Part Four

Beast Boy did not consider himself a deeply reflective person. His mind was simply too full of distractions. Once he had a single thought that he could focus on, something shiny would come along and he'd get distracted. But this wasn't to say that Beast Boy didn't have his reflective moments. Before he'd left the Doom Patrol there had been a lot of times of him just thinking about things because even though he loved his adoptive family, he wasn't really happy there towards the end.

Similarly, when he'd had a vat of chemicals dumped on him and he'd become some sort of beast that was an amalgamation of every predatory instinct he had in his various animal forms, he'd needed a lot of time to sit and think about what made him human, what made him animal, and where he sat on the spectrum in between. (He still wasn't entirely sure if he was really human or not, but he figured he was close enough.)

But Phantom...

Beast Boy let himself shudder, since he was next to Jazz as they were on the observation platform over the outside training area. He had tried to explain to Robin why instinct had taken over, but it was so hard to put into words. Every animal that Beast Boy was, from prehistoric to alien, all smelled Phantom and cowered. Even when Beast Boy was in his human form, his sense of smell was a bajillion times better than the average human, and he could smell Phantom.

Granted, the more Beast Boy was around Phantom (at least while the changeling was human) he could ignore the smell of danger and terror, remind himself that he was human, Phantom was... had been human, and wasn't really a danger to them.

But once Beast Boy was an animal, there was no overriding the instinct. He smelled death. And not in the sense of a corpse, though that was intermingled in Phantom's scent. No, Phantom smelled of death approaching, that smell of sweat, and terror, and fear, and doom. The smell of graveyards, and corpses, and decay and rot. It was such a smell of bad things, that instinct immediately had Beast Boy cowering, even though he knew the situation wasn't the same as what he was smelling.

And it wasn't like Beast Boy was satisfied with how the smell of death overpowered him to the point of becoming insensibly terrified. He'd morphed to various animals that were known to have a very poor sense of smell. Invertebrates, certain types of birds, animals that shouldn't be able to smell death approaching, or didn't have the brain cells to know that death was approaching. But he still was overpowered by terror.

Robin had pulled him aside a few times over the past few days, as Phantom, Jazz, and Cyborg all argued science-y stuff on how to integrate a Ghost Shield into the Tower's defenses, and Beast Boy tried to explain every time that it was animal instinct.

"But you control your instinct," Robin would say. "Even in that Beast form, you have control."

But Beast Boy would just shake his head, knowing that he still didn't have the right words, and simply say, "It's too primal. It's not something you just beat back. Phantom smells of death. Even when I'm like this. And it smells terrifying."

Robin would nod, still not understanding, and tell him to keep working on it.

And Beast Boy would grumble that he was working on it. He had finally gotten to the point where he wasn't cowering behind Cyborg anymore, that had to count for something.

He glanced over at Jazz. Beast Boy had already gone through his morning practice, and he had decided to (avoid Phantom!) stay by her side in case any of the stuff going on below became another trigger for her.

Jazz was watching with a reserved awe, clipboard in hand. She was clearly trying to be professional, but there was no denying that she seemed to be just as much of a fan of the Titans as Phantom was.

"So, Starfire is basic spotter and organizer today?" she asked.

"Yup," Beast Boy replied. "She can handle the strength stuff if Cyborg goes over his head, and she's fast enough if something goes wrong, or whatever. We all rotate through. Worst is when Robin's in charge. His practices are brutal."

Jazz chuckled. "And is competition usually a part of practice?"

Beast Boy smiled. There was no denying the rival throw-down going on between Phantom and Cyborg. Phantom had showed off some impressive bench-pressing, when one considered that he was a normal human when he was alive, meaning death had enhanced his strength. But Cyborg wasn't one to take that from a ghost and then outdone Phantom with a casual lift, teasing that Phantom clearly wasn't that strong. And the sparks started to fly as the two kept trying to out-do one another.

"Some friendly competition to push improvements? Yes. The knock-down drag out? Not really."

"Danny is actually stronger than what he did before. Now that he's on a better diet and can focus on more than just survival, he'll get back to where he was... Before."

