#ace batman

except then he tries to say something about cleaning the wound and trying to get all the green out so she doesn’t get poisoned any further, and she fuckin goes.

“Oh, it’s supposed to be like that.”

“What?”

yeah, so fun fact for you, Eddie: Ellie’s insides are just green sometimes. and she’s not explaining why. there’s a reason, yes, allegedly a very good and normal reason according to her, but she’s not going to tell you what it is.

Lovely.

“Well, will you at least let me clean it?” He asks, not entirely believing that her blood is Supposed To Be A Little Bit Mostly Green. “Infections are a serious business, you know, they’ll eat away at your flesh if you don’t know what to—”

And Ellie just shrugs. “Yeah, whatever. As long as I come out of this with as much flesh as I went in with.”

And what the fuck does she mean by that. Is that an issue for her? Tissue theft? Do people regularly attempt to make off with her flesh? Every word out of this child’s mouth makes him more and more baffled and concerned.

Ellie, of course, is well aware of the fact that sometimes she would go into Vlad’s lab and then leave with less mass than she had before, so it’s quite a valid concern for her. Ellie also does not entirely know what a hospital or infirmary is, and therefore is under the impression that all people-fixing happens in a lab, since that’s how it went with both Vlad and Danny. Ace’s account of experimentation only supports that, although Ace is at least somewhat aware of what a hospital is.

so Eddie takes his newly acquired headache back to his base, grabs the first aid kit, and comes back into the room he left her in to find that yes, her blood is both green and red, and yes, it’s now on his floor. and so is the bullet.

“Can’t leave you alone for five minutes, Jesus Christ,” he mutters, punching the bridge of his nose. Ellie is unsympathetic.

“You were taking too long and I wanted the bullet out.”

Above her, Ace is sighing, though Eddie can’t hear it. “I told you to be careful. You could have waited for tweezers. I know he was bringing them.”

“Yeah, well, my fingers worked, didn’t they? I don’t need his tweezers.”

“Who are you talking to?”

“Ceiling ghost.”

“…What?”

“I said what I said. She’s unimpressed by you, by the way.”

“I— what? Why is a ceiling ghost judging me? And for that matter, whose ghost is in my ceiling?!”

“That’s irrelevant! You should work on being someone the ceiling ghost can be proud of, dammit!”

Of course, we love those tropes! Both are canon in this fanfic—Ace is such a good boy (ᵔᴥᵔ) and of course, we want a motherly Talia (•̀ᴗ•́)و in the picture. I’m really happy you’re excited about it! And to celebrate, here’s a sketch of our best boy and Jay as a kid together. Hope you like it! (≧◡≦)

What he’s gleaned so far is, unfortunately, just the basics. Her name is Ellie — short for Danielle, not Eleanor (he asked), she’s fourteen and not ten or eleven like he’d assumed, she tried to tell him her eyes were blue even though he can very clearly see that they’re green, and she does not want to go back to where she was before.

She’s mentioned two names a few times, Danny and Vlad. The first seems to be in a good context, but the second… not so much. Eddie can’t help but wonder just what sort of situation she escaped from before landing herself in Gotham, but she’s made it rather clear that she’s not going to expand upon that.

Still, there are things that don’t add up. Her appearance, her mannerisms, her abilities… she has to be a meta, but what exactly can she do? Is it limited to going through solid objects? Is there anything she can’t go through? How did she get like this? Perhaps that’s why he brought her here — Eddie never could stand to leave a question unanswered, and this kid is practically a treasure trove of mysteries. He can’t help but want to know more.

She’s talking again, this time to the ceiling and not to him. It almost seems like she’s having a legitimate conversation with done invisible person, which only makes him wonder more about toxin and hallucinations. The Joker’s poisons can do far more than induce uncontrollable laughter, after all, and not even Eddie knows the full scope of the Joker Toxin’s effects. For all he knows, sudden vivid hallucinations are a part of that list.

“Yes, I know that, but it can’t be a safe box, those have keys and lids.” Ellie insists. “And probably hinges. I don’t know, I’ve never seen one.”

Silence falls for a moment as Ellie presumably waits for an answer. Then, she huffs.

“I can still make an educated guess. How would they put anything in without a key?”

More silence.

“No, that’s not right, there’s nothing gold in it… but you could put something in it! Hey, green beans, I got the answer!”

He’d given her an easy one this time — easy if one knew the pop culture reference, that is. Ellie, apparently, did not. Yet another odd thing to add to the list of facts about the gremlin currently sitting on his counter: nearly every time he brought up something that was common knowledge, she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

Maybe he needed to revisit that theory about government labs and human experimentation.

“A box without hinges, key, or lid, and yet inside, golden treasure is hid,” Ellie recites. “I think it’s a vase full of coins.”

“…A vase full of coins.”

“Yes.”

“May I inquire as to why you guessed that?”

“No hinges, no key, no lid, but it’s not open on top like a bowl, so you can hide things inside if you want. The golden part is the coins.”

