YJ/DP Crossover 15

Danny stared up at the looming brick house in front of him. It seemed nothing like he remembered it, and yet it was exactly the same.

He looked down at the memory container Vlad gave him.

“M’gann? Can you do me a favor?” Danny asked without looking up.

“Sure, what is it?” M’gann asked as she floated forward.

“Can you… look into their minds? Tell me if they’re happy?”

M’gann looked confused for a second, glancing back to the team, only to get clueless shrugs in return.

“Sure..?”

M’gann rose a bit in the air, holding out her hands and allowing her eyes to glow.

“They’re…. watching a movie…. It’s something about… fudge?” M’gann’s eyes scrunched and the glow faded as she lowered her hands, “Yes, they seem happy. Why did you want me to look?”

“I don’t think I can do this. Tell them, I mean.”

“Are you scared of them? Do we need to-?“ Robin started, looking pointedly at the ‘Fenton Ghost Hunters’ sign above them.

“No!” Phantom said immediately with a frantic wave of his hands, “No, nothing like that. I know that they’d accept me. I’ve seen them do it again and again in parallel universes and timelines. That’s not the problem.”

“I’m sorry you’ve what?” Wally said, then flinched when Artemis elbowed him.

“Not the time, Baywatch.”

“So then what is the problem, Phantom? You are their son, surely there is nothing to be worried about,” Aqualad said.

Danny sighed, “I know it’s bad that Vlad took their memory of me but… How can I make them remember me, just to tell them their only son is dead?” Danny looked up for a moment, “How could I do that to them?” He dropped his gaze again.

“Phantom, they are your parents. Of course they want you in their lives.”

“But I wouldn’t be. You heard M’gann, they’re happy like this. Thinking they only have one kid, who’s safe away at college.. How could I make them worry about me, knowing that even when I come back from missions, even when I am here, I’m not even alive anymore?” Phantom shook his head, “No. I can’t do that to them. I’d be haunting them. It wouldn’t be a blessing, it’d be a nightmare.”

Artemis looked at the others of the team, all speechless and contemplative. She stepped forward, “It’s your decision, Danny. We’re not going to force you to do anything. Whatever you decide.”

Danny lowered the memory box and turned away from the house, “I’m a ghost now, guys. Ghosts don’t have families.” He walked towards the camouflaged Bioship.

Danny paused and looked back when a hand was set on his shoulder, it was Kid Flash.

“No matter what man, you’ve got us. And we’re a family all on our own,” Wally said with a bright smile. Danny saw the rest of the team nodding behind him as well.

“Of course, Wally,” He gave a soft smile back, “How could I forget that?”

And as the Bioship flies away, Danny catches one last glimpse of two bright jumpsuits running outside with glowing scanners looking around frantically. Soon enough they are no more visible than a couple of trees.

“Goodbye Mom. Bye, Dad.”

——

When they get back to the Cave in Happy Harbor, Batman orders a full debrief.

Only problem?

He wants it on the Watchtower. Apparently a few of the other leaguers had been brought into the discussion. And a few more were part of the newly ongoing investigation into the GIW.

This included John Constantine as an expert on paranormal entities and laws. Batman would do whatever he could to keep that man contained to one league base at a time.

The only reason having this debrief on the Watchtower was an issue at all was because of the Zeta Tubes.

Mainly that Danny had taken three steps towards them before freezing in place -literally- and going oddly translucent.

His face paled and his eyes glazed as he backed up, eyeing the Zeta with warily flickering eyes.

“Phant-Danny? What’s wrong?”

“I- the portal- I can’t- it looks like-“ A caged look of panic flits across Danny’s face.

“Looks like what?” Batman rumbles.

“It looks like the portal that killed me,” Danny is shaking now, legs gone and spectral tail jittering below him.

“What portal-?”

And I hate to say this guys, but this Fic is officially moving off of Tumblr.

Read any (future, past or present) chapters here on Ao3: Including the rest of this chapter!

To Curate A Ghost - Snaileer - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

But there is simply not enough engagement on here for me to keep posting it as an individual. Don’t worry, it’s not getting discontinued, I’m just only gonna post it in one place. I think most of y'all are reading it on Ao3 by now anyways.

I’m not gonna take down past uploads though, just not gonna make new ones for every chapter. Have fun and hope you enjoy the new chapter!

YJ/DP Crossover 14

“Hey Sam?? Hey Sam!? That’s the best you’ve got!?” The girl- evidently Sam- screeches. “You go missing for almost a year and all you have to say is ‘Hey, Sam?!’ Danny, you better-!” The yell is punctuated by another flying combat boot.

This one hits him directly in the chest with an oompf.

Surprisingly, his wound doesn’t flare up too badly.

“Hey, if it helps, I didn’t know how long I was gone for- you’re-you’re out of shoes, Sam,”

Sam reaches for her sock with a glare and stomps over to smack him with it, “I can’t believe you! I should thermos you for this!”

The rest of Phantom’s team looks on warily as their teammate gets beat by a goth-with-a-sock.

“Hey.. Danny, uh… you good, man?

“Oh he’s fine, Sam’s spent the whole time since he got back preparing for this.”

They turn to see Tucker behind them, propped up on his crutches and looking very nonchalant about his injured friend getting beat up.

“Don’t forget to scold him for getting hit by a blaster in the fight!” He shouts, just as Sam looked like she was calming down.

“You did WHAT!“ she screeches and goes back to slapping a slightly cowering Danny with her sock, now berating him for endangering himself.

“Ahhh, sweet revenge,” Tucker sighs with mischievous smirk, “We should probably head inside though, Superboy and Miss Martian have been waiting for you guys.”

Aqualad hesitates for a second, glancing between the door and his teammate, “Err, of course, lead the way.”

As Tucker lead them back into the school’s basement, Robin got a glimpse of a very irate goth dragging Danny by the ear through the hallway.

“I’m patching up that wound whether you like it or not Danny!”

They all ignored Danny’s silent plea of help as he disappeared around the corner. Shouldn’t of gotten injured then, Robin thought. If Sam hadn’t done it, he was sure one of the Team would’ve had to eventually.

Robin turned back around, surprised to see they were already at the repurposed basement office. Tucker could really move on those crutches.

M’gann and Superboy were waiting for them, and after exchanging details and what’d happened, they were finally able to start winding down.

“So why is this place so empty now? All of you guys got out okay right?” Wally asked and bit down on a snack he’d ‘found’ on the way.

“Pff, yeah,” Tucker waved him off, “But we’re still highschoolers, dude, it’s a school night. My parents are used to me doing my own thing, they trust me, and it’s not like Sam is going to talk to her parents more than she has to. The rest of the kids… they tend to head back home when it gets late, plus there’s Vlad’s curfew to worry about these days.”

“What about Red Huntress and Dani, the girl Danny that is, where are they?” Artemis asks as she slumps into an abandoned roller desk chair.

“Oh yeah, Huntress’s dad is pretty strict about her superhero/ghost hunting time. And most days she just lets Danielle crash with her,” Tucker says with a wave of his hand, “Don’t be surprised if you don’t see Red Huntress a lot the next few days though. She stayed out late for this and I just know she got caught sneaking back in.”

“For someone who both fights and works with ghosts all the time you’d think she’d be sneakier,” Sam said as she entered, a bandaged Danny behind her. Neither looked too worse for wear, as Danny’s wound had shrunk significantly. Though Sam’s combat boots still hadn’t been retied.

“We ready to leave?” Tucker asked her, already preparing to grab his crutches.

“Leave?” Aqualad said with a puzzled look on his face, “Where are we going?”

“What? You guys didn’t seriously think we were about to let a group of actual superheroes sleep on the floor of our highschool basement did you?” Tucker asked with a smirk.

“I mean… kinda?” Superboy said with a shrug.

“I’m guessing you’ve got transportation?” Tucker asked.

“Yes! Bioship would love to look around!” M’gann said and clapped her hands with a smile.

“What’s a ‘Bioship’?” Tucker said with a blank star.

“You’ll see, I just called her to us! Come on, let’s meet her outside. Where can she land?”

“Uhhh… the football field, maybe?”

Minutes later, they were all standing in the only-slightly-ghost-damaged football field. Tucker in the back after almost losing a crutch to the muddy turf.

The air moved around them as Bioship faded into sight. M’gann was flying up to it with a smile and pats to give before it had even touched the ground.

“I’m in love,” Tucker said, staring up at the sentient piece of technology in front of him.

“Wait ‘till you get on,” Superboy chuckled, walking past and slapping Tucker on the back.

Tucker stabilized himself fast and then rushed to get up the ramp before the rest of the team.

They all went in after him with a good natured smile as M’gann worked on answering all of Tucker’s questions and explaining what Bioship was.

