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It takes a while for Jason to notice the difference. To be fair, his return to Gotham hasn’t been particularly idyllic, mostly of his own making, and his mind is still clouded over with green half of his days, so he feels like he’s allowed to cut himself some slack there.
Still, it’s a bit of a shock when he comes home to one of the abandoned apartments he uses as temporary safehouses only to find it already occupied. By a woman wearing a wedding dress. Jason blinks.
“Uh, hello?” he says for lack of anything else to do. It’s probably a bad idea. Judging by his luck she’s some sort of spy sent by Black Mask who’s supposed to appear harmless and lull him into a false sense of security. Then again, she might just...live here. A wedding dress though?
The woman turns to look at him, her face lighting up briefly before it’s overtaken by a frown. “You’re not Henry,” she says, sounding disappointed.
“No, I’m not,” Jason agrees, then adds, “Sorry?” when her face falls even more.
“We’re supposed to get married,” she says, like Jason has no deductive reasoning skills whatsoever, because, well, wedding dress. “We booked the church on Sunday, do you know how much it costs to book a church on a Sunday?”
Jason shrugs. “A lot?” He doesn’t understand what’s happening, and he doesn’t understand why it’s happening, or why it’s happening to him specifically. All he wanted was a good night’s sleep before jumping back into the fray against Black Mask.
“A lot!” the woman exclaims, sounding near hysterics now. “It was supposed to be a beautiful wedding.” She buries her head in her hands and starts making noises like she’s crying.
“I’m sorry,” Jason says again, because there’s a crying woman in a wedding dress in his apartment. His borrowed apartment. Semantics. “Maybe you can still have your wedding. Maybe Henry will still show,” he tries to cheer her up. Maybe he can make Henry show up. No one deserves to get ditched on their wedding day.
The woman stops crying and lifts her head. She’s looking right at Jason but there’s something...off, about her. She seems almost blurry, like her outline isn’t clearly defined, and Jason rubs a hand across his eyes. He must be more tired than he’d thought.
“My wedding was supposed to be 78 years ago,” she says, like that wouldn’t have been a good point to start the conversation at. He’d thought it was just due to the white dress, but now that he has more of an idea what he’s dealing with, it’s easy to see that the woman is somewhat translucent.
“Right. That sucks,” he says, not unsympathetic. The woman sniffs once, and reaches up to straighten her veil.
“How did you die?” she asks, like that is a perfectly normal question to ask someone else. Although, Jason guesses, if you’re a ghost that probably is a normal question.
He shrugs again. “Well it was either the crowbar to the head or the explosion. I didn’t exactly check my own coroner’s report to make sure,” he replies, because no one could tell how traumatized you are when you could still manage to joke about your own death.
The woman gives him a sympathetic look. “And what is still keeping you here?” she asks, voice soft.
Jason blinks. “Uhm. I’m not dead.” It should have been obvious by the fact that he’d unlocked the door alone. Jason’s pretty sure ghosts can’t touch solid objects, and if they could they wouldn’t waste it on opening a door. Sure, he also didn’t know ghosts existed until about five minutes ago, but that seems most in line with what he knows about ghost lore.
The woman stares at him. “But you can see me,” she argues. “Only those who’ve passed on from this existence can see the dead.”
Jason shifts his weight, uncomfortable. “I mean, I was dead. I just got better.” Talk about unexpected side-effects. As if the Lazarus pit hadn’t already fucked him up enough.
The woman seems to move on from her shock pretty quickly, her expression going from surprise to delight in a matter of seconds. “You’re alive, and you can see me!” She exclaims, stating the obvious. “Oh glorious day, I have waited for this moment all my afterlife!”
“Uhm,” Jason says helpfully, but the ghost doesn’t even seem to mind that he’s not completely on board. She glides over — and now that he knows about the ghost thing, Jason can’t quite believe he somehow missed the fact that she’s hovering a good foot above the ground — and throws her arms around Jason.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, they pass straight through him, and Jason silently congratulates himself on his correct guess on ghost solidity. He can’t really feel a physical sensation, but the space where the woman’s arm is visibly sinking into his ribcage feels a bit colder than the rest. Another point for common ghost lore.
