Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Danny pressed his hands together in front of his lips. “I need you guys to understand that it’s the twenty-first century.”

“That matters not!” an Observant thundered.

“Clockwork, back me up on this,” Danny said.

“It is tradition, my king,” the old young teen man kid said.

“What?!” Danny shrieked. “Clocky! How could you?”

“Ain’t no one above the law, kid,” Walker said.

“But it’s Pariah’s law! I’m the king now; don’t I get to change that? Isn’t that the whole point of, ya know, having a king?”

“You are mistaken,” Princess Dora said. “This law was not created by Pariah Dark. It has been the way of ghosts for eons, since the first King of Ghosts.”

“There’s been. More than two kings?”

“There have been Ghost Kings since the first death in the first of the Realms,” Clockwork intoned. “Since the first blob took form and gained sapience. The concept of the strong ruling over the weak is nearly as old as the concepts of life and death themselves. It is how it has always been. The lineage of kings goes back billions of years—thanks, in part, to rigorous succession planning.”

“Since when? The only ‘succession planning’ I heard of before this was whoever beats the old king has to be the new king. And you should really warn a guy about that beforehand, by the way. I woulda let Pariah take over the world.”

“No you wouldn’t have,” Clockwork said, and Danny couldn’t even argue with him. Smug bastard. “Pariah Dark had 372 wives and 814 concubines. His heirs are numerous. The line of succession was well-secured under his reign, but that has been disrupted by your conquest. A new line must be secured.”

“Can’t Ellie just be queen if I die? Or fade, or shatter, or whatever? She’s basically me anyway.”

“A singular heir is not sufficient!” An Observant said. Danny will be honest here. He had no clue what this guy’s name was. “The throne will not last the next ten billion years with a mere two kings upon it!”

How long do you think I’m going to be king, Danny wondered. He knew that… That this was it. The afterlife. Nothing more after this, no end to this in sight. But ghosts can still be permanently destroyed. In rare and brutal circumstances. And time marches on, always.

He supposed it made sense. A single ghost king could outlast whole civilizations and planets and stars but absolutely nothing lasts forever. Not even universes.

Though the multiverse was young, apparently. Not even the first of its universes had entropized yet.

Would Danny live to see it? Or, well. Not-live?

He couldn’t hold onto the concept of ten billion years. He couldn’t imagine a million. Even the most outrageous lifespan in any of his shitty sci-fi movies had only been in the thousands.

Still, though. He had way more immediate problems. Such as the next thirty minutes.

“I’m not marrying 900 people,” he said. It was important to sound firm.

“372,” Pandora said. “And 814 concubines. No one said 900.”

“I’m not marrying 372 people,” he said, slightly hysteric.

“No one is requiring that many of you,” Vortex said. “A few dozen wives would be fine.”

“I’m gay!” he blurted.

“No you aren’t,” an Observant said. Fuck that guy, Danny thought viciously.

Frostbite cleared his throat a bit awkwardly. “Great One, even if you were solely attracted to men, it would not… affect the process, as it were, for ectoplasmic entities such as ourselves. The creation of ‘life,’ as it were, in the Infinite Realms, is not the same as life as it’s traditionally thought of for organic matter. Being as ectoplasm is—Well, perhaps it would be best if you stopped by my office afterwards. I would not want to derail this meeting.”

Great. Just great. Now he had to go to Frostbite’s to learn ghost sex ed after this. This day just got better and better.

He was so glad he hadn’t played the trans card. He knew better than to try. For one thing, they might’ve just switched to saying husbands, and for another, ghosts were beings of emotion and intention. Their forms reflected how they saw themselves. Which meant Danny’s ghost form and his human form had, ah, different parts.

There was at least one good side effect of the portal accident.

“I am aware of the modern concepts of ‘sexualities,’” Pandora said, and Danny mentally braced himself for whatever was about to come next. “Those rare people who prefer only men or only women rather than both. I think I speak for everyone here when I say that no one cares who you marry so long as you produce a suitable number of heirs within a timely manner, as is expected of any king.”

“I hate this,” he said. “I hate this so much.”

Undergrowth waved a hand/stem/vine. “Claim heirs you find worthy then. That’s what I did. Samantha Manson is both my daughter and heir, yet I did not meet her until her adolescence.”

Danny put his head in his hands and groaned.

“C’mon, kid, what issue could you possibly have with that plan?” Walker asked.

“I don’t know, the one where I’m twenty-one and a father?” he asked. “This is the worst birthday ever, by the way.”

“The responsibilities of adulthood wait for no one,” Clockwork said. “You have come of age, Danny. You must pick at least one consort.”

“Can I—” he hesitated. “No.”

“’No’ is not an option.”

“Yes it is. I renounce the throne!”

“You are the king!” one of the Observants shrieked. “You will pick a consort or we will pick one for you!”

“What?!”

Dear Red Hood,

The High Council of the King of the Infinite Realms
Is pleased to invite you to

A BALL

Three weeks hence, at the Grand Palace, for the duration of a fortnight.

King Phantom has come of age and must choose an eligible citizen of the Realms to marry. As such, all unmarried ghosts, revenants, halfas, spirits, and risen between the ages (lived years) of 18 and 50 shall be formally presented to society before His Majesty, with the potential of courtship to follow.

Attendance is mandatory.

Thank you for your cooperation, honored guest.

“What the fuck is this?” he said. The paper was green and glowing, written in some cheesy pseudo-calligraphic copperplate. It had appeared out of nowhere on his patrol. Literally out of nowhere—the thing popped into existence right in front of him.

Hood carefully enclosed the thing in an evidence bag and headed for the cave.

“Hood! Did you or did you not get a weird green letter?” Replacement yelled as soon as he entered.

“What? Was this some sad attempt at a prank on your part?” he asked.

“Ha!” Tim shouted in victory. Damian scowled. “I told you!”

“Congratulations, Drake, you successfully deduced that Todd was, at one point, dead. An astounding deduction. It still doesn’t make sense for any king to consider him worthy courtship material.”

“Hey,” Jason said. “Is anyone gonna explain what the hell is going on, or do I have to listen to you two bicker for a few more hours?”

Steph waved a green paper from over by the Batcomputer. “Cass, Dick, Babs, B, and I all got these on patrol tonight. Exact same moment. Boss Man is currently on the phone with Constantine.”

“Thank you. See, was that so hard?” he addressed to Tim.

Cass lightly punched Steph on the arm and handed her her phone to look at.

“Uh oh,” Steph said.

“Uh oh? What uh oh?” Tim asked.

“Civilians have gotten them too,” Cass said.

“’When I was five, I hit my head on the pool and fell in. I was legally dead for 42 seconds. Apparently that’s good enough for the Ghost King,’ and then there’s a bunch of emojis,” Steph read.

“If this really did go out to everyone who’s ever died, that’s gonna be a good chunk of the capes,” Jason said grimly. “This could be a trap. A way of rounding people up.”

Cass nodded. “Affinity crime. Prey on trauma.”

“That’s… ambitious. A lot of our heavy hitters have died before. The entire Trinity. Lots of GLs. Most the Kryptonians, actually, a lot of Amazons too. Everyone who’s ever been the Flash, I think.”

“And us,” Jason said. “We don’t have a Dead Robins Club for nothing.”

Bruce reentered the main section of the cave, face grim. “I’ve called an emergency meeting of the League.”

The emergency meeting of the League turned out to actually be an emergency meeting of every cape affected, which was most of the ones on Earth, and some beyond, who were videoconferenced in. All of the Titans, Young Justice, the Outsiders, the Outlaws, the Birds of Prey, the Doom Patrol—every team had at least one member with a stake in this. Everyone was waiting for the verdict from the Justice League Dark.

“It’s not good,” Zatanna said.

“We’re all buggered,” Constantine translated. “The last Ghost King, Pariah Dark, was also known as the Eternal Tyrant. The biggest bastard in this life and the next. Everyone hated the fucker and nobody could do shit to get rid of him. Not permanently, at least. The Ancients had to band together just to lock him up. And then this new king, apparently, just defeats the guy in a day when he eventually breaks out.”