Sam raised an eyebrow as she entered, “Isn’t it unethical to force an entire species to work for you? Just because they can be ships, does that mean they want to?” Sam asked, getting harsher, “Are Bioships enslaved?”

M’gann looked panicked, “No, no it’s nothing like that! We have a telepathic bond, Bioship has been in my family for hundreds of years!”

“Did you steal her from their birth then?! Do Bioships have rights on Mars-?! Ah!” Sam tripped over a suspiciously new bump on the floor, accompanied by angered beeping.

“Heh heh, Saaam let’s not anger the sentient ship we depend on for missions please,” Danny said with a tense smile, “There, there Bioship, no harm done.” He patted the side hesitantly then hurried Sam forward to a chair before she could say anything else.

Once M’gann had been assured that she wasn’t forcing Bioship to do anything, they were able to liftoff with Tucker directing them.

“Where are we going exactly?” Artemis asked.

Sam smiled sharply, “My house.”

“And… are your parents okay with that?”

“Hell no. That’s why I’m doing it. Viva la Goth Revolution! No authority controls me!” Sam punched the air.

Tucker rolled his eyes and turned back around, “She’s got authority issues, but yeah, her parents won’t even notice with how big her house is.”

“I resent that remark Tucker.”

“Noted and ignored, Sam.”

Sam scoffed as the conversation up front moved on. She looks to Danny in the seat next to her and smirks.

“So Danny, what’d he tell you about how he got the crutches?” Sam asks as the voices settle into background noise.

“Uhh..Something about bravery and a rescue mission?” He says with a quirk of his head.

“Pff, rescue mission,” Sam rolls her eyes, then smirks and leans in conspiratorially, “Vlad stole his PDA so he couldn’t use it against Skulker. He got injured getting it back.”

Danny blinks.

“That makes… a lot more sense, actually.” Danny shakes his head with a smile, looking forward as he watches his friend direct the superhero team to Sam’s mansion.

“I missed this,” Danny lets his hands fall to the side, linking his pinky with Sam’s between their chairs, “Missed you..”

“I missed you, too, Danny. I’m glad you’re back.”

Danny smiles gently, “It’s good to be back Sam,” he sighs regretfully at having to break their moment, “But I have something I have to tell you.”

“We’re here!” Tucker calls, prompting M’gann to lower the Bioship and let them all out.

Sam looks back at him, “Tell me later, let’s catch up with the others,” she says, already halfway out the door.

“Err.. yeah, of course. Later.” He hops out of the Bioship and follows her to where Tucker has already let the team inside the back door.

Well,one of the back doors.

“Sam, you’re sure it’s fine for us to stay here tonight?”

Sam scoffs, “I do what I want,” She says and breezes past them. She leads them down a long hallway to a massive theater. The floor is scattered with beanbags, lounge chairs and a fully-stocked snack bar in the far corner.

Well. Used to be fully-stocked. It looked like Wally was already halfway through most of it.

“Blaaggh!!” Wally shouts with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, “What are these chips?!! They taste like feet!” He wipes off his tongue, and holds the bag away from him like it’s toxic.

Sam storms up and snatches the bag, “I’ll have you know these are all-vegan-naturally-source kale-based almond milk Himalayan potato chips!”

“Potato chips are already vegan! It’s potato and salt!” Wally shouts again, “These taste like ground up grass and paper!”

“I only let my parents stock with vegan foods, Kid Flash, so you’re just gonna have to deal with it. Save some animals while eating instead of exploiting them.”

Wally narrows his eyes like that was a challenge, “I have no problem with eating vegan if it tastes good, but when it comes to after-mission food…” He zips out of the room, then shows back up in 5 seconds with a stack of pizzas, “Animals are the way to go!”

Wally displays the pizza boxes on the counter, swiping the offending chip bag to the floor, “I’ve got meat-lovers, meat lovers deluxe, pepperoni, the bacon-crazy special, 3 cheese for simplicity, and just cuz I’m nice, “ he flips open the last box, “a veggie pizza.”

Wally makes an exaggerated bow, “Your Welcome.”

Sam scowls but takes a slice of the veggie pizza anyways. The vegan cheese is actually… kinda good.

“Where’d you even get these? No pizza place in Amity makes vegan cheese, and certainly none that would risk staying open after Vlad’s curfew,” she asks.

Wally swallows the last of his first box before answering, “Chicago.”

Tucker chokes on his slice before nodding appraisingly at the slice of meat-lovers deluxe, “I thought this looked like ribeye.”

Everyone grabs food and starts to wind down, taking a second to breathe for the first time in what seemed like forever for the team.

Tucker glances at Danny sitting exhausted on the floor by the entrance, no food in hand. He grabs a slice of cheese by the corner of his teeth and hobbles over.

Once close enough, he grabs the pizza with his hand hits Danny’s foot with a crutch, waving the pizza in front of Danny’s face, “Not feeling the teenage turtle fuel?”

Danny shrugs, taking the slice but staring down at it instead of eating.

Tucker sets down the crutches and joins him on the floor.

After a moment of silence, “I don’t even know if I need to eat anymore.”

“Well… what’s the worst that can happen? You think ghosts can get food poisoning from human food?”

Danny stares for a second before a laugh bursts out of him, “I guess not, man!”

He chomps down on the pizza happily, “I forgot how good Pizza was, oh my god! Even if I don’t have to eat, I’m definitely not giving this up again.”

As Danny ate and Tucker finished his own slice, the two fell into comfortable silence once again.

Tucker took a deep breath, “You know you’re gonna have to tell her eventually, right? She has to know,” Tucker said quietly, looking at his pizza instead of either of his friends.

“I know. It’s just… she’s gonna blame herself y’know. And she shouldn’t. But I don’t want to do that to her.”

“It’s gonna be worse if you don’t tell her and then leave her wondering why you never came back.”

Phantom whips his head up to look at Tucker, “I never said I wasn’t coming back, I swear-“

“Relax man, I can see it in your eyes,” Tucker says calmly, watching Phantom as he reluctantly lets the tension drain out of him in regret.

“I can see the way you are with them, and I know that you think that you have nothing left here ‘cuz you’re like.. this,” he gestures at the phantom form, “But you’ve always got me. And Sam. Here, or anywhere. And that’s why you have to tell her you’re not a halfa anymore, Danny. So when you leave, she knowswhy,”

Danny sighs heavily and stands up, hovering slightly, “No time like the present, right?”

Tucker gives him an ‘It is what it is’ look as Danny lifts him up from the floor. He shrugs, then turns and walks towards the rest of the group. Towards Sam.

“Yeah.. no time like the present to tell the girl you lik- I mean, your friend-, that you’re dead and also that you might probably be leaving. Forever. No big deal. Heh,” Danny looks up to see Sam walking over to him, “Big deal, big deal, big deal, big- HeySam..!” He rubs his neck nervously, voice cracking like he’s still 13.

“Hey… Danny..,” Sam narrows her eyes, “Tucker said you had something to tell me?”

“Heh. Yeah. Um Listen, so uh-“ He glances over at the team-his team-his new team, still in the room and almost flinches.

“Uh let’s go in another room. It’s a bit… sensitive.”

Sam narrows her eyes again but gestures for him to lead the way and follows him out.

Over by the team, everyone else looks on with confusion, “What was that about?”

Tucker grimaces, “He has to tell her something, something that she’s definitely not gonna want to hear.”

“Trying to make him rip the bandaid off?”

“Danny has legendary procrastination skills, I mean, he procrastinated death, so if I don’t make him do it, he’ll just never do it. Avoid it to the day he lives, I guess,” Tucker says with a shrug. Superboy snorts at the dark humor.

“What?? It’s kinda funny,” he defends as the team rolls their eyes.

Good to know gallows humor was what SB found funny, it least he’d finally found something that’d make him laugh.

The sounds of muffled yelling seeps in from the hall-

“-No Danny, I refuse to believe it!,” Sam yells as she slams open the door they’d left through, stomping into the main room, “You’re not dead, you’re just stuck. It’s from the GiW or Vlad or one of your parent’s inventions or-“

“I’m not, Sam, I swear, I’m not. I’ve tried changing, I’m telling you it’s real this time,” He says, chasing after her.

“No,it’snot. There’s no way, you can’t be.. be..” Sam falters and then pulls back, “because if you are then that means that I…I…- and I can’t,” She resumes stomping away from him.

“It’s not your fault, Sam-“

“You’re right, because you’re not dead, okay? You can’t be, because you’re just stuck, and you’re not leaving and we can fix this, we can go to Desiree or- or-“

“I’M NOT STUCK!” Danny yells.

