Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ever since he was a kid Danny really loved space. He wanted to be an astronaut, he would beg his parents to buy him astronomy books and stuck glow in the dark stars on every blank surface of his walls. His favorite superhero is the Martian Manhunter and he drew the solar system for his art project and blabber nonstop about constellations as any healthy, ambitious child does. Then one day he turned fourteen and well, we all know how the story goes.

The NASA posters on his walls have scorch marks from stray ecto-blasts, Danny frowned at them and eventually had to take down everything. The glow stars had fallen off during ghost attacks and Danny stopped bothering to stick them back on after the nth time. The books were shoved to the back of the closet and the model rocket, once proudly displayed, broke(again, ghost casualties) and Danny had to throw it away.

Danny wondered what even is his life anymore as he walked further down the path of letting go his lifelong passion and never actually fully coming to terms with it but really, that's a whole other can of worms for another day.

He still really loves space.

On quiet nights, Danny’s favorite thing to do is have his arms behind his head, ghostly tail flicking lazily as he floats on his back leisurely above the clouds. Sometimes, he’ll hold out his arms to pretend that he's a bird, or a plane(or a rocket ship!). He learned that while all ghosts naturally have the ability of flight, not all of them shared his love for the higher altitude, preferring places bustling with energy to feed off instead of cool, quiet night skies with stars overhead.

Danny's ghost core thrummed with a hankering to do something so stupid, he could already pictured Sam and Tucker freaking out and Jazz scolding him but as of now, that’s a problem for future him. Danny grinned to himself as he did another nosedive through the cloud before launching himself upwards going higher and higher and higher . Amity Park and its surroundings slowly disappear from view. He ignored the burning sensation in his lungs, the frost forming at his fingertips, and tapped into his ghost powers to make himself invisible and intangible as he broke through the layers of Earth’s atmosphere.

During the fight with Technus, Danny didn’t have time to marvel at his surroundings. He looked back to the Earth with wide, green eyes, mesmerized by the brilliant white light from the sun washing over his home planet. It looked absolutely gorgeous and Danny wished he had a camera on him so he could show his friends.

And alright, despite everything, he should really thank Technus for this. The whole thing had been a fiasco but one day(last week, during English to be exact,) it just dawned on him that holy shit. He’s been to space. He can go to space!

Danny is in space.

The stars winked at him. Surrounded by the immensity of space, it’s welcomingly tranquil.

‘I’m in space ’, Danny smiled softly to himself, albeit bittersweetly. He knew that with his slipping grades, Danny Fenton won’t be making a name at NASA anytime soon, if not at all. Sucks that he quite literally died but the afterlife gave him unlimited two way tickets to the moon anytime he wants, which is pretty cool.

Danny dropped himself on the moon, adrenaline high and grinning stupidly wide. He's over the moon or rather, he's on the moon. The ground felt solid under his feet, he hopped and bounced along the moon's surface doing his usual routine of circles and loop, giggling to himself silly when he tried to moonwalk. Seeing that ghosts are weightless beings, Danny quickly discovered Newton's third law had nothing on him.

‘Zero gravity is so cool! ’

"Who are you?”

Danny nearly tripped over his own feet when a man clad in green suddenly appeared in front of him. He took a wary step back, a little offended that his personal time off is being interrupted. He recognized the man staring him down as Green Lantern. What is a member of the Justice League doing here? 

Green Lantern took a defensive stance. Danny, deciding that he does not want to stick around to find out, blinked out of visibility.

The Green Lantern’s expression morphed into utter shock and confusion. He looked around with his mouth agape, then flew off. Danny decides to follow him while he searches the craters, yelling for him to come out. It was pretty funny when he kicked a pebble and the man flinched.

Eventually, Green Lantern had given up and left scratching his head. Danny hid behind a rock to wait for him to leave the area but then he noticed he’s going somewhere deeper into space instead of going back to Earth. Just around the corner, Danny saw Green Lantern disappear behind an invisible wall. No, an invisible door? Naturally, he’s super curious. And obviously, he had to keep following him. 

Danny flew up to where the hero was and stared into the endless void of space. Nothing there, except it feels… wrong. He could feel something generating energy on the other side of this wall. Something huge . He flies ahead and gasps when a large structure comes into view. There are people in space! Superheroes, going on about their days in the space station-like building. He caught sight of Green Lantern through one of the window panels talking to Batman of all people.

