let's get DEAD

Since he knows that he could get mugged, he just becomes intangible and invisible while listening to some loud music on his phone.

Unfortunately for him, his control on his Invisibility keeps slipping when he gets lost in his music, and the people of Gotham keep seeing a semi-translucent ghost man walking around at night aimlessly.

Some thugs think it’s just a meta with invisibility and try to mug him, but pass right through and he disappears completely. This convinces them that he is a ghost, since having both invisibility, and intangibility would be too big a coincidence. Not to mention he never reacts to them whatsoever.

The Bat’s get word that a Ghost has been stalking the streets of Gotham, and he looks scarily like Bruce Wayne from the little they have been able to see from him. Now Batman thinks his dad may have come back as a ghost.

This kind of outfit, of course, lends further credence to the theory that this is Thomas Wayne’s ghost, cursed to wander the crime ridden streets in which he died.

One night Danny had a little accident as he was leaving the embalming lab to get home. He was actually pretty annoyed about it. He swore the new guy had it out for him, with how he just happened to be carrying old Mrs Smith’s drainage when Danny popped in to say good night and just happened to spill some of it all down the front of Danny’s second best dress shirt and just happened to not get a single drop on himself.

Danny is thrilled his little starlight is learning new powers. To celebrate, both of them dress up real nice and hit the town, taking full advantage of their ghost abilities to make the most of it. They get some ice cream, see a movie, freak out some tourists, scare the shit out of the Joker, mess around near the clock tower, and eventually calm down enough to enjoy the night air through a long walk.

Ellie is giggling and skipping ahead of him, taking advantage of the empty streets to freely shift her form every other block. With one step, her hair is twice as long and sparkles with an unnatural gleam. The next, her dress has turned bright green and the flowers stitched onto the hem wriggle and dance in tune with their blasting music. Danny calls her back when she gets too far, and when Ellie turns around, all of a sudden she looks like a boy with a suit similar to his and an adorable pixie cut.

Danny just sighs and takes his daughter’s hand. He knows that one day, when her powers are more developed, Ellie will truly cause him a royal headache with all the trouble she’ll get up to using her powers. But right now, right here, he’s just glad to have proof that Ellie is becoming her own person. She’s thriving in ways he never will, and that fact alone comforts both of them. Ellie isn’t just a clone anymore. She’s his daughter, and he’ll humor her till the end.

It brings to mind the old tales of changeling. Fae children left where human children were taken from. Or perhaps, like cuckoo birds, fae children who steal a human child’s place. It was… It was seeing himself replaced. His father laughing, playing, unknowing in his adoration of what he believed was his son. The child in Bruce had screamed in horror.

The man in Bruce knows his Father is not unknowing.

At least… he desperately hopes so. It is impossible to tell yet what the ghost of Thomas Wayne is actually SEEING. The world as it is? As it was? Something else, beyond Bruce’s human sight? He’ll need Constantine’s help. Everything in him is trying to fight calling him.

It takes all his strength just to say the words out loud. To ask Clark for help, all the way over in Metropolis City, but Bruce… he can’t. He can’t. He searches the city for signs of his Mother. Like everyone else looking finds nothing. Was she not worthy of a return? Did she not earn some impossible goodbye?

What God would separate his parents? Would cruelly tear them from each other’s arms? Is his Father looking for her? For him? He found him. Is it now his wife he searches the streets for? Imagining her around the next street corner, some function or charity, a dear friends house for a chat?

Or was he pulled back by the Fae Child. Yanked from his rightful sleep, to play house, by the willful demands of a magically powerful child? Did he stand above his grave and wonder where he was? One moment trying desperately to protect his family, the next a graveyard? The world changed. The endless questions haunt Bruce.

Ha. “Haunt”. He’s begun to hate that word. Trapped. His Father isn’t “haunting” anything. His Father has been TRAPPED by this city and a child that Shape-shifts like water flows. Has Gotham not asked enough from his parents? Did they not already pay, for the crime of caring, in blood? Behind him Damian is less practicing his stances, as he is wrathfully hacking away at a training dummy.

