Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Superman slammed through the door like it was wet cardboard. The agents behind it cried out in pain. Two other agents jumped out with strange guns.

Robin threw a batarang at one to disable his hand and dove at the other’s legs, knocking his shot off-center. They didn’t know what the strange ectoplasm guns would do to Superman, if anything. The initial intel they had indicated the technology was a strange mix of science and magic. 

The Man of Steel kept blowing through the doors, barely giving Robin time to deal with the agents. It was a punishing pace, but necessary to keep the pressure on. If the so-called agents were given any time to react they would start destroying the evidence of their crimes. That was also why the teams were spread out to different entrances. Superman and Robin were working on the north entrance, Flash and Wonder Woman had taken the east, Green Lantern and Cyborg had the west, and Batman was with Martian Manhunter on the south entrance.

The facility was a maze. Robin suspected that was intentional. The further they went in, the more evidence he saw of their atrocities. Cages that were barely large enough to contain the small glowing creatures they housed. Human-sized cells with shackles and chains. One room with what looked distinctly like an autopsy table. 

He couldn’t stop to think about it. He had to keep moving forward, disabling and zip-tying enemies as they tried to destroy evidence or injure Superman and himself. Robin focused on the chaotic rhythm of clearing rooms one by one. 

Inevitably, Superman did get hit by one of the guns. He screamed in pain, but it didn’t take him down. If anything that just made Superman angrier. Good. The shots burned Robin, on the few times they hit him, but it was no worse than a mild friction burn. He could take some of the hits better than Superman for once. 

Getting through the facility to the command center felt like it took hours. In reality, the raid took forty minutes at most. Batman and Martian Manhunter were already there, of course. Robin quickly fell back into the much more comfortable rhythm of fighting alongside Batman. They worked well together after many years of practice. Robin was agile and precise, careful to only use the blade of his katana to inflict superficial wounds. Batman hit fast and hard. It was an explosive and dangerous dance they had down to an artform.

“Surrender!” someone shouted around the time Green Lantern and Cyborg made it in. There were only a handful of agents left on their feet. “Surrender, you idiots! We’re done!” Robin identified the speaker as Agent Alpha, one of the supposed leaders of the organization. His words made the remaining agents hesitate. A few of them did surrender, dropping their guns and putting up their hands. The remaining agents didn’t last long on their own. 

Batman and Martian Manhunter quickly moved to interrogate Alpha. Cyborg went to the computers to try and get as much information off of them as he could. Flash left to inform the law enforcement that they could move in and start bringing the agents to jail. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern were likely going to aid in that process.

Robin took on the job of gathering evidence. He knew these law enforcement officers were probably less corrupt than those in Gotham, but he still didn’t trust them to deal with everything appropriately. He retraced his steps, stepping over groaning agents as he went. 

The raid of the Ghost Investigation Ward was not a hasty thing. The Justice League had been aware of them for years, but couldn’t pin them with anything illegal. They were a paramilitary militia group operating outside of Chicago, supposedly working on studying entities they believed were ghosts. Compared to many other groups, their behaviors were fairly mundane. 

That changed the previous month. A journalist named Samantha Manson had written an incredibly detailed report on the organization, exposing their ties to the American government as well as links to a number of corporations. It turned out they were not, in fact, a strange little paramilitary organization. They had been founded nearly twenty years prior by the Department of Defense as a black budget project. When the project didn’t find any success, it was shut down. The leaders, however, found other means of funding and kept going. They apparently had terrorized a small town for years while pretending they were still government-affiliated. Their contacts were able to cover up everything.

The worst parts of the exposé were the allegations of experimentation on sapient beings. Ms. Manson claimed that the so-called “ghosts” were routinely captured and subjected to horrible tortures under the guise of study. She had documentation to back it up, but documentation only meant so much to the court.

Thankfully the human-sized cells were empty. Robin found what looked like green blood in some of them, though. He took pictures of the blood and the conditions. After the human-sized cells he documented the smaller cages, which did have ghostly animals in them. As much as Robin wanted to release the animals, he wasn’t an expert in these kinds of creatures. He had no idea how to take care of a ghost. He would likely just make things worse. 

“I’m sorry, little one,” Robin said to a green dog that was stuck in a cage that barely allowed it to sit up. Its form was strange, like it was slightly fuzzy around the edges. It looked a little like a mix between a bulldog and a mastiff, but warped into something that wasn’t entirely a dog. It was still a thinking being, though. Robin couldn’t imagine what it had gone through.

Robin meticulously took photos of everything. The cages, the ghost animals, the horrible tools kept near the examination tables. These monsters would be going to jail for a very long time if Robin had anything to do with it.

At the end of the experimentation wing, Robin found something even stranger than ghostly animals and cells with manacles. There was a human-sized vault with numerous layers of security. There were several electronic locks, all with different codes, a physical five-digit combination lock, a retinal scanner, and a ghost shield. Robin was able to bypass them all in three minutes. He opened the door.

