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She was still Catwoman. She would never be able to give up the thrill of the chase - both for the treasure and the Bat.

She was still Selena Kyle - a socialite who used every connection she had to climb higher and weave her way into more and more networks, all to better understand her targets.

But she was also Auntie Lena. She made phone calls to talk not with her cousin, but with her niece - because even if technically they were second cousins, Selena decided they were aunt and niece. She sent a little girl elaborate birthday presents and surprised her with a week long girls trip in the summer every year.

And when she helped Jazz hold her baby brother Daniel James for the first time, Selena had finally accepted that she was absolutely gone for these kids. She couldn’t mock Bruce for his adoptive tendencies anymore. Not now that she understood what it meant to look at a child that wasn’t yours and loving them anyway.

Now there weren’t just gifts of kitty plushies and books of brain teasers, but ones of model rockets and photo albums filled with thick, glossy photos from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The girls trips became sibling getaways with their awesome Auntie Lena.

The first time Jazz called her asking how to make mac and cheese when she was six years old, something twisted in Selena’s stomach. 

The first time Danny called her to ask how to deal with someone picking on him at school, that twisting became a heavy lead weight.

The first time Jazz asked if she and Danny could stay with Selena for the week since Jack and Maddie were leaving for a ghost hunter convention next week and still hadn’t found them a babysitter, that lead weight sharpened into a steel point.

She was determined to give these kids a good childhood. Even if it meant offering to let the kids come stay with her for the entirety of summer vacation. Even if it meant screaming herself hoarse on the phone with Jack after Jazz told her about him leaving samples of something from the lab in the kitchen fridge where either of the kids could have eaten it.

Still, she tried to let them keep their parents close. Even if she couldn’t understand it, Selena could tell that Jazz and Danny loved Jack and Maddie, and nothing Selena could say would change that.

When Selena opened her door to find her teenage niece and nephew on her doorstep at three in the morning in Gotham, hearing her niece cry about how Danny had some sort of accident in the lab and neither Jack nor Maddie had taken him to the hospital or even noticed, she made a decision.

She was determined to give these kids a good childhood.

Even if that means taking these kittens in herself.

It took a few weeks and a few favors from some friends of hers who kept a good law firm on retainer, but she managed to get it done. Jazz and Danny were moved to Gotham and set to begin at Gotham Academy next semester. Danny was set up to see a trusted family physician who knew how to keep his mouth shut. And if Selena decided to sic OSHA on her cousin and his wife in order to get their lab - and their portal - shut down, well, who was going to blame her?

The growing pains were there, or course. 

The kids were used to seeing her only for short bursts of time as the fun aunt, not as the full-time parent who had to do the less glamorous parts of caretaking - such as setting curfews and grounding.

Selena had to get used to not being able to move as freely around her home at all hours of the night. Not without a solid alibi.

The sudden onset of powers was certainly a challenge. How did one keep a teenage boy from sneaking out when he had suddenly developed the ability to turn invisible and walk through walls?

The answer turned out to be simply - you didn’t.

"Hello, this is Jim Gordon." He said as he answered. There was no response at first, only the sound of someone breathing on the other end. He clicked the button that started a recording of the phone call in case this was another threat that Batman would need to investigate. Barbara watched him from the corner of her eye.

"U-uncle Jim?" A young and scared sounding voice finally responded. Jim took a seat at the dining table as he tried to piece together who this could be.

"Jasmine?"

"Uh, actually I go by Jazz now."

Jasmine Fenton, Jazz now, the young niece on his dearly departed wife's side of the family from a branch that the rest of the family had thoroughly cut off some time ago.

"Well, Jazz, what can I do for you at... three in the morning?" It was only two where she lived, but still far too late for a young woman who was probably still in high school to be awake.

"Well, you remember my... sibling? Right?"

Jim noted her odd hesitation in that sentence.

"Yes, I do." The Fentons shared the family curse of only having girls apparently.

"Well he goes by Danny now." Or maybe not. So Jazz's brother is trans? Good to know, but not quite worth a 3 AM call across the country to someone she had spoken to maybe three times. "And he's not... he's not safe here anymore!"

Jim snapped his fingers to get Barbara's full attention. She glared at him for snapping at her like he would with his officers, but pulled up her laptop and with a few key presses had joined the call with her headphones in, though she remained silent and listening for now.

"Really? I never would have taken your parents for the type." Jim said, mostly to keep Jazz talking.

