Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dick looked at the face in front of him, edges worn and familiar and far too sad. He reached out, thumbs tracing sharp cheekbones and ignoring the cold with practiced ease. 

“If you need something, anything, come and get me.”

Danny raised his hands and gently looped them around Dick’s wrists, always so, so careful of his strength. “It’s not that simple.”

Dick tilted his head. “I don’t care. I won’t go unless you promise me.”

“Nightwing-”

“Dick.”

“Dick,” Danny huffed. “You know what Clockwork said. This is your only shot. This is the same portal that dumped you in the Ghost Zone in the first place and it will disappear again. Soon. And you’ll have a family again. Once you go back.”

Dick’s fingers tightened slightly around Danny’s chin but neither of them flinched. Not after all the times they’d patched each other up. Not when they both knew the other’s touch meant safety. 

“I don’t care,” Dick said.

Danny raised a masterfully skeptical eyebrow. 

“I want… Look, what Clockwork promised, my family whole and together, is a dream come true. But even if I believed it, and I’m not sure I do-“

“You were literally working for the ghost Time Police. I know you know what Clockwork’s capable of, you Dingbat.”

Dick glared at Danny. “The point is, you Hellion, a hypothetical family doesn’t trump a physical you here in my reach. You’re my friend, Danny.”

Dick lowered his head to press into Danny’s cool skin, knowing that the contact was so easy was a sign of trust. Danny had gone intangible more than once when they were first getting used to each other; not quite expecting kind touch. 

“I know you, Danny. I trained you.” 

Because a time-watching ghost, a handful of allies, and gallery of violently friendly rouges did not make a hero. Danny had heart and desire and responsibility in spades but, ghost or not, he was a child (and fuck if Dick hadn’t stood by enough children’s corpses not to care for this bright soul in whatever way possible). 

They’d had a lot of time between missions for Clockwork and tracking down the exact portal Dick had been shoved through by a very misguided mage. Danny disappeared a fair bit, apparently working on other things in the Zone and going places that a living human shouldn’t go, but he always came back. He always returned to Dick and soaked up any advice on form or strategy or fucking coping mechanisms that Dick could provide. Which was a lot, because Dick had created an entire training regime with notes and diagrams and so many practical spars. 

Danny was not Dick’s brother (Jay wasn’t here, wasn’t in the Zone, and Clockwork assured him this was a good thing). Danny was already dead. Danny deserved to look just a little less sad. Just a little less scared. Just a little more confident. 

“I trained you, Danny, and I am so so proud of you. But, fuck, kid, you get into some wild shit. I know you’re not telling me everything, and that’s fine. Don’t make that face, it’s fine, you’ve got a lot of people to protect here and I understand. What I need you to understand is that I trained you, yes, but you’re also my friend, my family. You put me back together again, held my broken pieces together until they fit into something I didn’t hate as much. Something I wasn’t sure I’d ever be again after Jay’s death and everything with the Titans.”

Danny lunged forward. “That was not your fault. You were in fucking space and anything that happened with that Mirage Bitch and the Teen Idiots is not your fault.”

Dick returned the hug for one long moment before stepping slightly back and tipping Danny’s head up to meet Dick’s gaze. He was still so short, never going to grow to his full physical potential.

“And Freakshow was not your fault. Neither was Dan.” The kid flinched, as he always did. It took a particularly brutal ghost that fought with summoned images of personal fears to have those conversations and while the experience was bonding, it certainly wasn’t pleasant. “But we don’t have time to rehash those talks.”

“No, we don’t.” Danny’s eyes tracked back to the portal Dick hadn’t looked at since he’d started speaking.

“I will stay for you.”

“You can’t.” Danny’s eyes flashed and he tried to take a step back before slumping into Dick’s firm grasp. “You’ll discorporate. You’re already getting wobbly around the edges; humans aren’t supposed to spend this much time in the Ghost Zone and we can’t guarantee we’ll find this portal again.”

“I know,” Dick told him.

Danny punched him in the chest, slammed both hands down with so little force Dick could barely feel a thing.

“Leave, you bastard.”

“Not until you promise me. I know it won’t be as simple as you popping through a portal to come visit. I know there’s something off with my dimension or timeline that makes it worse. I know this is best for both of us. What I need to know is that you’ll find me, that you’ll try, that you’ll look. That you know I’ll always welcome you. That I want you. That if you need me and it’s at all possible, if it’s within in any of your considerable powers, that you’ll come to me.”

There were tears sliding down Danny’s cheeks. “Fine, yes. Okay, you stupid Dingbat. I promise. Now go.”

Dick nodded, a slow, heavy move and this time when Danny shoved at Dick’s chest he used much more of his strength. Dick flew back into the portal that was, possibly, starting to flicker. 

“I’ve got this,” Danny said, hands settling on his hips and tail whipping back and forth.

“I know!” Dick yelled back, vision streaking red. 

Danny’s soft, “I’ll miss you,” was probably meant to be spoken only once Dick was gone. The door to the portal didn’t quite close fast enough, however.

Dick fell to his knees, hand bracing his weight on concrete that was cool without the edge of kindness that he’d gotten used to from a napping ghost boy using Dick as a pillow.

“Not as much as I’ll miss you, kiddo.”

Dick stood, surveyed the rumble and detritus around him, and scratched out some of the markings that still littered the floor. He’d have to track down the mage that started this mess, if he hadn’t turned himself into a puddle of goo already. The man had no idea what he was dealing with; his runes weren’t compatible with the butchered Ghost Speak he’d been using at all. Dick would know, since he was now fluent. 

He was sure that would come up on another mission real soon.

Dick blinked back tears and tried to ignore the hole in his heart that said he’d burned his bridges with his father and team, lost his brother, and would never see his Spook (his mentee, his friend, his hero) again.

“Right. Okay,” Dick told the empty warehouse. “Time to go back home. Wherever the hell that is.”

Dick’s voice echoed. 

***

This was stupid. This was so fucking stupid. It had been three years since Danny had last seen Dick. And who the fuck knew how long it had been since Dick had last seen Danny. Clockwork had been sure there was a time disparity with the portal Dick had gone through; only the really fucked up portals has that particular shade of puce mixed in with the lime and radioactive apple.

The point was, Dick had no reason to remember Danny, not with all the people he’d saved. And taught. Danny had kept a bit of an eye on the Titans and the Bats (no, it wasn’t obsessive Sam, he was just staying informed). Danny knew he wasn’t special. 

He just didn’t have anywhere else to go. 

Danny wrung the bell or buzzed the intercom or whatever was the correct term and wrapped his free hand around his middle. He didn’t even know if Dick would be here. Dick had given this address to Danny before, had made Danny recite it back to him as if a giant mansion owned by Bruce Wayne would be hard to find, but Dick insisted. Dick said he could always be contacted by someone in the manor. 

Danny just wanted to see Dick. Just wanted one of those hugs that made everything seem alright. Even if it wasn’t.

And it wasn’t.

“Wayne residence,” a polished voice rang out from the wall.

“Oh, um, hi? I know he’s likely not there, but um, Dick gave me this address? Dick Grayson? He told me to come here if I needed him-“ and he did, really really did “-and oh, my name is Danny? Danny F- just Danny.” 

“Of course, Mister Danny.” 

Danny blinked. “What?” His voice was soft enough that Danny was almost surprised the intercom picked up the sound.

There was what sounded like genuine warmth in the voice now. “Master Dick has left your name as one to be granted immediate entrance. I will come retrieve you momentarily.”

“Wow. Huh. Uh, thank you.”

When the buzzer clicked and the gate opened Danny slipped inside. His chest throbbed a bit as he stared at the long drive but it was worth it, to be safe. To be warm again. 

He flicked his soaked hair out of his eyes and started to walk up the winding road. He hadn’t made it far before he found himself caught in the bright headlights of an incoming car. Danny tensed, tired but far too close to give up now. 

An older gentleman in a distinguished suit carrying both an umbrella and more poise than Danny could ever hope to muster stepped out of the driver’s seat. In no time at all Alfred Pennyworth (Dick’s grandfather) had ushered him into the car. Danny blinked at the low thrum of the heat ramping up and again at the man smoothly turning around and driving the car back up the road. 

“I’m going to get your seats wet,” was somehow the first thing out of Danny’s mouth. 

Alfred gave Danny a sideways glance. “That’s is quite alright. Seats dry much easier than chills leave bodies.”

Danny’s hands were indeed trembling. 

“I’m not cold.” Not from the weather at least. He tucked his hands under his legs, ignoring the heavy feeling from his soaked jeans. 

“If you say so, Mister Danny. Regardless, it is terribly rude to leave a guest in the rain.”

“Am I? A guest, I mean.”

“Of course.” 

Alfred’s gloved hands were gentle on the wheel. Calm and collected. Danny wondered if any of that calm could bleed over into Danne, if he just sat next to the man long enough.

“Master Dick, much like all the boys, has long left a list of names and descriptions that should be granted immediate entrance if they ever turn up seeking help.”

“I could be lying,” Danny said. There was no way that Dick had a picture of him, after all, and his description would have been for a white-haired kid. Danny wasn’t crazy tall or built since ghost physiology was weird and slow, but he was definitely quite different from his fifteen year old self. “I’m not sure how to prove, well. Anything, really.”

A sharp look was sent Danny way, though he only recognized as such thanks to years of battle experience. Alfred was very perceptive.

“Indeed, you could be. I do not believe you are, however, and I have much experience with lying youngsters.”

Danny huffed out a laugh, hand going back to his chest when the sound pulled out of his lungs. 

Thankfully, Alfred didn’t bring the motion up. 

“Perhaps, a security question might be order? To appease both our minds.”

“Sure,” Danny said, fingers tapping on his leg. “Ask away.”

“What is the ideal breakfast food?”

Another laugh forced its way out of Danny’s throat, sharp and brittle like bones but more genuine than he’d thought himself currently capable. He knew Dick’s answer was cereal; they’d had this argument probably hundreds of times. It was a comfort argument. And there was really only one line Danny would never back down from believing. 

“Anything but toast. Anything but fucking toast.”

“Word for word, young Mister Danny. I don’t think we have any problem after all.”

Danny smiled, just a bit, but let the smile fall as they pulled up in front of the Manor itself. He pressed his face closer to the window as Alfred drove into the garage, understanding just a bit more why Dick never seemed phased by any of the castles or haunts in the Ghost Zone.

In short and very baffling order, Alfred had Danny bundled up an out of the car and into a bathroom with instructions to have a warm shower. The man had promised hot cocoa afterwards as he placed warm clothes from Dick’s closet in Danny’s arms. 

Danny obeyed, because the promise of warmth and sugar would get him to do a great many things. Also because Dick had bemoaned the inability to cross Alfred frequently.

He enjoyed the shower, even as it didn’t particularly warm him up. He had been warm since he’d left Amity. Since his parents, since the Fentons, had proved how cold their welcome really was. 

Jazz’s hands had been warm as they patched him back together. Though that might have been the blood. He’d healed, mostly, thanks to his ghost half and the first aid his sister was unfortunately excellent at, but there were scars. 

Danny didn’t look into the mirror. 

Dick’s clothes were definitely a little too big, but not as much as he would have thought considering the last time he’d met Dick, Danny had constantly needed to look upwards. He didn’t bother rolling the pant legs, quite content to shuffle around, and wrapped his hands in the ends of the long sleeves. 

The panic that had receded a bit under Alfred’s calm scrutiny was starting to come back, ecto-bugs fluttering in his stomach as if demanding him to defend his actions. 

He couldn’t stay with Jazz any longer than he had, despite her protests. Her dorm room was both small and the first place their parents or the Guys in White would look. The same thing was true with Sam and Tucker, though he knew they’d both drop everything to help him. Everything included University, though, and they’d both worked so hard to get into their schools. Danny couldn’t destroy their lives, their potential. Not again. 

No one knew about Dick, though. Not really. No one besides Clockwork who’d helped get Dick home and overseen Dick’s work with the ghost Time Police. And Jazz, who Danny was pretty sure thought Dick was the ghost of a superhero who’d befriended and trained Danny in the Zone before moving on. 

Danny hadn’t tried to correct her. Hadn’t dared share Dick’s identity; not when he understood the dangers so clearly. Not when Dick was one of the few good things that was truly and only his. 

Which meant no one would expect him to come here, to be welcome here. As long as he was actually welcome.

He must have been very deep in his thoughts because he’d only made it several steps outside the bathroom when he ran into someone. Danny was normally pretty good a sensing even living humans, so should have been able to avoid the collision. Instead, he looked up into sea-blue eyes shot through with green, one palm stabilizing himself on a very broad chest.

“Shit,” Danny said. “I’m so sorry.” He didn’t move his hand or step away, though. There was something about this man, about that green.

“What the fuck?” the Red Hood asked. It was supposed to be angry, Danny could tell. It wasn’t. Hood’s voice was low, eddies of confusion lapping at the edges of his tone.

Danny blinked and stared at the white shock of hair the exact colour of his own when Phantom. 

Danny wasn’t stupid. He knew this was the Red Hood despite the fact that man was in sweats and a T-shirt, no bat insignias or gear to be seen. Part of that certainty was that they had the same general build and this man was in the Wayne Manor, Batman’s home. He’d seen video footage of all the Gotham vigilantes (lots of videos, which still didn’t count as an obsession) and knew Red Hood was a Bat. Danny had known it from the moment he’d seen Nightwing stepping in front of a blow meant for Hood only for the two of them to turn around and fight side by side like water and ice. 

Danny had sat beside Dick as he broke down repeatedly and utterly over his baby brother’s death. Danny had stood beside Dick as Clockwork showed a possible future to the man, one with multiple Bat-themed vigilantes standing together. Danny had been possibly monitoring the news for anything Gotham and vigilante since the moment he’d pushed Dick back through that portal.

Danny missed his friend, his Dingbat, but that ache softened with each addition to the Batfamily. He’d matched every Bat to members of the Wayne family and when Red Hood hadn’t shown up as a Wayne or Wayne adjacent even as he’d shown up again and again as a Bat (with different methods and contentious relationships, sure, but still there), well, Danny had wondered. 

Danny, of all people, knew that death wasn’t necessarily the end. 

Now, with his hand on Hood’s chest and sense of slow, acidic comfort washing over him, Danny was almost certain.

“Jason,” he whispered on a breath that almost formed into the blue puff of air that signalled his ghost sense.

Hood, Jason, flinched a confirmation, though he didn’t step away.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Danny!”

Danny flinched this time, because that wasn’t him. He hadn’t spoken. Jason actually stepped forward and slightly in front of Danny at the flinch, finally dislodging Danny’s hand. Danny wasn’t paying attention anymore, however, because Dick came skidding around the corner. 

“Danny!” Dick called again, still in his Nightwing suit but without his mask. The blue accents were different, not as electric as they’d been in the Zone, but still intrinsically Nightwing. Still the only adult that had ever truly tried and succeeded at both respecting Danny’s abilities and keeping him somewhat safe.

Dick didn’t continue running down the hallway. Dick stopped at Danny’s second flinch, barely glancing at his brother (his alive brother) standing in front of Danny. Dick then tilted his head in a way that Danny knew meant he was putting together the pieces. 

Danny tugged on his black hair and waited. 

He’d never told Dick about his human half. He’d let the man think Danny was completely and only dead. That any time he’d disappeared it had been to solve something in the Ghost Zone and not slip back into the living plane. 

Clockwork had insisted and Danny had agreed, since he’d thought it cruel to return to the living when Dick couldn’t. When they needed the right portal to send Dick back because he’d been sent through time as well as dimensional space and going through Danny’s portal would possibly break time and definitely kill Dick.

Other ghosts had called Danny a Halfa, but Danny had brushed it off as an insult and Dick had mostly believed him. Hadn’t questioned it at least. But he would have remembered. He would remember a whole lot.

Danny could see the exact moment when the pieces clicked in Dick’s head, the moment when all the whispered confessions, tragic backstory pieces, and behavioural clues coalesced into an answer. He could see it because a look of profound sadness fell over Dick’s previously frantic yet still happy face. 

“Oh, Danny-boy.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have told you. I know I, after everything you told me, I should’ve-“ 

Danny raised his hands to his eyes, dug the heels of his hands into his cheekbones. Jason shifted uncomfortably at his side.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Dick told him, and Danny’s head shot up. “Thanks for keeping your promise, Little Hellion.”

Dick’s arms were open as he stood several feet away, waiting for Danny to make the first move. Danny did, rushing forward and probably phasing through Jason just a little in his effort to get to Dick faster. 

Strong arms closed around him and spun Danny just once, as if he wasn’t entirely solid and heavy as any regular person when not in his ghost form. The moment he was dropped to his feet he had gentle hands in his hair, down his face, along his arms. Care and concern in every brush as Dick checked him over as he’d always insisted after fights, after the first few time Dick had caught Danny hiding injuries because they weren’t that bad and he was already dead. 

Dick’s hand trembled when it got to Danny’s collarbone, when he drew the loose fabric aside to reveal the start of the y-incision that had been apparently poking out of the too-big neckline. Dick’s palm flattened out over the raised scar and he let out a soft broken sound. 

Danny closed his eyes and leaned his forehead on the dark, heavy material of Dick’s suit. “Ghosts don’t feel pain. And not everyone takes the existence of half-ghosts as well as you.”

Dick’s hands slid back around and over Danny’s shoulders, wrapping him in a tight hug. 

“They, they-“ 

“Shh, Spooks, shh. You can tell me when you’re ready. Not before then. Never before then, remember? I got you. I’ve got you now.”

Danny only realized he’d started crying when a sob broke out of his chest. He clung to Dick, letting more sobs out in way he hadn’t dared to before. Not when he had to convince Jazz to let him go, Tucker and Sam that he was fine, and Vlad not to tear Amity to pieces. It was comforting to know he those people in his corner, even Vlad who while hardly reformed had still made it emphatically clear that he was siding with the ghosts. With Danny. 

But they weren’t safe. They were Danny’s responsibility to care for or keep in line. 

Dick wasn’t his responsibility. Dick was trained and dangerous and took the same risks as Danny. Dick helped and stood by his side and stayed to help after. Dick punched ghosts in the face and could look after himself. (Dick would have stayed for Danny. Dick would have let the Ghost Zone destabilize him molecule by molecule and worn a smile through it all for Danny.)

Danny cried. He cried and let strong arms and Romani lullabies wrap around him. He cried until he felt himself  being lifted. He cried until the warmth carried him away into a darkness that felt like home.

Chapter Text

Jason had just wanted a sandwich after changing into his comfy clothes and now he didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know what was going on in a distinctly un-Bat-like fashion that had him wanting to shoot something. In the face. 

But not the teen who’s sobs were softening into quiet snuffles in Dick’s arms. That teen was firmly on the ‘Do Not Shoot, Ever’ list, and Jason was very confused about the fact. Most of his family wasn’t even firmly on that list, depending on how badly they pissed him off on a given day. He might never do anything to actually harm them, not now that the Lazarus Pit rage was more of a deep pool in the back of his mind instead of a storming, rapid-filled river, but he’d still occasionally threaten them. It was how he communicated. 

The idea of even playfully threatening this young man sent anger-edged ripples running through him in a way he’d never experienced. 

And that was before he’d seen the scar. Jason hadn’t seen all of it, but he’d seen the edge on the teen’s right shoulder when Danny had run into Jason, long-sleeve shirt all but hanging off a too-thin shoulder. Then Dickie had made his heart-broke sound, the sound that he made when one of his birdies survived something they shouldn’t have and Dick wasn’t there. (The one he’d made when he’d first seen Jason’s autopsy scar.)

Jason knew his eyes were green when he met Dick’s gaze over the kid’s shaking back. Knew the rage was there for his brother to see even as it felt colder, sharper, more controllable than than the usual rampaging waters. He didn’t bother to try and force the anger down, not when there was another boy in Jason’s big brother’s arms with a fucking y-shaped scar on his chest. 

Dick closed his own eyes, briefly, and buried his face in the teen’s hair. When Dick straightened he did some of his acrobat-big brother shit and managed to smoothly scoop Danny up into his arms. The boy whined but the sobs had stopped and he just buried in closer. 

Dick started walking and Jason followed. He couldn’t do anything else. 

“Would you get the door?” Dick asked with a head gesture to his bedroom. 

Jason stepped forward but stopped when Dick snorted. 

“Never mind, Jay,” Dick said even as his colours faded out to grey and he stepped through the fucking wood with Danny still clinging to his chest. 

“What the fuck,” Jason asked the door, before deciding he didn’t rightly care. 

He walked into Dick’s room (after opening the fucking door) to find Dick already settled against his headboard on top of the covers, Danny curled around him as tight as a mostly asleep teen could manage.

“Would you get me some water?” Dick ran his hand through the dark hair before resting on Danny’s chest. Lightly, probably just enough to feel the slight rise and falls of breaths. “And a laptop,” added Dick.

“Why the laptop?”

“Research.”

Jason raised an eyebrow at his brother but Dick didn’t flinch. Instead he looked back and Jason got to see a rare expression. It was an expression that he knew the younger kids had never seen and Daddy Bats hardly ever. Jason didn’t quite know what to do with the sheer sense of trust that look sent through Jason’s bones.

Dick’s temper was a magnificent thing he allowed so few people to really glimpse. Not since Jason was a teenager, when Dick and Bruce would yell at each other in the Cave. Dick had confessed, one early morning when he and Jason had been sitting bruised and bloody on a windy rooftop after a Joker wannabe had held a gun to Jason’s head, that it was intentional. That Dick had always felt guilty for letting Jason see those fights, as if Jason was a kid stuck between divorcing parents. 

As if Jason didn’t understand railing against the limits of Bruce and the Batman. 

Dick was a happy person. He was more in touch with his emotions than most of the Caped Society, much less the Bats, but this had coincided with a tightened control over those emotions that Jason both kind of admired and kind of feared. There was rage in Dick’s eyes, now, though. There was rage in Dick’s eyes of the kind that would have Jason storming out of the Cave for fear of what he might do. Rage that the man was allowing Jason to see. 

“It was his parents, Jay. The scar. I never pushed it back when I thought he was a ghost. Even when I thought them responsible for his death, at least through negligence. He loved them so much, even as he could never seem to see that they didn’t deserve him. And he was dead. He was free of them.”

Dick raised a gloved hand and ran it through Danny’s hair again. Dick was going to need to take the suit off sometime or would be very uncomfortable by morning. 

“But he wasn’t just a ghost. Isn’t. A Halfa, that’s what the other ghosts called him. It, it makes so much sense, Jay. He’s half a ghost. Which means he had a life, an identity, one where he kept returning to them. Ghost hunters. His parents were ghost hunters and he kept returning to them. Shit, Jay. It’s so fucked up. I’m going to punch Clockwork in the face if he had any idea.”

Dick ran a hand through his own hair and closed his eyes tightly before opening them again. 

“I need to research. This is the piece I was missing. I didn’t have enough before, to find him. To find Danny. To know where to start looking, to think it would do any actual good since he was already dead. But he’s also alive. I don’t even know how old he is, Jay. He was fourteen when he died but he looks older now, though not as old as he should be for how long it’s been since I’ve seen him and I don’t know if that’s ghost or time shenanigans. I need to make sure he doesn’t go back to them. That there’s no legal claim. That if they try, I can bury them.”

Jason opened his mouth to say okay. To say he’d help. To ask where the fuck Dick’s laptop was. “You don’t talk about him,” Jason said instead. 

Dick looked away. He looked away and then to the young man curled up on his lap, arms wrapped in a chokehold around Dick’s middle.

“He was dead, Jay.”

“So was I.” Jason leaned on the wall. “And there are seven months after my death where you were completely and utterly unaccounted for.”

Dick didn’t flinch, but he let out a long breath. “Tim?”

“Tim,” Jason agreed. Tim told Jason a lot of things, now that they gotten past the whole ‘tired to kill you thing.’ Jason rather though the kid had be too fast at getting over that, but Tim had called the Lazarus Pit a mind-altering substance, the League a brainwashing cult, and the coffee he was constantly guilting out of Jason a life-time commitment. 

“Okay.”

“You don’t have to,” Jason interrupted, because there was something about his big brother’s expression that was terrifyingly broken.

“No, but you deserve an answer.” Dick held out his hand from the bed. “Bruce is going to have questions and Tim is going to go into a research spiral and Damian is going to flip his shit but you deserve an answer.”

Jason approached slowly, grabbed the hand carefully and followed the tug until he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Aren’t you worried about waking him?”

“Not in the slightest.” Dick’s eyes crinkled. “He does this thing, sometimes, where he goes and goes and goes and then crashes, utterly and completely. I think he hit that point ages ago and just wasn’t safe enough to stop.”

Jason hummed, eyes trailing over the faint edges of shadowed eyes and the sharp lines of too-prominent bones. There was something eerily stark about the face only half-visible from where it was pressed into Dick. Something more than human.

“I didn’t handle your death well,” Dick said softly after a moment of silence. Jason tightened his hand because he actually knew that. Tim had shown Jason the graphs of Batman’s behaviour first, shown Jason what had pushed Tim into demanding Robin from the man. Tim had hesitated before showing the information he’d collected on Dick but had eventually caved. 

Tim was a meddler at heart and just couldn’t take it anymore when Jason had shouted some unkind things at Dick in a fit of temper that had the man skulking back to Bludhaven without even admitting his feelings had been hurt. Fucker never wanted to show his own wounds. 

Jason took a deep breath though his nose and grasped Dick’s hand properly. This seemed like it was a pretty big wound and Jason was not screwing this shit up because he was confused and that made him angry. 

“The Titans helped for a while,” Dick said, “but we had a falling out. It wasn’t all of them and some of them didn’t even realize the problem but I couldn’t, it just didn’t feel safe. And I needed safe. So I left. And shit, I wasn’t safe. I made some really stupid decisions, Jay. Some that I look back on now and think I wasn’t really expecting to survive. Not sure I technically did, since I went after this one mage alone and he sent me to the Land of the Dead. The Ghost Zone.”

Dick laid his head on Danny’s hair and stared at Jason. Jason was very sure that if he showed any sign of freaking the fuck out, which he was absolutely fucking doing, Dick would redirect and change courses and Jason wouldn’t get this side of his brother again. Wouldn’t get the vulnerability that Dick had been starting to show more and more as Jason stayed. As Jason snarked at the kids and checked their gear and answered their emergency signals. 

Jason was Dick’s little brother, but he was also a big brother, and the two of them were just starting to find balance in that. With each other and keeping the kids safe. As safe as they’d allow. As safe as any vigilante could be. 

“I’m glad you’re alive, Dickiebird.” Jason said softly.

Dick slipped his hand out of Jason’s hold and Jason felt his stomach plummet before Dick’s hand came to cup Jason’s cheek, glove rough against the skin. 

“And I’m glad you’re alive. So, so glad.”

“I know. I remember you telling me that, almost as soon as I came back and you knew it was me. I was too angry at the time to deal but I didn’t forget.” The words were an admission that had sat behind his lungs for ages, never strong enough to be said but always too strong to fade.

“Good.” Dick dropped the hand to Danny’s back, the kid contorted in a way that Jason would have said meant acrobat but probably meant ghost. “Here, come help me with him. I need out of this suit while I still have the chance.”

Dick preformed an acrobatic wiggle that made Jason’s bones ache in sympathy and Danny whine as his pillow escaped. The teen didn’t open his eyes though. He also also clung like a limpet the moment he was within reach, grip frightfully strong as they latched around Jason’s arm. 

“Dick!” Jason hissed. 

Dick was grinning triumphantly as he stripped quickly and grabbed some clothes from the floor. He left the Nightwing suit haphazardly on the ground and hurriedly slipped back into the bed, not making the slightest motion to go get the water or laptop. Jason didn’t really think Dick could handle being that far away from Danny just yet. 

Danny was happy to settle back into cuddling with Dick, though he made some pained noises that had both Bats look at each other in slight worry. He also seemed reluctant to let go of Jason entirely, wanting them both, apparently. 

Dick grinned at this, but ultimately helped free Jason so only got a scowl in response. Danny’s head was now buried in Dick’s stomach, arms latched tight and legs draped over Dick’s. 

Jason sighed, but grabbed one of the fuzzy blankets that existed all over the manor for the main purpose of covering a crashed out Tim and threw it over them. 

“You’re being awfully soft, Little Wing.”

It was a tease, but it was also a question. A gentle one.

“He feels…familiar. I’d make a joke about the dead recognizing the dead, but…”

“But that’s probably actually it?” Dick asked. 

“Probably.” Jason sat down on the bed beside Dick, sticking to the opposite side of Dick’s strange kid but letting his big brother lean his head on Jason’s shoulder. 

“I know about ghosts, Dickie. I did a lot of research into the zombie thing. Half ghosts are new, but what the fuck. Who cares? Can’t be that different than metas and aliens and magic-“

“Oh my!” Dick said softly.

Jason snorted, but laid his own head on Dick’s. “Finish answering the question. Who is Danny, Big Bird? You met him when you were broken and thrown into the Ghost Zone. How did he earn your loyalty? And I don’t mean the loyalty and good will you give to every passing civilian on the street. This is more than that. This is Bat-level loyalty.”

Dick didn’t answer for a long moment that might have made Jason angry on another day. Right now, his expression was more than enough to convey that the man was trying to figure out what to say and how to say it. 

“He was there, Jay. He was there and he kept coming back. He, he kept standing up.”

Dick didn’t look up, kept lightly tracing his hand over the teen’s hair and down to his throat, hovering over the pulse point with fingers that very deliberately didn’t shake.

“It doesn’t seem like much but, fuck, everyone had left me. That sounds so selfish to say, especially to you, but I’d never felt more alone and here was this kid who kept coming back, who wanted me. Needed me.

“He needed me, Jay. He needed a teacher, someone who understood. I wasn’t replacing you, I promise, I didn’t really want anything to do with him at first, even as he saved my ungrateful ass and brought the odd human to Clockwork to try and get out of the Ghost Zone. Which didn’t work. I was stuck there for a while due to the the way time magic interacted with the Zone and having to find the right portal. I worked with Danny and Clockwork, who was the ghost version of the god of time, on missions that brought me into the human world long enough to keep me mostly physically stable but also wouldn’t destabilize the time stream.”

Dick was silent for a moment before putting just a little more pressure on Jay’s arm. 

“I like Clockwork. He was as kind as he could be and I certainly knew enough heroes to recognize someone over-worked to hell and back and doing the best he could. Clockwork was Danny’s ghost mentor, taught him about being a ghost and the politics of the Ghost Zone. A couple others taught him to use certain skills and abilities as Danny discovered them. But that was it.

“That was it, Jay,” Dick said as he turned ice-shard eyes to Jay. “I know we all have our issues with B and with child-heroes in general, but no one taught this kid anything. Not about fighting, or how to take a hit, or basic fucking first aid. Nothing about reading an enemy, or talking someone down, or when to avoid a fight. No battle strategies, no practical mystery solving, no self-care.”

Dick gave an aborted gesture with the hand not wrapped around Danny. Jason could see the urge to pace, to rant, being ruthlessly stomped down in his rarely-still brother.  

“You should have seen his face the first time I showed him how to properly wrap his wrists. The expression he wore when came back the next day, a question about bandages and circulation to ask that took him half an hour of dodging the topic to actually come out with. That was a super fun way to learn that ghost still bleed, even if it’s ectoplasm and not blood. Fuck, Jay, the first time we sparred and I talked about rules and he, he didn’t know about tapping out. He didn’t expect anyone to listen.”

Jason wasn’t sure if Dick was looking at him or Danny, not when Jason was looking at Danny. And the delicate lines of steel that Jason could tell lay just under then many slight scars that traced his hands and arms where they gripped onto Dick. He wondered how hard it was to make a ghost scar. 

He wondered how hard it was to kill a ghost (if anyone had succeeded and it it just hadn’t stuck).

“So you trained him,” Jason said. 

“I answered his questions,” Dick said. “All of them, even the ones he wasn’t sure how to ask. Even the ones that were more personal than professional.” Dick shrugged. “I trained him but he wasn’t a Titan. And he wasn’t weak. He doesn’t think he’s smart, and I’m not sure why, exactly, but it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. He learned to survive from his fights, from seeking out a win and improving on his mistakes. He asked questions and listened to the answers and wanted to learn more than anything.

“We were partners, by the end of it. By the time my body just couldn’t take the Ghost Zone any more and he started pulling more than his weight each time we went to fix time or handle a ghost dispute. He never tried to leave without me, though, said turnaround was only fair. That I’d covered him and now he’d cover me. We fixed each other, Jay, we put each other back together and when it came time to leave I almost didn’t go.”

This was the part that Dick whispered. This was the part that Jason knew he would never tell the others, particularly Bruce.

“Clockwork had told me about the Batfamily, you know. A reward. A thanks for all the help I’d provided and an apology it was taking so long to find the portal to send me home. He showed me an image. All of us were in our masks, so I couldn’t recognize you under your hood or even our little neighbour in a cape, but I saw us fighting and moving together and it was everything I ever wanted.”