Inside was what looked like an electronic soup thermos. It was made of white and green metal that was banged up in a couple places. Someone had put a label on the cap reading “Subject 0001.”

Robin felt bile rise in the back of his throat. Subject. Was this the remains of a living being? Why was it inside such high security, and inside of a soup thermos?

He called Batman to ask for assistance. Robin had seen some messed up things in his years. Growing up in the League had seen to that. This was new in a very disturbing way.

It took five minutes for Batman and Martian Manhunter to reach the room. They were both good at concealing their emotions, but Manhunter hesitated slightly before entering the room. There was likely a great deal of psychic residue from the trapped creatures. Robin was glad he didn’t have any kind of telepathic abilities. Simply seeing the room was bad enough without actually feeling the ghost animals’ pain.

“This is the object I am concerned about,” Robin announced. He pointed at the strange thermos. Batman looked at it, but carefully did not touch it. Martian Manhunter came up a moment later, a heavy frown upon his face.

“The being inside of there is still… alive, for lack of a better term,” he said. Robin couldn’t help the way he froze in surprise. Horror bloomed in his stomach. “It does not appear to be entirely conscious, but I can feel its mind.”

“What can you determine about it?” Batman asked.

The martian paused and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he sighed raggedly.

“It is scared.”

They opted to bring the unknown being to a secure Justice League site. The ghost animals would be moved to an emergency animal shelter designed with their needs in mind. With any luck, most of them would be released to wherever they originally came from. 

The criminals’ files on this creature were hidden behind an encryption of a sort that none of them had ever seen. The code changed constantly while they were looking at it. Some of the symbols that appeared didn’t exist in any known language. How had the organization had such abysmal physical security, but such futuristic encryption? Hopefully some of the criminals would be willing to talk about it.

Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter were there to ensure that whatever was in the thermos didn’t attack them. Batman was there to interrogate it. There was really no reason for Robin to be there aside from the fact that he had found it. Still, he was grateful that they had let him come. If they hadn’t, he would likely have snuck his way into the facility somehow so he could observe. That was rarely as comfortable. 

They were currently in a heavily shielded observation room that doubled as a holding cell. Robin did not like how much it reminded him of the cells in the GIW compound. It was much larger, but just as empty and stark. There was a cot over to one side and a utilitarian bathroom setup to the other. Cameras watched from two corners and there was a two-way mirror on the same wall as the door. Over the last couple of days the League had set up a ghost shield in the walls, ceiling, and floor so whatever was inside the thermos couldn’t go through them. At least there weren’t chains and manacles in this room. The light was considerably dimmer, too; they’d learned from the animals that ghosts tended to prefer darker settings than their earthly counterparts. 

“Is everyone ready?” Wonder Woman asked. Everyone nodded their assent. Robin placed a hand on the hilt of his now-ectoplasm-coated sword. He saw Batman’s cape shift minutely, indicating he was probably readying a batarang. She turned the cap on the thermos and pointed the opening away from the group.

Bright light exploded in a ray, blinding Robin for a moment. The sensors in his mask couldn’t keep up fast enough. When the light faded and he could see again, he saw a figure on the floor. It was human-shaped, appearing to be a person with pure white hair wearing a black jumpsuit with no gloves or shoes. It looked up, and electric green eyes glared at them.

The ghost leapt at Wonder Woman with bared fangs and an inhuman howl. 

She caught it by the throat, holding it away from her body. The creature hissed and spat in her grasp. Then it went through her arm and slashed its claws at her other hand, still holding the thermos. Red blood stained the floor. Wonder Woman dropped the thermos. It clanged loudly when it hit the metal floor.

“We do not wish to harm you,” Martian Manhunter said. He was probably trying to communicate telepathically as well. The ghost growled and turned back to them. Its legs merged together and morphed into a ghostly tail while it hovered. Those green eyes glowed like some kind of cartoonish radioactive substance, too bright to see if the ghost even had pupils.

It looked like a teenager. Past the fangs and claws, the glowing teeth and otherworldly aura, this was a scared kid who had been somehow captured and shoved into a tube for who knew how long. 

Robin took his hand off his sword. He kept his hands low, but away from his weapons, and knelt down. He dipped his head down so it didn’t look as much like he was staring directly at the ghost. 

“Robin, what are you doing?” Batman asked, voice firm.

“He is scared. I’m trying to show we are not a threat.” This was a sapient being, not a scared dog, but the ghost was acting so feral that it might help to use similar tactics. “It went after Wonder Woman because she was holding the containment tube.” He refused to use the word thermos, even if it looked like one. 

“Sound reasoning,” Wonder Woman said. She spoke very evenly for someone with four freely-bleeding lacerations on her arm, but she had probably had worse. At least the ghost hadn’t been able to get through her bracers. 

Slowly, all the heroes got down on the ground. The ghost watched with caution evident in every flick of its eyes and twitch of its tail. 

“J’onn, can you talk to it?” Batman asked quietly.

