Ghost!Robin Part 6
It's Wednesday, you know what that means! After spending so much time writing for Carry Your Heart this week, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get a long enough segment of this completed to share. Especially since I had a busy weekend. But here we are with 1.3k more words!
Time for the explanations to start.
First, Previous
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Danny slapped his hand over his face. “Jazz!” he hissed. He looked over, hoping Robin could help him. Only to realize he had rushed over to Alfred to give him a hug. “Great,” he muttered. “Everything is fine!” Danny tried to assure the room as he let his transformation flow over him.
The shouted questions just got louder and Jazz shifted to more completely block Danny from view.
“Jazz!” Danny tried again. “Lower your weapon! They’re safe!”
“Mom and Dad were supposed to be safe, too!”
Danny sighed. Then he ducked under her arm, using a mix of martial arts training from Pandora and intangibility to prevent her from stopping him. Ignoring the Waynes, he turned his back to them to face his sister. Robin could explain things to them if he wanted. “Jazz, it’s okay. They’re in almost as much danger from the Guys in White as I am.” He put his hands over hers and found the button to disarm her staff.
At least one person behind him demanded he explain what he meant by that, but Danny just looked Jazz in the eyes as he removed the staff handle from her hands.
She let him take it an narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean.”
Danny gave her his biggest shit-eating grin. “Congrats on the second dead boyfriend. I like this one much more than the first. Goes well with the dead brother.”
“Second…” Jazz’s voice trailed off as she looked over the people behind him. It was getting harder to ignore their shouted questions and demands for explanations. “Jason was the second Robin.”
“Yep,” agreed Danny. “And something went wrong when he was brought back to life. He ended up split in two and haunted by his own ghost.”
“Why couldn’t I see him? Or sense him?”
“He was that weak. I gave him some of my ectoplasm to strengthen him which is why he’s visible now.”
“Okay. Okay. So, what next?”
“Now I apologize to Jason and petition a founding member of the Justice League for assistance for my people.” Before Jazz could ask the questions she clearly wanted to at the last half of his sentence, Danny turned around and faced the Waynes.
Nearly all of them were facing Danny and Jazz in fighting stances. Damian had gotten a sword from somewhere and looked like he was half a second from rushing them. Bruce’s expression was blank, but his fists were clenched and he was glaring at Danny. Though his eyes kept flicking to Robin who had stopped hugging Alfred and was settled on Barbara’s lap signing to Dick and Alfred. Cass was paying more attention to them than Danny and Jazz.
But Danny didn’t really care about any of them. He sought out Jason who was pressed against the wall staring at Robin with wide eyes, a gun held loosely in his hand. “Jazz, feel free to share anything. Bruce is Batman. I’m gonna talk to your boyfriend for a moment.”
“How did you find that out?” demanded Bruce who moved to block Danny’s way.
At the same time, Jason fell into a defensive stance and held up the gun properly. “Don’t come closer!”
Danny cocked his head and looked at the gun. With barely a thought, he froze the trigger mechanism so it couldn’t shoot while sending out calm, safe, no harm pulses from his core. He trilled a I come in peace for good measure. To Bruce, he said, “Robin told me.” But then he realized there was more than one Robin present. “Not… Damian? The dead one.”
He realized that was an awful way to phrase it even as Jazz hissed his name in reproach. Even Robin facepalmed at his statement.
Bruce barely twitched. “Who are you?” he demanded, voice low and threatening.
“Right, okay, that’s a fair question. So I haven’t lied about who I am. Or much of anything tonight, really. I’m Danny. I was born Danny Fenton until my parents decided they were not okay having a half-dead son and tried to fix me. I escaped and now I respect their wishes by not using their last name. I did die when I was fourteen and became a vigilante in our home town keeping humans safe from ghosts and ghosts safe from humans. I was able to broker a semi-permanent peace on the ghostly side a few years ago and retired from vigilantism. But now I’m basically the liaison between the living realms and the Infinite Realms. Which means I need to talk to your son. So we’ll continue this after I do.”
“I will not allow you near Jason until you explain everything.” Bruce stood even taller and tried to loom over Danny.
“It’s his medical information. I’ll explain what I can to him and he can choose what to share with you. Besides, I’m a ghost. You really can’t stop me.” He strengthened the peace, no harm, calm vibes he was sending out. Bruce was liminal enough he should be able to feel them. “You know I’m telling the truth. You’ve died and there are no secrets among the dead.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Damian lower his sword.
“What are you doing?” demanded Bruce who didn’t relax at all.
“Later,” insisted Danny. This was pointless. He needed to talk to Jason and delaying wasn’t going to help any of them. Turning intangible, he walked around Bruce whose arms went right through him. As did Tim’s follow-up attacks.
