Work Text:
Words blur smudging his textbook into nonsense, but Danny can't bring himself to care. It's well past even his bedtime which, as a semi-retired hero and full-time college student, is saying something so he doesn't fight the way his blinks take longer, how heavily he leans his chin on one hand. Instead he lets the soothing white noise of his tiny apartment lull him in to slumber.
After a couple of semesters in a dorm, the movement of his current neighbors doesn't bother him. This late at night it's mostly the sound of cars on the nearby highway, the hum of electricity in the walls, and a baby crying on another floor.
And, of course, the distant murmur of another summoning taking place.
Before he graduated high school the sound of indistinguishable voices coming together in a chant would have scared Danny fully to death. Mostly because of the mystical tug summonings performed on those they were trying to call, a cresting wave that eventually yanked whoever the summoners were looking for across dimensions to do their bidding. The thought that the GIW might learn how to summon any ghost before the Anti-Ecto Acts were repealed in his senior year haunted him constantly, but even after they were no longer a threat the idea that he might get tugged away at any time was still horrifying.
These days it isn't so bad.
It took a lot of work and so much time (which Danny might argue with Clockwork over for the rest of his days - six months is a massive amount of time to keep worrying about being yanked all over the world without so much as a 'by your leave' alright? Clockwork can insist it's a blink of an eye all he likes, but until Danny gets to enjoy a six month nap he'll refuse to believe it) but, they got it fixed in the end. Being summoned no longer meant following the orders of whoever brought you there nor could it trap a ghost in place.
Being summoned doesn't even mean answering the summon now unless the ghost wants to, which is a victory all its own.
The sigh of relief Danny gave when they tested it out for the first time was enough to lay him out on the floor. He doesn't even care that Dani still laughs over the video they got. Not much, anyway.
Of course, adjusting to the sound of people all over the world learning the spell and testing it out though? That was a bit of a learning curve, but so worth it. Especially at times like this when Danny can just close his eyes, listen close, and drift.
It takes barely any concentration to tune in enough to feel the rhythm of it. To let the light tug of the words (some of them pronounced far better than usual this time, they must have someone practiced with dead languages) lap at Danny's mind like gentle waves washing over his feet while he stands solidly on the shore.
'Hear our call as we summon-'
Sure, the words pull at some of the ambient ecto he gives off like water pulls at the sand around one's feet, dragging it back to whence it came, but he's planted himself solidly and no one is required to answer a summons anymore not even-
'-The Ghost King!'
Danny's head slips off his hand as he snaps awake. Hands slamming down on the desk, one barely missing his long forgotten mug of now cold coffee, he stares up at his ceiling.
No way.
The summon is just about done, he can feel it in the way it draws a clear line between him and those performing the ritual. Eyes wide, Danny changes into his ghostly form and grabs on tight.
"We summon you!"
The feel of it is something similar to the infi-map. The world blurs around him, through him, as Danny is pulled out and up and up and up.
Until suddenly
He's there.
A colorful array of people stand stiffly around the summoning circle. Some are simply on edge, others are clearly ready to fight, while the remaining few look surprised as if they thought it wasn't going to work.
Part of Danny acknowledges that it's a fair assumption these days. (It was a big fad for ghosts to answer at the beginning, but many have gotten their fill of the human realm and ignore the frequent summons.) The rest of Danny is ignoring that as well as the fact that he recognizes a fair few of his audience, because right over their shoulders
is space.
"Wow!" He whispers at the inky darkness visible through the space station's windows. Sure, he can fly into space whenever he wants, but he was literally just losing sleep to study for his upcoming exams, so clearly he doesn't have time to make the trip as often as he'd like.
"A kid?" Someone asks incredulously, which, rude! Danny's in his twenties now and his ghostly form does, in fact, reflect it! He makes a face, but doesn't manage to drag his eyes from the stars until someone pointedly clears their throat.
Twice.
Pointedly.
