Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Danny hadn't been more frustrated with a homework assignment in their afterlife! Their assignments from Mr. Lancer were usually set up in a way that they could do as easily as the rest of their class could. He was the best teacher when it came to remembering their accommodation needs! It definitely wasn't Tetslaf. She was the worst of them all, screaming at Danny and expecting them to answer her. 

Danny Fenton was mute, had been mute ever since the Accident, and it was depressing how often people forgot or outright denied that. If the Lichtenberg scarring didn't prove it beyond a doubt, Danny was pretty sure that their parents would have gaslit them about their own electrocution. As it was, they made it clear that Danny's problems were just that: Danny's problems. The tremors, bad pain days, and inability to speak were facts of Danny's life now.

Well, the inability to speak Living was a fact. Phantom could still use Ghost Speech to communicate, even if it was embarrassing to be cooed at by the other ghosts when they did. Phantom was still an infant, so they couldn't communicate a coherent sentence yet. They'd only just figured out how to say single words! Non-Liminals couldn't understand them, but at least they could swear properly again. Danny was a teenager, and the inability to swear at things was torture. 

They'd tried learning sign language, but other than the ghosts, the only people in town who bothered to learn any of it were Jazz, Sam, Tucker, Mr. Lancer, and the cashier at the fishing tackle shop who sold them the things that they'd discovered actually worked for them as medical supplies. Everyone else either hadn't put in the effort to learn it (if they'd even tried), or they treated sign language like a horrifying sin that was going to corrupt their minds. 

There wasn't much motivation left in them at that point to keep learning sign language. Danny didn't have the time for it, anyway. They were too busy trying to stay afloat.

This assignment was the first one in a while that Mr. Lancer had messed up on. They had to record a video with them reciting a speech, poem, or book passage that inspired them. He'd been talking about how to find a piece of media you related to all week, but Danny must have been unconscious during the part where he'd mentioned the recording because the assignment was due Monday, and Mr. Lancer was out of state. Danny couldn't contact him to ask what to do instead, and they were worried that he'd mark them off on the assignment if it didn't get done on time. 

They should have noticed this sooner.

They'd taken the time to pick their book passage- it was a scene from a book that Ghost Writer had recommended to them when they'd asked him for something that they could play off as just being about ableists instead of also about how people were treating ghosts. The book he'd given them was full of so much good material for the assignment, it had a great set of characters, a lot of issues in the book made the Halfa think, and they'd been surprised at how much they'd actually enjoyed reading it! It was a book called "Carpe Jugulum" by Terry Pratchett (they'd double-checked to make sure it was available in their dimension), and the passage they'd picked was towards the end. 

The part they'd picked was a discussion between an old witch and a young priest-type man about what sin really is. Danny didn't really agree with the idea of sin in general- they'd flown through enough afterlives to know better than to think it mattered after death- but they did like what the witch had been saying. At its root, all the things that they'd even remotely call sinful boiled down to thinking of people as things.

As much as they'd loved the book (They'd actually managed to connect to Ghost Writer over it!), Danny seriously should have looked at the assignment in more detail before now. They also should have done a lot of other things during that time. They should have dismantled the Jack-o-nine-tails again, gone on another run to the fishing supply store, copied Tucker's notes into a new, non-charbroiled notebook, and slept. None of those had happened, though.

They didn't have the time.

Frustrated and furious at the way that the world seemed to think they could do everything was only the beginning of all the emotions that they were feeling. Danny let it all out in a sound that could only be described as "that sound that cats make when they're about to fly off the handle, but they have to rev up their anger engine first."

They should have noticed that they weren't alone.

Wulf had come to the Living world today with a bag full of presents he'd picked for his friend, Phantom, during his most recent set of adventures! Seeing the baby Halfa was one of his favorite things. If it had been less tricky to get away from Walker, then he would come more often! As it was, he would arrive in the woods outside of Amity Park, perk up his ears to listen for their Core, and-

An energy blast tore through the trees a few hundred meters away from him. This would not have been out of the ordinary for the town of Amity Park, but what was not normal was the sound of Phantom's Core racing with fear, their hisses of betrayal and heartbreak, and their shrieks of pain that only grew more and more frantic.

Wulf bolted towards the sounds, tracking his friend's flight with his nose. Phantom was fleeing from the GAV; the Fentons had chased them before, but Phantom had only ever sighed and teased them for their bad aim. Wulf did not spend a great deal of time in Amity Park, so he did not know why Phantom would be so emotionally affected by this chase. The ghosts of the Infinite Realms all knew that the Fentons were overcome with hatred. Did Phantom make the mistake of asking them for a truce? 

The Fentons were dangerous. Phantom had warned them all to avoid staying near the doctors and their home; Wulf had taken that advice. His friend cared about them! If they said that the Fenton house was somewhere to avoid, Wulf knew that it was. 

He may not know why Phantom knew that, but he trusted his friend, and Phantom knew the town better than anyone!

Their hisses were turning to sobs of Core-deep agony. Wulf did not think a broken truce would cause this amount of pain. Was there something more than the hatred and the many attacks that he had seen between the Fentons and Phantom? 

Wulf did not know.

His thoughts were put to one side when he reached the edge of a clearing just ahead of Phantom's fleeing form. They did not look good. Burns were everywhere on their main body. One of their arms was hanging wrong in its socket, and there were strange bends in it in two different places. Their other arm was covering their eyes. Ectoplasm and icy tears were splattered all over it.

Wulf had never seen his friend hurt so badly!

He was already pulling on his Core to gather enough ectoplasm to slash a portal when he launched himself to intercept Phantom's desperate flight. He was perhaps seven or eight meters away from Phantom when another shot hit the Halfa. 

Wulf had never seen this kind of weapon being used by the Fentons before. It looked much like a crossbow bolt would if it had been made completely out of metal, scaled up to two-and-a-half meters, had its head replaced with a guillotine blade, and coated in ectoplasm. The blade was over half a meter long, and the majority of it had sliced through Phantom's lower chest. 

They held together, barely, but Wulf could see the moment they fainted. He caught them under one arm before they fell too far. It was not a gentle catch, but he did not have the time to make one. 

Phantom needed to be brought to a safe place and fast!

Continuing with his leap, Wulf used his free arm to slash a portal in front of them. He had intended to take them into the Infinite Realms, but his concentration was broken when his left leg was clipped by a blast from one of the cannons on the GAV's roof. 

Wulf fell through the portal with the Halfa craddled to his chest. There was no way for him to know where the portal was taking them. The bad news was that he knew it wasn't the Realms; he'd gone through the layer in his slash that he knew would have taken them there. The good news was that wherever they were headed, it was not anywhere near Amity Park. His slash had gone through into another universe entirely.

He prayed to the Ancients that this one would have the correct supplies to care for Phantom's injuries. His friend did not have the same needs when it came to healing that a full ghost would, and Wulf did not know what they were. 

Only Phantom would know how to find them in a Living Realm.

It would take Wulf time to learn enough about this universe's supporting structure to make a portal back into the Infinite Realms. Not all universes were the same distance away from it, and the farther it was, the longer he'd need to find the way home.

They did not have that time.

Phantom needed to be treated now. 

The best place for Phantom to get that treatment would be the Far Frozen. He knew that Phantom was friends with Chief Frostbite. The Yetis would not hesitate to help them once they got there, but they weren't.

Wulf would have to be enough for now. 

If he wasn't, they'd need another option to show up before too much time had passed. Wulf didn't know how the emotional damage that Phantom had shown would affect their Core. If it was a bad injury, then their Core would struggle to generate enough ectoplasm to heal the physical wounds that Wulf had already noticed. The less it could generate, the longer Phantom would take to heal, and Wulf did not know enough about the situation to know how to help ease Phantom's emotional pain. He'd do his best, but Phantom had always suffered more turmoil from their negative experiences than other Realms ghosts. 

Phantom had been through a lot of those.

This felt like it might be the worst one that Wulf was aware of, although he did not know of all that Phantom had seen and done. Still, they were a resilient child. They would come through this as they'd come through so many others.

Wulf would do whatever he could to be sure that they would.