Beast Boy watched carefully out of the corner of his eye, knowing that talking of Before and After the accident that had killed her parents could often end up being some sort of trigger, depending on context, feelings, and so many things in the realm of psychology that Beast Boy had no hope of understanding. She was clearly sad but trying to smile anyway, but her scent wasn't shifting like it did when she was retreating, so Beast Boy only nodded.

"Next we will do power of blasts," Starfire said from where she floated above the training area to keep an eye on everything. She flew down to where Jazz and Beast Boy were, touched the controls, and several titanium blocks came out. "Let us see your prowess!"

Robin stood back, since he didn't have any sort of energy blasts to test, and Raven only said, "Pass," before she floated back as well.

"Looks like it's you and me, Ghost Boy."

"Funny guy," Phantom replied, unimpressed. "Like I've never heard 'Ghost Boy' before ever in my entire existence. Or Spook. Or Ectoplasmic Scum. Or anything else. Does everyone in Jump City need to check their thesaurus?"

Jazz chuckled. "We'd probably be millionaires several times over if we got a dime for every time someone called Danny 'Ghost Boy'. Skulker alone would put us over a million."

Still, Cyborg would not be deterred. "Aw yeah, time to see some real power!" He took careful aim with his sonic cannon, letting it take time to charge up till it was almost too bright to look at, then fired. One of the titanium blocks shuddered under the onslaught, before collapsing in on itself to scrap that they would melt and reforge for the next time they did one of these output tests.

Cyborg turned with a giant grin. "Beat that," he bragged.

Phantom looked at his fingers in obvious boredom. "Meh."

"Meh?" Cyborg repeated, a huge vein starting to burst on his forehead. "Meh? Don't you get the tensile strength of titanium? It has a density of four and a half grams per cubic centimeter! It needs over fourteen kilojoules to even fuse it with anything! Four hundred and twenty-five kilojoules to even vaporize! That was not 'meh'!"

"Don't get me wrong," Phantom said nonchalantly. "What I can do in ecto-blasts won't be able to do what you did. But vaporizing titanium is easy, and I don't want to destroy the island by accident."

Cyborg started sputtering.

"Danny..." Jazz muttered, completely exasperated.

"Meh?" Cyborg shouted.

"Enough," Raven growled. "Phantom has defeated Pariah Dark. He has earned the right to say 'meh' if he wishes."

"What does that even mean?"

"Cyborg," Robin put a hand on a metal shoulder. "Let it go. I'll explain later, but Phantom does have an ability that he can't easily demonstrate. We just don't have the facilities here for it."

"That doesn't make any sense!"

Beast Boy shuddered. He may not understand the science of titanium, but he did understand what was being said. Phantom had a final attack, something like when Cyborg merged with the Tower, or Raven was in her white form, or when Beast Boy himself was in his beast form. And it was so dangerous, they couldn't even show it off, let alone practice it.

They continued with the exercises, Jazz still taking notes.

"Friends," Starfire smiled brightly, "let us work on the team-building now, yes?"

"Uh," Phantom raised his hand, "but we haven't tested all of my abilities yet."

"We have not? Glorious!" Starfire floated down. "Please, what other powers do you have?"

"Actually," Jazz called down from the platform, "you haven't really tested yourself in a year, right? We need to see if you're still a Level Seven ecto-entity or not. Knowing you, you've been practicing."

"The full gamut?" Danny called back. "Then we really would need to find somewhere that I could destroy everything."

"I think we can skip that," Jazz replied. "Focus on what you can do and for how long. I'd imagine your time being invisible is probably longer than the last time we tested. An hour before you flickered into the visible spectrum, right?"

Phantom was already floating up. "Actually, I can manage invisibility for over a day now. Kinda came in handy on the run for the past year."

Phantom and Jazz started getting into a full discussion on how to test Phantom's abilities and their durations, but Beast Boy was quick to shift to a pigeon and float down to the team. The smell...

He shifted back to human, a shudder working its way down his spine despite his best efforts. "Dude, they're in their own world again."

"They've been separated for a year," Robin said quietly. "They've earned some time to reconnect."