The sheer desperation in his voice forces Sam to freeze and stop running from him, “I’m not stuck, Sam! I’m dead! Really, fully 100% dead this time!”

“But-“

“I have a lair!” He shouts, chest heaving.

The declaration makes something change in Sam’s body language. Even Tucker seems to flinch away from it.

“I have a lair! In the ghost zone! And you and I both know a ghost only gets a lair when they die! Vlad doesn’t have one. Dani doesn’t either. And I’m telling you it’s mine. There’s no getting away from this Sam, we have to face it.”

Sam’s face starts to crumple, the absoluteness of it setting in, “Danny, I-” she says, her voice breaking.

Tucker quickly tries to usher the team away from looking.

“What- what are you doing Tucker?”

“Trying to prevent mass injury,” He pushes them more forcefully, “Sam really hates, like really hates crying in front of people and she will absolutely curb-stomp you with steel-toed boots if she knows you saw. God forbid if you mention it.” He looks wistfully to the sky, “Godspeed little Wayne Industries PDA 7.0, wrecked by vengeful goths.”

“You know, you don’t have to act like this isn’t bothering you,” M’gann says softly, looking down.

Everyone goes still.

“Whaat…?? Nooo….,” Tucker refutes it, then sags in resignation, looking weary, “You didn’t like read my mind for that or anything did you?”

M’gann shakes her head vigorously, “I would never! It’s just… all of you, this whole town even, it’s- sometimes your emotions are so strong I feel like I’m wading through an ocean. Everything’s… bigger, stronger, I guess,” M’gann explains, then adds, “Besides, it doesn’t take a psychic to know a best friend like you will grieve someone like Phantom- like Danny.”

Tucker looks over his shoulder at Danny and Sam, “I feel like I shouldn’t though. I mean, it’s not as if this is all that a big a change, he was already halfway there, and it’s not like we ever-“ He sniffles, “Ugh…,” Tucker groans, pulling his beret over his head to hide his face, “I hate crying in front of people, too… this whole thing sucks.”

“That it does, my friend, but none of us will fault you for wanting to be with your friend, even if he is not truly gone.” Aqualad says gently.

Tucker peeks out at him warily, then looks to his friends again. He sighs and turns towards them, leaving the Team behind to hug his best friend.

The team stands there silently, trying not to let the awkwardness get to them as they look away.

“Anybody else feel at least just a little bit weird that we’ve only know Phantom since he’s been dead?” Robin pipes in, “No? Just me? Okay then.”

Aqualad looks down and sighs, “I think it will always feel weird when friends have a life without us in it,” he says with regret.

On Ao3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/36374176/chapters/90685825

Revised First Chapter:

https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/679300649595371520/to-curate-a-ghost-1

Taglist:https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/669689639439892480/yjdp-crossover-taglist

YJ/DP Crossover 1(Revised)

To Curate A Ghost - 1

Oh my gosh, y’know what I just realized? I never posted the full, rewritten first chapter to here. This is mostly so I can link it from future chapters within giving away the major spoilers that were in the drabble idea I originally posted that became the first chapter:

The team has been together for a while now, and they’d thought they’d finally figured out how to live together.

That was, apparently, not the case.

At first it’s small things, a moved object or a TV left on even when everyone swears they turned it off.

Then, they start forgetting to call out their shots. Batman gives them extra training, it makes them more efficient, everyone works even better together.

And yet somehow… Robin will still turn around and find an enemy knocked out behind him that nobody will admit to taking down.

Like, he’s glad they’re watching each other’s backs, but let a guy know when he’s getting snuck up on, I mean, really!

Then the pranks start. Well… they start getting bolder.

Robin has his money on Wally doing it, if only because he can never catch them on camera. Next on the suspect list is M’gann, maybe she thinks it’s an earth thing, but there was no other way to get into his room without phasing through it.

Of course, everyone else thinks it’s him. And yes, Robin has pulled his fair share of bat pranks, but why would he purposefully freeze the water heater? It makes no sense, but nobody’s fessing up to any of it.

And despite their mentors best efforts, the relentless pranking starts to turn the team against each other. Somebody has to take responsibility, even Aqualad is sick of the extra training.

The last straw is apparently when Artemis’ entire quiver gets filled with sand and mud. Wally laughs at the sight of Artemis stomping into the main room covered in drying mud cement.

Her eyes zero in on him, “This was you wasn’t it, Kid Mouth?!” Artemis shouts as she shakes the dirty quiver at him.

“Hey! That’s beach sand, so maybe you should ask Fishboy before you start pointing fingers at me!” Wally points harshly as Aqualad enters the room.

“I told you before Wally, I was not the one to soak your suit with saltwater!” Aqualad says with a scoff, obviously sick of repeating it.

“Oh yeah, then who did? Some other water controlling teammate?”

“Perhaps you should ask your own best friend, after all, Robin still hasn’t apologized for-“

“I told you I didn’t do it, Kaldur! Just like I didn’t hack the training bots or the oven just to burn M’gann’s cookies!”

M’gann raises her head from behind the couch indignantly, “Nobody else could’ve done it, Robin! You’re the only one with computer skills-“

“Oh, and you’re the only one who could’ve phased into my room and rearranged everything but you don’t see me coming after you for that, M’gann!”

“Anymore! You blamed me for the flying stuff too!”

The team devolved into arguing, everybody blaming everybody else for increasing ridiculous ‘pranks.’

The shouts are interrupted by an echo of ominous laughter through the cave.

“Robin, quit being creepy!”

“It’s not me this time, I swear!” Robin says with his hands up.

The laughter continued.

Now able to tell that Robin was definitely not the one doing it, the team makes eye contact with each other.

Someoneelse was doing it.

Someone was in the cave.

More laughter echoes through the cave, and the team members are quick to arm themselves, gathering into a tight circle, back to back.

“Who’s there!”

Robin discreetly sends a distress beacon to Batman. One word: Intruder.

“Show yourself!”

More laughter, mixed in with the echos,

“BOO!” Something appears and shouts into Robins face.

He leaps back, brandishing a batarang at the… boy?

The boy in question just rocks backward in the air, laughing. He points at Robin, “You should’ve seen your face!!” He laughs.

He seems to ignore or not notice the several weapons pointed at him.

“Who are you!? How did you get in here!?”

The boy sobered instantly, “Who am I? Who am I!?” His voice grows louder as his eyes glow and he rises higher off the ground, his white hair whipping in an imaginary wind, “I am the Spectral Spectator! The preternatural prankster! I am… Phantom!” His words boom across the room from where he looks down on them. Then suddenly he drops right back in front of team, “Sup guys, the name’s Phantom, I’m a ghost and I’ve been pranking you for the last 3 months,” He laughs again, holding his middle and cackling.

“That was you?!” They shout incredulously.

“Of course! What? I thought we bonded when I painted all your masks pink. Or did you think that just happened naturally?” He flips upside down with that stupid smile still on his face.

[Batman - 02]

The whole room freezes as the team turns to the zeta tubes.

Batman appears, already in a battle stance, though pauses when he sees nobody fighting.

“Robin! Why did you call me?!” He shouts, an edge to his tone.

Robin’s brow furrows, “Because of-“ he looks behind him, only to see an empty space, “Where’d he go?!”

The rest of the team whips their heads around, equally surprised to see the empty space behind them.

Robin looks back to Batman, who’s gotten closer.

He spots a shimmer of light behind Batman as Phantom flickers into view.

“Phantom don’t-!” He reaches out to stop him-

It’s too late, Phantom taps Batman on the shoulder with a grin, only to get his hand yanked when Batman throws him over his shoulder.

Instead of hitting the ground though, he goes through, disappearing.

“Who was that?” Batman barks at the team.

“Phantom. He’s… a ghost? We don’t really know.” Robin answers carefully.

Wally scoffs and rolls his eyes, “Ghosts don’t exist, Rob. They’re not real.”

Robin opens his mouth with a retort, Aqualad steps forward to cut off the argument, “Either way, it does not seem to wish us harm… but it did admit to pranking us throughout these last few months.”

Superboy growls, “Which we got extra training because of,”

“Team. If this entity is responsible for the pranks, how long has it been following you and known about the cave? Are other locations compromised?”

The team stays silent, aside from a covered snicker from Robin and KF. Their eyes glued to the space in air above Batman.

He looks up to find the entity- Phantom- floating above him with a grin and mimicking his cowl with two fingers on his head.

Phantom grins, “Are any other locations compromised,” he says with a over-deepened voice and a fake, mocking scowl, “I’m Batman, I eat gravel for breakfast and have never experienced human joy,” he bobs his head back and forth with the joke.

He finally breaks character, falling back in the air laughing.

Batman throws a batarang-net at him, surprised as it goes through and falls to the floor harmlessly.

