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Jason rarely visited the Watchtower. Besides the fact that he was a crime lord who dealt in drugs with no conniptions about murder there was also the fact that it was weird. Like he knew some of these people from before. Jason hated being around people who had expectations.
People besides Alfred and Dick and the old man who had known him. It was one thing when his pseudo-family had mourned him and remembered him as the rough but innocent kid he used to be and it was another to meet people who had already been disappointed at the replacement Robin and then mourned him, not to mention the fact that almost the whole community knew him.
Older members either looked at him in pity or in harsh disapproval. Younger members eyed him warily. Peers his age turned their noses up and ignored him or put on a forced geniality because of Dick’s insistence. It pissed Jason off even though what? Honestly, would he be less pissed if Dick ignored him? If Dick also acted too good? Didn’t he already act too good?
Jason shook his head slightly. That was the pit talking. Or maybe just the angry kid in Jason. It was too easy to be angry at Dick. He was everything Jason wanted.
To have. As in he had everything Jason wanted to have.
Man, he was glad his face was covered so no one had to watch the gymnastics his face went through. Honestly, Dick should were a fully mask, he didn’t have the cool mask of indifference that the replacement had and he didn’t have the intimidating mein that the Demon Brat shared with Daddy Bat.
But soliloquy about Dick Grayson and Jason’s woes in the hero community aside -
(An anti-hero is still a hero, Stephanie’s voice chimed in his head.)
- Jason would later wish that what was about to happen to him had happened literally anywhere else.
He had been half-listening, half-brooding in the already touched on thoughts about pretty-boy Grayson and the uppity Justice League assholes, when he felt his entire body spasm. He jerked to his feet and backed up until he bumped into a wall, screaming his head off.
Was he in pain? He wouldn’t be able to say. It was just… Shocking.
Something adjacent to electricity shot through every nerve of his body. A flash of green overcame him and then he just… Wasn’t.
He didn’t exist. He became something else, human body transforming to what felt like energy and gelatin, into a rip in dimensions, into a fucking Lazarus Pit.
He was not Jason, he was something other.
And then something passed through him.
Then he was Jason again.
“Whoa, what just happened?” A voice sounded.
Jason’s entire consciousness honed in on the voice. Which wasn’t saying a lot because he only managed to stay on his feet for a moment before he was crumpling. He thought maybe he heard the sound of his name but the only things that he could focus on before it all went black was the effervescent glow of the being who caught him; the cool, soothing balm of his hands; and the tender look of concern in his eyes.
An angel.
When Jason woke up it was with such a feeling of peace that he hadn’t felt since his death, if he had even felt it before his death, that if he didn’t know better he would say that he had died.
Wait actually…
Jason sucked in a huge breath. It was like getting shocked with an EKG as he suddenly became aware of all the bodily functions that was needed to live.
“Jason!”
He looked up to see Bruce, cowl down, looking at him in concern. A quick scan of the area showed that they were in a medbay. It took him a moment of looking at the unfamiliar room to realize that this was the Watchtower medbay.
Bruce had his cowl down and had called him by name in the Watchtower.
“Did I die again?” Jason asked, rough voice stripped.
Bruce let out a shuddering breath.
“We…” he paused, “You… You weren’t breathing. No pulse. Body ice cold. Jason… God, I thought I lost you again.”
Jason looked down to see that Bruce was gripping his hand like he would disappear if he did, the annoyance and anger Jason would usually feel was just… Gone.
He felt kind of uncomfortable but allowed it.
“Yeah… Sorry about that.”
Bruce tensed and Jason should have at the unfamiliar voice but it was that voice. Jason turned to look at the person(angel) that the voice belonged too.
He was beautiful. Jason wanted to stare into his face, at his round green eyes and intense dark and thick eyebrows, his sloping nose with an upturned tip, his high cheek bones and his pretty pink lips parted slightly.
He had a wild appearance, strangely natural and not at the same time. The glow, the green eyes, the white hair yeah but then his narrow jawline ending in a point was slightly crooked and his teeth peaking through his lips weren’t perfect – big, pushing each other and crowding the front of his mouth – and the expression on his face was contrite with a nervous smile.
“You…” Jason said breathlessly at the same time Bruce growled out, “You!”
While Jason’s breath was caught, for the second time that day apparently, Bruce stood coming protectively between Jason and Jason’s angel. Which was not something Jason wanted.
“What did you do to him?!” Bruce demanded.
“Whoa, whoa,” Jason’s angel said, hands up, open palms facing Bruce, “I didn’t do anything. I mean I did but it’s not what caused… This,” Jason’s angel cringed, “Okay, maybe I did but it’s because he was contaminated with corrupted ectoplasm.”
“Tell me what you did,” Bruce snarled.
“Okay, okay. Look I just felt… A connection and I pulled. And… Well… I guess your… Kid? Has died and is saturated in ectoplasm and since I’m the Ghost King and have dominion over ectoplasm and ectoplasmic beings we are connected but he is very clearly a living human… Humanish being, so instead of summoning him I just… He became a portal and I came here through him?”
“Wait a fucking minute, you’re the bloody Ghost King?” A new voice joined, Constantine of all people looking beyond his usual disgruntled assholery to pure shock.
“You hurt him,” Bruce growled, apparently choosing to ignore Constantine’s presence and the tom-fuckery of secret identities that was going to be.
“It only hurt because I cleansed the ectoplasm in him! Not because he became a portal! I mean, yeah okay it might have hurt but look at him!” His angel threw a handout, “I’m sure he was all rage and anger before. How are ya feeling, buddy?”
Jason opened his mouth to answer something along the lines of ‘fine’ or maybe ‘this is the calmest I think I’ve ever let in my life’.
Instead, he says:
“You can come in me anytime.”
Everyone in the room froze.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Constantine mumbled under his breath.
His angel’s face flushed, if the green glow centered on his cheeks was in fact a blush, and his eye widened in bewilderment.
“Wow, okay. Wasn’t expecting that. Um…”
And Bruce? Bruce didn’t turn his back on Jason’s angel, but he did swipe a hand over his face and through his hair.
Jason grinned and winked at the Ghost King and the Ghost King’s eyebrows shot up.
“Name’s Jason. Jason Todd. In some crowds I’m known as the Red Hood.”
“Aren’t you a crime lord?” His angel murmured, “Uh, anyway yeah. Nice to… Meet you Red Hood. I’m Phantom. Ghost King. Ruler of the Infinite Realms, Champion over Pariah Dark, blah blah blah, yada yada yada and all that junk.”
“You got a phone number, Phantom?”
“I… What? You know I’m dead right? Like, not just dead but king of the dead?”
“So? I died. I mean, I came back but I did die. And aren't I one of your subject anyway? I mean... You said we have a connection.”
Phantom didn’t seem to have a response to that, his mouth working open and closed as he tried to work past his flabbergasted state.
“Jason,” Bruce said, “Please stop flirting with the Ghost King.”
“Yeah,” Constantine, the asshole, chimed in, “Please. You’re killing all of us who aren’t already dead.”
“Hey!” Phantom said, “You know what. I’m just gonna go.”
“You know where to find me!” Jason yelled before he once again became other – spirit and goo, or apparently ectoplasm, whatever the hell that meant – and Phantom was gone.
Constantine sighed and left, grumbling about horny teenagers and Jason sticking his dick where it didn’t belong.
Now that Phantom was gone Bruce collapsed back into his chair, head cradled in his hand.
“Jason, please,” Bruce said, “I’m begging you. Please don’t flirt with the Ghost King.”
“Then beg, asshole.”