Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Today. Today is the first night I’ll go out. Batman is gone, so it’s just Robin. Robin, who’s joy and light and protection, he’s the boy wonder. His hair is black and his eyes an icy blue, the way he  moves around the rooftops. He’s the best, and I trained for weeks. I’ll help him, and he’ll fall in love, and we’ll be together. 

Mary looked at her homemade costume; it was perfect. A gender a colour flipped version of Robins, She wore the same yellow cape, but her elbow-length gloves, as well as the puffed sleeves of her dress, and her calf height boots that had a short heel on them were red, the body of the dress itself green. She had even made her own gadget, the crime compact. The lid was a candid camera; the mirror doubled as a magnifying glass; the powderpuff was hollow to hold first aid supplies; and under it hid her smoke and explosion capsules, as well as a skeleton key, compass, and crystal radio. It was perfect. Her plan was perfect: she’d join him, earn his respect working with him, help him, and they would fall in love and be together forever. Eventually they’d tell each other their identities, and they’d be together forever; he wouldn’t care she was Mary Wills under the mask. 

Once the Bat-Signal lit up, she ran to meet him. 

When she got home, well it hadn’t been the night she wanted, Robin hadn’t wanted her there, but well it was dangerous, he didn’t know her abilities, how hard she’d worked, how smart she was he only knew she appeared and wanted in. He was trying to protect her. She made him see her as useful. Though she snuck into the Batmobile, she acted as a waitress and found information. It was gonna be slower than she had thought, but she understood she knew Robin inside and out from watching the Boy Wonder; he had no idea who she was.  

It took a few months, nearly a year and several missions until they truly worked together. She never joined up when Batman was in town, so she joined sporadically, but she’d learnt some things, and she had realized Robin was a boy. She was a girl who had school, and homework, and a life outside the mask, so Robin had to have that too.  

She’d also started spending more time with Bruce Wayne’s ward at school. Some may call him his son, but they were only a handful of years apart; the two acted more like her cousins did with their siblings. Dick was a nice kid, and athletic, even if he was hard to understand because he spoke weird, but he was rich too, there’d be no worries about family or money, or upbringing with dick, her parents would be concerned about his background since he wasn’t an American. But Mr. Wayne was teaching him how to speak and behave properly, and she’d continue to train him as well if they got together.  

Yes, she had grown a crush on her classmate, and he would be far better for her than Robin but her love of Robin hadn’t budged, it was exactly as strong as before if not stronger; he was powerful, strong, smart, and he always knew what to do and what to say, and he let her help him, she loved Robin still, now she wondered though could Robin and Roberta be together the Wonder Duo, and Mary and Dick Wayne? Of course Dick would need to get rid of his silly last name that had no connections, no prestige, no recognition to it and become a Wayne or a Wills, but his parents were dead, no name nothing, circus freaks her mom had said, the name Grayson was useless, he’d change it easily. 

They had had a big fight. Batman was gone, but still some baddies came out of the woodwork, and between the goons and the fight, they handed off the goons to Officer Gordon and then had retreated a few rooftops.

It had been nearly half an hour since they were fighting back to back, together, in sync perfectly as a dozen goons came at them, dodging fists, knives, and bullets. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, her lungs greedily gulping in air like they wanted to break out of her ribs. Looking at Robin, she saw the same high, the same light in his eyes, waiting for the next hit, the next fight, the adrenaline still pumping in his system as well.  

She surged forward to kiss him. After their lips met, it took a second until he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her too. It was sloppy and new, the first time either of them had done such a thing.

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They were fifteen after all. At least she was sure he was fifteen as well. In a flurry, she had reached Robin’s top and started undoing the buttons on his shirt as she pushed her hips into him, feeling his want press against her. She wanted it too. It could have been seconds or hours before they leaned away from the kiss and he lifted her up and pressed her against the wall of the rooftop staircase, she pushed back to him and slid his hand right to the hem of the leg of her shorts. 

She felt him groan at the feeling of the heat of her skin he looked at her as he moved his hands pressing her to the wall with his body as he hands slid into her shorts, slid from the back to the front touching her letting her feel the rough material of his gloves rub her sensitive skin between her thighs, 

“This okay?” he asked, his voice rough like he was being strangled. 

“Yes, more, please” she urged him 

He went back to kissing her, and she greedily pulled him closer for more; his hands continued to move. After he got so close to her core, she reached for his own and felt him shake as her fingers brushed his hard, hot flesh. She pulled back and pushed his own shorts down. 

“R..Roberta.. What? What are you doing?” he stuttered.

“Please Robin, I know you want it too, we both do, if we’re careful no one will ever know, my reputation and prospects will be fine.” She assured him. 

She grabbed one condom from her Compact that the street workers they’d walked by had given them, because she wanted to leave faster. She was happy now they had. After this, Robin would be hers; she had him. He would never leave her, he’d need to tell her who he was he’d fall in love with her, she’d seen it at galas, and in society all the time, you only owned a man when he sought you for relief, and you had to make sure he always sought you, Robin had nowhere else to go now. She hadn’t planned this, but it was fate. She tore the condom and slipped it over him as she lifted herself, encouraging him to remove her own shorts and panties. 

    “Dear Gods,” he groaned as her hand wrapped around him and guided him to her core. As soon as she let go, he looked at her. “You’re sure? You wanna do this Roberta?” he asked her again, his tip pressed to her, teasing, touching but not inside her. Like the coil of fire in her belly, the ache in her center demanded him to be. 

   “Yes. Yes. I want it, wanted it for longer then I’ve been Roberta, just figured we’d be married not on a roof back then.”  She told him eagerly.

   “Gods” he sighed and pushed into her. It was heavenly, it was hell, the feeling of being filled then being too full, of him moving in and out, rocking their bodies, she wanted more, wanted less, it was too much and everything, and not enough all at the same time. 

  “Robin!” she cried as she felt herself clench around him.

His breathing and body stuttered, and she felt that the tightly coiled heat in her center had been held back by a dam, and now that it had broken, it was flooding her, spreading through her. They sagged against the wall together. When they pulled apart, the condom had slid off a bit as he pulled out of her. She saw his eyes were still slightly dazed, so she decided to just pull it off and throw it over the edge of the wall into the dumpster in the alleyway. He’d appreciate her cleaning him up, right? Then she pulled her shorts up, and when she returned, he seemed to come back to himself more. She smiled and kissed him again. The aching need, the heat, the rush were all gone, though the wetness hadn’t left, and she was becoming uncomfortable. They separated and went to their homes. They’d meet the following day.  

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They never did it again, it had been nearly a month; she wanted to do it again, but she knew he belonged to her now, so she wanted to make him crazy, make him desperate, then she’d tell him her identity, and he’d tell her his. Then they would do it again. She’d been cozying up to Dick more than well, though he seemed to pull away from her, not leaning on her more. She didn’t know why. But tonight was about Robin.

When it was slow, she took off her mask and told him who she was. He went still. Then a scream and back to the fight, at the end of the night there was no time, they just went home. Things were tense. He didn’t get so close to her, didn’t talk to her so much. But he didn’t seem angry; he seemed confused and worried, so she let it be. It reminded her that Dick barely interacted with her at school now. Then they were on a mission.

Walking around a mall two months after that one time, she was about to break whether or not he told her, even through all the times her mom and the other women had told her that her pretty face would open doors, but then she’d need to make sure she found the perfect man to open her legs so he opened his wallet. That she never did it enough for him to think he didn’t need to do something to get it, but often enough he didn’t decide she wasn’t worth the money or the work. An attendant sprayed perfume while she wasn’t paying attention and made her turn. 

   “Oh, I’m sure you’ll love this fragrance” the woman said 

Robin stood by smiling, so she nodded and leaned forward as the attendant sprayed the perfume on her. Sure enough, it was a wonderful perfume. She told her she did indeed like it and thank you. The two continued on their mission. It took only a few more minutes to find the bad guys and get them rounded up. Officer Gordon was called. She didn’t expect the news crew, though. 

Suddenly, there was an entire crew looking at them, and Robin zipped away, leaving her. But then she turned to leave as well; her mask fell off. She ran. Robin was angry. Her unmasking occurred on TV, not just in front of criminals. She’d never be safe. She knew criminals would hunt her as a civilian, so she could not risk coming back and making more enemies. She had been off lately already. She couldn’t risk him, the mission, the city any longer, and he wouldn’t let her. She went home crying and told her mom everything, and by Monday they were leaving Gotham. Police Commissioner Truman paid off to let her go, and that was all. 

They went to a discreet doctor because her mother had noticed she had missed her period and she hadn’t been working out as much, so she no longer had that excuse. She was pregnant. But how they had been safe, it had only been once! Her mother made plans. They would go on a trip in a month or two when she showed. They would tell her father it was a getaway to relax as Mary had been under the weather. Stay out there for a while. She’d finish her pregnancy, give birth, give up the baby the moment it was born. Her father would be extremely busy in the summer, so he wouldn’t visit. When he took his break in late summer around August when things slowed down for his company he’d see her looking ill, but better than the constant wooziness and fatigue she had had and she would have some time to recover before they came back in time for the next school year. Everyone would pretend to be so worried about her sickness, praise her for being strong and getting over it, but no one would want to actually pry. Never would it be spoken of again. 

When the baby was born, they made her give him a name and fill out the paperwork. Her mother was away; her father had fallen and been hurt, but he hadn’t wanted to come; he wanted her mother with him though, so she had to go back. Mary hadn’t known what to do, so she improvised, just like when she was Roberta.        

There had been moments when she’d been surprised where Dick and Robin said the same thing, where their voices or their movements were similar, but Robin was trained in combat, and a vigilante caring for all the people of Gotham even if they didn’t deserve it. Dick had been raised in a filthy circus by immigrants. He’d caught Mr. Wayne’s eye. Dick clearly had been born better than them as Mr. Wayne decided he was worth pulling out of that rot, but he was no Robin. She didn’t want to risk giving the child a name that would lead back to Dick and Mr. Wayne finding out and making a mess of her family but she couldn’t just boldly say Gotham’s Robin was the father so she blended them, Mr. Wayne knew Batman she was sure, and made her middle name Roberta, in case the kid ever found Robin or Robin found them Robin would know.  

Mother: Mary Roberta Wills

Father: Robin Wayne Richardson

Child: Jordan Grey Richardson 

DOB: July 20th, 1990

Impulsively, as they took the baby, she left a note with him that a safe box would be held under their name when he was old enough. It would hold all the answers she had until they turned 25. When the hospital let her go home, she went to the small local bank and bought a safe deposit box, paid for it all in one go it was nearly nothing of a sum seeing as this was a small local bank not a big chain, and left a letter explaining everything, and a piece of scrap she had embroidered. It was a bit of a mess with the 5 different kinds of robins, 4 bats, a purple flower, a magnifying glass, a search light and a couple different variations of the batman and Robin symbols, but she had made it while she was pregnant she didn’t want it so she would give it to the child. A few days later, Mary Roberta Wills left the small town for her junior year of high school and never looked back.

Chapter Text

Danny was sure he’d had the most eventful high school years ever as he sat on his floor sobbing into Sam’s shoulder, and Jazzy’s ear as she cried on the other side of the phone.

It had all started right after his 14th birthday, just before freshman year. His parents had been working on the stupid portal since before he was born. Before he was fostered, he mentally corrected himself. He’d been upset and angry at the portal being all they had thought about. Normally he got a head pat and a happy birthday at least, but not this year. They had been obsessed with the portal more than usual in the last few weeks. He hadn’t even been told about something new in the lab that needed cleaning. So when two days after his birthday they dragged him and Jazz down to the basement to watch it turn on -forget that his chores included cleaning the lab so he was down there every day cleaning up after them or looking and tinkering with their gadgets- and it didn’t work. Just flashed and did nothing. They left the house after, heads hung, not even acknowledging Jazz. Even on the worst days, even when they acted like he didn’t exist, they still touched Jazz's shoulder or patted her head.

 It was days and things like this that made him feel like he wasn’t even a kid to them, like he and Jazz were their pets or something. Jazz said it was okay to think that, though their parents weren’t good at showing their love, they did love them. To remember the camping trips, and how they always bought him any space thing he wanted, all the camps he had gone to? They loved them; they did. Often it sounded like Jazz was assuring herself of the fact as much as she was him. He’d said it once when he was about seven.

“But people can love there pets too, but it’s not like kids.”

He hoped she’d object, say something, anything to show how they were treated and loved as kids. The seconds of silence felt like hours and hurt worse than any punch in the gut or push to the ground from Dash. Danny only knew Tucker's parents, and they treated Tucker so differently from how their parents treated him and Jazz. Jazz stayed silent, though. Just pressed her lips together, jaw clenched and hugged him tight but softly. He could feel her breath catching and her chest tremble just like his was as she held him. He wondered if her eyes stung as well, even when the tears finally fell down his cheeks.

They both crawled into her bed that night. He curled up against her face pressed into her neck, one arm under her head and another on her, as she had one under his and over him, her head on top of his. It softened the hard, empty spot in his chest that always ached to hold her, and to be held by her this way. Surrounded by her fluffy blankets, Bearbert watched over them in her enormous bed. Pressed so close, he heard the quick puffs of air made by her silent cries, felt her body tremble and shake in his arms as her tears wet his hair. Once she stopped shaking and her breathing went back to normal, he pulled her closer, held her tighter, as if, if he held her just the right way, maybe he could hold her together till they found the right glue to fix them. Just like he feels when she holds him, she holds all his jagged, painful pieces together.

After that night, even if they both knew it, even if they heard it in their own words, even if the cuddles, and the silent crying, and his desperate pleas to please be able to hold her together how she held him together never stopped, just didn’t happen so often as they got older. It was never said aloud again. He could never get rid of the thought, the doubt though. They lived in the house, when they were little food was left, now it was mostly money, they got patted on the head a few times a week even if they were distracted; if their parents thought about them they got hugged way too hard until it hurt, they got sent to babysitters or went on trips; they got sent to camps. Maybe you didn’t leave a dog money to go to the store on its own. But was it that different from a bowl or bag of kibble being left out?

 So when he complained to his friends, and they wanted to see it, he let them, and the idea crossed his mind. He’d fixed all kinds of his parents’ stuff before; maybe he could fix the portal. If he fixed it, they’d see him, they’d be so happy, they’d remember what day it was and that they forgot his birthday. He was gonna fix it. Maybe fixing the portal could fix their family. So when Sam wanted a picture, he’d put on the homemade hazmat suit, and agreed. He posed for a few pictures until he turned around to look and tripped over the wires and tools discarded all over the ground. 

He’d barely had time to notice how his hand flung out to catch himself, touched something, felt the button press down as the searing pain overtook his body and whited his vision out. How he felt everything go white and then fade, and then back to the pain, the searing burning pain and the smell, the weird smell, like ecto-sausages cooking. Why were ecto-sausages cooking? It felt the longer he was there screaming every time the pain came back, the longer it took to go away. The smell got stronger as the pain receded and came back; everything was green, nothing else. Just green and pain as he screamed and smelt the burning meat trying to think of anything else.

He wondered if he died maybe Mom and Dad could love Jazz more; all the love they had for him could go to her; it wouldn’t be split anymore. But what if it didn’t? If he died, who would hold Jazz together while she looked for glue, or made their own? Who would climb into bed with her and hold her together while she broke apart? Then he remembered Sam and Tucker were there.

