#tclwrites

Inspired by this art by providencehq! (Also found before Pt. 1) Danny and crew are taking down the GIW even if it kills him. It very well might with the Justice League America soon on his case at the behest of the Department of Extranormal Operations.

Teen - DCxDP CW tags updating as I think of them. References to torture, Government run "orphanage", Explosions & property destruction, Metahuman trafficking, Capture & imprisonment, Dissociation

Chapter 1 - Infamous Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 - AO3 Chapter 2 - The Sting Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 Chapter 3 - Deadman AO3 It's been moved entirely to AO3. I was trying to do it here to do it in smaller chunks and get feedback before putting it on AO3, but that wasn't working out.

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Instructions created by @clockwayswrites

When the boy saw Cyborg pick up the discarded metal arm of the being he had been fighting he sighed. After taking a calculating scan of the scene he stopped pulling against the lasso. (It didn’t seem to hurt him the way it did most of her enemies.) He landed and put his arms out. After so many evasive encounters he had simply surrendered. 

When Batman put on the admittedly suspicious power dampening collar and cuffs Phantom winced. He let out a small pained hiss as his gravity defying white hair turned wavy black, glowing green eyes faded to a blue hazel, and his magenta tinged skin became a dark tan. Only a moment after the transformation he set his face in a stoic expression. Proud and yet far too resigned for someone so young. His eyes then became unfocused in a way that they all found concerning. 

Danny didn’t allow himself to think about how these new cuffs had forced him out of his ghost form and what that meant. He didn’t allow himself to imagine being turned over to the GIW, as he soon would be. He instead focused on the pain of the cuffs cutting off half of who he was. Ignoring the injuries that had infinitely slowed in their healing, and he kept his mouth shut, because you don’t talk to cops. There was no point in asking for a lawyer either. Legally he wasn’t a person and the League would know that.

Masterpost

Batman stayed behind when he was taken up to the Watchtower, presumably to observe what assets (Caged ghosts. Hopefully none.) remained and report Danny’s capture. The DEO would want him turned over quickly and the GIW would have him soon after. It seemed almost unnecessary to take him up when they’d need to bring him right back down. That wasn’t any of his business though, he was keeping his mouth shut. Better not to endanger his team than to air his curiosities.

Instead of a cell they put him in a room. It had a nice window with a beautiful view of the stars. Weird. They were trying to talk to him, to get him to talk to them. They offered him water as well. He wasn’t listening, and though he was thirsty he didn’t drink any. You don’t take anything from cops, they always try and get something out of you in turn. No, he drank in space instead. It wouldn’t be long before it didn’t matter anyway. If they could force his transformation that meant they might manage to kill him permanently this time. Space would have to be enough.

Martian Manhunter, an alien (cool) and mind reader (not cool) guarded his room. Most likely they hoped to glean something off of him despite his silence. Unfortunately his mental defenses required more effort as a human, but it seemed like they hadn’t realized what a gift his window was. The pain of the cuffs could be effective, but there was nothing like getting lost in space. He imagined it absorbing him completely so there was nothing left of him to take.

Masterpost

Team Phantom was starting where Greta had escaped. She had friends to free and while the only reason she’d been moved there was to recover after excess “experimentation” had left her too weak to be useful, she didn’t go unobserved. The suspiciously large medical wing of the orphanage had its purposes. She and the others weren’t without pain and this first mission was personal.

Half of the orphanage had been blown up and all of the residents were missing. No camera footage survived. All Impulse saw was a floating guy, who their missing Ms. Suzie H. called Phantom, follow her through a glowing green portal before the last and largest explosion went off. They were too busy with the rubble to appreciate how clean an operation it had been. 

All ghosts were returned to the Realms and all Meta kids were systematically sorted through. Asked if they did have family, wanted an adjustable power dampening bracelet that Tucker and Danny had formulated together, and/or moved to homes in a network Sam and Val had been organizing for years now. Started after Ellie had gone off on her own when there was nowhere for her to stay. All were left with tools to support their unique situations and prevent trouble from finding them again. Maybe ironically, the Kents were temporary fosters in the network. Sam and Tucker helped fund a legitimate troubled Meta children's charity. The orphanage's records didn’t survive the operation so they couldn’t be “reclaimed” or easily marked. The Young Justice team got here just in time to hear Phantom’s name and take over disaster relief. As Team Phantom had hoped.

Masterpost

There was a suspicious location. The team had put making a raid there on hold because Jazz and Val were convinced it was a set up. They’d been right, but Danny confirmed that too late. He had decided to scout alone. What he found was worth it, at least momentarily. This location wasn’t a DEO one that might have ghosts. It was GIW and definitely had them. Ghosts he knew. 