"Then as Phantom and Jazz reconnect, should we not do the team-building?" Starfire continued to smile. "I was planning on the trust exercises."

Beast Boy immediately groaned. Starfire had once seen one of those stupid trust-building exercises where you fall into someone's arms, trusting they'd catch you. But Starfire, being Starfire, took it a little too far and liked to drop them from great heights so that a teammate would catch them. No powers allowed.

"That's gonna have to wait, Star," Cyborg said, reading something off his wrist. "We got trouble."

"So you went fast enough to fly from here to Wisconsin in less time than it takes a plane to fly?" Jazz was asking, incredulous. "What's the speed for that?"

Danny shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I haven't tried to do it again, I was kind of mad at the time."

"Small wonder," Jazz said, a faint smile on her face before she refocused. "So we know what powers you've definitely improved on, now we need to ascertain by how much and see if any of your other powers have changed as well. Any new ones?"

"Not that I know of," Danny replied. "But how many other ghost powers are there? Every time I think I've got them all I find out I have a new one."

Jazz shrugged her shoulders. "Teleportation? Or is that a myth because of duplication? Does it matter? We'll deal with it when we come across it. If I have time this afternoon I can rough out a battery of tests based on what Sam and Tucker used to do – the equipment here will make it a more robust assessment to be sure, thought I don't know about some..." She stopped, looking down over the railing. Danny followed her gaze and saw the Titans in a tight huddle, faces serious. "Looks like trouble."

Danny nodded and floated down. "Is it a ghost?" he asked.

Everyone looked at him, faces ranging from surprised to incredulous.

"No," Robin said after a beat.

The Ghost Boy nodded and floated back up. "Not a ghost," he said to his sister, "not my problem."

Jazz blinked for a moment, teal eyes wide, before she gave the always frightening Big Sister Frown. "What do you mean not your problem?" she demanded, gripping the railing. Uh-oh.

"Ghost Shield's not operational yet, remember?" Danny countered, ire rising. "You're my priority right now! I can't leave you alone after all of this?"

The fight disappeared before it even started, Jazz's face slackening at his words, before she pulled him into a tight hug. "I love you, baby brother," she whispered in his ear. "But I have the Deflector, and the bazooka."

"But that didn't help last time," Danny said.

"Because this place was still new," Jazz replied, "I've been here a week, and I've had a personal hand in managing the defenses, both of those things make me feel like I have agency in my life, and that helps the episodes." She frowned. "But... I want you to have a sense of agency, too, so... do what you think is right."

Danny hesitated, looking back down at the Titans, all of them looking at a readout on Cyborg's arm. The thought of fighting with his idols... but Jazz was still struggling so much... but the city might need him... what should he do? Danny grunted and tried to have it both ways. He darted down and touched Beast Boy's shoulder, making the green changeling freak out as he said, "Tag, you're it."

Everyone looked at him funny, of course, but Danny was quick to explain. "I want to help," he said, "But I don't want to leave Jazz alone. Beast Boy wouldn't be able to fight if I was with you, so is it okay that he stays with Jazz so I can help you guys?"

"No way!" Cyborg said. "We don't know you!"

"I think it's a good idea," Robin said.

"We could use someone as powerful as him," Raven added.

"But we have no idea what his abilities are, what his motives are, and in case you've forgotten there's a warrant out for kidnapping charges, none of this has been settled yet!"

"All good points," Robin said, "Except he's already explained to me the basic forms of his abilities," he ticked off with a finger, "Raven and I can both attest that he's trustworthy," he motioned with another finger, "and you're right about the kidnapping charges except for the fact that he's still in our custody and not running free."

"That's a technicality!"

"That we're going to use to have his help in this fight," Raven said. "Ternion is a powerful foe and the more strength we have the better."

Robin nodded. "Agreed. Beast Boy is a capable fighter but can't directly confront the monster because of his electricity. Phantom has both long range and short range capabilities, and his intangibility will prevent him from the potential damage that Beast Boy might take. It's a better choice."

