Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jason entered his current main apartment after a long patrol to find two teenagers had managed to break in without setting off any of the alarms.

Jason instinctively pulled out a gun.

"What are you doing here?"

The teenagers were on his couch, turned towards him but still quite relaxed, the party size bag of chips he'd just bought sat between them. They looked to be somewhere in their late teens, probably eighteen or nineteen. The girl was dressed goth, and the boy looked like the average college student.

"Oh good! You're home."

That... is not how someone should react to a fully armored Red Hood appearing behind them.

"We've been waiting six hours! Why the hell are you still out at four AM? There's literally nothing open right now."

Jason was glad he'd left his helmet on, just so these kids couldn't see his very confused face. He tried asking again, a bit more threatening, "What are you doing here? How did you get in?" And why are they eating his food?

"We're looking for a Jason Peter Todd," the girl replied.

It felt like she'd just poured ice water down his shirt. His heart started pounding and he vaguely recognized the helmet mic amplifying his startled gasp. How do they know his name how did they find him how he doesn't even legally exist anymore

"What do you need with him?"

"Our friend needs his help," the boy said, "and it has to be Jason," he calmly ate another chip, "and that's you, right?"

Jason began mildly panicking, "HOW DID YOU FIND ME?"

"That's not important right now," the girl said.

"I DISAGREE! HOW DID YOU FIND ME? WHO ARE YOU? AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU EATING MY CHIPS?"

"Because we already ate all your pretzels."

"Stress eating."

Jason did not know how to respond to that.

"Anyways, as we were saying, our friend needs your help. Last week he was in a fight, a pretty brutal one. His body induced a kinda coma, Frostbite called it 'The Sleep', to heal himself. But he's running out of energy, and his body isn't done yet. So we need to do a energy transfusion-thing. But it has to be a very specific type of energy. Your energy."

"...What?"

"So let me get this straight," Jason had them repeat the story twice before he finally put his gun away and sat down across from them, "your friend Danny lost a fight-"

"Oh no, Danny won."

"-and now he's in a 'death like sleep' and you need me as a blood bank."

"Close enough," the boy shrugged.

"Why me?"

"You want the complicated answer or the dumbed down version?"

"The shorter answer."

The girl grabbed another chip, "Because you're basically his soulmate."

Jason sat there in silence for a moment.

"Soulmates don't exist." As much as Jason wanted to believe they did, they didn't. Not for him. He was too broken and done to many horrible things to be blessed with a soulmate.

"That's the dumbed down answer. 'Soulmates' is just the closest equivalent."

Jason took a breath. So he supposably has a soulmate. And that soulmate is dying. A soulmate he's never met.

"How do you even know we are 'soulmates'?"

"Plenty of ways. Ghosts are souls, so all that soul stuff is real easy to see when you're a ghost. Souls change over time, like people, and you and Danny became a match when you both were resurrected at the same moment in time."

How do these people know he was resurrected?!

Jason reached up and took off his helmet, these people already knew too much about him, he might as well join in the stress eating. He placed the helmet on the coffee table and reached for the chips, shoving a handful in his mouth.

"Say I believe all this. How would this transfusion even work?"

"Well, from what we understand, you have to kiss him."

Jason choked on a chip. His visitors patiently waited out his coughing fit.

"So your friend is Sleeping Beauty, and you want me to be Prince Charming?"

"The situation is a bit more serious than that, but yes," Goth Girl answered.

"Wouldn't be more like Snow White? Since they're both half-dead?"

"Tucker, Danny doesn't really have the time for us to argue over which fairytale metaphor to apply here."

Tucker reached for the chips, "I'm trying to cope here Sam. All I have is stress eating and distractions."

"How much time does he have?" Jason asked.

Sam looked over at him, "He probably has another week before he dies completely, but the sooner we can stop the dying part the better."

"So I can, like, take a nap before you drag me to another dimension?"

Jason would like a nice shower, some sleep, and breakfast before making the very much not smart idea of following two strangers who knew some of his deepest secrets into another dimension he didn't even know how to enter or exit.

