:D

—

Jason did not expect his ghost form to feel…like this.

(Oh, dealing with his body randomly phasing through the ground and smacking his face onto hard concrete was not fun, but Jason dealt with that just like with every other hurdle in his life. By being more stubborn than the problem itself.)

It felt like something… settled into place. That was the best way he could describe it.

He felt as if spite and anger were finally not the only things keeping him awake and running. 

He felt calm, almost. Stable, at least. Whatever pent up energy that was stuck in his chest cavity now flowed freely throughout his body, redistributed, instinctually easier to manage.

It's almost like he could breathe a little bit easier.

(After much… ranting that Jason decided to ignore for his own sanity, Danny said that his case ectoplasmic corruption was probably due to the fact that Death, as a concept, doesn’t let go of things easily, time shenanigans notwithstanding.)

(Becoming a half-ghost was seemingly the only working compromise.)

—

Danny once told him that broad strokes of a ghost’s personality could be guessed by looking at their physical appearance. 

Despite the cool powers, this was a slight downside. Jason dealing with the filth of the Earth meant that being to hide his emotions and who he is was kind of important. Life saving, even.

He realized later on that his ghost form was way too easy to read.

—

He looked at his arms covered in bandages, and got reminded of the amount of times he had to patch himself up in the last month.

His jacket was ripped in place he knew that would have been sewn together when he was a living breathing human (well, as much as he could be).

He always looked slightly on fire?

(Danny told him it's probably related to his... core?)

(He know he died in an explosion but really?)

And then, there was his… veil? Shroud? Cloak?

It looked really nice.

But on the other hand…

It drooped when he felt under the weather. It flicked and thrashed around when he’s either irritated or barely holding back his urge to headshot someone.

And—

(No Danny, my cloak was not fucking wagging when you brought me fresh ectoplasm last week, you’ll have to get your goddamn eyes checked—)

He'll deny it until the day he dies (a second time).

And then his cloak could sometimes just…grow bigger. He figured that it acted as an extension of his own body, and had a nice add-on of allowing him to sense things he couldn't see. Hell, he could even make a hand out of it (wacking Danny with it - gently - never gets old). Jason had to also admit it looked cool, with the wispy bits and with one of its sides becoming a bright yellow.

(It reminded him a bit of his time as Robin.)

—

Being a ghost had a lotta perks.

Dealing with targets was so much easier when no one could see you. Inflitration was so much simpler when walls became optional. Cameras will glitch out when he's around, he left no traces visible to the naked eye and, combined with his training, to say that it was useful would be an understatement.

But, sometimes, he feels like he’s changing as well the more he transforms. Not drastically, but enough for him to look back and notice.

He usually was someone who prided on being efficient and straight to the point.

But now he’s starting to… have fun.

He started using his claws whenever he could. Don't het him wrong, he still uses his guns plenty, but there was just something deeply satisfying about vaulting over things, scaling a wall or crawling on the ceiling with bare hands. 

(Punching people is still the most satisfying by far, though.)

That one time hunting down the Joker wannabes was fun too.

(Danny said he’d get along great with Skulker? Did Jason want to find out? No.)

Fading in and out of invisibility, he picked them off one by one, watching as panic and dread slowly but surely creeped up on the remaining ones.

(After all, he has no respect for those trying to emulate the dead clown.)

—

(Yeah, the Joker was dead.)

(Surprisingly, that has not been a good day.)

—

One of the favorite things he liked to do was rooftop parkour. The… bendability of gravity is… fun, not gonna lie.

(Not flying though. Jason is used to having feet in regular contact with solid ground, thank you very much. No offense, Danny.)

But he gets why ghosts love to fly. When he’s jumping from rooftop to rooftop in Gotham in the at night, watching the city light fly by, cloak spread behind him, it’s as if nothing else matters. 

(No Joker, no petty criminals to beat up, no avoiding the Bats so they don’t find out about his existence—)

He can just enjoy, even just for a little bit.

—

(Somehow the Demon Brat and Orphan could sense him. Will keep and eyes on those two, and also the more reasons to avoid them.)

(The real problem was the new Bat in town. Bruce, what the fuck, another one? Again?)

(The yellow one, Signal. No time to check his profile yet, but probably a meta or something.)

(First night out and the guy almost managed to actually fucking see him —looked at him straight in the eyes and all, then did a double take. Jason never phased into the pavement so fast in his entire fucking life.)

(And so far no Bats on his cloak tails yet.)

(He did help the guy incognito, just a couple of times.) 

(And he also did steal his escrima sticks for fun, and once the guy went out looking for them, he’d put them right back where they were.)