“What all do we know about the new king?” Batman asked.

“He has the power to command the dead,” Zatanna said. “In addition to possession.”

“Possession? Like, horror movie possession?” Hal asked.

“I hate mind control,” the Flash muttered.

“We will review our anti-mind control training before the ball,” Batman announced, to a chorus of groans. J’onn steepled his fingers.

“I unfortunately was not invited,” he said. “But perhaps I can accompany one who was as a chaperone.”

“I’ll go too,” M’gann offered. She hadn’t been invited either. Jason never wanted to meet anything that could kill a Martian. They were more overpowered than Kryptonians, in his opinion. Except for the whole weakness-to-fire thing, but like, c’mon. Supes’ weakness is green rocks. That’s nothing.

“Ghosts have other powers too,” Constantine warned. “Even aside from the mind control, a single one of them is a League-level threat.”

“Deadman isn’t,” Hawkman said.

“Deadman doesn’t count.”

Deadman threw up his hands in offense.

“He’s got a point,” Zatanna said. “Whoever this new king is, they managed to do what took the Ancients hundreds of years. Not only did he oust Pariah Dark, he won the throne by right of conquest. And he’s apparently very young, if he’s just now come of age.”

“We might be looking at a baby Ancient,” Constantine said.

“Isn’t that an oxymoron? What is an Ancient?” Impulse asked.

“Ancients is a bit of a misnomer. Lots of them are very old, sure, but there’s no telling when one will manifest. They’re conceptual spirits. They represent things like time, hope, various forces of nature, stuff like that,” Zatanna said.

“They’re basically gods,” Constantine said. “Gods among a race of already overpowered beings. So best behavior, everyone.”

“Which brings us to our next topic.” Zatanna clicked a button on the remote and the viewscreen switched to a PowerPoint presentation.

GHOSTLY ETIQUETTE 101

“I’m not going,” Superboy said, two and a half hours later. “You can’t make me.”

“Do we need to run through the PowerPoint again, Superboy? Because—”

“We can’t make you, but they absolutely can,” Zatanna said.

“I didn’t think it needed to be said that snubbing the royalty like that could provoke a war,” Aquaman said. “A war we’d lose.”

“Anyone who refuses to go or causes an incident at this event will answer to me,” Wonder Woman said.

“What if he actually chooses one of us?” Superboy asked.

Silence reigned.

“We will cross that bridge when we get to it,” Supergirl said. “If we get to it.”

“There are billions of dead people from this planet, in this universe, alone,” John Stewart said. “There’s a reason this ball will last two full weeks. Statistically, it’s unlikely anyone here will be chosen.”

“Oh, calm down,” Red Hood snapped. “It says ‘with the potential of courtship to follow,’ not ‘with a shotgun wedding to follow.’ Worst comes to worst you go on an awkward first date.”

“He’s got a point,” Red Robin said. Batman glared at him. “What? Technically, that’s exactly what the invitation said.”

“As if any warrior-king would ever be interested in anyone in this room,” Artemis drawled. “If I were him, I would host a tournament for my hand and demand any suitors be able to defeat me in battle first.”

God, he was so glad they stayed friends after they broke up. Artemis was a badass.

“We will hear no more discussion on the matter,” Wonder Woman said. “You are all going, and none of you are to disgrace our universe and bring down war upon us. Is that understood?”

Chapter Text

Most big-league heroes had a “dress uniform” version of their costumes for diplomatic ventures. It wouldn’t do to go to a peace summit in the same clothes you wore for war, after all. Meetings with the UN, world leaders, practically anything off planet—all required something just a little bit fancier than the usual spandex.

The Bats called them their gala suits. Yellow emblems replaced with gold inlays. Bulletproof material overlaid with silks and leathers. Detailing added to catch the eye rather than divert it. Domino masks all glammed up masquerade style. Heels added to boots, metallic lining added to capes, gloves lengthened and accentuated.

Except Jason didn’t have one. The Red Hood didn’t often get invited anywhere nice. Sure, there were a few times he appeared in the Tamaranean royal court, but every one of those occasions, the Outlaws had been fresh from battle and covered in blood. So. It wasn’t the same at all, actually.

Which led to his current predicament.

He had nothing to fucking wear to the ball.

Which was a ridiculous sentence for him to even be thinking, crime boss that he was. He should be worrying about the scale of his drug trade, not—not—this.

Falcone and Maroni having a secret meeting last week down by the docks. That was a problem. Not the lack of an outfit to wear to a fucking princess ball.

He hates that he has any connection at all to the Justice League. Their problems are always such bullshit. Ghost balls.

But. He did kind of promise Wonder Woman that he wouldn’t embarrass their dimension. And he supposes showing up in his everyday clothes, probably smelling like gunpowder, would count as being an embarrassment.

Jason would deny it until the day he died a second time, but when he first got adopted, he had actually looked forward to galas. He was going through a very intense historical romance phase at the time, okay? He knew the real-life equivalent wasn’t going to be nearly as cool as his books and was in fact pretty boring, but he would secretly pretend he was Elizabeth Bennett or some other romantic heroine, just moments away from dancing the whole night with the future love of his life, navigating the complex, cutthroat world of upper-class politics with ease.

The upper-class politics were there. Plenty of drama and backstabbing and doublespeak. But it was less intrigue and more just nasty. Also, dancing happened at galas sometimes, but it wasn’t a guarantee. Getting dragged along while his dad shook hands and talked with every single person there was, though. It was like going with his mom to the grocery store all over again.

Most people didn’t bring their kids to galas. Bruce did, because Bruce believes that misery (himself) loves company. So Jason had almost never had anyone his own age there. He had never gotten his romantic night at a ball fantasy before he died.

And he wouldn’t tell any of his siblings any of this even under torture.

But the fifteen-year-old kid who thought that fairytales were real because he had been swept off the streets like little orphan Annie and Bruce was Daddy Warbucks had never quite given up. All his dreams came true the night he stole the Batmobile tires, and he got to be a real-life superhero after, and save all the kids just like himself. He was living his happily ever after. Why shouldn’t he expect Prince Charming?

It was embarrassing, was what it was. Jason was an adult now. He had met all his childhood heroes and he had met plenty of royalty, too, even shockingly gorgeous alien royalty like Kori. He had no excuse for not being normal about this. He was soaked in the blood of too many people to still believe in fairytales.

That happily ever after he had gotten? Had been a lie. Bruce may be a hero, but he wasn’t Jason’s hero, not anymore. A batarang and a choice had guaranteed that.

He would spend two weeks at this ball getting low-key insulted by the caped community’s real do-gooders and all that he would come back with is a bunch of messes caused by his absence. There was no point getting excited, or nervous, or whatever the fuck bullshit. He wasn’t going to have any fun and this would only give him problems.

Still, though. He had told Diana (tacitly) that he would cooperate. So that meant finding something decent to wear. And if he’s gonna do this, he’s gonna do it right. Go big or go home, and Jason has never once in his life gone home.

Jason arrived in the Batcave only slightly later than the agreed-upon time.

“Woooowwww,” Steph said, slow-clapping.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up,” he said, face burning under the mask. “Red Hood in a suit, how hilarious.”

“You look nice, Jay,” Dick said.

“A top hat? Really?” Tim asked.

“Shut up. It’s a ball, I’m dressed for a ball,” he said. “Unlike you, who didn’t even get invited. Have fun sitting alone at home.”

“You actually wanted to be invited? Lol I hope you come back married to some horrifying, butt-ugly monster.”

“Did you seriously just say lol out loud? Tim, it’s time to log off.”

Tim flipped him the bird, smiling.

In truth, they were all dressed more-or-less appropriately. Purple Batgirl was in an evening gown with a slit all the way up to her hip—so she could easily run if she needed to, no doubt. She had on elbow-length silk gloves and ridiculously high heels. Her usual face mask had been swapped out for a purple domino that matched her gown exactly, and which had been styled heavily with feathers and gems, masquerade-style. Her utility belt had been redesigned to be more sleek and fashionable rather than bulky, and it shone metallic gold.  There was just a touch of armor on her shoulders—layered pauldrons lined with gold. A charming Kevlar corset with real gold accents completed the look.