Chapter Text

Nightwing had been through a lot of awful things in his life, but he'd been through so many wonderful things, too! He'd watched even more strange things, good and bad, happening to the people around him. He really had! Even growing up in the circus had given him the chance to see some amazing things, and horrifying ones, too. 

This was up at the top of the list of "Weird things that I'm going to be thinking about for days." It wasn't the list of "The Horrors TM," the list of "Better things have happened," the list of "Wonders beyond my wildest dreams," nor it the list of "Things that will be in my nightmares," but it was still weird enough to get onto a list. It was not necessarily a dangerous thing, but for sheer out-of-context, what-did-I-just-see, what-the-fuck energy, it maxed out the meter.

He'd been on the Batplane with B, flying back to Gotham in the dead of night after a mission gone wrong. They'd taken out the mole at the chemical plant, but B had gotten clipped with at least one bullet (Nightwing was betting it was more than one, but B was a stubborn cryptid of the night that hid his injuries as well as any cat!), and had broken his left femur and dislocated that hip; that meant that Nightwing was arguing with him the entire way back about who should really be flying the plane. 

Nightwing had the controls right now, but he'd only gotten them by beating B to the plane and locking the other set of controls before B could activate them. It was a method that all of his siblings had mastered since it was the only one that worked.

Again, B was a very stubborn cryptid.

B had just pointed out that Nightwing had taken a hit to the head ("It wasn't that bad, B!") when the entire ship shuddered under an impact. All of their attention for the bickering evaporated at the turbulence, and in its place was the hypervigilance that the Bats and Birds were known for. Looking over the instrument display, he couldn't see anything showing up on their sensors. 

That was never good. 

Even worse, the Batplane was cloaked, so no one should be able to see them to hit them with anything! If it wasn't showing up on their sensors then, in all likelihood, they were under attack. So, if something they couldn't detect had detected them? Things were bad. 

Very, very bad.

The smog of their city was thick enough tonight that Nightwing couldn't see anything without turning on the outboard lights. He only debated with himself for a second before hitting the right button to do so. It would turn off the cloaking and give away their position, but their unknown attacker clearly already knew where they were, so there wasn't much point in hiding it that way any longer.

All of that had only taken a few seconds. Nightwing had to have been staring at the sight in front of him for at least twice that amount of time. Given that B hadn't scolded him or made any moves himself, Nightwing was pretty sure he was just as shocked and confused as he was.

"Well," Nightwing finally said, eyes still locked with the larger of the two people currently plastered to the Batplane's windshield, "That's definitely not a bug splatter."

"Hn," B grunted. Nightwing mentally translated it as I acknowledge your joke, but I am currently running through possible courses of action and cannot process it properly, so my real reaction will be put off until later.

Nightwing, making the choice without consulting B, slowed their flight down to a crawl. He did it so that the two people stuck to the windshield wouldn't have to struggle to unstick themselves. He didn't lose eye contact with the- what were they? A meta? Alien? Werewolf? They certainly looked like a werewolf, but Nightwing had no idea if those existed. 

Raven was going to get a very strange phone call from him later.

It wouldn't be the first one.

"They are injured," B noted, his 'Batman' voice almost completely overwhelmed by his 'worried father' voice. 

Nightwing could understand why. 

The werewolf (he'd call them that until he had an actual name to go with) only seemed to have a single wound, a strange crater-like burn on the back of their left thigh that was already filling in. 

The other person, though, looked like someone had turned them into their personal training dummy! There were more of those strange burns on them; Nightwing couldn't even give an estimate as to how many hits they had taken because of how much they overlapped. Their arm had been dislocated and broken in at least two different places. The marks around their eyes looked like some kind of electric whip, lash, or flail had been used on them. The worst wound, though, was the slice that had gone clean through their lowest two floating ribs and ended in their lung on the opposite side of the place on the kid's waist where it started.

And that was absolutely the worst part of it all for B. Those almost certainly fatal injuries had been inflicted on a kid. They looked fairly androgynous, but it was the kind of look that had more to do with their age than anything else. This kid didn't look like they'd been a teenager for very long. Nightwing wasn't sure if they had even reached their teenage years. 

Or, well, whatever their species' equivalent was. While they might have been a meta, Nightwing had the feeling they hadn't been human. The muscles around their mouth and eyes weren't quite right, and their ears weren't, either. That wasn't even touching on the blue-green skin, stark white hair, and glowing green blood. 

It wasn't Lazarus green; it looked closer to the color of Hal's ring. 

Nightwing was just wondering if it was worth dealing with Hal to ask about that when the kid's eyes flickered open. Fuck, they were alive?! There wasn't much awareness in their eyes in the half-second Nightwing saw the glowing green irises before they squeezed shut again, but they were moving, and that meant that, somehow, that kid was alive!

"B-" Nightwing began, panic creeping into his mind and voice.

"-I know," His dad responded. Nightwing could hear him undoing his buckles in the seat behind him. Nightwing himself was reaching for the controls that would open the side doors when the werewolf moved. 

Nightwing had seen the way B would pick up his siblings when they were badly injured in the field. He'd be so, so careful, touching them with an impossible amount of gentleness and concern. There was so much love there, so much guilt, and so much worry that it was a wonder that he didn't break apart from the sheer weight of it all. It was as heartbreaking as it was wonderful to watch.

The werewolf was picking up the injured child in the same way. 

They were obviously friends, if not actually family, and it was obvious how much the werewolf treasured the child. The way they cradled the child spoke volumes. They only needed one arm to hold the entire kid, and it was clearly as much of a concerning surprise to the werewolf as it was to Nightwing. They said something to the kid, but Nightwing hadn't turned on the outside mics yet, so he didn't know what it was. 

Then, just as Nightwing heard B turn his comms back on, the werewolf looked him in the eyes. He'd made sure that the kid was secured in the crook of his arm with the tender care that parents would their newborns. Then the werewolf made a rough fist with his other hand (he'd been so careful with his claws on the kid that Nightwing hadn't even registered them until then) and made two circles in front of his chest. He'd said something else at the same time that Nightwing still couldn't hear but recorded visuals of.

In a blink, the werewolf turned, used those same claws to tear a hole outlined in a green glow in the sky, stepped through it, and vanished with the kid still in his arms.

Nightwing stared at the space that the two strangers had been in for several seconds before he registered B's voice.

"-wing, come in!" B barked, his voice wavering just enough to notice.

"Sorry, B," Nightwing chuckled weakly, "I was-"

He froze, his mind replaying the motion that the werewolf had made just before he'd left and finally identifying it. The claws had definitely gotten in the way, but Nightwing had spent enough time with Black Bat to recognize that sign even with that problem.

"Nightwing?" B asked, an edge in his voice that Nightwing knew meant that B was worried, frustrated, and trying to stay calm.

Pulling in a surprisingly hard breath, Nightwing whispered, "They signed, 'sorry,' B. Just before the werewolf left with the kid, they said something to me while signing 'sorry.'"

Chapter Text

Isabela would like to say that she had come into this line of work honestly. She'd be lying, but since "henching" wasn't an entirely legal profession to begin with, coming into it honestly would be more suspicious than the route she'd taken. 

It had started with the cold her Abuela had caught eight years ago. That cold had gone into bronchitis, then and then into pneumonia, and from there, well, Isabela had lost track of what order she'd gotten the rest of the medical debt in, but it added up. 

It kept adding up, too, no matter how many payments she made on time or what the money people told her. The debt had mounted up until she couldn't afford to turn down that first offer to "look out for a small business owner." She'd known it was crooked, but at that point, she really couldn't afford to care. 

Money was money, after all. So what if it was dirty if it paid the bills?

Getting into the Goonion six years ago had helped. They'd set her up with the insurance she'd need to keep the debt from getting bigger. Yeah, the magenta-haired girl behind the pharmacy counter gave her dirty looks whenever she came to pick up Abuela's prescriptions, but it didn't really matter.

As long as she could keep Abuela alive, Isabela would do whatever she needed to. Henching was better than a lot of her other options. Even Abuela understood that!

