Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Daniel Jasmine Nightingale had been on the Bat’s radar for two months now- and yet, none had managed to make contact. This is particularly frustrating because of how easy he is to spot in a crowd.

Let’s back up. 

Two-Face, for all his criminal enterprising and murdering, was still the Gotham City District Attorney. He never stopped showing up to work, despite all his.. changes after the Maroni incident. 

And he was a damn good attorney.

Half insane, half deformed- Harvey Dent was still Harvey Dent.

And Harvey Dent wanted some fucking coffee.

He stepped out of his car, stumbling briefly on the sidewalk- exhausted from his fight with the Bat the night prior. 

Harvey had, initially, planned to go to Starbucks- but his goons wouldn’t shut up about some internet cafe called ‘The Daily Grind’ that opened on Park Row. 

The place had an honest to god bell on the door, and it made a rather pretty sound as he pulled the door open. 

Absolutely nobody looked up, and the barista didn’t even flinch as Two-Face himself made his way up to the counter and stared at the menu for a solid minute and a half.

“I would like a medium flat white with two shots of espresso, in a to-go cup,” he said, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. 

“That’ll be $4.25, you can swipe your card here.” The teal-haired teen turned the screen around, and Harvey stopped when he saw the options for tipping. 

He pulled his coin out, passing it through his hand for a moment before flicking it into the air. 

Heads .

He tapped 20%, and put his coin (and card) away after paying.

Harvey stepped to the side while he waited, observing the clientele. In the corner there were three darkly dressed, scruffy teenagers crowding around a laptop- attempting to share a pair of earbuds.

Close to them was a couple that could only be described as sickeningly sweet, quietly smiling and drinking iced teas with their unoccupied hands intertwined. 

Harvey’s eyes then fell on the final occupant of the store, and he almost spit out the coffee he’d yet to even receive.

The roughly 15 year old boy was fully occupying a single booth, his legs kicked up as he leaned over what looked to be a thick college binder and a silver laptop coated with NASA stickers. 

He slowly sipped from what looked to be iced coffee with a lot of milk, while a steaming cup of hot coffee cooled next to him. The genius choice of drink aside, Harvey was more ‘captivated’, so to speak, by the boy’s appearance- at least what he could see, as the child had a silver mask covering the left half of his face.

His hair was split down the center of his scalp- the right side black, and the left stark white, almost glowing. His exposed features showed sunken blue eyes, and pale skin with raised electrical scars and a smattering of freckles. 

“Sir?” Harvey was shaken from his- admittedly weird- staring by the barista, who was holding out his drink. 

He took it with a curt thank-you, and quickly walked over to the boy’s table.

“Excuse me, young man?” 

The boy looked up, blinking lazily like a cat as he studied Harvey’s face. 

“Yes?” He questioned, and Harvey took note of the vocal fry and slight echo before posing a question of his own-

“Can you type?”

The boy looked at him like he had two heads (haha), and gestured vaguely to his open laptop.

Harvey nodded and pulled out his business card, dropping it on the table.

“You start Monday.” 

The boy finally started, sitting up straight and picking up the card, reading it over quickly. 

*Harvey ‘Two-Face’ Dent, District Attorney*

On the back was his business email, phone, and office address. 

“Start.. what?” The kid asked, slipping the card into his hoodie pocket, briefly adjusting and tugging at his sunflower lanyard by the ID tag attached.

“You, young man- what is your name?” 

“Danny.”

“Danny, you are going to be my new stenographer.”

“Your what?” Danny raised his eyebrow, which could be either in shock or confusion- Harvey couldn’t tell without seeing the other eye.

Harvey decided to go with the latter.

“My stenographer, my court reporter- you will transcribe what’s spoken during preliminary hearings and trials, and-“

“I know what a stenographer is,” Danny interrupted, “But why me?”

“Well, I feel a bit of a kindred spirit, don’t you?” Harvey said with a smile.

Danny snorted. “I definitely feel some sort of spirit.”

Harvey could sense a deeper joke there, and his smile grew. “In any case, be at my office Monday morning at 7:15am for orientation.”

He took a sip from his coffee and turned to leave- before stopping and turning back to Danny.

“And leave the mask at home.”

——

Danny blinked in surprise as the Two-Face left, the little fairy bell jingling over the glass door. 

He pulled out the card again, studying the quality of the ink and paper. 

Son of a bitch, he has his own watermark.

He thought about what Dent had said. 

Leave the mask at home..

Danny reached up to his face, feeling the metal plate affixed to his Hel-ish side.

Ever since he was really 14, he had worn it every day- any time he wasn’t asleep in bed or out fighting ghosts, he was covering up with turtlenecks, gloves, and of course his custom made mask.

Thank you, Manson fortune.

He should have figured Two-Face would be interested in him, but a real, legal job?

Well. Mostly legal. Considering the terrorism and mass murder.

It rubbed his Obsession the wrong way, the prospect of working for a man who caused so much suffering- but he needed money.

Gotham was a tough city to live in, but it was the only place apart from Amity that had enough ambient ectoplasm to keep him alive .. So to speak. And with every application coming up negative, and his next rent payment coming up.. 

Danny set his alarm for 6am Monday morning. 

Chapter Text

Chapter One

Harvey had a long talk with his other half about his decision to hire Danny, a boy he still didn’t know the full name of. 

It was more a discussion with himself than anything- but it helped to compartmentalize when he thought of his different mindsets as different people. 

Harvey Dent, the District Attorney; and Two-Face, the crime boss of chance. 

He saw things both ways, felt conflicting things, and despite feeling quite like one whole man, he certainly couldn’t deny the fact that he appeared to characterize his foreign thoughts.

Harvey wasn’t completely sure what he had, only that he definitely had it. 

But as crazy as he was, he wasn’t crazy enough to go see a psychiatrist- what Gothamite would be? Last time he saw one was Arkham, and Dr Quinzel told him he had ‘unaddressed childhood trauma’ and ‘anger issues brought on by anxiety’.

Some people just need to mind their own business.

Two-Face had agreed with him, in any case, that a personal, steady stenographer would be beneficial to his work- considering how few people stay in the legal professions in this town 

He also hoped to propose a second position to the boy, depending on how their first meeting went- and hoped even more that he accepted. 

Assuming he shows up, Two-Face whispered.

He will, Harvey shot back. 

And when there was a hesitant knock on the door, Harvey felt quite vindicated.

“Come in.”

The doorknob clicked and turned, a gloved hand pushing it open. 

Entering his office was, as expected, Danny. His hair was combed and pulled back into a short ponytail, and he was wearing a long sleeved white button up with a faint green stain on the left side of the collar. 

Speaking of the left side, Harvey was slightly disappointed to see Danny was still wearing his mask.

He stepped around his cedar desk and pulled the chair out, gesturing for Danny to sit- which the boy did swiftly, a nervous expression on his face.

“I thought I asked you to keep the mask at home. What changed?” Harvey asked, moving to take his own seat. 

Danny placed a hesitant hand on the base of his metal mask, “I, uh.. I was getting some looks on the bus.”

Harvey frowned, and nodded sympathetically. 

“Well, Danny, I promise you that won’t happen to you here.” He smiled. “After all, there’s a much more interesting subject to stare at when I’m in the room.”

Yea, me

Shut up, Two-Face, this isn’t about you.

Danny smiled at that, exhaling sharply through his nose in amusement. 

He took a breath, and closed his eyes before slowly pulling the mask away. 

Harvey’s breath caught in his throat. 

The left half of Danny’s face was void of much fat, showing his cheekbones much more prominently than the right side. The skin, if it could be called that, was a translucent green color- and Harvey could identify the individual parts of Danny’s skull and facial muscles. His lightning scars were mirrored onto his left side, and they were a radioactive glowing green. 

Finally, his left eye was pure green- no Iris, no pupil. Just a pool of swirling neon. 

How very poetic.

Before Harvey could say anything, Danny pulled off his gloves- his right was normal flesh, but his left was green and translucent just like his face. 

“So..” Danny said awkwardly, “This is me.” 

The two sat in silence for a moment, and Harvey stood up.

He walked around the desk and placed his hands on Danny’s shoulders, looking him directly in the eyes.

“You,” he whispered earnestly, “Are extraordinary .”

Danny looked both quite touched and moderately uncomfortable. 

“Thanks, I guess?” He replied, white eyebrow raised in confusion. 

You’re freaking the kid out, divert the conversation

An excellent idea.

