Work Text:
“I cannot believe that is what you wanted to do!”
Barbara Gordon looks over at the slouched form of one Timothy Drake-Wayne and rolls her eyes so hard she nearly wheels herself clear off the sidewalk. “Why are you whining? It was brilliantly done,” she says, her tone coming across as irate to those who can’t hear the amusement underneath. She’s cultivated it well trying to coordinate possibly the least communicative group of people on the planet.
Tim huffs, but doesn’t argue, and Barbara knows she’s won again. They rarely try to actually argue with her anymore, though needling them is still fun. She’d been wanting to hit Poison Ivy’s new botanical gardens for ages, and cajoled Tim into going with her just in case something happened. Wildly unnecessary, truthfully, since she can handle herself just fine despite the wheelchair, but it kept him out of the office since he gave Danny off until tomorrow over a family trip. He’s also got a personal hang up with Ivy in particular after a nasty batch of her mind altering spores last year, so she’ll have to do something nice for him soon for going with her to this, specifically, despite Ivy not actually being present right now. She and Harley are still off causing mayhem to an oil rig somewhere. She’d never have taken Tim if they’d been in Gotham.
Barbara knows her idiotic unofficially adopted family well. And she knows more about them than even they probably realize most days. She hadn’t always been as bad as, if not worse than, Bruce, but the wheelchair taught her a lot. She swore when she took up being the Bat’s All Seeing Eye that she’d never let them get snuck up on the way she had been.
She knows about Tim’s secretary/assistant/babysitter. He’s called something different by just about every member of the family that he’s met, but none of them are entirely wrong. She’d been skeptical, of course, of how easily Tim decided to hire him on. She’d personally done his background check, and when they’d made the Metropolis trip and found out about the likes of Masters being his godfather she’d dug again. It isn’t listed anywhere official, hence why it hadn’t flagged, and she thinks he might just want to know that someday.
What she’s more aware of than the rest, however, is that Tim is, bit by bit, falling for his mountain of a secretary. She’s not surprised, honestly. Tim’s got a competence kink a mile wide and this guy has not only kept up with Tim but managed to outmaneuver him on more than one occasion. Coupled with just how well he can execute the most minute of shifts to make his stance be whatever he needs it to on a whim and his apparent martial arts and weapon proficiency, Barbara is honestly surprised it’s taking so long. Danny’s worked for her disaster gay pseudo-brother for right about four months now. He’s avoided most of the siblings in groups and stayed clear of the big family gatherings, which is a feat in and of itself. He texts with Dick now and then, usually about coordinating handoffs so Tim can’t slip away when Danny swindles him into going home or Tim’s favorite foods to make sure he doesn’t forget to eat. He’d even met Damian, and that went a lot less messily than everyone expected, and no one knows how.
They’re walking back to her place now, cutting through a newer neighborhood dominated by townhomes instead of stand alone houses. She’s only a few miles away and hates dealing with getting her chair in and out of vehicles, so Tim just parked outside her apartment and they’d walked. They lapse into comfortable silence. She can hold conversations just fine, and Tim can small talk with the best of Gotham’s high society, but sometimes the trust of silence is a welcome reprieve not often allowed in either of their daytime lives.
“You know it is possible for more than one person to move those,” comes a voice so much like Barbara’s own that she has a split second to wonder if someone had copied her voice. She and Tim both stop, turning to a faintly familiar set of townhomes to see an impossibly tall redhead standing with magnificently muscled arms and a defined back that could have been chiseled into marble. Sturdy hands are resting on artfully curved hips, and Barbara knows with unwavering certainty that the second Dick lays eyes on her he’s either going to end up doing the Morning-After Walk of Shame or turn up at Doc Thompkins’s clinic.
She’s staring at an entire oversized couch standing upright, looking balanced on a dolly that honestly shouldn’t be holding up so well. Barbara is interested in who’s holding it, because that is not a small couch by any means, and is clearly for the woman staring at it. The dolly pivots, turning for the open door of the second townhouse from the right. Barbara blinks, finding none other than Danny Fenton himself holding the dolly and giving the woman an absolutely shit-eating grin as he pushes the dolly into the house. She realizes the redhead is a little taller than Danny about the same time she realizes he’s in a sleeveless shirt that is just sweaty enough to be clinging to his chest.