Her Abuela was the only reason Isabela had survived after she'd lost her Papa!

The downside of being a goon (one of them, anyway) was that she spent a lot of money on first aid supplies. Isabela flinched at the pain in her shoulder when she grabbed the second box of gauze off of the shelf. Arrow wounds sucked! 

At least she wasn't in Gotham, she told herself. Her neighbor across the hall, a young Jamaican immigrant with the bestaccent, had mentioned hearing a story that Batman worked with an actual demon! Isabela believed him, too. Everyoneknew that Batman was a vampire!

Isabela had just dropped the box of gauze into her shopping cart when she heard the crash. Spinning around with her hand on her favorite knife, she gaped at the mound of glowing fur that had toppled over the end cap. Off-brand chip bags were everywhere, but the glowing green liquid covering half of them made her scramble back. She was no idiot! Nothing good came of liquid that was glowing green.

Then the mound of fur stood up, and Isabela was face to face with a tattered shirt. Looking up (and up and up), Isabela gulped at the snout of a werewolf sniffing the air above her. There were so many fangs peeking out from under those lips! It tilted down, and she wrapped her hands around the hilt of her knife. Fear gripped her heart so strongly that it was a wonder she didn't have a heart attack and die on the spot!

Then Isabala saw their eyes and the fear in her heart fizzled out.

Guilt, sadness, resignation, worry, and protective love were all not emotions that Isabela was expecting to see in the werewolf's eyes. She didn't think a werewolf could feel all of that, let alone show it so clearly with just its eyes. Surprises were the order of the day for her, it seemed.

It would be nice if they'd stop coming.

They didn't.

When the werewolf stepped away from her, Isabela gasped at the sight of the child in its arms. They were shivering, whining, and covered in the glowing green liquid. Actually, it seemed to be coming from them, almost like-

No, it looked exactly like blood. It was their blood.

Oh, that was a lot of injuries. No wonder they were bleeding all over the place! Seven and a half years of being a goon, six of them in the Goonion, had given her too many chances to see people injured, but this was too much! She felt sick.

Isabela never liked it when a child was bleeding.

Watching the look that the child gave her was the most heartbreaking thing Isabela had ever done. They took several seconds to focus their eyes on her, but when they did? The kid flinched away from her and whimpered. Isabela scaredthem! Someone had hurt them so much that just the sight of a stranger scared them!

She couldn't take it. Isabela turned away and threw up. The arrow wound screamed at her, but she didn't care. There was a scared child bleeding from injuries worse than anything she'd ever seen, and Isabela could do nothing to help them.

...

Or could she? 

The cart she'd filled with replacement first aid supplies filled her peripheral vision on her left side. It wasn't much, really, but Isabela wasn't a hero. She was a goon, but she was a goon with standards. Goonion members (almost) all were!

A child that injured, even if they'd been a hero or a sidekick, needed help more than she needed money.

Isabela stepped forward and turned around. When she was clear of the path it would need, Isabela gestured to the cart full of first aid supplies. Feeling silly-- after all, Isabela had no way of knowing if the werewolf could understand her-- she offered, "You can take it, all of it. I'll pay for it later. Le niñe needs it. ¡Por favor! Please!"

"¿Ĉu mi povas preni ĉi tion?" The werewolf said, surprising her. It could actually speak? She could believe it-- she'd heard too many stories about the less humanoid metas and aliens in the world to be-- but she was still surprised. Isabela hadn't even thought about the werewolf replying to her.

What did she do? She should probably just guess. Isabela had said he could take it, so maybe he was asking why. She hedged, "It's for the kid. Es para le niñe."

"Ĉu por Phantom?" the werewolf replied.

"Sí!" She answered, again guessing what he meant. That sounded close enough to Spanish that she felt more confident, although the "phantom" part confused her. 

Maybe he thought the kid was going to be a ghost if he died. Maybe he was already; Isabela had never been a very good Catholic. Given everything else she'd heard about, the idea that ghosts might be real didn't seem all that strange. 

He looked puzzled for a moment, then gestured between the cart and the kid. Isabela nodded vigorously. The werewolf had gotten the message!

"Dankon," he gasped. 

There was more gratitude, more relief, in those words than Isabela could handle.

From the depths of her heart, Isabela answered, "¡De nada, mi amigo!"

He smiled at her, the expression clear in his eyes and his face, and took one long step over to the cart. After another check of the injured child, the werewolf tore a glowing hole in the air next to him, pushed the cart through, and then stepped into the hole it.

Some stunned minutes after the tear that the werewolf had made had stitched itself up behind him, Isabela heard the familiar voice of the pharmacy tech from behind her. 

"That's it, I'm going back to being a goon. At least then I get paid extra when I have to deal with shit like that."

Isabela turned her head to gape at the girl with magenta hair and too much makeup who'd always scowled at her when she'd come to pick up her prescriptions. The girl was scowling now, but Isabela realized, now that the girl was in a better light and her makeup had been screwed up by tears, that there were scars on her face thick enough to make that scowl permanent.

Understanding dawned, and Isabela looked the girl in the eyes for the first time. With a smile full of kindness and empathy, Isabela offered, "I'll vouch for you if you apply for a position with the Goonion."

The girl with the magenta hair gave her a thumbs up. Gratitude tinted her words as she chuckled, "I've never heard someone say an entire sentence that made me happier."

Chapter Text

Jason Todd-Wayne had seen so much crazy shit in his life that he really deserved compensation for the emotional damage. That wasn't even including all the crazy shit he'd seen after he came back! Yeah, Jason could rightfully demand a small fortune from someone if he ever found out who was to blame.

Getting it from Bruce wouldn't mean nearly enough, and it sure as fuck wouldn't be as much fun.

Fun was definitely not what Jason was having when he walked into one of his warehouses for a routine inspection ten minutes ago. The day had already been hell; he'd taken a knife from the Demon Brat to the thigh, lost to Steph in Mario Party (again), woken up from his mid-day nap with a night terror, found out that his milk had already gone sour, dropped his favorite coffee mug in front of his newest lieutenant, discovered that the Falcones were back in business, taken a second knife to the thigh from the Stabby Robin (Damian absolutely did that on purpose, the little shit), broken into the wrong apartment in the building next to one of his safehouses, and been stabbed by a street rat in the same fucking thigh.

Yeah, Jason was done with the whole stabbing business. He was pretty sure he'd already used up his "being stabbed" quota for the next three weeks!

So, when he walked into the warehouse and saw the green coming off of the glowing werewolf wrapping a bandage around another glowing green figure, this time a fucking kid, Jason was only able to muster a sigh. What even was his life? 

Turning sharply on his heels, Jason walked back out of the warehouse and closed the door firmly behind him. Looking up, he saw Bill gaping at the warehouse door.

"Th-that's a werewolf, Boss," He stammered. It took a lot to scare Bill, but Jason had run out of fucks to give after Damian stabbed him the second time.

He popped, "Yup."

"That's a werewolf," Bill repeated slowly, clearly trying to get him to care about it, "patching up a kid in your warehouse."

Jason shrugged and stated, "That's his warehouse now, Bill. I ain't got the time to fight a fucking werewolf today. Let him have it! We'll get the stuff back after he leaves or something. That shit ain't worth getting stabbed by a fucking werewolf."

"But the kid-" Bill objected.

Jason sighed, "-is getting bandaged up by the werewolf. The kid clearly means something to the werewolf, and it's taking care of them, so that's fine. What the fuck do you think is going to happen if we try to take the kid away from the werewolf that's taking care of them? Someone's going to give us a fucking medal or something?"

"A'ight, alright! I get it, no bothering the werewolf," Bill conceded, "That warehouse is going to be marked off limits the second I get back to base."

"Good," Jason grunted.

Jason turned and walked down the street (he'd mastered the trick of walking without a fucking limp when he was in pixie boots). Bill fell into step behind him. They headed for the next warehouse on the inspection list, making their way through the grimy alleys overflowing with shadows, confident in the knowledge that the most dangerous things there were them (if they weren't, Jason knew that they'd make it out without too many stab wounds).

After a long moment of silence between them, Bill muttered, "I can't believe I just saw an honest-to-gods werewolf!"

