Chapter Text
Jason groaned once the thermos was finally capped. That, had not gone as well as he’d hoped. If Jason hadn’t had the right equipment, well, it might have been ugly.
Thankfully, the world’s most convenient villain restraint tool had come in clutch. Jason lifted the thermos, tilting it forward and back, rotating it as far as his good wrist could reach. It didn’t look like there was a whole person in there. Conceptually, Jason understood that it manipulated a ghost’s form, shrunk it down and potentially into some sort of plasma. But Masters had a human form, presumably made of flesh like everyone else. Where did that even go?
Well. It worked. That was enough for Jason to compartmentalize and move to more pressing matters. First, he needed to double check that he wasn’t dying.
One arm was thoroughly battered of course, but Jason was no stranger to a little self-relocating and splinting. With a few sharp spikes of pain, Jason managed to shove his shoulder back in place. The splint could come after he was out of the suit, it would be really inconvenient to change around it after all.
Next, came the ribs. One or two was definitely cracked from when Jason was thrown back by the explosive shot. But he took a few deep breaths, and while they pinched (just a bit), nothing was in danger of puncturing anything else. All Jason needed for that was some ice and bandages, really.
The last concern was the burns on his legs. The damage trailed from the sides of one calf and up, around his knee, and over to the thigh of the other leg in what had been a direct path when his legs had been crossed over in a choke hold.
Jason wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing that the ectoplasm had obliterated the material of his leg armor. On one hand, yikes. On the other hand, at least it hadn’t stuck around to get melted into the wound. As it was, only bits of frayed and burnt cloth managed to cling to the edges of the burn. The burn itself was admittedly gnarly, but Jason could bum off superhero tier medical services, so hopefully it would be fine.
Injuries situated, Jason hauled himself up. “Shit,” he muttered as blood flooded from his head and everything throbbed at once. Still, Jason had been through worse. It wouldn’t stop Jason from the second most fun part of this trip, right after beating an asshole into the ground.
It was time to cover his tracks! Jason had already scoured the mansion of any and all memory storage. Most of it was actually protected enough that Jason’s little plug and go tool couldn’t insta-hack them, true to form for an actual billionaire villain. That meant that Jason needed to take the shit with him, and run it through something beefier than the little USB field device. That also meant that Jason was removing evidence, and if he didn’t want anyone to catch onto him, he had to make this look like something else.
Part of Jason wanted to embrace it and let whoever else was connected to Masters to get scared and come after him. But it might put the kid and his friends in the firing line. So instead of just leaving, Jason decided to get dramatic.
First, he made sure the secret lab doors were smashed wide open. He hoped the news had a field day over the creepy lab equipment, but honestly there was no way Masters didn’t have the police in his pocket, in a podunk little city like Amity Park. Just in case, Jason left the obvious clone tanks and DNA samples untouched for minimum plausible deniability.
The rest of the house was fair game. Jason grabbed a big garbage bag, fastened it to his belt so that he wouldn’t need to limit his good arm by dragging it, and threw in anything valuable that was small enough to bring with him. Anything larger, like the flat-screen TVs and monitors, he smashed. Any drawer Jason passed, he yanked out and upended like a desperate burglar looking for goods.
Finally, Jason walked right out the front door, and with some well placed shots, made sure it looked like he’d brute forced his way in. It wasn’t his best work, but it was good enough for not-Gotham, especially since he was pretty sure no one even suspected that Masters was a powered villain. White collar villain, sure, but not the type that was a hero-level threat.
Heh. Jason was going to lord this over Bruce for the next approximate decade, at least. Bruce had definitely met Masters before, and he definitely didn’t suspect something like this, or Jason would have known. The man really set himself up for mockery with the whole ‘world’s greatest detective’ thing.
Jason dragged the garbage bag of stolen goodies as far as he could manage without making a spectacle of himself, before finding the nearest dumpster and slinging it inside. To Jason’s credit, he’d at least gotten out of the rich people neighborhood and to a more middle class suburb area.