Harvey walked over to the bubbling water cooler on the left side of his office and picked up a plastic cup from the stack, filling it up and handing it to Danny- who drank it hesitantly. 

“Danny- what is your full name?”

“Uh- Daniel Jasmine Nightingale, but.. just Danny is fine, please.” 

“Thank you. Danny, before we process your paperwork, I’d like to make a second offer.” 

Harvey grabbed his own water and sat on the edge of his desk.

“What is it?” Danny asked.

“Simple. Along with being my stenographer in court, I’d like you to be my stenographer in my.. Night job.”

Danny narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms and looking up at the DA. 

“I didn’t think crime bosses had stenographers..”

Harvey smiled.

“We don’t, not typically. I suppose in more accurate terms, you would be my assistant- keep notes and such. Stenographer just sounds a little more professional .”

Danny was quiet as he sipped his water.

“Here’s the outline for your starting salary,” Harvey said, handing the contract to the teen.

Danny glanced at the number and choked on his drink, coughing violently, his left side’s glow pulsing for a moment as he settled back down.

“Are you alright?” Harvey worried, leaning closer.

Nice work, you killed the kid!

“Y-yeah, I just.. That’s.. a lot of money.”

Harvey smiled.

“Well, the job is very important. You would need to be compensated for your work, plus medical benefits- as well as your tailoring budget.”

“ Tailoring? ” 

“Of course!” Harvey stood, walked back around the desk, and sat back down in his chair. “I can’t have my employees working in poor quality clothing- not to mention it will fit more comfortably.”

And they’ll look snazzy .

Danny looked to be reeling, looking over the contract.

“This says I’d have to be on call 24/7, is that even legal?” He questioned, finally regaining his metaphorical balance. 

Harvey hummed. “Well, you won’t be working 24/7, and I wouldn’t expect you to come in for a 3am fight with the Batman if you’re at home asleep- the 24/7 is just to allow you every opportunity to get experience.”

Danny nodded, rubbing a hand over his mouth. 

It was again silent for a moment.

“I won’t hurt anyone,” Danny finally broke. 

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“And I don’t want to be part of anyone getting hurt.”

Two-Face?

Eh .

Harvey leaned back in his chair. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Danny let out a sigh, and picked up a pen.

—

Danny wasn’t sure what all he had expected from the meeting with Mr Dent, but it wasn’t to be given the address of his personal tailor to be fitted for a suit the next morning. 

Danny had been fitted for things before- well, just the one time, but it was quite memorable- and knew how time consuming it could be. Not to mention the price.

And it would be a work expense . 

Crime boss indeed, Mr Dent was working the legal system like a fiddle- the IRS has nothing on a guy who likes suits. 

The way Mr Dent had looked at him still stuck.

Danny didn’t honestly think Mr Dent would be disgusted or anything, not like the people on the bus- but he certainly didn’t think he would get such a unique reaction. 

Mr Dent himself did have a disfigured face, and maybe seeing a kid with a similar issue struck some sort of sentimental nerve?

And speaking of disfigurements, Danny had to admit he found himself staring at the famed Two Face a lot- mostly in curiosity.

He had seen pictures of the man before, but the newspapers were black and white, and it honestly never occurred to him to google a colored photo of him- but knowing that the man had acid burns invoked a very different image from the one he saw.

Acid burns usually left you missing a few layers, which Mr Dent certainly was- but they also usually left you red . 

Mr Dent was silver .

Well, a sort of bluish-silver- but silver nonetheless.

It was a comforting sort of color, it reminded him of a Shade. 

If he didn’t have senses telling him otherwise, he might even believe Mr Dent was a halfa. 

A halfa with a lot of money . 

…Would it be unethical to get him to pay for Danny to get acrylics?

Probably.

But it’s also unethical to work for a mass murderer, so..

Danny would get some acrylics.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

If Danny had a dollar for every time he was fitted for a suit based on his ghost half, he’d have two dollars. 

Which wasn’t a lot, but it’s very weird that it happened twice

Danny had prepared himself for a lot of uncomfortable staring- and even an insensitive question or two for flavor, but he was pleasantly surprised when the tailor (a very punk 30-something who introduced themself as Sascha) didn’t even bat an eye when Danny pulled off his mask and took off his jacket.

He guessed that as a personal tailor to the Two-Face, poster child for facial disfigurement, they didn’t care much about a translucent green (apparent) teenager. 

Holding his arms out as Sascha measured and poked at him, he recalled the much more stressful fitting for his inaugural armor.

If he never saw another blacksmithing yeti again it would be too soon- while kind, they were very insistent and confusing when it came to armor stylization and engraving details.

The Yuki-onna who helped him memorize his vows were kind, though- very patient.

Whoever’s idea it was that the King needed to be prepared by their people hadn’t anticipated a ghost with no origin like Danny. Every post-living soul appeared somewhere in the Infinite Realms, had ghosts who taught them- be they fellow post-living, never-borns, amalgamates, or chimera. 

Danny was none of those. He was a Halfa, a ghost born from a human soul bathed in ectoplasm in the Living Realms, each half sustained by a heart and core respectively; One of only three in existence- Only two of which were created naturally due to the 8 minute survival rate of most Halfas. 

Turns out the real secret to half-life was dextrocardia.

Go figure, flooding the human heart with ectoplasm kills it. That’s why it needs to be on the right side and not the left, so the ectoplasm on the left flows around the core and not into the ventricles. 

All of that being said, this meant he had no specific ghost culture he was tied to, as he had no ghost-realm of origin for his core. 

The closest he had were the ghosts of the Far Frozen- the ice spirits and yeti ghosts who taught him to hone his ice powers when he was a kid. And he was forever grateful to them for accepting him as an honorary Frost Ghost, regardless of his core’s Living Realms origin. 

Sam and Tucker would have qualified as well, since they were the ones who first supported him and helped him get a handle on his ghostly abilities, but..

No.

Danny wouldn’t think about that right now. It wasn’t worth dwelling on things that couldn’t be changed.

He instead looked down at Sascha, who had moved to measure his leg- knee to ankle.

“So..” He began awkwardly, coughing when his voice cracked. 

This is what I get for dying halfway through puberty. “How long have you worked for Mr Dent?”

Sascha took a pin out of their mouth, glancing up at Danny over their red glasses. 

“Well, I’ve been on staff for about 3 years now- but he’s been a client since before the whole Two-Face thing started.”

Danny blinked in surprise. “Really? Was.. I mean, what was he like before?”

Sascha shrugged, standing to measure his back. 

“Not too much different. He talks to himself more, only tips about 50% of the time- but he tips well. I only deal with Harv, though, so I can’t speak much for how Two-Face is.”

Danny simmered on that thought for a moment. He’d heard a bit about his new boss’ mental health, and the rumors of him having some kind of dissociative disorder- but he wouldn’t believe anything if it didn’t come from the man’s mouth. Assumptions ended him up in trouble before, and it was really just rude.

“So, how’d you end up on payroll?” Sascha asked.

Danny shrugged.

“I was just in the right place at the right time, I guess. Or wrong. We’ll see.”

Sascha snorted at that, standing and writing something down in their strawberry shaped notebook. 

“Oh, we certainly will.” 

Danny furrowed his brows, lowering his arms.

“What does that mean?”

Sascha turned back to him with a smile on their face.

“Means you’re kinda the first person he’s hired who looks like that .”

It was Danny’s turn to snort.

“Yea, I figured that might be a factor,” he said, tossing his hair. “No one can resist my dashing good looks.” 

Sascha gestured for him to step down, laughing a bit.

“Tell yourself that every day, kid, you’ll get everywhere. ”

———

Danny’s next stop was one he was actually pretty excited for.

After countless hours of Sam showing off the incredible acrylic nails from her Pinterest board when they were kids, Danny would finally be getting some for himself.

Settling down in the chair, he looked over all of the photos in the book he was handed.

He finally selected two different designs and styles- one for his left hand, and one for his right hand.

Some time later, Danny was tipping the nail tech and walking out the door.

His left hand’s nails were white at the base, and ombré to green at the pointed tips. 

On his right, he decided to be a little silly and get the Halloween stickers- little smiling white ghosts against black nails. 

He couldn’t stop smiling looking at them, and he didn’t even care about the judgemental stares he got on the bus for his exposed face. 

He felt pretty . On his own terms.

And because of that, for the first time, it didn’t feel like a bad thing. 

