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Jazz meets her soulmate in, of all places, Park Row. Or as the locals call it, Crime Alley.
Seems about right for her life, she decides as she kicks the shit out of the guy who was trying to stab him for his wallet fifteen seconds ago. Her soulmate watches her curiously, seeming unconcerned by the fuss, and takes a sip of his smoothie.
Also seems about right, for her soulmate. A guy who got too nervous when necessary violence happened was not going to survive Thanksgiving in Amity Park, much less Christmas.
Well, it is Gotham.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi, sorry, one sec," Jazz says, then leans over the groaning mugger and offers him a card to the best local crisis center she's managed to track down via research and word of mouth in the four months she's been in Gotham. Not her card, obviously, since she just roundhouse-kicked the guy in the head to protect her soulmate from him and that's arguably a conflict of interest. Or close enough, anyway. "So you should check these guys out, they've got a very high success rate in their job program and there's an associated food bank and rent assistance, if you qualify."
"What?" the mugger says dazedly.
"Also if you ever touch my soulmate again I'll make you wish for the cold mercy of the Infinite Realms," Jazz adds pleasantly. The guy goes very, very pale. Then he snatches the card from her and runs for his life and eternal soul.
"This is the nicest thing the universe has ever done to me," her soulmate muses, taking another sip of his smoothie.
"Getting you mugged?" Jazz asks wryly, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Are you religious? Do you want kids?" her soulmate asks. "Also, who's your favorite Bat?"
"Robin, obviously," Jazz says. "The overdramatic and feral little stabby one, I mean. He reminds me of my little brother at that age. And also my little sister. Makes me feel a little bit maternal, to be honest. So that answers two out of three, and as far as religion goes, I only believe in Psychology Today, highly customized guns, and my mom's ninth-degree black belt."
"This better not awaken anything in me," her soulmate mutters under his breath.
"That seems unlikely, or we wouldn't be soulmates," Jazz says.
"Point," he says, sipping his smoothie again. Jazz didn't even know anywhere in Crime Alley sold smoothies, but she is new around here. "Wanna go break my bed? Or maybe go get coffee?"
"You've already got a smoothie," Jazz says.
"So I do," he says.
Jazz looks him over. He's her soulmate, so she's not surprised to find him gorgeous. She wasn't ever expecting a familial soulmate–Danny is a very intense sibling to have, and her parents are very intense parents to have, not to mention everything about Dani as a sibling, and "soulcousins" aren't typically a thing–and she's never been especially interested in keeping around too many close friends, so considering all that, she was already expecting her soulmate to be a romantic one. If they are platonic, it's definitely only going to be because her soulmate is an aromantic asexual. Which he probably isn't, since he already asked about kids and religion and if she wanted to go break his bed.
Then again, she's met people who'll posture worse than that. Especially guys, and especially ace ones with a clear investment in their masculinity, and given this particular guy is built like a brick house could only dream to be, chances are he has some feelings about his masculinity. Though he's also drinking a visibly pink smoothie, not a neutral-colored protein shake or generic black coffee, so . . . fifty-fifty there, maybe?
Further inquiry will probably be required.
"I'm Jazz," she tells him. "What's your name?"
"Robin," he says. Then he–pauses. Blinks. "I mean–Robin."
He looks very confused for a second, and Jazz blinks too, and refocuses her eyes a bit. Oh, is he–
"Are you overshadowing that guy?" she assumes. For the love of–of course her soulmate would be a ghost, she thinks dryly. Who'd want a soulmate their mom and dad wouldn't want to grill for information and ask a thousand invasive questions, after all? "I mean, he's really hot, don't get me wrong, he looks good on you, but I'd rather meet you for real."
"'Overshadowing'?" Robin looks bemused.
"I'm Danny's sister," Jazz clarifies. Robin does not look less bemused. "You know, the new king?"
"What?" Robin says. Jazz frowns a little, feeling a bit bemused herself.
"Do you not get out much?" she asks.
"Never, actually, but also yes and constantly and way too often," Robin says. "My job is kind of demanding that way."
