Chapter Text
Danny understood how privileged he was to be pursuing higher education. Really, he did. After his half-death when he was a child, he had learned to appreciate every opportunity given to him. The years after, which he spent running from his parents, then putting his half-life on the line for vigilante work, then being brought to near-death by said parents and having to cut off all contact for his own safety, then the lonely coronation to becoming the Ghost King only highlighted his appreciation. If the conditions had been different, he would be six feet under or ruling the Infinite Realms as a full-ghost rather than in a classroom, just as alive as after the accident.
But, God, physics was so boring.
Learning about how orbits worked and about magnetic fields were some of the most interesting topics in the class. Everything else seemed rather…inconsequential? Perhaps instinctual. Acceleration is a function of velocity is a function of speed. The force of gravity acting on an object is the mass multiplied by the gravitational acceleration. You can use the thumb rule with your right hand, with your thumb representing an electrical current and the wrapping direction of your fingers representing the magnetic field around the wire.
Danny was fully not paying attention to the lecture, instead working on a worksheet for his calculus class. He aggressively types some numbers into his calculator when the man next to him nudges him with his elbow.
Danny looked up, meeting bright blue eyes and messed hair, with deep eyebags accompanying. The sweater he was wearing must have cost Danny’s entire tuition, and Danny couldn’t help the pang of envy he felt.
Rich assholes.
“Sorry, do you understand what’s happening?” Rich boy asks, shooting a winning smile. Danny furrows his eyebrows, looking up at the screen where the professor is discussing resistors of circuits.
Danny turns back to rich boy with a strained smile. “Basically, we’re calculating the total resistance of the whole circuit by taking the resistance of each separate resistor. So, resistors in series simply add up, but resistors in parallel are equal to that equation on the screen. Resistance is about how much the circuit opposes electrical current, so a certain amount of volts won’t make it past the resistors.”
Rich boy’s smile drops as he looks back at the screen, lighting up after a beat. “Oh, I get it. Thank you so much!”
Danny turns back to his calculator, finishing the equation he was typing out before the interruption. “Memorize those rules, capacitors have the same workings but switched. We might get there during our next lecture.”
Rich boy hums in acknowledgment, and the two of them fall back into silence with only the professor’s voice droning in the background while Danny works on his calculus sheet. He gets to the end of the sheet by the time class is over, and stands to leave when a hand on his shoulder stops him. Danny turns, coming face-to-face with rich boy again. Danny raises an unimpressed eyebrow at the man’s sheepish expression.
“Would you want to get coffee with my friend and I?”
Danny blinks dumbly, shifting his backpack to be more secure on his back. “Why would I do that?”
Rich boy shoots another winning smile. “My friend and I may be interested in hiring you as a tutor later in the term. He doesn’t like coming to class, and I struggle at physics.”
Danny sighs, stepping back to make the hand fall from his shoulder. “First of all, I probably can’t afford your expensive coffee. Your sweater probably costs an entire year of my rent, your coffee probably costs as much as a small TV. Secondly, you know the school has a tutoring service, right?”
Somehow, someway, for some reason, rich boy’s smile gets wider. It reminds Danny of his father when he was younger. “Yeah, but you seem no-nonsense. The last tutor I met tried asking me on a date.” rich boy chuckles while shaking his head, though it’s not hard for Danny to see the bitterness in the gesture.
Danny closes his eyes and takes a breath. Damn his own bleeding heart and his obsession to help. As if his side-gig to fix household appliances wasn’t enough.
“Fine, but only if you’re paying for my coffee,” Danny grunts, leading the way out of the vacated classroom. Rich boy follows closely, easily agreeing.
As it turns out, rich boy is Bruce Wayne and his friend is Oliver Queen. Both names ring a bell, but when they start talking about their companies Danny gets a little lost.
“What companies do you guys run?” Danny asks, lifting his iced latte to take a sip.
He’s met with two blank looks from two rich boys, before Oliver turns away to hide his laughter.
“I run Wayne Enterprises; we’re big on technology, personal protective equipment, and donate our surplus to the betterment of Gotham City.”
Danny snorts at the monologue. “Wow, you got that memorized, huh? I think my childhood hazmat suit was developed by you guys.”
Bruce frowns, muttering to himself while Oliver turns back. “Queen Industries, electronics and military defense.”
Danny nods, playing with the coffee at the edge of the straw. “Technically, if I hadn’t gone no-contact, I would inherit my parent’s company if they passed. Not that their business ventures are reputable, but…” he shrugs his shoulders, licking the coffee off his finger.
“What do they do?” Bruce asks.
Danny snorts, putting more amusement into the gesture than he actually feels. The feeling of scalpels cutting through skin has yet to fade in the few years away from them, the weight of the crown as consequences of their lackluster lab safety felt heavy. “They claim to study ghosts. Even if what they said was credible, their research is extremely biased. They develop weapons to hunt ghosts with, but usually just end up doing more property damage.”
Bruce furrows his eyebrows. “Interesting…what did you need the hazmat suits for?”
Danny waves his hand dismissively. “Well, we weren’t supposed to make contact with the weird goo ghost’s produce, so we were supposed to wear them if we entered the lab. Funny thing, if you store the weird goo in the fridge, your food is contaminated. They ended up being kinda useless as a result.”
