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“Hey, look what I found!”
All eyes turned to Dick as he entered the living room with a grin, holding aloft a board. It didn’t take long for them to see what it was, eyes widening.
“Dick, where did you find that?” Duke asked.
“I think the better question is how did that get past Bruce?” Tim questioned over his cup of coffee.
“Whoever did get it past him is a mad genius! I would have loved to see Bruce’s face to having this in the manor!” Steph exclaimed, a mad grin on her face as the chaos of that danced in her eyes.
“I do not understand. What is the significance of the board Grayson is holding and why would Father not want it here?” Damian questioned from where he was petting Titus, frowning.
“It’s a spirit board!” Dick revealed, lowering the spirit board, still grinning. “I found it while I was looking for the Monopoly board among the rest of the board games, and I got an idea.”
“We’re not gonna cheat each other over Monopoly houses again?” Steph asked in a dry tone that earned her a sharp glare from Tim.
“That was one time, Steph.”
“You know what you did, Drake. You know what you did.”
“I thought we could hold a seance!” Dick revealed.
A minute of silence, before Duke raised a hand and asked, “Uh, isn’t that the start to every single horror movie ever?”
“We know occultists. We should be able to call one if we summon a demon. Hopefully,” Tim pointed out, shrugging.
Duke still didn’t look convinced, so Steph said, “And it would be fun communicating with the other side!”
“Tt. A piece of wood seems like an inane way to communicate with the dead,” Damian criticised.
“Okay, we definitely need to hold a seance now,” Steph declared, a wicked grin curving up her face as she hopped off the couch and leaned against Damian, the youngest Wayne scowling. “Besides, we’ve seen weirder shit in our lives. What’s the harm in talking to some ghosts?”
The mood shifted at that, his siblings leaning more toward the seance. Dick was glad he made the right choice grabbing the spirit board—and avoiding another family war in the process by conveniently ignoring the Monopoly board.
“We’re all in for the seance?” Dick asked. At the nods he got, he grinned. “Great! I’ll set everything up.”
As his siblings got ready for the seance, Tim raised a hand. “Quick question. Where are we gonna hold this seance thing?”
That had all movement halt as Dick realised he hadn’t really thought about that. He thought they would hold it here, but now…
As consideration went into where to hold the seance, Cass let out a small smirk.
“I have an idea.”
***
The shadows in the library seemed taller and darker than normal. Probably because of the candles—or the fact communications with the dead would be happening tonight as the siblings gathered around the spirit board in a circle.
Damian glared at the candles spread around the board and the room. “Really, Brown? How are candles important for this?”
“It’s for the ambiance, Damian,” Steph said, the candlelight flashing against her grin. “All seances need candles for the ambiance.”
“And the Ghostbusters theme song?” Tim asked.
“It was a good idea and I’ll stand by that!” Steph defended as she leaned against Cass.
Dick clapped his hands, directing his siblings’ attention to him. “Okay, are we ready to start this?”
“Ready when you are, Dick,” Duke said as his siblings gave signs that they were ready to begin the seance.
“Okay, everyone place your fingers on the planchette,” Dick instructed. As one they all put their fingers on the planchette. “Does everyone know the rules?”
Tim rolled his eyes. “We went through the rules five times before we started this, Dick. I think we all know the rules by now.”
“Doesn’t hurt to check,” Dick replied. “Now, who’s ready to speak to the dead?”
“Don’t we technically do that everyday with Jason?” Duke questioned, but was quickly hushed by a grinning Steph.
As his siblings quieted, Dick cleared his throat and said, “Spirits, we are here tonight to speak with you beyond the veil. Will you show us a sign you’re here?”
For a moment, nothing.
Then the planchette moved.
“Holy shit, it’s moving.”
“Are you doing this, Dick?”
“It’s not me, Baby Bird.”
“Tt. This does not prove spirits are among us.”
“Hang on, I think it’s saying something!”
As the planchette moved, they read out what was being spelled.
“‘H’. ‘E’. ‘L.’ ‘L’. ‘O’. ‘Hello’,” they read out, looking at each other.
“Uh, hey, spirit! Spirits? How’s the afterlife like?” Steph questioned.
No response came from the board.
“What do we do next?” Cass murmured.
“Keep going!” Steph egged, looking right at Dick.
“Okay. Uh, hi. How many spirits are with us now?” Dick questioned.
The planchette moved again, heading straight towards the number and landing on 1.
“One. Okay, one spirit is among us,” Tim said.
“Let’s hope it’s not a demon we’re about to summon,” Duke muttered.
“I think it’s too late for that,” Tim commented as he looked at Damian. Damian glared murderously back at Tim.
“Good thing we have Zatanna and Raven on speed dial!” Steph exclaimed cheerily.
“Can I ask the next question?” Cass inquired.
“Go ahead, Cass,” Dick said, metaphorically leaving the stage to her.
His little sister stared at the board as she asked in her quiet voice, “Spirit, what is your name?”
The planchette moved again, inhales of breath and glimmers of anticipation and curiosity shining in his siblings’ faces as the seance continued, even Damian not able to resist his curiosity of the seance. Dick smiled at that.