(Turns out, he discovered later, that being a little shit runs in the ghost community.)

—

(Sometimes he also wonders what happened to Danny before they met.)

(He wasn't a Gothamite, that was obvious. He doesn’t pry, but it doesn’t take a lot to piece two and two together.)

(He just wonders who he has to kill this time.)

—

(Jason could not believe he forgot and underestimated just how fucking persistent every single one of the Bats could be. Of course it had to run in the family.)

He gazed down, thought the agony, at the gaping wound under his right armpit.

(The Bats have been chasing him relentlessly for a while now. He got more injuries than he can count, especially from Bruce.)

(They know. Oh, they know.)

(It didn’t go well.)

(He knows the others are there surrounding him to prevent him from escaping, he knows that Dick is right behind him, but at the moment he couldn’t care less.)

It has been a long time since the last time he got shot.

(It felt like someone set his right side on fire.) 

What was flowing out in abundance was a neon, toxic green.

(The Pit Waters, ectoplasm, he didn’t even know that he could fucking bleed in ghost form—)

(Danny—)

He looked back up at Batman, holding a (frankly) ugly gun, white casing and highlights in the same shade of toxic green. 

(A gun that Danny warned him about. And everything behind it.)

Jason felt something in him... snap.

(Why did it have to be you, Bruce.) 

His mouth opened—

(waitsincewhenhecoulddothatthoughtthe mask—) 

(Jason could see the billows of neon green smoke—)

(He couldn’t see Bruce’s expression.)

(Every. Single. Goddamn. Time.)

— and wailed.

---------------------------------------------------

I am genuinely delighted that my last post got that much attention! Thank you so much, to all who liked, rebblogged and commented, it really does mean the most. 💕

This AU may be continued? No guarantees, tho.

For those interested: Part 01

Was it a dream?

Blood dripped from his fingers, the smell of copper and smoke filling his nostrils. It was a welcome scent. It was a familiar scent.

No... It was a horrifyingly unwelcome scent.

It was... Not. Real.

This was a dream. He was asleep.

Laughter echoed through his mind, and this time, Danny knew some of it was his own. A hysterical, desperate laughter at odds with the ruthless sound around him that echoed with an all-too-familiar phrase:

I am inevitable.

No. This was a dream. It wasn't real. He wouldn't have... he would never... he...

Images of a city in flames flashed through his dream, and for a moment the sound of screams drowned out the laughter.

Danny fell to his knees, blood splashing away in ripples around him, spreading impossibly far in his awareness and disappearing into a vast lake of red and smoke and...

"Child?"

A voice broke through the screams and the laughter both.

The blood rippled around him.

"Phantom."

It was not any voice he expected. It was not Dan's. It was not Clockwork's. It was not even Nocturn's voice. It was a stranger's voice, one he did not recognize...

Danny looked up.

The person standing above him was as green as any ghost, but far more solid, and watched Danny with solemn red eyes. The stranger knelt down on one knee, disregarding the blood in the dream-scape, and held a hand out to the teenager.

"I'm J'onn, the Martian Manhunter, with the Justice League. Do you recognize me?"

Danny stared at the offered hand, slowly nodding. Martian Manhunter... the man... in his brain... was an alien?! Any other time, Danny would be enthusiastically excited by that realization.

He blinked. Laughter echoed, and the mind-scape flickered and filled with a sickeningly painful red haze that smelled like...

"Blood blossom?" he murmured.

J'onn didn't move. "Yes."

Danny reached out halfway, then pulled his hand back with a hiccupped laugh. "I can't. I can't. I killed so many. So many... I'm so sorry. I'm sorry..." Why was he laughing?? This wasn't funny.

I am inevitable.

J'onn reached out and gently caught the young man's hand. The lake of blood drained, leaving rusty stains and a stifling silence.

"You weren't in control of your actions, Phantom."

"Wasn't I? Wasn't I?! Even if I wasn't... I still did all of that." He gestured around him, where visions of smoke and fire and destructions shifted in and out. "Me. Not anyone else."

"You are... afraid of yourself."

"How many people did I kill?"

The Martian was silent for several long moments. "The final count hasn't..."

"How many?!" There was no laughter now.

"The last count was 384, with several hundred still unaccounted for."

The dreamscape trembled, glowing cracks forming at the edges and along the ground, pulsing between ecto-green and blood-blossom red.

"Phantom."

Danny looked up, tears in his eyes, and met J'onn's own red ones. The Martian sighed and squeezed Phantom's hand gently.

"Sometimes we fail those under our protection. Sometimes... we hurt people we did not mean to. You can't let that destroy you."

