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flamingpudding · 8 months

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Part 11 of Ghost Kid in Gotham

>>Masterpost >>AO3

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One Step Closer

Casandra stared at the child hiding in the antic behind storage boxes. Her siblings were out on patrol and Bruce practically had to drag Damian out on it for once. She could see how their youngest was reluctant to leave his twin.

She couldn't say she understood but from his body language Cass could clearly see what she was able to understand. Damian was protective, worried, scared and loved. It wasn't much different from what he felt towards the rest of them yet it was highly amplified and not as subtitle as he usually made it seem.

It worried her. Should anything happen to Danny it would greatly hurt her youngest brother. That was why she had stayed back to help Alfred and Duke to look after their newest brother while everyone went out. Steph had wanted to stay too but Cass saw it and pushed her girlfriend towards the cave, shaking her head. Maybe next time.

Steph had too much energy and was too excited to stay with Danny. Damian probably knew it too. He had scowled when the louder ones of their siblings tried to volunteer. But Cass? She had seen it. Danny had stiffed once the child realized Damian was going to leave him for a short time.

Confused, protective, scared, defensive, worried.

She had wanted to tell their father to not force Damian on patrol, even if he had skipped it a lot lately in favor of staying with his twin. But when Alfred and Duke approached the boy as chosen watcher, he had calmed. He was still scared and defensive but also curious and nervous now.

Still she had stayed behind. Danny had still been scared and defensive.

Her worry was proven correct when not even after three minutes into the others leaving the little boy disappeared from their side. Danny was silent and knew what openings to use to slip away. But the way she didn't even sense it felt like more than just the league's training. It was like the little guy blinked out of existence. Duke had instantly used his ghost vision only to curse when he ran into a wall, again apparently.

Alfred had seemed rather amused and only gave them a knowing and amused smile. If Alfred wasn't panicked then Casandra wouldn't be either. The butler knew, so Danny wasn't in danger.

Still it had taken her some time and she was ready to call everyone back to help in the search for her newest brother but then she had seen him. It was only from the corner of her eye and once again Danny was very silent and didn't even make a single sound. She could have imagined seeing him but Cassandra trusted her instincts now.

Which led her to the current situation. She blinked as she moved to sit cross legged with a little distance in front of the child. Blue eyes were clearly watching her the moment she had entered his field of vision.

Defensive, scared, worried.

Smiling, she didn't move any closer at first. There was a green blob, a blob ghost according to her brothers, floating close to the child and some snacks laying around the boy, discarded wrapping papers and a stolen plate of Alfred's cookies. So that was why the butler had been amused, he knew Danny had taken them. A giggle wanted to bubble out but she suppressed it, opting to smile fondly.

"Cookies good?"

Her newest brother only tilted his head in confusion. She inched a little closer, stopping when Danny started to hiss slightly.

Defensive, protective, scared, confused.

Once the child stopped hissing she tried again, this time pointing at the cookie in Danny's hand. "Good?"

Defensive, confusion, realization.

Danny with wary eyes kept watching her as he broke the cookie in two and offered one half to the green blob that ate the piece in one go while Danny nibbled on it. His blue glowing eyes never left her. The boy continued eating the cookies like that, always sharing with that green blob while also keeping an eye on her.

Cass could only smile as she just sat there in silence. She had remembered to send Duke a text that she had found Danny but with that text she had also asked him to not come up here. There was no reason to unsettle her newest brother any more than needed.

Besides, she counted it as a win for her when after a while of silently enjoying each other's company and respecting Danny's boundaries, the boy himself slowly crawled closer to her. He wasn't touching her but he slid half a cookie over to Cass.

She wished she had taken a video of this. Just so that she could prove that Cass officially had one over her brothers now, except for Damian of course. Danny was close to her, not hissing and sharing one of the cookies the little biter had stolen. She would hold this over Dick for a long time.

Meanwhile in Amity Park…

"Where is the twerp?"

Suppressing a scream, Jazz whirled around and came face to face with Dan who stood behind her with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Glowing red eyes were glaring unblinkingly at her. It would be off putting if Jazz didn't know that there was an undertone of worry. She was alone and hadn't expected any of the others involved in the search to show up. Tucker and Sam were in school keeping up appearances and Ellie was following a ghost rumor two cities over to the west of Amity park.

Jazz looked over the other, taking in how unaffected the near mirror image of her brother looked. Dan had been mostly spared from the fallout in Amity, considering that he lived 90 percent of the time with Vlad with the other 10% spent in the ghost zone making friends with Fright Knight again and so far Dan had also avoided meeting their parents. Vlad, him and Ellie had been the last to hear of Danny's disappearance let alone his death announcement of their parents or rather from the GIW. It had been a month since that announcement and Jazz was honestly surprised that Dan hadn't shown up earlier. But Vlad had pulled back from Amity and who knew when their parents had informed him about Danny's 'death' if at all and the other man had only found out because he decided to visit now of all times.

Eitherway, the future version of her brother / time clone / cousin / second brother was now standing before her. "I know the twerp is not dead yet. And the old man is trying to get as much information out of Maddie and Jack as he can right now. So I decided to get information from you shits."