He had made the right choice.
***
Jason had been heading down to the library to see if he could find a book to read before heading back to his apartment when he heard voices and saw light flickering under the door.
What the hell?
Cracking open the door, Jason was about to enter when he heard and saw more clearly what was going on—his siblings huddled together in a circle, candles flickering unguarded around the books in a way that had Jason grind his teeth and would have Alfred’s blood pressure rise, whispering and hushing each other as Jason eavesdropped.
“Why can’t we ask the spirit about their opinion on Gotham’s best vigilante?”
“Because we all know that answer and Jenny would agree with me.”
“Why would—never mind, it’s too biased. Let’s ask her something else.”
“Yes, because we all know what her answer would most likely be.”
“Is that for the demon comment? I said I was sorry.”
“Tt.”
“Guys, we need to ask another question!”
“Oh, get her opinion on the worst Gotham rogue!”
“That’s pretty easy, but—Jenny, who is the worst rogue in Gotham?”
The voices shut up as his siblings’ bodies lurched, but Jason heard enough to connect the pieces.
His siblings were holding a fucking seance, probably with the spirit board Jason had bought as a gag gift for Bruce so he had another way to “communicate” with him (the look on the old man’s face had been priceless). He didn’t know how they found it, but apparently someone had and roped everyone else into doing a seance (it was probably either Steph or Dick)
But as he watched the seance continue, all thoughts of grabbing a book faded as a wicked grin carved across Jason’s face, an idea popping into his head.
Opening the door and closing it quietly, he creeped over to his siblings as Tim read out, “Condiment King. She said Condiment King, everyone.”
“Figures. He is the worst,” Steph said.
“Okay, what should we ask her next?” Dick asked.
“Oh! Ask her about her opinions on waffles!” Steph suggested.
“Wait, isn’t she dead? Wouldn’t she not need to eat anymore?”
“Hush, Duke. Waffles are universal whether you’re alive or dead.”
“I’m thinking we call an end to this,” Tim offered.
“Getting scared, Timmy?” Steph teased.
“No, but I don’t want to summon something else either and have it get loose in the manor.”
“Tim’s right. We should probably wrap this up,” Dick decided.
Jason’s grin grew wider. Oh, his timing was perfect.
Jason stood there, hiding in the shadows as much as he could, watching as Steph groaned. “Really, Dick? Just one more question! Cass, you agree with me, right?”
“Better say goodbye now, than risk something bad,” Cass pointed out.
“Traitor,” Steph hissed.
“I agree with Grayson. Best to wish the spirit farewell than keep her here longer and have something else enter our world,” Damian pitched in.
“Okay, fine. Majority rules. Let’s say goodbye,” Steph grumbled.
“Spirits, thank you for answering our call. We send you back beyond the veil, and wish you goodbye,” Dick called out. The candles flickered, the darkness shifted, seeming blacker and heavier than before, then—
Silence.
“Did it work? Is she gone?”
“I think it worked.”
“We better not have summoned anything else.”
“B would probably kill us if we brought a demon into the manor.”
“Nah, Alfred would kill us faster than Bruce.”
“Good thing we didn’t summon anything else!”
That was Jason’s cue.
He walked to the other side of the room, stomping purposely louder on the floor than usual as his siblings froze.
“Did you hear that?”
“Is that—“
The urge to laugh filled Jason, substituting it for a manic grin as he pulled a book out and let it topple to the ground, ducking behind an armchair as his siblings whirled.
“What was that?!”
“Did Jenny move things? I don’t think she moved things!”
“It was probably not shoved in right! Books can fall off on their own. It’s happened before.”
“Uh, I’m willing to bet not fighting Condiment King next time on something spooky being behind it instead.”
God, Jason was having so much fun messing with his siblings.
He crept up behind them as Tim hissed, “You sure you banished the spirit, Dick?”
“I did, Tim! I banished the spirit!”
“Then what is going on?!”
“I don’t know!”
“Did we summon something else then?”
“Maybe something slipped through while we were waiting to banish Jenny? And Steph wanted to keep her here longer to ask her about waffles.”
“It was a valid question, Duke!”
“Tt. This bickering is pointless.”
“Guys,” Cass whispered. “Someone’s here.”
His siblings all turned still as statues, looking more terrified now that Cass had let them all know someone else was in the room with them, someone they couldn’t see yet.
Time to reveal himself.
“There is,” Jason growled, deepening his voice to almost the gravel that the old man put on when he was Batman. “You have summoned me from beyond the veil. I slipped through, and I am not leaving this mortal plane. Not until I have had my fun.”
Fear blanched most of his siblings’ faces at Jason’s words, and he almost ruined it by cackling.
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!”
“Oh man, we summoned a demon!”
“Quick, Steph, call someone!”
“I’m working on it!”
Jason’s grin was truly demonic as he crept forward, savouring the panic of his siblings of the demon they “summoned”, inhaled…
And let himself step into the flickering candlelight as he gave his best demonic roar.
