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The mirror looked like somebody had punched it just off dead center with a balled-up fist. Shards of glass held on by dried up glue radiated out from it so although his reflection was fractured Danny was able to fully see the remnants of the plastic muzzle.
He could see the 12 pinhole scars that surrounded his lips. Hopefully they would fade with time and all the ectoplasm he could eat. Hell, at this point he might even be able to get some real food in his stomach.
His stomach rumbled as he thought of eating a burger.
Of course, he still couldn’t really open his mouth completely.
The clear plastic surrounded his lips and were held in place by metal staples that punched deep into the flesh of his cheeks and chin. Danny angled his head this way and that, trying to get a good angle on the first one.
When he had woken up Danny had been able to spit out the metal plate that had been attached to his tongue. It had left his mouth feeling raw and empty.
It reminded him of when Tucker had finally gotten his braces removed. The teen had constantly been running his tongue over his teeth, flexing his jaw to feel the freedom of movement.
He didn’t have full range of motion yet, but Danny was able to at least open his mouth up a little bit.
The sink was barely holding on to the wall below the shattered mirror and it looked like something small and furry might have died in it at some point in the distant past. The taps looked to be in okay condition though.
He hadn’t had a drink of water in longer than he wanted to think about.
Danny turned the faucet handle without a whole lot of hope and was only mildly disappointed when the pipes didn’t even rumble. The building had obviously been abandoned for a long time. Any water that might have been left in the pipes after the water was cut off had probably dried up a long time ago.
Okay.
So, no water for him yet.
But once he got the rest of the hardware off of his face, he could go completely intangible and sneak through the city without having to worry about getting mugged.
Danny reached for the cutters again.
He couldn’t put this off any longer and at least he wasn’t going to get any more electrical shocks when he pulled the staples out.
He did need to figure out a way to thank his benefactor.
The clippers felt like a present that welcomed him into the other man’s haunt. Practical in more than one way, while letting him keep his autonomy. He could get this piece of Ancient’s forsaken plastic off of his face and use it for help setting up electricity in his new little home.
The purr that erupted from his chest was rough and unpracticed, but he couldn’t help but eye the tool fondly. The rumbling sputtered to a stop when he reached for his face, but it had felt nice while it lasted.
He winced as he wiggled one of the blades underneath the staple. He see-sawed the staple back and forth to try and pull it free. He didn’t really want to cut them into multiple pieces.
Danny healed fast enough that he needed to worry about his skin growing over straight pieces of metal. So, they needed to come out all in one piece. The porcelain of the sink tinkled quietly as the first staple fell into it. Small dots of green blood landed next to the staple in quiet patters.
It took several long painful minutes to slowly remove all of the remaining metal. When he was on the last few, he had to hold the plastic to his skin so that it wouldn’t swing painfully loose.
When the last staple finally came out of his face Danny threw the plastic muzzle away as fast as possible.
He ignored the sharp crack as the plastic cut through drywall as he brought his hands up to his face and ran them across his jaw for the first time in months. He disregarded the bright shocks of pain as his fingers ran over the deep puncture wounds and he let his mouth fully drop open.
The bones of his jaw clicked and popped at the unfamiliar movement as he yawned.
Shutting his mouth with a click he bared his fangs at the mirror.
Finally, he had the last physical piece of the GIW off of his body.
His scars were still there.
They would be for a long time.
Now that the muzzle was gone though Danny looked down at his own body thoughtfully; and saw a stranger. He had been in his ghost form since he had been kidnapped by the GIW and the scarring was the only thing that had changed. He had stayed physically the same as when he had first died; his ghostly form apparently incapable of aging; he had been trapped in his fourteen-year-old body.
They had only ever known him as Phantom.
Not that any of the agency’s men had ever called him that.
Not that any of them had ever asked him either.
Instead of a name they had listed some sterile combination of letters and numbers in their system to identify him. No longer human and so no longer deserving of a name or any sort of respect. After everything that had happened did he even have a human form anymore?
They had cut into him with scalpels that had been coated in something that the Drs. Fenton had invented it to make it possible for them to vivisect the ghosts that they had imprisoned. Danny inhaled deeply as he reached for that other side of himself.
