Danny frozen in the doorway to the kitchen.
Danny frozen in the doorway to the kitchen.
A day to relax - something he’d had more time for as of late.
At least, when he wasn’t being hunted by the very people sitting around his kitchen table, having coffee with his parents.
The JL had had a positive impact on his parents, at least. Viewing ghosts as animals was far better than as test subjects.
That didn’t make it less annoying to have to be constantly on alert as Phantom, lest he be caught.
Not that he mostly wasn’t anyway.
’As this point,’ he thinks, ’I should ask for a punch card.’
“Danny!” Maddie waves him over, far too exuberantly for 9am, in his opinion. “Come, sit! We were just talking about Phantom’s oddly uncooperative behavior in the face of all the other successful relocations. The league thinks a living teenager’s perspective might help!”
He can feel his eye twitch, but he shoves down the rest of the grimace that wants to form and plasters on a shy, self-deprecating smile.
“Ah, I doubt I’d be much help. You know all the ecto-science stuff never really made sense to me; I can barely pass biology.”
Jack practically blurs to swing an arm around his shoulder.
“C'mon, Danny-boy! Give yourself some credit! Your grades have improved a lot now that those spooks aren’t attacking the school all the time!”
“Your father is right, dear,” Maddie chimes in, “And we’re sorry we didn’t realize how much stress the attacks were causing you, and we’re so proud of how much progress you’ve made recently. Just think! Once Phantom is relocated the odds of attacks will be gone and you can study without worry!”
“The questions are only meant to get your perspective,” Batman clarifies.
“You are a teenager at a similar age to Phantom’s appearance, your school was often a sight of territory disputes-” Danny dutifully suppressed his desire to glare at ‘territory disputes’ “-and as the son of the field’s experts you have a unique perspective on the topic. Your input would be greatly appreciated”
“…Sure,” Danny says, trying and failing to sound enthused.
’Just what I wanted to do on a weekend morning, give the League more ideas on how to put me in a cage so Black Canary can ask questions repeatedly.’
“Chin-up Danno! With all the ghosties managed you can focus on getting those grades up enough for that Nasa internship!”
“Nasa?” Batman asks politely.
“You betcha! Our Jazzy is a genius of the human mind, but Danny knows the stars like the back of his hand! Tell ‘em about that fancy new telescope you were talking about yesterday!”
Jack pats his back, pushing him forward.
“D-dad!” He hisses, heat rushes to his face in his embarrassment as he ducks the arm to slink back towards the door.
“They work with literal aliens! I’m sure they already know about FARSIDE! Aren’t they here on business? We shouldn’t hold them up!”
“FARSIDE?” Batman interjects? “I’ve heard something about putting in on the moon, but I’m afraid that’s all the details I’ve kept up with. I certainly wouldn’t consider it wasted time to hear what you know; no one tells a topic quite like an enthusiast, after all. If I recall, they were going to put it in a crater?”
“A maria,” Danny frowns at him. “And they’re putting it the South Pole-Aitken Basin, not just 'a crater.’ The South Pole-Aitken Basin is on the far side of the moon, meaning a radio telescope - the type they’ll be using - will be able to look at lower frequencies than they are usually capable of observing. This is because the Earth is heavily polluted by human radio transmissions, whereas having the moon between Earth and the telescope will provide the protection needed to probe further into space.
The moon also lacks an ionosphere like the one here on Earth, which can reflect the wavelengths the telescope is meant to observe back into space. Earth simply has too much interference to observe what FARSIDE is meant to: the Cosmic Dark Ages.”
Danny popped down some toast as he talked, leaning against the counter distractedly.
“Studying Cosmic Dark Ages, the time before even the first stars coalesced and the universe was nothing but gas and fog, will allow us to better study how stars are formed how galaxies formed and evolved.
The project was finally formally approved 16 days ago, and construction is already in the beginning stages. It took them a while to sort out how to address the major concerns - temperature damage, radiation damage, the lack of direct signal path to Earth. Moonquakes are largely addressed by putting it in the South Pole-Aitken Basin since it’s a largely stable flatland, of course. But it still took a while to put everything together.
It’ll take longer for it to actually get set up, of course, but it finally moved from the 'it’d be cool if this happened’ stage to the 'this is definitely happening stage,’ so there’s that.”
He jolts when the toaster pops beside him, toast already done.
“Anyway,” he briefly rubs the back of his neck before moving to butter the slices. “Uh, hope that helps?”
