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Jason had given Danny a number to contact him by, for whenever Danny got back from his trip to the Infinite Realms. It was three days before he finally got the call he’d been waiting for.
“Hey!” Danny greeted over the phone, clearly excited. “Man, it's good to be back where there’s more colours than just green. Anyways, Frostbite had an idea for something to help you, but he said he might need to come see you himself to check the kind of corruption you’re dealing with and make sure it gets cleansed properly. Can we meet up? I can be back in Gotham in just a few hours!”
“Sounds good to me,” Jason agreed readily, grinning. It’d be good to see Danny again--and the idea of something that could help him deal with the Pit Rage was definitely getting him excited. “Are you okay with coming to Crime Alley? I wanna make sure I can let you in and not have my, uh… Haunt, rejecting you and shit.”
“Oh, sure!”
Jason gives him an address on the very edge of his territory, then after they hang up, checks the time. Danny should be arriving in Gotham about an hour after nightfall. Perfect.
The last thing Jason had been expecting when he saw Danny flying towards him was for the young man to be struggling with a wiggling knapsack. Needless to say, it had him a little concerned.
"Sorry!" Danny called out once within earshot. He was once more in his Fetch outfit, eyes obscured by glowing green goggles, wispy white hair floating like a halo around his head. The knapsack kept jerking him in different directions as if trying to escape. Now that Damny was getting closer, he was pretty sure the knapsack itself was softly glowing, too. "Little guy got really bored on the flight over."
"Fetch," Jason began warily, "What's in the bag?"
"Your new best friend!" Danny said cheerfully, before opening the bag and--
"Prrrp!!!"
Something round and neon green and just a bit smaller than a soccer ball came hurtling out of the bag straight for his face, slamming into his helmet with a splat that nearly took him right off his feet.
"What the fuck, Fetch!?" Jason yelped, grabbing at the thing covering his helmet's face. He yanked as hard as he could, but it may as well have been glued on with cement; it didn't even budge. The thing was trilling, apparently delighted with itself, and he could hear laughter coming not only from Danny, but from his comms as well.
"I'm sorry!" He cried out, the liar. "I think he's just really happy to be out of the sack!"
"Fetch," Jason growled, "Get this thing off my helmet before I shoot it!"
"You can't shoot your new service animal!" Danny was still laughing, but Jason felt another pair of hands grabbing on next to his own, before Danny yanked.
This time, Jason really was pulled right off his feet, toppling over with a strangled noise.
"Sorry, sorry!" Danny sounded at least a little more believable this time while Jason struggled on his back like a flipped tortoise. "Ancients, he's stuck good--come on, you little menace, let go!"
Jason felt a foot planted on his shoulder for leverage, and this time, when Danny yanked, the little green goblin finally lost its grip on his helmet. Thank fuck, he's pretty sure Danny nearly dislocated his shoulder with that last yank.
Scrambling to his feet with half the bats still laughing over the comms, he finally got a proper look at just what the hell Danny had brought him.
It looked like a little octopus, glowing neon green and floating through the air as easily as if it'd been swimming in the ocean. It floats and dances around them both, still trilling happily the whole time.
"So," Danny began awkwardly, not quite able to suppress a grin. "This is an ectopus! They feed on corrupted ectoplasm and can help purify contaminated regions in the Ghost Zone!"
"Are you shitting me right now."
"Nope," Danny said, popping the P. "It might be a while before Frostbite can make a housecall for you, but he said that in the meantime, keeping this guy around should help. Especially when you sleep--that's when he can best purify your ectoplasm."
"So you want me to take it home with me."
"Think of it as a new pet! Or service animal, like I said! You don't even need to do anything to take care of it, except maybe play with it every once in a while so it doesn't get bored!"
“Aww, it’s adorable! ”
Jason couldn’t stop himself from twitching as Dick flipped up onto their roof, grinning from ear to ear with Damian right behind him.
“Seriously?” Jason groaned. “You guys are supposed to be on patrol!”
“We couldn’t not be here to meet the latest member of the family!” Dick gushed, delighted as the ectopus floated up to him curiously and allowed Damian to cautiously pet its head. Off in the distance, Jason could make out more shadows darting across the skyline towards them.
“Is everyone ditching patrol for this?!” Jason grouched. Over the comms, he heard Bruce sigh heavily.
“I need to see it up close! And I have so many questions for Fetch!” Tim insisted over the comms, just before he, too, swung into clear view to join them, Stephanie barely a step behind.