“I have been trying,” Martian Manhunter replied. “It is not thinking clearly. As Robin said, it is terrified. I am not sure that it can understand words right now.” The journalist’s report had indicated that humanoid ghosts were capable of intelligent thought and speech. What had it gone through to reach this state? The standoff seemed to last for hours. The ghost stared them all down, occasionally making rumbling growls deep in its chest. Robin started to get concerned that this wasn’t going to work. If they had to subdue the ghost so they could get out of the room, it would take even longer for it to trust them. 

Then he noticed that its aura was flickering. The light of its eyes faded bit by bit. Slowly, the ghost sank down to the ground. Finally, it collapsed. A white ring appeared at its middle. The ring split in two and passed over the ghost’s body. When the light faded, the ghost was gone. In its place was what looked like a gaunt, naked human with pale skin and black hair.

“Great Hera,” Wonder Woman breathed. “Is it really a human?”

“It is asleep,” Martian Manhunter said, standing up. The other adults followed suit. “It feels very weak.”

Robin moved over to the ghost – or was it a meta? – and carefully picked him up. He certainly looked and felt human, though he was far too light. His pale skin was slightly ashen, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Robin laid him down on the cot and covered him up with the light sheet. He would have to ensure that the boy had heavier blankets soon. The room’s temperature wasn’t too low, but sometimes a nice thick blanket helped people and animals feel more secure. 

When he made their strange guest comfortable on the cot, Robin noticed something odd. He seemed to be breathing. Did ghosts need to breathe? Robin took off one of his gloves and put two fingers on the person’s wrist. There was a pulse. It was weak and slow, but it was there. 

Robin said to Batman, “It seems our ghost is alive.”

The ghost kid thankfully slept while they set up medical equipment and transferred him to a hospital bed. Batman ensured he was hooked up to an IV for fluids, but there wasn’t a lot they could do until they could clear a doctor to look at him. They would probably need to also talk to someone who was more familiar with ghosts. 

While they were setting him up, they checked him more closely for injuries. There was nothing fresh or obvious, thankfully, but they saw evidence that he had been injured badly before. His nose was slightly crooked, like it had been broken and not properly set. His left hand was strangely stiff. Most damning were the dozens of scars littering his body. Some were random, apparently incidental scrapes and cuts that looked like they could have come from fighting. Others looked much more methodical. There were obvious surgical scars on his stomach, chest, throat, and back, as well as some strange ones on his right arm. His hair was shorn close enough that they could see scars on his scalp as well.

His vital signs were even more concerning. His temperature was a consistent thirty-two degrees Celsius, well below the level for hypothermia. His resting heart rate was barely forty beats per minute. Even though he was five-foot-six, he weighed under a hundred pounds. It was as if he really was halfway to being a corpse.

They took turns watching him and monitoring his vitals. Over the next day, the boy woke up in fits and starts. He kept phasing through the IV rather than pulling it out. It was at least less damaging than pulling it out, but it still meant they had to keep putting it back in. He snapped and hissed at them if they went into the room with him, but seemed to be too weak to do much of anything. After a few minutes he would slip back into sleep. 

A silent alarm went off, alerting Robin that the boy was awake and had pulled his IV out again. He looked up from his homework to check the view through the two-way mirror. 

The bed was empty.

Robin shot up and went to the door, but he paused before opening it. The boy was weak, but he could still be dangerous. He had managed to injure Wonder Woman. Robin glanced at the monitors and saw that the boy was hiding behind the bed. Not ideal, but better than waiting on the other side of the door to ambush him.

Carefully, Robin opened the door and slipped into the room. The door automatically locked behind him.

“Hello. Are you awake?” he asked, consciously keeping his voice soft.

Instead of a voice, he heard a growl. The sound made Robin’s hair stand on edge and his skin crawl. It wasn’t a sound that a human should be able to make. 

“I am not here to hurt you,” he continued to speak calmly. Robin had no idea how much the boy even understood. “Are you hungry?”

The growling quieted. After a moment the boy peered out from behind the bed. His eyes were deep blue, and they burned with hatred. He opened his mouth and a pained, rasping sound came out. He coughed and tried again.

“Who the hell are you?” The boy’s voice was still rough, clearly unused for some time. 

“I’m Robin. What’s your name?” 

The boy’s expression darkened. “Don’t act like you don’t know,” he spat. “They let you in here.”

“You’re no longer with the GIW,” Robin said. “This is a Justice League facility.”

The boy glanced around the room. His eyes caught on the mirror and the cameras. “Looks the same.”

“It’s a holding room because we didn’t know what you were or whether you were dangerous,” Robin tried to explain. “If you’re not going to hurt anyone we can bring you to the medical wing.”

The boy looked to the door, and then the window. He was probably trying to determine how difficult it would be to break out. The window was rated for super strength of about three times human norms, and the door was even stronger. The locking mechanism was a weakness if he knew anything about wiring or happened to see Robin putting in the code.