“I really don’t see what asking Tucker to use his fragile little hacker arms is going to accomplish,” Danny says mere minutes later, stepping back out and carrying the dolly completely off the ground.
The woman in question sighs just as Tucker Foley pops his head out of the moving van, screeching in indignation. Barbara shakes her head before glancing over at Tim. He’s staring, faintly glassy-eyed, and she’s kind of surprised he’s not drooling. Between the sleeveless shirt and the jeans that somehow don’t actually hide anything, it is painfully clear that Danny is very well muscled. Barbara kind of hates that she notices these things, but there’s not really any mistaking Tim’s gaze tracking after a sweaty, rumpled, extremely competent man built like a brick shithouse.
She nudges him to get his attention. “You wanna go talk to him?” she asks softly. She doesn’t actually know if it’ll be a good idea, but honestly it would probably do those two good to see each other outside of a work setting. When Tim just squeaks a ‘huh?’ at her with a rapid darkening of already pink cheeks, she calls him an idiot and starts rolling herself across the street. Thankfully, she’s got a Bat built chair that can go over curbs and handle uneven concrete without straining her shoulders.
She’s spotted halfway across by an older woman on a scooter. She coasts just long enough to wave, and gets a nice, sturdy cane raised at her in (what is hopefully) greeting. “Getting cute company already, Jazz!” she cackles, and every single one of the four people around the moving truck groan in frightening unison.
A woman about Danny and Tucker’s age breaks away from the truck, waist length black hair pulled up into a high ponytail. The purple halter top and black skinny jeans don’t necessarily scream ‘moving day’ but with someone like Danny around, she honestly probably doesn’t have to do much lifting. “Bubbe, please don’t make the pedestrians uncomfortable,” she sighs, sounding like this is an old request that has never once been honored.
Barbara smiles, finally close enough to hold out a hand. “Barbara Gordon,” she says easily. Tim will catch up eventually, soon as he’s done rebooting his brain.
The younger girl takes her hand easily. “Sam Manson. This is my grandmother, Ida. I’m just gonna give you a blanket apology for her up front,” the girl says.
Danny steps out of the moving truck again, a hand towel being wiped across his forehead. “It’s Gotham, Sam, if they can’t handle Nana Ida they probably shouldn’t be here,” he quips.
Ida is cackling while Sam just rolls her eyes. “Ancients save me from the idiocy of men,” she mutters.
The redhead comes up beside her. “Amen,” she says seriously before offering her own hand. The angle’s definitely awkward, but she bears it with grace. “Jazz Fenton.” Barbara blinks, glancing back towards Danny.
He finally comes even with them, stopping beside the scooter to gently slip the cane out of Ida’s hands. “None of this, we don’t need the attention,” he says, somehow managing to be both gentle and chastising.
Ida scrunches her face. “You give that back, it’s important!” she says, somehow managing to sound stern while grinning like a loon.
Barbara can’t help but raise a brow. “It’s not that bad, is it?” she asks curiously. She can’t seem to help herself, and she’s still alone on this side of the street.
Danny looks at her properly, twirling the cane in his fingers a few times before somehow getting hold of the handle and setting it over his shoulder in a beautifully smooth maneuver. “This is a pure ebony cane with a reinforced titanium alloy core. She hits you with it dead on, you’re damn near guaranteed a concussion at best,” he says happily, and Barbara finds it interesting that he’s so at ease with such things. In Gotham, sure, most people are, but these are not Gotham natives.
Tucker Foley comes around, equally sleeveless but also less sweaty. “Nana hitting people again?” he asks, just as unbothered.
The woman in question crosses her arms and slumps on her scooter. “Well not anymore, you buzzkill,” she mutters mutinously, though she does wink at Barbara.
Danny and Sam both shake their heads. “And I thought Jazz was gonna be the problem child once we got her moved down,” Danny mutters.
He gets a solid cuff to the back of the head for his comment. “Well if someone hadn’t tried to give me gray hairs before I graduated high school, maybe I wouldn’t be making up for lost time, Little Brother,” Jazz says gleefully. Sam snickers at his side.
Danny, however, elbows Sam and gives Jazz an unimpressed stare. “It is the solemn duty of the younger sibling to provide at least two annual heart attacks to the meddling elder,” he seems to recite with absolute sincerity.
Jazz is blinking at Danny as though trying to process the nonsense that just came out of his face. “That’s my boy!” Ida crows from behind them, setting Tucker and Sam to cackling.
