#the Waynes think he's fully dead and a ghost haunting the manor

[menolly5600]

After Danny's human identity was accidentally revealed when he was exploding the GIW bases, the GIW knew who he was and were hunting him in both forms. Danny had been attacking the bases to force people outside Amity to investigate the GIW, and also making sure to free any captive ghosts. But with the GIW knowing that he's got a human form, they modified standard (criminal) meta suppression collars to suppress Ectoplasm circulation and energy activation (based off stolen Fenton tech). Then the GIW distributed the collars to federal and local authorities that were assisting in the manhunt for the meta terrorist. As a large metropolis with high ambient ectoplasm, Gotham received a collar.

Danny was hiding homeless in Gotham and maybe got onto the Bats' radar as a homeless kid. He ended up getting picked up by child services and doesn't want to reveal his powers while waiting for an opportunity to vanish. But someone at the office had clocked this homeless kid as the terrorist and called the cops to pick him up. When the cops took him into custody, he thought he could ghost them because he didn't want to hurt anyone. But they brought the collar and locked it on him when he was distracted. He didn't realize at first it was more than a typical meta gene suppressor.

But the Bats had already been on the lookout for the meta terrorist and were alerted he'd been captured in Gotham. But when they looked into it, they found out that the terrorist is a kid, and is the homeless kid some of them had met before. The cops planned to put him in Arkham until the GIW arrived to collect him.

But Bruce was able to arrange to foster him temporarily because he's a minor and hasn't actually been convicted of any crimes yet. In the national manhunt he's been a suspect and a person of interest, but he legally has rights still and there's been no trial even scheduled yet. Bruce got emergency custody and paid his bail on condition of keeping the collar on to prevent flight risk and to make sure he comes to interrogations and cooperates with the investigation. If he runs or the collar is removed, or he doesn't show for the investigation efforts, then custody will be revoked and he'll be handed over to the GIW to contain.

Danny did try to run at first, but the Bats brought him back. And once Bruce explained that if Danny keeps trying to run or the collar is removed, then the police will have to hand him to the GIW. Bruce explains he's trying to keep him safe while the investigation looks into the GIW and the explosions, because it's suspicious.

Danny doesn't actually know what long term power suppression will do to him. He knows even just the temporary Plasmius Maximus makes him feel weak and exhausted. But he doesn't know that permanently suppressing ectoplasm energy activation will kill him.

The longer he has the collar on, the more exhaustion drags at him. He tries telling the Waynes he needs it off because his powers are a part of him, and he's not actually a meta. He tries to explain he's half ghost, but the Waynes, and the child counselor and therapist they got him, are convinced it's delusions brought on by his victimization at the hands of his parents upbringing and the GIW persecution of him for having meta powers. Basically, everyone believes he's been conditioned to believe he's half inhuman and a monster.

The investigation is revealing that the GIW are violating the Meta Protection Acts and hunting and persecuting metas and nonhuman sentients (aliens) by labeling them as non-sentient ghosts. The attacks were born of his traumatic conditioning, fear for his life, and self-defense against violations of his rights and body. The fact that the GIW does intend to vivisect him as a specimen and are planning his eventual destruction only proves Danny was fighting and attacking them in self defense. Even the Justice League is getting involved in exposing the Anti-Ecto Control Acts as violations of Meta and Alien rights. They're well on the way to being repealed. The GIW is already being shut down and under scrutiny for human and alien rights violations, Geneva Convention violations, misappropriation of government resources, etc.

This guarantees Danny won't be handed to the GIW. But if Bruce can't keep custody then he'll be put in Arkham because of the delusions brought on by his conditioning. So the collar has to stay on. He's still a flight risk, and the child therapist believes him delusional still. Because while ghosts are real, they're not like the GIW reports claim or how Danny claims he's part ghost.

And this whole time, Danny gets weaker and more exhausted. Not even eating more is helping much. He's been trying to hide it, though. He's afraid of showing weakness.

It's bad enough nobody believes him about being a halfa, but it's understandable. Being Schrodinger's boy is hard to wrap your mind around, let alone being a sorta unliving undead being, like some eldritch thing Lovecraft dreamed up. His parents didn't understand. Not even Jazz and his friends really understood completely how his accident changed him on a fundamental level. Even Danny doesn't think too hard about it most of the time. It's easier to just think of himself as a boy with powers, sometimes.

So he hides how weak he's becoming, how ill he's starting to feel all the time. At first he thinks it's because he's adjusting to being without his powers and away from Amity Park, his haunt. He thinks it's feeling ill like he's going through withdrawals. He doesn't want the Waynes to decide he's too weird, too difficult, too creepy, too inhuman. Because he's getting attached, and he kind of thinks maybe they mean it that he's family now, that he's safe. He's kind of hoping they might actually be able to learn to love each other like a family.

But then he starts collapsing. He can't hide it anymore. Like a sickly fainting Victorian damsel, he keeps collapsing at random, fainting and blacking out. They already knew his vitals were off, lower heart rate and temperature. But now he's got arrhythmia and heart murmurs. He's starting to get fluid buildup in his lungs. He's unable to go ghost form, his human half still needs to breathe and have a pulse. His immune system is failing, he gets a cold that becomes pneumonia. Even after rigorous antibiotics and immuno boosters, even after he recovers from the pneumonia, he's still declining.

They did take him to the hospital, but the doctors couldn't find out what was wrong exactly. They did detect a buildup of strange chemicals all throughout his body cells. The chemicals had similarities to many of the chemicals found in GIW facilities. Also the Bats recognized some of the chemical markers Ra's used with his Lazarus water experiments. The best theory from the doctors is that exposure to the chemicals, from his parents' lab and the GIW facilities he attacked, was causing cellular poisoning. There was nothing they could do for him because it was so widespread and systemic.

Bruce insisted on taking Danny home. Even if all they could do was keep him comfortable, Bruce wanted his boy home. And maybe the Bats could find something from off world or esoteric that could save him. Besides, Danny was afraid every time he woke up in the hospital after blacking out again. If Danny had less than a year left to live, he wanted him to be comfortable, safe, and surrounded with family that had grown to love him.

The Waynes had always hated having to leave the collar on Danny. Especially Tim, because he was familiar with Impulse's dark future of control collars. But to keep him at home, even while he's slowly dying, they had to leave it on and being actively tracked as working by the federal government. Otherwise he'd be moved to Arkham for treatment and containment. They didn't want his last months to be in Arkham. The care there might just kill him faster.

Danny was in the manor at first. He was still mobile for a bit after coming back from the hospital. But then his legs started failing as his muscles atrophied and deteriorated. He was blacking out more, his short term memory failing. They helped him move around with a wheelchair for a bit, taking him to meals and to hang out around the manor with the family.

He was confused and sinking into a mental fog more often. He begged sometimes to take off the collar, or to let him go. Sometimes he begged them not to hurt him, begged them to understand that he's still Danny, still human. Sometimes he didn't know where he was and begged his parents not to tear him apart molecule by molecule.

As his digestive organs started failing, he couldn't eat so had to be hooked up to machines and IVs for fluids and nutrients. He was bed bound in his room, trying to make him comfortable. Someone was with him almost constantly, talking to him, taking care of him, comforting him as best they could.

But his mind wandered away more often, dissociating and catatonic. Soon he was rarely aware or lucid. As he wasted away, his organs began failing more and they moved him to the Batcave onto life support. They tried even more esoteric things to save him but nothing was working.

But waking up briefly lucid in the Batcave infirmary gave Danny a panic attack that nearly killed him before he passed out again. They reluctantly conceded having him in his room in the manor was safer. It took a bit of doing, but they got him set back up in his room with all the fancy cutting edge life support equipment. But it was a real chance Danny might die at any time. Despite all the life support equipment, necrosis was slowly setting in across his body, tissue dying while his body was forced to keep living.

After his skin started rotting in places, Bruce and the others could barely tear themselves away, out of fear he'd be gone by the time they came back. But then there was an Arkham breakout. They decided Bruce would stay with Danny so he wouldn't be alone, just in case he woke, just in case he died.

The Joker couldn't directly plant bombs in Wayne manor. Bruce's security system is too good to miss goons sneaking in to plant explosives. Instead he strapped explosives and Joker toxin canisters to house mice and released them onto Wayne property. And just in case they didn't find ways into the manor, he had a goon with a rocket launcher set up in the empty Drake manor next door.

The scattered explosions across Wayne manor were mice detonating in the walls. Some fires started, but the toxin was the most dangerous. The rocket launcher hit the upstairs and blew up Danny's bathroom and part of his bedroom and the hallway, and the room next to his. The concussive blast knocked Bruce unconscious. But he'd been shielding Danny already since the mice started exploding before the rocket hit.