“Do you...need me to do something for you?” Jason asks, trying not to let his discomfort show on his face. Having someone reaching through you is fucking weird, okay, even if he can’t actually feel it.
The ghost nods fervently and breaks down in sobs again. Jason has an urge to put a soothing hand on her back but that probably wouldn’t work out any better than the penetrative hug.
“Yes, good sir, you can save me,” the woman gets out in between sobs, and Jason stands up a bit straighter. He came back to Gotham to make things better, but he hadn’t actually anticipated anyone asking him for help. He can’t deny that it feels pretty good.
“Of course, I’ll help you move on,” he offers easily. Based on the getup he assumes this is gonna be about this Henry guy that left her at the altar. Maybe he needs to dig up the guy’s grave or something, which isn’t really Jason’s usual gig, but he’s always down for a bit of good old-fashioned revenge. It would only be an issue if he needs to take revenge on Henry’s descendants. They aren’t the ones who fucked up, so if that’s the ghost’s demand, Jason has to find a way to talk her out of it.
The sobs break off as suddenly as they’d started, and the ghost lifts her head to look at Jason. “Oh no, nothing like that. It’s just that the faucet in the kitchen has been awfully leaky lately and this is my favorite apartment,” she explains, completely serious. “The constant dripping is driving me up the walls, but I obviously can’t fix it myself and I can’t even call anyone else to do it for me.”
She looks up at Jason with large, pleading, slightly translucent eyes. Jason blinks. “You want me to fix the faucet,” he repeats, and the ghost nods eagerly.
—————
Turns out that, contrary to popular ghost lore, most ghosts are not actually that interested in moving on. Sure, they all claim they have some final goal that they need to achieve before they’re ready to move on, some old score they need to settle or some truth they need to accept before they can go wherever it is that dead people who are not ghosts go, but most of them aren’t particularly willing to put in the necessary effort.
“But if you’ve always wanted to run off to sea it’s literally one block away,” Jason argues. The little boy just crosses his arms over his chest, staring defiantly down at Jason from where he’s hovering ten feet in the air.
“I don’t believe you,” he says, with iron conviction.
Jason tries really hard not to roll his eyes but the temptation is just too strong. It’s not like anyone’s gonna see with the helmet on, anyway. “Gotham has multiple ports, it’s literally right by the sea. And you’re a ghost so you can go wherever you want. You don’t even need streets, you can walk through walls!”
The boy pouts down at him. “I’ve never left my block.”
Jason doesn’t even bother suppressing the sigh. “Well how about I just give you directions to the closest harbor then?” he challenges. “You can pick any ship you like, it’s not like they’ll notice you as a stowaway.”
The boy actually seems to consider that. He floats down a little, hovering just about at Jason’s eye level, then crosses his arms. “I want a pirate ship,” he demands with all the confidence of a seven year old.
Jason blinks up at him. “Uhm, would a smuggling ship work?” he asks, mentally going through a list of ships currently docked in Gotham, crossing off the ones only running legitimate business, which is a depressingly small number.
The kid squints at him. “Do any of them have parrots?”
Jason is about halfway through the list of captains dealing in exotic animal trade before he realizes what’s going on.
He gives up.
—————
“Where did you say your mother’s necklace was now?” Jason asks the bearded man standing outside of a pawnshop.
The man scoffs derisively. “Some moneyed louse doubtlessly keeps it as a pretty accessory, uncaring that it is a priceless family heirloom,” he complains, and Jason nods understandingly.
“Well, if you could give me more details, I could try to get it back for you,” he offers. It’s pretty obvious the necklace is the only thing keeping the ghost on this plane, it's all he’s been able to talk about since he noticed Jason looking at him.
Instead of being grateful, the man just looks at him skeptically. “Why should I want it back? What use have I for earthly possessions?”
Jason resists the urge to bury his head in his hands. “Yeah, but maybe if you could see it again, you’d be able to move on,” he explains, trying very hard not to sound as exasperated as he feels.
That only makes the man more suspicious. “Why should I desire to move on? This place is my home,” he says, gesturing at the pawnshop.
Jason just turns and walks away. So much for helping out the ghosts then.