Barbara can’t help but laugh along with them. She’ll have to mention that ‘rule’ to Dick at some point just to watch him lose his mind. “Are you all related?” she asks innocently, as though she’s not already well aware who all of them are.
Everyone answers differently, but it all means the same. Sam and Tucker both say ‘No’ while Danny just shrugs with a ‘Basically’ and Ida nods in solid affirmative. “Biologically, no. Danny and Jazz are related. Bubbe is my biological grandmother on my father’s side, but that’s it,” Sam explains.
Danny snorts. “Except we’ve all been thick as thieves since we were like seven, and Nana over here whacks us with the cane if we call her anything else,” he counters happily, the older woman grinning so wide Barbara has mild concerns about her dentures falling out.
Jazz is shaking her head at the lot of them, a look on her face that Barbara can sympathize with. “I also swindled my bonehead of a son,” Ida announces gleefully. “Moved Sammy’s inheritance off where they couldn’t find it and snuck enough out from under him to set both you boys up as well. You may not be blood, but you’ve been taking care of my girl for long enough that you’re the only kind of family she needs.” No one looks bothered, but Barbara wonders why just the boys.
Jazz, however, doesn’t look left out in the slightest. She must catch Barbara’s concerned glance. “Our parents didn’t always notice things, so I took up a lot of the slack growing up. If you want to keep to the family metaphor, I’m more cousin than sibling, but they welcome me all the same. Insisted I move into one of the townhomes here instead of getting an apartment somewhere and Nana Ida’s still covering utilities by her own insistence, so I’m not left out.” Given what they know now of the Fentons, Barbara suggests that’s underselling things, but she has no way to call them on it without letting too many secrets slip.
She just nods. “Makes sense. And you can’t have done too bad if they want you to stay,” she says just as a scuff behind her announces Tim finally arriving.
The lot of them take him in, and she watches curiously as Tucker freezes for a moment while Danny’s grin just grows. “‘Sup, boss?” he says cheekily, earning a wheeze from Tucker, likely at his apparent irreverence.
Tim comes level with Barbara’s chair, and she looks up at him to clock the dusting of pink still along his cheeks. “Good to see you, Danny, Tucker. How’s it going?” he says, sounding far more put together than Barbara can see he feels.
Sam snorts. “We’re almost done, honestly. Goes so much quicker now that he’s got a proper Fenton build,” she says.
Jazz has already turned back towards the townhomes. “Living room and dining room all have furniture if you wanna come in and rest for a bit,” she throws over her shoulder. “There’s a couple loads for the guys to get into the office, but that’s it.” Barbara ponders briefly, but she’s honestly ready for Tim’s crush to get busted somewhere, so she starts rolling along after the woman.
Five minutes later, Barbara has pulled her brakes, settling in next to the couch, Tim propping himself on the nearest corner of it. Sam’s in the kitchen putting dishes away, Danny went to return the moving truck after bringing the last giant stack of boxes in, and Tucker is getting her office tech set up. Jazz disappeared into what is probably a guest room after Barbara assured her that they don’t want to make moving take longer. Ida is the only one in the room with them, having shuffled herself from the scooter to an armchair.
The older woman props her elbow on the arm, her chin cradled in her palm, and pins Tim with a look that has Barbara bracing for impact. “Got it bad for Danny-boy, eh?” the woman asks, softly enough that it won’t carry but blunt enough that Barbara would probably have her tea coming out of her nose if she’d been drinking.
Tim goes comically wide-eyed. “What? I have no idea what you mean,” he says, though his voice is higher than usual and his cheeks are once again pink. Barbara can’t help but roll her eyes, because he’s supposed to be a far better liar than this.
Ida cackles. “I’m old, not blind,” the woman says. “And your friend here isn’t nearly surprised enough for me to be wrong.” Tim gives Barbara a betrayed look, but she has only a smug grin in answer.
He holds out for a whopping seven seconds before groaning and flopping backward with an arm over his face. “I’m his boss, I won’t,” he says, sounding like he’s reminding himself more than anything.
Barbara watches Ida’s head tilt and wonders what she knows. “He’s capable of handling more than most people think,” comes the surprisingly earnest comment. “If you really trust him, then trust him.” That seems to strike a cord with Tim, and Barbara wonders what the old woman’s advice would be if she knew about their nightlives.
