Chapter Text
“I’m terribly sorry, Sirs. A detailed list of what was taken was sent to your household manager. The bank is working closely with the police force. Insurance historically pays funds back in three to four weeks after one of these, er, novelty thefts if we are otherwise unable to secure the item’s safe return.” The middle manager gave a shaky smile. “It’s a simple matter. I apologize if whoever called you from the bank made the problem appear more urgent.”
The trouble was, Bruce Wayne’s private vault at the Bank of Gotham was not the first to be breached. It was the fourth in a string of bizarre robberies. Someone or some group was testing boundaries, sneaking into some of the most highly protected banks in the city only to take a pittance.
Bruce Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, devoted guardian-slash-father to at least six kids, should know nothing about these break-ins. They were too small in isolation to make the gossip circuit, and the banks were trying desperately to suppress any news of the fault in their security.
Batman, on the other hand, had been closely tracking the thefts. The ripples on the murky shadows of Gotham was indicative of something bigger moving beneath the surface. Plotting, waiting.
It was fortunate they were the same person. Bruce was happy to take advantage of this incident for the sake of his nightlife.
“Hn, I thought your vaults were supposed to be the most secure in the world,” Bruce scoffed. “That’s why we trusted you with our assets.”
“The vaults are secure!” The man squeaked. The gold-plated badge pinned to his suit gave his name as Thomas Gurney. “This is the first successful break-in in over two years. That’s a remarkable record for Gotham. I assure you this was an anomaly. The thief snuck in like a ghost, quite literally.”
“Father, should we bring this to the board? You are a sitting member after all. I think they would be very interested in our plight,” Damian was leaning hard into what Dick affectionately called ‘little-shit mode’. The baby of the family in technicality only, he was known for his difficult temperament.
“We don’t need to be quite so drastic, son.” Bruce ruffled Damian’s hair, playing up his good-natured socialite act in kind. Bruce looked back up at the manager. “Perhaps Mr. Gurney could show us the footage from the vaults that day?”
“That would break confidentiality…”
“Tt. It’s the least you can do,” Damian had slipped out from under Bruce’s hand. The touch had lasted three seconds. Bruce counted it as a bonus to the afternoon's reconnaissance mission.
Mr. Gurney licked his lips, and his eyes darted about. “Very well, sirs. I trust you can be discreet? Follow me.”
Dress shoes clicked on the polished floors. Mr. Gurney ushered them down the hall and to an indistinct door. He knocked once, then it swung inwards, inviting the group in. The room was crammed with security monitors. Customers milled about some of the CCTV screens, but most were overlooking empty hallways and rooms.
There were a handful of guards in uniform. The one who opened the door looked startled. “Everything all right, Tom?”
“Can you pull the footage from Mr. Wayne’s vault yesterday evening? He wishes to view the incident.”
The guard’s eyes went wide with recognition. “Of course,” he said.
Bruce and Damian waited, arms crossed and expectant as the footage was pulled up. The Wayne vault flickered on the screen. The guard pressed play, a few beats, then the room was no longer empty. A figure draped in cloth appeared, suddenly. Damian clicked his tongue.
“You were right, Mr. Gurney,” Bruce said gently as he watched the phantom figure put a handful of jewels into his bag. “Your bank is haunted.”
Clank, clank, clank.
There was a rapping on the table Danny was curled up under.
“Did you fall asleep under the lab bench again?” Sam’s playful voice filled his parents’ lab.
Danny was careful not to hit his head as he crawled out from underneath. Having the three solid walls of the bench pressing in on him was… soothing. Taking a quick break accidentally turned into sleeping through the night more times than he could count.
He had been up all night tinkering with the latest Fenton tech behind his parents’ backs. If he could just figure out a way to add his ecto-signature to the ecto-deflector Danny could grab his friends out of danger on patrol.
“The stairs were too tall,” Danny slurred, voice still heavy with sleep.
He cracked his eyes open. The bench was wrong.
There was no comforting press of thick metal, just flimsy card table legs. When he poked his head out from underneath, the familiar face of Sam was missing. He met the beady red eyes of the deranged pigeon who dragged him into the sewer workshop in the first place.
Lady Gotham. Danny’s new ghost guide was a flippin’ pigeon.
Lady was an okay companion but a terrible teacher. Danny wasn’t sure how he was supposed to take ghost lessons from a bird, but he was willing to give it the good old college try for Clockwork’s sake. In a few months he could slink back into the Long Now, declare the whole experience a disaster, and go back to alternating between sulking around Amity Park and the Clockwork’s haunt.
The subterranean theater workshop Danny was dragged to haunt was pretty cool. Its owner, Spook, was delighted when a real ghost showed up. They were clearly working on some sort of production involving ghosts in the theater up above.