When Jason rushed upstairs to the manor, he tried to rescue them both. But Bruce is a huge guy and Danny is fragile. He tried to drag Bruce half on his back while carrying Danny downstairs, but the toxin laced colored smoke and fire was too dangerous to expose them directly to. Bruce woke enough to slur at Jason to take Danny and save themselves. Obviously concussed, he told Jason not to die again. Jason went out the window with Danny.

He intended to go back for Bruce. Because he's determined to be better than Batman, so he's not going to leave him to die in an exploding building. And he's not going to give the Joker the satisfaction of killing another of them. And he's not going to lose Bruce just when they were starting to get somewhere better between them. But the outer wall under Danny's room is unstable and on fire after the rocket explosion. The fires and gas are so random throughout the building he can't find a safe route back to Bruce without his heavy vigilante gear.

He returned to Alfred who was watching over Danny. They couldn't take most of the life support equipment with Danny, but Alfred has portable oxygen and a defibrillator in case his heart stopped. The other Bats start arriving ahead of emergency services. Most of them split off as soon as they hear Bruce is trapped inside and concussed. Spreading out, they try to find a safe route to extract him. DickBats and Tim check on Jason, Alfred and especially Danny.

Red Robin asks if there are any routes from the Cave clear of toxin and fire. He mentions he doesn't know if the family can handle burying two family members at the same time. Danny's obviously doing worse away from the medical equipment.

Jason snaps that Danny's not going to die, Bruce told them to survive. And they're not going to give the clown the satisfaction.

DickBats determinedly declares Bruce isn't going to die.

This is when Danny's protection obsession is triggered and he jerkily sits up, scrabbling at his collar. He's begging to get it off, he needs to protect.

Jason snarls and goes to get the damned thing off.

Red Robin stops Jason Todd-Wayne. Says if he does it, Danny could be taken away from the Waynes. But if Red Robin does it... The Waynes can't be held liable for vigilante actions. And it might be Danny's last request, the stress might be too much for him, and Tim isn't going to let his little brother die in a suppression collar.

It takes a moment after the collar comes off before power washes over Danny and he's changed. He flies into the manor and saves Bruce, ice putting out most of the fires.

But when he returns with Bruce, he changes back and collapses again. His human half is still suffering organ failure from cumulative damage. His regenerative healing isn't instant. His body had been devouring his energy reserves to survive and he had almost nothing left to devote to healing. He was starting to regenerate but it will take time he may not have.

Emergency services is arriving by then. Danny and Bruce are taken to the hospital for overnight observation. Bruce, Dick, and the Wayne lawyers have to argue down child services and get permission from the police commissioner to justify removing the collar. Red Robin adds in that the collar was restricting the boy's breathing so had to be removed on site. The doctors verify that the boy is dying and all that can be done is make him comfortable while he passes. He's slipped into a coma and the doctors doubt he'll wake. Arkham, and the hospital, aren't the best places for keeping him comfortable. Bruce, still concussed, pleads to let him take his foster son home so he can be with family when he goes. By late morning they're allowed to take Danny home to die in comfort, without the collar.

Danny's human half has been struggling to heal, but a lot of his tissues are dead and decomposed. He can't heal the dead tissue, even though he can replace the cells in time with his regeneration. He's in a healing coma state as his core gathers ambient ectoplasm and absorbs the strong emotions around him to convert to ectoplasm. His ghost side is storing up energy in preparation for massive regeneration.

Once his core has gathered energy, his human body starts sloughing off the dead tissue. His core forces a self-preservation shift to ghost form and drops all the dead and decaying flesh and organs from his human half. He doesn't need the tissue and organs in ghost form, and can focus all his energy on regenerating his human half while maintaining ghost form.

But during this state, his human brain is offline. It takes a lot of energy to have his brain operational. With his brain comatose and his core acting as a secondary brain and emotional center, it's like he's sleepwalking. He reacts to emotional stimuli rather than logic or reasoning in this state.

Meanwhile, the Waynes had set him up in the Batcave with more equipment. There was some desperate hope he might get better without the collar suppressing his meta powers. He'd been a little better and strong enough to save Bruce right after removing it. But he still hadn't woken up after hanging on for a few more days.

Then his vitals crashed as his brain activity flatlined. Then he changed again, like he had when he saved Bruce. Except this time when the strange energy form floated up above the bed, it left behind a rotting slurry of flesh, organs and crumbling bone.

The floating, translucent, color reversed version of him still looked like Danny. But they couldn't touch him. He didn't respond to their calls. Even when he opened his glowing green eyes, he was unresponsive to them. It was as if he wasn't registering seeing or hearing them. It was as if Danny had died, leaving behind a rotted body and an echo, a shade of a ghost that wasn't a ghost like Deadman is a ghost.

Danny was dead.

Danny's shade haunted the Cave, and later the manor once it was repaired. He haunted them, his gaze distant and unresponsive. The only times he seemed to respond to something was when someone was angry, distraught and grieving, or experiencing an intense emotion. Sometimes his shade would flee the area, sometimes vanishing completely for a while. Other times he'd be drawn to the person, hovering around them as if concerned, but without quite seeing them.

It usually made the grieving worse.

Danny's human mind was catatonic and unconscious. His ghost-brain core was dissociating and running on instincts. He fled from dangerous 'fight-anger' emotions to protect his human half while so weak and regenerating. He was drawn to his family-fraid being happy or (more often) sad. He wanted to soak up the happy emotions, though there wasn't much happiness in the manor these days after their newest brother died. And he wanted to comfort his family-fraid when sad and upset. Instinctively he used as little energy as possible so everything else could go towards healing his human half. So he barely glowed, didn't become tangible and was barely visible most of the time.

But Danny was slowly healing and his tissues and organs slowly being reconstructed while in his ghost form. His ghost form is entirely ectoplasm so it's easier to rebuild the organs and muscles out of ectoplasmic cells. When he's ready to transform back to human form and wake up his brain, the ectoplasmic cells will shift to living tissue cells along with the rest of his body.

But until then, Danny's mentally checked out. And the Waynes think he died, gruesomely decomposing rapidly, and is now haunting them for failing him.

Dp x Dc fic idea that wouldn't let me sleep:

"No, you don't understand! I need my powers. I'll die without them!" Danny pleaded with the officer in front of him.

"Sure, kid, and I need a burger. You'll be just fine without your flight or superstrength or whatever. Look, I see kids like you all the time nowadays. You think just because you have a few powers, you can become some kind of hero. You run away from home, cause trouble in the name of 'justice' or whatever. Then reality hits. You start stealing. What's a few stolen bucks or candy bars in the name of the greater good, right? It's a downward spiral from there. Seems you were pretty far down the spiral. Beating up government agents? Kid, there is no way in hell I'm letting you out of here without the meta power suppressant collar. You're lucky Mr. Wayne was so generous and decided to foster you until we find your parents. I would've sent your troublesome ass back to juvie."

I was thinking this was a bad timeline where the Fenton parents died and Danny ran away. The power suppressing collar does work on him somehow, and cuts him off from his ghost half, which stops the ectoplasm that was keeping him alive since the accident.

I pictured Bruce as the foster parent that decided to help the troubled teen, but it could be anyone. Imagine if Lex Luthor decided he wanted to "help" (read: manipulate the young meta into doing his bidding) Danny instead. Extra angst.

[friendlyneighborhoodcapricorn]

Lazarus Dick??? 👀

Thanks for the ask!

Lazarus Dick is an AU where Dick dies when he’s about 15. Bruce, in complete despair over this, decides to cash in on a favour Talia owes him and uses the Lazarus Pit to bring Dick back.

But just like in the Apokolips War movie, the Pit has a very adverse effect on Dick’s mental stability and it essentially drives him insane.

Two years later, Bruce takes in Jason, who ends up convinced that the Manor is haunted for a while before finding out the truth.

Here is a snippet :)

Jason is pretty sure the Manor is haunted.

He’s fully aware of how ridiculous that sounds. He’s twelve, that’s too old to believe in ghosts.

But, well. There’s a man of steel out there, and a woman with a lasso that can make you tell the truth. The existence of ghosts wouldn’t be a stretch.

That doesn’t automatically mean there’s one in Wayne Manor, though.

And yet, Jason feels like he’s being watched as he walks through the long, dark corridors. He swears he can feel eyes burn between his shoulder blades.

Theoretically, there are plenty of ghosts who could be haunting the Manor, now that he thinks about it.