Screams filled the air as reflexes kicked in, Jason dodging Dick’s punch and the birdarang flung at his head and the knife that joined it a millisecond later. He doubled over with laughter as his siblings screamed and flailed about before they realised there was no demon but just…
“Jason?!” Steph shrilled.
Jason smirked. “In the undead flesh.”
“Fuck, you gave me a heart attack you asshole!” the blonde yelled.
Duke pressed a hand to his chest. “That’s some years I’m never recovering.”
“What the hell, Jason?!” Tim yelled, glaring at him as Cass frowned, but he could see she was impressed at his prank.
Damian just flat-out glared at Jason, murder in his eyes as Dick stared at him.
“What was that for, Little Wing?” his older brother questioned.
“I was summoned by your seance, Dickiebird. Thought I give you a scare while at it,” Jason replied, an evil grin on his face.
His siblings stared at him before a cacophony of chatter rang out as Jason moved towards the shelves, putting the book he’d pulled out back and grabbing another book and walking out.
“Remember to blow out the candles—I’ll kill you before Alfred does if there’s a fire in the library because someone stupid forgot and left one burning!” Jason called over his shoulder, still grinning as he buzzed with the satisfaction of scaring the shit out of his siblings.
Worth it.
***
“We need to get back at Jason.”
The statement rang through the quiet air as everyone stared at Tim, the speaker of it. He was glaring, arms crossed, spite and revenge for Jason’s prank fuelling him.
It had been a week since Jason pranked them at the end of the seance, and he’d been smug about it ever since, confident none of them could get him back before prank season started and they could pull out the big guns. And none of them, Tim himself, had been able to figure out a suitable prank to pull on him as revenge.
So what Tim said, in his apartment with everyone who had been at the seance and victim to Jason’s prank, was not just a statement, but a question:
How could they get back at Jason?
“Okay, how do we do that, Tim? Exactly?” Duke asked. “He got us pretty good last week.”
Cass nodded in agreement. “Didn’t know he was there until much later.”
“I’m all for returning the favour, but I’ve been stumped on ideas. And you know I’m a prank queen,” Steph said, annoyance on her face at her prank block.
“And we’ve all been busy with patrol and our civilian lives, so not much time for pranks,” Duke added in.
Damian nodded. “The timing is… disagreeable with knowing how to prank Todd.”
That was exactly how Tim expected his siblings to react. Less so Steph, but he figured between college clases and her prank block she wouldn’t have any ideas. And he didn’t have any of his own, much to his frustration.
Well, except for one, but it would take a lot of convincing and planning, and “borrowing” Bruce’s credit card—though maybe that would convince Steph if the sheer chaos of the idea didn’t…
That was when Tim noticed Dick hadn’t said anything yet.
“Dick?” he asked, as everyone turned to the eldest Wayne. “Do you have an idea?”
His brother looked at them, letting Tim see the evil look on his face. “Oh, I have an idea. And I’m betting you have the same idea, Timmy.”
At that, Tim’s own evil grin spread over his face as Damian, Steph, Cass and Duke looked between them, Duke frowning.
“Hang on. What are you two thinking?”
“We summoned a ghost…” Dick started, looking right at Tim.
“… So let’s hunt a ghost,” Tim finished, returning the look.
Understanding clicked and Steph cackled. “Oh, that’s brilliant.”
“He’s probably gonna kill us, but it will be worth it,” Duke said, now grinning.
“So worth it,” Steph agreed.
“Perfect plan,” Cass commented, a wicked grin gracing her face.
“Tt. As if there aren’t any other better ideas than this one,” Damian muttered, but Tim knew the brat liked the idea more than he was letting on.
That was it. They were all in agreement of their revenge prank against Jason.
Now, time to plan. And buy the needed equipment for it. And maybe plot their escape routes since Jason would definitely try and kill them at the end of the prank.
But Duke was right. It was going to be so worth it at the end.
Little did any of them know the prank would not work out how they thought.
***
A few days later, they were ready.
Gathered in the library, a pile of ghost hunting equipment next to them, the siblings watched as Steph set up a video camera, a manic grin on her face at the prank that was about to be performed.
At that moment, Tim entered the library, a wicked grin on his face as everyone turned to him.
“It’s all set?” Dick asked.
“Yep. Just finished rigging everything up,” Tim confirmed, sitting between Cass and Duke.
Steph cackled. “Oh, this is gonna be great.”
Switching the camera on, she turned it onto her face and announce, “What’s up spooks and ghouls! Tonight, the Wayne fam and I are at Wayne Manor for some ghost hunting! Everyone say hi!”
The Wayne siblings waved at the camera, before Steph focused the camera on Dick and asked, “As the eldest, Dick, care to explain what happened here last week?”
“Sure,” Dick said, leaning forward as a confiding smile bloomed on his face. “Last week, we performed a seance here in this very library. Just a little harmless communication with the other side. But now…”
Dick dramatically looked around before stage-whispering, “I think we actually summoned something into the manor.”
The camera returned back to Steph’s grinning face. “Spooky, right? But as a member of the seance, I can confirm we totally summoned something and it’s stuck around! So we’re gonna find some ghosts and see who we could have summoned! Let’s just hope it wasn’t a demon!”
