Dpx Dc AU: Ectoplasm is required for Ghosts to be visible to the human eye- And Danny creates his own ectoplasm.
Danny is visiting Jazz in Gotham and its weird how friendly everyone is. Like, the city gets a really bad rapport, everywhere he goes there is someone trying to strike up a conversation or answer his questions about getting around to the tourist spots. A few people even pointed out restaurants and ways to find off the beaten path gems! Jazz seems to role her eyes at him, but when he brings up her 'roommate' being kind of cute she flat out laughs.
Danny then comes to understand the Jazz doesn't have a roommate and that Ghosts in Gotham don't move far from their haunts- He's just been inadvertently turning these undead folks visible by accident of generating abnormal amounts of ectoplasm.
Which, is comforting in a way, he's never walking this dangerous city alone and really, most of the ghosts have been really friendly! They disappear once he's a few blocks away from them anyway.
---
Tim Drake is having a horrible day.
He'd been given intel that one of Black Mask's guys was going to snitch but that he'd died before given the opportunity to reach out to the GCPD. He tracks down the guy's last know whereabouts and yikes. Its next to the Theater. Tim was often grateful for his childhood obsessions, this time it backfired.
Tim and Bruce get into an argument about trust and respect and, worst of all, mental health. And even though Tim was vehemently against Batman accompanying Red Robin to the alleyway - that's exactly what happens.
They arrive and Bruce is closing up faster than a clam in the contaminated Gotham Bay- Clearly being in the Alley bothers him. No fucking shit. RR gets started on collecting evidence, there are a few extra blood splatters and a single left shoe... When a kid walks into the Alley.
"Uh, sorry to intrude-" The kid looks scared shitless, and runs away. And then, all of a sudden, Batman and Robin aren't alone in the Alley.
Tim can hardly believe his eyes as the dead man appears and quickly blabs Black Mask's bank passwords and what the plan had been- and While he's over joyed to have that closure, he turns around to Batman weeping in the arms of his parents.
The ghosts fade, and the emotions are certainly charged as this was never something Bruce or Tim would have ever dreamed of happening. Ghosts in Gotham. Talking, floating, granting closure.
"RR, Bats, come in." Oracle calls into their ears.
"Reporting in, but, uh, we need a minute."
"A minute? We have a case on 4th and-"
"O, we just saw the ghosts of the Waynes. It's going to be a minute."
"...Lots of Ghost reports lately then. Any chance you saw a kid looking like he could be adopted?"
"Yeah, actually, black hair and blue eyes. He was super polite before he ran away."
"We have work to do. Oracle, lets prioritize finding our person of interest and divert Nightwing and Robin to the case on 4th." Batman cut between them on the comms and he sounded... calmer than either of them anticipated.
---
Jazz is no longer laughing when Batman appears at her door explaining that he's looking for Danny (Who already flew away from town to get a good night's sleep before class on Monday). Turns out Danny reunited the man with his dead parents just briefly- and then the second guy appears and mentions how Danny had also given a guy who'd been murdered by a Mob enough time to explain the ongoing threats the city faced.
Jazz just rolls her eyes and says that it's not like the ghosts are going anywhere anytime soon and Danny will visit in another month. When pressed, she just explains that her brother is a weirdo. No of course he doesn't have powers. Gaslight and Girlbosses her way out.
And Jazz thinks that the game is up for at least another month, obviously when Danny visits more shit will stir up, but then this new guy appears.
Unlike the other Bats who are keen on watching her from a distance, the Red Hood knocks on her door. Are her eyebrows all the way into her hairline when Red Hood asks her to send his thanks along to Danny because somehow this whole situation led to his Dad expressing remorse for his actions and apologizing? Yes, yes they are.
But Jazz can smell Dissertation Data off of these vigilantes- Who is she to send them away? Jazz welcomes Red Hood into her place for a cup of tea and a small chat.
The story then devolves into Jazz getting shit done, Danny being cute by proximity and also bringing ghosts to the party, and the Bats having trauma resolve between them.
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🤍 also on ao3
It’s just past 3am when Steve finally caves and reaches for the phone on his night stand. His fingers are trembling slightly as he dials Eddie’s number — he knows it by heart even though he never called before. Eddie gave it to him a few weeks ago, making him promise that he’d call if he ever needed to talk.
“Any time of day or night, alright, Harrington? Call me whenever.”
And so that’s what he’s doing now, feeling strangely vulnerable about it. There’s no way Eddie’s gonna pick up. He’s gonna wake him. He’s gonna keep him from his sleep, possibly even interrupting one of the few nightmare-less nights he has.
Steve feels guilty the very second the dial tone meets the silence of his room, his chest heavy, eyes closed. Part of him hopes that Eddie won’t pick up the phone, that he’s in deep enough sleep to miss the call, that he’ll come into Family Video tomorrow and smile at Steve like he always does, none the wiser.
But, miraculously, amazingly, unfortunately, Eddie does pick up the phone. Rather immediately, at that.
“Yeah?” He sounds sleepy, and Steve’s heart falls immediately. He can’t get his mouth to work, only holding the phone to his ear, soaking up Eddie’s sleepy voice and trying to replace the guilt, the weakness, the heaviness of another sleepless night. “Hello?”
Steve remains silent. Can’t quite get the words to work. Fucking figures.
“Stevie? It’s you, isn’t it?”
He nods, stupidly, before saying, “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Hey now, what the hell do you have to be sorry for?” There’s shuffling on the other side and Steve imagines that Eddie is sitting up now, settling in to listen to the sob story of the nightmare Steve had without even falling asleep first. He does that sometimes. Doctor Owens has a fancy term for it, but Steve doesn’t want a label for his insanity. Because if there’s a label, that means it’s nothing special — and that’s kinda the only thing he has left.