This could be more dangerous than expected.

“Dude, that was kind of rude! I’m just having fun!”

“Did he just call Batman dude???“ Artemis whispers incredulously to M’gann.

She shrugs helplessly but flys up to meet Phantom in the air regardless.

“Miss Martian, get back, he could be dangerous!”

The figure laughs, “I mean, I’m killer with a water balloon but don’t give me too much credit,” he grins and waves at M’gann as she gets close.

“Hello…” She hesitantly waves back, “Are you.. going to try to hurt us?”

Phantoms smile drops, and confusion replacing his mirth, “Why would I? I mean, I’ve been protecting you just as much as I prank you, why would I try to hurt anybody?” He says it as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him at all. As if, even though he’d basically broken into a secure and secret base, he’d never even considered using the opportunity to do anything but harmless pranks.

“Wait,you’ve been protecting us? Are you the one taking the snipe shots that no one calls out on missions?!” Artemis shouts with realization.

“The very one,” the kid preens with a smile.

“Why?” Batman asks, though it sounds like an order even with only one word.

Phantom rolls his eyes and lowers himself closer to the ground, “Gah, so serious, you need a laugh bat guy. I dunno,” Phantom shrugs, “Just felt right. I saw them in danger, and I didn’t want anybody to get hurt, so I protected them.”

Batman raises an eyebrow that makes Phantom shrink under its scrutiny.

“It felt right and it helps me remember, well a little bit, at least now I know I was a hero before,”

“Before? What do you mean, remember?” Batman asks, interrogation in his tone.

Phantom looks at Batman like he’s asked an obviously stupid question, “Yeah, I mean, I’m a ghost, but it’s not like I remember who I was before I died.”

–

Despite his unorthodox introduction, Phantom settles into the team with incredible ease.

On missions, he’s the first line of infiltration, with invisibility and intangibility that outrank even Robin’s skills. Nothing they’ve come across seems to be able to stop him.

That alone should be worrying, if it wasn’t so overshadowed by his steadfast persistence to protect everyone he can.

Civilians, teammates, senior heroes even.

When a mission- inevitably- goes wrong, Phantom is usually found flying above, taking shots that cover a teammate’s blind spot or protecting them from behind.

They do have to have a couple talks with him about self-sacrificing, but the reaction to jump in front of danger for his friends, it’s almost instinctual.

At least, that’s what he tells Black Canary. Even after several sessions with her, he can’t remember anything new. The team could almost believe that he’ll never remember more.

Almost.

It was just…

Sometimes Robin would hack into something particularly hard, and Phantom will reflexively say, “good one Tucker!,” or, “nice job, Tuck!” as if standing on the tip of a new memory.

They assume Tuck and Tucker are the same person, but no one on the team is really sure, none of them know a Tucker. And when asked about it, neither does Phantom. He just looks confused for a second and then moves on like they’d said nothing at all.

Unbeknownst to everyone but himself and Batman, Robin keeps a record of these instances. Along with a collection of times Phantom’s started an enthusiastic story about a ‘Jazz’, or even occasionally his parents, before suddenly losing his focus and moving on.

Once, during a lull in available missions, Phantom had followed Meghan to school.

He’d seen some goth kid in the hallway and started to yell something starting with S, then vanished.

They didn’t see him for a few days that time.

And when he came back, he wasn’t… completely.. there.

That’s something else the team’s learned about Phantom’s habits.

Sometimes they’ll find him just floating around the cave, vaguely fading from room to room, or pacing high in the air above the main room.

M’gann tried to reach him once like that, early in their friendship.

Her hand went right through him, like he wasn’t there at all.

Occasionally, and only at its worst, he’ll mutter something under his breath.

“I wasn’t fast enough.”

“I shouldn’t have cheated.”

“I can’t be late for school, not again.”

“I want to be an astronaut when I’m older.”

It reminds them all what Phantom really is. Just a dead kid. A dead civilian kid at that. A failure of what they’re trying to protect.

And it’s because of this that Robin keeps a record of everything Phantom says.

Because maybe, if they write everything down, they’ll be able to find a pattern, maybe, if they write everything down, they’ll be able to find who Phantom was, maybe they’ll be able to find what killed him. Maybe they can help him move on.

Maybe.

Here’s Part 2:

https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/667835604019593216/yjdp-crossover-part-2

YJ/DP Crossover Part 2

YJ/DP Crossover 13

The mental walls slam down between them and their teammate with a deafening silence.

“Do we… help him?” Wally says hesitantly.

Robin already has another batarang between his fingers, poised to jump in.

Aqualad stays silent, looking torn between getting the team to safety or disobeying orders again.

“I do not know how to help him, we have tried but-“

“Aqualad! We don’t have time for this! Do we help him or regroup and come back?” Artemis says.

Aqualad glances behind at the team, “We don’t-Batman is going to be so disappointed in us,“ he sighs and turns back, “M’gann, you and Superboy make sure the AMITy teams got out and rendezvous with us back at the high school. The rest of us… I imagine Phantom could use some backup.”

Aqualad lunges into the dust cloud with his water bearers out, already latching onto agents and throwing them into each other.

“Woohoo! Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Kid Flash says as he shoots forward, smoke whooshing as he goes past.

Artemis and Robin are already in action, using the smoke as the cover of darkness they were trained in. He throws down some more smoke bombs just to make sure.

Even with all of them fighting, none of them can seem to get close enough to Phantom, still only catching glimpses of his silhouette with each blast.

A stray shot illuminates the smoke as it hits Phantom. He barely flinches before his own ectoblast is meeting its target.

“I’m dead and I still manage to be a better person than you!” Phantom shouts with a growl and another blast.

Robin has to pause in the chaos of the fight. This is personal for Phantom. So much more than just not wanting to back down. Than being stubborn.

No, this is Phantom avenging himself.

Phantom dives at the agent who’d shot him.

He pulls him into the ground, letting him go halfway through. The cement cracks and shifts to trap its victim. Phantom continues looping through the battlefield with ease. He uses the quickly dissipating smoke to catch a group of agents by surprise and throw them into the side of their vans with a slam. Then pulling another into the ground. Or shooting more down with ruthless accuracy.

Kid Flash zooms past the stilled Robin with a whoosh, quickly taking down an agent behind Phantom.

He barely gets a nod.

When the smoke finally clears to wisps along the ground, the team is still outnumbered.

They’ve been able to orient themselves behind Phantom, but in front of them is still almost two dozen agents.

Phantom’s glow seems to pulse at the sight. He clenches his fists, “You want a ghost?!” He shouts, “Fine!”

Robin sees Phantom inhale and immediately rushes to brace himself, hoping his team is able to do the same.

Phantom wails.

Waves of power and sound,

regret and emotion,

pain, loss, and burning depressive fury press down on the agents.

It’s nothing compared to the medbay or his fight with Vlad. If those were a leak, just small droplets of everything Phantom has experienced… this is the breaking of the dam.

Time goes sluggish with the ringing in his ear, and Robin forces himself to lift his head, to open his eyes, to-

An agent stands behind them. Just one. With one ecto-gun.

Aimed solidly at Phantom’s back.

The green blast fires moments before Robin’s batarang hits the agent’s hands.

There’s nothing he can do as Phantom’s wail cuts off into piercing scream.

The damage is done and both sides go still.

Kid Flash rushes to catch Phantom before he hits the ground, pulling him away from the jagged ground left behind.

The rest of the team pulls themselves together and follows.

The ectoblast is seared across Phantom’s side, matching a few others on his shoulder and leg. It’s all a mess of bright green ectoplasm.

Phantom is wincing heavily as he weakly fights Kid Flash trying to stop him getting up.

“I’m fine. I need to finish this. I’m not letting them-“

“You’re not fine, Phantom. You have a holein your side and-“

“I’m dead! It’s not like it’ll kill me!” He shouts at them, finally able to wrench himself from Wally’s stunned hands. Only to find himself still cornered by the team members. “I’m not done, I can’t let them get away, not again, the GiW has to pay for-“

“It’s over, Phantom!” Artemis says with a wide sweep of her hand.

The front driveway of Vlad’s mansion is no more than a crater now, littered with GiW agents and the crushed remains of cars.

Something Phantom said makes Robin’s eyes widen, ‘can’t let them get away.‘ He snaps his head to the side but the lone agent is already gone.

It’s a problem for another time. One that’s almost certainly going to be a problemthough.

“-There’s nothing left to fight, so let’s end this and head back.” Artemis continues.

Phantom wearily looks at his team, then nods, finally allowing Kid Flash to help support him with an arm over his shoulder.

The action makes him groan in pain.