"And I don't mind hanging out with the pretty lady," Beast Boy added in a tone that might have been lecherous if not for the four sweat drops sliding down his face with the close proximity of Danny. The Ghost Boy hadn't realized how much he terrified the changeling, another strike against him, probably, but at least Robin and Raven were in his corner. Cyborg sighed and grumbled, but his arm beeped again (one day he was going to get a better look at that circuitry, Jazz said there were microprocessors in every appendage, imagine all that processing power for something like a Portal or a Ghost Catcher!).

"Titans, go!" Robin ordered, and everyone sans the changeling immediately ran. Danny moved to follow before a thought occurred to him, and he phased through the floors back to the room he shared with his sister and pulled out what he wanted, phasing back out to the training area. "Jazz! I almost forgot!"

"Ah!" Beast Boy shouted as his sister looked up. He floated down.

"A boo-merang," he said, handing the device to his sister. "You have offense, defense, and now a last resort."

Jazz smiled. "That's my Danny."

"Dude," Beast Boy said, "You're making the other Titan's wait? Robin's gonna kill you! I mean, rekill you, I mean, I don't know what I mean."

Danny dashed over to the lower garage and saw the Titans in the T-car, all of them glaring. "Sorry," he muttered sheepishly. "Forgot something."

They still glared at him, and it ruined the atmosphere in the car as they drove to the disturbance. Danny squirmed in his seat, knowing he had messed up. He'd never fought on a team before. Sure, Sam and Tucker and Jazz were with him on patrols, but the vast majority of the fighting had to be left to him because he was the powerhouse. He'd never fought with people who were equal to him in ability, and only now was he realizing that this might not have been a good idea. They knew each other, like Cyborg said. They had fought with each other for three years, knew all their ins and outs and how to back each other. He was just a ghost who strong-armed his way into the fight against their wishes to fulfill an agenda they didn't know. Even after telling them he was a fan, even after talking to Robin and and Raven, he was still just a ghost – less than that in Cyborg's case, and he understood a little bit why Jazz had said that this would take a while. He squirmed again, realizing what a mistake this was, but he was here now and he had to make the best of it.

"So who are we going to be fighting?"

"Ternion," Robin replied, "A merger of Cinderblock, Plasmus, and Overload."

Danny frowned. "Okay, I kinda know Cinderblock, but who are the other two?"

"Doesn't matter," Raven replied, "They are merged."

"They make a most frightening beast called the Ternion," Starfire said, "who has the ability of all three: durability, strength, goo-ish shape changing, and electricity."

Danny nodded. "Sounds pleasant," he muttered. "Is there a plan to defeat him?"

"Wear him down," Cyborg grunted.

"He's in the park," Robin explained, "We surround him, box him in by the sports field; the last thing we need is to give him access to the waterways. Raven will be on crowd control and containment, the rest of us whittle him down. Once he's incapacitated, he'll separate and they can be contained."

"What should I do?"

"Stay out of our way," Cyborg grumbled.

Robin shook his head. "Your ecto-blasts will likely help the most. Shoot projectiles out of the sky so the rest of us don't have to dodge; if you have an opening blast him."

Danny nodded again, and minutes later the car screeched to a stop at the edge of the park and everyone spread out into the greenery. Danny flew up with Starfire, the pair taking off in opposite directions, though it was obvious to see where the problem was. Gobs of brown goo were flying up into the sky somewhere near the center of the park, and Danny flew there while invisible. Being on such rocky feet with the Titans was one thing, but he'd had a year of experience telling him that showing himself in a crowd was a decidedly bad idea, and he didn't want to make crowd control more difficult for Raven.

Ternion was... Danny didn't have a word for it. The creature was big and brown and mishmashed. Green blobs glowed from its back – eyes? - and its mouth seemed to encase its entire chest. There was a fountain nearby – didn't Robin say something about access to waterways? No, no, follow directions first. Danny charged up his hands and started firing. The projectiles came from the creatures own body (ew) and were strangely gelatinous and gooey, almost the consistency of condensed ectoplasm; that made it actually very easy to figure out how powerful to make his blasts, and everything after that was aiming.