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I'VE DONE!" Danny snarled, pulling his hand back. Behind him, the memories of a timeline lost played out, an older, larger, more malicious version of Phantom laughing as he destroyed a city around him.

J'onn considered the scene for a long moment as Danny stepped back, wrapping bloody arms around himself.

"You have... seen alternative timelines of yourself?"

Danny nodded.

"You are afraid this event will turn you down that path."

Another nod.

"I think... the fact that you are worried about it means that you will not. We can not bring back the dead, but we can help make sure this doesn't happen again, if you'll let us help you." J'onn stood and held out his hand again to the teen.

Danny stared at the offered hand for a long moment, then his shoulders slumped and he stepped forward, eschewing the offered hand to simply lean into the Martian with a quite whimper.

J'onn, surprised, was motionless for a moment, then wrapped his arms around the boy. "I will have to leave your mind soon. You have been experiencing some fever, but we will keep you, and others, safe while you recover."

Danny nodded his understanding, and the dream faded into restless darkness.

~~~

Tim was growing increasingly horrified at the information he was reviewing concerning the Guys In White and the small city of Amity Park.

The whole city was separated from the outside world by long-term government funding. Apparently, a specific pair of scientists had been heavily funded in their early and, if he didn't know better, pseudo-scientific research upon moving to the town.

Honestly, it didn't look like the Drs. Fenton ever made the connection between their funding grants nearly two decades earlier, and the rapid "formation" of the Ghost Investigation Ward within months of the creation of a stable dimensional portal to the Infinite Realms (he had half thought Constantine was going to have an aneurysm when he heard about that).

And that wasn't even getting into the projects and experiments the GIW intended to carry out, themselves.

Apparently, the Anti-Ecto Acts' statement of considering Ecto-entities to be less than plants was no joke, and the experiments outlined in the files Tucker had sent him were bad enough that he had to step away from the computer to help with continuing rescue and rebuilding efforts for a shift before returning.

The guys in white had done something to him when they first captured him. It had made him feel numb. He couldn't feel his anger and fear just out of his reach but couldn't grab a hold of it.

Being a creature of emotion it was off-putting. It made his core freeze in his chest, it made him only still. Something important had been scooped out, blocked away. Then when the Agents dragged him away, he caught a glimpse of his friends running towards him, but there was only a whisper of panic and then everything went dark.

When he woke up it was white and he was strapped down to something metal and cold. His emotions were closer now, almost brushing along his fingertips but an Agent came by with a device and soon enough they were beyond his reach again.

So Danny watched.

He felt empty and he watched.

They cut into him and he watched. Unable to scream because he couldn't feel the fear or rage that would have pushed him to do so. Just numb and when he told them to stop in a dull tone too many times a muzzle was used.

Silent and numb, but ever watchful.

He wasn't sure how much longer it had been and how many times his emotions had been stolen away from him when finally there was something other than white and the silver of a scalpel.

There had been a rise in the murmur of voices. They sounded happy, the Agent's voice invigorated with excitement. One that was familiar like when they first cut into him and he healed, one that showed up again when they managed to stop his skin from stitching up together and green blood dripped onto the floor

Danny thought he disliked that voice but he couldn't tell.

"-en looking for a way to catch this for so long but it finally worked! We already have information from the other but now there's a better source of comparison since the portal had been shut down."

There was the sound of a gurney being moved. No doubt to transfer whoever they're captured to the table with restraints. Once they place you there they never move you again.

Danny heard the sounds of struggle, a struggle he never gave.

"-idn't work on him like it did Phantom. Maybe that's how it's managed to trick everyone if our tools didn't work. But really a Martian? That is-"

Martian?

An adjective. Relating to the planet Mars. Or a noun, an inhabitant of Mars. Mars the fourth planet of the sun, a distance of 1.52 AU.

A celestial body.

A planet in space.

Something stirred in Danny's core.

He turned his head toward the voices and the sound of struggling.

There was someone green fighting against the white. But Danny couldn’t sense any ectoplasm, he didn't feel the presence of a ghost.

There was a large green figure fighting back. Their eyes were red along with the X adorning their chest leading to a cape along their back. It looked like a uniform, A uniform that Danny recognized. 

The figure looked at Danny and their eyes met. There was a brush of horror that came from them similar but different than a ghost. It was a fitting emotion. 

Danny had been numb and watched for so long, but now as he watched Agents try to pin down the Martian Manhunter, he felt his core finally do something other than be still. 