Bruce’s parents, for starters. His dead son Dick Grayson, perhaps. And that’s only the people Jason knows of. There are probably others who died with ties to the Manor.

So it’s not impossible that the Manor is haunted, but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s likely.

Jason is fully prepared to ignore that feeling of something watching him, the one that raises the hair in his neck.

And he does. For several weeks after it first happens, he chalks it up to paranoia.

Jason isn’t used to feeling safe. To being safe. It’s normal he sees danger in every creak of the wooden floorboards, every howl of the wind outside his window.

He figures it’ll pass.

[arty-shadow-morningstar]

Graveyard Siblings (5)

[Masterlink] (PART 1) (PART 4)

-----

Mari and Cass sometimes switch their suits as they have the same body type. Cass would sometimes go out in full Hellbat gear and give the appearance that Hellbat is out more often than she actually is.

So Orphan/Black Bat also sometimes uses guns.

This also helps with concealing secret identities. Maria was rescued by Hellbat from Joker’s Henchmen. (Vicki Vale was getting sus of the new Wayne and Hellbat.)

Unfortunately since Hellbat rarely comes out and she had already made all of her appearance for the month and it wasn’t a busy weekend, the public had come to the conclusion that Hellbat has a crush on the newest Wayne.

Basically everyone thought that Mari has a crush on herself. Which led to some teasing and escalated to Mari announcing that Jason had a crush on Red Hood on live TV.

It didn’t help that a video of Red Hood and Jason re-enacting Romeo and Juliet with Jason on his apartment balcony and Red Hood on the roof was posted on the internet a few days later. (Thank you, Trixx and Tim’s awesome video editing skills)

Sadly, it was taken down 24 hours later. (Tim and the others have multiple copies of it, on the cloud or hardware, hidden around in the manor and their respective safehouses in the US.)

Some people kidnapped Jason to hopefully gain leverage over the Red Hood and to their dismay and nightmares for years to come, Hellbat came instead.

One lucky and incredibly brave reporter asked why she was there instead of her brother.

Mari being a little shit, “Red Hood may be a tough and scary guy but when it comes to his feelings, my brother is a chicken.”

Pictures of Jason tackling Hellbat somehow never made it into any papers.

The criminal underworld hasn’t taken a hint and Jason has been kidnapped a few more times.

Other times Jason was kidnapped:

Robin: Red Hood made a fool of himself in front of Todd recently and he doesn’t dare to show his face.

Spoiler: He was taking too damn long checking his hair even though I told him that no one was going to see it under his helmet and he was so offended that he is currently sulking in the bathroom.

Red Robin: Red Hood can’t think straight when he is around Jason. I mean have you seen the dude.

Arsenal*during a rare visit to Gotham*: Red Hood owes me one now.

Dick finally ends it by going out as Red Hood and rescuing Jason. Gotham is happy that Redson (Red Hood x Jason) ship has finally sailed.

-------

Kate, Babs, Cass, Steph and Mari were out on Mari’s first girls’ night since her move to the manor.

This is set a little after she came back from Paris with Jason.

They watched rom-com movies, did hair and nails, gossip about the superhero community and bitch and vent to each other.

Marinette off-handedly mentioned the crazy shits she had done during her stint as Ladybug. It started with asking about the T-rex in the Batcave and she mentions jumping into the mouth of a live one before.

Everyone in the room was shocked and after a few more questions, it was obvious that she was very reckless and self-sacrificing. Yep, she was going to fit into this crazy family just fine.

And Holy Shit. There is so much trauma packed into this kid. She needs lots of therapy.

Babs finally decided that they all needed to get out and have some fun. All in their respective suits and they went out.

Joined by Harley, Ivy and Selina.

Plagg came along because I want Plagg to meet Selina.

It was a chaotic night and it was a miracle that Bruce didn’t find out about what the girls did.

-------

Batman and Red Hood were on patrol together when Selina jumped in front of them.

“Hello, Boys”

“What do you want, Catwoman?”

“I want to meet my new prodigy, Kitty Noire.”

Cue Marinette jumping down from her hiding spot, transformed with the Black Cat Miraculous. “Hiya.”

Red Hood carries her like a potato sack and points his gun at the other two.

“Nope, she’s my sister and I called dibs. I adopted her. She’s off limits.”

“Legally, she’s mine.” Batman coughed out.

“I did it first. Emotionally. She’s my emotional support sister. You have plenty kids already, B and Selina, get your own.”

“Hey, I am still here and can hear you.”- Maria

-------

Alya was worried for Lila. She had been acting weirdly for the past month.

She looked very out of sorts. Her clothes weren’t in order and her hair was in disarray. She had bags under her eyes and her eyes looked wild. Lila didn’t look like herself at all.

She jumped at any sound and flinched at really sudden movements.

Alya tried to find out what was wrong with Lila and received vague answers.

One time Lila said that Marinette is to blame.

Alya reaches the somewhat right conclusion that Marinette was haunting Lila and hurting her because Lila used to come to school with bruises and claims that Marinette did it.

Alya goes to Marinette’s grave to desecrate it. (Yeah, go anger the ghost that is haunting someone.)

Unfortunately, the moment she tries to do something, the sky turns dark, clouds appear and the wind begins whipping. A Lightning strike near her and there was a cloaked figure beside her with a scythe.

All Alya saw from the figure was the blood-red lips in a very sharp grin and glowing blue eyes, raising the scythe high before she ran away. The scythe swiped the air where her head once was.

Alya didn’t get far before she tripped and blacked out.

When she woke up, she found herself in the hospital with no idea how she got there.

She was told that somebody found her with a concussion in the park and took her to the hospital.

------

The next one on Mari’s hit list was Natalie.

She wasn’t as involved in the whole thing like Lila, Adrien or Gabriel but she still did it anyways.

Her punishment is a little mild compared to the others and was more of a warning to Gabriel.

Natalie woke up in the middle of the night to see a not-so-dead Ladybug sitting on her vanity chair with the moonlight from the windows illuminating her body and her neck. Her suit was torn exactly like the day of that battle with blood dripping down her arms and from her open wounds. The shadows kept her face hidden but glowing blue eyes stared at her.

Natalie was scared at first. But she regained her normal cool composure.

“I assume you are here to extract your revenge for aiding in your unfortunate demise. But before you kill me, I regret my part in my entire thing and I apologize for everything I have done against you even though I knew it was wrong.”

“At least you show remorse over what you have done. Visiting my grave when even my parents didn’t and leaving flowers. I love those purple hyacinths by the way. Did you know that they mean sorry in the language of the flowers?”

“Why are you stalling my death? Just kill me already.”

“Madam Sancouer. You just played a minor role in my downfall compared to what Adrien and Lila Rossi did to me. And you showed more guilt over your actions than they ever did and Adrien claimed to have loved me. And like I have told the Bats, Death is too swift of a punishment.”

“Who are the bats?”

“None of your concern. You should be more concerned about yourself.”

“Lila sees the ghosts of her past and they haunt her. Adrien is in a living nightmare and has no control over his actions and is despised by everyone. What are you going to do to me?”

“Well, since you show some guilt over your actions, let me tell you a little secret. I am not dead. Not really. I mean I did die. But there was a spell in the grimoire that revived me. It took a few days to work.”

Marinette changed to her normal form. It was a little jarring to see an older Marinette Dupain-Cheng sitting on her vanity chair like it was a throne. The Ladybug suit and the wounds were gone. She looked a little familiar.

“Why are you telling me this? What was the point?” Natalie faltered as she wondered why the girl looked familiar. Marinette moved closer and her face was fully illuminated by the moonlight.

“I intend to take everything by which I mean everything from Gabriel Agreste for what he did.”

“M. Agreste just wanted his wife back. You just gave him your Miraculous, you would still have everything.”

“What difference would it make? Sure I had friends and family before but they turned out to be disappointing. I might have become a famous designer like I dreamed of and can't achieve because I died. Besides, he never said about wanting his wife to come back in his tedious monologues. For all we knew back then, he wanted them for world domination. He showed that he would end the world for them. For kwamis’ sake, he nearly started World War III, just for a pair of earring and a ring. He was willing to kill me to have her back. No wait, he did that too. If he actually read the translated grimoire or asked the Guardian or at least someone with magic for help instead or maybe used his head and made some who can heal as his champion using the Butterfly, we wouldn’t even be in this mess. Face it, Mme Sancour, your boss is a power-hungry and very controlling maniac who is also thankfully an idiot.”

“But- he- he just-. You are just a child, what do you know? M. Agreste knew what he was doing.”

“A child who had a normal life up until he tried to ruin it with his idiotic schemes and hiring Lila to do it. A child who had to fight a war on her own.”

