The Number You Have Called Cannot Be Reached 3
Part 1|Part 2
Ship: Dead on Main (Danny/Jason)
Warnings: angst/depression and canon typical violence
I'm not entirely happy with this, but I hope you enjoy it anyways. Some things will probably be changed for the Ao3 version, this is very much first draft and I want to do a proper rewrite before then.
Jason parked his bike next to the Batmobile. There was a strange air in the Batcave or maybe it was just him being different. He couldn’t tell for sure. He stepped off the bike so he had his back towards Bruce, who sat by the Batcomputer with his cowl off. Jason could still feel his gaze when he looked up. He didn’t know what to feel. Where was he supposed to start?
“Little Wing!” Dick announced happily, suddenly slinging an arm across his shoulder from behind. It was only all his training that stopped him from jumping three feet into the air from the fright and he managed to just tense - but that was normal. Dick would consider that normal. Pull yourself together, Jason, he scolded himself. Normal, act normal, for one long moment he was grasping for what was normal. It definitely wasn’t the urge to lean into his big brother.
“Jay?” Dick asked quietly, worried, thankfully too quiet for anyone to hear. Panic grasped him and he elbowed Dick to get him off. Dick bent over with an oomph. At least elbowing Dick was a normal response, even if it was for the wrong reason.
Ignoring the strange urge to check on Dick, he squared his shoulders, firmly didn’t look back and walked forward towards the Batcomputer, where now that he had arrived the rest of this night’s patrol team gathered. Damian already out of his suit with damp hair and a towel slung around his neck glanced surreptitiously at Jason out the corner of his eyes even as he pretended to look towards Bruce - brat was still worried. Tim was curled up in an office chair doing who knew what with his laptop in a way that did not seem conducive to the healing of the broken ribs he’d been benched for. Bruce himself, paused what he was doing and spun around in his chair. Even sitting he managed to draw everyone’s attention, Tim even closed his laptop.
Jason purposefully crossed his arms and widened his stance. That’s what they expected of him, probably? How did he usually stand? He usually always felt one wrong comment away from a fight when he was here, he should stand like he expected it, right? Defensive.
This was exhausting.
At last Dick walked up to them completing their loose circle. He was rubbing his side and Jason felt a stab of worry and guilt. Had he aggravated an existing wound? Shit. Fuck. What was wrong with him? Why was he so worried?
“Oracle,” Bruce spoke, “please start.”
“Thanks to Hood, we now have a better headshot of the thief,” Oracle announced from the computer speakers“The Ghost,” Dick interjected in a sing song voice, “after what happened tonight you can’t disagree.”“Nightwing,” Barbara replied flatly, she didn’t even need to say she thought it was a stupid name.
“The thief,” she reiterated in a way that left no room for any other arguments and Dick wisely held his silence. At least Dick knew Barbara well enough when to stop. Finally she pulled two photos up on the large screen. The one on the right was an older/early photo with the green glassed goggles obstructing much of the upper half of the face, a grin was a sharp line of white on the lower half of the face in the blurry photo, the quality was terrible and caught in movement.
The newer photo on the left showed a young man, maybe even late teens, eyes were wide, bright green, not quite glowing and his face beet red in embarrassment, mouth slightly open - this was taken just after he’d pushed away from Jason. His goggles sat at the edge of his messy black hair, just high enough to see the way he was beginning to swell on his forehead where Jason had clocked him.
Jason looked from one picture to the other, something was off to him. The grin was an obvious difference, but these where snapped in very different moments, and he shouldn’t let different emotions cloud his judgment.
“He’s lost weight.” The realization hit him with the certainty of a sledgehammer.
There’s dubious mumbling around him, about the blurriness of the first picture. But Jason is unmoved, there’s a hollowness to the guy’s cheeks that wasn’t there before.
“We can’t really judge that sort of thing with the quality of the first image,” Barbara cut through the murmurs. Jason knows he right, but he doesn’t feel like arguing.
He doesn’t feel like arguing, it’s another realization that leaves him wrong footed and he’s not listening for a minute. Checking back into the conversation he only caught the tail end of the conversation that was apparently about the Meta’s skills.“-we can now add phase shifting powers-““Like a Ghost.”
Tim groaned and Barbara outright growled - Jason reevaluated his earlier thought that Dick knew Barbara’s limits. Damian had already accepted the logic and Bruce had long since become immune to this sort of Dick antic.
“Back on topic,” was all he said. “Tim.”
Tim opened his laptop back up.
“Yes, so the items the thief-” There was a small beat as everyone waited for Dick to interrupt, Tim was side-eyeing him but continued; “-is stealing are still painting a very alarming picture, and there is a multitude of very dangerous uses, not to mention what kind of world ending horror they could be built into. Luckily he didn’t get the prototype spectral calibrator tonight, and we’ll be keeping it here for the time being and set the project on an indefinite hold at Wayne Enterprise.”Tim looked up at Bruce. “We’ll be needing to monitor Star Labs as they have a similar project, but so far the Ghost has not operated outside of Gotham to our knowledge.”