Danny grinned, looks like he found something he shouldn’t have.

Chapter Text

“I don’t get it, y’all. I’ve done a sweep of the perimeter and there's no one out there. I don't understand what I saw.”

“Have you checked the security footage?”

“Yeah? I did and it's super weird. Here, look ."

Danny leaned over Green Lantern’s head to see what he’s pointing at. The screen shows a video so distorted by static It’s impossible to tell what was being shown. Yikes. Recordings of ghosts always get a little funky. Green Lantern had been rewatching the security footage of Danny dicking around the moon trying to make any sense of it before the Flash and a cyborg looking guy came huddling around him. With snacks!

“Dammmn. Bet Batman’s not happy about this.”

“You should have seen his face.” The Flash laughed, grabbing a handful of chips. “Hal told him the moon’s haunted .”

“What? We dealt with spooky stuff before. I could be right!”

Danny reached through Flash’s bag and also grabbed himself a handful of chips, unapologetically getting crumbs on Green Lantern’s head. He looks around the room they’re in. Danny had followed Green Lantern and Batman here, though the Gotham vigilante had already left. It’s a monitor room with a bunch of electronics and tall walls covered with screens projecting various corners of the Earth. In front is a huge control panel with multiple switches and buttons.

Danny hovered over to get a closer look, hand accidentally phasing through the control panel. All three heroes screamed and jumped out of their chairs when the machine started to fizzle. The control panels sparked, some of the switches and their corresponding screens started flickering on and off, though it went back to normal almost immediately when Danny panicky backed away from the machine.

Okay, ground rules: he should definitely not touch or go through anything that is categorized under tech. Whatever it was made of, it reacted oddly to his ghost powers. He really doesn't want to accidentally make the Justice League miss any real emergencies. The Flash scrambled to his feet, looking over the control panels for any damage.

"What are you blokes screeching about?"

Four heads turned simultaneously at the sound of the newcomer entering the monitor room. A man wearing a trench coat was giving them the most unimpressed look.

“Constantine!” Green Lantern exclaimed as the cyborg helped him up.

“GL thinks the moon’s haunted!” Flash exclaimed, pointing to Green Lantern.

The man, Constantine, frowned. He—

“What?” Danny froze. Constantine was looking right at where Danny is, eyebrow arching questioningly. For a hot minute Danny thought the incident shorted out his powers and made him visible again but nope, still ghostly. The man just narrowed his eyes, and then shrugged. He dropped a packet on the nearest surface and left. “I’m not getting involved in this.” 

“But—”

"Call me if anything interesting happens. Ta."

It took Danny five tries before anyone noticed he was slowly pushing a pencil towards the edge of the table. Danny stayed in the monitor room for another ten minutes before he got bored of messing with the trio and decided it’s time to actually Explore.

Danny floated invisibly and intangibly around the Justice League base, taking in every fine detail with utter amazement and feeling every bit like a kid in a candy store. This place is huge! There’s just about everything you can ever imagine shoved onto the compound, including a greenhouse with a bunch of exotic and alien looking plants Sam would go absolutely bonkers over.

He spent a good amount of time checking out the various themed rooms and trying to name as many heroes as he came across. He didn't even realize that the JL had so many members! He might have also, uh, accidentally discovered the secret identity of some of these heroes?

Oops?

Ok but to be fair, he had absolutely no idea who any of these people were. Some of them are apparently high profile enough to be on the news but man, Danny barely even watches the news these days.

Anyway, between himself and the Flash’s appetite, the snack pile in the monitor room quickly shrunk in size. It took a lot more energy than he thought to break through the Earth’s atmosphere. Danny got hungry. 

So, Danny hovered over a group of superheroes who were talking about their jobs and families over coffee in the cafeteria, while he munched on a bagel he swiped from the buffet table. It was… bizarrely normal and probably how Sam felt when her parents forced her to spend the day at the office so she could sit in at their meetings.

Then all of a sudden, his ghost sense went off, because no duh . He couldn’t catch a break even in space . Danny groaned.

Oh c’mon!