Tucker had been his friend since kindergarten, Sam since second grade. No, he needed to help Jazz; he needed Jazz to hold him; they needed each other even if there were now weeks or months between times they cuddled like they did as kids. He couldn’t die like this. Had he already died? He just wanted someone to help; he wanted to help jazz; he wanted to help his parents so they would love him, even if they never loved him. Maybe they could love Jazz.  

Then it was over, nothing. He opened his eyes and rushed to the sink to be sick, still smelling the meat, and it floated into his head, that documentary, people describing what it was like living in the concentration camps during the Shoah, the air heavy smelling like a mixture of beef and pork even though there was only one kind of flesh cooking in the pits. He had been smelling himself. It was him cooking from the Electricity, not ecto-sausages. Then, when he looked up. His hair was white; his eyes were green. What had happened? Then, suddenly, he was back.

He ran and hugged Sam and Tucker, and as he looked normal now, they decided to forget. A moment later, his parents came rushing in. 

   “The portal is working!” They ran to the portal, not the kids on the floor crying.

 Jazz ran to him, and when Sam told her the portal zapped him, she drove him to the hospital. They did test after test. He spent weeks there. His heart was damaged, slower than it should be, his nerves were messed up; it was likely he’d have issues after what all it could be they couldn’t say, but he had to come back if something happened. Mom and Dad never came. 

Then he got powers. A few weeks into the school year, there was a ghost attack, lunch lady, and he became Danny Phantom. Ghost fights to protect the people of Amity, his godfather being a villain, getting cloned, falling in love with her, the most precious thing to exist to him, right there if not slightly above Jazz, his baby girl. The Justice League turning them away, the fight with the ghost king, the GIW and Anti-Ecto-Acts. Missions in the realms from clockwork, learning he would be crowned king of the infinite one day, that he wasn’t just half ghost half human, he was a bridge, an ancient. One day, he had been torn apart and put together again reborn in the core of the infinite realms, but the opening of the portal and the flood of his own ectoplasm from his strife and pain and emotion as he had died over and over inside of it. He was more. He wasn’t half ghost, half human; he was the core now.

Now, he’d hidden for years from the ghost hunters, from his parents, and after the meta-rights act abolished the Anti-ecto acts more because most saw them as ridiculous, not that ghosts were equal to people. Still, his parents were on the warpath. The meta rights didn’t protect ghosts, but it kept anti-ecto acts from being able to be on the law books. There weren’t any real protections, but there was nothing making it a law they were to be hunted, experimented on and exterminated. Finally, he made a foolproof go-plan. His parents had been getting close lately. He’d never be able to tell them. He was going through the file boxes in his parents’ room looking for his birth and any medical records. He or Jazz hadn’t had. When they deemed them important enough, their parents did organize a few things properly. That’s how he found out.

He’d gone looking for his birth certificate, but there was nothing in the 1990 box, no pictures of Maddie pregnant, no pictures of him as a baby, no certificate, nothing. Maybe they misfiled it all in the new parent brain? 1989, the year before, nothing, no doctor notes, no vitamin bills, no pictures, no ultrasounds, nothing. Next, in 1991, nothing. It was not until 1993 that he found legal paperwork for fostering placement. Foster? He read all of it; he wasn’t their kid. Although they renewed their license, they never adopted him. They had had him since he was three. They never told him he wasn’t their son. They’d never corrected his name when people called him Fenton, never corrected them when they called him their son. But they never adopted him. They kept him for fourteen years, renewed their license three times, and never adopted him. They hadn’t wanted him. Then he saw the letter from Jazz to the adoption agency, a transcript of her interview. The letters and birthday wishes, and Christmas lists asking for a baby sister. Then they fostered him. Why had Jazz never told him? She would never have wanted him not to know? He pulled out his phone and called her. 

   “Hey Danny, what’s up?” Jazz asked chipper. 

   “Jazzy why..why did you never say I was a foster placement.” He stuttered out.

   “What?”

   “I’m looking at the paperwork now. Maddie and Jack got their foster licenses when you were two after you asked for a baby. They took me in when you were five and I was three, I have your letter to the agency, and the interview.” He was still struggling to push air out of his lungs, to speak in a human way. 

   “Oh Ancients.” she gasped.

   “I never thought of it, I had wanted a baby, and and I wrote the letter, and I talked to the lady who would decide if we got another baby, and and then I came home and you were there.  I never thought about it. It was just. I don’t know how I just completely forgot about it. I’m so sorry Danny, I swear by the ancients id have never never kept it from you if I had known, if I had if I had ever even for a moment remembered that and put it all together. I’m so sorry, Danny.” He could hear her crying. 

   “It’s not your fault. All these years, all these years and they didn’t want me. Jazzy they kept renewing their foster licenses, they never, they never adopted me Jazzy.” he chocked out and let out a cry. 

   “I’m so sorry Danny. I’m so sorry. I love you. I love you Danny, no matter what you were all ways my Danny. You were my baby, you know that, even if I forgot we aren’t biologically related, you were always my baby, I always loved you.” Jazz cried into the phone.

She kept repeating it over and over into the phone, hoping it would sink in as she listened to her baby brother, her baby who’d always struggled more than her, who she knew always got the short end of the stick, cry and sob.

This was the worst thing to happen short of vivisection, and she was sure Danny would prefer that right now. Jazz thought If he’d been adopted, it would be proof they chose him, that they wanted him and loved him, but they hadn’t; he’d been placed there, not picked, and he hadn’t been adopted, just not sent away. They cried together till the sun started to dip, and Sam and Tucker, unable to reach Danny, came running into his room. Sam saw the papers, and she shoved them in Tucker’s hands while she grabbed him. Tucker was already going through the box and typing on his PDA. So here he was, sitting on his floor sobbing into Sam’s shoulder, and Jazzy’s ear as she cried on the other side of the phone.

   “Danny, there’s a note here.” Tucker says, drawing everyone’s attention.

   “It says when you’re old enough there’s a letter in a safe place here for you till you’re 25, whenever you want it.” Tucker holds out the paper ripped from a notebook or something. The writing rushed.

   “She likely wrote it as if they were taking you away,” Sam said slowly and quietly. It still felt booming in the silent room. The silent house.  

Danny wiped his nose. “Where is here?” he asked Tucker, who went back to the papers.

   “We can go to the town you were born in, ask the hospital. Maybe give the bank your birth name, see if they have a safety deposit box.” Tucker said 

   “Why not just find her and ask?” Jazz asked.

   “She’s dead and passed on I think. Mary Roberta Wills never existed, but Mary Anne Wills died in a domestic violence incident eight years ago. She moved from Gotham in December 1989, after getting accidentally unmasked on tv as “Roberta the girl wonder”. And well if she was in the zone wouldn’t she have visited or something? It’s not like the ghosts don’t know who you are.” he said.   

   “And why do you think that Mary Wills is Danny’s bio mom?” Jazz asked.

Tucker looked at the phone, unimpressed, but sighed and explained himself.

   “Because the mothers name is listed as Mary Roberta Wills and Mary Anne Wills was unmasked as Roberta the girl wonder, Also the father is listed as Robin Wayne Richardson. She names Robin as his father,  if she was Roberta, it’s totally possible that his dad was Robin.  Also possible that she knew Robin’s real name was Richard since she named him Richards-son. Its a road map to them, the Mary Wills you want, is the one who was Roberta, Robin your bio-dad, is named Richard your out right named as belonging to Richard,  your Grey Richards son. and well, there’s that theory about Bruce Wayne…and Richard Grayson-Wayne would have been the same age as your bio mom. Robin a nick name for Robert or Roberta. Wayne. Richardson. And they both went to Gotham academy.”

  “We should see if we can find the executor of her will, or find that box first. I’m coming home Danny, I’ll be there tonight.” Jazz told them 

  “Okay, I love you Jazzy.” he told her.

  “I love you too baby” Jazzy told him, and they hung up.  

   “Sleepover?”  Sam asked 

   “Sleepover.” he confirmed. Quickly they all got ready and pulled all the blankets and pillows from his bed to lie on the floor and any of Jazz’s from the hall closet they could. Lying beside each other and fell asleep. No matter what. He had Jazzy, and for now, Sam and Tuck were here too.   

Jazz arrived around 4:00 a.m. Danny remembered her poking her head in and leaving with a kiss on his head to her own room. In the morning they headed down, and Jack and Maddie were in the kitchen. So they headed out to Nasty Burger for breakfast, then Jazz dropped them off at school. A normal day of public school bullshit, but thankfully no ghost nonsense, had then headed back home and sat in Danny’s room. Talking through adding it to the go plan when a half-melted Dani appeared, scaring them all. 

   “Momma! They found out about Vlad! He made sure I escaped but I cant, I cant make it!”  Dani screamed in panic, Danny had no idea what to do but grab his melting little girl, his little baby girl and hold her to his chest as tight as he could, pulling her tighter and tighter no matter how much of her he felt slipping away. 

   “I love you, I love you little star, I love you baby girl.” He chanted over and over, making sure she heard it in his words and ghost speak, and his core as many times as possible.

His core screamed to protect her, to love her, to hold his little star. Every part of him wanted her to be safe, to be okay, not to lose her, that he loved her so, so much. Until he felt a weight in his chest, and the weight and dripping of the Ecto melting in his arms as he held her vanished. Dani was gone. He fell to his knees and sobbed. When he realized he no longer felt his core screaming for her, he only sobbed harder. Jazz's arms wrapped around him, the only thing holding him together, holding him back from letting out a wail that would inform all the realms and their denizens he was in grief.  

Jack and Maddie hadn’t come home that night. All four young adults cried together on the floor over the loss. Dani was a friend, a silly little kid to Sam and Tucker, but to Danny and Jazz, that was his daughter, her niece they just lost. When they were more stable, they had to go to the zone. The first stop was Frostbite. Who looked confused at their sad faces? 

   “Great One and friends, why do you seem so sad, you should be jubilant I would think?” Frostbite asked them. 

   “Danielle came to my room yesterday, destabilizing. The Fenton's got Vlad, he helped her escape but she didn’t have long, I held her, I held her as long as I could.” Tears dripped down his face as he felt the heaviness in his core. 

   “So you did, and now, you hold her still. Do you not feel the weight of her core under your own Great One? You are so young I did not want to suggest it before but by carrying her core, you will bring her back when she is ready as a kindred, like a little box lunch.”  he said, confused, but excitement nearly overshadowed it. 

   “Wait so the, the weight in my chest, I thought the weight and my core going silent when it was screaming meant she was gone. But, but I’m, I’m ghost pregnant?” he asked 

   “Indeed you carry a kindred Great One!  Come come, we will scan you and make sure you are both healthy!” Frostbite waved them to follow him.  

It was a short walk to the Frostbites hut, which was used as a medical facility. Once inside the little hut and a room with a curtain made of long strands of beads, Danny transformed, and felt the heaviness in his chest even more. He lay down on the warm and soft furs that Frostbite always had laid out. Quickly, frostbite showed him. 

   “Her core rests right beneath your own Great One, Danielle, the Clone created from Stolen DNA who barely had a core to keep her together had built enough of an identity her own, as well as the ectoplasm and love of yourself not as a clone but as your loved one, she has enough of a little tiny baby core to form again, she will be completely her own being.” frostbite said proudly.

   “Wow,” he couldn’t help but light up happily. 

   “Wait, Danny you’re gonna have a baby with Vlad that means.” Tucker scrunched his nose. 

Sam smacked him.  

   “I don’t care, this little core, whatever else Vlad was, he gave his being to get my baby to me. It doesn’t matter if Vlad is the other part of her DNA, Vlad was ended anyway as he’s not here in the zone. And I don’t feel him at all. This little core, my darling daughter, my starlight, I name you Daughter of infinity, most precious treasure of my core, Seraphelle Lyra Phantom.” As he finished speaking, a wave crashed across the realms. 

Frostbite was smiling massively. 

   “Frostbite, what was that?” Jazz asked.

   “The Crown Prince named his Daughter, the entire infinite realms now know that The Crown Prince,  Born of Infinity, Spirit of Hope, budding Ancient, Great One, has a kindred, and her name. Fiery, light, harmony, beauty.  The infinite will cradle her as gently as it was harsh when it made you Great One.”   Frostbite spoke with reverence.  

Danny couldn’t help but smile; his baby girl was safe, and the entire Infinite would protect her. She would be adored throughout the realms and perfectly healthy when she was ready. Baby ghosts, the kindred, were revered the way angels were in the religions of his earth. After the best visit to the far frozen ever, they decided to check on Dorathea and Pandora.

None of the others had seen Phantom Keep before. They had seen pariahs keep the big spooky castle, but Danny was born of the infinite, and the future king, so the keep belonged to him. Honestly, it was an odd thing. The keep was always in the same place in the zone, which would be the exact center of the realms. The keep was a political building; it was the base where anyone could go for help. When his subjects would always instinctively know to go in times of need or strife. 

He heard the gasp as they approached. The massive, spooky, crooked, crumbling castle was gone. Now it was a large two-story round house with a domed glass roof that had a stargazing balcony with his first telescope set on it. The emotion attached to the object was a call to all the beings. He often had ghosts come by too, just to soak in the awe, and joy, and nostalgia. 

   “Danny dude,” Tucker gasped. 

   “It’s so sweet Danny, but as prince, with the duties of the prince and future king?” Jazz led off tittering.

   “It’s okay Jazzy I’ll show you.” he assured her. 

Once they walked up the path, he told her to open the door. And she gasped. As they stepped inside, they were in a long and wide circular room; the walls were covered in bluish-green ice just like Danny’s ice constructs, and the roof was an open dome that showed the northern lights and a meteor storm. At the back of the room were a large desk and a comfy-looking chair. 

They walked up to it and noticed Danny’s form had changed. Instead of his normal phantom jumpsuit and palette reversal, he had pale grey-blue skin, and his hair was still white but softer, like stars instead of the stark white of phantom. Instead of his jumpsuit he wore a full deep Navy suit with vest and tie that sparkled softly with what they could tell from knowing Danny so long were constellations and was edged in what looked like silver but was likely meteorite metal, the buttons on the vest and the chain on the vest pocket as well as his pants pocket looked to be made of his ice as well. He was also wearing a long billowing cape full of galaxies, shifting constantly as, like his hair, it moved in an imperceptible wind. Then Jazz gasped, and they looked again.  Hovering over his head was a little aurora of pinks and purples, on his right ring finger sat a large blue ring with a symbol in it, they knew this should be the crown of fine and ring of rage but they were different, these weren’t the same. 

Even more shocking though was the rusted thick shackles that they could see the chains peeking out behind his back under his cape. Danny looked at them,  and they saw the chains move with him. How they surrounded his neck and wrists from the odd bunching around his collar and cuff of his sleeves. Jazz was about to ask when Dorathea and Pandora walked in. 

   “Your majesty, congratulations on your kindred.” The two chorused. 

   “Pandora I wanted to talk with you.” Danny said as he walked off with her, leaving them with Dorothea. 

   “You are shocked by the crown prince’s appearance.” She stated to them. 

   “Yes . It. I can understand some but.” Jazz wasn’t sure what to ask. 