He sits back up, giving Ida his attention, but there’s something hesitant in his gaze. “I trust him,” he says carefully, “that’s not the issue.” Barbara wants to snort, but unfortunately she knows why he’s careful. Their lives are riddled with secrets, things that they can’t afford to be careless with. She understands, perhaps better than most. The fingers of one hand rub against the edge of a wheel lightly and she cannot bring herself to argue with him.
Ida is studying them both, far sharper than most people that Barbara is used to, barring the Bats. “Alright, I won’t push,” she finally says. “But I’ma say this: there is a heavy regret in looking back and realizing which leaps you wish you’d given a little faith.”
Barbara and Tim share a glance, but don’t ask her which leaps she regrets not taking. The front door swings open, startling everyone and pulling a curse from Sam in the kitchen. “I stopped for street tacos!” Danny shouts, carefree as ever.
Sam stands with her hands on her hips, preventing Danny from setting it all on the counter. Tim and Barbara glance at each other. “Don’t worry, I got you your vegan avocado tacos cooked on a cleaned grill and not a hint of dairy in sight,” he says, clearly well used to her. “I also swung by your place and grabbed your vegan crema.” Tim’s impressed, but Sam just nods, clearly satisfied but not surprised, and moves to help him distribute the food. Barbara, however, is taking notes, because they’ve had almost the exact same argument with Damian multiple times.
A platter is brought out, a couple varieties on display, though Sam has her very own plate. Barbara opts for the chicken, Tim and Danny both digging into the beef tacos. Tucker takes a few of each, Jazz sticking with the chicken. Sam just wrinkles her nose at the lot of them.
Tucker, already halfway through his second taco, sticks his tongue out at her. “Poke Sam’s murderous tendencies in your own place, not Jazz’s,” Danny says surprisingly idly. Barbara looks at him, but everyone’s still relaxed, and she can only hope it was a figure of speech.
Thankfully, when Tucker speaks his mouth isn’t still full. “She doesn’t murder, it’d just be a little recreational stabbing.” Danny hangs his head, and Jazz pinches the bridge of her nose. Ida is just cackling, seeming to bask in having them all around her. There’s something about them, a hint of the kind of camaraderie that the Bats have, and Barbara doesn’t like it the longer she sits here. They shouldn’t feel like that. They shouldn’t be burdened.
An odd beeping, sounding like an alarm of some sort, startles everyone. Tucker pulls out an honest-to-God PDA and Barbara sees Tim’s hands twitch. They watch as Tucker’s thumbs fly across the halfway ancient device, brow furrowed. Jazz sighs, and Danny sits back, watching Tucker carefully.
“Anything wrong?” Sam finally asks.
Tucker doesn’t answer immediately, but he eventually shakes his head. “Nah, looks like it’s the same system that’s been trying to get through most often recently. Someone’s determined but until I know for sure who it is I’m not letting them through,” he says.
Barbara blinks. “Get through?” she prods before she can help herself.
Danny looks over at her, an odd wariness in his eyes that isn’t reflected anywhere else in his posture. Sam huffs and heads to the kitchen with her empty lemonade glass. “I, ah, may have a couple firewalls designed to stop the GIW that might also be keeping most outsiders from accessing a lot of Amity Park’s information,” Tucker admits hesitantly.
Barbara wants to curse and scream and shake him until his teeth rattle. He’s the one she can’t get past? She and Tim share a look, and he sits forward. “You realize it’s probably someone from the Justice League, right?” he asks, careful not to admit he’s tried to get through as well.
Danny snorts. “You think they’re the only ones trying?” he asks. “Tuck’s firewalls are keeping the GIW from learning anything more than what they already know, keeping them out of my parents’ systems, and honestly keeping them from seizing control of the city’s power grid to completely isolate the city and hold it hostage. They did, once, and no one noticed our entire town disappearing into a whole other dimension for something close to three days as a result. If they won’t identify themselves, then we can’t trust who we’re letting through.” He’s not tense, but neither is he completely relaxed.
Jazz is focused on Danny, glancing several times towards the kitchen. “I’ll walk Sam out. Nana Ida, are you staying or heading out?” she asks softly.
Ida shakes her head, getting carefully to her feet. “I’ll make sure Sammy doesn’t disappear and go breaking things,” she says. “Let the boys and Barbara talk.” The two head for the door, Tucker’s focus still on the PDA.
