As is Batman and the rest of Gotham’s heroes.”

“I was wondering why Tall, Dark, and Creepy wasn’t here.” The Flash (Barry Allen) said.

“I called this meeting so we could discuss the best way to handle the rescue.” Superman turned to pull up a few bullet points on the hover-screen near the wall. “I understand that several people here and currently in the field have personal reasons for wanting to be on the team,” (Black Canary, Dinah Lance, growled from the end of the table, a sound the majority of the team couldn’t hear; it never failed to send a chill down Clark’s spine), “but like it or not this rescue is going to be a political move and we should–”

“Fuck politics!” Green Arrow slammed a fist on the table.

“We should choose the members of the team accordingly.” Superman continued as if he hadn’t.

“Screw you, Kansas!” Green Arrow jumped to his feet and pointed accusingly. “My granddaughter is out there and I’ll be damned if I’m not there to save her.”

“Sit down.” Superman’s cape billowed as he spun back around. “This mission is going to be watched by the entire nation and a good part of the rest of the world. We cannot have one of the rescue members hitting too hard.”

“There is no such thing as ‘hitting too hard’ when the bastards in question have my granddaughter.” Green Arrow was still standing.

“Which is why you can’t be on the rescue team. We need this to go as smoothly as possible, with no excessive force–” Superman’s voice was starting to rise.

“I will not be benched just because you think the press needs a good photo shoot for this one! How would you feel if it were Jon–”

“Every civilian on Earth is going to be watching and judging and if we go in too hard there will be no evidence left of the–”

Green Lantern jumped to his feet as well. “There’s plenty of evidence already publicly available, or did you forget the Acts and what’s allowed under them are already part of public records–”

“Superman is right, we need to keep the public on our side if we’re actually going to get the Acts repealed and not just swept under the rug–” The Flash was graciously keeping his voice at a speed everyone could understand (Clark could see the effort it was taking him, he was just that riled up about everything).

“You do not get to start talking about how Supes is right, Allen, you do realize you and Wally qualify as ghosts under the Acts, right, how would you feel if they’d grabbed him –”

“I’d feel the same, Jordan! The Acts have to be repealed and the best way to do that is to keep the public on our side enough to keep pressure on the government–”

“The best way to keep pressure on the government is to keep the people angry! The only time the government actually listens is when enough people are angry enough to keep screaming about it–”

“ Enough! ” Black Canary’s screech shook even the walls of the expertly-and-meticulously-crafted, space-safe walls of the Justice League’s orbiting satellite.

It took several minutes for the ringing in everyone’s ears to stop. Black Canary folded her arms and waited.

Once Superman had stopped shaking his head, she rounded the table and stood in front of the hover-screen.

“You’re all correct. We need to put together a team that can move fast enough to get the kids out with minimal danger.” Point one on Superman’s list. “We need a team that’s going to be able to act professionally enough that not a single policy maker can cry ‘brutality’.” She glared at Green Arrow on that point. “And we need all public family members of the kids to be at Wayne Manor for the handoff so the papers can shove the pictures of happily reunited families across every front page on the planet. That’s the only way we’ll be able to keep enough pressure on the government and on Waller to get these Acts repealed.”

Wonder Woman, Diana Prince, leaned forwards. “Waller is going to be key in getting the Acts repealed. The American public has to be angry enough that even she will see that the potential danger of these ghosts is not worth a possible uprising.”

“Good luck convincing that woman of anything.” The Flash leaned back in his chair.

“She’s worked with Ollie before.” Green Lantern pointed at the hero in question. “Maybe he can talk to her.”

“I guess I can try.”

“If you can convince her quickly enough, she could get the kids released without the need for a rescue mission.” Wonder Woman said.

“I don’t know if I have that much charisma. I don’t know if anyone has that much charisma.”

“You work on her.” Superman ordered. “Green Lantern, have you heard anything from the Guardians about this situation?”

“Yeah, they’re not happy.”

