"Well?" the shortest in the group pressed.
Danny hesitated. It wasn't like he didn't want to talk to the League, or probably just Batman from the sound of it, especially since he had been invited and they went through the trouble of finding him. But… he really didn't want to leave Amity. Especially not for the League. Okay, so maybe he didn't want to talk to the League, but it was their fault.
"Fine," Danny grumbled when he couldn't find an excuse to stay. The team of younger heroes had already managed to sink everything he'd tried. "Just, give me a second to get things a little more… organized."
Danny drifted up and away from the other teens before activating his Fenton Phone and waiting for his friends to answer. It barely took a minute, and both of them answered at almost the same time, groggily talking over each other.
"Easy guys," Danny cut them off in Esperanto, an unspoken signal to be careful passing between them. "There's no fire. Some big names just want to talk to me, so I need to leave town for a while. Possibly the whole night."
"And by 'big names' you mean…" Tucker trailed off.
"Probably the League, techno-geek," Sam answered promptly. "Exactly how paranoid are you being right now, Danny?"
Danny's eyes flicked down to his company, "Batman's name came up more than a few times, and one of the messengers is wearing Big Blue's symbol. I'd rather not take any chances."
There was silence on the other lines. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Tucker began.
"Yeah, Danny, with everything that's happened you can't possibly want to do this."
"You're right, it's a very bad idea that could cost me my identity. But these guys came prepared for an argument, and I might be able to get some answers anyway."
Once again silence was the only response. Both of Danny's long-time friends were wide awake by now. "We're comi-"
"No, you're not," Danny said, cutting off Sam. "I called because I need you on patrol while I'm gone. And the less they have to tie us together the better."
"Come on, Goth Girl," Tucker practically begged, "I know you want to keep Danny safe and finally get to meet tall, dark, and brooding, but the best thing for us to do is stay here and hold down the fort."
"You can't possibly be okay with this!"
"Oh, I'm not. I think Danny should run and never look back. It's not like they have anything to catch him with. But we can't make Danny do anything, if not because we're his friends, then because we have no idea where he is and can't get to him."
Danny had to stop himself from laughing out loud at his friend's very pointed comment. "What the geek said. And anyway, running would make me look like a criminal and sooner or later they would get their hands on the family's tech. Which would probably lead to the realization that I use it."
"Fine," Sam said, a rustling could be heard as she pulled herself out of bed. "Just get going before I change my mind and come find you."
Danny grinned and said his goodbyes before hanging up and turning to the seven protégés on the rooftop. "So, where to now?"
Turned out, they were going to take him to their base via their Bioship, or, in Danny's words, an honest to God Martian spaceship. Danny spent most of the ride trying not to freak out over the fact that he was sitting in a spaceship with two aliens, and, as a result of his struggle to keep his excitement from showing, he missed the fairly obvious telepathic conversation going on around him.
The team may have been having a debate about ghosts and whether or not they should really be trusting Phantom, but at least they were keeping it to themselves and only throwing a few wary glances and the rather energetic teen. Some of them were wondering how he went from mostly subdued and more than a little cautious to grinning while his gaze kept wandering, trying to take everything in and bouncing in his seat like a young kid on their first plane ride.
Things went downhill after Danny met Batman.
"I'm inviting you to join this team," Batman said, wrapping up his speech.
"Wait, what!?" Kid Flash cried out, with Artemis echoing him.
"But, he's a criminal!" Artemis yelled.
"Yeah! And we don't even know what he is! All we've ever gotten are vague piles of crap with no scientific backing!" Kid Flash continued.
"Enough," Batman growled. Both of the young heroes looked like they were just beginning to build up steam but fell silent and shrunk under the glares being sent by Batman and Danny.
Zatanna opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by the very pissed off ghost teen, "First of all, Kid Flash, check your sources. There is science for what I am. It might be a work in progress and come from some biased individuals, but what is there in terms of biology is mostly accurate. Second of all, um, Archer?"
"Artemis," she grumbled.
"Right, Artemis, you know nothing about those events and everything I've had to deal with because of it, so don't pretend you know what's going on." Danny turned his attention to the Bat, floating a little higher to bring himself closer to eye level as he glared.
"Speaking of what's going on, Batman. You opened with the wrong question and it is way too late now."
The team shifted uncomfortably. They'd never seen anyone address Batman like that. They didn't like their odds if they had to fight him, even with Batman there.