Danny had never ventured up the spiral staircase in the corner. He’d way rather explore the labyrinth of tunnels and sewers connected to the workshop. It felt a little like being the Phantom of the Opera, what with being in the sewers and all. Less stalking and more ghostly lurking.
Spook was a sort of okay host. A bedroom had been promised; later, there was too much to do now. Spook swore - once their show went big - he’d be able to get Danny into an apartment. For now Danny was content with his nest under the table. He even found a gray-blue fleece that was only a little moth-bitten.
Danny didn’t fault the man too harshly. Wasn’t a gap year all about setting out on your own? This was kind of like backpacking through Europe but in city tunnels, a weird hostel roommate, and a bird for a guidebook. And maybe the fact that Danny had introduced himself as ‘Phantom’ and stayed in his ghost form the whole time hadn’t triggered an urgency for creature comforts.
Lady rapped on the table again then hopped down towards the staircase. Echoed voices drifted down from above the workshop.
The full theatrical troop was spilling into the workshop. It was a rough-and-tumble-looking crowd. The theater called to all types, Danny supposed. He still hadn’t gotten solid confirmation on what show they were doing. The last time he tried to ask, Spook had just shown him how he rigged fishing line and chicken wire to make a ghostly figure bob across the room.
He was committed to the bit. Danny could see why Lady thought this would be a good place to start.
“Creepy kids under the table again,” A man with grease-covered jeans sneered.
“That kid is our backup insurance,” Spook hissed. “You’ll be kind to my fellow ghost.”
“Ghosts aren’t real, boss.”
Danny popped his head up through the table with his best eerie kackle. “I guess I missed that memo.” Danny could commit to the bit too dang it. Lady gave an appreciative coo from her perch on a bin of wooden planks.
“Where’d you find this meta freak?” A deep voice asked.
Once a freaky little ghost boy, always a bit of a freak. Danny tried hard to keep his smile plastered on his face. He still wasn’t 100% sure what the word meta meant, but it sure was tossed around a lot by the few humans he interacted with. Clearly it had something to do with having powers.
Look on the bright side, no one was threatening to tear him apart molecule by molecule yet.
“Settle down,” Spook reached for one of his large canvas rolls. “We have final details to go over before the big night. Danny, you’ll be on standby in case we need help with the effects. You’ve proven quite useful with your phasing ability already.”
Spook had seen Phantom come in through the ceiling of the workshop, obviously, and had taken a keen interest in his abilities. They had gone out on a handful of ‘dress-rehearsals’. The winding tunnels of the city were nestled between the basements of the skyscrapers above. It was easy to slip Spook into a building invisibly and then pull him back out after a few minutes.
The fake-ghost was enamored with Phantom. Even threw out words like ‘prodigy’ and ‘sidekick’. Lady seemed pleased whenever Phantom helped Spook. Danny wasn’t sure how something as basic as phasing or invisibility was worth practicing.
At least Spook was happy to pay Danny.
Handsomely.
It almost made up for the lack of bed.
“Now we begin at 11 pm sharp. I have a list of participants we’ll be visiting in Kane Gardens.” Oh lovely, Danny thought, that sounds like some sort of retirement home. That will be sweet, bringing their act to the elderly. He hoped it wasn’t too scary with all the ghost props they’d been working on.
Spook continued as he rolled out the canvas he was holding onto one of the card tables. It depicted some kind of blueprint. “Brett, Douglas, and Ringer will be on Alpha Team by going down the northwest tunnel approach.”
Danny tried to pay attention, but the conversation quickly devolved into technical details and stage blocking he didn't really care about. Danny as Phantom was here for special effects and back-up only.
Lady hopped lazily. She paced back and forth on the table opposite the troop. Danny tried to copy her lazy movements. He drifted in the background of the meeting. Floating in the same space was weirdly satisfying. Clockwork may have been on to something about haunting.
“Hugo, you have the weapons ready to go?” Spook’s question interrupted Danny’s hazy thoughts.
A wooden crate was jerkily wheeled into the center of the room. Hugo pulled the lid off with a crowbar. Danny floated closer. The props looked very professional. Maybe a little too professional. Before he could get closer to examine them, Lady cooed by the door. Boring-overthis radiated from her little body.
No one in the room except for Danny noticed the pigeon’s annoyance. He was still getting used to communication via being fed emotions by the pigeon. It was not the easiest way to communicate, and Danny was still shaky at core-speak.
Frostbite had once tried to explain to him, in one of his many attempts to educate the half-ghost about his own biology, that ghosts had several primal forms of communication available to them.
Danny was terrible at all of them.
The most basic was core-speak, a method of resonating emotions through other ghosts’ cores. Lady didn’t seem capable of much else.
Danny tried to mimic her coo with his own core. It came out sounding like the howl of winter winds. That the humans heard. The room went silent as everyone looked at him. Whoops.