Of all the places in the world, the Justice League’s super secret space base was the last place Danny expected to run into another ghost. He shoved what remained of the bagel into his mouth. Looking around, he sees the trench coat man from earlier walking in, sitting down with a newspaper at a secluded booth. He’s pretty sure that guy’s not dead, though, but his ghost sense was tugging him towards that direction. Danny watched the man, then carefully approached him, stopping short when Constantine spoke.

“You done starin’, princeling?”

Danny froze for a bit, confusion written all over his face. “You know me?”

“Naw, my buddy Deadman told me about you.” Constantine nonchalantly flipped a page, completely unfazed by the disembodied voice. 

‘W hat kind of name is Deadman? ’

“Who?”

The temperature in the air dropped significantly. As if summoned, Danny soon found himself staring at a ghostly man with an ashen face wearing a red suit styled with an insignia in the middle of his chest. ‘Like a superhero.. .’ Danny gawked, there’s a ghost hero in the Justice League!

“Everyone in the Ghost Zone knows about you .” Deadman points above Danny’s head, or more specifically the invisible Crown of Fire hovering above his head. “You’re a long way from your haunt.”

Oh, right. He’s technically trespassing. Danny chewed on his bottom lip, looking nervously between the two adults.

“Uh, I’ll get out of your hair soon. Please don’t tell Batman I’m here.”

“Kid, who do you think called us?” Constantine clicked his tongue, “I swear that man has a sixth sense.”

“Batman knows I’m here?! Wait, he called you?”

Constantine looked at him, “He called us because we’re the supernatural sector of this so-called ‘club house’. But we’re not obligated to wipe their arses unless we ‘ve’ta.”

“Why are you here?” Deadman interjected, clearly stressed,  “We really don’t want to fight you.”

“I found this place by accident,” Danny explained, holding up his hands defensively. “I just wanted to look around. It’s so cool here.”

It was a good enough excuse for the two older men.

Constantine had to excuse himself to attend a meeting, leaving Danny alone with Deadman. He ended up bombarding him with questions about the Justice League Dark, dumbfounded by the reveal that there are not just one, but several other ghosts and otherworldly entities on the team.

“The League is slowly making progress to abolish the Anti-Ecto law,” Deadman was grinning so wide. Danny stupidly thought that a whole town disappearing wouldn’t raise any media attention, but of course the Pariah Dark incident had raised several concerns amongst the League. Batman reached out, or he tried? Anyway, Danny chased him away, he really doesn’t want to fight any overshadowed superheroes. He also didn’t feel comfortable talking to any adults about his problems. “It hasn't been easy, but we’ll soon bring them down one day!”

Danny smiled, his core humming approvingly. That was incredibly hopeful news he learnt today.

The older ghost offered to show him around to which Danny eagerly accepted. They went through several rooms before making it back to the cafeteria, it was emptier than before.

“Don’t you have to attend the meeting too?”

“Naaah, it’s just one of those bi-weeklies where people update each other on things. Constantine can fill me in. Besides, It doesn’t matter; no one else can see or hear me.” The older ghost explained. Danny nodded, understanding.

“Want to help me move the furniture two inches to the left?”

“Yeah, no.” Deadman laughed, then he pointed behind Danny. “But they might.”

Danny looked at where Deadman was pointing at. He spotted a floating figure at the corner of the walls. Their eyes met, equally shocked to see each other. The misty looking girl was hoisting none other than Robin of all people into the vents, the boy didn’t seem to notice Danny being there when he poked his head out to whisper to her before disappearing down the vents again.

Danny focused on his hearing, he could hear multiple voices coming from the vents. He blinks. Just how many people are down there? The ghost girl looked conflicted between Danny, Deadman(who was smiling at her encouragingly), she then shrugged and excitedly waved him over.

Now then, the real question is, what would an unsupervised ghostly teenager do when he’s in a cool space station and meets another group of unsupervised teenagers and one of them tells him to come over?

He goes over there and introduces himself.

Chapter Text

“This is just like Among Us.”

"Wait, who are you?”

There’s at least four other teens all cramped inside the obnoxiously large vent. Danny hasn’t been inside many vents before and briefly wondered if they’re always this spacious or the ones here are just made that way.

