A little treat in these trying times
The first time Daniel chirps (to Vlad’s knowledge, but it’s actually the fifth, he was just out of range in the GZ all the previous time) Vlad responds immediately.
The boy attacks him just as viciously as ever, and Vlad assumes from then on that the boy is merely taunting him, crying out for family only to go “no, not you.”
Vlad ignores it from then on. It isn’t particularly frequent anyway.
When he hears him chirping back and forth with some other ghost somewhere on the East Coast he feels his eye twitch.
He dismisses it, however. No doubt it is one of Daniel’s little ghost allies helping him try to antagonize Vlad into showing up just to be rejected again.
Well, Vlad won’t fall for Daniel’s petty tricks. He would be Vlad’s son in time one way or another, no need to indulge the boy’s temporary sense of superiority.
It is grating when it wakes him up in the middle of the night, but he goes back to sleep quickly after.
Midday, he thinks he might have to track down Danny’s little friend for a nice long chat about Not Doing That. But that’s an issue for later.
Before “later” can arrive, Vlad finds himself taken into “temporary custody” while the police search his house.
He goes peacefully, assured that they’ll find nothing amiss, all of his ecto materials tucked neatly away in a lab that is inaccessible any way other than phasing. And wrapped in lead just in case.
He does not notice that a member of the Justice League is involved, nor would he care, certain that none could find his lab. And utterly unaware of the JLD’s existence.
Not that the JLD is needed in this case.
Despite his best efforts to change every copy of the construction crews’ blueprints both digital and physical in order to eliminate knowledge of the inaccessible room, there’s no accounting for memory.
Officer Roger worked in construction before joining the force, and it was only less than a half a year ago that Masters’ Amity home was constructed. Officer Roger still remembers the doorless, windowless box they built alongside the small mansion itself. It’s nowhere to be found on the property, so he brings it up with his superior.
Orphan questions it - nearly giving the whole team heart-attacks in the process - but a simple “I used to work in construction” seems to be enough to satisfy her curiosity.
A two hour sweep with some metal detectors finds nothing.
Then Orphan reappears from the shadows, providing another jumpscare, before pressing a hand silently to the side of her head.
The crew watches in silence as well, giving their pulses a chance to slow.
A ten-count later Orphan’s hand drops, and she strides confidently to the rear-left corner of the mansion and points at the ground.
“200 feet beneath the foundation,” she says before disappearing back into the shadows.
The crew shares a look and gets to work.
The time it takes to dig up the cube is just more time spent in a cell for Vlad, where he waits patiently, assured he’ll be released soon enough.
The lab itself would be only a minor problem - there would be fines and inspections and a heavy watch until everything was brought up to code. Questions about how he accessed it would be a larger problem.
But worst of all, in the comfort of his lab? He’s not much for hiding away incriminating documents.
Of which there are many, given his propensity for keeping extensive records of his experiments, which include unethical cloning and what sums up to human experimentation.
Once they find the actual facilities for the experiments in his Wisconsin home? It will all be over for him.
Being a ghost he could, of course, simply flee the cell and start anew somewhere else, with a new identity or even in a new dimension altogether - so long as he could nab Maddie and her children to bring with him.
But within his labs, he also keeps extensive records of himself.
A copy of the Plasmius Maximus.
Other ghost- and halfa-capturing restraints.
When he hears steps approaching his cell 2 days into his stay when it is clearly not a mealtime, he thinks “finally” assured that he is about to be released.
He only registers that it is Batman after he’s been hit by the Plasmius Maximus - cut off from his powers for at least the next two hours.
He has no chance to complain, as he is subsequently tranqued unconscious to be taken to a more secure location.
It’s an hour and half after school let out when the cops - who had taken to trying to distract Jazz and Danny with cards games and work stories while they waited - step away to answer their radios.
When they return, they tell them that it’s “time to go.”
The siblings share a look, then shrug.
It wouldn’t be the first time the cops had to drive them home - rare though it was, there were at least 4 such occasions in their memories. It wasn’t a big deal.
They were less than enthused when the cops explained that they’d be heading to take them to the station instead of to home. Still, they chalked it up to the whole “questions about the Red Hood” thing and moved on.
At least it meant they could dodge a home visit like Danny had wanted.
Except when they get there, they are taken to a cushy room and introduced to their social worker, a woman with a kind smile and a soothing voice who introduces herself as Bethany Scott, sits them down and explains, very gently, that their parents are currently under investigation.
To her credit, she isn’t condescending. She doesn’t try to hide away the truth; when they ask why, she tells them.
It’s a surprisingly long list of charges. Of everything on it, the violation of the meta protection acts comes as the biggest surprise.
Their parents were obsessive about ghosts, but they were also good at it. They never attack anything that doesn’t have ectoplasm.
Well, barring a few misfires.
