Just Bury Me Already

by Binaberries

Summary:

Danny finally gets to go to space. not as an astronaut, he definitely doesn't meet those health requirements, but as an engineer in the JL watch tower. the GIW try to work with the JL to capture Phantom, who has been 'suspiciously' missing for a few months. Danny overhears the conversations and screws himself over.

vaguely inspired by a prompt i saw on tiktok, heroes meet to plan the villain's capture, and the villain (undercover) helps plan it.

Chapter 1: the watch tower

Danny pressed his hand against the thick, reinforced glass that looked out into the glittering expanse of space. His fingers prickled slightly against the chill, the soothing feeling a welcome distracting to the bustling noise inside the hallway. The view was breathtaking: vast sprawling darkness speckled with twinkling stars and distant planets and galaxies. If he squinted, he could pick out familiar constellations. They looked so strange from the new perspective, tilted slightly from the usual arrangement he saw from the Illinois skies.

He could hardly bear to look away, meanwhile, the people jostling past him didn’t give the view a second glance. He couldn’t imagine treating space as something so mundane.

But like everyone else aboard the justice league satellite, there were tasks to complete and jobs to do. Barely containing a whimper, Danny turned to look away from the glass and down the sterile hallway. Grey-coated metal paneling lined the walls and the floors were crisply white. His slightly pointed ears strained to tune out the electric whine coming from the fluorescent lights.

He trailed his fingers along the pristine glass wall as he walked back, no doubt leaving smudged fingerprints. He cringed slightly at the thought of some likely underpaid janitor having to clean the whole hallways worth of windows. He guiltily retracted his hand, letting it hang limply by his side as he read door plaques trying to find the room he’d left.

Meeting Room occupancy limit 10… Meeting Room occupancy 20… Meeting Room…. There had to have been a better use for a giant floating space tower than a bunch of meeting rooms.

He counted room numbers, trying not to look completely lost. He turned left at the next fork, nodding to the few people whose eyes he managed to catch, and finally made his way back to the engineering room. Breathing a sigh of relief, he reached for his ID card hanging on his lanyard and tapped it on the keypad by the door handle. The light flicked green, and a panel slid up, exposing a handprint scanner.

He pressed his hand against the outline with a roll of his eyes. Batman was just about the most paranoid being he’d ever had the pleasure of existing near, which was honestly quite impressive considering the type of company Danny used to keep. You’d think in the entire Infinite Realms, he’d have come across someone more anxious than Gothem’s favorite furry, but no one had come close yet.

They were in a giant satellite in space. Which could only be accessed by some of the world’s most well-secured teleportation tubes or by the ability to fly through space, but every room still required batman’s special two-factor authentication.

The door slid open with a quiet hiss and Danny smiled at the hum of electricity that greeted him. One of his coworkers sat at a desk at the end of the room, tapping away at a keyboard. Danny’s eyes flicked over the various machines and complex equipment that thrummed from various places around the room, checking over the various screens and lights to make sure everything was working well.

“About time you got back,” Laura’s said teasingly over her shoulder, not looking up from her computer screen. “I was beginning to think you flushed yourself out the airlock.”

Danny huffed, “Please, I have a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering. I don’t think I would have qualified for this position if I couldn’t properly work a space toilet.”

Laura spun around in her chair, brown hair falling over her shoulder. “You would think that, wouldn’t you? But why do you think there was a job opening in our lovely department? It’s not like someone would want to quit when your job is in space. I have seen my fair share of incredibly smart, yet astoundingly stupid people here.”

“Oh, you think I’m incredible?” Danny smiled, dramatically placing a hand on his chest. “I am touched.”

“Sure thing, hon. Incredibly excited to fix up that doohickey for the Flash.” She gestured to the metal worktable against the wall, where a pile of mangled wires and metal painted in the speedster’s colors sat in a newly cleared space in a heap.

Danny’s shoulders slumped. “What even was it?” he asked, picking out an oddly black component from the pile that all but crumbled out of his hand.

“Not completely sure? I think it’s a couple of different devices actually. On the last mission, he got a bit distracted while fazing through a bus? That was thrown at him, Bats, and the others, and some stuff got mixed up.”

Danny pulled what looked like a part from a bus’s payment system and set it aside. “Did he fill out a ticket this time? Or just dump it here and run off again?”