"He's the Phantom!” The ghost girl, Secret, introduced Danny with great pizazz, her core practically vibrating out of her form. The enthusiasm made him shuffled nervously. Great, now everyone’s staring. 

He’s pretty sure he’s seen the guy with sunglasses on TV before, but doesn’t recognize anyone other than Robin, although he can make a guess from their costume. All of them looked sorta guarded. Danny awkwardly waved.

"The Phantom?”

"No, no. The Phantom!" Secret corrected them. "I talked about him before. He's the guy that defeated the tyrant Pariah Dark and became the new Ghost King!"

"Wait, so is he the Phantom or the Ghost King?"

"Just Phantom, actually.” Danny mumbled. Well technicalllly, he’s not officially the Ghost King yet . The Observants deemed him too green to ascend the throne but regardless had him run around fixing things in the Zone. The Crown of Fire adorned his head as a sign of his conquest but the Ring of Rage rests in a safe location until the day of the coronation(TBA).

"Hey! I know you.” Robin suddenly spoke up from behind the group. “You're the conspiracy theory!"

"Aren't you one as well?” Danny couldn't help letting out a stifled laugh. "Sooooo, uh, why are we in the vents?”

"Stealth training—”

"We're pranking Robin's dad!” Someone said, before Robin could elaborate. The rest of his teammates just nodded along in agreement.

"Impulse!"

"Batman is your dad?"

"He's my mentor." Robin groaned.

“It's ok Rob, It's not that embarrassing." Impulse swung an arm over Robin’s shoulders, grinning from ear to ear. Robin lightly shoved him away and rolled his eyes.

"It's supposed to be a secret identity thing."

"I won't tell!" Danny piped. He thinks it’s cool that Robin fights crime with his dad!

"See? He won't tell!”

“Yeah. Anyway, stealth training. Batman makes everyone attend this meeting to give a status report; not everyone shows up, though. Literally, it could’ve been an email, but he insists everyone try to show up for at least one of these every few months. Now, this is a bag of approximately 100 plastic babies."

"Nice.”

Danny was having a ridiculous amount of fun, this has got to be the coolest day ever! Once they learned that he can make himself corporeal Danny was immediately roped into joining them by teaming up with Secret. It seems that although she is powerful enough to be seen by regular humans, Secret typically remains in an intangible state, her tangibility is limited and only lasts a few minutes at times.

Superboy dropped a handful of plastic babies in his hands while Wonder Girl explained what they’re going to do today. It was pretty straightforward: hide as many plastic babies in the meeting room while the meeting is happening without being spotted or anyone noticing.

“These meetings are so boring no one ever pays attention! People will be looking anywhere but where they’re supposed to. So we are going to hide these little things around the room. If anyone spotted one before the meeting ended, we failed the mission.”

“Yeah and Superman’s not here this week. We’re not worried about Wonder Woman ratting us out because she’s like, the cool aunt .” Superboy added on. He beckoned Danny over to join them huddling around the grille and they watched Robin slingshots a baby into a potted plant. Superboy followed up by flicking one on top of some pipes.

Secret wasted no time grabbing Danny’s wrist and phased them into the meeting room.

“That is so cheating!” Impulse booed at them. The ghost girl invisibly stuck out her tongue at him and proceeded to drop a baby in someone’s purse.

Danny’s seen some of the heroes sitting in for the meeting earlier when he explored the base, but he can’t say that he remembered their names. Secret dispersed more of the little guys into nooks and crannies while Danny thought it'd be funnier to put one in every one of Constantine ‘s coat pockets; if the man knew he was there, then he was flat out ignoring him. So he decides to put one in his shoe as well.

Danny spotted the Flash and Green Lantern— good ol’ Hal !— sitting next to each other. Neither of them looked very interested in the guy speaking. In fact, Green Lantern was basically dozing off holding a mug of coffee while Flashed had his face glued to his phone. Danny hovered behind them, looking over their shoulders… and dropped five plastic babies into GL’s coffee.

Hal didn’t notice.

“Really?”

Hours later Batman would find the team(and Danny) moving the furniture in the cafeteria two inches to the left. He looked every bit unimpressed while holding up a tiny, plastic baby in his hand.

The group of teenagers immediately dropped everything and scattered. Batman sighed.