Tim can’t seem to stand it. “You’ve got access to the newest of Wayne Tech, what’s with the PDA?” he asks. He’d sound offended if one didn’t know better. Barbara only hopes Danny’s been working for him long enough now that they know better.
There’s another brief hesitation. “Newer tech’s often too small to handle being infused with ectoplasm,” Tucker eventually says. “When we realized the GIW was using it in their firewalls to make them harder to crack from the outside, Danny and I figured out how to imbue it into my stuff so I can stay ahead of them. I’ve rebuilt this several times, it’s got damn near a supercomputer’s processing capacity, but we needed the thicker casing for the ectoplasm.” Tim looks impressed, if still vaguely nauseous, and clearly wants to see the inner workings for himself.
Barbara shakes her head at the way he locks onto the tech. Danny meets her gaze over Tim’s form where he’d hunched forward and rolls his eyes. She smiles. “Tucker,” Tim says seriously, pulling everyone’s attention and having Danny materialize his phone seemingly out of habit. That’s his Work Tone. “May I give the League your work credentials so they can contact you directly about the safest way to request access?” Barbara knows neither of them needs it, of course, but the civilians don’t, so she pastes a curious look on her face and watches.
Tucker glances at Danny briefly. “They gonna turn me into a pincushion for being ecto-contaminated, too?” he mutters crossly.
Tim does rock back at this, clearly shocked, Danny giving Tucker an admonishing hiss. “They didn’t for Superman when he came out as an alien, nor for Martian Manhunter. They stood firm when Luthor cloned Superman and refused to treat the resulting person as less than anyone else. They wrote the Meta Protection Acts so that all varieties of human and human adjacent beings are shielded. They won’t turn on you,” Tim swears. This has been hitting him harder because he knows these two personally, but Barbara gets it. She’s not judging him the way Damian appears to sometimes.
Tim and Barbara are studied closely for several tense minutes. Neither of them moves, but neither do they back down. Eventually, Tucker nods. “I’ll probably be up all night, the GIW’s moving something big again,” he mutters. “If they wanna reach out, anytime after 11 would be best.”
Tim nods, standing. “Then I need to go meet up with Bruce to make sure we can get word to them early enough. Babs, you ready?” Barbara has, of course, already unlocked her wheels and turned towards the door.
She glances back at the two of them. “It really was good to finally meet you,” she offers, making sure to be sincere. Danny’s taken a huge weight off her shoulders by taking care of Tim. “You’ve been good for Tim. And it sounds like it’s long past time you get back as good as you give.”
The shocked, faintly disbelieving look she gets from both of them only solidifies her resolve. She’s going to get justice for them one way or another. If the League can’t fix this, she’ll call the Outlaws.
Midnight has long since gone and Barbara is still hard at work. The Bats haven’t turned in yet, but she’d actually bowed out of working comms tonight. Red Robin is handling that. She had reached out to Tucker Foley at 11 p.m. on the dot, explaining who she is as Oracle and what she needs. He’d fangirled a little, which both flattered her and resulted in a new note in his Batcomputer file. If he knows about her from outside Gotham he’s definitely a hacker, and proficient enough to know with certainty that she’s not a myth.
That was almost four hours ago, and she’s already been through the Amity Park files. She’s not looking forward to briefing Batman and company on a teen hero in a mechanized red suit and a ghost who doesn’t look any older having staved off some frankly ridiculous scenarios. And she’s a Bat who regularly helps coordinate interplanetary Watchtower missions. She’d gone deeper despite Tucker’s warnings, however, and might just consider regretting them.
She’d seen the footage, of course. She can already tell with just a cursory once-over that Phantom is absolutely sentient, and possesses the full range of what is still considered ‘human’ emotion. The adults seem to be largely content to call him a menace, but damn near the entire underage community lauds him as a hero, and he’d been regularly seen hanging out at the high school. It made it all the more jarring when she stumbled on a file in the GIW servers ten minutes ago.
She’s pulled out of her doom spiral by her computer beeping. “Hey, Oracle,” comes Tim’s voice. “Everyone’s back and I just finished giving them the Amity Park overview. A’s already down here keeping B from disappearing back up to the Watchtower. You find anything digging through the GIW stuff that needs to be heard before they head up?” He sounds tired, and undoubtedly everyone is. It’s been a long night in a string of longer nights.