Ember was trapped in a separate location and Skulker had been informed that she (and maybe everyone else) would go free if he caught and turned over his least favorite welp. Unfortunately, Danny’s plans didn’t include time to get into a fight people this time. They also didn’t include Skulker's suit being available to be used against him after winning said fight. This time Danny got all the cages opened, but not everyone made it home safe. 

Cyborg, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Batman all showed up just as Danny souped Skulker. He tossed the thermos through the portal to keep him out of their hands and it closed only a moment before Flash could cross over. Between Danny busting open cages Skulker had gotten in a few good hits and he would need to heal up first to create another portal but that didn’t matter because Wonder Woman lasso-ed him before he could fly off. This time it was she and Flash keeping him busy while Cyborg and Batman worked. Cyborg had noticed Skulker’s abandoned suit and Batman brought restraints prepared by the DEO. Danny didn’t get away. 

With a weapon that could hurt him, a magical item that could restrain him, and no back up he decided to surrender. Secrets (Not Greta. They had a mind reader.) was much healthier and had picked up most of his tricks by now. They had also gotten almost all of the above ground bases so it wouldn’t be too hard for the team to disappear and continue without him. This had been a possibility Danny knew was a long time coming. Hopefully the team would make the smart choice not to try breaking him out right away either. He could survive a lot more than most.

Masterpost

A meta girl ran away from a government run orphanage and Young Justice had never found her. For one of their earliest missions it was an awkward start. It was likely that she had fallen into meta trafficking. It stayed on their minds. 

Tim had stayed in contact with the orphanage and continued looking for her. He didn’t want any more kids falling through the cracks. He wanted them to be able to rely on the team to help. He got a notification. One Miss H. had been caught in the background of some tourist’s photo outside of Harbor City. The orphan girl who had ghosted them. 

It was hard to tell what she might be doing there, who she was with, or if she looked to be faring well with how pixilated it was. You can’t really recover data that was never there. It might have been a bit weird how crummy the photo was with how impressive phone cameras could be, but that wasn’t Tim’s concern of the moment. She was near their turf and it was another chance to get her to safety. To make sure she wasn’t getting into or causing trouble either. He called the team.

Masterpost

CW list A number of buildings, buildings of all kinds, started being blown sky high. The one commonality was Phantom. The DEO was pressuring the League to intervene. By their account he was involved in Meta trafficking and incredibly dangerous. (Too dangerous for them to deal with.) By all on scene accounts he was definitely doing something, but the damage was surprisingly minimal. Many of the buildings were reportedly abandoned. Some had even been marked to be condemned. It was suspicious but it maybe wasn’t as malicious as the DEO made it out to be. The League was starting to have reason to doubt their versions of the story after Amanda Waller took charge.

The League ramped up efforts to gather intel. Trying to speak to the elusive Phantom and the young lady working behind him. Hopefully get ahead of whatever they were doing before another building was forcibly converted into a crater. The girl had been a case that the Young Justice team was following. A Meta, and reportedly named Suzie, though Phantom called her Secrets. They had little else. 

Somehow they only really arrived to the commotion in time for cleaning up and too short notice to gather a proper team. The couple of times they got there before Phantom was done clearing out he had managed to keep everyone too occupied to intervene. They were always in the wrong spot to see anything and he was good at managing their movement. He had the opportunity to do more than knock out some of them more than once. It looked like he might have been able to go toe-to-toe with Superman in strength, but kryptonite did nothing. He never said much but he looked tired.

He looked tired when asked if he was being coerced. He said no. When asked if he was working alone, his answer was yes, though they knew that wasn’t true. J'onn also wasn’t able to read his thoughts, though he did sense him to be not only tired, but also sad, frustrated, and maybe a bit afraid.

The DEO was unwilling to share any information they had, even on Secrets who’d been a resident of one of their orphanages. The DEO was also getting impatient with the caution of the League. They, and by extension the GIW, started carefully fortifying locations that might become targets, trying to balance maintaining the League’s naivety to their activity and stopping the destruction from continuing. If more important locations were found it could lead to their systems getting compromised. Danny was used to all the old tricks, but the GIW were planning a trap.

Masterpost

GhostKing!Danny is often called a bridge and "the space between". He deserves some of that double life, beginnings and endings, doorways and liminal spaces epic-ness. I am being deprived. You can even fold it into the space stuff.

I plan to write some for myself, but I'm curious to see where other people take it.