Sighing, Danny slouches back to give the - he checks the person's position against the symbols on the floor - lead summoner an expectant look.
"Need something?" He asks, eyeing the trench coat and recognizing the face of one John Constantine.
Technically, learning who is part of Justice League Dark is difficult, but it certainly isn't impossible and while Danny hasn't always been the best at contingency plans and preparing for the worst, he has friends and family who are more than happy to make him better at both. By force if necessary. And it was necessary a few times. Unfortunately, they always get the last laugh because Danny's luck means that things like 'memorizing the names and appearances of Justice League members' just as necessary.
Ugh.
Danny is going to have to listen to Tucker and Sam crow over this victory for months at minimum, he just knows it.
Glancing at the stars again he can't find it in himself to care.
(Such a harmless way to indulge his obsession. He could allow himself to be summoned just to see the stars. As a treat.)
"We're looking for information on the Ghost King." The magician's face is an appropriate amount of wary for speaking to a summoned being, not surprising considering how often his name gets thrown around in the Infinite Realms. "Know who that is?"
After countless hours passed learning the history of the Realms with his more respected friends and mentors over the years, Danny can't help his snort. "Yeah, I know all about Ghost Kings. What about 'em?"
"Who is he?" Someone - a Flash, though it's hard for Danny to keep them all straight enough to know which - asks before Constantine can answer. The magician's hiss doesn't stop the other man from asking another rapid fire question. "Why does he keep sending other people when he gets summoned?"
"Flash." Danny is looking the other way when another member of the Justice League quietly reprimands the speedster and when he glances over both Batman and Superman are staring the man down. Not that it matters who did it or even that Flash spoke out of turn, Danny doesn't mind answering the question.
Mostly.
"How are you trying to summon them?" As if the method isn't obvious from the summon that pulled him. Yeah, he can absolutely just lay it all out in plain English and explain what changes they made over the last few years, but he has his reasons!
For one, this is way funnier. As a tired, broke college student, he'll get his kicks when and where he can. He glances at the inky black void once again. (Danny can almost taste it. He's not sure if it's his imagination or if he actually can.)
Shaking his head, he focuses on the group around him. The fun is in their reactions, he can enjoy space after.
Just in time as Constantine's expression when he throws a pained look to a woman - Zatanna Danny thinks - is hilarious all on its own. After all of the drama he's heard about the man, Danny would love to hear him get annoyed or throw a fit or even just sigh at the question, but instead Zatanna speaks up.
"We're using the method recorded in our oldest tomes."
Thanks again to Clockwork for letting Danny sneak in the edit retroactively like that. So much easier to look authentic if it was there the whole time.
"We cross-checked it against the version that was popularized on the internet two and a half years ago." Batman avoids saying the word 'meme' with relative ease, which is a damn shame. Hearing the guy say it in that gravelly voice would have made Danny's month. Not in the least because Danny was responsible for the meme in question.
Well, half responsible.
Okay, it was like a tenth at best, but it was his idea! He just didn't have the tech experience or connections Sam, Tucker, and even Dani had at the time, alright? (How was he supposed to know that Dani had a hugely successful travel blog? It's not like she ever told him about it!)
Whatever. Either way it worked. Both the summoning ritual and the meme. Each effectively driving the other to even greater popularity and usage, making this new summon circle for 'The Ghost King' the only one anyone would ever use now.
"Oh, you mean you're using this ritual to summon the king?" Danny asks, tipping lazily to one side to look at the ritual he helped craft that was spread out under his feet. Relatively speaking that is, as he was hovering above it even now. "That makes sense I guess."
"Is it not correct?" Wonder Woman (The Wonder Woman! Who Pandora talks about! Danny is doing his best to remain calm, but he isn't sure if it's working. If he vibrates fast enough will it be unnoticeable or will the Flash see it anyway?) asks, stance relaxed, but ready as she keeps an eye on him.
