Chapter Text
Danny flew them through the walls of Wayne Manor, and slammed them into the backyard.
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Danny growled, throwing a vicious ecto-charged punch at Skulker’s face.
“Never!” Skulker fired a blast of his cannon. The blast slammed in to Danny’s chest, and he flipped end over end before crashing into the ground and creating another crater.
“I’m going to owe Alfred big time for all this damage. And a few weeks away made me rusty,” Danny spat out some dirt.
“Indeed, you aren’t in top form,” Skulker scowled at him.
“Don’t worry it’s all coming back to me,” Danny’s fists glowed with an unearthly green light.
Danny threw a powerful volley of blasts at Skulker. The metal suit-wearing ghost dodged, and blocked the furious onslaught. Danny followed the blasts up with a great leap through the air and engaged Skulker in hand-to-hand combat.
“How did you get out of the Zone?” Danny demanded.
“A benefactor liberated me with the understanding I come here, and take care of you,” Skulker shot an ectorocket at Danny.
Danny twisted his body at an inhuman angle to escape the blast. “Benefactor…Vlad.”
“Yes, you’ve greatly upset Plasmius. More so then usual. What did you do to him?” Skulker spun out of the way of Danny’s roundhouse kick to the head.
“He found out I’m not biologically a Fenton,” Danny grumbled, sending a sharp hit to Skulker’s side, knocking him back.
“And this is what upsets him?” Skulker launched another rocket.
“Yeah, it looks like it,” Danny blasted the rockets with ectoplasm.
“I’ve never seen him quite so enraged. He truly has it out for you now,” Skulker threw a wide punch in retaliation.
“That’s just great,” the slip up helped Danny slip past the metal wearing ghost’s defenses. Danny caught Skulker in a headlock, and started prying at the ghost’s metal facemask. “I’m just starting to fit in here and the Fruitloop has to go and ruin everything. I can only imagine what they’re thinking right now.”
It looked like Vlad wanted to hurt Danny, and outing Danny to his new family or just generally cause trouble with Danny’s new family. Of course the Fruitloop would do something so petty.
Skulker snarled and struggled. He tried to fire his various weapons at Danny but the position Danny had behind him effectively protected him. With one last powerful yank, Skulker’s facemask came free. Danny’s hand darted inside and pulled out the tiny green form of Skulker. The hunter’s suit fell to the grass with a thud.
“No!” Skulker wailed, kicking his tiny feet.
“I did warn you,” Danny smirked.
“Phantom,” Skulker cried.
“Now where’s that thermos,” Danny glanced back to the mansion.
He was surprised to see Bruce standing on the back patio with the Fenton Thermos in his hand an indiscernible look on his face. The others were standing around him watching with varying degrees of shock. He supposed the fight would have looked pretty wild for people who haven’t seen a ghost fight before. But then if Bruce was really Batman then maybe this fight wasn’t entirely strange for them.
Danny took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”
Holding firmly to Skulker’s wriggling form as if he was a disobedient kitten Danny flew the short distance to the others.
Bruce’s eyes carefully trailed over Danny’s form, and then Skulker’s smaller green one. Wordlessly his biological father held out the thermos.
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” Bruce nodded back.
Danny opened the thermos, and hit the button. Skulker wailed as he was sucked into its depths. Danny sucked in Skulker’s discarded suit next.
“That little green creature powered that large suit?” Damian demanded.
“Yeah, Skulker builds them himself. Without it he’s not too tough. Unfortunately, he just seems to build better suits every time I defeat him,” Danny grumbled.
“Ghosts build metal suits,” Tim mumbled to himself.
“Yup, you should see some of the stuff Technus has built. Now, how to get you back to the Zone? Should I fly you back myself or…” Danny shook the thermos thoughtfully. He snapped his fingers as the thought came to him. He whistled.
Those on the patio winced at the sharp, inhuman sound.
“Sorry,” Danny apologized.
“What was that?” Dick asked.
“Don’t worry, I just called friend,” Danny assured.
Bright green claws suddenly raked a tear into this dimension. The tear became a portal, and Wulf leapt through. Despite Danny’s assurance that he called a friend, the people on the porch tensed, some taking fighting stances as the massive wolf-man walked towards Danny.
“Hello, my friend, what can I do for you?” Wulf greeted in Esperanto.
Danny who had mastered the language a year or so ago answered, “Could you drop Skulker and his suit in separate locations in the Ghost Zone for me? I’d really owe you one.”
“Of course, such a nuisance he is,” Wulf took the thermos.
“You can say that again. Just drop the thermos back here when you’re done. Thank you, Wulf, I appreciate it,” Danny clapped the large wolf-man on the shoulder.
“You are welcome,” Wulf nodded, slashed his long green claws through the air, and leapt into the resulting portal.
Danny turned his attention back to Bruce and the others. He let the rings slide over himself, turning him back into his human form. “So I guess I have a little explaining to do, huh?”
