Chapter Text
Danny had just finished his shift at the GCPD Morgue. He was exhausted leaving the building, but he still made sure to scan the parking lot before putting in one earbud to listen to some music on his way home. This was Gotham after all.
However, he was glad that he asked for the late shift. Usually, GCPD employees did what they could to avoid the shift due to how crazy the city tended to become some nights. He at least knew he’d survive anything thrown at him, but he could not understand why any of his coworkers chose to stay in Gotham. He was constantly confused why anyone that could pass as normal would choose to stay in Gotham.
Danny was grateful for Gotham. He got to live a relatively normal life. Hang out with Sam and Tucker when they weren’t busy with their own projects. And any of his particular eccentricities were passed off as more or less normal for Gotham. Maybe that was why people stay’d, everyone who did was a little off.
Passing by an empty lot hidden between two buildings, he heard sounds of a scuffle. Looking ahead, he saw what he assumed to be a developing gang fight. Immediately, he hooked a left away from the fight, planning out an alternate route for his walk home.
Danny had decided years ago that no ghost involvement meant that it was not his problem. After closing down the portal in Amity and claiming the living realm under his protection, most ghost kept their presence pretty lowkey.
He overlooked ghost that got off on scaring your average teenager in a “haunted” house. He stopped by the ghost zone every couple of months for a battle royale showdown with the old gang and all the others that wanted to challenge his position. And he made sure to nip any realm destroying threats in the butt early. All in all, Danny would say he was completing his role as ghost king to be, and protector of the living realms continued existence pretty well.
So when he saw another gang fight in the browery, he hooked the left and speed up to get as far away as possible from the stray bullets and overly aggressive thugs. This situation was more up to the actual Gotham hero’s to handle.
As soon as Danny had crossed the street, a flash of red dropped from the roof into the middle of the fight. But that wasn’t what caught Danny’s eye. It was the pulse of ectoplasm calling out to its ruler. One of his subjects was nearby, It was distorted though. The same distorted feeling he got from other halfa’s ecto. Distorted due to it’s combination with a living person.
Zeroing in on the feeling he could tell it was coming from the red figure decimating both sides of the gang fight. One guy against 20.
“Fuck,” Danny thought, “This might be a problem for me.”
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After figuring out the red figure from the other night was a Gotham villain turned more anti-hero, the Red Hood. Danny decided to do a little more research before approaching. He never quite figured out how involved the Justice League was with the US government and figured it was best to keep a distance from both.
Instead of plotting how to watch Red Hood from the shadows, Danny was out on a simple chore run. He planned to grab some groceries, shop for some new work shirts, and maybe stop by the new pop up shop in the mall. He had just grabbed a new work shirt when his spine tingled and forced a cold breath out his throat.
“Not again.” Danny groaned. He hooked a right away from the crowds and started speed walking toward a grouping of industrial factories. Of course, it was the industrial section. This city has quite the propensity for violent deaths occurring in factories and warehouses. Also a large amount of residual ectoplasm.
Add them together and get an easy recipe for making a ghost. Or extreme emotionally based actions that seemed to plague the Gotham villains' motives for the city. Danny was pretty sure there was a natural stable portal underneath the city. He had heard rumors that the city was built on top of a series of tunnels and caves, but was unsure if that was true since the criminals never seemed to take advantage of them.
Danny headed into the facility which looked to be an old food manufacturing facility. Empty boxes, rotting food, and rusted machines were littered around the floor. In the back, Danny could hear a ghostly wail accompanied by rusted metal teeth grinding on and off. He winced when he realized the repetitive metal clanking was that of a grinder.
Since, Amity only started getting ecto-contaminated when his parents' portal was active, there wasn’t enough residual ectoplasm to catch those with violent deaths in death loops. He learned about them pretty quick though when he moved into Gotham. It sucked that he had to deal with it now, but he’d always be grateful that he never ran into one while he was a child.
Death loops cause a ghost to relive his death over and over again. Stuck in a loop that can only be broken by those who can interact with ectoplasm. Only ghosts can see the whole loop. Those ectocontaminated like his friends and Jazz could only ever see the effect of the loop. In this case they’d only see the grinder turning on and off.
Danny approached the back of the building. As the grinder got into his view, it stopped again. Danny watched as a poor worker on the higher walkway slipped from the ladder and fell straight into the grinder which then turned on. It consumed half of him before it stopped and the grinder turned off again. The worker was back on the ladder.
Danny turned ghost and flew up to catch the worker before he completed his fall into the grinder. Flying him back to the ground next to the machine. The worker looked at him with wide eyes and a shocked face. The machine turned on and then turned back off again. The worker smiled at Danny and dissipated into the air.
Good news is that ghost loops are easy to fix. Bad news there was now a cloud of ectoplasm floating in the middle of the city. Danny stepped into the cloud and breathed it in. Best way to deal with the cloud was to integrate it into his ghost form.
Once that was done Danny breathed out a sigh of relief and went back on his way to work.
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Dick was surprised to see a new father-daughter pair had signed up for his class. He knew all his regulars pretty well so it was easy to spot the new kid as soon as she came into view. But the pair was odd.