"What's your job?" Jazz asks curiously. Ghosts' jobs are always interesting, even if only for how they interact and manifest with their Obsessions. She wonders what his Obsession is, actually, because smoothies seem like an unlikely option but she doesn't have much else to go on here.
Can't be weirder than Box Ghost, either way.
"I'm a Bat," Robin says, then looks absolutely alarmed and also absolutely horrified.
"Huh," Jazz says, tilting her head. He seems really big to be one of the Robin-Robins, and a little too old besides. A year or two younger than her, maybe, and even the older Robin she's pretty sure is at best Danny's age. Though that's assuming this body is the one he fights crime in, admittedly. Although it's kinda funny if one of the Bats is just named Robin. Must get annoying on the job, though. "I didn't know any of you were dead, but I guess that's not actually a surprise either, given the profession."
"Why did I say that to you?" Robin asks tightly.
"I told you, I'm the new king's sister," Jazz says. "You know, it's the royal family thing. Technically I'm his regent, legally speaking, but only because I'm better at paperwork and he doesn't count as a legal adult in the Infinite Realms yet. Hasn't been dead long enough, you know how it is. But I've been alive long enough to, apparently? But his 'being alive' technically stopped tracking at fourteen. It's complicated, basically."
"What the fuck does that mean?!" Robin demands.
"It means you can't lie to me because you're one of my brother's subjects," Jazz says, really not understanding his reaction. Every ghost knows this, after all. The only ones who wouldn't know it are too young to be away from their guardians' haunts or even leave the Infinite Realms at all. Definitely a ghost who knows how to overshadow someone this thoroughly and fully is old enough and experienced enough to know it, though. "Whose body is that, anyway?"
"It's my father's," Robin says. Jazz's eyes widen a little and she has several very concerned internal reactions before he chokes and sputters–"I mean–it's not–he's not–!"
"You realize there is no healthy way to mean that, right?" Jazz says. Robin looks frustrated and freaked out and she feels bad about it, because she didn't mean or want to upset him, but she clearly has. "Sorry. I mean, I still secretly feel like I'm the one parenting my parents half the time, you're not the only one with weird feelings about yours."
"I'm his," Robin says, then grits his teeth in visible pain. He's this close to crushing the smoothie cup he's holding but hasn't actually done it. Jazz wonders if that's an example of deliberate self-control or subconscious restraint.
She's pretty sure Robin didn't mean to say that, though.
"Are you okay?" she asks, a little concerned. Normally ghosts just stop talking about things they want to lie about, when they realize who she is.
"No," Robin says. "I'm just his. I've always been his, I always will be, his good soldier, his worst mistake, not his actual fucking son, why am I telling you this?!"
"I don't know," Jazz says, frowning in increased concern. "Usually people can work around the inability to lie a little bit, but you sound like you're being compelled to speak. Increasingly like, actually. Hm. What's your Obsession? And what kind of core do you have?"
"What?" he says.
"They might be making you unstable, is all," Jazz explains. "I don't think it'd be a soulmate thing but to be fair I don't really know how that works. Are you dead, or are you a manifestation of something?"
"I'm dead," Robin says, staring at her. "That bastard clown beat my head in with a crowbar and blew up what was left of me. I woke up in my grave and–I–how did you know that?"
"Well, I didn't, that's why I asked," Jazz says reasonably, idly wondering why the Joker isn't dead yet, since this is Gotham and obviously it wouldn't be another "bastard clown" Robin was referencing, even if he wasn't a Bat. But like, at least dead via the court system, if nothing else. The Joker is insane, yes, but no one can argue he doesn't know right from wrong at this point. Does New Jersey just not have the death penalty, maybe? She hasn't thought to check, though it would explain some things. "Maybe it's the guy you're in? He's not drunk or high or anything, is he?"
"I hate drugs," Robin says, gritting his teeth again; tightening his grip on his cup again. He's trembling, just barely. "I hate them. I'd never touch them. I don't know what you are. You're scaring me. Please stop."
He definitely didn't mean to say that, Jazz can tell.
But . . . he doesn't know what she is.
He doesn't know.