Superman nodded. “In that case, I think a Lantern should be on the team, as a representative of Oa.”

“I’d be more than happy to–”

“Stewart, are you up for it?”

Green Lantern, John Stewart, nodded his assent.

“Great. Manhunter?” Martian Manhunter, J’ohn J’onzz, tilted his head to show he was listening. “I think you should be on the team, too. Your skill set is perfect for infiltration and you should be able to shield the kids with your telekinesis.”

“Danny’s father also said you’re his favorite hero.” The green of Manhunter’s cheeks darkened at Black Canary’s words. “Your presence will likely help put him at ease.”

“That’s why I think you should go, too, Black Canary.” Superman nodded at her. “You’re familiar to Lian.”

“Aren’t you concerned about my emotional connection to her?”

“I think you’re professional enough to keep the emotions separate.”

She inclined her chin.

“Any objections?” Superman turned back to the table at large. After a few moments of silence, he nodded. “Great. The three of you try to be ready to go the second the Titans find the kids.”

An alarm went off.

— — —

Danny flew down the hallway faster than he’d meant to. He knew Shoes would be upset but they had to do something to help their dads find them but they couldn’t just keep sitting around. He just couldn’t understand why she never wanted to do anything–

( “Remember, squirt, people react to bad situations differently. They might do things you don’t understand, especially if they’ve been in the situation for a while. It’s important that you help them feel safe.” )

He growled ( frustrated-guilty-sorry ) and skidded to a stop. He turned around, about to fly back to the cell, when he heard a chirrup ( who’s there?-inquisitive-curious ). He stretched his Core towards the sound.

“Wait a minute. Kid, is that you?”

“Ember?” Danny shot around the corner, immediately spotting the cell door about halfway down the hall. “Ember, when did they get you?”

“Pfft, I let them get me.” Ember’s familiar eyeliner appeared at the window slit. “Johnny said the big shots were having trouble finding you so Skulker and I came up with this plan.”

“What plan?” Danny hummed ( testing!-testing!-testing! ) and looked for cracks in the shield.

“I’d get myself captured, and he’d track me until they moved me to the same place as you and the Munchkin, then go get the Big League or whatever they call themselves.”

“But how is he supposed to know when they’ve moved you to the same place as us?” He kept humming ( where are you?-testingtestingtesting ). 

“Yeah.” Ember chuckled sheepishly. “That’s the part we didn’t think of.”

“Oh.”

“But once you get me out of here like you did Johnny, then I can go find the spandex parade and Skulky can follow you guys to the next facility.”

Danny had to admit, it was a good plan. “Uh, problem with that plan? I don’t know how to get you out of here.”

“What do you mean, twerp? Just bust me out the way you did Johnny.”

“There aren’t any cracks in your shield!” Danny slapped it in frustration. “The stupid Guys in White put you in a smaller cell so there’s only one Ghost Shield. So there aren’t any cracks between the pieces!”

Ember was silent for a moment. “I see.”

Danny growled ( angry-frustrated-Stupid! ). He shot a blast at the keypad next to the door. It bounced harmlessly off. He shot another. And another. And another. He punched the wall.

“Woah, careful there, kid! Don’t hurt yourself.”

He shook his head as he floated back across the hallway. Those shields pack just as much of a punch as he remembered.

“But how else am I supposed to get you out?” He whined ( nervous-sad-anxiety ).

“It’s not your job to get me out. I’m the dumbass who got herself captured without a backup plan.” Ember chuckled again. “Besides, it’s not like I don’t have my guitar. If you and the Munchkin chant my name enough, I bet I can break myself out.”

Danny wasn’t exactly sure how her power absorbing thing worked but he was pretty sure it didn’t work like that. “Don’t you need like hundreds of people for that to work?”

“Well, I mean…it’s not like…yeah.”

Danny punched the wall again. He bounced off the other wall. And screamed ( frustration-not good enough-anger ).

The shield flickered.

“Well then.”

“Do you think it would work?”

