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Jason Todd has always been a dedicated follower of the maxim ‘if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.’
It is a maxim that carried him through about seven years with Willis Todd’s temper, two years with Catherine Todd’s deepening addiction, and three years on the streets.
So of course, when he found himself grabbed off the streets by Batman and Robin (after trying to steal the batmobile’s tires and nailing the Big Bad Bat himself with a tire iron, no less) he was about ninety three percent certain he was going to find himself at the bottom of the harbour or possibly fed to bats.
And when he found himself in the Wayne Manor with Brucie Wayne himself as his foster parent and the annoyingly hyper chatterbox Dick Grayson as a foster brother, he was about eighty eight percent certain Wayne had bought him for the kind of things rich single men buy street kids for.
Thing is, this time the maxim didn’t hold true, or so he thought.
Brucie Wayne turned out to be Batman, Dick Grayson turned out to be Robin (though maybe Jason should have suspected that after he saw the flippy lunatic hanging upside down from the chandelier his first day in the Manor), Alfred turned out to be the world’s best cook and the only sane resident of the Manor.
Now, two years after the admittedly awkward introduction, Jason is Robin.
Dick having graduated to Nightwing – or Discowing, Jason is 100% not going to call that fashion atrocity anything else – last year following a more explosive than usual fight with Bruce and two days spent sulking in Metropolis with Uncle Clark, aka, Dick’s other dad before he was finally coaxed back home.
Things, in this case, sounded way too good to be true, and turned out just as good as it sounded.
At least, it has – till now.
Jason has finally discovered the flaw in the too-good-to-be-true life he has landed in.
Wayne Manor is freaking haunted.
Now, let this be noted first of all – Jason is NOT a baby. Unlike Dick, who after watching that stupid Stephen King movie, slept in Bruce’s bed for three nights.
Of course, Jason has learned to avoid the ‘haunted houses’ in the streets.
This is Gotham, after all. if someone tells you that a particular house has the habit of starting to suck out the bones of anyone who is in it when midnight strikes…
Well. This is Gotham. You don’t take a risk like that. Especially after seeing wide eyed paramedics carrying what looked more like melted plastic than a dead body out of it one morning.
Besides, if a haunted house isn’t actually haunted, it’s almost definitely going to be occupied by one or the other of the city’s supervillain population, who seem to have a penchant for choosing aesthetics over practicality.
The thing is, Jason is definitely not a baby. He is just…practical when it comes to avoiding things that might or might not be the vengeful dead.
That’s just normal caution, okay? Batman should be proud at least one of his kids have a functional survival instinct.
And now it turns out freaking Wayne Manor is haunted. Because of course it is.
By a freaking Victorian ghost kid. Who is standing in the library – the library! His sacred place! – staring wide eyed at Jason.
Jason wants it on record that he absolutely definitely did not scream. Nope, not at all.
If he made any noise at all, it was a warning that was voiced to any other possible occupants of the library (though Bruce was at a WE meeting, Dick was staying for the Student Council meeting and Alfred was in the kitchen preparing dinner).
Jason followed said warning with a tactical retreat to his room. The fact that he spent the time between said retreat and Alfred’s calling him for dinner buried under his favourite blanket has no relevance to the matter at hand.
Now, not being a baby (and wanting his place back in the library), Jason settles down to do some research as soon as dinner is over (because Bruce won’t let him patrol on school nights, spoilsport).
Okay. The ghost he saw was pretty tiny.
Sure, Jason is unfortunately challenged height wise, the promised growth spurts not having hit yet, but this ghost was even tinier than him. Like, three apples tall.
A bit of research reveals that people of preceding centuries tended to be a lot shorter than people are now, so that fits with the Victorian Child motif.
Kid looked pretty young too, not even counting the height.
Younger than Jason, anyway. Maybe nine or ten, if that. Folk used to die pretty young in the past, so that checks out too.
There’s a seriously creepy graveyard way back in the Manor grounds and no longer used, and it looks like every other grave there holds someone under twenty. And that is with the super-rich Waynes.
The past must have seriously sucked. No wonder people are always dying of colds or brain fever in the novels.
Everyone must have been made of glass back then. The kid ghost definitely looks like he’s made of glass, though that is probably just a ghost thing.
Jason isn’t sure exactly what the kid was wearing, his tactical retreat having been slightly hastier than it should have been. But it was something all black or dark grey.