But he doesn’t tell Eddie anything about that. Maybe one day. If he sticks around. Gods, but Steve hopes he does.
“If you’re sorry for calling me,” Eddie continues, his voice impossibly soft, “you don’t gotta be that. It’s fine. It’s why you have this number, alright? I’m here.” There’s more silence for a moment, but it’s the kind of silence that leaves him room to breathe. Eddie is good at that kind of silence, despite the fact that he talks so much all the time.
Maybe it’s the constant talking that makes the silences all the more significant.
“What do you need, Stevie?” Eddie asks then, and Steve hides under his blanket, the phone pressed to his ear. “I could come over. Or you could come over, I don’t really care either way.”
“No. Don’t wanna move. And…” No company, he wants to say, but the words get stuck in his throat. Sometimes company and kindness make the bad times worse. They make it more real, and what Steve needs is for everything to be a little less real. Maybe that’s why he’s calling Eddie. There’s no way that boy with his doe eyes and his wide smiles and his gentle voice in the middle of the night is real.
“Alright, I got it.” Eddie breathes deeply on the other end and Steve remembers that that’s a good idea actually, so he follows Eddie’s breath for a while.
“Can we just…” He trails off. Gives up on finding words, cringing at himself, glad that Eddie can’t see him like this.
“Can we what, hm?”
Steve shakes his head and remains silent, knows that his voice will sound anything but strong when he opens his mouth, and every second Eddie doesn’t hear what a mess he is, is important.
“I’m bad at this,” is what he settles on, closing his eyes against the world inside and outside his blanket.
“At what? Sleep? Words?”
Yes, and yes. But it’s not what he means. “Asking for things. I’m not good at that.”
“Hey, neither am I,” Eddie says and it sounds like he’s smiling. Steve imagines it and he hopes, oh he hopes that Eddie is smiling. “Y’know how I told you to call me whenever? That was essentially me just asking for you to call me. To know that… that I’m here.”
“I do,” Steve says quietly, and his body is sort of trembling with the confession. “I do know that.”
“Good,” Eddie breathes. “So what do you need?”
Steve sighs and pretends he’s somewhere else, pretends he’s in a world where asking is easy, where being known comes naturally and not with shaking voice and trembling hands. Pretends Eddie knows him already.
“Can we just… Fall asleep like this? Talking, I mean, though I don’t even know if I have things to say. The silence is more important anyway. You’re good at those, did you know?”
A light chuckle comes from Eddie, and Steve smiles along with it. “I’m good at silences? Me, Eddie Munson? You sure you don’t have the wrong number?”
“Very.” It’s all Steve says, and then it’s Eddie who’s quiet— as if to prove his point.
“Yeah, Stevie,” he says after a beat, his voice making Steve shiver. “We can fall asleep like this. Do you need me to talk to you, or…?”
He considers briefly, but he already knows the answer. He doesn’t need Eddie to talk. Just needs him to be there.
“Nah. Just… Just be there?”
There’s a hum now — the same kind of hum that Eddie always does right before giving him that secret smile of his, when he’s about to touch Steve or give him a new pet name. Sometimes, when the door to Family Video falls shut behind Eddie and Steve is left to deal with his fluttering heart, he likes to believe that this him has been placed into the universe with his name to it.
He wonders if Eddie knows. If the hum tastes like his name, if it makes Eddie’s heart flutter just as much.
“Hey Stevie?” Eddie interrupts their silence after a while and Steve can’t fight the smile on his lips.
“Yeah?”
“Did you know that otters hold hands at night so they don’t drift away from each other in their sleep?” He waits for a moment, allowing for a reaction, leaving another silence for him to claim. He does, but only with a smile as he grips the phone tighter, imagining it to be Eddie’s hand. “This sorta feels like that.”
The trembling that hasn’t really stopped is back now, the air heavy with implications and possibilities. Steve swallows.
“You keeping me from drifting away, Munson?”
“I hope so.”
It’s whispered words across the lines, crossing lines and blurring them. It’s taking his breath away, replacing it with something else, something new, something he has only felt when they were alone, but never this intense. He fills his lungs with it.
“Hey Eddie?”
“Yeah?”
More whispers, more greedy lungfuls of this something new.
“Is it bad that I kinda wanna hold your hand now?”
A beat, a sigh, a careful breath. It makes Steve think that the air in Eddie’s room is sizzling too, heavy and light at the same time. Maybe it’s just as addictive.
“Only if it’s bad that I’m kinda imagining yours in mine right now.”
Steve shakes his head again and doesn’t feel stupid about it now. “I don’t think that’s bad,” he whispers.
“Good.”
Maybe whispers are their new language. Maybe everything else is too harsh for this fragile thing, maybe the world outside Steve’s blanket isn’t ready to see the smile on his face or hear the rapid beat of his heart. He doesn’t mind.
“Tomorrow. Can I hold your hand tomorrow?”
“What do you mean, Stevie, you’re already holding it.” And there’s that smile again that makes Steve huff out the softest of chuckles, hiding his face in his pillow to ground himself against this heady feeling. “Yeah, you can hold it tomorrow, but only if I can hold yours, how’s that sound?”
“Sounds perfect, Eds,” Steve says, just louder than a whisper, and he waits with bated breath if anyone out there in the universe heard, if their bubble would burst.
But it doesn’t. Eddie only murmurs a sweet, soft, “Can’t wait.” And then there’s only silence because they’re both smiling, hearts racing, hands trembling around the phantom touch of warm fingers. They fall asleep like that soon after.
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