She lets out a slow breath. “It’s at least as bad as we feared,” she says, knowing they’ll hear her even with as soft as she’s being. “They watched at least some of the fan footage of Phantom yet?” It would make the next part all the harder, but they’ll need the context.
Tim gives her an affirmative, and she sits back, briefly considering not saying anything right this second. “You and B are probably gonna want to see Project F-Four-N-T-Zero-M sooner rather than later. I’ll come by as soon as I can to apologize to A directly.” She doesn’t say anything further, going back to digging through other experiment logs to see how many others have been captured, and of what variety. The more they have, the easier it’ll be to expand on it once they approach Danny again. Barbara wonders if he or Tucker can get them in touch with Phantom, or if they know why the ghost hasn’t been seen in nearly four years. The Red Huntress stopped appearing not long after Phantom vanished, and Barbara prays to deities she doesn’t believe in that neither of them were destroyed or aren’t still imprisoned by the Ward.
There’s silence, but the line’s still open so Barbara lets it be as she stumbles upon redacted employee files hidden strangely deep in the server’s archives. She opens them curiously, wondering why they were hidden away instead of listed with the rest. She still has to go through those, but Tim will probably want to do them so he can compile background info for the Bats in real time. The face that greets her when she opens the first file shocks her. It’s almost an older Danny, but wider.
Double checking the name, her gut starts telling her this is not a good thing. Fenton, Jackson. Danny’s father. Licensed engineer and chief inventor previously employed by the Ghost Investigation Ward to design multiple weapons and what appears to be a nuclear missile. Frowning, she skims the blueprints and locks onto the moment she sees a word she’d only heard once before now. Ectoranium. The very substance Vlad Masters is trying to go to space to source. The substance that potentially fatally harms ghosts.
Pulling out, she opens the second file. Fenton, Madeline. Martial artist on retainer with the defense teams and biomedical ectoplasm specialist focused on understanding the molecular qualities of ectoplasm, how to farm and purify it, and how to utilize it as an energy source. Barbara realizes rather quickly what a terrifying pair these two have the potential to be, and can see clearly exactly what would have happened to Danny, his sister, and his friends, if his parents hadn’t turned on the GIW when they did. They appear to be the ones to have broken Phantom out, hence their redacted files and purging from the rest of the servers, but Barbara can’t pinpoint where their change of heart came from.
“What the fuck,” comes a horrified whisper, and Barbara remembers she’s still on an open line, and what she’s got them looking at.
She has to shake her head to refocus. “They’ve been experimenting on interdimensional beings,” Bruce growls. That Phantom looked like a teen for that is going to cause problems among the Bats, but it can't be helped.
Barbara just hums an affirmative. She has no platitudes that aren’t empty. “What happened to him?” Tim asks quietly.
Barbara pulls the Doctors Fentons’ files up on their side. “Danny’s parents. I can’t find their change of heart, but they got him out and got blacklisted for it. Looks like that’s where their big falling out with the government happened, they’d worked for the GIW up to that point,” she recites. “The kids never saw eye to eye with them, there’s hints all over that they’d butted heads about this for at least a few years prior to Phantom’s capture.” Whatever happened to cause them to change their minds about the ghost, it’s not in the GIW’s files. Yet another thing that they’ll have to ask Danny about, it seems.
Bruce sighs hard enough to be heard, and Barbara furrows her brows. “No,” he says suddenly, seemingly in answer to something. “I want to call Dark first, just to see if they know his name before we approach Danny again. If this isn’t a malevolent being Constantine has sold a piece of his soul to, we’ll ask Danny if there’s any way to get in contact with the entity.” Tim is grumbling too softly to be picked up, but Barbara allows a small smile. Bruce is taking this more seriously than they’d expected if he’s willingly calling the Justice League Dark. He hates dealing with magic as a general rule, because it doesn’t follow logical patterns the way Bruce understands them and as such makes them ‘unknown’ in the ways he hates the most.
“The vote happens this week on international intervention for the overturning of the ECTO Acts,” comes Dick’s voice. Barbara nearly curses. She hadn’t realized he’d stayed, but he’s grown fond enough of Danny for how well he takes care of Tim that there’s serious risk of someone seeing Nightwing’s temper in terrifying technicolor now that he knows what kind of threat hangs over the man’s head. “Once we have that, we can talk with Danny about getting in touch with these beings and whether they’d be open to peace talks. He’ll be safe from the law soon.” His wording isn’t missed, he likely won’t be fully safe for a while, but without the law on the GIW’s side they’ll have options.
