Chapter Text
"You fought one of your rouges in a video game?" Kon gawked, eyeing Danny with awe as they walked down the hallway. "How does that work?"
"He possessed my setup when he tried to take over the world wide web, so I followed him," Danny replied with a shrug. "Ended up playing as my avatar in-game, but with added ghost powers. It was epic─ honestly, a dream come true. I actually learned a lot about my ghost powers and how to get them working with tech, to a degree."
"Damn. Do you think you could possess the Batcomputer?" Tim mused, glancing up from his phone.
"Oh hell no, I might be dumb, but I ain't stupid," Danny remarked, shaking his head. "Remember when I got thrown against the Watchtower's monitor system and accidentally phased into it?"
The three vigilantes in the hallway collectively grimaced, remembering the debacle when the Watchtower was infiltrated one too many times. Sinestro, of all people, decided to fling Phantom with a lucky shot across the room and got the ghost stuck possessing the Watchtower's systems. The next hour was spent with both sides of the fight trying to avoid wild, haywire, wayward attacks from a short-circuited defence system that unleashed everything it had until Cyborg got Danny out using a prayer and a USB stick.
"Mmm, maybe not the best way to spend a Thursday night." Tim snickered. "Maybe a trip to Titans tower? See who we could annoy there."
Kon grinned, nodding. "Hmm, okay. I'm down."
"Sounds fun. I don't think I've been there that much, so─"
Danny abruptly paused, head perking up and looking around like something was in the air. Tim and Kon glanced at each other before turning their gazes back at Danny just as the ghost boy turned back around the way they came and sped walked down the hall.
"Danny!" Kon called out, but Danny didn't respond or indicate that he even heard him. Superboy looked over to Tim incredulously as they bounded down in the direction Danny had left. "What's gotten into him?"
Tim shook his head. They trailed in pursuit behind their teammate and friend; neither knew what had suddenly gotten into Phantom, but when the ghost took a sharp left and stopped, Tim figured they would find out soon.
Phantom didn't move, staring at something in the room. Tim followed his gaze, becoming slightly perturbed when he noticed that Phantom's pupils had dilated, similar to a cat's. The ghost boy was staring at Batman and Wonder Woman; the two engaged in some discussion across the room.
Or, more so, he was staring at the stick of kryptonite in Batman's hand.
Neither took notice of the three boys frozen at the room's entrance. Superman, who was standing closer by the door (and away from the kryptonite), did take notice of the trio. He gave them a curious look, making eye contact with Kon, who shrugged and pointed at Danny.
By the monitors, Green Lantern and Flash had been looming over a file with mild interest until the boys arrived. Hal nudged Barry's side with an elbow, prompting the speedster to pause, turn around, and raise an eyebrow at the teen heroes.
"Um, what's gotten into him?" Barry asked, tipping his chin in Phantom's direction.
Diana and Bruce paused, abandoning their discussion in favour of taking in whatever was going on at the other side of the room, which was when Danny blinked and pointed at Batman.
"That," Danny said, eyes laser-focused on the green gem in Batman's hand. "Can I have that?"
"The..." Batman narrowed his eyes, slowly bringing kryptonite closer to his person. "The kryptonite?"
Danny nodded.
"Phantom, why do you want kryptonite?" Diana asked, taking a step forward. She paused, eyes narrowing. "Are you alright?"
So she'd noticed too, Tim thought; Danny's eyes were practically blown out, black pupils nearly swallowing green irises entirely, leaving a small rim of green around black. Tim placed a hand on his shoulder. "Danny, you okay?"
"Is the kryptonite affecting him too? Does kryptonite affect ghosts?" Superman asked, concern dripping off the Kryptonian, and he started approaching Phantom with an outreached arm. "You alright there, son?"
"Can I have it, please?"
His words gave Clark pause--the usual soft echo of Phantom's voice was reverberating a touch stronger than it typically did. He shot a glance at Batman for something, anything. If someone could understand what was going on, it would be Bruce. "Batman?"
Bruce looked briefly at the kryptonite in his hand and then back at Phantom. The ghost looked to be in some kind of trance if his eyes and declined speech said anything about it. Bruce figured his next movements needed to be careful if the kryptonite was indeed affecting Danny. He didn't know if any sudden movement with the kryptonite, or any general action, could trigger something for the ghost, and he hated how he just didn't know what it was doing or how it was doing it. Perhaps it was related to the radiation the mineral emitted like it does with Clark.