Bruce continues to type at the bat-computer, gives him his privacy as he works through his emotions. The disrespect to his grandfather’s spirit. The lose and hurt he is feeling. Damian has never gotten to even meet Thomas Wayne. Known him only as stories and other people’s memories. Paintings upon walls. Old journals.

Beautiful but empty things.

The spaces outlining where a man once stood. A great man. A kind one. One who would have loved him fiercely and been endlessly proud to call him his grandson. One he now sees played a puppet along the filthy streets he died on. Sees at the mercy of forces unknown, to ends unknowable.

Who sees it hurting his family.

Alfred is nearly a ghost himself these days. He has caught him staring at his parent’s portrait so many times. A truly lost expression on the man’s face. When he had thought it a hoax he had been offended but now that it… it is likely REAL? There were so many things left unsaid. Things they wished they could share with his parents.

It is grief ripped anew.

His Father… He had told him he had done a good job. The look on his face excited and melancholy like he was remembering the escapades of Bruce’s youth. When mastering something meant then turning around to show off to his parent’s. Was he proud? Is he?

Bruce is afraid to ask. Afraid to know.

But he will not let his Father be trapped in the city that killed him. Cursed to wander the city of curses. For all he loved this city, Thomas Wayne earned a peaceful rest. Deserved to sleep along side the wife who he loves and loves him more than anything but their son. To dream of dancing and stars and peaceful afternoons, in whatever comes after. Not this. His Father does not deserve this. And Bruce?

He is going to make this right.

Batman wakes up to a woman who looks like his mother applying first aid with steady hands while complaining about “self-sacrificing idiots not knowing their limits.  How much good do they think they’re gonna do after pushing themselves to a point where they can’t do anything.  At least Ellie didn’t inherit that.”

Bruce is still a little out of it from blood-loss or whatever, but he manages to absorb an important detail: her name is Ellie.  The little sister he never got to meet is named Ellie.

After Sam realizes Batman is conscious, she starts talking to him.  She says a lot of things like “don’t you dare die!” And “I know your work is important, but you can’t just run yourself into the ground like that” and even “as much as the realms would love to have you, you will not be showing up until you’re old and gray.“  She might be redirected some of her frustrations with Danny over the years.

Bruce makes a small choked noise before managing to say “understood,” in a relatively even voice.  

It wasn’t much but Sam caught it, and Now she’s alarmed because Batman doesn’t do shit like that; what happened to him?  Was if fear gas?  No, he’d have an antidote for that.  Did he get hit with some new kind of chemical weapon?  Shit, now she feels bad for yelling at him.  

There could be so many interactions where Danny, Sam, and Ellie are totally oblivious.

You could have all three seeming to be ghosts because Sam is heavily liminal, and just popping up at random intervals.

Sam and Damian bust the same dogfighting ring and work together. Damian rescues a box of puppies from the breeder that was supplying the ring. Sam calms some of the dogs that didn’t make it enough to lead them to the ghost zone.

Jason gets pulled in off the street for a quick lecture on the aspects of self care and health that work differently for the undead. Danny asks him to come to him with any questions or concerns he has going forward.

You could have the Bats learn (correctly or incorrectly) that the Waynes reincarnated, and alternating between wanting to know them and not wanting to drag them into things when they seem to be living peacefully.

Danny’s apartment ends up becoming a safe Haven for the Bats after the first couple of times he finds one injured and can’t just do nothing. They can come to him for patch jobs with no judgement, or just for company that doesn’t ask much of them on bad days. Being able to provide the kind of safe place he would have liked to have when he was a hero gives him a sense of contentment and peace.

For all that Batman is good at putting on a strong front when he’s out and about, the poor guy seems so lost and uncertain when he gets somewhere safe enough to drop the act, so Danny tries to be extra kind and gentle with him because he knows what it’s like to have to put on a brave face. (Danny doesn’t realize that Batman is different around him)

Batman may project stoicism, but at his core, he’s someone who cares a lot.