“Just dumped it here and ran off again. But don’t worry, Superman dragged him back here to fill one out. Martha threatened to quit the last time Flash dropped off a load of unlabeled gear. Apparently, it turned out to be mildly radioactive and she was stuck in the decontamination for weeks.” Laura shuddered before tossing Danny a tablet.

He caught it easily, signing into the ticketing software, which gave him flashbacks to his college IT job, (which Technus wouldn’t stop messing with) and pulling up the most recent ticket.

The ticket flashed red in the system, marked as URGENT REPAIR. While the Flash had created the ticket for the gear repair, the selected category was probably not radioactive, and the description of the problem helpfully stated: Accidently smushed some of Bat’s stuff. Please return it to him before he notices (ASAP).

“Probably not radioactive?” Danny turned to Laura with a questioning look.

“Look man, he filled out a ticket. That’s progress right?” she fished around in her desk for a second and pulled out a pair of heavy gloves. “Flash gave Martha some lead-lined gloves as an apology if you wanna use them just in case?”

Danny shook his head. “Nah, I’ll be fine. It’s not like it’ll kill me.” He laughed quietly.

Laura quirked an eyebrow, shaking the gloves in one last offering before putting them back in her drawer. “Ookay, I’ll leave you to it then. Just keep it away from me until you figure out what exactly it is.”

Danny snorted. “Oh, I get it. I’m the test dummy.”

“Nooo, where ever did you get that idea?” She laughed with him. “I’ve seen your blatant disregard for lab safety when it comes to chemicals and the like. If anything, I’m doing you a favor. Maybe if you have some repercussions, you’ll listen to the OSHA briefing a little closer.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he smiled. “Besides, you should have seen my parent’s lab when I was growing up. The samples they kept in the kitchen literally reanimated our fully-cooked thanksgiving turkey. I am vegetarian for a reason, Laura.”

She stared at him blankly for a second. “You… concern me. So much sometimes.”

---

Danny leaned back in his chair and stretched his back with a groan. Several spots in his back popped, and he rolled his neck to crack the rest. Across the room, Laura faked a gag at the sound. Danny smirked, intentionally twisting a little further than the human skeleton is supposed to go, making sure to squeeze out another few pops.

A balled-up wad of paper hit him in the back of the head, bouncing off him and landing on the desk in front of him. Near the paper sat two newly repaired Bat coms, one bat tracker, and a couple of crumbled pieces of a Batarang, all likely phased out of the black-clad vigilante’s infamous utility belt.

In another pile were a few more scraps from a bus navigational system, steering components, and airbag sensors. Finally, there was a house key (with an engraved lightning bolt) that Danny figured Flash might notice he is missing soon. Or not. As tempted as he is to drop it in a drawer somewhere and claim to have never found it (maybe then Flash will realize the importance of organization in the engineering room), he scooped it up with the bat toys and headed out to find the two heroes.

His walking pace grew faster as he worked his way out from where the engineering room was buried in the core of the justice league satellite. He had to concentrate on not letting his feet float with excitement as he grew closer to the outer ring of hallways.

Space.

The view would never stop exciting him.

His core thrummed happily as he took in the dark blue sky outside and the dusting of glittering stars. His feet were rooted to the spot as he basked in the ethereal sight in front of him.

Every second of his work, the hours studying with Jazz while complaining about school, losing sleep while fighting back ghosts, and waking up the next morning to go to his college courses, all of it was worth it for this view.

Of course, he had always dreamed of being an astronaut. But his too-low heart rate and temperature would have disqualified him from the program. Not to mention possibly exposing him to the government as something not-human. The thought dredged up flashes of memory he had rather intentionally suppressed. He shook himself free of them.

He might not be able to explore space in a rocket or be humanity’s first visitor to new planets, but he was in space. He worked IN SPACE.

He started forward, keeping to the window side of the hallway so he could walk while still looking outside and hoping to not knock into anyone.

He was helping protect humanity, helping the justice league, and he was IN SPACE. His core had never felt so content.

---

Danny made his way to the cafeteria. Given the speedster’s metabolism, that was the easiest place to find him. usually surrounded by piles of carb-heavy food. Wonder woman had long since banned energy drinks and sweets from his prescribed diet, stating that the hero’s hyperactivity was headache enough.

Looking around the half-full tables that littered the large room, Danny was a little surprised to not see the telltale red and yellow blur that so often ran between the buffet and a nearby table. Looking more closely, everyone sat down in the lunchroom and had typical size portions and the occasional coffee mug. No heaping piles of loaded dishes caught his eye.