“Why did they have you in that tube?” Robin asked, trying a different tactic. That got the boy’s eyes to snap back to him. Was it his imagination, or did they glow green for a moment?

“They got bored of cutting me up,” he rasped. The fingers of his right hand twitched. 

“They are in jail,” Robin stated. “If you could help us–”

The bed careened at him. Robin rolled away on instinct rather than planning, the large hospital bed barely missing him by a few centimeters. The boy definitely had super strength, then. Robin hopped to his feet but didn’t take out a weapon. His sword was in the other room because he hadn’t wanted to startle the boy. He had batarangs, but those would only worsen the situation.

“Stop lying to me,” the boy said. His voice broke, still weak from however long it had been since he had used it. “If I’d been rescued I’d be with my family!” If the boy had looked weak in the bed, he now looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over. The harsh light made the shadows of his hollow eye sockets and cheeks stand out even more. 

“We do not know who your family is,” Robin explained tersely. He was starting to get annoyed. His temper had improved over the last few years, but he was still working on it. “All of the documentation on you is heavily encrypted.”

“How would you even get me out of there if you don’t know who I am?”

“A journalist did an exposé on the GIW. She managed to find evidence of illegal experimentation on living beings. The Justice League was called in to deal with it in case they had abnormal weaponry or metas.”

“Metas?” The anger seemed to have faded a bit, leaving the boy simply wary. He looked even more tired, if such a thing was possible.

“Yes? Metahumans, individuals with superhuman powers. Such as yourself.” The Metahuman Rights Act had been signed in the early days of Superman’s work. A worrying idea started to form in Robin’s mind. 

“Why even bother? The Anti-Ecto Acts say I’m just a ghost.” 

“The what?”

The boy finally gave in to his exhaustion and sat on the bare cot. “Federal Anti-Ecto Control Acts of 2004. They never shut up about them.”

Surely Batman’s research would have covered something like that? “The GIW weren’t actually a federal organization,” Robin said instead. That made the boy’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “They were initially, but they were disbanded in 2002. Since then they have been acting on their own, without the backing of the U.S. government.”

“2002?” the boy echoed. “That’s. That means everything–” He cut himself off, eyes wide. 

“They lied to you.”

“How do I know you’re not the one lying?” 

“Tell me your name, and I will do everything in my power to find your family.”

The boy glared. For a few long, painful minutes, Robin was certain he wasn’t going to answer. Did he not have to blink? What was the purpose of getting into a staring contest with someone wearing an opaque mask?

“Danny Fenton.”

Chapter Text

Daniel James Fenton had been reported missing. There had been a brief and almost suspiciously light search for him at the time, despite his parents’ vociferous pleas for help. The few leads that police and the FBI followed hadn’t actually gone anywhere. His parents were long-considered to be cranks by the community, even if they had been right about ghosts existing, so their insistence that the Ghost Investigation Ward was involved went unheeded by the FBI. They decided that he had run away on his own and slipped through the cracks.

That was sixteen years ago.

The Danny Fenton in their secure facility looked exactly like the sixteen year old boy in the missing persons file. Had he been in stasis in that tube the whole time? It was a horrifying possibility, but Damian almost hoped that was the case. The other idea he came up with was that Danny was in some way immortal and had ceased aging at about sixteen, and the GIW had been experimenting on him that whole time.

The time gap explained a few things about him, though. The Justice League hadn’t formed until a few years after his disappearance. Batman and Robin had just been local legends until that point, so it made sense that a kid from Illinois wouldn’t know anything about his title. This kid had been a metahuman in a world where almost no one even knew superhuman capabilities were real. It was no wonder he was suspicious of them.

Thankfully it wasn’t hard to find his family. His parents hadn’t moved from the brownstone they owned in Amity Park. They still produced and sold ghost communications and defense technology. His older sister was a psychiatrist in Chicago. His younger sister, a travel journalist, was harder to track down. Damian had been forced to hack into her employee email. Apparently she was currently on assignment in Morocco.

Damien brought all this information to Bruce the day after he spoke with Danny. His father took a look at the files, occasionally making soft noises that indicated he was unsettled by what he saw. After flipping back through the pages a couple of times and looking at the few files they had managed to decrypt from the GIW, he finally put the papers down. 

“We need to get him into a medical facility that his parents can be brought to,” he said at last.

“That was my opinion as well,” Damian said. “He will undoubtedly try to escape.”

Bruce nodded. “He was imprisoned before the Justice League was formed, so he won’t trust any of us. J’onn might be able to keep him contained, but that should be a last resort.” He put a hand over his chin in a thoughtful pose, looking into middle distance. “I want you to take point on this, Damian. You’ve had good instincts on how to handle the situation so far.”

“Me?” Damian wasn’t sure how to respond. He was good with animals, but people? Damian knew he came across as haughty and cold, and he was awful at the reassuring gestures that most people wanted. Jason had once called his attempts at comforting a victim “like an ice robot with a hug phobia.” Which was just unfair. He could do hugs, thank you very much. In response he had hugged Jason long enough to stick a kick-me sign on his back.