"You're attempt to recruit me has made it clear that you know exactly what has been going on in Amity Park," Danny began slowly. "Which would mean that the League knows about a few events where they definitely should have gotten involved but hasn't even asked a single question about what the hell is happening! Amity Park gets overrun by ghosts turning even the most hardened skeptics in town into firm believers? Nothing. The town disappears for at least twelve hours and returns with stories of invasion, siege, and another dimension!? We definitely don't need to look into that. A global weather anomaly seems to be originating from Amity where they have a mayor that claimed to have a device to control the weather and had a horrible storm literally right before the entire rest of the world got hit by a clearly unnatural storm and then get perfectly clear skies? That's not suspicious at all. A plant ghost takes over the minds of the citizens and has them tearing their own city to pieces and the local hero is nowhere to be found for four hours after the initial confrontation where he was forced to retreat? There's no need to get involved. For the love of God, where were you!?"
By the time Phantom had finished his rant, eyes blazing a brighter green than usual and he was floating high enough to glare down at Batman. The team was silent and wide eyed. This was not what they had expected.
"We didn't-" Batman began calmly, looking unphased by Phantom's verbal attack.
"Don't you dare say you didn't know," Phantom hissed. "If you know enough to want me on your team, you know about that. If you had only learned recently, either I would have heard about you asking around, you would have already asked me yourself, or it would still be at the top of your to-do list in regard to me. Your first question was 'want to join our covert ops team of teenage superheroes?' not 'okay, so, how did this happen and how did you stop it?'"
Batman was silent and seemed to be raising an eyebrow. Danny's brow furrowed. "Wait, then… who have you been…" He blinked, then put his head in his hand, his other arm still crossed over his chest. "Please tell me it wasn't Vlad."
"Who is Vlad?" Aqualad questioned.
"A manipulative jerk," Danny spat. "And he's the only one that would've kept his mouth shut about talking to you, so I wouldn't hear about it." Danny frowned again, "Well, I suppose, uh, Red Huntress would've as well. I haven't exactly heard from her in a while."
It was Batman's turn to be confused, "Red Huntress?"
"So, Vlad it is," Danny grumbled. "Alright, what did he tell you?"
"Tell us who Red Huntress is first," Robin said, having gotten his wits back. This was a new player on the board, or, more accurately, a player they hadn't been aware of.
Danny frowned down at him, "She's a ghost hunter. She tends to think along the standard lines of 'ghost equals evil,' but I think she's starting to get past that… a little."
Batman gave a subtle nod of approval to his protege before launching into a summary of everything the mayor of Amity Park and the owner of the only large company with a research department dedicated to ghosts and ectoplasm-based technology had told him. When he finished Phantom blinked and was silent for a moment. "That was actually pretty accurate," he said slowly.
"Mind telling us what we got wrong?" Miss Martian asked a bit hesitantly.
"Obsessions, for one thing," Danny started. "They're not always easily defined, and some ghost actually have multiple, and though they're usually related, they don't have to be. The core he theorized about isn't much like a heart, but that is the best analogy in living biology. It produces energy and allows it to be directed. But only a specific type of energy which varies by ghost, the rest is either absorbed from the environment or produced by the ectoplasm that makes up the ghost's body." Danny thought for a moment. "Vlad missed a few things about how ghosts govern themselves in the Ghost Zone, but that's not surprising seeing as he's not a ghost." More accurately, he is a ghost, but he hasn't gotten involved in that part of their politics yet. "Everything else seems fine to me."
"You're not going to tell us how things actually work in the Ghost Zone?" Kid Flash accused, still a little uncomfortable with the idea of ghosts.
"It's not really relevant," Phantom shrugged. "Those rules only really apply in the Ghost Zone, and even then, the big points he missed wouldn't affect you due to a bunch of non-interference rules. Unless there's a ghost that's actually going to wipe out life on earth, they don't step in."
"I take it you don't like them very much," Zatanna observed, "whoever they are."
"Not really, no. But I have bigger things to worry about. Anyway, I should be going."
"Wait," Robin said, "what about the offer?"
Danny hesitated, "I might not be as mad as I was earlier, but I'm still not happy with the League. And anyway, I've already got my hands full with Amity."
Batman nodded before anyone could say anything else. "Here," he said as he handed a small box to Danny, "it's a communicator. Call us if you need anything, and we'll do the same. But we'll try to leave you alone."
Danny gave the communicator a quick once over before giving Batman a quiet thanks and following a couple team members back to the Bioship and heading home to his no doubt exhausted friends.
"Wait," Artemis started after the group left, "we never found out what actually happened with the whole criminal thing."