“Except Danny wasn’t in it,” Jason said when his brother had been silent too long.

“He wasn’t,” Dick agreed. “And that wasn’t a surprise. It had been so hard to find the right portal. I knew that the magic and the science didn’t line up. That even in the Zone where time doesn’t match our plane exactly, my home was in another path entirely, that Danny couldn’t visit easily, not for a while, if ever, but it still hurt. And then I looked at him. 

“Danny was jealous. I knew him well enough by then to tell, though he hides it pretty effectively. The tail gives him away, though, every time, once you learn to read it. And I understood that. I know he had friends that I’d never met, that I wasn’t entirely sure if were alive or dead, but they didn’t fight with him. Couldn’t.”

“You didn’t think of introducing him to the Justice League or the Titans?” Jason asked. 

Dick shook his head slowly. “Thought about it, sure, but Danny got real squirrelly about other heroes and asking for help. Mentioned ghost hunters once or twice but dodged the topic really heavily. I didn’t push. I thought he was dead. That he never left the Zone other than on Clockwork’s little missions. 

“I was wrong.”

Jason reached over to grab Dick’s wrist. His brother’s skin was cool to the touch but the older man smiled wanly at Jason’s attempt to ground him. Jason knew there was nothing he could say to help, that his brother was firmly in the realm of self-recrimination now. Something for Jason to watch, to see if the guilt continued to plague his brother (very fucking likely, the man was a self-sacrificing idiot) and possibly something to alert Danny to when the teen woke.

The backstory so far wasn’t great, even with all the holes Jason was reading into in order to extrapolate more awful things. Did Dick not know how the kid died? He’d mentioned something about possible neglect and the teen’s parents before but that was a damn big a hole and Jason wasn’t sure which one of them was omitting it. 

But what Jason was really learning was that both of them were survivors. That wasn’t a surprise when talking about Dick who’d once waltzed out of a sewer when the entire Batfamily had thought him chained to a chair in a vault in a tank in an aquarium that had just exploded. It wasn’t really a surprise for Danny either, not with the scars and those Lazarus eyes. But it took a scrappy sort of survivor to learn from your enemies and not your allies. 

Danny had survived until he’d met Dick, then survived by clinging with all his might to Dick as long as he could. Jason knew what Dick sounded like when talking about someone he loved. And if Danny saw Dick even slightly the same way (which the octopus arms and tears indicated was very fucking likely) then Danny was going to want to know that Dick was blaming himself for not putting things together, if only to whack him in the back of the head with an old newspaper. Or maybe a brick, depending on how thickheaded Dick was being at the time. 

Jason would happily pass that information along if he got to watch. 

“Danny was jealous,” Dick repeated as Jason refocused. “But he was also happy for me. He spent days just rambling about your possible names and reactions and identities. When we actually found the portal, I didn’t want to go through. I didn’t want to leave. The image, the promise, the possibility wasn’t enough.”

Jason really hadn’t been prepared to hear that his brother almost let himself die. Stay dead. Whatever. Almost never came back to Gotham at all. There would be no Batfamily if that was the case. Jason didn’t need to be a detective to know that. Not when it had been Dick’s constant warmth and attention and annoying brotherliness that had dragged Jason back into the fold one case or patch up or pizza and beer at a time.

“You left, though,” Jason said. Had to say because his brother was here. 

“I left,” Dick agreed. “I wasn’t about to let him watch me die, to discorporate piece by piece in front of his eyes as he blamed himself the entire time. I just, thought about it a while. About how long we’d have before that stage.”

“I was much stronger than you by then.” 

It took Jason longer than Dick to realize where the sleepy mumble had come from. Dick was already cupping Danny’s face as Danny glared half-lidded poison-ice eyes at him. 

“And still,” Dick whispered, a confession, “you didn’t push me into the portal until I gave you my consent.”

Jason didn’t understand all the layers in that last word. All the stories and edges that lingered around the concept of consent. He knew he hated them though. Jason hated and raged, a furious, slow coil of cold waters at the understanding that flickered between a ghost with scars that weren’t always as recognizable as a Y-shaped incision and a hero that didn’t talk about the prices he’d long ago paid (paid before their was a family to share them). 

Danny softened in incremental shifts of body language, reaching up to pat Dick’s cheek with a tired hand. 

Dick cooed. “Sleep, Spooks. I’ve got you. Promise.” 

Danny looked at Dick, eyes once again blue and just as deep. He then looked to Jason, rage too brittle and sharp to be green settled at the edges of his eyes. Jason recognized it regardless. 

“And I’ve got him. Promise,” Jason told Danny.

Danny gave a slow blink and seemed to slip back into sleep then and there, his face turned to Jason and his cheek pressed into Dick’s chest. It felt like more trust than Jason knew how to handle. 

Dick’s chuckled, but adjusted his position so he was lying down and curled around Danny. 

“Thanks for listening, Little Wing.”

“Yeah,” Jason said. He should probably find something else to say, but he was maybe reeling just a bit. And maybe just bit grateful that they seemed to be done for now. 

Dick seemed to understand since he reached out and squeezed Jason’s hand once before going back to brush through Danny’s hair, soft hums trying to make sure he didn’t wake again.

Jason looked back before he left the room. He looked back to the ghost that was lying on Jason’s brother, burrowing deeper with each note of a Romani lullaby.

Sleep was supposed to make people look younger but that wasn’t the case with Danny. Danny looked older. The faint scars and marks that ghosted his skin stood out more prominently and Jason could see every point of Danny’s spine. Each breath against Dick’s skin looked like a decision and Jason had no doubts that Dick had positioned himself so he could feel each exhale. 

Jason breathed out a breath of his own. He knew that those ice-blue eyes, shot though with acidic sorrow would linger in his mind for days to come. Danny felt like death. He felt like the deep of the night and a merciful sleep. He felt like frozen Lazarus waters, deep with promise but still with hard-won, bone-strong control. 

He felt safe. 

Jason would make sure Danny was safe. And he’d start by getting a pitcher of water, his big brother’s laptop, and two sandwiches. He and Dick had some plans to make. 

Chapter Text

Dick didn’t sleep. He’d pay for that later in the day but figured it wouldn’t be hard to get Danny to take a nap with him. Because Danny was here and that was a thing they could do. Danny who’d slept in Dick’s arms all last night without stirring. Danny who was within Dick’s reach. 

Dick didn’t know what to do with that, not really. He was happy, happy in that furiously tragic way where something good had come of something really awful and he was clutching onto the good with white-knuckled intensity. 

Dick was also deeply unsettled. 

As much as he’d made Danny promise to find Dick if the ghost ever could, Dick hadn’t really thought it would happen. Not after talking to Raven and Constantine and Zatanna and learning all he could about the Ghost Zone. The problem with the Infinite Realms is that they were fucking infinite and working with the Ghost Time Police had given Dick a clear understanding of a full extra dimensional consideration that threw everything way down the cosmic green toilet. 

Danny had always had a habit of managing the extraordinary, though, at surviving ridiculous odds. Dick had know that even before he’d known that the kid had survived death. 

Dick looked up from the teenager still draped over his lap to Jason, who’d conked out a couple of hours ago mid-plot. Dick was a decent hacker, not as good as Tim though better than Jay, but Jay was a plotter. Oh, he didn’t do the intricate twelve to two-hundred step plans that Time and Bruce favoured, but the man had taken over and run a city-wide gang before he’d hit twenty. Jay could spot the weakness and strengths of an organization with a keen and ruthless eye.

This was key in Dick’s plans to keep Danny safe, since there were several organizations that could be directly harmful to Dick’s Spook. The Ghost Investigation Ward, Vlad Co., and Fentonworks appeared to be the most prominent from what Dick and Jay had put together with Dick’s knowledge of Danny, Justice League files, and their shared contacts in Justice League Dark. 

There was a lot more to do. They’d need to go to Tim or Babs for some real deep information dives and governmental hacking. They’d have to keep Bruce in the know because Dick was absolutely petty (angry, furious, livid) enough to bring down the heavy hitters for hurting his Spooks. They’d need to go to Justice League Dark and ask what the flying fuck was going on with Amity Park because all Dick and Jason’s attempts at informational gathering beyond basic files were corrupted in a way that meant supernatural fuckery. 

Dick also needed a least a full night’s sleep and an uncomfortable conversation with Danny before figuring how to approach Fentonworks. 

Dick had seen the photos of the Fenton boy. He’d seen the missing poster. He stared at the poster for a solid ten minutes before firmly putting that in the Handle Later List because Danny Fenton was at least of legal age. If Dick’s Danny and Danny Fenton were the same, then he legally didn’t need to go back. And they were the same, because Dick had also seen a single glitchy photo of the local hero in the local newspaper’s website before the supernatural fuckery crashed the laptop. 

After the crash, Jay had simply looked over at Dick with glowing eyes and angled the second computer he’d brought towards his brother, silently agreeing to focus on the government for the time being. Jason had fallen asleep shortly after, not even making a token effort to go back to his own room. 

Some of that was definitely Dick. Dick knew that he’d dumped a lot on Jay last night, knew that Jay had asked for and wanted the information but maybe wasn’t fully prepared for it. Jason had kept an admirably straight face through everything and been just the perfect amount of hulking, warm comfort. He’d also kept flicking his eyes to Dick, watching him without meting Dick’s gaze, which was Jay’s tell as much as Danny’s was his tail. 

Dick didn’t regret what he’d told Jay, not after Dick’s baby brother had looked at Dick with those eyes. People were still so cautious of Jay when his eyes glowed, so sure he was slipping into fierce and rolling anger. Dick had never stopped looking into Jay’s eyes, had always made sure to meet him with regard and respect and warmth and challenge and whatever Jay needed, as much as Dick could manage (could never look away when Dick had done that once and Jay had been gone).

Maybe that was why Dick was the only one to seem to notice that Jay’s glowing eyes were usually just as sad as angry, that the anger was edged in an endless empathy. 

Jason would keep Dick’s secret, his vulnerability close. Jay wouldn’t forget though, even if it took time to fully absorb the information and decide how he felt. Regardless, he’d be by Dick’s side the entire time they were making sure Danny was safe.

Dick looked to where Danny had latched one hand, the only part not draped over Dick, onto Jay’s wrist. Somehow the fact that a person Jay had known less than a day was physically touching him didn’t even phase Jason or stop him from sleeping. Dick wondered how long it would take them to start trying to terrify the family with two sets of glowing green eyes in inconvenient places. 

Dick then started thinking of all the ways that he and Danny could start terrifying the family, what with Dick’s acrobatics and Danny’s everything. He had a lot of ideas, and with the sun starting to creep under his curtains he figured they were a better thing to focus on than the scars on Danny’s hand Dick had been staring at for the last forty minutes. 

He knew ghosts were particularly sensitive to emotion and he had a lot of emotions right now. He needed to be somewhat calm to not push negative feelings onto Danny, to make sure Danny didn’t think for a single second that he was unwanted. He’d talk to Danny about everything soon, he would, but first thing the moment the kid woke up probably wasn’t the way to go. Sometimes you needed just a little distance from your trauma before you could talk about it. 

Danny’s breath and heart rate was slow. Dick also had no frame of reference for Danny breathing or having a having a heart beat at all. Dick was, however, very familiar with a teenaged ghost falling asleep all over him. Danny was starting to wake up, despite the fact that Dick rather felt his Spooks should be sleeping for another week at least. 

“Hey,” Danny mumbled, not even tensing or forgetting where he was for a moment.

“Hey,” Dick said, a possibly sappy smile on his face. 

Danny returned it, a little bemusedly, before attempting to snuggle back in. He got stopped by his own hand on a still sleeping Jay’s wrist, which Danny quickly retracted. 

The confused face Danny made was sleepy and adorable, but softened even further at the sound of Dick’s quiet laugh. 

“I’m glad he came back to you,” Danny told Dick, face now pillowed on his own arms that were folded over Dick’s chest.

“I’m glad you both came back to me,” Dick replied. 

Danny looked down, a faint green blush on his cheeks but his attention dragged sideways when Jason let out a particular snore that told Dick his brother would also be waking soon. 

“Guess that’s why he wasn’t in the Zone.”

Dick hummed, glad Dany wasn’t protesting the fingers Dick was once again winding through his curls. “Cosmic mistake and then bath in the Lazarus Pits.”

“Lazarus Pits.” Danny gave a slow blink. “I can already tell I’m not going to like whatever that is.”

“Nope. Contaminated ectoplasm, near as I can figure.”

Danny sighed and dropped his head back onto Dick’s chest. “Fuck. That seems like a Later problem.”

“Considering it’s currently under the control of a quasi-immortal with both an obsessive and blood connection to my family, I think Later is a good choice.”

Danny sighed again. “Ancients. Why the fuck not?”

Dick let his hand drift from Danny’s hair to rest at the back of Danny’s neck. Danny tensed, but not because he felt danger. 

Dick hummed and Danny shut his eyes.

“I’m not going to ask if you’re okay,” Dick started, “because you’re not and I’m just glad you’re here. But, is there anyone or any danger that’s coming for you in the next forty-eight hours? Any injury that hasn’t been treated fully and needs to be looked at? Anything that we need to deal with right now?”

Danny didn’t look up but the angle was still enough for Dick to see the kid’s expression twitch into one he only made when someone offered help Danny wasn’t sure how to accept. That he’d been too afraid to expect.

“No. Nothing immediate. I’m…healing. Haven’t taken a hit that isn’t hunger or fucking exhaustion in a few weeks. Covered my tracks pretty well, too, and there’s a shit-load of ambient ectoplasm in Gotham which is actually surprisingly useful. I’ve got a couple of weeks at least. Particularly since, you know, no one knows I’m connected to you or the Bats at all.”

“Well that’s fucking something, at least.” Danny didn’t tense at Jason’s voice, not really, but he did slowly turn to face Dick’s brother even as Dick smoothed a palm over Danny’s back. Jason continued, arms folded behind his head. “I mean, the ectoplasm thing is concerning as fuck, but not surprising. Though, hey, can you tell Bruce that when I’m there? I really want to catch his face on video.”

When Danny just stared at Jason, Jason sat up. He moved slowly because he spent a lot of damn time with vulnerable populations in Crime Alley and was very conscious of his bulk.

Jason held out his hand. “Hey, I’m Jason. Resident zombie.”

Danny snorted before floating up and phasing through Dick slightly. He shook Jason’s offered hand with a wry smile. 

“Danny. Guest ghost.”

Jason grinned back even as Dick stood, stretching out his back neck to the bed. “Naw, you ain’t a guest. Dickie’s going to have you adopted by the end of the day at the latest.”

Danny whipped his head around as Jason chuckled. 

Dick just shrugged. Everyone always seemed to forget that he was the second Bat. Yes, he had actual social skills, but Bruce had started training Dick before he was ten years old. Also, Dick had watched two families fall apart and only rebuilt his second by the skin of his teeth, magic, and ferocious cunning he hid under breezy smiles. 

“Eh, more like a couple of hours, depending on if B’s home or if he raced out to Wayne Enterprises for something. I just need to confirm the backstory, I’m thinking you can be my cousin since it’s not like most of my family is easily traceable with my circus roots and we look similar enough, and then properly date some paperwork I already have partially prepped.”

Both Danny and Jason were looking at Dick, Jason frozen in the act of draping a purple throw blanket of Danny’s thing shoulders.

“What?” Dick asked. 

“You have paperwork for me?” Danny demanded. 

“Yes?”

“I’m dead.”

“Half-dead,” Dick pointed out. That was an important fact he wasn’t going to forget anytime soon.

“You thought I was dead-dead!” Danny waved an arm but retracted it when Jason huffed and resettled the blanket.

Dick shrugged again. “So was Jay. And Dami and Cass. If being Batman’s Robin, the leader of the Titans, or your Time Police partner has taught me anything, it’s to be prepared for everything. I’m a vigilante or a hero, sure, but I’m also a paranoid bastard that’s going to protect my family to the best of my damn abilities.”

The words were for Danny, frail and brittle on Dick’s bed despite the monstrous strength that lined his bones and the eldritch courage that coursed through his veins. The words were also for Jason, taut and still in Dick’s room with acid green leeching into his eyes and promises locked into his jaw. 

Dick didn’t look away from his brother until Jay nodded, once, sharp as a gunshot. Danny’s eyes were worse when Dick met the boy’s gaze. They were still blue, crystal in their perfect control but deep in the chasms contained. 

“Ask your question,” Danny whispered. 

“I have a lot of questions,” Dick hedged. 

“You have one caught in your throat.” Danny cocked his head, utterly sure. 

Dick sighed and stepped forward so he could lean over the bed and press his forehead into Danny’s. Danny’s arms came up to grab at Dick’s forearms, centering them both even further. 

“You don’t have to answer, Spooks.”

Danny huffed a sound that on a better day would have been a laugh. “Yeah, I know. Only what I’m comfortable saying. Only what I consent to, what I choose. I remember, Dingbat.”

Dick hummed but stepped back, giving Danny space because Dick had figured out very early on that Danny just didn’t have enough respected safe space. 

“Okay,” Dick said. Okay, because he did have a question. Now that he knew that Danny was safe for the moment, that they time to make sure he was safe period, he had one question that wasn’t fair or really directed at Danny at all. One that was selfish, but that Dick desperately wanted to know. 

He wouldn’t have asked. Dick had a lot of experience denying what he knew were selfish requests. He also had a lot of experience with Danny telling him to stop being an idiot and take off the performance smile. 

They didn’t lie to each other. They might ask to wait, they might choose not to answer, they might not know what to say, but they didn’t lie. And Dick certainly wasn’t going to risk hurting his brooken and tired but within reach Spooks by starting now. 

***

Danny braced for the question. He didn’t know what it would be, not really, but he could see the traces of it settling on Dick’s shoulders. He could see the fear of asking in the faint lines of Dick’s throat. He could see the choice to let it be in the shadows under Dick’s eyes.

Danny wasn’t going to let that stand, not after so many conversations about expression and safety and choice held under swirling purple skies. Not when Danny was the one intruding (however welcome he might be, knew he was because Dick wouldn’t lie to him).

“Why didn’t you come sooner?” Dick asked, soft as the dead. 

Danny sighed, echoes of ghostly cries trailing out of the sound. That was a fair question and he didn’t really have an answer. Sure, some of it was time shenanigans. He hadn’t actually known when his and Dick’s timelines matched up in a dimensional way and hadn’t wanted to screw things over by showing before Dick would have met and trained him. But that excuse didn’t hold out very well, not when Clockwork had promised Dick a Batfamily and Danny had watched it be built step by piece by fight over whatever media was available.

Danny kept his eyes to the ground until he felt the weight of Dick’s hand at the back of his neck again, not forcing, never forcing, but a reaffirming presence. 

“I’m not angry Spooks, not disappointed. I just want to make sure I have all the information.”

“I-I just didn’t. There’s a delicate balance-“

Dick made a disgusted noise and stepped back. “The Observants. I should’ve known.”

Danny blinked. “No? I mean sure, they said some things. But it’s not like I haven’t gone against them before.”

“Doesn’t mean that having an entire body of authority constantly telling you not to do something and implying it would be selfish instead of crucial to your mental health and well-being doesn’t have an impact.”

Danny blinked. Jason hummed and typed something into the computer that had been previously lying discarded on the bed. “Sounds like people to add to the ‘Punch-in-the-Face List.’”

Danny blinked again, brain feeling the kind of sluggish that mind that meant a slow, safe wake-up and not blood-loss. “The Observant’s don’t really have faces. Just, like, a single giant eye on top of a body.” Danny held his hands out to demonstrate the general size of the eye.

Jason grinned. “I feel like that only makes it better.”

“It does,” Dick said flatly. Both Danny and Jason turned to Dick who was now smiling innocently but not believably.  

Jason gave a low whistle while Danny started sputtering, trying and failing to ask when Dick had punched an Observant in the face and why the fuck Danny wasn’t there to witness the moment in all its glory.

Danny didn’t get the question out since another boy, Tim, if Danny was remembering his forays into social media correctly (and he was, because fine, it was maybe a bit of an obsession), knocked on the doorframe after he’d opened the door. 

Tim stared at them all. Dick was standing over his crumpled Nightwing suit, laptop in hand and just stolen from his brother. Jason was leaning against the headboard, legs kicked out and arms crossed behind his head. Danny was sitting crosslegged on the bed, blanket wrapped around his shoulders and head from where Jason had dropped it earlier. 

“Do I want to ask?” 

Jason sighed. “No. My respect for Goldie just went up significantly and I don’t like it. Might as well spare you from the same fate.”

Tim stared at him even as Dick placed a hand on his hip.

“Sure. Whatever. Alfred says breakfast is ready.” Tim promptly turned around and nearly walked into the doorframe before righting himself, glaring at it, and turning away. 

“Um, what?” Danny asked as Jason and Dick shared a look.

“Kid pulled another all-nighter, probably,” Jason said.

“I’m restricting his coffee,” Dick announced. 

“Good luck with that. I ain’t getting stabbed again.”

“He really just ignored the stranger sitting on his brother’s bed?” Danny looked at Dick with a raised eyebrow. 

The man raised one of his own right back. “Don’t look at me. I’m not the one actually on the bed with you.”

Danny turned to face Jason just in time to get poked in the cheek. “Timbit probably thought you were Damian or even Cass. Only the hair is really visible under the blanket cape.”

“Cass, your sister?”

“Yup,” Dick said. “Though she’s in Hong Kong at the moment.”

Jason shrugged. “You got a slight build. And you’re pretty.”

Danny muttered about ghost ageing and being slight before scowling. “I can punch you through a wall.”

Jason just grinned. “So can Wonder Woman. I think that’s hot, too. Come on, Casper. Alfie’s breakfasts aren’t to be missed.” 

Danny opened his mouth to say something snarky, but shut it with a click when Jason reached out and grabbed Danny’s hand, pulling him off the bed and towards the door. Danny didn’t even think about using the strength he really hadn’t been lying about to throw the man off or even dig in his heels. He was too busy trying to figure out the last time someone other than Jazz, Sam, or Tucker had touched him for a reason other than a fight or worse. 

(Dick was the exception, had always been the exception. Danny had just spent hours sleeping at Dick’s side and it had been even longer since Danny had slept and felt safe.)

Almost without thinking about it, Danny closed his own hand around Jason’s. The man’s touch was cool, like placing his hand in waters still and deep. 

When Danny looked back at Dick, the man was following, laptop tucked under his arms and a considering look in his eyes. He smiled at Danny, though. A smile that Danny had seen many times before, a little sad and a lot warm. 

“Jaybird’s right, Spooks. You’re going to love breakfast here.”

“Is it going to attack me? Or glow?”

Jason side eyed him but didn’t let go even as Danny fell into step beside him. “No.”

“Alfred would never allow something that unruly at his table,” Dick added, nudging Danny’s shoulder from the other side.

“Then I’m already a fan.”

Jason deposited Danny in a seat across from Tim with a point and went to help Alfred. Dick left his laptop at a distant counter with a clear gesture to Alfred that indicated Dick was being good and leaving work away from the table. Alfred nodded in acknowledgement to both Danny and Dick and then looked towards Tim who had yet look up from his tablet. 

Dick sighed, but went to battle Tim for the tablet. Danny watched them, perfectly aware that Dick and Jason were constantly monitoring him in case Danny decided to flee but absurdly glad they were being subtle about it. Not that Danny had the energy to flee. Or the desire. 

It was warm here. 

Bruce entered just as Dick won the war for the tablet, using some sort of sleight of hand to make it disappear. Bruce patted a sulking Tim’s head even as his smile softened at the sight of Jason in the kitchen proper with Alfred. It wasn’t until he sat at the head of the table that he paused, staring at Danny. 

Danny waved.

“Father,” Damian said, from the entranceway to the kitchen. “I believe you agreed to prior warning before resurrecting your adoption habit.”

“What?” Tim whipped his head up and finally focused on Danny. “Who are you?”

“The ghost of adoptions future,” Danny replied, a small spark in his chest glowing when both Dick and Jason laughed. 

Tim and Damian both turned to Bruce who held up his hands, palms out. “It wasn’t me.” 

Dick laughed before coming around to Danny’s back and draping himself over Danny’s shoulders in a lazy hug. Danny tensed briefly and felt Dick prepare to draw away. Instead, Danny leaned back, letting his head thunk onto Dick’s shoulder. 

“Nah, Danny-boy is all mine, Baby Bat.”

“Ah. The Ghost-hero trainee.” Damian promptly sat down, accepting his plate from Alfred with a nod before sipping his tea. “Is there a problem?” Damian asked after a moment of being stared at by his entire family.

Danny felt the staring probably fair. The youngest Robin was known for being a little violent and very possessive of his brothers, Nightwing in particular. And that was just in the media. 

Jason frowned, the only one looking at Dick. “You told Demon Brat about Casper?”

Dick rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Well, I kind of had to. Dami was questioning my credentials!”

Danny smirked. “If some version of the words, ‘I trained a ghost, a demon isn’t that hard,’ weren’t involved, I’m disowning you.”

“That was frightfully close,” Damian admitted with a suspicious glare. 

“Time Police parters are to the End!” Dick pointed at Danny. “No take backs or disowning!”

“Time Police?” Asked Bruce, the first words he’d said in quite a while. 

Dick and Danny looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes. “Um,” said Dick. He then sighed, releasing Danny only to plop down into the seat next to him, still very much leaning into Danny’s space. Danny wasn’t complaining. 

Dick ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. Summary version. In the time after Jay’s death when I wasn’t with the Titans I got shoved into a Death Dimension called the Ghost Zone by a mage that is very dealt with, stop bristling. I met Danny, who’s a ghost hero with powers originating in the Zone-“

Danny obligingly went ghost and started floating above his chair. He switched from his tail to his legs so he could hover cross-legged. Dick reached out to run a hand through bone-white hair and Danny scowled out of habit rather than any true annoyance. 

Dick continue to speak, but Danny was focused on Jason. Jason stood leaning against the sink, eyes acidic green as they held Danny’s own. The man smiled, a bitter sad little thing that Danny understood down to his bones, before pushing off from the counter and handing Danny a plate. He didn’t hesitate to put one hand on Danny’s shoulder and push him down, not even shivering at the frost Danny hadn’t been able to stop giving off for months. 

“Eat.”

Danny switched back, falling the last little distance back into the chair.

“-and I worked with Danny and the Time Ghost Clockwork while they tried to get me back. A couple missions here and there across the time stream, nothing too big.”

Dick was a lying liar but so was Danny. He wasn’t going to say a thing.

“I trained Danny between missions and made him promise to come to me if he needed help. Which he does. So he’s staying with me for the foreseeable future.”

“I have so many questions,” said Tim.

“Yeah, well, most of those are going to have to wait. Ghostie’s exhausted and Dickie-boy and I were up all night plotting.”

“Plotting what?” Bruce asked with narrowed eyes.

“Utter ruination!” Dick answered with a smile.

“I’m not exhausted,” Danny said, perhaps a beat too late. He was also possibly undermined by the fact that his head was once again resting on Dick’s shoulder. 

Bruce clearly put that as something to follow up with at another time, but turned to Danny. “You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you need.”

“Even though I’m a ghost?”

Bruce smiled and it was kind. A tired kind, like Jazz’s, but still kind. “Of course.”

Danny sighed. “Guess I can’t punch you in the face, now.”

Bruce sputtered, Jason cackled, and Dick sighed. 

“Please remember, B, that when Danny and I last saw each other you and I weren’t nearly on as good as terms as we are now.”

“And you’re fine with this?” Tim asked Damian who was calmly buttering his toast. “You tried to stab me at least three times and I was here first.”

Damian scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Timothy. I have no problem with Richard’s initial protege. Richard deserves someone who would punch Batman and other such beings in the face for him.”

Dick cooed even as Danny gave him a side eye. “You told Damian the dragon story, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. Again, Damian was questioning my child-training credentials! And it’s a good story. You were very gallant as you fought off the dragon to save me.”

“First of all, Aragorn is a menace at best. If you hadn’t spent all night collecting flowers to cheer up his sister you wouldn’t have been caught off guard and captured by a lizard with delusions of grandeur. Secondly,” and here Danny pointed his fork at Dick, “you better have included the part where you got princess carried out of the tower or I will preform a re-enactment for everyone in this room.”

“Oh my god, he’s snarky.” Jason hit Dick in the arm. “You didn’t tell me he was snarky. Quick, how do you feel about death jokes?”

“Like I’d die without them.”

Dick smiled as Jason lit up, punching the air once. “Yes! This is going to be great. Zombie and ghost. We have so much material to work with.”

“A good grave’s work,” Danny responded with sly smile.

“Boo,” Dick said, getting a glare from Jason and Tim both. “That was a four at best. And don’t look so pleased Jaybird. Danny also loves puns.”

At the look of betrayal Jason shot him Danny visibly suppressed a smirk and patted the larger man on his arm. “It’s true. Dick and I once made it to thirty-nine straight puns in a pun-off.”

Dick huffed and crossed his arms. “I still say you cheated. A green volcano nearly blew my arm off; swearing should have been allowed as an exception.”

“Nope, just think of all the volcanic opportunities you could have spewed.”

Tim’s head thunked down on the table. “Nooo.”

“Sorry, kid,” Danny told him.

Tim sprang up. “No! No way. How old are you. I’m not younger. I refuse.”

“Eighteen.” Technically. Time Police shenanigans aside. 

“Ha! We’re the same age!” Tim crowed.

Danny narrowed his eyes at the look Dick had just exchanged with Jason. “Want to tell me what that was about?”

“Just glad you’re legally an adult. Means we don’t have to give you back.” Jason’s voice was deliberately even.

“Right, can’t be sent back because of that.” Danny looked down, tracing patterns in the wood with his eyes. 

“What to tell me what that’s about?” Dick parroted softly, growing more sure that Danny was hiding something when his guilty face flashed once before settling. Danny would have to be better to hide anything from Dick, at least emotionally speaking. 

“I-“ Danny cut himself off before rubbing the back of neck. “They can’t legally send me anywhere because of my age but they can legally because I’m a ghost. Ghosts aren’t people. We don’t have rights.”

“That’s bullshit,” Tim stated. “That’s the kind of bullshit that we’ve been fighting with Metas and Aliens for years now. You have independent thought and emotion; of course you’re a person.”

Danny looked at Tim with what was probably not a small amount of tentative awe in his face. And disbelief because that was not a common reaction. 

“You’re worried about the Ecto-acts and the Guys in White,” Dick said, resting his chin on his hands. 

Danny whipped his head over. 

“I can tell you those Acts have not been passed and will not be as long as the Justice League and Justice League Dark have anything to say about it.” Dick smiled at Danny’s wide eyes. “I’ve kept in the loop, a bit, regarding ghosts. And I did a lot of research while you were sleeping.”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck again and ran a hand through his hair. “I need Jazz, if we’re talking about this. I was working really hard just staying afloat and keeping the ghosts in line. She was the one with all the contingencies and legal workarounds.”

“Jazz,” Dick said slowly, lowering his hands to the table. “Your sister.”

“Uh, yes?”

“Your sister who is alive.” 

“Well, yes. I thought that part was already covered in the I’m-a-half-ghost-and-actually-have-a-life-slash-secret-identity-realization.” Danny looked concerned, but he had the feeling it wasn’t for the right reason. Jason seemed to clock the growing glee in Dick’s voice, at least. He’d taken a large step to the side and pretended to be busy making more pancakes. 

“Your sister, who you talked about constantly. Your big sister. What’s her number? I need to call her immediately.”

“What?” Danny asked.

“Why?” Tim wanted to know. 

“To commiserate! This is another big sibling who’s had to deal with superhero shenanigans and hidden injuries and supporting mental health in teenagers who would rather have cooties than admit to an emotion. You will not take this chance from me.” Dick finished his sentence with a point. 

Danny smiled into his food as Jason started ribbing on Dick, Tim demanded his tablet back to start research, and Damian made snarky comments to instigate the rest. 

This was why he’d come to Dick. Dick fought for what he wanted. Maybe, just maybe, if Dick wanted Danny enough (and the weight of the hand that never strayed far from Danny’s shoulder or wrist or knee said that was a definite possibility) then the Guys in White and Danny’s parents wouldn’t be able to take Dick away from Danny. 

Danny wouldn’t have to fight alone. 

Chapter Text

Jason sat at a table in the Batcave and cleaned his guns. He’d gotten into the habit to piss Bruce off but kept it up even after realizing that Bruce’s grumpy face wasn’t so much a result of disdain for the guns but rather a constipated joy based on Jason willingly spending the time in the cave. It was hard to react to that, and Alfred brought Jason snacks, so he’d decided to carry on and pretend he didn’t know. 

They were all pretending not to know the reason for delaying patrol tonight. Robin, Red Robin, and Batman himself were all puttering around the cave. Even Duke was there, though in pyjamas, accepting hot chocolate from Alfred and chatting to Cass via video call. Spoiler and Oracle were both listening in on the comms.