   “Humm, well I do not think his suit or cape are required to explain it is manifested based on his core, ice, stars, and infinite space.  I believe the issue is the shackles and the crown and ring are correct?” she asked 

The three nodded. 

   “Well, the crown of fire was Pariahs he led with destruction first, Phantom leads with curiosity, the crown actually shifts based on his feelings and thoughts. It’s fun to watch,  absolutely adorable even now he’s no longer  core speaking like a baby his crown does. The Ring of Rage amplified the rage of surrounding individuals and the wearer, which frequently caused madness. In contrast, the prince transforms and redirects his own rage, channeling it into hope for positive change, hope to help, hope for better, and this hope is his driving force.  The lanterns of many universes are based on the teaching of the ring of rage’s creation eons ago to create something similar to use incorruptible emotion and feeling into power.” She smiled as she spoke, her fondness clear in every word.

   “And the Shackles?” Sam asked.

   “As the prince and Future King, he bears significant responsibilities towards his realm and its inhabitants, as well as obligations to his own self. His duty encompasses leadership, protection, and support for all realms and their inhabitants, including those within, those who have passed, the wildlands’ residents, and the other kingdoms; moreover, as he originates from infinity, he also bridges the living world and those trapped there. Without a bridge, how do those souls lost pass on to an afterlife? This is a tremendous burden the prince bears willingly, out of his love but they do not wish to expose the true nature of the hardships or the resilience needed to maintain balance to all, nor what the titles take from him. After all balance is not always happy or perfect. Lest they feel pity, or upset because the prince is only four, nearly five years dead.” Fondness and sadness warred in her voice, but they did not think the sadness was that Danny held that but that he felt he could not let his subjects see the depth of the love and care he had for them. She turned to Jazz.

   “I'm sure you know exactly what i mean.” Dorathea smiled sadly at Jazz as she nodded her head with sad eyes as well.

Danny and Pandora came back then and told them all was well. At this time, Plasmius had indeed never come to the realms again, and his portal had shut down. The ectoplasmic signature he held would be required to keep it open. Danny wanted them to make a treaty with the humans though, and this was a good opportunity to go to them if the humans had murdered one of his subjects after all. Truly Danny had planned on working this out when he was king and had started things already, but now he had a ghostling on the way, and he didn’t know when she would come so it was better for this to not be waiting when she manifested. The two were happy to do so and start on it. Danny told them he would show them his lair later; now, they should head back.

Once they got back to the Fenton's though, they didn’t expect the shitstorm about to drop on them.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

Jack was furious. His best friend! His best friend had been a vile spook! That vile scum had tricked him; God knows what that ghost had wanted and done to his daughter! 

Jack had dragged Maddie to see Vlad as a ghost was reported nearby, but no sensors had gone off when they saw it. Plasmius turning into Vlad. No, no, their best friend, for how long, how long had some filthy ghost been pretending to be their friend!

The two charged into the house not caring for how they broke down the door, they looked around the entire place before they found a lab and saw another ghost leaking ectoplasm on a table and Vlad- Plasmius pretending to be Vlad over it saying he would help it.

“Plasmius, you rotten spook! we’re gonna tear you apart molecule by molecule for pretending to be our friend!” he hollared and shot.

Panic crossed the spook’s face as he rushed to grab something and stab the other. He picked it up and tried to get it away, but he spun and came at them, pretending to be their friend again, the godfather of their children. They ignored every word out of its mouth and continued to shoot. They got it several times before it fell, and they realised they had lost the other one and chased after it. 

“Jack we got it, we need to find that other ghost it was doing something too, but we need to go home, and tell the kids. You know how much they loved Vlad.” Maddie told him. 

“You’re right,  we need to check on Jazz and Danno.” he agreed. As they stepped into the house, they heard the kids. As well as Sam and Tucker, Danno's friends. 

“I can’t believe it, Danny, a baby, she’s gonna be so loved and treasured.” 

Jack and Maddie froze. No, they ran to the kitchen and saw Danno sitting with Jazz hugging him? Her? All the kids were smiling. 

“Danny, -” 

“What the hell!” Maddie screamed.

“Mom!”  Jazz jumped up. 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

“Get rid of them, we let you keep your pet but we will not have more in this house no, no we will not allow it! Get out!” he heard screamed in the call's background as he hung up.

Damon had been having a quiet day at the station when the call came in. Visibly fuming, Jack and Maddie had stormed into Fenton Works, and then there was screaming. He grabbed a random constable and headed out. Screaming at the Fentons normally meant something was about to blow up, but when they got there they hadn’t expected to hear them from the street. 

“No Jasmine! I don’t care! We got you a baby brother because you wouldn’t leave us alone to work, and were constantly bothering us, we never wanted that thing and the fact it took advantage of us and that we forgot it was to be your sister. We would have gotten rid of it forever ago had we remembered it!”  

“Oh shit, that’s not good.” the constable started 

Damon went grey; he’d been so harsh on the boy when he dated Valerie, mostly because he remembered being a teen boy and did not want Valerie’s future ruined by some pushy teen boy, let alone one with parents as crazy as the Fenton’s. He should have taken Valerie’s words to be easier on him more seriously. The door opened, and they saw Jack Fenton throw the boy out of the house. 

“Get out! Get out, we don’t want you corrupting our daughter scum!” he screamed. 

“Dad, no!” Jasmine came out screaming. 

“We will not have hussies in our house, let alone twisted ones!” Maddie yelled. 

The Manson girl and Foley boy came running too. 

“Hey it’s not like he asked for any of it, besides you were always pushing him and telling Vlad he could have Danny whenever he wanted, and making him go! You cant kick him out like this!” the Manson girl screamed, joining Jasmine at Danny’s side. 

Damon looked at the constable, their faces both pale. They did not like where this was going, oh no. 

“We should have gotten you a puppy, then we’d at least have been able to make money when the stupid bitch had puppies!”  Oh no, okay Damon stepped up. 

“Jack, Maddie what’s going on here!” he demanded. 

“What’s going on is that thing took advantage of us! We were so busy and left it to Jazz care so she’d let us work and stop asking for a baby and we forgot it had been a sister we wanted. We can’t be forced to keep it!” Maddie yelled. 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Damon felt horrible. As far as he was aware, Danny Fenton was a boy. He’d never known he was trans. And it sounded like Masters had been preying on the boy, the boy’s dislike, and the creepiness that made his spine crawl around Masters now took on a new tone. Especially with the line about puppies. 

“Danny, are you okay? Is a little star okay?” He heard Tucker Foley ask, fuck that was about as much confirmation as he needed, fuck. 

“Jack and Maddie Fenton, you’re under arrest”  he cuffed the Fentons who thankfully in their shock did not put up any fight as they were pushed into the car, and he had Jazz promise to bring the kids and all come give a statement and call their parents.  

The Fentons' shock wore off into rage, and he watched as they seethed but said and did nothing all the way to the station. Once there, they didn’t fight but tried to argue all the way to their room, and he had the constable try to call Masters. After half an hour, the constable came back.  

“Masters isn’t answering.”  

“Send someone to his house,” 

“Jack, Maddie, do you know where Vlad Masters is?”

“He’s dead. We caught the vile spook impersonating him three days ago. We have no idea what it did after we shot it, it let another lose and we chased it.”  He saw the two get angrier, and he sent cops to rush. Sometimes the Fentons’ gadgets hurt normal people too. He left them then. And found the kids all in the bullpen. 

Danny being held by Jazz, an officer on the phone likely trying to get a child advocate. Jazz was 19, so she was independent, but she wasn’t his guardian, so she couldn’t step in, and if the boy was a foster or adopted, they would need to be called. 

The Mansons were with their daughter 

Mr Foley was there with his son 

The kids were writing, and the parents all looked broken at how things had been, and none of them saw it.  

Then, a woman in a tight tailored suit came in. Her skin was soft peach, and her long brown hair was up in a ponytail, with bags under her eyes. She looks like a woman Valerie would stick on her dream board. She looked around, and once she saw him, she walked up.  

“Hello I’m Katherine Goth. I’m looking for the Fentons or the Westons. You see, the FBI found out that the local branch of child services wasn’t doing welfare checks here. We investigated and found many calls about the Fentons and the Westons; however, the child who was the subject of most calls had been placed in foster care here. When the case worker retired three months later, the new one never checked because there were no prior issues.“ She was clearly very annoyed by this but her eyes flicking to the kids gave him the impression she was more concerned for the children.  

“The Fenton adults are in holding unless your lawyer you’re not seeing them.  It’s good you’re here. They tried to kick their youngest out of the house. Mr Fenton. I witnessed Mr Jack Fenton carrying them out of the house and throwing them on the lawn.” he informed her.  

“Oh dear!  Thank the ancients I started driving  as soon as  I got the files instead of this weekend like I was told!!” she gasped 

She looked around the room quickly and stopped at Danny 

“Jordan?  Jordan Gray Richardson right?” She asked softly.  

The entire pen was silent at the name called. Damon looked around, and the only people not shocked were Jasmine, Samantha, and Tucker. Had no one in this town known the kids’ legal names? 

“Ya…I..I’m Jordan.” Danny sniffed 

The confirmation seemed to make the stillness of the precinct worse. Miss Goth took them away. He needed to ask the young adult their pronouns. He, and it seems most of the people of the town, had always assumed the Fentons had a daughter, Jasmine Fenton, who went by Jazz, and a son, Danno Fenton, who went by Danny. But it seemed they were mistaken or unknowingly right and more accepting than the parents. Danny’s…. Jordan’s? foster parents.  

“Hay, I know you don’t really wanna be here, and I know sorta what’s up. Clock told me to come since I was a social worker in Gotham and I know you got a kindred in your core.  I know you go by Danny and none of the others in the zone know your birth name yet. Just me cus I had to pass as a social worker who’s never met you.  So pronouns,  preferred name, and anything you can tell me about why Clock sent me. So I’m kitty, she/her. “ Kitty smiled  at him, and wow, that was a lot to him. 

“Jordan, for now. he/him I found out a couple days ago I wasn’t the Fentons kid. I was a foster….. I always felt like they didn’t want me and didn’t really love me.  Jazz was more of my mom then anyone else ever was..well Dani came ¾ destabilized and told me that the Fentons learnt Vlad was a ghost and attacked him,  He was helping her and made sure she got away but they got him.  I don’t feel him anywhere anymore so I think they ended him. She said she didn’t have long and I held her. I grabbed her, held her, told her how much I loved her, and that to me she was my baby girl, and just held her as tight as I could and as long as I could. My core screamed and screamed to protect her, to hold her, to love her, and I did everything I could,  then then she was gone and there was a weight in my chest and my core wasn’t screaming. We thought she was gone.” He sniffled as the tears started to run down his cheeks.

“We went too frostbite after and he told me she had developed enough of a core that I was able to bring it into my own to carry her as kindred so she’ll be born properly and healthy and safe. I named her. Then we went to my keep and saw Dorthea and Pandora. Pandora and I talked out the plans I had for the treaty already and she  would go over and fill them out and we could use Vlad's murder as leverage for letting this go now without exposing that I was carrying my little star. When we got back we were talking about it and the Fentons must have heard something, they tried to kick me out of the house, Jack literally threw me out,  the police were already there and he arrested them. I. Kitty, I don't wanna be Danny can I be Jordan right now, I..I don’t wanna be Danny, its a name i got because of them and i don’t i don’t want it right now” he told Kitty. 

“Okay, Jordan. I need to ask Are you trans ftm? And if you’re not, do you want to fudge the paperwork to use it and you won't need to try and cover being pregnant? I don't know what that means for ya.” she asked 

“No I’m not trans, and I’m not gonna pretend to be too, use it as an excuse for horrible things to happen to trans people already, we don’t need to mess with that. I’m pregnant as a ghost but Seraphelle is gonna be kindred. She won’t have a human body and so my human form, that is not even actually a human body,-i’m a full ghost, it took a long time to accept but i am - It’s just more human like then most human forms won’t show any signs of pregnancy.” He told her. 

“Alright, kiddo, is there anything that could have been overheard that might make that an issue?”

“Tucker asked about little star, they may have heard that,”  He picked his hands out of his pockets and held the grainy, blurry image of a ball in a ball. 

“That looks a lot like a ultrasound image kiddo” she said wary

“It is of my core, we can tell them tucker was referring to the picture of her, and that I don’t wanna tell them about who the mother is, Seraphelle’s mother is phantom, was Dani’s too, but Pandora and I don’t want people of this world knowing the prince is carrying. Damon the chief he’s gonna be rougher , he was always worried when I dated his daughter I would push her into sex and  leave her knocked up, make her a teen mom and ruin her life. It was a big part of why we didn’t work out.” he told Kitty.

“We can work that we will likely need to tell him, it’s not likely they know phantom is the prince, and you as prince and you as phantom look different your leaders are gonna know the prince not phantom, and if they meet phantom you can do the duplicate thing and be in two places.” 

“Okay, okay we can do that. The Fentons just heard them saying how it was crazy and the baby would be loved so much.” 

“That’s good, it means they made assumptions and flew off the handle for it. They’ll still get hit with hate speech charges.” She nodded seriously. 

“Okay, thank you kitty, he got up and hugged her. 

It was odd, as he was taller than her now, so he leaned down to tuck his head into her shoulder, but Kitty couldn’t help but melt. She and Johnny loved each other so much, they had questioned having their own kindred but, their fights were explosive at times, and they didn’t wanna risk it all until they had been avenged and could settle. They would stay ghosts and not move on. They wanted to spend the rest of time together; it’s what made them form, and to do that they would stay ghosts. Then they met the kid, and gosh did they love the little baby. When Jordan let go, she ruffled his hair. 

“Wanna know something funny kiddo?” she asked 

“What?”

“Johnny was a lawyer, we don’t look it, you know how you are always wearing what you die in and we were on his bike headed to a hard rock concert when we got hit and left for dead so we were dressed up, but Johnny was a lawyer and I was a child services worker, now were still a couple of punks, but we were punks with formal clothes and an education, I bet he’d be happy to hop in and help.”

“I’d appreciate that a lot, Kitty.” 

She gave him another quick hug before they headed out. Looking around the room was weird. Everyone looked shocked and disgusted. What had happened? Damon came up to them.

“I’m sorry, I have been operating on assumptions about you, I now know where I'm wrong. Can I please know your preferred name and pronouns?” he asked gently. 

“Jordan, please. My pronouns are he/him or they/them. but umm, I should make something clear. The Fentons are wrong. I, I'm not trans Officer Grey.” he told him.

A very confused look passed over his features. “But the Fentons? Tucker asked if the little star was okay? ”

“We are all friends with Phantom, and phantoms like the ghost version of pregnant, he gave us a picture since we were all so excited” he pulled the image out of his pocket again and showed Mr. Grey, who looked at it for a second and shook his head like a dog.

“Jordan, The Fentons. Your foster parents confessed to shooting Vladimir Masters three days ago in his lab where he was working on another ghost because they thought he was a ghost. We sent officers to his home when he wasn’t answering the phone and we found his body in his pharmaceutical lab. He was indeed dead, and had been for a while.” Damon said softly. 