I’m still imagining Danny being gentle and supportive with all of the Bats. He tells them things he would’ve liked to hear as Phantom. (You are so strong and so brave and so good. You are doing enough. It’s okay to rest sometimes.)

Sam is not the touchy feely type, but she’s getting attached, too. No mushy stuff, but anyone who actually manages to seriously hurt one of the Bats will briefly disappear under mysterious circumstances and turn back up severely traumatized.

Ellie doesn’t take long to decide all of the Bats are family, now. She pesters Jason for shoulder-rides (He’s so tall). She is thrilled when Nightwing enables her need to climb and/or swing from everything (she could fly, but that’s not the same).

She made Tim promise that if he ever becomes a supervillain She can be his right hand man because fuck the gender binary (he was to busy laughing at a kid saying “fuck the gender binary” to figure out a tactful way to change the subject).

Ellie occasionally interrupts patrol to show Robin where she saw a family of opossums (almost always in places a normal child couldn’t reach/shouldn’t go).

Black Bat is invited to play ballerinas (even if they’re really playing warrior princesses undercover as ballerinas).

Ellie teams up with Steph to sneak some ice cream (they didn’t really need to sneak, but it was fun).

“Is it weird that we’re so protective of these random strangers?”

“It doesn’t FEEL weird, but it seems like maybe it should?”

And then both of them shrug and move on because neither has a strong understanding of what normal is anyway.

They don’t know about their past lives, but they are subconsciously influenced by them. Like, the reason Danny panicked and disappeared at that first meeting with Batman instead of just explaining that he works at a morgue was because something deep down realized that showing himself to Bruce in this state would cause him pain and wanted to shield him.

The placement of the red gems and pearls wasn’t intentional, but it also wasn’t coincidental. Clockwork gave them the present to give to Bruce, and they didn’t even think to question it because it just felt right.

If Sam and Danny feel the odd urge to spoil the Batkids rotten, they probably just attribute it to their own time as teen heroes. (Subconscious be like “GRANDBABIES!”)

They get along with Lady Gotham right away, not realizing that she’s already an old friend.

I think it would be funny to have Tucker’s visit coincide with the Duul Aman exhibit going to the Gotham Museum, and for one of the Bats to stumble across Danny and Sam teasing him about it.

Batman paused in a shadowy alcove at the sound of Martha and Thomas Wayne’s laughter. He peered down and saw them standing with a man he didn’t know.

“You both suck.” The stranger grumbled petulantly.

“Aw, come on Pharaoh, You have to admit it’s a little funny,” Thomas said with a cheeky grin.

“I just don’t like thinking about that life. There were a lot of things that the me of now isn’t proud of.” The man sighed in a way that spoke of old regrets that still ached at times, even after having largely made piece with them. Thomas and Martha sobered at the admission, and their eyes became a bit more sympathetic.

“Duul Aman wasn’t one of the worse leaders history had to offer. He made some positive change for his people,” Martha offered.

“Nobody becomes the best version of themselves by being raised to believe they’re a god,” the man said.

“Fair enough, but at least you’ve got a couple of things to be proud of, right?” Thomas Wayne said with a shit-eating grin.

“Making Ras Al Ghul eat it was pretty sweet,” the stranger said with a chuckle. “Though you won’t find records of that accomplishment. The jerk must have outlived me.”

Batman’s eyes widened behind his cowl. He considered following the three, but he really needed to go try and keep Catwoman away from the new exhibit.

Just, Constantine and Zatanna standing there whispering to each other.

“What the actual fuck is going on in this cesspit??”-Constantine

“Does it looks like I know any more than you do, John? This shouldn’t be possible!”-Zatanna

“Are you two ok?”-Nightwing

“No.”-Z&C

“…ok then, sorry I asked.”- N

They get Deadman over and he’s the one that tells him that’s the new Ghost King.

Constantine: Your bloody guess is as good as mine.

Zatanna: We tested for both at once. Both sets of tests came back positive. Neither of us understands how this is possible.

