#ghost powers

imagine danny got caught in the dcu for whatever reason--dealer's choice (botched summoning, escape after bad reveal, natural portal, etc). bonus points if it's gotham.

he does some research (if it's a different dimension) and discovers metahumans (wow! random people can just have powers now??)

he decides he can't tell anyone he's a ghost for whatever reason, and instead has to choose a power. he settles on intangibility because it would help in self-defense purposes (gotham strikes again).

he's gotten used to using his powers freely, though, and maybe a Bat sees him fly. his excuse? "i'm a meta and i can become intangible. that includes intangibility to gravity."

he uses this excuse for as many powers as possible. invisibility? intangibility to light waves. portal-making (if applicable)? intangibility to the fabric of reality. seeing/sensing ghosts? intangibility to the boundaries between life and death.

he just keeps using wilder and wilder explanations, and when anyone asks how the hell that works, he just shrugs and says "i have intangibility and everything else is just an extension. doesn't have to make sense to you."

maybe he ends up on the justice league's radar for some random meta that could probably go toe-to-toe with most of the league's heavy-hitters.

Phantom comic Sidestory

Keep the Blue side Up

Page 8 <- -> Page 10

Masterpost

Danny’s got this habit.

It started off innocent enough—he figured out he could phase things into himself to carry them around. A pen, a notebook, some sticky notes, his phone, his wallet… a bag of chips if he was in the mood. Why bother with a backpack when you can just be the backpack?

And honestly? It’s so convenient. He always has what he needs. He never loses things anymore. If someone asks for a pen, boom—he reaches into his own shoulder and pulls one out. Instant problem solver.

The other heroes don’t think much of it. Flash thinks it’s funny, Batman doesn’t even blink (he’s seen weirder), Wonder Woman just accepts it as “ghost powers, sure.”

But Superman? Superman is so worried.

See, Clark’s x-ray vision isn’t perfect. It’s great for spotting bones and outlines, but when it comes to the finer details inside a half-ghost kid’s body? Not so much.

All Clark sees is this boy—this very alive, very human-looking boy—with several strange, solid masses stuffed inside his torso. Some long, some lumpy, some rectangular. They don’t match anything he recognizes in human anatomy. And there’s a lot of them. Like… crowding his organs a lot.

Clark cannot tell if Danny is just walking around with a body full of tumors, swallowed weapons, or alien parasites. He doesn’t know if Danny knows.

He tries to be subtle at first. “Hey, uh, Danny… how’s your health? You feeling okay? No pain or anything?”

Danny, mid-battle, casually pulling a granola bar out of his chest cavity: “Yeah, I’m fine, why?”

Clark nearly drops out of the sky.

Because. Because. Danny just pulled what looked like a wrapped energy bar out of what Clark was pretty sure was lodged halfway through his left lung.

“Danny,” Clark tries again, panicking internally, “do you—do you realize you have—there are things inside you?”

Danny, blinking, chewing his granola bar: “Yeah? That’s where I keep them.”

Clark: “…”

Danny: reaches into his ribs and produces a wallet “See? Super handy.”

Clark: staring in absolute horror

The rest of the League thinks it’s hilarious. Flash begs Danny to store snacks for him. Green Lantern suggests Danny could be “the ultimate smuggling operation.” Batman gives Clark a Look™ that says “don’t ask, don’t question, just accept.”

But Clark can’t stop seeing the shapes. He can’t stop thinking this poor kid is full of alien tumors and just doesn’t realize it.

Danny hanging out with people he's fully comfortable with, friends, family, romantic partners, but he doesn't have to bother being a person.

He's TIRED! Being a teen superhero is HARD and EXHAUSTING!

So sue him if sometimes he likes to be a little bit melty, a little bit amorphous.

Maybe he likes to go slug mode! Maybe he's just chilling and having a good time with his tail wrapped around someone's waist and arms around their neck, purring from his core while his head rests on their shoulder. It's not like he weighs anything in ghost form!! It's fine! He's not an inconvenience, he's just a portable lightweight icepack.

Maybe sometimes he's not even got the arms! He's not big enough to wrap around their waist! He flops over their shoulders like a mink wrap, fast asleep and entirely content.

He doesn't need to worry about anything when he's slugmoding!! Just vibes!!!!

Is this little baby man? Maybe sometimes! Not always though, sometimes he's just comfy and floppy and fully aware in his human brain.

I like to imagine he also physically melts into a puddle of goo just to be dramatic sometimes. Someone asks him to get them a drink or pass the remote or generally fetch and carry and

Oops! All Goop!

"But Saaaaaaaam, I can't get you a soda, I don't have armsssss"

"Tuckerrrrrrrrr!! I can't walk all the way to the fridge and back, I'm literally a puddle!"