Steph looked at Tim as she asked, “Tim, will you do the honours and start this ghost hunt off?”
Tim rolled his eyes, but he was holding back a grin as he picked up the first of the ghost hunting equipment he and Steph had bought hours ago earlier today, the others grinning as well as Operation: Ghost Hunt In Wayne Manor officially begun.
However, in the background, almost hidden by the shadows, a static image of two white-haired humanoid forms with glowing green eyes and sharp-toothed grins appeared, before disappearing.
None of the Wayne siblings noticed as Tim fiddled with a contraption that looked like a walkie talkie, saying, “This is a spirit box. Theoretically, we should hear ghosts talking to us through it in three, two…”
On the unsaid one, Tim turned on the spirit box, which let out a rattling shriek.
All of them flinched at the noise, but crowded around the spirit box as it kept screeching.
As they did, that was the moment Jason entered the library. He paused what he was doing as he frowned at his family. “What are you doing?”
No response came, as if they hadn’t heard him.
Jason rolled his eyes. “Very funny. Now what is going on here? And what the fuck is that noise? Don’t tell me you’re holding another seance.”
Again, no response until Tim muttered, “Hang on, I think I hear something…”
“What is it saying?”
“Oh I think it’s saying screw you Bruce!”
“I don’t think it is?”
“Hush, Duke! Trust my instincts! Especially if it’s who I think it is!”
“I agree with Thomas. Seems illogical a spirit would say that about Father.”
“I can’t believe we have doubters here!”
“Hey!”
“Tt. I believe that my doubt is quite valid, Brown.”
“Wait, I hear something!”
Jason glared at his siblings, before a look of realisation came over his face as he headed over to his siblings, the glare intensifying. “If this is payback for last week, then—“
Jason froze, head whipping up as he looked behind him, every part of his body tensing. “What the fuck?”
“I think someone’s communicating with us!” Dick announced. “I think it may be… no! Jason?”
That got the very much alive Jason’s attention as Steph cackled. “Hah! I knew it! I knew we summoned him here last week!”
“That was still up for debate,” Damian retorted.
“We were in the library. If he was going to haunt any room in the manor, it would be here.”
“Hey, he’s saying something else!”
Jason, who was still being ignored and was definitely not a ghost, scowled. “You fuckers, is this really your revenge prank? I—“
Jason froze again, whirling around and staring into space. For a second, two pairs of glowing green eyes appeared from the darkness before the video image blurred with static and the spirit box shrieked.
If it had been loud before, it was full on screaming now, the device practically shaking as the static warped the image quality of the video and garbling the Wayne siblings’ voices as they shouted over each other. Above the shouting and the spirit box’s screaming, laughter echoed, distorted by the static as through the glitching images, for a moment a glowing boy with white hair, glowing green eyes and wearing a black jumpsuit with a symbol on it appeared, a grin made of fangs on his face as he saluted the camera, eyes flashing brighter before he winked out of sight and the static cleared and the spirit box quieted before it was shut off entirely—enough for everyone to hear the softer sound of multiple objects falling to the ground.
The Wayne siblings startled, turning around and seeing no one there.
Instead, a pile of books was on the ground.
“Was that there before?” Duke asked.
“No,” Cass said quietly, her eyes flicking briefly toward the ceiling before returning to the books, a small frown on her face.
“Okay. Cool. Happy to hear I’m not going insane,” Duke muttered, eyeing the books warily.
Steph eyed the fallen pile of books, a manic twinkle in her eyes as she looked at the siblings. “Guess that proves there’s a ghost in the manor!”
“Yeah,” Dick said, also staring at the books but with a bit more confusion. “Guess it does.”
“Well then,” Steph said, getting to her feet, “we have a lead! Let’s go and find some more ghosts!”
Agreement echoed from the siblings as Steph lowered the camera and they got ready to leave the library, a piece of ghost hunting equipment in hand, Tim swapping the spirit box out for a Geiger counter—but not before putting the books on the shelves—chattering about what other ghosts they might find or it will just be Jason. Jason himself stood there, a frown on his face as he stared at the space where the glowing boy had been, before he walked out of the library just before his siblings did, still talking as they went on the search and continue the prank.
None of them noticed the two hazy silhouettes floating in their direction before vanishing out of sight entirely.
***
When the video came back on, the Wayne siblings were walking down a corridor, Tim leading them as he held the Geiger counter while Duke had the spirit box, Dick had an EMF metre and Cass and Damian were holding thermo cameras.
“You know, I think we should have used the spirit board again. The spirit box was a bust,” Steph mused behind the camera.
Duke gaped at her. “Steph, we’re hunting for ghosts. Not trying to live out a horror movie for a second time!”
“Aren’t we already living out a horror movie right now hunting for ghosts? And at least it would have been fun!”
“Hey, I think I got something!”
Everyone’s attention snapped back to Tim as he raised the Geiger counter higher and Dick asked, “What have you got, Timmy?”
“Picking up some really weird readings here…” Tim muttered as he walked down the corridor and swept the Geiger counter around, everyone following him, before turning around and heading back down the corridor.