“I don’t think it’s a very good ide–”

Danny wailed ( frustration-anger-fear-lonely-missing you-guilt-grief-not Good Enough-Have To ProTECT-HATRED-FEAR-ANGER-LONELY-GUILT-GRIEF-GRIEF-GU ILT-GRIEF-PAIN-PAIN-ANGER-FEAR-LONELY-HATRED– )

The floor rushed up to meet him.

Chapter Text

“Fuck!” Roy smacked the Batcomputer with the so-called ‘Fenton Finder’. He was trying to get it hooked up to the computer as a proof of concept that it would work on a larger scale before they went to all the effort of figuring out how to get two ghosts up to the JL satellite. To say it wasn’t going well was an understatement.

“Deep breath, Roy. We’re gonna get it.” Dick was at his side, supposedly supervising. (What he was supervising, given that he had very little understanding of what Roy was doing, was up for debate.)

“I just don’t understand what’s going wrong.” Roy put his head in his hands. “The Cave is set up with the same kind of scanners this thing has,” he hit the Finder against the computer again, “so it should be able to tell those scanners exactly what to look for. But it’s like this thing doesn’t speak a normal computer language, which is just crazy!”

“I mean,” Jason said from where he was leaning against a counter, ‘calmly’ cleaning his guns, “the Fenton’s are crazy, from what I can tell. I would not put it past them to have invented their own computer language.”

“That’s not how machines work.” Roy smacked the Finder again (maybe if he just hit it hard enough…). “At the most basic level, all machines speak in ones and zeros. There can’t be a ‘different computer language’ because that’s just not how computers work.” He pulled at the Finder until the wires connecting it to the Batcomputer broke. “Dick, hand me some more wire.”

“I don’t think it’s the wire’s fault.” Dick said as he handed the coils over. “Pretty sure it’s all just copper.”

“I could go get some wire from one of the GIW bases in the area. Maybe one of those agents will tell me they’re not using copper.” There was the rather ominous sound of a gun racking as Jason put it back together, all cleaned up.

“What the hell else would they use?” Roy grumbled.

“Perhaps a short break is in order.” A prim voice came from over by the elevators. “I have always found returning to a task with fresher eyes to be helpful.” Alfred set a plate of sandwiches on the counter next to Jason. “And I happen to know for a fact none of you have eaten in several hours.”

“I’m busy.” Roy spat out around the wire cutters in his mouth.

“Maybe there’s a different access panel on the Finder?” Dick suggested.

“Or maybe,” Jason said around a mouth of sandwich, “the Fenton’s are crazy enough to have used 2’s. I could go hit them until they tell me.”

“Let’s keep that as Plan B.”

“And what’s Plan A, oh fearless leader?” Roy smacked the Batcomputer as it failed to read data from the Finder again.

Dick sighed. “I’m working on it.”

“Well, work on it faster, Golden Boy.” Jason grabbed another sandwich. “Otherwise I’m going to Illinois.”

“Eat something first.” Alfred shoved a sandwich at both Dick and Roy. Dick sheepishly took it.

Roy glared at it.

Alfred raised an eyebrow.

Roy took the sandwich.

They ate in moody silence for a few minutes. Roy turned his glare back on the stupid piece of stupid technology from that stupid place with the stupid people and the stupid cell that had been stupidly empty and—

He swallowed.

Dick glanced over at him. “We’re going to find them.”

He sighed. “We could have found them a long time ago. Could have found her before they even took him. Could have stopped this—“

“None of us knew.” Dick cut him off. “And even if we had known about the GIW, we didn’t have any reason to think Li—“

“I should have known!” Roy swung at the Batcomputer. His fist connected with a broad chest instead.

“Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve, none of them help us find the kids right now.” Jason glowered down at him. (Roy was unsure what cosmic force had allowed the small, giggling Robin Jr to turn into this but he would like to have a few words with it.) “We need to focus.”