"Nobody thinks they're the type! And that's the problem!" Her voice cracked and jumped an octave in fury, and bordering on hysteria. "He's in danger here and nobody believes him and I can't keep them distracted forever! And please, I just need someone to believe me!"

"I believe you Jazz." Jim said quickly. This kind of distress couldn't be faked. She thought her brother was in a real danger for his life. He didn't want to lose the thin thread of trust she was extending him right now. "How can I help?"

Jazz gasped and muffled a sob that they could both still hear. Jim always hated it when kids had been forced to train themselves to cry silently. Barbara scribbled something on a pad of paper and flipped it so he could read it. 'Who?' Jim took the pencil from her and wrote out, 'Jasmine Fenton, Parents Jack and Madeline, Amity Park.' and slid it back to her. That should be all the information Babs needed to do the work he would continue to not ask questions about, even though it was currently helping him.

Once Jazz had collected herself, Jim asked again. "What can I do to help you two? Do you have a safe adult closer who you can talk to?"

"NO! Everyone here believes them, or wouldn't be safe either. I already had to drive four hours just to make this call, not it has to be someone out of state."

Barbara looked at him with her eyebrows raised. Jim grimaced, but kept his voice even.

"Alright, well you can't get much out of state than New Jersey. So what do you need me to do?"

"I keep a detailed list of all our estranged blood relatives just in case." Jazz started, earning an impressed look from Barbara. "So I know you're with the Gotham City Police. I'm hoping you have some resources to get my parents investigated and keep Danny safe."

That implied a level of desperation that he wasn't wholly comfortable with, but he would never turn away someone in need if he could help them. He was about to respond when Jazz suddenly gasped.

"Jim! Is there someone else on the call?" Her voice sounded even more panicked. Barbara pressed a few more keys on her computer before speaking up.

"Yeah, sorry about that Jazz, this is Barbara, I guess we're technically cousins!" Babs said, keeping her voice serious but friendly.

"Jim?" Jazz asked, her voice sounding distance, like she was already backing away from the phone, ready to run if needed. Jim's concern some how just kept rising for her.

"Yep, that's Babs, she's my daughter."

"I'm much better with computer than my dad, so he added me to the call so I can start to plan a route to you." Barbara said.

"Oh thank the Ancients. Do you mean it? You'll really come?"

"Of course! It's high time for a family reunion anyways. We'll be on the road first thing in the morning!"

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! Now I really have to go, I can't be caught out here. Bye!"

With a click the line went dead. Jim flexed his hand and wished for a cigarette, even though Barbara had banned him from smoking in the house. She typed away at her laptop, the furrow growing between her brows. Whatever she was finding wasn't pretty.

He sighed and set the phone down on the table before standing up.

"I'm going to pack some things, then hit the hay. I'll take the first driving shift if you take the second?" He asked, but also hoped. He could comfort a victim and he could investigate a case, but he could already tell that this one was going to be more than any one man could do, so he desperately hoped his daughter would be there to help, even without the extra help she would be providing that he wouldn't ask any questions about. If Batman just happened to show up in Amity Park he wasn't going to question his good fortune.

"Yep! I'll head to bed in a couple of minutes, I just want to finish a few more things." Babs said with a small tired smile.

Obviously Jim had made some bad assumptions during the call and Danny was not necessarily in danger because he was trans, but he was still in danger. Jim's contacts ran into red tape as a powerful government organization blocked any attempts at investigating through above board means. Barbara's searches only managed to get a little more of the picture before she too was shut down, but rumors of a government lock down, of attacks from some extra planar threat, of the whole city getting sucked into a different dimension. This was all over his pay grade, but someone there had asked for his help, and he was going to give it.

He pulled to a stop just a few miles away from where his GPS showed only a blacked out square. He didn't know what he was about to drive into, but he had been raised in Gotham and he knew to follow his gut. Barbara looked at him curiously as he pulled off to the side of the road and unbuckled his seat belt.

"Get in contact with your cousin. Tell her to pack a bag for herself and Danny. We're not going to be stayer than it takes."

Then he stepped out and dialed a number he had memorized, but only used when things were the most dire. As always it rang twice before the other line picked up, and as always there was no response.

"Batman, this is Jim Gordon. The Justice League is needed in Amity Park, Illinois. I don't know what exactly is happening, but it goes against every moral in my body. I'm going to be extracting a pair of at risk teens. If I don't call again in a couple of hours send in the cavalry."

