Chapter Text
“C’mon, Rob, relax a little,” Wally said, nudging Dick with his elbow. “She’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that, Wally,” Dick replied, brushing away the elbow with an annoyed swat. “He said she was dying and we haven’t heard anything for the past two days.”
“Dick,” Wally said softly, “Danny would call you. You know that.”
"Unless he’s too busy worrying about her,” Dick replied. He stopped for a moment, the pair had been walking through the halls Mount Justice alone, so they could speak. “Look, I appreciate the concern,” he said finally, “but I think I just need some time alone to process.”
Wally nodded. He had figured as much. Dick was very social, but this was complicated and personal. “You need anything, just ask,” he said. Yeah, complicated and personal.
Dick nodded, lips pursed, and Wally knew he was glaring at the floor behind those shades.
Wally had learned after the fact that Dick had been at the Cave when Flash arrived. The first time he ever saw his cousin/sister and she was delirious, in pain, and dying. He’d lost too much family already and had only just gotten his brother back, only just learned that Dani even existed and now she was…
Wally left the younger teen alone. He knew Dick was going to hide in the vents, probably spying on all of them while he worked through this. It made him feel safer, being up high and unnoticed like that. The height thing was a mix of his circus days training on the trapeze lurking on Gotham’s rooftops with Batman. The unnoticed bit came entirely from working with the Dark Knight. Spying on them in particular would also help him feel a little less alone and disconnected despite everything.
Regardless, Dick needed his time and Wally was going to give it to him.
“Recognized: Phantom, A-1-5. Recognized: Dani Phantom, A-1-6.”
Or not.
When had they gotten Dani into the system?
Wally heard a slight bang overhead and held back a loud laugh, settling for a quiet chuckle instead, as Dick rapidly made his way through the vents to his family. Wally waited to give Dick a head start, then began making his way to the Zeta tubes. It was hard not to run, but he wanted Dick to get there first, so he restrained himself.
When he got there most of the team was loitering around the edges of the main room, watching Danny and Dani, both were in their human, civilian forms, and both were standing calmly waiting for something to happen.
Sort of.
Dani was nervously eyeing the unfamiliar teens.
Danny was behind her nervously shifting his weight.
Neither of them was actually at all confident about what was going to happen next.
“Why are they staring at us?” Dani askes, breaking the tension.
Danny winced. “I told them you were dying,” he told her.
“But I wasn’t-”
“Yes, you were, Danielle.”
“Danny?”
The halfas’ heads snapped up, turning to face Dick, who sounded as unsure as they looked.
Danny’s lips quirked upwards in a nervous smile. “Hey-” he glanced at the rest of the team, “-Robin. I woulda called earlier, but the FarFrozen doesn’t get great reception, and it was kinda faster to just come here, and-”
“You’re rambling,” Dani interrupted. Danny closed his mouth with a click audible across the room and rubbed the back of his neck. “So, that’s your brother?”
Danny nodded, then, realizing she isn’t looking at him, said, “Yeah.”
“You’re alright?” Dick asked, finally stepping forward. The rest of the team took that as permission to move closer but didn’t say anything. Family first.
Danny nodded. “Yeah, we’re both fine.” He perked up slightly. “Right! Introductions. Danielle, this is my twin brother, Robin. I’ll tell you his real name when we have a bit more privacy. Robin, this is Danielle.”
“But I prefer Dani, with an I,” Dani finished.
Robin smiled, his first smile since Dani had been carried in, and his shoulder relaxed. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Dani,” he said, holding out his hand for her to shake.
She grinned back at him and took his hand. Behind her, Danny relaxed as well, letting out an inaudible sigh of relief.
“That’s a fast recovery time for someone that was dying,” Wally said, then slapped a hand over his mouth because that was not something he had wanted to say.
“That’s what I keep saying!” Dani whined.
Danny, on the other hand, winced. “Core overload is relatively easy to fix and doesn’t really have any lasting consequences, but it can and will kill you if you aren’t careful.” He punctuated this last point with a stern look in Dani’s direction. “And it is an incredibly painful way to go, especially for someone with an electric core like you, Danielle.”
“Oh, come on-”
“You were literally shocking yourself to death because you didn’t know what was happening or how to let it out,” Danny said, slowly getting more agitated. “You’re lucky we stabilized you or you probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as you did.”
Dani went silent and stared at the floor.
Danny sighed. “Sorry, Danielle,” he muttered. “I know you know this. I know you’re just trying to brush it off, but I was worried about you. I almost lost you. It’s going to take a little while longer for me to move past this than you did.”
Dani smiled sheepishly and nodded. “Yeah, but hey! I’m fine, you’ll be fine, and I get to make some new friends now! Didn’t you say one of these guys was a clone, too?” She whipped around, looking over the team with a wide smile, completely ignoring Dick.