Cass had gone for simplicity and thrown a qipao over her usual Batgirl suit. It featured black-on-black embroidery of bats and spiderwebs and crescent moons and bare trees. Her gloves were silk, her boots were heeled. Her cowl had been replaced with a face mask and bat ear headband, letting her show off her hair and eye makeup.

Nightwing had foregone his uniform entirely in favor of a tailored white-tie suit. He had a blue cummerbund and blue streaks down his sleeves and chest, exactly how they looked on his other suit. Even his gloves had the stripes on them. His hair was curled and voluminous, and Jason vaguely wondered how long he had spent on it.

Barbie was dressed very similar to Steph, but in green. Her dress was also significantly poofier—a proper princess dress. She had also fashioned herself a masquerade domino. Her wheelchair was dripping with flowers and small vines. Her skirt had matching flowers sewn in, sporadic for the most part but heavily concentrated along the hem and at her chest. Her hair was in an updo and she looked like a fairy.

Bruce was in a modified tux with plenty of gold inlaid and a cape that draped down from his suit lapels. His cowl had gold accents lining the eyes and ears and cheekbones. The suit’s lapels were shaped like bat wings. His shoes were solid gold. The underside of the cape, too, was gold.

Jason himself was also in a steel-boned, Kevlar corset. It had rows of sweeping upward spiked lapels, like wings or flames. A huge red ascot flowed down from his neck, a deep and dark red like blood, spilling across his chest. The top hat matched. The corset and fitted pants were both black with red accents, and his boots too had a slight heel. A white shirt underneath and white gloves on his hands polished the outfit off. His usual face mask and domino combo kept his identity concealed, not that it really mattered.

Jason Todd was dead. Last seen as a scrawny, too-small fifteen year old. No one on earth would connect him to the massive tank of a man that was the Red Hood. He had come back unrecognizable, in more ways than one.

“Guns, Jason?” Bruce asked. “Do you think that’s appropriate?”

“Dick’s taking his escrima,” he said. “You and Steph both have utility belts on.”

“A utility belt is very different from a gun.”

“I’m going to Hell unarmed.”

“You’re not supposed to call it Hell,” Duke said. “It was in the presentation.”

“Jason, Bruce is just worried that the guns might cause a diplomatic incident,” Dick said.

“Oh, Bruce is worried?” he asked. “Well then Bruce can use his words and tell me that.”

“I think the guns make an accurate first impression,” Tim said.

“Thank you, Timmers.”

“Maybe not the impression we want to be making, though?” Babs said, rubbing at her temple. “Jason, could you please leave the guns at home just for one night?”

“No. And this isn’t my home.”

“Jaylad—”

“Don’t you “Jaylad” me—”

They were suddenly somewhere else.

A massive castle loomed in front of them. It was all black with twisting spires and gargoyles, towers stuck onto it at odd angles, vultures and owls and bats circling. Jason could feel Bruce’s jealousy radiating off of him.

He started walking forward. The rest of the Bats followed.

Inside, the castle was all gleaming ice and bright colors. Green flames held in sconces lit the place. A long red carpet stretched from the door to the throne at the opposite end of the hall, at least a football field’s length away, if not more. A chandelier made of ice and burning fire hung in the center of the hall. The ceiling arched upward the height of two or three stories, held up by marble pillars. Banners hung between them—black, with white trim, and bearing a white symbol that could have been a D or a P.

Guests milled about already, and music played from a band set up in the corner. Many ghosts had chosen to wear black and white as well. People had colorful skin and hair, sometimes made of fire. It was a kaleidoscope of the actual people themselves, and then a monochrome showing of outfits.

“Everyone’s wearing the royal colors,” Dick said. Steph nodded.

“Whatever. I look hot. The purple makes me stand out.”

A woman with blue skin and bluer flames for hair walked by, sparing them a passing glance.

“As long as the king doesn’t take insult over it, it doesn’t matter,” Bruce said. “Remember the plan. We stay together, we talk to no one, we figure out a way to leave relatively early.”

“Oh hell no,” Jason said.

“What?” Dick asked.

“It’s a ghost ball. I’m gonna go talk to all the ghosts.”

“Why?” Barbie asked.

He threw his hands wide. “Do you guys have no historical figures you wanna meet? I’m gonna find Jane Austen. Later, losers.”

Danny had tried to pay attention at first; honest, he had. But the introductions were expected to take the entire first four days of the ball, and he literally wasn’t allowed up from the throne at all until they were done. Apparently every single “peer” had to be formally “presented” to him as some sort of formal induction into ghost society. Meanwhile, everyone else got to actually get up and do stuff, move around, have fun at the ball—Danny’s ball, mind you—and he was essentially shackled to the throne. Dying of boredom. Re-dying. Dying squared.

Being a king sucked. Like truly, were there any upsides? So far all Danny was seeing was a literal eternity of boring meetings ahead of him.

He had wanted to be an astronaut. It was never going to happen, but still. What if he wasn’t a flunkie and had actually wanted to do something with his life, huh? Something like have a full-time job or something. Currently he was un-living off the royal treasury back on Earth because his stupid king duties and regular hero Phantom duties interfered too much to let him do anything else. He was lucky he even graduated high school. A stable job was not in the cards.

He supposed that was the case for anyone who died at fourteen, though. He should be grateful. He had it better than most.

“You should marry her,” Sam whispered from beside him.

“Shut up,” he whispered back. “She’s old enough to be my mom.”

“Your mom’s way hotter than that,” Tucker said helpfully.

“I hate you.”

Danny had not been able to get the Council to agree to a more reasonable suitor age range, despite his extended protests. He was lucky they had agreed to any upper limit at all. He shuddered.

“It’s like you’re not even trying to get hitched.” Sam shook her head sadly, all put-upon disappointment. She was having way too much fun with this.

“You know, you wouldn’t think this was funny at all if our situations were reversed. You’d be in a feminist outcry.”

“Good thing our situations aren’t reversed then.”

Tucker nodded. “Your pain is hilarious, Danny.”

“I have the worst friends in the world.”

Sam leaned over the arm of the throne and kissed his cheek. The crier paused, briefly, then continued on announcing the names of whoever the next peer was. They were in the J’s.

“Maybe I should marry you two. See how funny it is then,” Danny threatened.

“Unfortunately, we’re fully alive,” Sam said dryly.

“We tried dating in middle school Danny, it just didn’t work out. There’s too much history between us. Bitterness. Resentments. You killed my cat,” Tucker said.

“It’s not my fault she ran away!” he shouted.

Whoops.

Oh man, that was a silent ballroom.

Danny settled back into his throne. He waved a hand regally. “Continue.” The crier went back to reading off names.

“We asked you to pet sit for one week,” Tucker whispered.

“She ran out the door the second I opened it,” Danny gritted out through his teeth. “I tried to find her! I did everything. I put up posters.”

“My beloved cat Whisker-Muffin.”

“I am sorry.”

“I will never forgive you. I will never marry you. Sam, come on, let’s go.”

“No! Don’t leave me!”

Sam grinned and waved as Tucker pulled her away. Traitors. Danny should have them tried for treason. Once they died and he had authority over them.

Who was he kidding? He was never going to have authority over them.

They were still in the J-names. Johnny 13 had already been introduced, and Danny had a fun time flirting with him to the other man’s horror. He had also gotten the chance to catch up with Ember earlier, though she spent that entire conversation glaring daggers at him and talking up what a great boyfriend Skulker was. As if Danny was going to trap her into marriage against her will. Though honestly, if she had been single, he would have seriously considered proposing. Ember was a friend, she was cool, and it would get the Observants off his back.