Dick and Danny weren’t so much missing as deliberately absent. Or rather, the not waiting was because they were both patrolling. For a given definition of the term. Jason had no doubt the two of them would be stopping crime, they were both goody-two-shoes, but he also knew that the main reason for the excursion was to get the kid away. To let him fly again. 

To let the two of them fly again. 

Danny had been here for a few days, and while he was actually hilariously snarky there had also been a fair bit of haunting the halls. He got real quiet sometimes, and while it was actually kind of funny to see someone keep surprising Jason’s normally unflappable family, it was a worrying kind of quiet. A quiet of reflections that froze over before they got anywhere useful. 

Dick’s face had been getting sadder, too, as he watched. Dick had never been surprised by Danny, always seeming to know exactly where the ghostie was the moment either of them entered a room. Dick had been trying very hard not to press, to let the kid talk about it in his own time, but they hadn’t exactly been making progress. 

The way Danny fucking lit up when Dick had suggested partnering for tonight’s patrol had been the most openly expressive the teen had been since that first night. Which was probably why Jason had agreed to it being a good idea before anyone could protest. 

He’d encouraged Danny to go, saying he had to some gear maintenance and would be going out late himself and someone had to watch over the Golden Boy. This hadn’t been true before but, well, Jason was a firm believer in keeping up your gear. 

As Danny bounced after a Dick that finally smiled at Jason with his eyes and not just his teeth, the rest of the family’s eyes had landed on Jason. Which led them all to this moment where Danny and Dick were flinging themselves from skyscrapers and Jason was here with everyone pretending he wasn’t about to get interrogated. 

The things he did for his big brother (and the young man with eyes Jason had only ever expected to see in a mirror).

“Jay-lad,” Bruce started. 

Jason wasn’t surprised Bruce broke first. Actually, Jason was surprised at how long it took Bruce to break. Then again, Bruce certainly knew what a traumatized child looked like. 

“Alright, fine.” Jason lowered his gun to the table. “Hit me.”

“Why should we trust you even have the answers to our questions?” Damian was scowling, which wasn’t unusual. The look in eyes was, however. It was related to jealously, but Jason wasn’t quite sure how. 

Jason sighed. He really didn’t like the feelings shit.

“Fuck if I know. Accident? I was the first to meet the kid, other than Alfie, of course.”

Alfred nodded from his spot by Duke. 

“That’s not it, not entirely.” Tim spoke with eyes that none of the sleepy weight from him own first meeting with Danny. 

Jason sighed and tipped back in his chair. The kid wasn’t wrong (as fucking usual) but Jason didn’t really want to go into the deathly familiarity thing. Dick might have always been able to locate Danny, even when faded and spaced out, but Jason wasn’t that far behind. Significantly better than Damian even, which kind of ruled out the Lazarus Pits as the reason. 

Maybe. Damian hadn’t come back quite as wrong as Jason. It could have been the duration of time in the water, Damian’s bloodline, the fact that the kid was dead when he went in and not just missing a whole lot of marbles like the already resurrected Jason, but he just wasn’t as angry. Or as unnaturally angry, since the kid was a little beserking demon on the best of days. 

Still, Jason didn’t want to talk about it and also didn’t really think that was the answer that Timmy was looking for. 

“Seven months,” Jason said instead. 

Bruce was the only one who flinched. 

Tim cocked his head. “Dick already told us he met Danny in the seven months he was MIA after your death.”

“Did he tell you he was practically suicidal at the time?”

The silence cracked through the cave like splintering ice. Ice dyed green in Jason’s mind. 

“What?” Came Barbara’s voice through the speaker. 

Jason shrugged, a motion that took far more control than it probably should have. “Didn’t say it in that many words. But yeah. Goldie wasn’t doing so well.”

“The Titans?” Asked Bruce, faintly. Alfred had come to stand at his side, one slightly trembling hand on Bruce’s shoulder.

“Falling out.”

“I knew that,” said Tim. “But I never been able to find out why.” His hands twitched as if to move to a keyboard.

“Didn’t tell me that, Timbit.”

“Suspicions,” Cass said. Jason looked at her face framed by the computer edges. Her eyes were dark and her hands still as they wrapped around her elbows. 

“Yeah, Cassie, I have suspicions.” So do you, he didn’t say. Wait until you see them, he didn’t say. Will you see what I do, he didn’t ask. 

Because watching Danny interact with Dick was making all sorts of pieces fit together. Like Jason had been trying to complete what he thought was a thousand piece puzzle only to realize there was a whole other box of pieces hidden under Dick’s couch and another stuffed in Danny’s lunchbox. Pieces like the way they threw around the word ‘consent,’ the way they touched each other with deliberation, the way they refused to lie to each other (would spend hours in silence instead of asking a question they knew the other would only answer with a lie). 

Jason didn’t like the picture being built, but he didn’t know he was right. And there was only so much could be angry about at once. His suspicions would sit, whirling slowly around in green circles until he could act. 

Cass nodded at him, slowly. She wouldn’t be back for a while, not since her mission got changed so last minute, but even so far away she managed to see things other wouldn’t.

“Todd-”

“No.” Jason let his chair hit the floor and his feet slam with it. “I ain’t betraying what I know, which really isn’t much more than you. Particularly since it was an accident that I found out. That I ran into Danny and saw their reunion and that Danny knew more than anyone else alive, or not, apparently, how Dick handled my fucking death and whatever other shit he went through. You want to know about that shit? You ask them. Or better yet, leave it be. Watching them fucking interact will give you enough clues, probably.”

“You better have a better plan that just fucking watching, Hood.”

Jason sometimes forgot that Dickie had been Steph’s Batman, for a time. No one ever forgot he’d been Damian’s Batman, what with Dickie being the Demon Child Whisperer, but he and Steph weren’t as obvious. Until something threatened one of them and Steph sounded like she was going to jam a Batarang down Jason’s throat. 

“We keep him,” Jason said, simply. “Danny. He’s a blue-eyed, dark-haired, orphan with trauma and a history of putting going through shit and coming out stronger. Not likes he going to have trouble fitting in.”

All eyes slid to Bruce, who actually looked confused. “Dick already finished the paperwork. We need to wait a bit for the identity to settle and things to go through the system, but Danny is listed as a distant cousin of Dick’s and the backstory is fully prepped.”

“And you’re okay with that, old man?” 

Bruce looked back at Jason, and it was Bruce for all that the man was still in his armour. “I didn’t handle your death well,” Bruce said over Jason’s flinch. “I didn’t handle my grief well. I handled Dick’s even worse. I may be … not at my best when it comes to social situations and emotional vulnerability-”

“Aint that the truth,” came Spoiler’s mutter over the comms. She was allowed the interruption, though, since she was known to have actual emotional intelligence and was the second most frequent user of the ‘Please Tell Me Why I’m Surrounded by Family With the Emotional Competence of a Toddler’ Exasperated Sigh and Eye-roll. 

“-But I’m not stupid. I saw Dick was struggling when he came back. I knew he’d survived something. I knew-” Bruce stopped himself this time. He stopped himself and everyone looked confused except for a stoic Alfie and downward-looking Replacement. 

“I don’t need to be okay with this, not really. But I am. I owe that boy, I owe Danny and I’m very aware that is the case.”

“It’s also what you do.” Everyone turned to Duke when he spoke, and the boy shrugged. “What? Jason isn’t wrong. Broken orphan baby hero just trying to survive and maybe do some good? He fits the type perfectly.”

Damian said something about needing to know more. Timmy nodded and started moving towards a computer. Babs and Duke and Steph all started throwing out ideas even as Cass looked thoughtful and it was everything Jason grudgingly wanted.

But he couldn’t breathe. 

It wasn’t until Bruce turned back to Jason, ready to start the interrogation in earnest, that the man frowned and Jason realized his hand was on his own chest. On his heart, except not at all. He clutched the edge of his jacket with fingers he had to carefully loosen, carefully not dragging across the scar that he and Danny shared. 

“Stop,” Jason said. And Bruce did. The others didn’t, not yet. They did when he yelled again, “Just fucking stop!”

Damian bristled, because he always bristled when someone implied he’d done something wrong.

They needed to be careful. They needed to be so fucking careful, but Jason didn’t know how to say that. This wasn’t a random case they could pull apart and put back together on a wall with red string. They couldn’t dig and dig and dig and just expect the scabs to scar over. 

There were already too many scars. 

“What we need to know is that Danny flinches when someone other than Dick goes to touch him. That he was used as an experiment. That he was betrayed by someone he loved. That he’s grieving. That he’s not so much a baby hero as a full-fledged hero who’s never had another hero stand by him other than Dick. That an entire governmental organization is trying to rip his autonomy from him piece by law by gun.”

That Danny could run. Danny was so fucking lonely, trapped behind green ice of his own making, but he’d still run. He’d run because that was safer than scalpels that would only hurt worse if they got turned on someone who was protecting him. 

Jason moved his hand in time to catch Alfred the Cat, dumped on him by a Damian that refused to make eye contact even as he scoffed loudly.

“Obviously,” Damian said as Alfred settled into the crook of Jason’s arms and demanded chin skritches like the animal hadn’t drawn blood from Jason just yesterday for daring to try and pat him. 

And yeah, Jason could sometimes see why Dick adored the kid so much. 

“We’ll be careful,” added Barbara because she was a fucking genius.

“Come on, Jay,” Timmy said. “Tell us where you and Dick left off.”

Cass nodded on her screen and Jason didn’t need to see that because she’d already promised her help.

“Whatever it takes, man.” Duke grinned. “Besides, I haven’t checked off ‘Tearing Down a Governmental Institution or Minor Monarchy’ from my Batfamily Bingo card yet.”

Bruce huffed at that but turned back. He’d pretended not to know about the Bingo Cards until Dick decided they weren’t being inclusive and started filling one out for the man loudly during a sparring session between Bruce and Damian. That had been three rounds ago and Bruce hadn’t won yet, which obviously meant he couldn’t stop now.

“What’s the plan, Jay-lad. Where do we start?”

Jason opened his mouth, but was gladly interrupted by Steph. Gladly, because he wasn’t actually sure what he was going to say and feared it wouldn’t have been suitably snarky. Possibly even emotional and that was not allowed.

“With my video footage. Switch the feed; you’re all going to want to see this.”

Jason didn’t need to see it, not really. He still watched, because there was a part of him that was still fucking Robin and always wanted to see his big brother kicking ass, but he didn’t need to. 

Tim had put Steph’s cowl feed up on the largest screen, an easy twenty gang members now in perfect sight as they ran around in complete confusion. Nightwing and Phantom weren’t in sight, not really. Not for long. Nightwing had always fought as if gravity was a suggestion and stealth second nature, but now he blinked in and out of existence with barely a thought. 

Phantom reached out and Nightwing was already there, both going invisible and intangible and dropping down again in a completely different part of the street. Nightwing knocked out two men Phantom sent towards him with an Ectoblast and Phantom rose from the ground to block a blow, turning intangible in the same breath as Nightwing sent a fist through Phantom’s chest and into the throat of a goon twice their size.

They ducked and dodged and sprung off each other in ways that would make the Justice League envious. The gang members were not equipped for this fight and they fell and faltered with steady inevitability. 

“Oh, shit.” The footage shook as Spoiler suddenly moved, likely getting ready to join in as another twenty men came pouring out of a back alley. Probably the group that the first one had been there to fight in the first place. She stuttered to a halt, though, the camera shaking, at the fiercely bladed grin that grew on Nightwing’s face. 

There wasn’t any audio currently, but that didn’t mean that Jason couldn’t hear the cackle that used to haunt the rooftops of Gotham.

Nightwing ran at Phantom who proved his earlier statement about his own strength by flinging Nightwing up and up into the air. The camera and Steph’s eyes followed the moving object, allowing for a perfect view of Nightwing’s multiple flips and barrage of Wingdings. They didn’t really get to see the Wingdings hit, though the many suddenly weaponless gang members were evidence enough, because Nightwing was landing on yet another goon, knocking him and several nearby stragglers out before stopping in a couch at Phantom’s feet. 

They stayed like that for one long moment before Phantom shook his hands, their faint blue glow fading with a few scattered snowflakes, and Nightwing stood. Neither of them faltered even slightly on the ice that now covered the road and trapped the majority of the gang members in place. 

Phantom and Nightwing smiled at each other before Phantom flew off, likely to check the perimeter. Nightwing started going around making sure everyone was secure and probably trying to find a boss to interrogate. 

He looked up though, waving at Spoiler just once. 

“Holy shit,” said Spoiler. 

Her words acted as some sort of release because suddenly everyone was talking. Barbara was talking angles, Duke and Damian were admitting they were impressed with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and Timmy was trying to figure how they’d timed everything and rewinding footage to replay certain moves to look for signals. 

Bruce said, “Fuck,” nice and quiet, right next to Jason where only Jason heard. 

Jason just nodded. The others would get there eventually, once the sheer competency had worn off and they realized how much fucking work it took to make a partnership like that. Bruce didn’t need that time, not after having to create that kind of dynamic with multiple Robins. Not after loosing that dynamic with his first Robin and having to work twice as hard to get it back.

“Time Police,” Bruce said after another long pause. 

“Run by ‘the ghost version of the god of time.’”

“Dick, he made it sound-”

“I think Dickie-bird undersells a lot of things.” Jason thought his voice sounded more tired than angry, which was interesting because he was absolutely fucking furious. It was a patient furious, though. A slow inevitable swirl of waters rushing ever deeper that he would use to drown his brother’s and the Ghostie’s enemies in Arctic seas. 

Bruce ran a hand through his hair, a gesture he usually avoided when in the suit even when the cowl was down. “Right.”

Jason bumped his shoulder after the slightest hesitation. “Come on, old man. Work to do.”

“Right,” said Bruce again, his tone much firmer. 

There was always work to do. 

***

Danny’s feet hit the roof and he started running. 

He’d done a lot of running in his life, both literally and figuratively, and he couldn’t help but think this was much better. It felt like running towards something rather than away. 

He reached the end of the roof and flung himself off, grabbing Nightwing’s outstretched hand and throwing the laughing man into the air where he extended his grapple and overtook Danny. 

Danny had forgotten how much fun it was to fly with Nightwing, how much he loved to fly at all. Dick was so at home in the sky, had taken Danny’s previous lack of aerial tricks as a personal offence, had taken the fact that he could fly in some sections of the Zone with such joy. They’d spent hours in the sky. Hours perfecting manoeuvres that they’d really likely never need, but were one of the most assured ways to get the two of them to relax. 

To calm down. 

It had been instinctual to go back to that mutual understanding of gravity and the accompanying compass-like knowledge of Dick’s presence at any given time. Instinctual didn’t mean perfect. Dick was going to have a spectacular bruise on his hip from a moment where they’d both timed the intangibility wrong and Danny’s arm still stung slightly from where he’d nearly dislocated it in a poor mid-air catch. This was also not mentioning several other embarrassing moments that Dick promised to erase from any cameras come morning. 

But by the time they’d stumbled on that gang fight, they’d been settling back into their partnership. By the time the fight had ended, Danny felt like he could breathe freely, like he could step forward and expect that Nightwing would be there (instead of a shadow of memory that was far crueller than a ghost).

That had been hours ago. They weren’t actively patrolling anymore. Weren’t practicing their rhythm. They were running and flying and soaring ever higher. 

Towards and not away.

Wayne Enterprises was the tallest building in Gotham. Danny and Dick sat on the repair rails for its tallest point, breathing heavily with echoes of laughter as much as exertion. They were high enough that they could see the whole city in a view that that almost made everything worth it all on its own. 

Their breath slowed and settled. Bones and bodies stilling for the first time all night as the sun peaked over the foggy horizon. The silence between them was the kind with teeth, white and blinding and possibly fanged. Ready to bite or smile and never show fear. 

“It was my parents,” Danny said into cold morning air that wrapped around his limb instead of stabbing his lungs. 

Danny rested his hand over his chest, fingertips brushing the edges of the y-shaped scar as if to clarify. The gesture wasn’t needed. “They trapped me and I transformed and told them everything and they still didn’t believe me. Demanded their son back for a while, then seemed to accept that the I was the monster that had replaced him.”

Danny stared out at the sunrise. Dick didn’t touch him and certainly didn’t say anything. 

“That was the worst part. How much they loved their son. Their son who wasn’t me. They loved him even when they sold me to the Guys in White, even when they used me to solidify a partnership and ensure they’d get to keep experimenting somewhere I didn’t have quite the same history of escaping.”

Danny breathed out, his breath frosty but not a warning.

“There were other ghosts there. I wasn’t alone. No matter how much I wished I was.”

Danny slipped off the metal rail and turned to float in front of Nightwing. Nightwing stood, balanced on an edge with an ease that had taken Danny months to even slightly emulate despite the fact that he could fly. 

“Nightwing,” Danny said.

“Phantom, “ Dick acknowledged. 

“Help me stop them. Help me end the Guys in White and the Fentons and make sure that no other ghost wakes up in their care. Help me save my people.”

Nightwing smiled, a sharp smile that most heroes wouldn’t recognize, but Danny did. Danny had flown through portal after crevice after door with this man, rarely knowing what was on the other side but determined to go through it anyways, because maybe it would be better. Maybe they could help. Maybe they would end up just a little closer to home, to knowing what that meant.

“We have a meeting with the Justice League and Justice League Dark in a week.”

Danny dipped for a moment, losing just the slightest bit of altitude before rising again under Nightwing’s smirk.

“I figured that would give us enough time for Red Robin and Oracle to break the encryption on Amity, for us to figure out which ghosts we want to bring into this, and for the Bats to come up with a more detailed plan than ‘complete and utter destruction.’”

Nightwing shrugged at Danny’s look. “You’re my friend, Spooks. My trainee and my family. I trained you and you put me back together again. There was never a chance in Hell, the Zone, or any Realm at fucking all that I was going to do anything other than put you back together again. 

“If that includes taking down a corrupt government? Sure. Been there, done that, even if history will never tell on us. If that means taking down your corrupt former parents, which sucks and I’m so sorry you had to go through that, then abso-fucking-lutely. I’ve wanted to punch your parents off a cliff for years now.”

Nightwing would probably have said more, but Danny had rushed him in a hug and they were both falling off the tower. That didn’t stop Dick from tightening his arms and returning the hug. He laughed again as they fell, as they flew, and Danny couldn’t help but join him. 

“Let’s go home, Spooks.”

Danny didn’t answer, but he also didn’t hesitate to head towards the manor.  

Chapter Text

Dick found his target easily. 

That wasn’t due to his own skill, but rather the fact that Jazz wasn’t hiding. She was sitting dead center in the largest academic library on her campus in what felt like a very subtle fuck you to multiple different forces in her life, all of them terrible to her little brother. She wasn’t actually being watched now, which the set of her shoulders told Dick she was perfectly aware of, but that likely wasn’t always the case. 

Dick had found signs of at least one prolonged stakeout near her apartment. Physically checking inside the apartment seemed like a terrible idea on several counts, considering the relationship he was hoping to start on a semi-positive foot. He’d still bet there were at least a couple surveillance devices and that Jazz was aware of most of them. 

Her spine held the cold iron of someone who knew her world was balanced on a knife-edge and was prepared to dance along the blade. She was continuing forward because it was the best she could do at the moment, not because she had no plans for things to get better. No matter what it took. 

Maybe that was why Dick was so nervous. 

He kept moving forward because he didn’t want to stop and linger and make her feel like she was bing watched. It’s just, this was important. This was crucially important in a way that Dick wasn’t exactly used to. 

Jazz was to Danny what Dick almost was for most of his siblings. What Dick was conscious enough to realize he absolutely was to Damian. Jazz was Danny’s sister and closest confidant and his parent, in ways that neither of them would admit aloud but knew to the depths of their bones. 

This meeting going well mattered to Dick. It mattered because he wanted the very best for Danny. It also mattered on a purely selfish level that started with a joke about commiserating with another big sibling but went much farther than that in truth. 

Sure, Dick had friends who had younger siblings and friends who were parents and many of them were capes and all of them were amazing. He also had five younger siblings who were hell-bent on throwing themselves into danger (three of whom had died), a father that was doing so much better (but hadn’t always), and a smattering of maternal figures that had never stayed (leaving behind shoes that Dick had never meant to fill but couldn’t imagine ever giving up).

So yes, he wanted to commiserate. He also wanted someone to understand. Hopefully, Jazz wouldn’t mind the selfishness, not if he could understand her as well. 

Dick slid into the hard plastic chair next to her, instead of across. She looked up, red hair held into a tight bun by a turquoise scrunchie, eyebrow judgemental and prepared. There was no doubt in Dick’s mind that she would lambast him if he was here to disturb her studying or eviscerate him if he was here for anything ghost related. 

Except, perhaps, if he was here to support her and Danny. 

“Hello, my name is Dick Grayson. I’m a friend of your brother.” 

Her attention went from full to absolute. Dick almost hesitated under the force of frozen-sky eyes. Instead, he put his driver’s licence and phone, open to a picture Alfred had taken of Danny asleep on Dick’s shoulder, next to her text book.

“That entire album is full of photos that should prove my identity, though feel free to move to the text conversations; you’re more than welcome to read my last conversations with Danny. I could actually use backup to convince him that healthy food is needed by all bodies, no matter the state.”

Dick knew that Danny had told Jazz something about his current situation and staying in Gotham. Dick just also also knew that the two of them were paranoid and being actively hunted. Considering that Dick was pretty sure Danny had tied paper to a glowing green dog’s neck and told the canine to go find Jazz, Dick wasn’t putting a lot of faith in the level of detail Danny had conveyed. 

“I want to help,” Dick continued as Jazz flipped through the phone. “I’m here to help. And I have a jammer running that should work on governmental eavesdroppers without crashing all the school computers and cased the place before sitting down so were clear for the next fifteen minutes or so.”

That was a simplification but Dick wanted his fifteen minutes to make his case, not explain Bat-technology. He started pulling folders out of his backpack, pins and broken zipper included for the college look. The Waynes weren’t exactly as famous outside of Gotham, but Richie Grayson was known for his suit or colourful outfits. Put him in a regular t-shirt, hat, jeans, add a slouch with a touch of exhausted all-nighter, and Dick was quite sure he wouldn’t be recognized. 

“I also have a copy of every proposed Ecto-Act annotated with all the ways it’s stupid and unconstitutional; a highlighted list of Human Rights violations; a cross-sectioned list of relevant Meta Acts and Rights; and two books on known ancient ghost alliances and treaties. Please don’t ask where I got those. I’d tell you, but I’ll get in trouble for it.”

He put a laptop on top of the books, though he didn’t open it yet. “I also have incomplete profiles on several key ghost-hunting individuals and a number of the GIW members as well as a man on the inside of the GIW. I mean, I don’t have them here,” Dick waved at the library and Jazz tracked his hand. “But in general, I have someone on the inside feeding me information. They’re very trustworthy. Not that I think you should trust me yet, just, I wanted you to know since I’m trying to be as honest and open as possible.

“I’d also really like your help on the profiles, not necessarily because of the psychology aspect, though I absolutely wouldn’t turn that down, but because first hand information can be very useful and I haven’t been pushing Danny about the various ghost-hunting individuals for hopefully obvious reasons and I would really like an opinion on if that’s the right course of action.”

Dick looked bak into his bag but didn’t pull out the last file he had, even though that one was entirely coded and kept on a very encrypted USB that would corrupt itself the moment someone other than Dick tried to use it.

“Ah. I also have an updated medical file.” And that had been a terror to get Danny to agree to, even if it was only Dick, Alfred, and Jason in the cave at the time. “It’s not fully comprehensive, because Danny is currently mostly okay and I didn’t want to push him into a panic attack and also consent is really fucking important. He agreed to me showing you, but the way. Well, in the teenager brush off kind of way when I asked him about showing you his medical information. But teenage heroes are a pain in the ass when it comes to medical and Spooks is no exception, as I’m sure know, so I’m counting it.”

Jazz’s fingers clenched around her pen even as her other hand flipped through the printed files. Some of the comments were typed before he’d printed them but Dick, Tim, and even Bruce had scrawled all over them in pen afterwards as well. 

Her fingers stilled, and Dick leaned forward slightly to see what caught her attention. 

Oops. He’d forgotten to mention that last set of documents. 

“Right. That’s an offer for a very comprehensive Wayne scholarship to Gotham University. And transfer papers effective immediately for your schooling. It’s not a bribe or a mandate or anything. You can absolutely say no. And it’s not even favouritism, really. The psychology department at Gotham U is very robust, due to the fact that psychologists and therapists have a tendency to go either insane or have a very large and more than slightly traumatized client pool. 

“Your grades and extracurriculars, not to mention proposed thesis, more than qualify you.” Dick ran his hand through his hair before replacing the hat and re-reading the headings on the document instead of meeting Jazz’s eyes. “I considered not including this part yet, since I know that’s a lot of personal information I just revealed I have access to but, well, I figured that bridge was burnt the moment I sat down and again, I’m really trying to be honest. Also, I would have wanted the option. If it was my siblings. If Spook- if I could. So. Transfer papers.”

Jazz stood. She didn’t jolt; her movements were calm and collected as she started putting away her textbook. Dick’s stomach sank and he wondered if he could call Danny. Tim was supposed to be hanging out with Danny today, which meant the two of the could be drinking coffee while hiding from Alfred, flying around Gotham, neck deep in trying to adapt Ecto-shields for the Batcave, or dead asleep in the rafters somewhere. Dick had wanted Jazz to be a happy surprise, but he needed her on his side more than he needed the surprise.

“Follow me,” Jazz said low and soft. 

Dick was following before he even fully registered that she’d tucked all the files into her own bag with slightly shaking hands. All he had to grab was the laptop, his ID, and the phone and he was sliding into step with her as she walked out of the library and down through the nearby buildings with unwavering steps. He made sure to seem like they were just two college friends walking through campus, stressed enough not to be talking because Jazz wasn’t saying a single word and Dick was respecting that, but regular enough not to raise any flags. 

He followed her to the psychology building, into a corridor of offices, and past a receptionist that actually drew some words from Jazz. She smiled and complained about being chased out of the library by noisy freshman and asked for a study room to finish a group project. 

Dick added his own charming smile.

The room they were granted was deep in the building. Even better, the architecture was old, dated, and largely concrete. With the technology Dick had on him there was very little chance of them being overheard.   

She hugged him as soon as the door closed. She moved slowly enough that Dick would have had time to dodge or say no but Dick liked hugs. He might even need one almost as much as Jazz did.

“Thank you,” she said into his shoulder.

“You’re welcome.”

“No, I mean yes. Thank you for this, for everything, for keeping Danny safe when we had nowhere for him to go. He’s been sending a lot of letters through Cujo and most have even made it to me. But also, thank you.”

Dick felt her hands tighten in the back of his shirt and said nothing.

“I knew when he met you, you know. I thought you were dead. A hero unable to let go of saving people even in death. And I was so grateful. We tried, his friends and I. We stole gear from the Fentons and backed him up whenever we could but it wasn’t enough. I knew that. I saw that from the start.”

“You did what you could,” Dick murmured into her hair. 

“It wasn’t enough. The training you gave him was so obvious. The fighting skills were the start. Mo-Maddie knew martial arts. She taught us as kids and I started to learn again so I could teach Danny. So he wouldn’t have to learn from her. It was such a difference when he started learning from you.”

Dick tightened his hold. He couldn’t imagine what it had been like to learn moves from the person she was terrified would hurt her brother, to smile and let herself be hurt again and again in the hope she could help him just a little. (That was a lie. He could imagine. He could understand.)

“He didn’t talk about you, not in detail. He didn’t talk about a lot of things in the Zone and I tried to respect that. But the signs were everywhere and that was even before he asked me to help him with his mental health. His mental health. Because his hero mentor had emphasized it’s importance. The man who called him ‘Spooks.’ You have no idea the relief I felt the first time he called you his partner, even if he tried to say it was just for Time Police stuff.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner. That he was alive. That-”

“What does that matter?” Jazz demanded, stepping back for the first time and revealing the tears running down her face. “What does that matter when you treated him just the damn same as if he was? You couldn’t have saved him, alive, dead, or in between, but you gave him the tools to save himself.”

Dick reached out and tucked her back under his chin. She was so slight, taller than Danny but still a strength of woven steel wire rather than a solid stone wall. Wiping her tears felt too intimate, a step too far when he’d just met her even if Danny’s stories made it seem as if she’d always been there with them, cracking advice and demanding self-care. So he simply let her hide her damp face and slump her shoulders under the weight of his arm.

“Thank you,” Dick told her because he only had these truths left in him. “Thank you for helping him stay alive long enough for me to meet him, to love him. It must have been so hard, but you both did unbelievably well. I promise you’re not alone anymore. Neither of you.”

They stayed like that for long, interminable minutes. She cried, the silent kind of tears that you got used to crying when you couldn’t risk anyone finding you, not the person hurting you or the person you were trying to protect. He placed his head against her fiery hair, for once not bothering to pretend he wasn’t crying a few tears right with her. 

He wasn’t about to lie to Jazz.

When they stepped back, Jazz offered him tissues which he accepted with a surprising lack of awkwardness. Then they pulled out all the files and the laptop and spent three hours going over options and history. Jazz pulled her own highly encrypted laptop out of her bag with a damp smirk and a comment about him not being the only one who knew someone good with computers. Her profiles on both ghosts and hunters were going to make Bruce drool. 

They also spent an hour getting her new apartment set up in Gotham after Dick went over the various neighbourhoods and trade offs, since Jazz signed the transfer paperwork first fucking thing. 

Dick was fading a little around midnight, not that he’d ever tell anyone back home about that. It had been a long damn month though, and he really hadn’t napped enough to make up for a couple nights without sleep. Jazz sat next to him on the floor, back against the wall and file loose in her hand as they blearily blinked at the opposite wall they’d taped all sorts of documents onto and refused to admit that they were done for the night.  

“My baby brother died,” Jazz said, a whisper that trailed through the quiet. 

Dick let out a breath that felt like it had been frozen in his lungs. “Mine too.”

"I wasn’t there.”

Dick pressed his shoulder into hers, even though he had to slouch slightly to do it. 

“I was in space.” He said it like a confession, like a secret. Which it was; he never said the words out loud, not when they could be taken as an excuse rather than a scream.

Her hand reached out, tentative because trust was hard but strong because she’d made her choice. “Do you ever feel like you’ve made it up to him?”

Dick closed her hand in his, twining their fingers together, and then closed his eyes as well to stop the green glow that was suddenly all he could see. 

“Never.”

***

“It’ll just take a second.”

“It’s fine,” Danny told Tim. He wasn’t even lying. Sure he’d been enjoying their afternoon messing around with Ecto-technology in the Batcave, but they’d run out of coffee (Alfred had cut them off) and had already napped in the rafters. So, really, they needed to head out anyways to refuel. Stopping at Titans Tower first wasn’t that big of a deal. 

“It’s not my case, but Wondergirl asked me to decode this information and I totally forgot. I could send it, but they really need the hardcopy. It will take me twenty minutes, tops.”

Danny shrugged. “It’s fine, dude.”

“No, it’s not. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the Tower would make you uncomfortable.”

Danny turned to look at Red Robin, who’d stopped in the middle of the hallway that Danny had been trailing him down. 

“I’m fine?”

Time scowled. “No, you’re not.” He then looked down to where Danny’s tail was flicking back and forth as he floated. Danny didn’t even remember switching to the tail instead of his legs as he flew after Dick’s brother. 

“Damnit. Nightwing told you that.” His legs popped back into being as he sat crosslegged in the air.

“He didn’t need to. We’re all pretty good at reading people. Just wait until Black Bat gets back. She’s terrifyingly good.”

Danny sighed, but he’d already resigned himself to losing most of his secrets just from Dick’s earnestly kind face and Jason’s fiercely honest eyes alone. 

“Look,” Danny said, running a hand through his hair in a motion he had possibly copied from Dick. “It’s not that I’m uncomfortable, exactly. I really respect the Titans and all the work Nightwing and you have done with them. Trust me, I paid really close attention to the other teen superheroes running around even if I had my own reasons for not contacting them.”

Reasons that included Vlad, Clockwork, the Observants, the GIW, and several other factors that somehow didn’t seem as important now. Not that most of the non-magical Titans could have really helped or that Danny knew how to come out with the “Ghosts are Real but not Evil, Help Me” talk effectively even now. 

“But that’s not why you’re wary.”

Damn observant Bats. 

“You’re just like your brother, you know that?”

Tim smiled, a little tentatively and Danny realized he did not in fact know that. 

Danny sighed and landed on the floor. He ran his hand through his hair again. “Look,” he repeated, then stopped. “Right, so remember when I joked about not being able to punch Batman in the face and Nightwing mentioned we knew each other when they weren’t on as good terms? That’s true for the Titans, too. He’d had, fuck, he wouldn’t want to call it a falling out. I don’t know, a kerfuffle? He was on his own when he fell into the portal and met me and I was very conscious of the fact that I was fucking dead and seemed more sure of my own support network than he was of his, despite the kind words and fantastic stories he told me of his friends.”