How unconventional. Not the answer he wanted, but not technically wrong, either.

first off, I’m going to start by saying that I barely remember anything about Ace except hat she was super psychic, scared the Joker shitless once (good for her), and I think ended up dying as a result of her powers overloading her brain. I also remember Batman stayed with her until she died, but past that, nothing! so if my interpretation of her is off, well, that ain’t Via’s problem.

picture this: Ellie, approximately 14 in physical terms, only been alive for like a year or two. it’s post-Portal Incident II: The Reckoning, so her body is stabilized but her powers are going bat-crazy. she’s alone in an unfamiliar city with far too many restless spirits, being chased by actual supervillains, and she’s scared. maybe she ducks into an alley or hides in an abandoned building, and maybe one of those spirits was watching.

it’s been a long time since anything has caught Ace’s attention in the mortal realm. she likes to check in from time to time, see what’s happening as the world moves on without her, but it’s useless to linger over what she can’t affect. in the end, it only ever makes her miserable.

but sometimes, she can’t help but watch. sometimes, like today, she sees another little girl in trouble. she thinks, ‘she’s like me’, and she needs to know that this girl makes it through the night. even if she doesn’t, Ace still has enough power in death to show her a good dream before another ghost is added to Gotham’s countless number of lost souls. she follows the girl into the building, watches as she curls up in the corner, out of sight and barely there.

and then she looks straight at Ace.

“Did you want something?” Ellie asks, and she doesn’t break eye contact with the spirit floating in the doorway, even as her eyes go wide. “If you have unfinished business, I might be able to help, y’know, so long as you’re not trying to cause trouble.”

“You can see me.”

“Sure can. Kinda hard not to, your outfit’s pretty distinct.”

It’s the outfit she died in. Ace doesn’t really want to wear it anymore, not when she’s so far removed from that era of her life, but it isn’t like she knows how to.

“So,” Ellie says, “what’s your deal? Are you just here to watch it are you picking a fight? ‘Cause I’ll warn you, I don’t know how to play poker and everyone else so far has refused to reach me.”

Ace blinks. “I’m not here to fight with you.”

“Okay, cool. Are you… here to fight someone else?”

“No. I was watching you.”

“Well, that’s a bit unsettling.”

“You were alone, and you looked cold. I had to make sure you weren’t going to die in here.”

“Again?” Mutters Ellie, and Ace’s expression snaps from intrigued to guarded in less than a second.

“What does that mean?” She asks, glaring right at Ellie, and the other girl grimaces.

“Did not mean to say that one out loud. Okay, so hi, I’m Ellie, and basically I’m dead—”

“What? No, you’re not. I would be able to tell if you were dead.”

“Half-dead, then. I was a clone OFA guy who was half human and half ghost, ‘cept I was falling apart, so I decided to fix it by doing the same thing he did to become half-ghost, and I ended up standing inside a portal to the Ghost Zone while it was opening. Make sense so far?”

Ace’s jaw is dropping, but she can’t seem to find it in herself to care. “Half-dead.”

“Oh, we’re still stuck on that, then. Basically, if you— actually never mind, I don’t really know how it works. I can turn from ghost to human, if that helps.”

“How?” Ace whispers. “You said you were… falling apart. And a clone. And half-dead.”

“Well, now I’ve got two out of those three, since I fixed the first problem. Do you want to maybe sit down or something? This is gonna be a long story if you want the whole thing.”

Yes, she absolutely does. Ace float across the room and settles in next to Ellie, folding her knees up to copy the other girl’s pose. “My name is Ace.”

“Nice to meet you, Ace. I’m Ellie. Wait, I think I said that already.”

Who does this circus bastard think he is? Ellie may not want to let harm come to innocents, but as a few of you have pointed out, she does not possess the qualms that Danny does regarding murdering her enemies. she was ‘raised’ (in the vaguest sense) by Vlad Masters, and the only reasons she didn’t try to take him out were trauma and concern that his powers and experience outweighed her own. this Freakshow knockoff, however? oh, she can take him, and now, she’s got motivation.

Ace is a bit concerned for her health, but Ellie brushes it off. she’s had plenty of injuries before, and a single bullet isn’t nearly as bad as the portal incident, nor is it as bad as when she was literally falling apart at the seams because her molecular structure was unstable.

she doesn’t mention that last bit to Ace, though. the ghost is already worried enough, so there’s no need to upset her more by mentioning things that are no longer problematic.

regardless, the bullet is still in her side and she would like it to not be, which means it’s unfortunately time for an impromptu surgery. settling down in an abandoned shed near the outskirts of Crime Alley, Ellie steels her nerves and prepares to dig the bullet out of her flesh. she tries intangibility first, tries to see if she can just reach through her body and grab it, but it’s no use. her powers have reset, recalibrated, after the portal mess, and now she’s needed to relearn abilities that were once familiar. back when she was falling apart, it would’ve been easy to turn her body intangible and reach inside, but now? now, she has to do this old-school.