The emotions that had been out of his reach came rushing back to him, rushing past the tips of his fingers and into his chest, into his core. It felt like finally taking in a much-needed breath after being held underwater for so long. 

There was relief but there was something much more overwhelming. 

As he looked at the hero - because the Martian Manhunter was a hero, he protected people, saved them - Danny felt rage. 

He felt rage that the GIW would dare touch something from beyond Earth. That they would dare touch a Protector. That they would dare do to them what they had done to him. His core screamed inside him, vibrating with the rage held back for too long, and cold crept out to his limbs. 

He would make them pay. 

*

J’onn J’onzz was no stranger to scientists. He was unfortunately all too familiar with men who under the guise of searching for knowledge were more than happy to cause pain and suffering. A twisted version of what should have been a well-respected position. 

Except J’onn had escaped them and had found friends with the heroes of Earth, but that did not stop from people looking at him with too much interest and clinical eyes. 

It did not stop men in white from making J’onn feel trapped once again. 

When he had woken up after being shot from one of their devices he found himself on a gurney in a building of white. He had tried to use one of his abilities, but it caused him pain and he felt several hands hold him down. 

They moved the gurney faster, no doubt towards a room with stronger restraints and tools they wished to use on him. 

J’onn struggled harder. 

Pushing through the pain he tried to enter the minds of these men but there was a blockade of static and green. He could only feel their wicked glee and satisfaction before one of them was hitting him with a device that made him feel like a fire had burned him. A horrible echo of what all Martians had feared and what ended all but him. J’onn saw the men’s smiles grow the deeper into the facility they went. 

He hoped the Leauge members were on their way when they finally passed through what seemed the last set of doors. The men who referred to each other as Agents were overflowing with excitement. J’onn could barely make sense of their words. 

Though he could make sense of their too-tight grips trying to pull him to a metal table with straps and a light right above. J’onn would rather die than be dissected on a table and at the mercy of heartless men. He was not just some creature unfeeling to be cut open and inspected. 

So he fought against them, through the pain, through the echo of fire going through him with each shock. 

J’onn was a Martian. He had a family. He survived. He was a person. He wa-

Dull green eyes looked at him past the Agents. There was someone else in the room. Someone on another table strapped down. Green stained the metal and dripped down onto the floor on top of old stains. Like a corpse on an autopsy table, they were cut open and held open with metal tools. There was no rise or fall to their chest, but their eyes looked at J’onn. 

A dull green. And. They. Blinked. 

Alive. They were alive.

J’onn couldn’t help but reach out telepathically before retreating in horror. 

Emptiness. A horrifying hollowness that should not have been there. Should not have belonged to someone who looked so young and small on the metal table. Who looked like a child. 

J’onn fought harder against the men. He tried to wrench his arms out of their grip. He used his strength to make one of them bleed from a hit to the head. J’onn felt the grip loosen and he pulled but then he screamed. Burning enveloped him and he caught sight of the device on its highest setting as they roughly moved his limbs to the straps of the table. 

An Agent looked down at him and opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t get a word out as there was a horrible-sounding gasp and the little warmth that had been in the room disappeared. 

There on the other table was the child. Their back was arched off, reaching as far away as they could from the metal. Their head was thrown back, eyes shut, and under the muzzle, a mouth open in a silent scream would have not been out of place. 

“Get control of it now!” one of the Agents yelled and two of them rushed over to the child. 

Frost crept on the restraints holding them down and the muzzle digging into their cheeks. J’onn only caught a glimpse of their eyes finally opening before the agents blocked him from seeing any more. 

Metal creaked, the room shook with a scream, and the two agents were thrown across the room. They did not get up. 

The child was no longer strapped down. Instead, they floated above their table, the restrains gone. Their once dull eyes now glowed a pure white completely. Their white hair floated around their head as if unbound by gravity. Ice adorned their grayish-blue skin that darkened as it reached towards their hands. J’onn could have sworn that the black outfit they wore looked like a piece of space. Specks of light twinkled in a far-off distance. Sharp teeth were bared at the remaining three agents still surrounding J’onn. 

One of them made a grab for something on a nearby table, but their fingers never even touched it before they were knocked back by an invisible force. Glowing white eyes followed to where they hit machinery. The other two agents met a similar fate. 

Then it was just the two of them. J’onn was still trapped on a table completely at mercy. 

Yet all he could pay attention to was how green flowed from the many wounds on the child. The most concerning was the sickening Y shape that just a moment ago had been held open. But the child paid no attention to it and showed no acknowledgment of pain. 