Robin and the others made their appearance, the Boy Wonder ordering them to "Go!" and Cyborg started firing in tandem with Starfire, Robin circling around and looking for an opening.

It was amazing watching them fight, and Danny had to fight his inner fanboy to stop firing and just gawk at the synchronization. Robin shouted the occasional order, Cyborg and Starfire didn't even look at each other while they fired at the creature in perfect unison or succession depending on the circumstance. Blobs of skin plopped to the ground as the creature took the damage, and for a moment Danny thought this might be an easy fight.

Then it threw an unexpected punch and sent Cyborg flying. Robin darted in throwing smoke bombs, and Danny dared to stop firing as he flew through the air to catch the machine man. Cyborg was letting out a string of curses but Danny grabbed him by the foot (not the most elegant catch) and started lowering him to the ground.

"Hey, hey, hey! What's happening?"

"Oops," Danny said. "It's me." He turned visible.

"What are you doing? Stick to the plan!"

"But-"

"I can handle a landing, they can't keep dodging! Move it Ghost Boy!"

Frustrated and shamed, Danny growled. "Fine!" He let go, letting Cyborg fall a dozen feet and flew back to the fight. Starfire was on the ground covered in goo, Robin fighting the beast by itself. Wonderful way to be a team player, Fenton. Grunting, he landed and put his hands on the brown mass covering the alien Titan. "Hang on a second," he said, taking a breath and reaching for his core. "This will be kinda cool."

The material iced over in seconds, Starfire gasping at the chill, but with one controlled punch it shattered into pieces and freed the Tameranian.

"Thank you," Starfire said, breathless. Danny offered a hand to get her up. "But perhaps we should focus on stopping the monster now?"

Danny turned and saw that the beast had backed Robin to the fountain, surrounded by its massive arms and menacing mouth.

"Aw, crud," Danny muttered. "Come on!"

He flew up and focused another cryoblast, aiming at one of the arms while Starfire aimed at the other. The gooey mass seemed to just absorb the cold, making Danny wonder at its chemical makeup and not knowing enough about materials outside of ectoplasm to even hazard a guess. Instead, he floated to the side, focusing a second blast at the water of the fountain. Once frozen he pulled the ice up around his ghostly form. Maybe if there was enough ice...

"Wait!" Robin said, but too late as Ternion let out an electric blast.

With all the water surrounding Danny it was a disaster, the electricity – which he was already weak to – was compounded by all the water, and the shock coursed through him for what felt like an eternity before the pain finally stopped and he fell mercilessly to the grass. He bounced once, twice, and just lay there, struggling to get his bearings. Panting for air, he managed to pull himself up to his knees and then his behind, rubbing his chest where his core was.

"Not my best moment," he muttered.

"You think?"

Danny looked up to see Raven, floating above him, dark eyes nearly invisible under the hood of her cape. He grimaced before he took a deep breath and floated up for a few feet. "Round two," he said.

"Stay here," Raven ordered. "Let us take care of the rest."

"But-"

Raven already flew away, black energy of her soul-self flying out of her hands to encase Ternion and squeeze. Starfire was back in the air and Cyborg was back in the brawl. Robin had his bo out and was knocking the globs out of the air as they flew.

Right, that was supposed to be Danny's job.

He sighed, feeling low and knowing he would have to talk to Jazz after this, and turned invisible and flew up into the air, going back to the job he had originally assigned.

It was a fifteen minute fight – wearing Ternion down wasn't a joke; it was, like, an energy sponge or something. Danny almost wished for Skulker and his high tech weaponry to see if it would do more damage. But his lesson was learned, he dutifully focused only on the projectiles; it was painfully easy, and he added a shot or two at the beast to help out when he could, but none of it felt good. He had wanted to fight with the Teen Titans, partly to fight with his heroes, sure, but because he thought he would feel like he made a difference, like he was doing good like he had been at Amity Park before everything had gone to hell. This was hollow, meaningless. He wasn't doing anything, not like he did at home, and he felt sick for Sam and Tucker and Mom and Dad: a place where he felt important. Not to the city, necessarily, or to the world at large, but to his friends and family. To Clockwork, and Frostbite.