“I am sorry you had to go through that but I doubt you and your little revenge rampage is going to solve anything.”

Ghostly Chains wrapped around Natalie’s body, squeezing tight like it was squeezing the life out of her.

“I was all for sparing you, you know. If you had actually listened to my side of the story, you would have spared from my ‘little revenge rampage’. This is going to be a little painful. Sorry about that.” In a tone that was definitely not sorry.

Pain coursed through Natalie’s body. Her skin crawled and itched as pitch back feathers grew out of it. Her bones turned to dust and reformed.

Where Natalie Sancour once was, there was a raven.

An omen of death and destruction for one Gabriel Agreste.

Marinette leaned down towards the raven. Natalie tried to peck her eye out but Marinette held the beak in a firm grip.

“Ah. ah ah. Luckily for you this is temporary. Mostly. Every night, you will assume this shape and each night the longer you will stay in this form. Slowly counting down the days until Gabriel’s downfall. Since you love helping him so much, you are going to help him know how long he has to live. The night you are a raven from sunset to sunrise, that sunrise starts the day Gabriel Agreste will be utterly destroyed.”

She released the beak and headed towards the window.

"Send him my regards."

With that, she was gone.

(Part 6)

[ageeksnerdyworld]

Dead Boy Walking

Characters: Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne & Alfred Pennyworth

Word Count: 3,756

Trigger Warning: Death Mention, Resurrection, Ghost, Haunting, Séance, Slight Swearing

A/N: Parts-- X Sort of another AU going here, I guess. I don’t know really know what this is right now. I had this idea one day and I liked it a lot so I decided to write this little fic. It’s not as good as I’d like it to be as I focused too heavily on one specific aspect, but, whatever. Might do more and might not... We’ll just have to see what happens.

Summary: Instead of being fully resurrected after his death Jason Todd unwillingly comes back as a ghost. After rising from his grave he’s confused and unsure of what’s going on. He wanders Gotham until he realizes what’s going on. And then he makes his way back to Wayne Manor to seek some help.

XXXX

He does not want to do it but something is forcing his hands and feet to move. And so he scratches and pushes at the lid of the ebony coffin. This invisible force is desperately trying to get him to escape before he suffocates. He can’t breathe and his lungs hurt from trying so hard. Pain shoots through his palms and it allows him to take back control of his body. Turning on his side he tries to give in to the cold and the dark, but, the indiscernible force pushes against the lid with everything it has left. That final bit of strength is enough to get lid off and an avalanche of cold dirt falls on top of him; filling his mouth and lungs with dirt and simultaneously mocks his effort to resist.

But his heart and brain do not want to leave.

And yet he continues to struggle against this force; against himself. Pushing through the dirt he starts to climb out, but, he tries his best to fight whatever is dragging him out of the black. All he wants to do is lay back down inside, close his eyes, and return to the engulfing darkness. But his hands and feet continue to ignore his mind’s pleas as they push more and more dirt out of the way.

His hands shoot up out of the dirt and he feels something on his palms.

The name of it escapes him. He knows what the thing is that he feels on his skin but he cannot remember the name. And just as quickly as he felt it; the sensation leaves him with an empty nothingness.

Fully pulling himself out of the dirt he stands up. He starts to look around; trying to figure out where he is. Everything looks dingy, gray, and is completely void of color. It’s like the entire world is covered in a dense fog. All he can see are shapes and sizes of things but nothing is clear enough to see details. He can make out the shapes of the headstones and grave markers as well as the cemetery gate off in the distance. Confused and scared he turns around to see what he crawled out of.

A large round tombstone stands before him bearing his name, birth and death year.

But I’m alive?

He shakes his head in confusion and makes his way out of the cemetery.

And he just continues walking; alone, afraid and at a complete loss. Feet nosily shuffling from lack of use; as walks down the street he notices that no one is looking at him. They should be staring wide eyed at the horror before them. Running for their lives from the zombie that walks amongst them. They should be screaming at the top of their lungs, and calling the police, at least. These people should be doing something. Anything, anything at all, would be better than acting like he doesn’t exist.

But not a single passerby pays him any attention.

“Nobody sees anything wrong with this fucking picture?” he yells gesturing to his torn, ragged, dirt-covered suit and the rotting flesh that makes up his corpse. “I just crawled outta my own goddamn grave, people!”

No one turns to look or even bats an eye when he yells. Bewildered and worried he stands in the middle of the sidewalk; eyes darting about pleading for someone to notice him. Then his eyes land on a lone elderly man waiting at a bus stop. The man seems friendly and nice so he rushes over to ask the man for help. He sits down next to the man but he doesn’t seem to notice. So he pokes the man in the shoulder but the man just shakes him off as if he’s a pesky fly.

He gets up and leaves the bus stop; assuming that the man was just either too rude, or too focused on himself, to pay him any attention. Continuing to walk down the sidewalk he tries once more to get the attention of passersby. Turning a corner he almost collides with a woman pushing her toddler in a stroller.

“Sorry. Excu...”

He doesn’t have time to fully apologize, and move out of the way, before the woman and her baby walk right through him.

The woman shivers slightly and the baby starts to cry. Mouth hanging open in shock he turns around and watches the woman console her child before continuing to walk down the street. Even more confused than before he moves out of the way of walking traffic before it can happen again. Leaning against a storefront window he watches the oblivious passersby.

Then it hits him. He hasn’t been brought back to life like he first thought. But he’s not dead either. And he isn’t a zombie for a number of reasons. The sudden realization brings to mind a passage from Hamlet.

What may this mean,

That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel

Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous and we fools of nature,

So horridly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

Say why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?

He decides in that moment what he needs to do. Turning on his heels he begins to walk down the street.

XXXXX

Now sure of what to do he makes his way to Wayne Manor. If anyone would know what happened to him, and how to fix what was happening now, it would be Bruce. And if B wasn’t there then he could at least talk to Alfred or Dick. Surely, one of them would be at the Manor, they would know something.

Opening the large front door he walks into the Manor.

“Hello? Anybody home?”

No one responds.

Walking through the Manor he sets off on a self-appointed mission to find the others. As he walks he notices that his feet don’t make a single sound as they hit the floor. Shrugging it off he chalks it up to forced habit learned from the life he had before B took him in. A life that was first ruled by an abusive two-bit criminal father and then was ruled by the hard, cold mean streets of Gotham’s underbelly.

The sound of singing hits his ear before the sound of running water.

Someone’s in the shower.

He opens the door and walks in; the off-key singing echoing slightly in the bathroom. The lyrics are to some song that he has a very vague memory of. But the voice singing is clearer in his mind and more recognizable than the lyrics. Hopping up onto the counter he sits on a space next to the sink. Writing a quick message on the fogged mirror he smiles to himself. Then he waits.

A couple minutes later Dick Grayson steps out of the shower, wraps a towel around his waist, and begins to dry his hair; all the while still singing.

My loneliness Is killing me and I I must confess I still believe, still believe

Dancing as he rubs the towel over his ink-black hair his back remains turned to the sink. Dick softly makes a comment to himself about the room not being so cold before. But he shrugs it off, reminding himself to ask Alfred about it later, and turns around. Just as Dick hits the high note he turns around and sees the message written on the mirror.

Hi, Dick. Miss me?

Grayson screams and almost faints.

Quickly writing on the fogged mirror again; he begins a new message directly below the first one. Then he hops down from the counter and stands next to Dick. From his viewpoint both messages are completely legible and he can read them just fine. But apparently Dick is having trouble reading them as he tilts his head to the side and his pale blue eyes squint in confusion. After a minute or two he gets it and his mouth drops open in shock.

“Jay?”

Jason instinctively nods but then remembers that Dick can’t see him. So he writes on the mirror once more. And just like before his message comes across jumbled and backward. It takes Dick a couple of minutes to fully get what Jason is saying.

“Well, that explains the cold at least,” Dick says with a chuckle and a smile. “But I don’t get it, kiddo, how are you here?”

He shrugs and begins to write his response. Jason tries his best to say everything that happened but he doesn’t really know himself so it’s hard. So he starts at the beginning; his death. Then he realizes that the mirror was starting to clear up. Jason rapidly scribbles out the last bit of his half-explanation but it’s no use. He sighs sadly as he watches Dick stare at the mirror; completely dumbfounded.

“I don’t get it. What are you trying to say?” Dick asks after a long while.

Jason throws his hands up in anger and the motion makes a slight breeze which in turn makes Dick shiver.