That earns him matching concerned looks from both of the rich guys before him.
For rich people, Oliver and Bruce were actually chill. On the occasion they needed tutoring, they paid handsomely. The first time Danny was handed an envelope, he had expected maybe fifty bucks. It was a bit of a shock to find ten thousand dollars. Bruce simply wouldn’t allow him to give him any of it back, and when Danny was emptying his pockets later that night, he found another hundred bucks found its way into his pockets.
Damn billionaires. At least he can pay for groceries without having to take up extra work.
It was nice having reliable friends again. Danny wasn’t unpopular within his classes, but no one was quite as dedicated as Sam and Tucker. He had promised only to reach out once it was safe again, so he was largely alone until Bruce brought Danny into the fray. It was nice feeling less alone, even with all the secrets he held close. It was nice feeling like a normal college student rather than the ruler of a Realm.
And so the three of them remain friends over a few years. The three of them would go out for coffee or lunch fairly often, where Danny would tutor Oliver and Bruce in a wide variety of subjects. From statistics to coding to calculus to physics to chemistry, Danny seemed to know everything. He was known as the brains of the group. Bruce started developing the reputation of a dumb himbo, but he was much smarter than he looked. Then Oliver, the playboy. Their tutoring sessions would be interrupted by Oliver casually handing his phone number to anyone he found attractive, man or woman, but he too was smart and ambitious with his projects.
It’s the late nights together that Danny cherished. Bruce tells Danny about watching his parents get shot and wanting to do good by them, use their company for good. Oliver talked about his self-esteem and how his father underestimated him. Danny explains that his parents were neglectful at best and abusive at worst. He stretched the truth a bit, but it wasn’t wrong either. The jagged scars running across his torso were proof enough, not that Bruce or Oliver would ever see them. But he does tell them about his lab accident, and shows them the Lichtenberg scar that refused to fade.
At the end of Danny’s third year, Oliver graduates, then fucks off to go on some cruise with the promise to keep in touch. In Danny's fourth year, Bruce drops out, with another promise to keep in touch. He’s alone again. He’s back to being that weird ghost freak with no friends.
It’s several years before Danny hears from either of them.
A few years out of college, Danny had almost forgotten about Bruce and Oliver. He had bigger things to worry about, like balancing his real job at an auto shop in the cheap area of Gotham, continuing to fix household machinery in his spare time, and his role as the Ghost King. With the assistance of several of the Ancients he befriended, he had blossomed into his role and was quickly becoming known as the Benevolent King and the Vanquisher of the Tyrant.
In contrast, the jobs were just enough to cover rent, groceries, utilities, and wifi, but he still had college loans to pay off and was making such little progress.
Luckily, whenever Danny helped his boss, Terry, with a commission, he got a bonus. In a good month, Danny could get an extra five hundred dollars, but he typically earned about two hundred extra.
Danny’s biggest worry with living in Gotham was the fact that he was considered a meta. While the new vigilante Batman made it clear that he was in support of meta rights, he demanded metas stay away from Gotham. The trafficking rings were bad enough and the potential to be manipulated for nefarious means was much too high, especially with Mad Hatter running around. So, Danny kept his meta-adjacent status quiet.
Not like his existence as a ghost was legal anyways. Revealing anything would put a target on his head. He hadn’t heard anything of the GIW since leaving for college, but there’s no way they’ve disbanded.
Danny walked into the garage, throwing his bag in the locker and securing it with his own combo lock. Danny rolled up the sleeves of his jacket, walking to the main area of the garage.
“Hey Terry, we got any special orders today?” He calls out, turning to the counter to sign in to work. “I should be done with Becca’s engine installment by lunch.”
“No new commissions, but we do have a special guest,” Terry shouted from the nice office, only used when a high-end customer was in the building.
Danny walked to the doorway, leaning in to see the newest customer. At the desk sat a black man with graying hair, rather nondescript, though the suit he was wearing seemed to be higher end. In front of him lay schematics, though Danny was far enough away that it was hard to tell what was being planned.
Terry waved him into the room. “C’mon, Danny, need your genius eye on this one.”
Danny nods, smiling at the mysterious man with an outstretched hand. “I’m Danny.”
The other man took his hand with a solid shake, “Lucius Fox,” before turning back to the schematics. The name rang a distant bell in Danny’s mind, but that thought was quickly dismissed as Mr. Fox started talking. “Our problem right now is figuring out how to scale these water filters up. The end-goal would be to use these to support nearby fish hatcheries, but right now the filters are getting too backed up by the amount of pressure.”
Danny leaned over the table, eyes trailing through the designs and picking it apart. The initial setup was very clean, the goal clearly being keeping the devices compact.
“Give each device several small filters along the circumference. Should prevent the device from being overwhelmed. Should also upgrade the battery to two forty.”
“Like this?” Lucius asks, pulling out another schematic with all of the changes suggested and the word SUCCESS stamped across it.
Danny blinked, looking between Lucius and Terry, the latter of which was giving him a blinding grin.
“Consider this an invitation to interview at Wayne Enterprises,” Lucius says with a smile, pulling out a business card with a flourish.
