“Not glamorous, I’m afraid,” said Tim.

Cassie laughed. “We’ve used worse.”

“True enough.”

Bart kept texting updates to Tim’s relief.

Imp: They’re in the basement Imp: Walker is confirmed possessing the mayor Imp: SB with me

As soon as the messages came through, Tim was hacking into city records to find the blue prints for the building.

“Come on, Rob,” said Cassie. “We need to get going.”

“Just finding the best way to the basement!” said Tim. A few more clicks and he had it. “Got it, let’s go.”

“Fucking finally.” Cassie cracked the door open and peered outside before throwing it open.

“Go right!” called Tim.

He overtook her and led her to a door. It was the matter of seconds to pick the lock and, rather than wait for him, Cassie just picked him up and flew him down the flight of stairs.

They burst out into what was clearly a service area. Ahead, they could hear the sounds of fighting. Cassie continued to fly them forward when they ran into Superboy.

“Superboy!” called Tim.

One of Danny’s classmates, Paulina, came running around the corner and Conner held up a blaster. “Stay back!” he called.

She screeched and held her hands up. Behind her came Dash, face contorted into a growl. The girl looked between Conner and Dash and screamed again.

“Kon!” called Tim, “Focus on Dash. I don’t think she’s overshadowed!”

Cassie set him down next to Conner and shouted, “I’m going to look for Phantom and Impulse!”

Conner shot at Dash and Tim assembled his Fenton Rod. To Paulina, he said, “Hey, sorry about that. We thought you might still be overshadowed. I’m Robin and we can get you out of here.”

“Don’t get near me!” she yelled at him. “Dash! Are you okay?”

The ghost had been expelled from him and he was sitting on the ground rubbing his head. “Paulina? Where are we?”

Tim pulled out a thermos and sucked in the ghost. “You’re in the basement of the City Hall building. Stairs are that way—” he pointed “—go up them and take a left.”

Paulina rushed to Dash’s side and pulled him up. With one last glare at Tim and Conner, she led him towards the stairs.

Tim let her go without arguing.

Instead, Tim and Conner ran towards the sound of fighting, only to see Maddie crouched behind some pipes with a bazooka pointed right at Danny.

With a curse, Conner flew towards her, yanking the weapon out of her hands. Tim was just a few paces behind him, and when Maddie drew another weapon poised to attack Conner, Tim used his staff to knock it from her hand.

“So you have been brainwashed by the ghosts,” she spat the last word. “Well I won’t let you win.” She kicked at his head and Tim ducked, using the motion to attempt to swipe at her other leg with his staff.

But she jumped over the attack and Tim had to roll out of the way of her downward kick.

“You’re quite good,” he commented.

“I’m a ninth degree black belt,” she said as she used the distance she’d gained to pull out a tube of lipstick. With a twist, she shot a laser at him.

“Creative, too, I see.”

Tim glanced over at the others to see Wulf had reappeared and was helping them. Unfortunately, though, Maddie was good enough that he had to keep most of his focus on her. She shot another laser and Tim used his staff to vault over it and close the distance between them.

“Look,” he said, “You don’t understand. Phantom is trying to stop the invasion.”

“He’s lying to you. All ghosts only want to hurt humans.”

Tim swung his staff and Maddie twisted out of the way. He still managed to graze her side and she let out a grunt of pain. He shifted his position so he could see his friends more clearly.

Only to watch the Mayor grab hold of Danny and fly him up through the ceiling. Two ectoblasts hit the area just after they disappeared. Wulf followed them through the ceiling and Bart ran off at the same time.

He was distracted enough that Maddie managed to kick him hard on the side. Tim let out a grunt of pain and tried to catch his breath. Before she could land a second attack, Conner was there restraining her.

“Thanks,” said Tim.

“Anytime. Sorry I wasn’t able to help sooner.”

Tim waved the apology off as he grabbed some zip-ties from his utility belt. “We’re both trying to help the people of Amity,” he told Maddie as he retrained her ankles and wrists.

“If you’re working with the ghosts, you’re only going to hurt them.”

Conner didn’t try to hold back his snort. “If you could see past your own prejudices, you’d see how fucking wrong you are. Especially about Phantom.”

“Superboy, take this”—Tim handed over a thermos—“go see if you can help Phantom. Wondergirl and I will make sure no one else’s hiding down here.”

They had barely started their search when Danny sunk back down into the basement with Bart and Conner in tow. Wulf followed them.

The sight of them had Maddie cursing up a storm again and Phantom sighed. “Ma’am, everyone is fine. I made sure of it. Here, I’ll take you upstairs where Da— uh, Jack is and you’ll see.”

“Phantom,” started Tim, but he had no idea what else to say. He just knew he didn’t want Danny anywhere near his parents while in his ghost form.

But Danny waved him off, picked up his mom, and flew them up through the ceiling again. Less than a minute later, he was back down.

“You know, she’d ground me for using even half of those words,” he said with a smile. No one laughed and Danny sighed. “So today was a disaster.”

“What did Walker do?” asked Tim.

Danny buried his face in his hands and groaned.

Bart ended up being the one to explain. “He held Danny to him and pretended Danny was kidnapping him in front of all the people outside City Hall.”

Tim closed his eyes and tilted his head back. “Shit,” he breathed out. “Disaster is right.”

Danny let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “At least Paulina now thinks I’m a good guy.”

“She does?” asked Conner. “She ran from Rob and I.”

Danny squared his shoulders and imitated slicking his hair back. “Guess it’s just my natural charisma.”

Tim laughed, but it was short lived. “I seem to have made things worse for you.”

Danny bumped their shoulders. “And I don’t doubt it would’ve been just as bad, if not worse, without you. Thanks for trying.”

“We shouldn’t linger here,” said Bart. “What if Maddie comes back?”

Danny sighed and pulled out his phone. “My sister will be looking for me, I’m sure. Let’s reconvene at the park in, like, an hour?”

“We’ll bring food!” offered Bart.

Tim pulled Danny into a hug. “See you then. We’ll figure this out.”

Danny just sighed. “I hope so.”

-----

Next

And that's the end of the action! Hope you enjoyed. Once this arc is finished, I'll probably take a hiatus to get this fixed up, Arc 1 of Ghost!Robin fixed up, and the Bad Reveal AU finished. I want all of those finished and up on AO3 before Christmas if I can manage it.