"Oh yeah! We didn't realize you were, like, nocturnal when we came here. That was like ten PM. We were hoping to talk to you and then give you the night to think it over."

That made sense, most people didn't patrol city blocks from the rooftops in the middle of the night.

Sam checked her phone, "It's almost five thirty. How about we meet you back here at six PM? Thats about twelve hours from now, I assume you'll be awake by then."

"Yeah, I'll be up by then."

"Great," Sam stood up and grabbed Tucker's arm, "we'll let you sleep then."

Tucker got up, with the chips, and they both left through the front door. Jason realized he never found out how they got in. Or tracked him down.

Jason thought back over the night. Sam and Tucker had waited several hours for Jason to come home, told him their story, and asked Jason for help. That didn't sound like someone who was going to kidnap him if he refused. However, they got past all his security and knew his secrets. Jason didn't know what they were capable of. With their best friend's life on the line, they might take Jason with them anyways if he rejected them.

Then there was the fact Jason had a soulmate. A soulmate who was dying and needed his help.

Jason got out his phone. If he was going to do this he should probably call in some backup.

Chapter Text

“I’m about to do something stupid. Don’t tell B.”

“Okayyyy,” Dick responded from the other side of the phone, “Why are you telling me this? What kind of mess are you in?”

Jason sighed, “I’m about to dimension travel. I’ve put safeguards in place with Babs in case something happens or I don’t come back in twenty-four hours. She’s agreed to keep it from B but only if I bring back up.”

“So you want me to do something stupid with you.”

“No. I just need you around for when I leave, so Babs can get a good look at how I’ll be traveling in case she needs to recreate it.”

“Jason, it sounds like you’re making a very stupid decision. You have no clear way back if something happens. This alternate Earth could be evil or something.”

“I’m traveling to an alternate dimension, not reality. That means I’ll still be in this universe, just a different plane of existence. Or something. Replacement probably knows how that all works.”

“So bring him with you.”

“No, he’ll rat me out to Bruce. All of our siblings will except Cass, but she’s not in the country right now. I already know it’s dangerous and there’s way too many unknowns but I am doing this so I’d like to skip the lecture.”

Dick sighed. Jason heard the creak of his office chair as Dick leaned back, “Can you at least tell me why you are doing this? What’s so important you’re willing to risk your life?”

Jason fiddled with the blanket in his lap, debating on telling Dick. He refused to give Barbara the personal details, but if something did happen… well Dick would be the most understanding of his reasons. Dick will still tease him, but he wouldn’t make fun of him with any seriousness.

Jason took a breath, “Apparently soulmates might be real and this involves mine.”

“Awwww, Jaybird are you in love?!”

“I have never met the guy!”

“Is he cute? You’re bringing him to dinner right?”

“I found out about his existence a couple hours ago!”

“That doesn’t answer my questions.”

Jason groaned and collapsed backward onto his bed. Dick was quiet, still waiting for Jason’s response.

“No, I’m not bringing him over for dinner. If I want him to like me why would I subject him to all of you?”

Dick laughed, “Please. Knowing you, your soulmate will most likely be subjecting us to him. Not the other way around.”

Jason felt a smile appear on his face. A partner that could make his family the uncomfortable ones for once sounded great, actually. “Yeah…”

“Did you just lovingly sigh?! I knew you were still a sappy romantic under all that kevlar.”

“My ride will be here at six. Are you coming?”

“Of course I’m coming. We can’t have B crashing your date.”

Dick, well actually Nightwing, was going through Jason’s kitchen when they heard knocking on the door. Barbara insisted Jason wear armor tonight, which meant Dick came in costume to match. Jason opted on skipping the helmet and the mask. Dick was pouting earlier about how he couldn’t dress Jason up for his ‘date’. Jason opened the door to reveal Sam, Tucker, and what looked like a werewolf in prison clothing.

“Umm…” Jason turned around to see Dick was eating his replacement chips, “Jay you didn’t mention one of your new friends was a giant wolverine.”