Danny had known Vlad was Ended protecting his starlight, but hearing it, hearing it from Damon, he couldn’t help but cry. As soon as he felt the redness return to his face and the tears well, he spun and wrapped his arms around Kitty. It was a little odd because he was 17 and taller than her so he had to lean down but today had been a lot and he was sure none of them would bother him for hugging the woman who came to help when she’d made it clear he had been needing help and neglected for years. 

“Jordan, I'm sorry we need to ask you, but as far as we know the only people Mr. Masters had was your family. Do you know if there’s anyone we need to notify?” Damon clearly hated asking him, so he answered, 

“There isn’t. Both of his parents died when he was a teenager, and he was an only child. If he had cousins or anything he never knew of them it was a big part of why I’m the legal heir to his fortune and company to make sure that someone would care, someone would make sure that Axion and Vlad co. kept going and wouldn’t be sold off in pieces and defunct the work they did buried or made inaccessible.” he sighed.

“Okay, Miss Goth. Will you be able to help him find a lawyer to deal with it all?” he asked kitty.

“I will,”

“Kitty, we should call Mr. Thirteen.” He decided this was a perfect chance to get Johnny. 

“Okay kiddo.” She pulled out a phone and pressed a couple of buttons 

“Hello, This is Miss. Katherine Goth, I’m looking for Mr. Jonathan Friday. - Yes the case is related to a minor and I am his assigned advocate. - We are in Amity Park Illinois - yes, tomorrow works.” She hung up the phone.

“Okay, Johnny will be here tomorrow morning around 8 am.” she told him with a nod. 

“How do you know this lawyer Miss. Goth? Jordan?” Damon asked. 

“Mr. Jonathan Friday is known well as a child and young adult advocacy lawyer, he takes cases often that are strenuous and all pro bono and makes sure the kids get the best outcome, likely for Jordan this will mean emancipation, and moving. Otherwise I’ve known him since we were kids. Now Jordan you don’t need to come tomorrow Johnny will deal with all the legal stuff needed and we’ll go over the other things after when you’re ready, okay? “ 

He nodded, and then she led him out, and Sam, Tucker, and Jazz followed. They headed to Friendship Park and sat. 

“So, what’s going on?” Sam asked 

“This is Kitty, she was  a social worker, and Johnny was a lawyer in Gotham before they became ghosts.they’ll help us get everything all squared away and set because we don’t need to keep secrets from them.” he told his friends. 

“You can't stay at your house tonight kiddo, let's go to the hotel, get you a room, and then we'll portal to the zone okay?” Kitty asked. They all agreed.  

Once in the room, Danny opened a closet door and walked in. The friends were all shocked at the surrounding space. The walls were soft blues just off of white. There was a wooden staircase to the left of them and what was likely a closet on the right that had tables on either side of the double doors. Straight ahead was another small table that had knick-kacks on it.

Danny led them past the stairs to the right, and they found a big workshop with all kinds of gadgets, blueprints, and unfinished gear scattered around, and Danny would have been in his element there. When they walked through the next door, they noticed it was a simple kitchen, nicer than the Fentons', and had a small table. The next door opened to a living room taken up mostly by the sofa, that had a fireplace in front of it but the back wall was covered with books other than one window to the right of it near where they had come it they could imagine Danny sitting on the couch on the left with a book and watching the stars he was reading about out of, and in the corner was three computers perfectly set up for a LAN party. When they got through the door back into the front hall, he pushed open the door in the middle, and a quick peek showed them the simple bathroom with separate shower and bathtub. 

Next, he led them up the stairs, and they saw the glass walls leading to the balcony with a variety of telescopes and seating on it, as well as spots that seemed to be only seating. The few walls up here seemed to be the same pale blue as downstairs but had posters and star charts on them. There were also many more bookshelves and a couple of desks. On the left was again a seating area except this time it was all windows, no books, and it looked like the seating was recessed into the floor. When they looked up, they saw why you could lie down and be nearly surrounded by the stars outside. Danny walked to the door at the end of the room and knocked on it. 

“This is my office and my bedroom, since this is my personal office you saw the public one earlier with Pandora and Dorathea you can come find me in there but be aware I’ll be doing ghost prince or king things and it might be dangerous so always knock. Past my office is my bedroom. I know you guys were always welcome in  my room in Amity before and we hung out there a lot but I’d like it if you’d please not go into my bedroom in my lair. And don’t ask, it’s just my space, the rest of this place is catered to being comfortable to hang out in and do stuff so we don’t need to be in my room like they are, so I want it private.” he asked softly but serious 

“No problem, happy not to hang out around your crusty sicks anymore dude.” Sam tried to lighten the mood, but she saw how Danny looked bothered and Kitty and Jazz looked upset. 

“Easy enough ask, kiddo, they will respect it.” Kitty said, glaring. 

Jazz gave exactly the same look. So they turned around and hung out a bit in the recessed lounge until Johnny dropped by and, with shadow draped around his shoulders, Danny and Johnny just looked at each other for a while till they touched hands and laid back, silent.  Eventually, Sam Tucker and Jazz fell asleep; Johnny, Kitty, and Danny together. 

“Their asleep kiddo,” Kitty said 

“Is there a way to find out what happened to my mom? She’s dead but she’s never come, what if she just never wanted me.?” he asked.

“What’s her name kiddo I can look for her.” Johnny offered. 

“It’s Mary Roberta Wills,” he said. 

“Oh shit, Mary Roberta Wills?” he asked 

“Ya?” 

“Damm, ya kitty and I knew her. I’m sorry kid. She was reincarnated about a year before Pariah was let out. And what i know of her, she never forgot about you, but she wasn’t ever gonna look for you or wanna be buddy buddy. She was a really pompous prissy type.” Johnny explained. 

“Sorry kiddo, you know though. She left a letter and a blanket,  but ya she was Roberta the girl wonder cus she wanted to bag Robin, thought she had till she revealed her identity.  That was the end of that for him, he likely knew her in real life.” 

Danny jumped up.

“On my birth certificate it says my dad is Robin Wayne Richardson!” he exclaimed.

“Well there we go, looks like yer dads robin, now knowing Mary, that’s Richard “Dick” Grayson-Wayne she had a massive crush on him everyone in Gotham knew and it and it was bad cus shed say shit about his  parents and not even realize it was fucked up, shows what her parents were like.” 

“Johnny can you find out if Jordan just needs to go to the bank she left the safe box or if you need to get in touch with her estate?” 

“Of course Kitty cat,” 

“Can I ask something personal guys?” he asked them both.

“Course kiddo, what’s up?” Kitty told him.

“You loved each other so  much you became ghosts, why do you fight so much?” he asked shyly.

“We’re young, we fight and emotions are fifty times as ghosts you know, the other thing is we’re still unrestful, our killer is still out there. And free and facing no consequences for it. It makes things harder and more volatile, once we’re avenged it’ll be better.” Johnny told him. 

“Why don’t you avenge yourselves? Or lead someone like a red hood to them?” he asked 

“Because we haven’t been able to, getting out of the zone too amity is one thing but we’re so weak by the time we get to Gotham, we need more ecto or a source stronger in Gotham to do it.” 

“If I go to Gotham, would that help? Or I could point the red hood to them?” 

“Wed love it if you could kiddo it would mean a lot too us.”

“Okay, by your death day I’ll have hood tracking him,” he promised. 

“Thank you kiddo but you don’t need too”

“No you don’t need to be helping me now and you are, and i wanna help you, your my friends, closer then Sam and tuck at this point, i want too.” 

“Thank you kiddo, we’ll get you emancipated and off too Gotham safe okay?” 

“thanks Johnny, thanks Kitty.” 

“Course kiddo.” 

They just lay there after sitting eventually. Danny fell into wondering if he would ever get to have a love like them, be loved and love back with the kind of fierceness that would have them be ghosts to be together. He wondered if it was even possible or if he’d have to wait till they died or find them in the realms. He was already born of the infinite, an ancient, a prince soon to be king, and a ghost. One of the Unresting Dead. If he never found his dad, it wouldn’t matter that much; he’d just be telling the guy he had a kid, and that kid died four years ago. 

“Hey what’s in that noggin kid,” Johnny interrupted his thoughts.

“Wondering if looking for my dad is even worth it.”

“Well we can do two things, we can get Richard Grayson’s parents or the never born Robin and ask, they’ll tell the truth since you’re the king then you know. Or we can do the legal human stuff.  Either way you don’t need to meet him till you want. Even then you meeting him doesn’t mean he meets you if you’re not sure about that.” Johnny says. 

“I wanna do both, I want the legal assurance if I decide to meet him. Is it selfish that I want my dad to mourn me, like I have a real dad out there alive, someone blood related and linked to me to mourn me, and I want him too, even though I could meet him and pretend to be alive.” 

“But if you pretend to be alive he won’t mourn and won’t take care of your needs kiddo, and of course it’s not selfish we all want that.” Kitty said, 

“Ya kid, you know if you get that law protection stuff done you can just meet him as what you are, you won’t need to be one or the other.“ 

“Thanks Johnny.” He rolled over, and they settled back into silence.

Chapter Text

 Soon after Sam and Tuck left for home and school. The three ghosts staying together until morning. When they headed out, Danny stayed in Phantom’s Keep, and Kitty and Johnny went to the police station to deal with that stuff. Kitty wore the same navy fitted suit as yesterday, and Johnny’s blonde hair was longer on top but buzzed on the sides; he wore black pants, a black button-up shirt, his long leather jacket, and heavy boots, but the silver metal buckles were replaced with laces.

It was about noon when he felt the tug of a summoning, followed by the vile taste of metal in his mouth and gagged. But he felt the desperation of the summoning, so he sent a core message to Kitty and followed. He was shocked to end up in a meeting room in space surrounded by the Justice League and John Constantine. 

“On what grounds do you solicit the aid of the Crown Prince Of the Infinite Realms” He said in his most formal voice. 

Batman stepped up first. 

“Your majesty, we require your help. The league has been made aware of a city in the United states where your subjects are often seen. Police arrested two people for attempting to harm their foster son, and they admitted to killing someone they thought was one of your subjects.” Batman was serious but

Yes, Jack and Madeline Fenton. My advisors and the Queen Regent have been drafting negotiation terms to present to you, as many citizens have expressed a desire for war due to the actions and the government’s previously enacted Anti-Eco laws, which were fortunately repealed through the Meta-Protection acts. Buying us time,” he told Batman.

Several heroes were on edge now, learning that there had been offences and now repealed laws that had an alternate dimension, the afterlife, and glue of the multiverse calling for war. That the prince was being forthcoming that he and his council and regent had been working on treaty or peace talks, and had not wanted war was a very good sign though. 

Are we to understand that Vladimir Masters was, in fact, one of your Subjects?” Batman asked. 

“Yes, Jack Fenton’s negligence causing an accident that harmed masters in college brought him more and more liminal, closer and closer to death mixed with exposure too ectoplasm that made him start to have ghost powers, the man was liminal and therefore one of mine the same way a immigrant worker is one of there citizens. Liminal beings are vast, most of the city of amity park is liminal in small ways, there are also individual incidents of such. After this I would like too speak to you Batman and John Constantine. I would like too ask superman to leave however.” He told them. 

Superman bowed and left quickly without question. 

“Now, what do you need of me to summon me so desperately?” 

“We wanted someone of the realms to dispute and give more through proper information then what we have. We were hoping for information exchange but it seems you are well aware of our world. “ Batman asked 

That is correct. My life cycle, including birth and death, occurred in this Midwestern region of the United States. I have no desire for the Fenton's. The humans may punish them, seeing as Vladimir Masters was, in the end, a living human when they took his life and destroyed his soul. This act constitutes a human crime, and the perpetrators will be punished for that by human means, however when they die they will be sentenced by the rules of the infinite for ending his soul stealing any chance of an afterlife or subsequent reincarnation, for Masters.” He declared unequivocally, employing every lesson imparted by Dorothea to preserve his composure and clarity.

“Thank you, your majesty.“ Batman bowed again. 

“John, I’m sure you know precisely who I will wish to speak with once we conclude our conversation.” He directed to the magician. 

“Yes your majesty.”  he answered, then turned 

Batman, Agent A, Red Hood, Black Bat, Red Robin, and Robin, as well as Supernova and Wonder girl need to get here asap.” he directed, and Batman nodded and walked out of the room, presumably to call the mentioned. 

“Everyone else can leave, Wonder woman and Martian Manhunter are welcome to stay, and Miss Martian may come if she desires, once the others are here it will be up to them who stayed for their discussions with the prince.“ 

The majority of the heroes exited the room. The remaining stragglers did so once all those John had called for were there. 

“It is important now, if you wish to speak privately about the business we have, please come into the green dome.” He let up a shield he knew even super ears couldn’t hear through. 

Red Hood stepped in first. “What may i do for you, Your Majesty?” he inquired.

“Your illness, Caused by the Rancid ectoplasm. you know that refusal of your soul to depart, let alone separate from your body and the need for revenge for your demise, resulted in your return. But they dumped you into a pool of rancid ectoplasm instead of pure energy. It was full of others’ pain, suffering, hatred and anger. The emotions have poisoned your soul. You have basically a severe sepsis and staph infection. I would like you to come to my doctor and be healed.” he told Hood.

“Why?”

“As a result of your heroism throughout the realms, you have brought peace to numerous unsettled spirits, especially children, allowing them to proceed to the afterlife or experience rebirth in a different era and or dimension, these children are at rest and able to move on instead of suffering eternal torture of their deaths because of you. You currently have in your group a man who murdered friends of mine, and they are excited for the day you avenge their deaths as well.” 

“One of my guys, I’ll take care of it immediately if you tell me who and no this isn’t some deal I get rid of him for treatment right? You just offered that up with no strings, and I’m doing this cus I don’t want shit stains. So if you can tell me what happened and who  I will deal with it. “

“Thank you Red Hood. In life my friends were Katherine and Johnny Ross. They were on a date when they were hit by a vehicle, and dragged away from the road and left for dead, they took hours to bleed out and succumb because of John Schmidt.” 

“I will investigate and do what I can, My sincere thanks your majesty.“ 

“Thank you we will have you go too frostbite when you are ready.” He handed a card to Hood.

“Burn that when you are ready I will come.” He nodded and then looked to the next he had to speak with.

When Jason exited the bubble Mr. Pennyworth entered.

“Mr. Pennyworth. A revised contract has been established. You will take care of your family for as long as you desire, your soul will not leave them by any means other then the decay of your human vessel and I will ensure that none of them die before their time. It is precious for heroes to have people like you. how do they help the world if they do not have people behind them to as well? When you die you will be part of those sent to the service of Lady Gotham, where your duty will be careing for Lady Gotham’s Knights.” 

“Thank you, your majesty.” Alfred bowed. smiling proudly. he had sold his soul to the last king to make sure that none of them died before him this offered far more protection to them and meant he would be able to forever care for his family, the children he loved deeply no matter that he tried to keep distance as he was still an employee.  

“Robin, you have grown much. Following your father will lead to a wonderful future but the best will be the one you carve yourself. Once you are grown. Remember your grandfather is in fact a criminal and he will die one day, his crimes are as vile and numerous as the joker, then he has crimes against my realms. Understood?” 

“Understood your majesty, thank you.” 

