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Jazz scrubs at her hands angrily, mad that some of the ecto got under her fingernails.
Not a single drop of ecto or blood on her clothes, but of course it gets under her fingernails.
The absolute worst.
"You know it'll come right out with warm water right?" Dan rumbles from the driver's seat. "Just wait until we get to Danny's."
Jazz closes her eyes. He's right of course, but that doesn't make the irritation go away. She takes in a deep breath, holds it for a long moment, before letting it all go.
Her shoulders slump, and she rolls her head on the headrest to look at her so-called older brother. "But it's icky."
Dan snorts. "Now you're sounding like Ellie."
"She got that from me." Jazz grins, laughing in tandem with Dan as he cuts a quick glance at her.
They're in one of Vlad's cars, stolen for a reckless joy ride after breaking a couple of his bones. Vlad won't say anything of course, he has a multitude of other cars and she's sure Dan will probably portal it back in more or less pristine condition.
Dan has always had a complicated relationship with Vlad, but he's entirely loyal to his siblings, so she won't begrudge him this little kindness.
If Jazz is being honest, at this moment in time she doesn't actually think Vlad planted the bugs in Danny's apartment at all.
If she's being really honest, she realized Vlad didn't do it the second she and Dan arrived at his house.
Still, they were already there.
Plus, they found out he still kept a lot of creepy shots of Danny from when he did plant bugs around their childhood home, before Danny moved to Chicago with Jazz.
Her apology gift for accusing him of bugging Danny's apartment was not killing him for that.
"You gonna stick around with Ellie?" Jazz says into the comfortable silence between them. The radio hums low, a murmuring type of volume, harmonizing with the sounds of the road rumbling underneath them.
Dan thinks on that for a moment, keeping his eyes on the road as he merges towards a freeway connection. "Depends on the tyke, I think."
"You haven't really hung out with her that much." Jazz tries to keep her voice light-hearted.
It's a small hope she and Danny have had, that their two siblings would pair bond together. When the four siblings had established a connection—when Dan was put on parole and Ellie had stopped to consider the logistics of being a real person after the Anti-ECTO Acts were repealed, it was…rocky, to say the least.
Dan, having lost his entire family, was near obsessive about his care for Jazz. In contrast Ellie, then still Dani, clung to Danny like a security blanket whenever she touched down upon Earth.
Neither Jazz nor Danny knew how to navigate it, because Jazz couldn't fathom leaving Danny behind and Danny couldn't fathom being relied upon so heavily.
It spoke a lot to how much pressure Jazz felt, and how little Danny thought of himself.
You always knew better, her little brother had mumbled when they finally sat down just the two of them to talk about it, you always were better.
And it ached, to understand him. It tore a hole in her heart.
I'm only two years older, Jazz's voice had trembled back, and I don't know if I'll ever have kids when I…
They had cried, of course. Danny from the guilt and Jazz from the feeling of inadequacy.
Both of them worked it out, but that still left Dan and Ellie.
They made leaps and bounds of course, the four of them as close as can be as adults with their own agendas. But Ellie was always off and about, spending Vlad's money, and Dan…
Well, Dan is being trained as the next monarch of the Realms.
It's framed as penance for destroying the world, a reformation at the Core. It's punishment, shouldering responsibility that Danny doesn't want and acting as a replacement forevermore. It's convoluted and stupid when you spell it out plainly, because how could giving him more power be considered jail?
But Jazz knows that Dan will rarely ever get to leave the Realms once he's been established on the throne. He'll rarely get to see her. And she doesn't have as long to live as her siblings do.
"She's doesn't really stay still long enough to." Dan's voice shakes her out of her melancholy, shrugging his big shoulders at her. "But I join her sometimes, on her travels."
"That's great," Jazz smiles, feeling light and airy, before adopting a stern pout, "how come we don't get pictures?"
Dan scrunches his nose, a distinctly Danny sort of gesture that makes her heart ache a little. "You do, I'm just not in 'em. I'm the one taking them."
That makes sense, now that Jazz thinks about it. Ellie has an instagram she updates mostly for the 'Nightingale Clan' as she calls them, and sometimes there will be a long string of pan out shots of her when usually she sticks to landscapes and selfies. Jazz assumed that Ellie was having strangers take them, but now she can re-contextualize those photos and smile back on them with the proper amount of appreciation.
"Next time, take a selfie." Jazz practically pleads. "You don't even have to post it, just send it to me."