Then, Jason took a minute to catch his breath. He blinked, closed his eyes for a moment, and nope, bad idea. If he closed his eyes, he was gonna pass out. Grudgingly, Jason pulled himself behind the dumpster as best he could and shuffled out of his vigilante uniform in a series of hissed curses. Thankfully, this wasn’t Jason’s first rodeo, and he’d long ago recognized the importance of a suit that could detach in pieces around likely wounds.
Dressed in civvies and slumped against a dumpster filled with evidence that he absolutely could not sleep against, Jason groaned. Tiredly, he groped for the thermos, just to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere. The lock was engaged though, the green circuitry and smooth metal pristine. It took all of Jason’s willpower not to give it an unnecessary shake, just in case.
Masters was alive in there, weird as it seemed. Which meant Jason had captured him non-lethally. Which meant, god damnit, that he couldn’t just up and kill Masters, even when he recovered. It would be unfair to the kid, who deserved the closure of deciding what happened next.
“Ugh,” Jason groaned again. “Being responsible sucks.” And so did the fact that he was going to have to hoof it at least a few blocks before he could risk calling a cab to get back to his motel room. And then when he got there, he was going to need to run the hard drives he stole. Then when all that was done, he could finally talk to the kid. Convince him to let Jason kill Masters. Double check the parent situation. Evacuate the kid if possible. Destroy the damn Lazarus-adjacent portal. Sleep for a day straight. Hopefully, in that approximate order.
--
Jason woke up like a hungover frat kid: sore all over with a pounding, buzzing headache, and only a vague sense of where he was and what he’d been doing.
Thankfully, he had made it back to the motel, and had even loaded the hard drives and set the cracking tool to run. Less thankfully, he had indeed slept for a day straight.
Jason flopped out of the shitty bed and checked the local news. They were definitely talking about the break-in as a violent robbery, which was good. Of course, they spun the secret evil lab as some kind of in-house mini hospital, which was about the best Jason could have expected. He should be glad they didn’t just cover up the room entirely.
More interestingly, the GIW organization was moving with the full assumption that the hero Phantom was responsible for Masters going missing instead of looking at the mountain of evidence that he wasn’t.
Jason had assumed they were operating completely under Master’s thumb and the whole ghost fanaticism was as fake as their government status, but were they genuine? Or was that one of Masters’ contingencies? Maybe it was an order that if he ever went missing, the kid would get punished, but wouldn’t they be better off trying to actually recover their Master? Jason chuckled at his own stupid wordplay.
Either way, it always came back to the kid, didn’t it?
Well, no time like the present. Jason scarfed a few granola bars as the world’s laziest post-injury meal, threw on his jacket and domino, and skedaddled.
Thankfully, Jason was fully awake by the time he got to the Fenton house. It was actually a little strange how much better Jason felt, the more he got moving around. Was it the energy in the air, the weird static-y, blood-pumping feeling he’d had since arriving? Or was he just less hurt than it had felt the other day?
Well, whatever.
Now, Jason admitted that this part of the plan was the diciest - actually making contact with the kid and explaining himself in a way that didn’t scare the shit out of him. Jason knew how easy it was to interpret help as a threat. That was probably the main reason that Jason had just gone straight for the ‘solve it first, explain it later’ plan in the first place. He wasn’t good at the whole comforting thing, not anymore. Crime Alley trusted Red Hood, but only because he’d proven himself, and that had taken a while too.
First, he really couldn’t just break into the house again. Jason’s sense of normal was skewed but there was no way the kid would take that well. He didn’t really want to confront the parent’s first, but maybe that was the only way to go? But apparently, they didn’t know anything was wrong with their kid. There was no way he was even going to incidentally snitch.
Jason circled the house, thinking. Maybe he could do a stake out? Follow the kid and confront him somewhere slightly more public? Or somewhere private, where there was less pressure to maintain a secret identity.
“Hi, who are you?” Jason spun to the source of the noise, hand flying to his concealed gun holster. Only to freeze at the sight of an unassuming teenage girl with a cautious smile on her face.