There was a couple of seconds of silence before Batman responded in his usual growling voice, "Understood."

Jim hung up and got back in the car just as Barbara was putting her own phone back in her pocket. He buckled up, and gripped the steering wheel, like he could choke the life out of it before stepping on the gas.

The two of them approached the city limits, the GPS blaring at them to turn around before Barbara reached over and shut it off. Just outside they saw the unmistakable sign of a government blockade. But Jim had lived through No Man's Land in Gotham. He knew how to deal with a blockade. His old car was a rough monstrosity compared to most of the world, but it was designed to survive in Gotham and modified without his consent by his caped allies. They blasted through the blockade with his middle finger pressed to the his window as he passed the government goons all in white.

They honked and shouted and green energy weapons flashed behind them, but Jim was already hurtling down the road into Amity. He grimaced as the air seemed to take on a green haze so even the sun seemed dim. He reached over to the glove box and opened it.

"Put your mask on." He ordered Barbara even as he pulled his own out from the central console. He put his on without stopping, years of dealing with the Joker and Scarecrow coming in handy as he drove with his knee on the wheel while he secured the mask.

Barbara had her own mask on and a map in her hand as she gave him instructions on how to navigate the city. Jim couldn't help that Amity looked almost worse than Gotham had during No Man's Land. The streets were torn up and covered in craters. The buildings were boarded up, or half bulldozed like the city had seen a fight between Superman and a dozen aliens. The few civilians walked scared, with their heads down, and hurried from place to place. Concernedly they did not have any masks, but Jim wasn't going to trust Barbara's health just because others didn't see the risk.

His tires squealed as he turned the final corner. He could clearly see the monstrosity that his wife's brother and his wife had built on top of their house. He could only imagine what exactly they had gotten up to in that thing. He stopped his car in front of the house and was out, marching up to the door with the engine still running almost before Barbara had finished bracing from the sudden stop.

He pounded his fist against the door for a few minutes. He stepped back ready to kick the door down when it was opened from the inside. He could see the orange hair, and a wide panicked eye of his niece through the crack of the door.

"Jazz, let's go, its time to leave. Where's your brother? Where's your parents?" Jim was tempted to stay around and let his brother and sister in law have a few choice words, but right now he needed to get the kids to safety.

"Who- Wait, Uncle Jim?" She opened the door a little more, naked relief showing through the signs of terror on her face.

"Yes. I told you I would come for you, didn't I?" He said.

Jazz stepped back, her shoulders shaking, though no tears showed. She opened the door fully and turned away.

"Danny is leading our parents away. I'll call him while I grab our bags." She turned away and ran back into the house, putting in a strange ear piece as she climbed the stairs.

Jim looked around the living room, his concern growing for these kids with each glance. There were weapons, whole and in pieces on every bit of furniture. There were puddles and stains of some strange green fluid all over the floor, and some was actively dripping from a leak on the ceiling. The refrigerator shook and wobbled like there was something alive inside that was actively trying to escape. He wanted to stay to take pictures for evidence, but he would just have to trust that Batman had taken his warning seriously and would take over.

Jazz came clattering down the stairs a few minutes later, duffel bags over each shoulder, a bag in her hand, and a pack on her back. Jim reached for his gun as the backdoor slid open, but hid the motion when Danny stumbled in, clutching a bleeding wound on his side.

"Jazz, wha-" He looked in concern at Jim, especially with his gas mask, but neither of them were giving the boy a moment to process.

Jim took a handful of Jazz's bags while she grabbed her brother and pushed him out the door. Jazz shoved Danny into back seat, and the two of them arranged the bags around Barbara's wheelchair. Jazz looked like she was about to try have them leave her behind for whatever self-sacrificing reason she had come up, but Jim wasn't about to have that and pushed her in next to her brother. She looked at him betrayed for a moment as the child locks prevented either of them from opening the back doors. He didn't care. She could be angry at him later, once they were all out of this city.

By the time he was back in the drivers seat, Barbara had pulled the big first aid kit out from under her seat and was passing it back to Jazz to get Danny taken care of. He pulled away from the curb and raced to the end of the street. He squealed around the corner just as some kind of fucking tank pulled around the corner behind them.

"Are you going to be able to get us out of the city?" Jazz asked, her voice panicked as Danny turned around to watch the tank immediately give chase.