Jason stepped back to let them in, “He wasn’t here last night.”

“Sup dude,” Tucker said, “are those doritos?”

“Hi. I’m Sam, that’s Tucker, sorry about him,” Tucker had taken the bag out of Dick’s hands and was chowing down, “and this is Wulf. He’s our ride to the Ghost Zone.”

“Assuming he says yes. So, Jason Todd, are you coming?” Tucker asked with his mouth full.

“Were you really gonna give me a choice about it?” Jason eyed Wulf’s claws.

“We would’ve upped our persuasion game. Maybe introduced you to Danny’s sister.” Tucker smirked.

“Alright, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

“Actually,” Sam spoke up, “do you have a warmer jacket? You’re gonna need it.”

“But bring that leather one anyways! I can’t wait to see Danny’s face when he realizes his soulmate dresses like he’s in a motorcycle gang.”

Jason was now properly bundled up. And sweating in his apartment. “Okay, can we go now?”

Wulf stepped forward and dragged his claws through the air, leaving glowing green rips in their wake. Jason didn’t associate green with many good things. Normally it meant an Ivy attack, but this green glowed like kryptonite, or the Lazarus Pits. The green formed into a portal.

“Well shit,” Barbara came over the comms in crackles and bursts, “There’s no way any of us can recreate that. Get me as much info as you can on this place, it looks like we’ll need some magical help if Jason needs an extraction.”

Dick let out a whistle, “Damn. What did you say this place was called again?”

“We call it the Ghost Zone,” Tucker answered with a smile, “but it has several names. The Infinite Realms, the Veil, the Necrotic Plane, the In-Between, you could probably also make an argument for calling it Purgatory. That’s just to name a few. It also holds like, every afterlife ever.”

“I’d invite your friend along, but we don’t really have time to babysit him. Getting lost can happen real easily, so stick close to us,” Sam told Jason, “You can only see green right now, but there’s a lot of dangers on the other side of this doorway. You’re a revenant, so you probably won’t have as much trouble moving around as me and Tucker. But for now we’ll all try to stay inside the speeder and let Wulf take the lead when it comes to floating.”

“Floating?” The word was barely out of Jason’s mouth when he was suddenly horizontal. Wulf had come up behind Jason completely silent, not a sound or any displacement of air, and scooped Jason under one arm and Sam and Tucker with the other. And then Wulf jumped into the green.

Jason did not like the floating. Luckily they got to the speeder pretty fast and it was a lot easier to move around a confined space. Jason watched the doors they passed with interest. Once a field of white came into view, Sam and Tucker moved to put on their own jackets.

“Finally, something that’s not green.”

Tucker snorted, “You can say that again.”

When they arrived there were actual honest-to-God yetis there to greet them. And they had tails. Bigfoot statutes never had tails. Jason might have been majorly distracted by the whole yeti thing and the shear cold that he didn’t really notice where they were going after they entered the building. Only noticing they stopped when a hand made of ice and suspended bone entered his field of vision.

“Welcome to the Far Frozen. I am Frostbite, I am the one who asked you to be brought here. I am very grateful you came.”

Jason put his own hand out, and Frostbite clasped it with both of his. “Hi, I’m Jason.”

“Welcome, Young Jason. It has been a long time since one of the awakened has come to visit us, do let us know if there is anything we can do to make you more comfortable. Let us move to a warmer room, I worry for our human friends.”

“A warmer room sounds nice,” Tucker’s teeth were chattering.

“We are at risk of him returning to his human form, and several formerly human doctors have confirmed he will die if his body becomes flesh and blood once again. He needs more ectoplasm coded to his signature in order to keep him in his ghost form. That, however, is very hard to acquire for a multitude of reasons, making finding a soul who produces a close matching signature the best option for his continued survival. Which is where you come in, Young Jason.”

“Dani tried to do the same thing, as we hoped her being his clone would make her ecto-energy a close enough match, if not an exact one,” Tucker explained, “It only worked for a few minutes.”