“It brings me great joy to see you, Red Robin, as you are a hero who is remarkably devoted, and you are always welcome in all realms and through all of time, you earned the respect and protection of many spirits so please do not hesitate to reach out to me, you or any of your partners. Because of your commitment, you have gained the respect of many kingdoms, as well as the affection and admiration of others, and many individuals are supporting you.

“Supernova. All born to my kind are called kindred. An enemy of the ghost phantom tried to clone him and create another. mixing there own DNA it made them a mirror born.  Phantom is devastated by her loss. Please know that to my people your existence is no different then any other child. Mirror born or kindred. You are also recognized as born and named by the last true patriarch of the house of El Jor-el and have been named Jor or new just like the hope your grandfather would be a new start to leading krypton you are seen as a new bridge between the past and future. Jor-El of Earth.” Danny was very aware Superman was hearing that the people of krypton had accepted Conner, and that the last patriarch, kal’s own father had given conner a kryptonian name, his own name, one very much the opposite of how he had called conner Kon.  What a vile thing to call a child.

“Your majesty.” John asked for his attention. 

“Yes John?” 

“Your majesty, can we call on you in the future for help?” he asked

“If you have threats you require my power you can call on me. I will however have one of my council members, likely Pandora, reach out to Wonder Woman for political discussion.” 

“May we introduce you to two of earth’s green lanterns. Then you will be able to direct them to the guardians of the universe and the green lantern corps as well.” 

Danny nodded, whispering to himself, “Green Lantern? The Guardians?” 

He looked up when the doors opened and saw the two men in green and black suits as well as masks enter the room, then freeze. 

“Your majesty, these are Hal Jordan,” he pointed to the brunette white man with black sleeves and pants but a green top and gloves. “And John Stewart” he motioned to the black man with a shaved head and a full black suit other than a green triangle that went down his chest till the matching symbol as on the others’ chest. 

“Holy shit. Your ring. It’s” the brunette Hal sputtered. 

“It has served as a potent artifact for millennia prior to my knowledge of it. It allowed the core of the realms to harness the rage of themselves and those around them too turn to power, however that’s not who and what I am, I am space, curiosity, and hope.  The aspirations of my people encompass their afterlife, tranquility, a brighter future- posperity for there decendants, and enduring remembrance and esteem. What will happen next? What else is there? What can be done? How do we do the impossible?  The ring’s color changed from red to blue when I took ownership of it.  It no longer concentrates on rage; instead, it fosters and propagates hope.” He was proud to speak of how he managed to be different from the last, how even the ring of rage recognized him and changed no longer feeding on and fueled by or increasing rage, but hope.  He was proud. 

With the Prince speaking before them, the heroes who were nearby observed how the halo above him displayed different colors such as greens, blues, reds, and deep black, with twinkling and fading bursts of light and colour, offering them an almost direct insight into his feelings for each word through the way it reacted.  

I believe that you would find the guardians, particularly the blue lanterns, to be overjoyed at the prospect of speaking with you. Your ring looks like the one that our own were created based on and the fact you turned a red ring, a ring of rage, to a blue ring a ring of hope, I’m sure they would be most interested in how you did it and if it could be replicated.” John Stewart spoke. 

“Perhaps, please let us put one foot before the other.” he asked 

“Of course, of course your majesty pardon us.” 

“Certainly.  Now please do not summon me unless it is emergent, and no metal, or blood when you do please it tastes disgusting. your desperation made me come otherwise i would have ignored it.” He made a face, remembering the taste of metals when he was summoned. 

“Emotional items, or food. Please, they are far better summoning offerings. Every being will be far happier and more agreeable with an item full of powerful emotion if you do not know exactly what to give them.“ he smiled at them again. 

“Thank you Prince” the heroes chorused.

I wish you a pleasant day. 

When Johnny and Kitty came by they asked what was up. 

“Well the league got called in on this all, so they summoned the prince for help, I have Pandora going to them to deal with fact and fiction as well as start the process of getting protections. “

“That’s great kiddo.” 

“Good job.”

“Thanks guys so what happened to you?” he asked 

“Well I got all the shit sorted out with Plasmius lawyers and shit to get your official heirship moved to ownership and make sure your identity is under lock and key in all of this and that. I also put in all the paperwork so we can get working on emancipating you and looking for Mary Wills. I dug around and managed to find the Executor of her will and reached out to them. There’ll likely be a DNA test or something required but you were born in Long Grove, and there’s only one bank, they do have a box under your name there but need proof you’re the same Jordan Grey Richardson. So we may as well do the lawyer DNA test to get that out of the way, then use it for the box to cover all bases. Hopefully there will be more solid info on how to find your bio dad the living way.” Johnny explained his day. 

“While Johnny was doing that, I got all the papers documenting how the house was unfit, the previous guys negligence, the Fenton's danger, and neglect, as well as how self sufficient you are and independent, it’ll make it far harder for the courts to say you need a guardian. I also went to the school, and got set up so that your friends can get your homework and bring it back till the end of the school year in a few weeks.” Kitty told him. 

“Okay, thank you guys.” 

“Of course kiddo.” The two stepped up and hugged him. Johnny, a bit taller, and kitty a bit smaller, he felt his core sing happy, safe, loved. And there’s singing back love, baby brother, care, safety.  

“So kid you wanna learn to ride a bike or are we gonna need to get you a stupid car?” Johnny asked suddenly, breaking the Hallmark moment and throwing them all into a fit of belly-gripping chuckles. 

“I don't know you gonna teach me so i can take the test or will i need to go to more classes?” he asked cheeky

“Pssh, of course I’m teaching ya!” Johnny crossed his arms and leaned back against the shadow crossing his ankles. 

“You may wanna read up though just to make sure you know all the legal stuff about it here though, Johnny did get his license in Gotham in 1967. So it’s a much different state and time. “ Kitty said as she walked to Johnny then wrapped her hands around his arm and leaned into him. 

“All right I'd love that thanks Johnny.” he chuckled but made sure he was being clear; he sincerely was looking forward to it. 

“Course kid, come on, back to your homework now. “ he stood up holding Kitty’s hands on his one arm before letting go only to shove him gently and then put his hand back atop Kitty’s, and he chucked and headed over to his desk. There was still a bit of school left and better grades meant a better chance of getting into Gotham U. 

It took about a week after that to get answers the human way. He did his homework and was breezing through things, stopping in Amity and having the odd play fight if someone just couldn’t restrain themselves, or dealing with the ecto-animals and such. It was on one of these trips he realized he should shut the portal down before someone broke into the house or a ghost got the idea to try to slip in so he went and tried to figure out how to shut it. 

When he stood beside it, though. Calm and at peace with himself, he realized why he had always been so bothered. This was where he died. He had no body; it had disintegrated and meshed with the realms. This was where he died, and without a memorial, it was the closest he had to an ultimate resting place. Not sure what to do, mess with his resting place. It was wrong. So he flew back too far, frozen too talk to frostbite. 

“Hello, Great One!”

“Hello frostbite, it’s good to see you.” 

“You as well, Great One, you look well.”

“I feel better than I have since my death thank you.”

“ Now, what troubles you, Great One?” 

“I need to close the portal, but it is my place of death, what do I do?” 

“Well, why do you not bring the portal into yourself, it is made of ectoplasm and the energy of your death, you should be able to focus on it and bring it to yourself, then speak to princess Jasmine and have a memorial place that will stabilize you.” 

Frostbite scratched his head and made a face like he was contemplating. Narrowing his eyes and furrowing his brow, lips pursed till they relaxed and brightened. 

“If you would like a bit more subterfuge, it is also possible that you could wait a bit and then use a duplicate to seem like a body, or you could expose your ghostliness and let the humans believe you were a ghost this time, and that you had stayed to be with your friends and see your parents stopped. “

“I wanted to meet my dad. My biological father, I don’t know about that yet.” 

“That is a fine, Great One. Either way you should be able to close the portal by taking it into yourself or commanding it such, it is your death that opened it.”  

“Thank you frostbite.” He wrapped his arms around his friend, and doctors midsection and felt the enormous paws land on his back as well. He loved getting gentle hugs like this. 

He headed back to the portal and meditated, trying to connect to it, his energy to pull. Once he felt it, it was like an overstretched elastic and snapped back into him. A feeling of peace and self settled over him like he had never had before. He stepped through too where the portal had been, thinking of the basement, and he was there. 

He looked around and saw the empty frame. Looking around at so many things was dangerous. He called John Constantine. 

“It’s John, what do you want?” 

“Hello John, can you come to Amity park to secure the Fenton's lab? Phantom the protection spirit is here and I don’t want this stuff all getting into the wrong hands, and he needs to be able to move on, or continue.” 

“Of course, me and a team will come right away.“

“Thank you, please make sure they will be discreet, taking anything and such doesn’t matter, but I am sure you’ll be able to feel that a young teenager died in this lab, your not stupid you’ll understand immediately if you don’t already, but it is a secret they keep close as they desire to be and do more, to protect,  to finish school, to have family.” Understand, your majesty, thank you for the trust. 

“I am sure that you will meet Phantom here when you come.” 

“Thank you, we will see him then.” 

Danny hung up. 

It was only a few hours before he felt the Justice League enter the city. He shifted into his basic death appearance and waited. 

He was surprised Kitty was with them as well. 

“Hello Phantom.” The calm British voice came from behind him, so he turned. Martian Manhunter, and Red Robin and Flash were with him.  

“Hello, are you here to secure the inventions and plans from my parents?” He saw the way the energy drained and the steel that was injected into their spines, now knowing for sure the ghost kid in front of them was "Daniel Fenton" Jordan Richardson , and that the kid had died nearly four years ago. 

“We are.“

“Alright.” He  floated, legs crossed, to sit in the portal's arch. Kitty sat just outside to the league; they were just sitting in silence, but the two were discussing their plans for meeting the original Robin and Kitty sending wave after wave of acceptance, care, love, to him as he sat inside his Place of death and saw the surrounding things be taken apart and vanish. They moved quickly and carefully around the lab. Red Robin, mostly attached to the computers. 

“You’re Danny aren’t you?” Red asked

“Humm, I was, I am, it’s difficult.” 

“You died in here, and no one ever noticed, you never got a proper memorial or grave.” red stated sadly. 

“I was so afraid for my sister, we were all we had growing up, but I just wanted someone to come save me, to be seen, and taken care of, for someone to tell me they did love me and they did want me, as nice as Jazz assurances the Fenton's loved us were it always left me hollow and guilty.” he told them with more candor than he expected.  

“You’re seen now, Ms. Goth and Mr. Friday is working very hard for you to be able to be happy and safe. Gotham is dangerous, but if you apply for a Wayne grant to Gotham U I am sure you’d get in, be it under Jason Todd foundation for kids who haven't had the opportunity to excel, or a creative one, or a essay based scholarship there are many, for people of all walks of life. “

“Thank you red robin. I was considering Gotham anyway after this as it was my mothers birth place, as well as where she and my father met” 

“It was?” The red robin seemed shocked.

“Yes, that the dead tell no tales is a hilarious lie, often people just can’t hear them or don’t pay attention.  There is no information that is a total impossibility for a ghost to get.  I know who my birth father is, but I am trying to do things the legal human way so he will be more likely to believe me.” 

“Why are you looking for him? Not that I can’t understand wanting to know who they are, but what’s your reason?” 

“I found out I wasn’t Fenton’s kid only a few days before all of this. My mother died a while ago and moved on to reincarnate before I died. Honestly, I don’t think he knows I exist. I don’t have her own words but ghosts who knew her in life…well..I want to meet him, or see him. I never looked like the Fentons figured it was a double recessive thing, being shorter, and my face shape different, not the same paleness they were.  Maybe, maybe we can meet and be friends, I don’t want a dad, Jazzy raised me you know. I just wanna know who I came from.  What part of me is nature vs nurture.  Does he love to fly?  Does he like dance and acrobatics,  does he feel more at home, more peaceful up high watching over things.  Is he an engineer?  Is my curiosity, the love of puzzles, or tracking the stars and myths, are those things I got from him or her or all my own?” 

“Remember whoever he is he’s just a man still,” Red cautioned 

“I know,  it’s the only thing I’m unsure of. Do I meet him and risk him hating me and turning me away with vitriol or do I just know and accept that.  Especially since I’m a ghost.  To tell him he has a kid, and that I’m dead, have been for years, is that too cruel?”

“Humm, you know of Bruce Wayne right?” red robin asked suddenly

“Yes?”

“He had a son who just appeared one day on his doorstep. He constantly hurts for missing his son’s life.  That he didn’t know of him. But when Damian spoke of how he was unsure about going to him, that broke him the most.  That he had a child and may have never gotten to know him.  I’m sure it will hurt, but you’re still here. I think he had the right to know before you were born, and that was taken from him. Why not give him the chance? You are still here after all.”   

“Thank you” Danny smiled. “I guess you bats and birds are pretty close to the Wayne's with all the trouble they get into.” he snickers a bit. 

“Ya, you could say that.” Red Robin snickered as well. 

“All right we got everything tied up, and in safe magical storage and cataloged, what do you want done with your grave kiddo?” John asked.

He looked at Kitty. And with her happiness, trust, you choose sent in Core speak. He looked back at John. 

“I’ll take it apart, and you can put it in safe storage, and I’d appreciate it being filled in. This was just the frame, I’ll have a proper grave or memorial one day.” 

“I assure you kiddo ones gonna go up for you for sure.” John said thickly. 

All Danny could do was nod and carefully take it apart and place the pieces gently in the portal John opened for him. With the portal gone, the Fentons gone, no dangers to Amity the way there had been, he was free now. He’d be able to leave. It made him feel happy, light and eager, of course, that made Ellie’s core act up on its own and he closed his eyes and pressed a hand to his chest above their cores and smiled feeling his little star being with him. The League members silently left the house while he did, and Kitty stood close by so he knew he was safe to just enjoy feeling her core under his own.   

As she had developed, Frostbite had scanned Elle’s core more and learned more about her state. According to frostbite the sense of self she had, the core she possessed that allowed her to not fall apart into non-existence was formed around being Danny’s baby girl, his love for her, and nothing else had been fully imprinted in her core much like a kindred was created from the desire and love of a ghost if they did not have a shared aspect like how Box Lunch was created with a shared aspect. 

When Lunch Lady and the Box Ghost worked to create their kindred his obsession and her concept merged and there was already a concept in the middle of them, how eager kids got, how much they loved and hated their lunch boxes, and homemade lunches sent special by their caregiver and the excitement kids had for lunch time. So Box lunch was a neverborn Kindred. Elle, however, didn’t have a stable enough mind or self or identity before for it to imprint in her core, and she wasn’t linked, nor was he that tightly, to a concept as they were not neverborn. So she was physically and mentally like a human baby. Without the imprint of further memories made by herself other than his love and care on her core, she would grow and age and learn like a human but with ghost abilities, and as she learnt and found her core and self, she would form more.

He was truly gonna have a baby at 17. Ellie wouldn’t be born eight or nine like box lunch or 20 and obsessed with travel; she was going to be a little baby he would carry and wake every two hours to feed and change, and would watch sleep. He was over the moon. Over the years, Elle had been too afraid, and he too worried, plus she’d been a preteen and ghost and he couldn’t force her to stay but the longer he knew her the more protective and worried and concerned he got. This was the chance to be Elle, not Dani. To be nothing but his loved baby girl and to have no expectations or baggage. No weight on her shoulders. Even though the situation was horrid, and they had all been scared and afraid, it turned out well. He trilled and thought of giving her core a brief hug and nuzzle, and when he felt the joy, love, and love back, he slowly opened his eyes and looked back too, Kitty. Kitty had the softest look he’d ever seen on her face, and just then Johnny came around and wrapped his arm around her.