A week later, Danny finds himself in the best suit he could afford at the steps of the Wayne Enterprises, feeling like a total fool. Briefly, Danny thinks back to Bruce, before the thought is swept away as he looks at the time and rushes into the building. Following the directions given, he takes the elevator nearly to the top of the building, and sees Mr. Fox immediately as the doors open. The man leads him to an office, closing the door behind them.
The interview is pretty standard: what are your goals for working here? How much engineering experience do you have? What would you do under this scenario? At some point, all of the questions are geared around designs and how Danny would improve them. Danny pauses at one particular question.
“Come again?” He asked, thrown off.
“You have a compact plane that needs to fix twelve rounds for installed machine guns along with four missiles. How would you minimize the size of the craft while supporting the weapons?”
Danny leans back in his seat, suddenly unsure. “...I didn’t know Wayne Enterprises developed weapons.”
The smile Mr. Fox sends him is all too pleased. “Good answer, keep your morals close.”
Mr. Fox goes to ask the next question when the door behind Danny opens. He turned, seeing a child run in the room and go right up to Mr. Fox, exclaiming. “B is in a meeting and I’m bored!”
Mr. Fox smiled, ruffling the child’s hair. “I am also in a meeting, Dick.”
With that, Danny suddenly found himself being pinned by a child-like glare. “Well, I’m bored!”
Danny reached into his bag, pulling out the little cardboard mouse he built earlier this week. “Do you want to meet my friend, Mister Mouse? He moves by himself.”
Dick eyed the mouse, then looked at Danny, then looked at Mr. Fox, who nodded. Dick approached, giving the mouse the most thorough look any child could give. The main body and head were cut from cardboard, while the wheels were thin pieces of wood cut to look steampunk made to look like the back haunches of the mouse. Another wheel sat under the mouse’s head.
“How does it move?”
Danny smiled, sliding out of the seat and planting the wheels on the floor, pointing to the wind-up tool. “Turn this to the right until it resists, then we let go.”
Dick nodded, winding the toy up while Danny kept it still.
“Ready?” Danny prompted. “We let go in 3…2…1…now.”
They both let go of the toy, watching it roll across the floor at surprising speed. Danny turned to watch the boy with an overjoyed smile.
“Building mice?” Came a warm voice from the door.
Danny stood from his place on the floor, turning to look at the door.
Standing in the doorway with a roguishly handsome grin. Bruce motherfucking Wayne.
“You were supposed to keep in touch,” Danny found himself saying.
Bruce gave him that dumb himbo look that always made Danny roll his eyes back in college. “I’m sorry, do we know each other?”
Sure, Danny’s hair had been developing white streaks in the past few years, but he still looked roughly the same.
Danny sighed, hearing Mr. Fox get up from his seat. “Bruce, this is Dante Nighthawk, he goes by Danny.”
Bruce’s smile dropped. “No shit? Danny?”
Danny spreads his hands out in a ‘hear I am’ motion.
“He has remarkable talent, I can’t believe you kept him away from me,” Mr. Fox admonished with a gentle smack to the shoulder, Bruce giving a small, genuine smile. “How do you know each other?”
“I tutored him.” “We were friends in college.”
They blinked at each other for a moment, before they started laughing. In the meantime, Dick made his way to Bruce and started tugging on his jacket. “I’m bored!”
“Sorry, chum,” he said, leaning down for the boy to get a piggy-back ride, before standing up again and turning to Danny.
Similar to Mr. Fox, he pulls out a business card, though it was rather blank save for his name and phone number. “You should come over for dinner one of these days, we’ll actually stay in contact this time.”
Danny nodded, bending down to pick up the mouse contraption after taking the card. “Sure, sure, question: when did you get a kid?”
A flicker of uncertainty, then sorrow passed over Bruce’s face, Dick ducking to hide in his neck. “We’ll talk about it later, we should get going.”
Danny watched them go, suppressing his old vigilante urge to go digging until he knew the full situation. It was probably all in the news, not that he’s ever paid attention before.
“You’re hired,” Mr. Fox said from the desk, tapping his fingers on the desk with a mischievous grin.
Since Danny had started invading dinners, Sunday became family dinner night, where even Alfred would sit and eat.
In two years since meeting him, Dick had grown into a bright young man. He was well-liked in school, was excellent at navigating gala politics when he wasn’t swinging from chandeliers, and was proficient in his studies.
Bruce, meanwhile, hadn’t changed much. To the public eye, he was seen as a ditzy billionaire with too much money to spend and a bleeding heart. To Danny, he was endlessly kind and selfless, always making sure he and Dick were taken care of before anything else.
Danny, meanwhile, had made himself indispensable to the Wayne Enterprises R&D Department, building a name for himself enough to be commissioned by other companies for other projects. He had received requests from Drake Industries and LexCorp for help on projects, though he tended to decline commissions from larger companies. He would take small and specialized shops, but he didn’t take projects from other large companies. Not that Bruce would have stopped him.
Recently, events happening outside of Gotham had made quite a stir. Supposedly, Metropolis had gained an alien hero. Danny tried and failed to hide his excitement as Superman talked about his alien status. Unfortunately, it was overshadowed by xenophobic rhetoric. His own experience had shown that the United States was rather resistant to having superpowered people running around.