Footsteps sounded as Jason walked past, halting at seeing his siblings as Tim suddenly swung around in his direction, exclaiming, “It’s right there! I think we have another ghost!”
Jason looked bemused, then rolled his eyes in annoyance at his siblings. “You’re still doing this?”
None of the others responded as they crowded around Tim as Duke observed, “Those look really high.”
“Yeah, the ghost must be really close. Probably right in front of us,” Tim affirmed, pointing the Geiger counter right at Jason as it clicked louder.
Jason rolled his eyes again, looking thoroughly annoyed at his siblings’ ghost hunting antics. “Okay, this shit’s getting old really fast. You got me, so—“
Jason tensed, looking back and forth as if he was trying to find something as Duke frowned, eyes squinting. The others were oblivious, staring at the Geiger counter as it kept showing them high readings of a ghost.
And not seeing the disembodied head of a girl poking through the ceiling above them as the Geiger counter’s readings spiked and it whined.
“Whoa! Look at those readings!” Dick exclaimed.
“There has to be ghosts here!” Steph yelled triumphantly, all of them looking around for the ghost, right as the girl blinked out of sight and Jason gaped at the empty space where she’d just been.
“What the fuck?” he breathed as the others looked forward, still trying to find the ghost as they kept ignoring Jason.
That seemed to be the girl’s cue to reappear, fangs glinting in her toothy smile before her arm poked through the ceiling and joined her head, throwing a peace sign at the camera, before she froze and her head swivelled to Jason, eyes wide as she stared at him and he stared back at her as with the group, Cass was frowning. The white-haired girl quickly threw on another smile, disappearing from sight and this time didn’t reappear, the Geiger counter quieting down.
“Uh, it stopped.”
“Maybe the ghost moved on?”
“To another room or the afterlife?”
“I don’t know! Both?”
“No. The ghost is still here,” Cass informed, looking up at the ceiling.
That settled the argument as Dick grinned and said, “I guess that’s our cue to keep going and find this ghost.”
He ran down the corridors and past Jason, joined by the others, while Jason was still frowning at the ceiling before turning away.
The video faded to black.
***
Jason prowled down the halls of Wayne Manor, eyeing the shadows around him.
Earlier, he’d been confused, then annoyed by the revenge prank his siblings were pulling on him for his prank on them—a ghost hunting video? Seriously? (though he did admire their dedication in getting actual equipment for it)—but now…
Now, there was something in Wayne Manor. Something that only Jason could sense.
It had caught him by surprise, the first time he’d felt it—a chill against his spine, a tingle in his throat and prickling his lungs, all the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He’d forgotten all his annoyance at his siblings pretending to ignore him as part of their prank to try and find the threat, but there was nothing there.
He had started to believe that he’d imagined it—until he felt it again, before the air had suddenly chilled and he heard laughter. And he saw the boy.
The glowing boy with white hair and wearing a black and white jumpsuit, a symbol on his chest, freckles glowing against greenish tanned skin as he grinned a fanged grin.
And the eyes that glowed Lazarus green.
Jason had frozen at seeing the eyes that burned the same shade his did when he got seriously pissed off or had a Pit flare-up, the others oblivious to the boy floating literally above them who saluted the camera and then darted to a shelf and knocked several books down as that weird walkie talkie thing shrieked that deafening noise before disappearing.
Almost instantly, the temperature had warmed up, the screaming walkie talkie had grown silent and Jason was looking around for the boy, but he had vanished. Like he never existed.
He hadn’t seen the glowing boy or sensed him after that, and Jason was considering he had hallucinated him—he hadn’t been getting much sleep as he closed in on a gang stirring up trouble and bucking against his rules and needed a reminder who was running things in Crime Alley—until he came upon his siblings in one of the hallways, still doing their ghost hunting prank.
And that sense had gone off again, right before a girl with green-streaked white hair popped her head through the ceiling, a shit-eating grin on her face as her glowing green eyes burned with mischief.
Jason froze, staring at the girl before she disappeared as his siblings tried to find the “ghost”, but something in his gut told him the glowing girl was still there, just invisible.
It was proven true when the kid had reappeared, an arm popping through the ceiling to do a fucking peace sign before she tensed and turned her head to him, her eyes wide with shock, like…
Like she could sense him the same way he could sense her and the other glowing kid.
She had disappeared, and this time for good, after that and his siblings had moved on. And so had Jason, as he patrolled the halls of Wayne Manor for one purpose—to find those glowing kids and figure out what the fuck they were and how they got into the manor (and maybe tell them he was impressed by how they managed to get into the manor and fuck with his paranoid siblings without them noticing)
But there was another reason he was looking for those glowing kids, a reason Jason was keeping buried under lock and key, in the dark recesses of his mind, that he didn’t want to acknowledge.
That whenever he felt those kids’ presence before they appeared and messed with his siblings with this weird fucking sixth sense he somehow had, there was this feeling of… likeness. It struck a chord in Jason whenever one of the pair was close, a sense of sameness that resonated within him.