It burned like an overstretched muscle, but he could feel himself ease into his human form. The glowing rings slowly faded away and for a long moment Danny couldn’t force himself to look into the mirror again.
So, he started by taking an inventory of what his body looked like currently.
He was barefoot.
They’d managed to surprise him. His par…The Fenton’s had let them right into his childhood bedroom. He’d only had a couple of moments to try and scramble free of his bedding before the net had landed on him and pinned him to the ground with unnatural weight.
He’d transformed into his Phantom form almost without thought. Desperately trying to faze through the corded metal of the net and being met with electrical shocks. The Fenton’s had figured out how much Phantom had hated electricity. That it was one of the main things that could still hurt him on the mortal plane.
They and the GIW had used it as punishment and containment.
Watched him twitch and scream with vindictive eyes.
While he had writhed in the containment desperately trying to escape, he had vaguely heard the sound of Jazz screaming. He had heard her fists pounding desperately against her own bedroom door.
They must have locked her in.
She had screamed his name.
Thrown her body against the sturdy wood in a futile effort to try and save him.
Phantom had snarled from inside of the net and opened his mouth. He hadn’t known if he was going to bite his attackers or if he could have gathered the breath to wail. He hadn’t been given the opportunity to do anything though.
A long plastic pole had whipped through the holes of the net, and he had felt a needle enter his neck. Whatever had been in the syringe had burned like fire.
Phantom’s cries fell off into a choked silence as he lost consciousness, his blurred vision catching on the glow in the dark stars that his dad had helped him put on the ceiling before fading to black.
Danny shook his head hard.
He shut his eyes tightly; fisted hands coming up to grip his hair as he shook.
He used the sting to try and bring himself back to the present.
He blinked his eyes open, using the heel of his palm to wipe away green tinged tears from his cheeks.
He had time.
Hood’s presence was a distant feeling that felt vaguely like he was asleep, his emotions were evened out into a peaceful purr of indistinct comfort.
He started again.
Bare feet.
Pajama pants.
Even with the GIW’s dubious care it looked like he had managed to grow at least a bit taller.
The hems of the soft pants were too short.
They barely skimmed the top of his bony ankles.
They used to be some sort of plaid pattern but even buried beneath his ghost form they had been worn thin. Worn so thin he could see the individual threads that abutted against his knees and his hips. The elastic waistband was the only thing keeping the pants on him.
He may have grown taller, but he hadn’t managed to keep any sort of body fat with that growth.
His ribs were a bony ladder that climbed up his sides.
The neat little Y cut that they had made on his chest had healed at least.
The sutures had fallen out at some point and the scar had faded to barely gnarled flesh against his too pale skin.
Danny took in a deep breath before he finally managed to bring his eyes up to the mirror and he stared at his face for an instant before he had to turn away.
Black hair.
Blue eyes.
Sickly pale skin without an ounce of the baby fat that used to fill his cheeks out.
The holes that dotted his face from the staples and the bars through his lips were filling in quickly.
The months in the laboratory seemed to have made his healing even more powerful. His core had turned in on itself somehow. He hadn’t been given the opportunity to defend himself so all of the power at his disposal had focused on keeping him healed enough that he didn’t die permanently.
Shifting back into his ghost form with a quiet sigh of relief Danny let himself relax back into his hazmat suit. He was fully clothed at least, and the baggy material made him look a little bit more substantial than he actually was.
Danny turned away from the mirror without bothering to look again. He let himself lift off of the ground as he turned intangible and phased out into the late afternoon sun of this strange city.
The light of day didn’t lend the city a lot of extra charm, but Danny still let himself swirl in a slow loop at the feeling of freedom.
No friends.
No family.
But also. No enemies.
A fresh start: and if he could steer clear of Hood maybe the other man would let him be.
Danny figured the man had tracked him to the building. It was still well within his haunt, so it made sense to Danny that Hood would be able to find him within its boundaries. The other man had even left him those clippers as a present for him without trying to take away Danny's freedom of choice. Letting him take the muzzle off himself without further argument. This was probably a safe a place as any that he would be able to find with this much ectoplasm just free floating through the cities structure.