"At least we didn't get stabbed," Jason said, pointing out the silver lining.

Bill groaned, "My calf's still healing from the incident with the Stabby Robin last week!"

This was the last stop on Greg's delivery list, and he'd never been more thankful to see that bastard Collin in his life. It was two hours after midnight, and Greg had been told that this list wouldn't have him out past four in the afternoon. 

He should have known that it wouldn't when Paula was the one who'd scheduled it for him.

Backing the truck up to the loading dock was a cinch. He'd been doing this job for nearly thirty years now; if he couldn't do it, he wouldn't have lasted through the first one. Parking at the perfect distance, Greg turned off the engine, marked his arrival time in the log, and hopped out to get Collin to sign off.

"You parked it too damn close again, Parkinson!" Collin growled at him. 

Greg ignored Collin's complaint in favor of shoving the handheld computer at his ugly mug. With one raised eyebrow, Greg drawled, "Ah need you to sign this for me, McConnel."

"I ain't signing shit till the shipment's in outta the snow, Parkinson!" Collin snarled, "The boys' shift ended six fuckin' hours ago, and the Big Man told me to let them fuck off before the Union bastards got their panties in a twist again!"

Lucky kids, Greg thought. The Teamster's Union had a lot of power here in Corner Brook. Thank God he'd joined up when he did because the provincial government wouldn't have backed them up the way it had if they didn't have the numbers back in the day to prove it was worth it. The kids had joined up because of him. Collin's boss would have worked them to the bone by now if the Teamsters weren't around. Time and a half was more than Collin's boss was willing to spend.

If only Greg's boss had the same penny-pincher attitude.

"It ain't in my job description to unload the truck, McConnel," Greg reminded the bastard, "The company contract says that you can either sign for the delivery and unload it yourself or pay the penalty for the failure to accept the product when I take this truck back to the warehouse."

Collin waved a furious hand over his shoulder at the warehouse beyond the open loading door, yelling, "Does it look to you like I can afford to let all this cat litter and dog food go back to John and Paula? We're almost out!"

Taking his time more to piss off Collin than to actually bother, Greg leaned to his right and looked around the giant of a man and into the warehouse. Raising an eyebrow, he watched as a glowing werewolf in a ripped-up old prison top pulled a cellophane-wrapped package with the picture of one of the big plush pet beds taped to it out of one of the crates and stuffed it in a shopping cart. A bag of fancy dog food, one of the ones with meat chunks in it, was already in there, along with a scratching post and a curry comb.

"Ah don't know about that," Greg drawled, "You must be going mighty fine if you've still got customers shopping right out of the crates at this hour."

Collin spun around. The werewolf had gotten the dog food and the dog bed to share space with each other. Poor thing, the werewolf only noticed they were there when Collin screamed at him. That flinch didn't look comfortable at all.

Before Collin's still-screaming figure could finish the angry charge he was limping through, the werewolf raised a fist and signed out a 'sorry' to them before using their sharp claws to tear some kind of hole in the air. They shoved the cart through faster than Collin was running. The bastard barely arrived in time for his clammy hands to snag a clump of hair off them before the hole closed up behind them.

Glancing at the gold bar that the werewolf had thoughtfully left on the next crate over, Greg smirked. That bastard Collin was cussing out the most generous thief that Greg had ever encountered. If he hadn't seen the gold before, Greg wouldn't have said a word.

Turning back to his handheld computer, Greg signed the right box for a failed delivery before strolling back to the cab of his truck. He whistled to himself as he drove off, the sounds of a screaming bastard cussing out his karma fading behind him. The radio had broken at three o'clock, so the whistling was all he had to keep him company.

Greg paused for a moment, then switched over to a much more cheerful song. He should call his half-sister and let her know he'd seen another werewolf. Yesmizel was always bemoaning that she had no one to chide into running with him on his monthly 'wild time'. He could draw out the 'search' he'd pretend to be doing for at least a year or two. She'd catch on to the ruse eventually, but a break would be much appreciated. 

All in all, today Paula's poor time management had been more than worth it.

Chapter Text

It was rare these days for Arthur to find time in his schedule to simply check on the health of the ocean he lived in. As the King, his first priority was Atlantis' own needs. The second largest segment of his life was given to his family. The Justice League, too, took up much of his time. Those three commitments were far from a hated burden, but he sometimes longed for the simpler times of his youth.

Days like today were his respite from the stress that ruled the rest of his life.

Aquaman was visiting the reefs in the waters surrounding Sulawesi. Not long before, a typhoon had damaged the oceans to the north, and he wished to know how these reefs had fared. It was a pleasant surprise to see how well they had recovered; the reefs here were a source of great pride to the locals, and he could see the positive effects that their handiwork had brought to this place.

He would have to send an official message with his thanks when he returned to his home.

Arthur was almost finished with his survey of the northernmost reef when the needlefish found him. The small, silvery predator was somewhat agitated.

She reported that a strange creature, one like but unlike the humans she saw visiting her home sometimes, had arrived without warning in her usual hunting grounds. This stranger was quite kind, she said, but they were struggling to complete their mission, and she believed that Aquaman would want to help them.

Intrigued, he swam behind the speedy little fish to a section of the reef that he had yet to check.

The creature he saw there was, indeed, a strange one. Their appearance brought to mind the members of the local community of werewolves he had known as a child, but there were differences that could not be ignored.

For one thing, the werewolf before him glowed with an unfamiliar green light. The shirt they wore was far more tattered than those that the friends of his childnood had worn, but it was the product of human hands nonetheless. They moved through the water, not against it as the creatures of the Surface would, nor with it as the creatures of the ocean did, but truly through it as though it were not there.

That their fur appeared dry and their shirt did not cling to them only confirmed that.

As odd as they were, Aquaman could only approve of their actions. Tied to a belt strung around their hip was a simple bag of some natural fiber; three different ends of nylon fishing line peeked out from the top of it. A set of needlenose pliers was held deftly in the claws of their left hand. The right was gently holding the mouth of a Goliath Grouper. It was clear that they intended to remove yet another of the many hooks embedded in the fish's mouth, souvenirs of victorious battles against fishermen of the Surface. A noble mission, indeed!

The grouper did not share this opinion. Groupers seldom cooperated with others, and this one was no exception. Arthur had only just crested the last bank of coral that lay some three meters away from the pair when the fish acted. 

Within seconds, the werewolf's right hand had disappeared in the gullet of the grouper. The confusion on their face was exceeded only by the smug pride on the face of the grouper.

Arthur was not surprised at the act.

Groupers were well known to swallow whatever they pleased, whenever they wished, and with complete malice aforethought. It did not seem to matter whether or not the object was edible; if a grouper chose to eat it, there was little that could be done to prevent them from doing so. 

Escaping their mouths, however, was not a futile endeavor. It was no easy task, but it could be done. The werewolf clearly did not know the tricks that Arthur did. They were tugging, gently but fruitlessly, at their captor's jaw. They were a kind person, truly, if they were avoiding the use of violence against a grouper. 

Groupers were well known to incite violence in nearly every creature they encountered.

Taking pity on the kind werewolf, Aquaman covered the rest of the distance between him and the pair and pried open the grouper's massive jaws. He was far less gentle than the werewolf, but he, too, caused no harm to the fish. It might have been an act of aggression, but the grouper had only acted according to its nature. Aquaman applied the exact amount of force needed to complete his task and nothing more. 

The kind stranger pulled their arm quickly from within the fish's gullet. Their first action afterward was not to inspect themself; no, they immediately checked the inside of the grouper's mouth for any damage. Finding none, they pulled back from the open maw and smiled gratefully at Arthur.

To his surprise, the werewolf still did not check their hand for any injuries but waved cheerfully at him and then signed a message to him in an oddly accented, clearly modified for claws, but recognizable variation of International Sign Pidgin.

"[Thank you for helping me,]" They signed, "[I did not wish to cause any harm to the fish, and I do not know if my intangibility would do so.]"