Slightly discouraged, Danny made his way through the dining hall, stopping from table to table to ask if anyone knew where he could find either the speedster or Batman. The few faces he recognized, fellow engineers, IT techs, or friendly maintenance staff, also seemed to glance around in surprise at the lack of the red-clad hero and his well-known appetite.

“They just got back from a mission earlier today,” one of the guys Danny interrupted replied, tilting his head with confusion. “Normally, Flash would be in here restocking on calories and recovering from the day. Not sure where he could be.”

“Maybe they’re in a debrief?” someone else added, mentioning that they vaguely remember hearing an announcement over the speaker’s requesting attendance from all major justice league players.

“Well, the ticket was marked, URGENT,” Danny said, shrugging as he turned to leave the crowd of people milling about on their lunch breaks. “Instructions said to bring the stuff to Batman ASAP.”

Someone pointed him in the direction of one of the satellite's many, many meeting rooms with a wish of good luck.

Peaking through the windows on each of the doors, Danny finally found them. A medium-sized room with a PowerPoint projected on the wall held a collection of various heroes. Batman led the meeting, and Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Green Arrow sat around the table listening. Danny noted Aquaman’s absence with mild curiosity. 

Figuring that interrupting an active presentation would significantly decrease Danny’s (after) lifespan, he leaned against the wall across the hall from the room and closed his eyes.

He wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. It was not his fault that he could catch snippets of conversation from outside the room. He didn’t ask for enhanced hearing as much as he hadn’t asked to die prematurely. Even then, he probably would have ignored what was going on in the room out of politeness if a few keywords hadn’t caught his attention.

“…GIW…” batman droned, as he clicked over to the next slide on his presentation. Danny’s heart rate jumped slightly and he screwed his eyes shut as he tried to focus on the sounds from inside the room.

“…Dangerous?” Wonder woman asked, Danny just catching the end of the sentence where her voice grew louder.

“Without a doubt.” Batman replied, “The US government has given us full access to the GIW’s information, and from what I have read the creature with absolutely a threat.”

“But It looks like a kid,” Green Lantern spoke hesitantly.

“There is a lot of documented property damage though,” Flash countered. “This Phantom might not have hurt anyone directly, but it seemed to be escalating before it disappeared a few months ago. That alone is cause for concern.”

“This seems like something JLD should be consulted with,” Superman spoke softly. Danny could barely hear his over the louder voices of Flash and Green Lantern as they debated.

“You know as well as I do how difficult it is to get Constantine to work on anything, let alone for the US government. And Shazam and Zatanna are off-world at the moment.” Batman’s voice was firm. “The US Government has reached out to us to ask for our help in the situation, so it is best that we deal with it now before it escalates.”

The discussion broke down from there, voices raising with different opinions and concerns that muffled each other to the point Danny couldn’t quite make out anything individual through the locked door and well-insulated wall.

On edge from the conversation topic and ready to slip back into his comfortable engineering room with problems he could fix and figuring that the productive part of the meeting was over, Danny straightened and knocked on the meeting room door.

Flash was at the door in a blur of color, opening the door with a questioning look. Discussion in the room behind him quieted to harsh whispers and scathing looks like the Flash stood in front of him. Danny could feel the weight of Batman’s assessing gaze.

“Uh… Hey, sorry to interrupt.” Danny stuttered. He reached into this hoodie pocket and pulled out the repaired bat equipment and Flash’s key. “It’s just that this stuff was marked as urgent in the system, and instructions said to bring it to you guys as soon as possible once repaired, and I fixed it so I brought it here…” his voice trailed off uncertainly, becoming aware that he was rambling.

The Flash’s face quickly switched from confusion to excitement as he snatched his key from Danny’s outstretched hand.

“HA! So that’s where this was. I knew I put it somewhere, I could have sworn it was in my pocket but when I went to grab it a bit ago it wasn’t there. I figured I set it down somewhere stupid.” The Flash spoke a mile and a minute, leaving Danny feeling a bit dizzy. 

A looming presence overwhelmed the Flash’s triumph at locating his house key, and the two of them looked up at the figure standing over the Flash’s shoulder.

“And you are?” Batman’s voice sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of glass. The weight of his glare caused the Flash to slump slightly.

“Danny, from the engineering unit.” Danny met Batman’s eyes, trying to not shift anxiously on his feet.