"Language Dan." Jazz corrected out of habit. She was amazed that Dan even found them but again Danny probably knew about this hidden room of Sam's Mansion, which they were now using as their debriefing room. Maps were laying everywhere as well as pinned to the walls. Some were marked red, places Ellie had already looked into and hadn't found any sign of Danny.

"We have been looking into a lot of towns with reported ghost sightings to try and find him but a lot of them came up with nothing. All fake with no real ghost appearances. Danny isn't dead, we know this because Ellie told us that the Ghost Zone would riot if he were, so-"

"Oh they wouldn't just be rioting. If humans killed or incapacitated the king this entire dimension would be done and over." Wasn't that reassuring to know, Jazz thought, her parents weren't just neglecting and too obsessed in their research. No, they and the GIW could be the cause of their entire Dimension dying if they ever got their hands on Danny again.

"The Fenton portal is closed, right? And I have asked Fright Knight to not let anyone slip through the old man's portal until I am back at the castle." Dan wasn't looking at her anymore but to the side a scowl clearly visible on his face. That was another mystery to Jazz, the Fenton portal one day shortly after Danny's disappearance and right before the death announcement stopped working. It just suddenly closed and no matter what her parents did, did not open again. "Don't know how long we can keep ghost idiots, that also want to go look for the twerp, in check. So you better hurry up and find him."

"Thank you, Dan." Jazz smiled fondly at her time double brother who only scowled and refused to make eye contact with her. "I am sure we will find Danny."

"Tried the Booo-merang, yet?" The other only muttered, but he did glance at Jazz from the corner of his eyes.

Jazz let out a sigh, remembering how throwing that thing was one of the first things she did upon returning from college and hearing about Danny's disappearance. "We did but it only flew a couple of meters before falling to the ground. Tucker is tinkering with it, thinking that Danny might just be out of range for it."

She heard an inaudible grumble from the other and smiled sadly. The Booo-merang had always been a sure fire way to find Danny but now even that wasn't working for them. Sam was convinced that they must have brought Danny to another GIW-facility far away from Amity before or after they announced his disappearance, but Tucker refuted this with what he found when he hacked into them. But what he found made Tucker think that Danny might have initiated one of their backup plans, the fact that the Fenton portal was no longer working spoke for it but that the emergency kit they had prepared for this was still untouched spoke against it. Ellie hadn't said anything on that matter but Jazz knew the little girl was very worried, going so far to travel to every city ghost rumors appear in hopes that it's Danny they were talking about.

And now even Dan and Vlad seemed like they were starting to get involved.

A sigh escaped her once more as she turned around and looked sadly down at the map on the table. "Danny will… is… has to be on the run. Tucker doesn't think the GIW have him anymore. He had hacked into their database and nothing indicated that they still have him. But from what he found Danny must be heavily injured to the point , Tucker… he… he has seen pictures he refused to share. According to what he found from them, Danny just disappeared with injuries that would make escaping without help difficult, yet no one knows where he is."

"The twerp will be okay. Little shit is tougher than he looks. I should know that the best." Dan muttered and Jazz smiled saddly at the way the other attempted to comfort her. Then she noticed how Dan was eyeing a world map that was pinned to the wall, his red eyes strangely focused differently than they were before. Like he was remembering a long forgotten memory.

"Dan?"

"You remember, I… we… he…" Glowing red eyes closed in frustration before they looked back at Jazz. She knew that the other sometimes still had a hard time putting a line between Danny and himself, especially when it came to certain things like memories and everything before the split of their timelines. "Danny is adopted."

"What does that have to…?"

"You said he just disappeared according to the GIW Database? There might be something more to it. I am going to have to look into some old shit I… we, fuck, Danny probably hasn't thought about for years now."

Stunned Jazz watched how Dan changed into his ghost form that looked so different from Danny's, the form that used to scare her and hadn't changed much since he gained a human body. The ghost looked ready to fly away.

"Wait, Dan where are you going?!" She tried to stop him but just like her Danny when he got an impulsive idea, Dan wasn't going to listen. Instead the other only turned to her with a grim face.

"If you come across the old man, tell him I am going to look into an old asshole. There are a handful of people involved with me… fuck I mean him that could make the twerp disappear without a trace. These fuckers are worse then the GIW and we certainly don't need them getting involved now. As if killing us once wasn't enough…"

Jazz watched helplessly how Dan disappeared through the wall like he had appeared. With a worried look she glanced at the world map Dan had been looking at, unsure of what the other had seen or remembered because of it. Worry heavily stirred inside of her and she wanted to scream loudly infrustration. Once more her brother was keeping her out of the loop about something important and by the quiet mutter at the end she most likely wasn't supposed to hear, she knew it didn't mean anything good.

Once more Jazz sighed, swallowing her frustration and worry to pull out her phone, decided to tell the others with a quick message that Dan was now helping too and apparently following a different lead. A lead that if she interpreted everything Dan had said correctly, had something to do with Danny's life before he had been adopted and was connected to something highly dangerous.

The secure chat exploded with follow up questions, she couldn't answer and only left her to stare at the world map once more in worry and unsure on how to proceed from here.

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