Danny was sympathetic to Superman: after all, he was the first in a wave of superpowered individuals, even if few of them knew of Phantom. He had faced the alienation, displeasure, and overall cruelty that humans presented to him when all he wanted was to help people. And yet, there was a prison opening up for people with powers, or ‘meta-humans.’ To make matters worse, Danny had recently been seeing flashes of white uniforms around Gotham, prompting him to wear his ecto-suppressing cuffs all day and limiting his amount of travel to the Realms. A shame, really, with all the paperwork he was supposed to get done over the weekends.
As much as he wanted to live out his half-life, it was becoming impossible with the Guys in White always on his tail.
He needed to go live in the Infinite Realms, or risk recapture.
It was why Danny needed to have this conversation. He was sitting with Bruce in the library, Dick having gone off to bed, both watching the fire in the hearth crackle and pop.
“I’m technically a meta,” he started casually, betraying how the anxiety was eating at him. “My lab accident gave me powers. I used those powers to become the first hero in the U.S.”
“...You’re Phantom?” Bruce asked, incredulous. He had to really know deep superhero history to know that.
Danny shot a shocked glance in his direction. “You know about that?”
Bruce hesitantly nods. “Yes…but I thought Phantom was a ghost.”
Danny gave a dry smile, eyes going back to the fire. “Did you know that a portal to the Land of the Dead opening on top of you only half-kills you? Made me half-ghost, I can switch forms at will.”
“That lab accident-”
“It half-killed me,” Danny confirmed with a nod. “And then, because of my status as a ghost, I was hunted by both a government agency band my own parents. Only made worse when I became the King of said Realm.”
Danny then turned to Bruce, face uncharacteristically serious. “What I’m about to show you does not leave this room.”
Danny waited until Bruce nodded before pulling his shirt up, revealing a myriad of scarring and long-healed cuts, but the most prominent feature was the Y-shaped scar, still jagged from where he thrashed while Madelaine dragged a scalpel through him-
Danny jumped when Bruce’s hands were suddenly hovering over the scars, a fragile look in his eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”
Danny tugs his shirt down, grabbing Bruce’s hands and looking him in the eyes, feeling his own eyes sting at the next confession. “I may have to go into hiding soon. That government agency has been sniffing around my street. I didn’t want to disappear without a word, but it’s unlikely I’ll be able to make contact until they’re disbanded, which may take a while.”
Something fierce flashed through Bruce’s eyes. “So, you’re saying goodbye?”
Danny nodded, leaning his forehead against Bruce’s and letting the first tears track down his cheeks. “I’m sorry. You’ve made me feel so much less alone and I can’t tell you how much that means to me. I’ll say goodbye to Dick tomorrow.”
It's the truth. Hanging out with Bruce and Dick and getting to do a job he loves while working for his best friend made the burden of the crown just a little lighter, the worry of those stupid Guys in White catching up to him just a little more distant. But Danny can’t put them in danger anymore. The Guys in White are catching up. If Bruce is known to have helped Danny, he could be arrested and Dick would be taken away from him. Dick’s life had already been ruined once, and Danny would not be the reason it happened again.
“I’m not letting you leave, they will not reach you here,” Bruce said, voice dipping dangerously. Danny blinked his eyes open, taking in the intense look in Bruce’s eyes.
He sniffed, reigning his tears in and steeling himself. “I refuse to put you and Dick in danger by being around me.”
Bruce, with his stupid, roguish smirk, said, “I’m Batman, I’m sure I can handle danger.”
Danny stared for a minute, looking for the lie. When he didn’t find one, he started laughing bemusedly. “Batman hates metas.”
Bruce winced. “Batman doesn’t want any superpowered heroes in his city. Can you imagine if Superman got fear gassed? The potential for him to raze my city to the ground is far higher than I’d like.”
Danny chuckled, releasing one of Bruce’s hands to wipe at his cheeks. “Batman needs to work on his PR. You’re literally a CEO…Ancients, your Brucie shtick really is the perfect cover, huh?”
Bruce gives a real laugh at that, head thrown back, hair haloed by the firelight. Danny feels heat rise up to his face and just knows his ears are bright red. Nonetheless, he can’t stop smiling like a lovesick fool as Bruce tugs him to lay with him on the couch. They lay there for a long while, the only sounds being the crackle of the fireplace and their soft breathing.
Bruce is Batman. Does Dick know?
Images of a young boy dressed in bright colors flash through Danny’s mind. Robin. Batman’s sidekick. No, he always insisted he was Batman’s partner. That’s what the Commissioner said to the reporters, right?
“Is Dick Robin?” He asked, tone full of disappointment.
Bruce sighed heavily, trailing a hand absently up and down Danny’s back. “He insisted on going out and avenging his parent’s murder. You would not believe the things I did to try keeping him in the manor. Figured that, if he’s going to throw himself into danger anyway, I’d at least prepare him for it.”
Danny was silent a moment, drawing absent shapes on Bruce’s chest and hiding a delighted grin when Bruce’s heart seemed to beat a little faster.
“Being a teenage hero messed me up, make sure he gets some hero friends that he can confide in.”