Right now he was weighing the pros and cons of proposing to Kitty. The K's were next up. On the one hand, the look on Johnny’s face would be priceless. He would for sure pick a fight and then Danny would be able to get up out of this Ancients-forsaken throne and stretch his muscles. The Council would have to let him. It would be great. He felt like he hadn’t had a good fight in forever.

On the other hand, there was a very real risk of Kitty actually saying yes. Nobody ever knew how solid Johnny and Kitty’s relationship was at any given moment, except for Kitty. She might agree to marry him just to piss off Johnny, and then Danny would be married to Kitty, and he did not want that. Johnny would try to kill him in his sleep for sure. And they definitely couldn’t stay friends after.

Still, it would be so funny…

Suddenly a hush fell over the crowd. Conversations halted, people stopped moving. Eyes trained on the red carpet approaching the throne. A man in a three-piece purple suit shambled down the red carpet that led up to the throne.

“Presenting the Joker—the Clown Prince of Crime, the Harlequin of Hate, the Ace of Knaves, the Jester of Genocide, the Thin White Duke of Death, the Mountebank of Menace, the Lord of Laughs.”

Genocide? Genocide?!

The Joker bowed to him with exaggerated drama. “Your Majesty,” he said. “What an absolute delight it is to meet you.”

Danny was silent.

“May I just say I have never relished my temporary death more than when I got this invitation. Tell me, from one prince to another, does your court already have a jester?”

“Nope. I hate clowns,” he said flatly. “And I am a king.” He looked up at the crier pointedly. “Who’s next?”

Chapter Text

Jason was having the time of his life. Well, his afterlife.

So far he had met Shelley, Dickinson, Poe, Dumas, Dickens, and had waged psychological warfare against Doyle, who was deeply suffering here. Now, now, he was talking to the Bard himself.

And maybe flirting a bit.

Just to test the waters. Just—he wanted to know. For academic reasons. It was professional curiosity.

“The Red Hood,” the crier called. Shit. Jason straightened his clothes hurriedly and began the walk down the carpet. “The Avenger of the Dead, the Pheonix of Crime Alley, Gotham’s Damned Prince.”

He… hadn’t been expecting that. Sure, half the Bats present had already been introduced, and they had been given epithets, too—some familiar, some new.

Batgirl II, the One Who Is All, the Gladiatrix, the Woman Thrice Dead. Batgirl III, the Hope of the Narrows. Batman, the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, the Cowled Crimefighter, the World’s Greatest Detective, the Bat of Gotham, the Dark Avenger. Jason had had pretty low expectations for himself. He had heard all the Joker’s titles. He figured his would be of a similar theme.

Apparently not.

He reached the throne and took off his top hat to bow deeply. “Your Majesty. It is an honor to meet you.”

The king grinned slowly. “The Avenger of the Dead? How’d you earn that?”

“I—I don’t know. I just… I do what I can. To get justice, for victims,” he said. Then more firmly, “I control Crime Alley. It’s mine to protect.”

“Your haunt,” the king said, and Jason nodded. He was familiar with the term thanks to the JLD’s presentation.

“You kill killers, then?”

“And rapists. Human traffickers. Dealers who sell to kids, or who sell toxic sh—stuff.”

The king laughed. “You can swear, it’s okay. I promise I’ve heard the words before,” he said. “It sounds like many of my citizens owe you a debt. So on behalf of the Infinite Realms, thank you.”

“Uh—really?”

“Yeah,” the king said, still smiling. “You’re letting them rest in peace. That’s everything.”

“Thank you.”

“I was thanking you.”

“Well,” Jason coughed, gruff, through the voice modulator. “I’m honored. Thank you for the… recognition, Your Majesty.”

King Phantom waved a hand. “Call me Danny. ‘Your Majesty’ is for when I’m doing boring shit.”

Jason laughed, startled. “Alright then, Danny. You can call me—ah.”

“Forgot the secret identity thing?” Danny asked, looking entirely too smug. “I’ve been there.”

“You had a secret identity?”

“Still do,” he said. “See, I’m what’s called a halfa. Half dead, half alive. So I have a human form and a ghost form. I keep them separate.”

“Should you be telling me this?”

Danny shrugged. “Every ghost knows. I just don’t want anyone living to know.”

“Ah,” Jason said. “You know, I am alive. Currently.”

Danny’s gaze softened. “I think there’s someone you need to meet,” he said. “Come find me after introductions are over. We’ll talk more.”

Ominous.

Red Hood turned away and slipped back into the crowd. The crier called out the next name.

The other Bats were following Bruce’s plan, oddly enough. Cass was, quite literally, the belle of the ball. Apparently being the Woman Thrice Dead was wildly impressive in the land of the dead. She had only died twice so far, but she got thrice in her epithet because obviously someday in the future she would die a final time. So half the ghosts here were throwing themselves at her and flirting outrageously, while Dick practically vibrated with overprotectiveness at her shoulder. Barbara of course wanted to stay with either one or both of them. Bruce stayed with the pack and menaced anyone who got too close.

Cass sure put up with a lot. Jason had heard from everyone that Bruce put the fear of God into Superboy when they had dated. It was a very dangerous thing to express interest in Batman’s only daughter. Even though Cass was the last out of all them to ever need help defending herself. This was the Bat who would push Bruce away to safety to fight off a threat herself. But she seemed to be having fun. Or at least, not like she was about to strangle Bruce and Dick, which is what Jason would do in her shoes.

The only other Bat who had split off was Steph, after loudly telling Cass to “get it, girl.” She had then wandered off to try the dubiously edible hors d’oeuvres. Some of them were glowing. None were recognizable as any human food. They tasted incredible.

The others had all been introduced at this point. Nightwing, the Heart of Blüdhaven, the Leader of the Titans, the Twenty-Something Wonder. Oracle, the Dominoed Daredoll, the All-Seeing Watcher.

No one had called Barbie the Dominoed Daredoll since before she got shot. And she swore that she had been joking when she called Dick the Twenty-Something Wonder. It hadn’t even caught on. And yet, Jason got to laugh at his brother while he was called up by that name.

“Oh my god, this is the best thing I’ve ever had in my life,” Steph said. She cupped one hand under the other to catch any crumbs. It was something like a cracker with grayish pudding/frosting/cream dolloped on top, and with an identified berry thing. Jason picked one up to try it.

“Holy shit,” he said through a mouth full of food. “This was so worth taking off the mask.”

“Shoulda worn a domino.”

Jason nodded. “Could have made an exception for this.”

“Like I did,” Steph said. “Face masks for the field, dominoes for galas.”

She was so right. Steph was the most tolerable Bat. Jason liked her. He had also thought she and Cass were dating before this, but it looked like he was wrong. Which meant they needed to get their heads out of their asses, in his opinion.

Maybe Steph had her own reasons for wanting to get away from the Cass love fest.

A man sidled up. He was dressed in old-style clothes, 1800s old-style. “Hello, miss.” He tipped his hat to Stephanie. “What say you and I go off into one these backrooms here and have some fun?”

“Oh no thank you,” Steph said.

“C’mon miss, now don’t be like that.”

“She said no, fuckface,” Jason said.

“What did you just call me?!”

“Fuckface,” he repeated. “I got more, if you wanna hear ‘em.”

The man eyed him up and down, noticeably lingering on the guns at his hips and his sides. “She yours?”

“She belongs to nobody,” Steph snarled.

The man grinned. “I like ‘em feisty.”

“Back off, bub.”

The man moved, and Jason caught his arm. “You’re gonna walk away,” he said quietly. “Or I’m gonna take you away.”

“Yeah? You?”

“Yeah. Me.”

“You oughta mind your business, boy,” he said. “Or someone’ll put you back into your place.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Why don’t you come join me out in the courtyard?” he said. “See if the pretty boy’s guns aren’t just for show?”

He clenched his jaw. “Alright.”

He strode away out to the palace courtyard through the main entrance. He didn’t bother checking if the man was following. He could use a walk to clear his head either way.

But sure enough, the man followed him out. As did Steph, who had her phone out and recording. A few other stragglers followed them as well, anticipating a show.