——

Danny walked past the broken elevator and up the crumbling stairs, passing door after damaged door until he made it to his apartment.

He had four locks- a pretty small number for Gotham, honestly, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. 

He made quick work of the locks, pushing the door roughly- it always got stuck- and dropped his bag on his floor.

Danny pulled the door shut, did up the locks again, before turning to look at his stupid, sad, lonely-man apartment. 

Jazz’s words, not his.

One ragged couch that was there when he moved in, pushed up against the counter to the kitchenette- in which he had his mini washing machine hooked up to the sink, where he had been running his bloodstained shirt through with some cold water, peroxide, and soap. 

…

Look, it’s not his fault he got mugged- and how was he supposed to know the guy had a gun and a knife?

Whatever. 

Danny unhooked the washer and pulled the shirt out, put it on a coat hanger, and hung it up on the ceiling fan to dry.

A quick look in the fridge and he was quite pleased to see he had some food. 

He pulled out a tupperware container of white rice he made the other day, a packet of soy sauce, and a can of corn from the cabinet.

He’s so good at adulting, honestly. 

He tossed everything in the microwave and hopped onto the counter, crossing his legs and checking his phone.

///

Jazzercise:

hey

you busy 

danny are you busy

u said there was something important you wanted to tell me??

///

Danny winced. He had told Jazz he had something important to tell her- but only to hold himself to telling her, because he knew she’d never let up if he said that.

And now he had to actually do it.

He had to tell his protective older sister that he had signed a contract to work for a crime lord.

///

You:

so funny story..

///

Chapter Text

The next chapter is going to be a little while- a few days or weeks maybe. I’m going through some rough family stuff right now, and just wanted you all to know I haven’t given up! 400 words into the next chapter!!
Love and hugs!!

Chapter Text

Danny almost wanted to slap his boss on his first day of orientation.

As it turns out, stenography is done on its own special sort of typewriter with its own keys- much fewer keys than a normal keyboard.

At first, Danny was incredibly concerned that he wouldn’t be able to get the hang of it- but once he’d been walked through the how-to of using it, he realized..

It was still stupid.

Instead of slapping Mr Dent, he proposed a compromise.

Danny would bring his own keyboard the next day, and if he could prove it was just as fast as using a stenography typewriter, he could use it. 

Mr Dent flipped a coin, and agreed. 

And look, maybe it was cheating- but Danny decided to bring his specialized ghostspeak keyboard that Tucker had made for him in senior year. 

The thing about ghostspeak is that it uses far fewer words to say the same exact things as most human languages- specifically and most relevant, English- and it’s characters were less uniform.

The term keyboard is of course used very loosely.

“There are no keys,” Mr Dent said, watching Danny hook everything together.

“That’s right.”

Mr Dent tilted his head, curious. 

“How does it.. write? ”

Danny looked up and smiled wryly before sitting down and flooding the device with just a small, condensed shock of ectoplasm to boot it up. 

The keyboard went from matte black to a nice dull glowing green, and Danny placed a finger on the flat board that should have had keys. 

With a quick and jagged movements, symbols appeared on the screen- and once Danny lifted his finger, the short string of icons turned to a half paragraph of text. 

“Like that.”

Mr Dent just stared, dumbfounded for a moment at the screen.

Danny felt like he was going to start stress sweating as the man studied the grammar.

“I mean I can just learn how to use the stenography writer, it’s- it’s fine, I-“

“Danny, it’s brilliant,” Mr Dent said. 

He then glanced at Danny’s hands.

“Did you get acrylics?” He asked, pointing at the ghost-speckled hand.

“Yep.” 

“They’re very nice.”

Danny smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

————

The kid is an alien

Probably. Maybe.

Do we care?

..No.

Harvey sat down in his office chair, leaning back and taking a long sip of coffee- a cold one, while a hot one cooled down on the desk. Danny had brought it up to him before leaving for the day.

He liked this Danny kid. 

He wasn’t scared of Harvey, not like most people, and he had good taste.

What if he leaves after tonight?

He won’t.

And if he does?

… Let’s cross that bridge when we get there.

Harvey took another long sip of coffee, and rolled his chair over to the window to look out at the cozy, smog-filled, hell-city. 

He loved his city, truly. It’s why he became a lawyer, why he painstakingly dragged his way to becoming DA. Gotham needed a hero.  

It wasn’t the hero they wanted, but it was the hero they deserved. 

For a while, at least- he had gotten innocent people off of death row, out of Blackgate, out of Arkham.

But now..

Harvey closed his eyes.

Are you moping again? 

No. 

You’re moping again.

Shut up.

You’re feeling sorry for yourself, aren’t you? So sorry for poor Harvey who has to live with himself and his broken mind-

Shut up shut up shut up.

Harvey stood abruptly, downed the last of his coffee, and opened the window.

He needed air.

He climbed down the fire escape stairs, ignoring Two-Face’s taunting words, and hopped down the last three rungs of the ladder to the cracking pavement.

Where are we going?

Somewhere. Nowhere. 

By all means. Lead the way.

———

Danny’s training wrapped up quickly, with him being given a handbook to review over the weekend before his first test trial- Mr Dent said it wasn’t exactly conventional, but that Danny seemed like a hands-on learner. 

After dropping off some coffee for the boss (and picking some up for himself), Danny found himself walking around Gotham, taking in the sights.

Smog. More smog. Some absolutely ancient brick buildings, with only slightly less ancient stone gargoyles that were definitely possessed (at least a few of them). 

Oh, and a bird.

By which of course he meant the Signal, jumping between two buildings chasing down..

I just got these acrylics, they better not break, Danny thought as he broke out into a sprint.

The Signal was chasing a man who was carrying a gun that was definitely modified in some way, considering beretta m9s didn’t usually have lasers on them- unless Danny has been out of the game longer than he thought.

And, well, Danny could never leave well enough alone. 

He rounded a corner just as the man hopped over a fence, so Danny- in his adrenaline- went through the fence.

“ What the FUCK-!”

Well, Danny thought, that went quicker than expected.

The (former) gun wielding man was now pinned to the ground, arm twisted behind his back as Danny pressed his knee in between the guy’s shoulder blades- the gun having skittered across the ground.

He shivered in a way all too familiar, and glanced up to see The Signal, mouth open with surprise and staring down from the rooftop.

Danny sighed. Of course the bats set off his ghost sense. Why not?

“You gonna bag this guy, or should I pull out my zip-ties?”

Chapter Text

Danny sighed.

“You gonna bag this guy, or should I pull out my zip-ties?”

It turns out The Signal preferred the former, as the yellow-clad vigilante leapt down from the rooftop and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

Danny then twisted the man’s arms in an only slightly -natural way (much to the man’s dismay, if the deep groan of pain was any indication) so his wrists could be bound.

“Thanks for the assist,” Signal said. His voice was light, and clear- though he was definitely a bit out of breath. Finally getting a look at the vigilante, Danny clocked him at around 18 or 19 years old- a good 5 or so years older than his own static body. 

“Right place, right time,” Danny muttered, standing and stretching his back. 

“You got it from here?” He asked, examining his nails. Not a single scratch.

Signal heaved the man up off the ground and held him against the wall with one arm, eliciting yet another groan of pain as the man’s face met molding brick.

“Yeah, just gotta handle the transportation.”

Danny hesitated for a moment, then pulled out his phone- opening the camera without looking away from the scene.

“You mind if I get a picture?” He asked awkwardly.

While Danny was a former hero himself, it was still absolutely exhilarating to meet what he considered a ‘professional’ hero, especially when he helped the guy.

Call him a nerd, but he loved superheroes. They protected people, and his core absolutely purred at the idea of all those people sharing it’s drive. 

Signal turned his head toward Danny and smiled.

He had an absolutely radiant smile- nope, no, Danny, don’t go down that thought process, there is no chance there, you are physically 14 and mentally—  

“With or without this guy?” The vigilante asked, cutting into Danny’s spiraling.

——

After getting the picture (Danny decided ‘with’, because funny), the half-dead king continued to walk the streets of Gotham- no real destination in sight.

He allowed his thoughts to wander as he felt the thumping sound of his footsteps fade into the background, hands stuffed in his pockets.

He thought about his new job. His new boss , more specifically- Harvey Dent

The man was admirable, in Danny’s eyes- at least before all the crime lord stuff. Even afterward, he respected him on the level of ‘ wow, villains really have good time management skills! Can I get me some of that? ’ that he always had with Vlad. 