Danny was able to doze there, the sound of the fireplace lulling him to rest, finally relaxing for the first time in years. It felt nice to be the protected rather than the protector.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Bruce started an hour later, rousing Danny with a hand in his hair. “You’re going to move in here and we’re going to set up a quick escape should you need it. I’m assuming they have a way to track you?”
Danny nodded, holding up his wrist with the bracelet. “Usually they can track a particular signature I give off, but this suppresses that signature. It also makes me weaker, so I’m pretty helpless while hiding.”
Bruce nodded, bringing the wrist back down to his chest. “Good, then you’re moving in. In the meantime, there has been a team of heroes working on this thing called the Meta-Protections Act that you would fall under. If it becomes safe enough to do so, I would like to have Phantom speak to the media about how a lack of protections have done you harm.” Danny tensed. “You don’t have to go into detail, you don’t have to show anything. But what they did should be considered a crime against humanity.”
Bruce gently grabbed Danny’s face, making their eyes meet. “You deserve to live without fear.”
Danny felt tears gather in his eyes, and so quickly nodded then buried his face back into Bruce’s shoulder.
Bruce laid a gentle kiss to Danny’s temple, making heat rise to his face again. “We’ll tell Dick in the morning before he goes to school. About you moving in, and knowing about Batman…and I’d like to tell him a bit about your situation.”
Danny nodded, taking a shuddering breath in. “Yeah, sure, just don’t tell him they cut me open. That’s not something I want him to think about.”
Bruce’s hands gently carded through his hair. “As you wish.”
Fuck, did this stupid, beautiful man just Princess Bride me?
The following months are chaotic.
Immediately after Danny and Bruce reveal themselves, Danny is allowed full access to the Batcave. After shadowing Alfred for a few nights, Danny hops on comms, routing and coordinating Batman and Robin accordingly. He spends ample time working on improvements for Batman’s various vehicles, finding the Batplane to be his personal baby.
Less than a week after their talk, Lucius comes over for dinner, where he reveals to Danny that he’s been designing Batman’s gear for a long while, and that as long as Danny occasionally works on Batman’s gear, he can keep registering his hours with work even if he’s not coming into the office. That way, he can still get paid and doesn’t have to be fully reliant on Bruce.
A week and a half after the talk, Batman approaches Danny with a work proposal.
“I’m sorry,” Danny started, rubbing his eyes. “You want me and Lucius to build a space station to orbit Earth with capabilities to teleport someone so that a potential future hero club can have a safe place to meet that’s not country property?”
Bruce rubbed the back of his neck with an apologetic smile. “Yes?”
Danny squinted at him for a long moment, enjoying watching the Batman sweat.
“...Only on the condition I get to come up whenever I want.”
“Deal.”
Two and a half weeks after the talk, Batman brought Wonder Woman into the Batcave, giving Danny, Alfred, and Dick plenty of warning to either be out of the cave or masked up.
Danny was working on the transporter when they entered through the underground garage, the sound of the Batmobile slowing to a stop, enough warning for Danny to pause what he’s doing and look over.
Sure enough, emerging from the vehicle are the two tall heroes, Wonder Woman looking around the cave in amazement. To be fair, there was a giant penny and a dinosaur model. It was pretty sick.
Robin peered out from the seat of the Batcomputer, where Danny knew he was working on a cold case. At the sight of the other hero, he abandoned his folders and rushed over. Danny watched on with a hidden smirk, knowing Dick’s propensity for chaos would end up with Bruce embarrassed or the other hero traumatized.
“Auntie Wonder!” He exclaimed, throwing himself at Diana, who seamlessly caught him.
While that was happening, Batman scanned the cave, lighting up when he saw Danny watching and absently playing with a screwdriver, medical mask secured to his face.
“Wonder Woman, that over there,” Bruce pointed, “is our mechanic and engineer.”
Danny had a shit-eating grin, not that anyone would know besides maybe Bruce. “Please, call me Phantom.”
Bruce let out a long, drawn out sigh while Dick giggled and Wonder Woman tilted her head.
“Would you have any connection to the altruistic hero Phantom?” She asked. His grin got wider, though only Bruce noticed.
He waved his hand dismissively. “Barely. When he wants to know what’s happening in this dimension, he asks me. I’m one of the only people from his town that acknowledged his positive work.”
Batman sent him a long-suffering look from behind his cowl, but Danny wasn’t talking to him so whatever.
“Batman tells me you are drawing up designs for an orbiting space station?”
Danny jumped at the change of subject, leading her over to his work station where he had begun sketching his designs. None of them were completed, and some of the pages had dark scribbles on them as if the ideas weren’t even worth considering. Once he was done explaining his vision for the station, he pulled out a cleaner schematic showing the teleportation tubes.
“I think I’ve figured out the way to transport using zeta-radiation, but I still want to do some testing before I send something living through,” Danny explained, leading the group to his nearest trial. “I only just finished this today.” He explained, pointing to the transporter. “This is a Batcave-specific transporter, this will be how we get to and from the station. And this,” he pulled a cloth off a phone booth. “Will be placed somewhere in Gotham once I test the teleportation capabilities.”