Danny floated with uncertainty in the air for a long moment as he tried to decide what he should do next.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs flitted through his thoughts.
He had shelter, shabby as it was.
He could stand to make it a little more comfortable though; like he had thought about the day before. Blankets, some bottled water.
Some…food!
Danny’s head whipped around as his peripheral vision picked out an incongruously brightly colored building.
The name wasn’t familiar, ‘Big Belly Burger’.
But Danny recognized a fast-food restaurant when he saw one.
For a moment he fantasized about walking through the front doors and buying out the menu. Eating his own weight in hamburgers, cheese, and fries. He looked at the doors longingly before he flew around to the back of the squat building.
Not only did he not have any money, but Danny was under no illusions that he wouldn’t cause a stir no matter which way he entered the building. A fanged, green skinned alien or a too skinny boy in barely any clothes.
The police or CPS. were probably on speed dial.
Definitely not an option.
He wasn’t super surprised that the garbage bins were padlocked but that wasn’t going to stop him. He let his nose lead him towards the dumpster that had food smells coming out of it. The other one was probably just cardboard. He slipped through the plastic without any trouble, and it only took Danny a moment for his eyes to adjust. Once he could see more clearly, he started to sift through the bags that had been carelessly tossed in.
It didn’t take him long to strike gold. The brown paper bag had been crumpled up and he carefully ripped the bag open pulling out a half-eaten cheeseburger and a few French fries. It was all cold at this point, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours old.
The deep rumbling purr of happiness came out of his chest without a conscious thought.
Yum.
Greasy low-quality beef with some plastic adjacent cheese. Neither of them ecto-contaminated so he didn't need to fight them first.
It had been such a long time since he had last eaten that it didn’t take very much before Danny had to put the food down with a sad little chirp. He didn’t want to push too far. Bring all that food right back up just because he didn’t have enough self-control.
The dumpster's confined space was also starting to creep in on him.
Now that the worst of the hunger had been quelled, he could feel his anxiety at the thought of being trapped again rising in his chest. He popped his invisible head out to take a long look around to make sure that no one was waiting for him. No one could see him, but someone might have heard him rustling through the paper and plastic like a particularly large racoon.
The coast seemed clear though, so Danny let the rest of his body rise out of the dumpster as he contemplated his next destination. Food, shelter…water wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Maybe there was a general store nearby that he could steal a couple of cases of water from. He didn’t enjoy the thought of outright stealing from a local business. Food that had been thrown away was one thing; but he didn’t want to cut into the already razor's edge of profitability that those kinds of stores had. Sucking his lower lip into his mouth Danny nibbled on it in thought.
There had to be some plastic bottles that had been discarded.
Maybe if he could find some of those and then a public water fountain that would work. It wasn’t like he actually needed water. It was just something that he would enjoy having, both for drinking and possibly for getting the worst of the blood and muck out of his suit. Mind made up Danny headed out of the parking lot; his eyes raked the ground looking for any bottles that he might be able to scavenge.
Jason had to bite back a curse when he picked up the little tracker that had fallen off of Gotham’s newest resident.
I t looked like it had just rolled into the shadow of the old cast iron tub.
Hopefully that was what had happened, and he would actually come back. None of Oracle’s cameras had been able to pick up when the man had left the building. No doors or windows had opened or closed.
He was thankful to see that the man had at least taken advantage of the wire cutters that he had been given. Though he winced beneath his hood at the scattering of staples that had been left in the decrepit sink. The man had also left the bars that had pierced through his lips in a neat little pile in the living room.
Jason put a couple swabs of greenish blood into an inconspicuous pocket. There was a hole in the wall that had the cracked remnants of the plastic muzzle buried into it. The man was definitely going to notice that it was gone but Jason wanted to get as much information as was possible about whatever had happened to him.
He’d have to brave the Batcave, but it might be worth it to see if there were any answers as to where the man had come from.