"Sorry, ghost stuff,” Danny said with an awkward chuckle. “I’m just gonna-” He motioned to the door as he followed Lady out into the tunnel system. Maybe he should start mapping them; Tracking boundaries seemed like a reasonable thing to do to your haunt.
“There was no evidence of a break-in?” Dick said in disbelief.
Damian glared. He did not appreciate his thorough report being questioned. He was incredibly capable. He did not make mistakes.
Tim was currently scrubbing the footage he managed to pull from the bank’s so-called secure servers. “Nothing on the cameras either. The ghost just appears.”
All three of them gathered around the glow of the monitor in the dark of the Batcave. There was nothing inside of the vault on the screen. Rows of lockers contained mounds of gemstones, gold paintings, and, in the Waynes’ case at least one cursed statue. Then a green-robed figure appeared.
Tim paused the footage, flipping between one frame and the next. “See nothing, then ghost. If it was some new phasing tool, I’d expect them to at least appear through the wall, but our guy pops up fully formed.”
“That’s no ghost. I’ll bet my turn to pick at movie night that’s Val Kaliban,” Dick leaned forward to point at the screen. “He’s got this thing about pretending to be a ghost. This isn’t his usual M.O. though.” He straightened up, walking over to his work desk. “Val likes to pull prison breaks, not bank robberies.”
“Maybe he decided to go a more pedestrian route this time,” Damian said. “I’m unfamiliar with the man.”
Dick hummed in agreement, “He’s been in Blackgate for a while.”
“He means Spook was from back when you were busy trying to stab us, Damian.” Tim went back to his computer to let Dick take control of the main monitor. Damian bristled, but Tim ignored him to level a dry look at Dick. “You know, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.”
“You wound me, Timmy,” Dick feigned dramatically.
Spook’s file flashed on the screen. Val Kaliban’s face was displayed next to a hooded green figure. Damian read over the text dutifully.
Kaliban was an architect who had been detained for an elaborate extortion scheme involving building secret tunnels into many of the major prisons in Gotham. The man planned for the long term.
“His file notes he was into practical effects, but no tech-lab connections. You think he has backing from a big player or a new partner?” Tim tapped a finger on the desk as he pondered out loud. “I wonder if he’s practicing for something bigger. I wouldn’t trial run a new power right before my major heist. What was taken from our vaults?”
“A few gold jewelry pieces. He left the majority of it. Stupid of him not to grab more when he had free access,” Damian scoffed.
“Unless he didn’t want to attract too much attention. I think you’re on to something with the test theory, Tim.” Dick pressed a button to call Babs. The Batcomputer could only do so much; they needed a human touch.
The call rang twice, then a voice came from the computer, “Dick, what do you have for me?” Based on the name she used, she must still be at work. Otherwise she wouldn’t be using Dick’s first name.
“Can you do a search for me, Babs? For my night gig?” Dick was careful to speak in encoded terms. It was unlikely anyone would tap their civilian phones, but being cautious to an unreasonable degree was the bat way. “I need help finding a venue for Damian’s birthday. I’ll send you the details by email. Not urgent, but if you could get to it before tonight…” he trailed off.
“I have plenty of time. Does this mean our dinner plans are off?”
“Not yet, Babs. Thank you! I’ll catch you later?”
She sighed, “You better.” The line clicked off.
“You’re in hot water, Dick,” Tim snorted. Dick shoved his shoulder in response.
Dick was notoriously bad at keeping appointments. This particular dinner had started as a hard-to-get brunch reservation two weeks ago. Dick had postponed the meeting three times.
Tim shoved him back. “Are we still on for this afternoon? I have rare brother-bonding time at the arcade blocked off in my calendar.”
“Yeah, it’s going to take Babs time to run her search.”
Damian perked up at the mention of the arcade. Dick last took him as a reward for working out the chemical structure of a new street drug using the cave’s mass spectrometer, but that was months ago.
“May I join you? I wish to play Cheese Viking on the arcade cabinet as was intended.” Damian tried hard to keep the yearning from his voice. Tim… was not fond of outings with his younger brother. Damian understood the animosity to some degree. He generally tried to keep his distance, but the arcade with his eldest brother was too tempting a bait to ignore.
Tim’s brow wrinkled. He turned to his brother in an unasked question. Dick shrugged his shoulders, putting the ball back in Tim’s court.
Tim sighed, “Fine. You can come, but no over-evaluating my gameplay.”
“I would not dream of it,” Damian replied with a smile.
“I have decided I love the ocean,” Danny declared as he spun on the boardwalk of Amusement Mile. Lady was perched on his head and leaned with the moment, letting out a disgruntled coo. “Whoops, sorry, Lady.” He passed her a greasy fry.