Just whiney needy teenager shenanigans but he's got the shapeshifting powers to really sell it.

Danny had been chucked through a natural portal on accident. He lands in the middle of some meeting. Weirdly dressed people all staring at him. That’s not what he finds weird though, he is clearly in the living realm, but everyone is smoother? Rounder? So he says so.

“Why is everyone so round?” People around him exchange glances. The one at the top of the table takes the lead. Why was he wearing his underwear on top of his clothes? Danny would never know.

“What do you mean kid?” He asked cautiously but kindly. Danny blinks. He looks at his own hands. Huh, they were round too.

That’s when he thinks of something. He did promise Ellie they would play real life Minecraft somewhere sometime after all. “Like a nether eye but smooth like a line of blocks, it’s weird.” He said with a straight face.

“Are you joking right now?” Asks a man in bright red. Danny shook his head.

“No, you’re all just weird. And me too, look!” He said as he held out his hand.

“Weird how?” Asked a man in black and with ears.

“Weird like that one time I could collect my digs.” He said.

“What?” The one in red asked. His white mask eyes seemed to grow.

“Elaborate.” Tall and dark growled.

“Like this.” Danny knocked on the floor. Some ghost powers and a few tricks he picked up from the ancient of space and he hacked a square block out of the floor and got it in mini block form. “I couldn’t collect my digs, that was such a weird day.”

He was proud of the straight face he held as eyes bulged around the table.

If you go with the fun theory of Danny just keeping various objects (phone, keys, wallet, bits of paper?) in his body for storage.

Do you think he’d set off a metal detector?

Or if he gets X-rayed ?

Like Superman takes one look at this kid and is confused as to why he’s got a grocery list next to his kidney.

Danny doesn’t remember his childhood.

Not in the normal way.

There are no parents in his memories. No house. No school. No soft, safe beginnings.

Just… corridors.

Endless, identical corridors.

White walls. White lights. White noise humming behind everything like something alive.

He remembers numbers, though.

They called him Subject Twelve.

Never Danny.

Never anything human.

They taught him rules instead of language.

Don’t touch the walls. Don’t respond to the voices. Don’t look at the reflections.

Danny broke all three.

The first time he saw his reflection, it didn’t match.

He moved—

It didn’t.

That was the day they started being afraid of him.

He doesn’t remember escaping.

That part is… missing.

Like someone cut the story out mid-sentence.

One moment he’s in the corridor—

The next, he’s outside.

Cold air. Open sky.

A city that feels too loud, too sharp, too real.

Gotham.

Danny doesn’t know that name yet.

But the city knows him.

It starts small.

Streetlights flicker when he walks under them. Security cameras glitch just long enough to lose his face. Stray dogs stop barking when he passes—ears flat, eyes wide, like they’re seeing something deeper than skin.

Danny learns quickly:

People don’t like things they don’t understand.

And Danny?

Danny is very hard to understand.

So he stays hidden.

Sleeps in abandoned buildings. Moves between rooftops. Watches instead of speaks.

He learns Gotham the way he learned the corridors—

By surviving it.

But Gotham is not a lab.

And Danny is not contained anymore.

The first time someone really sees him, it’s not planned.

It’s an accident.

A fall.

A scream.

A kid dangling three stories above the pavement because Gotham buildings don’t care about safety codes.

Danny doesn’t think.

He never does, not when it matters.

He just—

Moves.

For a split second, gravity forgets him.

For a split second, so does the world.

He catches the kid.

Not with strength.

With something else.

Something colder.

They land.

The kid is safe.

Crying, but alive.

Danny is shaking.

Because for a moment—

He wasn’t entirely solid.

And someone saw.

Robin.

“Okay,” the vigilante says slowly, eyes sharp behind the mask, “that’s… not normal.”

Danny freezes.

Runs through every rule he’s ever been taught.

Don’t be seen. Don’t be known. Don’t exist.

Too late.

“Hey,” Robin adds, softer this time, like he’s talking to something skittish, “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Danny almost believes him.

That’s the dangerous part.

Because the last time he believed someone—

He ended up in a place where mirrors lied.

So he does what he does best.

He disappears.

Not runs.

Not hides.

Not escapes.

He’s just—

Gone.

Robin stares at the empty space where the kid stood.

Then taps his comm.

“B, we’ve got a situation.”

A pause.

Then:

“…I think Gotham just adopted a ghost.”

Danny doesn’t know it yet.

But something followed him out of that place.

Something that doesn’t belong in any world—

including his.

And every night he stays in Gotham—

It gets closer.

He escaped the experiment—but whatever they made him into is still trying to finish it.