—————
So, no, Jason does not become a pretentious medium whose mission in life is to guide lost souls to the afterlife. And not even for lack of trying.
Unfortunately that doesn’t mean he’s off the hook with the whole Ghosthunters thing either, because while most ghosts don’t seem to want to move on, they sure do want to talk.
“That’s really not your color,” Mary comments from where she’s perched on a barstool in Jason’s living room.
“You’ve been wearing the same dress for a century, you don’t get to judge my clothes,” Jason shoots back, but he does take another look at the mirror.
Mary huffs like she’s offended but not offended enough to stop sticking around. Jason had thought fixing the faucet would make her stay in her favorite apartment, but mostly it had just resulted in her following him around. “The red suits you much better.”
Jason tugs at the fabric. “Red’s for my work stuff,” he explains. There’s a lesson in the back of his mind somewhere, something about using visual cue to keep your civilian life and your nightlife separate, but it was also a lesson taught to him by the man whose civilian and hero lives are fake personas he puts on, so Jason is loath to take mental health tips from Bruce.
“Red suits you better,” Mary repeats, and Jason doesn’t argue because there’s nothing that says stubbornness quite like refusing to accept your own death. Not that he’s judging.
He pulls off the green hoodie, dropping it into the pile of clothes he’s planning to donate down at the charity shop. “You know, what? You’re right,” he says, brushing down the red t-shirt he was wearing underneath. “I think I’ve outgrown green.”
—————
Occasional fashion advice aside, the ghosts don’t usually try to influence Jason. They all have their own experiences, of course, but none of their life stories ended particularly well, so maybe they simply don’t feel like it’s their place. Or maybe they just don’t care enough about the squabbles of mortals to have an opinion on Jason’s life choices.
In turn, he doesn’t talk to them about the bats, doesn’t share his frustrations with Bruce’s stubbornness, or admit that maybe the new Robin isn’t as terrible as he’d originally assumed, or that the way Nightwing keeps trying to reach out to him makes him feel just tiniest bit of fuzzy warmth deep down in his bones.
All that changes when he teams up with Red Robin and Spoiler to take down a ring of drug dealers. They’re supposed to meet up on top of one of the warehouses down by the docks before sneaking closer to the freighter that serves as the cartel’s main headquarters.
‘Supposed to’ because Spoiler and Red Robin are late. Only five minutes so far, but Jason is a goddamn professional and he does not appreciate having to wait for anyone.
“Sorry we’re late,” Red Robin says, another five minutes later when the pair of teenage vigilantes finally grapples up to the roof next to him. “Spoiler got held up by a friend.”
“Hey, don’t pin this all on me. The only reason Jeffrey even stopped us was because we were making out against the side of his trawler,” Spoiler shoots back, and Jason would be much more offended that he had been ditched due to horny teenagers, but Red Robin’s face turns such an intense shade of red that he barely even minds.
Then another thing occurs to him. “Wait, Jeffrey from the stranded trawler down on 24th?” he says before he can think it through. Because that’s not actually possible, and—
“You can see him too?” Spoiler asks, surprised. And, because she’s never really let anything rattle her for too long, she instantly continues with, “Does he also keep reminding you how he died even though you’ve already heard the story at least ten times?”
“Don’t ever wear gloves when handling winches,” Jason says solemnly, and Steph winces.
“It’s not that I don’t feel bad for him—” she starts.
“—but you’ve already heard the story far too often,” Jason finishes. “I always thought he kept telling me ‘cause he was lonely and didn’t have anyone else, but if you can see him too…”
Steph shakes her head. “I can’t believe he did the same thing to you. Have you ever met Jackie down at the theater in the Bowery?”
Jason sighs, just thinking about her. “She keeps asking me to tell her about the movies that are playing and I keep feeling bad that I haven’t had time to catch a movie in ages. Which is dumb, because she could just go in and watch them herself, it’s not like anyone’s gonna ask to check her ticket.”
“Right, that’s what I keep telling her, but does she ever listen?” Steph says with a theatrical sigh.