Bruce nodded, “I’ll arrange something.”
It was a signal for Tim to continue, “we’re still no closer to a way to capture him and the phase shifting is a whole other added concern. We’ll need to figure out if there’s something he can’t phase through, some denser materials perhaps. I just finished looking through tonight’s footage and from what I’m seeing at least the new filter program is holding up; both the audio and visuals have very few glitches now. But we still don’t know how he’s sending out the electromagnetic interference.”
“Ghoooost,” Dick said quietly under his breath.Tim’s left eye twitched dangerously. Jason couldn’t help smiling, it was very good he was wearing the helmet. Bruce once more ignored Dick looking to Damian.The kid straightened imperceptibly at the attention, it really was adorable, but his voice was as haughty as ever. “Blood sample is already being analyzed of course, tt.” Blood sample? Oh, that’s what Bruce had been doing on the roof, when Jason was distracted. A sick feeling rose in his stomach thinking of the blood, was Ghost even alive? He could be bleeding inside the head for all they knew.
“Hood,” Bruce asked quietly, “do you know why the Ghost reacted to you like that?”Jason stiffened. Fear grabbing cold onto his heart. There was no way he could tell them he thought it had to do with the pits. They’d think Jason was being influenced by the Ghost and bench him. He couldn’t let that happen, he needed answers. He didn’t need to fight his family.
“No damn clue,” he scoffed, hoping he sounded nonchalant and none of his panic shone through, “some weird trauma response? He’d just hit his head real good.”
Bruce looked at him dubiously, but he was clearly unwilling to risk pushing. Their truce was a tentative one after all, one they’d come to after many false starts and stops. Jason had never before been so glad for their tattered relationship.
“So to conclude,” Dick drew everyone’s attention off Jason, “the Ghost is still a mystery, we don’t know if he’s just a thief or a supervillain biding his time.”
“He’s not a supervillain.” Jason could have cursed himself, he’d just gotten their attention off him. Now he was forced to elaborate. “He’s not wearing any sort of body armor, just that hoodie.”
And he’d definitely broken some of his ribs landing on him, Jason thought with a pang of guilt.
“Not all villains wear body armor though,” Tim pointed out carefully, and now Tim was worried too, Jason had no clue what had given him away.
“The ones who engage in close combat with us usually do though,” Dick returned, and Jason could have hugged him for bailing him out again (if that had been normal, which it was NOT).
“He could just not be a very good villain?”
“Or he’s just banking on the fact that he’s very good at dodging,” Barbara interjected with annoyance before the discussion got out of hand, “or did you all just forget you’ve been chasing this guy for weeks without landing a substantial hit on him?” She could always be counted on to be the voice of reason.
Dick scratched the back of his head sheepishly. Tim looked down at his computer. Damian scoffed, trying to look unaffected but that was definitely almost a pout.
Bruce’s eyes twinkled in amusement as he stood up and was that almost a smile? How was this happening? It felt… His fingers dug into his arms. It felt like all the things Jason had convinced himself had never really been there. And there was Bruce’s hand landing on Damian’s shoulder; a silent comfort-encouragement, because Bruce was terrible with words but his touches always spoke volumes. And as the small smile bloomed on Damian’s face and he quickly looked away to hide it, Jason remembered exactly how that felt. Shit.
“Oracle, that’s all for tonight, we’re not getting anywhere without more information.”
“You got it, B, Oracle out.”
Jason spun and stalked towards his bike, before he did something, he didn’t know what exactly.
“Jay?”
Bruce’s voice stopped him in place. He glanced over his shoulder to see them all watching him. Don’t give anything away, he scolded himself.
“What is it, old man?” Jason asked trying to interject as much annoyance into his voice as he could, but it was so hard dredging up any of that when they looked at him worried like that, and his chest ached and he just sounded tired.
“It’s late,” Bruce said with a small unconscious wave of his hand as if anyone could tell the time of day from within the cave, “you could stay the night?”
After a beat he added, “Alfred would love to see you.”
Jason’s jaw clenched. Alfred would, but that’s not what Bruce was really saying, he was saying he would love to have him stay, but didn’t think Jason would be receptive to that and so he brought out the Alfred card. It was plain as day and how had Jason never seen that? Seen the longing on his dad’s face? His chest ached, he knew why. He was always so busy reading everything Bruce did as him trying to control him, every interaction tinted in green. His chest ached. Every inch of his body wanted to stay, to take a step back, see where this could lead, but he couldn’t.
He had to act normal. Normal Jason would never. Normal Jason could be back tomorrow for all he knew. He couldn’t do that to any of them, to himself.
With great difficulty he tore his gaze away from his family and walked the last steps over to his bike.
“Tell Alfred I’ll be coming over for tea on Tuesday,” he said loudly over the noise of his bike, not looking, because he didn’t want to see any of their reactions, then he tore out of there.
This was better for everyone.
Poor Jay really is having the time of it, maybe next part he'll get to actually enjoy not being angry.
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