“You told us to stand down rather than attack him,” Bruce pointed out. “And you managed to get him to talk to you."

"Both things Kent or Diana could have easily done. They have more experience in these matters."

Bruce sighed slightly. “Damian, you’ve done well on this. Clark and Diana will be there if you need help, but I think you can handle it. I do think you should have waited for backup before going into the room alone. I trust you won’t do that again.” 

Damian huffed but didn’t know how to respond to that. His father knew that he would do it again in an instant. He didn’t agree with it, but he was pointing out that he still trusted Damian despite the mistake. 

After taking a long drink of his tea, Bruce continued the conversation. “That does mean you have to explain the time situation to him.”

Yes, Damian had realized that. It was not a conversation he was looking forward to. “I have a plan. I would like Kent to be with me at the time in case he becomes distressed. Have you managed to decrypt any more of the files?”

“Only a few. I think we’ll do better once the members begin to take plea deals. Some of the encryption seems to be magical in nature.” Bruce leaned forward in his armchair and turned on a tablet. “So far we only have a few partial files on Daniel Fenton. Two seem to show energy readings, but we don’t know how to interpret them. One appears to be an x-ray.” He showed Damian the image. It did look like an x-ray in that it was black and white, and he could see the outline of an arm and hand. However, there were no bones. “The last one was attached to the x-ray. It’s an experiment write-up.” Bruce scrolled to the file. 

Damian grew livid as he skimmed the description. They had been testing his regenerative abilities, both in his human form and his ghost form. The paper described the GIW methodically cutting off parts of Danny’s body and recording how long it took him to regenerate them in each form. The x-ray of his arm came from an experiment where they had amputated it above the elbow.

That was where the odd scars on his arm had come from.

“Father. When we find who did this, please allow me to break their hands.”

“You know I can’t allow you to do that,” Bruce said, more out of obligation than any real feeling. 

“In that case, I will endeavor to be unseen.”

Danny clearly knew something was up when Superman walked in along with Robin. He was always suspicious, but he glared at them and gripped the rail of his hospital bed. 

“I have located your family,” Robin said. He held out a tablet computer. Danny looked at it in confusion.

“What’s that?”

Ah, right. Robin had forgotten he wouldn’t know how to use a touchscreen. He turned the tablet on and stood next to Danny so he could show him the computer.

“This is a tablet computer. I have included documents we were able to find about your family on it. We are in the process of contacting them.”

Danny was silent. He took the tablet and looked at it, but didn’t use it. Instead he toyed with the buttons on the side. It turned on and off and made a few noises as he figured out how to change the volume.

“How long was I in there?” he asked quietly. “This is Star Trek stuff.”

Robin wanted to give this part to Superman, but he had promised Batman that he would be the one to do it. “You went missing sixteen years ago,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“ Sixteen?” Danny yelped. He paled, something Robin hadn’t thought was possible. “How?”

“We do not understand it,” Robin admitted. “Something about the container you were in must have kept you in stasis? We are running tests on it.”

Danny shook his head. “No, there’s no way. I remember being in there. There’s no way it was that long.”

Robin saw Superman move closer out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m afraid it’s true, son,” he said. 

Danny’s eyes glowed green as he glared at them, but he didn’t get out of the bed or try to use any powers. 

“Get out.” He gripped the bedrail. It was designed to not bend under superhuman strength, otherwise Robin was certain it would be scrap already. Robin nodded and moved away. Superman took a moment to follow. 

“You can use the button on your bed to contact us if you need anything,” Robin said, pausing before the door.

“Fuck you.”

They left. Superman took up watch in case the boy did something stupid. Robin tried not to look at the cameras, but he couldn’t block out the sound of soft sobs.

Three days later Robin walked up to the door of a very strange looking home. Well, the building itself wasn’t that unusual. It was a two story brownstone building of the sort that was built around the mid to late nineteenth century. No, the strange part was the metallic structure that grew out of the building, tumor-like. Supports and pipes wrapped around the brick façade and stretched up to the saucer-like monstrosity that perched upon the roof. The metal had signs of rust and wear, indicating it had been there for many years. It was hideous in its ostentation. 

He rang the doorbell. It took a few minutes before the door opened. The door revealed a woman of average height with silver hair kept in a short bob. She wore a strange blue jumpsuit, not quite a hazmat suit but not a normal cloth jumpsuit. 

“Oh, hello! I know you said you would come, but I wasn’t really expecting–” Dr. Madeline Fenton rambled. “Sorry, where are my manners? Please come in!” She held the door open for him.

“Thank you, Dr. Fenton,” Robin said. “I know this is difficult.” He might not be good at being comforting, but he at least knew the right words to say.