The ghost hero didn't look like he was in obvious pain, but looks could be deceiving. His trance-like state could also indicate some form of primitive mind control, Bruce supposed, recalling the league's files on Freakshow and his ghost-controlling orb.
Whatever it was, something was happening with Phantom, and the kryptonite in his hand was the culprit. Batman wordlessly shot a glance at Hal and Barry. They nodded, and Hal started slowly heading over to Phantom while Barry stayed behind but stepped back to get into position. Clark had resumed reaching out, and Tim gently shook Danny to try and snap him out of whatever funk he was suddenly in.
"Danny, talk to us. What're you feeling? Why do you want it?" Kon asked, copying Tim's actions by placing his own hand on the other shoulder of his friend. He tried turning Danny to look at him, and that's when it was decided for all hell to break loose.
Phantom lunged forward, and the room descended into chaos. Tim and Kon lost their grips, and Tim fell forward and elegantly face-planted onto the floor from the momentum while Kon bounded after Danny.
Superman tried to capture Danny in his arms, but the ghost just phased right through them. Clark tumbled into an inconveniently placed chair, which ended up knocking into Barry's path. Flash tripped, and the speedster was flung out of the room due to his momentum.
"Not so fast, Casper!" Hal cried, shooting his fist forward to create a light construct of a brick wall with his ring.
To which Danny proceeded to fly right through intangibly.
Diana took a protective step in front of Batman, wrists raised while taking a more defensive stance. "HAL!"
"Shit! I forgot he could do that!"
"Danny, snap out of it!" Superman shouted, trying to get closer to the other end of the room. But he had to hesitate when he started to feel the effects of the kryptonite when he got closer. "Flash!"
Barry sped back into the room and started running circles around Phantom, creating a mini tornado that managed to confuse the ghost and hold him. "Doesn't the kid hate clowns? Hal, what if you tried to scare him out of it?!"
"That's low! He's got trauma!" Tim shouted over the wind of the indoor tornado, rushing over to Diana and Bruce. "Does anyone know why he wants the kryptonite or what it's doing to him?"
"Negative. Phantom has never disclosed anything regarding kryptonite with ghosts. Whatever this is, he might not know what's happening." Batman was tapping with buttons on his wrist. "I've sent word out to Zatanna and Constantine."
"Is there any guarantee they'll arrive?" Diana asked, watching Barry continue to distract Phantom in the miniature cyclone, knowing full well it wouldn't last once he remembered he could fly through it using intangibility again.
"No," Batman responded flatly, grip tightening on the kryptonite in his hand. "Which is why we need to get this out of Phantom's range and--"
"GAH!"
Flash skid across the floor, landing in front of Diana's feet. Hal swiftly created a light construct of a clown in front of a now-free Danny Phantom, who shot through the construct, shattering it with ease. "Oh shit!"
Danny, eyes fixated on Batman, maneuvered around Wonder Woman and tackled the Gotham Knight, the 6'2 tank of a man, down onto the ground. He grabbed Bruce's wrists, struggling to pry the man's hands open, not registering the fact that the shard was far too big to be concealed in fisted hands.
Tim had grabbed the green gem from Bruce's hand at the last minute and booked it.
Bruce grunted against Phantom's impressively firm grip, which appeared to be impeded by whatever in the world was messing with him and his cognition. Diana tried to pry the ghost boy by wrapping her arms around Phantom's waist and tugging with all her might, but he didn't budge. Bruce focused on keeping his fists closed against the fingers that were trying to rip them open, if at the least to buy Tim more time. He tried shouting at Danny to snap out of it but to no avail. Nothing but sheer determination for kryptonite was on the teen's mind.
Then, Bruce watched as confusion and realization dawned on his feral assailant's face. He internally grimaced when Danny's neck snapped at an ungodly speed in Red Robin's direction. Tim had made it just over halfway across the room with Green Lantern and Flash trying to cover him.