“Phantom, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Oh you know….” Danny chuckles weakly, “Tis but a flesh wound,” he coughs into his elbow, then winces at the ectoplasm that’s left splattered on his arm, “…’tis but a very deep flesh wound.”

“Phantom!”

“What?? I bit my tongue, it’s not like I can d-“

“-anyone-…….-hear-…..” Crackling breaks through the comms in their ears, followed by Tucker’s voice covered in static, “-the GiW—…. -get out-…..-return base-….. -eyes on-… -hero team-…”

Robin reaches up to tap the comm, more static, then, “Anyone have eyes on the hero team, I repeat-“

“We’re here.” He cuts the teen off.

There’s a sigh of relief before Tucker’s voice comes back, “Do you have Phantom? The GiW is on the way, I tried to delay the call but Vlad’s signal got through, you need-“

Artemis cuts in this time, “The GiW are no longer a problem. And we’ve got Phantom. But he’s injured, we need transport.”

“On it,” There’s a pause and the sounds of a keyboard clacking, “hang tight and out of sight, pickup will be there soon….stay safe, Danny.” The last part is whispered, and Artemis, Robin and Kid Flash share a look as the only ones with surviving comms.

They slowly move towards the edge of the grounds and try to hide behind a large hedge as much as they can.

It doesn’t take long though, barely 15 minutes of stiff silence until a quiet rumbling comes up the drive.

No headlights. Slow. Aqualad nods at Artemis to notch an arrow as they emerge from the bush with a lunge.

The minivan screeches unnecessarily to a halt in front of them. A scared looking 15 year old sits in the drivers seat with white knuckles on the steering wheel.

Artemis loosens her bow but doesn’t lower it until the window rolls down completely and a wavering voice trails out.

“Are…? Are you guys th-the sideki-kicks? I was told-“

Robin’s shadow lurches from the bush and slaps a hand over the teens mouth, “Yes, we’re the hero team with Phantom. Stop broadcasting our presence and don’t call us sidekicks.” Robin slips into the back of the van, allowing Aqualad the front as Artemis and takes the middle.

The kid looks hesitantly at the glowing ectoplasm leaking out of Phantom’s side.

“That’s not gonna like.. stain or anything right? ‘Cuz this is my mom’s car and we have to use it for the game this weekend-“

“Sorry, I’ll try to not to bleed to much then,” Phantom says with a deadpan look and a wince as Wally gracefully dumps him in the backseat.

The kid clears his throat, “err.. Well.. I’m Jake.”

Artemis smiles falsely and leans forward, “Nice to meet you, Jake,” the smile drops, “Drive.”

“Right,” Jake ducks his head and exaggeratedly checks the mirrors before slowly, slowly inching their way away from Vlad’s Mansion. The doubtful silence lasts all of 5 minutes before-

“I appreciate your service, Jake, but is there any way we could go faster?” Aqualad says, pointedly glancing at the single digit speedometer reader.

Jake chuckles, “I can’t go higher than like 10 man, I don’t even have my license yet-“

Robin moves forward and clamps a hand over the kids shoulder, “Just drive.”

“Mhmm” Jake nods and hymns nervously, glancing at Robin’s insignia before hesitantly looking forward and pressing down on the gas.

This turns out to be a mistake because the moment Jake gets a taste for speed… he’s taking turns at 45 with a smile.

Artemis looks nearly the color of her costume when they stumble out of the van behind the school. It’s almost a moving stop with how fast the mom-van’s tires are squealing out of the parking lot.

“Something wrong, Greenie? Can’t handle a little speed?” Wally goads.

“Oh you’re one to talk, don’t start thinking I missed that scream you gave when he hit 60 on-“

“It was Phantom-!”

“Sure, it was-“

The two of them get in each other’s face as Danny floats next to the pair, hand plastered over his side and ectoplasm leaking between his fingers. The wound is already smaller than it was, but it’s still deep.

A door opens with a slam behind them, and everyone’s heads snap in the direction to look just in time to see a black combat boot sailing through the air heading straight for Phantom’s head.

He catches the boot with his not ecto-bloody hand and gives a hesitant grin as he leans around it to look.

“Hey, Sam.”

Next Chapter:

https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/679300819727859712/yjdp-crossover-14

On Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36374176/chapters/90685825

To Curate A Ghost - Chapter 1 - Snaileer - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

Taglist:https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/669689639439892480/yjdp-crossover-taglist

YJ/DP Crossover 12

Before the team can do so much as think to go after Phantom, a group of waitstaff has entered the room and surrounded them.

Maids, butlers, out-hired servers for the gala. Even a couple gardeners with sharp looking pruning sheers.

All with glowing red eyes.

They’re cornered.

M’gann, Red Huntress and Dani rise above the group.

“What do we do? We can’t fight all of them..” Artemis says, sweeping her bow over the crowd. She has maybe 4 non-lethal arrows left. Seven if she aims right and maybe 9 if she can pick a few back up.

Red Huntress looks at Dani from the corner of her eye, then back to the bloodthirsty possessed crowd they face.

“Dani, I need you to get to the office.”

“What?! No! I’m staying here!” Dani says, “I’m helping you!”

“Dani, Debate Team still hasn’t found Vlad’s plans for the city. They need backup, they need help,” Valerie urges.

Dani suddenly looks very torn between staying and leaving, she looks at Valerie fully, “You’re sure?”

“Yes. Go. Make sure AMITy gets those plans, we can’t leave without them. They need you.”

Dani nods and zooms off down a different hallway- nope, wait- just straight through a wall.

Robin narrows his eyes and looks at Red Huntress skeptically, “Why’d you send her away? She would have been helpful in this fight. We need to get out and go after Phantom,”

Valerie sighs, weary, “You guys might not get it, but Dani’s still a kid. She shouldn’t have to be fighting these battles. But her obsession… all she wants is to be able to help, to be needed. And right now, I needed her to be safe.”

Robin looks thoughtful for a second, “Y’know, you’re still a kid too, Huntress.”

Huntress straightens her shoulders and raises her chin like a soldier, then she scoffs and looks out on the possessed crowd, “We’re all kids, Robin. Even you.”

Robin looks away as well.

“Enough talk. You’re in my way, children,” a possessed maid speaks, sounding like someone else.

Like a switch is flipped, the rest of the crowd rushes forward.

And the fight begins anew.

——

Fueled by the rage and lingering electricity in his ectoplasm, it doesn’t take long for Phantom to find Vlad. Always a coward, hiding away and manipulating instead facing the damage hecauses.

Phantom fades into visibility right in front of Plasmius, catching him by surprise as he blocks the doorway.

“What’s wrong, Uncle Vlad? Surprised to see me? Ghost got your tongue?” Phantom says with thinly veiled fury.

The desperation vanishes as a languid smile slides over Plasmius’s face, “Quite the opposite little badger, I’ve known you and your friends were here since the very beginning, Daniel. That’s quite the assortment of heroes you’ve collected. And yet you still refused to be my protégé. Why, so you could waste your potential with them?” Plasmius says as he backs into the room. It’s the newest lab, the secret doorway left wide open in his haste.

“They are my friends, Vlad. Something you’d never understand.”

Plasmius snarls, “I have friends, you insolent little child!” His hand wraps around something on the table behind him.

“My parents don’t count when you relentlessly try to kill one of them and then wipe their memories like the lonely old man you are!”

Plasmius lunges forward, a taser crackling in his hand. Immediately, Phantom grabs his arm, turning it back and jabbing the sparking blue electricity into Plasmius’s chest instead.

He shouts in pain as the light flashes under his skin. His transformation falls around him and Vlad is left standing there, heaving for breath as electricity continues to flow.

“How does it feel, Plasmius?! To have it stripped away from you? A taste of your own medicine!”

When Phantom finally lets go of the taser, Vlad whips his head up, “I was trying to help you! I protected this town in your absence! I could have protected you if you’d just listen-“

“You were the one that handed me over to them!” Danny screams. He refuses, outright refuses, to listen to any more of Vlad’s manipulations, “And they killed me!”

Vlad reels back.

He struggles to regain his composure, “It was never meant to go like this, I-“

“Oh I know all about your little plan, Plasmius. To get me to like you, to trick me into thinking you saved me..” Danny says with visceral anger. Each time getting closer to him.

Vlad takes a forcefully deep breath and straightens the sleeves of his suit, “Yes, well.. every king must make sacrifices to win the game. It was just-“

“I am NOT your pawn!” Phantom yells and fires off an ectoblast. He keeps going, one after the other, not even noticing as the balls of ectoplasm grow shards of ice and freeze over, he just wants Vlad to stop, to stop talking, stop lying, stop breathing-

“Phantom!” A familiar voice shouts.

Phantom freezes, fist poised above Vlad Plasmius’s bloody face. Red mixes with pink and flecks of green. He doesn’t even care.