“Very informative,” Batman hums. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, I believe. As for the questions about Phantom-” Danny very carefully keeps his shoulders lax “-we don’t expect you to have all of the answers. We simply hope you might be to give us some perspective on his behavior, given he was a teenager once too.”
“You don’t have to answer an questions you don’t know the answer to or aren’t comfortable with, of course. But we’ll appreciate anything you can give us; it’s been a while since most of us were teenagers, after all,” Black Canary adds laughingly.
Danny sighs, spins, hops up to sit on the counter.
“Don’t you guys have a baby division you can ask about teen stuff?”
“The Young Justice members lack the unique perspective of an Amity Park citizen on the subject,” Wonder Woman cuts in as Danny nibbles his toast resignedly. “Students from your class in particular have had the most exposure of most citizens, barring your parents themselves. You’re own observations of the subject could help shed some light on the current situation. Light which we desperately need if we are to successfully relocate Phantom in the face of his continued reticence.”
Danny swallows his toast and frowns at her, this time allowing sourness to enter the expression.
’What a time for Jazz to be away,’ he thinks before responding.
“Why do you even need to relocate him? It’s not like he’s hurting anybody! Phantom’s a good guy!”
“Axion Labs.” Batman says. “Kidnapping the Mayor. The one group of ghosts he seemed to avoid attacking were a group of jewel thieves, whom he joined in their attacks for as long as they were active in this city.”
Danny bites his tongue to avoid making defenses he shouldn’t know enough to make - not that they’d believe him anyway.
“We know it isn’t malicious,” Superman - the last of the early-hour invaders - placates. “We’re aware that he simply doesn’t understand what he’s doing. That’s why we want to relocate him; we can place him somewhere he’ll be safe and happy, and Amity Park will be safe from any more negative behaviors from him.”
“We’ve caught him numerous times already,” Black Canary explains, “But he simply refuses to talk to us, always does his best to run away when we spot him, always escapes at the first opportunity.”
“Gee, I can’t imagine why he’d be uncomfortable being “captured and relocated”-“ Danny makes the air quotes with a piece of toast squished between each pinkie and ring finger, sarcasm dripping from every word ”-by a group working with the same people who were always shouting about ripping him apart 'molecule by molecule.’ After all, it’s not like he’s smart enough to not want to follow you to a secondary location despite your close relationship with the people who have consistently threatened him with everything from grievous bodily harm to torture to complete destruction to repurposing for parts to power their gadgets.“
"Now Danny,” Maddie begins, voice disapproving, “I know our your father and I’s prior stance on ghost sentience was…unethical. To say the least. But you know very well we’ve moved past that. We’ve printed all of the necessary retractions and moved all of our weapons to be focused on containment.”
“I dunno, mom. One glowing green gun barrel is kind of hard to tell from another. Is he even smart enough to read a retraction? Sounds fake.”
“We’ve tried offering him food in an attempt to establish positive associations with our presence, but he simply left. We also managed to get an idea of his obsession. Despite this, he fled the specialized habitat we set up for him. Food and obsession haven’t worked, so we’re at a bit of a loss…” Black Canary trails off.
“Have you considered maybe his obsession is, like, freedom or something? Besides, if all the other ghosts are handled and he’s only misbehaved with other ghosts around then who cares?”
“There were no additional ghosts present during the Axion Labs incident.”
Danny throws up his hands, not even noticing the remaining half-piece of toast being flung onto the wall behind him.
“How would you even know!? Cameras??? Axion cameras wouldn’t have worked on ghosts back then! Oh, right, eye-witness reports. Because those are always flawless when it comes to ghosts. Who can be invisible.”
“Daniel James Fenton! You had better watch your tone or you’ll be grounded for a week,” Maddie scolds.
“Sorry,” he mutters, crossing his arms.
“Now there’s an idea!” Jack exclaims brightly. “Tone - you said Phantom never talks to you, but you have heard muttering the ghosty language. Why not try out the Ghost Gabber?”
“Jack, you know the Ghost Gabber has a tendency to misfire. It’s too unreliable…” Maddie frowns thoughtfully.
“Ghost Gabber?” Superman asks.
“It’s a device we designed to translate ghost language into English. But the tendency to go off on human brought its accuracy into question,” she answers. “We’ve thought about revisiting it before, but never saw much merit since most ghosts want to be understood - at least enough to have their obsessions fulfilled. I suppose if there’s any occasion to revisit it it would be now.”
“Right,” Danny interjects, sliding off of the countertop and edging for the door. “You guys have fun with that. I’ll be in my room. Doing homework. Playing Doom. Bye.”
