#Constantine *hopes the King will show up to get them b4 he has to deal with this bullshit

[mutable-manifestation]

Family at the Core

So I decided to continue the rogues-as-family-with-Danny once they realize he's a baby & flee to the DC universe/Gotham fic.

Parts 1 & 2

Info: AU where you gotta fight ecto with ecto - it’s the only thing that has any effect on them, and it’s part of the reason why the ghosts love Amity so much - aside from the whole “thinking danny was old ghost pretending at being human and openly challenging pretty much everyone by claiming a Living Realm haunt and then opening a stable portal in it” (from their perspective pre-’holy shit he’s baby’ realization) - Danny? Sam & Tucker with ecto weapons? Humans who can and will put up a challenge but won’t try to seriously harm them ala bastards like Pariah & the Guys In White? It’s practically the ideal ghostly vacation spot. 

The Fenton fam are the first to discover how to fight ghosts in their dimension, but DC didn’t have blood blossoms and made the deal w/Pariah before they figured out the ecto v ecto option

This is pre-ID reveals among the JL because it’s funnier. 

Disclaimer: idk how the police work I’m just rolling with what sounds probably like it’d be right.

***

Kitty and Johnny disappear before they can discuss a time for the police sweep, but Kitty <i>had</i> asked for Bruce’s number earlier in the conversation - “To set up that playdate once we’re more settled in” - after Bruce had mentioned the benefits of peer contact for children.

(The complete and utter disconnect from information about humans certainly lent credence to their claim of being ghosts - or at least not humans)  

She’d promised to give him a call once they got their phones set up. Hopefully that would be soon - they really needed to talk about the Lazarus Pit in the building before the kid fell in and died - assuming they truly weren’t aware of it prior to selecting the location. 

Perhaps Bruce could convince them to block it off? If they truly weren’t after the pit, he could ask about setting them up with a better place; make up some excuse about wanting the building for the company.

He makes contact with them and is left with more questions than answers; at least they know where they are now, despite the in-costume team's inability to track them as they left.

Constantine and Deadman arrive together <i>less</i> than an hour later, managing to arrive at the Batcave at the same time as Bruce’s group.

Constantine twirls an unlit cigarette between his fingers as the footage of the Joker incident plays.

It stops twirling when the lunch lady appears on the screen.

His lips form a grim line as he watches.

“Anyone ever told you you’re the unluckiest bastard this side ‘a the pond?” Constantine asks, turning to Batman once the first video concludes.

“No.” Is Batman’s humorless reply.

“Don’t leave us in suspense here, Conny,” Nightwing slides closer to lightly elbow him in the side. “Is Damian Wayne’s doppelganger the most haunted kid in America or what?”

Robin, for his part, crossed his arms and continued sulking - as he had been since Batman had read them in on the existence of JL Dark and verified that ghosts were indeed real.

“Most haunted kid this damn dimension, Bird boy,” Constantine answered, stowing his cigarette. “Those-” he gestures to the now-blank screen “-are Infinite Realms Ghosts. They aren’t like Deadman here, they’re about a million times worse.”

“Hey!” Deadman protests.

“They come from a place they call ‘The Infinite Realms’ - big shock there. Their kind haven’t been seen in this dimension for tens of thousands of years now; most people just think they’re myths by this point. I only even know about it because my thrice-damned house wouldn’t stop throwing a book on the subject at me until I read it a few years back.”

He puts the cigarette away in favor of crossing his arms.

“The Realms are said to be connected to every dimension there is, and legend has it that way back when we got a lot of visitors from their side. Had a lot of names - the era of chaos, the age of disaster, whatever you wanna call it. They treated this dimension like a plaything, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. 

Nothing worked - salt, holy symbols, the magics of the time, etc. Supposedly, someone even tried summoning a demon and watched the thing get hunted. Realms ghosts were leagues more powerful than any of the other known beings at the time and no one could find a way to fight them. The only reason they left was because some group made a deal with their king - no details on what the deal involved other than getting them to get lost.”

“So we are simply supposed to hope that their king isn’t too busy dealing with the infinitely many other dimensions they are apparently hooked up to to come get a few strays out of ours?” Robin questions icily.

“It means you’re simply supposed to give me a chance to do some more research - I only skimmed the one book to get the house off my back. What I read wasn’t promising, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more useful information buried somewhere.” Constantine replies with an eyeroll. “For now, if they want to play house with some poor bastard? Wayne’s got enough kids to know how to give good enough advice they don’t accidentally kill him in the meantime. Infiltrate their playdates if you’re that worried. And look on the bright side! They took care of your clown problem. Now, you said you had two videos?”