“I am focusing!” Roy threw his arms out. “I’ve been focusing for hours. I’ve tried everything I can think of to get that stupid thing to be readable to the Batcomputer and nothing! Is! Working!”

“I keep telling you, the Fentons don’t follow normal society. On anything!” Jason pointed at the Finder. “Why would they follow it on machine language?”

“That’s not how machines work!”

“It’s not how normal machines work but the Fentons aren’t normal!”

The Fenton Finder lit up on the desk. “Ghost detected in the area.” It chirped. Despite the fact that it had no internal hard drive left and was instead wired directly into the Batcomputer, nothing registered on the massive screen. Roy glared at it.

“Having trouble there, pops?”

Roy jerked back as Johnny appeared in his face.

Johnny just laughed as he righted himself and drifted towards the floor.

“You seem pretty calm about this whole thing, considering you know exactly what kinds of monsters you left the kids with.” Roy spat.

The grin on Johnny’s face evaporated. “I told you I didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

Johnny scoffed. “You’ve never met the pipsqueak in question. Kid’s head is harder than a rock.”

“You left my daughter—”

“Don’t you talk about my kid—“

“Okay.” Dick stepped between Johnny, and Roy and Jason. “We’re all a little high strung right now. Everyone’s on edge, we’re all tired—“

“If the tech is giving you trouble, I could see if Kitty knows where Technus is. He knows all about all kinds of tech and shit. Kinda his Thing.”

“Did someone say ‘Technus, Master of All Technology’?” A horrifically grating voice came from behind Johnny.

“Not really.” Johnny rolled his eyes as he turned around. “But you are the guy we need to see. Where did you come from?”

The ghost that popped into view was skinny, tall, and had floating white hair that just screamed ‘mad scientist’. Almost literally.

“I was online nearby.” The ghost rubbed his hands together, laughing maniacally. “Now, how can this most humble, all powerful, all knowing, overlord of all electronics help you today?”

Johnny turned to look at Roy. “Technus can do anything with anything.”

Roy sighed. (There just isn’t room for petty pride, not with his daughter on the line.) “We need this finder thing wired into this computer so its sensor range is big enough to be useful.”

“Oh, well that’s your problem.” Technus drifted forward and pulled at the wires. “Who uses wires anymore? Don’t you know that wireless technology is the way of the future?”

“That thing doesn’t have a bluetooth transmitter.” Roy crossed his arms as Dick shot him a Look. “What? I checked.”

“Why would it have blue teeth?” Technus looked over his shoulder at Roy. “You just have to connect them.”

“That’s not how—” Roy watched with an incredulous look as the Fenton Finder sank into the Batcomputer. As a new icon appeared on the Batcomputer’s desktop. As that icon opened itself to a continental map, and immediately set off an ear-splitting alarm. A dot appeared in Colorado.

“What’s going on?” Dick jumped forward. He started frantically typing, pulling up background radiation logs and the map of GIW bases and a whole bunch of other information so quickly Roy can’t even process it.

Technus squinted at the screen, hand on his chin. “I believe the Ghost Child is using his Wail.”

“Oh.” Johnny audibly swallowed. “That’s probably not good, huh?”

“What does that mean?” Roy was trying very had to focus on both Dick’s frantic searching and the conversation happening. “What’s the wail?”

“It’s a thing Danny can do but not all that frequently.” Jason shoved Dick away from the computer. “Loop in the JL, I’ll keep any eye on this.”

Dick nodded, stepping away and pulling out a communicator.

“I really hope he’s not using that as a distress call right now.” Johnny drifted away from the computer, very pointedly not getting in anyone’s way. “I’m sure the kids are fine.” He added, seeing Roy glaring at him.

“They better be.”

— — —

“Superboy, see anything?” Tim’s voice in Kon’s ear caught him off guard, lost in his search as he was.

He raised a hand to the communicator, activating the microphone. “No sign of him but I can’t see into the generator room. I think it’s lead lined.”

“There’s no way they’re keeping him in there.” Bart said. “I saw that room when I zipped through and the door isn’t even locked.”