Before the famous scarring of the once-beloved DA, he couldn’t go a week without hearing about Mr Dent making national headlines for upturning some trial or another- disrupting court proceedings for off the wall arguments that any sane person could see were true, and did his damndest to put away the right guy. 

Danny didn’t have much faith in the legal system- not for humans, not for ghosts- nobody. But Mr Dent made him wish he did. 

Once he found out about the Anti-Ecto acts, it solidified a desire to learn more about how such a horrific law could be passed- how many people it had to cross the desks of, who signed what, and how could they have overlooked it so easily?

(The answer was that bureaucrats hated reading, and missed a full two paragraphs of a 50 page bill that was kicked around four different offices before ending up on President Luthor’s lap- and Danny was about 75% sure the man was a supervillain who laughed maniacally while petting a cat in a rotating chair.)

All in all, Danny was intrigued by law, at first by Mr Dent, and then again by the Acts. 

He may not have been much of a reader, but- and he’d never confess it to anyone- he poured over every news story about Mr Dent. 

And then Harvey made headlines in a whole new way.

Gotham DA Harvey Dent Attacked In Court, In Critical Condition.

Danny was devastated . It was in the midst of his time as the hero Phantom, struggling with school, girls, boys, family, everything .

And out of the blue, the one person he had always imagined defending ghosts on a legal scale was likely going to become one himself. 

It wasn’t until some time later when the man broke out as the hottest new villain on Gotham’s smog filled block- Two Face.

A waste of a good man.

And then he still came to work Monday morning. 

Danny was shocked to learn that, apparently, Mr Dent had worked out some sort of weird loophole- and while not immune to the law, he was still able to come into work without being arrested.

Danny didn’t know how he did it- but damn if it didn’t make the man sound cool.

Of course, he killed people . Danny couldn’t overlook that- it was a despicable act, and he had once promised himself he’d put the man behind bars if he ever met him face to face.

Amazing how life/death works out.

On that thought, Danny paused in his wandering mind as a shiver went up his spine, and a puff of air escaped his lips.

He heard a sound, a sort of scree! Coming from..

He turned to his left to see there was a park- mostly abandoned, as the sun was setting.

Right in the center of the park was a huge green goose.

And it was screaming, screaming at a human figure next to it..

Oh boy.

That’s my boss.

Chapter Text

Of all the things Harvey was expecting when he left the office, ‘giant glowing Canadian goose wants to get me’ was so low on the list. 

It was like, 27 on his list of expectations- maybe 23 depending on the weather.

He was walking aimlessly in Gotham, sticking to the main streets to avoid getting jumped in alley (not that it was that less likely to get jumped on the sidewalk, but it’s easier to see who he is in broad daylight), when he decided to walk into the park. 

He always did like parks- at least when he was younger and Poison Ivy wasn’t walking around turning plants into wild monsters. Some forget that before biggest rogues were rogues, they were people. They weren’t always adults committing atrocities.

All of them were Gothamites, and that alone scared the average Outsider. The only difference between a Gothamite and a Rogue was how violent your crime was, and how visible. 

Speaking as a lawyer, Harvey was confident in saying that around 85% of Gothamites committed a crime before their 25th birthday.

That includes you.

He never said it didn’t.

In any case, content with the knowledge that Dr Isley was currently on her honeymoon in Star City, Harvey sat heavily on the wrought iron bench by the pond- one which he’d confess to having frequently fallen in as a child.

Loser.

A fair statement, but in his defense there were no guardrails or anything. 

Harvey took his phone out, ignoring the glaring fact that he was missing a meeting to calm himself down from what could have been a panic attack, and started playing online chess.

Ah, chess.com. A true savior for when he wanted to play a two-person game, but didn’t want to actually talk to anyone.

Or had anyone to talk to.

Fuck, maybe he was a loser..

You said it this time, not me .

After maybe a solid hour of playing back and forth games with who he only assumed was a Russian insomniac, he heard a faint sound- a deep honk .

Looking up, Harvey was met with the beady eyes of a goose- no less than half a foot away.

He blinked.

The goose blinked. 

Harvey slowly slid to the other side of the bench, watching as the goose’s gaze followed him.

This thing is freaking me out.

Harvey had to agree. Geese were downright demonic on a good day- and he wasn’t having a good day. 

Why does it look like that?

What? 

Oh.

Oh no.

Harvey’s grip on his phone tightened when he realized the goose was glowing. 

It was bright green , and glowing. 

He didn’t know what the hell that meant, but he did know he didn’t want to know.

“I’m.. going to leave,” he said, directed at the glowing water fowl. 

It continued to stare.

Harvey slid off the bench and to his feet, and winced as the goose began to hiss .

Would running work?

Probably not.

Maybe he could grab it by the neck? The palm of man does fit so perfectly around the throat of a goose, after all. 

But it’s glowing , so it might try to like. Eat his soul or something. 

Harvey began to back away, but the goose followed. 

It’s hisses grew louder, and it’s head rose up and up and up as it’s neck grew longer and longer and longer oh dear god Harvey was going to shit himself-

As the goose’s neck grew longer, as did its legs- and it’s wings, and it’s body, and it’s beak.

It began to grow broader , and within seconds the goose was now the size of an SUV.

Harvey did not have a gun on him. 

Fucking run.  

You didn’t have to ask him twice- Harvey started to book it across the park, heading for the gate. 

“HOOOOONK!”

The goose flew over his head and landed in front of him, and he changed directions. There was a loose cluster of chain-link on the west side of the park, maybe he could climb under it without losing much distance between him and the hell beast.

When the fuck did our life get so horribly insane?

Probably when hot acid was thrown at him the middle of a courtroom. 

On that thought, Harvey fucking tripped. 

Over a rock.

He attempted to scramble to his feet, but was unable to get up before huge, cold, webbed feet slammed him into the dirt face-first.

“ FUCK !”

He was going to die. 

Because of a goose.

All the other residents of hell were going to laugh at him when he got there..

Well, it’s been shitty knowing you, Harv. 

Shitty knowing you, too. 

And Harvey Dent closed his eyes, ready to—

“GET THE FUCK OFF MY BOSS!”

….. was that the fucking kid?

Oh dear god it was, Harvey thought as he opened his eyes and looked to the side to see his stenographer running towards him and the goose.

“Danny, get out of here!” He shouted, strained and out of breath.

Danny didn’t listen, because of course he didn’t, and skidded to a halt a few yards away. 

The boy threw his bag to the side and stood in what looked to be a completely improvised yet very well balanced fighting position. 

“Mr Dent, I’m about to do something pretty wildly illegal, so if you have any complaints save em for work tomorrow!”

… what?

Before Harvey could even get a word out about whatever the fuck that was, Danny exclaimed some sort of staticky, garbled phrase- and his usually pale blue eye began to glow a much brighter shade.

His right side was suddenly encased in a shock of blue ice, and his left was glowing far brighter than the ‘oh it’s probably just a trick of the light’ it was before.

Above his head was a ring of fog, with soft snowflakes drifting down around his body- but he didn’t even seem to notice.

That’s an alien, that’s definitely an alien.

Danny wasted no time flying upwards and towards the giant goose’s face, calling out more staticky words.

To Harvey’s surprise, a similar sound escaped the goose.

The two went back and forth, and Harvey was made to endure it all while trapped under the goose’s foot.

So… Our stenographer is an alien who speaks goose. 

Yeah…

That’s gonna be on the docket tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Other things to be first on the docket: 

Danny has no idea that his boss was so popular with geese.

Upon flying up to talk to the creature, he realized it wasn’t just a goose.

It was the goose.

Well, a very important goose at least- she was the daughter of Mars Lenus’ goose- Mars Lenus being a god from ancient Gaul. 

Danny couldn’t say he’d had either the pleasure or displeasure of meeting Mars Lenus, but he knew the god did love his goose- going as far as to bless all of their children even after death.

The goose, Ava, wasn’t trying to hurt Mr Dent at all. At first she was scared of him being so close to her final resting place, and tried to scare him into leaving by giving chase- but trapped him when she realized who he was.

“What did Mr Dent do?”

Ava smiled in her own goose way.

“When I was a gosling, the two-sided man, then a half-sided child, would come feed me and my adopted gander- children of Urd’s, and Hera’s. He gave us soft green seeds, and cold bugs that didn’t try to run away.”