It strangely comforted him as much as it fucking unnerved him.
It didn’t help that Jason’s other instincts raised up when he sensed the pair, a feeling of danger and the whispered warning to run pinging in the back of his head when the temperature dropped and static shivered in the air, that had Jason convinced whoever or whatever the fuck the glowing pair were, they were dangerous and he needed to find them, before they decided to hurt his family instead of just screwing with them.
No one fucking touched his family, even if they were pranking each other. No one.
So Jason was on the hunt, looking for the pair, every part of his body bracing for the moment this new sixth sense of his would go off, one ear out for his siblings as they continued their revenge prank at him, and he was so getting back at them during prank season—
A shiver rattled down his spine, a burning prickle in his throat and lungs, each hair rising up, before an echoey cackle ricocheted off the walls, the air chilling.
Jason turned, tensing as the cackles rang off the walls before—there.
A glowing silhouette ghosting through the walls, followed by another and hurried shushing, more laughter coming.
Jason followed the laughter, creeping around the corner as the glowing kids he’d been sensing all night started talking.
“Oh man, this is gonna be so good.”
“You sure you can do this, Ellie?”
“Relax, bro! I’ve done this before! Besides, what’s more spooky than ectoplasm bleeding through the walls?”
Jason was surprised, because the kids sounded like that—kids. Despite the staticky echo clinging to their voices, they didn’t sound much older than Duke. The mischief crackling in their voices didn’t help the comparison either as Jason shifted around the corner and saw the glowing kids properly all night.
Both kids had white, floating hair, the girl’s having green streaks that rippled in her hair like water, tanned and freckled skin with a greenish tinge, and green eyes that still reminded Jason uncomfortably of the Pit, of his own glowing eyes. The boy was wearing a black jumpsuit with white gloves, boots, collar and belt and green accents while the girl had on a black and white shirt with green collar and line bisecting the black and white, black pants with green accents on the sides, white boots, black and white fingerless gloves and a black jacket, all of which had some green accents on them. They were hovering a good foot off the ground, the white glow around them flaring with their excitement and mischief and underlying threat of danger.
They… were just kids. And kids who were apparently pranking his siblings as they were pranking him, if their conversation and this entire night was anything to go by.
The boy tapped his chin and mused, “I guess it wouldn’t be a proper haunting without some ecto. Okay, let’s do it.”
The girl flashed a grin full of fangs, pumping her fist. “Yes! Time for some tag-teaming!”
The boy grinned at his sister—maybe his twin, given how similar they looked—his own excitement flashing over his face, the glow encasing him flaring brighter. “You do the goop, I do the chill.”
“Done and done!” the girl chirped, saluting her brother before she tensed, something green dripping from her nose as a puff of blue-tinged air left her brother’s mouth. The siblings turned and Jason ducked behind the wall before they saw him.
“You okay, Elle?”
“Yeah. Just thought I sensed something. But it’s nothing.”
“Yeah, I thought I sensed it too. Never mind. Let’s go. We’ve got some spooking to do.”
“Fuck yes!”
The pair disappeared—to find his siblings and prank them, Jason assumed. He stepped around the corner, looking at the spot the twins had hovered, before he grinned and turned around, walking away.
Sure, he could warn his siblings about the other pair of pranksters haunting them, but as long as they weren’t going to hurt his family, then Jason wasn’t feeling like warning them.
Instead, he was going to enjoy what else the pair would do in pranking his siblings.
***
The siblings were in another room of the manor, Cass having custody of the camera this time. In the centre of the group was Tim, who was fiddling with the spirit box, having taken it back as Duke now held the Geiger counter.
“Are we seriously going to use that again?” Duke asked, wincing at the memory of the noise it made in the library.
“Well, it’s our only way to communicate with any ghosts here other than the spirit board,” Tim argued.
“Yeah, but what if it goes nuts like it did back at the library?”
“Then ghosts are here,” Cass pointed out, a small grin on her face as she looked at her siblings and best friend behind the camera. It wasn’t much of a tease, though, as Cass had been certain someone else had been with her, her siblings and Steph, but she’d never caught sight of them to check.
Duke sighed. “I guess. Though that hasn’t been the only thing giving me a headache…”
He squinted above him, rubbing his forehead before looking back at the others again.
“We also have the EMF metre. Why don’t we use that in—“ Dick suggested before the spirit box’s racket cut him off—right as the lights in the room the group was in fizzled out.
“Hey, who turned off all the lights?!”
A laugh pierced the dark room, the spirit box screaming higher.
“Did you guys hear that?”
“Was that you Dick?”
“No! Tim?”
“Wasn’t me—AARGH!”
“Tim!”
“Something just grabbed my arm! Damian, if that was you—“
“Tt, I was nowhere near you, Drake.”
“Then who—AHH! It grabbed me again!”
A yelp. “It grabbed me too! God it’s like ice!”
“Okay, whoever it is, fess up now!”
“Wasn’t any of us, Dick!”
“Then if it isn’t any of us, then who?”
Laughter, high and staticky, cut through the chaos before the lights blinked back on, leaving the group staring at each other in confusion, Tim looking around wildly as Steph patted her shoulder, eyes wide.