Figures. Everyone, even little kids, wore like the dullest ever colours back then. Especially with all the people dying left and right, they must have spent a lot of time wearing mourning. So of course a kid ghost would be wearing all black. Logical.
Jason is just focused on his research, okay?
So it has nothing to do with this ghost encounter that he leaps a clear foot in the air when his dumbass brother bangs on the door.
“Oi, Jaybird!”
“Eff off, Dickhead!”
Alfred has a strict rule on swearing, but fortunately his brother’s penchant for regretful choices has come to his aid in that matter.
Of course, Jason’s perfectly normal – and definitely not squeaked out – suggestion goes ignored, and Dick pokes his head in. “You okay in there?”
“Peachy. Unlike what you are going to be if you don’t get out of my room.”
Dick grins “Ooh, don’t be like that, I come bearing gifts!”
And of course, he reveals that he is holding the book Jason left – laid carefully on the floor so that it will be easier to find, definitely not thrown at a ghost in terror – in the library.
Jason wastes no time in snatching it out of his hands and slamming the door. He has absolutely no intention of letting his nosy big brother see what exactly he’s researching.
“Jay? You actually okay?”
There is slightly less teasing and slightly more concern in the tone there than Jason prefers, so he opens the door with a long-suffering sigh and allows Dick Grayson, certified mother hen, to do a wellness check.
“I’m fine. Just got a crapton of homework.”
And no, certainly did not get the crap scared out of me by a baby ghost in the library.
Dick doesn’t look entirely convinced, but after one forehead kiss (ew!) to ‘check his temperature’ and one hair ruffle, he is willing to depart, though with repeated injunctions to call him or Alfred or Bruce if he feels off during the night.
Seriously, you hide what seems clearly just a case of upset stomach – which turned out to be appendicitis – once, and everyone is convinced you’re on your deathbed when you so much as sniffle.
……………………………………
Tim isn’t stupid, okay?
The grade he has already skipped and the one his parents are in the process of email wrangling the school to let him skip next year offers enough evidence of that.
He knows full well that sneaking into Batman’s (!!!) house is an extremely dumb move.
It’s bad enough that he keeps playing paparazzi to them every night.
Getting into the Manor itself is practically asking to be caught and mindwiped or hypnotized or locked away in super-secret Justice League prisons or whatever it is that Batman does to people who find out who he is.
But honestly, it is too much of a temptation to resist. And it isn’t like Tim has ever had that much of a survival instinct.
Honestly, it likely would have turned out fine if he hadn’t seen Jason Todd sneaking out on a school night to go Robin-ing without Batman’s permission.
Perched on a tree in the nearby Drake estates, Tim had watched Robin make his way carefully through a zigzagging unmarked trail, clearly seeking to avoid Batman’s multiple security measures, intruder alerts and cameras.
And he apparently made it through, though only to be caught on patrol by a very amused Nightwing and a very unamused Batman. But the exit strategy had worked perfectly.
And Tim made the logical deduction that it will work just as well as an entry strategy. Which is how he gained access to the Wayne Manor.
It isn’t like he visits every night.
Only on nights where he feels particularly lonely (he knows he shouldn’t, he’s a big boy now, he shouldn’t be selfish enough to want his parents home when they are working so hard to put food on the table).
And not for long. Just for a couple of hours.
He’s careful.
Dress in dark clothes – not jet black, that can be noticeable, faded black or grey or dark blue. Shades that blend with the shadows overpopulating the mansion.
The clothes themselves are purchased second hand from Goodwill, just in case he leaves behind threads or something and Batman goes CSI investigating whoever is sneaking around.
And of course, above all, be quiet. Super quiet.
Just hang around. Sometimes catch a glimpse of one or the other of the family. Or hear their voices. That’s usually enough to carry him through a week or so.
And it was going great! No one suspected!
Till tonight, when he freaking walked into Robin himself in the library.
And now Robin is going to tell Nightwing and Batman, and Batman is going to tell his parents when they get home, and the Bats are going to close the secret entry in and…
Wait. Why did Robin scream and run when he saw him, anyway?
…………………………………………
Jason spends the rest of the night deep in research.
Thanks to the miracle of google, he is able to narrow down the possibilities.
Child ghosts are apparently the likeliest to linger. Makes sense – they lived only so little a while, they’d wanna hang around more.
This is even more common if the death in question is violent, or the result of a caregiver’s actions. Natural deaths don’t spawn too many ghosts.
Well, that…narrows down the options, but not as much as it should. Gotham is a screwed up place, and the Waynes are a screwed up – or at least very unlucky – family.