Dani had joined them a short while ago. Apparently she was keeping Danny company during his coma while his fully-human family members had gone home to rest. No one else seemed confused about how they were both named ‘Danny’.

Dani wrapped her arms around herself, “I used to be unstable. Occasionally still am. My energy wasn’t solid enough to remain bonded to his for very long.”

“So, you need me to give Danny some of my something-plasm? How do I do that?”

Frostbite opened his mouth again but Dani cut him off before he could start talking, “The Sparks Notes version is what Danny needs is produced inside of you. In your soul, really. And we can’t take it out of you like a blood draw, because of what its made of. If we get you close enough to Danny, his own soul will latch on to you like a magnet. Then he’ll unconsciously vacuum some of it into himself. So all you have to do, really, is be present and be close.”

That didn’t sound so bad. “How close?”

“The path of least resistance and that has the highest efficacy can be done by preforming the human ritual of touching mouths,” Frostbite answered.

Jason looked back over to Dani hoping for a translation.

“You gotta kiss him.”

Jason entered the room where Danny was placed. Danny laid in a bed in the center of the room, various monitors hooked up to him, some of them clearly from the living world, although the whole set up looked out of place. Jason guessed that made sense, ghosts probably don’t usually require medical care.

Danny looked to be about nineteen, a year younger than Jason, just like his friends. He had short white hair that floated in a breeze that wasn’t there. He didn’t emit a glow like all the other ghosts did, but perhaps that was due to the state he was in. And it was a state. Parts of his body flickered in and out of existence, revealing gaping and torn wounds that were half healed. It was amazing he survived this, especially if what Jason was seeing now wasn’t how he actually looked at the end of his fight. A fight he won. Damn, Danny had to be strong and stubborn to fight through that. Most people couldn’t. Guess they were more alike than Jason thought.

Jason slipped his hand into one of Danny’s. Jason wasn’t expecting it to be so cold. Jason cleared his throat, “Hi. So, I’m Jason. Apparently we’re soulmates and I have to kiss you.” No response from Danny, as expected. Didn’t make it any less awkward. The silence stretched on.

“Just get on with it already!”

Jason gestured at Danny’s head, “How am I supposed to do this?”

“I just opened his mouth,” Dani mimed pulling something apart, “and treated it like CPR.”

Jason moved up to the head of the bed. A CPR mouth lock didn’t sound like a bad idea, it was meant to be done on an unresponsive person. It wasn’t very romantic though. Jason was hoping he could get away with kissing Danny’s forehead or something, but maybe the ecto-whatever needed to flow out of Jason and into Danny which would make mouth-to-mouth the best choice-

“Stop over thinking it!”

Jason turned back around, “It’s weird that like six of you are watching! Do you have to stand there?”

After some back and forth arguing it was decided the medical team, consisting of yetis and a couple of ghost human doctors, would wait outside in order to give them privacy with the door open in case something happened, and the humans and half-human would return to the waiting room and call Danny’s family with an update. There was some mention of Danny’s father being banned from the Ghost Zone for driving reasons, which made no sense to Jason because he hadn’t seen any other vehicles, or actual roads, beside the speeder they came in on but Jason was stalling again. This just felt wrong. Even if it was to save a life. Jason had been kissed by a couple girls he didn’t want to kiss before, and each one made him uncomfortable. Jason didn’t want to subject that on to anybody else. He was stalling again. Start small. Baby steps. Jason leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to Danny’s hairline, his lips buzzing.

And Danny twitched.

Jason jumped back and watched as Danny struggled to open his eyes as he made an adorable wake up noise. “Mhm… Ev’ry t’ing… hur’s.”

Jason gently tapped Danny’s cheek as Danny’s eyes shut again, “Hey, hey. Danny. Danny you need to wake up so we can do the energy transfer.”

“Hmm…” Danny opened one eye. It was green and glowing, like the world outside. “You the guy I hav’ta kiss?”

Jason nodded, “Yeah.”