His nose wrinkled a little bit when he walked back out into the living room. He had another helmet covering his face but just the memory of that mold smell was enough to make his stomach lurch a little bit. The place was disgusting and dangerous between the bodily fluids and the water damage, but it didn’t seem to bother the meta at all. He also didn’t have a lot of options if the man went to ground somewhere else.
Gotham wasn’t a small city and the man could fly. He could already be halfway across the Atlantic for all Jason knew.
Placing a few inconspicuous bugs throughout the apartment made him feel a little better at least.
He’d be notified about any noises and hopefully be able to figure out how to introduce himself a little less aggressively.
Because Jason had actually been raised by the World's Greatest Detective and no matter what Dickface said he wasn’t oblivious.
The strange man had calmed the Pit in a way that had never happened before. It had left him able to sleep more peacefully than he had managed in years.
Jason was almost giddy with the feeling of uninterrupted sleep and the fact that his little gift had been accepted.
That left a warm spot in his chest that he barely recognized. He wanted to feel that way again. Wanted to keep finding things that the man would enjoy and be if not trusted as a friend at least accepted.
Jason side-eyed the black mold on the walls. Starting with some bleach maybe. An alert popped up on his UI before he could go much further though.
Red Hood had a meeting with some of his lieutenants in the next half an hour.
He growled a little bit with frustration, but Jason needed to make sure that he kept a firm hand on the people that he employed both as Jason Todd and as Red Hood. He slipped back out of the window and immediately caught sight of a familiar shadow across the street.
Jason sighed heavily before he grappled his way over to the building across the way. He landed quietly on the roof, his boots barely crunched on the crumbling concrete.
Nightwing let his leg drop down from the edge of the building, his arms swung down from their position on his knee as he stood up fully. His head cocked back a little to meet Jason in the eye.
Jason didn’t give him a chance to say anything in the futile hope that he could control the conversation they were about to have.
“What do you want?”
Jason knew that Dick could hear the growl underpinning his modulated voice by the way his brother arched a single eyebrow at him.
“Fuck off.”
Jason spun on his heel already completely done with the older man.
“Come on, Little Wing. Don’t be like that.”
Hood let out a rumbling snarl when he felt Dick’s hand land on his shoulder. If he had put any force behind it Jason would have shrugged it off and kept going. Instead of the implacable grip that Jason knew the man was fully capable of, he could barely feel the press of fingertips through the heavy weight of his Kevlar.
He let his muscles relax and dropped his shoulders as he stopped moving. He had hoped that he could put off having a conversation for at least a little while. He should have known better though.
Every single bat and bird in Gotham were going to stick their nose in his business.
Jason should count himself lucky that it was only Nightwing. At least Wing would be less likely to mock his mother-henning tendencies than the others.
Pot, kettle and all that.
He still couldn’t bring himself to look the other man in the eye though.
“O told me about how the Pit reacted to this guy.”
Dick’s voice was even but Jason could hear the underlying stress of it.
“ Of course she did.”
“B got a file started.”
“Of course he did.”
“The Robins have added some extra surveillance to the street and Red’s working on tracking him when he’s invisible.
“Of course they are.”
“Hood.”
Jason turned around, head still tipped down and away, so he didn’t have to meet Dick’s eyes.
“I don’t know what you want me to say. You know everything I know at this point.”
“I really don’t.”
“Did O show you any footage of him in the apartment?”
Nightwing took the change in subject in stride.
“Yes. Whatever he’s doing with the Lazarus water seemed to help him though. He obviously couldn’t eat regularly with…” Dick waved vaguely at his face. “All this going on. So, it’s good to know that he has some way of getting nutrients.”
Sharp eyes flicked to the side in thought.
“Is it affecting whatever Lazarus water is still in your body?”
“Sometimes it feels like I’m overflowing. Like the water is going to drown me from the inside out.” Jason’s voice was hoarse as he didn’t quite answer the question. “You’ve seen my eyes.” He stops, struggling to vocalize what he was feeling.
Nightwing waited patiently for Hood to gather his thoughts. His hands stayed relaxed at his side and his face tilted so that he’d be able to hear whatever Jason had to say. No matter how quietly it was muttered.