“And where did you get these?” Batman held the repaired coms and tracker in his hand. Danny hadn’t noticed him grab it, too preoccupied with the staring competition.

Danny nodded at the Flash who shrunk further under the withering look from Batman. “He dropped them off for repair after your mission today.”

“Is that so?” Batman commented dryly. The Flash had retreated from the doorway in a blur, rejoining the group at the table, and looking innocently up at the corner of the room, avoiding Batman’s gaze.

“Let me know if there’s anything wrong with them, I haven’t worked with your stuff before, so I did my best.” Danny finally broke his eye contact with the Gothamite, turning to leave as Batman let the door start to close.

From behind the vigilante, the conversation about Phantom had continued. Abruptly, the hushed tones broke, and a voice loudly proclaimed, “then it is decided. We go to Amity Park and apprehend the phantom before he gets access to worse technology or becomes any more dangerous. A threat of that level cannot be ignored!”

Danny laughed under his breath, muttering, “good luck with that.” The irony of Danny (phantom) having ‘infiltrated’ the watch tower, and having fairly unrestricted access to the machines that keep the air in here oxygenated and gravity functional was not lost on him.

 

A sudden hand on his shoulder nearly launched Danny from his skin, and he just barely caught himself before he turned intangible and sent an ectoblast into the Blue Boy Scout’s burly chest.

“Why would you say that?” Superman asked, and Danny mentally smacked himself for not remembering the alien’s supernatural hearing.

“I… Uh, Um… what did I say?” he stuttered dumbly. The hand on his shoulder tightened threateningly, and the remaining people in the meeting room had their eyes fixed on him.

For just a second Danny debated turning intangible, giving up on his job here, and floating back down to earth. He could hold his breath long enough for that, maybe.

“Oh, I just… I saw the PowerPoint through the window while I was waiting…” he fumbled for an explanation. Ancients, he was terrible at lying. He decided to stick as close to the truth as possible. “I grew up in Amity Park and I, uh, I’ve seen Phantom. You know he’s been around since the ancient Greeks were alive?” shut up Fenton. Shut your stupid mouth. “I just think that something that old shouldn’t be underestimated.”

It was a good thing Danny was never given a funeral when he died. Because now he was digging a fresh grave and getting ready to bury himself in it.

“Is that so?”

Chapter 2: Interrogations

Notes:

so, for those who are a little upset about how batman gets portrayed in this, saying he would have done more research, wouldn't have been so closed minded. Batman did his research. there is a government-funded, scientific database of endless reading material that supports his position. he even has multiple sources of information, since he looked into amity part and the Drs. Fenton's work. sure, we know its all a load of bull, but it is very well written, seemingly well supported, and again *government funded* loads of bull. and Batman is also very set in his opinions, its gonna take a lot more than one conversation with a skinny little twink who butted in on their meeting for him to change his mind.

Chapter 2

Danny pulled anxiously on the hem of his shirt as Superman all but carried him back towards the meeting room. His mouth was painfully dry, and his heart had ripped a hole through his stomach and was chillin’ somewhere in his shoes.

The Kryptonian’s steely grip guided him to a chair at the front of the table, directly across from Batman. Glancing to his sides, he could see Flash looking at him curiously and Wonder Woman smiling at him with a mixture of pity and encouragement.

He should have known better than to look at Batman. He should have known better than to open his Ancients damned mouth, but that hadn’t stopped him before. After attempting a calming breath (remember to breathe, humans have to breathe) Danny met the Dark Knight’s eyes. His face was unreadable behind the black domino mask, and the weight of his stare made Danny feel like he was trying to stand up on the surface of the sun. 

“Heyy… Batman. I, uh… Did you find any issues with your com devices?” The darkly dressed hero continued to stare unblinkingly and Danny forced himself to keep breathing. The chair squeaked awkwardly as Danny shifted.

“No? No issues? Great, I’ll just head out then. More things to fix and stuff—” Danny leaned forward in his seat as if to stand up, but Superman’s hands reattached to his shoulders, forcing him down and against the back of the chair. “—Stuff that’s not important right now, never mind.”

Danny had watched Criminal Minds. He knew that silence was a great interrogation technique. It unsettled the criminal, encouraging them to talk to fill the empty air. And Ancients was it effective. Danny squirmed under the weight of the eyes trained on him from all corners of the room. Some curious, some distrustful. Batman’s eyes bore into his undead soul.