He followed her into a living room that was filled with the detritus of a long life spent in one location. Mismatched pillows and blankets decorated the couch and chairs. A few boxes were shoved in the corners and behind chairs. There were dozens of family photos framed on the walls as well as atop almost every flat surface. Robin couldn’t help noting that they depicted two children who grew up into teenagers, then college students, and then grown adults, and one child who stopped at around the age of fifteen. 

The most unusual thing in this room was a glowing green blob, about the size of a cat, that seemed to be sleeping on one of the chairs.

“Jack! Mister Robin is here!” Madeline shouted towards the open door in the kitchen. 

“Just Robin, please.”

They exchanged pleasantries for a while, until a mountain of a man emerged from the door in the kitchen. Robin wasn’t exactly a short teen anymore. He wasn’t quite as tall as his father, but few people were. This man towered over him. Furthermore, he had a wide, heavy-set build like an Olympic weightlifter, albeit with considerably less muscle. It was a rather startling contrast to his thin, comparatively short wife.

Dr. Jack Fenton hesitated when he saw Robin. He took a moment to look Robin over, noticeably eyeing the folders in his hands, before coming forward and offering his hand for a handshake.

“Jack Fenton. Good to meet you in person.” His grip was strong, but not superhuman. 

“It’s good to meet you as well. Shall we sit down and go over the details?” They moved to the table in the kitchen. Robin put down his folders and sat down. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the raids on the GIW bases by now?”

“Is that where you found him?” Jack asked. 

“It is. He was in a base near Lafayette, Indiana.”

Jack swore. He put his head in his hands. Madeline put a hand on his shoulder, but she looked just as shattered.

“Robin, is there any way you can tell if he’s a clone?” Madeline asked.

“There is. We didn’t know that was a concern.” Why would that be her first instinct? Most people wouldn’t immediately assume their child had been cloned.

“It… Do I have your word that this doesn’t leave this room?”

“If it is relevant to the case I will have to inform Batman.”

She frowned, lips pursed, but after a moment she relented. “Only him.”

“I can do that.”

She sighed. Jack lowered his hands and wrapped them around hers. “Our younger daughter, Danielle, is a clone of Danny. Someone we used to be friends with made her.”

That was certainly a surprise. “Her records look very convincing.”

“We have friends who were very good at hacking, and… Well, when you’re friends with ghosts, planting forged documents in city hall isn’t very difficult.” 

“I see,” Robin said. Batman was certainly already working on how to ghost-proof the Cave and manor, but the knowledge that they could convince ghosts to commit crimes for them was worrying. “I cannot assure you he is not a clone, since we did not perform any tests on him. He is physically in poor condition. It looks like any physical injuries from the GIW experiments are healed, but he was severely malnourished. Additionally… There is one thing I neglected to tell you before we met.” He took out a photo of Danny on the hospital bed and handed it to them.

“Is this–” Jack started to ask, but cut himself off, as if asking the question might jinx it.

“This is a photograph from three days ago,” Robin answered. “We believe he was kept in some kind of stasis for most of the years that he was captured. He has not been talking to us, because he believes that we are similarly holding him captive.”

“My poor baby,” Madeline whispered. She gently touched the photo. “He’s awake? Can we see him?”

“Maddie,” Jack said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “What if he doesn’t want to see us?”

“I… Jazz could go? I’m sure he would like to see Ellie.” Madeline said, voice wavering a little. 

“Why would he not want to see you?” Robin asked. The two Fentons winced and avoided his gaze for a moment before Jack looked up at him with tired eyes.

“We weren’t always on good terms with ghosts,” he said. As he spoke, the green blob creature floated up and landed on his shoulder. “Back when we got started, we were actually pretty awful! We thought that ghosts were all evil, non-sentient bags of ectoplasm.” He reached up and gave the little blob a gentle scratch above its beady red eyes. “Danny… at the time, he was going around in his ghost form, calling himself Phantom. We didn’t realize he was our son. We did a lot of cruel things back then. Trying to capture him, talking about dissecting ghosts. I can’t blame him for not telling us.”

“We were terrible scientists,” Madeline admitted, “and even worse parents. We should have noticed that our son wasn’t just going through normal teenage rebellion.”

Robin couldn’t reassure them, and wasn’t sure he would even if he was capable of such a thing. However, he knew one thing for certain. “He wants to see his family. I must warn you, though, we don’t know what he’s been through. The GIW files have been… difficult to crack, and Danny refuses to talk to us.”

The Fentons exchanged glances. “Does the code change a lot?” Madeline asked. 

“You’ve seen this before.”

She nodded. “It’s a ghost language. We can put you in touch with people who can help.”

“When could we see Danny?” asked Jack.

“I’ll confer with the Justice League. It should take less than a week.”

He went over what little information he did have with them, and they explained what they knew about Danny’s ghostly biology. Apparently his half-alive status was incredibly unusual. They wouldn’t say exactly how unusual. Robin got the sense that there was something important there, but it would be a show of bad faith to prod at it. He could look into it more later. 