Another night, another sea of glowing screens. Barbara checks everything yet again, and verifies with Tim that her audio and video feeds are both running properly. Once they’d gotten ahold of Zatanna and told her what they need to know, she’d sworn a surprising blue streak and told them they would arrive the following evening. It had startled everyone, of course, so naturally the Cave is packed with the entire Batclan itching for answers. Or a target. Barbara isn’t entirely sure anymore that a couple of her brothers aren’t just out for whose blood to spill at this point.
The whine of the Zeta and the automated voice announces the arrival of Zatanna Zatarra, John Constantine and, shockingly, one Jason Blood. Barbara admittedly doesn’t know much about him, other than he’s old and has a demon bound to his soul. That he came with them doesn’t bode well.
Bruce steps forward, cowl firmly in place. Everyone’s in uniform for this one. “I assume there’s a reason for this?” he asks, the angle of his head telling Barbara that he’s objecting to Blood being in the Cave. The other two have been here before, after all.
Zatanna nods, but Blood steps forward. “There are things you need to know, if you truly intend to help,” the man says.
Everyone bristles, of course, but Barbara just watches. There’s something about the way he’d worded it that itches at her. “It sounds like you’re implying that helping in the wrong ways will have the opposite effect,” comes Batwoman’s voice. Kate doesn’t come by quite so often, but she’s Bruce’s cousin and enough like him that more people should be afraid.
Barbara watches Blood nod. “I am,” the man says, calm as ever. “The dimension you are looking into is the Infinite Realms. It is both its own dimension, and not. It is the space between spaces, the membrane that anchors each of the living realms. It houses the Unquiet Dead, yes, but it also houses the Neverborn, those that never lived, and so never died. Beliefs given form, aspects of creation given name, even civilizations destroyed to a particular completeness exist within the Realms, and they are truly Infinite.” Barbara’s already loading everything he says into a fresh file, watching the reactions among the Bats carefully.
Constantine pulls an unlit cigarette, sticking it between his teeth. “You’re not gonna like it, mate,” the occultist says, “but we didn’t know about Amity Park. There’s a magical block on it that keeps us from sensing it, that’s why he’s here. Apparently there’s also a media blackout that redirected any calls for help, so you’d never have heard them.”
Everyone’s clearly scowling now. “What did we miss?” Nightwing asks darkly. He doesn’t like failing people, putting anyone through what they have. None of them do.
Blood seems unaffected, though with what he’s become Barbara can’t really blame him. “There is a permanent tear in the Veil between the Living and the Dead in Amity Park,” is the answer. “And when that portal was left open, denizens came through to feast upon the emotion of the living. Some on fear, but others on less harmful causes. An odd little being popped up about the same time, as well. The city was his haunt and he defended it accordingly despite apparently being a shockingly recent postmortal. Etrigan stepped back into the demons’ realms to ask around, and discovered that the magical block is caused by Realms denizens, beings older than most of the demons. The boy has been kept isolated, though I do not know what for.”
The Bats are all silent for several moments, digesting that information and the implications. Barbara is still transcribing, of course, so each of them can add their own thoughts and observations later. She wonders, though, what isolating Phantom accomplished. She can’t parse what could be gained by it, though that could very well be because they’re missing significant cultural information.
“Where is the city’s protector?” Tim asks, and if Barbara didn’t know better she’d call it hesitant. “Where is Phantom? There’s been no sign of him in years.” Or of the Red Huntress, but that one is a suited human, near as any of them can tell, so Blood may not have anything about her regardless.
Blood’s calm facade does break at that, however, and fresh tension runs through the room. “No one knows,” he nearly whispers, and something in him looks almost afraid. “But he must be found, he is a linchpin within the Realms. I cannot say how, because I do not know, but that is the only thing that can be agreed upon, even within the lower dimensions.” Constantine and Zatanna stand behind him, and they both look wary. Neither have gone all the way into scared, but this is turning into a much bigger deal than any of them could have anticipated.
There’s a swapping of looks and head tilts among Bruce’s kids, but the old man just sighs. “Then we need to talk to Danny again, and soon,” he rumbles. Their visitors perk up at the name, but the Bats are all waving him off.