Well, that's a problem.
"Robin," she says gently, and for some reason his face twists painfully at the sound of his own name. "Can I see your core? Please?"
Technically, she doesn't have to ask; she's a member of the royal family, she could just reach straight into him and pop it right out. But that's incredibly rude and disrespectful and, she's always thought, just a bit too cruel of a thing to do, and he's her soulmate on top of that, so she's asking.
"I don't know," Robin croaks. "I don't know what that means."
. . . Jazz is now very, very concerned.
"I want to see your core, Robin," she says very, very carefully. "Do you know what a core is?"
The question is ridiculous; even more unfathomably unlikely than him not recognizing her for what she is. No ghost just "doesn't know" what a core is.
But she asks it, because she's having a very, very bad feeling right now.
"No," Robin says, tensing up even worse and visibly aborting the impulse to take a step back from her. "I don't know what you're talking about. What are you doing to me, what do you want?"
Jazz's bad feeling wasn't bad enough, apparently.
"I'm not doing anything on purpose. It's a passive effect," she says. She doesn't especially like being Regent, it's mostly annoying and time-consuming and inconvenient, but she's never actually hated it before.
Right now she definitely hates it.
"Then turn it the fuck off!" Robin shouts at her, baring his teeth aggressively. It's a fear response; Jazz isn't tuning into his emotions on purpose, but he is very, very afraid right now.
She hates that, too. Would hate it even if he weren't her soulmate.
"I can't," she says. There's not meant to be a way to turn it off, and even if there were, she doesn't know it and probably doesn't have the ability to do it anyway. She's only liminal, after all. Not a full ghost or even half of one. Everything that she can do is limited and shaped by that fact. Maybe Danny could figure it out if he tried, but Danny isn't here.
She doesn't know what to do, which is a perfectly normal thing, she knows, but not usually such a problem. But there's no backup here, no Danny or Sam or Tucker or Valerie or Dani, and honestly at this point she'd take Vlad, if only because he might know something about what's going on right now. If only because her soulmate is afraid of her and doesn't even know what a core is.
How can any ghost not know that?
. . . actually, that's a good question, isn't it.
How can't he know? What would've had to happen, for a ghost not to know that? For her status to be affecting him so strongly when he doesn't even recognize her for what she is?
Jazz doesn't like any of the answers that are coming to mind.
"I said stop it!" Robin says desperately. He still hasn't crushed the cup in his hand, even as tight as he's gripping it. Still hasn't taken that step back from her.
Still hasn't stopped parsing as afraid to all her senses.
“I can’t. I’m sorry,” Jazz repeats as soothingly as she can without actually using an actively soothing tone. She gets the feeling Robin wouldn’t respond well to it.
Or worse, that he’d respond to it whether he wanted to or not.
She should probably stop asking him questions, on that note. And maybe avoid making any requests, or saying anything that might be possible to interpret as an order.
But . . .
“I need to see your core, Robin,” she says. “Can you let me do that?”
“I don’t know,” he chokes, and still doesn’t move. Jazz isn’t sure he can, at this point. Whether that’s something psychological or physiological, now . . .
“I want to help,” she says with the same not-soothing soothing tone, and then she steps towards him with her hands up. He flinches.
Still doesn’t move, though. Still doesn’t try to step back himself.
Dammit, Jazz thinks.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and then very, very gently sinks her raised hands into his chest and takes out his core with a feather-light touch.
A ghost’s core is . . . well, their core. Their center. The heart of them. Jazz hasn’t seen very many of them up close and personal, just diagrams and images, but she knows the basics. Danny’s is as cold as the vacuum of space, near-impossible to touch without ending up with at least the first stages of frostbite; a dark, zero-gravity sphere lit bright with icy stars. A space core made luminous with the Obsession of Protection.
Which is the only reason she recognizes Protection in Robin’s core, probably, because the ugly and twisted nature of Vengeance is warping it almost past recognizability.
Jazz doesn’t necessarily think vengeance is a bad thing, but Vengeance is absolutely a bad Obsession.
There’s always something else to protect, but revenge only lasts you until you get it, after all.