Sometime during the discussion, the little green blob had left Jack’s shoulder. Robin didn’t pay it much mind until he felt something like static electricity on his hair.

“Looks like Skippy likes you!” Jack announced, smiling at the blob’s antics. Robin didn’t know whether he should look up or not. The blob’s slight weight settled atop his head. 

“Should I… do something?”

Madeline smiled fondly at the little creature. “He likes pets, but you don’t have to. He’ll leave you alone after a while.”

Well, he couldn’t just leave the creature without petting it. Robin reached up carefully and gave it a scritch somewhere around the top of its head. After a moment it started rumbling. It didn’t feel like a cat’s purr, exactly. It was more like a rock tumbler or a little engine. 

“It is adorable,” Robin said solemnly, then got back to work trying to reunite the Fentons with their child.

The Justice League decided that the Fentons would be allowed into the base, but they had to be blindfolded and searched for tracking equipment. The blindfold was mostly a redirection, since they would be reaching the base via teleportation. Thankfully the Fentons were willing to go along with it. 

Damian hadn’t been sure what he would do if they hadn’t. Danny wasn’t really in any condition to move. 

“I must warn you,” Robin said to the Fentons when they reached the room, “that his condition is very poor. He has been on a hunger strike. Even before that, he was severely underweight.”

“This location probably doesn’t have much ambient ectoplasm,” Jack said. “He’ll need an ectoplasm transfusion to regain his strength as much as food.”

“We’ll have to set that up later,” Robin said. He waved to Flash, who was the one keeping tabs on Danny right now. Flash waved back and pressed a button to open the door. Robin went through first. 

“Danny, are you awake?” Robin asked. Danny was lying in the hospital bed, curled on his side and facing away from the door.

“No.”

“Your parents are here.”

For a moment nothing changed. Robin let the Fentons into the room, keeping an eye on Danny. 

“Danny-boy? Is that you?” Jack asked. 

Danny shot up in the bed. He twisted around, his joints moving just slightly wrong for a human. He stared at his parents.

“Mom? Dad?” he asked in a small voice.

“It’s us, sweetheart,” Madeline said. She moved towards him slowly, eyes never leaving his. Danny, on the other hand, kept looking between her, Jack, and Robin. Robin tried to make himself as inconspicuous as he could, but he was wearing red and green in a mostly off-white room. He was intruding in a very personal moment.

When she reached close enough to touch Danny, he shied away from her hand. Maddie frowned.

“You’re old,” he mumbled.

“I… yes, dear. It’s been a long time for us.”

Danny was silent as he observed her. Robin couldn’t quite read his expression.

“What did you get me for my fifth birthday?”

Jack answered immediately. “The Apollo 11 rocket model, complete with the Saturn V engine. You and I spent weeks putting it together afterwards.” He walked up to Danny, but put his hands on the rail instead of trying to reach for him. “It’s still in your room, Danno.”

“Dad?” Cautiously, he reached out to touch his father’s hand. “You’re real this time.” Robin couldn’t see the adult Fentons’ expressions, but he could tell that they both tensed up when he said that. “It– They tried to tear me apart,” he said softly. “Over and over and over again. I kept thinking about what you always said. Tearing apart ghosts molecule by molecule.”

A chill went up Robin’s spine. The people he’d met the other day, with their little ghost pet, wouldn’t have done something like that. He hadn’t pushed when they said they used to be bad scientists and parents. Maybe he should have.

“Danny, I’m so–”

“Is that why you’re here?” Danny’s eyes flashed green for a moment as he glared at his parents. “Did you want to finish what they started?”

“No!” Madeline cried, aghast. “Danny, we could never. We love you!”

“Then why didn’t anyone come for me?” Danny waved a hand in Robin’s direction. “He said I was in there for sixteen years. Sixteen!” His voice cracked. “I was in the thermos for most of it. I remember it. I was sort of awake, sometimes. Why didn’t you ever come?”

The Fentons were silent. Robin couldn’t blame them. He couldn’t imagine being conscious while stuck in that tiny container for so long. That kind of isolation was enough to drive someone mad. Robin kept a hand on the panic button on his belt just in case things went wrong, but for now he let the interaction play out.

“We tried,” Madeline answered finally. Her voice was thick, like she was trying not to cry. “We tried so hard, baby. If we could go back and unsay all those awful things–”

“You can’t,” Danny snapped. “You did it. You wrote all those papers. They quoted them when they cut me up. They used your words, your research. Ghosts lie. Ghosts aren’t sentient. Ghosts don’t feel pain.”

“Danny, we’re so sorry,” Jack started to say, but Danny apparently didn’t want to hear it. He looked over at Robin with tears glistening in his eyes.

“Get them out,” he said, his voice rough. Robin nodded.

“Doctors Fenton, it’s time to go.” He walked up to them. Thankfully Madeline turned away quickly and walked away from Danny. Jack lingered for a moment more.