The silence grew physically painful as Danny tried his best to not word-vomit his entire life story to the very scary superheroes in the room. The superheroes for whom Danny held an odd mixture of respect and loathing. Supes was an alien, which automatically scored some brownie points from him. Pandora had waxed poetic for hours about the amazing adventures Wonder Woman had led. The Green Lantern had space magic, which, like, could Danny have some? And the Flash, for all his carelessness with radioactive material and rabid consumption of snacks, was a brilliant scientist.

Batman had a hard moral code and worked hard to prevent his and his coworker’s actions from adding to the ghostly population directly, which Danny appreciated. But by turning Phantom, or any other liminal beings he found, over to the GIW he would be indirectly responsible for their government-sanctioned murder. His binary morals clouded his judgment of beings like Danny who lived in the grey area.

Individual heroes aside, the Justice League as a whole had failed Danny, his friends, his city, and his whole bleeding dimension. And now they were actively helping the GIW. No amount of alien genes or ghostly character witnesses could outweigh the ways this so-called hero group, these protectors of earth and space, had failed him. Danny’s core twisted painfully as he recalled all the pain the GIW had brought to him and his people—both human and ghost alike.

All of the pleas for help from exhausted teenagers that the Justice League had dismissed.

Working here, working for them, was just a means to an end. A way to satisfy both of Danny’s Ghostly obsessions: Space and protection, in a way that Jazz had deemed both safer and more productive than his teenage vigilantism. Still, even existing around these beings left a sour taste in his mouth.  

Years ago, Danny would have tried to plead his case to the heroes, and tried to defend himself and his species. But that was before his trust and hopes had been repeatedly broken by the world around him. Before the weight of the world sat on his shoulders.

The Flash broke first, clearing his throat uncomfortably and snapping Danny back to reality. Danny turned to look at the restless hero with a hardened glare. The speedster looked just as uncomfortable as Danny felt as he vibrated in his seat, the air around him fuzzed with the red and yellow of his suit.

“So, Danny, you said you grew up in Amity Park?” The Flash questioned hesitantly, flinching slightly as Batman huffed irritably.

“Yup,” Danny replied simply, determined to not give any more details than necessary. Too fucking late for that, you idiot.

“Ah, okay, so you’ve seen Phantom?”

“Yuppers.” Danny could see the Flash die slightly with each lackluster response.

“What information could you give us about the Phantom creature?” Wonder Woman spoke before Flash could attempt another painful response.

“Depends on why you’re asking,” Danny replied, suppressing a snarky comment about the JL’s previous disinterest in Phantom and Amity when the city was calling for help.

Batman growled from his seat across the table, standing up and slamming his gloved fists down on the table.

“Because it’s our business to know. Stop dancing around the questions.” The tall vigilante loomed over Danny, cape fluttering dramatically behind him. Danny figured that was supposed to be intimidating, but Danny couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ask better questions, I’ve answered everything so far.”

Danny regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. I’m going to get fired, aren’t I? Ancients! Danny had forgotten for a second just whose sugar daddy paid his wages. It was a poorly kept secret between the staff here on the watch tower that the funding the League worked from came from Wayne’s pockets. Danny swallowed dryly.

“What is Phantom?” Danny stiffened slightly at Superman’s question.

He forced his shoulders to relax and sighed, taking the time (for once) to think through his response. If he downplayed his abilities as Phantom, the league might leave Amity alone. No, that’s not how Bats’ mind worked. He was like a hound on a scent. The big bad furry would tromp through Amity Park unsupervised and probably get possessed or something worse. Not to mention, if he minimized Phantom, then they might not see him as a reliable source given how the GIW was likely to have portrayed him.

He couldn’t admit to being Phantom either. And no, that’s not just his “trauma” and “unwillingness to be vulnerable with people” (cough, Jazz, cough). The United States government had placed a bounty on his head.

So that just leaves hyping up Phantom until he’s scary enough to be left alone. The obvious conclusion. Ancients, why did he have to open his stupid mouth?

“He’s a Ghost. Or an “ectoplasmic entity” if you wanna sound pretentious.”

Wonder Woman nodded, “like Deadman.”

Danny hummed quietly. “Not quite. A little less… Blue? Although there are other Amity ghosts who are just as blue as him. Huh. I guess it’s more that Deadman was brought back from the spirit realm by magic. Phantom is a little more ‘dead’ than him.” Danny had only seen Deadman a few times in passing, but the ghost was somehow missing ectoplasm. Danny had steered clear, something about the being gave off serious bad vibes.