At least the kid isn’t bleeding or missing his head or anything. Jason is pretty sure he’d have barfed if something like that had walked out from between the shelves.
Most ghosts tend to haunt the locations of their deaths or their graves. Makes sense.
Jason is willing to bet his Robin Mantle that the baby ghost’s body is lying buried in one of the old tombs down there.
So… One of Bruce’s ancestors. The getup – and the whole pale starved baby look – suggests Victorian era.
(Jason might slightly be influenced by the fact that, at the moment of said ghost’s appearance he was engaged in reading Wuthering Heights). Died in the Manor.
Well, not hundred percent.
Sometimes ghosts come back to haunt the places they cared about living, and the kid likely wanted to come home. There’s something seriously sad about it, if the whole thing wasn’t mucho creepy.
Well, died or lived in the Manor. Nine or ten years old when he died.
Right. Time to go check out the creepyass portrait gallery Bruce showed him around the first month of his stay.
Jason almost gets out of bed, then hesitates.
It… It’ll be smarter to wait till morning, right? Better light. He can’t just go and disturb everyone by walking around at night.
That’s definitely the only reason he stays in bed, every inch of him carefully under the blanket.
………………………………………..
Tim spends the whole of next day in anticipation of Batman swooping down to arrest him.
After all, trespass is a crime, right? He can get arrested for that and send to juvie.
His mother had stressed it the time six-year-old Tim wandered away at a party and ended up getting lost in the house.
The hosts had been nice about it, but as mommy stressed, they didn’t have to be, and the next set may not be if Tim was ever stupid enough to trespass like that again. He’ll get arrested and be a jailbird for life, and it would all be his own fault.
Now, Tim does have some doubts whether his six year old mistake counts as a real trespassing crime, but this one definitely does. He was snooping around Wayne Manor, and has been doing so for ages.
All secret identity questions aside, Batman could lock him up just for that. Or Bruce Wayne could call the cops and have them lock him up.
But that day and the next couple pass by with no cowled shadow looming out of a corner to make him disappear forever, and Tim starts to relax.
Maybe Robin never told Batman? Maybe Robin took pity on him?
Or maybe Robin is just embarrassed that he screamed when he saw Tim (why, anyway, Tim checked himself in the mirror when he got home, he looked perfectly presentable).
After all, maybe Batman hates it when Robin screams, just like Tim’s mom and dad hate it when he screams – it’s such a baby thing to do.
Or, much more likely, Robin just doesn’t want Nightwing to know he screamed.
Tim has never had an older brother, but he knows enough to know that if he had one, he’d rather throw himself to the killer croc than let them know he screamed and ran from an intruder in the house.
Actually, Tim is a bit disconcerted by his hero’s inexplicable behaviour, but then again, even Robin is probably allowed a bad day. Maybe there was a fear toxin incident that day, and it just never got on the news.
Tim sadly supposes he should probably stay away from the Manor for the near future, anyway. He’s tempted fate enough already.
That resolution lasts all of two weeks.
……………………………..
The portrait gallery sucks. Creepyass place.
Jason is more than a little tempted o start an accidental fire in there. After all, Bruce has his mom and dad’s portraits in his own study, it isn’t like anyone they know would be burned up.
He is not proud to admit, even to himself, that the deciding factor which had his brain voting no on it was less responsibility and more the horror movie image of the folk in the portraits crawling out when the paintings burned, moaning ‘free at last’.
Okay, maybe Jason is a bit of a baby. When it comes to creepy paintings whose eyes follow you down the way too long gallery.
It takes him a trip three quarters of the way down to locate the baby ghost.
Okay, obviously not the baby ghost himself (Jason might have actually needed clean pants if the freaky thing pulled a jumpscare like that on him here) but the baby ghost’s portrait.
It is a family painting, the kind that had dad and mom and like a dozen kids of varying ages all crowded around the stuffiest of stuffy living rooms, all trying to smile and succeeding only in looking like they are all plotting multiple ax murders.
As someone who has been stuffed into a tuxedo for parties too often, Jason can kinda sympathise once he pays attention to the clothes they are wearing. Seriously, how did people actually breathe those days?
The baby ghost is standing at a corner of the family group, squeezed into the painting right next to his sister whose head is a mass of carroty red curls.
He’s dressed in white and blue Eton suit or whatever they used to call it those days (Jason is trying to get a lock on Victorian dressing customs so that he can actually visualise what people are wearing in the novels, but it is kind of a slow progress) instead of black like he remembers, but the made of glass look is pretty much the same.