Instead, those white eyes looked at him. 

Suddenly there was a low soft croon filling the room. A wave of -concern-soothe-grief- swept over J’onn. A gentle soft sorrowful melody that came from the child. 

Reaching out once again J’onn was relieved to see that the emptiness he felt earlier was gone, but he still retreated with how overwhelming their emotions were. There had simply been too much, the child felt so much. Then beneath it all, had been a terrifying rage. 

Except J’onn did not fear them when they came closer. When they raised their hand and brought a finger to his restraints. Frost covered the metal and broke off while he barely felt a chill against his skin. He couldn’t find it in himself to move when those hands reached for his face. Cold gentle hands that held his face and smothered the echo of burning that J’onn still felt. 

-worry-worry-soothe-calm-safe-protect-protect- 

The sincerity of it all and the croon that had yet to stop filled J’onn with a new breath and made the pain he felt fade away. He felt like a child and as if his Mother had come to his side, her mind soft and loving as she chased his pain away. J’onn couldn’t resist the hands that helped him get off the table. He did not fear them even as he watched them turn unrelenting as they froze over the tables and with a simple gesture were crushed under an invisible pressure. 

He was led to the door and the room creaked and groaned behind them. The sounds of protest as it began to collapse in on itself. The child did not falter, not once. 

The was rage in the small body that held the strength to carry J’onn and the care to soothe him. A rage that did not touch J’onn at all. An overwhelming desire to protect and care was all that was directed at him. One that echoed how J’onn had felt when he wanted to protect his family and those who have come to be his friends over the years.

Instead, it was directed at the men and women in white who pointed their weapons at them. 

They had no chance against this child’s rage. 

J’onn saw the green trail they were leaving behind. He saw the multitude of cuts adorning the child’s body. He had seen the old stains below that table. He had seen those dull green eyes and felt that emptiness. 

Of all the things he could feel from the child, mercy was not of them

*

When one of their own was taken, they had not been expecting to discover government-sanctioned experimentation and a whole town under blackout. Yet as Batman and the others looked, all they found was more and more of it. More and more evidence of was Green Lantern stated was cause for interdimensional war and what several members of the JLD said was asking for something worse than Death on the mortal plane.  

Least to say that they moved quickly once they finally found out where J’onn had been taken. 

“Do we have eyes on the facility?”

Flash of course had a prompt response. Having already done a perimeter check three times. He reported the number of guards and security they had in place. The others were not far behind. 

“Fuck fuck fuck.”

A few turned to Constantine who was at the end of his third cigarette since they discovered that Amity Park and the Ghost Investigation Ward. “What is it?” Hal asked. 

There was some more mumbling in a language they didn’t know and then some more cursing that only became louder the closer they got to the facility. “Not good is what it is. Magic is all”- Constantine waved his hands around in a flurry- “and what I’m feeling from that building is not something we want to mess with.”

“We are not going to leave one of our people,” Diana said and the others only voiced their agreement. 

None of them wanted to leave J’onn with the GIW any longer. Their plans of experimentation had left more than a few of them feeling sick as they had gone over the reports in the briefing.

They finally came to a stop just at the edge of the security that Oracle and Flash had reported. 

“Look,” Constantine said, flicking away the cigarette. “I’m not saying to bloody leave him with these sickos. I am just saying that you have no idea what we ar-”

Any question that they could have had for Constantine was answered by a sound so horrible it brought all of them to their knees. It sounded like the dying. Like the Dead. Death. A warning that stole their breath and gripped their hearts. 

It came from the facility that had begun to creak and shake. There was the grating sound of metal bending in a way it had not been designed. Explosions of sparks from the lights and electrical structures being bent and twisted. Drawn closer and closer inward.

“Find him now!” 

With that order, those enhanced with speed and flight sped their way toward the facility in search of J’onn. Hoping that he wasn’t deep inside where walls were already crushed in and only going deeper. 

“I see him. He’s over here!” one of them called and the others rushed over. There was a relief when they saw him exiting one of the doors, He didn’t look visibly injured but he was slumped over moving slowly.  

They went to go to his side to help but suddenly it was like the sky came crashing down on them. A weight pressing down onto them, pushing them into the ground and keeping them there. 

Constantine turned his head and his blood went cold with what he saw. 

A small figure was tucked to the Martian’s side. Floating. Death and so much more emanated from them. That feeling he felt from before, though he could barely handle it being so close. 