Batman: *a very particular microexpression that usually means he’s going to be more of a pain in the ass than usual*

Constantine: *casts spell to make Deadman visible*

If his family wasn’t so full of overly dramatic people with too many skills and too little sense, he could have already told them what’s going on. Unfortunately, his charges are all so patently absurd that anything involving emotions has to be handled in very precise fashions. Otherwise they’ll hurt each other in ways difficult to repair, disappear into other dimensions, or become dictators.

The first relates to Dani being disappointed when she realized she wasn’t going to make it back in time for Bruce’s birthday. I think it would be funny for Dani to randomly turn up at some point with a late birthday present that’s kind of out there. Probably some weird thing she found in her travels.

Could be anything from a little kitschy knickknack from some small, obscure country to a really weird object from another realm, but I think the weirder the better. Like, this little girl randomly shows up, enthusiastically hands Bruce a bizarre item that she found somewhere, and then disappears with no explanation.

I guess it could also be some Fenton Works equipment paired with a mysterious mention of how “Grandma and Grandpa fixed the Specter deflector so it prevents overshadowing without hurting any ghost the wearer touches.” I just find the option of Bruce being left holding something that looks like either a weird rock formation or some kind of fungus or egg attached to a stalagmite with no idea what to do with it funnier.

On the one hand, it’s a gift from his ghostly little sister. On the other hand he has no idea what it is or if it’s dangerous in some way the ghost child didn’t realize.

The second thought I had is about Deadman being the one who has answers. In the cartoon, the ghosts all knew who and what Danny was. Apparently the creation of a half-ghost is hot gossip in the zone. Most of them don’t bring his condition to the awareness of humans. Apart from the mutually assured destruction situation with Vlad, the closest any of the ghosts come to using Danny’s secret identity against him is when Walker makes life really difficult for him by launching a smear campaign and stirring up anti-ghost sentiment in Amity Park.

I kind of headcanon that spreading private matters of the dead amongst the living is something ghosts just don’t do. They gossip amongst themself, and they’ll even chat with living folks about things that aren’t private for the ghosts involved, but they don’t air ghosts’ secrets to the living. It’s not exactly a moral thing, it’s just how they do. They just don’t tend to have any interest in doing so. The only reason it even came up with Danny and Vlad is because they’re both half human.

That said, the fact that Danny, Sam, and Ellie are reincarnations and seems to be trying to reconnect with people from their previous lives might mean that talking to Bruce about their history might not register as “telling the living about a ghost’s private business.” He wouldn’t broadcast it to the world or tell random people, but he can clear up a misunderstanding with their son.

So Deadman tells the tale of Danny Fenton/Phantom as he knows it. Basically it’s an overview of the broad strokes of Danny’s superhero career and how he became king. It is probably incomplete and not entirely accurate because Deadman wasn’t there for any of it and learned most (if not all) of what he knows from stories that had been told and re-told several times before reaching him.

Dick definitely saw A Bug’s Life tho, and finishes the joke. “Maybe it’s a ghost thing?”

Does this imply that the clients Danny takes on becomes healthier ghosts? Or with his time spent in graveyards, murder scenes, etc etc making stronger ecto areas?

Does this mean more and more people are coming back and creating a… livelier (ha) Gotham reminiscent of the old days?

I mean, no one has even mentioned Mr. Solomon Grundy, with the new ecto do yall think he crawls out of the sewer slightly more coherent, obviously still repeating the rhyme but maybe with a few ones mixed in, maybe less anger?

On that note, how’s Jason been holding up? Is his pit rage getting better? Jumping off of that, does Ras hear about Duul Aman and decide to stop by for a bit of his psychotic, immortal version of dun? Does Talia happen across Sam at all?

Duul Aman very soundly trounced Ras Al Ghul in that lifetime. He was a strong leader, a powerful sorcerer, and a pragmatist who never lost track of what his actual goals were. He was also just plain smarter and better at understanding people.

