Work Text:
Wonder Woman was trying to coax the young man to talk to them. She was better with people who needed a softer approach. Phantom wouldn’t even speak the other members of the Justice League, so Wonder Woman had brought him to the observatory to stargaze. She had spotted his lingering glances to the window when he was being taken to a meeting room. Now he was free to stargaze but he had still ignored all attempts at communication.
There was something about it that was nagging at her.
Phantom was calm, complacent, a model prisoner, but he gave off a dazed, floaty impression. It was entirely different than the meta they had been chasing for months.
She couldn’t begin to guess the reasoning, so she had asked Batman for help. The Dark Knight was unavailable, but he was sending one of his brood to gather initial observations.
Wonder Woman has given up talking and was just calmly watching the stars with Phantom, when Red Hood came in.
The change in Phantom was immediate. He was turning before she heard the hiss of the door opening. He was shaking.
“no. Nononono, what are you doing? Get out of here!”
Red Hood and Wonder Woman both froze in shock. Suddenly he was displaying a fervor unseen even in the battle where he was captured.
Phantom bodily put himself between Red Hood and Wonder Woman, while still pleading, “Run! Run now. It’s too late for me. My captured was on the news. They’re Coming! Ancients Damn It, RUN!”
“Kid, calm down” Red hood held his hands up and took a step forward.
Phantom abandoned talking to him and lunged at Wonder Woman. He had her lasso wrapped tightly around his throat before she realized what he was doing.
“You wanted something from me.” Phantom was begging her now. “Let him go and I’ll give it. Whatever. You. Want. Please.” He started pulling on the makeshift noose; his voice became raspy under the pressure. “You. You have to keep him from them. Otherwise I’ll snap my own neck. My healing factor is gone. You’ll never get what you want from me.”
Wonder Woman was baffled and immensely worried. When they had gotten the power draining cuffs on phantom, all the members could physically handle him. She was in no danger with his barely restricted movement but now she was stuck. If she attempted to overpower him to remove his threat to himself, he would most likely be seriously injured.
“No one is going to hurt him,” she tried to start.
“no. No! You,” he was looking about frantically, thinking. “You have to promise. They will tear him apart. Swear you will keep him from them!”
Wonder Woman promised. “Whoever you are thinking of, I will not allow to harm Red Hood. I promise.”
His grip lessened. He was still breathing heavily, panicking but with no outlet.
She stepped forward, “I'm going to remove the lasso, alright?” His eyes slid over to her and a minute nod came before he was looking away again.
With gentle fingers, she removed her lasso from his neck wincing internally at the marks already left.
When that was out of the way, Red Hood was stalking forward. “Who”
“The Guys in White” phantom gave a wet laugh. “Government funded ghost hunters. When they started it was nothing compared to some other threats. Bad Aim, dumb name. We made fun of it, my friends and I. A movie reference? Really? But they got better throughout the years. Ecto as a fuel source was big business in the military. But the group themselves stayed a myth. An outlandish conspiracy theory. Then the dumb name wasn’t so dumb anymore. It was just another way they kept people from taking us seriously. The Guys in White are hunting you? What’s next, Bigfoot? Their contacts helped them wipe out any traces of themselves. Their scientists wrote the manuals for handling Ecto-Entities. Claimed we were evil. Claimed we couldn’t feel pain.” The boy was shaking.
Wonder Woman’s heart ached, for what the boy was saying. She could see Red Hood becoming livid the more he spoke.
“They don’t know about you yet.” Phantom was looking at Red Hood. “They can detect you same as I can but only short range. If they come here-“
“They won’t” Red Hood cut him off.
“If they catch even a whisper that you exist they will hunt you down. They have been after me for six years. Getting better and better. They are crafty and persistent. And a “Post-Human Consciousness” body? They would be able to harvest from you for years. Possibly indefinitely. All the while experimenting on how to better extract Ecto. How to weaken us to better catch others.”
“We’ll protect you.” Red Hood started.
“Please don’t try." Phantom begged. "With my capture on the news, they will be scrambling to their most important backers to demand extradition to US soil. Gathering records spanning years of the crimes they have attributed to me.” He turned to Wonder Woman. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but know that any information that gets back to the Guys in White will be used to capture and destroy beings like me.”
“Phantom,” Red Hood grabbed his arm. “We won’t let that happen. You are legally in international waters. The US can try to strong arm us but I promise we won’t give you up. We have contacts too. We are crafty and tenacious and we will fight them.” Red Hood grabbed his other arm. “You are safe.”
Phantom’s face shifted openly from shock to to disbelief to worry until a small ray of Hope cracked through. He collapsed onto Red Hood and wept.