Cass, noticing something past the camera, pointed to the wall. The others turned and gaped.
There, on the wall, was something green, goopy and glowing. Before their eyes, it disappeared, leaving the group stunned.
“Was that—“
“It can’t be—“
Dick looked to the camera, looking more shaken than he had been earlier that night. “I think there’s something definitely spooky happening here.”
No one argued.
***
When the video cut off again, they looked at each other before shooting questions at each other.
“Did Jason plan for us to do this?”
“Why did that look like Lazarus water but gooey?”
“Seriously though, is that his counterattack—wait, no, when would he have the time to plan a counterattack? And where would he get Lazarus water?”
“Tt, that looked nothing like the Lazarus waters.”
“You sure, Damian? It looked like Lazarus water to me!”
Silence from Damian, who despite his neutral look was unnerved by what had appeared to be Lazarus water on the wall.
“Whatever it is, it was not helping my migraine,” Duke said, rubbing his forehead.
“Migraine?” Cass questioned, giving him a concerned look as the others’ attention snapped to him.
“Ever since the library, I’ve been getting… flashes of something glowing? Whatever it is, it’s freaking bright and really messing with my powers,” Duke explained.
Cass gave him another concerned look before revealing, “Been noticing things too. Sometimes feel as if someone else is with us. Don’t know if ghosts. Might be connected to the glowing.”
The other Batkids frowned. None of them had seen anything glowing or anyone else in the manor, but they didn’t have light powers or Cass’ ability to read body language and to sense other people around her either. If Duke and Cass were both seeing something in the manor…
“We should investigate, after this is over,” Dick decided—if something could have infiltrated the manor, that wasn’t something Jason was part of to counter their prank, then they had to find out what it was (and how it got past the manor defences)
“Then let’s do the last part of the prank!” Steph declared, grinning wickedly. It was matched by the others as they left the room, to commence the final part of their revenge prank.
And missing the smothered, disembodied laughter as two hazy forms flicked to visibility before disappearing again.
***
Tim walked down the hallway near the main entrance of Wayne Manor, EMF metre in hand as it beeped. Behind him, the group looked around Wayne Manor, as Steph, who had the camera again, commented, “So it was ghosts. We all agree there, right?”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions yet, Brown,” Damian countered, rolling his eyes.
“How else do you explain it, Damian? Because it’s looking like ghosts to me,” Steph argued. “And it’s not like we haven’t seen weirder things before.”
Damian scoffed right as Tim stopped in his tracks, holding a hand out as he said, “Hold on. It’s got something.”
The group huddled together as the EMF meter beeped loudly.
“There’s weird fluctuations right here. Almost like… dead spots?” Tim muttered, before he grabbed the thermo camera out of Damian’s hands and gave him the EMF metre as it continued to beep, showing those very fluctuations to the rest of them.
In front of them, Jason lounged against the wall, arms crossed and smirking as Tim raised the camera. He looked up at the ceiling, shadows shifting as static crept into the video, a wicked edge to his smirk as he now looked at his siblings.
“I got something!” Tim exclaimed before lowering it. His face paled.
“What is it?” Cass asked as they crowded around it. Immediately their faces shared the same expression.
There, on the camera, were two cold spots in a vaguely humanoid shape floating near the ceiling, a brighter blue burning in the centre of where their chests should be. But there was nothing there, as if…
As if they were invisible.
“Boo.”
The group looked up. And nearly all of them screamed.
The camera’s video warped with static, but not before showing the boy and girl, now twisted to a horrific degree—auras glowing a virulent green and sucking in any source of light as the lights flickered erratically, eyes voids of toxic green and mouths stretched too wide and teeth too sharp, ears pointed and nails sharp, bodies distorted and blurry at the edges, hair snapping and wavering and floating, their faces glitching out with nothing but the green of their eyes and their fangs visible. Discordant cackles and shouts cut through the spirit box’s screaming as the camera was jostled from Steph’s flailing, not capturing how both she and Dick knocked Tim back and near Jason as Steph stepped on something on the floor, static corrupting the image quality and the spirit box’s shriek heightened to a piercing whine as Tim yelled, “Wait, Steph, Dick”—
The image cut out before it came back on five seconds later, the glowing kids gone and the Wayne siblings stunned as the Ghostbusters theme song blared from hidden speakers as green slime that looked like the ectoplasm from the movie blasted out from hidden machines and drenched Jason, Tim, Dick and Steph instead of just Jason, as in the chaos Steph had knocked them all into the firing range and set off the hidden trigger, after Tim had rigged all of it up earlier since this was how the prank was supposed to end.
“I think Wayne Manor has a couple of ghosts in it,” Tim surmised as he wiped green slime from his face.
Damian nodded, his skepticism thoroughly disproven. “All evidence seems to point that way.”
From behind the camera, Steph nodded as well, before the feed cut out for a final time.
***
“How did you do it?!”
That was the first question Tim yelled as Jason wiped green slime from his face, raising an eyebrow.
“How did I do what, Replacement?”