“Fascinating,” Wonder Woman commented, circling the two builds.
“Phantom, it’s been a week,” Batman deadpanned.
Danny huffed out a laugh, grabbing Robin and squeezing him tight, making the young boy groan at the smothering. “Yeah, well you and Robin have been busy and I’ve been bored. Actually, if you want a demonstration, I’d be happy to sacrifice my snack,” he offered, nodding to an apple sitting on the workbench.
“That would be much appreciated,” Wonder Woman agreed amenably.
Danny put Dick on the ground and grabbed the apple, walking toward the phone booth. “I’d prefer if you all just stayed over there, just in case.”
Danny places the apple into the phone booth, manually activating it. With a brief flash of light, the apple vanishes, then shows up in the more permanent zeta-tube. Danny walks over and manually activates that one too, the apple reappearing in the phone booth.
“For the sake of security, zeta tubes will use full body scans to recognize those who should have access with main members having the ability to override and escort others to the station. Additionally, the zetas will announce who is coming in and going out to prevent sneak-attacks via the tubes.”
“Excellent work,” Wonder Woman said appraisingly.
Batman grunted. “Do you have a timeline on when the space station will be done?”
Wonder Woman frowned, looking over at Bruce. “Batman, consider having patience for such a large scale-”
“Once I get the main design done, I’m hoping to recruit our friend and bang out the main module in two months,” Danny responds, moving back to this workstation to rifle through blueprints. “My biggest problem is finding an area suitable to launch the station from, especially if we want to keep any kind of secrecy. I’m assuming you already have a plan for that, so for now I’m just worrying about how to build a suitable station for monitoring events throughout the galaxy and on-planet, accounting for what we can realistically launch. We can add additional modules later similar to how the International Space Station was built. I want to build a habitation bay, a medical bay, and an entire training unit down the road.”
Wonder Woman was stunned into silence, Robin bouncing on his toes and watching her reaction to his badass psuedo-guardian. Batman, meanwhile, couldn’t help the small smile at Danny’s blatant showing off.
“This is why everyone calls you a genius,” he remarked, shocking Wonder Woman for a different reason.
“I resent that,” Danny replies easily, clearly a well-worn argument. “I worked hard for my degrees, thank you very much.”
“This just in! The American Government has been found by the Courts of Oa to be guilty of breaking inter-dimensional law! At the word of two self-proclaimed experts, Doctors Madeleine and Jackson Fenton, the US Government had proclaimed an entire dimension of beings to be insentient and insapient! We take you to a firsthand account by Superman of his time spent with one of these beings.”
A man appears on the screen, his iconic S in a diamond, proud pose, and curly black hair cutting an intimidating figure of the perfect boy scout.
“Batman came into contact with a denizen of the Infinite Realms, Phantom. Those who know their true hero lore may actually know of him—he was a hero in Illinois many years ago, before I started as a hero. He disappeared a number of years ago, but came out of hiding to the Justice League with the Meta-Human Rights debates. He came to me and other powered Leaguers and made sure we didn’t take any of the opposition to heart. I suppose being a disliked hero due to his abilities and race is something he’s familiar with.”
Danny burrowed himself closer into Bruce’s side, resolutely pushing away his memories of being a vigilante.
Better kept buried.
“At the time of this interview, the grand majority of this government organization—known as the Ghost Investigation Ward—have been arrested by the Green Lanterns, along with their primary funder, Vladimir Masters, and the Doctors Madeleine and Jackson Fenton.”
“Earth’s very own Justice League has since confiscated the data from these labs. We will forever live without knowing what truly happened inside. When we asked Batman for information, he provided no comment.”
Danny smiled, feeling true relief. He would keep the bracelets on for another week, but he was technically safe now.
The GIW were gone, Vlad was gone, Maddie and Jack were gone. More importantly, the horrors he experienced at the hands of his parents were kept from the world forever. Danny–once Daniel Fenton, now Dante Nighthawk–could finally live in peace. No longer would he be looking over his shoulder for those bastards in white or his parents. All he had now was memories of what his parents did to him.
He could live with that.
He could live now.
He looked up at Bruce, blushing as he saw the man looking down at him with a soft look in his eye.
Suddenly, unexplainably, abruptly, Danny decided he wanted to kiss this beautiful man senseless.
Without much thought, Danny leaned up and landed a brief peck on Bruce’s lips. His lips were more chapped than he would have assumed, surely from nights spent braving the winds above Gotham.
Danny pulled away when he realized what he had done, backing up rapidly from the man.
“Shit- I am so sorry. I didn’t really think about it and-”
Danny finds himself cut off by a pair of lips pressed back to his, a warm hand cradling cheek like he was the most precious thing in the world. Danny couldn’t help the way he melted into the kiss, bringing his hands up to Bruce’s neck to pull him closer.
They both pull away to catch their breath, panting as they share air.
“You were thinking too loud,” Bruce whispered, leaning his forehead against Danny’s.
The half-ghost couldn’t help but laugh, relaxing against Bruce. “You stupid, beautiful, selfless man. I love you, you know that?”
“I think I got the idea,” Bruce said, shutting Danny up again once more as he initiated a new, more heated kiss as he leaned Danny back against the sofa. He pulled away to mumble against Danny’s lips, “I love you too, for the record.”