“Uh, guys?” Red Robin interrupts. “Can we maybe focus on the mission? You know, the drug dealers that we came here for?” If he’s surprised that his— girlfriend? Probably girlfriend. Jason doesn’t know the replacement very well but if he’s anything like their predecessor he’s very unlikely to make out with people he’s not dating.
Anyway, Tim doesn’t seem surprised that his girlfriend can see and talk to ghosts, which makes Jason feel an inexplicable sort of pride. Good kid.
It’s not until after they’ve finished the mission, when they’re sitting down on the roof of the very same warehouse, and are watching the GCPD arrest the still-conscious members of the drug ring while simply loading the unconscious ones into ambulances, that he brings it up again.
“So, I thought your death was faked,” he says casually, because in his experience the hardest things are always easier to get out if you’re pretending they’re not actually terrifying.
Steph seems to agree with that method, because her voice is just as casual when she responds. “Yeah, for the most part, but Dr Thompkins told me that my heart did actually stop for a couple of seconds.” She shrugs. “Guess that was enough to let me peek through the veil.”
Jason nods. It makes sense that time wouldn’t matter when it came to things like death. The great eternity or whatever. Ten seconds, a couple months, if your heart stops beating you get rewarded with surprise ghosts, apparently.
“I’m glad you’re back,” says Tim, not at all capable of reading the room. He fidgets, looking uncomfortable. “Both of you, I mean,” he adds, and Jason can see the blush rising on his cheeks again, and it might not fit the mood, but it kinda makes Jason feel that familiar fondness that he tries to haplessly stomp down whenever it’s directed at bats. This time, he doesn’t give in to the urge.
“Aww,” Steph says, leaning over to press a kiss to Tim’s cheek, making him blush even brighter. Jason reaches out as well and, in an unusual display of brotherly affection, ruffles the Replacement’s hair. Tim doesn’t even flinch away, and although he tries to push him off half-heartedly, Jason can see the pleased smile creeping up his mouth.
Maybe this sort-of zombie thing has some advantages after all.
—————
Life in Gotham goes on. So does the afterlife, but since none of the ghosts seem particularly interested in change, that part is less relevant. Between the two of them, Steph and Jason have a pretty good understanding of Gotham’s ghost population.
There is one very awkward moment where — during a rare period of friendly ceasefire — Bruce very hesitantly asks him if Jason has ever seen his parents. Jason’s not even entirely sure how Bruce knows that he can see the dead. Or undead, whatever. Anyway, the chances that it involves something incredibly invasive like wiretapping all of Jason’s communication devices or asking Tim a direct question he’d feel obligated to answer are too high for Jason to risk asking him about it. He likes having a ceasefire with Bruce, though he’d never admit that even under threat of torture.
Still, he doesn’t know what to say either; doesn’t know how to say that Bruce’s parents have probably moved on and aren’t hanging around at the manor or wherever Bruce might expect them. That would mean having to deal with Bruce’s reaction to that revelation, and if there’s anything that Jason wants to do even less than admit to any sort of affection for Bruce, it’s dealing with Bruce’s emotions.
So he deals with it like a reasonable, mature vigilante and jumps off the roof to avoid the conversation. For once in his life, Bruce seems to take the hint and doesn’t ask him again.
Jason drifts in and out of Gotham. He keeps in contact with parts of the family, even if those parts don’t always include Bruce, so he has a pretty good grasp of what’s going on in his absence.
It’s still somehow a surprise when he swings by his second favorite gargoyle on his third day back in town to find the little demon spawn arguing with William.
“I do not resemble a vulture, I’m a robin!” the little twerp argues, chest puffed out and his face red like he’s either so mortally offended he forgot to breathe, or he climbed his way to the top of the old museum as some kind of athletic challenge and is now regretting it.
William scoffs at him. “What’s with the sword then? Shouldn’t a robin try to look a bit less lethal?” he asks, very reasonably in Jason’s opinion. The sword really doesn’t go with the bright colors, it ruins the whole ‘cute and non-threatening’ vibe that Dick had spent years cultivating.
Then again, maybe Jason’s gruesome, bloody death had already ruined the image of the chirpy, happy little songbird once and for all. Or the many, many times a Robin had kicked someone in the face with extreme prejudice had managed that. Jason can’t quite suppress a nostalgic sigh at the thought. Those were the days.