Tim started at him, mask not blocking the intensity of his gaze in the slightest. “You’re holding a grudge,” Tim said softly.

“Nothing that intense. Nightwing’s told me that it’s been resolved and I trust him. I’m just not about to forget.”

Tim hummed and Danny wasn’t sure if he’d explained it well enough. Dick had told him that it had been resolved. Dick had sat with Danny on top of a skyscraper, wind and dawning stars the only witnesses, and told him about long conversations held with Starfire about Mirage’s various assaults and rape and consent. About the tears and forgiveness that came with the re-opened wounds. He’d talked about the friends that hadn’t been there, hadn’t known, had missed him while Dick was trapped in the Zone and had helped him re-orient himself to the world of the living.

It was enough, because Dick felt it enough, but Danny wouldn’t forget. 

“You need to understand, Red Robin, that Nightwing was all I had. Ghosts are possessive in the first place, my obsession is protection, and Nightwing was the only other hero I’d ever met. I have wonderful friends that I wouldn’t have been able to do without, but Nightwing was the only one to look at me and never judge. To understand. To learn all of my mistakes and still think I was worthy. To tell me that it wasn’t my fault. Returning the favour, telling him it wasn’t his fault was the very least I could do.”

Tim gave Danny a long long that Danny couldn’t read. 

“I think it’s the least of what you’ve done,” Tim said finally, before starting to walk down the hall. “I’ll add you to the chat.”

“What?” Danny asked, following.

“Signal started it, actually, a month or two after he joined the family. Batgirl and I had run a couple prank campaigns on someone who insulted Wing and Oracle had buried a couple of idiots in both spam and legitimate password troubles but Signal was the one to notice how actually uncomfortable Wing was at the galas and such.” Tim’s mouth twisted as if annoyed that it had taken so long for him to notice. 

Danny figured the annoyance was fair but also unwarranted. Dick was very good at hiding his feelings in an effort to protect those he cared about. If Danny hadn’t met him at one of lowest points, if they hadn’t had a very unpleasant run-in with Spectra, if they hadn’t established a two-way policy of honesty during their third foray into time, Danny knew he would probably be just as much in the dark. 

“It’s part protection and part retribution against and on the people, Capes included, that think they can get away with relying on Nightwing’s golden boy reputation to objectify him or force him into to corners where he can’t respond without bringing something back onto Batman, the Justice League, or the Titans. I mean, he can defend himself, he just…”

“Doesn’t,” Danny finished. “Not when it may burn a bridge that he could later use to protect one of you.”

“Yeah,” Tim sighed. “You get it.”

“And I’m fully prepared to be in this chat. I can’t hack but boy can I prank. Haunting is an art and I’ve had practice.”

Tim gave a grin. “Hood said you be interested.”

Danny grinned back, showing just the barest hint of fang. “Who else is in it, beside the Bats?”

“Not all the Bats. B isn’t, for obvious reasons. Robin isn’t either, not since the third time he tried to outright stab someone. We bring him in as needed and are working on delayed gratification as a concept in general. Troia, the original Wonder Girl, is there as is the original Kid Flash and Raven. A couple others, like Superman and Beast Boy, get included on a case by case basis but those are the main additions. We’ll have to gauge your skill set later for best application.”

Danny raised an eyebrow as they approached the door to what was presumable a common room.

“Haunting is very useful for revenge but we also consider Care skills. Like, we call Troia for emotional conversations he doesn’t want to burden the kids for or Flash for emergency food runs because he can pretend they’re for him.”

“Naps,” Danny said immediately. “The second I even hint I’m tired I’m bundled into a joint nap or a quiet activity that Nightwing supervises very closely.”

“Yeah, that’s a good one.”

Danny eyed Red Robin. “You can do that too, you know. He’s worried about my sleep habits due to recent trauma. Yours he seems to worry about as a general state of being.”

“But then I’d actually have to sleep.”

“Nothing wrong with that RR,” said a laid back teen Danny recognized as Superboy. There were several other teen heroes in the common room, but only Superboy had walked away from he previous activity to come greet them. He looked fondly exasperated at Red Robin, who only stared at the man with a deadpan expression. 

Superboy sighed and Red Robin smirked like he’d won something.

“Phantom, this is my friend, Superboy.”

“Hey,” Superboy said with a little wave. “I’d love to get a better introduction, but Impulse and Wonder Girl are about to experiment with that evidence you were talking about yesterday.”

“Shit! They need to stay away from my lab! Superboy, this is Phantom. Hurt him and Nightwing and Hood will make sure you’re never seen again.”

“Well that’s extreme,” Superboy muttered as Red Robin ran off and out of the room. Danny stared at Superboy out of the corner of his eye, confident that Superboy was doing the same.  

“I like your jacket,” Danny told him.

Superboy smiled. “You’re hair is cool.”

“Thanks.”

They stood in silence for a long moment.

“Something up?” Superboy asked.

“I heard you were a clone,” Danny said, because apparently he wanted to make things more awkward.

Superboy’s shoulders tensed just the slightest bit. “Yeah.”

“I miss my clone.”

“What.” Superboy turned to dace Danny completely, but Danny had turned to face the large windows instead.

“I had a clone. Fruitloop cloned me and one survived and she was my sister and I loved her and I miss her.”

Superboy stared for another long moment, not that Danny was watching him this time. 

“Do you want a hug?”

Danny finally turned to look at him. He must have had some funny expression on his face because Superboy shrugged. 

“I kind of panicked when I realized I was a big brother and went to Nightwing for lessons. Hey, Robin and Baby Superboy are here, too, if you’d rather stick with a Bat for a hug. And I could introduce you to my brother.”

“Sure,” Danny said after a long moment. “I’d love to meet your brother.”

It was even true, since Jon was one of the few things Damian would happily (grudgingly) talk about. Kon also wasn’t wrong, Danny did kind of prefer hanging around the Bats right now.

Furthermore, surprising everyone but Dick, Danny and Damian got along great. Damian was an assassin and Danny was a ghost and both were very possessive. It had taken less than a full conversation between the two of them to acknowledge this and recognize an ally that would do just about anything to keep Dick safe and happy. Including getting along. 

Also, Damian had a Dragon Bat that could fly and Danny had a Ghost Dog that could transform into a hulking behemoth. Danny was very excited to be added to the chat, but he would be bringing Damian in much sooner on things. Their alliance was first and based on monstrously cool pets. And Danny wasn’t entirely opposed to justified stabbing; he was excellent at hiding evidence. 

Danny was therefore rather happy to float along after Superboy, heading over to where Robin and Baby Superboy were talking in the corner. They’d made it halfway there when Danny heard it. 

The words didn’t exactly register. Something about tight material and an ass. Something about beauty. Something about sex. 

 Something about Nightwing. 

“Excuse me?” Danny asked. Or hissed. Or whatever it was called when static crept into his voice and he started sounding like a horror movie.

The B-list hero that had been speaking to a couple of uncomfortable looking newbies glanced over at him, confirming that Danny had no idea who she was and that she must also be new to the roster.

“Pardon?” she replied, one eyebrow raised as she leaned over the couch to stare him up and down. “I don’t believe you were involved in the conversation.”

“I’d like to say that I don’t believe you were actively harassing Nightwing in the middle of Titans Tower, but what I just heard says otherwise.”

She smirked, lazily, head on her arms across the couch back. “We were just discussing his assets. Kids like you wouldn’t understand.”

The lights in the room started flickering. Danny was absently aware that several heroes were pulling themselves out of their tasks and starting to reach for weapons. Robin in particular was looking right at Danny, though he was too far away to have heard the particular words the woman used. The dawning fury on his face told Danny that Baby Superboy was filling him right in. 

“I understand sexual harassment just fucking fine.” 

She flipped her hair, though was starting to look nervous at the lights. And possibly also at the fangs Danny could feel forming in his mouth even as the shadows around his suit and the corners of the room deepened and frosted. 

“It’s not harassment if we’re in a relationship.”

Danny stilled for one very long moment and she grinned as if she’d won. And then gradually paled, because nothing living could go as still as Danny in that moment. 

The living had to breathe.

“First off,” Danny whispered as he gained another few inches in the air, static absent and leaving the clarity of an iced-over midnight in a dead-quiet room. “That is fucking incorrect on all damn levels; harassment is harassment no matter who the fuck’s involved. Second off, you are not in a relationship with Nightwing. And third, if you ever dare touch him with your filthy, delusional hands, I will fling you to the ends of the Ghost Zone where the only warmth will be from your own bloody tears.”

The silence stretched in that odd, sharp angle that was really only possible when the rules of the living were starting to freeze. 

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” The woman was standing now, knuckles white and knotted into the blanket thrown across the top of the couch. Her voice was shaking, which robbed a bit of the bite from her words.

“A Bat,” said Robin from Danny’s side, as if he’d always been there. His smile was as sharp as Danny’s, for all he had human teeth. Danny looked at him, distantly surprised the younger man could stand so close to Danny in what Sam called his baby-Eldritch mode. Robin sensed the regard and looked back, crossing his arms.

“Is there a problem here?” asked Starfire, the only other person to move directly towards them, gentle but firm in her approach.

Danny glowered. 

Robin said, “Tt.” 

Starfire went to reply but got interrupted by Impulse and the rumpled Red Robin brought along for the ride. 

“No murder in the common room! Remember delayed gratification!” Red Robin shouted, hitting he ground in front of them. All eyes turned to Red Robin who stopped for one long moment to study Danny and Robin before quirking an eyebrow. Red Robin then raised his phone and took one head-on photo. 

“Nice,” Red Robin said after looking at the photo. 

He showed it to Danny and Robin, and Danny had to admit it was a fantastic shot. Danny was still more shadow than substance, but he was also clearly curled around Robin with a possessive twist of his tail and too-long arms draped around the boys shoulder. Danny’s eyes were glowing green which were casting deeper shadows around the sharp planes of Robin’s face and highlighted the dark confidence as the boy leaned into Phantom’s presence. 

Red Robin’s phone had already been enhanced with various Ecto-technologies, but the occasional glitch and corrupted data point still made their way into the photo, sending dimensions into scattered angles that balanced the whole photo on the edge of a moment that could shatter into furious, skipping motion at the faintest touch.

Danny’s phone beeped and he was suddenly sure that the photo was sent to the entire group chat. 

Red Robin shrugged. “Wing is going to be so proud of the two of you working together. And Hood will think it fucking hilarious.”

Robin scowled, but took another step back, knocking his shoulder into Danny deliberately and used a patented Bat-expression made of dramatic eyebrows to ask if Danny was good, was in control. Which yes, he was, though he was still pissed then fuck off. Robin waited until Danny met his gaze and then flicked his eyes to Red Robin and huffed.

Danny studied Red’s stance in front of them for a moment and the tight grip he had on his phone, before huffing on his own, releasing his energy and drawing the tangible terror back into himself. His feet hit the ground with a soundless tap but he stayed partially draped over Robin’s back. 

Dick’s littlest brother was grounding. 

Red Robin tossed a USB over to Starfire, who caught it with the ease of a woman who’d entered the superhero world with a Bat at her side. 

“Witless wonder here,” Red began, gesturing to the pale but gaining bluster woman by the couch, “was making multiple comments about her fellow heroes that easily fall under the category of sexual harassment, particularly regarding Nightwing. You will find the security footage of today’s event on the devices, as well as two other incidents I found during a quick sweep of the Tower’s feed. 

“It’s young stages yet so I, personally, recommend a direct transfer to one of the other Titan bases and a rehash of the sexual harassment policy, heroes’ standards, and support networks we offer. I’m happy to send along Nightwing’s most recent “Heroics, Consent, and How to Act with Decency in Both Everyday Life and Complicated Situations” powerpoint, if needed.”

“It is not,” Starfire responded, her hair a shade more molten than when she first entered the room. “I was Nightwing’s parter for this re-structuring of the Consent Powerpoint. I have many copies.”

“Good, good.” Red Robin turned to the woman who’d started this mess, the one Danny still didn’t actually know the name of and didn’t really care. She wasn’t saying anything, but that was possibly because she was newly bracketed by two glowering Superboys and a bristling Red Arrow. 

“As for Phantom,” Red Robin told the woman but also the whole entire room and every single Titan because teen heroes gossiped like no other, “Demon brat finally summoned his own demon. What else were we to do but accept him as our own?”

He shrugged. Everyone stared. Danny hid his laugh in Robin’s back which was the only reason he knew that the kid also found this funny, since his expression remained stoic with just a hint of sardonic glee. 

Red Robin turned this back on the Titans and walked the last few steps to stand with Danny and Robin.

“Phantom is a Bat. Nightwing and Hood are burning a governmental organization to the ground for him. Batman is retrofitting half the cave with Ecto-technology. Agent A is baking special snacks. Signal is fucking ecstatic that there’s someone else with powers around. Phantom’s ours.”

Red Robin turned around after he grabbed Danny’s wrist, gently, so it didn’t feel like a shackle. “You can come for him.”

Suddenly, Danny wasn’t sure if this was about the woman coming for revenge at Danny for humiliation, or for targeting Nightwing in the first place, or about the entire GIW and anyone who might come after Danny as a ghost. Danny wasn’t sure he cared.

He turned all three of them invisible and intangible, adjusting his hold on both Dick’s brother and starting to sink them through the floor and towards the Zeta tube like Red Robin had indicated he should with subtle hand gestures that the various Bats had started teaching Danny almost immediately after he arrived. 

“But I wouldn’t recommend it,” Red Robin’s voice rang out just before they sunk all the way through. 

Danny returned them to full tangibility visibility in that hall with Zeta tube. He looked at both boys who were communicating with eyebrow motions that Danny didn’t yet know before Red Robin huffed and went back to his phone, texting something out.

Robin just looked smug.

“Can you do the Terror Twin thing again?” Asked Red Robin.

“Tt. Of course.”

“It-it didn’t bother you?” Danny asked, running a gloved hand through his hair. “You’re not, I don’t know, unreasonably cold or anything?”

“No.” 

“Oh.” 

“Stop that face immediately.” Robin reached out to grab Danny’s arm and drag him back to the floor, forcing Danny to regain his legs out of habit before he could start the anxious twitching. 

“People don’t normally like being that close to be when I’m not actively containing the…spooky.” His friends were used to, and also highly contaminated by, ectoplasm. Which probably accounted for Dick’s ease as well, though the man was also just weird and had proclaimed Danny cute the first time he’d see Danny going Eldritch, though several degrees worse and not as controlled. It had been after that incident he’d started calling Danny ‘Spooks,’ apparently to make sure Danny knew Dick wasn’t afraid of him.

“I am not ‘people,’” was all Robin said. 

Red Robin shrugged. “He’s also been revived by Lazarus water. I, on the other hand, felt the cold, but it wasn’t exactly threatening. He looked at Danny. “I walked in on Dick and Jason transferring you like a clingy hot potato as they made midnight hot chocolate and cookies while the three of you discussed which of the Gotham Rogues could be mistaken as ghosts. You’re hardly going to hurt any of us.”

Danny blinked. 

“So. Terror Twins. Hood has a baby drug gang starting that he thinks can be scared off the path and into proper supports. He and Spoiler are waiting for us in a warehouse across from their base.”

Danny looked from the grinning Red Robin with is held up phone and to the smirking Robin with a knife spinning around his fingers. They weren’t going to talk about earlier. Not any more than they had. It was done and dealt with and they were on Danny’s side. 

They knew what Danny was, what Phantom was. Perhaps not all of it, not everything and every dark cranny, but they knew. And were on his side anyways.

Danny really should have known that Dick’s family was as crazy as he was. (Danny couldn’t have possibly known that Dick’s family would be willing to be Danny’s family as well.)

“Sure,” Danny said. “Sounds fun.”

It sounded the opposite of lonely. 

Chapter Text

Jason carried Danny in through a wall in the cave. The two of them were enjoying the shortcut that was intangibility while the others took the long way round. Suckers. Shouldn’t have made fun of Jason giving Ghostie a piggyback ride. 

The baby drug runners he’d been watching for the last few weeks were well and truly scared shitless. Danny and Damian’s Terror Twin act was fucking hilarious and Jason was already planning ways to prank several heroes and terrorize several villains. He and Tim had started a list. 

They’d been working on said list, Robin and Spoiler finishing off a lecture to the kids dragged into drug running by less than scrupulous adults that would make Nightwing proud, when Danny had come to lean on Jason. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Not when Jason was the largest Bat, other than Bruce, and his family was mostly made of clingy and somewhat traumatized kids partially raised by Dick. 

Danny in particular clung to Dick, the comfortable favourite, but Jason had become a clear second. Danny did this thing where he’d lean on Jason’s shoulder or into his side and at first the presence would be normal, the weight noticeable, but then it would slowly start to disappear. 

The first time this happened Jason had been reading. He’d looked down at Danny when the lean first started, before mentally shrugging and resigning himself to the role of furniture, firmly ignoring the cool comfort of the presence and the fact that he wasn’t really bothered. When the contact had started to lesson, Jason had just assumed that the teen had floated off as quietly as he’d arrived. 

He hadn’t. Jason had looked up from his chapter just in time to see the kid fade away into frozen mist. Considering his powers and the ghost thing, Jason wouldn’t have worried, exactly. Except for Danny’s expression. Danny’s face was calm and blank and peaceful. Distant. 

Gone.

Jason doubted Danny had even been aware he was fading. 

Dick hadn’t been quite as panicked as Jason but had set out to lure the attention of his Spooks with little hesitation. The look Dick had shared with Jason after Danny had been attracted with video games and pizza, a smile on his face and no clear or admitted memory of the event, was tired. And sad.

Jason watched for the next time. He’d still missed it, half asleep after a long patrol, mind bleary as Jason stared into a half-eaten meal that he couldn’t remember making. He didn’t immediately recognize the cool-water presence at his side, the invisible frost that crept along his bones as Danny leaned into Jason’s arm. Jason noticed when it was gone though, jolting awake to a sudden uncomfortable return of heat and warmth, the frozen patterns in his soup the only evidence that he hadn’t been alone. 

The third time, when Danny came to lean on Jason’s leg as he finished treating his gear, Jason was ready. When he realized Danny’s cool weight was disappearing, Jason’s hand shot downward and passed through Danny’s shoulder. A quick but soft call had Danny’s attention shifting, single drops of awareness that trickled over with slow, incremental movements. The gear Jason dropped in Danny’s lap didn’t hit the ground and the the kid’s shimmering attention turned bemused as Jason started explaining the care of weaponry Danny would likely never have to use. 

It became a pattern. It became a hand tugged through white hair, an arm around boney shoulders, a leg pressed into a jagged spine. Dick was grateful, Bruce was watchful, Danny was perpetually bemused. 

Jason was terrified. 

Danny drifted, he faded. He slipped in and out of reality with a simple ease that Jason recognized but didn’t understand. Rage and anger were what sent Jason spiralling deeper and deeper into Lazarus green but there were other triggers. Other moments when his mind would echo Danny’s drifting and Jason would slip below the green. 

Like when reading a book taking place in subway tunnels, rock walls collapsing and forcing occupants to dig their way up to the light. (Jason had told Dick he didn’t remember digging out of his own grave and might have never loved the man more than when Dick didn’t call Jason out on his lie.) Like after a patrol where Jason had been too slow, not enough, and felt Timmy’s hand slip through his. (Steph had caught him but for one long moment Jason had thought he’d see his brother’s blood splattered across the pavement and had been so sure it would look green to Jason’s eyes.) 

Like when checking his gear, fingers tracing a tear made by a knife that had been inches away from his throat. (The cut would have killed him, probably, possibly, maybe, surely.)

Jason had exercises and deep breaths and practice upon practice to get him calm and centered and back. He had evenings baking with Alfred and mornings checking his gear while Bruce ran diagnostics on the Batcomputer. He had movie nights with the Bat Brats and nights out with the Outlaws. He had rafts and ships and fucking life jackets but nothing worked like the inching frost of Danny’s presence. His cold seeping and sinking into the green spirals in Jason’s mind, not stagnating or stopping the torrent but freezing the waters just slow enough for Jason to breathe (to remember that he should).

Danny’s head pressed into the back of Jason’s neck, now, hair brushing against Jason’s ear and weight fluctuating but returning every time Jason squeezed the legs or arms wrapped around him. 

Jason hadn’t expected the lean in the warehouse and only part of that was the fact that Danny didn’t usually do the lean thing when on the night shift. Or in front of people, excepting Dick. The other reason, the larger reason, the reason Jason hadn’t wanted to admit since this fucking started, was that he was never sure which of them wanted (needed) the contact.  

“They’re going to be okay.”

Jason didn’t reply. Just kept walking up the rough stone path to the electric lights ahead signalling the proper start of the cave.

Danny hooked his chin over Jason’s shoulder and would have left the conversation there. 

Still, Jason found himself speaking. “Course they will. Spoiler will keep the Robins from murdering each other and Red Robin will make sure the kids get picked up.”

Danny hummed in a register Jason wasn’t sure most people could hear. “Sure. And you’ll make sure those kids stay as safe as possible.”

Jason knew his face stayed perfectly still, but being draped across his back probably let Danny feel the tightening of Jason’s muscles. “It’s a tough job, growing up in crime alley. They’re doing the best they can.”

He felt just a bit guilty, perhaps, for releasing the Terror Twins on the mostly very young gang members. Except for the part where Gotham wasn’t kind, and while not all gangs would run into demons, ghosts, or magic, most would deal with villains, Bats, and mad science. Some of those kids would still probably go into the criminal underworld or general thuggery, but they wouldn’t be doing it for street cred or because it was cool. Not after tonight.

Danny’s arms tightened around Jason’s shoulders. “They trust you, you know.”

Jason snorted. 

“They do. You didn’t see the expression of the kids when you entered the warehouses. Damian and I were ransacking the warehouse as dramatically as we could-”

Jason snorted again, for a different reason. He had no doubt that the two of them could ransack very dramatically and that was even without the video footage Timmy had promised. 

“-while you, RR, and Spoiler cornered the real scumbags outside. The moment you came through that window though, the tension went way down. I swear to Clockwork, one kid actually thanked God.”

Jason actually knew what kid that was. Jessie was a good kid whose mom had been laid off and had two younger sisters at home. Jessie’s furtive actions and inability to meet the Hood’s gaze these last few weeks had been what tipped Jason off to the new tactics of this upstart gang actively recruiting kids into membership.

“I try,” Jason found himself admitting, for some unknown reason.

“I know,” Danny said simply. “And you’ll try tomorrow when you follow up with RR, Oracle, and your own contacts to make sure that all the kids that got picked up by parents are safe, that group homes aren’t taking anything out on the kids, that a new round of employment services courtesy of Wayne Enterprises outreach begins, and whatever other angles there are that I’m not used to seeing.”

Danny wasn’t wrong. Jason had a couple of long term plans and had already flagged RR and Spoiler on a few special cases he would be following up with this week. Admittedly, this type of work was a lot easier now that he was hooked back into Bat networks and Wayne wealth. 

“I don’t know, Ghostie, you seem pretty used to our methods.”

Danny huffed a laugh and Jason swore he could feel it on his neck even though the coat and helmet. 

“You ain’t seen nothing until you’ve watched Dick defeat a raging ghost by talking and providing emotional support.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it. Particularly any stories that involve Dickie getting smacked in the face or cried on by a ghost.”

Danny laughed again and it felt like a victory. It also felt like that was Jason sorted, so he couldn’t not ask. “Do you want me to let you down?”

Danny paused. “Do you want to let me down?”

“Not particularly,” Jason replied with a surprising lack of his own pause.

“Oh.” Danny said, barely louder than a breath. “Not really.”

“Okay.” They walked a few more steps. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Jason was pretty sure Danny was smiling when he spoke next. “Was that hard to ask?”

“Eh. Not really. Just don’t tell Dick. Don’t want him expecting emotional competency on a regular basis.” 

Danny squirmed against Jason’s back.

“Ah,” Jason said as he shifted Danny a bit, adjusting his hold on Danny’s legs. There was flash of light and echo of cracking glaciers that Jason knew no one else could hear. There was now a pair of jeans instead of black suit under Jason’s gloves and bare arms around his neck. “So this is about Dickie.”

“What did the others tell you?”

“Not much. Just that I wasn’t allowed to kill a newbie hero that was transferring to a different Titans Tower after verbally harassing an absent Nightwing.” Which really was enough. Jason might not be as smart as Tim, but Jason still understood fucking context. 

Also, Tim was a very smart kid, but he sometimes missed social dynamics. Particularly when he was inside them. Steph and Damian loved and respected Bruce, in different and varying ways, but Dick had been their Batman. Damian had already sent the name of the newbie hero to Jason and Steph as part of a highly effective restraining order protocol that they had maybe used before, once or twice.

Danny tapped his fingers against Jason’s sternum, absently. Thinking on what to say.

“This conversation is going to make me angry, isn’t it?” Jason had meant it as a joke. Kind of. He was already angry. The low simmering kind that would have sent him to one of his own safe houses for the evening if it hadn’t been for the coolness of the ghost on his back. 

“Jason.” Danny straightened, but didn’t jump off. “Jason, I’ve died.”

Jason skipped a step that he’d never admit to. The kid joked, just like Jason did, but he didn’t talk about it, just like Jason didn’t. 

“I’ve died, been mind-controlled, been beat and attacked simply for walking down the street, had my emotions modified and stolen, been trapped in tiny objects and the past, been tortured, repeatedly. I’m always angry.”

Tap, tap went thin fingers, soundless on Jason’s jacket. 

“I don’t know what exactly went on with you and that fucking Lazarus water and I’m not going to ask questions out of respect for your choices and a very conscious acknowledgement of what I can actually handle at this moment, but dying is kind of all about emotion. That’s what ghosts are. I’m not handing this better than you, not really. I’ve just had more experience freezing that anger for later, because, unlike you, anger’s never helped me. Never made me stronger. Only gotten me beat harder.”

Jason’s hands tightened on Danny’s legs, not sure if the anger had helped, exactly, other than it was better than the empty nothing he tried so hard not to remember. Danny didn’t slow down in the slightest. 

“So what happened was that I lost my temper. And thank fuck your brothers were there because a light show was the least of what I wanted to do to that bitch who was actively hurting one of the only people that ever tried to save me. That’s seen my temper and stayed anyways. That-”

His voice caught and Jason was glad Danny was draped over Jason’s back and that Jason still had his helmet on. He didn’t think he’d have the courage to say what came next if Danny could see his face. If Jason could see Danny’s face. 

“That violated his consent,” Jason finished. 

Danny’s fingers flattened against Jason’s shoulder, completely still. “Of course you caught on to that,” he said, tiredly.

“First fucking night,” Jason confessed, equally as tired. Equally as angry. 

Danny hummed. “I’m not going to talk about it. The consent stealing. On either side.”

“I’m not going to ask.” Jason wanted to know why consent was such a big word to both Danny and Jason’s big brother, the details and not just his terrible, creeping suspicions, but he wasn’t a hypocrite, not where he could help it. He’d just told his entire family to back fucking off; he wasn’t going to start poking their ghostie with a sharp, Batarang edged stick.

“I’ll take you with me, though.” Danny buried his head into Jason’s neck, making his next words all but a mumble. “If I find her. The one who hurt Dick.”

Jason wasn’t Tim, but he knew Danny wasn’t talking about the hero-wannabe from today. And since Dick had already promised to take Jason with him, cinders like stars in his eyes, if Dick went to confront the Fentons, then surely Dick couldn’t reasonably upset about the turnaround.  

“Done.” Jason had put maybe a but too much force into his voice. Danny didn’t seem to mind. 

“You know,” Danny said as they climbed the steps and approached the main and likely populated part of the Cave. “I do agree with you on destroying stuff as a calming technique. Jazz and Dick did a pretty decent job with the installing coping mechanisms thing, but I’ve always found wanton destruction way more fun and effective than meditation or any of that shit.”

“I’m listening,” Jason told him when there was a slight pause. His helmet meant there was not video evidence of his sharpening grin.

“Dude.” Danny somehow propped his elbow up on Jason’s shoulder. “I have access to an entire Zone of weird floating rocks and angry ghosts raring for a fight. Once we get this GIW mess sorted we could totally go blast stuff. There’s even this supper annoying asshole, Walker, who has a whole prison that captures ghosts on the dumbest fucking infractions and suffers a break out every couple months. We could speed that along and take pot-shots at corrupt ghost cops.”

“I cannot tell you how sold I am.” 

Danny laughed as they approached the computer, no one sitting in it’s command seat as Batman and Red Robin were still out for the night, even if not for much longer. 

Dick was there though, sitting on a railing in civvies as he chatted with a red-headed woman cradling a mug in her hands. Dick quickly took the mug away when he saw them come in, causing the woman to turn just as Danny took interest, probably reading the tension caused by the stranger in Jason’s spine. 

“Jazz?” Danny asked, shards of shattered icicles in his voice.

“Danny!”

The tall redhead was already running towards them. She flung herself off the stairs in a move that slightly surprised Jason, since he hadn’t pegged her as trained, exactly. Everything made a lot more sense, however, when Danny was there to catch her, spinning the two of them up into the air of the cave as they hugged and cried and babbled at speeds and angles Jason wasn’t even going to try and follow. 

He finished the trek up to Dick and leaned on the railing beside his brother, who was beaming up at the duo. 

“I suppose you might have done good, Big Bird,” Jason told him, bumping their shoulders together and removing his helmet. 

Dick redirected his beam to Jason.

“You have no idea, Jay.”

Jason frowned. Dick seemed happy. Actually happy, Jason was pretty sure. But there was still something tucked at the corner of Dick’s eyes that Jason didn’t like.

Dick’s beam softened, becoming less fierce sunshine and more gentle star-shine. 

“I’m okay, Jay. Promise. Just, well, some tough conversations?”

“Trouble?” Jason asked, eyes cutting up to where the siblings were still very much attached and communicating in what might actually be ghost speak. Also avoiding entirely bringing up his own tough conversation just barely finished. He was emotion-ed out, thank you very much.

“Nah,” Dick said, “Jazz was happy to come. And she’s going to have no trouble fitting in.”

Jason opened his mouth to reply but was stopped by a speeding blur that knocked Dick to the ground. Danny didn’t let go when they crashed, just tightened his arms in a monster hug. 

“Thank you,” Jason just barely heard Danny say. Dick tightened his arms and didn’t bother to try and stand. 

“Any time, kiddo.”

There was a fond but exasperated sigh from beside Jason. He was very familiar with the sound since it was one that Bruce made daily. 

“Jasmine Phantom,” Jazz said while sticking out a hand to shake when Jason turned to her. “Call me Jazz.”

Jason shook the hand, making sure to moderate his strength but still unsurprised by the grip he received in return. 

“Jason Todd.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you,” she replied. She tilted her head after a long moment of staring while Dick and Danny were pulling themselves off the floor. Jason had been studying her rather intently. “Something wrong?”

“Nah, don’t think so at least. Was just wondering if you’d be jealous, I guess.”

“Blunt.” Jazz didn’t seem to mind really. She turned from Jason to study her brother, who was batting Dick’s hands away with a laugh as the older man tried to brush cave dirt from their shoulders. “But understandable.” 

She was silent for another moment before looking back at Jason. Jason found himself pulled back into her gaze from where he’d been watching Tim. Tim had finally turned up and sat himself with single-minded focus at the Batcomputer. Jason had been wondering if Dick’s preoccupation meant that Jason was the one supposed to enforce social niceties like acknowledging the stranger in their Cave and if he cared enough to actually say anything (or if it would funnier if he didn’t). 

Instead Jason met Danny’s sister’s gaze. Danny had eyes of ice, regardless of whether they were blue or green, of frozen torrents of rage and glaciers edged in sorrow. Jazz had eyes of turquoise waters, still and calm and deep. Deep enough to hide in, deep enough to disguise thoughts and plans and emotion.

“I’m angry, Jason. Angry that I wasn’t enough. Angry that a superhero needed to be the one to step in. Angry that it took years for a superhero to step in. Angry that my brother spent those years being a hero with little recognition other than guns and violence and hatred. Angry that an entire hero family was needed to provide the kind of safety required for me to send time with my brother. 

“Angry that my brother was hurt, that my brother died. I’m not, however, angry or jealous that my brother has a fucking support network. Not when I plan to take full advantage.”

“Huh,” Jason said. “Dickie was right. You’re going to fit in just fine.”

“I know!” Dick said from where he’d dragged Danny back into easy conversation range. “And that’s not even the best part!”

Danny looked suspiciously at Dick. “The best part being that she’s my sister and awesome?”

“That she’s brilliant and a psychologist!”

“Not yet.” Jazz crossed her arms.

“No shit?” Asked Jason. He’d left the Fenton family including Jazz mostly to Dick to research for several not sentimental reasons. 