Jason couldn’t help shooting Danny a worried look, but he was relieved to see that Danny didn’t seem nervous. This was the first time Danny had been around so many Bats at once since before his identity was revealed. Hell, since Bruce had first tested him to determine his capabilities. Jason hadn’t been there for that, having been in the middle of dealing with his own case, but he’d seen the mask footage afterwards; while he’d performed exceptionally well, successfully delivering the package Bruce had given him without any of his siblings being able to stop him, he’d been skittish the entire time, nervous to get too close to any of them, and extremely reluctant to let anyone get behind him--even while he’d been simultaneously desperate for Batman’s permission to even live, nevermind operate, within Gotham.
Jason’s pretty sure one of the reasons Bruce had finally given him approval was in the hopes that, if Danny might come to trust them, he might finally reveal what it was he was so scared of. (Go figure that all it took was meeting Jason for them to crack the mystery and find out about the government organisation that was hunting down beings like Danny… give or take a bit of a delay thanks to Jason’s overeager trigger finger.)
This time, Danny wasn’t scared--instead, he seems almost shy. Well, having your secret identity revealed does tend to change the dynamic in a team. It adds another layer of vulnerability and trust, after all.
Bruce and Cassandra were the last to arrive on the scene, and she quickly detaches from his side to join the group petting and cooing over the ectopus. The little creature is clearly thriving under all the attention.
“Okay, but what exactly is an ectopus?” Time asks. “Is it the ghost of an actual octopus?”
“No, nothing like that,” Danny said with a laugh. “Ectopi are one of a few kinds of creatures that naturally manifest in the Infinite Realms. It’s like… when a glob of dense ectoplasm is saturated in strong enough emotions, it’ll kinda just form its own personality? They basically act like the cleaner crew in a fish tank, consuming contaminated ectoplasm and cleansing it. The most common ones are called blob ghosts; ectopi are a step up from them, and more effective at feeding on deeply rooted contaminants, even in individual ghosts.”
“So this ectopus,” Bruce began, watching the rest of the kids now gently tossing the ectopus around like a happy, wiggly beach ball with something like tired fondness, “Should be able to feed on the corruption that’s affection Hood’s core?”
“Exactly,” Danny nodded. “Don’t know if it can cure him completely, but it’ll at least make it more manageable for him until Frostbite can pay him a visit.”
“What are you gonna name it, Little Wing?” Dick asked, turning everyone’s attention back to Jason. Crossing his arms over his chest, Jason considered the little creature; his annoyance had mostly cooled, but that didn’t mean it’d disappeared entirely.
A vicious grin spread across his face under the helmet.
“I think I’ll call him Calamari,” he said, then laughed when both Dick and Stephanie gasped dramatically in horror and tried to shield the little pest from him. He stopped, however, when he realized Danny was laughing too.
The ghost was still floating in the air, curled in on himself hugging his stomach as he laughs helplessly. Its a bright, happy sound that makes a pleasant feeling curl in the place where previously, he thought he’d only ever feel green-tinted rage.
He’s got no business looking that cute, Jason thought.
A week later, as he sprays the wall of his apartment with a fire extinguisher, he wonders if this is really worth it.
He had to admit, he’d noticed a measurable improvement in the Pit Rage. It didn’t blindside him anymore with sudden spikes. When he did get angry, it was much slower to build, and whispers of paranoia no longer dug their claws so deep into his mind. On top of all of that, his sleep quality had improved by leaps and bounds!
On the other hand, however, keeping Calamari proved to be one of the most difficult pets he could ever have imagined. It was lucky that Jason owned the entire building his apartment was in, and that he’d ensured he had no immediate neighbors.
The ectopus was every bit as curious as the living creature it resembled, but significantly less intelligent (Tim had very thoroughly tested it). It would frequently go drifting happily through Jason’s apartment walls, the ceiling, and the floorboards, just to see what lay beyond. He couldn’t leave it unsupervised while he went on patrols; it either tried to follow him, or caused the most bizarre damages to his apartment when left alone. At least his family was enjoying all the babysitting opportunities and blackmail photos.
“Naming you Calamari was supposed to be a joke,” he said with a sigh as he put the fire extinguisher down. “Not a challenge.”
Calamari just blubbered from where it was hiding in Jason’s jacket, tucked against his chest. Jason sighed again just for good measure, before giving in and rubbing its head reassuringly.
“Hood,” Oracle’s voice came in over his comm, “I picked up an alert from your smoke detector, is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, O. My eldritch support monster just tried to phase through one of my wall outlets. Apparently, he doesn’t play well with electricity.”
“...is he okay?”
“Yeah, just spooked. My TV is fried, however, and there’s some serious scorching going up my wall.”
“Well. As long as nobody got hurt.”
“Fetch owes me big time for this,” Jason grumbled.