“You were the one challenged,” the man said. “Pick your weapon, pick your time, pick your second.”

“Batgirl is my second,” he spat. “I choose guns and right now.”

“Lyle Kirkland is my second,” the cowboy said. He drew his own pistol from the holster at his hip. “Ten paces.”

They stood back-to-back and walked their paces. Lyle called them out.

“Draw!”

They spun around and shot. Jackass Cowboy’s shot went wide. Red Hood’s was dead on. The ghost laughed as the bullet passed right through him.

“Well I think that settles that,” came Danny’s voice. “What were you boys fighting over anyway?”

“He was being a prick,” Jason said.

“He can’t mind his own business,” Jackass Cowboy said.

“Super vague, wow,” Danny said. “That cleared up nothing.”

Steph jerked her thumb at him. “He was pulling macho bullshit, defending my honor,” she said. “Hi, I’m Batgirl. We met earlier.”

Danny shook her hand. “I’m King Phantom, you can call me Danny.”

“Cool! So like, Hood is a hothead, but he totally wasn’t trying to start anything at your ball.”

Danny laughed. “Oh no, don’t worry, I’m not mad. I almost started a fight myself earlier. I actually came to talk to him?”

“Oh!” Steph said, her voice taking on an entirely different tone. “I see. Well, I’ll get out of your hair. Have fun!”

She had the audacity to wink over her shoulder as she left. Jason was madly glad for his mask.

She was terrible. He took back everything good he ever said about her.

“Sorry for starting a fight at your party,” Jason said.

“It’s okay. And hey, you also finished it,” he said. “So, um. I want you to talk to Frostbite? He’s a doctor, kinda.”

“What—um,” he said. “Why?”

Danny bit his lip, and it wasn’t hot. Bad Jason. “I really think he should explain that to you himself. Just trust me. Please?”

“Of course,” he said instantly. “Lead the way.”

Danny smiled and took his hand. Jason followed after him obediently.

Danny was clearly not human, and at the same time, he was the most human ghost here. His skin was tan and full of life, even as his eyes were glowing acidic green. His hair was white, too white, and floated slightly in defiance of gravity. A crown of green fire hovered, spinning, over his head. He had a cloak of the night sky that attached over his heart with a broach bearing his symbol. Under the cape was what looked disturbingly similar to a super suit.

Danny wasn’t what he expected. He’d thought—well, he’d thought what Tim had thought. That the king would be a monster. Inhuman, in appearance and in morals, and utterly terrifying. Instead, the guy looked like any meta college student, only, what, two years younger than him? He didn’t look freshly eighteen, so he was probably twenty-one. Tim’s age.

And he seemed so normal. He laughed with him. He thanked him for his work, instead of proclaiming that Red Hood was the real monster.

Hell, maybe they were both monsters. Whatever. They could be monsters together.

Frostbite turned out to be a yeti. At least eight or nine feet tall, and with jagged horns made of blue crystal. One of his arms had all the flesh removed beneath the elbow. Bones showed through the same icy crystal. Jason wondered if it actually was some form of supernatural ice.

“Great One! What brings you to my side? You should be out seeking courtiers.” His eyes then landed on Hood, and the giant yeti smiled. “Or perhaps you have already found one.”

“Hi Frostbite. This is Red Hood. I was wondering if you could look him over? Like a medical checkup?” Danny asked.

Frostbite’s bushy eyebrows climbed higher and higher on his face. “A sexual health screening will take several days to process. In the meantime, Great One, I recommend—”

“No!” Danny shouted. “Not like that! Literally just a regular health checkup, Frostbite. I think he, um… Isn’t the subspecies he thinks he is.”

“What?” Jason asked.

“I see,” Frostbite said. “Perhaps this conversation is better had in private. Red Hood, would you accompany me to my office?”

“Sure,” he said numbly. Danny gave him an encouraging thumbs up.

Frostbite’s office turned out to be a room in the castle not unlike Bruce’s study. The yeti sat behind a frozen crystal desk and Jason pulled up a chair in front of it.

“So what’s this about, doc? Last I checked, I was human,” he said. His voice was steady. Good.

Frostbite chuckled. “No one here is fully human, I’m afraid. Aside from the Great One’s two young friends, and the dowager princess. No, most of our guests that are not ghosts themselves are considered risen—once dead, now alive again.”

“And that’s what I am,” he said slowly.

“Not quite. You are what’s called a revenant. You were not brought back through any normal means, though I assure you that what happened is perfectly natural for our kind. I assume there was a significant portion of time between your death and your undeath?”

He nodded. “Six months.”

“And do you know what brought you back?”

He opened his mouth, response ready, then closed it. It hadn’t been the Lazarus Pit. That hadn’t happened until… later. Maybe a year later? He was dead, and then he was not dead, but not okay either, and he had been close enough to the brink for the Lazarus Pit to heal him rather than kill him.

Bruce had run blood tests since then. Since they got back on speaking terms. The dionesium was still in his blood, somehow self-producing, constantly replenishing. Whatever was up with him was never going away. Could never be fixed.

Something in the Pit had gone wrong.

“No,” he said. “I don’t know what brought me back.”

Frostbite nodded, as if this was expected. “Your unfinished business,” he said. “All ghosts and subvariants thereof have an obsession. Yours was evident likely even before your death. You died with it unfulfilled, and yearning for its completion. Ambient ectoplasm in the environment began the slow work of reviving you so you could achieve it.”

“So I’m…” he said. “I’m not human.”

“Not as such,” Frostbite said. “But you’re in good company.” He opened a drawer on his desk and pulled out several pamphlets. He handed them to Jason, along with a business card.

“If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact me through a séance.”

Chapter Text

Danny was hovering outside the door waiting for him. Jason exited Frostbite’s office in a daze, consumed with the information on the pamphlets. Enhanced strength. Faster healing. Heightened emotions. Mood swings.

Fuckin’ mood swings. Helluva a way to talk about bouts of Pit Madness.

Was it even Pit Madness? Why was he affected so long after, when it usually only lasted a few hours? Cass, Damian, hell, even Bruce have been in a Lazarus Pit. And yet Jason was the only one it clung to. Jason was the only one whose blood was producing dionesium.

Not human. Not a halfa. A revenant.

A type of ghost.

Guess all those jokes about him haunting Bruce had been accurate after all.

“Hey, are you okay? I know this all can be a lot. Sorry for dropping it on you like that, and at a party too,” Danny said. “But you needed to know.”

Hood nodded. “I needed to know,”

Then, quieter, “Thank you.”

Danny shook his head. “Don’t thank me for this,” he said. “Finding this out is the worst.”

“No. I’ve been—I haven’t had answers, for so long. It’s nice to… It’s nice to finally get a diagnosis, even if it’s not a pleasant one.”

Danny studied him. Slowly, he nodded. “Alright. I trust you. I got my answers pretty quickly. I never had to do much soul-searching about it. I guess I never thought what it would be like to not know.”

“It’s a relief.”

“Good.” He smiled brightly. “C’mon, let’s get you some air. Relief or not, I bet it’d be great to get away from all these people right about now.”

“You have no idea,” he chuckled.

Danny grinned and grabbed his hand again. Jason let himself be led.

They passed through the ballroom and out the side door into the gardens. The plants there were not green. Or well, they were not exclusively green. Purple featured heavily, along with blue and red and yellow and pink, even black. Things glowed and buzzed. Flowers opened and closed rhythmically. Truly giant trees swayed in the slight breeze. A fountain burbled in the center, and Jason could see a purple hedge maze in the distance.

“So you knew right away?” Jason asked.

“Pretty much,” Danny said. “I always knew about ghosts, growing up. When I died, there were immediate changes, and it was clear to me what had happened. The halfa thing was a surprise, but I learned that pretty early too. Other ghosts could tell, and they told me. Then I met Frostbite, and he told me everything.”

“That’s nice,” he said. “I’m glad you had that.”

“Yeah,” he said. He grinned wryly. “One upside to dying.”

They were silent after that.