Crossing his arms and leaning against the sink Jason watches Dick pace the bathroom floor. Dick mutters to himself as he thinks about the situation at hand. Jason Todd remembers bits and pieces of the life he had before. Some things are clearer than others. Those aren’t much, but, they’re just enough. And Dick Grayson, the original Boy Wonder, was one of those few spots of clarity. After a few minutes Dick stops pacing, faces the bathroom mirror, assumingly where he thinks Jason sits, and says “I’ve got it!”

“We need to hold a séance.”

XXXXX

Dick tried his best to convince the others that Jason was somewhat alive. The two agreed that Jason wouldn’t do anything until Dick convinced the others to do the séance. But none of them would hear what he had to say. Bruce brushed it off as some type of grief-related dream. “People don’t come back after they die, Dick. You and I both know that very well, I think.” In his mind there was no other explanation for what Dick had seen and experienced. It was just his emotions, and his mind, playing tricks on him.

Alfred didn’t believe him either. He too chalked it up to fantasy and grief.

Then Jason accidently made his presence known to the both of them.

Bruce was sitting in the Manor library reading over the discussion topics for an upcoming Wayne Enterprises board meeting. He had been in there less than fifteen minutes before Jason walked in. The temperature dropped, as Jason walked past him, but Bruce barely took notice of the change. Jason walked over to the bookshelf and began running his fingers along the spines. Then his eyes land on his favorite one and he plucks it from the shelf.

Bruce just so happens to look up at the exact same moment and sees the book floating in mid-air.

Jason locks eyes with Bruce and stands perfectly; anxious about his adoptive father’s reaction. But then he remembers that Bruce can’t see him. Meaning that the man thinks he’s only staring wide-eyed, mouth agape, at a floating book. Hehas no idea that he’s actually staring at the ghost of his son. So Jason tucks the book under his arm and walks to the middle of the room. Lying down on the carpet, on his stomach, he lays the book in front of him and begins to read.

Bruce stares at the pages turn, seemingly by themselves, in total shock and awe.

He said nothing to no one and kept the incident to himself. Bruce tried time and again to convince himself that it was his grief playing tricks on his mind. Or that it was the lack of sleep in recent weeks due to an influx of criminal activity. One thing was for certain to him at least; Jason was not back from the dead.

Then the second Boy Wonder paid Alfred a visit.

Alfred was alone in the kitchen on afternoon; preparing the night’s dinner. Roast rack of lamb with pine nut stuffing and Jasmine rice. Jason was watching Alfred gracefully move from the counter to the oven; roasting pan in hand. Then the boy, forgetting the state that he was in, got up to help the aging butler. Rushing over to the sink Jason accidentally turns the water on full blast and makes Alfred drop the pan onto the floor. The loud crash startles Jason and he disappears from the sink; leaving the water running to overflow the sink.

All Alfred saw was the sink turning on by itself.

The unwanted, and purely accidental, haunting went on for about a week and a half before either Bruce or Alfred said anything about it. By that time such inexplicable things were happening that neither man could keep it a secret any longer; so they each told the other one. Both agreeing, that Jason was indeed somewhat back from the dead, they decided to take Dick up on his offer to perform a séance.

XXXXX

“I’ve done a ton of research,” Dick says. “And I know exactly what we need to do.”

Taking the day off from their respective day jobs the three men sat in the Manor kitchen; eating breakfast and discussing the séance. Dick had seemingly done his research and comprised a well thought out list from a variety of sources on the subject. He explains that he even went to the bookstore and picked out a few books that he thought could help. One was called The Book of Séance: How to Reach out to the Next World. Another was one focused only on Romani spells, which he thought would be good to use considering his heritage, and the last was all about protection spells.

Bruce nods approvingly and motions for him to continue.

“Okay. So, first we need to only do this with people who believe that the spirit world exists. Or who at least want to contact someone on the other side. They’re called sitters. I think the three of us, and maybe Tim, will do just fine. If you have any skeptics they’ll ruin the positive energy and throw off the séance.”

“The sitters need to prepare questions. That gives the séance structure and makes it easier to contact the spirit you want to talk to. We already know that we want to contact Jason so that will help a lot. Yes or no questions supposedly work better.”

“Oh, uh, also we kind of need a medium,” he adds.

Both Bruce and Alfred give Dick identical confused looks. Neither of them knows where they would find a medium, or how they would even go about finding one. As they discuss they start to second guess the whole idea of holding a séance. Jason, who stood in the corner of the room the entire time, crosses his arms and grumbles to himself. But Dick’s pleading face changes their minds once again.

“Where are we supposed to do this?” Bruce asks.

“I was thinking we could do it right here,” Dick replies. “It has meaning to all three of us and Jason too. It’ll work better than anything else.”

“Okay, anything else?”

“We need a table that we can all sit at; preferably a circular one. But we can all just sit on the floor in a circle if we need to. Also we need to bless the area and light a few candles on it. And we’ll need a Oujia board, or a glass of water, or a pendulum. Something that Jay can use to answer us when we talk to him.”

“I’m confident that we can find most of these things, Master Richard.”

Dick smiles kindly at Alfred. He’s surprised that the two of them had got so on board with the idea. They were so against it from the beginning that the change was rather unexpected. But then again the change of heart came only after they found out Jason was haunting the Manor.

“We can also record it if you want, Bruce. That way we can get some audio or video of things we couldn’t see or hear during the séance.”

“I think that would be a good idea.”

XXXXX

Dick prepares the séance since he was the only one in the group who had some idea of what to do. They couldn’t find a medium that was nearby and who wasn’t a complete money-greedy hack and so they had to perform it without one. But Dick was confident enough that he could do it on his own. He arranges three chairs in a semi-circle around a table and lays a tablecloth on top. Then he places a tape recorder in the middle of the tablecloth. Rushing over to the library’s archway Dick turns the lights off before returning to the table.

“If everyone could please turn their phones off I would like to get the séance started.”

The others oblige without any trouble.

Asking the two to take their seats Dick sits down at the head of the table. After all three men are seated Dick takes out four candles and places them on the four corners of the cloth. Then he lights the candles; illuminating their faces in the small space. When the candles are lit he presses the record button.

“Let us join hands and intertwine our energies.”

They all join hands and bow their heads. Before fully beginning the séance Dick says a prayer of protection; cleansing the area and praying that no evil spirits come into contact with them during the séance. He decides to lead and end the séance with a Romani protection and closing prayer.

Once Dick recites the protection prayer he begins a Latin evocation.

And once he finishes the evocation he calls to Jason in English; “Jason Peter Todd we respectively ask that you honor us with your presence this evening. Please feel welcome in our circle and join us when you are ready.”

Jason stands in the corner, watching the four men, but doesn’t move.

Dick calls out to him again.

Jason walks over and taps on the table; altering the others of his presence in the room. Dick clears his throat and tells Jason that they won’t be able to understand him if he tries to talk. He tells Jason to tap once for yes, twice for no, with short pauses in between, and to use the knock code for anything more than that. Jason quickly taps once.

Silence fell over the room and so Dick decides to ask the first question; “Do you know why you came back?”

Tap. Tap.

“Master Jason? Where will you go when we’re done here?”

Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Pause. Tap. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Pause. Tap. Tap, tap, tap.

IDK.

“Hey, Jay?”

Tap.

”I just want you to know I’m proud of you, buddy.”

Tap. Tap, tap, tap.

K.

XXXXX

Once they finish, and Jason leaves the Manor, Bruce quietly gets up from his chair and leaves the room in total silence. Then Dick performs a cleansing spell just in case any demons or evil spirits decided to follow Jason into the normal world. As Bruce leaves to go be alone, and Alfred goes to get ready for bed, Dick begins to clean up the séance materials. Eyeing the tape recorder he picks it up and tucks it under his arm. After cleaning the table and getting rid of everything he takes the recorder over to Bruce who sits alone in the study.

“Hey, Bruce?” he asks; knocking on the doorframe.

Bruce sits at his cherry oak desk; his dark blue eyes staring off into the distance. He looks up, when Dick knocks, but doesn’t say anything to his eldest son. Longing, sadness, anger and all lurk behind his eyes and inside his heart. Dick lets out a quiet and defeated-sounding sigh; seeing Bruce like this reminds him of when Bruce confronted him months ago about not attending Jason’s funeral even though he had no idea that the boy died. It tears him apart to see Bruce like this and he hopes that the turn of events doesn’t push Brice back down the self-destructive path he took when Jason first passed.

He enters the room and lays the recorder down on the desk in front of Bruce. “I thought, maybe, you’d want to listen to this by yourself.”