"Please, I'm an officer in Gotham City. This is just a Thursday for us." Jim said without taking his eyes off the road.

Jim Gordon might not have powers, or the training that the Bats have, but he had experience, and his car had been modified a thousand times. He knew it was the weird love language of the Gotham Vigilantes, trying to keep him safe in the hell that was being a good cop in GPD.

He needed every ounce of his decades of experience to navigate Amity and stay ahead of the tank that was taking shots at them whenever they could. He snarled as he caught a glimpse of the Fenton logo on the side. The elder Fentons didn't even care that they were taking out street signs and mailboxes. Jim was sure that if there were any citizens out on the road, they would have been run down by the reckless driving.

Barbara typed away on her computer, while Jazz tried to patch up her brother in the backseat of the moving car. Jim didn't know what his daughter was doing, but knew better than to ask questions. The tank behind them suddenly taking a hard right into a mostly demolished building as she cheered showed she was successful.

"I hacked their steering." Barbara said triumphantly.

"That probably won't hold them long." Danny said.

"It doesn't need to." Jim said, and he let his foot fall harder on the accelerator.

After out driving the Fentons, the government blockade was easy to bypass, and once they were on the open road, Jim really let the lead out and took off pushing 90. He was an officer of the law, the highway was empty and he had two scared and injured kids in the car, plus his daughter. He could be forgiven for breaking a few speeding laws.

A few miles outside of the city the crackle of static from his radio signaled that they were successfully outside the government quarantine. They had made it.

The most contaminated exhibited abilities akin to a low level meta, enhanced strength, senses, and healing. Empathic communication. The worse seemed to be the psychological effects, inducing paranoia, obsession, and aggression. It was a cocktail worse than Fear Gas and made interacting with those infected a lesson in patience or a hazard.

The entire situation wasn't helped by the fact that each member of the League seemed to have their powers effected differently. Any empathic or telepathic members couldn't approach without debilitating feedback from the city. Raven couldn't get closer than the forward base without being over run with emotions and Martian Manhunter had only been able to hear terrified and tortured screaming in his mind.

The Kryptonians had their powers sapped to human levels, though without the pain and sickness of kyrptonite. The Lanterns had control of their wrested away from them, almost as if the entire city was filled with a will even greater than their own. The Flashes weren't impacted, but did feel as if there every move was being watched, like if they made one wrong move it would cost them everything.

For some reason those who gained their power from a connection to the Greek Pantheon were not only completely unaffected, the city and its citizens treated them with respect bordering on reverence. Wonder Woman and Donna Troy were operating as the forward command trying to get a handle on the situation.

Fully human members of the League seemed to be able to able to function without too much difficulty, but even a few hours of contamination could start to cause changes in their behavior. Batman set a limit of four hours before heroes had to return to the forward base for magical decon. He knew how obsessive members of the League were even on good days, the last thing they needed was fighting amongst themselves.

None of this would have gotten to this level if it weren't for the Ghost Investigation Ward. An off branch of the US Department of Paranormal Research that had been deployed to the city during the earliest months of the crisis. Their focus had been research, capture and extermination, already a monstrous mission, but within a few weeks the members started to become contaminated as well, driving their obsession with destroying ghosts to genocidal heights. Instead of calling their men back the DPR created a massive coverup to keep the Justice League from discovering what had happened, which allowed the GIW to impose martial law.

Batman had Nightwing, Signal, and the Question investigating everyone who could have a part in the decision. Within the city Young Justice under Red Robin's leadership took point. Apparently a resistance against the GIW had formed among the most contaminated of the high school youth and YJ were uniquely qualified to ingratiate themselves to these teens who seemed to know the most about what had happened.

Bruce could admit at least in his mind that he was worried about what would happen if Tim became contaminated and had been strictly monitoring his time in the city and his mental state during decon. Bruce also had similar processes for himself and had Black Bat keeping and eye on his own mental state.

"You don't understand! All of this is Phantom's fault! That dirty spook killed our son!"

Batman sighed again as the shouting once again started up. The Drs Fenton, Jack and Madeline. All evidence pointed to them having caused all of the harm in this city. Red Robin had taken all of 15 minutes talking with the Amity High teens to deduce that Danny Fenton was the ghostly hero Danny Phantom. They had still had their own son's blood on their hands when Diana and Donna came to arrest them.