Lady led him to this hole-in-the-wall beachside pizza place, and the day Danny said no to French fries was the day he was fully dead. By Lady’s constant begging, she was also a French fry connoisseur. It was the first hot food he’d had since he arrived in Gotham. It was heavenly.
He leaned on the iron railing and soaked in the salty air. It was also the first time since arriving in Gotham that he wasn’t a ghost. Lady didn’t seem to mind. Nestled into his black hair, she almost disappeared.
The boardwalk was busy. The movement of so many people was easy to get lost in. Danny closed his eyes and let the noise of life wash over him. “I bet Tucker would have loved this. I’m sure someone here sells Turkey legs. The only way this would be better is if there was an arcade.”
There was a flurry of wings as Lady flopped onto the ground. She hopped a few paces in her becoming familiar “follow-me” way.
“No way, there’s video games?” Danny marveled. “Who needs TripPlanner when I have a bird with a built-in GPS?” He switched to a lofty tone, “Lady, take me to the Arcade.”
Computerized music drifted out of large garage doors opened to let the crow flow in and out of the seaside arcade. Danny quickly shoved a ten into the change machine to get a pile of quarters out. Thank the Ancients that he had a chance to break the hundred-dollar bill Spook paid him in when he got fries.
“Do you think they have the arcade version of Doomed?” Danny mused to Lady, “You should lay low. I don’t think pigeons are welcome here.” He frowned and gave his companion a little scritch on her head. “Things would be so much easier if you could go invisible.”
He still wasn’t clear on Lady’s limitations or powers. She tucked herself deeper into his hair. It would do for now. Safe-happy, her core vibrated.
They did not have Doomed, but he did find a Zombie Hunter 2, which had been one of their favorites at the movie theater arcade.
Sam had insisted they come early for the special midnight showing of the new Femalien movie. “I don’t understand. This is the movie event of the year. I thought there would be more people.”
Danny suppressed a yawn. “At least we have enough change for the arcade.”
He hadn’t been sleeping great back then. He kept having this one nightmare of his parents catching him. Cutting into him until green blood stained human skin peeled away to molted scales. He would try and scream, nothing came out, just a choking whisper, until his strained throat gave way to a snapping maw.
It always ended when he would cartoonishly swallow the whole house, then himself.
Dreams were weird like that.
“Dude, if we were adults you could count this as a tax write-off!” Tucker chided. “You really need to practice your aim, it’s awful!” A mutated dog lunged at the screen. With a distorted scream the picture changed to a bloody ‘game over’. “Awww man.”
“You can’t bring a bird in here. The lights aren’t good for it.”
A cranky dark-haired teen was stiffly standing with his arms crossed. He was giving Lady a fierce glare.
Before Danny could respond, Lady reacted.
And she had many thoughts about the newcomer.
Talons dug into Danny’s scalp as she puffed herself out and spread her wings with a loud screech. Danny almost lost his balance from the sudden shift of weight on top of his head.
“Sorry Dude, I think my bird hates you. That makes us mortal enemies or something.” Danny tried to send safe-protect out from his core to settle Lady.
It did not work; she just whacked Danny in the head with her wings.
“Lady, you need to calm down, or we’ll have to leave,” Danny hissed.
“You should leave. What kind of idiot brings a bird to a place like this?”
Two more guys started walking towards the commotion. One was about Danny’s age. The other looked closer to Jazz’s.
And now the owner had stopped scrolling on his phone and was looking up at them, debating if it was worth the hassle to intervene.
Abort, abort, abort.
But before Danny could formulate an escape plan, he was knocked over by a green blur.
Disoriented, Danny tried to focus on flashing swirls of lights on the ceiling. There was a ringing noise, but his brain couldn’t quite parse it. Oh, that was screaming. He found the ground with his arms and pushed up. Not many things could knock the wind out of Danny.
A giant green hellhound, all tightly coiled muscle and toxic green drool, was snarling at the ground. The cranky teen and the guy about his age had protectively inserted themselves between Danny and the creature in front of him flawlessly. Danny recognized that green fur anywhere.
“Damian, what is that?”
“I’m not familiar with this species of canine. It has the bird!”
Why were they so panicked? The humans in the room may not be able to feel the wash of happy-play-excited, only slightly tinged by ladies annoyed-upset, but the creature’s tail was wagging fiercely.
The oldest had appointed himself the role of Danny-sitter. He reached a hand out, “Are you okay? Can you walk?”
Danny just shoved past him. “Cujo!” He called in happy disbelief.
At his voice, Cujo shrunk into puppy size with a pop and bounded over to Danny. Lady, seeing her opening, bolted. She tore out of the building in a flurry of black feathers.
Cujo looked around in confusion. Boy or bird? Which one to run to?
Bird won.
Cujo ignored Danny’s outstretched arms in favor of chasing after his prey.