Phantom pounced off the dark knight, which caused Diana, who hadn't anticipated his sudden change in movement, to lose her grip and get flung against the wall. The monitors on the wall stood no chance and fell onto the ground with Diana, sparks and wires flying. Wonder Woman hit the ground with an 'oomph' while Phantom proceeded to phase through Hal and Barry and tackled Tim onto the floor.
Hal pressed his hands onto his chest, mortified. "HE WENT RIGHT THROUGH ME."
Flash recovered without a word and barely registered Danny tackling Red Robin onto the ground, causing the kryptonite to skid across the floor toward the exit.
Phantom zeroed in on his prize and dived. He scooped up the crystal and clasped it between his hands. But when he blinked, he realized he hadn't picked up the kryptonite─for Barry had managed to scoop the thing at the last second.
"This is the most intense game of keep away I've ever played." Flash joked, juggling the gem in his hand. He glanced over at Bruce and Diana, the latter helping the former up. "Any word from our resident magicians?"
"John's on his way." Batman huffed. "Focus, Flash!"
Barry zipped to the other side of the room just as Danny lunged to tackle him. He kept running around the room, pausing momentarily before zipping to another part of the room, kryptonite in hand. "Don't worry about it! The kid might not obey the law of physics, but I'm still the fastest man alive."
Phantom flew towards Barry, and Barry moved out of the way each time, causing Phantom to smack into the wall behind him. Nonetheless, the ghost recovered and lunged in the speedster's next direction. Barry had to hand it to the kid; he was pretty fast, but not fast enough.
"Flash!" Batman called out, refraining the urge to facepalm as he watched Flash and Phantom play in their proverbial game of cat and mouse. "Get out of the room!"
"What? Oh, right!" Barry dashed toward the exit before skidding to a stop right in front of it, looking at his hands in alarm. "Huh?!"
Somehow, the kryptonite had disappeared from his hand, and instinctually he looked up and was horrified to see that Danny had somehow managed to snatch it without him realizing. The ghost boy was clutching the gem to his chest, pupils still blown out and hyper-focused on it.
It was suddenly silent. Everyone in the room watched with bated breath. Green Lantern tried to float up to reason with the kid when Batman proceeded to yank him down by the leg. Hal was just about to yell at the man when Clark gasped. He and Batman looked back up to find Danny had unhinged his jaw wide and inserted the stone in his mouth.
They all watched in horror as Phantom clamped his teeth down on the kryptonite, and then came the CRUNCH.
"DANNY, NO!"
"Holy shit Dans!" Kon shrieked, staring in horror. "Danny, STOP!"
Tim and Kon's cries fell on deaf ears, as did the cries from the other heroes in the room, as Danny took another bite and swallowed. And another. And another. Each time accompanied by a loud, dreadful crunch worse than the last.
Time seemed to have come to a standstill, and with one last bite, nothing remained of the crystalline material whose radiation would debilitate any Kryptonian or cause cancer in most species.
The room was silent except for Danny while he crunched on the final piece. Everyone else in the room stared at him with mixed levels of abject horror and distress.
No one had stopped him.
Could they have stopped him?
When Danny finished gulping down the last piece, he blinked a couple of times before shaking his head. His eyes constricted back to normal, green eyes wide and confused. He spun around before looking down, blinking. "Um, hi?"
For a second, he was only met with silence until Kon spoke. "Danny, Dans, Danny. What. The fuck. Did you just do?"
Phantom sputtered, taken back. "What did I do? What...What did I do? What even happened? And why am I up here?"
"You mean, you don't recall anything that just transpired?" Batman asked suspiciously, but Tim could tell that Bruce was just a hair from losing it and chucking the ghost kid into the med bay. Or just shoving his hand down his throat to retrieve the kryptonite.
He couldn't blame him since there was no way anyone should be fine with a radioactive alien gem in someone's digestive system. Danny might be a half-ghost, but he was still half human too. Hell, with that reaction, Tim imagined that there was no way that shit was going to sit well with either of his halves.
"No? It kinda feels like I just blacked out or something, to be honest..." Danny floated to the ground and shrunk into himself a little at the attention and stares from everyone in the room. "Crap, did I do something? What'd I do? Dear god, someone just say something! I'm so confused─"
Superman cut Danny off by surging forward, scooping him up and stomping out of the room. Danny opened his mouth to ask what the hell he was doing but stopped when he was met with a stern look that could rival his sister's.