Dick quickly reminds Bruce that he’ll be in Gotham for a few more days in case he needed anything then he leaves. Once he’s alone Bruce gets up and closes and locks the door to the study. He walks back over to the desk and stares at the tape recorder. He doesn’t want to listen to it; worried for the things that Jason might say on the tape. Or the things that Jason might not say. Sitting down he picks up the tape recorder, puts in headphones, and presses play.

The entire séance goes by exactly the way it happened an hour or so earlier.

The recording was pretty much silent in most parts; up until the very end when Bruce asked his question. It was something that had been weighing on his mind every since that fateful night when Joker beat the young boy so viciously and then left him for dead in a building rigged with explosives. The séance was the only time he’d get to ask his question. He needed to ask because he would have done anything to change things depending on the boy’s answer. But in the moment he didn’t even care if Jason answered or not; he asked it anyway just to get the heavy weight off his chest.

Do you wish you weren’t dead?

Bruce can hear the slight hiccup of sadness in his voice through the recording. A slight pause fills the recording with a bubble of dead air. Then Jason’s voice comes through clear as day; as if he was speaking directly into the recorder.

As if he was still alive.

It might not be a popular thought -- but not everyone wants to be alive.

A tear rolls down Bruce’s cheek. Staring off at nothing he rewinds and plays it again. He plays it again, and again, and again. Playing it over and over until tears stream down in face in full force. Playing it again and again until his screaming, tear-filled, hiccupped, cries drown out the tape.

Not everyone wants to be alive.

Not everyone wants to be alive.

[menolly5600]

----------------------

Just me adding things and combining threads...

------🦇👻🦇-------

Danny's core naturally takes in ambient ectoplasm, filters and processes it, and emits his own ectoplasmic energy as his ectosignature aura. Even away from the, now closed, portal in Amity he still radiates plenty of ectoplasm into the ambient surroundings.

Gotham has plenty of ambient ectoplasm on its own, but a lot of it's tainted with curses or violent negative emotions because of all the anger and violent deaths. And with so many ghosts in Gotham, the ambient ectoplasm isn't enough to power them up like Realms ghosts. Most ghosts in Gotham are like shades, unable to interact with the living world.

But Danny radiates a lot of strong ectoplasm with mostly positive emotions charging it. It's like giving a malnourished street rat a steady healthy diet. Danny's parents are strong for newborn ghosts, having formed in Amity and usually following Danny around, or in the Realms in the Fenton Lair. They can easily chase off any shades that get too clingy, annoying, or violent trying to leech off Danny. Danny could do it, but they're his parents and they want to protect him and look after him better now that they have a second chance, an afterlife, to do better. Family and inventing are their obsessions. Either dual obsessions, or one each for Maddie and Jack.

But once Danny is fostered and moves into Wayne manor, well... There are already shades haunting the manor and Waynes. Ghosts of various Wayne ancestors, or even beloved servants and staff devoted to looking after the Wayne family and manor. (Is Alfred's father one of them?) This is their home, their lair, so the Fentons won't chase them off. Instead, Maddie and Jack are thrilled to meet the ghost side of Danny's expanded family.

"They're Fentons too! Now that Brucie took in Danno, they're family!"

"Oh, of course we'll help out with keeping those nasty curses away from the family, Martha dear. It's the least we could do for your boy taking care of our baby."

"This place will never be more secure! Just you wait! I can't wait to start building curse-busting defenses!! Mads, we gotta set up a proper ghost shield for emergencies - just gotta re-tune it for curses instead of ghosts!"

And the ghosts of Wayne manor now have more healthy and powerful ectoplasm than they've ever been exposed to before.

All of this to say, it's not just Jack and Maddie that are invisibly fussing over the WayneBats. Martha and Thomas finally get to fuss over their grandchildren and baby boy. They can't do much yet, and aren't nearly strong enough to be fully visible to anyone. But they're getting stronger the longer Danny lives at the manor.

The Wayne ghosts haven't tried to make direct contact with the living family yet. They're not strong enough to interact easily yet. Martha doesn't want to spook Bruce into unreasonable Bat paranoia before they can properly prove they're real. Thomas worries about the family mistaking them as hallucinations, because too many of the Bats already have trauma regarding hallucinating dead family. They're also trying to reassure Danny that he won't be rejected if the Waynes knows about his secret and ghosts. It'll scare Danny if the Waynes have a bad reaction to the ghosts because they think they're hallucinating or being manipulated by someone else.

Meanwhile, the Wayne household staff ghosts are getting strong enough to assist Alfred more with the chores. (They were already doing tiny things like making sure dust didn't accumulate much in unused rooms, or keeping out pests, and making sure most weeds didn't take root. Little things to reduce the workload and time needed for Alfred to clean and maintain the manor and garden.) Alfred is the first to notice a mystery helper. Little chores are being done before he even gets to them. It doesn't seem to be any of his grandbatkids, and it's certainly not Bruce (he knows better than to intrude on Alfred's kitchen). And after watching Danny, he's realized it's not him either. But there's no sign of anyone else living in the manor. But whoever or whatever is doing these things seems to be benevolent and helpful. It's not just the cleaning, but also tucking in his grandkids, giving them snacks and switching out coffee for hot cocoa.

Alfred knows it's starting to make the rest of the family suspicious, except for Danny. And it started when Danny joined the family, so it's likely he has an idea of what's happening. But Danny is still afraid of opening up to the family about some things he keeps close to his chest. Alfred checked the entire manor and grounds for stowaways but found nothing except Damian's latest pets he is hiding from Bruce. And offerings of food left out for the mystery helper were either never touched, or carefully put away to keep instead. This strange haunting doesn't seem like a threat at all, so Alfred will wait and let it play out. Hopefully he won't have to intervene, and Danny will trust and open up to the family about what he knows.

When Martha was strong enough to start tucking people in and moving blankets over them, that's when Bruce started noticing something was strange. At first he thought it was Alfred. But afterwards he didn't get any subtle British scolding or chastising for falling asleep in his office instead of dragging himself up to bed. Then he found himself tucked in again where he fell asleep in his armchair watching a Hallmark movie marathon Dick had insisted on for family movie night with Danny.

It wasn't like most of his kids to tuck him in, and Tim hadn't done so in years. Not since his mental health had improved past that low point in his life when he'd been lost in grief after Jason was murdered.

But Bruce wasn't the only one tucked under blankets this time. Dick and Cass were cuddled under a blanket together on one couch, though it looked like Damian had gone to bed before the movies ended. Duke had slumped over onto Danny on the other sofa, another blanket over them. Jason had left after the first movie. Steph was more likely to draw mustaches than tuck everyone in. And he'd already ruled Tim out as unlikely. Again, no chiding from Alfred either. Was it Tim, then? Should he worry that Tim often forgets to tuck himself in, but felt the need to tuck everyone else in last night?

But it kept happening and sometimes it was Tim tucked in and complaining about his coffee being replaced by hot cocoa. Sometimes it was even hot cocoa with a chunk of fudge melting at the bottom, as Bruce discovered, when his own coffee was replaced, when a case had him awake into the afternoon of the following day. But he hadn't noticed anyone doing so. Curiouser and curiouser.

Soon he started to notice that his kids were also starting to notice and become intrigued by the mystery. But Alfred also wasn't worried about the phenomenon either. If Alfred wasn't worried then Bruce probably should try to push aside his own worry. But he needed to get to the bottom of this mystery.

It coincided with Danny joining the family. Danny didn't seem to be doing anything deliberately, yet he also wasn't alarmed, or questioning, about who was doing this. Danny almost seemed to expect it. He knows something about it. Something he's not willing to share or talk about. Was it some sort of meta power? Some kind of telekinetic projection, or even subconscious magic? Bruce wants Danny to feel safe, to want to stay and accept them as his new family so he can start to heal. But they're all keeping secrets from each other.

Danny's a civilian and Bruce has a faint desperate hope he can keep it that way. He wants at least one child that doesn't insist on throwing himself into danger. He's worried that when Danny finds out about the nightlife, he'll insist on joining. He's even more worried that it will cause problems with Damian if Danny wants to be Robin too. He does not want to do anything that could make that fight happen.

The mystery itches at him. But at least he's been able to confirm nothing malicious has happened. The phenomenon has been downright benevolent, if not even fussy and insistent on providing snacks if the treats are ignored previously. And nothing has been poisoned or drugged either. He tested. His kids are all starting to investigate too. He just has to be patient and someone will figure it out, or coax Danny into admitting what he knows.

He's just... not the most patient when it comes to mysteries.

It's a struggle to not drag in some of Justice League Dark to check for magic and the supernatural. But that would alarm Danny and risk him finding out about their extracurriculars. If it wasn't for the magical protections against malicious spirits on the property, which he'd had Zatanna set up years ago, he might suspect a poltergeist. But it wasn't typical poltergeist behavior, from his research. Even Boston wasn't strong enough of a typical ghost to move such large and complex items.