“Ack, Cujo, stay.” Danny stumbled over his words as he tried to stand up. He needed to find an isolated spot fast to transform and fly after the wayward ghosts.
“Hang on. You don’t want to get messed up in that,” The eldest boy said. His arms were outstretched in an attempt to keep Danny in the arcade. The other two started circling in. They must be related, with matching black hair, and how they wordlessly shifted in tandem.
Danny saw professionals. Danny saw people who were about to ask way too many questions. He knew that glint in the eye. He wove under outstretched arms and crowded bodies.
“So sorry for all the trouble,” Danny called out as he tumbled back out onto the boardwalk. “We won’t come back!”
Steph sang off-key along with the only CD they had in the car. It had the kind of upbeat rhythm with catchy lyrics that made for the perfect summer song. Cass was humming backup from the passenger seat of the old beater the Batgirls had ‘rescued’ from the scrap yard. The sun was even trying to come out from behind Gotham's infamous cloud coverage.
“You think Batgirl prime is getting her date tonight, Cass?” Steph asked during one of the verses she didn’t know all the lyrics to.
“No. Get ice cream ready?”
“A quart of Strawberry,” Steph declared, “And we’ll flip through the classic chick-flicks for one you haven’t seen yet. I have a few digital credits saved up.”
The chorus kicked back on. Steph started singing again. Traffic was really crawling today. Suspiciously slow. But if it was a rogue attack, it was small enough to not be their problem. The comm units stashed in the center console hadn’t made a peep.
There was a glimpse of yellow hazard lights bouncing off the glass of a building. Steph craned her neck to try and see what was ahead of them. Looked like the road was down to one lane up ahead. That would do it.
Execpt suddenly the cars in front of her started honking furiously.
The comms stayed quiet. Cass reached for hers. Always ready to act.
A radioactive looking dog ran up and over the car roofs. Steph braced as the dog launched itself at their windshield. The impact never came.
The dog had almost crashed into them.
It was running on the air.
A whooping holler came after as someone flew behind, chasing the dog. The pursuer's appearance was downright otherworldly. Light shifted and refracted, giving his black jumpsuit an oil-slick vibrancy. Bone white hair was unbound by wind, floating freely. Babs was definitely missing her date tonight. No way Nightwing could resist sticking his nose into this.
“Is that some sort of alien?” Steph asked in disbelief.
“Magic.” Cass had taken her legs off the dashboard and was watching the figure fly past solemnly. “Call it in?”
Steph sighed and nodded, reaching for her own comm. Cass still gazed out the window.
“Hey Oracle,” Steph drawled. “We got some sort of magic kid flying down uh 45th street. Can you ping our location?”
“A magic kid?” Babs asked skeptically.
“Chasing a radioactive green dog. Before you doubt me, Cass saw it too.” Steph turned to the passenger side for backup, but Cass was entranced by something out the window.
“Construction workers wrong,” her eyes narrowed at the window.
“Wrong how?”
“They are guarding. Protecting something in the building. Maybe underneath.”
The lane was blocked with orange and white work horses with the standard hazard lights. There were maybe six guys milling about in hard hats and high-vis vests. Nothing out of the ordinary for Gotham. Something was always under construction. But when Steph took a second look, something was weird. No one was actively working, but they also clearly weren’t on break either. There was no construction equipment out. No hint of what they were working on.
“Hope you got our location, Oracle, because there’s something else going on here. In front of the Elliot Theater. We’re heading back to the apartment. Spoiler out.” Steph said.
So much for Strawberry ice cream and a movie night. They were absolutely getting called in too tonight.
They had lost Lady long ago. At this point, Danny was chasing Cujo for the thrill of it. There was a physicality to being a ghost he was coming to appreciate. He used to think craving violence was intrinsic to the ghosts he fought, but it was more nuanced than that. It was less about hurting others and more about the motion, the physical pressure of ectoplasm raking across ectoplasm, flying as fast as you can because you can.
He was trying to herd the puppy out of the city and into the suburbs. Every city had to have suburbs. Danny just needed to figure out which direction to go in.
Wind whipped past as he spiraled up a tall clocktower to find the coast. From the spire, he used a white-gloved finger to trace the shoreline. Navigating while flying was remarkably similar to driving, but he didn’t know any of the major streets or landmarks here, beyond the glittering ocean.
With a sharp whistle to call Cujo back, he dove towards the open ocean. Danny did a barrel roll through the sea spray just because he could. Cujo caught up and pounced, sending both of them crashing into a dock.
“Let’s go, boy,” he said with a laugh. “We can get in a game of fetch before I try and figure out how you found your way here.”
Clockwork had said the natural portals only opened at the Solstices and Equinoxes, but maybe Cujo was just special like that. The dog had a nose for trouble and a knack for finding Danny like a bloodhound.