“You look happy kid” he said

“I feel happy, free.” he told them

“Good because I got your stuff done, a little bit of help from the clock and you are fully emancipated,  and set up a meeting with The executor of Mary’s Will.  We just gotta get you settled somewhere new. So where are we going?” 

“Gotham, gonna meet her, the lawyer, get the letter and find my dad.” He nodded more sure of this path than anything he had ever been.

Chapter Text

School ended, and Danny said goodbye to Sam and Tucker. They hadn’t said it, but, well; they had been drifting further and further apart as the years went on. They had stuck together, but they had all known even before this that once they left Amity, they left their childhood friendship behind as well. It was their last goodbye. He also said goodbye to Danny, the nerd who was bullied for his crazy parents. For his panic and running away from ghost attacks, too the insanity and weight that was the assumed Daniel “Danny” Fenton’s life/afterlife. 

Jordan “Danny” Richardson got on his new bike, a Bonnyville Speed master in matte jet black with green details on the seat and tank. One look saw Johnny and Kitty on Johnny’s bike that was masquerading as a Vintage 1969 Harley-Davidson Sportster and with a nod they headed first to Long Grove with his birth certificate and the note to see if they would give him the box. After the hour-long drive, they had visited the bank and given all the information, but the bank still wanted it checked by the executor. Apparently the executor hadn’t dealt with many people coming to her to pretend to be Danny, but now and then people would try the bank. So they didn’t get in, but it was worth having tried on the way to New Jersey. 

Once they crossed the city borders, he felt it, looking over clearly Johnny and Kitty had as well. Gotham was welcoming them, fretting like a worried mother mostly over Johnny and Kitty, but a bit over him as well, like you would the random kid in the park your kid dragged over. They pulled over a few minutes later and dismounted their bikes. Out of the shadows of the dark city and the grey overhang of the thickening smog a tall woman with finger waived silver hair that brushed her shoulders, she was pale as they were in ghost form and had the same grey tint to her skin as Johnny and Kitty; she had long thin down-turned eyebrows that made her darkly lined eyes look even more down turned and small but round crimson red lips. If her eyes had been glassy, she’d have looked moments from breaking into tears. The long sheath dress appeared to be made of shadow. Covered by a slip that seemed to be made of the overhanging smog with glossy lace patterns down the front and around her upper arms that looked as if they were formed from the oil dripping down her torso and upper arms. The oil-lace patterns on her arm turned to split sleeves that trailed beside her and wore long dangling pearl earrings, as well as a three-strand necklace of them that had a bat symbol brooch on the point that hung just above her stomach. She looked like a 1920s movie star right out of a black and white film. 

   “Hello my children, my Prince.” She spoke, nodding at him. 

It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Gotham. Would you grant us permission to enter and remain in your city?” he asked her politely. 

   “Without question, Your Highness, the three of you are all of my domain, even though you yourself have only recently been informed of this. You may all stay as long as you wish and visit at any time.” she smiled at him.  

   “Lady Gotham, please accept my sincere gratitude. If there is anything I can do for you, please let me know, I would be happy to help in any way I can.” he told her. Eliciting another smile from the city spirit as she dissipated like a cloud in the sun. 

They got back on their bikes after and drove into the city, and using ghost speak, went to the office of the executor first. It took only about 20 minutes to drive through the city and arrive at the plain steel and glass building. As soon as they did, they went up to the offices, just as burning plain greys of metal, and glass as every other and after motioning for them to sit, Johnny spoke to the receptionist. 

   “Hello, I’m Mr. Friday, I had called a few weeks ago to set up an appointment with Ms. Drew.” 

   “Yes, Mr. Friday, Ms. Goth, and Mr. Richardson. Please take a seat and she’ll be with you when she is ready” The receptionist told Johnny, and he sat beside them.  

The receptionist proceeded down the hall, possibly to inform Ms. Drew about their early arrival. Soon after, she called their names and led them to an office. The room, much like the building, was plain grey and had a wall of windows, a slate wall with bookshelves, and a plain black desk and chair with three more black chairs. After they were all seated, an Asian woman in a navy skirt suit with a short bob, appearing to be in her 40s, sat down. 

   “According to my understanding, the objective of this meeting is your assertion that Mr. Richardson is Ms. Wills’s son and your desire to obtain the box she bequeathed to him. Is this correct?” She stated plainly and evenly. 

"Indeed. Upon learning of his foster care status and subsequent emancipation, Jordan has expressed interest in obtaining his medical history and identifying his biological father. He discovered a note accompanying his foster care documentation which alluded to a package intended for him. We are hoping for answers concerning the man’s identity, as Robin Wayne Richardson, listed on Jordan’s birth certificate, does not exist, and neither does Mary Roberta Wills; however, I recalled the scandal of Roberta the wonder girl’s unveiling as Mary Anne Wills on television. Consequently, we contacted you.” 

It was very different from what he was used to hearing from his friend, but it clearly impressed and made the woman across from them more comfortable. So he just continued to go with it. Johnny clearly knew what he was doing, even further backed up because this was what Johnny had done in life, and if Clockwork were opposed, he wouldn’t have let him come, let alone sent Kitty. The two talked a fair bit while he decided to zone out and just core speak with kitty his concerns and nerves, there was never really secrets with ghosts you just told people to fuck off and were open about what you did and didn’t talk about. Being empathetic, the denizens of the realms did not lie or hide. The dead were not bothered by the hang-ups of the living.  

   “Alright,” his attention came back to Ms. Drew and Johnny.

   “We’re gonna go to the lab and do a DNA test that will confirm if she’s your mother.  The Wayne tech. lab has some of the most sophisticated tech in the field there is so it will only take a few minutes too confirm, after that ill have the paperwork sent to the bank in long grove and you will be able to have the box sent here or go get it yourself if you are in fact her son. “  Ms. Drew told them. 

Johnny poked at him in Core speak, and he nodded, then followed Johnny in standing up. Kitty with them, they headed out of the office and walked through the office and down the elevator to a lab and where the doctor swabbed his cheek and told him to wait. Ms. Drew did not leave them, and the four continued to sit in the plastic chairs. It felt like an eternity, but he knew, looking at the clock, it had barely been ten minutes when the doctor came back with a stack of papers and a smile on his face. 

   “Ms. Drew. Mr. Richardson, I am pleased to inform you it’s a 99.99% maternal match Mary Wills was indeed your mother.” he focused on him then

   “I’m sorry she’s not alive for you too meet and too give you any answers you want, I took the liberty of adding the paperwork for a heritage test, fill it out, bring it here and well take a blood sample and look into it for you if you don’t find your father. Any medical conditions and such of Mary’s family are also listed in the paperwork as we have the release from her parents to give it so long as you do not contact them. Again I’m sorry.” The doctor was pouring off remorse and sadness, he was clearly very upset the wills had made a condition of him getting needed medical info was to never contact them as well as that his mother was dead and so he would never meet her or get true answers to anything. 

   “It’s okay, when I found out she was dead I figured that I’d never get any real answers anyway,  even if all I get from my biological father is the same at least I’ll know for the future for my own health and if I have kids.” he assured the doctor, who nodded to him. 

Taking the papers, the group left back to Ms. Drew’s office. She scanned the papers and called the bank. 

   “There we go Mr. Richardson, all set you can get the box anytime you wish. That’s our business done, there was nothing else left, not that Mary had much but” she trailed off. 

But nothing else was left for you, was unsaid but the silence was just as loud as the rest of her words, and honestly, he didn’t care; the woman had already moved on to reincarnate, with nothing of her remaining, and he didn’t know enough about her or her family to want anything Sentimental, and he had more than enough wealth now.

   “Thank you Ms. Drew.” he told her, echoed by Johnny and Kitty, and the three stood and left. 

   “So what now kiddo?” Kitty asked.

   “Ya, kid you wanna ride back up too long grove and get it first thing in the morning or rest here for the night and head over tomorrow?” Johnny asked 

   “Lets take the ride back up and get it in the morning as soon as they open, don’t need sleep anyways, and hopefully the letter will tell me right who he is then when we get back to Gotham we can start looking.” 

   “Alright, let’s go, kiddo,” Kitty said, giving him a side hug, while Shadow did the same, and Johnny followed with a headlock and playful noogie. He broke into a wide smile, and the sound of their combined laughter filled the air. 

The next morning they were waiting as the bank opened, and at the sight of them, the teller clearly remembered them from just two days before by her smile. She walked behind the counter and picked up the phone, pressed a button, and a second later she put it down, and the manager came around the corner. 

   “Mr. Richardson, Mr. Friday Ms. Goth.  i got the paperwork, so if you want the others they can come as well Mr. Richardson but it is your choice. “ the manager told him 

   “I’d like them with me please” 

   “Very well let’s go.”

 The manager led them through a gate and into a set of back rooms. Once at the very last door that looked like a big safe out of a heist movie, the manager twisted the wheel on the door and motioned them inside, closing it behind them. 

   “ We always close the door no matter what to ensure no one but authorized parties are in here including no clients passing each other.” he explained. 

   “Now here is the box Ms. Wills paid for, now there is no reimbursement, so if you wish we can keep the box under your name for the remaining eight years and you can use it as you wish or we can empty the box and cancel the contract, again there will be no reimbursement for this.”  the manager hardlined

   “I’ll close it, I don’t need the box. After this I have safe places to store whatever is inside.” he told them and just got a nod back. 

The manager then pulled a long, thin box out of the wall and inserted a key and twisted it to make the lid pop open. Danny was actually shocked when he looked. The letter was there, and also some cloth. He picked everything up, giving Johnny the letter, but handed Kitty a corner of the cloth before pulling out the rest. It was small, not quite a baby blanket’s size, and it was just some embroidery, but he could tell in the uneven but tight stitching she had made it herself. He didn’t want to overthink it until he read the letter. Maybe she just tossed it in because she didn’t want the fabric. Just by touching it, he knew. There wasn’t any emotion in the embroidery. Whatever her reason for leaving it, she didn’t leave it here because she was feeling sentimental, or wanted him to have something of hers.  

   “Hey kid, you wanna read this here or back at the hotel?” Johnny’s question broke him from his unseeing stare at the blanket. 

   “The hotel room.” He said, sure but muted. 

   “Ms. Wills was quite the Gothamite, however it is funny, there were not all the vigilantes there as there are now back then, and yet she seems to have gotten them all.” The manager chuckled. 

   “What do ya mean?” Kitty asked 

   “Oh well, obviously the bat symbol, and the original robins who were active. But there are three more R symbols, one that even matches the current Robin. As well as a purple bat and a plain black one, a red one. Spoiler, black bat, bat woman or red hood. And a light, The Signal. It is funny that this was placed here far before the time of the second robin and yet bat woman, robins 2,3,5 bat girl, spoiler, bat woman, and red hood and spoiler are all on here. If I believed in any of that new age mess I’d say she saw the future.” The manager chuckled again. 

   “Thank you sir. Have a good day.” Danny said the man nodded and taking the back end of the fabric from kitty and the letter from Johnny they walked back out where he stored them both in the pocket dimensions he had in his side bag and they rode back to the hotel and walked up to the room, 

   “So kiddo, you wanna read it.” Kitty said, holding the envelope to him where he sat on the bed. 

   “ya, ya. Sit with me?” he asked, and Kitty and Johnny sat on either side of him, each tossing an arm over his shoulders. 

   “ Jordan, 

   I never wanted you. I had fashioned myself as Roberta the girl wonder so I could get close to Robin the boy wonder and make him fall in love with me the way I was in love with him. Gaining his trust and being accepted to work with him required a lot of work. Then one day we were both high on adrenaline from a big fight, and I kissed him. When he kissed me back, I knew it was my chance to show him I could love him, that he could love me, and I could keep his attention. I’m sure he was only 15, the same as I was. But I told him my identity a few weeks after that night, and he pulled away more and more until it was nearly like the beginning again. He did everything but tell me to leave. I know now he had just accepted he couldn’t get rid of me, so it was better to have me follow his lead. Then when my mask slipped, he was gone. He yelled at me for the mess-up, and I knew he was right. I did not want to risk his safety, so my parents moved us away. Roberta, the girl wonder, was done. Then I found out I was pregnant, I do not know who robin was under the mask, and I didn’t want to be seen as some floozy so when I filled out your name so I used the name of another boy I had a crush on. A classmate. Richard Grayson Wayne. Mr. Wayne has some relationship to Batman and Robin. I’m sure of it. Hopefully, he will be able to get you in contact with Robin if you want. I never bothered to try to tell Robin you existed. We were 15, not ready for kids, and, well, he never loved me, and by the time I knew you were coming, I knew I had never really loved him either. I kept stitching while I waited for you to come so I could give you away. I didn’t want it after the reminder of the time I had to put my life on hold because of a stupid mistake. If I had waited, worked harder, made him chase me more than I had chased him, I might not have ended up not only failing to tie him to me but with you as well. I do hope you have a decent life. Don’t try to contact the Wills family. You’ll never be part of it. 

Mary.” 

He took a deep breath, held it and let it go slowly.

   “So that’s it. Find Bruce Wayne, try and get him to put me in contact with Robin. Never wanted, Just a reminder of her stupid mistake, a failed trap, that made her put her life on hold, and never try to contact them.”  he sighed again. 

Out of everything, he was just defeated. He knew she had given him up, that she would have been young. But still. Part of him had hoped a heartfelt secret would come from the letter. It was good she had moved on, because he wasn’t sure how he would have dealt with her if she had come to him needing something or asking for something now. He tried to breathe through the emotions swirling within him and just accept them. 

   “Hey kiddo,  I know a little part of you hoped for more, but-” Kitty started but then suddenly he was forcefully pulled through a summoning before he could warn them.

Chapter Text

Suddenly he was in front of John Constantine again; however, he seemed to be in a living room this time. It had dark green walls, or at least what he could see of the walls. There were towering bookcases made of dark wood pressed against every wall, each filled with more books and papers than even Ghostwriter's library. There were a couple of antique-looking ornate green chairs with a matching sofa.  

   “What is going on?” he asked, shutting his emotions out. 

   “I was hoping you’d help me with figuring out some paranormal stuff and dead languages Phantom. ” John asked, his voice was tense and worried, shoot he’d been overly snippy with John. 

   “Sure, let’s see it.” He tried to relax visibly and soften his voice as he floated over beside him and sat on the couch. 

Over the hours they spent pouring over the different languages and variations in the texts and carvings as well, he found he rather liked John. He was a crafty bastard, a conman, creator of binders of paperwork for Danny, but a man with a good heart. John told him a lot of things about magic, and he reciprocated with things about denizens and the realms. They had gone back to work a little more comfortable than before for a few more hours until John got up for a drink.  

   "Need a drink?" 

   "Can I have a black coffee please?"

   “No coffee for you, you look 12.” John said teasingly as he handed him hot chocolate instead of coffee like he’d asked for when the man asked if he needed a drink.  