“We’re sorry, Danno. We love you.” He turned away and hugged Maddie on the way to the door. Robin wanted to check in with Danny, but he had to make sure the Fentons were alright.

Flash was waiting at the door when they left. “I’m sorry, are you guys alright?” he asked.

“We will be,” Jack answered. “Danny’s right to be angry at us.”

“We’ll provide any help we can,” Madeline said. She was making a good show of being calmed down, but Robin could still hear a waver when she spoke. Both of them were shaken up from the encounter.

“Of course,” Robin said. “Come with me and we’ll discuss his treatment.” He led them to a meeting room where they could go over the details. Over the course of an hour they went over the nutritional needs and physical differences of a half-ghost, noticeably avoiding the topic of how the meeting actually went.

—

It ended up being almost three hours before Robin could get back to Danny. He found the teen in his usual place, lying on his side facing away from the door. 

“Danny? It’s just me this time,” he said. Danny’s thin shoulders relaxed minutely.

“You weren’t lying.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Robin sat down on the empty cot. “I’m sorry that seeing your parents was so distressing.”

Danny gave a broken laugh. “They had a worse time.” He sat up to face Robin. He had tear streaks on his face but it was clear he had stopped crying a while ago. “I shouldn’t have been so mean. I was just so angry.”

“You’ve been through a lot.”

“That doesn’t excuse it. I yelled at my parents.”

“Danny, they love you. I am certain they understand you didn’t really mean those things.”

“I did, though!” Danny gestured with his hands. “If they never published that junk, would the Guys in White have ever done this? No one had ever proven they’d seen a ghost until my parents made the portal. They didn’t do those experiments to me. If I wasn’t their son, would they have?”

Robin didn’t know how to respond. He couldn’t answer that. He didn’t know the Fentons well enough, and there was no way he could have known them sixteen years ago. 

“Whatever, I’m tired of thinking about it,” Danny said. He laid back in the bed. “Is your name really Robin, or is that a code name?”

Robin decided to go with the subject change. It was the first non-hostile thing Danny had ever said to him. “It’s a title. There were several Robins before I took the name. We’re all the protegés of Batman.”

“ Batman ? Man, and I thought my superhero name was dumb.”

“Tt. Your name was fine, except that it was dangerously similar to your civilian identity.” 

Danny went silent at that. Robin was about to speak when Danny asked, “So what is this place? Some kind of superhero club?”

“The Justice League formed in response to an alien invasion in 2009,” Robin explained. “It’s since expanded from a small group of heroes protecting the Earth from alien threats to an organization of numerous heroes around the world.”

“Aliens? Holy crap.” He paused before wondering aloud, “Would I have helped with that? If I wasn’t stuck in– if I was there.”

“From what I have heard of your capabilities, you would have been a great help to the cause,” Robin admitted. Danny looked down at his hands. “When you’re well again, we can discuss whether you could join.”

That got Danny to look up. “Why? All I’ve done is yell at you.”

Robin breathed a laugh. “When I first met the previous Robin, I tried to kill him. Multiple times. Your rudeness is understandable and hardly concerning in comparison.”

Danny blinked. “Really not what I was expecting to hear.”

Robin shrugged. “I was raised by assassins.”

“Okay, you’ve gotta be pulling my leg.”

“Your parents used science to create a portal to the realm of the dead. Assassins are relatively mundane.”

“I have no idea whether you’re joking or not.”

“I am not.” Still, Robin couldn’t help smiling a little bit. “Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

“So much. Holy crap, I’ve really been in that stupid thermos for sixteen years. I’m only sixteen! Does– What happened to my friends? Jazz?”

“Jasmine Fenton is a renowned psychiatrist living in Chicago,” Robin was able to answer. “Most of her published work is about the psychology of ghosts, but she also does work with metahuman rights groups.”

“Wow. Good for her.” Finally Danny seemed to be smiling a little bit. It was a sad smile, but that was still an improvement. “What about Sam Manson and Tucker Foley?”

That caught Robin a bit off guard. He hadn’t looked into Danny’s childhood friendships, assuming that his family would be more helpful. “Samantha Manson?”

“Yeah? She hates being called that, though.”

Robin nodded. “She’s a journalist. Her exposé on the Ghost Investigation Ward is what led us to raid their bases.” He looked Danny in the eye. “She never gave up on you.”

Danny went quiet again. This time Robin decided not to speak up until Danny did, giving him time to process it. Danny looked down at his hands and worried his lip. It didn’t look like he was about to cry, but Robin wouldn’t fault him for it. 

“Do you know anything about Tucker?”

He nodded. “Tucker Foley, one of the youngest members of the United States Senate. He got elected on a campaign that was heavy on ensuring government transparency so nothing like the GIW happens again.”

Danny nodded, clearly thinking hard about this information. Robin found himself hopeful. The reunion with his parents hadn’t gone well, but Danny was starting to trust him. He would have more challenges, undoubtedly. They had no idea how much Danny had been hurt while in captivity. Now, though, things were finally starting to look up.