Danny laughed. “Yeah, I did. But…” he trailed off teasingly. “First things first. That is Kid Flash, Wally; Aqualad, Kaldur, team leader; Miss Martian, M’gann or Megan; Artemis, just Artemis; Garfield, he doesn’t have a hero name yet; and Superboy, Conner, Superman’s clone,” he said, pointing to each of them in turn. “Actually, speaking of,” he turned back to Superboy, “how have things been with Superman lately?”
Superboy shrugged. “He’s trying now, so, better I guess?”
Danny nodded. “About all I could actually hope for. You two go bond over your creators being evil bastards while Robin chews me out for worrying him.”
“Wait, what,” Superboy asked, eyes wide as Dani was unleashed on him. Before anything could happen though, Garfield was on the case with his numerous questions.
“Hey, how is it that you guys are part ghost?” he asked. “Does that make you half dead? Or are you like me and got some ghostly DNA in you and it just bonded to your cells and now you have ghost powers? Do ghosts have DNA? What’s a core and why was it overloading-?”
Dani stared at him for a moment, then got her wits back. “Stop!” she yelled. “I can’t actually answer most of those.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Danny?”
“Okay,” Danny said glancing upwards, “let’s see if I remember all of your questions.” He took a deep breath. “I try not to think too much about the whole possibly half dead thing. I don’t need more existential crises. Your idea about ghostly DNA bonding to our cells is probably pretty accurate, at least for me, and yes, ghosts do have DNA or something similar. A core is kinda like a ghost’s heart, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. It can produce certain types of energy specific to the ghost that has to be released or it’ll build up in the ghost’s body, killing them. I have an ice core, Dani an electric. Did I miss anything?”
Garfield blinked for a second. “No, that about covers it. Also, noted.”
“So… why are you green?” Dani asked. “I get Megan, she’s a Martian, but what about you?”
“Oh!” Garfield perked up. “So, I got injured like a year ago, and we couldn’t get me to a hospital in time for a blood transfusion, but M’gann was there and used her shape shifting powers to make her blood identical to my blood and saved me. But then my cells got all confused and incorporated parts of Martian DNA into mine, said ‘this is fine,’ and now I can shape shift, but I’m always green for some reason. Haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Cool!” Dani yelled.
And now they had two chatty young ones to keep an eye on, but at least they were making friends and not bothering people with too many questions.
Kaldur herded them (and the rest of the team) out of the room so Robin could get on with chewing out his twin. The pair would probably set their sights on Superboy eventually.
Alone, the two boys stood awkwardly for a moment.
“She’s really going to be alright?” Dick finally asked.
Danny nodded. “As long as she remembers to use her electricity, she’ll be fine. Even if she does forget, she’ll notice long before it reaches that point and she can just let it out.”
“You should have called.”
Danny nodded. “I should have. I was so focused on making sure she got everything she needed and learned how to control it, that I just… didn’t leave the FarFrozen. And, well, the entire Ghost Zone has bad reception. Except for Technus, but that’s Technus.”
“You mentioned that place before, the FarFrozen, why go there?”
“They’re allies of mine and have a lot of medical knowledge, for both living and ghostly species. I went to them when my core first started to overload because I didn’t know what was happening. They’re basically my general practitioners now, seeing as I can’t go to a regular doctor.”
Silence settled between them again.
“If you didn’t leave the Ghost Zone until just now, how did you get Dani in the system?” Dick asked.
Danny stared at him for a moment. “Oh!” he said, finally understanding. “Tucker went ahead and took care of that for us. Don’t worry, I told him to patch any holes, seeing as he obviously found one.”
“Yeah,” Dick sighed. “Just… don’t do this to me again.”
Danny’s gaze softened at Dick’s quiet voice. “I’ll try, but we’re heroes, Dick. It’s going to happen again eventually. And she’s probably too independent for her own good. She’s going to be out there doing her own thing and probably getting into trouble.”
“She could stay here,” Dick offered, “or at the manor.”
Danny nodded, his eyes taking on a far-off look as he gazed down the hallway the others had taken. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll talk to her about it, but I don’t think she’ll take it. Not yet, anyway. She’s still…”
“I understand,” Dick said.
The silence this time was peaceful.
Then a grin broke over Dick’s face. “You looked like a doting parent there for a moment.”
“What!?” Danny squawked. “No, I didn’t!”
Dick laughed. “Yes, you did! You act like one, too! She’s your little girl, and you know it!”
“That makes you her uncle!”
“And I will take pleasure in spoiling her rotten and corrupting her!”
“Great, so I need to worry about you teaching her how to creep out the criminals, Jazz teaching her psycho-babble, and Sam and Tucker dragging her into their meat-vs-veggies fight! At least you guys are all starting late and she knows how to think for herself already.”
Dick only laughed harder. “I’m definitely talking Bruce into getting her a phone.”
Danny snorted. “Good, she needs one for when she’s travelling and finds herself in over her head. Just make sure you give me her number, and I’ll pass it on to the others.”
Dick nodded. “We should probably go join the others.”
Danny nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”