Clark didn't waver at the annoyed look the teen was giving him. "You're going to the medical bay, stat."
Danny sputtered again. "But─"
"But nothing." Clark pressed, resolute, staring ahead as he continued down the hall. "For some ungodly reason, you blindly ate kryptonite with no semblance of control and plowed through us to get it. I do not care what anybody says or if you 'feel fine' because, after all that, that simply cannot be healthy for you. Son, with all due respect, something is wrong, and you need help."
"Kid," Barry said, trailing behind Kal, "He has a point. Whatever happened to you seemed to have been triggered by the kryptonite confiscated by the League from Metropolis earlier."
"Kryptonite?" Danny asked, bringing a hand up to his mouth. Was that the taste in his mouth? It tasted more like that rock candy Frostbite would give him after a check-up as a reward for being good. "I don't...I don't think I eat kryptonite, or ate any for that matter."
"You don't even remember anything that just happened! And you ate a whole stick of kryptonite like it was nothing!"
"I've told Constantine to hurry up." Batman appeared at Clark's side, matching the man's pace. "The west medical bay is equipped with the new equipment supplied from the Far Frozen, and we're going to do a full body scan on─"
A loud gurgle came from Danny's stomach, prompting him to clutch it and groan. Clark muttered a great Scott under his breath and opted to fly the rest of the way to the west med bay.
"Holy hell," Hal muttered as he cradled his second cup of coffee in the last hour in his hands. "I'm still reeling from that. What the hell was any of that?"
"I have, no idea." Tim nursed his own thermos refilled with coffee, watching Clark and Bruce argue from the other end of the medical bay, Danny in between them on the little bed they forced him to lie down on. "We were just in the hallway, right, Kon? He was completely fine, talking about his rogues and video games, and he just...lost it?"
"They need to give John a raise." Barry declared, shaking his head solemnly.
Danny fiddled with the strange ecto-ECG electrodes attached to his chest, which prompted Diana to gently move his hand away from picking at the adhesive. He sighed, tuning out Bats and Supes, who were trying to figure out whether Danny should transform into his human form or not. As for why, he didn't know or care since his attempts to try and let them know that he had an iron stomach and was fine had been ignored entirely. Danny debated on phasing out the Watchtower and retiring for the night but decided not to. He didn't want to be rude when everyone was just fretting over his health, a little nonsensically, if he might add. The Midwest taught him some manners, after all.
That's when the Hellblazer decided to enter the room. Constantine walked in, looking slightly singed and ready to blast someone or pass out. He scanned the room with a long gaze, making eye contact with Danny, and all Danny could do was shrug.
"What in hell's blazes is going on here?" John pointed to Danny with an unlit cigarette between his fingers. "Why's the lad hooked up onto the machine?"
"It's monitoring his core and tracking his core's fluctuations. Along with his vitals if he were to switch to human form. Courtesy of Chief Frostbite." Batman gruffed, keeping his eye on several monitors. "Stop playing with the electrodes, Phantom."
"And why are you tracking his...core fluctuations? And what the hell is going on with his eyes?" Constantine paused mid-step. He crossed his arms and gave Danny a look. "What did he do?"
"Hey! Why are you assuming I did anything?! Not everything is my fault, Connie." Phantom complained, then blinked. "Wait, what do you mean what's wrong with my eyes? The heck's wrong with my eyes? Can I get a mirror?"
"He ate a large chunk of kryptonite Batman had, nearly thirty minutes ago," Tim deadpanned. "About a whole kilogram in weight."
"He also went feral when he was in the same room as it and then didn't remember what happened right after," Superman added, and Danny was a bit freaked out with the look the man of steel was giving him. Like he was looking at a kicked puppy that would explode any minute. "Plowed through every one of us to get his hands on it, eats it, and then doesn't remember it!"
John blinked, putting the cig back into his pocket, looking about as miffed as possible. "Oh. That's all? That's what all the fuss is about? You pulled me out of my poker game over a bit of ghost rock candy? Stuffs harmless."
"Excuse me?" Diana said slowly. She softly clutched Danny's hands since they wouldn't stop fiddling with the electrodes on his chest. "John, what do you mean by candy?"
