Congratulations, it's a Human Sacrifice! Ch 3

[themoosejthm]

Sometimes suffering is just suffering

 

Sam looked down at her phone, scrolling through the photos sent to her of Gotham Baby Boy. The kid was super cute and Danny was stuck spending time with the little squirt as they were both still in state custody while Jazz was on a plane and their parents were out of contact. Which was totally code for them still being with the State Department on some military base showing off their more normal weapons which was just typical of them, really.

Not sure how many times I can tell my dad that my girlfriend is vegan before it sinks in. 😑 FFS, even I wasn't this bad when you started your diet and I was 12! Tucker texted. 

I feel like that might have been an attempt at a sex joke??? 🤔 She sent back. 

YOU ARE KILLING YOUR BOYFRIEND, SAM!

2 for 2 😇

S A M 😱 

😘😘

But seriously, my dad wants to know what to make you for the bbq bc just a salad isn't enough for a Foley Backyard. 

Tell him if he lets me take you away for 2 hrs that would be good enough 😏

I don't want to DIE so no. 😇 

She snorted and flopped back onto her bed, thinking about what she could actually suggest for the upcoming weekend get together.

Fine, spoilsport. 😛 Give me a moment to think. 

👍 I gave the suggestion of veggie kabobs since we have just SO MUCH eggplant. And I'm trying this eggplant dish that I want you to tell me if you like it so that will be A Surprise. So if you have anything else, hit me. 

She smiled at the message, holding the phone to her chest as she let affection bubble inside her. She loved it when Tucker experimented with dishes for her, even if she ended up not liking them. Out of the two of her boys, Tucker was the one who cooked while Danny was the one who gave her priceless scrolls, tomes, or books of magic or Gothic horror. She was spoiled by them, truly.

❗❗, I know! Your aunt made those bean sliders at the reunion, remember? I loved those, they were delicious! 

I will tell dad! 

She hummed to herself as she rolled to the edge of her bed to reach for her current reading – Danny had gotten his hands on a scroll of an old epic that seemed to be a family drama set in verse. He told her it was written in Old Hejazi, which was apparently super old Arabic, and so far she really enjoyed it. Sure, she couldn't read it for long periods of time as the magic that let her read it at all gave her a killer headache if she used it for more than three hours, but she was about halfway through it!

Her phone pinged again and when she looked at it, the notification was for the group server so she put her reading down and flicked the app open. Her phone vibrated against her skin, green flashing through the lines and gaps, before the app opened and pulled up the chat.

So fun fact, Robin is a bby liminal and I am having Emotions about it

“Well, shit.” Sam muttered and waited as she saw Danny was still typing.

Signal + Robin just left after talking to me + he was totally pinging on my radar but I don't think he knew what was going on? He's like somewhere btwen our classmates + the babies in town? Nothing too crzy but enough for me to clock him. 

Sam dropped the phone to her bed and swung herself into a more comfortable position. If the GIW tracked Danny to Gotham, which they might given he was summoned there, Robin wouldn't show up on a passive scan of the city but if they happened to find some of his blood? It wasn't a high chance of them finding some of Robin's blood, but being a city hero wasn't exactly a walk in the park so it wasn't out of the question that the boy might have left a smear of blood somewhere...

But they'd have to be looking for it, probably. She doubted a city like Gotham was alright with having the blood of its protectors sitting out in the open – she'd never met Gotham's neverborne, but she had met Amity's and Amity Park never liked to leave Danny's blood anywhere it could be found. It had even started to absorbing her and Tucker's blood if they dripped anywhere within the city. Even Danny's ecto was usually absorbed or tucked back into a shadow if Danny got hurt enough. 

She ran her tongue across the back of her teeth and reached for her phone again. There were some messages that she had missed so she spent a few moments reading them over.

If you don't have an autograph or a photo, I SWEAR TO THE ANCIENTS DANNY! Tucker had texted. 

What the photo of nightwing w bby wasn't enough for u?

ROBIN WITH A MOTHERFUCKING S W O R D

Am I not enough 4 u??