“These guys have weird priorities.” Cassie was crouched in the tree next to him. “I mean, these guys have a triple lock system on the warehouse level but not a single security measure on their main power source?”

“Who cares?” Tim sounded like he was moving now. “Let’s waste this place and get moving.”

Kon grinned and cracked his knuckles. Beside him, Cassie had a specific kind of look in her eye that said someone was going to regret their life’s decisions. Hopefully a lot of someones.

The team fell into a familiar rhythm as they systematically tore the base down. It’s a strategy they’d been able to perfect over just the last few days as they worked their way east through GIW bases.

Kon and Cassie both went high, with Cassie on point focused on opening the path forward, and Kon just behind her making sure opposing forces were…out of the way. Through walls if necessary. And the fact that they were in a dense forest somewhere meant there were plenty of trees for him to plop them down in. Most of the trees were even big enough for them to be able to climb down on their own later. (Mostly.) (They weren’t high enough for permanent damage.)

Cassie preferred to focus on getting rid of more physical obstacles. There was no door that they had come across yet that could stand up to her when she was determined to get through it. She said there was something just “infinitely satisfying about knowing they can’t keep me away from people who need my help.”

Tim and Bart both stayed low, planting explosives and making sure any relevant information is gathered before the building went down. Bart focused on the planting while Tim focused on the gathering. And the directing. And making sure they were all going the right way. And probably a few other things Kon wasn’t aware of but would definitely notice if they stopped happening. Damn Bats. (He loved it so much, every time Tim looked back at a smoldering building with that self-satisfied smirk on his face, knowing whoever they’d just pissed off was all but completely crippled, knowing that they likely would never be able to recover the lost data.)

These GIW bases were all pretty much laid out the same, like they’d all been built off of a single blueprint. Which made taking them down just that much easier. Bart barely needed Tim to point at the structural weak spots anymore, hadn’t since probably the fourth nearly identical building they’d destroyed. It meant they didn’t need to look around much any more.

Kon was so thankful they didn’t need to look around anymore.

The labs were…very obvious in their purpose. If the fact that the rooms between the labs were unfinished cells didn’t clue you in that there were horrible things happening here, the equipment in them would. The fact that the autopsy tables had restraints on them was bad enough. But they were honestly the most tame thing their little team had come across.

The things that could be done here weren’t worth thinking about. It would only make Kon feel sick, in a way he didn’t like to think about.

At least the cells were empty.

Kon hooked a tree limb through an agent’s jacket (why did they all wear identical white suits?) and turned to rejoin the others.

“Rob, you thin—“

The sound that ripped through the air was…horrific wasn’t a strong enough word. It was at once chilling and burning, humming and throbbing, moaning and keening. It had a physical weight to it, one that wrapped around Kon like Kryptonite chains and dragged him down, down, until he was flat on the ground. His hands were pressed to his ears, hard enough that his skull felt like it was about to pop, and the pain in his throat made him think he might be screaming but he couldn’t hear it, couldn’t hear anything over that sound.

It was a sound of absolute heartbreak, one of despair and horror and crushing loneliness, of fear and anger, of helplessness, of hatred . It gripped at Kon’s mind, flooded in and filled any empty space between his thoughts, between his breaths, his heartbeats. It sifted through his memories and seized at the worst of them, dragging them back into the light from whatever dark corner he had shoved them in.

Distantly, he felt hands on him. But he couldn’t tell if the hands were real or imagined, present or past, friend or Cadmus. He tightened his hands over his ears but it was like the sound was coming from inside his head, not outside. He couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, couldn’t breathe —

Just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. It drained from him as if it had never been. The rest of the world crashed back into existence. The sounds of the forest were still there. The agent hanging from the tree behind him was still there. The world continued to turn as if nothing had happened.

“Kon, what the hell was that!” Tim was on his knees in front of him, Cassie and Bart both pressing themselves against Kon’s back, closing off a small circle around him.