“So you’re half alive, right?” Jason asked. “How’d you tell people? About the… not human thing?”

“I didn’t,” Danny snorted. “Sam and Tucker—my friends—were there when it happened. My sister figured it out on her own. She’s the smartest person I know. And my parents still don’t know.”

“They don’t?”

He shrugged. “I’m never gonna tell them either. They’re ghost hunters. They’re not the type of people I can ever come out to, ya know? About the ghost thing or anything else.”

“Do you want me to beat them up for you?”

Danny laughed, bright and clear. “They don’t deserve that.”

Jason disagreed.

“My dad may suck, but at least I could tell him I was trans,” he said.

“Will you tell him you’re a revenant though?”

He hesitated. Thought about it. Danny deserved an honest answer. “Eventually,” he said. “Not right away. I gotta get used to it myself first. Process things. But I will tell him, someday.”

Danny was quiet.

“Open offer. Whenever you want. You ever change your mind, I’ll take care of it.”

“I don’t think I’m at the ‘hiring a hitman’ phase yet.”

“Hey, I’m not a hitman. My services are free of charge.”

“Thanks,” Danny smiled. “Maybe I’ll sic you on the GIW. You can help me with my rogues.”

“You have rogues?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Secret identity, remember? I’ve been doing the whole vigilantism gig since I was fourteen.”

Fourteen.

Danny died at fourteen.

One year younger than Jason had.

“You ever need help, you call me,” he said gruffly. “I mean it. I’m there for you. Avenger of the Dead, remember?”

“I remember,” Danny smiled, seeming genuine. How he could, Jason had no idea. “I’ve never fought with someone before. I mean, there’s Red Huntress, but she still wants to take me down too. She thinks I’m one of the ghost rogues.”

“Where is she?”

Danny laughed. “You don’t need to go to war for me, Hood, its fine. We even dated!”

Jason’s vision flared green. He stopped walking until it passed.

It was fine. It was fine. Danny was fine. He was no longer dating someone who was literally hunting him. Jason was here. He would shoot anyone who got close. He had four guns on him right now, all loaded. He was the Red fucking Hood. He had this. He had Danny.

“Maybe I can patrol with sometime,” he said, trying not to make it sound like a question. Trying not to sound desperate.

“Yeah, sure! Or I can pop over to your universe and patrol with you! I mean—that is—if you’re comfortable with me being in your haunt?”

“Of course,” he said, something thrumming in his chest with pleasure. Danny in his haunt. In Crime Alley. Exactly where he should be.

Oh God, what if he didn’t like it? What if he hated Jason’s haunt? Holy shit.

New fear unlocked. Moving on.

“Anytime you want,” he said, chest a fluttering mess of nerves and anticipation.

Danny smiled and took his hand. They continued their stroll. Jason relaxed.

It was okay. He was holding Danny’s hand.

“I shouldn’t keep you. Thanks for… everything, I guess,” Red Hood said. “Really.”

“Ah, please. I was happy to do it. And it got me away from this ball for an hour or so.”

Hood halted. “You aren’t having fun?”

“No?” Danny asked.

“Why not?”

“Well, I mean, this whole thing is to get me married off. And it’s just a bunch of being introduced over and over again to people who are after power or money.”

“So ignore them,” he said. “It’s your ball. Do whatever the hell you want.”

“There’s nothing to do here. This is the most boring thing ever.”

“Galas are only as boring as you let them be,” he said. “We could dance. Cause chaos. Tip over the dessert table and ask the band to play rave music. Hell, I dueled some guy.”

“You’re suggesting I ruin my own ball?”

“I’m suggesting you make it your own,” he said. “What would be fun right now?”

“I want to see the stars,” Danny said instantly. Red Hood looked up at the “sky” of the Ghost Zone as if he needed external confirmation and, sure enough, no stars. Just an endless void of green.

“Let’s go then,” he said. “I know a place with a great view.”

“Where is it? I’ll open a portal.”

“Nah, this is a surprise.”

“Oh? You gonna open the portal yourself then, wise guy?”

“Coordinates

Danny laughed. “How do you even know that?!” he asked. “Do you just have the coordinates for everywhere memorized? Is that some ninja assassin thing?”

He was still not entirely sure what Red Hood’s whole deal was. He knew he killed people? Bad people, the type of people who left ghosts in their wake. And he knew the man was hot as all hell and looked like he could snap him in half. Danny was tempted to let him.

Jazz would blow a gasket if she knew he was hanging out with someone so shady. He hadn’t seen her in the past few days of the ball, though. She was probably off arguing with ghost nobles or scholars again.

Freud dreaded the day that she died.

“On my world, we have teleportation tubes,” Hood said. “I have the coordinates for a few frequently used places memorized.”

That made it sound like Danny was in a sci-fi movie being romanced by a handsome alien traveler. Which he could go with.

He struck his hand through the air with a slash. A swirling green portal opened. This time, Jason took Danny’s hand and led him through.

They stepped out in a huge teched-out hangar type room, with person-sized tubes lining one wall. About a dozen or so people were there, milling about, talking, beaming in in a shimmer of gold light. Everyone wore strange clothing. Super suits, he recognized.

“Holy shit,” he said. “What is this?”

“This is the Watchtower,” Hood said. “It’s the Justice League’s base of operations. C’mon. Let’s find the observation deck.”

A world with this many heroes… Danny felt some pressure in his core ease up. It was so safe here. It would be so easy to protect everyone.

It would be a group effort. No one would have to go it alone.

There were no kids like Danny in this world.

It was a huge relief in his chest, bleeding out tension he hadn’t known he had. This was a dream.

He walked in tandem with Hood out of the hangar and down a hall and up an elevator and down another hall. Finally, they stepped through an automatic door into a huge room with a curved window taking up the entirety of one wall.

Outside the window was space. Earth hung there, the moon just almost behind it. The entire Milky Way galaxy was on beautiful, prominent display. Stars glittered, far and close, huge and small, winking in and out of sight.

Danny stopped breathing.

He felt tears prick at his eyes. He stepped closer, slowly, to the window. He put his hand on the glass.

“Too much?” Red Hood asked.

“No,” Danny said. “No, this is perfect. Thank you.”

He grabbed onto Hood with his other hand, unwilling to let this man disappear while he drank in the sight before him. He had never thought… He thought his dream died with him in that lab. He thought he was an idiot to even have ever wished for it. And now here he was, among the stars.

His core sang. This was so right. This was exactly how things were supposed to be. Every moment of his life had led up to this and Danny found he didn’t regret a second of it.

The sun bathed the Earth and moon in light. Danny let the tears slip. Red Hood squeezed his hand.

They eventually made their way back into the palace. The lights from the fires were warm and the music was quick and lively. Chatter drifted pleasantly through the air.

Fuck it. He was only ever gonna get one shot at this.

“Do you want to dance?” Jason asked.

Danny smiled, and god, Jason loved how it looked on him. He smiled so often, so freely. He was beautiful that way. “Sure,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Jason frowned. “You’re the king. I can’t lead. It’d be wrong.”

“You don’t want to?”

“Well, I—uhh—”

“I can make it a command, if that would help,” Danny said.

“What?”

“I have the power to command the dead,” Danny said. “Would you like that?”

“I—”

Oh God, his face was going to burn right off. For the thousandth time, he thanked his past self for choosing a face mask.

“Yes,” he said, too quietly.

“Lead me,” Danny spoke.

Jason would have dropped to his knees right there if the force of the command didn’t keep him upright. The muscles in his legs were useless, except they weren’t, because Danny didn’t want them to be. Jason’s hands came up of their own volition—of Danny’s volition—and held his king in position for a waltz. A gloved hand rested at Danny’s waist, surer of its position than Jason would’ve been on his own.

The command swept through his body with an invisible, roiling shudder. Danny’s power consumed him. It was like standing under a waterfall. It was like being incinerated down to every cell. It was the most astounding force of power crashing into him and screaming Danny. He felt his presence all around him, in him, through him, suffocating and blissful.