   “I was 14 when I was killed, thank you very much.” He said, full of sass. It was a sore spot that in his basic form he was still a 14-year-old in a homemade hazmat suit. 

   “Jezz, let me guess hazmat means fucking lab accident or shit eh? Your parents musta been devastated.” 

It was a little close to asking about his death enough to rile Danny but not throw him into suffering the death again like an outright question but it still stung. 

   “Ya, they were so upset one of their stupid experiments killed me they didn't even notice I fucking died. They cared so much about me they fostered me as a pet for their daughter, they loved me so much they forgot I existed other than as their free labor of entertaining her and cleaning up their messes. Not like they were my parents anyway, my birth mother counted down the days till she could get  rid of me, the thing that made her put her life on hold, tried to trap him with sex, but they were already split before she realized it existed,  Just the trap that failed. Birth father didn’t even know I existed according too her and I don’t even have a real fucking name for him just his old cape. Sure my parents were so devastated I still dont  have a fucking grave or memorial.” he said it as sharply and sarcastically as he could, a bit of ghost speak slipping into his words unintentionally. 

He knew that it sounded like cruelty, toxic venom running in your veins, crashing glaciers and cracking ice, and the whine of electricity in the walls to the living when he did that. He was about to apologize to John, who hadn’t deserved that, when he felt the little thump of Elle’s core and placed his hand over it.

   “Phantom? I’m sorry.” John’s voice was soft, clearly sad he’d upset him. 

   “Whatever, for what it’s worth  I have my baby girl, and unlike them I love her and adore her, doesn’t matter she was made and I had no choice, but her core is here, i’m her parent and I love her and I will love her for eternity, nothing in the realms could ever make me see her as any less than the sun, the moon and all the stars in my sky,  and I’ll hold her and adore her.  With the same passion and devotion I had in life to being an astronaut, I’ll be the best momma.” He spoke it to the universe, to Elle, to himself. He loved Elle, and no matter what, she was the most important thing there was now.  

   “I’m glad to hear that, that you love her, that you’re healing from them. Thank you, phantom, for helping us.” John told him. 

   “Sure,  come on, let’s get to the next passage.” He tried to move on, but the tenseness and sadness still hung in the air. The atmosphere had been tense for a while until John spoke about something personal first. 

   “I’m not the bastard and shithead most of ‘em think I am. They make jokes about me selling my soul, and I bet that probably bugs ya, makes it look like I have no regard, but I never did it cus I have no respect. “

   “I know, I have binders full of paperwork from every deal you’ve ever done, don’t think it escaped my notice the first time you sold your soul to servitude was to save your sister’s life. Or all the prayers you send to those unable to be saved.”  John softened then. A few minutes of silence later, and with a bubbling in his core too, shared too, he spoke up as well. 

   “My sister was always the only one I ever had. I wanted who I thought were my parents, but I had my Jammy.“ He smiled a bit, then he chuckled a little too himself. 

   “Teachers thought it was cute that she walked me home and I called her Jammy, but I was five and didn’t fully understand. Jazz did everything a mommy did but she was Jazz too so she became Jammy: Jazz my mommy.” The smile dropped from his face, and his voice got quieter. Wistful as just thinking the tears started to crowd in his eyes.  

   “If I was hungry or scared, or cold, the days where my own mind was too much for one reason or another she told me she loved me. She held my broken shattering pieces together till they stabilized and said I love you like masking tape, every hug, every hand held, every meal made, and nightmare fought, and every re-animated food she fought, promised without words one day she’d find the right glue to put us all back together proper.” He took a deep breath. He really didn’t need to as a ghost, but it made him feel better — one part because of the familiarity and ten parts because jazz had taught him. 

   “Part of why I came back was because of her. If I was all that held her together, and she was all that held me together what would happen to her when I was gone?  She had a future, could get out, she was always the smart one. Would I destroy her future if I died? Who would hold her together if I didn’t? Who would tell her they loved her? Really loved her not the way our parents said they loved us, but loved her as a person. Who would help her and make the glue that would fix us if she couldn’t find it?” He sighed and leaned back against the couch, picking up his feet and tucking them close to himself. 

   “She’s in University, in Star City. She escaped and got as far away as possible. Found her glue, changing her name, getting away, making friends, she left with a portal gun when she went so she could come home in emergencies. She hasn’t seen me since everything went down, but last time I checked on her there was a boy. Seems good for her, she’s smiling for real.”  

It wasn’t the same. John had sold his soul, his chance for eternal rest, and his freedom to save his sister. Danny had refused rest, refused peace, and bound himself to this plane for his. John would end up serving a deity or demon for eternity, and Danny would just be here still roaming, still doing paperwork, long after she was gone. They were similar but not the same. After some more coffee and hot chocolate, and a few more hours of work, Danny headed off, leaving John alone.

   “Shit, that poor fucking kid.” John shook his head.

Not sure what else to do or how to make the feeling in his gut go away, he headed to the tower to talk with Captain Marvel. He was and wasn’t surprised to see the rest of the Young Justice, now in their 20s, no longer the little ankle biters who had started the group, also hanging out. This gave him the perfect idea.  

   “Hey, half of you have shit parents and the other half dead parents right?” he asked the room, making the kids all turn to him. 

   “Constantine too what do we owe the pleasure of your invasive questions?” Red Robin asked deadpan. 

   “Spent the day with Phantom, trying to figure out how to help him.” He explained 

   “And why would having dead or shitty parents affect that?” Supernova asked him tensely. Straightening up even more when a moment later Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman walked through the hall, having their own conversation.  

   “I don’t understand why he has an obsession with the young heroes but hates us Batman.” Superman groaned.

   “He is not obsessed with them, he made it clear to each why they were asked for and was plain if formal about why he wanted to speak to them. He also only had issues with you.”

   “You don’t know what he said to the agent or hood.” Supes retorted 

   “It does not matter however, I do know what he said to those two as they entrusted it to me after without my asking them.” 

   “He hates me, he said right away he wanted me gone, and I have never been afraid like I was by his powers, never had the instinct to  run before. When he told me to go, i waned to run. Something is wrong with him. Besides who hates Superman” 

John growled. That pompous dick, John knew that Phantom had spoken to Supernova outside of the bubble, the big blue boy scout would have heard every word said and know exactly why the ghost didn’t like him. 

   “Humm, I wonder. Why on earth would the kid who found out he was a long term foster, died on his 14th birthday from neglect,  and whose Death site was in his own home’s basement with no one noticing him gone because he was nothing but a live-in servant to them. Found out after death he was dropped like a hot potato when his egg donor failed to trap his sperm donor. Who was a pregnant 14 year old when they died and has spent years now pregnant with his baby’s core because even if their existence wasn’t his choice he loves and adores and cherishes his baby more than anything because she’s a baby she didn’t choose to exist just like he didn’t and in his own words he’s -Gonna love her and make sure she never has a single doubt she is the sun the moon and all the stars in his sky. -  Why on earth would he dislike the guy who named his child Abomination. Just because that child existed.” John growled anger and disgust with Superman heavy in his voice  

   “It it’s not the same-” he tried to speak, but John cut him off.  

   “Ya you were a fucking adult who found out you had a teenage kid, then sent him away shipped off. You left some blood out and Lex mixed it with his in a tube and made a kid.  Far less traumatic then Bats here being drugged by a hot eco-terrorist so she could steal his DNA, mix it with hers and grow the newest Robin then drop him on Bats door step at 10.  Phantom was a fucking child, who was attacked who had no choice or decision or agency in the creation of a baby who was and is growing inside of him. But he can understand that the baby had nothing to do with his consent being violated,  Batman’s five years younger then you and never considered Robin guilty for his mothers crime.” John paused for a second to let it all sink in. before he started again

   “Your father was ashamed of your behavior towards your kid, made sure the Prince knew to tell him that, and that the rest of the family, the ones born and grown on krypton, were proud of Supernova to the point they chose him a new name, they named him for his grandfather, for new beginnings, named him with love. ” John did his best to really rip a strip or five off the blue boy scout. Man deserved it, and after the day he had with Phantom, he wasn’t gonna hear shit. 

   “So I wonder. Why the hell would the Prince want nothing to do with and abusive, neglectful, deadbeat? Who pretends to be a hero.” He filled his voice with as much sarcasm and venom as he could in the last sentence, hoping to get through to the idiot just what a piece of shit he was.

Superman looked ashamed. As he should. Even Bats and Wonder Woman were saying nothing.   

   “That’s why you asked about shitty and dead parents?” Ma’gann asked 

   “Kind of Ya,  called Phantom for some help, said something I meant to be nice but pressed all the wrong buttons and he blew up, kid needed it though so.”  He shrugged.  

   “It’s nice you wanted to help him.  He probably needs some kind of closure that is what makes ghosts pass on right?  To More, or to better?” 

   “Not really there’s shades that that works for,  Denizens who are unrestful dead are different. Even if the thing that made them fight to live is…complete for lack of a better term, they don’t fade and find peace, their beings like the rest of us, just made of spectral energy not carbon. They are made of the energy created by the suffering physically and emotionally of their death, of their emotions and will and hope, and fear. And desire. Sometimes it’s flipped, the desperate need and desire to be saved, for someone to save them turns into“ he stopped abruptly, nope he was not gonna say that and risk it getting too Hood that he’d said it in front of so many people most of them had no idea he was the second Robin let alone a Denzien. 

   “There is a ghost named Desiree.  She wanders the world granting anyone their deepest desires, but manifests them in the worst way possible. She’s a well known entity; she was a harem girl who had won the heart of a sultan. He promised to grant her all of her heart’s desires (Her wishes) and even a kingdom of her very own. However, she was cast away from the palace by the sultan’s jealous wife. After dying of a broken heart, the pain from the broken promise, the desperate pain of wishing her lover had upheld any promise to fulfill her wishes  instead of letting his wife treat her that way Desiree’s spirit wandered around as a ghost genie, she would forever grant others’ wishes. But never get her own. Many unrestful dead are this way. The wife and sultan died hundreds of years ago, but she wanted her wish granted so she fulfills others.”    

    “So, fulfilling their dying wishes wont help ghosts like Phantom and the Prince. What can we do for them.” wonder woman asked. Superman had apparently left while his back was turned, and Batman was sitting in a chair, his lips quirked up the tiniest bit; if you knew to look, you would see it. 

   “That’s why I came here, to talk to marvel,  then saw the kids figured they might have an idea what I could do.” 

   “Try, and don’t leave. Being someone’s friend, someone steady is often far more than anything else. Anything you can say or by or do is nothing compared to just not giving up on them. Just being there.” Jor told him as he wrapped an arm each around Red Robin and Impulse.

   “Thanks kids.”  John smiled softly. They were good kids.  

    “Hay I'm back it was Constantine, was thinking accept it i need to just accept it all and let it go, and then i was summoned and it took it as accepting the summoning.” He told Johnny and kitty who were in their ghost forms, lying on one of the beds with Shadow. 

   “Hay kid, you okay?” 

   “Ya, I'm good. Getting out of my head was good.  Thank you” 

   “Course kiddo, you wanna head back to Gotham or wait here?” 

   “Let’s rest here a bit.” 

A few hours later they all got up, no words needed, and got onto their bikes and headed back to Gotham. It would be afternoon when they got back there, so they headed off. 

The ride was silent. Even core speak was at a minimum, he felt bad for venting at John, but he was overwhelmed he realized. It wasn’t overwhelming anger, or sadness; it was defeat, and the realization that at some point he had just stopped believing he could be loved. He could be wanted.  And that was too much. He was wanted for the things he did, for what he could give. But just for himself? Did anyone ever want him? He couldn’t help the little distress chirp that left him and had Kitty and Johnny chirping and cooing back at him. As soon as they arrived in Gotham, they went to the library and checked out apartments. He didn’t want to live with Johnny and Kitty, and they didn’t want to live with him. They would spend the time they weren’t with him in their lair anyway, so there was no reason to waste money on two apartments, but in case Danny needed them for something they needed a place to be so a two-bed apartment it was. They went to a number before they found one that was not that run down, cheap enough that an emancipated teen or barely legal adult living there wasn’t gonna be suspicious. Thankfully, it wasn’t inside the haunt across the street. Danny would need to bring a gift and introduce himself, but he wasn’t against meeting the other denizens of the city. 

In the morning they headed to Gotham Academy. It was a fancy school, but they had the best materials, funding and could focus on the classes Danny needed to graduate and get into Gotham U’s aerospace and engineering department, so he was getting enrolled. It didn’t take long after Johnny pulled out NDA’s the school was eager to have another legacy jewel to add to their crown. They gave Danny a card for the place to get his uniforms and a list of supplies, and then they sent the three of them away.  

   “So guess we’re gonna use that bank card up now eh?” Kitty teased.  

   “Ya, guess so, lets get this over with.” He sighed and got on his bike, pulling out behind Johnny so that he could lead them to the uniform store. 

Three stores and what felt like weeks later, they were back at the apartment and waiting for Chinese food to be delivered. 

   “You are gonna try right kid?” Johnny asked 

   “What?”

   “You’re gonna try right? to make friends, to join clubs, to enjoy this last year of school? A lot of those kids are gonna go to Gotham u as well and you might end up being in classes with them, it would be good for you to have friends who are alive.”

   “Put it like that..” he grumbled.

   “ya I'll try Johnny, it would be nice to have a couple people I know and like around.” 

The doorbell rang and kitty rushed off to get the food and once she was back; they passed Danny’s thermos around to stir some extra ecto in as the stuff here was really stale and would take a bit for them to get used to so they needed the boost. Especially Johnny and Kitty, who had been mostly in the realms their entire afterlife. Tomorrow he starts at Gotham Academy. At least here he had a fresh start.

Chapter Text

He had decided after last night to wait to meet his dad and decide if he should try to go to Mr. Wayne first. So with that off his mind for now he had driven his bike to school. It was comfortable and let his thoughts fly away. Plus, no one had said anything yesterday, so he didn’t worry. First up was heading to the office as he was to get a buddy to show him around that would be in most of his classes.  

   “Hi,  I’m Jayden. I’m here to meet my buddy for my first day.” he told the receptionist.  

   “Alright, Duke Thomas will hopefully be here shortly.”  She told him. 

Of course, just then, a fairly tall boy in a far more relaxed-looking uniform came running in nearly tripping over his own feet. Bag slung over a single shoulder. The sides of his head were in a fade but short Ebony dreadlocks were piled loosely on top of his head, and he had thick brows and eyelashes framing the most beautiful brown eyes with a hint of embarrassed shine that reminded him of the Dark chocolate cocoa drinks frost guard would bring with a cookie straw right in the middle and whipped cream in a ring on the edge so that it only sweetened the first sip. His skin was a beautiful warm medium espresso, and when he smiled, it was a little crooked, and his beautiful, nearly burgundy lips pulled up to show the barest hint of teeth. He couldn’t help but wonder if, if he touched him, if his skin would be as soft and warm as it looked.

Duke was late. He was late, and that was not good for fostering trust with new students. Especially ones the school already had on a care list. 

Yesterday, he was pulled out of his club activities just after lunch and sent to the counselor’s office. He’d been worried and confused because if something was up with his parents or siblings, normally Alfred, Bruce, or Tim would be there, especially on a weekend. So when he entered the counselor’s office with its soft green walls and plush couch across from the chair Mrs. Teller sat in with her hands on her lap, he dropped his bag and sat down. 