Danny blinked. How old had Mr Dent been? Not many people knew the best foods for waterfowl, especially when they were young and still thought rabbits ate carrots. Ava continued,

“He came one day after other children, cruel children. They threw rocks and sticks. I fell under the water, and I could not see. The one sided child dove in, and pulled me free. He shouted and hissed, and the boys left. He held my wings up from the dirt, and I fell Asleep.”

Danny bowed his head, as appropriate when learning of another ghost’s Final Day. 

“He buried me here,” Ava spread a wing and gestured to the pond, overgrown with colorful wildflowers and ground ivy, “I had hoped to see him again one day, perhaps whole. He is now two sided, and it feels right, yet wrong. He is in turmoil. I want to help him, like he helped me.”

Danny looked down at Mr Dent, still trapped under Ava’s foot. 

Two sided, right yet wrong.

Was his assumption of Mr Dent not being a halfa.. off?

No.

When Danny looked, really Looked for the first time, he realized what Ava meant. 

Harvey Dent was not broken, he knew that- the soul could not be broken, only fractured and misshapen. 

But Mr Dent’s soul, glowing white and surrounded by thick shadows, was the closest to splitting in half that he had ever seen; held together by the barest of threads. 

It looked as if one side had developed later than the other, and rather suddenly to boot. 

Danny’s business dealt with dead souls, souls that existed without form and projected their own essence- he wasn’t quite sure how to handle one within a body. 

But gods knew how.

And here was a demigod- demi goose , Danny mused- offering to watch over Mr Dent.

“If you step off of him, and show him your true form- I believe he may understand. But it is your decision, Ava Mars.”

Ava looked down at Danny’s boss, who now looked mostly confused despite his face being pressed to the dirt. 

Danny would offer to get his suit dry cleaned- it was the least he could do for being so late to the party. 

The grand goose above him stepped back, and began to shrink. 

Smaller and smaller, she reached average adult size- but then grew smaller.

Ava shrank down to the form of a small green gosling, with one broken wing. Rather than hanging limp, the wing was slightly  elevated- as though being held by a gentle hand. 

Harvey’s hand, Danny realized, seeing the faint essence of that loving emotion that uplifting the soft fluff. 

Mr Dent groaned, and he went to stand- but Danny ran forward and stopped him.

“Let her down first, sir,” Danny said, gently lifting Ava off of his back.

“Wha..?” Mr Dent sat up on his knees and looked at Danny’s hands, seeing the small bird properly

A flicker of recognition.

“Do you remember her?” Danny asked softly. “She remembers you.”

Mr Dent hesitated for a moment, confusion and then concern appearing on his face as he reached out and Ava hopped into his hands.

“Hello..” Mr Dent breathed, holding Ava up close to his face and looking at her wing.

Ava let out a tiny honk! and Mr Dent’s eyes grew shiny with tears. “Hello Ava,” he said, smiling. 

Ava leapt forward and cuddles into Mr Dent’s chest, honking all the way as he let out a startled laugh, wet with sobs. 

Danny couldn’t help but tear up a bit himself, feeling the warmth and light from this reunion.

“How- how are you here, I- you..” 

Mr Dent stopped and looked up at Danny, analyzing.

“What.. are you?”

Danny sat down and allowed the ice to melt and evaporate, smoke flowing across his body.

“Something different,” he averaged, “Something.. other, from somewhere else . We’re not exactly safe here, on Earth, but.. well, it’s my home. One of them, at least.”

Mr Dent nodded, absently stroking Ava’s semi-intact wing as she snuggled into his suit jacket.

“I suppose you expect me to run away screaming,” he said.

Danny smiled at that.

“No..”

He Looked yet again at Mr Dent, seeing the two almost separated balls of his soul twisting and dancing together with joy .

He Looked at the lake, seeing the pale impression of Ava’s mortal-goose mother, long dead, alight with peace before vanishing, moving to the Beyond.

“Something inside me says that you might not be as bad as people say.”

Chapter Text

Danny, Harvey, and Ava all found themselves stood before Two-Face’s safe house. 

It was a little place a few blocks away from the park, sequestered away by overgrown bushes and two condemned houses- one on either side.

Legally it belonged to Harvey Dent, of course, but he considered it entirely inappropriate to call it his house when he hardly spent any time there. At first he was even worried about leasing them here, since didn’t know the passcode for the door.

He suddenly realized he was physically unable to vocalize this. Who could blame him? With how emotionally and mentally exhausted as he was, how still in shock he was, he wasn’t even able to step past the front gate.

——————————————————————

Two-Face loved The Cottage. It was favorite safe house, looking like it was completely ruined by nature and time. The interior was perfectly clean and decorated of course, but the outside..

Two-Face couldn’t stand the idea of living next to anyone, so he left the vines and flowers and moss alone to stop any of those HOA loving fucks from touching his paradise and “seeing potential” and “improving” the two houses he worked so hard to keep unoccupied. 

The work was not all for him, of course. 

Kids would come pick flowers off the edges of the property, or shelter overnight in the structurally sound house on his left, and once he realized this, he decided he didn’t mind. He appreciated their appreciation, and they were always gone by morning.

He especially didn’t mind it when the most desperate ones ran straight up to his house to grab the blackberries from the bushes lining the fences, edible mushrooms from under the porch (he desperately hopes they’re aware they’re edible and not just guessing), or even the figs from the tree that he was kind of allergic to but kept for the wasps. 

Every now and then some would even dig up wild tubers in the yard, which he hadn’t even known were there.

When he noticed Danny staring in awe at The Cottage, Two-Face felt his heart swell with pride (yes, that’s my house, I made it, it’s mine and it’s safe—).

“Lemme get the door,” he croaked, still out of breath from the whole Harvey getting attacked by Alien Goozilla thing and walking three blocks.

1942, and the handle clicked. 

He didn’t remember what year he was “born” (it wasn’t that day, it wasn’t, he knows it wasn’t, he’s not just pain, he’s not just suffering—) and Harv’s birth year, or his go-to PINs 2222/4444, would be too easy to guess for anyone who knew the name on the lease. 

He had no other 4 digit string of numbers he could think of and easily remember, and figured that this one was as good as any when he set the lock up. 

The kid helped him over to the brown leather couch, navigating around his coffee table like he’d done a million times (No, Danny’s never been here- why does this feel so familiar, he’s always been alone why does this feel like—), before shutting the door and flicking both dead bolts.

Ava hopped up onto his thigh, then his chest- settling down in his jacket pocket before closing her little ruby eyes. 

Fuck that’s cute.

Two-Face didn’t remember the goose at all, but once she’d shrunk down into a little gosling Harvey started sobbing (and sobbing and he didn’t know what to do, why couldn’t he help, why did this make him so upset—) but something about Harvey’s reaction told him she was definitely a friend. (—and he was calm, she made him calm—)

She felt like a friend. Friends sleep in friends’ pockets, if said friends are small enough, of course.

Where was he?

Yes. Aliens. Was that where he was? Who cares. Harvey wasn’t awake to remind him, so this is going to be what he talks about now. Suck on that, lawman.

“Mr Dent?”

Two-Face turned to Danny, who had brought him the downstairs first aid kit. How did he find that?

“Not really, but thanks for this anyway,” he said, opening the box and pulling out wet wipes to get the soil and grass stains off his face. 

The kid furrowed his brow for a moment before the realization seemed to hit. 

“Sorry, sir, the- the phrasing just confused me,” he laughed, a bit nervous sounding as he sat on the opposite side of the couch. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Two-face had never heard Danny laugh before, and he was equally surprised and unsurprised to hear it was a repetitive, inhuman bouncing sound that reminded him of skipping rocks across a frozen river with.. What was he thinking about? (fuck not again who was that why can’t he remember—) “It’s alright, kid, happens a lot. Guess I just got one of those faces,” he joked, hoping to break the tension.

It worked, thankfully. Danny’s blue eye glowed with amusement as he smiled, helping Two-Face take off his jacket and lay it on the loveseat without disturbing Ava, who absolutely deserved to rest after that ordeal.

Danny started sorting through the kit as the crime lord unbuttoned his shirt, checking for bruises and damaged ribs. 

Luckily, since Ava was apparently just trying to stop him and not kill him, he just had contusions and scrapes from her slamming him into the ground with her foot. 

The bruising was, however, all over his body. It didn’t look too bad, sure, just a lot of redness, but he knew better than anyone how ugly “light” bruises could be. Within just two days they would darken to a horrible rotten color, he knew that.

Two days. 