"Okay, Constantine," Hal shoved his cup into Kon's hands and stomped over to the mage. "I get that you hate just about everything and all of us here, but you don't just get to waltz in here and be a flagrant pompous twat when the kid's health could be in jeopardy. We called you in for your help for the kid your supposed to look after but to make fun of─"
"Oh shove off, didn't you just hear me? Or are you just deaf, green? Kryptonite isn't going to do jack all to Phantom, or any other ghost for that matter." Constantine barked, pinching the bridge of his nose and held back a coming conniption. "Casper, kiddo, you know that candy your ghost doctor gives you when your good?"
Danny blinked, checks going green. "Uh, yeah?"
"Well, that stuff is just kryptonite," John said blandly. "Ghosts can eat kryptonite. You've been eating kryptonite."
"Ghosts...eat kryptonite." Barry recited slowly. "And─"
"What?" Superman said sharply, cutting Barry off. Clark was at a loss for words, sparing a glance at Danny before returning to staring at Constantine. "Wha...how? Why?" He managed out, albeit distraughtly.
"Oh, believe me, I was stumped too when I realized the baggy of green crap the kid would carry around after a doctor's appointment were shards of kryptonite, but apparently it's just 'highly condensed ectoplasm,' so."
"Because it is!" Danny said, exhausted. He wanted to go home, his head started to feel fuzzy. "It's just ectoplasm!"
"And it's also kryptonite!" Constantine replied, exasperated.
Clark paled at the thought of a whole species that ate kryptonite as candy. Not for gain, medicine, or poison, but candy.
Kon crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall in an effort to look fine, but he really wasn't. "Does kryptonite make all ghosts go feral for it?"
The mage took a second to look contemplative and then shook his head. "Oh no, I don't think so."
"You don't think so?" Batman said distrustfully, repeating back John's words slowly. "Then what do you know?"
"So you say it is not bad for him? But his eyes still appear..." Diana gently tilted Danny's chin so that the boy was looking at her. His eyes seemed to have reverted back to normal once the kryptonite was gone (and into his stomach). However, upon closer inspection, they had a more hazy look to them, and Diana felt like they had begun to dilate again, ever so slowly. "He looks ill."
"Okay, no, no, now just listen here for a second, stay with me," Constantine walked over to the other side of the bed Danny was on, then snapped his fingers in front of him. Danny responded by blinking slowly once before trying and failing to reach up and swat John's hand away. "Ah, so, for all, if not most ghosts, kryptonite is harmless, practically a treat since it's hardened, dense ectoplasm. As we all know by now, ectoplasm makes up and sustains ghosts. They're basically eating what they're made off, and it's all dandy for 'em."
"That's a bit of a grotesque oversimplification of ectoplasm, but I'll let it slide," Tim mumbled while crossing his arms, earning an eye roll from Hal.
Constantine simply ignored him and continued. "Now, for some ghosts, especially the younger ones who still need more work on their self-control," John jabbed a thumb at Danny, who again failed to swat it and somehow smacked his own face instead. "will react like starved men in the middle of the desert finding an apple tree. Buck wild. Basically, it's akin to catnip for some ghosts when it's in large quantities."
A beat passed.
"Catnip. Danny...ate ghost catnip." Tim said slowly, realization dawning on him as he looked at Kon and then at Danny. "Constantine, is he," He covered his mouth to hide his giggling. "Is he--?"
"Yup. Spooks here is as high as a kite in the sky right now. A balloon in space. A soul amongst the stars," Constantine replied, patting the ghost boy on the head, prompting a hiss out of him. "A bit of an unconventional way to finally ascend, but who am I to judge, ay?"
"I can fucking taste colours right now," Danny whispered, smacking his lips twice for effect while staring off into the great beyond. "What the hell, colours have taste, and blue is tasting like real dog water right now. Ah fuck, aw hell, can someone give me some orange for a FUCKING MINT?"
Flash sat down on a nearby chair, covering his face in his hands as he shook while trying to smother his laughter. Green Lantern slapped his knee, threw his head back and laughed. Clark kept staring at John, muttering a half-choked language that went unheard.
Kon clutched his chest, wheezing, as he slid down against the wall to sit on the floor, watching Danny's face pale and his eyes dilating into saucers.
"Oh, my god." Tim laughed, setting his thermos aside and stared at Danny in awe. "He's gone. He's so out of it. This is awful, it's amazing."