“Oh, that.” Danny went to lean easily into his sister’s side. “Yeah, she’s actually scary good. Profiling, behaviour analysis, maintaining some semblance of mental health in teenage superheroes. You know, the usual skills.”

“So you’re training to be a psychologist. You’re in the know and training to be a psychologist instead of a cape?” Jason directed his questions to Jazz, just to make sure.

She blinked. “You think I could be a cape?”

“Well, yeah,” said Jason at the same time as Dick said, “yes, absolutely.” 

Danny just cackled. 

“Huh,” Jazz said. “Nope. I’m not going to stand around twiddling my thumbs or anything but I’d really rather stick to the background work and keeping my bonehead brother on track.”

“Hey!”

“I want no commentary from someone who had to be told he couldn’t keep a ghost bear as a pet.”

Danny crossed his arms and Jason found himself glad for the Replacement. Tim, still in full gear, turned from his place at the computer and asked the important questions, despite the fact that he’d done nothing but type madly away at the keyboard since he got here. Dick was working up a really good exasperated expression. 

“And you’re not crazy or after world domination or wanting to change all the clocks in the world to cheese?”

“No.” Jazz tapped her hand against her hip, clearly evaluating Tim and eyeing the large mug of coffee next to him. “That’s very specific.”

“Right, right.” Tim turned back to the computer. “I’m marking her as a Gold Priority Ally. For the entire League.” 

Jazz turned to Danny. “And you’re okay with this, Mr. Possessive?”

Danny hummed from where he’d started floating cross-legged in the air.

“An entire army of superheroes to keep you safe? Yes, absolutely.” He drifted over to just behind Tim. “Do you want her grades and various recommendation letters as proof of potential or something?”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

Dick made a wounded sound that made Jason grin. “How about introductions, first. Come on Baby Bird, Spooks. I taught you better than that.”

Danny just started laughing while Tim turned away from the computer long enough to wave distractedly. “Hey, I’m Tim.” 

Dick sighed before pushing Danny over and sending the kid drifting through the air, still chuckling. Jason grabbed the teen as he drifted past, wrapping an arm him and tucking his own chin against Danny’s shoulder. 

“I promise he wan’t raised in the Cave,” Dick told Jazz.

“Not by his own choice,” Jason said. “Replacement would have loved to never be forced to leave the Cave for anything other than patrol, missions, and maybe the odd new-tech meeting at Wayne Enterprises.”

“Socializing with my peers is largely a waste of time,” Tim said absently. Jason wondered if the Replacement was awake enough for Jason to point out how similar to the Demon Brat Tim sounded. Tim had to be fully awake for Jason to get the best offended reaction. 

Jazz hummed, staring at Danny leaning into Jason’s hold. She raised her eyebrow and for a moment Jason wondered if she was going to comment. Instead, she grinned. 

“So you haven’t introduced Tim to Tucker or Technus yet, huh?”

Danny scowled. “Technus is hardly Tim’s peer.”

This turned out to be too much. Tim spun slowly around to gaze at Danny with narrowed eyes. The expression was maybe lessened by the crazy hair caused by removing his cowl. 

“Who?”

Danny squirmed. Jazz smirked. 

“The ones responsible for the ghostly fire-wall around Amity Park and the part of the web that the GIW can’t touch, no matter their government backing. 

“Danny!” Tim wheeled on Danny after Jazz’s explanation. 

Danny held up both hands and tried to step back before meeting Jason’s chest plate. “I was trying to get in touch with them first! They’re not the easiest to contact and I wasn’t going to reveal identities without asking.”

Tim’s nose crinkled up in disgust, because that was perfectly reasonable and he didn’t want it to be. 

Dick sighed and patted Tim’s head. This was doubly amusing because Jazz reached over to do the same thing to Danny, completely ignoring the large armoured man at her brother’s back. 

“Perhaps this can be a tomorrow conversation? It’s been a long day,” Dick said in his best Voice of Reason tone, despite the fact that the tone frequently got ignored. 

This time however, Jazz nodded. “Excellent idea. Come on, Danny. I have a few things to catch you up on and then it’s straight to bed with us both. Alfred was kind enough to prepare a room for me but I was rather hoping we could share for the night.”

Danny had started scowling but had ended up nodding rapidly as Jazz had finished. Jason imagined the two might be a little clingy in the near future, which no one in this house would fucking judge. 

Still, Jazz had Danny up and out of the Cave in a record time, which led to a grinning Dick turning on a dishevelled Tim. 

“Oh, no,” Time told Jason, ignoring Dick entirely. 

“Oh, yes,” Dick crowed anyway. “I have an ally. A responsible, big-sibling, ally.” 

“Well, shit.” Jason said, because despite the fact that he was occasionally, maybe, also filling the role of a big-sibling ally, he could never be called responsible. He’d worked way to hard on his shit-stirring skills for that. 

Dick just grinned wider. 

Chapter Text

Danny stepped out of the Zeta Tube and immediately went to the nearest window. He pressed up as close as he could without passing through, which he would totally be doing later when it wouldn’t give Dick a heart attack. Dick was currently waving Batman and Red Robin down to the meeting room, but immediately after came with Jazz to bracket Danny on either side. 

“You certainly take me to the most interesting places, Little Brother.”

Danny laughed, but didn’t look away from the stars. “Almost makes everything worth it.”

Nightwing’s suited arm came to rest across Danny’s shoulders. “Something always makes everything worth it.”

Danny took a deep breath before starting forward and following the direction Batman and Red Robin had gone. “Okay. Let's do this.”

“I promise to bring you back up to space soon,” Nightwing said because he was the best. 

Nightwing and Jazz, all posh in a tailored suit that hid several weapons while making her look professionally badass, continued to flank Danny as they all entered the room. Danny imagined it looked pretty awesome but, unfortunately, he didn’t think the Justice League really got a chance to admire their entrance because it was immediately interrupted but a series of swear words and a scruffy Englishman coming right into Danny’s space. 

Nightwing tensed but Danny waved him off, smiling ruefully at Constantine who was patting Danny’s shoulders and hair and generally fussing to the great amusement and confusion of the few Leaguers Danny could see around Constantine’s shoulders. 

“Baby Boo! Z, it’s Baby Boo. He’s alright,” Constantine said even as Zatanna came up behind him.

She brushed Constantine aside and went for a hug, which Danny was happy enough to sink into, though he admittedly stepped back to Nightwing’s and Jazz’s sides directly after. Danny appreciated the warm welcome but still wasn’t entirely sold on other people in his space just yet. 

“Glad to see you, Baby Boo. We were getting worried.” Zatanna smiled softly. 

Danny tilted his head. “You were?”

“Course,” said Constantine, crossing his arms. “Spectral entities have been disappearing at increasing rates. We didn’t see you regular-like, and the lack of strong ghosts stirring up shit could have explained your absence, but.” Constantine shrugged instead of finishing.

Zatanna rolled her eyes at Constantine. “We worried. Also, I know you didn’t want to join Justice League Dark officially but would you please at least take a communicator or something?”

Danny started to laugh awkwardly but then caught Nightwing’s glare and cut off abruptly. 

“Phantom?” Nightwing asked all too pleasantly. 

“I forgot!” Danny blurted. Jazz shook her head before abandoning him to Nightwing and going to introduce herself to Raven, the last magic user in the room. This wasn’t surprising, exactly, because Raven had been a favourite of both Jazz and Sam for ages, but still. Abandoning Danny.

Red Robin and Batman also looked less than inclined to help. Red Robin because he was still annoyed that he hadn’t gotten the run down on Tucker and Technus due to being tricked into sleeping and Batman because the man took secret enjoyment of his children’s shenanigans. No one could tell Danny otherwise.

“You forgot.” Nightwing raised a single eyebrow. “I mention that I’ve set up a meeting with the Justice League and Justice League Dark and you forget to mention that you know two of the most prominent members of the latter?”

“Yes?”

The other eyebrow joins the first.

“It’s not like I knew they were prominent members! Just that they weren’t completely incompetent whenever a ghost decided to fuck away from Amity and the Zone and cause havoc.”

“Gee, thanks,” Zatanna said, though she was smiling.

“Eh,” Constantine added, “I feel pretty complimented, actually. It’s not like when did a shit ton during those confrontations.”

“Clearing civilians from the area is very important,” Danny told them solemnly. 

“Glad you listened to something I said.” Nightwing sounded slightly exasperated, so Danny just grinned up at him, waiting for the fond eye roll that would surely follow.

“Gonna need some explanation on this,” Constantine mentioned, gesturing to both Danny and Nightwing. 

“I mentored Phantom for a while,” Nightwing told them.

“That explains some things,” Zatanna said tapping her painted finger nails against her crossed arms, “like the training. But not others.”

Danny tilted his head slightly, confused for a moment at the sudden low levels of hostility coming from the two magicians, before looking to Jazz who had a complicated and slightly resigned expression on her face. Somehow, that clued Danny into what was going through their minds. 

“Oh,” said Danny. “Oh, no. He didn’t abandon me. My being alone wasn’t Nightwing’s fault.” Danny flew up and hovered right in front of Nightwing, tail lashing slightly. Danny couldn’t have them thinking that. He liked Constantine and Zatanna, sure, but they were Nightwing’s colleagues and Nightwing was wonderful and Dick had been the one to ensure Danny could survive alone and-

“It’s okay, Spooks.” Nightwing’s voice was low, almost as soothing as the weight of his hand on Danny’s shoulder. 

“Perhaps we should all sit down?” This calm voice was also low and soothing, and apparently belonged to Superman, whom Danny had somehow managed to completely ignore along with Wonder Woman. “This sounds like it might be part of the briefing.”

“Yes,” Nightwing agreed. “It’s certainly part of the background at least.” 

“Hi,” Squeaked Phantom because this was Superman and Wonder Woman.  Superman smiled kindly at him as Wonder Woman stepped forward and emphatically shook Danny’s hand. 

“Hello, young Warrior of Ghosts. I looking forward to getting to know Nightwing’s first protégée.”

They ended up seated around the long conference table. Constantine, Zatanna, and Raven represented Justice League Dark while Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman represented the regular ol’ Justice League. Danny wasn’t sure if Red Robin was here as Titan or a Bat or simply as someone who liked to know everything. 

Jazz sat to Danny’s left and Nightwing to Danny’s right. Directly to Danny’s right, since Nightwing had sat himself on the arm of Danny’s chair in a move that had to be uncomfortable but was really very appreciated. 

Danny didn’t do this. He didn’t ask for help. 

It had been him and his friends (whom he loved so dearly because he’d never had to ask them for help) for so long. The Fruitloop had offered help with too many strings attached and Clockwork had offered help with as few strings as he could manage but still. That wasn’t Danny asking. 

“Right,” Nightwing said with a quick glance at his father and hand run through his hair. “So, short answer is Time Fuckery.”

Superman blinked while Wonder Woman nodded like this was to be expected and a grumbling Constantine placed some sort of money into Zatanna’s open hand. Danny abruptly felt much better. If this was the normal reaction to time travel and various shenanigans, then Danny had found his people. 

“I got pushed into a glowing portal by a pissed off mage when I was eighteen and sent into the Ghost Zone. Met the Ghost of Time, partnered with Phantom and worked as the Time Police for a bit while they figured out how to get back to my dimension in the correct time line, then jumped through another portal thinking that I’d never again get to see my already dead Spooks.”

“Jumped,” Danny muttered because Dick had not ‘jumped’ and Danny remembered the jolt of longing and fear that had filled him at Dick’s hesitancy. 

Dick flicked Danny in the forehead, not even flinching when Danny when intangible and Dick’s hand looked like it went through Danny’s skull.

Danny grinned at Dick’s rolling eyes, teeth sharp, but properly picked up the explanation. 

“Except I wasn’t actually fully dead. My parent’s were scientists, technically Ecto-scientists but could probably fit under the ‘mad-scientist’ banner pretty easily. Lab in the basement plus poor equipment design plus non-existent lab safety plus teenage curiosity equals half-dead teenager with ghost powers. Add in an open ghost portal and you get half-dead teenager with heroic aspirations learning fast on the job.”

“Half-dead,” Constantine said surprisingly quietly. “Halfa.”

“Yup.” Danny popped the sound. “There’s only th-two of us. Rare breed, I guess.” Danny was really not up for getting into the Vlad and Ellie situation right now. 

Thankfully, Raven had her head tilted to one side before lightly tapping the table. “Ah. And the old stories and artefacts are due to the Time Police Thing.”

Raven was looking a little accusingly at Nightwing, which Danny figured was fair. He was more than familiar with the man’s ability to get wrapped up in the nearest shenanigan with almost no intent needed. It was shared and defining trait in their relationship.

“Yeah,” Nightwing rubbed the back of his head. “This is where the fuckery comes in.” 

Danny snorted and started hovering over his seat, tail coiling slightly beneath him. 

“Look,” Dick told mostly the Justice Leaguers but also the magic users because they’s talked about it in the Batcave and neither of them was exactly sure what they knew of the Ghost Zone. Or what they accurately knew, at least. 

“The Zone itself doesn’t have time, exactly, nor space. It’s a central point in many ways because everything dies. Everything ends, across dimensions and species and realities. Everything ends, except the Zone, because it grows through endings. Living minds can’t really grasp it, but I’ve always imagined it as an infinite corridor full of doors and windows and portholes and skylights and that don’t just lead to different times and places, but worlds and existences.”

Danny placed his head in his hand. “Dead minds don’t really grasp it either, to be honest. It’s a lot of compartmentalization and expectations. This lair exists here because the ghost in charge expects it to, these doors are clustered together because the spirits from those realities remember the locations are connected, this entity is particularly powerful because they have followers across several dimensions and that shit bleeds through doors like you wouldn’t believe.” 

Danny shrugged. “The Ghost Zone is Hell but it’s also any other aspect of the afterlife you can think of, in any religion or belief system or world, it just depends on the door or the corridor. There’s a reason why they’re also called the Infinite Realms.”

“Which is why I couldn’t have just been dumped through any old door,” Nightwing said as he reached out and pulled Danny down a foot from the air, letting him hover but keeping an arm around Danny’s back. “They had to find the right door that led to my reality but also my timeline. When we found it, I ended up back barely an hour after I left. Which was a real hit to the head, let me tell you.”

“It was also why I didn’t reach out to the Nightwing I saw on TV when I was back from the Zone and sitting above my parent’s lab in a bedroom that didn’t really feel like mine,” Danny added, flatly, looking at the faint scars and pen marks on Jazz’s hand. 

“We were pretty sure, Clockwork and I,” Danny continued, “that my mentor version of Nightwing’s reality and my original reality were the same, just at slightly different times, due to that belief and cluster thing. But pretty sure wasn’t exactly sure. So even after the Nightwing on the news had a Batfamily, had everything that Clockwork had promised he’d have and therefore would have already been to the Zone and experienced our meeting and partnership, that was only if our original dimensions, realities were exactly the same. That was… a big risk. One I couldn’t take because if I was wrong, I’d start a hero asking questions I couldn’t afford to answer.”

And because Danny couldn’t take it. He couldn’t take Nightwing looking at him with no recognition, without the memory-weight of red and green dyed bandages wrapped around thin wrists and midnights of silence that pressed into steel-frozen spines. 

“Would help have been so terrible?” Wonder Woman asked, her kindness the only thing that kept the words from being an accusation.

“You need to understand,” said Jazz, quiet and sure as any of her textbooks, “that we were children. We were teenagers being hunted and suspected by our own parents. Parents who were the greatest authority on the subject of ghosts, authority that said ghosts didn’t feel. Weren’t sentient. Despite the fact that Danny was making friends as well as enemies, that his emotions were heightened, that all the ghosts we met seemed to act on emotion more than anything else.”

Jazz shook her head, the familiar motion of trying and failing to understand the complete lack of logic behind their parent’s actions and belief. She continued and Danny wasn’t sure he wanted her to. “Danny was surviving and adapting with a handful of young allies, fighting a war on multiple fronts against mostly adult ghosts and the authorities meant to help people.”

There were some exceptions. Clockwork and the Far Frozen for example, though they were limited to support in the Zone. Mr. Lancer for another. The man had always thought Danny could do better, had pressured him as such and been disappointed when he’d started to backslide so dramatically. The disappointment had changed direction, however, about the same time Lancer started flagging down Phantom and insisting he take a break or a nap in Lancer’s spare room. Danny had never asked if his teacher knew and the man had never said. It had still been enough, at the time.

“The Justice League worked with the government,” Jazz didn’t lower her gaze, “the government that we only knew from the GIW and their attempts to capture and kill any ghost they came across, including my brother. And it’s not like we knew Justice League Dark existed. We knew nothing. Nothing other than that authority repeatedly fucked us over.”

“There was also an incident or two that made it seem like I was a villain,” Danny added, in an effort for as much transparency has he could manage. “Didn’t think that would help my case. And one of my main enemies was the mayor for a while, though he’s calmed way the fuck down lately.”

“Mind control is also very fucked up and leaves a lot of damaging confidence issues,” Nightwing said, running a hand through Danny’s hair and encouraging him to look up and meet the understanding gazes of almost the entire room. 

“So what changed,” Wonder Woman asked, just as gently as last time. “Why did you decide it was worth the risk to approach Nightwing and then the League.”

“The GIW,” Danny said, eyes rising and burning green frost. “I’d gotten the respect of most of the regular ghosts, gotten them to accept Amity as part of my haunt, as somewhere they could visit but not rain havoc on. Instead of taking that as the ceasefire it was, the GIW stopped trying to ineffectually kill ghosts and went for experimentation. They were much better at that. 

“The GIW and my par- the Fentons proved every bad thought we’d had about authority and decided to up the fucking ante. I got caught after exhausting myself saving the town from a group of demons that weren’t even ghosts and didn’t use the fucking portal and weren’t my responsibility other than the fact that it was my town. I got sold to the GIW by the Fentons and the two groups started working together in an organized manner that superseded anything we’d seen from them previously.

“I wasn’t alone. I was their favourite, an exceptional specimen with exceptional regenerative capabilities. But there were others.”

Danny looked up at the other heroes. At the solemn Wonder Woman and the slightly green Red Robin who’d heard this before but actually understood the details, now. At the angry Raven, shadows writhing slowly around her even as sparks danced around a scowling Constantine’s hands. 

“Ghosts feel pain. We do. All we are is emotion, when it comes down to it. We feed off emotion, fear, yes, some of us, but any emotion. Joy, happiness, sadness, freedom, excitement, challenge. Different ghosts have different preferences but any emotion works if you’re desperate enough.”

Danny looked at his hands, remembering the taste of desperation. 

“The GIW changed,” Danny whispered and the dead whispered with him, “but so did I. I’m tired of existing on the pain of my people.”

“I made him promise,” Nightwing said after Danny’s words wove graves in the air. “That if he needed me, he’d find me, no matter the consequences. Promises mean quite a bit, to the dead.”

“I promised to save them.” 

Nightwing’s hands would have left bruises on Danny’s arms if he wasn’t partially intangible. It was comforting. 

“Turns out,” Nightwing continued with dangerous cheer, “that finding me was great because we are from the same original reality! Just ten or so years apart. I got shoved into the Zone at age eighteen, met Phantom when he was fourteen, spent an unknown and completely incalculable amount of time in the Zone as Time Police, and got spat back out  the same calendar day I went in, so still technically eighteen. Which made not-yet-a-ghost Phantom eight and completely unaware of ghosts at the time, for those of you keeping track.”

“So four years since Phantom last saw you and ten years since you last saw Phantom,” Superman said thoughtfully.

“Pretty much!” Nightwing chirpped. 

“Which bring us to this meeting,” Batman spoke for the first time. “We have a corrupt governmental agency that is experimenting on sentiment beings, an entire city that has repeatedly been facing catastrophe level events with no support, multiple labs that need to be destroyed, and a large scale rescue to coordinate.”

“I look forward to participating in the destruction of these reprehensible labs.” Wonder Woman’s hands flexed like she was preparing to grab her sword. 

“What’s the plan for the government?” Zatanna asked, leaning around Wonder Woman to look at a smirking Red Robin.

“That’s it?” Danny realized his voice was probably unreasonably high, but that was fast.

“That’s it.” Constantine thumped his chair, where he’d been leaning back on the back to legs, onto the ground. “JL Dark’s been looking into the disappearing special entities, it’s not just ghosts, by the way, and several other phenomenon that this explains rather neatly. ‘Sides, it’s what we do.”

“And we’re certainly not leaving our Baby Boo all by himself. Particularly not after all you’ve done with those large scale terrors for us. We still remember Undergrowth’s attack on Montana, even if it was business as usual for you.”

Danny just blinked as Jazz squeezed his hand and Nightwing flashed his ‘I told you so’ smile. 

“So, I’d suggest the Ghost King, right off,” Constantine said, rubbing at his eyes. 

“Ghost King?” Superman turned to Constantine. “The ghosts have a king and he’s not already involved?”

“Yeah, King of the Infinite Realms. ‘Cept we didn’t get an update on who that is after the old tyrant Pariah Dark got kicked to the curb a couple of years ago.”

“That seems like a most powerful position,” Wonder Woman said. 

“Not that powerful,” Danny added. “I mean sure, the title is King of the Infinite Realms, but they’re infinite. And multi-faceted with multiple realities. There isn’t, like, only one king. Technically.”

“Well, I’d suggest we start with the one aligned with this reality.” Zatanna raised an eyebrow. “The one who defeated Pariah Dark.”

“He hasn’t actually accepted the position officially, so it’s acting king at best.” Danny wasn’t pouting. He was in a meeting with some of the biggest heroes on Earth. He wasn’t pouting.

Nightwing sighed, deep and theatrical and entirely heartfelt. Jazz covered a smile with her hand.

“Something else you forgot to mention, Spooks?”

Danny tilted his head before shaking it. “Nope.”

Nightwing gave a flat stare that was perfectly recognizable through the mask. “I expect to be made a Knight, just so you know.”

Danny held out for a solid thirty second before caving, shoulders hunching and phasing through the seat slightly. 

“Eh, that’s probably be pretty easy. You already beat Fright Knight in single combat and he’s in charge of that shit.” Jason would also want to be a Knight, which wouldn’t be hard if they carried out the Terrorize Walker Plan. Fright Knight and Walker hated each other.

“What.” Constantine stared.

“Baby Boo,” Zatanna said.

“This does make things somewhat easier.” Raven smiled slightly. “Though you really need to stop picking up royalty, Wing.”

“It’s not that often!” Nightwing protested. He then made the mistake of turning to Danny who made a complicated expression that was meant to remind Nightwing of Dora and the flowers and Frostbite and the head pats. It’s seemed to work because Nightwing huffed.

A different look came into Nightwing’s face immediately after and the man cupped Danny’s jaw with one large hand. Danny didn’t startle, exactly, because Dick was safe, but he did tilt his head in question.

Nightwing’s next words were in slow but perfectly understandable Ghost Speak, which made Raven raise both her eyebrows and Constantine shake his like a dog. Still, Danny was sure that only Jazz and Danny himself would fully understand Nightwing. 

“But we are adding this fight with Pariah Dark to our list of things to talk about.” His fingers tightened slightly. “A fight that ended in a crown is not one that left no trauma.”

“Yeah, okay,” Danny answered in kind after a long moment. He pretended not to see Jazz’s proud smile. 

“Okay,” Nightwing agreed. “Now, were you planning to accept the crown, or do we need to work around the concept of the Ghost King?”

And Danny loved this man. No one else had asked if Danny wanted the crown. 

Vlad had first thought it something Danny didn’t deserve, which Danny didn’t really disagree with even if didn’t have a better candidate tucked in his pocket, and more recently as they banded together against the GIW, as a tool Danny needed to wield. Tucker and Sam thought it was great, was something could use to make things better and something he deserved for after everything. Jazz knew Danny didn’t want it but also knew that he’d accept it anyway. 

Eventually.

“I’m so fucking proud of you, kiddo,” Nightwing said after a long moment, reading all that in Danny’s face just so Danny didn’t have to say it aloud. Danny closed his eyes and let Dick’s words sink into him like the press of Dick’s glove against Danny’s cheekbone. 

Nightwing then switched back to English. “We can work with this.” 

He pulled back from Danny to lean against the seat back and stare at the ceiling for one long moment, pieces shifting and balancing in a way that Danny always found fascinating to watch. It was even better to see the same thing happening in Batman’s stillness and Red Robin’s suddenly frantic typing. Nightwing eventually made a couple of subtle hand signals at Batman who paused before nodding.

“So,” Nightwing grinned. “King of the Infinite Realms, what do you say to an Alliance and Treaty with Earth as an independent Nation following the model of Themyscira, Atlantis, and other planetary nations?”

Constantine whistled lowly as Danny blinked and looked to his deep in thought sister. 

Red Robin grinned back with just as many teeth as Nightwing. “A treaty will supersede all probationary or proposed Acts and force a Play Nicely Rule with the government until everything can be ironed out.”

Jazz nodded, her nails tapping slowly against the table. “It could work. I’ve read of similar treaties in the Zone existing with various entities at different points. There’s precedent. We’d be able to establish a lexicon and standard base of knowledge regarding Ectoplasmic-entities as well.”

Danny would also be able to add his own rules to the complicated mess of the Ghost Zone. Like visiting was allowed but please stop tearing up towns or expect a fist to your spectral throat.

“Fuck,” Danny said to many curious looks. Nightwing just patted him on the head. “Guess I need to be King. Stupid Observants couldn’t have framed the argument like this in the first place?”

Danny floated up from his chair and took a deep breath he didn’t really need. But portal-opening was hard and something that Wulf was really much better at then Danny. Also something that Danny wouldn’t have dared tried even like a month ago when his energy was very fucking depleted. Which meant that Dick, Jazz, Jason, and Alfred might have actually been on to something with their Fatten the Ghost Kid Up Plan.

The portal tore slowly into reality as Danny opened it wide enough to stick his head through. Danny really wasn’t the best at this and wanted to make sure the location was correct before committing. He grinned as Ghost Writer dropped his pen before retreating in order to widen the portal. It was lopsided and anyone going through would have to hunch, but eh. Good enough.

Danny waved at Ghost Writer who looked exasperated but fully visible against the backdrop of his library. 

“So I need that thing I stashed with you,” Danny told him.

“So good to see you still exist! How have you been doing? Lovely to see you again.” Ghost Writer’s voice came trough the portal with a fair deal of static but the full snark still perfectly audible. “Just hold on one damn minute.”

Ghost Writer closed his work deliberately before floating out of the room with a huffy flick to his tail.

“Um,” said Zatanna. Constantine just pinched his nose between his eyes. 

No one else had time to say anything since there was a sudden loud roar and a motorcycle came through the portal with no other warning, briefly flexing and stretching oddly because Danny hadn’t made the portable particularly large. The bike came to rest on the table and Kitty stepped off, immediately putter her hands on her hips. 

Danny gave her full points for the entrance and thought Jason would agree. 

“Heya, Short Stack. Been looking for you.” She looked at the heroes with some curiosity, nodded in acknowledgement at Jazz, and halted at Nightwing. He’d mostly worked Time Police with Danny and not general shenanigans, but there had still be plenty of rumours about Wing of the Night and his alliance and training of young Phantom. 

Nightwing smirked at her.

“Kitty, it’s good to see you,” Danny said with actual sincerity. “Where’s Johnny?”

“Missing.”

“Shit.”

“You doing something about that?” She crossed her arms.

“Yeah, actually. Found some allies.” Danny gestured to the room and watched her eyes track the heroes and their ready stances. 

“Good. Knew you’d be plotting something.” She jumped off the table. “I’ve been riding around. Got names and information.”

“Good.” Danny said, meeting Nightwing’s gaze. “We can work with that. Might need you to take some messages for me, if you’re willing.”

She opened her mouth but was stopped by Ghost Writer all but falling through the portal. 

“Not the smoothest work,” he muttered at the portal, dusting himself off. 

“First of all, it’s a new power and Wulf hasn’t really had a lot of time for instruction. Second of all, torture isn’t great for power levels.” Danny maybe let himself snap a little. It was fine, though. Snapping and petty revenge was how he and Ghost Writer communicated. 

“Fair enough,” Ghost Writer said, handing Danny a large book. “And we know. Plasmius was at the other end of the portal when you exploded it. Passed on your warning about GIW and going to ground before he disappeared.”

Danny’s hand stuttered over the book’s cover. He didn’t want to think about the message. Didn’t want to think about Plasmius being the one to find Ellie, destabilized and carrying whatever they could in their failed attempt to get out of the labs. Ellie’s failed attempt because she was out but dying and Danny’s failed attempt because he hadn’t thought he’d escape but had given all he could so she would. And she hadn’t. 

Danny promptly ignored that entire part of the conversation even as Nightwing likely added it to the Trauma Talk List. Instead, Danny opened the book and pressed his thumb to page thirteen, letting the paper-cut-bite happen and his green blood leak onto the paper. There was a whir and a click and the secret compartment at the back of the book opened, revealing a quiet ring and sleeping crown. 

“You gave the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire to Ghost Writer?” Kitty demanded. 

“Yup.”

“Ghost Writer isn’t a fighter!” Kitty waved her hands around.

“He can literally alter reality with words,” Danny said flatly.

“You hate each other!”

“We made up.” Ghost Writer shrugged. 

Kitty stared. 

Danny sighed. “His lair is a literal fucking library. I was a teenager with no idea how to ghost and most of my information was coming from ghosts that wanted to kick my ass. Or from the very biased Observants, who also went through a kill-the-halfa-interloper phase that I’m not entirely sold on being completely over. Also, my sister is a bibliophile. We made up.”

“The Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire is not ‘made up’ levels of trust!” Kitty pointed at Danny. He really wasn’t sure why. Everyone knew who she was talking to. 

“No one knew we were allies so no one expected it,” Danny explained because he did pay attention to Nightwing’s lessons.

Kitty turned on Ghost Writer. “You let me think I was conning you into using your castle for the refugees and the information network. But you’ve been involved in this the whole fucking time!”

Ghost Writer smiled sharply and Danny really didn’t know how no one else noticed the man was full of points, from his beard to his ears to the end of his pens. “Knowledge is power.”

Nightwing distracted Danny from the two by reaching to take the book and the items from him. Ghost Writer and Kitty both stopped speaking to follow the motion, not moving but focusing on the transfer. 

“You sure, Spooks?” Nightwing asked, once again in Ghost Speak. 

“Whatever you decide,” Jazz said in kind as she came up beside Nightwing, spine and suit dagger straight. “We have your back.”

Danny looked at the ring now sitting in Jazz’s palm, slowly regaining its green glow away from the wards of the book. He turned to the crown, Nightwing’s blue suit gaining shadows of frozen blood and screaming waters as it’s flames began to lick his gloves but not burn. 

Never burn. Danny had never put the ring or the crown on, but there was a reason he’d hid them. That he could. That they weren’t sitting in a room guarded by Observants and empty promises. They’d always been his from the moment he’d bested Pariah Dark. The moment before, even, when he’d been prepared to give everything to protect his people and had included the ghosts as his.

The ring and the crown were already Danny’s and would never hurt that which was his.

“It’s worth it.” Danny told Nightwing and Jazz. 

They nodded, oddly in sync, and everyone held their breath as Nightwing gently placed the crown over Danny’s head and Jazz the ring on Danny’s finger. They continued to hold their breath, by choice or by the death of the air, as both items flared. Danny was driven to his knees as they bled from poison chemical green with rot-red eddies to acidic waters laced with cerulean nights. 

He stood after a moment, after an age, flexing his hands before looking up. Batman and Red Robin looked kind of proud. Wonder Woman and Superman looked respectful and approving. Zatanna and Raved looked a little awed while Constantine pretended to not be wiping his eyes on his sleeve. 

Ghost Writer and Kitty were bowing. 

Nightwing and Jazz were standing a good foot away, Nightwing slightly in front of Jazz which Danny appreciated because ghost fire. Even if it was cold. 

So cold. 

“Suits you, Little Brother.” Jazz smiled at him, all pride and love and warmth.

“Nah,” said Nightwing. “Doesn’t look that different to me.”

He then threw himself forward, utterly fearless (utterly safe, always, for Danny and from Danny), wrapping Danny in an all-consuming hug. Well, almost all-consuming. He made room for Jazz when she copied him the moment Danny raised his arm to her.

“Doesn’t feel that different,” Danny lied and told the truth at the same damn time.

“It will.” Ghost Writer then squawked when Kitty smacked him on the head. “Ow!”

“Way to ruin the moment, loser.”

“Right,” Danny said and didn’t know how to feel when both the ghosts straightened up. Actually, no, he did. He didn’t like that. And he was a king, so could change it. 

That was totally how kingship worked, right?

“Right,” Danny repeated. “You know what? It’s fine. Totally fine. Congratulations, Ghost Writer, you’re a Royal Advisor, now. Because I don’t know shit and you know much more. Also because Clockwork needs to at least pretend to be impartial and the Observants are untrustworthy assholes. Also also, you’re an asshole, and I feel like I need an advisor who won’t let me get away with stuff and not be irredeemably offended if I call him a stupid pickle head with less sense than a sandwich.”