He felt bad for Harvey. The bruises didn’t hurt, they just ached- but that was because Two-Face knew how to deal with pain.

Harvey didn’t. 

Two-Face wouldn’t let him build a pain tolerance, not if he could help it. Not when he could fix it before Harvey ever had to know what it was like to feel it (God knows he’s had enough—)

Two-Face smiled, knowing that Harvey didn’t have work in the morning. Tomorrow was his. 

And so was tonight.

——

Danny picked through the first aid kit, pulling out a box of Batman Band-Aids™ for Two-Face’s nose and probably body. 

“Is there bruise cream?” Two-Face asked, prompting Danny to look up and see that he had removed his shirt entirely and holy fucking shit Ava needs to chill out. 

Danny quickly checked the box, which despite being mostly well stocked, contained only one small bottle of bruise cream. 

He looked back up at the expanse of Two-Face’s slowly reddened body, which would be eggplant purple by Monday. 

“If I say yes, you aren’t allowed to be upset about the semantics.”

Two-Face raised a bald eyebrow, evidently amused- but when he spoke, his disappointment was obvious, “If that’s your way of saying I look like I was hit by a truck and whatever is in there won’t be enough, I kinda figured.”

Danny blinked. His second boss was more chill than he expected, though that had been given away when he realized the reason “Mr Dent’s house” was decorated like a mushroom witch’s dream home was because it was Two-Face’s house. The whole place was filled with old books, matching cedar shelves covered with matching trinkets, and what looked like old homemade comedy and tragedy masks hung on the wall alongside framed paintings that he couldn’t help but feel were stolen, but were so perfect for the space that he could almost understand why. 

He could see the differences in Two-Face and Mr Dent, and now that he was certain they considered themselves different people, he felt more comfortable in noticing. 

Two-Face was giving off a vibe that Danny was all too familiar with, and that was the I’m a gruff and snarky isolationist laughing through discomfort- but I just want to live my life, and secretly I’m very lonely type.

Danny would have to pin Mr Dent, meanwhile, for the I’m smart, suave, and polite- but I’m desperate to be useful and secretly I’m very lonely type. 

Well, before today he’d have given him a slightly ruder persona, but now he felt kinda guilty about that.

He’s going to write an apology letter for Mr Dent later, as therapy. Jazz would be so proud.

But back to bruising.

“I saw some arnica in your yard,” Danny suggested. 

“What?” 

“It’s a flower, kinda related to tobacco I think, but don’t quote me on that-“ 

“No I know what arnica is, why does it matter?”

“Oh! Well, have you heard of helenalin? The FDA refuses to clear it for medicinal use, but I talked to my sister’s dermatologist and..”

——

Danny explained the medicinal properties of arnica while Two-Face helped him pick flowers in the dark. The kid seemed unbothered by the lack of light, which he noted as another alien trait. 

His knowledge of Earth plants was definitely helpful, and lent to the idea that the kid was raised locally.

“I’m gonna grab some of this mint too, menthol is the best for this kind of thing..”

..Definitely local.

“You need help getting home?” Two-Face asked, his chest and back coated liberally in homemade bruise treatment that was actually quite nice. 

He let Danny help with the weird spot in the center of his back that he could never reach on his own, but he handled the rest while the kid put the leftovers in a plastic container. 

“Nah, I’m actually just a block down that way,” Danny said, pointing vaguely west before awkwardly adding, “Plus I can.. well.. fly. Invisibly.” 

Fuck that’s cool.

“Fuck that’s cool.”

Danny flushed green at that.

“Well, I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Mr.. Two-Face?” Danny’s embarrassment was replaced with contemplation. “What do I call you?”

Two-Face blinked. That sounded so weird. Mr Two Face, the crime boss, reporting for crime business. It was hilarious. 

The more he tried to think of a different title, the more Mr Two-Face sounded appealing, if only because this kid was worming his way into Two-Face’s heart. 

“Mr Two-Face is fine,” he chuckled. “What about you? Your big debut as my assistant tomorrow, whaddya wanna be called?”

Danny startled at that, his green eye flickering. 

“I.. didn’t really think about that?” He seemed nervous. “Do I need a name?”

Two-Face shrugged. “If you want to be public, I don’t mind. I don’t have a call sign either. My name just sounds like one.”

The kid still looked a bit thoughtful, and Two-Face could almost hear the gears in his brain working to come up with something. He decided to try and throw the kid a bone before he spun himself into a ball of anxiety (fuck he couldn’t stand when Harv would do that kind of thing either, he didn’t ask him to be upset he didn’t need him to be involved—).

“What about Houston?” 

“Like the city?” Danny questioned. 

“Nah, like.. Houston, we have a problem?” Suddenly Two-Face felt a little silly. Would he even get that reference? How familiar would an alien be with earth’s history regarding space travel?

But then there was the skipping sound again, Danny laughing, and he knew he said the right thing. 

“Alright, Houston it is. Welp,” Danny slapped his knees before standing, “Mr Two Face, I best be on my way.” 

With that, Danny vanished before he could blink.

After he got over that, he thought about what Danny had done before disappearing.

….Definitely local.

Chapter Text

Danny awoke the morning after the Goose Attack to a knock on the door. 

To be more accurate, he jolted so harshly that he slipped through the couch (which he had passed out on) and onto the floor in the basement. 

But if a ghost boy falls in an apartment building and no one is around to hear it, Danny can get away with pretending it never happened. 

He stood in his living room and squinted in the blinding morning light streaming through the curtains, his form becoming corporal once more.

He finally looked through the peephole to see absolutely no one.

“You have got to be fucking with me,” he muttered, “It is too early for this.” 

He unlocked the door and looked down to see a large square package propped up against the wall.

For a moment he recalled that this was Gotham. For a moment he recalled personal stories told around viridian castle hearths, of explosions and of chemical suffocation- geez way to be depressing, it’s not like it’ll kill you if it is a trap.

Taking the package inside turned out to be an excellent plan, because it was from Mr Two Face. 

A small folding desk, lightweight and portable. It felt like plastic, but after unfolding it and leaning on it for a bit, it proved to be very durable. Straps on the bottom would let him lay it on his back, relatively comfortably in fact. 

Danny almost wondered why he needed it, but he figured that crime lords didn’t tend to stick around just one office all day. If he was going to be an effective stenographer, he’d have to always have a place to put his keyboard. 

His first “shift” wouldn’t start until nightfall, so he decided sleeping until noon wouldn’t be a problem- is what he’d have said if he hadn’t just experienced the full body shiver that came with his sixth sense.

“Are you honestly planning on skipping breakfast?”

Danny turned away from the desk calmly, walked silently to the kitchen, opening the fridge, and stared his sister down while he drank an entire 12oz bottle of distilled ectoplasm he’d collected from his newly built air filter.

Jazz’s kindly aged eyes, her glowing red hair and warm voice- they filled Danny with a new sense of appreciation for the day.

That or it was eating breakfast like she told him to.

“Good morning to you too,” he snarked, pulling out another bottle for her.

She took it with a smile, and Danny watched her slide it into her white coat’s pocket rather than open it, intoning her perpetual rasping whisper- “Habitual mothering, I never did shake it.” 

He laughed and followed her through the ceiling and onto the roof.

He knew they made a strange sight, and that neither of them would ever have it any other way. 

Sitting on the edge of a building in Gotham, with only gargoyles as shade, was a 14 year old corpse and a 29 year old doctor.

“Who is also a corpse,” Jazz reminded him, nudging their shoulders together as she utilized a deep spiritual connection to make fun of her poor brother’s internal monologuing thoughts- one which nevertheless remained filtered from an unseen direction. 

Hello, it says, merely as a joke and an appreciation for the patience of all that witness. 

Danny shook his head, the fog of transuniversal knowledge too much to concern himself with this early in the day. 

“Well, you got the long end of the stick with the whole growing up thing at least.”

They laughed, and Danny leaned back against the gargoyle’s pedestal.

Danny loved these days, where they were just happy and calm and safe and together. They came so infrequently now, and they were impossible to plan for. Jazz couldn’t just leave the infinite realms like he could. She had responsibilities far greater than his, and higher chance of being discovered if she stayed on Earth anyway. They accepted it.

That didn’t make it harder when the years would pass without seeing her, wouldn’t make the world go back to their blissful, strange, impossible Normal that they had so long ago.

When she could, she would come. When she couldn’t, they would text. And that was that. 

“Johnny and Kitty say hi,” she says, unscrewing her bottle of ectoplasm and taking a careful sip as she holds her neck shut. 