   “Mrs. Teller what’s going on.” He knew his voice showed his worry; he didn’t bother to hide it as a civilian. 

   “It’s not something bad Mr. Thomas, I’m sorry if we worried you.” She started immediately.

He nodded and relaxed 

   “Okay so what’s up then?” 

   “Well we just got a new transfer for the summer semester which will be starting tomorrow. He is emancipated” - How the kid managed to be alive when his parents were league-level bigots, she muttered under her breath- “and his name is Jordan Richardson.” She frowned for a moment. He wondered, was this gonna be a normal buddy for a day or two or a case?

   “His transcripts are shockingly good. He performed highly above the normal for his previous schools standards; except  he’s marked as having extreme behavior issues and has a record longer than Damian's.” She laced her fingers together and bounced them in her lap in slight movements. How wonderful. A case in his class. He cataloged everything about her and activated his body cam to record it as well. 

   “What I’m concerned about as far as the school and you are concerned though is that the record shows extreme neglect from the teachers.  His medical file lists an accident that resulted in electrocution and had him hospitalized for weeks and with a weak heart.” Her eyes turned down, and she dipped her head down so she was no longer looking directly at him. She felt she should be sharing more information with him. Must be some pretty severe issues, but unlike the possible heart failure, not considered a requirement for him to know. He would need to look up the after effects of electrocution. 

   “I can’t tell you anything else but we have a lot of suspicions. He was a top of top student before his freshman year. After the accident, everything plummeted. His attendance, his grades, his engagement, and club activity.” She frowned and gritted her teeth. Anger, frustration. Whatever she was about to say was a massive downplay of what they knew or suspected. 

   “His teachers reported him for missing part or all of periods, falling asleep in classes, not putting in effort or handing things in, often running out of class suddenly, breaking things. His elder sister stated its effects from the accident, including the medical notes on what to expect after included. Yet, they punished the boy continuously. On top of it other parts of his disciplinary record show he was excessively bullied by other students and punished for it by teachers.” The frown melted away, but her posture slumped slightly. Right so these things are all explained by his medical record in some way and accommodations or support were needed, also sister not parents, but she’d muttered that the parents were league level bigots, so meta trafficking, experimentation, hunting, and or torture he’d have to talk to B. 

   “I don’t see him trusting a member of staff whatsoever with his struggles or needs. Not like everyone won’t know by lunch tomorrow, he was also one of the kids mixed up in the Child serves neglect scandal. He’s a meta, and his parents were extreme bigots, justice league involvement level.  We’re going to be putting him in as many classes as we can with you and assigning you as his buddy.” She had snapped her head up to look him directly in the eyes, forcing authority into her voice. She felt strongly about this, and he couldn’t blame her; he trusted teachers here far less than they thought he did. He just knew how to play it. Also win for the Conscious admission of the league level involvement. But that CPS scandal. Fuck that meant he was one of the foster kids who was sold and every time there was a complaint took bribes to hide it.  

   “We hope that as another meta, as another kid from a lower middle class home transplanted into the academy, as a kid who had their world shattered around them, and though he’s Romanian and your African American hopefully being also of a clearly different ethnicity the two of you will get along and you’ll be able to watch for or encourage him we care and worry, we want to make any accommodation we can to help him. He loves astronomy and engineering.” The entire time Mrs. Teller’s voice was sad and anxious, her face reflected it to the point of her wet eyes looking nearly like they were begging him to accept it easily. And well. Shit. He’s gonna have a buddy. 

   “All right, when do I meet him?” 

   “Tomorrow morning in the office.”

   “Alright, can I head back to my club activities now?” 

   “Certainly Mr. Thomas, thank you.” The relief in her voice unsettled him. What about this kid had her so afraid that Duke would reject it? 

He just smiled at her and left, not sure what to say about that. Once the day was over, they went to the cave. Bruce was on the watchtower, and there was nothing in the computer yet, so more research to do later. He also decided that instead of watching for 100 different things he’d watch Jordan and look things up after.    

So of course he was running late today, his tie loose and his jacket rumpled, with the wrong belt so his pants were hanging a bit lower than they should. He rushed into the office, and seeing the boy there waiting, he nearly fell over his own feet. 

He must be Jordan. The boy had a swirling green-blue aura that was heavy, but, well; the kid was a meta, so it made sense. He had extremely fluffy iridescent raven-black hair in a textured crop that must be twice as long as it looked. If he straightened it, Duke would bet it would look like a curtain mullet like Dick had. His skin was extremely pale but with a warm undertone that suggested he was sick or hadn’t gotten enough sun and the brightest tiffany blue eyes he’d ever seen. With his long upturned nose and square jaw, Duke could see what the counselor had meant by clearly being of a different ethnicity. Knowing Dick, he would have immediately pegged the kid for Romanian, like the eldest Wayne sibling. He was also fairly tall, at least 5’10 to his own 5’7 and had a willowy but athletic build. 

Thinking about it, Duke might need to steal a DNA sample. The differences were enough to rule out a Dick clone automatically, but what about a relative? Dick would be over the moon to find Jordan, even if whichever cousin was his parent sucked. It wasn’t urgent though, so he’d try to do this the civilian way, not the bat way. He saw Jordan reach his arm out. Looking a little dazed. Oh, oh shit. He quickly grabbed the offered hand. 

   “Duke Thomas, call me Duke. Nice to meet you Jordan”  he introduced himself. The contact seemed to shake Jordan out of his fog fully. 

   “Ahh, Jordan but, you knew that, sorry, just a lot.  Sorry.” Jordan rubbed his neck and ducked his head, making his fluffy hair cover those gorgeous eyes as soon as he’d let go of the handshake. Low self-esteem is not unusual for new kids, let alone bullied and neglected ones. 

   “All good dude, let’s head off to the first period, ya?” he smiled with the suggestion. 

  “Ya, ya, lets go.” Jordan smiled softly back and rooked up his bag over his shoulder.   

Duke led him down the hall 

   “You got a locker?” 

   “Ya, umm 322” 

   “Nice I'm 320 so were locker neighbors.” He pointed to the walls lined with double stacked tan half size lockers. 

They continued up a few flights of stairs and stopped only a few paces down. 

   “Here’s ours. 320 to 330, our first period will be up on the fifth floor as were Seniors.” he told Danny as he put some books away and then closed it again. He offered him a smile, so he was good and they continued down to their first class, Physics.

The rest of the day went by pretty simple. Time slipped by fast. Jordan was easy to get along with and kind, but wicked smart. He noticed Jordan had several ticks, rubbing his neck, rubbing his palm and wrist. He could see a bright red Lynchburg-looking scar, which must be from the accident. Jordan also often drifted off, he’d be listening, he’d process the information but he wouldn’t be focusing on it, and if asked directly he got anxious and struggled but if casually asked could often explain it all to you in two or three different ways that were both correct and would make sense for different people. He was also likely narcoleptic; he’d be fully awake and attentive one second and then clock out for a few seconds or minutes completely. He also had to take breaks pretty often in writing, rubbing at his hand, wrist, arm, and shoulder or placing a hand right beside his heart for a minute. 

Sometimes his aura would get messy, and he’d urgently run to the bathroom. Likely trying to hide ability bursts brought on by panic attacks, but being the kid who went to the bathroom six times a day wasn’t gonna be good for him. One of the few times when people knew he was part of the CPS scandal helped. The kids figured it out on their own. He was having panic attacks or flashbacks and didn’t know how else to get space; if he heard anything, he’d correct people as well. 

On the second day in chemistry he’d seen more than well, Jordan hated chemistry, he understood it all perfectly but would not dare touch anything and when the teacher threatened him to mark him a zero for the entire lab and the class duke saw the shaking; it was tiny but he could tell that Jordan was struggling to grip and control the stirring rod and realized his pens and pencils all had extra thick grips on them like for kids just learning to write. In the afternoon he noticed Jordan swap to his right even though all he’d seen so far Jordan was left-handed. For the entire rest of the day, Jordan's arm just hung, and he breathed harder. It was hard for him not to run Jordan to the nurse when he started to hear a wheeze like when one of his teammates had broken if not badly bruised ribs. But they were pushing through it. 

It was two and a half weeks in when Jordan drifted off in a narcoleptic fit and the concerning wheeze stopped. He immediately called the school med transport and screamed at the librarian. Checking Jordan’s neck and wrist, there was no pulse. He tried to give Jordan CPR, but there was no give to his chest, even putting his entire 190 lbs of weight on him. Must be a meta thing, fuck. As soon as the school’s medical staff arrived, he called Tim to ensure that even if Jordan didn’t have insurance, he’d get the best care. 

When Jordan woke up as they arrived at the hospital and had a massive panic attack and dissociated, he was glad he had made that call as Tim bullied the staff into getting his buddy a break and Duke in. It was a turning point for their relationship, Duke realised later. They also met Jordan’s emergency contacts.

 Mrs. Goth looked like your standard social worker. Petite navy suit with white shirt, brown hair in a long braid. Clear worry on her face. The other Mr. Friday in plain blue jeans, brown loafers, and a tan sweater over a blue button up strolled in looking casual and calm but the rigidness in his spine the way he slouched a little too much, the well-hidden tenseness in his voice and muscles betrayed his worry. 

Then, in the oddest thing he had seen, he realised that both had green-red auras, like Jordan's was green-blue, right before Mr. Friday growled a bit like Bruce and Danny made a chirp? Almost like a baby bird? He and Tim stepped outside to give them time, and he briefed Tim and the doctor on everything that had happened and everything he had observed in the past weeks. Mr. Friday came out with Jordan’s chart and ordered everything used to touch him had to be destroyed as when “Danny” — must be his nickname for Jordan was stressed his biological materials could turn toxic part of his meta abilities to protect him from harm.  

Duke slips into the room while Tim talks to the Dr. and Mr. Friday. 

   “Hay Jordan.” he says softly, and the two look at him. 

Jordan has a soft smile on his face as he looks at him. “Thanks for caring, Duke. And you can call me Danny.” 

   “Danny then. Are you gonna be okay? I was really worried. Well I've been worried all week, but you just.” He puffed out a big breath, not sure how to phrase his concerns. In a way that did not sound creepy. 

   “When I was asked to be your buddy, I was told you’d been electrocuted in an accident.  That it left you with health issues like a weak heart. I looked up common after the issue of electrocution. And I noticed you exhibit a lot of them.” 

   “Sleep issues- I figured you might be narcoleptic. Anxiety- your aura flutters. Normally it’s a blue green swirl but at times often before you run out it starts to spin and roll like waves or a whirlpool. You also have a number of nervous ticks that happen randomly. Nerve damage, and Chronic Pain -the way you rub at your hand wrist and arm and chest. Heart damage- well I was told you have a weaker heart. Loss of motor function, and weakness- some days you switch arms, and use your right and your left your dominant hand just limp. Plus chemistry lab and stuff you don’t like holding things. Difficulty concentrating- your listening, and processing I can tell, you can answer any question even explain things but your not paying attention. Worsening Hearing loss- you miss things sometimes, you still get through it mostly but I've seen it in after bombs and stuff the scrunch, the confused look in your eyes. The hurried answer or ask to repeat.” He laid out everything easy to explain.

   “I Didn’t notice you were paying so much attention.” Danny whispered. 

He looked up quickly at Danny, who had a slight pinkness to his cheeks. And was rubbing the back of his neck.

   “Of course I was paying attention, you’re not just my buddy, you’re my friend Danny. I was sort of hoping this weekend I could bring you out to meet my Girlfriend and some friends not from school for a hang out. ”

Danny’s face calmed, and he looked away. Embarrassment? Why? That didn’t make sense. He looked over at Ms. Goth, who was rubbing his shoulder and smiling softly. Had Danny never had friends before? Was Duke a bad friend and Danny hadn’t realized they were? 

   “I’d like that Duke. Can you send Johnny back in here? He’s gotta be done by now.”

 Duke just nodded. Danny had accepted the invite, and Danny had had a big day, it was time to let him rest. So, he headed out. 

   “Um Mr. Friday. Your Johnny right?” Mr Friday looked concerned as he stood straighter. 

   “Ya what’s going on.” Oh oh, Duke knew that tone. It was that you can trust me, I am here for anything, big brother-tone.  

   “Danny just wants you.” he assured the man quickly

   “Oh! Danny eh? Kid let ya call him that?” he asked 

   “Ya, I invited him to meet my friends and girlfriend too on the weekend he said he’d come along” Duke actually was excited about it.

Mr. Friday blinked a few times. Surprise. Why? Mr. Friday was likely the same kind of  meta as Danny, and they were obviously close. Man he really was a bad friend if no one realized he and Danny were friends.  “All right, well I’m his lawyer, not his keeper, but I’m glad, the kid needs friends.” Mr. Friday nodded and walked off. Not sure, Duke slipped into the shadows and into Danny’s room. 

   “Hay kid, so this weekend?”

   “Whatever.”  Danny rolled into Ms. Goth, now lying in the bed with him.

   “Okay, how’s Seraphelle?”

    “She’s doing good, happy, safe, I wanna go see frostbite though.”

   “Alright, as soon as we’re outta here, we’ll go.” 

   “Thanks Johnny.”

   “Course kid, no matter what you’ll always be our Kiddo” Ms. Goth said 

   “Thanks Kitty” Danny pulled on Mr. Friday’s arms, and soon he was sleeping on them both. 

 He saw Mr. Friday and Ms. Goth kiss each other and then hug his friend. Huh. The three were extremely close, but who were Seraphelle and Frostbite?  

   “What do you think about meeting your dad kiddo? Thought about it anymore?” Ms. Goth asked 

   “Ya,  can we go tomorrow? It's Friday. That way I’ll have the courage and excuse that I was at the hospital and I wanna know my medical info.” Danny sounded tired emotionally, like this took a lot out of him.  

   “Alright we’ll ride over to Blüdhaven tomorrow then.” 

   “Is it stupid that I really, really want him to accept me and be my friend.?” 

   “No kid, you’ve lost a lot,  been hurt far too many times.  It makes sense you want something good from this unknown. “ Ms. Goth said as she petted his hair.  

He decided it was time to leave;  so he appeared in the cave beside Tim who’d left after being assured Danny had insurance and the bill would be no issue.  

   “What are you doing?” He asked Tim.  

   “I’m gonna run Jordan’s DNA” 

   “No!” 

   “Why not? He looks alarmingly like Dick but definitely not a clone and I nicked the DNA because I heard a lab tec say he has the same genetic defect that makes Dick so flexible. So.” 

   “Because I’m introducing them on Saturday!  I’ve figured they were cousins since I met him and I have planned to introduce him to Steph and Dick this weekend.  I wanna know if Dick and Danny see each other they’ll recognize the other.” 

   “Fine I’ll run it after they meet.”  Tim grumbled, but he was smiling too so Duke knew it was fine.  

   “Thank you.”  

Duke quickly set things up with Dick to come for dinner Friday so Saturday he and Danny could meet. Duke was excited. Danny really was hoping for something good with his bio dad, and there was no world where Dick didn't love Danny, or wasn't over the moon to meet a lost relative! It would be perfect. After Saturday, Dick and Danny would get at least one new person to love.