DCxDP: Dead guys stick together
(A Batman 138 fix-it)
After Bizarro becomes King of Hell he watches the mortal world and is distraught to find that his brother/best friend/sorta father-figure has been hurt very badly and is calling out for help.
Distraught, he goes to another lord of the netherworld who he's heard has access to a portal (and subjects a bit more compatible with the act of helping someone). He asks King Phantom would he please please help him protect his brother/friend, and if he does Bizarro will owe him a favor and leave his realm alone.
When the inferno had initially breached the Ghost Zone Danny had thought he was going to have to deal with f*cking Trigon again, but as it turns out that guy's been replaced and the new guy is pretty nice. After a brief cosmic battle and a clearing of misunderstandings, Danny agrees to Bizarro’s request.
While Gotham's vigilante civil war continues on its rooftops, Jason is in a cell. He is trembling, practically catatonic again, and losing his mind. He’s seeing the flaming figure of a knight on horseback appear from the shadowy far wall of his room, like some kind of fairytale nightmare version of Batman. It takes a while for Jason to realize he’s talking.
“... part of the treaty between the King of Ghosts and King of Demons, Jason Todd: Prince of Demons has been granted special status and is henceforth a protected and honorary citizen of the Infinite Realms.”
Nightmare-Bruce touches his flaming sword on Jason’s shoulder and the unearthly fire instantly engulfs him. Relief washes through Jason, and it’s so strong he nearly drops asleep.
Bruce is apologetic when everything’s over and he realizes the mistakes he’s made... but nothing really changes. (It is a relief to Bruce that no one died or was permanently injured, Jason's condition resolved itself somehow, and Bruce is normal now so really everything is fixed or at least it will be fixed.)
Just like when Jason first came back from the dead, Bruce's response makes him hurt deeper than the physical torture itself. Jason is the one who died but Bruce acts like the ghost. Singleminded, possessive, stuck in time and blind to it; bound to repeat the same cycles again and again. Jason is the ghost but he's died multiple times now, and maybe that's kind of like living and maybe that means he can move on.
Dani and Bizarro become friends, and she gets Danny's friend Tucker to somehow set up a working Wi-Fi connection in hell so they can all play games together. (He’s not going to question it. Everything about Amity Park is abnormal. They helped him and they’re good to Bizarro, that’s all that matters.)
Jason forges a fake identity for Dani. He might ask Babs to make a better one for her if she ever needs it but he doubts that's likely. He hasn’t had a living identity for years now after all, he’s an old hand at fake identities. Dani is delighted and starts attending school soon after.
Danny has good friends, and as far as Jason can tell plenty of reliable mentors in the ghost world. You wouldn’t think it, but Jason’s less worried about Danny in his role as a little godling than in his civilian life. He’s got too much on his plate- too much power yet not enough to actually resolve his real issues. Not enough to protect himself where he’s vulnerable.
The “Guys in White” that Danny likes to complain about are concerning. So is the fact that Danny’s lives with mad-scientist parents who are trying to hunt down his alternate identity. So is his ever grinding cold-war with the mayor of his town… And something else too that had been niggling at the back of Jason’s mind ever since he’d first gotten to talk to these kids.
One day Danny’s sister, Jazz asks to talk to him. He’s an adult she says. That’s true he replies. He’s capable of protecting himself and other people, she says. Well, he has the training and experience for it, he agrees. If things go wrong, would Jason let Danny or Dani stay with him- just until she becomes a legal adult? She asks. Jason’s... not the sort of person who should be taking kids in. Danny saved his life though. He won’t say no. He says of course.
Jason knew it. Everything about Amity Park is abnormal.
The town doesn’t technically exist- there are no maps that include it and even satellite imaging is corrupted where Danny describes his hometown is supposed to be. There are no references to it on the internet that couldn’t be referring to a totally different Amity Park elsewhere, and judging by the problems they occasionally had on gaming nights and the odd offhand remarks Danny and his friends sometimes made, it was looking extremely likely that all communications between Amity Park and the outside were being heavily censored. Before Jason knew it he had started a full-on investigation on the GIW, Mayor Vlad Masters, former Mayor Montez, and Axion Labs.
Hope and fear lodges itself in Danny’s chest. Jason’s an adult and he’s actually going to help.
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starfleet ds9 crew: we only have two morally compromising options before us here... what we need is a third option
the third option:
he's like if the trolley problem could be solved by a mentally unwell gay lizard jumping onto the trolley and blowing up the track before it got to the junction where the switch could theoretically happen
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satoru physically withers and crumbles every time you return his belongings. he doesn’t know how to tell you that he can only accidentally on purpose leave his glasses on your nightstand, or his jacket on your couch, or his shirt in your laundry so many times before he loses his mind. every time you don’t take he bait, he folds into himself and wonders why you don’t love him anymore and it costs him $22.50 to hear ieiri tell him to suck it up and use his words because he literally has to buy her company (and drinks).
but when you do take the bait, when you do wear his things, satoru thinks it’s all worth it. he can’t explain why it does what it does to him. it’s a sinister kind of possession he wants to have over you, knowing you’re your own person, free to do as you please, but also knowing you’re caged in him. it’s a lovesick kind of gooeyness that melts his heart seeing you fumble with the sleeves of a sweater that’s too long for you. it’s the vision of you seeing you drowning in him—in his clothes, in his things, in him, in him, in him. he’s selfish, he wants to consume you in as many ways as possible, wants you to drown in him, would die happily knowing you were one tenth as enraptured by him as he is with you. he doesn’t know how or why or when you gained so much power over him, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t want you to ever stop, so if he has to keep pretending to leave his clothes and bags and glasses around then so be it.
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