He feels like he should be heaving for breath with the effort of fighting. But he’s not.

Yet another thing Vlad has taken from him.

“So dark, Daniel,” Vlad tsks with a wince and whispers bailfully, “it’s a wonder you fit in with those heroes at all..”

“Raah!” Phantom reels his arm back with a shout, ready to slam it into his face-

Only to have it stopped by strong hands holding him back.

He tries to phase through, but when he looks back, Plasmius is already on the other side of the room. Dumped there in a rush by Kid Flash.

“Phantom, this isn’t how we do things. You need to calm down,” Superboy says from beside Phantom.

“Calm down?! Calm down?!Wouldyou calm down if it was Luthor?!” Phantom yells as he stands, “Or-or- Black Manta?! Or Sportsmaster?!-“ he gestures at Aqualad and then Artemis.

“That’s not the same Phantom!” Artemis says vehemently.

“Yes it is! He doesn’t deserve your protection! Not after everything he did!”

“You almost killed him, Phantom!” Robin shouts.

“Then Fine! No one would miss him! Why shouldn’t I-!”

“We don’t kill, Phantom!”

“Hekilledme!” Danny feels his eyes flare with the shout, his words echoing louder, bordering on his wail, “He stuck me like this, trapped me, and then handed me over to the GiW to let me die! Why does he deserve to keep what he took from me!”

“Because it’s not yours to take!” Artemis says, “Don’t you get it? This is what he wants from you. To stoop to his level, to be just like him. Is that really what you want?”

Righteous anger surges through him.

“HeERASEDME!“ Danny wails, his voice throwing the team back, even Superboy being pushed halfway.

All he wants is to be okay, to be happy and safe and free.

To be able to live.

And that can’t happen with Vlad still here.

He looks back to where Vlad now sits alone.

Vlad chuckles at the destruction as he struggles to sit up, “We could be so powerful together, Little Badger.. If only you would see-”

“I’m never joining you Plasmius! What don’t you get about that!? I’m nothing like you, I protect people! Protect my friends, my family, my team!“

Vlad snarls, “You think you’re better than me? How are you better when you’re the one hurting them!?” He points to the side and Phantom follows his finger.

His team lays there,

Artemis,

Robin,

Aqualad, and Kid Flash, all slowly groaning and trying to get up.

Superboy has blood leaking out of his ear and M’gann.. M’gann’s still completely unconscious. She must’ve hit her head when his wail threw them back.

Whenhiswail…

his.

He did this. Not Vlad, Phantom.

His eyes widen and he rushes over to his friends, hands wild and desperate.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! I was just so angry and I-“

Wally lifts a hand to stop him, giving a weak smile, “Man, it’s okay, we get it. We know you’d never hurt us on purpose.”

“But I-“

“Dude, none of this is your fault and we don’t blame you for it. So just chill and let us get our hearing back for a second, okay?”

Phantom steps back as the team slowly gets to their feet, shaking it off like it’s nothing. The nervous clamp of guilt around his heart loosens, if only barely.

Even M’gann is fine after a small shake of her shoulder. He can’t believe he lost control like that.

Robin is the first to start speaking.

“You understand why we stopped you, right Phantom? Why we couldn’t let you kill him?”

Danny averts his eyes, breathing deeply, “Yes, I just..” Danny runs his hands through his hair roughly and shakes his head, “It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have hurt you.”

Superboy raises an eyebrow, “I’m just surprised you were able to.”

“Daniel is stronger than any of you know. Than even he gives himself credit for,” Vlad’s voice sounds from the other side of the room and they all look over, “And he squanders it playing hero like the rest of you.” Vlad spits the words like they’re a disgrace.

Righteous anger roils up in Phantom’s core again. This time, though, he knows what he wants from it.

Phantom stomps over to Vlad, purposefully making his steps loud, and grabs him by the front of his shirt.

He ignores his teams halted actions behind him and pulls Vlad’s face up inches away from his own, “I don’t really care what you think of me, Plasmius. And I don’t need to. Here’s what you are going to do. You’re going to pull yourself together, tell me how to help my parents,” Phantom leans in, eyes glowing viciously, “And then you are going to fix it.”

Vlad eyes were wide as he tried to retort, voice wavering, “You think you scare mechild-?”

“And if you don’t,” Phantom growls, “I will expose your secret to the rest of the world. My parents, the town, the GiW. I wonder if they’ll come up with anything new for you, Vlad. Or maybe you’ll end up as just another cheap knockoff.”

Phantom pushes Vlad off him, staring down from above, “I have nothing to lose anymore, Vlad. You made sure of that when you took all of it from me. But you still have everything, and I am happy to return the favor.”

The team approaches from behind to stand with him.

“I believe you should listen to him, Plasmius. You are vastly outnumbered.” Aqualad says with a glare.

Superboy hits his fists together, “And overpowered.“ He growls.

Vlad scowls and wipes green-tinted blood off his faces. He hesitates for a second, “Their mental data was funneled into a device. I’d originally planned to use it on you before them but-“

M’gann’s eyes light up with a glare behind Phantom.

“Evidently I didn’t,” he rushes, then, “I can easily modify to return them. If you would be so kind as to allow me my tools.”

Phantom looks down at him with narrowed eyes, “Fine. Do it.”

Vlad nods and moves to get up, stuttering when a batarang lands between his fingers on the floor.

“If you try anything, we won’t hesitate, Masters,” Robin says, purposefully using the man’s real name.

Vlad lip curls in distaste, but he relents, “Of course.”

As soon as he’s up, Vlad heads over to one of the non-destroyed shelves in the room. He pulls back a secret keypad, opening a compartment high on the wall.

“If you would, Daniel?” He motions at it with his eyes, “I seem to be in too rough a shape to grab that myself.”

Instead, M’gann’s eyes light up and the object inside floats down by itself, landing heavily and roughly in Vlad’s arms. He almost falls with the new weight.

The object is a round, elliptical container with several technical looking designs, locks and buttons. The edges and lines of it pulse with glowing blue.

“I just have to make the modifications for it to release your parents memory data,” Vlad says as he limps towards a workbench. Phantom floats right behind him.

“Must you linger so close, Daniel?”

“I’m not letting you out of my sight until I know you can’t try anything. You might not be able to transform right now but I’m not fool enough to think that means you’re harmless.” Phantom says as he floats over to lean against the far side of the table and ignore Vlad as much as he can.

Vlad gives a wry smirk and purses his lips, “Then at least I’ve taught you something.”

Artemis scoffs, “Phantom didn’t get anything from you, creep. He’s nothing like you.”

Vlad snarls lowly at the female archer approaching him, “I made him what he is! I gave him a goal and purpose!”

“You hurt a perfectly good person is what you did!” Artemis sweeps out a hand to gesture at Phantom, “Look at him! He’s got trauma!”

Phantom snorts with laughter at the end of the table.

Neither of them notice the way Vlad’s eyes soften with sadness and regret as he looks at Phantom. He quickly turns instead to focusing on the modifications needed on the machine.

As Wally steers Artemis away to discuss with the team, Danny splits his attention between half-listening to them and watching Vlad in his peripheral.

As time creeps forward, he notices Vlad keeping sneaking glances at Danny out of the corner of his eye. It’s almost as annoying as him talking, but that’s a veryhigh bar.

“Are you really..? Your other half, I mean..” Vlad says hesitantly, again looking at him from the corner of his eye, not quite looking away from the machine.

Andthere’s the annoying talking thing.

“Shut it, Plasmius, I still fricking hate you,” Phantom says without even glancing his way.

Vlad turns back to his invention.

A few seconds pass by, then- “But yes, I’m fully dead now. A ghost through and through.” Phantom says quietly, his hair hanging over his eyes.

Vlad’s shoulders crumple, he stares emptily at the gears in front of him, “Then I am alone once again.”

Danny scoffs, “Only ‘cuz you choose to be, Vlad,” he says and pushes away from the table.

As he walks over, the team peppers him with questions. Phantom explains it briefly; the taser, Vlad’s plan, how the GiW got him.

There’s still a few gaps from the haze of pain; between getting taken and waking up, all he remembers is feeling suffocated, drowning and surrounded by…something.

Assumedly when the corrupted ectoplasm was put into his system. The entire experience is still a blur of ‘Who am I?’and‘Don’t know, don’t know.’ and‘Find out. Explore. Discover… who?’

The team backs off when he goes quiet, evidently unable to make sense of any more than they already knew.

A somber stillness settles over them, the team and Phantom keeping a watchful eye on Vlad until he straightens from his work on the machine and breaks the silence.

“It’s done,” he says.

“And you’re sure it’ll work?”

Vlad scowls, “You doubt me, Daniel?”