Wonder Woman furrowed her brow slightly in confusion. Danny shrugged, not sure of a better way to explain it.

“How did it become a ghost?” Batman asked gruffly, causing Danny to bristle slightly.

“First of all, his pronouns are he/him, thank you very much. He was a person before a ghost no need to reduce him to an object. And secondly, you CANNOT,” Danny shook his head to emphasize his point, “Ask a ghost how they died. Great way to get punted.”

The Bat’s mask wrinkled slightly as his face scrunched up in distaste.

“The reports from the GIW state that ectoplasmic beings are non-sentient, running off of leftover urges of violence and emotions. How could it have preferences.”

“GHOSTS,” Danny stated angrily, “Come in a variety of sentience, much like the apparent beings in this room. As for Phantom, HE just so happens to be a great conversationalist.” Danny glared at Batman, daring him to speak. It was wayy too late to play nice with the vigilante.

Flash interrupted them, words coming out in a rush as he jumped to change topics. “What other types of ghosts are there?”

Danny glared at batman for a moment longer before reluctantly turning to face the Flash, whose face was pinched and uncomfortable. “Ghosts are a reflection of this world. They can form from deaths or accumulations of emotions. There are ghosts of animals, who behave just like animals do on the living plane. There are ghosts of people, like Phantom. There are also blob ghosts, who are a little more like… jellyfish? They grow from strong emotions and help filter the emotions into atmospheric ectoplasm, almost like plants. Except since they feed on emotions,” Danny turned back to stare at the batman with narrowed eyes, and continued with a deadpan, “they are incredibly susceptible to influence and tend to latch onto the first beings they find. Since they are lacking a brain, they rarely check their sources.”

Batman growled, his leather gloves creaking as they tightened into fists. Diana leaned forward, moving her body so it blocked Danny from seeing the bat (and vis versa) as she spoke.

“And ghosts of people, like Phantom. What skills do they have? How long do they… last?”

Danny nodded his head at the question, thinking. “Typical ghosts are pretty harmless. Invisibility, intangibility. Telekinesis, sometimes. Spooky stuff. They are dead, so they last as long as they want to I guess? As for Phantom,” Danny sighed dramatically, “He’s been around for ages. Like I, er, mentioned to superman earlier, his existence is confirmed in paintings from Ancient Greece. He’s actually mentioned in the Iliad, but only briefly. And they spelled his name wrong.

“Actually, there’s this kid back in Amity,” Danny bit his tongue before accidentally mentioning a name, just because he and Wes don’t get along doesn’t mean he deserved being doxed to the Justice League, “Who has some theories placing Phantom in some ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, and some Mayan texts. There’s a paleolithic cave painting he is convinced is Phantom as well, but a white and green smear on a wall could be anything really.

“Phantom owns Amity Park, in a ghostly kind of way. There are some other ghosts who come out occasionally to challenge him for it, but he wipes the floor with them. I’ve seen him shoot lasers from his hands, and eyes, and scream loud enough to level buildings. Pretty easy to imagine that he has more going on than that. I don’t think he’s ever been challenged enough by the local ghosts to have to pull out all of the stops. He can fly crazy fast too. He’s kind of indestructible.” So maybe he’s embellishing a little. Okay, maybe a lot. Sue him.

“And what does an ancient ghost-like phantom want with Amity Park?” Green Lantern had been quiet until now, leaning back in his chair and watching the chaos.

Danny’s eyes softened at the question. “To protect it. To protect the people. The space between this world and the realms is thin in Amity. Phantom keeps the balance or tries to. There are some who a trying rather hard to disturb that.” He didn’t need to look at Batman to get the point across.

“And does it… he have any weaknesses?” Batman asked, his voice serious.

Sure he does, thought Danny, though he doesn’t feel the need to be truthful about it. Blood blossoms. Blood loss. His half-mortality. His parents’ inventions, Ember’s singing. His friends. His sister. So many, many weaknesses.

He couldn’t give Batman a real weakness, but leaving him without an answer might lead to some unwanted digging.

“Uh, Pigeons?” Why was that what came out of his mouth?

The heroes around the table stared at him, looking just as confused as he felt.

“…Pigeons?” Flash repeated slowly.

