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Tim was sitting in the break room of the Watchtower, mindlessly flipping channels on the big wall-mounted TV while trying to wake up for his next shift. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Phantom slowly drift in front of the big windows, face almost pressed against the glass and his whole attention fixed on the stars outside.
This in and of itself wasn’t anything uncommon; Phantom seemed to have an almost obsessive fascination with space, but what had caught Tim’s attention was the frown on the ghost’s face. Normally he would have a dreamy expression if not a big smile on his face as he watched the expanse outside the windows, but not today. And Tim was willing to admit that it was getting to him.
After another few minutes of switching between channels, silence, and no change in the frowning Tim pressed the off button on the remote and heaved a sigh as he turned to face the window and the floating ghost. “What’s wrong?”
Phantom startled as if he had forgotten he wasn’t alone in the room, or as if he had forgotten he could be seen by others. He had a bad habit of forgetting to turn himself visible and scaring the shit out of people around the tower. He looked over his shoulder and fixed Tim with a wide eyed, literally shining, look of confusion. “What do you mean wrong?”
Tim made a vague gesture at the ghost. “You’ve been frowning ever since I got here. Did something happen?”
Phantom turned around in the air, spinning on his own axis until he was looking at Tim upside down. Tim noted that his hair stayed in the same position throughout. He wasn’t jealous, not at all.
“Well, I was just thinking... Does Batman hate ghosts?”
Tim blinked, thrown by the direction the conversation had taken. “What? No?”
The frown on Phantom’s face deepened as he righted himself in the air. “But he just told me that he ‘was sorry for my loss’, as if something bad had happened? And when I asked him what he meant he said he regretted not being able to save me.”
Tim paused, weighting his words carefully before slowly saying, “I’m sure he just meant that he was sorry that you had… You know…” Tim trailed off, winced, and then forced out, “Died.”
It was always a hard subject to breach, nobody liked to think about death. The Justice League and the Batfamily had all come to the unanimous decision to avoid the subject around their newest member since they were convinced that he would react badly to the topic.
Phantom snorted. “Yeah I know. Kinda hard to miss.”
“I didn’t mean—”
But Phantom cut him off, “Wait. Is that why none of you talk about death around me? You’re scared that I’m gonna be, what? Offended?”
“Well… No?” Tim said unconvincingly.
Phantom laughed. “Oh my Ancients! You did! That’s so cute!”
“You know, we don’t really talk about death with each other either,” Tim said, feeling like he had to defend himself somehow.
Phantom tilted his head, still smiling. “Why?”
Tim blinked, thrown by the question. “Because… People don’t like to think about that?”
Phantom pursed his lips in thought. “See, that’s what I meant! Isn’t that just kinda rude? I mean, I’m dead, does that mean you guys don’t wanna think about me?”
“No?” Now it was Tim’s turn to frown. “That’s different.”
“Hmm,” Phantom hummed, looking unconvinced.
Tim scrambled for a change in subject and latched onto the first thing that came to mind. “So why would you think that Bruce hated you just because he said he was sorry for your loss?”
“Well that just makes it sound like he thinks ghosts are worse than humans, you know? And! It got me thinking, Batman refuses to kill his enemies, right?”
“Right,” Tim faintly agreed, desperately trying to make sense of this conversation.
Phantom relentlessly continued, oblivious to Tim’s spiraling sanity. “Maybe that’s because he thinks that ghosts are less than humans! He doesn’t want to create more of us.”
Tim had to step in at that, feeling like they weren’t on the same page when it came to some very important fundamentals. “Phantom, you—you understand that people don’t like dying, right? It’s the end.”
Phantom tilted his head with a look of confusion. “It’s not though?”
And Tim guessed that was true. He couldn’t really argue the point with a literal ghost, now could he?
“The town I come from, people don’t really care. Death, life, it’s kinda all the same,” Phantom said happily, as if that wasn’t a very troubling statement to make. And with no respect for Tim’s quickly dwindling sanity, he continued with a thoughtful finger tapping at his lower lip, “Except that death has a lot more flying in it. And energy beams.”
Tim made a mental note to try and find out exactly what town Phantom was talking about. Hopefully it wasn’t one on Earth. He managed a resigned, “Of course,” and hoped that was the end of the conversation. He needed to have enough energy left for his whole shift after all.
But Phantom just nodded and continued on, “Batman refusing to kill his enemies is all just an obvious ploy not to have them move on as ghosts!”
“Obviously,” Tim faintly agreed.
“That’s messed up! He just wants to trap them in the human realm with him so he can torment them forever!” Phantom shook his head. “I know a couple of people in the Zone who would love to exchange torture ideas with him. I thought that Fright Knight was scary and now I’m working with a guy like that, can you believe it?”
Tim couldn’t. “I—I don’t think that’s what he means by that.”
Phantom huffed in annoyance and crossed his arms. “It’s blatant ectophobia, is what it is!”
Tim opened his mouth to try and come up with an argument when the subject of their argument stepped into the break room. Bruce addressed him with clear disapproval in his voice, “Red Robin, you’re late for your shift.”
Tim had never been so grateful to receive Bruce’s disappointment. At least he wasn’t alone in this shitshow of a conversation anymore. “I’m sorry. Me and Phantom was just having a conversation about how you’re clearly discriminatory towards ghosts.”
Bruce stopped from where he had turned to leave. “…What?”
Phantom nodded. “Yeah! Don’t think I’ve forgotten your rude comment earlier about your condolences!”
Despite the bizarre situation, Tim almost laughed at the shocked expression on Bruce’s face, visible even under the mask. His father opened his mouth, closed it, and tried again, “I was just saying that I wish I could have helped you before you ended up as a ghost.”
“And I’m saying that that’s clearly showing a preference for living people!”
Bruce pressed his mouth into a thin line before saying, “I think we need to have a conversation about the value of life if you’re going to be joining us on any more rescue missions.”
“See!” Phantom looked at Tim as he gestured angrily at Bruce “There he goes again!”
Tim got up from the sofa. “I’m late for my shift.” And he left the break room as if the ghosts of hell were at his heals. Which they kind of were; Phantom’s angry voice following him down the corridor.
He really wasn’t awake enough for this shit.