Obeying was ecstasy.

A sense of cool euphoria flooded him as he danced. He was lighter than air. He was a precision instrument, moving so exactly in perfect form for the waltz. He was exactly what Danny asked him to be, performing perfectly as requested. Jason had never danced so well in his life.

“You doing alright?” Danny murmured. Jason could only nod. He never wanted this to end. Danny in his arms, waltzing in perfect step to strange music, his face and hair lit softly green from the fires. This was bliss. This was perfection. This was exactly what Jason was meant for.

If he wasn’t speechless, he’d say something he’d regret. As it was, he clung onto the sensation of Danny’s power and relished it. He had never felt so safe in his life. So protected.

His king could never possibly be defeated. Jason was safe, subsumed under his power.

And Danny had a lot of power. The full Infinite Realms was his haunt. His aura covered it all, spread over it all. Jason could feel the very universe they were in feeding his king power. He had no idea how he had missed it before.

Danny commanded, and the Realms answered.

They danced for… hours. Maybe days. Time didn’t really matter here. There was no need to eat or sleep or breathe in the land of the dead. Not for the ghosts. And Jason did count as a ghost.

He was snapped back to reality with the bang of a gun.

People screamed and ducked to the ground. The Joker stood in the center of the room, gun pointed upwards, grinning wildly. He was wearing a strange white belt. It looked all sci-fi futuristic, and Red Hood got a bad feeling in the pit of his gut. He looked around, and a number of ghosts had risen people held or cornered. Meta collars were on most of the heroes. Swords leveled at them all.

Jason’s family had all been separated, each with two goons apiece on them. Someone had brought out fucking Kryptonite to round up the Supers and simply lifted a sconce off the wall to corner the Martians. The speedsters were all in meta collars. Lanterns were at swordpoint and stripped of their rings for good measure.

Many civilian risen were being held hostage as well, which explained how they were able to pull this off. Joker had likely been planning since he first got the invitation a month ago.

Red Hood had a sudden moment of clarity. The Joker was a master manipulator. He was smart. He played people. Underestimating him even once could leave dozens or hundreds dead. The Ghost King would be a hell of a person to have under your thumb.

And right now, Joker was looking at Danny the way he looked at Harley.

The ghost goons had completely blank faces. There was nothing going on behind their eyes, eyes which glowed red from corner to corner.

Joker reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a black, oval-shaped gem. It was completely smooth and shone oddly in the light. He smashed it on the ground into a million pieces.

“King Phantom. I have a proposal for you,” he said. “Marry me.”

Chapter Text

Danny stilled. That had been Pariah Dark’s core. His core, now shattered on the ballroom floor into thousands of glittering gems.

An official courtship gift. One that proved the Joker’s strength and prowess. It was almost impressive, if Danny hadn’t just witnessed a murder.

Not a murder. An execution. Joker must have already done a lot in order to get Pariah to retreat into his core in the first place. The ghost had been helpless, on the brink of fading anyway.

And Joker smashed his soul.

He picked up one of the gems. “I’ll have it mounted on a ring, of course. Nothing but the best for my queen.”

“King,” Danny said softly. “I’m a king.”

“So what do you say, Phantom, my boy?” Joker asked. “I’m waiting.”

“No,” he said, because what else could he say?

Joker waved a hand like this was expected and a goon snapped a woman’s neck. A few people in the crowd screamed. The woman’s body fell over and a ghost sat up. She saw her own corpse and froze in horror. Then retched up nothing.

“No! No! Put me back, put me back, I have kids, I have to—” she started babbling, begging, trying to line up with her corpse again, as if she could will herself back into it.

In the center of the Realms, in the heart of the Grand Palace, with every molecule made of ectoplasm and in an emotionally charged situation, it was inevitable that she would have become a ghost. If there was ever a surefire way to manufacture ghosts, it was this.

Maybe Danny could guide her into one of the afterlives. Maybe she could still cross on. The Infinite Realms held the doors to every afterlife ever imagined; surely he could find one that would—

“Wrong answer,” the Joker said. “Care to try again?”

“I’m never going to marry you,” Danny said vehemently. “If you want the throne, you’re going to have to kill me for it.”

“Nah,” Joker said. “This is much easier. And more fun! Kill another hostage.”

A sword plunged into a man’s back, and he fell down with a gasp. He drew in a shuddering breath. Still alive. It would be slow. Maybe the physicians could—

The goon sliced off his head.

His ghost stayed where he manifested. He just looked tired.

“I’m just going to keep on asking, princey,” Joker said. “Stop playing hard to get.”

“Joker—” Batman started.

“Uh-uh. Not a word outta you or the next hostage I kill will be one of your precious little birds. This is between me and Phantom.”

Birds?

“One more time, princey, how about it?” he asked.

Danny opened his mouth. He couldn’t say no. He couldn’t say yes. He couldn’t overshadow the Joker; not while he was wearing that damned Spector Deflector. He couldn’t rush him in an attack without hostages being lost by the wayside.

He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t overshadow. He couldn’t attack. He couldn’t—

“Too slow,” Joker declared, waving his hand in the motion that apparently meant ‘kill.’ Another man fell; another ghost rose.

“Why’d the band stop playing?” he asked. “This is still a party, isn’t it? Get to it! We’re celebrating my brand-new engagement.”

The musicians looked to Danny, who nodded. Best play along with this. He didn’t want them getting killed, too. If the Joker wanted music, then he could have music.

“Let’s see, let’s see here. I have so many people to thank. The Academy, for one, of course,” the Joker said. “The Fentons, for inventing such glorious tech and selling it to me for a steal.” He patted the belt fondly.

“Ghost Writer, for keeping such a well-stocked library. He even had a grimoire with a picture of Freakshow’s staff. A weapon so powerful even its image could compel ghosts. That clown had no idea what he was doing with it, of course, but I do. And the Justice League, for putting together such a thorough primer on ghostly etiquette.

“Nightwing! I have to thank Nightwing!” he shouted, heading over to one of the hostages. He honed in on the poor man. “If you hadn’t killed me, I wouldn’t be here right now. Truly a once in a deathtime opportunity. So glad I didn’t miss it! Thank you, sincerely, for killing me. And to think, all I had to do was just say I hurt your little bird. You didn’t even need any proof, you were so ready to kill. Daddy couldn’t be prouder. Without you, none of this would be possible.”

The man—Nightwing—looked sick.

“And dear sweet Batsy. Thank you ever so for bringing me back like you did. Our first kiss.” He sighed longingly. “But it’ll have to be our last. I’ve moved on, you see. It’s just good business. I’m sure you understand. You always did put business first.”

The Joker spun around and sauntered back over to the center ballroom area, closer to Danny. “Isn’t that right, Hoodie? How’s the neck?”

Red Hood wasn’t breathing. Danny didn’t know when he had stopped. Why he hadn’t noticed. His heart wasn’t beating either—a revenant’s self-defense mechanism: playing dead.

Unless he’d actually had a heart attack. But he probably would have moved or made a sound if that was the case.

“Peachy,” Hood said. His voice sounded hoarse even through the modulator. “How’s Harley? I heard she kicked your sorry ass to the curb and shacked up with Ivy.”

“Old news. Who cares about that hag,” Joker said. “Phantom, you wound me. You haven’t even commented on the courting gift. Don’t you like it? I slayed your greatest enemy for you.”

“I left him alive on purpose,” Danny said lowly. “As a mercy.”

Danny didn’t have any particularly strong feelings about the death penalty. In theory, in other lands. But he had extremely strong feelings about it when that blood would be on his hands. When it could bring him one step closer to becoming the monster of that aborted timeline. It wasn’t a moral issue for him so much as it was a personal one. Not one prisoner’s core had been shattered since he took the throne.

Until now.

“Well, he wasn’t really alive, now, was he?” Joker asked. He waltzed around the ballroom carelessly, unable to keep still. Black gem shards crunched underfoot. “I’ll ask again. But my patience is wearing pretty thin, princey. Marry me.”