Tucking the grouper firmly under his right arm (to its many grumbled protests), Arthur replied, "[Think nothing of it! I am a guardian of the oceans, the hero Aquaman, and you had nothing but the best of intentions to help this fish. I could not have left your hand to its fate in the grouper's gullet!]"

The werewolf's smile widened, and they eagerly signed, "Ah, you are a Protector of this place! My young friend, Phantom, would be happy if they could meet another hero. They have not been treated kindly, and they have sadness I do not know how to ease."

Aquaman understood the loneliness of being a hero. The people who chose to help others selflessly seldom knew how to help themselves. He was pleased that this werewolf was helping the young hero. To have someone at your back made the fight all that much easier. Without his family and friends, Arthur knew he would never have survived as long as he had.

He would not be the hero he was if he did not offer to help another, a child at that, in need of aid.

"[How may I help you and your friend?]" he asked the werewolf, "[I cannot leave my ocean for long, but a young hero in distress deserves to have help at their back in such a time of need!]"

The werewolf's expression, which had fallen in sorrow at the thought of their saddened friend, lifted in hope. Eagerly, they gestured between the bag at their hip, the pliers they had tucked into the belt that held it, and the furious grouper that Arthur still help firmly under his arm.

"[It would be wonderful if you would help with this! I am collecting nylon fishing lines for young Phantom. They are the best material they know of that they can use for their stitches. I know that there are simpler means of acquiring it, but the fish have been harmed by these hooks, and the lines that they snapped off in their fight for freedom are a danger to them. Phantom will be greatly pleased to know that I gathered the lines they needed in this way! These fish should not die from the trophies they won after their struggles.]"

So his young friend was an artist, one who preferred to use the fibers, the nylon lines, that Arthur knew both helped and harmed the ocean's denizens. That was a wonderful idea! Art was a great escape from stress. To find a way to do so that would not only help them relax but would also help others was truly genius! Arthur, Aquaman, the King of Atlantis, and an erstwhile Keeper of the Light, would gladly contribute to this hobby.

"[I shall not only help you gather these lines today, but I will see to it that such lines are gathered for your friend in the future!]" He declared with his firm conviction shining through in the quick, solid gestures of his signed promise.

A grateful smile lit up the werewolf's face (quite literally, as their green glow grew brighter with that joy), but its brightness did not last long. Their smile quickly sagged, and they regretfully replied, "[The gesture is appreciated, Aquaman, but I cannot accept it. I have no way to contact you, and I do not have a way to find this specific place again.]"

With his conviction only growing stronger, Aquaman promised, "[I shall see to it that the lines are gathered nonetheless. I had not considered that these trophies might cause harm, but you are correct! It is a danger, and, as such, it should be dealt with. The lines can be repurposed, and I shall reserve the best of them for your young friend! You can send a message to me through any fish in the ocean. I will come as quickly as I can.]"

The glowing smile returned tenfold; Arthur could have believed that he was feeling the very echo of that joy himself!

"[Thank you!]" The werewolf signed warmly, "[You are a truly kind person. This will be of tremendous help to my young friend, Phantom. I would call you a friend for this– no! I know this would be supported by the others. As a friend of Phantom and a citizen myself, I, Wulf, declare you, Aquaman, to be a Friend of the Infinite Realms!]"

Arthur was deeply touched. He had not heard of this place. For the people of these Infinite Realms to be so supportive of one of their own that Wulf would confidently name him an ally of their country for such a gesture of aid was truly commendable.

He would not be the King he was if he did not wish the same for his own country.

"[I am deeply honored by your words, Wulf,]" He acknowledged, "[and I wish to return the honor. As the King of Atlantis and a Hero of the Oceans, I declare you, Wulf, and your young friend, Phantom, to be Friends of Atlantis!]"

A particularly vulgar curse from the grouper under his arm, as well as a powerful kick, reminded Arthur of the mission that had sparked this promise of aid between allies.

"[Shall we gather the trophy hooks and their accompanying nylon fishing lines from the grouper which so recently swallowed your hand?]" He signed jovially.

Wulf started, then nodded. After a hastily signed "[Sorry]," the werewolf retrieved the needlenose pliers from the belt at his waist. He positioned them carefully in his claws. Wulf then moved back to the grouper's mouth, untouched by the strong current flowing across the reef, and set to his task.

Aquaman and Wulf efficiently removed the hooks from the mouth of the belligerent grouper. Over the next three hours, eighteen more fish were relieved of their metal piercings. They were far more cooperative after Arthur explained that their trophies would be given new life and that, without those fishing lines trailing behind them, the fish would be safe to gather new trophies to take their place.

It was only when the needlefish that had brought him to Wulf's aid in the first place brought him a message from his wife that Arthur realized how long they'd been working. The reminder that he'd agreed to spend a relaxing night at home with her brought him to a stop. Wulf's confused look almost tempted him to delay his return home.

Almost.

"[I am sorry, my friend, but my wife is waiting for me. I must go home,]" Arthur explained.

With an understanding smile, Wulf shook his head and signed back, "[Do not apologize, my friend Aquaman. I understand. In fact, I should return myself to my young friend, Phantom! They were asleep when I left, but I am sure they are awake by now. If not, they should wake up soon; I have never known them to sleep for very long.]"

"[Go!]" Arthur cheerfully signed, "[Please give them my thanks. Your stories tell me they have a kind heart. This is another example, and all of them deserve recognition! As an experienced hero, I know how it feels to be disliked. They have done great things!]"

"[I will do so!]" Wulf replied. 

With a wave, he slashed through the water with his claws as though nothing was there. A glowing green tear opened for him, and the werewolf stepped through it without hesitation.

Arthur stared at the spot where his friend had been for several seconds after the tear had closed. Then, with a quick shake, he pushed the surprise from his mind. As he swam home, he considered the encounter. A strange werewolf in his oceans with strange powers was a strange sight. Wulf's actions, including the stories he'd told of his home, the Infinite Realms, only added to the mystery. To be declared a Friend of theirs was a great honor. 

Perhaps, later, Aquaman would send a report to the Justice League describing the new Friend of Atlantis. After all, the others might encounter Wulf. They should know that the werewolf had Aquaman's respect when they did.

Perhaps they would have ways of their own to help Wulf's young friend, Phantom. 

Yes, Aquaman would send a report and even suggest that a file be made for the two. It would be good to share any descriptions of encounters, actions, and ideas. The two citizens of the Infinite Realms had earned the best help that Atlantis could provide! The heroes of the Justice League were also his friends and allies. They would help!

The young hero and their friend deserved it.

Chapter Text

Wulf glanced back at his young friend again yet another time to check them over before he went out.

Phantom did not look good.

The edges of all their wounds were folded in a way that reminded Wulf of the fabric of a bag when you pulled the drawstrings shut. Some were more wrinkled than others; some were more colorful than others. He was not certain whether the sections that oozed green, bubbly ectoplasm were bad. There was no doubt in his mind that the parts of Phantom that had turned pale and squishy were not doing well.

Wulf's greatest worry at the moment was Phantom's temperature. He knew that his brave young friend had an Ice Core. All of the ghosts that he had met with Ice Cores were cold to the touch.

Phantom had been, too, until the early hours of this morning. Wulf had laid another layer of bandages over the wounds, as he had every time that Phantom's blood dissolved the last one. He had noticed that Phantom felt closer in temperature to the bandages than the last time, but he had thought nothing of it until the first nightmare.

Wulf worried over the panic in the Baby Ghost's cries then, and that worry only grew with each nightmare that followed. He did not know what had his young friend waking in tears, nor why they would wake with such explosive violence!

Wulf helped them as much as he could, but there were not many things that he could think of to do.

Until they identified him, Phantom lashed out in fear at every sound and touch that they felt. Identifying him took much longer for them than it once had done. Phantom relied as much on their sight as Wulf did his sense of smell; they could not see him yet.

There were strange wounds that stretched across Phantom's eyes that Wulf could not identify, and those wounds were taking the longest to begin their healing process. They were as raw now as they had been the day he had rescued them.

If they relied so heavily on their eyesight, why would Phantom's Core not prioritize healing those injuries? After what had happened to them, they must surely want to see what had been done to them! How else would Phantom know what they needed to do to heal? Wulf did not understand it.