The painter seems to have tried to put a bit of colour into the kid’s face, possibly in an effort to make him look a little less like something dug up last week, but still, the look is there. So freaking small, even next to his Victorian-era-small family.
The portraits all have legends underneath, and more detailed information in the library’s genealogies.
Okay, so the baby ghost is called Timotheus Wayne.
1855 – 1864.
Ouch. Nine years old. Died less than a year after the family portrait was painted. Which likely explains the frail look.
Lots of kids died those days with consumption and what not – so maybe little Timotheus was sickening even while he was being posed like a baby doll for the painting.
Jason hates standing still long enough even for the class photos, till the photographer has got everyone positioned and smiling just right – and that takes like fifteen minutes max, even with idiots clowning around and pulling faces. He can barely imagine how long they got baby Timotheus to pose for the painter.
No wonder the kid decided to haunt the place. Jason might himself do it if someone so much as suggested he hold a pose to…
Wait, how did he die? Internet is fairly united in the consensus that ghosts are usually formed by violent deaths…
Well, usually, Jason. Usually. As opposed to ‘always’. Use that As in every English paper language skills. But still, Jason is now very curious as to what went down with his baby ghost.
The folk crowded around him in the family portrait looks like every one in portraits. Creepy as hell, and clearly wishing to be anywhere but there. That’s nothing new.
That aside, Jason really really doesn’t like the look in mom’s and dad’s eyes. Cold, even accounting for the portrait level creepiness.
And, okay, he knows it was a different time, hugging and kissing kids were for uncultured peasants. but still, something about them sets off random alarm bells in his head. And yeah, there are way too many alarm bells in there.
This time, Jason chooses to go to the library in daytime. There are ghosts who can come out in daylight, google assures him, but they are rarer than the other kind.
Plus, he has an idea the baby ghost won’t look quite so spooky in sunlight even if he is hanging around.
The family history books are stuck in the least perused section. The last time someone checked it was likely Alfred checking for damage.
Or possibly Dick looking for thick books to make into a book ladder high enough to reach the top shelf, because he couldn’t climb the shelves with a broken ankle and the normal book-fetching ladders were too boring.
(Okay, Dick was a bit high on pain killers at the time, which staved off the worst of Alfred’s reaction, but Jason has no intention of pretending that is not something Dick would have done hundred percent sober – he just might not have fallen over, alerting Bruce before the book ladder was completed)
The family histories are thicker than two Bibles put together each. Well. At least looks like there’s plenty of detail – hopefully hot gossip.
Of course, the details turn out to be mostly lawyerese related to estates, mortgages, inheritances and what not. Gossip is unfortunately lacking to a severe degree.
But not completely lacking. At least, not if you are a certified literature nerd trained to read between the lines.
Timotheus Wayne was too tiny and too insignificant – seventh kid of a line which already had the required male heir and spare – to merit much of an entry.
But his death is unusual enough to have been commented on. In a single sentence, yes, but commented on.
Young Timotheus Wayne, following chastisement from his father Amadeus Wayne, left the Manor and went into the grounds in a fit of temper, and was found dead of exposure to elements the next morning. May God have mercy on his soul.
Fuck. That’s nasty.
Now, Jason is an avid reader of Victorian classics. He knows the kind of chastisement a kid those days got directly from his dad doesn’t involve being put in time-out.
Sure, kids those days – and grownups, of course – considered it normal, just as Jason’s dad considered it perfectly normal.
But he also knows the kind of – level of – chastisement it would take for a little rich boy like Timotheus Wayne to run out into the snow.
He really really wants to punch the smug painted face of Amadeus Wayne, just on principle.
Besides… Found dead of exposure…
Okay, it may not be like that, the grounds are huge and it was Victorian era, it isn’t like they could go out there searching with flashlights and megaphones the way Bruce, Dick and Alfred did that one time Jason had a panic attack and ran into the woods.
And even then, Jason overheard Bruce mumbling he was only a moment away from calling Clark to help with the search when Alfred finally located the runaway.
So, it definitely doesn’t mean his baby ghost’s folk just left him out there. For all he knows, they were out there searching all night with lanterns and whatnot, they were just…too late.
However, Jason can’t help the creeping intuition that tells him they didn’t even notice. That they figured little Timotheus was waiting out his ‘chastisement’ somewhere in the house or in his room and just…didn’t bother to look.