He could hear the others struggling. Pushing against the force but that only caused ice to creep toward them. Sharp jagged glowing edges pressed into their skin, threatening to make them bleed. To kill them where they laid. 

-rage-fury-how dare they-away-away-danger-rage-

It was suffocating and Constantine could taste blood as he yelled out, “Stop! Stop, don’t fight it! Just stop!” He didn't need to hear them question him just from the look in their eyes. “Tha-That’s a protector spirit. A fucking angry one,” Constantine said, and wasn’t that the understatement of the fucking century. 

What he saw before him, eyes ablaze in white was a being from the Infinite Realms. A protector spirit that, from the looks of it, had been tortured and now was enraged. The fury he could feel from them was choking, almost burning. Constantine wouldn’t be surprised if he died now from drowning in his own blood. 

There they were, either going to be killed by the spirit's ice or crushed by the pressure while the facility collapsed in on itself. A perfect example of what a spirit who wished to dole out pain could do to them. They wouldn’t even be wrong to do so. 

They would have been perfectly in the right. Whatever had pushed a Protector spirit to be like this deserved what was coming to them.

But then J’onn finally spoke. His voice was raspy but soothing even though they could feel the projection of his own anger and pain. He knelt down and made himself look up at the small spirit who took the form of a child much like the younger heroes they knew. 

“These are not enemies,” J’onn said. 

-suspicion-worry-not safe-protect-make them pay-protect-rage-protect-

“We are safe.” J’onn moved his hand to the spirit’s shoulder drawing their eyes to look at him. He looked at the others helpless on the ground. “These are my friends. They are here to help.”

-protect-help-worry-pain-protect-not safe-

The spirit’s gaze shifted back to them. Their eyes dug into them, deep inside as if to judge their very souls. They probably were. 

The spirit turned back to J’onn and their hands crept towards his face. It was a sickening feeling to know they would be unable to stop whatever this spirit wished to do, no doubt J’onn was as helpless as they were. Though he showed no fear, no trepidation as the hands touched his skin and held him. If anything, they saw him lean into the touch.  

“They have hurt you,” the spirit said. Their voice was like a blizzard storm and the stillness of space. It was utterly breathtaking. 

J’onn took a breath and his voice was shaky as he spoke like he was on the brink of tears. “Yes, they did,” he said and there was no question that ‘they’ were the ones who took him away and brought him to this horrible place. “But they are gone.” J’onn looked at the crushed facility where he had been held. It was silent, not a soul except for him and the others. Not one of them in those white suits. “We escaped.”

“They are no more,” the spirit said simply as one would have said the sun rose and it set each day. “They shall not touch my domain again.” There were fangs and fierce anger on their face. Though their hand never turned aggressive as it was laid on J’onn’s face.  “You need not suffer the death echoes. M'yri'ah and K'hym rest peacefully among the stars. This I promise you J’onn J’onzz, Keeper of the Puru Pendant, Last of the Manhunters, Last Son of Mars, Beloved Child of Ma'lecaandra."

The words rang out and resonated with the beating of their hearts. They knew of J’onn’s story before he came to Earth. The death of his people, his family. Names this spirit spoke. Names of the last bit of his culture and the name of his home before it had ever been called Mars.  

At this, J’onn dropped his head and they could see his tears. They watched as the protector spirit pressed their head against his and closed their eyes. Their mouth moved but they did not hear what was spoken. 

Suddenly the crushing pressure lifted and the ice disappeared. Instead, the heroes felt a bittersweet joy and grief fill their lungs. It was from J’onn.  

The spirit moved back and smiled at J’onn. An expression so soft compared to the destruction they wrought. They tilted their head up, looking at the night sky above them. The moon shone down on the land and the heroes who stood there. 

The league watched as the spirit seemed to release a breath. A whisper of something they could not name. 

Then they closed their eyes and began to fall. 

Once the fight was over they rushed them to the watchtower. They both needed medical help as soon as possible.

J'onn: What is your name young one?

Danny: I'm Danny Phantom! Hi!

J'onn smiled softly at the teen. He could feel the boys wonder and excitement. Competing with the anger and pain. What a remarkable young man. Through sheer bloody minded stubbornness he had broken them both free.

J'onn: May I ask why you hadn't escaped before Danny?

J'onn felt a deep well of grief rise up at the question. Danny shuddered from the feeling, and J'onn took hold of his hand to give comfort.

Danny: They killed my family. And my friends. My clone is the only person free of them. And I made her run. So I just... Didn't see a point I guess?

J'onn could feel the anger his words caused in his colleagues. A whole family wiped out. To capture and hurt this young man.

J'onn: I see. But then you saw another captive. And suddenly had a reason to fight.

Danny: I know it happened to you before. I couldn't let that happen again. I know how much it hurts after all.

J'onn have young Danny a ruffle of his hair. The young man leaned into the soft touch like a love starved animal. This poor child.

J'onn: Why did they want you so badly?