DO YOU PATROL WITH A SWORD?? No, you do not! DO YOU PATROL WITH THE MOTHERFUCKING BATMAN!? NO!

harsh but true. he told me he only gave autographs to the dead/dying and it physically hurt me to not take advantage of the situation to get one. 😭 

So no autograph? 

No 😭 

No autograph, no head. 

😱 BBY NO, PLZ!! 

Sam cackled and went to respond and then the worst thing happened:

GUESS WHO IS IN THIS CHAT AND DIDN'T NEED TO READ THAT AT ALL. 🤢 Jazz texted the group chat. Sam made a sound that wouldn't be out of place from a cat and threw the phone away from her, even though she hadn't been the one to type anything incriminating. 

She felt her face light up and frantically tried to remember if anything spicy had happened in the newest group chat. She didn't think so?

Wait, if Jazz is texting....she landed in Jersey! She scrambled to pick up the phone again.

I FORGOT U WERE HERE!!! JAZZ, PLZ, U DIDN'T C ANYTHING!!

I am BLINDED, Daniel Jenson Fenton!! BLINDED!! And you better be using protection if there's oral happening AND ANYTHING ELSE. SO HELP ME!!!! I will DROWN YOU in safe sex pamphlets!! ALL THREE OF YOU!!

Jazz, plz...plz...

Sam took a breath and slapped her cheeks to get over her nerves. It was just Danny's older sister, this was fine! If you can't talk about it, don't do it! Sam lived by that motto and now it was time to prove it.

Jazz, I assure you we're all safe and we're sorry we forgot you were in the chat. Also, as much as I appreciate that you are there for us to talk to if we had any need of it, we actually already have a bunch of pamphlets from Planned Parenthood. And several safe sex, sex positive online resources available to us. 

Sam wondered if it would be too much to mention the condoms and dental dams.

Probably.

What Sam said and now that you've landed and informed us, I am going to die of mortification. See you all this weekend. Or maybe you won't, since I shall be DEAD. And HIDING in the Zone. Tucker said and knowing him, he probably went to lie down with his face in a pillow. 

Oh, yeah, you txting means you're here. Do u have the address of the place to pick me up? 

I did land. And we're talking about this DANNY. In person. Also yes, I have the address and the paperwork and once my lyft gets here, I'm calling the group home to inform them I'm in state and to arrange to pick you up.  

I will miss the little dude but it will be nice to go home. 

Sam hummed, even though Danny couldn't hear her. Gotham Baby Boy was indeed a cute baby and she  was guessing that Ellie was going to be getting a lot of calls from Danny to make up for having to leave the little guy.

Well, since Jazz is there, good night and see you when you get back. Don't get tracked or hurt. If any of the GIW show up, kick em in the balls. 

Lyft here. Have a good rest of your day, Sam. I am going to buckle in, send the ride deets, and call the home.  

And then, like a good modern woman getting into a stranger's car, Jazz sent the lyft share ride information along with the Wayne pin-me share link so they could track her phone if the driver shut off  lyft's tracking software.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Duke landed on a perch, stretching his left shoulder out. It still twinged a bit from a fight a few days ago, but he could work through it. Robin landed near him, turning to look out at the city (and shield his eyes from the sun).

“Daniel seemed to handle the situation well.” Robin said idly, as he pulled out a fruit bar from his belt.

“He did.” Duke responded and took the granola bar Robin offered to him.

“I could not find any indication that Dr. Fenton – either of them – responded to any of the text messages their children left. The messages have been read, at least according to the phone's systems, but neither party responded. Even though the weapons testing of their trip ended and they are no longer separated from their cellular devices.” Robin said flatly.

It had taken Duke some time to understand Damian but he's gotten much better – the whole family has, really. It certainly helped that they all had years of exposure to Bruce and his own communication quirks. The fact that Robin was even bringing it up was the important part, not the way the information was delivered.

“They probably trust that their eldest has everything under control.” Duke said as he bit into his bar.

“Jasmine and Daniel certainly did have everything in hand. Daniel informed his parents that the Gotham PD and New Jersey's Department of Child Protection and Permanency would be calling them and not to worry when they saw the missed calls. Jasmine informed them she would be getting on a plane to pick her younger brother up and would be wiring the cost of the flight from the parents' account to hers once they return home.” Robin said and handed Duke the wrapper of his patrol snack. Duke folded it up with his own and put it into an empty pouch on his belt.