They flew, tracing the buffs, until the tall buildings turned to short buildings, which turned to giant mansions.
“I’m going to look for a stick,” Danny called out to Cujo.
Ghostly boots hit green grass as he skidded to a halt by a thicket. Something scrubby that could withstand the salt air.
“Cujo?” He called out again.
Peering over the cliff, he saw a green wagging tail disappear into the cliffside.
“Did he find some sort of cave?” Danny muttered to himself.
Danny dropped down to where Cujo had disappeared only to be met with a massive opening between craggy rocks. The cave was deep and big enough to land a jet in. Its rocky floor was unnaturally smooth. Deeper in, the rock turned to concrete.
Then he saw an actual jet.
Danny sat on the bed, red comforter bunched up around him. All of his focus was on not making too much noise. Sam held his arm tight, then windmilled it around. She was trying to determine how badly his shoulder was messed up.
He was keeping his record of ‘days since last urgent care visit’, dang it! He was up to 46.
Skulker had knocked him out of the sky with some sort of crazy harpoon of all things. They all agreed it was just a freaky coincidence they had just started a unit on ‘Moby Dick’ in English
“This would be so much easier if we had a secret hideout,” Tucker said.
“We could go up to the Fenton Command Center,” Danny winced as Sam hit a sensitive angle.
“I don’t think you pulled anything,” Sam soothed. “And that’s not really a secret. The whole town can see it.”
Tucker reached down and started rummaging through his backpack. “No, something like the Dojo of Doom from Blue Sword. Blue Sword has this secret training ground under his family’s temple. They have all sorts of cool gadgets down there.” He made a small ‘ah-hah’ as he pulled out the comic he was looking for. “Your house is out because of the lab, Danny, but maybe we could find a room in Sam’s mansion to turn into a cool hideout.” He pointed to a panel of a room filled with tricked-out gadgets.
“That’s a comic book. This is real life, Tucker.” Sam rolled her eyes.
“Don’t mind her, Tucker. She’s just mad that we want a man cave.
Tucker laughed. “That’s one way we can keep our meat madness nights a secret!”
And here Danny was. An honest-to-goodness secret lair. Tucker would have flipped. Danny was used to secret basement labs. His parents and Vlad both set-ups that could rival a small university. But this was not simply a lab. There were uniforms, and vehicles, and weapons.
Cujo barked from the top of a life-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was too upright to be scientifically accurate with the latest paleontology research, at least in Danny’s home universe, but Ancients that was so cool.
He flew up to Cujo. “We should get out of the crazy lair under the rich guy’s mansion.”
There was a flurry of motion from a cluster of desks by the wall. Danny froze as he found the owner of the cave staring up at him, bewildered.
The man looked a little younger than his parents. His stature reminded him so much of Danny’s Dad’s wide frame and bulk. He felt a pang of homesickness roll through him.
Cujo sensed his sadness and gave Danny a big wet kiss, then leapt off the dinosaur to run behind some sort of giant playing card.
“Cujo no,” Danny whined in a whisper. The man was frantically looking for something. Hopefully not an alarm.
Cujo wove through a series of glass cases. Each one had a perfectly preserved costume in it labeled with nameplates. It reminded Danny so much of the way Skulker displayed his collection of the ghost he successfully hunted.
That’s when it hit Danny. This was not some superhero hideaway. This was a villain’s lair.
Danny whipped his head back at the owner of the cave, who was now brandishing some sort of bladed projectile. Danny needed to get out of there now. He scooped Cujo up and turned them both invisible.
There’s nothing to be afraid of, Danny. He tried to reassure himself as he huddled with the squirmy puppy. It’s just a human. The box ghost could eat him for breakfast.
Danny tightened his grip on Cujo. The whole point of this adventure was supposed to be learning to act like a ghost, so maybe…
He flew over to where the man was still on guard, carefully scanning the cave. He sank down so only the top of his head was sticking out of the computer desk and coiled tightly, ready to become visible, pop out, and give his best,
“BEWARE!” Danny shouted at the top of his lungs.
Danny booked it out of the roof of the cave. Cujo wiggled out of his hands. Once they were above the mansion, tumbling high in the overcast sky, Danny couldn’t help doubling over in laughter.
“You’re sure there wasn’t a fear gas sample leak?” Nightwing’s voice came in over the comm.
Batman flipped open the hard-shelled case he had dragged up to the top of the Eliot theater. If Spook was up to his old tricks, the ground-penetrating radar would help the Bats navigate the maze of tunnels.
“Yes,” Batman replied calmly. “The entity that breached the cave matches the report from Orphan and Spoiler.”
“It was totally a zombie dog and ghost. Flying down the street. Right, Orphan?”
“Ghost, unsure. Magic, yes.”