“Not Shadow?” He asked innocently, tugging at her metaphorical pigtails. 

Jazz shoved him off the roof, and he cackled as he floated back up. 

While Kitty, Johnny and Jazz definitely got along, Shadow was the one Jazz was tied to. Danny could see it, no matter how much she denied it. Most, including Danny, confused him for a Shadow Person- but he confided that he felt more like a horrifically stretched out Shade. Like his atoms had been scattered from each other in a way that was impossible to reconcile, not like he was whole, not like he should. No mouth to scream, and yet from what he had been told by his sister, he desperately wanted to. 

Jazz was good for him in how she let him open up and explore his identity (Danny was glad to help relay his own experiences as a previously unidentifiable ghost when Jazz asked for his advice), but more important in Danny’s mind was how good he was for Jazz.

Danny had hardly personally interacted with the ghost since his ascension, but when Jazz arrived in the Realms and found herself struggling with her initial lack of voice and Danny felt the horrible agony of being unable to be with her when she needed him (because damn the Realms if I can’t help my sister isn’t something the King can say), Shadow was the one who helped her through it. The one who eased her suffering, the one who encouraged her. The one who let her care for herself before others, and did his best to care for her first. He was incredibly attentive, in a way Jazz once said “no one had ever been.”

Danny had nothing but positive feelings for the other ghost, and if he ever saw him again he’d kiss him- platonically, of course, but seriously if Jazz wouldn’t do it, Danny would. 

“If you must know, Shadow is on a trip to the Library,” she said, blushing, “he wanted to take some time to try the regression meditation I recommended. It’s been a few years, actually.”

Danny squinted, staring at his sister’s aura for a moment. He quickly took notice of her growing sadness, so he continued to press the bratty younger brother role he was born to play. “I never would have guessed.. Your romantic bond is really strong right now, like you’ve been hovering around each other—“

She lifted her hand to shove him again, but he grabbed on and pulled her off the roof by her hair. 

They both launched themselves far into the air, past the cloud layer and above the view of incoming planes- though being invisible almost made it pointless. 

And for the next hour, they did the one thing that strengthened familial bonds more than anything else.

Beat the absolute shit out of each other while laughing.

He knew he would have to discuss his new job, his new life, eventually. She knew she would have to discuss her latest breakthroughs and stalls with her work as a Psychopomp. 

But who cared to discuss work before play? 

Chapter Text

Deep in the heart of Gotham, at the center of Crime Alley, sat an abandoned construction site. 

Sixty years ago a man called Harold Drake would endeavor to improve Park Row, to clean it up and create more jobs.

The first and last project he would undertake in the neighborhood would be the development of a string of empty buildings, ready to be sold off to Gotham’s Diamond District for new financial endeavors. 

The first day of construction, delayed for weeks by protestors, would involve the demolition of Aria Park, home of the oldest living being in Gotham City. 

A tall Black Maple, it’s shadow cast over the block like a protective blanket.

It was subject to many young people of many generations, each carving into it’s trunk, and still in turn was granted the careful pruning of the green thumbs of the neighborhood, as the city wouldn’t pay for the professionals. 

Despite the desperate attempts of the people of Crime Alley, their last green space was torn away, and their precious Maple ripped from the ground. 

All who were present would report the same sense of protective duty, of loss, of anger and fury as the saw blades screamed and the wood cracked like thunder, until the mighty Shadow of the Alley had crashed onto the shredded earth. 

And all those who were present would report the same feeling of pure elation when the news broke that the great Drake himself had been stung by his own venom. 

In the deep center of the agonizing pit left behind by the Black Maple’s murder, the mangled corpse of Harold Drake was discovered curled on it’s side, hacked until his bones were exposed yet unbroken, blanketed so tenderly in the dead leaves of his victim. 

The GCPD never discovered the culprit, and the ever superstitious elite couldn’t bear to touch the ground of such a grisly event to continue his foolish quest. 

The construction site lay untouched, the rubble of a hundred year old brick walking path strewn across a marshy field home to thistles, grass, and wildflowers.

And still, pit remained empty, a dark muddy hollow where now only the bugs find comfort in it’s shadow.

…

And yet, Jason Todd found himself laid on his back, eyes transfixed by the high ground around him, the smoggy sky so far away from a man who would soared above the city and so often made the horizon his friend. 

He blinked sluggishly, his body limp and cold in the soft earth as he felt the darkness of his grave envelop him so safely.

The pit. Not his grave, he reminded himself. 

No, his grave was far away from him now. Nestled between the reddest rose bushes, the stone delicately maintained and decorated with coins and trinkets because flowers die. Laid between the two kind souls he felt he knew, yet had never set eyes upon outside of oil on canvas. 

The beautiful thought filled him with such yearning, such despair, that with a sudden, frantic energy he ripped fistfuls of mud from each wall around him, sobbing as he smeared them across his face, desperately clawing at the earth and crying out to the shadows to take him back! Take him back, just for tonight, just let him rest!

And as the rain began to fall, and the walls began to shift, Jason Todd received his wish.

Buried in the flood of earth and water, he felt immobile and heavy. 

As his vision became dark, he heard a voice echo in his mind,

“You’re going to be alright.”

The voice was fried and rough, but he was desperate for more of it. She sounded so sure, and he knew she was a she, he felt her, and felt she was telling him the truth.

“Just take a deep breath, Shadow, can you do that for me?”

Yes, he can, he can breathe, his lungs expanding and sinking in his chest as he felt them pushing the thick mud through him.

“When you wake up, you’ll have a body again. You need to remember that you want it.”

Does he want this body? Jasonshadowshadowjason wants this body. He thinks.
It feels familiar, yet foreign, so much bigger than it once was. 

“You might be afraid at first, but it is your body. If you reject it, it will not know. You’ll return here, and you won’t face any consequence. But as you hear my voice guiding you, you must remember that you want to accept it.”

Shadowjasonshadowjason feels the caress of the wet earth, the mud in his lungs, the cooling blood inching through his veins towards a cold, delicate thing inside of his chest. It was agony, it was overwhelming. But it was oh so exciting, and.. comforting.

“You can take as much time as you need, Shadow. I’ll be here when you return.”

He could take as much time as he needed. That was good. He was tired, like he hadn’t slept in years.. and he thought to himself, had he slept? Or had he lain beneath cots and beds, staring up at wood planks or metal poles and wished to be deeper?

His eyes fell shut, though it made little difference, and the Revenant finally found his rest. 

Chapter Text

In Gotham City, Jason Todd’s body lies still and peaceful.

It rests, loved and cherished, its memory invoked with each passing moment.

In Ethiopia, the remaining lower half of a single shattered wall balances desperately on scorched earth. 

The once massive warehouse, now a pile of rubble, casts off into the air with every gust of wind- but not the wall.

The wall stands sadly, lonely, lost as its three sisters are gone, destroyed and in pieces at its baseboard. 

But it is strong. It does not fall in the first days, weeks, or months since it felt itself burn.

It must stay strong. 

The wall is empty on one side, it’s stone and metal scratched and overgrown. This was once it’s outside, it’s once-large and sturdy force field to shelter all inside.

The one on its side.

For the other side held a small, delicate shadow.

It was near-shapeless. It was dark. It was nothing. 

It was cold.

It was forgotten.

And it did not move.

When a place is destroyed, what happens to its spirit?

The living experience reality so uniquely, it can be impossible to comprehend the experience of something unliving. 

When a place has ceased its function, and its bones have gone to decay, the feeling it once brought begins to leave the land.

You may stand in the field where a great battle once took place and say “I can feel the spirit, even after it has left.”

The spirit laughs at you, standing in it’s home, and says “I am right here.”

The day the site of the great battle dies is the day it ceases being ‘the site of the great battle.’ 

On that day, it is again reborn as ‘a field.’ 

But where does the spirit go?

When the wall finally comes down, in the horrific, earth shaking night, it wails. 

It creaks and snaps with despair, begging its little shadow to fly away.

The shadow does not move.

As the wall, the Warehouse, begins to fade into the darkness of its hereafter, it screams. 

The Warehouse is blown down, the shadow rushing towards the ground faster and faster and faster-

-And suddenly it was wrapped in gentle, soft darkness. 

In the Infinite Realms, there is a Warehouse. 

It has four strong walls, a sturdy roof, and is filled with broken parts. It was once built to house cars and trucks and once, on a terrible day, explosives. 