“Considering their house, I think its safe to say that the Dr. Fenton's are...eccentric. It's not unusual for that to extend to more than just their work.” Duke said carefully.

“They are neglectful to the point where both of their children are clearly used to dealing with the day to day things and even emergency situations are dealt with between them with them informing their parents as one informs a boss they are going on their lunch break.” Robin said flatly.

“Sometimes families are like that, Robin.” Red Robin said over the comm.

“The United States of America marks all humans, meta-humans, and ten humanoid alien species that live within the country's borders as minors under the care and guardianship of their parents or other legally appointed persons until they reach the age of eighteen. Jasmine is newly nineteen but Daniel is still a minor. His older sister has not been awarded custody or guardianship of him but is clearly the one used to handling the responsibilities of such a role.” Robin said, his finger on his comm to make sure the whole of it went through without cutting out if he paused for breath.

“Are you...concerned for them?” Duke asked, unsure of what his point was. It was a pretty classic case of minor neglect, but those hardly ever get attention unless it ends in a death or injury. And Daniel only had a few years until he aged out of the system anyway, so unless he was in active danger, it wouldn't be worth the resources to investigate his living situation.

Robin clicked his tongue and jumped off the building, apparently too frustrated with the conversation to continue it.

“I'll get Dick to talk to him about whatever that was.” Tim said in his ear, clearly just between them.

“I think it might be another one of those why are rules not applied evenly thing.” Duke commented, as he shot his own grapple and took off after his youngest brother. 

“Oof, definitely a Dick conversation.” Tim said idly. Duke was about to comment more when Oracle took over the comms.

“Signal, Robin – there is a fire on Cambridge Avenue and the team there reports people trapped on the eleventh floor.”

“Copy that.” Robin said curtly.

“We're about five minutes away.” Signal said, after looking down to see what street they were above and doing some mental mapping.

“I'll inform the ground team there.” Oracle said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eight years ago, Janet Mays left her birth family for the last time.

She was twenty-one years old and had just graduated from Atlantic Coast College with a degree in hospitality management. She had waited until the last tuition fees had been paid; waited until her parents had thrown a lavish graduation party in her honor and invited every big name in the North American hotel circuit for her to network with.

She had already emptied her childhood bedroom of loved things when she moved out to Atlantic City for college and the first thing she had done after registering for her first semester was open her own bank account. When she was eligible to withdraw from her trust fund, she did it in one mass chunk. She gladly paid the taxes for it – even with them, she still had a sizable chunk of money all to herself.

And then came that night.

Her parents and her older sister were disgusted with her, furious at her. Things were said; things were shouted; things were thrown. She held her ground and took the slaps from her mother and sister both, howled her fury at them, and did not cry or stutter once.

She stood there, in the house that was built on the backs of people who looked like her most beloved Malcolm and was not ashamed of him. She screamed her love of him, proclaimed it to her entire family line, and would not be shamed or bullied out of it.

She was Janet Mays of the Mays Clan of Gotham and she loved a black man. She slammed the door behind her as she left, head held high and heart full of love and rage, and was not sad. She and Malcolm married two years after and she invited neither her parents nor her sister. She walked down the aisle by herself and shined with joy and love.

Life was not perfect but it was theirs and that made everything worth it. They moved to California, to Star City, where she managed a luxury hotel that overlooked the bay. From her office, she could see the ocean in the distance, sparkling and vast. Star City was nothing like Gotham, nothing like Atlantic City even, and she loved it.

A year after their marriage, Star City was ground zero for a failed invasion of Earth.

It had been a lovely July day. Hot but not too hot, humid without everything becoming sticky. They were having a family reunion to celebrate the births that had happened during the beginning of the year and the whole family was spread out across an acre of land, laughing and talking and eating. Janet was learning a Chapman family recipe from her father-in-law. It was a normal Saturday. 

By Tuesday, Janet and Malcolm were the last Chapman's left. 