At that point, Damian actually draws his sword and looks just about ready to find out if you can stab a ghost, so Jason decides to intervene. Not that he’s actually worried about William’s continued afterlife, but he can’t help but think he’d somehow get blamed for it if the tiny demon managed to stumble off the edge of the roof while trying to kill someone incorporeal.
Dick would definitely look at him with his big, disappointed eyes, and Bruce would most certainly find a way to blame Jason, and he just does not want to deal with that. So, in spite of the amount of entertainment value on offer, Jason reaches out to snag the little Robin’s hood.
There are a lot of unfavorable things that could be said about the practicality of the first (and second) Robin costume, but at least the bare legs had never offered additional grabbing options. As if to prove his point, Damian actually chokes when Jason pulls him backward, and Jason spares a moment to wonder how Bruce had ever been dumb enough to okay this outfit, before he remembers that Dick, the man who had famously worn the Discowing suit at one point, had been the one to okay this particular brand of style-over-practicality.
“Hood, unhand me at once!” the little prince demands immediately and, well, at least his awareness hadn’t been completely consumed by arguing with the ghost if he’d noticed that it is Jason who’s currently attempting to choke him. Regretfully, Jason lets go and is rewarded with a very fierce glare. Or as fierce as a ten year old is ever gonna look, at least. The sword really helps much more with that than the glare.
“Mind telling me why you’re harassing William?” Jason asks, mentally congratulating himself on not voicing any of his other observations out loud. It would definitely be his fault if Damian managed to pitch himself off the roof because Jason had dodged his attack.
“He started it,” is the incredibly mature response, coupled with crossed arms to really drive home the point that Jason is dealing with a child. He turns to William with a sigh.
“I just told him he doesn’t fit in with the pigeons up here,” William defends, but the tone of his voice is far too defiant for Jason to take him seriously. The helmet unfortunately makes raising an eyebrow redundant so Jason has to settle for just staring at him until he starts fidgeting. “And maybe that his costume looks stupid.”
Damian scoffs. “I will not take fashion advice from someone wearing socks and sandals.” He makes a good point, in Jason’s opinion, though the people Damian does take fashion advice from tend to either wear all black or look like a rainbow vomited all over them, so Jason’s not sure it really counts.
“It was a very stylish look when I died,” William shoots back. Jason and Damian snort in unison.
“Yeah, no, this has never been a stylish look, no matter how far back in history you go.” William shoots him a betrayed look, and Jason almost regrets his words when he sees the way Damian’s puffing out his chest again, but it’s not like he’s wrong. Either way, there are more pressing concerns. “So, how long have you two known each other?”
There, that’s tactful. A great way to not bring up Damian’s death. Jason resists the urge to pat himself on the back, even though he deserves it. He can’t even fistbump anyone. Where’s Roy when you need him?
“Just this evening, but I’ve been able to see them ever since I came back,” Damian says, confirming Jason’s suspicions.
Jason nods sagely and finally lets go of Damian’s hood. “Well, first rule of ghost-watching: they can’t actually touch you but they can definitely outstubborn you, given that they’re quite literally too stubborn to move on, so your best course of action is usually to ignore the rude ones.”
“I’m not rude!” William bristles. “You people are the ones who keep harassing people who are just trying to make a living!” Jason very deliberately does not react, although he really, really wants to point out that Roman Sionis is a rich scumbag who is very much not ‘just trying to make a living’. Being a role model is really not his forte, but needs must.
“See that? See how I’m not taking the bait?” he asks Damian instead, who looks less than impressed but also doesn’t argue. Jason lets out another sigh. He’s really not cut out for this babysitting thing, but it’s not like he can leave the ghost lessons to Dick. “Alright, squirt. How about we go get some milkshakes and I tell you all you need to know about Gotham’s ghost population?”
“Acceptable,” the little gremlin says, re-sheathing his sword and looking up at Jason expectantly. Jason suppresses another sigh. The things you do for family.