It does not like that day. Never will it keep those things inside again.

On the far back wall, hidden away by a rusty old motorcycle, was a small, delicate shadow. It was near-shapeless. It was dark. It was nothing. 

It was… warm. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 11: Waterways

In the end it was a draw, if by “draw” one meant “Jazz’s first of several alarms went off right before she was about to win, and they were running out of time to hang out.”

The two were left floating in the middle of the clouds, droplets of ectoplasm raining down to the hazy city below.

“So, enough stalling. What’s up?”

“What?” Danny scoffed, clutching his nonexistent pearls, “Stall? Me? Why in all my Thirteen Billion-“ 

Jazz grabbed his shoulder and pushed down, hard, sending him spinning through a cloud. He cackled on the way back up, throwing handfuls of water at her as she raised her arms to deflect. 

“I’m not going anywhere today until you tell me about your new job, Danny. You said in your text that the only way you would ever be able to explain properly was if we were face to face, so here I am.”

Oo, she was good. He really thought her schedule would give him at least a few weeks to figure out how to explain what he even did. Or to find out for himself.

Danny sighed, matching the density of the cloud and sitting on it, gazing up at the faint stars and planets and satellites, all hidden by the light of the Sun and such astronomical distance, pun fully intended.

Jazz followed, laying on her stomach and looking down at the asphalt streets and concrete buildings honeycombed through what they had once seen as marshes and islands. What Danny still felt he saw if he wasn’t looking. 

The stars never changed, though. Well, they did, but.. slowly. In centuries Danny could feel pass, instead of the horribly shorts years that it took to build or raze a human settlement. 

“You know, anything you’re doing down there is the right thing.”

Danny looked down. Jazz had wrapped her neck back up with her soft teal scarf, and rested her head in her folded arms. 

He felt her speak, not heard her. No wonder it affected him so much.

“What?” 

Jazz glanced at him, then nodded towards the city. 

“If you think about it, really think about it? You’re nowhere near even the most neutral person in that city. No matter what you’re doing to feed your human half, no matter what you’re doing to keep your sad lonely man apartment-“

“Wow thank you that’s really helping,”

“-Shut up, your sad lonely man apartment with too many locks, and no in unit washer or dryer!”

“It’s cheap!” Danny laughed, throwing a handful of air and water molecules at her. She dodged and launched her own handful back; Danny cooled the air around them quickly it turned the whole cloud grey, and it began to sink. 

The two of them switched to a different fluffy white cloud, rather than follow it to the park, where it joined what looked to be a budding lightning storm.

Jazz rolled onto her back, looking up at the stars with him. “But seriously. We’ve seen the full picture, or at least all we can of it while keeping our minds. You and I both went through this whole song and dance already, even if you haven’t been back in a while you won’t forget the steps. Whatever you’re doing, I know you, and I know you’re doing it for the right reasons.”

Danny pulled his legs in, and held his knees to his chest. That was an unfamiliar feeling. Trust. 

The worst part is he knows it shouldn’t be. He had it once, someone’s trust. Two someone’s. And he broke them both. Could he really do it again, and with another horrible choice in career? Was it even a choice? Was it ever? He was getting lightheaded.

Jazz was still empathizing,

“Obviously I’m gonna be worried about you and where your head’s at, I’m your sister. That’s not changing anytime soon. But let me put it this way; if you were some random human teenager, or even just yourself way back when, I’d probably be more concerned about your physical safety and moral intentions. But you’re you.”

Danny squeezed himself tighter, vision blurring. That’s what he was afraid of. He was himself when he aided in defeating Pariah, he was himself when he accepted the throne. He was himself when they took them away from him.

“Danny, breathe.”

Danny started coughing, gasping for air as he regained density, feeling the comfortable cold mist on his skin and clothes. 

Jazz reached out and rubbed his back. 

”Two, three.. that’s it. You have a lung, Danny, you breathe oxygen here.”

It wasn’t a taunt, it was a reminder. A severely needed one. Jazz guided him back down to the roof, and into his apartment- where the air filter was doing work on not just ectoplasm, but the horrible dark smog that Danny had to fly above and beyond each night to stargaze. If he didn’t have it, he would have probably suffocated.

As Jazz led him across the room, reality warped around them; Danny’s panic triggering Space to bend to his unknown and incomprehensible whims. Cardboard boxes of wires and cables slid across the floor and out of his way, the couch inverted itself until it came back around facing them and the window instead of the front door- but the patterned upholstery was now backwards. 

Soon he was breathing, in and out, in and out. 

His vision restored, he looked up at Jazz’s concerned face to blurt out, “I’m Two-Face’s stenographer.”

“…Huh?”

“Stenographer, it’s like a-“

“Danny I know what a stenographer is, I’m wondering why a crime lord needs one.”

Danny slumped on the couch, laughing self deprecatingly. 

“That’s the billion dollar question, yea. Which might as well be what he’s paying me, by the way!”

Jazz whistled- or sent him the impression of a whistle. 

“I know! What the fuck does he actually need me for? I’m not certified and I’m not even using a real keyboard, and he hasn’t even taken on a case of his own since the accident- I just-“ 

Danny grunted with frustration, sending Jazz a wave of emotions, mostly desperate confusion, but undercut with sheer concern. 

“Danny, right now any sort of analysis will just be spiraling. That won’t help you understand, it will only make it more confusing.”

She was, of course, correct. Danny didn’t know if he had it in him to find an actual conclusion to this, not on his own, not even with Jazz. He would have to wait to find out. 

He hated waiting.

He fucking hated it.

“Maybe you could show me how it happened? Instead of sitting here guessing where it’ll go?”

Danny would take any opportunity to stop talking right now. 

He opened his mind to his sister, and allowed her to feel and experience his past few weeks. 

As she sifted through memories, he felt hazily unpresent. A comfortable sort of almost asleep, which was doing wonders for his previously uplifted heart rate. 

Jazz’s hands in his head were a safe intrusion, a skill she had honed for decades that Danny could just barely grasp after centuries. To become another ghost’s past was incredibly simple on the surface, but for it to mean anything more than echoes of sensations and feelings, it required a lot of raw empathic ability- not just knowledge. It was simple. Some had it, some didn’t. 

When Danny read Ava’s memories, all he did was allow her to speak her piece. He opened the floodgates, and she brought the tides.

Jazz, meanwhile, built aqueducts. She slowly stripped away each feeling and act, digging into the walls of the mind with gentle precision like a shovel in clay- allowing each experience to disperse and be examined one by one, sensation by sensation. 

Though it wasn’t the intended effect, he always felt he could think a lot clearer when she organized things for him. It wasn’t often, and it certainly wasn’t always needed, but with such an underdeveloped brain it just wasn’t possible for Danny to live a half/unlife without the occasional mental restructuring. His own psychopomp was back in the Realms, and he wouldn’t be seeing them for weeks. 

After a few minutes she furrowed her eyebrows, puzzled, pulling her hands away. 

“So?” Danny pressed.

Jazz seemed to think for a moment. It made Danny feel better that she was taking time to process it, that she didn’t have an answer immediately. She knew everything he was thinking, and he knew she knew. Everything they said would only be what Danny always knew would come, even if he pretended not to know. 

“Well, we need to talk about what you’re going to tell your bosses about the ghost situation. They definitely think you’re an alien.”

“No, really?” Danny muttered sarcastically, getting up to start mindlessly cleaning up his apartment, the furniture again working around him to keep a straight path. He picked up a grocery bag and started filling it with takeout trash and napkins, and what he hoped were unimportant bills.

Jazz hovered above him and cast a soft red glow, her orange hair floating like water, “Do you want them to keep thinking that? Would it be possible even if you did? They’re living with a ghost now, the truth is an inevitability.”

Danny nodded along, tying his little trash bag and tossing it into the corner. 

“Aliens are treated better this time, I could get a real ID, not just the fake I’m using for the  community college classes and library cards and shit. Ava is young, she’s impressionable, if I really wanted to I could just ask her to lie and she’d go with it.”

“But you won’t.”

“Because I don’t want to.”

Jazz sat in the air before him, the two of them face to face. She smiled, the not-real smile that she would give him every time he’d go off into a fight that they both knew he wasn’t allowed to flee from. Every time he’d sense a ghost. Every time he’d go to school. Every time he’d go downstairs.

“It’s going to hurt,” she whispered.

Danny smiled back, ignoring the clawing feeling inside of his heart.

“It always does.”