Ghost Writer looked irredeemably offended. “That insult still makes no sense and I maintain that dumping you into a pond of singing piranha was a completely reasonable response.” He tapped his foot. “Pay me in books from other Realms and guarantee I still get to dump you into imaginative payback and I accept.”

“Done,” Danny told Ghost Writer, because that was very reasonable. “Want to be official messenger, at least for now?” Danny asked Kitty. 

“Can I be Spymaster instead?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. I’m in. As long as we find Jonny and Shadow.”

“I will do everything I can.”

She tilted her head and gave a softly sad little smile. “I believe you, Short Stack.”

“I think I also deserve to be Royal Advisor. I’ve been giving you very reasonable advice since you were a toddler.” 

Danny grinned down at Jazz. “Sure, I mean, I think you’re technically a Princess now, but whatever title you want.”

“Hmm.” She hummed dangerously. “I’ll think about it.”

“Observants aren’t going to like a human with a title.” Ghost Writer threw up his hands at the several glares he suddenly found himself under. “I’m not saying I agree and I’m not stupid enough to think there aren’t at least two more humans being added to your titled Court. I’m just preforming my Advisor’s duty and pointing shit out.”

Nightwing adjusted his stance so his arms were draped over Danny’s shoulders and his head was just to the side, probably cast in weird shadows from the Crown of Fire that Danny couldn’t see. Danny could see Ghost Writer take an actual step back at Nightwing’s expression. 

“Just gives me another reason to punch them in the face.”

“Dude,” Kitty said. “You punched an Observant in the face?”

“Three of them,” Red Robin told her, coming to stand next to his brother, laptop in hand. “According to Hood, at least.”

Ghost Writer blinked. Jazz turned to look at Nightwing appraisingly. Superman gave Batman a pat on the shoulder despite the fact that neither of them had ever met an Observant and thus didn’t actually understand the universal desire to punch at least one in their big beady eye.  

“Have you made him a Knight yet?” Kitty asked Danny. “Because that totally deserves a knighthood.”  

“Maybe even a royal ballad or poem,” Ghost Writer added. 

Danny had stolen Red Robin’s laptop to take a look at the plans there, trying to fill in some of the gaps and figure out the questions to ask Kitty about the Zone and the movements of the ghosts. Possibly also trying to ignore the weight of the crown on his head. 

Still, Danny hummed. “A knighthood is the least of what the Wing of Night deserves. And there’s already at ballad.”

Nightwing straightened abruptly, taking all his weight off of Danny. “It’s not a ballad, it’s a folksong. And we don’t talk about the folksong!”

“Oh, we’re talking about the folksong,” Red Robin told his brother. “At length and detail and in tune.”

“No, we’re not.” Nightwing scowled. 

“Huh,” Constantine said, slowly, eyeing Nightwing carefully. “Wing of Night. I think I actually know the folksong.”

“You do not.” Nightwing pointed at him. 

“Ohhh.” Zatanna said. “Yeah, we totally do. And I wouldn’t say folksong as much as battle epic. Very famous in certain magic circles.”

Nightwing groaned and buried his head in his hands as Raven smiled. “Sorry, Wing. That’s what you get for being heroic throughout time.”

“Right, okay, we can talk about blackmailing me later. We have work to do.” 

Danny bumped Nightwing in the shoulder. “I like the song. But yes, we do.” He turned to Jazz. “Would you catch both Leagues up to speed with our original reports? I hadn’t talked to anyone from the Zone since before my capture. I need to chat with Kitty and Ghost Writer a bit more.” 

“Of course, Little Brother.” Jazz turned away, frozen fractal flames edging across the bottom of her jacket and sleeves. 

Red Robin stole back his computer as sat in the chair Nightwing had been neglecting the entire meeting. “B can handle the updates on our side. I’ll take notes.” When Danny didn’t reply, too busy watching the frost arcing across Jazz’s clothes, Red Robin tapped Danny on the arm with a Batarang. “Still feel the cold, still not threatened.”

Danny looked at Red Robin then at Nightwing, who was now somehow perched on the back of Danny’s seat. Nightwing also had flying patterns of delicate blue ice across both sleeves and tiny crystals edging his mask. “I’ve been with you to to the Far Frozen, Little Hellion. Your ice has always been my shield.”

Danny let out a breath of air he didn’t remember taking in. Frost swirled in front of him. “Okay.” 

He sat down again, leaning back against Dick’s legs before turning to Kitty and Ghost Writer. 

“Tell me everything.”

Chapter Text

Danny slowly phased through the wall, caution and paranoia keeping him invisible just in case he had the address wrong. 

Raised voices quickly told him he didn’t. He would know the sounds of a Sam-Tucker argument anywhere. Danny couldn’t stop himself from making  a noise that was a a cross between a sob and a whine.

“Danny?” Sam called from deeper in the apartment, hesitation in her tone. 

The hesitation ended when he raced through another wall, transformed, dropped his invisibility, and tackled both Sam and Tucker to the ground. They didn’t protest, too busy talking at him and grabbing back just as wildly. 

“Fucking missed you, man,” Tucker told him. 

“Don’t do that to us again,” Sam added with a punch to his shoulder. She immediately followed up with another suffocating hug so Danny didn’t mention that going dark with only sporadic messages via Cujo had been a group decision. 

The hug and the babbling lasted a while longer but eventually they got up and moved to the couch. The same couch where they didn’t actually have to let go of each other because they were best friends, bonded by trauma, and possibly a superhero team. 

This also allowed Danny the chance to get his first really good view of the apartment. There was an actual duct tape line down the centre of it. Plants and greenery covered every possible surface on the side with more windows while the other side was dominated entirely by shelving units covered in various tech and screens (nothing ghost-specific, because that would be too obvious). 

The dichotomy wasn’t absolute, however. There were a couple of potted violets, Tucker’s mom’s favourites, and a handful of cacti dotted amidst the blinking lights. Some of the plants also had pretty impressive watering systems and very modern terrariums. 

Danny loved his friends so much. 

He knew they’d originally gone to different schools in different states, part of the Avoid Notice plan for GIW, which had them lying low only to subvert the government in secret. Danny wasn’t sure how long that lasted, exactly, before Sam had decided to fuck that shit and transferred schools. She’d cited reasons of mental health and trauma response in her brief Cujo Update. 

“I gotta admit,” Danny told them, “I wasn’t expecting an apartment this nice.”

There were at least three doors in addition to the bathroom and closets which seemed much more than they should have been able to afford unless Sam capitulated something rather large to her parents. Which Danny wouldn’t judge, but that seemed a mite out of character. 

“Ah,” said Tucker. “Yeah, that’s actually Vlad.”

Danny just stared at him. 

Tucker rubbed the back of his neck. “Vlad Co. gave both Sam and I really generous scholarships. We weren’t sure whether to take them at first, but, like, we considered them payment for damages? Also that ever since it’s been less brawl for Amity and more war for survival he’s definitely on our side.”

Sam shrugged. “It’s not charity and we’ve put it to very good use.”

Danny looked at his lap. 

“Danny?” Sam asked.

“It’s just. Kitty told me that Vlad was there. That he was on the other side of the escape portal I managed to cobble together during my second last escape attempt. That Vlad met Ellie, when she was destabilizing and dying and-”

Sam put her head on his shoulder and Tucker wrapped his fingers around Danny’s wrist. 

Vlad was still a Fruit Loop, but he was their Fruit Loop, now. He’d really stepped up as the GIW ramped up. Something about the danger, or that other ghosts actually went to him for protection, or teven he fact that Maddie revealed herself to be worse than Vlad had ever hoped to be, had resulted in him firmly falling onto their side. To being helpful, even if he was still an ass. 

Frostbite maybe played a part as well. Vlad’s death and transformation into a Halfa had been very different than Danny’s, more gradual and drawn out and without even Danny’s young but mighty support network. Frostbite and Vlad didn’t like each other, but they were both very smart and knew a heck of a lot about ghost physiology. Vlad didn’t offer and Danny didn’t pry, but he gathered they’d found some way to help stabilize Vlad’s obsession that the man hadn’t been able to find on his own. 

Vlad was better. A crazy uncle that was exasperating and irritating and useful. He didn’t deserve his almost daughter, one of only three of his kind, disintegrating in his arms. 

Danny didn’t say that, though. Not to these two. Not when none of them deserved what had happened to them.

Tucker was the one to break the silence and avoid the topic entirely. He was very familiar with what he could get Danny to talk about and when. Emotional conversations happened over video games where they didn’t have to look at each other.

“So, dude, why now? Not that I’m not happy to see you, cause I really am. But what changed?”

Danny took a deep breath, inhaling the damp-earth-life scent of Sam and the bright-edge-spark feel of Tucker, before letting his grin grow fangs. They were going to make the GIW hurt for what they did to Ellie and the others. 

Ghosts could hold a grudge. And so could Bats. 

“Everything, Tuck. Everything.”

Danny stood, disentangling himself from his best friends and reaching an intangible hand into the bag he’d dropped in his eagerness. Tucker made a sound that would have been embarrassing if it wasn’t so familiar. Danny exchanged exasperatedly fond glances with Sam before grinning. It had been took long since she and Danny had been able to do that. 

“Is that a WayneTech laptop? One of the new-”

“Tuck. I’m not going to understand any of the words you’re about to spew. I do ghost-mechanics, not computers, remember? Yes, it’s WayneTech though. And probably new. Can I hook it into your setup, somewhere? I’ve got some files to share and video call to start.”

Tucker actually hesitated, which was substantial considering his adoration of anything WayneTech. “Is it clean? My security-”

“Trust me.”

And that was that.

Tucker took over hooking up the laptop, cooing at the device as he went.

Sam rolled her eyes before poking Danny in the shoulder. “Where’d you get the tech?” 

Sam had a complicated relationship with the Waynes. They ran in similar circles as her parents, so she was prepared to hate them on principle. They also took really good care of their employees and had numerous charities she supported. 

Danny wrapped his arms around his knees, looking up at Same through his fringe. “So, I, well, I lied. A while ago. That’s where is starts.”

Tucker looked over to them while Sam raised both her eyebrows. Danny lied about small things and his health all the time, but nothing large. Not in ages. 

“You remember when I had a partner with the Time Police?”

Sam frowned. “The ghost of a former hero, right? He gave you some actual training but we never met him.”

Tucker’s head tilted and Danny could practically see him scanning through the information and finding the pieces that didn’t fit. “You never gave us a name to look up.”

Sam stared at Tucker, taking her cues and picking up the trail from Danny’s shifting body language. “Fuck. You never called him a former hero. Or even a ghost.”

Danny closed his eyes. “It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

“We get that, dude.” Tucker placed his calloused hand on Danny’s shoulder. Danny could practically hear the silent communication between the Sam and Tucker.

“He was a Bat,” Sam said and Danny looked up into glittering eyes, a smirk on the edge of her mouth. “Explains your obsession with Gotham.”

“It wasn’t an obsession!” Danny lied. He also smiled, just a bit. “Nightwing got booted through a portal into the Zone by a magic wannabe. We needed the right portal to the right dimension at the right time and that was harder than it sounds.”

“Sounds plenty hard,” Sam snorted. “And you never contacted him again because you weren’t sure it was your Nightwing and also because you have that lone wolf-self-sacrificial idiot thing Jazz still hasn’t entirely talking out of you.”

“Hey!” 

“Accurate.” Tucker leaned his weight onto Danny’s head. 

“But he is your Nightwing?” The hope lacing Sam’s tone was spider-thread thin and strong. Delicate in the way that only someone who’d been with him from he very start and witnessed him get stuck in doorways could manage. 

“Yeah,” Danny admitted. “And he’s going to help.”

Danny reached over and tapped the correct icons on the laptop to start the video call. The screen flared then transferred over to one of Tuck’s wall monitors. The large monitor really did the bat cave justice, making Jazz and Nightwing seem small against the cave walls and fluorescent lights. 

Nightwing let out a cackle as he looked over whatever documents he and Jazz were working on. She smiled fondly at him, even as Tucker let out a slight shudder. 

“Dude,” Tucker said at the sound.

Same crossed her arms. “Oh yeah, I totally believe he spent time in the Ghost Zone.”

“Spooks!” Nightwing’s head jerked up and he bounced over to the monitor in the cave that was displaying their end of video chat. “You’ve arrived! Are you okay?”

Jazz followed at a calmer pace, smiling warmly. “Sam, Tucker. It’s good to see you.”

“You too, Jazz,” Sam told her with a side-eye to Danny. “Danny didn’t tell us he’d already collected you.” 

“I thought it would be easier all together?” Danny shrugged.

“What did you tell them, Spooks?” Nightwing asked. 

“That you’re going to help us kick the GIW’s collective asses?” Danny replied. 

Dick and Jazz both sighed but the sounds were fond so it was totally fine. The sounds were also slightly buried in a distant clatter right before Tim’s voice came through the speakers. 

“You didn’t tell me he’d called!”

“Because he literally just did, Baby Bird.” 

Nightwing turned around to talk to his brother only to be mostly bowled over by a disheveled Red Robin, waving a laptop and a phone, knocking into the table and abruptly sitting down. He turned bright eyes to the screen which were very obvious because he wasn’t wearing a mask. 

This might not have been a huge problem, the cave was slightly shadowy and both Red Robin and Neighing had fast reflexes and could have pulled a save. Except Tucker was a very large Wayne Tech fan. 

“Timothy Wayne!”

Nightwing pinched the bridge of his nose, Jazz covering her mouth in what everyone knew was an attempt not to laugh. 

“What?” Tim asked Nightwing, running one hand through his hair. “It’s fine. Danny’s ours, so they are too. Not to mention they’re part of his hero team. Hero Teams get to know, once vetted.” 

Dick smiled bemusedly as he removed his mask, winking at Sam when she muttered just loud enough to hear, “That makes so much fucking sense.”

“Danny’s family is shit so we’ve adopted him. And Jazz. They’re ours now.” Tim nodded once for emphasis, then turned to Tucker. “Tell me about the Amity firewall.” 

“Dude,” Tucker told him. “Dude.” He waved his hand at Danny, flustered but already reaching for his own laptop and starting a very wild grin.

Tucker whined when Sam reached out to stop him, black-painted nail against his wrist. 

Dick looked at Danny. “Help me hide his coffee when you’re back and I’ll take you up to the Watchtower whenever you want for two weeks.”

“Done,” Danny told Dick.

Tim made a sound very similar to Tucker’s before firming his spine. “It will be worth it,” he whispered, more to himself than anyone else. 

“I’m adding this to the plans,” Jazz told a nodding Dick, moving towards the table they’d been sitting at earlier. 

“Those aren’t plans for the Takedown?” Tim asked suspiciously. 

“Nope,” Dick popped the words. “Personalized Care Plans.”

Tim looked at a serenely smiling Jazz in utter horror before Sam’s cough caught their attention. 

“What, exactly, is the Takedown Plan?”

Danny transformed, rings of light arcing out and brushings friends who didn’t even flinch at the familiar feeling or look away from the screen. He loved them so much.

With gentle, cold hands, Danny reached out. Sam’s attention was immediately held by the ring on his finger and Tucker’s on the crown floating over his head. Verdant flames were reflected in both their eyes. 

“Congratulations,” Danny told them both softly. “You’re now Royal Advisors, or Knights, or Head of Technical Security and Grounds, or whatever you fucking want because I cannot do this without you. This being rule the Ghost Zone because we’re making a treaty with Earth, mediated by the Justice League, for the protection and recognition or ghosts and all spectral entities.”

The lights flickered. 

“The GIW lied. The Ecto Acts were proposed, not approved. They may be a splinter government group, but they’re also criminals. Terrorists. The plan is to secure the Treaty, educate the League and various Titans, then launch a full scale sting and rescue operation. We’re going to war.”

Danny’s tail wavered, casting shadows against the couch. He took a breath. 

“Sam, I need to you to coordinate between Kitty and the Leagues, figure out how to set up secure shelters for the ghosts and also command centres for the Leagues. They don’t know what Ecto weaponry can do, not really, not even Justice League Dark. Tuck, I need you to coordinate with Red Robin and Oracle. The Bats and the Leagues need some major upgrades to their systems.” 

And then, because consent was fucking important even if he already knew the answer, Danny asked his oldest friends, “Will you help me?”

“Don’t be stupid, Bro. Of Course we will.” Tucker sniffed. “Just try to keep me away from working with Oracle and Timothy Wayne.”

Sam bolted instead of answering. She bolted to the third room, the one with a ‘Storage’ sign placed right were ‘No Vegetarians Allowed’ and ’Nerds Keep Out’ were on the other two. Through the open door, Danny could see boxes piled high, yes, but also a bed and cheap glow-in-the-dark stars affixed to the ceiling. Danny had to blink hard for a moment to make sure he didn’t cry.

There was also apparently a secret compartment or two. Danny heard some bangs and beeps as security systems unlatched and then Sam was back, arms full of rolled scrolls and various spectral equipment. She dropped most of it on the couch and spread out a large map of the Ghost Zone on the coffee table. 

Sam looked up at Jazz, Dick, and Tim though the screen before turning back to Danny, her smile sharp edges and bright lines. 

“Bring it.” 

***

Danny was almost halfway through his leisurely flight home when he felt the communicator vibrate in his belt. He’d opened a portal to send Sam into the Zone to coordinate with Kitty. Wulf had been one of the allies Kitty had secured at Ghostwriter’s lair, so the return trip was covered. Tucker had retrieved more tech from his bedroom and was talking a mile a minute with Tim and Barbara. Sam was going to send Technus their way once meeting up with Wulf.

Danny was happy and hopeful and should have known something was going to go wrong. 

He didn’t stop to look at the communicator after a quick glance, even though it kept going. Not when he had to be faster. The distress call was from Robin’s team. Damian was in danger. Dick couldn’t go through that again; Danny wouldn’t let him. 

He almost flew past the battlefield and had to rocket back in order to take survey of the scene below him. Robin was indeed here and was one of the few teen heroes actually fighting effectively; his sword glowed green as he fought insubstantial monsters and Danny was very glad he’d provided the Ecto-powered blade as a boding experience. This moment was definitely worth the bruises from Damian ruthlessly attempting to teach Danny swordsmanship. 

Superboy and Impulse were escorting civilians from the highway, relying on speed since their powers weren’t doing much on the actual foes. The monsters weren’t quite ghosts, but they weren’t alive either. Some sort of magician’s summons, possibly? They had spectral elements; Danny could feel their energy and his ghost sense felt caught in his throat. 

Regardless, Raven and another hooded figure that Danny didn’t recognize from the Titans’s roster were the only ones having any luck with physically confronting the monsters. 

Danny watched for a moment longer, trying to read the patterns of the fight on both sides like Dick had taught him. Danny was probably always going to throw himself in the middle of a fight but that didn’t mean he couldn’t throw himself in at the exact right moment. 

The last figure sent out a glowing green beam of energy that had Danny’s hair stand on end. He vaguely remembered Tim talking about a new Titan that Danny might be interested in meeting and helping out, due to their similar powers. This had been before the kerfuffle at the Tower, though, so he hadn’t pushed it again. Tim, as usual, was completely right. This kid was using Ecto-blasts; they had to be related to the Zone somehow and Danny really needed to find out how. 

Danny dropped his invisibility, intending to cover Superboy’s back as he helped a family of four out of a minivan in the shadow of a truck, but suddenly found himself in front of the new kid. Danny blasted away the melting-shadow monster that had been sneaking up behind the kid with shaking hands. 

The new Titan stopped shooting out glowing disks from their hands and turned half towards Danny, glowing-apple eyes peeking out from under the hood of their costume. Danny lunged towards them and they flinched. The monster at the kid’s back flinched harder, though, as it disintegrated into slightly glowing ash. 

The next few moments passed in an odd sort of blur, Danny’s mind screaming and scrambling, not because of adrenaline or the fight, but because of the static that was raging in his ears. 

The kid released more of those glowing Ectoplasm-disks (the kind that Danny had only ever seen from one person before) decapitating several monsters. Black energy cracked across the highway, moving cars into protective formations and whipping through the ranks of enemies. Impulse sparked by, two children in his arms and Robin stabbed the snake-monster that attempted to trip them. 

All the while, Danny heard nothing. Heard nothing beyond that screaming, crackling static that encourage him to hit harder, swing faster, freeze every spectral shadow to the goddamn ground because they weren’t getting through. The weren’t going to touch her. 

Danny’s back pressed into the new Titan’s, smaller than his own but so very strong, and they both released Ecto-blasts in a barrage of energy and fury. When Danny swung away, Robin fell in at Danny’s side, covering the gaps Danny was leaving because of his rage (because of the growing, knowing terror of being too-late-not-enough-never-enough again).

Suddenly, there was a break. A moment of calm where the magic-user, now visible in garish purple robes, regrouped on the other side of the road with their stronger monsters: a shambling, shifting mass of broken wolves, oozing snakes, and shattered birds. The Titans had a moment to breathe in the cleared crater that had once been the midway point of the highway between two major cities. 

Danny knew Raven was talking as she touched down. He knew that Impulse was responding because the boy was gesturing wildly and Superboy was nodding. He knew that Robin was calling Danny’s name. 

Danny couldn’t hear any of it. 

He could feel Robin’s gauntlet though, even as Danny grasped the extended wrist in a manner that he knew was too tight. He knew he was holding too tightly but he couldn’t let go when Robin was the only thing grounding him into this moment where the new Titan stopped a few feet away and pulled down their hood. 

White hair fell out, trapped in a low ponytail but now swaying gently in the breeze. Acidic eyes locked onto Danny’s, electric eddies far more powerful than the shock that had stopped Danny’s heart in his parent’s lab those years ago.

“Danny?” She asked, small and broken and hesitant in a way that Danielle should never be. 

And this was impossible, it was. Ellie had been captured with Danny. He’d protected her the best he could and it hadn’t been enough. When he’d gotten her out, when he’d forced their way to a portal and shoved her through, he’d known she wouldn’t make it. Had watched her destabilize day by day in a lab like the one she’d been born in but worse, taking all the hits he could because none of them had hit like the sight of her dissolving into goop on the other side of swirling green. 

It had been worth it, though. Worth the punishment and the experiments and being the full focus of his parents and the Guys in White because she was free. It wasn’t enough and it wasn’t good but at least she had died free, died somewhere without white walls spattered green. 

But Danny knew Ellie’s Ectoplasmic Signature. Her ectoplasm had once been his. So this wasn’t a trick or an illusion or another fucking clone. 

This was his sister. 

He reached out with a trembling hand and heard his own rough voice whisper, “Ellie?”

She slammed into him then, arms wrapping around his neck in a vice and face buried into the emblem on his suit. Robin caught them both as they staggered, saved them from the ground, but Danny couldn’t have cared less. Not when he got to run trembling hands through snow white hair and over too-sharp cheekbones. 

“Ellie. Danielle. Dani. You’re okay. You’re here. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Danny couldn’t tell which one of them was crying, not really. Probably both. He could tell that she was trying to step back and, while that wasn’t actually okay with him, he was never going to confine her anywhere she didn’t want to be, even if that was in his arms. 

She didn’t go far however, just unwound her arms from his neck so she could trace over the front of his suit. Danny understood with a thick swirl of poisonous guilt, since he too was already reaching for her wrists, finally free of the modified manacles that had kept her bound for far too long. 

Her fingers, trembling as softly as the snow fall Danny had once created because even he couldn’t be grumpy about Christmas in the face of her wild enthusiasm, traced along the edge of the y-shaped scar hidden under his suit. They’d never done that to her, not when he’d gotten her out (not enough, but out) before they’d gotten bored of him and needed a new subject. Not when Danny was so docile and accommodating and promised that would end the second they turned to her. 

That hadn’t stopped them from making her watch, though. Not when ghosts didn’t feel love and pain and empathy. You couldn’t be a child if you were dead.

“Shit. Fuck. Danny. Brother. I’m so glad you’re alive.”

Danny tightened his arms in agreement, bringing her back into a hug. 

“Danny, we need to, Danny, there’s still a fight.” 

Danny looked up at this, because a fight meant a threat. He saw the magic user and the replenished shadow-monster army and only saw someone coming to take his baby sister away. Then Robin stepped up to his side, sword held ready and all Danny saw was someone coming to take his baby sister and Dick’s baby brother away. 

Neither of them could handle that again. 

Danny stepped forward, drawing in a deep breath and heard Ellie yelp, turning to order her friends to cover their ears and get the fuck away Superboy, this is a sound attack and will hurt. She didn’t step away from him, though, and neither did Robin. Robin put in specialized earplugs that he’d retrieved from  his belt and stood with Ellie at Danny’s shoulders, both of them bracing him when Danny opened his mouth and wailed. 

The Ghostly Wail was always one of Danny’s least favourite powers, not just because it was so draining, but because it was so sad. He felt like he was screaming out the sorrows and pain of hundreds of ghosts in a single breath that they would never be allowed to take again. 

This time, Danny felt like he was mourning his own dead. That the sounds were that of every ghost trapped in that fucking lab. The ones that didn’t make it out. The ones that didn’t get the chance to scream.

The cries he never got to give.

When he stopped, the world came to him in flashes. The enemies were gone. Raven’s shield was down. He was on the ground. Robin was barking out orders.

His head was in Ellie’s lap.

“Shh, shh, brother. We’re okay. I’m here. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Sleeping was nothing like falling unconscious was nothing like dying. But he wasn’t afraid, this time, when the darkness closed in around him. Not with Ellie’s cool fingers fluttering against his frost-covered skin. 

Chapter Text

Dick woke Danny with a gentle hand running through his hair. He hadn’t meant to wake Danny, but Dick didn’t regret doing so. Danny needed to know that Ellie was real as soon as possible, before dreams turned to nightmares and reality seemed less and less obtainable.

“Heya, Danny-boy.”

Danny groaned and tried to roll over. He failed and Dick increased the pressure of his hand in Danny’s hair, trying to keep Danny from panicking. The kid wasn’t restrained, but it probably didn’t feel like that. 

“Shh, Spooks. It’s okay. Everything’s okay. You can open your eyes and prove it, you know?”

Danny opened his eyes and Dick wondered at the trust in Danny’s gaze. They didn’t lie to each other. Dick leaned back slowly, withdrawing his hand and gesturing for Danny to look further down the bed. 

Jazz was in a chair beside Dick, her arms rested on the bed and hand wrapped around Danny’s. Ellie had forgone the chair and was sprawled out over over the bed, tucked to the side but head pillowed on her arms that were crossed over Danny’s chest. They were both dead asleep. 

Ellie gave a twitch when Danny ran his own fingers through her hair, brushing rough fingertips down her cheek. 

“It was real,” Danny whispered. 

“It was real,” Dick confirmed. “She told us the bare bones story while you were out of it. Real short version is that Vlad was able to secure enough of her failing ectoplasm in a kind of stasis until he could repair the damage the GIW had done and stabilize her entirely. She still needs what amounts to regular vaccines but she’s okay. She’s going to be okay, Danny.”

Danny started crying. The quiet kind of crying that Dick hated because it had to be trained. The kind that was soft enough that neither of his two sisters woke even though they were crashed out right on top of him. To be fair, they’d both been exhausted. It had been a long fucking day, even before Damien and Ellie had rushed into the Batcave with an unconscious Danny and done a pretty decent job at pretending they weren’t panicking. 

Dick went back to stroking Danny’s hair as Danny raised his free arm to cover his eyes. There may have been lullaby humming on Dick’s part as well, but he’d never tell. 

“Where’s Vlad? I apparently need to give that fucker a hug.”

Dick ignored the rasp to Danny’s voice just as Danny had done for Dick more than once. “Sleeping, apparently. He pulled off a lot of revolutionary Ecto-science in a very short amount of time and powered most of it with his own energy for both compatibility and detection reasons. Ellie said he’s been pretty out of it, recently.” 

Danny’s eyes narrowed. “She snuck out.”

“That’s what I figure, yeah. Comes but it honestly, right?”

“I have no idea what you mean.” Danny suddenly found the ceiling very interesting. 

Dick just hummed, leaning back on two legs of his chair. “Sure, Spooks. Whatever you say.”

“What now?”

“What do you mean?” Dick titled his head. He wasn’t trying to stall, exactly. There were just several ways to take that question.

Danny shot Dick a masterful disdainful look considering he was lying down with two people lying on him to varying degrees. 

“Well,” Dick said, “health wise, you’re good to go. Jazz and I both testified to the fact that your Ghostly Wail had a habit of knocking you out for a bit, which we will be talking about later, by the way, and Alfred concurred with mild exhaustion. I’d like you stay in bed for a bit longer, maybe get some regular sleep, but medically, you’re free to go.”

“Great. Is there somewhere I should be going?” 

Dick opened his mouth but closed it when Danny glared again before glancing at the window. They were in Danny’s bedroom and not the Batcave so there was actual sunlight pressed against the curtain betraying the time of day. 

“And keep in mind that I can tell the Manner is suspiciously empty. And it’s not like everyone’s on patrol.”

“Most of us do have day jobs, you know.”

“Dick.”

Dick huffed but let the legs of his chair hit the floor again with a clack. “Fine. We’ve started. The magic-user that was facing the Titans was actually working with the GIW. The shadow monsters were enslaved spectral entities, not ghosts, but some of the other entities Constantine and Zatanna were talking about going missing. We’ve stepped up our plan.”

Danny started trying to rise and Dick put one palm on his shoulder, pressing him back into the mattress. 

“Calm down. Starting the plan doesn’t mean we’re at the combat stages yet. Just getting pieces ready. You don’t need to blast anyone or jump into battle. That’s why we have plans, remember?”

Danny blinked up at him. “And allies?”

“And allies,” Dick agreed, feeling slightly warm inside. 

“Is that where Jason is?”

Dick smirked. “Wondering about Jaybird in particular?”

Danny scowled. “He’s a bigger mother hen than you.”

“Hood has it handled.”

Danny’s eyes narrowed and Dick had to stop himself from cooing. Danny was so suspicious. Rightly so, since Dick had no intention of specifying what ‘it’ was. He and Jay had been keeping this part of the plan well under wraps. 

Thankfully, Ellie proved to have masterful timing. 

“Danny?”

Danny refocused with the intensity of concerned big brothers everywhere.

“Hey, Ellie. Hey. I’m here.”

“Danny!”

Ellie threw herself at Danny, which probably wouldn’t have done much, considering they were on the same bed, if they both weren’t part ghosts. They fell through the bed and, presumably, the floor, leaving Dick to blink at a fondly smiling Jazz. 

Jazz who didn’t look nearly as sleepy as someone who’d just woken up should. 

“Going to ask about the ‘it’ Jay has handled?” Dick asked. 

She shook her head as she stretched, trying to tucking wild hair behind her ears as she finished the movement. 

“I don’t want to make the choice. I don’t want Danny or I to have to live with making the choice.”

Her quiet words felt like a confession. Dick was just glad he handn’t read the situation wrong. He didn’t want either of them to have to make the choice either. 

“Want some help?” Dick asked. 

She looked at him strangely for a moment but nodded when he gestured to her hair. He was almost finished the fishtail braid that Steph preferred when Danny and Ellie burst back through the floor, the two of them in the middle of a wrestling match. The wrestling match was the kind that mostly involved Ellie half-heartedly throwing punches at Danny and telling him to never be so stupid or self-sacrificing again. 

She stopped when Danny managed to get both arms around her in a hug and hold on tight enough to keep everything but her tears together. 

Dick watched them for a long moment, kind of wanting to cry himself. He was so tired of watching children work through the aftermath of torture. Of knowing what it was like to try and hold on with desperate force because once there had been nothing (no one) to hold onto at all. 

Dick just wanted his family to be safe. 

A weight on his shoulder drew Dick’s attention. 

“We’re going to make it better,” Jazz whispered. 

Dick took a deep breath and braced his bones with familiar, comforting ice. “We are. We’ve already started.”

***

“Knock knock,” the Red Hood said as he slammed the door into Maddie Fenton’s knee caps and forced his way inside Fentonworks. He wasn’t exactly waiting for the promised backup but, really, letting himself stew on the street corner was only going to end up worse for everyone. 

Neither of the Fentons pulled a weapon on Jason, though their stances showed they’d probably have liked to. Jason wasn’t sure if it was Red Hood’s recent official pardon, the last alien invasion that unfortunately showed him very publicly allied with the Justice League, or his own lack of drawn weapon that allowed them to be cautious and not completely combative. 

Either way, Jason was just the slightest but disappointed. 

Jason threw a Justice League ID at Maddie. “The JL heard from the government that you’re the ones to go to regarding ghosts. There’s been some sightings around Gotham and Batman’s interested. I just want guns.”

Maddie’s stance firmed and she grinned fiercely. Jason could almost see Jazz’s strength around the edges but it was blurred by the fevered fanaticism in her eyes. 

“You’ve come to the right place,” she said.

“Ghosts!” Jack yelled. “We’ve got lots to take out ghosts. To the lab! We have inventions to look at.”