“What are you doing?” yelled Tim as he tried to restrain Danny.
“Trying to talk to your brother,” replied Danny. “You should let me do it.” And then he was before Jason.
The calming pulses from his core had calmed his sister’s boyfriend down somewhat. The gun was now pointed at the ground and his hand wasn’t on the trigger anymore. Not that it would’ve fired anyway, but Jason didn’t know that.
“I’m sorry.” He heard Jazz yelling at Tim and Bruce and starting her own explanations and happily let her handle her boyfriend’s family. To Jason, he continued, “I knew Clockwork was hiding something from me about you and Jazz, but I let myself get distracted and put off visiting you. I don’t know everything that happened to you or how or why you’ve been split in two, but I can help. However you want. I promise to explain everything I do know tonight. Once we get somewhere private. Do you want Jazz there, too? I’d recommend it since she’s better at explaining things than me, but it’s your choice.”
“What are you? What is that?” Jason pointed to Robin with a shaking hand.
Danny smiled sadly. “You know who he is. He’s you. Whatever brought you back to life did a fucking awful job of it. Being split in two like this isn’t good for you and I say that from experience. Now, I can keep answering your questions here in full hearing of every single member of your family, or we can wait until later. I promise no more harm will come to you.”
“He’s been there the whole time?”
“He’s been there the whole time,” confirmed Danny. “Waiting a few hours won’t change a single thing.”
Jason nodded once and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and as he did so seemed to stand up taller. When he opened his eyes again, he no longer looked to be on the verge of attack. He even clicked the safety of his gun back on and put it away. “Now, I do have one question,” he said.
“Anything.”
“What was that you meant about me being Jazz’s second dead boyfriend?”
Over his surprised laughter, he heard Jazz’s groan from across the hall. Yeah, he really did like Jason more than Johnny.
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Next
Danny is setting himself up to be interrogated by the entire batclan. He has no idea what he's about to face. I wanted to get more into everyone's reactions, but that'll come in the next parts.
Unrelated to this fic, I'm glad you all enjoyed I'll Carry Your Heart! I did feel a little guilty with the comments/tags on part 2 talking about how sweet and fluffy it was only to twist all of that in part 3. It was a lot of fun to write and I can't wait to get back to it.
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thinking about scully sitting on the floor of mulder’s apartment just holding him as he wept after his mother’s death and after she told him through tears that it’s time to stop. it’s time to stop looking for his sister.
and how she had already told him that once, seven years earlier, a month into their partnership, when she chased him out of a police station and told him to stop running after his sister because it won’t bring her back.
she called after him to just stop, because she’s the scientist, and that’s the logical conclusion that she had reached.
except later that night, he told her why he does it. that he’s been closing his eyes and walking into that room, thinking maybe, when he opens them, his sister will be there, since he was 12 years old. “every day” of his life.
and she never told him to stop again.
until seven years later, when she rocked him on the floor, and then the next day was asked “why do you want to bring all this back up now?” and answered, “someone owes it to mulder.”
so she started looking. she reopened files, she tracked down records, she went to his mother’s house to dig through the trash. she confronted CSM about what he knew, she flew to california, she held hands and prayed.
she looked at mulder and said “it hurts me to tell you this” and stayed steady in the truth anyway. she listened to him read to her about a 14-year-old girl’s pain, held his hand and told him to get some sleep. she stayed up, kept looking, and found it. “i got it, mulder. i couldn’t believe it when i saw it. it was like it was looking for me.”
the police report from when samantha ran away.
she read the hospital records, went to the home of the nurse who signed the intake report, asked him if he wanted her to go herself.
she left him by the car and walked up and knocked, asked about a patient in 1979. she listened as the nurse described how “you couldn’t forget her or how frightened she was. scared for her sweet life.” and the man who came for her, who wouldn’t put out his cigarette.
earlier the day before, she had been told to just stop. “word of advice, me to you: let it be. you know, there’s some wounds that are just too painful ever to be reopened.”
and she had responded, “this particular wound has never healed. and mulder deserves closure.”
after seven years, she knows now, that you can’t just stop chasing. she knows how heavy grief is, and she‘s seen the effects of carrying it alone. of walking into the worst night of your life every day, eyes closed, hopeful.
you can’t just stop, and you can’t really have closure, but you can help someone carry it.
and ultimately, that’s what made this the end of the road. sometimes the heaviest burden of grief is feeling that pain is all there is left of someone, and that alleviating it would be to abandon them.
scully’s right, this wound has never closed, but there’s freedom in shared remembrance and shared dedication. she doesn’t ask him to stop until he’s ready to know the truth, and she’s willing to find it. she doesn’t ask him to rest until it’s safe for him to, because it’s not forgetting samantha. she knows and she remembers.
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