Kon scrambled to his feet. “None of you could hear that?” He guessed. (He had a general idea of just how much more sensitive his hearing was but that scream had been so loud …)

All three shook their heads.

“What did you hear?” Tim asked, rising to his feet with much more grace than Kon.

“I…” Kon thought for a moment. “It was definitely a scream of some kind. I think.”

“Definitely, or you think?” Cassie leaned forward.

Kon shook his head. “Yes?”

“Where did it come from?” Tim was more practical in his questioning. Always had been.

“That way.” Kon pointed east by northeast. “Maybe 80 miles out?”

“There’s another base that way, isn’t there?” Bart hooked his chin over Tim’s shoulder to look at the map Tim had pulled up in the air in front of himself.

“Looks like it, yeah. Let’s go check it out.”

Cassie and Bart ran off to get the jet.

“You okay?” Tim didn’t press himself against Kon, didn’t pull at Kon’s arms from where they were wrapped around his chest, didn’t physically do anything to support him. But the way he hovered at Kon’s elbow, the way he looked up with such steady resolve, such strength, made Kon feel it anyways.

“I think so.” Kon bumped his team leader with his hip. “So long as I never have to hear that again, I think I’ll be fine.”

Tim nodded, typing something into his wrist. He turned to watch the jet land in front of them. His shoulder brushed against Kon’s arm. Kon smiled.

— — —

J’ohn J’onzz enjoyed flying through the crisp mountain air above his home in Colorado much more than he had ever enjoyed flying on Mars. It wasn’t the cold, though he appreciated that part of it. It wasn’t the beauty of the forest covered slopes, so different from Mars’s endless red wastes. It wasn’t even the sounds of wildlife, of birdsong and chittering and rustling. It was the thoughts of the people, unguarded and projected outwards in a way Martians never were.

It should have felt like a violation of their privacies. After all, he was in contact with their minds, their most private and protected space. Except that it wasn’t protected. None of them protected themselves. It was like they were shouting the thoughts out into the world. The effect was not unlike sitting in a crowded cafe, something J’ohn had on good authority was considered ‘relaxing’ by many humans.

It made him feel grounded. Present. Part of a community. ‘Relaxing’ wasn’t quite enough to describe it. He always looked forward to his evening patrols because of it.

Tonight, though…

That scream had been like nothing he had experienced on Earth before. No human should have been capable of it. No being on Earth should have been capable of it, not even his niece M’gann. The sheer volume alone, projected out on every single mental frequency that existed, would have been impressive. But to project with it the magnitude of emotions? The masters of his own people would have been hard pressed to replicate it, if they had been capable at all.

He was still shaking his head, trying to dispel the metaphorical ringing in his metaphysical ears, when his JL communicator beeped.

“J’ohn?” It seemed Barry was on monitor duty today.

“Yes, I am here.” J’ohn replied.

“We just had a spike of some unknown energy from near you. Any chance you saw something?”

“I did more than see something, Flash. The mental anguish was intense.”

“You think you could check it out?”

“Certainly. Though I feel you should alert Black Canary and Green Lantern as well.”

“You think it’s the kid?”

“I do.”

“Alright, then. I’ll let them know.”

“Thank you. I shall only intervene alone if I suspect there is imminent danger.”

“I’m sure Supes will appreciate that.” J’ohn could hear Barry’s typing over the communicator, faster than any he had heard from anyone else. “He really wants this rescue to go well.”

“As do we all.” With that, J’ohn ended the call and turned in the direction the scream had come from.

— — —

Ember’s cell wall exploded and the Ghost Shield flickered out the second Danny opened his mouth. But the sound just kept coming. Years worth of emotions poured out all at once. From what Ember could feel, stuff he’d bottled up since the accident. (She didn’t know the whole story but everyone knew at least a little bit of the story.)