The girl kept giving a quick glance up to what Dick presumed to be her father before quickly dropping her head down to the floor. Occasionally, she would nod or shake her head in response to her father’s questions or comments. But she kept wringing her hands. Immediately her behavior set off alarm bells in Dick. The girl wasn’t just shy, she was anxious.
Dick examined the pair a little more closely. They looked nothing alike. The older of the pair looked fairly non-assuming. Jeans and a light blue button down. Extremely pale with slight eye bags below blue eyes. Dark messy hair, but cut short around the sides of his head. The girl had a pink skort with a butterfly patterned shirt. Matching the clips in her brown braided hair. She had a darker skin tone with dark eyes.
She may have just taken after her mother, but even within the facial features themselves Dick could see no commonalities. Forcing a large casual smile on his face, he approached the pair.
“We’ll hello! Excited to see some new faces! Is this your first time at the gym? I’m Dick. I know, I know, but at least it makes it harder to insult me. I’ll be your instructor for today! How familiar are you with gymnastics? Is this your first class?”
“Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Danny and this is my niece Jasmine.” Danny crouched down to talk to Jasmine, but didn’t reach out to touch her. “ Do you wanna introduce yourself sweetheart?” Jasmine looked up at Dick then violently shook her head.
Danny looked up at Dick, shrugged and then redirected his attention to Jasmine. “ Alright Jazzy, you can do it later. How about this? Let’s take out your butterfly clips now. I promise I’ll keep them safe here with me. After that, you can go warm up with the other girls while I talk with your instructor.”
“Won’t they be lonely?” Jasmine whispered.
“No, I’ll make sure to keep them all together and safe on the sidelines. I’m sure they’ll be watching and excited to see you do your best.”
“But what if they want to say hi to the other girls?”
“Then after to practice you can bring your new friends over and we can introduce them while we put them back in your hair.”
Jasmine looked down at her feet, turned them out and turned them back in. Glanced back up at her uncle. Looked back down at her feet and nodded.
“Okay.”
“Do you want me to take them out?”
“I got them Uncle Danny. I don’t want you to hurt them.”
“Of course. Here, “ Danny reached into his bag and pulled out a small container, “ your mom gave this to me so we can keep them safe.” He popped the lid open. Inside was scattering of different barretts, most of which were butterfly themed, “Go ahead. I’ll hold it for you.”
Jasmine started putting the clips out of her hair one by one and saying goodbye to them before placing them in the container.
“Goodbye Francis. Goodbye Daisy. Goodbye Penny”
Soon all 10 of the butterfly’s were back in the case. And Jasmine went back to twiddling her fingers.
“You’ll watch me right Uncle Danny? Make sure I don’t get hurt?”
“Of course. I’ll be right here. And Instructor Dick, “ Danny gestered toward Dick,” will be watching and making sure you’re safe just like Instructor Maggie used to do.”
“Okay.” She said softly and skipped over to the group of regulars that arrived earlier. Danny watched her until she was pulled into the friendly group before turning back to Dick.
“Hi, sorry, what were your questions again?”
“No worries. Do you know what Jasmine’s history with gymnastics is? Does she prefer to be called Jazzy or Jasmine? Is this your first time at this gym?”
“Jasmine is new to gymnastics, but she used to due tumbling. I don’t think she has a name preference yet. I tend to use both myself. It’s our first time here.”
“What brought you to this gym? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“Not at all. Jasmine’s parents moved into the city about two months back for their jobs and have been looking into extracurriculars to help Jasmine socialize before starting school full time. Apparently your class came highly recommended from one of her Mom’s coworkers. Both of them have to work late on Friday’s, so I volunteered to take her.”
“Oh, that’s very kind of you.”
“Not at all. I’m happy to do it. And selfishly I hope spending more time around her will make Jazzy a little less nervous around me.”
“Oh, why is that?”
“Well, I used to only get the chance to see her around the holidays. But I recently learned that some of her neighbors were spreading rumors about her Uncle Danny being possessed and haunted by the ghosts of murder victims. Which seems to have both isolated her from neighbors her age and caused her to be a little afraid of me.”
“That seems oddly specific.”
“Oh, I work for the GCPD as a medical examiner. So I guess they probably heard someone talk about it and ran from there.”
“AAHHH, Help Uncle Danny!” Looking up Jasmine was suspended on a rope above the foam pit. Obviously frightened, but not in a dangerous situation. Dick started quickly moving over to her, but Danny beat him to it. Standing on the edge of the foam pit, he was reaching his arms up and talking to her calmly.
“Hey it’s okay. You can let go. I’ll catch you.”
“You promise?”
“Of course sweetheart.”
She let go of the rope. Danny jumped toward her grabbing her out the air and turning so he landed back first into the pit with Jasmine on his chest. He left out an oof as they settled into the foam.
Jasmine looked up around wide eyed at the crowd around her then back down to Danny, “That...was…AWESOME!” She raise her hands into the air and screamed, “Again, again, let’s do it again Uncle Danny.”
Danny just looked at her shock his head and sighed settling back into the form, “Next time you’ll land into the foam yourself.”
“Okay, okay, lets go hurry up.”
Dick couldn’t stop himself from laughing. What a pair they’ll be.