Ras has been trying to recruit talented people for how many centuries and still hasn’t thought to try being a good boss? He kills half a dozen of his own mooks for failing to kidnap a vigilante he knows damn well is more skilled than them, or in a fit of post-Lazarus irritability. Then he wonders why no one good enough to have options wants to work for him. The man has had centuries and still hasn’t noticed that reward systems are more effective than intimidation tactics at getting people’s best work out of them and keeping them loyal. I’m pretty sure that the main reason Ras has any sort of mastermind cred at all is because he has the Lazarus pit allowing him to brute force his way through enough experience to sometimes fake it.

I mean, just look at how he handled things with Red Robin. He jumped straight into trying to control him with threats and taking a hostage. He could have handled that whole mess in a way that left Tim thinking of him as someone reliable and reasonable, and then let him go while making it clear that Tim would be welcome back should he choose to return. He could have laid the groundwork for a relationship that would have let him draw Tim to him over time. Remember, hero Tims and villain Tims are all doing it for the people they love. Tim will do anything for his people. Ras stared right at the evidence of this and still decided to be a threat to Tim’s people rather than trying to be one of Tim’s people.

So Ras, who has spent several centuries failing to grasp that being the biggest bully in the yard is not a winning strategy in the long run, finds out that the foe he never managed to vanquish is back in the land of the living, and now he’s just some guy with no armies to command. He decides to go get payback. He fails to learn more about the guy than that he’s a private citizen living in some very ordinary apartment somewhere before sending a team after him.

Here’s the thing. With Tucker Foley’s technological know-how and memories of Duul Aman’s life spent studying magic, Tucker becomes one of those very rare people who know enough about both electronics and magic to get them to work together. He has been developing all kinds of crazy magitech that let’s him do things like rapid fire spells that other magicians would take days or weeks to prepare for by writing a program that does the heavy lifting for the calculations involved. Tucker may not have an army in this lifetime, but he also doesn’t need one.

Tucker is down to kick Ras Al Ghul’s ass again. When he learns that Ras has been creeping on some kid, he’s quick to offer the kid his protection, a phone that will cut through any kind of interference and even work across dimensions so the kid can always call for help, and lessons on skills that are very useful for kicking Ras Al Ghul’s ass.

Whenever the reincarnation thing comes to light, Tucker’s going to have a head start on being the cool uncle (great uncle?).

He’s already got fun bonding activities with Tim and Babs (because Tim knew she’d want in on the coding magic lessons and Tucker was glad to have another person to share his super niche interest with).

He’s written some books that explain magic stuff in a way that makes enough sense to non-magicians for them to ununderstand the risks and make informed decisions, so Bruce warms up to him more quickly than he otherwise might have.

Dick likes that Tucker manages to both respect how capable he is and acknowledge that he is a human with limits who can’t be expected to manage everything perfectly all the time. Tucker grew up with a guy who could fight off a world ending horror and then wipe out tripping on his shoelaces. He gets that someone can be capable of amazing things and still screw up sometimes. He gets that Dick can be the first Robin and Nightwing and still be a twenty-something kid who needs a damn break sometimes.

It takes him a bit to figure out how to connect with Jason without alienating Bruce, but eventually he works out that he can resolve some of the tension there by putting a curse on the Joker that will cause him to fail spectacularly any time he tries to hurt someone (often in a manner that involves the Joker getting hurt in some amusing way).

Offering the non-lethal spell with the explanation that the Joker seems like the kind of crazy that would stick around after a violent death and he doesn’t want to run the risk of a more dangerous version of the Joker becoming a long-term problem, Tucker is finally able to find a compromise that both are satisfied with. The Joker isn’t dead or maimed, but he also can’t hurt people anymore. He can’t ever hurt Jason again.

Instead of conquering old struggles, Ra’s has brought an unbeatable foe down upon himself. Again.

…

On another note, it has occurred to me that, while Oracle was already formidable, learning Technomagic means she can probably curse/hex people through any network accessible device in their vicinity.

…

Also, I’m pretty sure that the Joker being rendered less dangerous is good for everyone in Gotham’s mental health.