"Oh, oh dear," Diana rubbed circles on Danny's back while Bruce added another electrode onto his sternum and retrieved the top half of Phantom's hazmat suit on the nearby trolly. It'd been removed to stick the ECG electrodes on the ghost boy, who had a faraway look plastered on his face, green sweat dotting his forehead and chest now.
"Yeah, it's been a while since I've had the Mary Jane, but I can tell that the kid's not going to enjoy the next couple of hours. Or days." Constantine chuckled, patting Danny's head again. "I'd hold off on the human form just 'cause I think it'll be easier for the lad to get through the trip in ghost form. Maybe. I don't understand a wink about ghost biology, but I suggest just sleeping it off. How does a sleeping spell sound, kiddo?"
Danny hiccuped and blew a half-hearted raspberry that descended into a whine. With all his strength, Danny muttered a soft, barely audible fuck under his breath, squeezing his eyes tightly. Tim and Kon's laughter grew harder.
"Words not working? Tis all good, here." John muttered a few words softly, his hand over Danny's forehead glowing a soft gold. In a few seconds, Danny's eyelids fluttered shut, and a soft, echoey snore came from a now-sleeping Phantom.
"Okay, well, if alls good with Casper for now, I'm heading out. You coming, Barry?" Hal said, chuckling, flicking a tear from his eye. Barry nodded wordlessly and followed him out of the room, shoulders still visibility shaking. When they turned the corner out of the room, Barry's laughter filled the hallway.
"Will he still be inebriated when he wakes up?" Batman asked, helping Diana get Danny's sleeping form back into the top part of the hazmat suit. The sleeves had been removed.
"Yeah, probably. I suggest having a bucket nearby for that." John said with a smirk.
"And why is that?"
"Don't tell me Bruce Wayne has never done weed before, much less had a little too much of it," John teased.
"I've never eaten it. Much less a kilogram of it." Bruce gruffed, unamused.
That gave John a slight pause, and Tim snorted behind him. He shot Red Robin a look and then back at the dark knight. "Well, Batsy, I'm sure you ask dear old Red here then."
"He's gonna vomit," Tim said, only up a finger. "If we're acting like the kryptonite is similar to marijuana and Phantom just ate, like, way too much, because damn, a kilogram? We could probably expect increased blood pressure, extreme confusion and paranoia, severe nausea to accompany the vomiting, delusions--"
"I think Batman knows the effects of having too much weed, Tim," Kon remarked, cutting him off. "I think you just outed yourself to doing it. You also forgot the cold chills and, like, the hunger?"
Bruce tried to ignore the incoming headache and refrain from pinching the bridge of his nose. Now was not the time to expand on either Tim or Kon's activities in their spare time outside of hero work. Sparing a glance at Clark, who'd also taken to sitting by Danny's bedside with a distant expression. Bruce had no doubt he was probably in a silent state of alarm over the fact that ghosts, in essentially the land of the dead, treated a crippling material to Kryptonians as candy or catnip.
"Well, this has been an eventful couple of hours, and if Phantom is, erm, stable, I'll be off for monitor duty now," Diana announced, standing up and brushing herself off. "Superboy, Red Robin, you are to look after him, yes?"
"Oh sure," Kon chuckled, grabbing a chair to sit beside Clark. "Definitely. Tim, do you have your phone?"
Tim snickered, pulling it out deviously. "Yes. Do you?"
"Oh, yeah."
"You boys better send me whatever footage you get from him when he wakes up, yeah?" Constantine said, pulling a flask from his trench coat pocket and turning around to leave. "I'll be back to check on him eventually. Don't bother me unless it's an actual emergency until then." He chuckled, then disappeared around the corner behind Diana.
That left Bruce, Clark, Tim, Kon and a passed-out Danny in the medical bay.
"Well," Clark said, slowly coming to terms with all that had happened in the past hour. "At least he's alright, sort of."
Bruce grunted, in agreement, Clark assumed. The Bat had procured a laptop from somewhere. By how loud Bruce was typing, Clark guessed he was adding to the never-ending file that belonged to Phantom and updating the ghost's worryingly patchy medical file.
Well, Clark supposed worse things could have happened on a Thursday night.