He’d just been snuck up on by an untrained civilian teenager, hadn’t he? God, Jason was not on top of things. And now, he needed an excuse. “I thought your house was a tourist attraction.” Not Jason’s best work, but it was true a few days ago.
“Oh, yeah, I get that,” The girl smiled, tucking a long lock of ginger hair behind her ear that did not need to be re-tucked. A nervous gesture, on account of Jason being a hulking stranger in her neighborhood. Or backyard actually, Jason realized, because this was definitely Jasmine Fenton.
Great, she hadn’t seen him casing the house, had she? Was Jason so looped out from his injuries that he was being that obvious? He felt alert enough, hadn’t even needed coffee after waking up.
“Unfortunately, it’s just our house.” Jasmine’s smile turned sheepish as she shrugged. “But I’m guessing you figured that out, since you’ve been hanging out for a bit.”
Well, at least no one else was here to make fun of him.
“Sorry about that,” Jason tried to look non threatening, scratching the back of his neck and drawing the teen’s eyes away from where his concealed guns were. He hadn’t actually pulled them out, so she probably hadn’t noticed, but better safe than sorry.
Jasmine stared silently for a moment. “Is there anything I can help you with?” And yep, that was the ‘I’m uncomfortable with this strange older adult, please leave’ line. Which Jason probably should do, because there was no normal way to recover from looking like he was casing the joint while wearing a mask.
“Hey,” Jason said instead, impulsively. “Do your parents actually hate ghosts as much as it sounds like, or are they just weirdly intense?” Jasmine’s eyes went wide, though she didn’t respond. “I saw their website, they seemed a little more into destroying or dissecting ghosts and not so much into ethical science practices.”
Jasmine’s mouth opened for a moment, then closed as she suddenly got an intense look in her eye. “according to mom and dad, ghosts are a manifestation of ectoplasmic energy and post human consciousness.” She spoke slowly, carefully. “There’s nothing to be ethical about.”
Jason’s first instinct was to get upset - she’s talking about her own brother like he’s not a person - but that’s not quite it. Jasmine Fenton was testing him for some reason, staring him down like she was waiting for something.
“Do they have actual evidence?” Jason answered instead, “or did they just decide that before starting? Because that’s how you get innocent people hunted down like animals.”
Suddenly, Jasmine broke out into a wide mouthed grin. “You have interesting opinions. Want to discuss them inside?”
Jason was struck by sheer whiplash. “Are you stupid or something?”
“I just don’t think this is a conversation that we should be having outside. Most people agree with mom and dad, you know.” Jasmine blinked innocently, wide eyed. “You must have talked to someone with different experiences. And then learned something that made you concerned enough to come over here and start asking questions. Among other things.”
Oh, so she knew. That made things a little easier, even if Jason was still a little concerned, because he could still be anyone.
“Fuck it,” Jason said, because she had a point. “Lead the way.”
Jasmine relaxed, the ‘couldn’t melt butter’ act sliding into something more satisfied. She led him to the front door, and Jason pretended he hadn’t already been inside this house. After a quick trip up the staircase and down a short hall, they landed in what was clearly Jasmine’s bedroom.
Jason glanced around, he had seen this room last time, but hadn’t spent any time in it because he’d found all he needed in the basement and master bedroom. He stepped over the threshold and-
“WARNING! A GHOST IS HERE! WARNING! A GHOST IS HERE!” Immediately, something else banged loudly from the direction of the basement, accompanied by muffled shouting.
“Woops, my bad!” Jasmine leaned over to the light switch and pushed it inwards, instead of the typical up or down flick. Instantly, the alarm stopped. Then, before Jason could say anything, Jasmine neatly tugged him to the side.
It was just in time, as the bedroom door slammed open and Jason reflexively braced his arms and caught the door instead of letting it slam into his nose.
“Jazzy-pants! I’m here to protect you from the ghosts! Where are they!?” A loud male voice that must be Jack Fenton. It was followed by the distinctly electronic whine of one of those ecto weapons powering up.