"Oh, sure. Yeah, it's the one that used to summon the king." He reassures her easily. That was sort of true in a way. It had to be for Clockwork to allow the change of the past.
"'Used to'?" It's Superman who points out the important part of the sentence instead of the part Danny was going to use to run them around in circles for a bit and Danny finds himself a little surprised. After so many years of video games he's gotten used to tanks having low intelligence, but he should know better than to make assumptions like that in real life.
He can't let himself get too comfortable here. This is the Justice League and while he's sure that they're all moral enough to keep the quiet, dangerous truth a secret if he fumbles this, he'd rather not risk it.
It's true that two can keep a secret if one of them is dead, but having at least this whole group in the room aware of the way to make the ritual more specific is almost certainly a bad idea. Even a quick trip to space isn't worth that.
"Yeah, it doesn't quite do that any more, you know?" They must. Everyone does now. 'I summoned the ghost king, but all I got was [insert a different ghost here]' trended for weeks after it dropped. "Centuries of linguistic drift can do that to you."
Not that it took centuries this time, but in general.
"Linguistic drift?" Constantine snatches a page that looks like it probably has the words to the ritual on it, though it's hard to tell with the way he's waving it around, and he appears seconds from storming into the summoning circle to shake the answers out of him. Unfortunately, the man's experience and a warning glare from a few of the others must hold him back, which is a shame because Danny would love to hold something like that over the guy's head, if only for a prank or three. "How the bloody hell could a title like 'The Ghost King' drift?"
"Oh, that's easy." Danny lies, ignoring the months of hard work for once in his half-life. He settles in to explain the logic they built the ritual around, taking a 'seat' on nothing just to really sell it. "See 'King' was always gender neutral as ghosts don't have traditional genders as humans know them. On top of that, a few of the rulers have ruled jointly - at one point even having five ghosts sharing the title of King. When you summoned 'The Ghost King' during their reign, you'd get all five of them."
"But we're only getting one." Flash points out, unhelpfully.
"No, there have been reports of small groups answering sometimes." A Green Lantern - these ones are easier to tell apart from each other, unlike the speedsters, but Danny isn't sure if it's rude to refer to them by their given names even in his head (it kind of feels like he'd be calling one of his teachers by their first name or something) - corrects him with a shake of their head.
"So," Danny continues just a little louder, because they do need to know this. So he can laugh about it. And, more importantly, they need to believe it. That's half of the magic after all. "The title was already a bit vague even before some of the younger ghosts started to use it colloquially."
"Younger?" Superman looks worried, but something about the way Batman holds himself is just screaming 'tired realization' as Danny grins back at them. They call him the World's Greatest Detective, but Danny's pretty sure his quick understanding is from having a herd of younger heroes all reporting to him. The turn of phrase isn't exactly subtle.
"Not all of us have been dead for centuries." It's easy to ignore the subtle flinches from those around him because he loves explaining this next part even though Jazz absolutely hates hearing him throw it around in conversations. "Suddenly no one could go more than a day without hearing people calling each other by the title."
"It toppled the monarchy?" Clearly baffled, Zatanna glances briefly at Batman when he shakes his head.
"No," he corrects. "They changed the phrase."
Crumpling the page in his hand, Constantine groans. "It's a title, not a phrase!"
"No one said it couldn't be both." Danny says sweetly, smiling wider when it gets him an annoyed look. "You think you're saying 'the Ghost King' but what we hear has a nuance. A pause, if you will."
A comma.
That's the change Danny made to the ritual - one single comma and suddenly the summoning wasn't about just one ghost or even one small group of them.
"They all get summoned because it applies to all of them." One of the leaguers spells it out for everyone else, voice somewhere between tired and awed. Danny doesn't look away from Constantine to see who it is because the magician is clearly having the best responses to this little revelation, so when Danny hears the title finally said with the correct intonation he gets to watch how the confused anger slips into annoyed frustration.
"They're all the ghost, king."