“There was a green dog that screamed of magic at the arcade.” Robin’s voice sounded next to Batman as he carefully ran an extension cord in the crevices of the rooftop. “It attacked a bird.”
“I’m just glad the hellhound didn't turn on us. That drool looked radioactive,” said Nightwing.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on a date right now, Dickie?” Red Hood’s lilting croon joined them on the comm.
“I was able to move our reservation back to 10,” was Nightwing’s mumbled reply. “If this gets wrapped up quickly, we can still make it.”
“Mhm,” Orcacle drawled from her command center in the clock tower.
“You better buy our girl top shelf tonight.” Red Hood cackled. “All’s quiet in Bowery. I’m the only thing allowed to haunt Gotham tonight.”
“When’s the last time we cleared out the sewers? Plenty of half-dead things kicking down there,” said Spoiler.
“Tricorner’s clear too. No ghosts. No mobsters.” Nightwing reported.
Robin presented Batman with the end of the extension cord.
Finding the Eliot Theater base was a good break in the case. It was trivial to link members of Val Kaliban’s old gang to the mysterious construction workers. ‘Ringer Peterson’ had a very distinct facial scar that was impossible to miss.
“Everyone in position?” He asked, and he plugged the radar in.
“Batgirls are ready to go,” Steph said from where she and Orphan were parked in a nearby alley. “Just let us know when they start moving.” They were poised to catch anyone trying to escape capture from Batman and Robin.
A single click came in for Red Robin. He was unable to speak from his location at the heart of Kane Gardens Penitentiary, ready to catch Spook off guard.
Batman hoped their guess of target was correct. There were six prisons Kaliban worked on that were still operational. Kane Gardens was the closest to their location.
“All positions confirmed, I’ll signal when Kaliban moves out.”
Red Robin sat cross-legged on a cafeteria table in the heart of the penitentiary. His bones itched. Being exposed in the harsh fluorescent light was unnatural. He instinctively wanted to move, to duck into a corridor or scale the scaffolding and wait hanging from the industrial rafters instead. Dick liked to joke that Tim was so good at hanging upside down that he was destined to be a bat.
Being bait was kind of the point of his current position. To create a distraction when Spook’s crew entered from a tunnel Robin had found in prison blueprints that ran alongside the ventilation system. Batman and Robin would follow up on the crew’s heels, pushing the advantage to trap them in before any of the white collar criminals that called Kane Gardens home were released.
“Red Robin, hostiles are almost in position. Expected eta 2 minutes.” Batman’s voice cackled through the comm.
He tapped the device in his ear to respond with an affirmative. Even though he had permission to wait here from the guards, Red Robin couldn’t risk leaking any information to the prisoners still in cells.
He shuffled his cape to feel less exposed.
It helped a little.
He worked through some meditation exercises as he waited.
The lights cut out. Sparks flared in the newfound darkness. Tim made sure he had a solid grip on his bo staff.
Showtime.
A figure draped in a fluorescent green drop cloth appeared before him. Someone watched too much Scooby-Doo as a kid. Spook could use an updated look. Good thing Red Robin was used to playing the role of meddling kid.
A loud jeering whoop sounded as one of the prisoners responded to their evening entertainment. A few more joined in shouting.
Red Robin stood up and leveled his staff at Spook. “We caught wind of your scheme, Kaliban. No one’s joining your disappearing act tonight.”
“The confidence is cute, but unfounded.” Spook’s voice had an echoey timber to it. He must have some sort of voice modulator going. “You may have planned for me, but you couldn’t have foreseen my latest trick.”
Fog started mysteriously rolling into the central room. Spook vanished. Into the ductwork, Red Robin thought, the positioning is still right.
“Spook, this doesn’t look like- where’s the audience? What am I supposed to do?” A new figure replaced where Spook stood.
The newcomer was much better defined, with a visible face and slick body suit that was somehow both dark and glowing.
“Spook?” The ghost called out again.
White-blue sparks outlined his figure and snow-white hair looked like it was floating. Now this was a modern ghost. 10/10 for special effects.
“Phantom, Improvise,” hissed out from the ventilation. “Detain Red Robin.”
Red Robin saw his opening and surged forward, swinging his staff low to try and knock the ghost’s legs from out under him. Phantom simply lifted his feet in the air.
“Really good rigging effect there.” Red Robin noted, “But that just means you can get tangled.”
“Hey! Why are you-” Danny was interrupted by Red Robin swinging his staff back around, this time aiming for the space above its head. The bo passed through.
No strings.
Rattling echoed through the central room as ventilation grates were pushed. Spook and his crew were moving forward with their plan. Tim would not be surprised if one of the cells was breached soon.
He pivoted again, drew back, and struck Phantom in the middle of the chest. He stumbled half a step as his staff missed its target. Going through the body of Phantom.
Hologram then?
“Ack! Stop that! Spook!” Phantom whined.