"Not to the groupchat?" Dan smirks, easing them off the highway into Gotham proper.
"Just to me." Jazz bargains.
Dan makes a thoughtful noise, before shrugging carelessly once more. "If I remember."
Success floods her veins like no other, and it shows with her wide smile. It doesn't even diminish when they finally arrive at Danny's, and Ellie and Dan decide not to stick around
It's hard not to keep the smile when Ellie replaces her in the passenger seat and promptly declares "Sibling Switch!"
Jazz waves goodbye at them, watching the car disappear into Gotham before turning around to head up into Danny's apartment. She has duplicates of all her siblings' keys—Ellie's keys being the ones that admitted Dan and Jazz into Vlad's stupid mansion—so she decides to make a pit stop at the mailboxes to grab Danny's mail on the way up.
A man is already there, lingering in front of an opened mailbox and shuffling through them quietly. Jazz walks up, trying not to encroach on the guy's personal space and thankful when he smoothly steps to the side and closes his box to make more room for her.
He pockets his keys, but stays there to read through something that looks like an important legal document. Jazz pays him no mind as she opens Danny's box to grab what looks like an assortment of letters. She shakes her head. Danny checks his mail once a week, which is a bad habit she's never really approved of.
"Oh," The man's voice jolts her out of the speech she was planning on scolding Danny with.
She almost drops the letters, but thankfully manages to get everything in hand and the box shut again before she turns to lift an eyebrow at the man.
"Sorry," The man shrugs, a little sheepish. "You're Danny's sister, right? The older one."
"Jazz." She confirms, tucking the letters under her arm. "How do you know my brother?"
"I'm John." The man introduces himself, tucking his own letters into his back pocket before extending a hand to shake. "Or Jason, if he's told you yet."
"Ah, the baker." Jazz smiles, shaking his hand with a firm grip that he seems to appreciate. "And the brother."
"Both." Jason grins, and it's boyish and handsome.
There's a short pause between them, that sort of awkwardness that always happens between strangers that aren't actually strangers.
Jazz takes the plunge. "Did your brother hiding his relationship with my brother also kind of bother you? Or was that just me?"
Jason snorts, sudden like even he's surprised by it. "Sorry, uh. Timmers and I don't have the same kind of relationship you guys do, I don't think."
Jazz slumps. "I was afraid you'd say that."
"If it helps I can beat my brother up for you." Jason smirks. "Free of charge, it's the least I could do for my friend's beloved sister."
Jazz blushes, always pleased to hear when other people acknowledge her and Danny's closeness. They were all each other had for a period in time. "That's very kind of you, but I'm not sure I condone sibling violence."
"I'm pretty sure something violent is happening upstairs," Jason hums, looking up as if he can see through towards Danny's apartment. "There was a lot of yelling about mouse traps and cheese."
"He knows Ellie hates that game but he always brings it out." Jazz rolls her eyes, which gets a hearty chuckle. "I'm pretty sure he just likes tussling with her—like a love language or something."
"Two of my brothers are like that too," Jason hums, thoughtful. "The little demon—I mean, my little brother Damian likes to fuck with Tim's stuff even though he knows it pisses him off."
"Nothing permanent?" Jazz tilts her head inquiry.
"Nah, little shit." Jason shakes his head. "Like replacing his coffee with decaf, or going through his WE docs and putting a single page out of order."
"Attention seeking." Jazz hums, eyes going a little half lidded. "His own little way of showing he cares, perhaps."
"It's the only time they touch. Dami's definitely gotten a rough hug or two out of it, and Tim's not a complete idiot so he's probably aware." Jason nods, putting a hand on his hip and eyeing Jazz not very subtly at all. "Do you psychoanalyze all the brothers of the guys you meet, or am I special?"
There's a coaxing tint to his voice, like he's testing the waters, but his body stays open and ready to back off. Hm. This time, Jazz takes her own look, dragging her eyes from the tip of his boots all the way up to his turquoise eyes. There's a faint scar, under his eye, jagged but mostly faded.
Jazz licks her lips and finds herself very satisfied when it draws Jason's eyes.
Well. Fascinating.
"Sure, you're special." Jazz smiles, innocent as can be as Jason seems to perk up little a little dog. "You're very important to my brother you know—you and those empanadas."
Jason blinks, before throwing his head back in a laugh. Jazz follows the long line of him and decides that if her brother can have fun, she can have a little harmless fun too.
He really is quite handsome when he smiles that rakish smile of his.