Robin’s core looks . . . wrong, though Jazz hates to think it. Very wrong. It’s damaged, and too small, and malformed. Underdeveloped and crushed down; not given the room to grow it should’ve had. Not the kind of perfect sphere she’s used to, but more like slagged, melted glass. Fragile-looking, almost.
Very fragile-looking.
She almost thinks it is a glass core, for a moment. It’s hollow and cracked, full to the brim and dripping with the strangest-looking ecto she’s ever seen, thin as water and roiling and steaming and smoking, glowing much brighter than it should be–bright enough to light up the whole alley around them. Jazz has the odd, irrational urge to just . . . spill it. Tip it over and pour it all out.
Even if that wouldn’t risk hurting Robin, though, which she has no idea if it would or not, Crime Alley is not the place to pour the strangest ectoplasm she’s ever seen on the ground of a random back alley and just assume it’ll be fine.
But it’s not a glass core, Jazz realizes slowly as she turns it in her hands, held as delicately as she can as Robin starts breathing like he might be about to hyperventilate. It’s thin and brittle and broken-looking, but it’s not glass. It’s just so frail and scorched and battered that it looks like glass.
What it actually is, though, is a light core. The broken-looking exterior is the remnants of the shadowy lantern that should be holding it safe and secure, and the strange smoking ectoplasm filling it is lit up by a tiny submerged spark that burns with hope and magic and absolute faith.
And it glows brighter when she gently taps the lantern-glass with a pulse of her own liminal energy.
It doesn’t trust her, quite, but it believes her. More than Robin can believe a stranger in an alley, whether that stranger is his soulmate or his regent or what. His core is willing to give her what he can’t. Wants to give her what he can’t.
Jazz knew she’d love her soulmate, because loving your soulmate is unavoidable, for better or for worse. But looking at Robin’s warped and malformed and bleeding core, holding it cradled in her hands, hearing his breath accelerated and afraid but not have him panic and try to stop her, try to reject her . . . having that single spark of faith left in the absolute unshakeable heart of him accept her as something it’s willing to believe in . . .
Oh, she loves him.
And the core that’s willing to put its single spark of faith in her is not a ghost’s core.
It’s a halfa’s.
A halfa who isn’t finished.
Well, that would explain some things too, wouldn’t it.
“Robin,” Jazz says, glancing up to meet his eyes again, and again his face twists in pain at the sound of his name. “I know someone who can help you.”
“I–” Robin tries to lie, and chokes on. I don’t need help, he doesn’t say, because he can’t lie to her.
But she knows it’s what he wants to say.
“It’s alright,” Jazz murmurs, and very, very gently settles his core back inside of him. He makes a pained sound, and her hands come back smoking and dripping with his strange, watery ectoplasm.
It feels warm, like a little light inside a broken lantern.
And Jazz is never, ever going to see that light blown out without a fight.
“I know someone who can help you,” she repeats.
“Why would you help me?” Robin asks, and Jazz folds her dripping hands against his chest. His ectoplasm soaks into his shirt; leaves her handprints in luminous neon over his heart.
Over his core.
“Because I think I can, and it's my duty as your regent,” she replies simply. And then includes the obvious add-on, which is, “Also, you’re my soulmate, so if anything ever happens to you, I’m going to have to incite the evil timeline where everyone in the world dies, and I’d really rather not do that.”
“. . . you said that like you know how to incite the evil timeline where everyone in the world dies.”
“I do, I just like the world the way it is. Mostly, anyway,” Jazz replies reasonably. Robin stares at her for a moment, then puts his free hand over the back of hers where they're still folded against his chest.
“Sorry, I aimed too low starting with coffee,” he says. “Wanna get married?”
“No, because you're probably mentally compromised by whatever compulsion you’re under right now,” Jazz replies, patting his chest lightly. Actually, though: if he's a halfa, this probably is his own body. So that's a nice thing. “We can talk about it after we visit the yetis.”
“The what?” Robin asks.
“Long story,” Jazz says, then gives him a reassuring little smile. “You don’t mind the cold, do you?"