“It magnifies my emotions. Not just the negative ones.” Jason huffed quietly. “Okay, mostly the negative ones. But still, they’re already overwhelming and it was like it all went quiet. Like the tide went out and I could breathe again.”
“Okay. Well, that’s good to hear. Are you still feeling better?”
Hood didn’t know how to answer that question, so he ignored this one too.
“He needs bleach.”
“What?”
Nightwing’s voice pitched a little bit, but he held steady.
“He needs cleaning supplies. That apartment is covered with mold.”
“Okay.”
“And blankets. Everybody likes blankets.”
“Right.”
Hood’s voice was strained and even with the modulator he was sure that Dick could hear how panicked he felt.
“What do you give a probably alien as a housewarming gift?”
“Hood.”
“What if he doesn’t like the clippers, I gave him?”
“Hood!”
“I know he used them but what other option did he have?”
“ HOOD!!”
“What!?!”
“How about a gift basket?”
“What?” Jason’s racing thoughts skidded to a halt.
“A gift basket.”
Dick held his hands out to slowly spin Jason around so that he could look up into his little brother’s eyes.
“Nothing too extravagant. B and Penny-One are out for this current mission.”
Jason felt his eyes widen as he contemplated the atrocities that could be committed by two older men with too much money on their hands and absolutely no idea how non-billionaires lived their lives day to day.
“No. B’s going to want to buy the building, isn't he?”
Nightwing grimaced a little bit, looking away and running his hands through his hair.
Jason’s voice goes even more monotone.
“B has already bought this building, hasn’t he?”
Holding up his hands in a placating motion Nightwing shook his head no.
“Then, who? Wait. No.”
“Yeah, I’m afraid that…”
“Why would the Replacement buy a random apartment building in my part of the city?
“Little Wing.” Nightwing's voice is calm but firm with warning.
“Fine.” Jason snarls. “What the fuck does Red Robin want with this particular little hellhole?”
“I think he was hoping it might be a nice enough Christmas gift that you wouldn’t give him any more humiliating presents”
Jason barked out a sharp laugh. “Fat-fucking chance. R squared didn’t like the Play Bunny mags I got him? Time to up the game then and see if I can’t find any of the really niche stuff. I’m thinking of the Gay Kama Sutra. Hardcover of course. Add a couple of close comfort condoms so that he and his boyfriend can play it safe.”
Dick finally let the stoicism drop from his face and he had to turn his head away a little so that Jason wouldn’t see the smile that was creeping across his face.
“Listen man it’s getting late enough that I need to head out, but we could meet tomorrow at Bed, Bat, and Beyond. Get some reasonably priced blankets, towels, any sort of cleaning supplies you think he’ll need.”
“Fine.” Hood grunted as he grabbed his grappling gun.
“I’ve got a meeting soon and then I’ll need to sleep for a couple of hours. Let’s say noon, tomorrow.”
Nightwing leaned forward, his hands were placed on both of Jason’s shoulders as he gently knocked their foreheads together.
“With any luck; we can get him a little more acclimated to Gotham before B shows up trying to adopt him.
“He has to be in his twenties at least.”
“I don’t think that would really stop him.”
Red Hood couldn’t help but chuckle himself as watched Nightwing backflip off of the building, waiting a concerning amount of time before setting off his grappling gun. Just so he could get the biggest arc possible to spin and kick through the night.
“Show pony.”
Jason gave one last glance at the building. He hadn’t noticed any changes and there wasn’t anything else that he could really do tonight to help the man.
He needed to get his head in the game and figure out which one of his Lieutenants was fucking around on him.
There had been an increase in the quantity and decrease in the quality of the drugs they were importing.
Red Hood stepped up to the edge of the roof and tipped off backwards without pulling his own grappling gun at all. He let himself free fall for several stories before he landed on a particularly sturdy piece of fire escape, and then to the ground.
He had been very clear about what was and wasn’t allowed in his city as far as the drug trade went. It seemed like someone was either cutting his purity or adding unknown shit into it to increase their profits.
Striding off into the dark Jason fingered the handles of one of his guns.
It would be interesting to see where this investigation would lead him.