Danny: Cause they have my species. They managed to pass this law. The anti Ecto acts. We aren't part of the meta human protection act. Cause we were legally defined as being as sentient as mold.

J'onn: You say your clone is safe? Can we reach her to help you?

Danny shook his head sadly.

Danny: No. I made her got to the Realms. Then I destroyed the portal. I have no way to get there without either a summons or a new portal.

The heroes all felt pained by that quiet admission. this poor boy. Superman had one question he needed to ask.

Superman: your family were human. What happened to change you? You don't have any vital signs.

Danny laughed bitterly and tears gathered in his eyes before her firmly brushed them away. Even as he was letting them patch him up. He stated out the window.

Danny: I died. In a Lab accident. I not want to discuss the details. But, I went in alive. And came out a member of the Infinite Realms.

Batman: What are the Infinite Realms?

Danny: The free space between universes. The land of the dead. It contains the various afterlives. And the free space is home to the restless dead. Ghosts in other words.

No one said anything. How could they, he was so young. And so hirt. None of them knew how to help. J'onn kept hold of Danny's hand. He could tell the young man was scared they would turn on him for this.

J'onn: Perhaps we should invite Constantine and Dead man here? They may be able to aid your recovery.

Danny turned to look at him, his shock obvious on his face. J'onn nodded his head. He could tell the boy wanted to see if he was being sincere.

J'onn: We have worked with ghosts before Danny. Perhaps not ghosts from these Infinite Realms. But ghosts regardless.

No one was coming for him.

It was a fact he had resigned himself to the moment he was taken away in cuffs. His family had fought, of course, and regardless of his status, his parents would stop at nothing to get him back.

It was not a comfort or hope he was able to carry with him past the threshold of Fenton Works front door. The bag over his head did nothing to drown the three gun shots that echoed from guns that carried bullets instead of Ectoplasm.

They were three blocks away when the explosion of the portal being forcibly shut down rocked Amity Park.

So no one would be coming for him.

The first year, he fought back. He kept track of days by scratching them in the wall, like in all the cartoons and tv shows. Attempted to escape, refused to cooperate with tests and experiments, sassed back against questions.

He no longer had the energy. It was always bright, except for the times they sealed him in small dark containers for transport. His many escape attempts had only helped them strengthen their containment measures, he should have waited, but there was nothing he could do now.

His living self had deteriorated to the point it was no longer capable of sustaining itself and his ghost, leaving him to remain in his spectral form to the researchers delight. His Core ached from the strain of holding himself together, unable to spare energy to heal more than wounds that might end him.

If he didn't think of something soon, he'd either shatter or reveal the best kept secret of the Infinite Realms. So Danny closed his eyes during a lull in the latest torture and prayed to whoever could hear him, this worked.

He felt fuzzy at the edges and sank into the feeling, letting it take him away. The almost forgotten sensation of floating soothed him just a little before his Core constricted tightly. Condensing down, down, down. Shedding excess ectoplasm to become smaller and smaller, until he was sure it could fit on the top of a pinhead. Danny wasn’t sure what exactly was happening, he just wanted to stop being so aware of everything.

He didn’t fight it though, letting the sensation of fuzzing take over him. It was like holding his hands up in front of those old clunky tv sets, palms barely touching as the static brushed against the skin like fur. Suddenly,as though he were a puppet with their strings cut, he was floating in a nothingness.

,”,”,”,”,

A bolt of electricity shocked through his body, alarms around him blaring but muffled. There was no pain once the shocks subsided, and Danny felt himself floating in a way that reminded him of the Far Frozen Medical Center.

It made sense his mind would create a world around that first. He needed so much medical care. When Danny opened his eyes, however, it wasn't Frostbite who created him, but people in another lab.

No, a different lab. One missing the blinding white of the GIW facilities. There were no lines of green running along the wall to indicate anti-ghost measures.

This was a Lab he could escape from. For the first time in years, Danny grinned, eyes flashing a bright green as the thick glass around him shattered, and he dropped to his feet.

------