They sandwiched him on the staircase into the basement, Jack leading and Maddie pulling up the rear. It was the first intelligent thing they’d done since Red Hood had arrived at their door. 

The liquid current of his rage pressed against Jason’s skin as they went. Not because of where they were going, Jason was prepared for that, but because the Fentons looked terrible. There were bags under their eyes, their suits were too baggy in a way that spoke of missed meals, and their fingers tapped with a desire for revenge. 

They were clearly mourning their son. They didn’t deserve to mourn their son. 

The lab setup itself was reasonably impressive. Jason had seen better, of course, but for a lab under a regular house it passed muster. For crazy mad-scientist, at least. Jason could spot at four Health and Safety, Lab Edition violation in a quick glance. Bruce had a lot of equipment in the cave and, holy lab safety, Batman, did all the kids get extensive training. 

Jason tuned Jack’s chatter out as the man pulled invention after invention out of a box. Loaded weapons out of a child’s toy bin. Jason but back his inner voice that sounded like Bruce blue-screening in sheer disappointment and kept just enough attention on the words to register the current threat level. Jason was rather more intent on casing the room and studying the swirling green portal.

The portal was the exact shade Lazarus green of Jason’s nightmares. He hated it immediately, except for the fact that familiarity was somehow soothing. The edges of the swirls seemed stretched, though. Distorted. Like a struggle in not entirely real lines. 

Considering that this was the device that had killed Danny, had taken their Casper’s life in a moment of lighting and ice, Jason though he was very restrained in not shooting it. Or taking a wrench and maybe a hammer to each and every panel.

His restraint evaporated when he forced himself to look away and continue casing the room. His attention immediately got caught on a series of large screens tucked in the corner. It took him a moment to parse the numbers and stats displayed and realize he was reading the results of an autopsy. It took him a moment after that, one where the video logs of said autopsy began to play as part of a loop, for Jason to snap. 

He kicked the chest of weapons out of Jack’s grasp, shot the man in the knee, and spun around to wedge his gun under Maddie’s chin, hand tight around the arms he’d yanked around to her back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Maddie asked cooly even as her husband screamed. 

Jason didn’t care, not when everything was green. 

It didn’t matter that Maddie was inching for a weapon tucked in her suit, that Jack was reaching from the floor for a cabinet behind him. The Red Hood could take them. Jason would enjoy taking them. 

None of them got the chance before there was a click of heels on the stairs. A steady and hurried beat that brought a tall man with silver hair just into Jason’s view. The man wasn’t looking at the Fentons or even the Red Hood. He was looking at the screens. He didn’t acknowledge any of them until he’d walked over to the screens and turned them off, the video and the pages of analysis blinking black. 

“Vladdie!” Jack yelled from the floor, blood staining the orange of his sunsuit into something less eye-searing.

Red Hood turned slightly to keep Vlad Masters in sight as he walked closer. The man had always been tall and thin from the photos Jason had seen, but he was sharper, now. Angled in a way that grief with a hint of starvation will do.

Jack relaxed as Vlad stepped closer. Maddie didn’t and that wasn’t because Red Hood had a gun to her head. The flash of disgust on her face made her opinion of Vlad Masters perfectly clear, even if he had been there to rescue them. 

He wasn’t. 

Vlad raised one palm, almost casually, and sent a beam of bubbling pink energy at Jack. Jack went flying into a back wall where one of his own inventions got tripped. Metallic rings with glowing green edges popped out of the wall and wrapped around the dazed man. Jason hopped they were tight enough to hurt. 

“Jack! Fucking traitor! Revealing your true colours at last, Vlad? I’ll never go with you, you-”

Pink glowing ectoplasm wrapped around Maddie’s mouth, silencing her.

“Shut up, Madeline, dear.”

Jason raised an eyebrow that no one could see under his hood before shrugging and slamming the butt of his gun into Maddie’s head. She didn’t drop into unconsciousness but she stumbled long enough to let him truss her up and toss her next to her equally bound husband. 

“You got anything you want to say?” Red Hood asked. He didn’t, not really. Other than some swear words and death threats that probably weren’t what he should be bringing to a League sanctioned mission. Not that Jason thought Vlad fucking Masters would care. Or sell him out. “Seems like the time for a monologue.”

“Hm.” Vlad stared down at the Fentons. “It does, rather. Oddly enough, I don’t think I have it in me to care. Perhaps I only like to monologue at worthy opponents.”

Jason shrugged, because fair enough, but Jack looked up with absolute heartbreak on his face. “Vladdie? What’re you doing, man? We’re best buddies! You need to let us go so we can get revenge on the ghosts that killed Danny!”

“Ghosts didn’t kill Danny, Jack.”

Jason almost wanted to step away. Danny’s rage was frozen whirlpools, green waters forever caught on the edge of torrents. A glacier in the distance. Vlad’s was bubbling liquid, a beaker gouged and stained where the anger had boiling over repeatedly. Contained and controlled and cleaned up and ready to explode at any fucking moment.

“You killed Danny, Jack.” Vlad whispered. “And you, Maddie. You both killed Danny. And you will never touch him, any of the kids, again.”

Maddie spat something through the gag that Jason couldn’t quite discern. He wasn’t sure if Vlad actually heard the words or if the man was extrapolating from past experiences. Either way, the disgust on Vlad’s face was clear.

“They’re more mine than yours, Madeline. Perhaps not my children as I once imagined, but my niece and nephew in rather more truth than any of us expected. I hurt them, Madeline. I manipulated and I hurt in my own selfish obsession.” Vlad’s face twisted over the word, warped the idea of an obsession into something melted and malformed. “And I still did better than you.”

“Vladdie-”

“Shut up, Jack.”

Jack did, twitching back when Vlad stepped forward, the motion more of a fear-response than a deliberate action. 

“I did better than you because I changed,” Vlad continued, apparently having found his monologue. “I was presented with evidence that I was wrong, that my current approaches weren’t working, that what I wanted wasn’t worth what I was losing. So I adapted. I re-evaluated my assumptions, my hypothesis, my fucking mental state and I changed!” 

Vlad was roaring now, Maddie cringing away from the pink (blood diluted in boiling water) eddies of his rage. Jason understood. Had spent long conversations with Danny and even Jazz about Vlad. About the man who reminded Jason of himself, cursed and warped by rage and loneliness and obsession, crawling his way forward with broken and shattered nails. 

Change was hard. Even with the help of ghost doctors, a mental health prodigy, a boy who never pulled his punches (verbal or otherwise), and a girl who was almost a daughter but not quite, due entirely to his own selfish choices. 

Vlad wasn’t a good man, exactly, but Jason was no stranger to anti-heroes. Vlad had chosen his side. Jason wondered if Danny realized that side wasn’t so much the ghosts as him, Jazz, and Ellie. 

Vlad did. Vlad was angry at his old friends who’d hurt their children. Who’d had everything Vlad had ever wanted and tossed it away over and over again. 

“You’re fucking geniuses,” Vlad told the Fentons, stepping forward with his pressed tightly together behind his back. “You created a portal to a Zone science denied existed in your fucking basement. I sat next next to you in your lectures. I edited your papers and saw your grades. I know you’re brilliant scientists, for all I spent years declaring otherwise. So why could you never see that the evidence that ghosts weren’t unfeeling, non-sentient entities? Why would you never re-evaluate your hypothesis even as both children begged you to in a million little ways? Why could you never admit you were wrong?”

Vlad stepped forward again instead of letting Jack answer. 

“You killed Danny, Jack and Maddie Fenton. You killed your son when he was just fourteen. You killed your son because you built a machine in your fucking basement and never practiced proper lab safety a day in your life. You killed your son the same way you killed your best buddy.”

Black circles appeared around Vlad’s waist separating out and sending the man into an inverse colour scheme. He appeared broader as a ghost, as Vlad Plasmius, seemed taller with the pointed hair and the arcing cape. He also seemed just as tired, if not more so. Indigo bruises lingering under his eyes and blue skin taught and thin. 

Still terrifying, though, if your father didn’t dress up like a bat to throw pointy shit at clowns and monsters and things that went bump in the night. 

Jack blanched as Maddie reddened. The ectoplasm over her mouth held firm but her anger was plain to see. It was barely a drop compared to Plasmius’s.

Vlad crouched down.

“Would you like to know what it feels like to be torn apart molecule by molecule, Jack? Would you like to know how it feels to die, Madeline? Both Danny and I could tell you. I went slow and he went fast so you might want to talk to us both for scientific accuracy.”

Maddie leaned into her husband, rage in her eyes as she pressed into the metal rings with her shoulder. Jack was crying now, though that could have been the bullet wound. Jason felt no sympathy. 

Vlad clearly didn’t either. He titled his head. 

“I was killed, brought back to life, lost my humanity, was alone, both due to abandonment and as the literal only other of my kind, and was insane. My daughter should probably never forgive me for her birth. And I still did better than you.”

He spoke like a man contemplating the possibility of forgiveness, for himself and not the Fentons, on the edge of a realization he wasn’t quite ready to make. 

“I will be better than you. Not to take your place. You don’t have a place. I will be better because I will help our children however I can. I will bend the world to their whims no matter what the cost. I will never cleave into their skin as they scream for me.”

He raised a hand. Neither Maddie or Jack had time to scream, the two of them slouching over onto the ground with a thump outlined in bright pink light. 

“I will make sure they never have to talk to you again.”

When Plasmius looked at Hood with burning red eyes, Jason nodded. He then kicked the unconscious Jack and Maddie with his steel toed boot because they deserved it and he’d been very good throughout this entire confrontation. Also because he didn’t really do the killing thing anymore and killing them would probably make Danny sad or at least conflicted. (Dick would probably help hide the bodies.)

Jason glared for a moment before he hoisted Maddie over his shoulder like a sack of rotten potatoes, gesturing at Vlad to grab Jack. 

“Come on. Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman will be here any moment to take them away for questioning. We can do the handoff and then hit one of the smaller GIW bases on the way back to Gotham. I need to shoot something.”

“I am hardly certain my presence in Gotham would be desired.”

Jason tapped the thermos on his belt with his free hand as he started to walk away. “I’ve been given very specific instructions to kidnap you if it looks like you’re about to run away. Ghostie wants to hug his creepy uncle for saving his sister.”

There was a short silence behind Jason before Vlad caught up, Jack floating along in a pink pulsing light and hitting every steps with some body part as they went back up into the Fenton house proper. 

“How small is this GIW base?” 

“Large enough for me to shoot some guys and you to set the rest on fire.”

“Delightful.”

“Sure fucking is.”

They deserved it, after all.

Chapter Text

“Thank you for your time,” Nightwing said cheerfully as he left the room, Red Hood at his heels. 

Jason removed the helmet as they walked through the Watch Tower’s halls just to give Dick a Look. He still had his domino, so a passerby probably couldn’t tell, but the Batfamily was very good at both giving and reading subtle looks. 

“Have I told you that you’re kind of scary lately, Big Bird?”

“No. But you say the nicest things.”

The Fentons had been awfully concerned about Martian Manhunter’s mind abilities and Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth. At least until Nightwing waltzed into the room with a grin on his face and told them they could keep everything between the regular humans, if they were so concerned. 

The Fentons should have chosen the alien and the Amazon. 

Jason loved his fucking brother. 

They entered the meeting room Red Robin had commandeered and immediately started adding the information the Fentons had capitulated to various charts and maps. Dick went over to join Tim where he was gesturing wildly at a split screen showing Tucker and Oracle. They had a new priority listing for the GIW bases after figuring out which ones were more heavily supplied with Fenton tech. The Fentons were batshit crazy and Jason wasn’t letting them anywhere near Danny or Jazz ever again, but they were brilliant and therefore dangerous. 

Jason didn’t join his family right away. He instead started checking the information from Vlad on his phone and comparing it to the plans. Vlad had been very focused inward as he tried to stabilize Ellie, but apparently the man still had spies. Something about vultures? Regardless, he was busy being swarmed by baby ghosts in Gotham so Jason was transferring his information. 

He looked over when Timmy quietly asked, “You good?”

Tim hadn’t been asking Jason.

Dick didn’t look up from the map he’d been studying, but his shouldered tensed. 

Tim and Jason shared a look but before one of them could win the stare off and the elect the loser to be the next to speak, Dick sighed. He also slumped, putting both hands flat on the table and letting strands of his just slightly too-long hair obscure his face. 

“Not really,” Dick said pleasantly. “I am so fucking angry.”

Jason blinked and Tim tilted his head and they both went to stand on either side of Dick, not boxing him in but physically present. 

Jason crossed his arms for a moment before saying, “No shit. Me too.”

Jason didn’t have the history with Danny that Dick had, obviously, but the ghostly bugger had slipped under Jason’s skin with frigid precision. And Jason had a lot of anger to go around, even with Danny’s cool green washing through the Lazarus waters in Jason’s veins. 

Really, the fact that the Fentons had only ended up with the injuries they’d came in with was one of Jason’s proudest moments of restraint. The way that Dick bumped his hip into Jason’s side meant that he probably agreed.

“Well,” said Tim, looking up from his phone, “I think it’s time to vent that anger in the true Bat way.”

“The pursuit of justice and fairness for all?” Dick asked with a wry grin.

Red Robin grinned back, all teeth. “Beating the shit out of bad guys who deserve it utterly.”

“Fuck yeah.” Jason maybe loved his entire family, though he certainly wasn’t going to tell them that. 

“We’re ready?” Nightwing asked, slightly surprised but balanced on the soles of his feet. Which was fair, since the next part of the plan was his. 

Red Robin nodded. “Black Bat has sent the last of the locations, King Phantom’s team’s have sent up the basecamps, and Batman just messaged that the GIW has agreed to a meeting.”

Jason huffed but threw an arm around both Dick’s and Tim’s shoulders, using his bulk to drag them both forward. “We’re ready, Dickhead.”

Dick lunged away, which both surprising and slightly hurtful. Until Jason noticed Damian suddenly in their big brothers’ grasp. Jason was briefly offended that the brat had successfully managed to lurk in a vent or under a table and Jason hadn’t noticed, until there was a wave in the light and a breath of cold in the air. Danny appeared with his wrist caught in Dick’s other hand and a sheepish smile on his lips. 

Dick, naturally, dragged them both into what had unintentionally become a group hug. Jason hadn’t intended a hug of any sort with his minimal affection. Still, he caved to his big brother’s puppy dog eyes and wrapped his arms around the lot. Between Dick’s octopus arms and Jason’s bulk, the kids didn’t stand a chance. 

Tim grumbled but wrapped his arms around Dick’s back. 

Damian said, “Tt.” He didn’t stab anyone though.

Danny didn’t say anything but Jason thought he might have a bruise from the strength of Danny’s arm around Jason’s waist. 

Jason couldn’t say he minded. 

***

They started with diplomacy. It was stupid and entirely for appearances but they started with diplomacy. 

Dick watched as Danny floated with the crown above his head and Batman at his side. They waited as a large man in a pristine white shut strutted out from a facility that didn’t event try for innocuous; it’s aesthetic spoke more to high-security prison with a side of science lab clean. Dick wasn’t sure if the GIW wasn’t aware of how fucked they were legally speaking and thought they still had governmental backing or if they planned to threaten their way out of the situation, but it didn’t really matter. 

He’d planned for both outcomes and many more besides. 

The man, Agent A ,which was not a moniker that had any of the Batfamily at all inclined to spare him, was arrogant as he and Phantom went back and forth. Danny’s demands were simple; the release of all contained spectral entities in accordance with the Justice League mandate and pending Treaty. Agent A danced around the legalities for a while, somehow ignoring entirely Batman standing in Danny’s shadow. 

At about the ten minute mark, which was also when Dick’s superior knowledge of his father’s body language told Dick that the Batman himself wanted to break the plan and punch this man in the throat, Agent A shook his head.

“See, I just don’t think we can do that.” Agent A sighed as if disheartened and looked to his second, a thin and reedy woman in a lab coat. Both Danny and Agent A had agreed to one second only at the meeting, something the GIW had only agreed to if the could choose the location. Not that their choice was outside Dick’s predictions. 

“And why is that?” Asked Danny. Dick was so proud of that kid; he didn’t even sound mildly exasperated. 

“Well, because you’re not sentient. Or as powerful as you think.”

“I think you’ll find I’m more powerful than I think,” Phantom said with more honestly than Dick thought the situation warranted.

“Either way,” Agent A said with a sickly grin, “I think you’ll find yourself very out-numbered.”

At the man’s cue, the cloaking devices the GIW had been using began to fall away, revealing an easy hundred GIW agents with specialized Fenton weapons pointed at Phantom and Batman. The cloaking devices were impressive and clearly based off ghostly invisibility. Too bad the Bat domino masks all had an infrared setting. And really, they were dealing with ghosts. That much should be general use and not specialized paranoia. 

Phantom and Batman didn’t flinch at the reveal. In fact, Batman finally allowed himself to smirk. “Numbers aren’t everything.”

Agent A waved a hand. “Your Justice League won’t matter much. Not when when my colleagues explain to the president just what kind of weaponry we now have under our control.”

Dick felt his own lip curl into a snarl. The man’s greedy little eyes were focused on Danny when the word ‘weapon’ was used. If Batman didn’t punch the man in the throat then Dick would, regardless of Danny’s own revenge. 

The scientist stooge clicked a button and Danny screamed, falling from where he’d been hovering in the sky to crash into the ground by Batman’s side. Agent A didn’t step forward, but he did smirk as a vomit-green shield extended from several planted devices likely buried underground.

“Thanks to your previous time here, Phantom, we were able to really expand our technology. No ghosts are coming to your rescue this time, not even yourself.”

Danny looked up at him through newly black black bangs and then gestured to Batman. “Ghosts aren’t my only allies.”

“Batman was unexpected, I’ll admit. But he’s just one man.”

Which answered the question about the man’s knowledge of the scope of their operation and the Justice League’s involvement quite nicely. 

Still, Danny laughed and Batman lunged, covering the human Danny with the swoop of his cloak as the first blast from a ray gun was fired. Batman’s move was rather unnecessary. 

Agent A went down immediately, not expecting the blast to his back. Black Bat danced forward, much too fast for the stooges to realize much less fight the danger in their ranks. She chucked the standard gass-style mask many of the GIW stooges were wearing at an unlucky soul’s head knocking them out cold. A silhouette even larger than Agent A made sure to stomp on the downed man as he tore after Black Bat, the hazmat suit he’d been wearing ripping at the sleeves as Wulf roared. 

Black Bat spun to her father’s side, leaving a trail of body’s in her wake, standing back to back with Batman even as Wulf stood protectively over Danny. 

Dick grinned and took his own cue, releasing the zoom on his mask and detonating the series of bombs he’d set around the facility when Black Bat had surface from her under-cover mission in the GIW ranks long enough to sneak Dick in a good six hours prior. He watched from the roof to make sure the sickly green forcefield surrounding the fight fell in a cascading wave when the power station for the facility was reduced to rubble. He’d been pretty damn sure that GIW hadn’t managed self-powering devices on that scale, but the confirmation was still appreciated. 

The circle of light that surrounded Danny when he transformed back into Phantom was blinding. Dick saw the afterimages in his vision even though he’d already stepped away from the window and into the nearby ventilation system. Dick didn’t need to watch Phantom and Wulf rip portals into the air to know that the numbers Agent A had been so proud of were no longer in his favour. 

Nightwing was going to tip the scales even further. 

He dropped to the basement floor without a sound but still drew the attention of every ghost in the room. The agents weren’t nearly so observant and Nightwing had the two remaining left-behinds out cold and bound before they could blink. Hood and Red Robin weren’t exactly wrong; Dick had a lot of repressed rage to work through at the moment. 

He turned, noticing the shadows that flickered partly because of contaminated ectoplasm and partly because the emergency lighting in this facility was not sufficient. 

Nightwing walked over to the control panel that he and Black Bat had already tampered with and entered the deactivation code that wasn’t nearly as satisfying as sheer destruction but much more likely to provide no harm to the ghosts that were watching from behind the observation glass. 

They didn’t step forward, justifiably wary, but Dick had chosen this particular room for a reason. Nightwing gave a quick bow before pulling out the modified thermos from the holster on his hip. 

“Hello. I’m Nightwing, also known as Wing of Night. King Phantom has sent me with a message.”

“And what’s that?” asked a woman with blue hair that was starting to spark and small green blob on her shoulder. She was wary, sure, but also angry. Willing to gamble on a possibility of revenge. 

Dick opened the thermos, ignoring how several ghosts flinched. Ember and Skulker didn’t, though the full metal suit and guitar that fell out of the thermos first might have had something to do with that. 

“The Christmas Truce has been expanded. No fighting other ghosts or allied humans until the war with the GIW is over. Safe zones are set up at Ghostwriter’s lair, Pariah Dark’s former keep, Amity Park, and Gotham City. There are multiple portals opening out front for anyone who wants to immediately head to the Zone as well as an emergency vehicle for those who are not able to make the journey on their own. The Far Frozen and Justice League Dark has coordinated to ensure there are immediate medical treatment options at all safety locations.”

Nightwing paused as several ghosts faded and raced off, most scooping up blobs or smaller ecto-entities as they left. 

“What’s the other option?” Johnny 13 looked much worse than the last time Dick had seen him, hair in his eyes and shadow draped loosely across his shoulders. Still, he’d pulled the motorbike out of the pile of gear and hadn’t driven away. Ember and Skulker were watching him as well, even as Ember tuned her guitar and Skulker started stretching each limb to ensure the suit was calibrated correctly. 

“Fight. The Justice League has sided with King Phantom and we’re staging a rescue and take down at every known GIW base in the country.” Nightwing grinned low and slow, all teeth in a way that he’d learned in Gotham but perfected in the Zone. “And I assure you, all their bases are known.”

“We’re in,” Ember said.

“I know,” Nightwing replied. “Danny-”

“Thought the whelp was King Phantom now,” Skulker snarked. 

“He is,” Nightwing said simply. “But it was Danny who told me to pass along this message to any of his personal rogues; don’t fucking hold back.”

Skulker smirked as he jetted off in a streak of blue fire. Jonny hesitated a moment until Nightwing threw him a green scarf he’d tucked into a separate pocket. 

“Kitty accepted a position as King Phantom’s spymaster. She’d out there and mad as hell.”

Jonny’s face crumpled for a moment as his shadow flexed around his shoulders in what might have been a hug. His features hardened as he whooped. “She’s so hot when she’s angry.”

Ember shook her head as he left, strumming on her guitar, hair growing longer and brighter with each note. “I’m gonna blow the roof off this place.”

“Good. Let’s start with some doors; there are six other containment rooms I need to hit.”

There was a quiet cough and the Box Ghost floated closer, no longer hiding behind the others. “Cages are bad boxes,” he said softly. “I will destroy them all.” 

Ember and Nightwing shared a look before nodding at each other and heading towards the door. 

“Fuck yeah, Boxy. Let’s destroy the shit out of this place,” Ember told him.

Nightwing just grinned. “Beware.”

***

Danny wasn’t holding back. Oh, he was being careful of his allies but there was a certain freedom to having Justice League sanction that meant he didn’t have to pull quite so many punches when in came to literally freezing the GIW members in their tracks. Even better, they brought out the magic users almost immediately. 

Danny wasn’t exactly sure how the logic worked, that the GIW could justify using magic in their pursuit or order and science, though he figured it had something to do with the concept of control. Constantine and Raven had assured them the summoned creatures, at least the haphazard monsters that had attacked Ellie and the Titans on the highway, weren’t alive and weren’t dead in the same way ghosts were. They didn’t have direct consciousness and the fragments of their spirits were released when they and the mage controlling them were defeated. 

Which meant no holding back. 

Danny kicked a wolf made of bones and wood hard enough for it to shatter and sent echo blasts at a band of dripping birds above them. Johnny 13 ran down another wolf and Skulker shot a sparking net at a pair of GIW agents attempting to sneak up on Danny. 

“Whelp,” Skulker acknowledged even as Johnny waved and flew off. 

Danny rather figured it was his own blinding grin that scared Skulker off instead of his desire for more prey, but figured it didn’t matter. Skulker had been in the same room as Danny for a while, had hidden Ellie behind his bulk before the GIW had figured out how to extract him from his suit. Skulker was getting the king of all hugs when this was through and there was nothing he could do about it.

Danny turned intangible without looking back, the first swing of a sword slipping through the space he’d been in harmlessly. There was a whirring sound of power rebooting that told Danny that trick wouldn’t work again, but he was too busy blasting away a full pack of the wolves to properly turn. 

He braced for the hit but Nightwing kicked the weapon away as he landed, shocking the GIW agent with his modified escrima and shorting out their suit before knocking the agent unconscious. The whole motion had a slight spin to it, which made sense considering the remains of spinning wind that were just starting to dissipate. 

“They had Vortex at this facility?” Danny asked, even as he fell back to back with Nightwing. Nightwing, who Danny figured had the superpower of an iron stomach since the man didn’t even look the slightest bit nauseous. 

“Sure did! He’s pissed, by the way.”

Danny phased out again as a stooge tried to electrify Danny, only for Nightwing to swing into place with his much more sophisticated electric weapon. Nightwing won that altercation and stepped back so Danny could freeze the body to the ground. Being thorough was important and you didn’t want stooges to get back up again. 

“No shit,” Danny replied as he punched the next stooge trying to take advantage of Nightwing’s extended reach in order to unbalance the man. “Wait. You convinced a pissed off Vortex to give you a ride?”

“Sure did.”

Danny shook his head. “Seriously, no one is going to protest the knighthood.”

Nightwing just grinned back and used the starting lull to run his gloved hand over Danny’s face. His glove came back with a faint coating of green blood and Danny just blinked at him.

“Huh. Don’t even feel it.”

“That’s not comforting.” Dick tilted Danny’s head to examine his scalp. “Still, it’s small. Shrapnel probably. You’re fine.”

“Sure am.” Danny reached out to grin Nightwing’s wrist. The hold wasn’t meant to restrain or even encourage the man to move. If anything, he was trying to convey his honesty. 

The fight was long and the GIW were awful and Danny wanted to burn the facility down only to freeze its ashes and banish them to the depths of the Zone. But Danny had never fought with so many allies. He’d never been so not alone. 

For every shot he fired, four more were fired on his side. For every monster he took out, the Bats and the Ghosts and Justice League Dark took out eight more. He could duck out of the way and expect the fighters at his back to handle the hit on their own, which wasn’t something he could do with the civilians of Amity. 

He could trust that the other GIW sites were being taken care of by other heroes. He could trust that his people were being taken care of, not just by Jazz, Tucker, and Sam, but by heroes and ghosts and those that had training and expertise. 

It was frankly terrifying. But also the best thing he’d felt in a long damn while. 

Dick smiled beneath Nightwing’s mask. “Aren’t you glad I made you promise to find me?”

Danny laughed. He couldn’t help it. “You bring that up now?”

“Now, ten minutes from now, tomorrow, every day from here on out…”

“Okay,” Danny said. “Sure. I guess I’m-”

They both turned as the ground shook, as syllables that were almost ghost speak reached a crescendo that was finally audible to human ears. Danny threw up a shield on reflex, for all that nothing seemed to actually be heading their way, and Nightwing fell into a crouch with weapons at the ready.

Ghosts started to flee. Not all of them and none of Danny’s rouges, but others. Ones not as used to fighting or at least fights of this caliber. Danny didn’t blame them, instead hoping that Wulf and maybe Johnny were escorting them the fuck away. 

The roar that came next cracked Danny’s shield. Nightwing stood up with an almost petulant expression and knocked on the edge of the shield with his knuckles. Danny copied the expression and let the shield go. They recognized the sound and that was just not fair of the GIW. Danny had almost made it through a major fight with no major injuries! He’d been preparing to leverage this fact for an easement of Dick’s and Jazz’s Taking Care of the Ghost Boy Protocols.

“What the fuck?” Red Hood asked through the comms. Danny could see him down the hill, looking at the more black than green cloud that was coming out of the ruin that had once been the GIW facility. Danny wasn’t too worried about Hood; Fright Knight had been one of the first through the portal Wulf had ripped open and had spent a lot of time fighting in Hood’s proximity. Their styles were mutually brutal and efficient. 

“Just for the record,” Nightwing said to Danny, “Ember, Boxy, Vortex, and I were responsible for most of that damage. Also that those three confirmed we cleared the building of ghosts entirely. So no one we care about should have gotten caught up in that mess.”

Danny felt his shoulders relax at that.

“Demon. Sort of. Spectral entity related to a demon,” Constantine elaborated over the comm to an odd mix of dead silence and general outcry. “Shut up!  I have no idea how those bozos actually found someone strong enough to summon something like that. So unless you have actual demon-fighting experience, be quiet and let me think.”

There was an actual silence over the comms, punctuated by the occasional scream from GIW members and the blast of weapons. 

Danny looked at Nightwing. Nightwing looked at Danny. They both sighed, apparently too loudly and into their comms.

“What.” Red Robin said in a dead even tone. He was the only one with a visual of both Phantom and Nightwing’s faces at the moment. Danny wasn’t entirely sure when he’d approached, but he figured he and Nightwing could be excused their lack of observation. They both been intently studying the giant fucking monster that was pulling itself out of the ruined GIW building. 

“Never owe a favour to the ghost of time,” Nightwing replied without turning from the demon and its now writhing tentacles. 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Red Robin asked in the tone of someone who knew it had everything to do with anything. 

“Look,” Danny said as he floated into a cross-legged position, eyes glowing and head moving to track the movement of the demon’s core as it pulsed in sickening but unsteady manner. He hated when demons had movable cores; they were much harder to hit. “You think Batman’s bad? Try having your mentor be the ghost-god of fucking time. You’re either on a mission to save the fucking time stream or you’re off on some completely random task you think will never be relevant again but is always relevant again.”

Red Robin blinked. 

Constantine snorted over the comm. “What, you didn’t think demon slaying would come in handy?”

“Where did you run into a bloody demon?” Batman demanded over Constantine.

“Infinite Realms,” Danny and Dick said together. The creature roared and Danny tilted his head. “Do you want the-” he asked.

“I’d probably better, yeah,” Nightwing agreed. 

“Cool,” Danny acknowledged, just to get the tired smirk Dick shot him at the pun when Danny extended both hands and started crafting a weapon of ice. 

Nightwing sheathed his escrima sticks and accepted the rather large scythe, frost fractals slipping across his gloves and up his sleeves as he swung in several rote patterns to re-familiarize himself with the range of the weapon. 

“You know, I kind of missed my Ice-Scythe.”

Danny eyed the acidic green and neon blue snowflakes that fell in the path of the swing. “You say that like it’s the same weapon and not a new one I create whenever needed.”

Nightwing turned to him for one moment that seemed long but couldn’t have been, since there was a Demon whose ass they had to go kick and there were limits to how much they would stall. Still, Nightwing angled the scythe towards Danny and pointed to an odd indent in the frozen blade. 

“This is from the time I dropped it down the mountain. This pockmark is from that ghost basilisk’s tooth. This scorch mark-”

He cut off when Danny reached out and grabbed the weapon to pull it closer. Nightwing didn’t release the scythe but he followed the movement to step in closer. Danny recognized the scorch mark, which shouldn’t be on a newly created ice weapon in the first place, but was also certainly from a trick shot where Danny had ecto-blasted the scythe to change its direction and send it directly into a blob monster. 

“Nightwing. Did I accidentally create and repeatedly summon some sort of magical artifact?”

“Yes.” Nightwing tilted his head. “I mean, it’s no Crown of Fire or Ring of Rage. But its name is Hail and it’s mine.”

Danny blinked.

“You okay there, Spooks?”

“Really not sure, to be honest. Think I might be in shock.”

“Right,” muttered Red Robin. “Because an ice scythe is the most upsetting thing about this situation.”

Nightwing hummed and leaned on his scythe. “Do you know what’s good for working off shock?”

“Fighting a demon?” Danny asked. 

“Fighting a demon,” Nightwing agreed. 

Danny shrugged because that was fair enough. He reached up to his comm to make sure his words went though. “Nightwing and I have the demon, but we’re going quiet so we don’t have distractions. If someone else could grab the mage that summoned it in the first place, that would be great.”

He turned off his comm and watched Nightwing do the same. They both waved to Red Robin before Danny reached out and launched them into the air. The rocketed towards the demon and Danny felt his own fangs prick his lips as he felt the need to roar back at the thing. 

“Time to give the demon hell, Phantom?”

Something about Nightwing’s tone had Phantom looking down at his mentor. He dodged a demonic tentacle and threw Nightwing into the air. 

“More like give them Hail. Wait. Nightwing, did you name the scythe Hail purely so for the ‘Give them Hail pun?’ Please tell me you did that!”

Nightwing cackled as he fell towards the demon, scythe flashing and reflecting Danny’s green glow into thousands of fractal edges. 

Danny followed him down, his own cackle a warning static in the wind. 

***

“Do I want to ask?” Hood asked when he arrived at Red Robin’s back. 