What he did understand was that they were too hot now for their own safety. The nightmares that Phantom was fighting seemed to get worse as their temperature rose. They were suffering, and Wulf hoped that making them cold again would help ease their pain.

He did not want to move them. Wulf had taken the warehouse as a temporary Haunt when the strange Death-touched Protector of the larger Haunt it was in had given it to him, and Phantom would be safer here. Wulf's love for them, his concern and hope for their recovery, surrounded their Core here. The larger Haunt, filled with the fiery determination of a Protector and Avenger with a special focus on young ones, would shield their Core from the dangers beyond this building. They were under that Protection, and this place did not need them to Protect it. If Wulf moved them, then Phantom would lose all of that.

That did not change the fact that Phantom's body was growing hotter by the minute. If he could not bring Phantom to the cold, Wulf would have to bring the cold to them.

What better way was there to cool an Ice Core than with ice?

In his many adventures, Wulf had seen the small bags and buckets that the Living would fill with it. Those would be a perfect solution!

The only problem was that Wulf did not have the money that the Living here used. The gold that he carried did not seem to work as easily as the little cards and slips of paper did. He had neither of those.

Wulf did not think that he could gather them as easily as he had the fishing lines that held Phantom's wounds closed for far longer than the threads and staples Wulf had been given by the kind Living people who smelled of more than just their own blood, weapons that he did not recognize, and the things that grew best in dark, damp places. He was grateful to them all for their concern for his young friend, Phantom, and the wounds that still would not heal. The "Goons" who he had met and signed with spread that concern between them, and the feeling had quickly spread far and wide. The things they had given him were not all easy to understand, but Wulf had found ways to use them.

Hopefully, his young friend would be pleased to know so many Livings had gone out of their way to help Wulf take care of the Baby Ghost. He knew that Phantom would be excited to know that there were so many new Livings that they could sign with!

They did not have that in Amity Park.

Wulf did not know why, but he had heard from them and the others that only a few of the Livings there had learned to sign for the young Halfa.

Why had they not done so?!

Phantom was not able to speak like a Living human did anymore! Did they not have the time? Wulf knew how much it hurt to be surrounded by people who you could not communicate with. Until the young Phantom's sister, Jazz, had brought up the idea of sign language, Wulf had very few other ghosts who could speak with him fluently. Now that they knew that there was a Baby Ghost who needed to speak that way, the majority of the ghosts in the Infinite Realms had tried to learn it; there were a great many ghosts who could now communicate with each other who had never been able to do so before! That was doing wonders for the feeling of community between them all.

Without Phantom, it would not have happened, and Wulf was immensely proud of his young friend for having such a good impact!

Now, though, the Halfa was hurting, and Wulf needed to help them. Wulf had found many empty buckets and tubs in the ocean that the Friend of the Infinite Realms, Aquaman, Protected. He had been touched by how much fishing line his friend had collected for Phantom!

Those stitches still needed to be replaced every so often. Wulf did not like that. Phantom was barely healing, and now this strange heat...

It worried him.

Wulf needed to get the ice, because there was nothing he could do to help the Halfa with the emotional injuries that their Core was suffering from if the Halfa's nightmares were not calmed down!

Still...

Wulf glanced back yet again at his young friend. If they had another nightmare and woke without him there, what would that do to them? He did not want them to think he had abandoned them, but he needed to get the ice for them.

"Mi revenos baldaŭ, Danny, mi promesas!" Wulf swore to the young Halfa.

Then, squaring his shoulders, Wulf pushed the cart full of empty buckets through the portal he had aimed at a place overcome with the scent of icy solitude and let it close behind him.

This... this was not an icy wilderness.

Wulf frowned at the sleek and glossy walls of the hall around him. They smelled like ice-- his nose had not failed him. But this was not the top of an iceberg, nor was it the surface of a glacier; this was a shrine. The feeling was not quite that of a place of grieving. It was not a mausoleum or graveyard. There were other things here that the Living still had claim over.

Was this a temple? Wulf had not intended to intrude on anyone! He had aimed for the smell of ice, not this! His nose told him that there was ice here and lots of it! The smell of open air was only a few feet away. Had he missed his target entirely, or was it really that close?

Wulf did not have any chance to search for a way to get to that icy smell before his ears were assaulted from all sides by an alarm that sounded terrifyingly like the one at Walker's Prison. He dropped the handle of the shopping cart and slapped his paws over them. Wulf shook as he cowered away from the sound he was so afraid of. He didn't have the time to deal with Walker and his anger, not with Phantom so hurt!

When he felt the air whip against his fur from the speed of someone's arrival, Wulf shrank back away from them. The Warden could not take him back to his prison cell—Wulf had promised the Baby Ghost that he would return, and he feared for what—

Words that he could not understand assaulted his ears from a strange voice; Wulf relaxed slightly when he realized that it was not the Warden. He opened his eyes and looked into the intense and startlingly blue ones that were only inches away from his own. Yelping, Wulf stumbled back, frantically signing his apologies even as he tripped over the shopping cart filled with buckets and sending them tumbling across the icy floor behind him. The clattering cacophony echoed in the silence that filled the cavern around them like the thermos at its most crowded.

The strange Living person floated down to the ground from where they had hovered a few feet away from him. Their hands were held up, flat and empty for him to see. Then, once they were certain that he could see them, they began to sign in the faltering way of someone new to the language.

“[Who are you?]” they asked him.

Sitting up straighter, Wulf replied, slowing down to give them a better chance at understanding him, “[I am called Wulf. I am sorry for trespassing; I did not intend to intrude. I was aiming for an isolated place that smelled like ice! I will not return once I leave.]”

The person standing in front of him glanced at the mess behind him. Before Wulf could apologize for that, they were signing again. “[What did you need ice for, Wulf?]”

With a memory of other eyes that intense shade of blue poking its head out of the deeper parts of his Core, Wulf honestly replied, “[My friend is too warm for their health. I know that ice will help them; I cannot move them outside yet, so I will bring the ice to them!]”

Tilting their head, closing their eyes, and humming thoughtfully, the stranger thought about that. While they did, Wulf took another sniff of the place he had stumbled into so that he could avoid it properly in the future. As he did so, he also took in the stranger’s smell. While the scents of wet ink, warm sunlight, and strained metal were ones that Wulf had already smelled in this Realm, there was another one that he had not smelled here before.

It was not one he had smelled recently, nor had he smelled it often, but a moment’s thought brought the memory forward, and Wulf blinked in surprise.

This Living was a child of Krypton.

Wulf had not smelled a Kryptonian who was still among the Living in a very, very long time.

Before he could call to mind the sign that the ghosts of that world had designed for themselves and whether or not he had seen it here, the Kryptonian was signing a question of their own to him. “[If your friend is sick, they might need a doctor. Can you take me to them? I think I can tell if they do.]”

Wulf’s hackles raised. While he could smell that the Kryptonian only meant to help his young friend, Wulf also knew how much their Core would shudder if they learned that they had harmed a stranger, and Phantom was more than powerful enough to truly hurt this Living. Wulf, as another Realms Being, was far more resilient to their ecto-blasts. He could heal much faster from any wounds that the Baby Ghost would accidentally cause than the Kryptonian, and they did not cause him nearly as much pain, simply because he was made of ectoplasm and the Kryptonian was not. 

Another part of him did not want to find out what his young friend would do if they woke in a place of medicine. 

Young Phantom’s friends had once told him that they wouldn’t be safe with “the doctors,” and, while Wulf was not certain which doctors they meant, he did not want to find out that he had chosen wrong. If young Phantom was not safe with "the doctors" in Amity Park, then Wulf did not think that they would not recognize that they were safe with them here in the state they were in right now. They were taking so long to recognize him when they woke from their night terrors; how long would it take them to understand that?

No, Wulf did not want to let this stranger go anywhere near the injured Baby Ghost. But how to tell them that?

The Kryptonian cleared their throat, and Wulf focused on their hands as they imperfectly signed, "[I don't want to cause you worry. I see that did. Can I help you get ice to take your friend instead?]"