From behind the door - and also, that was a terrible hiding place - Jason heard a well-practiced sigh. “It just went off when I came in. I think it’s being too sensitive again.”
“Aww,” Jack whined, interrupted by a second, more disappointed sigh that almost sounded like Jasmine.
“Sorry sweetie,” said most-likely Madeline Fenton. “I thought we had it calibrated perfect this time. The front door hasn’t gone off on Danny in weeks now. I don’t know how it’s going off for you all of a sudden. I promise we haven’t been tweaking your detector without telling you.”
“Thank you for respecting my boundaries,” Jasmine was using the same professional, ‘trying not to be condescending’ voice that Dick used when he wanted to reward Bruce for being normal about something that he was usually very not-normal about. “Besides, it might be because of the ghost attack earlier today. I probably picked up more ecto than usual and set it off.”
“Ghost attack!? Jazzy, you might be possessed!”
“Over-shadowed, dear.”
“Right! Ready the Fenton Ecto-decontaminator!”
“Mom, Dad, no.” Jasmine cut in, still sounding fully in control. “I have a Specter Deflector, I’m fine. I’ll try out my room ghost detector tomorrow, and it’ll be working just fine again.”
There was a brief pause. “Well, if you’re sure, honey. Jack, let’s go.”
“Aww, I wanted to hunt a ghost.”
“And we’ll get one next time. In the meantime, there’s the mark 3 Fenton bazooka downstairs. We’re so close to increasing the blast radius, I can feel it.”
Just as suddenly, the parents leave. Jason is left exposed again as Jasmine swings the door shut. They both look at each other for a moment.
“So,” Jasmine starts. “I knew you were phone guy, and also probably not a villain, but I wasn’t expecting another ghost hero outside of Amity.”
What? “Where the hell did you get ghost from? Or hero?”
“We tracked you down to Gotham, but couldn’t narrow it down too much. The others are convinced you’re one of Batman’s escaped rogues by the way, but I thought it didn’t really fit your profile.” Jasmine furrowed a brow. “Of course, being a ghost changes things, you could be a morally complicated villain who is taking this personally.”
“I’m not a ghost.”
Jasmine shrugged. “Ghost-adjacent, then. Mom and Dad have the wrong ideas about a lot of things, but their technology is sound, it wouldn’t have actually gone off just because someone’s been surrounded by ectoplasm, or it would trigger for Mom and Dad all the time.”
Jason would never have called what happened to him ‘ghost-adjacent’, but he was pretty sure he knew what the technology was somehow picking up on. He preferred the term ‘zombie’ because it was funnier, but he couldn’t fault her for using terms more consistent with her experiences.
Jasmine stared expectantly. As the adult, Jason broke the silence. “It’s not ghosts like you’re thinking, but I’m not explaining myself either.”
Jasmine nodded. “I’ll accept why you set the alarms off as none of my business, but I do want an explanation on why you’re really here.”
That was fair enough. “Okay, so, you know your brother is in some deep shit, right?”
Her face screwed up, and yeah, Jason would admit ‘deep shit’ was underselling it. Jason continued, “you can see how a person would get concerned, hearing that some kid is being targeted by actual ghosts, a creepy superpowered villain trying to clone him, and also his own parents. So I decided to do a wellness check.”
“A wellness check that involved kidnapping the mayor?” Jasmine quirked a brow.
Jason scoffed. “I think you mean arresting.”
“So you want to send Vlad to jail? He’s not gonna stay there long if that’s the case. Plus, something tells me you haven’t made a lawful arrest.”
“Hah!” Jason laughed. “He’s lucky I’ve decided to be nicer and not just kill the bastard. I’m not taking him to normal jail. I want to talk to the kid first and see how he wants to handle it, but if he wants legal justice, the Justice League has a system for super villains.”
Jasmine hummed. “So you do actually care about what Danny wants. We weren’t sure, since you just showed up and started breaking into places.”