Red Robin sighed. “No. My respect for Goldie just went up significantly and I don’t like it.”

Jason snorted.

“No, really Hood. You need to help me put peanut butter in all his shoes. He has a secret history of demon-slaying that he never mentioned. Along with a magical fucking scythe made just for him! What even.”

“I must agree with Red Robin.”

“Jesus!” Red Robin spun away from the highly distracting sight of their big brother spinning down from the sky and slicing apart three tentacles as Phantom both caught him and froze the stumps so they couldn’t grow back. Robin and Black Bat had also taken advantage of the lull to regroup while Batman, Constantine, and giant green fighting tornado were in the distance attacking a group of robed GIW who were likely the mages who caused the whole demonic mess. 

Robin smirked at making Red Robin jump, but frowned when he remembered he was agreeing with Tim. Still, the kid continued. “I am most disappointed that Nightwing never expressed his competency with such a weapon. We will be commencing lessons once this is over.”

Black Bat crossed her arms and looked at Hood with titled head. He grinned, knowing his sister could see the gesture from his body language even with the helmet. 

“That’s not important,” Jason said.

Both boys turned to Jason in order to squawk at him and Red Robin froze for the briefest of moments when he finally registered the ghost standing next to Hood. The giant ghost standing next to Hood with a slightly tattered but still vibrantly purple cape blowing dramatically in the echoing wind.

Hood stepped forward to shake Red Robin once for emphasis. “That’s not important. This is important. This is Fright Knight.”

Fright Knight bowed at Hoods introduction and splayed hand. “Greetings young Master of Treaties and Codes. Greetings fellow knights of King Phantom’s court. It is glorious to fight at your side as our brethren’s ranks expand once more!”

“Hi,” Red Robin said after a moment. 

Black Bat waved and Robin eyed Fright Knight’s sword in a frankly concerning manner. 

“Fright Knight likes poetry along with smashing enemies to bits.”

Red Robin gave Hood a Look. “Happy to meet your new best friend but-”

Hood shook Red Robin again to silence him, having never let the kid’s shoulders fully go. 

“Fright Knight likes poetry. Used to be mostly rhyming poetry but, bless Ember and her punk-pop heart, he’s been experimenting more with ballads and battle epics.”

It took about ten seconds for Timmy’s bright little brain to connect the pieces. 

“No,” Red Robin said, more a reflex than any true belief. Robin scowled, missing the point and hating the fact. Black Bat put her hand on his shoulder and raised an eyesore at Jason.

“Yes. Fright Knight,” Jason said slowly and clearly, “wrote a one hundred and twenty-four verse battle epic dedicated to the Wing of Night.”

“The Wing of Night’s tale is highest highs and lowest lows. Would you hear of our brother in arms’ heroics as we crush our foes?”

Red Robin reached up to his mask in a way that meant he was activating the recording feature. Robin smirked. Hood almost regretted his helmet because no one could see the mad grin on his own face. 

Black Bat, queen that she was, stepped forward. “Yes, please.”

All together, they certainly crushed their foes. Fright Night’s voice was deep and carried across the field as they cleaned up the GIW stooges and the smaller summoning creatures and eco-entities that been forced to take part. 

Nightwing must have been very focused on his and Phantom’s battle with the demon, which was likely a very good thing. Hood caught a lot of explosions from that corner of the field that he was trying not worry too much about. Hood knew the moment his brother and Phantom had taken out the demon not by the thing’s roar or the crash of rotting bones collapsing to earth, but by the squawk Nightwing let out when he re-activated his comm. To be fair, he heard not only Fright Knight’s powerful tones, but Hood’s baritone, Red Robin’s quiet but steady voice, and Black Bat’s low hum. Jason would swear on his grave that even Batman and Robin let out the occasional bar. 

Not that Jason could blame them, exactly. The song was, to his eternal irritation, actually catchy. The middle verses, detailing some exploits with dragons, time worms, and an actual skeleton army that Jason had a lot of questions about, were also set to a beat that was perfect for fighting. 

“You promised not to tell!” Nightwing yelled at a laughing Danny. 

Danny raised still glowing hands, shaking the frosted sparks out. “And I didn’t!”

“I made no such promises,” Jazz replied over the comms. “Also, Pariah Dark’s keep reporting everything in the clear. Ghosts are still arriving but in much smaller number.”

“Mage is unconscious,” Constantine added. “No further demons going to be summoned here. And Zatanna and I also made no such promises.”

“The entirety of the Leagues and Titans knows the song, don’t they?” Nightwing asked, exasperated despite his victory against a literal demon.

“Sure do, Wing of Night,” Spoiler chirped. She reported the Gotham base as also clear and slowing down in receiving injured. And then started singing the verse about Wing of Night crashing into a field of cursed flowers. 

Jason could all but hear Oracle’s glee as she managed the comms and sent forth the all-clear messages from the various GIW bases and Ghost-sites, most following up by singing elements of the Ballad of the Wing of Night in different tones and beats. 

Dick couldn’t even shut off his comms, not unless he wanted to miss the all-clear messages which he would never do. Instead, he buried his face in his hands. Jason wished he was close enough to see the red on his brother’s cheeks. 

A loud laugh rang out. The kind of laugh that was as much relief as joy. Jason watched the ghosts remaining on the field all turn to the sound, more awed by the echoing cackle than the powerful cold that had sent frost cascading across the grass that had yet to melt.

King Phantom just laughed harder and harder with each verse and confirmation. Nightwing eventually raised his head to scowl at the floating Danny, which turned out to be a good thing because he was able to preform a pretty remarkable catch when the king laughed himself out of the sky. 

“Please tell me that’s getting added to the ballad,” Jason asked Fright Night, who’d come to stand beside him. 

Fright Knight considered. “There must be a new song to celebrate this momentous battle. Perhaps another as well, to mark King Phantom’s successful accession to the throne with the Wing of Night at his side.”

The Red Hood reached up and slapped Fright Knight’s shoulder. “I have some ideas. Did you know that the Wing of Night crowned Phantom? I also have video of the two of them running into a wall.”

It was from their first night patrolling back together before they truly settled back into their patterns but Jason felt no need to mention that. He’d put a lot of work into this plan and deserved his reward. 

He looked up the hill to where Dick was swinging a still laughing Danny in a circle. Glowing green eyes met Jason’s for a brief moment before being swung away. 

Jason breathed in the remainders of the chill, before leaning on the nearby ice to turn his full attention to an eager Fright Night. They all deserved a fucking reward and, as the blue-green ice crept through the raging waters of the Lazarus anger, freezing and merging and creaking, Jason though they might just get it. 

Chapter Text

It took about a week after the battle for Danny to go missing. Dick wasn’t exactly worried, not with the way the poor kid had been running back and forth between the Zone, Gotham, the Watchtower, Amity, and various governmental buildings. 

A temporary treaty had officially be signed yesterday afternoon. Oh, there was more to argue and at least two large ceremonies to organize, but the GIW was completely eliminated. The ghosts were safe. They had time to recover. Danny had time to breathe, if only just a little. 

Dick looked out over the cave and its various occupants with the slightest frown. Timmy had thought Danny was taking a well-deserved nap. Damian had been told Danny was completing an inventory at Pariah Dark’s former keep. Sam had said Danny was running an errand with Constantine. 

Dick had trained Danny better than that. The kid could have at least be consistent in excuses. 

Jazz caught his eye from where she was on supervisor duty as Tim, Tucker, and Technus were experimenting with a very large pile of Wayne Tech. Babs was nominally helping but was realistically being sucked into a code battle with the ghost. 

Dick raised an eyebrow. 

Jazz turned to study the cave and looked back at him, a shrug on her shoulders. She didn’t know but she also wasn’t worried.

Dick titled his head, considering, before nodding slightly. He probably did know and was going to check regardless. 

Jazz smiled before tilting her head towards the computer nerds, an implicit promise to make sure they didn’t blow up the cave or bankrupt a county while he was gone. 

Dick huffed a laugh, making sure she saw, before turning to head towards a lower part of the cave. He grabbed a modified suit that included a helmet as well as a bike that was more Spector Speeder than motorcycle before heading driving straight into the Zone. Jason and Vlad had made sure that the Fenton’s Ghost Portal was decommissioned on their trip to Amity. Vlad, Tim, and Bruce had made sure it was secure and functional in Gotham. 

Danny had cried when he’d seen the portal in Gotham, neon trails slipping down his cheeks. Danny would have hated the bright vulnerability if he’d noticed, but he hadn’t. Not when Dick had tackled him through the portal with a laugh. The other Bats had only gone on supervised outings into the Zone so far, with the exceptions of Dick and Jason.  

Dick hadn’t told anyone how familiar the Zone felt, how welcoming. He hadn’t mentioned that the he could hear the faint hum of the portal from anywhere in Gotham. He hadn’t talked about the frosted currents he felt in the Zone and the way they always led him home. 

Danny still knew, Dick was sure. Jason probably did as well. Jason’s expression whenever he stepped into the Zone was interesting. He’d flinch in what looked like a full-body shiver and then both his shoulders would fall as his spine lost several degrees of tension. 

Jason and Danny had both disappeared for several hours shortly after the installation of the portal on what they called a scouting mission while giving no other details. Dick had, however, spent an extensive amount of time in the Ghost Zone and greatly enjoyed giving Walker shit. Dick knew that Walker’s prison would hardly be running at full strength due to the whole GIW kerfuffle, but that would hardly stop Jay and Danny. Also, they returned giggling which was always going to be something Dick was happy to enable. 

Dick didn’t take the turn to Walker’s prison now. He drove past hundreds of doors, waiting for the one that had the faint, underlying sound of ever-passing time. 

Clockwork’s lair should have felt overwhelming, what with its presence and the sound of a thousand clocks. Instead, Dick found himself grinning, his body humming with energy and fierce readiness. 

He drove right through a window, absently wishing all his bikes could fly, and hopped off to the cacophony of a series of plasma blasts. Dick paused next to Clockwork and they both watched Danny freeze Vlad’s cape to a wall, a move the man followed up by trying to set Danny’s hair on fire. 

“Should I be concerned?” Dick asked Clockwork since Dick’s arrival, certainly not unnoticed, didn’t actually stop the two from fighting. 

Clockwork let out a deeply exasperated sigh as he slipped into his older form with its long white beard. “Probably not.”

“Oh, good,” Dick said. He then promptly pounced on Clockwork with a furious hug. 

“Is this really necessary?” 

“Absolutely,” Dick told him and refused to let go until he felt awkward hands pat his back. 

When Dick stepped back, Clockwork turned into his youngest form, baby cheeks purple with the faintest of blushes. 

“Meddling old coot,” Dick said, perhaps a bit more fondness than he’d intended. 

Clockwork huffed and gestured to Danny and Vlad, who were yelling something at each other amidst green and red light. “Would you please stop them from defacing my lair?”

Dick titled his head and watched the chaos for a moment. “What are they even fighting about?”

The fight wasn’t particularly violent, more performative than anything, and Dick would know. 

“Power,” Clockwork said simply.

“And I shouldn’t be worried?”

“Probably not,” Clockwork repeated. 

“Yeah, okay.” 

Dick studied the two for a moment more before bursting into motion. He sent a barrage of wing-dings at Vlad, who should have taken them more seriously since they blew up in his face and released a cloud of smoke. This wouldn’t have stopped Vlad in a real fight, but it served the purpose of halting his momentum and forcing him to acknowledge Dick’s presence. 

For Danny, Dick went the direct route, taking him out of the air with a pull on his arm and a disapproving expression.

Danny looked sheepish for a moment but turned defiant when Vlad phased through the smoke only to cross his arms while glaring down at them. Danny curled around Dick’s back, wrapping his tail around Dick’s waist and sticking his tongue out at Vlad. 

“Really?” Said Vlad. “That’s our King of the Infinite Realms?”

Danny drew in a breath to make a retort and Dick shrugged his shoulders, not dislodging him but disrupting the incoming argument.  

“If I have this straight,” and Dick wasn’t entirely sure he did, because Clockwork as a cryptic asshole and Dick was several years out of practice decoding him, “Vlad has declined a position of power in the new King’s court and said King is pissed off about it?”

Both looked at Dick before turning to glare at Clockwork, who hadn’t left the area but also hadn’t come any closer. “If you do not want me to tattle on you like the preschoolers you are, do not have your confrontations in my lair.”

Vlad scowled in a way that told Dick the man had done something similar to Dick, searching for Danny and putting the pieces together that he’d be hiding out in his mentor’s shadow. Wanting just one moment were Danny didn’t have to have any answers at all. 

Danny scowled and uncurled a little from Dick’s shoulders. “Fruitloop always wants power. I don’t get why he’s turning it down now.”

Dick stepped back to better view his Spooks. “Don’t you?”

Vlad sighed at Danny’s uncomfortable scowl, sounding older than he had just moments ago. “I do not trust myself, Little Badger. And I’m no longer as willing to pay the prices for power as I once was.”

“Okay, but I trust you. Not like, with everything. But a lot of things, now.” Danny blinked, green eyes glacially earnest.

Vlad took in deep breath. “That means a lot, Daniel.”

“But not enough.” Danny floated forward. “I need you, now. You and all that stupid advice that actually might be helpful now that I’m a fucking king.”

Dick could see the way that Vlad bit back a chastisement about language. 

“You have better sources of advice now, that of superheroes and businessmen whose moral’s more closely match you own.”

Dick interjected before they could continue going in circles. “If I can offer a suggestion?”

Danny nodded right away while Vlad did so more begrudgingly. 

“Don’t give Plasmius an official title or job, but name him an advisor, like Ghostwriter. That way Plasmius can continue both his living-world activities, various scientific exploits, and attempts to be a not-shit existing being. Without actually having independent power over a corner of the Zone or anything that could go to his head.”

Vlad studied Dick for a moment while Danny stared at Vlad, likely trying to mentally encourage Vlad to take the option and not disappear. 

“That would be an acceptable option,” Vlad said slowly, “despite the rude phrasing.”

Dick shrugged, feeling Danny’s cool presence shift with the motion, because Dick had been around for some of Vlad’s not so great years. Dick still rather considered the solo-fight and coinciding lecture-threat that had eventually sent Vlad to Frost Bite for helps stabilizing his core to be some of his best work. Both Dick and Vlad knew that Dick would have no trouble carrying through on the threat if the older halfa ever backslid enough to be a threat to Danny or Ellie.

“Okay,” Danny agreed, eyes bright. “Advisor it is. It’s not like you’ll ever run out of opinions to share on shit.”

Vlad grinned rather sharply. “That does seem rather unlikely.”

“Excellent,” said Clockwork, now in his adult form and suddenly quite close. “If you could take the discussion of the particulars elsewhere, please do so. I have work to do.”

Danny and Dick just turned to pout at him, which didn’t outwardly phase Clockwork. Then again, it never did, but they’d never actually been throw out of Clockwork’s lair. 

Vlad on the other hand was slightly more aware of Clockwork as the rather powerful Ghost of Time, who also had a soft spot for the half-ghost Vlad used to regularly attack. Vlad nodded, mentioned something about dates and talking over dinner with Ellie, and promptly skedaddled.

Clockwork stared at Dick and Danny for a moment where they made no move to leave before sighing and moving off to check his viewing portals, muttering under his breath as he did. Dick and Danny shared a satisfied grin, always appreciating successfully exasperating their sometimes boss. 

“You okay, Spooks?” Dick asked when the smile fell. 

Danny took the question seriously. His tail separated and he crossed his legs and bobbed in the air for a few long, quiet moments. 

“Not really. I’m scared out of my mind. But I’m also better than I’ve been in years. So. Sort of? Does that make sense?”

“Perfect sense,” Dick replied. “I’m also scared out of mind, just so you know. My baby Spooks is fucking king. That’s terrifying.”

Danny nodded his immediate agreement. “But you’ll help, right?”

“Of course.”

Danny’s feet hit the ground and he stepped forward into Dick’s open arms. Dick wrapped his arms tightly around Danny’s shoulders, not afraid to put his whole strength into the hug. Danny simply burrowed in tighter, white hair tickling Dick’s chin. 

“Can I ask a question?” Danny said to Dick’s collar bone.

“Of course,” Dick replied. 

“My par- the Fentons.” 

It wasn’t a question but Dick understood anyways. 

“Prison. Hood and I oversaw the transfer ourselves.” 

The pale faces of the Fentons as they were carted away would never leave Dick’s mind, nor would the way the defiance leaked from their expressions as Dick sat across from them in an interrogation room and crafted weapon after weapon from words and memories. 

There’d be a trial. Danny and his sister would not have to testify, not if Dick had anything to do with it. And he very much did. 

The breath Danny let out was frigid. Dick brought his hand down Danny’s hair and brushed his thumb along one cheekbone, absently grateful it wasn’t quite as sharp as it had been the night they’d reunited. 

“I’ll tell you where if you want to know. But you don’t have to want to know.”

“Maybe someday,” Danny said, after another pause. “But not now.”

“Alright.”

“Dick?”

“Yes, sweetheart?” 

“Thank you.”

Dick stepped back, not enough to end the hug but enough to see Danny’s face.

“For making me promise. For being there for me to find. For saving me.”

Dick brought his second hand up to frame Danny’s face. “You very much saved yourself, Spooks. But you’re very welcome for any help I got to provide along the way.”

Danny smiled at him, a hint of fang peeking through, and Dick tapped his nose with a finger just to watch the expression scrunch up. 

“And thank you, Danny.”

Danny tilted his head. “For what?”

“For promising. For finding me. For saving me.”

“Dick.”

“Danny,” Dick parroted, a smile on his face that he let fall. “You know the place I was in when I first arrived in the Zone. How along I felt. I wouldn’t have made it back at all, if it wasn’t for you. And I’m not just talking about the stabilizing you and Clockwork did to my human core. You gave me reason to hope, to start growing again. Hell, you gave me a whack-ton of practice with baby-heroes which was undeniably useful when I suddenly found myself in a family full of them. So thank you.”

Dany looked at Dick for a long moment, eyes swirling with frozen eddies Dick could almost feel against his skin, before burrowing his face back into Dick’s chest. Dick chuckled and pulled him closer. 

When the affection finally became too much, Danny pulled away, once again bobbing in the air, though this time with a green blush on his cheeks. 

Dick smiled and let let him off the hook. “We need to talk about your excuses, Spooks. I heard nap, Constantine, and artifact inventory back in the cave. Points off for inconsistent story and also lack of believability. Artifact inventory, really?”

Danny snorted before his face shifted to panic. Low key panic, though. Not the kind that indicated violence would soon be necessary. 

“Shit, I actually did have an appointment with Constantine and Ghostwriter. I’m probably late.”

“By thirty-seven minutes and counting,” came from the lurking Clockwork. 

“Double shit. Did you need something specific from me?” Danny asked Dick.

“Nah,” Dick replied. “I just wanted to check on you.”

“Yeah, well. I’ll be fine.”

“I believe you,” Dick said, truthfully. 

“Yeah, yeah. See you later Dingbat, Clocky.”

“Fly safe!”

Danny flew out the window with a cheeky wave and a quick hug to a resigned looking Clockwork. Dick crossed his arms and waited. And waited. He pulled out a notebook and pencil and eventually sat on Clockwork’s desk. Then waited some more. 

He was at about item three hundred and forty-nine on his List of Things my Siblings Did that I’m Very Proud to Tell You All About when Clockwork broke. Which was probably a good thing, because Dick need to compare the current draft to the list he’d started at home to avoid duplication. He’d started pulling the List out whenever the Ballad was brought up; his List wasn’t set to music but still embarrassed his siblings in a highly effective manner.

“What can I help you with, Wing of Night?” Clockwork sounded exasperated, but it was a fond exasperated. 

Dick grinned back, tucking his notebook away. 

Clockwork shifted from his elderly form to the child as he sighed. “I assure you, I would win any contest you begin requiring you to out-wait me.”

“Maybe,” Dick smiled, not entirely sold on the idea he hadn’t already out-waited the ghost of Time, “but you want to answer my question.”

“I do?”

Dick leaned forward on his elbows. “You do. Danny always remembers and I keep my promises. You wouldn’t want your baby to go alone would you?”

Clockwork made a subtle face that he only made when Dick called the man out on his meddling or affection for their favourite ghost boy. 

The ghost turned, his back now to Dick, facing several green-tinted portals that trapped possibilities in green-tinted glass. Danny flickered in most of them, fighting and flying and falling. Dick was in many of them. Hood in others. Jazz and Tucker and Sam. Vlad and Ellie. Damian and Timmy. Constantine and Zatanna. Batman and Superman. 

“I rather do not foresee alone being a problem,” the Ghost of Time said. 

Dick said nothing. He did so very loudly in a way that didn’t call Clockwork a meddling old coot. His expression was also bland enough to not question at all the likelihood of the initial portals lining up perfectly with only a difference of Time that would eventually lead Danny back to a Dick who remembered and loved him.

Dick waited. 

Clockwork caved. 

Which of course he did. Dick wasn’t Clockwork’s baby ghost but he was Clockwork’s pet human. Working for the Time Police was exhausting as fuck but being the Ghost of Time’s second favourite came with certain advantages. 

Patience, for one. Not being alone manipulating things in Danny’s favour, for another. 

***

The car didn’t roar as Jason pulled up in front of Danny. The Bats took far too much care of their vehicles for that, even without maintaining stealth capabilities. Still, Jason felt suitably dramatic as he rolled down the window and leaned out.

“Get in, losers.”

Danny grinned at him, all wild and full of fangs, and phased right through the door. 

Damian sighed in what would have been a grumble in a normal kid and opened the door to the back. He actually held it open for Ellie, who had raised her fist in the air and let out a cheer when Jason pulled around, not at all put out by him crashing their mission. 

Jason pulled away and gave his own grin to the kids in the back. Damian gave a look that would have been a roll of the eyes if his mask wasn’t in the way but Ellie’s grin managed to brighten. Jason loved the chaos in her. 

“So, where are we going?” Danny asked, eyes acid-bright.

Jason snorted. “Same place you were going before, but with added benefit of my presence. And transport.”

“Your flight leaves in an hour,” Timmy’s voice came through the car’s speaker system.

“By which he means as soon as we arrive because I’m also your pilot,” Jason said. “We’re not supposed to ask Red Robin where he got the secret not Bat-owned jet or what he was saving it for.”

“Still not telling you, Hood.”

Damian looked slightly impressed and Ellie devolved into giggling.

Danny raised both eyebrows. 

“Please,” Jason told him. “No way in Hell or Zone you were doing this shit without me.”

Danny’s eyes softened, slightly, a melting at the corners of his eyes. He covered it up with a bright flash of mischievousness. “Hm. You aren’t exactly needed for the plan. Ghostwriter and Constantine have given me a couple of things to try.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll play chauffeur if that’s what it takes.”

There was a moment of quiet that Jason knew was acceptance and even gratitude. 

“Do you think we should have talked to Dick?”

There was a faint edge of guilt to his voice, but less than Jason might have expected. Even Damian only tensed slightly and then quickly relaxed when Ellie elbowed him in the side. 

Jason snorted against even as the two in the back began to squabble. “Nah. Big Bird just coordinated the take down of a governmental agency with three hero leagues and a ghost monarchy. Let him rest a bit.”

Jason wasn’t sure why, exactly, but he switched to driving one handed and reached out an open palm to Danny. 

Danny watched the hand but reached back after a moment, sliding cold fingers into Jason’s own and resting them in the space between them. Jason hadn’t been actively angry, but there had still been green waters slowly turning just under his skin. A constant awareness of just why they were going to Nanda Parbat. 

At Danny’s touch the waters slowed further, not quite freezing but settling into a proper course. 

Danny leaned back but didn’t let go. 

“True. Besides, it’s later. Dick should have known I wouldn’t forget.”

“We don’t need him!” Ellie leaned forward, banging her knees into the back of Jason’s seat. “We got this!”

Jason looked back and met his brother’s sly smirk, the kid utterly confident and settled in their decision. 

“Yeah,” Jason agreed, smiling as he once again met acidic green eyes, “We got this.”

And they did. They didn’t fly precisely to Nanda Parapet, because that would be obvious and Ra’s al Ghul wasn’t a stupid man. A shit one, sure, but not stupid. They landed a reasonable distance out and then were transported by flying ghost. Danny’s hands were steady as he held Jadon aloft.

They phased through several layers of stone and metal before reaching an entrance point that Damian recognized. Jason did, too, since his memories of his time in the League of Assassins was not quite as spotty as he’d like. They also had to proceed slowly and backtrack occasionally. Ra’s might not be expecting an invasion or infiltration by ghosts, but he was paranoid and had still taken basic precautions. 

“Yeesh. I do not want to meet this man.” Danny was investigating a faintly glowing symbol on the wall before turning around and dragging Jason away by the wrist. “Do you think we can avoid him or is a confrontation inevitable?”

“That’s probably more of a Demon Brat question.”

Damian and Ellie had spit up from Danny and Jason. Jason wasn’t entirely comfortable with that but apparently Danny and Ellie were always able to sense each other in a low key way if they were in the same proximate area. Something to do with once sharing the same core. Danny had paused after sharing this, exchanged a look with Ellie, and admitted they could do something similar with both Jason and Damian, what with their deaths and liminal status. 

Jason and Damian had exchanged their own look before agreeing to spilt up. 

“I mean, Robin said Ra’s was out of the country, but I’m just not sure our look is that good.”

Jason opened his mouth to agree and shut it as Danny abruptly dripped them through the floor to avoid a guard rotation they could hear up ahead. He kept it shut because the moment they slipped through the ceiling Jason’s blood started roaring. 

“Well, shit. Yeah, that’s a fuck ton of corrupted ectoplasm.” Danny sounded impressed in the way of a boss who’s subordinate had fucked up way beyond believed possibility. 

Jason closed his eyes as Danny set them down. 

“You okay?”

“Not even slightly.” Jason opened his eyes, aware they were probably a virulent green. He hoped they matched Danny’s own eyes rather than the dead-still waters in front of them. 

Danny hummed in acknowledgement but he didn’t look away for the Lazarus Pit. Or let go. Danny’s cold grasp on Jason’s arm was an anchor in raging waves. 

“Yeah, that figures. Want to do the honour?”

Jason took in a rattling breath. “You fucking bet. Fuck this shit.”

Danny nodded and handed Jason a device absolutely covered in runes and one rhyming stanza that was actually pretty poetic. Danny let go in order to use both hands to tear a small portal to the Zone. He winced a little but held the fluctuating portal until Jason stuck his hand and the device into it. The portal flared black and then settled green, still neon but less rancid apple and more children’s marker. 

When Jason moved his closed fist, the small portal moved with him. Jason snarled as he threw the portal into the center of the Lazarus Pit. There wasn’t much of a reaction at first, just small ripples from where the device had hit the water. The ripples didn’t even out though. They stated growing and spinning and soon there was a swirling whirlpool of water arcing down into the portal and into the Zone.  

“This shit isn’t going to poison any ghosts, right?” Jason should have asked sooner. He knew he should have. He was also pretty sure Danny wouldn’t have don’t this if it would. 

“Nah. Going to a barren series of rocks actually. Ghostwriter says the Zone should purify it over time. Frightknight’s going to add the location to the guard rotation.”

“Cool.” They stared in silence for a long moment. “Thanks.”

Danny looked away from the water for the first time since they arrived. The disappearing waters cast soft shadows on his face, highlighting fangs and small scars. “It was my fucking pleasure,” Danny said softly. 

Jason nodded and they both tensed when they heard voice before registering the sound was Damian and Ellie. They’d apparently found the neighbouring pit. Jason was hit with a sudden, intense desire to stand beside Damian. To stand beside his baby brother and watch the waters that haunted them, in such different ways, drown in stone and portal.

Jason took several steps away before stopping and looking at Danny’s back. He was so much smaller than Jason but he didn’t look small as he floated in the dull light, tail flickering in time with the currents and echoes. He looked like a king. 

With a huff, Jason spun on his heel and took long strides back towards Danny. Danny flinched slightly when Jason’s arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind, but sunk into the hold almost immediately. 

“I’m not going to ask what you see, or feel. I’m not the Dickhead and I’m barely handling my own shit. But thank you, Casper.”

Danny leaned back and Jason felt a breath of cold as the ghost phased through Jason’s body. It should have felt odd, or uncomfortable. Instead it just felt refreshing. Grounding. A reminder of what green waters could feel like. 

“You should check on the others.”

Jason nodded, because he actually quite wanted to do that. He also poked Danny in the forehead, ignoring that way his finger sunk in and Danny went cross-eyed trying to follow the motion. 

“Sure. But you get five minutes. Because you’re one of us and I’m not explaining to Mama Bird how I lost you. Also, I’m not the Dickhead.”

Danny titled his head in confusion. 

“He promised to let you come to him. I’m promising you, I’ll come and fucking get you. Don’t be late.”

Jason turned and left. 

He was still angry, still drowning in rage-filled waters. He was also sure that he would swim. And that if he couldn’t, if the waters grew too fast, that a pair of acidic eyes and their frozen currents would bring him home. 

***

Danny hadn’t been lying when he’d explained to Jason and Damian about being able to sense the two of them as liminal. Danny could do it with Jazz and even Cass as well. He could almost do it with all the Bats, something distinctively Gotham curling about their souls.

Dick was even easier, despite the fact that Danny hadn’t been expecting the man to be in the area at all. Easier than the breaths Danny didn’t need to take.

Dick was staring down at the glowing green water of a Lazarus Pit several caverns below the one that Jason and Danny had already hit. He was frowning and Danny was suddenly hit with just how foolish it had been to not expect Dick to be here where a threat to his family had gone unchecked for years. 

“It reminds me of the Ghost Zone in the way a bad knockoff painting was reminiscent of the original. There’s a similarity but it’s passing and feeble. Insulting, even.” Dick crossed his arms after he spoke.

Danny blinked but stayed invisible as Cass came to lean into his side. “Big brother good?”

“Yeah, BB, I’m good.” Dick tilted his head as the Lazarus Pit in front of them started to bubble. His eyes flicked to where Danny lingered but didn’t settle. “Do you think we should have told anyone?”

“Please,” said Babs over the comms, accompanying by clacking keys as she routed the security systems for the League of Assassins. “We’ve got this.”

Jazz also shook her head as she walked over to him, the darkened metal of the heavily modified (and Bat-branded) Fenton Peeler reflecting the ominous light from the water back in strange patterns. She brushed her hands together like there was dirt clinging to them from the device she’d dropped into the pit.

“Let the boys rest. They’ve had a rough few weeks.”

Which Danny acknowledged was very true. 

Cass laughed softly as she armed the next device. “Next location?” 

Babs started directing her out of their cave but Dick looked once more at the water. The green was darker now, less acidic. 

“We’re not making it up to them,” Jazz told him, reaching out a gloved hand to press into his shoulder.  

“But we’re making it better,” Dick replied. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”

Jazz nodded and left after studying his face.

Danny waited for that minute and only stopped when Dick looked up exactly where Danny was floating and raised an eyebrow. Danny wasn’t exactly sure how the older man was so aware of Danny’s presence without ghostly superpowers, but didn’t really mind. 

“You’re supposed to ask for help, you know,” Danny said as he dropped the invisibility. 

Dick snorted. “I did. Clocky and the girls have been very helpful.”

That stopped Danny. “You went to Clockwork?” 

“Yup.”

“Huh. Meddling old coot.”

“Yup. And you?” Dick smiled.

“Didn’t even need to ask.”

Dick tilted his head. “Hood and Robin?” 

“And Ellie.”

“A good team,” Dick said with a smile that Danny knew wouldn’t reach his eyes, even if Danny could see them beneath the mask. Which was fair, Danny didn’t exactly feel like smiling either. 

“I can hear the screams.” And it was an admission Danny could only say here. Here where he meant the screams from the Lazarus waters. Here where he didn’t have to mean the ghosts he couldn’t save. That he didn’t save. 

The cave was growing darker as the Pit evaporated with over-quick steaming pops. Danny would bet that the device was Vlad’s, for all the theory or directions would be Clockwork’s. The blue on the Nightwing suit was starting to glow the neon blue it only did in Danny’s presence. 

Danny reached out his palm to press against the blue at the same time Dick reached out to press their foreheads together. The warmth leached out from the contact and settled along Danny’s bones. A gift Danny had never known to ask for but never stopped dreaming about. 

“That’s okay,” Dick whispered. “I can hear the thanks. The bones of a new kingdom and new realm and hundreds of people that get to have words and laughter because of you. I’ll mourn with you and celebrate with you and never let you forget you’re no longer alone.”

Danny believed him. Danny believed him the same way he’d once looked at Dick and known he would stay in Zone and let himself destabilize to help Danny. To be there for Danny. Danny hadn’t let Dick stay then. 

They had better options now. Danny had made sure of it. 

As the green grave waters of the Lazarus Pits disappeared, drying up or draining out, Dick and Danny flew. Dick’s voice echoed through the caves as he directed them to their family, as Danny flew them into the light.