Another surprise comes then: the Anti-Ecto Acts don’t exist. Ghosts are covered by the MPA by design, the AEA would never have gotten off of the ground in any legal capacity. It is solely a creation of the GIW, an extreme “‘real’ humans only” supremacist group that had worked at every level to pull the wool over the eyes of the small town’s citizenry so thoroughly that they’d been thought a real government agency - the imitation of which would be just one of the many charges that every member they managed to capture would be facing.
Then Mrs Scott starts talking about placement options.
Their Aunt, they are told, is not an option.
It comes as a surprise to Danny. On quiet nights, when no ghosts showed up to interrupt him and Sam and Tucker weren’t up to distract him with a game of Doomed, his mind would sometimes wander back to that darkest of timelines.
He’d wondered how Vlad had ended up with custody. Being his godfather made him an option, but Danny would’ve wanted to go with Alicia. Will be damned, Danny would’ve plead on both knees with the judge to go with his aunt. Grieving or not, he’d have wanted as much distance between him and Vlad as possible,
He’d assumed Vlad must have done something to her or paid off the judge to rule in his favor.
To find out it was because she simply wouldn’t take him?
A part of him understands. He doesn't - Aunt Alicia is a kind person, yes, but not particularly loving or caring. When his parents brought up the subject of children with her on one of their rare visits, she described herself as having “less motherly instinct than a starving axolotl.”
Not an encouraging description after he read a book on axolotls for context.
With their options being “Aunt in a small wood cabin in the middle of nowhere with the emotional sensitivity of a bull in a china shop” and “Rich friend of the family who would enable them to stay in contact with their friends and could hire them therapists even if he’s personally useless for helping them through the grieving process” she probably also figured marking herself down as a solid non-option would just expedite them getting the help they need (because she does care, even if she herself can’t - won’t - be there for them in that way).
He doesn’t hate her, but the knowledge burns. To know that there really was no avoiding Vlad - in that horrible future and in the now - makes him sick to his stomach.
Except before he can spiral, Mrs Scott tells them that Vlad is also not an option. Because he’s also under investigation.
A hysterical giggle bursts past his lips before he can think to stop it.
“Why?” he asks, ignoring Jazz’ disapproving grimace.
It’s less funny when they’re told that he’s under investigation under suspicion of mostly the same violations as their parents - including MPA violation, given the whole “million dollar ghost” incident and related propaganda. As the mayor especially, he should’ve known the AEA weren’t real and that the GIW were frauds and it was his responsibility to do something about them.
Depending on how he’d interacted with the group, he might be looking at aiding and abetting treason - or just outright treason - charges.
“If Aunt Alicia and Vlad both aren’t able to take us, then where are we going to go?” Jazz asks, shoving her emotions aside to deal with the matter at hand.
“Ordinarily, we would call up a few local fosters and see if one could take you in for a few days while we look into more long-term options. Worst case scenario you would have to spend a night or two in a hotel suite connected to mine while I found someone,” she answers. “But the two of you are in luck; Batman is the one who brought the case to our attention - apparently some erratic behavior from Red Hood brought them here, don’t ask, I don’t have all the details - and offered to run your parents’ DNA to check for other relatives that could take you. There was a match.”
The siblings share another look.
Both grandparents on their mother’s side had been only children and both were dead. Aunt Alicia had already said no and had no children of her own. Their father had been disowned by his family, and even if their other Aunts and Uncles would have been willing to take them in it didn’t matter, because all 5 had died in various accidents on their “hunts.”
“Apparently your uncle, Jerry Fenton, had a fling before he passed with one Ms Sheila Haywood. Their son, Jason, was thought to be the son of Willis Todd and Mrs Haywood until the DNA test today. He was raised by Willis and Mrs Catherine Todd until his subsequent adoption by Mr Bruce Wayne, and is currently living in Gotham.”
And it sounds wrong - the only thing most Fentons could love was mystery and danger - thus why only one out of six had survived. But they don’t know enough to dispute it.
Also. The involvement of another billionaire is setting off alarm bells. On the one hand: this could be a fruitloop paying someone off in order to forcibly adopt them. On the other hand, maybe Jason Todd really was a Fenton and being adopted by fruitloops was some kind of curse on the current generation.
“We contacted Mr. Todd the moment the connection was made. He has expressed an interest in taking you in, and flew out immediately to come and meet you. He arrived not five minutes ago.”
She paused and gave them a sympathetic look.
“I understand that this is all a lot to take in. Please know that placing you with Mr. Todd is not the end of my duties; even after he takes you, I will be following you to Gotham. I’ll be looking into counselors for the both of you, and we’ll have a follow up on that topic in a maximum of a week’s time. I’ll also be doing regular home checks to ensure you’re both settling in well and that you’re being taken good care of.
Even with what little I’ve gleaned, it is obvious that the environment you both grew up in until now was neither a safe nor a healthy one. It is my job to ensure that doesn’t happen again. If you have any concerns about your placement home now or in the future, please do not hesitate to bring them up with me. If you worry something is not “important” enough to mention, rest assured that if it bothers you in the slightest, then it’s important to me.”
She gives them each a long look.
Then she brings in Jason.