...He just... has to be patient... and not scare his newest son. Once Danny trusts them, then he'll tell them.

------------------------

@nanaarchy because it took me so long to write my reply that you had written and posted in the meantime, and I want this good shit in one thread.

-----------

thought I should share this 👁👁

even better if the batfam is completely unaware of the ghosts. Except Alfred. And possibly Jason.

[ageeksnerdyworld]

Save It For The Living

Characters: Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson

Word Count: 3,470

Trigger Warning: Ghosts. Haunting. Slight Violence. Slight Swearing. Grief. Ghost Possession.

A/N: Parts--X  Continuing with my Ghost!Jason AU. This kinda takes place in the middle of the first one. I apologize for the first one being so shitty but I think this one’s a bit better. Well... I mean, I tried to make it better. (This was super hard but that’s what I get for trying to write a haunting & ghosty stuff from ghost’s pov.) I also have a third installment in the works so...

Summary: After arriving at Wayne Manor, and talking to Dick, Jason decides to stick around for a while. He plans on leaving after the séance and he hopes he won’t be there long. But as he waits for Bruce’s decision on the séance he accidently starts haunting the Manor.

XXXXX

Jason walks the halls of Wayne Manor late at night; unable to sleep. It isn’t that he won’t fall asleep; he simply can’t. Ever since he came back from the dead he doesn’t need to sleep. In fact all those normal things that humans do he doesn’t need to do them anymore. He spends most of his nights wandering. The noiseless emptiness of the Manor at night reminds him of his grave and it calms his mind.

Except tonight the Manor is not so quiet.

The normal creaks and settling noises fill the old estate but there’s also another noise that’s Jason’s ears pick up on. Entering the library, planning to read, the noise gets louder and Jason can tell that it’s coming from the cave. It sounds like muffled crying, but, he isn’t sure enough; barely used to his ghost powers. He goes to the grandfather clock anyway and opens the secret entrance. Jason expertly slides down the firefighter pole and lands on his feet; experience being a good teacher. Once lands he looks around the darkened area. Bruce sits at the BatComputer leaning back in the chair with his face towards the ceiling.

Bruce’s fists push hard on his eyes and cover his face to muffle his screaming cries.

Jason slowly walks over to Bruce, but, the man doesn’t notice the sharp change in temperature since the Cave is usually very cold. The teenage boy can’t stand to see his father, a man who steeled himself against so many horrors, so broken and distraught. Standing next to Bruce he puts a hand on his father’s shoulder. He can tell that the action brings a slight comfort because Bruce’s body stops shaking.

“Don’t sacrifice the rest of your life missing me.” Jason whispers.

But the message doesn't cross worlds well enough and so Bruce doesn't hear the full thing. It seems like he heard something because he shakes his head in denial. Violently jerking his shoulders, to collect himself, Bruce unknowingly shakes Jason off. Muttering to himself, “It's just your mind playing tricks,” he goes back to work. Jason grits his teeth and angrily stomps away.

He waits a day and then tries again.

XXXXX

He waits until nighttime to try again because the walls between the spirit world and the human world are weaker during the night.

And so the next night Bruce sits alone in the large-scale dining room. At the head of the lengthy, dark cherry oak, table he eats in total silence. The table is quite barren except for the bright white table runner, which lies across the middle, and Wayne’s plate of food. There was once a time when laughter would fill his house, especially at dinner, but that time has passed. Not a single burst of laughter had echoed through the halls since the day Jason died. But what Bruce refused to believe was that Jason was in the room with him; alive but not alive.

“You need to forget about me, old man! I'm dead and rotting in the ground for crying out loud! Just face it, B, there's nothing left!”

Jason stands directly behind the dining room chair that he would normally sit in, the one directly at his father’s side, yelling at Bruce. But the man doesn’t hear him so he goes about eating his dinner in silence. Furious, Jason picks up the chair and throws it. The chair lands almost clear across the room with a loud crash. Bruce stares at the shattered remains of the chair in total shock. Jason, his afterlife strength completely new to him, stares at it as well.

Shit.

I didn’t know I had that in me.

Turning back to his father he says; “You see that? There’s only more where that came from if I stay here longer. More and a hell of a lot worse. You need to let me go, B.” Bruce doesn’t hear him since voices don’t carry well across the spirit world and into the world of the living. The man gets up from his chair and walks over to the shattered remains of the one that sat next to him. He stares at the pieces for a few seconds before kneeling down and picking them up. Carrying the pieces over to the fireplace, in the library, he reaches over the metal grate and tosses them into the fire.

Jason didn’t follow Bruce into the library and so he never saw the scared and worried expression that ran across his father’s face.

XXXXX

Tired of Bruce’s flat-out refusal to acknowledge his presence Jason tries to talk to Alfred the day after the chair incident.

Alfred Pennyworth, the ever-aging and yet ageless batman to The Bat of Gotham, was alone in the BatCave replacing the front shocks on the Batmobile. The car was up on two jack stands that sat under the front end; safely resting on the cement floor. Blocks sat on either end of each of the three wheels to prevent them from moving and thus preventing the car from rolling off the jacks. The butler lay on his back on a creeper, completely underneath the car, and had a toolbox lying open within reach. The new reservoir shocks sat on a cloth, which lay on the concrete, next to the toolbox.

Jason sat on the hood of the car staring at the bit of tire that stuck out from underneath the car.

The sight of the black tire brought back something. It wasn’t a memory per se, as the more time that passed the less he remembered, but it wasn’t something else either. It was more of the feeling, or the ghost, of a memory than an actual one. There was definitely something familiar about the tire but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Alfred was hard at work removing the old shocks. He had already removed the lug nuts to get the tire off but then it was quite a process. One had to remove the bolts from the shock tower, then disconnect the shock from the suspension, and lastly remove the shock from the top and bottom bolts. So Jason waited until the butler either got too hot, or too tired, and rolled out from underneath the car.

Suddenly the sound of a man in pain, and the clank of metal falling on concrete, float up from underneath the car.

“Where is that bloody socket wrench?!”

Just as Alfred’s voice rose from under the car Jason hopped off the hood. It was the perfect opportunity to prove to Alfred that he was still here; since helping in the kitchen proved to be a total fiasco. He stood parallel to the side of the black car and looked around for the missing socket wrench. Seeing the glint of metal he kneels down to get a good look underneath the car. The socket wrench sits nearer to the rear of the car and completely out of Alfred’s reach.

Alfred curses as he accidently hits his head on the bottom of the car.

He mutters angrily under his breath as he fully rolls himself out from under the car. Getting up from the creeper Alfred sighs deeply before getting down on his hands and knees. Looking around for the socket wrench the elderly butler continues to let loose a string of mumbled swear words. He doesn’t look over to see Jason leaning against the corner wall of the Cave; holding the socket wrench with a smile on his face.

“What the bleeding hell is this? It can’t just disappear.” Alfred says as he gets back up from the floor; searching the ground for the missing wrench.

He takes a rag out of his back pocket and angrily wipes the grease off his hands. Continuing to swear like a sailor the butler looks around to see if the wrench somehow flew somewhere further than the immediate vicinity of the car. Shaking his head in confusion he walks over to the toolbox to retrieve another one. Just as he stands straight with a different wrench in his hands his eyes catch a glint of metal and he looks in the direction of the sparkle. The aged man’s faded blue eyes widen in shock.

“Looking for this?” Jason asks with a slight smirk.

Alfred blinks once and then twice. He can’t believe what he stands before his eyes. It can’t be true. The thing that stands there in front of him just can’t be real. But it can and it is because Alfred stares right at the ghost of Jason Todd; second Boy Wonder. He looks just like what one might imagine, or know, a fresh corpse would look. Forever sixteen years old the boy’s face and hands are as pale as the moonlight; his lips a grayish pink. Apple-green eyes, that used to be so bright and full of life, were now grayed over and foggy. And he’s dressed in the boring, life-less, black suit that they buried him in.

The worst part of it is that he looks so real. So real in fact that Alfred crosses over to the spirit; hand outstretched to touch him.

“Master Jason?” he whispers in disbelief.

Jason chuckles lightly, delighted that someone other than Dick can see him and says; “Yeah, Alf. It’s me. I’m still here.”

But Alfred doesn’t hear him. The elderly man stares at him with tears flooding his faded blue eyes; silently pleading. As his hand goes to wrap around the hand holding the wrench Alfred’s hand slips through the wispy, smoke-like, form of the young boy. All the butler feels is the cold metal of the wrench. He blinks hard and grimaces; fighting with himself. But it’s a losing battle and the tears stream down his face.