“How did you do all that shit to mess with us!? What sort of tech was that? Was that green glowing goo Lazarus water? How did you get that tech and Lazarus water?!” Tim demanded, glaring at Jason. It was less intimidating with green slime dripping from his face.
Jason rolled his eyes. “Timmers, I did jack shit. I had no idea about your ghost hunting prank, or what happened tonight. How would I even have the time to do it, anyway?”
That seemed to lessen the conviction as Tim grew quiet, knowing Jason was right, as Dick frowned.
“Wait, if you didn’t do it, then what was that?”
“Fuck if I know,” Jason said, before he grinned. “Maybe those were actually ghosts you summoned with your seance.”
His siblings and Steph glared at Jason as yelling now sprung up whether that last part and everything else was actually ghosts or not while Jason looked at the spot where the ghostly twins had been, a grin playing on his face despite the slime still coating him.
He didn’t know where the kids had gone to, or even why they had been here, or if they were actually ghosts (he wasn’t willing to face that if they were and what that meant for him and the likeness he’d felt from the twins, or if the “ectoplasm” they were talking about was the Lazarus Water his siblings saw and how the fuck they got Lazarus water), but Jason was impressed at how the pair had messed with his siblings all night, that they had earned his respect for their prank on what were the hardest people ever to prank without being part of the family.
He wondered if they were still laughing about it, wherever they were.
***
In a hotel in Gotham, a redheaded eighteen-year-old was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring at her phone, brows furrowed in a frown.
It deepened when a chill settled over the room and laughter rang, edged with static.
“Did you see their faces?”
“I did! Oh man, I wish I had a camera to capture it!”
“Next time, we better remember to bring one.”
“So there’s gonna be a next time, huh?” the redhead asked sharply as she turned toward the floating ghosts in front of her.
Said ghosts stiffened as they turned to her, matching glowing green eyes wide with panic.
“Jazz!” the boy yelped. “We were, uh—“
“Out for a flight!” the girl interjected, trying to save her brother, leaning on his shoulder as she gave a strained smile.
Jazz arched a skeptical brow. “Really, huh?”
“Yep!”
“And did you take a detour to a mansion to scare some people?”
She showed them her phone—more specifically, the group chat she and her siblings were a part of, and the messages her siblings had sent to each other about doing exactly that.
At the evidence, the lies crumpled as they slumped and the boy admitted, “Okay, you caught us.”
“Danny, Elle, what the hell were you thinking?! How did you even know about this?!” Jazz demanded, glaring at her half-ghost siblings.
Said siblings looked at each other as they turned back to human before Danny started, “Well…”
***
Earlier this afternoon…
“Hey bro, check this out!”
“Check what out?” Danny asked from where he was scrolling through his phone on his hotel bed. He and Jazz had been in Gotham for a week while she did orientation at Gotham University. By complete coincidence Elle had been in the area, so she crashed in their room and they hung out, saying they were siblings—which was kinda true—and he and Elle were twins—again, kinda true. It had been really fun, the three of them hanging out together as siblings without having to skirt around their parents who didn’t know about Elle or worry about ghosts attacking (that was replaced with worry over Gotham’s rogues, though both Danny and Elle were curious about the undead rogue roaming the sewers..)
Right now, Jazz was at the library while the twins chilled in the hotel room, scrolling through their respective phones and not talking, until this moment.
“This!” Elle exclaimed as she hopped off her bed and jumped onto Danny’s, pressing against his side as she held out her phone for the both of them to see whatever was on the screen.
Danny craned his neck to see over Elle’s shoulder at her phone, squinting at the post taking it up. “And what am I seeing, Ellie?”
“Only the best prank opportunity ever!” Elle declared as she shoved her phone in his face, letting her brother see the post fully.
A blonde girl was doing a peace sign at the camera while next to her was a bunch of traditional ghost-hunting equipment, a dark-haired guy with his back to the camera beside her. She was grinning as underneath the photo the post said:
Doing some ghost hunting tonight at Wayne Manor!!! Let’s see if it’s really haunted and find some ghosts!!! #ghosthunting #reallifeghostbusting #aintafraidofnoghost
After reading it, Danny looked back to Elle, a feral grin on her face that showed off her sharp fangs as she asked, “You thinking what I’m thinking, Danny?”
Danny grinned back, showing off his own fangs. “Yeah, I am.”
His eyes burned green, a staticky echo edging his voice as he finished.
“If these rich people really want a haunting, then let’s give them a haunting they won’t forget.”
***
“… It was just a prank Jazz! We were just messing with them!” Danny defended. “Elle agrees!”
Elle nodded. “I do and I don’t regret my choices.”
“Though, there was something weird about this guy the others were ignoring…”
“You noticed it too? I thought my ghost sense was faulty!”
“Yeah. Wonder what was up with him?”
“Dunno, but weird vibes or not, I don’t regret messing with that rich family one bit!”
“Oh, me neither! Ancients, that was so fun to scare them.”
“Right?”
Jazz stared at her cackling siblings before she turned around and headed for her bed, groaning.
One of these days, they were going to give her a heart attack.