“Highly.” Danny replies with an angry look.

Vlad sighs but hands it over all the same, “It will work, just press this button there and their minds will be restored. Though I can’t imagine Jack has much of a mind to restore to begin with.” He mutters.

“Better than whatever shriveled up mess you’ve thrifted for a heart, Fruit Loop.” Phantom takes the machine and turns to his team, already rising in the air, “Let’s go, guys, our work here is done.”

“Ungrateful child,” Vlad snarls to Danny’s back and scowls, “I’d be careful out there, Daniel. You never know-“

Superboy’s fist slams into his face, hitting him solidly in the jaw. He watches as Vlad hits the ground, unconscious, with a satisfying thump. Superboy jabs a finger out, “That was for Dani, you smarmy jerk.”

The team stares at him with wide eyes.

Superboy raises his chin and stomps past them, “He talked too much.”

Phantom blinks slowly.

A smile creeps onto his face as warmth blooms in his chest.

He laughs brightly, “Feel free to punch Vlad anytime, SB.”

Superboy gives a gruff nod and the team continues to follow Phantom as he floats through the hallways to the mansion’s exit.

As they make their way out, Robin is able to send a small update to Batman. It’s the first time he’s had a chance since they’d met Red Huntress. Confirming that ‘No, B. We don’t need full League response. We have it handled. Yes I’m sure.’

It’s seconds after he hangs up that the team steps out of the building only to be confronted by a veritable army of white vans pulled up in front of them. The side of each marked with the black blocky letters ‘GIW’ and agents standing with ecto-guns aimed directly at them.

The team freezes, filled with dread-

“Damn Daniel…” Wally says breathily, “Back at it again with the white vans.”

Robin wants to laugh, but the dread curling in his stomach chokes it, “Maybe I should’ve accepted Batman’s offer for backup.”

“Ya think?” Artemis says sarcastically, slowly angling towards her bow.

“Maneuver 26? Smoke and Evade?” Robin asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Works for me, Rob.“

“M’gann, link us up.”

“Ready.”

Robin sees an agent step forward and acts on reflex. He smashes a smoke bomb to ground.

He can feel the team around him as they shoot forward and fight to clear a path.

The crowd of agents starts shooting randomly, no wait, not randomly-

“Phantom!” Aqualad shouts in their minds.

Robin turns back to see the shadowed figure of Phantom still in the smoke cloud.

Green blasts light up the dust, back and forth, both natural and manufactured, silhouetting his fight in neon snapshots.

“Phantom! Get out of there!“

“What are you doing, we need to run! We can’t fight them all!”

There’s a second of hesitation before Phantom’s voice echoes across their mindscape,

“I’m not running,” he says,“Not this time.”

On Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36374176/chapters/90685825

To Curate A Ghost - Chapter 1 - Snaileer - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

Next Part: https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/677461994022076416/yjdp-crossover-13

YJ/DP Crossover 11

“Your name was Danny?” Wally says in his mind, “Really?That’s what your parents named baby-you?”

Phantom gives him an affronted look, “No need to sound so disbelieving, man. It’s short for Daniel and it’s not that bad,”

“It kind of is. You just don’t really look like a Danny, Phantom -sorry- Danny-sorryphantom-wait, which do you want us to use now?” Artemis stumbles over her thoughts as they run.

“Phantom in the field, as always,“ he thinks with a roll of his eyes, then looks away a bit, “But when we’re back at the cave, yeah… I think it would be kind of nice to be called Danny again,”

Red Huntress flies a little closer to the group and leans in, “I don’t know what the hell kinda weird ghost mojo you’ve got going on that’s got you so distracted,” She gestures at the whole team, “But cut it out, Phantom.”

“Wait, do they not know?!” Artemis says in their mind.

Phantom shushes her out loud, then says mentally, “Huntress doesn’t know anything about the Halfa situation, except that Dani is one.” Phantom pauses, “Oh, and Vlad too.”

Wally speed trips over his own feet, falling to the ground rolling, as does Artemis, though more gracefully. Even Robin and Aqualad stumble and screech to a halt.

“He’s a what!?” They shout out loud.

Red Huntress swoops down and sweeps them all into an alley.

“What the hell was that?! You nearly got us all caught yelling like that!”

“Vlad’s a halfa?!” Robin whisper-yells.

Huntress furrows her eyebrows below the mask, “You told them?”

He hadn’t even told her, in fact, he’d told her she had to keep it a secret when she found out, so why now-

“Phantom, Huntress, this is pertinent information that you should’ve shared with us before we set out.” Aqualad says. Not quite angry, but scolding, upset at least a little.

“What if we had encountered him? We would have been caught off-guard and unprepared! This could’ve put us in danger, Phantom!” Robin says, more visibly upset.

“Vlad’s identity as Plasmius was always a secret, guys, I didn’t think about it.. ” Phantom says, then pauses and adds in his mind, “Me and Vlad had a mutually assured destruction agreement to keep each other’s secrets. Now that I’m not a halfa…”

A look of understanding crosses their faces, though they still don’t look happy.

Aqualad steps up, “This has to stop. We are trained for these situations, as are you Phantom. I can no longer just let us run blindly into a situation we know nothing about without a plan.”

“Aqualad, I told you-“ Huntress starts angrily, Aqualad holds up a hand.

“I’m not saying we can’t go through with it, but I am saying we need to be organized about it. You have the rest of your Troupe meeting us there?”

Red nods skeptically, “Squads Ducky, Rubber & Maximus, at least. Squad Yellow had a history project due and Squad Five is still out of town for the mathlete tournament.”

“Good enough,” Aqualad turns to his team, “Kid Flash, you run ahead with Red Huntress and Robin. The three of you get as many AMITy people into the mansion, replace guards etc, get Robin inside. Robin, take down the security systems and get cameras, you’re our eyes and entry. The goal is to stay as undetected for as long as possible.”

The three nod, Wally scooping Robin up and running off. Huntress holds back for a second to jab a finger at Aqualad, “You better not mess this up,” she says harshly then flips her hoverboard out and soars after the blur of yellow lightning.

“What about us, Aqualad?” Artemis asks.

“We’re going to be the front team. Phantom, you think you know enough to get us there swiftly?”

“For the opportunity to get back at Vlad? Absolutely.” He says with confidence.

“Let’s hurry then, I’ll communicate the rest of the plan once we’re closer.”

Phantom nods and grabs Superboy and Aqualad, turns them both invisible and rises into the air again.

Knowing how close they’re getting makes his senses tunnel to one objective. Find Vlad and make him pay.

He barely notices Artemis running on the rooftops next to them or the concerned looks M’gann shoots him under her camouflage.

Robin’s voice through the bond pulls him out of it, “I’ve got his defenses down, and something called ‘Ecto-Repeller-Glamicus-Wall 3.0’ is offline as well.”

“That’d be the Ghost Shield, ghosts can’t get through it.”

“Oh, didn’t know that existed, that’s helpful,” Robin hums.

“Good job with the infiltration, Robin. Phantom, when we get in sight, drop us and fly ahead. We need to get inside fast and without being detected. Kid Flash, is there anyone around the building who will see us when we lose Phantom’s invisibility?”

Wally’s thoughts rejoin the bond, “We saw some civilians around the building, all acting strangely. There was also a few mail-order security guards and some private guards in white,”

“Did AMITy take them out?”

“Some of them, I mean geez, that blond kid and his friend tackle like a wall of bricks, hell, like a Kryptonian.But I think there’s a few of the ones in white suits still lingering around.”

Danny flickers a bit, hands tightening. He’s lucky both his flying passengers have superhuman durability.

Sure enough, as Danny comes around the bend to Vlad’s mansion, he spots the telltale bleached fabric of the GiW agents scattered around the edges of the property.

He drops Aqualad and Superboy, both of them landing and rolling into taking down their target. M’gann and Artemis appear as well, finding their own to take down.

There’s still six or so agents left standing obliviously on the perimeter.

Danny smirks without humor, “Hello anger management.”

The mere minutes it takes him to beat the suits into ground are well worth the looks he gets from the team for being late. Clean white suit? How’s half buried in the ground for ya?

All the same, the team moves on, stalking through the halls, taking out cameras permanently and avoiding the intensely focused eyes of various strangers.

Some of them seem to be dressed in various levels of fancy. As if they’d been pulled straight from a party.

Hadn’t Tucker said there was a rich people gala tonight? Was it somewhere near here?

Either way, they end up fighting more and more of them. Civilians thrown into those fight like they didn’t matter. Like Vlad didn’t care about their lives.

He probably didn’t.

The number of overshadowed people keeps rising, and the Team is at a disadvantage, they can’t hurt the people they’re fighting.