Wulf relaxed in time with the slowing of his Core. While the words they'd signed were broken, he recognized politeness when he saw it, and the Kryptonian's smell confirmed that they only wanted to help. Nodding back at the broad chest clothed in red, yellow, and blue, he signed back to them, "[Thank you. Yes, it would be wonderful if you would help with this.]"

With a smile as awkward as Phantom's could be when they played host to ghosts they had not invited to their town and whom they did not know how to interact with or help, the Kryptonian hurried over to Wulf's downed shopping cart. He was not surprised to see the Kryptonian right the cart with too much force. The sound of metal groaning and snapping echoed strangely on the ice. The Kryptonian's wince came more from self-consciousness than from any pain they might have felt from the impact of the cart's broken-off wheel bouncing off their ankle.

Emotions gave people power, but not all emotions were easily channeled.

Strong Living fingers closed around his wrist in an unbreakable grip. Wulf blinked down at them. Furrowing his brows, the ghost looked up into those unmistakably Kryptonian blue eyes and voiced, "Ĉu?"

The stranger frowned at him. Wulf tilted his head to one side in honest confusion. Why did the Kryptonian not want him to get out the duct tape? Did they not know what it was? With his free hand, Wulf finger-spelled, "[D U C T  T A P E]"

With a startled blink, the Kryptonian released his hand. They backed up. After he gestured at his bag to confirm that they were okay with it, Wulf finally pulled the roll of duct tape out of the bag. He held up the colorful roll of duct tape for the stranger to see better. Rows of symbols he did not know repeated across it. Yellow, black, red, green, blue, and purple paraded boldly across it. Wulf rather liked this roll; a little Living child in a faded dress had handed it seriously to him with hands as muddy as their bare knees and oversized shoes.

The Kryptonian chuckled, tension bleeding out of their scent, at the sight of it. They glanced quickly between it and the spot at the end of the cart where Wulf had taped the broken-off bottom of a barrel over the hole that Phantom had blasted in it after they woke screaming from their last night terror. They smiled at him and signed, "[I know those people. Batman will like that his symbol is used like this.]"

Wulf smiled back and replied, "[I am happy that he would! I have used it several times now. I will be sad when I use up the last of this roll. This was a thoughtful gift, and I like the colorful pattern.]"

"[They are colorful, yes,]" the Kryptonian signed cheerfully. After a pause and a gesture that swept over the spread of scattered buckets, they continued, "[I will fill these while you fix the cart.]"

Wulf nodded eagerly, then knelt down beside the cart to begin the repairs.

After all, the sooner he repaired the cart, the sooner they could fill it with ice. The sooner that the ice was gathered, the sooner Wulf could take it back to his young friend. The sooner that Wulf could get the ice to Phantom, the sooner the Baby Ghost would be able to cool down to their normal temperature.

And the sooner that Phantom could cool down, the sooner that they could tell him how to help them heal.

Lois glared at the red squiggles covering the computer screen in front of her. The red squiggles stared back. She narrowed her eyes further, willing them to go away and leave her to write the rest of this article in peace. It didn't work; it never did! Spellcheck was the vilest invention of the modern era, and she would stand by that statement no matter what Perry said to her! Spellcheck was invented to torture innocent dyslexic journalists on a deadline and she despised it.

She was just about to give up make a strategic detour to the coffeepot percolating on their kitchen counter to rally her forces for another battle when the curtains danced in the turbulence of her husband's return. 

Putting on her most charming smile, Lois spun in her chair, making a complete circuit before coming to a stop face-to-chest with the symbol all of Metropolis (baring one bald-headed billionaire) had come to love. Tilting her chin up, she prepared to dazzle Superman with her feminine wiles and--

"Why the hell do you have Batman-themed duct tape stuck in your hair, Clark?" Lois demanded, barely holding back her chuckles.

Clark's hands blindly patted around his hair until they finally landed on the half-inch scrap of duct tape that had stuck to it through the flight he'd just made through sheer stubbornness and determination. He pulled it off, then blinked at it for a few seconds before worrying, "I hope that this didn't come off of something too important. It would be rude of me to damage the cart even further."

"Clark," Lois repeated, even more of her chuckles leaking into her voice, "Why did you have Batman duct tape stuck to you?"

"I think it got there when I tripped over the red paint bucket," He absently remarked, still staring at the duct tape on his fingers.

"And why were you in a hardware store at," Lois glanced at the time blinking reproachfully at her from the upper right corner of her laptop's screen, "02:08 on the night before the deadline for the Sunday morning edition?"

He jumped, guilt splattering across his face like pigeon droppings, and admitted, "I forgot that you were finishing up that article on the IWW's stance on supernatural membership. Do you want me to proofread it for you? I've got notes on what just happened; you know how Bruce likes our reports."

Lois smiled wider, reaching out expectantly for the notepad he handed her with relief. Pages flipped in it when Superman raced to the bedroom and Clark Kent returned. She pushed away from her brand-new laptop and rode her chair across the office to the clunky relic he refused to trade up and teased him, "You mean you need me to work my tech wizardry on another new transfer system that Kon's crush installed when you weren't looking, don't you?"

"You know me too well, Lois," Clark meekly admitted, snagging the back of the reinforced swivel chair that Tim had given him for his birthday.

"Well, Smallville, I did marry you," she pointed out, "So it must not have put me off too much."

He quickly ducked his head and scrolled back to the top of her latest collection of angry red squiggles. She smirked, admiring the way his neck grew red with the blush she'd provoked from him, and then spun around to the laptop he'd bought with his first paycheck at the Daily Planet.

As the sound of his fingers banishing spellcheck's despicable marks melded with his laptop's OS booting up, Lois flipped through the notes he'd given her until she found the right one. The first four words made her suck in her breath.

"The Fortress' intruder alarm activated? This is serious business, Cal-el!" Lois hissed at her husband.

Humming soothingly, he retorted, "Things can be serious without being dangerous, Lois. This isn't worth a high-priority flag, even if what I saw does worry me. A Pulitzer prize winner should know better than to make a judgment before she's read the whole story."

"A Pulitzer prize winner should know better than to bury the lead," she snapped back.

The clacks of forceful back-spacing underlined his defensive reply. "I was writing notes, Lois, not an article. Getting the timeline right matters more there."

She huffed back at her irritating husband, turning back to the artifact of bygone technology in time for the home screen to pop up. With the speed of constant practice, Lois navigated into the hidden terminal that relayed information between this machine and the Justice League's database. Glancing between the notebook and the new system, she clicked and tapped her way into the right place to input his report. 

She noticed a new option in the formatting menu that made her smile fondly. Clicking on it, a dyslexic-friendly overlay replaced the one she'd just opened. Tim could be such a sweetheart sometimes. 

He'd say he'd written it in to make it more efficient for her to write clear reports for Clark, but she knew better. Tim had heard her complain about the frustrating lack of disability-friendly writing software on the market. It wouldn't surprise her one bit to see a more general-use version of this coming out to the public in two weeks. He was exactly the kind of person to time the release to match with her birthday.

"You sure about that flag, Smallville?" Lois tossed over her shoulder into the tattoo of their flying fingers working keyboards manufactured two decades apart.

"I'm sure, Lois," Clark stated with conviction. He explained further, "Wulf wasn't behaving like a threat. His heartbeat might have been like nothing I've ever heard before, but the only thing he didn't apologize for was his defensive reaction when I asked to see if his friend needed medical assistance. That tells me he's been-- how do I put this? He's wary, tense. I'm positive that his friend has a fever, but he mentioned that he couldn't move them. They're injured, but he didn't trust me near them. If we push him too much, I think Wulf will run off with his friend rather than fight to keep us away from him, and I don't want to make the kid's injuries worse."

She sighed. Clark had a bleeding heart, and she hoped that it wasn't misplaced this time. Quietly, she told him, "I'll leave it, then, but I'm going to write that into the report. I don't want Bruce breathing down my neck if things go sideways. He always knows when I'm the one writing these for you, and he's damn good at guilt-tripping me for it."