Project R-13 Status: Terminated Escaped Vitals: Unknown Brain Activity: Unknown R-13 was terminated at 08:04 July 19, 20XX. Confirmed vitals ceased functioning and what little Brain Activity there was ceased. At 08:08 an electrical malfunction caused sparks to electrify Containment Pod 413 for approximately two minutes. Subject R-13's vital signs spiked and machines registered full Neurological activity. R-13's eyes opened for the first time at 08:11. The subject proceeded to shatter the Super Grade glass of the Containment Pod 413 before engaging scientists in combat. At some point, Subject became aware of nude state and stole Head Researcher Torrance's lab coat, trousers and my own badge when I attempted to intervene. Suspicions that the Robins possess meta abilities confirmed despite donor subjects not carrying the Meta Gene. R-13 removed clothing by simply pulling them off and through Dr Torrance, putting them on while continuing the escape attempt. Then ran through the sealed door of the Observation Room in a manner not unlike a ghost Phase Shifting. Security pursued R-13 through the facility before Subject turned a corner and vanished, despite being a dead end with no rooms or visible ventilation. Subject may have inherited abilities from several of the Genetic Templates used for Project R, which DNA samples were used remains classified to Researchers pending capture and study of him Subject R-13. Tracker located in R-13's tag is malfunctioning, possibly due to use of previously displayed Abilities. Signal becomes lost before appearing miles away from previous location. Points seem sporadic with no specific direction over another, several movement patterns suggest Play Behavior confusion when in one place as the signal loops on itself or circles before moving elsewhere with no warning. Several task forces have been mobilized to locate and contain R-13 before undesired parties can discover Subject. God Speed kid.

--------

Meanwhile, the GIW are livid that their own test subject fucking “melted”. Scientists blaming the Agents for not properly sustaining the ghost, with the Agents arguing that letting the monster heal too much was too risky.

Danny's Core straight up just shrunk down and Yote itself into the nearest Husk. Which luckily for Danny was the Just Terminated R-13 Project 'Clone' bc he was being transported between facilities and was passing nearby enough. The Shrinking allowed his Soul to pass through the Ecto defenses by being under the threshold that registers enough to activate them.

Literally a last ditch effort because if there HADN'T been a viable vessel for him to settle into... well...

Danny flew away as far as he could. He went West. Then South. Then North. Then East. Then North again. He just kept moving, uncaring about the direction even looping back again. He didn’t care as long as it was anywhere but there. But he wasn’t there anymore. 

Instead soon he found himself landing where there were no tall buildings nearby or people. Farmland. Quiet. No walls anywhere near him. Just crops and dirt. He stared at the tall stalks of what seemed to be corn and was reminded of a childhood memory from a family trip a long time ago to a farm. They had a field like this, but smaller. 

Danny let himself stand there for a while just looking.

It was a nice dream. Finally being able to escape. To get away from those dammed white walls and go outside again. It was so easy to slip away from scientists that had actual names on badges and not just letters. No glowing green of ecto-weaponry that would burn. He smiled as he slipped the badge he stole into a pocket and looked up. 

The sky was right there. There were clouds with the sun peeking out from behind. It was the afternoon by its position. Danny could feel the wind, so different from the stagnant air in the room where they cut into him again and again. So different from the sensation of those agents’ breaths mingling right above him as they discussed his organs and the tests they still needed to conduct. Even the lab coat and pants he stole felt nice despite being too big on him.

He was more than happy to focus on the sensations his mind had come up with. 

It wasn’t very long until Danny noticed someone else had arrived. Their arrival had been silent. There were no footsteps or sound of tires on the ground. Instead, it seemed that suddenly there was someone there, standing not far from him. Danny didn’t recognize them. Dreams were typically like that though. 

It was a boy. Black hair. Blue Eyes. It was amusing seeing the similarities he had with him.

But what interested Danny more was the clothes the boy was wearing. Underneath a leather jacket was something skintight and colorful. Blue and red with a giant S on their chest. 

It seemed that Danny’s mind conjured up a hero. 

That was nice. He had always wanted to meet one. To not be alone. Being in Amity Park there was only him and then Red Huntress, but it wasn’t the same seeing as she hunted him down before becoming an ally. He had always imagined what it would be like to meet someone like him. Someone with powers. Someone who he could have fought alongside, and gotten help from. 

But people like that didn’t exist. Every search for one left him empty-handed. As far as Danny knew he was alone. Except now… there was someone there. 

“Hi,” Danny said. He could see them looking at him closely and they almost looked frozen, as if shocked that he was even there. The “Hey” he eventually got in response was a little stilted, though Danny wasn't one to judge. He’d been awkward more times than he could count. 

Danny dug his feet deeper into the dirt. Watching how his pale skin went underneath the brown. It felt better than the metal table. He could be free of it at any point he wished. It was better than being strapped down as they cut deeper and touched what they shouldn't. Better than being treated like he wasn’t alive, the agents uncari-

“What are you doing?” the hero’s voice was curious and warm. A stark difference compared to the clinical terms and demanding voices Danny had gotten used to.

He focused on that warmth and the warmth he felt on his skin. He focused on the dirt going in between his toes. He focused on the wind ruffling through his hair. Danny really liked this instead. He looked at the hero who looked so bright and alive. A wish of what Danny had wanted so long ago. 

“Hiding.”