Danny weakly grabbed at the front of Jason’s shirt and pulled, Jason followed. Danny squinted with both eyes as he looked at Jason’s face up close, “When they s’id they’d find me a Prince Charming, I didn’t expect ‘im to actually be hands’me.”

Jason let out a huff of laughter, “Surprise?”

“No fair, I look like shit.”

Jason sat back a little and looked Danny over again. “Yeah, you kinda do. Amazing first impression by the way.”

Danny made a breathy noise like he wanted to laugh but didn’t want to risk moving. “Ah, but now I can only go up from here. Besides, you should see the other guy.”

If Danny looked this bad, what the hell did he do to the other guy? Danny tugged on Jason’s shirt again, “I’m gettin’ sleepy again. Hurry up and kiss me.”

“Are you okay with this?” Jason asked, now leaned over Danny and braced on his hands, placed next to the sides of Danny’s head.

“Oh no, I have to make out with a good looking guy so I don’t die. What a nightmare.”

“Sarcasm? On your death bed?” Jason joked back, already feeling immensely better with the situation, seeing Danny awake and lucid.

“I missed the chance with my first deathbed, didn’t want to lose it again.”

Jason couldn’t help it, he laughed. A small and downright cute smile appeared on Danny’s face. Jason leaned the rest of the way and pressed his lips against Danny’s, and the buzzing from before came back. It took a moment for Danny’s lips to start moving, and when they did Jason closed his eyes.

Jason could feel a tug somewhere in his chest, pulling him closer to Danny. Danny seemed to be feeling the same way, as he bumped their noses and made a keening noise when Jason pulled back the slightest bit to take a breath. And Jason couldn’t just leave him after that, so he kissed Danny again, and again. And it was addicting.

As Danny’s strength started to come back, he moved a hand to the back of Jason’s head and leaned up into the kiss, tangling his fingers in Jason’s hair. Jason collapsed down to his elbows as their kissing got sloppier the longer it went on. Danny not needing to breathe made kissing much easier. One of Danny’s hands traveled up Jason’s waist and Jason responded by licking into Danny’s mouth. Jason was starting to feel lightheaded. Danny threw an arm around Jason’s neck to push their bodies closer together. Jason had just tangled his fingers in Danny’s hair when Jason was pulled off of him.

“Slow down! You’re giving more energy than you can make right now.”

Jason was druggingly dragged over to a chair where one of the Yeti’s started looking over him. Then everything went black.

Jason woke up on a bed. No. Looking around revealed it to be a couch. A yeti sized couch. And Danny sitting a chair pulled up next to it, in what must’ve been his human form, crutches leaning on the armrest. He was quite attractive, now that he wasn't actively dying.

“Sorry ‘bout that.” Danny apologized.

“Huh?” Jason so elegantly responded.

“I got carried away, didn’t realize I was taking more ecto than you can produce. You were very distracting. Frostbite said you passed out.” Danny flushed as he looked away from Jason, “So again, sorry about the improv makeout. All you needed to do was give me a couple of normal length kisses and I’d have been fine. No need for the ten minute makeout session.”

Jason eyed Danny’s hand that was resting on Danny’s knee and dangling in the space between them. Jason reached for it.

“Oh,” Jason laced their fingers together, “Does that mean you don’t need any more?”

“No! Yes! Umm…”

Jason laughed.

“I might. Depends on how my healing goes. Might need another boost.”

“So, I should stick around?”

“Yeah,” Danny squeezed Jason’s hand as he finally looked back to him, “You should stay. I’d like to get to know my savior. Jazz has been calling you my ‘Knight in Leather Armor’.”

“Well,” Jason smiled, “I’m Jason. Your own personal Prince Charming,” Jason raised their clasped hands and kissed the back of Danny’s as a knight would his Lady, “pleasure to meet you.” Danny hid his flushing face in his free hand. “What about you, Sleeping Beauty?”

Danny dropped the hand on his face to reveal a thoughtful expression.

“If I’m half-dead, doesn’t that make me Snow White instead of Sleeping Beauty?”