Dick stands, moving to put a hand on Bruce’s Kevlar’d shoulder. “We need those Acts repealed. Danny isn’t going to tell us anything else until we can prove we’re here to protect everyone. He’s made that clear, and with what we’ve seen, I can’t even blame him. Head to the Watchtower, call us if you need extra hands. We can handle filling them in on what we do know so far.” Bruce nods, turning for the Zeta tube tucked nearby without another word.
Hood is gesturing to the table that’s set up for longer discussions, still well within Barbara’s view and mic range. The table can also display things as needed, just in case. Constantine and Zatarra sit without hesitation, Blood taking a moment longer before joining them. Dick, Tim, Cass, and Damian sit with them. The rest remain scattered about the cave to watch.
Constantine is still chewing on the unlit cigarette. “So who’s Danny?” he asks, and Barbara might have been offended if she wasn’t well used to the man. He often tells them not to touch things, and then gets to clean up the messes when someone touches anyway, so anything to do with these beings is imperative he knows quickly. She sympathizes, to a point.
There’s another round of stares, but Constantine and Zatanna both know who they all are. “He’s my secretary,” Tim finally says. “We didn’t know any of this either until I had a meeting with Lex Luthor because he wanted to let me know that Vlad Masters, another slimy billionaire, is working on getting space access and had somehow mind controlled Luthor into signing over things he’d never consciously agreed to. Mercy had snapped him out of it in time, and Luthor wasn’t happy to be swindled, so he brought it to my attention since we have an aerospace division, unlike LexCorp.”
Blood appears to simply be sitting quietly and observing, but Constantine sits forward. “The hell does he want to go to space for?” he asks.
Tim glances at the Batcomputer, making a quick motion with his hand. Barbara pulls up the report from the Metropolis trip on the holotable. “He wants access to a substance that makes up one of Saturn’s moons,” Tim explains. “A substance Danny called Ectoranium. Apparently it’s one of the only effective weapons the living have against the beings of the Realms. This is where I learned that he’s from Amity Park, and that Masters is the one who supplied it to the government agency we’re trying to get shut down.”
Constantine is scrolling, and discovered the file on the ECTO Acts. He curses a blue streak and grabs Zatanna’s hand, pulling both her attention and Blood’s. The odd man reads, and she can see the moment the Acts register, and he goes back to read them again. “The fuck have they done?” Constantine hisses, mostly to himself. Zatanna’s gone pale, and sits down again far heavier than her usual surety.
Blood doesn’t move, going still enough that Barbara can see the Bats’ defensive instincts kick in. Barbara, however, hits the command for the warning click to come from the computer to pull everyone’s attention without startling anyone. “We’ve been working on the repeals,” she promises. “There’s a vote in two days with the United Nations to force the United States to repeal them immediately, and Wonder Woman has already received formal authorization to call Oa in to take over if they don’t. Batman went to talk to Danny about this when we first learned of it, as his parents are the ones who punched the hole, but until these acts are repealed he won’t tell us enough. Things are changing, we just needed to know if it was safe to ask Danny if he knows how to get into contact with Phantom so we can open peace talks and possibly make reparations.”
She watches their reactions. Naturally, the two magicians are wary, the government doing this sets a dangerous precedent for their line of things. Blood, however, still has some tension in him. “Phantom is a Protector Spirit,” he finally says. “Make it safe for him to speak, and he will come the moment he can. If he were Ended, the Realms would know, and the Ancients would have already sought retribution,” the man finally says. He does not take his seat again, and seems to be rather uncomfortable in the wake of the new information.
Zatanna looks at him. “This applies to you, doesn’t it?” she asks quietly. “Etrigan is considered a being of the Realms, isn’t he?” Everyone goes still at this, and Barbara frantically makes additional notes in her meeting file. They hadn’t considered this, but Blood’s nod confirms it.
Dick stands. “We'll keep you in the loop, then, as well, so you know the moment you’re protected again,” he promises, earning a faintly startled look from the man. “We missed this once, but we will not let it stand.”
Blood nods in what Barbara thinks could be thanks, and the trio takes their leave shortly after. It’s been a long night, and it’s going to be an even longer day, but they’re closer now to getting justice for another wronged people, and it makes the lack of sleep very much worth it all.