“I told Master Bruce to make you stay. I told him.”

Jason sits down and wraps his formless arms around Alfred; letting the old man cry, and repeat those three words, until his voice is hoarse and he has no tears left to shed.

XXXXX

Alfred was definitely convinced and so now all he had to do was get Bruce to see the truth. He tried, in the few ways that he could, to get Alfred to convince Bruce but it was no use. There was nothing that he could say, or do, that would encourage Alfred to talk to the man. And besides Batman was so consumed by his grief that he couldn’t see what was right in front of him.

So Jason followed Bruce like a shadow when he arrived home from work.

“You’re fucking with everything, old man! Don’t you get it?” he yelled as he walked in perfect step with Wayne as he walked through the Manor. Walking through the front hall Jason kept pace and talked and yelled. Even though he knew that there was no way that his father would hear him he was desperate to get something, anything, across that he just kept yelling. He wanted, no, he needed Bruce to see what he was doing. He was growing so angry and getting so full of hate; he knew something bad would happen if Bruce didn’t let him go.

“I’m supposed to be dead but your grief brought me back!”

Bruce Wayne climbed the last step and stood on the top landing of the staircase. Breathing deeply he prepared himself for the walk across the hall to the master bedroom at the very end. It always pained him to pass Jason’s old room; which he kept the same since the boy died. But for some reason unknown to him the mental pain had blossomed into a physical ache in recent days.

He didn’t know that the reason for the ache stood directly behind him.

Overcome with emotion Bruce stops at Jason’s door. There’s nothing special about it to signify that it ever belonged to anyone let alone a boy as special as Jason Todd. But it was his room and his room alone. Staring at the white painted wood Bruce puts his hand on the door and pushes it open; he had always left it unlocked in case he ever felt the need to go in. And today, for the first time ever since Jason’s death, he needed to go into the boy’s room. He stops inside the room and swears to himself that he can feel Jason’s presence there.

A fond smile forms on his face as he thinks about the first time he ever met the boy who would become his second Robin; his second son. He was in Crime Alley investigating a case, what the case was about he couldn’t remember anymore, and he had parked the Batmobile in an alleyway. And this malnourished, fearless, ink-black haired teen had the nerve to steal the tires from his car.

“You remember that, Jason?” Bruce says to empty room as he sits on the edge of the bed.

“Remember what?” the ghost of the boy in question asks.

Bruce chuckles to himself, deaf to Jason’s response, “You were so full of determination, intelligence, and love at such a young age. There was always goodness in your heart and I saw it that first night. You never stole or lied to benefit yourself; you did it to benefit others and I thought that I could give you the tools to help others as well as keep yourself safe. But I was wrong.”

Tears began to fall down Bruce’s face as sobs wracked his body. “I was so wrong and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, right! If you were so goddamn sorry then why are you fucking keeping me here?” Jason screams full of anger and hate.

“I loved you like you were my own son. And I did nothing to stop The Joker. I didn’t even try to stop you when you left. I let you thinking that it would teach you some sort of lesson that I don’t even remember now. I let you die. I let you die.”

Jason’s faded eyes go wide at the repeated sentence. He never thought that Bruce blamed himself for his horrific death at The Joker’s hands. Jason himself always thought that the evil, sadistic, disgusting clown was to blame for everything. But hearing Bruce say those words he doesn’t know what to think anymore. On some level, yes, Bruce was to blame. But that didn’t mean that Joker got off scot free, did it?

“I… I love you, son, and I miss you so much.”

He says the words even though Bruce can’t hear him; “I don’t want your love, B. Save it for the living.”

Bruce doesn’t look up from the ground and continues to cry. Fed up with the life-death world barrier Jason turns around to leave; intending to leave for good and do something else with his after-life. But as he turns around Dick Grayson, who arrived at the Manor not five minutes prior looking for Bruce and just walked in the doorway to Jason’s room, walks straight into him. The two bump into one another and Jason passes through Dick’s body like wind through the trees.

At least at first Jason thinks that he passes through Dick.

Then he realizes that he isn’t facing the doorway anymore. He’s back to facing Bruce who stills sits on the edge of the bed; oblivious to the fact that Dick Grayson entered the room. But instead of seeing the grayed-out shape of his adoptive father Jason sees Bruce Wayne in all his color and life. Confused, but also intrigued, Jason lifts his arm and looks at the palm of his hand. But his arm does not move and he does not look at the palm of his hand.

He looks down at Dick’s hand through Dick’s eyes.

Holy shit…

A theory forms in the back of his mind and Jason tests the theory by lifting a leg. Just like before his leg doesn’t move and Dick’s leg does. He turns his foot in a semi-circle on his ankle and Dick’s ankle moves. He chuckles to himself now understanding what happened when he bumped into Dick. Then he realizes what all of this means and he takes a deep breath. When he opens his mouth to speak so does Dick Grayson and the first Boy Wonder’s mouth and voice say the words he’s been dying to get through to Bruce ever since he came back to the Manor.

“Hey, old man.”

“Ja…” Bruce says as he looks up with a small spark of hope in his dark blue eyes. But the hope leaves quickly as his eyes meet Dick Grayson’s face. His eyes aren’t their normal light sky-like blue, but, are instead an odd semi-gray bluish color. But the oddity of that is lost on Bruce Wayne who is still somewhat stuck in his sadness.

“Oh… Dick. Did you just get here? Is there something you needed?”

Dick shakes his head with a slight smile. But the smile isn’t Dick at all, bright and full of life but just a tad snarky, the smile is all Jason Todd. And so are the words that flow out from Dick’s mouth.

“It’s me. And I’ve been here for a quite awhile, B.”

“Jason? But… You’re…”

“Shut it, old man,” Dick snaps suddenly; full of anger and hate. But his eyes are remorseful and the apology he utters is heartfelt.

Keep it together. Say what you have to say then leave.

“You loved me and I get that, but, I’m dead.”

Bruce tries to interrupt but Jason doesn’t give him any room to get a word in. “You need to move on. I’m trying, but, your grief and your undying love is keeping me here. I know it is; it has to be. I know Dick asked you to do a séance; do it. It might you. We could talk better if you do. But get this straight, old man. I don’t need your love, anymore. Save that for Alfred, Dick, Barbara and everybody else. Save that for Gotham for all I care.”

“Save it for the living; they need it.”

With that Jason turns around and pushes through Dick with all his might; breaking off the connection. He looks back to see Dick return to himself and then he exits his old room; leaving the two men to talk. He walks through the Manor to the rear bay windows and walks through the glass and out into the sunlight. Even though he can’t feel it on his skin anymore standing there on the Manor’s back lawn he feels a small semblance of calm and happiness.

“Jason, I just want to know…”

Dick Grayson straightens himself and looks down at Bruce with a confused look. The color had returned to his light sky-blue eyes the moment Jason left his body. The confusion fades from his face and is replaced with a sad half-smile. Bruce wipes the dried tears from his eyes and forcing newer ones to stay behind his eyes. He gets up from the bed and stands tall and straight; his face a mask of cold composure.

“What are you doing in here, Bruce?” Dick asks with genuine concern.

“Nothing. I was… it was nothing, Dick,” he answers sternly.

Dick shrugs and the two quickly leave the room. But before Bruce closes the door he rushes back inside and fixes the portion of the bed that wrinkled when he sat on it. Then he leaves again and shuts the door behind him. Wanting to keep up the charade of skepticism for just a while longer Bruce doesn’t say anything to Dick about seeing Jason’s ghost. He walks down the hallway and almost runs down the staircase rushing to find Alfred.

Bruce makes it to Alfred before Dick enters the living room.

Alfred stood at the bookshelf; straightening some of the shelves. Unbeknownst to both Alfred, and Bruce, Jason sat in one of the library’s large black leather armchairs. He sat with his legs tucked underneath him and a stack of books on the floor within reach. Bruce approaches the butler and doesn’t even pretend to have some other motive to speak with him. Bruce quickly asks him if he saw or heard anything that might’ve changed his mind about Jason. The man’s voice is obviously strained and ragged from crying. The sound of it slightly startles Alfred but looking at Bruce’s red-rimmed eyes, and the tear tracks on his cheeks, he decides to tell the other man the truth. Upon hearing the elderly butler’s confession on seeing the boy’s ghost Bruce confesses to Alfred as well.

“What are we supposed to do now, Alfred?” Bruce asks; pleading for guidance.

“The only thing we can, sir. We take Master Grayson up on his offer for a séance.”