Alfred was unimpressed when he found them there the next morning, clothes scattered around the couch in their rush.
“We come to you live in front of the White House, where the Justice League has organized for the United State’s first hero, Phantom, to give his support to the Meta-Human Rights Act.”
Danny was overwhelmed. He knew what he was doing could do a lot to protect super-powered people. Children, especially, were susceptible to the meta-trafficking rings around Gotham.
It was hard not picking up the mantle again.
“My name is Phantom,” he started, putting his thoughts on the backburner. “I was the first superpowered hero to emerge, though many of you may have only learned of that recently. I am of another species from another dimension, though still humanoid, making me a meta-human.”
“Back when I first emerged,” Danny said, looking up at the crowd of gathered reporters. “It was to protect my town from a man-made portal opened by a pair of scientists. The denizens of my realm came through, wanting to explore or cause mischief or pursue their life’s purpose. Very rarely did they actually mean harm, most of the issues were caused by cultural differences. I stopped the denizens from causing any real harm to humans at first, as my life’s purpose is centered around protection of anyone who needs it. I also protected my denizens and humans from those scientists, who caused immense property damage in their aim to kill my people.”
“Then, the Ghost Investigation Ward formed, and suddenly, I was protecting humans and my people from a pair of mad scientists and the American government.”
Danny paused, taking a deep breath to calm himself.
“The previous King of the Realm, who had been imprisoned for thousands of years, was released by another one of mine wishing to do harm. As such, I was forced to fight the previous King to ensure the destruction of this Realm would not occur.”
Danny smiled dryly, looking around at the enraptured journalists. “Funny thing no one tells you about my Realm: if you fight the King and win, you become the King.” He said, gesturing up at the crown floating above his head. He gives the gathered a few moments for their exclamations before he holds up a hand to get their attention.
“A few months after that fight, the Ghost Investigation Ward managed to capture me. The following few months were a blur, but I was experimented on in every cruel way you can imagine. They ripped me apart, ‘molecule by molecule,’ as they loved to tell me.”
He screamed a lot back then. His throat was sore when he managed to escape. He remembered his heart beating on a tray, his lungs expanding outside his body, the feeling of fingers digging deep deep deep into his chest cavity-
A hand on his shoulder snapped him back into the moment, looking over his shoulder to see Batman. Bruce. Danny followed his exaggerated breath, feeling his shoulders drop as he released it, then turned back to the oppressively silent crowd.
“The town blamed me for the damage. The government targeted me. All I wanted to do was help. Your superpowered heroes and people are just trying to live. Their greatest crime is being born different. Thank you for listening.” He said, sneaking a hand behind him to grasp Batman’s hand as the crowd started up again.
Phantom held his hand up to silence the crowd, then pointed to a reporter holding their hand up.
“Mr. Phantom, you called them the Ghost Investigation Ward. Does that make you a ghost?”
Phantom nodded once. “My realm contains every afterlife, so many of us are what you would call ‘ghosts.’ Not all who inhabit the realm are, as many of them are born as denizens directly in the realm, but some of us are technically ghosts.”
He pointed to another hand, “Your majesty! Dealing with royalty from other dimensions and worlds is supposed to be the job of the Green Lantern Corps. Have the Green Lanterns gotten involved?”
“The Green Lanterns and I have recently made contact,” he stated with a smile. “For the past several years, being in the living realm has been a risk, but on one of my trips I managed to secure a line of communication that led to the abolition of the Acts that allowed experimentation on me.”
Another hand, “Mr. Phantom, experiments are part of any scientific study. Here on Earth, it’s normal for humans to go through immense surgeries to learn more about abnormalities. Have you considered the Ghost Investigation Ward was trying to learn more about your species?”
Danny’s eyes sharpen, making eye contact with the reporter that asked the last question. “Exploratory surgeries are only done with consent, dead or alive; the people that ripped me open didn’t even consider me sapient. Have you ever been vivisected while awake, screaming for help? I have scars from my capture ten years ago that are still swollen, sometimes I still feel their fingers in my chest. Have you ever been strapped down to a table to have your limbs sawed off, just to go through the painful process of regrowing them so they can cut them off again? Have you ever had your organs forcefully taken from you, and been forced to watch your vestigial stomach digest food, then had to regrow said organ so they can have another for their fucking tests?”
Danny felt the immediate air around him chill as frost spread from under his boots. Several of the reporters step back, the person who asked the last question particularly pale. Danny huffs out a breath, letting the hand on his back ground him back to this moment as he reigned in his ice.
“I’m done,” he said, stalking off into the green room, followed by Superman and Batman.
The days following his outburst in front of the whole country, many other meta-humans have come out with their own experiences either being targeted for trafficking, experimentation, execution, or just plain discrimination. It only takes two days after his outburst for the Meta-Human Rights Act to be instated.
In that time, Phantom has been painted in a new light. Friends and enemies from Danny’s school come out about Phantom’s positive impact on Amity, though many were embarrassed to admit they were anti-Phantom until they heard the full story with the GIW.
More importantly, Danny is finally able to contact his family. His true family. His first Fraid.