The Wail kept going, pressing Ember against the back of her cell. Her ‘plasm was flattening against the wall. The pressure just kept building. And building. If this kept up, her Core was gonna pop. She was gonna–

As abruptly as it started, the sound stopped. Ember didn’t have eardrums any more (no ghost does) but her ears rang all the same. Danny hit the ground. And a blur of blue hit Ember.

“What did you do to him?” A tiny, growling (anger-fear-protection) child was floating above her, hands raised in a defensive position. Her blue hair was raging out of control like a blue fire, not unlike Ember’s own. This had to be Johnny’s Munchkin.

“Relax, kid, I didn’t do anything.” Ember pushed herself back up, huffing (gentle-trust-safety). “He’s just a dumbass who used all of his energy on a Wail he could barely pull off when he was bigger! And now he’s out when he doesn’t even have a way to recharge!” She stomped over to the unconscious kid on the floor, hefting him over a shoulder.

“Wh-where are you taking him?” The blue child flew forward and wrapped her hands around the Twerp’s arm. “You can’t just take him!”

“Look, Johnny’s-Munchkin, one of two things are about to happen. Either the entire GIW are about to come down that hall and recapture all three of us, or the three of us are getting out of here right now.” Ember shifted Danny on her shoulder to swing her guitar forward as best she could. “Because I guarantee you if they recapture us they’re not gonna keep us all together like they did before. And they’re probably gonna stop playing nice. So what’s it gonna be?”

The Munchkin’s grip on Danny’s arm tightened.

“Out it is.”

Skulker slammed into the ground in front of her. “What the hell, Ember? I thought we had a plan.”

“Well, you know how kids are, always messing up life plans!” Munchkin was starting to pull on Danny’s arm. “Oh my Ancients, here!” Ember passed the unconscious weight off to her. “If you’re that worried about him just carry him yourself.” She turned back to Skulker. “We’ve got to get moving, do you think you can carry—hey!”

Munchkin had shot off down the hallway, Danny over her shoulders like a backpack.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ember sped after her with a sharp chirp (stop-come back-safe!).

Munchkin threw a glance over her shoulder. She visibly paled when she saw Ember chasing after her, and sped up.

Ember strained but the kid was getting farther and farther away. Ghosts can fly pretty much as fast as they need to, if they’ve got enough ’plasm in their Core, but Ember’d been away from crowds for way too long to have a hope of catching the kid.

“Skulker, can you—“

“Already on it!” Ember heard a whooshing sound from behind her, and a second later a glowing net flew past.

Munchkin dodged, somehow, then vanished at a four-way split in the hallway.

“You idiot!” Ember smacked Skulker upside the head. “I was going to say ‘get in front of her’. Get in front of the terrified child, to try and slow her down enough to listen to me! Not shoot a net at her like you’re working for the baddies!”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that!”

“You could have let me finish! Ancients, I have no idea where they’ve gone now.” Ember put her head in her hands. “Where even are we?”

“Somewhere in…I think it’s called ‘Colorado’?”

“Oh, great .” Ember had a better understanding of American geography than most ghosts, since such a big part of her Obsession involved tours and the like. It had been a while but she still knew that Colorado was over half the continent away from Gotham. “The kids aren’t going to know anyone out here. Fuck!” She kicked Skulker in the shin.

“Hey, lay off the suit!” Skulker drifted out of reach of her boots. “This is your fault, you know! We could already be on our way back to the Ghost Zone if you’d let me just grab them.”

“Then the kids would be in the Ghost Zone with us. Are you telling me you’re ready to be a parent?”

“Ancients, no. But we could have just let them go! But no, you just had to play hero!”

“How is it playing hero to want to get a couple’a kids back to their parents?”

“It’s playing hero because you wanted it to be you who brought them b—“

“Freeze it, ecto-entities!”

“We have a containment cell breach in sector 8.”

Skulker shot away. In the opposite direction as the kids.

“Dammit, Skulker, you’re going the wrong way!” Ember shot off to follow him. The kids were just going to have to figure out escaping on their own.

Hopefully someone better at being an adult showed up soon.