“I think we all we do,” Bruce looked pointedly at the belt he had slung over his arm.
Danny chuckled and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Batman, huh?”
“Phantom?” Bruce arched a single black brow at him.
Danny flashed a weak smile.
Dick patted him on the back.
They all settled in dining room. The mess in the living was ignored in favor of making sure the nice dinner Alfred had made would not go to waste.
“Start at the beginning,” Bruce commanded once they were all settled in.
“Well, I guess if I were to start at the beginning I’d start with how I got my powers,” Danny murmured.
“Are you even truly my brother? Are you even Daniel Fenton?” Damian demanded, eyeing Danny with the same distrust he had before his visit to Danny’s room in the middle of the night.
“What yes, of course I am. Why would you think that?” Danny frowned, and glanced around at the others.
“A friend of ours told us that Phantom, who we now know is you, shows up throughout history in different places,” Dick answered.
“Last time we checked you were sixteen. If you are Phantom you would be thousands of years old,” Damian narrowed his eyes.
Danny insisted. “I am sixteen. I’m Danny Fenton, and I’m Phantom. I don’t know how else you want me to prove it to you but I’ll take whatever tests you want me to.”
“Does that mean Phantom is an inherited title?” Tim leaned forward.
“No, I’m the only Phantom,” Danny ran a hand through his hair.
“Then how do you explain your image appearing at different periods throughout history?” Bruce questioned.
Danny felt himself flush. “It’s so embarrassing that whole adventure got recorded. It’s me in the history books and all the other recordings. But it’s kind of a long story of how I ended up there.”
“We have time,” Bruce assured him.
“Right, okay so I got a hold of this artifact called the Infi Map. It’s a complete map of the Ghost Zone including all of its portals. The portals to the Ghost Zone are all over the world. But the portals don’t just open to different places, they also open into different time periods. I got into a fight with another ghost who wanted the map, and we ended up sort of hopscotching through time. I eventually defeated the ghost, and the Infi Map is safely tucked away where no one can get it. But apparently I left a lasting impression on history,” Danny rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Yeah, you definitely left an impression,” Stephanie smirked.
“It definitely made me glad I live in this century,” Danny joked.
“If you are the Phantom from the books how did you get your powers?” Tim questioned.
“Right,” Danny hands tapped nervously against the table. Was he really going to tell them the whole sordid tale?
“Danny?” Bruce asked in concern.
“My parents made a portal to the Ghost Zone but it didn’t work. They were disappointed and for the first time it seemed like they might actually give up on the whole ghost thing. I mentioned the portal to my friends, Sam and Tucker, and they wanted to see it. I offered to show it to them, and I wanted to impress them so I went inside,” Danny took several deep breaths, thinking about what came next always made him anxious. It’s why he avoided thinking about it whenever possible.
“Danny, are you all right?” Bruce questioned in concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine just remembering. I went inside the machine. My parents, they must have mixed up the wiring or something. The switch to turn the machine on was crossed with a switch for a maintenance light inside the portal. I tripped and I hit the switch from off to on,” Danny’s knee bounced up and down, and his hands trembled.
He’d never had to tell anyone this before. He’d never had to describe it. Sam and Tucker had been there, and Jazz had for once in her life not pushed him to tell her what happened.
“The portal turned on and I was still inside it. I don’t know what happened exactly. It hurt. I think I died but not really. Not exactly… I was dead in one dimension but alive in another. I was split and rearranged but put back together all at once. I’m half ghost, half human. I’m both alive and dead,” Danny finished.
Silence followed the proclamation. Danny kept his eyes on his plate unable to look any of them in the eyes.
“Danny, I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through. Are you all right?” Bruce’s hand reached towards him.
“I’m fine, I got super powers out of it,” Danny joked, and pushed back the memories of the portal.
He dared to lift his head from the table. Most of the expressions were ones of concern, and slight suspicion on Damian’s part. They’d come so far Danny hoped this wouldn’t set back their relationship too far.
“So you’re Batman, and I assume the rest of you are all part of the Batclan somehow,” Danny changed the subject, hating all of the focus on him.
He eyed the other members of the table. Danny thought he could pretty much figure out who was who but again he wanted to turn the attention away from himself.
“I’m Nightwing but I used to be Robin,” Dick offered up easily.
“Red Robin,” Tim added.
“I’m Batgirl,” Stephanie spoke up.
“I was the original Batgirl but now I’m Oracle,” Barbara explained.
Damian said nothing.
“So that makes you Robin,” Danny eyed his younger brother.
“Yes,” Damian nodded curtly.
“This is going to take some getting used to for all of us. But we will get through this together,” Bruce announced. “Now, why don’t you tell us a little bit about some of the battles you’ve been in, Danny?”
Danny found himself smiling. His fights with ghost were a much safer and more welcome topic to him than how he had received his powers.
“Okay, well, there was this one time when the Box Ghost stole Pandora’s Box…”