“I mean,” Jason shrugged. “I’m not just gonna let the bastard go even if the kid wants me to, but yea, I realize I’m walking into something that has nothing to do with me.”
Jasmine let out a controlled breath, not quite a sigh. “Good, I think,” She almost whispered. Then, clearing her throat, “why did you walk into this, then?”
Why had he, indeed? Jason could admit that things had spiraled, just a bit. “I have complicated feelings about child vigilantes.” Plus, “I have less complicated feelings about kids getting targeted by adults.”
“So you’ve dealt with the adult targeting him then, and you’re done?”
“I’ve dealt with one of them,” Jason allowed. “And I’d like to figure out how in danger he is from the other two.”
Jasmine didn’t speak for a long moment. “Danny won’t want you to deal with mom and dad. They do love us, they just.. don’t know.”
“I figured,” Jason stared Jasmine down, looking for any change to her expression, any sign of how bad things were. “That doesn’t mean he’s not in danger. Or that you aren’t, with that portal in your basement.”
Jasmine froze up. “If you try to hurt them, neither of us will forgive you.” Her hand trembled slightly, like Jason had only now started to scare her.
Jason lifted his hands slowly, as high as he could get his injured arm to go. “Like I said, I just want to know more. I know that shit’s complicated when parents are involved, especially when they hurt you without meaning to. But you’ve got to realize this isn’t sustainable.”
Jasmine’s face screwed up again, and Jason realized abruptly that she was tearing up. Jason panicked. “Shit, sorry!”
She held a hand out, using the other to quietly wipe her eyes. “It-”, her voice cracked, “It’s fine. I know.”
Jasmine took a deep breath, and released it. “Okay, I trust you. But it’s not my story to tell, and I don’t think Danny will forgive me if I just blab everything when he’s currently freaking out and looking for backup against you.”
“..I didn’t think I sounded that threatening?” Jason tried. “Also, what sort of backup?”
Now, Jasmine snorts, like she hadn’t been tearing up seconds ago. “You’re from Gotham, and everyone’s convinced you’re some villain with a weirdly specific agenda. What sort of backup would you look for in that situation?”
Jason thinks for one split second, and then groans. “Please tell me the kid isn’t in Gotham looking for Batman right now.”
Jasmine whips out a phone. “Okay, I’ll let his friends tell you. They’re Danny’s point of communication right now, you’ll need to go through them first anyways.”
Ughhh. Jason's only hope was to count on Batman being hard to get in contact with for anyone who wasn’t in the know, the Justice League, or Jim Gordon. Bruce getting involved in this would be like throwing dynamite into a campfire. And Jason had it handled - it was his case, even if it was delivered by fateful accident.
“You should hope he doesn’t succeed, by the way,” Jason said. “Because if you thought I was being pushy, you are not ready for Batman to get involved.”
---
(Bonus)
“Never break into a woman’s room while she’s asleep, you creep!”
Jason blinked, cheek smarting in a way that guaranteed a solid bruise would be blooming shortly. For such a pint-sized little goth, Sam Manson could throw a solidly executed punch. He almost regretted not dodging.
“Hey, I thought your dad was the fruitloop! You expect me not to look for evidence?”
Sam’s eyes glinted, her fist cocked again. “And you thought you’d find the evidence in my bedroom?”
“Okay, maybe by then I figured he wasn’t and used the opportunity to snoop for info on the kid.”
Sam growled.
“Sorry, it wasn’t my best work” Jason raised his hands up, figuring that even if she was actually going to hit him again, he could afford to let her get one more in if it made her feel better. “Wait, how the hell did you realize?”
This entire venture had proven to Jason that he was not as sneaky as he thought he was, if random teenagers could clock his actions this easily. He needed remedial stealth lessons, or something. Maybe from Cass. But only if she didn't blab to Bruce.
"I learned the trick from Death Note," Sam answered primly, smirking as Jason's expression dropped.
Clocked by not only a high schooler, but also a classic 2000s anime. Ughh.