—————
Unbeknownst to Jason, his wish to not be the senior ghostbuster in Gotham any longer comes true far quicker than he’d expected. It takes him a while to catch on though because, unlike him, Dick is actually pretty good at not reacting to the ghosts criticising his fashion sense. Although that might just be because he’s been ignoring this particular criticism all his life.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the view,” Mary muses from where she’s perched on a fire escape, one floor above the alley Jason and Dick are currently kicking some ass in. “But I really don’t think that suit is sufficiently armored.”
“I concur,” Clare chimes in, her feet dangling down from the roof of the opposite building. “There can’t possibly be any reinforcement under there. Not that I’m complaining.”
Jason punches a guy in the face so hard he stumbles back and collapses into a knocked-over dumpster. Unfortunately, the running commentary makes it very hard to enjoy that victory. “Seriously, can you two give it a rest?” he complains, glaring at each of the assembled ghosts in order. Helmet or not, he’s pretty sure he gets the message across anyways, because Mary pouts at him.
“It’s alright, I don’t really mind,” Dick chimes in, retrieving one of his escrima sticks from where it had landed after he’d thrown it at a goon’s head. It had made a hollow thunking noise and everything, and people still say Jason’s the violent one, like Dick doesn’t—
“Wait, you can hear them?” Dick doesn’t even have the decency to look caught when Jason rounds on him, just twirls one of his stupid sticks in that obnoxious way that looks casual and relaxed and makes Jason want to punch him for not holding his weapons correctly.
“I can see them too,” Dick responds like the smartass he is.
“Since when?” Jason demands, because there’s a very specific requirement to being a ghostwatcher. “You haven’t died!”
Dick has the audacity to pout at him. “How can you say that? You went to my funeral,” he says, on hand pressed to his chest like Jason is the asshole here.
“Your fake funeral! The funeral you used to go on your dumb undercover mission where you left us standing in the rain and mourning you, which was a dick move because you weren’t actually fucking dead!” So, maybe Jason’s still a bit more upset about that part than he likes to admit, big deal.
“Ah, yeah.” Dick at least has the decency to look ashamed, which he should be. Jason’s still doesn’t think an undercover mission is a good excuse for— “So, turns out rumors of my survival might have been slightly exaggerated.”
Jason blinks. “What?”
Dick runs a hand through his hair, making it stand up wildly and earning himself a soft cooing noise from both Mary and Clare that Jason resolutely ignores. “I mean, the funeral was definitely fake but I did kinda die, a little bit. For a minute or two. I got better, though!” he reassures like that’s Jason’s primary concern at the moment.
“Yes, I can see that.” Jason’s still processing. Dick doesn’t get to die. In terms of mortality he’s right up there with Superman and Wonder Woman due to sheer positive attitude alone. It had felt appropriate somehow to learn that Dick’s death had been faked because a world in which Dick could die just hadn’t seemed quite right.
Drawn to turbulent emotions like he always is, Dick takes a step closer, looking suspiciously like he’s thinking about hugging Jason, and Jason absolutely cannot have that. “Okay, whatever, that means you’re on baby ghostbuster duty now. I did my part.”
Dick blinks at him. Or, Jason is pretty sure he’s blinking by the way he’s tilting his head, the mask makes it kinda hard to tell. “What?”
“Teaching the demon brat not to fight ghosts is your job now, I quit.”
Instead of looking resigned, Dick has the audacity to look delighted. “You’ve been taking care of Robin?” he asks, and, shit.
“No, I haven’t. I don’t care about the demon shrimp, I just don’t want him harassing the ghosts,” he defends, but it’s no use. Dick is still beaming at him.
“Aww, I didn’t know you cared,” Dick says, sounding all soft and happy and Jason did not sign up for this.
“I don’t,” he insists, but it’s already too late. Dick follows through on his earlier implied threat and wraps his arms around Jason. There are probably ways Jason could use to extricate himself, but that would probably threaten his current peace-treaty with the bats. No one hurts the golden boy and gets away with it, after all.
Also, this is kind of nice, even if Jason will never, ever admit it, not under threat of another dip in the Lazarus pit.
“Thanks for taking care of him, Little Wing,” Dick murmurs into his shoulder and Jason— Jason just gives up and hugs him back.