Till a maid going to draw water or feed the horses or something stumbled across a little body in the grounds…
Okay, now even Jason has to admit he is getting a bit carried away.
His imagination is great for literature class, not so much for detective work, as Bruce keeps having to remind him. He has a tendency to extrapolate a bit too much from evidence – and a tendency to see what he wants to see.
Bruce says that is natural for his age and level of experience, that he will get the hang of it in time. Doesn’t make it any less embarrassing.
Okay, but even with just the available facts, Jason already wants to bundle up the baby ghost in a blanket and feed him Alfred’s chicken soup.
Nine years old. Got beaten – whipped or caned or whatever they did those days – for something stupid like forgetting to keep his elbows off the table. Ran out into the snow, no doubt crying. Died out there, scared and cold and alone.
Fuck it. It sounds like Bruce’s adoption instincts are hereditary.
The Vengeful Dead or not, Jason has made his decision. The Ghost Baby is his. Now he has to figure out how to go about making sure said ghost baby knows that.
……………………………..
Tim knows he shouldn’t head over to the Wayne Manor again. Robin let him go one time, but the next…
Besides, they’d have figured out how he got in and closed that security lapse by now, right?
He should stay at home. Or just head out on his photography expeditions again.
Last time he got an awesome shot of Nightwing catching Robin in mid-air while hanging upside down from one of Ivy’s rampaging giant Venus Fly-traps.
While something that great only comes along once in a while (and today is a school night, Robin won’t be on patrol), Tim is nothing if not optimistic.
So, that is the smart option right now. You can get photos.
Always assuming the Bats aren’t waiting to capture their stalker in the act, then again, Tim always assumes that. That is default position.
But still… It’s just that today is his birthday. Mom and dad usually remember to send their presents via amazon.
Sure, he knows he shouldn’t feel bad about it. They are busy, they’ve got a lot of work stuff to focus on.
Tim really shouldn’t be childish enough to act all sulky just because his presents got delayed a bit. That’s behaviour unbecoming of the Drake heir.
But still. Tim is feeling a bit too weepy right now. And usually the cure for this kind of weepiness is a visit to the Manor.
It was already mentioned Tim doesn’t have the best decision-making skills, okay?
………………………………..
Jason has been camping out in the library with standard ghost hunting supplies for the last three nights. His baby ghost proved extremely uncooperative.
Jason really doesn’t want to find that Timotheus turns up only like, once a year or something, but given the first ghost sighting didn’t happen anywhere close to the kid’s birth or death days suggest that isn’t the case.
But still, the stakeouts are getting a bit too boring.
Especially since if someone finds him in the library covered with all the silver crucifixes he could scrounge up from unlocked – or easily lockpicked – drawers and armed with three different Bibles, there’s no explanation he can offer.
Except possibly a temporary bout of insanity. Which this probably is.
Wait! Yeah, that was definitely a real sound. There! His baby ghost is back.
Crucifix, check. Bible, check. Salt, check.
Now, Jason doesn’t want to jump out with the ghost hunting equivalent of machine guns aimed at the baby ghost, so he just keeps them in hand – not particularly pointed at anyone.
“Hi!”
Maybe not the best way to greet a Victorian kid ghost, but still.
…………………………..
Tim freezes.
Robin is standing before him.
Oh. Of course they set a trap. Of course now he’s caught trespassing.
Tim finds himself having a mini panic attack, visions of hovering cowls and dungeons flashing through his brain.
So he actually misses computing what exactly Robin is telling him.
And when his brain does calm down enough to translate sounds into ideas, that isn’t making sense either.
“…so, wanna be friends?” Robin holds out a hand cautiously, like someone trying to coax a stray puppy that may or may not bite.
For that particular question, even if it hadn’t been coming from Robin, Tim’s answer is always a default yes. So he is nodding his head so hard his hair flaps into his eyes when Robin continues.
“I mean, I know you’re ghost and all that, which is creepyass cool, lil dude, but we can hang out?”
Ghost? Tim’s brain short circuits a little.
Okay… Robin thinks – for some reason – that Tim is a ghost.
But Robin also wants to be friends with Ghost!Tim. Robin may not want to be friends with creepy stalker neighbour Tim. So, really when you come to think of it, the choice is obvious.
“Yeah! Sure, I’m the ghost! I mean, a ghost! You really wanna be friends?”
Robin’s beaming smile in response takes away any doubts Tim’s sanity might have whispered about this particular turn of events.