Danny taps his fingers unconsciously in front of his laptop, urging himself to just reach out. The first step is to email one of them, ensure he’s safe (though they certainly know that if they watched his televised breakdown), and set up a line of communication.
Bruce had asked if Danny wanted to invite them over.
So he just needs to contact them first.
Someone drapes themselves over his shoulders, too slight to be Bruce.
“What’s up, munchkin?”
“You’re staring at the screen like it’s going to burn you,” Dick comments, rolling his head to lay limply against Danny’s. “Whacha doing?”
Danny sighs heavily, closing his eyes from his screen for a minute. “Figuring out how to reach out to some friends again. Now that I’m, y’know, not being hunted, I should reach out.”
Dick pokes him in the side.”Then why haven’t you?”
“It’s a pretty grown-up reason,” Danny frowned, turning his head slightly to see Dick. “You sure you want to hear about it?”
Dick nods enthusiastically enough that Danny figures he might as well.
“Well, before I had to…run from my previous life, being friends with me was dangerous. I’m worried about putting my friends in danger again.”
“Aren’t all of your hunters arrested though?” Dick asks with a tilt of his head. Danny sighs heavily.
“It’s a force of habit at this point,” he admits, raising a hand to run through Dick’s hair. “I don’t like asking people for help. I don’t know if your dad told you, but my plan was to run and hide when the GIW came to Gotham. Even when he offered to let me stay here, I argued that I didn’t want to put you two in danger.”
“But look what happened!” Dick exclaimed. “You’re no longer being hunted, everyone is arrested, and you’re totally in love with Bruce!”
Danny felt his face go entirely red. “Dickie-”
Dick groans loudly, with all the dramatics of a thirteen year old. “Just talk to them, man. You miss them, I see you pouting at your screen.”
“Fine, fine, little shit,” Danny relents, mumbling the last part fondly under his breath.
To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Hey, guys, it’s Danny. Been a while. Idk if you’ve been watching the news, but I managed to get help with my little ghostly problem. I now have an open line of communication with the Justice League and am also apparently considered an important factor in getting meta-rights realized. I'm gonna be in history books. It’s been very dramatic.
Also, Tuck, I might have your dream job lol. Oh, and I’m dating this incredible guy. He knows all about the phantom shit and maybe used his influence to shield me from GIW influence in Gotham. His name’s Bruce Wayne, you mighta heard of him.
Been a wild few months.
Anyways, you all have an open invite to Wayne Manor anytime. And if you wanna facetime, my number is xxx-xxx-xxxx.
I love you guys.
-Dante “Danny” Nighthawk
B.S., M.S. Mechanical Engineering
R&D Technician - Wayne Enterprises
Danny is thoroughly amused.
Sam Manson is just as much a force of nature as she was before he left. She has certainly grown in her goth botanist aesthetic, palette all black and dark greens, wearing platform boots to make her seem taller than she actually is. Tucker Foley is just as much a nerd as he was before, having ranted to Danny over text for hours about his work at Wayne Enterprises. His red cap has been abandoned, instead rocking dreadlocks reaching just past his chin, and wearing cargo pants and an oversized jacket, undoubtedly to carry an insane amount of tech so he could fiddle with it on the go. And, of course, Jasmine. Three years into a psychology Ph.D. studying the psychology of rogues, villains and mad scientists, undoubtedly because of their parents. She was finally embracing her naturally curly hair, held back by a bandana matching her bright, 80s style shirt.
Immediately on their entry to Wayne Manor, he was being smothered by Tucker and Jasmine while Sam gave a critical eye to the entryway, only to be dragged into the hug by a crying Tucker.
It was pretty funny.
Watching Sam give Bruce–Batman–a shovel talk was even more amusing. Especially given the man looked properly scared.
Good. Never underestimate Sam.
“And, yes, he’s an idiot and will forget to take care of himself,” she was saying, tarnishing his good name. “So, make sure he does. He doesn’t sleep if he has a project to focus on and doesn’t eat healthily enough, though you can blame his parents for that. He has psychological problems with protein, so if he only eats part of a meal, you should find a non-meat protein for him to snack on. He likes chickpeas and soy, so hummus and tofu are generally safe bets.”
Danny watches on, not even trying to defend himself. Honestly, not much had changed with him throughout the years, most of the advice she was giving was pretty sound.
For all it’s worth, Bruce seems to be taking it well. He’s abandoned the Brucie shtick for this meeting, so it’s pretty obvious that he’s hiding a smirk at Sam’s lecture.
“-when he doesn’t sleep, the best thing to do is make him chamomile tea and forcibly cuddle him. He hates feeling like a burden and will fall asleep if he stays still too much, so you can essentially guilt him to sleep by asking to cuddle. And when-”
“Hello?” A small voice calls from the top of the stairs.
Danny perks up, raising his hands in delight. “Dickie-bird! Come meet my friends!”
With a shy glance around the room, Dick scrambles down the stairs and throws himself into Danny’s awaiting arms. Danny rocks them back and forth, looking up from his hug with a bright grin.
“Jasmine, Sam, Tucker, this is Dick. I’m teaching him how to be a little menace.”
Jasmine cuffs him over the head playfully with a scoff. “Only you, Danny.”