"That's fine, Lois," Clark agreed softly, "I've been on the other end of his sad eyes enough times to know how effective they can be."

"Thanks, hun." She smiled. Then, a smirk slipping into her voice, she teased, "So, a red paint bucket took down Superman, huh?"

Chapter Text

Victor Fries knew the sounds of this, his most secret of lairs, to a degree that most people could not comprehend. He knew the sounds of every machine, yes, but he knew their echoes just as well. The crackling sounds that faintly joined them were just as familiar; the ice that made them was far more important to him than any of the machines were.

It was the ice that kept Nora alive.

The muffled hiss of the fumes in her cryogenic chamber reinvigorated his hopes every time that Victor heard it.

Rattling chains were a foreign sound here. Victor did not know what the foreign sounds might be coming from. He did not keep hostages here, nor did he allow any of his goons to step within this inner sanctum. Only his fellow scientists were permitted here. 

None should be on duty.

To his knowledge, neither would any of them need to be rattling any chains to pursue their research. However, Victor knew the limits of his expertise. It was why he employed such individuals. They knew many things that he did not. Perhaps the chains were a part of this. He would not discover if this were so until he found the sound's origin. 

Victor had yet to do so.

His search had taken him through the main chambers, including the one that housed his beloved Nora, as well as the majority of the laboratories. No one was there. 03:00 was too early for that. The witching hour was one for sleep; even he did not typically work so early. Victor was woken by a nightmare built of blood, horror, anger, and death. He was driven to check on his wife.

No one but her should be here.

Why, then, were there these alien sounds?

Danny cursed under their breath. Their head was throbbing something terrible, and even the cold here wasn't enough to do more than take the edge off of the fever that caused it. The sound they made was more like one of those sliding ladders in a fancy library, but eh. A swear word was a swear word. If it helped take the edge off of their frustrating pain and all the other emotions that these injuries were giving them, then Danny would take it.

Frustration (and also betrayal, fear, anger, guilt, worry, panic, and everything else they were ignoring right now) was only getting in their way.

It was hard enough to read the labels on the bottled chemicals as it was! Their eyes were only just barely healed enough to make out the largest letters. Dad's flail had done so much damage... 

Why did these labels have to be so small? Who thought that using so many small letters was a good idea? Danny would like to lodge a formal complaint. Hazards in labs like this should be well-labeled and easy to read. People could get seriously hurt if they didn't know the danger they were in!

Danny should know. After all, that was how they'd died!

"Hydrogen peroxide has not been recommended for use in burns and deep lacerations in some time," A voice that kind of reminded Danny of Skulker's informed them from the door of the storage room that Wulf had brought them to. They couldn't see who it was around Wulf yet, but the voice sounded far enough away that they probably wouldn't see much anyway. "Perhaps I can help my early morning intruders find something better?"

Danny crouched, pulling enough ectoplasm from their Core into their right hand for an ecto-blast. They turned towards the doorway and hid the hand behind their back.  The stranger didn't sound hostile yet.

Yet.

They had too many injuries right now for Danny to afford to be in a trusting mood.

Wulf's hand landed on Danny's left shoulder. They looked up. Wulf kind of looked like he might be smiling at them, but it might be something else. It might! They couldn't think of what, but they were sure that there was something. After all, Wulf wouldn't trust this stranger already...

Right? 

"The goons I currently employ have spoken of a glowing werewolf and the gravely injured child he cares so much for. Quite a bit of my supplies had "disappeared" by the time I caught them at it, although they have received my permission to donate more," the stranger chuckled. Danny still couldn't them see as more than a sort of shiny blob against a sort of blue background. "The Goonion has grown rather fond of you. I believe they have adopted you as something of a mascot. If you are the same child that their member in Star City first saw, then I can understand why."

Danny wasn't sure what the stranger was talking about. They didn't remember much after Mom and Dad had attacked them for being a ghost. 

(Why did they do that? Their own parents had tried to End them, and it hurt, it hurt, it, HURT!).

They remembered...

They remembered trying to get out of Mom's choke hold. Dad had yelled "corpse stealer" at them. They'd been shot. A lot. Dad had used his flail on their eyes. Mom had called them a "freak." Phantom had fled from them into the forest.

Then... Then there was a gap. Little things—the thrum of engines below them, a sort of Mom-shaped patch of color in front of them, someone swearing, the rattle of the basket of a shopping cart, something smelling like saltwater and fish, the taste of glacial ice—things danced in their mind that Danny wasn't sure were real.

Hopefully, the part where they tried to eat dog food was just their imagination; Danny knew it wasn't.

The kernels had tasted way too dry, dense, and powdery.

If they wiggled their tongue right, Danny knew they'd taste some of it that was still stuck in their baby fangs. They didn't want to wiggle their tongue. It wasn't worth it.

"Your wounds appear to be infected. Beyond the considerable swelling on your face, I can see the discoloration that has spread beyond the edges of your bandages, and there is a significantly large amount of the substance that I am assuming to be either pus or blood that has bled through those bandages and crusted on your skin."

Danny winced. Yeah, they knew it was bad, but they didn't realize it had gotten that bad! If they didn't do something then they might get septicemia!

"I know what it feels like to be unable to help someone you love." The stranger paused, and when they continued, there was an overpowering sense of grief and incredibly painful love in their voice. Jazz had felt like that, once. Phantom thought that their parents should have reacted the same way. "Yes, yes I am quite well acquainted with it."

Phantom's Core ached to help the stranger. This was one of the two owners of this Haunt, they realized, and this Haunt was filled with the longing to Help, to Save, to Heal, to Reunite. If they could understand anything, they understood those feelings. Their Fraid, their Family, had all felt those things. They might have tried to hide it from Phantom, but they hadn't. Ghosts were sort of like empaths: they communicated through a language of feelings, after all. Other ghosts were a piece of cake. The emotions of the people they cared about who were still alive were especially loud, but anyone death-touched was easier to read. 

The two owners of this Haunt were both death-touched, and their emotions were strong.

Danny did not want to trust the stranger enough to do it.

They did not want to be hurt again!

Because they were so busy wrestling with the conflict between their Core and their caution, Danny didn't realize that the Haunt owner had moved closer until they were lifting the bottle out of Danny's hand. After they flinched and jumped away, the stranger tried to reassure them, "I am willing to aid you in choosing an antiseptic that will work better for you than the hydrogen peroxide in your hands. Should you allow it, I would even attempt to synthesize a compound specific to your biology. While most antiseptics are, in theory at least, functional in any medium, there is a possibility that they would target the substance that functions as blood to a species far enough removed from the blood of those lifeforms native to this planet."

Danny gulped. They hadn't thought of that. By the time they were getting open injuries serious enough that they didn't heal in a few hours, Frostbite had already kidnapped taken their Fraid and them to the Far Frozen, given them a first-aid kit, and shown them how to use it.

They didn't have that first-aid kit with them when Mom and Dad... when they got hurt. Sam and Tuck had just gone to Frostbite to get it refilled. They were working on their project for Mr. Lancer's class in Fentonworks while they did; they had their phone in their leg just in case something went wrong. It would vibrate, and that weirdness had even woken them up when they were conked out cold.

It hadn't so much as quivered since they'd fucked up and gotten caught.

The first-aid kit had a bottle in it that was just labeled "antiseptic." What if it wasn't one of the ones they knew from Earth? They didn't want to make things worse, but--

"My entire life is dedicated to discovering a medical solution to my wife's... terminal condition," the stranger added, and there was so much grief and pain in the last few words that Phantom felt even sicker than they had before!

They... their Core really wanted to help the owners of this Haunt. Ectoplasm was the carbon of the dead, wasn't it? If their blood could bond with it the way it did... If they could survive wounds as deadly as the ones from Mom and Dad earlier... Would letting him look at their blood help the stranger find a way to save their wife? It wasn't like Mom and Dad hadn't gotten samples from Phantom before, and Wulf had said that this wasn't the same universe...

Phantom told their paralyzing paranoia to fuck off and made their decision.

Holding their hands clearly in front of them (and hoping that the stranger would understand them), Danny signed, "[Can you get me something to write with?]"