It was devastating. It almost destroyed them. They left Star City, heartbroken and hemorrhaging grief. They landed back in Atlantic City, where they met and fell in love. They were no longer wide eyed college students, but they loved each other and all that grief, all that loss, all that misshapen and cracked love – all of it made a little bundle of joy. 

They named their son Amos. He was their new most beloved person. Every hair on his head, every breath in his lungs, was a blessing and they couldn't help but be enamored of every little thing he did. 

The day Janet Chapman died, she did not know it would happen. It wasn't a beautiful day but nor was it a miserable one – it was June and it was hot, but they were in the car with the AC running. Amos was in his car seat and Janet was turned around in the passenger seat to play with his toes. Malcolm was humming along with the music playing on the car radio in the driver's seat at a red light. 

They both died as instantly as one could when hit head on by a box truck. The car seat did it's job and saved Amos' life – he was removed from the wreckage with cuts and some bruises but that was all. The driver of the truck that hit them was drunk and ran the red light, narrowly missed a car going westbound, and plowed right into the Chapman's car. 

With both Malcolm and Janet dead, their I.D's in the car with them, there was no mistaking who Amos was. Amos Chapman was placed into the temporary care of New Jersey's Department of Child Protection and Permanency as they ran searches for any living relatives. His blood was sampled, his photo and little fingerprints taken, his DNA put into a database. Amos' blood showed that he was Ecto-Contaminated, but not at high enough levels to do more than put a pin on his lab results to mark that they should stay in the Ghost Investigation Ward's central databases for record keeping and passive tracking. It was unavoidable that Amos would be given to the only family he had left – the Mays back in Gotham. His grandparents buried Janet in the family plot, cremated Malcolm, and gave baby Amos to his material aunt, who hated him on sight. 

It's important to know how much love Amos got in his first two months of life. How much care he received from the moment Janet and Malcolm got confirmation that they were pregnant. It's important to know how shocked, how excited, how wonder-filled Janet and Malcolm were from the moment they knew about him. It's important to know that Amos grew up in a house filled with photos of his family, that his parents would hold him in front of photos of his grandparents and tell him that's your nana and pop! Janet and Malcolm were filled with love and remembrance. 

Ectoplasm is everywhere, in everything. It spills over into every living realm, dimension, and plane of existence from the Infinite Realms, every where and every when. Three generations of Chapman's were lost in the span of four days before Amos was born – He lost grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins aplenty. The Chapman's numbered fifty that day in Star City and in four days, they were whittled down to two. His parents kept their family close because what else would they do? His parents were full of love and love does not die just because the body does. 

A little over a month after Amos was placed with the Mays, his blood was drawn again for identification as Daniel Fenton took him into Gotham General; the lab results triggered an alert of high Ecto-Contamination and the results were sent to the nearest Ghost Investigation Ward office. There, it went through another database and the first lab report from Atlantic City popped up, the passive flag on that report meaning both were sent for manual review. 

From that moment, it was easy to ensure that the local authorities didn't get any identification information, even though Amos Chapman should have still been in the federal databases used by the GCPD and the FBI. Amos Chapman was misidentified as Baby Doe and Danny Fenton was allowed to take him along as they both went to the nearest group home. 

Arthur Beardsley was in charge of manual review of ecto-contaminated subjects in the Gotham office. It was mostly busywork – a lot of looking at medical reports, checking social security numbers or names against each other, digging for birth or death certificates. Occasionally he would locate subjects that would be a good fit for experimentation but most of the time it was just verification that certain persons were holding steady at various minor levels of contamination. Sometimes he got to reroute cadavers from various places to the scientific campus, which was a nice change of pace.  

It took him only ten minutes to look over both reports and reach the correct conclusion that the contamination was increasing at an alarming rate in this subject. It took another ten minutes for him to pull up what group home the subject was sent to and to verify that it was misidentified as a nameless found child. He marked that the subject would be a good candidate for scientific study and double checked all his forms, corrected a typo, and submitted the whole thing to his higher ups. 

And then he went on to the next manual review, idly wondering if he should get Noddles & Company or PokeFresh for lunch that day.