Danny doubled down. “Yeah… Pigeons. He… uh… he doesn’t like them? Says they’re creepy, something about their spirits being evil, and their eyes having the ability to see fears in one’s soul. In the Ghost Zone, pigeons are one of the major predators.” Danny was talking straight out of his ass. Pigeons were actually quite cute, and very trainable. Did you know that pigeons live in big cities because the tall buildings are similar to the cliffs they used to live in? People introduced them to their cities, but now they’re seen as pests. Since the ones you see now were once domesticated, the wild pigeons are more just feral pigeons. Danny could relate to that a little. And he was getting sidetracked.

Luckily, the heroes seemed to mistake his silence and far-off look as some sort of emotional scarring rather than an ADHD derailment.

Superman looked baffled and Batman was as impassive as ever. The Flash, to Danny’s surprise, nodded in agreement. “I knew there was something wrong with those creepy birds. Too many of them, they’re freaking everywhere.”

---

Danny sat at his desk in the engineering room, feet curled up onto the rolling chair. His face was blank and his eyes glazed over slightly as he pet the red duck candle in his lap. Laura had given it to him as a welcome-to-the-team gift. Apparently, it was tradition to regift it whenever someone new joined. It looked like it has been lit once, for a very short time. The wick was slightly blackened and there was the slightest pooling of wax at the top of its head. As confused as he had been to receive it, he was grateful to have the little emotional support duck now.

 He wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten back, he always got lost in the maze of hallways and distracted by the view of space through the wall-length windows. The rest of the meeting with the heroes was a blur, too hopped up on emotions to remember it clearly.

He’d been anxious. Anxious about being near so many powerful people. About having to lie to heroes. About the GIW and the bounty on his head. And especially worried that his big mouth would lose the only good thing he’d ever been able to achieve for himself.

But he’d also been angry. And so very bitter. That combined with the roiling emotion from the justice league during their conversation left him absolutely exhausted.

Something small hit the side of his head. It bounces off of him and onto the floor. Danny tried to ignore it, too overwhelmed by everything he’d just learned and done, but after another small round, something hit him again. This time it landed on his forehead, right between the eyes. It fell into his lap next to the red duck and Danny tuned back into reality just enough to hear the quiet giggle from across the room.

“Danny? Danny?” another wadded-up post-it note flew in his direction. It landed in his hair, and finally, he sat up, swinging his feet back down to the floor and fishing in his messy black hair for the paper.

He set the duck candle back on its little box chair on his desk and spun around to face Laura. Although she was smiling, he could feel the small waves of concern rolling off of her.

“Welcome back to the world of the living.” The irony made Danny smile.

“Yeah, sure thanks. Glad to be here. Could you stop throwing thing at me now?” Danny shook his head, and three more pieces of paper fell to the floor. The floor which he now saw was littered with at least 5 other, likely poorly aimed, stationary projectiles.

“Sure,” Laura said, throwing another one in his direction. “after you tell me what that was all about. You looked like you saw a ghost.” Danny’s smile widened. He would almost accuse her of knowing his secret if he hadn’t been able to feel the confusion elicited by his reaction.

“I didn’t get fired.” He met her eyes.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Congratulations. I wasn’t aware that was on the table. What happened? What did you do?”

“I accidentally mouthed off to Batman,” Danny said with a shrug, schooling his face into the picture of innocence.

“Sure… accidentally…” Laura’s eyes narrowed and Danny’s mouth betrayed him, splitting into a wide grin.

“Okay, so maybe not accidentally. But definitely not intentionally. The first time. The second and third times were totally on me though.”

“Danny!”

“What?”

“You, just, UgH!” Laura slouched in her seat. “I swear every conversation I have with you ages me ten years. I need you to do a little more to keep your job. My workload is hard enough as it is without the team having to divvy up your shit.”

Danny winced slightly. “About that…” he trailed off, mostly for dramatic effect.

“What the fresh hell now? I thought you said you didn’t get fired?”

“I didn’t I am still very much employed,” although probably under heavy supervision now, he added mentally. “I just am going to have to take some time off.”

“What? Why?” Laura’s tone had passed nervous, and concerned, and was landing somewhere between exhausted and exasperated.

“I sorta got voluntold to give the Bats and the JL heavy hitter’s a tour of my hometown.”

Notes:

Ugh, that was entirely too many people to have to write dialog for. i hateeee writing dialog. let me know what you think, and how you guys think amity is going to respond