The ghosts possessing them have no such qualms.

Ignoring the occasional GiW agent being beat and thrown to the side, they’re losing.

It’s hard to fight multiple enemies. It’s dang near impossible to fight so many and not hurt them.

They keep trying to keep pace with the relentless civilians. But every time they go down, they get back up. It’s right when the overshadowed crowd really starts pushing them back that Danny gets worried they truly might not win, then the lights go out and the room fills with smoke.

He vaguely catches a figure dropping from the vents with a cackle.

“Robin?”

There’s a flash of a smile as a GiW agent goes down, “Yep.”

Danny almost gets thrown to the side, startling him enough to speak out loud at a harsh whisper, “Aren’t you supposed to be taking care of Vlad’s tech?”

“He had a little help from the Tuck-Meister” A voice speaks in everyone’s ear.

“Tucker? Did you hack into our spare comms?” Phantom asks, looking up to where he knows there’s a security camera, one of five not blasted from the fight.

“Yep. I hacked a superhero team’s comm system, dang, I really am pushing the limits of your justice league-adjacentness here, aren’t I?” Tucker pauses, and there’s the sound of buttons clacking while the rest of the team still looks shell-shocked. “Oh well, they couldn’t stop me if they tried. Like I was saying, I’ve got this, so Robin can enter the fight, you guys keep going.”

“Thanks man. I’m always glad to have you at my back.” Phantom says to the camera with a smile before he zooms off down the hallway with the team.

There’s a quiet pause and a sigh, then, “Thanks man, me too.”

And the fight continues.

A hit there, a punch here. Covering each other’s blind spots and the Team working in sync with barely a word.

Well. Barely a verbal word. Wally still hasn’t stopped complaining about missing dinner. It starts a debate about meal times in the ghost zone. And still they fight on.

Like a well oiled machine. Except this machine has been running a bit too hard for a bit too long.

Wally lags first, catching a stray laser on his calf. You’d think his speed would make him harder to hit, but apparently aiming tactics for ghosts transfer remarkably well to hitting speedsters too.

He stumbles a little bit, enough to distract M’gann, who nearly gets jumped by an agent, only to be tackled by an angry Superboy.

From there it starts devolving.

It doesn’t help that Red Huntress is backed into the room as well by a hoard of possessed party-goers.

It throws yet another wrench in the fluidity of their movements.

Nobody knows how to intrinsically fight with her. Except Phantom, who’s style changes so quickly they are left with larger gaps in their defenses than they’d even known.

“Where is Dani with those weapons?!” Phantom says as he blocks a hit heading for Aqualad and goes down with a grunt.

“Here! I’m here!” A voice echoes from the sky. Sure enough though, in her arms are at least four bags of Fenton Gear. She drops them to the team, “I’m not alone though, I brought company!”

The Fenton GAV roars down the street behind her.

“I thought you said you never got caught!” Phantom yells with panic.

“I’m here aren’t I? I didn’t get caught, I got seen!”

“That’s not much better right now!” He yells. Ancients, Dani makes him want to rip his hair out sometimes! But before that, he’s got more people to fight.

“Oh Danny, by the way, you’ll never guess who I ran into!” Tucker says in his ear, and it must be just his comm because nobody else seems to react.

“Who?”

The comm crackles interference, “You and I are gonna have words, you self-sacrificing, ghost-huntingidiot!”

Phantom falls through a punch at the sound of Sam’s voice.

“Sam!? You’re here?!” He says as he regains tangibility.

“Of course I’m here! I’ve been here all night! I was stuck with my parents for months Danny! Months! I wore a primary color! I attended a Gala!”

“Danny, this pretty serious, man, I think her face is turning a primary color-OW! Sa~am..” the sound of a thump is followed by Tucker’s pouting whine.

Danny wants to laugh. Then he catches sight of another GiW agent and the anger flairs back up again. Danny punches the agent with a wicked smile on his face. Whoever said he couldn’t multi-task?

Phantom spots Plasmius step out from a newly collapsed janitor. It was probably just a duplicate, a clone, but even that could lead him to the real one. This was his chance.

Somehow, the duplicate sees him coming. He turns with supernatural speed, firing off an ectoblast and rising into the air.

Phantom dodges and goes after him. He has to get closer. His own ectoblasts are still burning him, so the only option is to simply deck the man.

He can’t wait.

This excitement is halted by the sound of his name being yelled, “Phantom! Watch ou-“

Everything moves

Slower.

He turns in time to see tendrils of electricity reaching towards him from GiW agents gun.

And then a flash of pink in his peripheral vision. Vlad. An ectoblast hurling towards him.

The man-made lightning hits him first, striking his side and back, throwing him into the burning force of the ectoplasm blast flying at him.

It hits within a millisecond, burning hot against his front, sharp lances in his back, colliding against each other, pushing, pulling, yanking, screaming-

He gasps, freezing in the air as memories flash behind his eyes.

The feeling of air against his skin, wind in his hair and then-

Pain

Electricity shot through his veins from his back. He fell out of the sky, crumpling into himself on the ground.

Blearily, Danny pried open an eye to look above him, “Plasmius? Wha-?”

His bleary form smirked, “Why hello, little badger. How nice to see you again. Feeling tense, are we?”

Danny groaned, flinching as electricity sparked under his suit, “What did you-What did you do to me? The Plasmius Maximus?”

Plasmius held up a glowing taser, only this time, the electricity coming off it is pink, not green.

“Something like that, yes? I don’t quite have a name for it yet, but it’s the Anti-Plasmius Maximus. You won’t be able to transform back for at least a day with each shock. Maybe longer, I don’t know quite yet, I wasn’t able to test it.”

“You trapped me in Phantom form? Why? To make me leave my parents?” It was the first thing he thought of, after all, how could he explain to his parents who he was if he couldn’t prove it.

“Hmm, no, although that would be a good idea. No… I’ve trapped you as this so our secret doesn’t get out to some rather unfriendly individuals when they come pick you up. Surely you’re familiar with the Guys in White?”

Danny’s eyes widened, and he tensed more, feeling sparks run through his muscles, “You called the Guys in White on me? Why? You know what they’ll do. Where they’re going to take me.”

“Why, dear Danny-boy? Well because I’m going to rescue you from them. Making me..,” he poised a hand over his chest, “Your savior. Forever in my debt. Forever thankful.”

Danny scoffs as best he can, “Then why the hell you’d tell me that, you Fruit Loop? Now I know it’s you.”

Plasmius smirked again, now so much closer, so much harsher, “Because it’s not as if you’ll remember this. I made sure of that.” He stabbed the device into Danny’s side. Danny screamed as the pink-tainted electricity tore through his body, raging and raking against his cells, burning and sparking in his ectoplasm.

That same burning that blanks out his mind, that follows his nightmares in green, of a portal, a stupid dare, a picture-

He screams again, and again and again, every time there’s a moment of clarity, electricity reminds itself in his core.

Until finally, he’s being pushed into a container, it’s all he knows, the sparks still crackling along his suit.

Heaviness starts to fill around him, he pulls away, it’s wrong, wrong so wrong he can’t touch it, there’s no-

Electricity screams again, him with it and the heaviness weighs on his skin, under his suit, into his being, his plasm, his core.

It seeps deeper and deeper, urged on and bonded with the sparks still lingering.

Until finally it has wrapped itself around, strangling his core.

Trapping that electricity in the very center of his being.

Danny gasps and jolts forward from his place on the floor.

Everything in his mind starts to clear. It clicks into place with a snap and a spark.

Electricity that has been held against his core for so long finally releases, mixing with what had been renewed.

It jumps across the outside of his suit, his second skin. It lingers further.

That’s fine.

He’s not quite done with it yet.

Danny feels it at the edges of his awareness as the temperature drops dangerously, but ignores it.

He only cares about one thing now. Now that he knows. He’s going after that duplicate, and it’s going to lead him to Vlad. Whether it likes it or not.

He’s already back in the air when he hears,

“Phantom, wait!” M’gann calls after him.

“You need to be careful, stay with us, we’ll go to together! You can’t handle Plasmius alone and there could be Guys in White still down there!” Artemis says, trying to convince him. To reason with him. She knew the dangers of acting on anger, on revenge.

Phantom slows for a second and looks back to them, eyes glowing bright with fury and electricity still crackling along his skin,

“And what? What are they gonna do? Killme?”

“I’m already dead,” He sneers. “I’d like to see them try.”

Then Phantom turns back, and

Disappears.

On Ao3:https://archiveofourown.org/works/36374176?view_full_work=true

To Curate A Ghost - Snaileer - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

First Part: https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/661211386227064832/yjdp-crossover-1

Next Part:

https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/675598629128568832/yjdp-crossover-12