“Yes,” Batman answers tightly, bringing up said second video. “We managed to get footage of their meeting with the Waynes.”

The second watching was far less eventful.

Until the very end, when Kitty and Bruce shake hands and Constantine lets loose a stream of curses.

“What? What’s wrong?” Red Robin demands.

“What’s wrong is that Brucie Wayne is dumber than a sack of damn bricks.” 

The batclan members make various coughing/strangled noises at this, save for Batman, who remains stoic. 

“Who the fuck meets a self-declared non-human entity and shakes on a deal.” Constantine drags an exasperated hand down his face. “Make sure Wayne knows his ass needs to buy them that building asap or Ghost Girl gets to make him dance to whatever tune she wants; break a deal with a dealmaker and they get controlling shares in your soul.”

“I see,” Batman says, “We’ll get in touch with him again after this; we need to discuss the police sweep of the Yuyan building anyway. If direct observation will help, he should be willing to bring you along as a civilian friend.”

Constantine looked at him like he had three heads.

“Not a chance in hell, Bats.”

He backs away from the table toward the cave’s Zeta tube.

“Oh! Oh, me! Pick me! I wanna meet the new ghosts!” Deadman shook his arms wildly, doing loops in the air.

“The visibility spell won’t last that long and we don’t know if their kind of ghost can see you without it. Also, we were in the middle of something. We already detoured. Let’s finish the job and then we can come back and play ghost party 2: yet another pain in my ass edition, yeah?” 

“Awwwwww,” Deadman slouched sadly before zipping into the tube with him.

“Great. Have fun, try to get along with the new neighbors, don’t shake any hands, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, yadda yadda, aaaaaand bye.”

And with that, they were gone. 

“Well that’s not ideal,” Nightwing mutters.

The meeting had at least answered one question.

Now for the other two dozen.

---------------------

Kitty wants to get this cop sweep over with as soon as possible.

The others are hesitant at first - or territorial, in Walker’s case - but a little fast-talking has him all for the idea. 

The chronic rule-follower had only taken to making his own rules because of the zone’s inherent chaos and lack of real, broader government. In Gotham there are rules pre-made to follow, to enforce. He eats it up.

He’ll be obsessed with being law-abiding once he’s done studying up, but Kitty had been headed towards a future in law before her own death. She was well aware that it would take him - even with the aid of an eidetic memory - a minimum of months to read enough to actually start enforcing anything. 

And until he’d read it all? Kitty was free to make him paranoid about missing a later subsection to create her own Walker-loopholes.

Once he’s on-side, he practically carries the argument for her. She only pipes up again to mention how “the baby would probably be a lot more comfortable with a stable, uncontested home.”

Walker does his own sweep of the building, opening cabinets and hidden passages and drawing attention to weapons and other hints of crimes-past and Kitty hovers over Technus’ shoulder as they hash out the details of how best to lure in the police.

The Box Ghost leads the others - except Ember, who ‘s on baby-watch at the pool - in packaging up everything they want to keep to be phased into the ground under the building.

Arguing took most of the time and it’s only the work of another two hours to have the entire building ready for the cops to peruse. 

In the end, they decide setting off a small bomb by the entrance is the easiest way to draw police attention - they’ll come investigate, when no one responds they’ll have to check it out, they’ll find the weapons and cult-like documents and murder records Walker had located sitting out in the open, et voila: wanted owners and building up for grabs.

They, of course, will be invisibly watching the whole thing.

Danny hasn’t left the pool since their arrival and they don’t want him to, so he stays there with Johnny on watch to make them both invisible if and when anyone enters that room.

It goes off without a hitch, and by 11 o’clock Kitty is flying to a nearby roof to call Bruce and remind him of his end of the bargain.

***

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#dpxdc #finding family with the rogues that fought you #dp recovery vacation in Gotham #Bruce slowly loosing his mind #Constantine calls Bruce a dumbass to his face (unaware) #ex-pre-law Kitty #Danny in the background #*is traumatized* #Constantine hates everything that is happening in Gotham #Constantine *hopes the King will show up to get them b4 he has to deal with this bullshit #* #King Baby: *Floating in an ecto-pool under the Yuyan Building & being Part Of John's Headache*