Metallic banging came from inside the walls. Batman and Robin were making their move deep in the ventilation and tunnels. Tim just needed to continue being a distraction.
The ghost looked Red Robin dead in the face. His eyes were an eerie glow-stick green that pierced through the dark and fog. “For the record, I’m sorry about this.”
The ghost shifted forward. Red Robin felt himself fall.
He didn’t hit the ground. He didn’t move at all, but he felt the icy rush of plunging into the Gotham Bay in January wash over him.
He moved his hand to send Batman an update through the comm-link.
Nothing happened.
There was no resistance, no strain of muscles against a force keeping him in place. It was as if the neurons connecting Tim to his arm were severed.
He thought move. He didn’t budge.
Then, without thinking, he moved. Smoothly, without effort, he was sitting back on the table in the center of the room. Words spilled out from his own mouth, “Maybe if you had stopped attacking me… believe me, I do not want to be involved in whatever feud is going on here.”
Tim could hear Batman’s voice in his ear demanding a report, wanting to know where the unknown had disappeared to.
They were maybe two minutes out from a riot if this went badly. The inmates were desperately banging on the gates to their cells and shouting. The scuffling inside the walls moved to the ceiling. All Tim could do was wait.
With a loud bang, Batman crashed to the floor from a ceiling vent, just narrowly missing Tim. “Red Robin, Report: where did our ghosts go? Robin is ratting out the last of Spook’s goons from the walls.”
Tim felt his head tilt curiously, but could give no response. Batman noticed the shift. How Red Robin’s movements were decidedly wrong. The imposter was too loose, too relaxed in the middle of a crime scene. Batman started circling the table, ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble.
“Jeez, the black theme isn’t really inspiring. Has anyone told you your costume looks kind of scary?” Not-Tim said. “I’m trying to figure out what’s going on myself. Getting the impression Spook isn’t who he said he was.”
Batman whipped bolas out of the utility belt. The twisting weapon did not make contact with Red Robin. He felt his body move, lithe and graceful. He flipped over the incoming mess of ropes. The wrongness of it shook through him.
Tim’s flips were controlled and tight. He relied on his strength to bully his way through swings. His strength was, and always had been, climbing. This was different. Easy turns with the momentum of his body that required a trust in himself Tim never had. He could feel the stretch of his muscles as he arced through, the micro-adjustments to twist just right.
It was nauseating.
Batman moved to swing two balled fists down at his head as soon as Not-Tim landed. But Not-Tim simply shifted again. Sliding out of the way and balancing on one foot, then following through with a firm whack of his bo staff on top of Batman’s head.
“This is above my pay-grade,” Not-Tim muttered.
And Tim felt himself unclench as a full body shutter went through him. Again he was in control. He froze for a minute, watching Batman scramble up and recover.
“B,” Tim croaked. “That was awful.”
Batman dropped into his neutral ready pose, sensing that whatever had brainwashed Red Robin was gone.
Robin tumbled out from the vent that Spook and Phantom came from. “Batman, I have secured all hostiles in the building.
“Red Robin, Report,” Batman said. Only a slight fall on the ‘Red’ betrayed his worry.
Tim wants to tear at himself. To pull apart and make sure there are no lingering fingerprints on his soul.
Instead, he calms down and gets to work. “Unknown entity appeared after Spook vanished with the help of a smoke screen. The entity seemed confused. I engaged after he confirmed association with Spook.” He swallowed for the next part. His throat was so dry. “Entity apologized and then took control of my movements.”
“The ghost theory is sound. We are haunted,” Robin says.
Batman scowls. Harsh shadows conceal his face under the fluorescent lights.
“He said he was sorry, Batman.” Tim stared down at his hands and flexed his fingers. “I’m not sure what we are dealing with, but he said he was sorry.”
Danny eyed Lady suspiciously from where they had tucked themselves behind the theater marquee sign. “Did you know they were a gang, not actors, this whole time?”
Lady tilted her head just so and whistled high and playfully. Pleased-mischief-notsorry
“Lady,” Danny scolded. “No crime groups. I’m a friendly ghost.” He turned to look out over the city as he rubbed at the friendship bracelets still tied around his wrist. The evening brought a drizzling rain with it. Cars splashed through puddles. People were rushing to get out of the rain and into their warm homes. The rain had made the city lights look like a million twinkling stars as the light was refracted back from puddles.
“I guess I need to start looking for a new place to haunt,” Danny said as he absentmindedly reached out to scratch at the feathers on Lady’s neck. “I like your city. I don’t think it will be hard to find somewhere new.” He carefully peeled himself out from against the wall. “Let’s go raid Spook’s tool cabinet. I think there’s a few fruit snack packs left too.”
Lady cooed. Danny took one last look at the night before sinking into the brick facade of the theater.