“No,” Danny sneered. “Stop this.”

The ballroom collectively staggered. For a moment, no one so much as breathed.

All except the Joker, grinning in his patented Fenton Spector Deflector.

“Another no, another hostage!” he declared. Danny flinched forward as if he could stop it, but the sword had already fallen down, another one of the risen taken with it.

Five. Five dead now, because Danny couldn’t think his way out of this.

What good were powers if he didn’t know how to use them? He couldn’t punch his way out of this. He needed—he needed time.

“Time out,” he said. A bubble of green encased him and Hood. It took the other man half a second to notice.

“What is this?” Hood asked.

“Time is frozen,” Danny said. “Just around us. My mentor, Clockwork, lets me call on him whenever I need to. It’s his power doing this, but he’s not in the bubble. Listen. You’ve dealt with this guy before. What do we do?”

“His control over the ghosts. How can we break that?”

“The staff is already broken. So we’d need to destroy the image they saw or… or take out the person controlling them.”

“And you don’t want to do that,” Hood said carefully.

“Only as a last resort,” he said.

“You would if you had to?”

He nodded. Some of the tension bled out of Hood a little.

“Can he control those goons by just thought alone, or does he have to speak his commands?”

“He has to speak,” Danny said, starting to see the shape of the plan. “I need that belt off him. I could have ended this by now if it wasn’t for that damn belt.”

“Leave it to me,” Hood said. “You ready?”

Danny nodded. “Time in.”

Red Hood drew his gun and fired before Danny could blink. The belt shattered in a burst of sparks and circuitry. Joker staggered, but remained standing.

“Ha! You missed!”

“I never miss.”

“Ki—”

Danny shot out ice in a wave that encased the Joker in a pillar, frozen with his mouth still open. His eyes tracked to Danny and widened, but other than that, he couldn’t move, not one single muscle.

“Guards!” Danny called. “I want him laid in Pariah’s coffin. Then wrap it in chains, please, and keep at least four guards in the room.”

Overkill, he knew. The ice would never melt. Joker would never hurt anyone ever again. He would spend the rest of eternity trapped in his coffin. Unable to scream, unable to claw at it, unable to even close his eyes.

The skeleton army mobilized swiftly. Joker had taken control of maybe a hundred ghosts, with even more hostages, but that was still just a fraction of the ballroom. The goons still wouldn’t let the hostages move or anyone touch them. He ordered Ghostwriter and either Sam or Tucker to be found so they could deal with the grimoire.

Everyone seemed to decide they had to speak to Danny right now.

“Greetings, King Phantom. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Superman. I just wanted to say that you did an admirable job handling the situation. The Joker is a tough foe to beat.”

“Thank you. I—”

“King Phantom! This was a most unseemly display! And at a gala no less. I should have hoped that, if anything, this should have taught you the danger of leaving your enemies’ cores intact,” Pandora said.

“Well, not everyone needs to be permanently ended,” Danny justified. “I figured out another solution. I don’t see how this is worse than you guys locking Pariah in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep?”

“We did that merely because we had—”

“Excuse me.” Someone tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m a reporter for the Paranormal Times, can I get a statement from you on the events of this eve?”

“No comment,” he said absently. “Has anyone seen—”

“Daniel James Phantom.”

“—My sister,” he finished. “Hi Jazz.”

Jazz, at 6’ tall, in the regalia of a dowager princess, standing with her arms folded, cut an imposing figure. But Danny has faced scarier things before. Probably. “Care to explain why you dancing with a man armed with human guns? After disappearing for a full day from your own ball?”

“No, actually, I would not care to explain that,” he said. “I—”

Hood was no longer at his side.

But Danny didn’t even have time to freak out, because at that moment, he caught sight of one of the newly dead, those killed a second time—permanently—by the Joker. He pushed through the crowd to reach them and help them stand.

“It’s alright,” he said. “I am… so sorry, that this happened to you. All four of you are welcome to stay here in the Grand Palace. You can take as long as you need.”

He signaled a skeleton servant over and asked them to discreetly clear out the bodies. They would have to have funerals. Burials. Danny would have to arrange everything. Later.

“Let’s get you all to the infirmary…”

Bruce pulled Jason away as soon as he could.

“I told you to stay away from the king,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Jason breezed. “The king’s cool.”

“The king has mind control powers. He could be forcing you to think that,” Bruce said. “He’s dangerous, no matter what your opinion of him is.”

“I’m not seven years old, Bruce. I can choose who I hang out with myself.”

“Names. You were dancing with him for over 64 hours,” he said. “And before that, you both disappeared to God knows where. You understand that this isn’t just making a new friend? This is the ball where the king of the dead will choose his new spouse. What if he picks you, Red Hood? You could never see Gotham again. You would be stuck here. Enslaved.”

“We were just dancing.”

“And he didn’t dance with anyone else.”

“I know what I’m doing, Batman,” he spat. “I can make my own choices.”

“You may have just doomed yourself to an eternity of forced marriage and childbearing.”

“Da—Phantom would never do that.”

“You don’t know that,” Batman stressed. “You just met him. Son, he is manipulating you.”

“What, you’re saying he couldn’t actually like me?”

“It doesn’t matter. All he sees is a broodmare.”

Jason reeled back as if slapped.

“Hood—”

“Don’t,” he clipped out. He turned on his heel and walked away.

It shouldn’t even be possible to feel tired in the Realms. Sleep was for the living. A natural body process no longer needed once you were dead. The only “tired” ghosts should ever feel is a soul-deep tired that was actually depression. Tiredness, as a construct, only existed psychologically.

And yet, Danny was fucking exhausted.

The newly dead’s grief had been grueling. They had cried. They had raged. One attacked him. Another thanked him, and that hurt far worse than the attack had.

It had been hours.

And yet, when he walked down to the ballroom to go find Jazz and his friends, everyone was still there.

“What the hell?” he asked. Which maybe wasn’t so kingly, but whatever. “Why is everyone still here?”

“The ball has yet to conclude, Your Majesty,” an Observant said.

He looked at them in disgust. “People died. The party is over.”

“The ball cannot legally end until you have chosen a consort,” a second Observant said.

“But that’s bullshit,” Danny protested. He had almost said ‘stupid,’ but Jazz was in the room. He knew better. She had drilled that into him.

“You must choose,” the first Observant said.

Danny stared. He glanced around the ballroom. As if, what, suddenly an answer would come to him that he hadn’t thought of in the past month? Sam and Tucker weren’t of the Realms. They couldn’t get friend-married, not for this. Ember wasn’t an option. Johnny would say no. Kitty would—

Fuck, was he really down to this? He didn’t want to marry Kitty. That would screw everything up. None of his friends would trust him after that. And they would be right not to.

Shadow, maybe? Did Shadow count? Poindexter would have been an option at one point, but he was a full ghost, he had stopped aging in high school, and Danny hadn’t. Which brought up a lot of long-term issues for anyone he chose. Unless he went with one of the risen, but he… only knew one risen. And he couldn’t do that to Hood.

He wished, for the millionth time, that he hadn’t died and was living a normal life—not as a ghost, not as a king, but just as a college kid who could ask someone out on a date and have that be it.

It wasn’t like plenty of people hadn’t said outright that they’d be willing to marry him. Some had made it perfectly clear that they didn’t care about anything else so long as they got to be royalty. Which was weird and concerning on a lot of levels, but it did mean Danny had options. He just needed to remember who said what and pick one of the risen. They could live in the castle and hopefully be friends someday. Whatever he had to.

He scanned the faces of the crowd, trying to think back to the introductions. He wished desperately that he had paid more attention.

“I’ll do it,” Red Hood called out. He approached the staircase and knelt down on one knee. He swept his top hat off and met his gaze through red-tinted goggles. “King Phantom, may I have your hand in marriage?”

A smile broke across his face. “Yes.”

He took Hood’s hands in his own and pulled him to his feet. Danny laced one set of fingers together and held their joined hands aloft. “Citizens of the Infinite Realms, I have chosen my new husband!”