Slowly the brown mass ran out, and underneath was little more than some kind of concrete-like material. The creature was clearly weakening, and Danny thought they might finally be reaching the end. It was out of projectiles now, there was nothing for him to do. He floated above the fight, watching as Robin hopped off of Cyborg and throw some kind of smoke bomb – only it wasn't a smoke bomb but rather some kind of explosive that detonated on impact.

Smoke flew everywhere, up into Danny's space and he flew away slightly, coughing as he did so, and floated upwind. Three... "people" were visible when the smoke cleared. A human, a concrete thing, and what looked like a ball of electricity with a circuit board.

"Is that it?" he asked.

Everyone startled and started looking around.

Right. Invisible. Danny showed himself and landed on his feet. He didn't dare to more at this point.

Starfire, of course, was happy to answer. "You are correct, we have achieved victory for ourselves and prevented Ternion from causing harm!"

Robin and Cyborg were cuffing the perpetrators, the Boy Wonder covered in flecks of goo and Cyborg scuffed; Starfire still had bits of ice on her bare skin. They had fought hard, and Danny had only made things worse.

"I'll... go wait in the car," Danny said, dejected, before turning invisible and floating away.

Of course, waiting in the car was its own kind of hell; the Titans still had to ensure that the monsters were fully incapacitated before being turned over to the cops, give their statements (Danny didn't even want to think about what they said about him...), talk to reporters, the works. Danny had never talked to the press at Amity Park, he was too busy making sure the ghosts got back to the Ghost Zone, and most sane people ran away long before a fight was even half done. It never occurred to him that there was a second half to being a hero: the public. It was watching Robin answer questions to no less than a dozen reporters that Danny realized it was no wonder people always thought him a menace, he never actually put himself out there and explained his side of the story. Sure, after Pariah Dark things had smoothed over, but that was because he had shouted his goals to his family before flying off, and word of mouth did the rest. Should he go out there now...?

No, he'd probably screw that up, too.

The ride back was equally arduous, the Titans exhausted after all the adrenaline they had used up, and everyone awkwardly glancing at Danny has he pretended not to notice and stare out the window of the T-car. He knew once they were back at the tower, away from the eyes of the public, he was totally going to get reamed out for this. He already felt bad enough, he wasn't sure he wanted to go through that.

The T-car parked in the garage and Danny phased out of the vehicle, wondering if he could run fast enough to avoid the blame-game he was about to be the poster child of. It wasn't to be, however, because of course Resident Skeptic Cyborg was the first to throw in his opinion.

"Where do you think you're going, Ghost Boy?" he demanded, getting out of the T-car and looming over the floating Danny. Boy, he was tall at this angle...

Danny, of course, did not bow to fate gracefully. "I already feel bad enough," he said, "You don't have to yell at me."

"Of course I do!" Cyborg shouted. "What kind of hair brained idiot doesn't follow orders, huh? You were supposed to take care of the projectiles!"

"Technically, you were a projectile..." Danny offered weakly.

"That's not the point! You left! What kind of 'hero'," he emphasized his contempt my making air-quotes, "flies off in the middle of the battle? I'm made of metal, not glass, I can handle a little fall like that but you were too busy showboating to think of that, weren't you?"

"I wasn't showboating," Danny muttered, still trying to float away but not really leaving. A small but very vocal part of him said he deserved this, and he stopped shy of just phasing a dozen floors up to get away from the reprimanding.

"Doesn't matter! You got no business thinking you're better than us!"

"Cyborg, lay off," Robin was saying, still picking mud off of his cloak and clothes. "It was just as much my fault as Phantom's. I should have known how dangerous it was to bring a solo act to a team fight."

That made Danny feel even worse, he winced from Robin words and decided that deserving or not he couldn't listen to much more of this. They were in the main lobby now and he started to float up to the ceiling.

"I'm not done with you yet, Ghost Boy – don't tell me you're gonna turn chicken on us now, are you?"

… That did it.

Danny floated back down and floated at eye level to Cyborg. "Listen," he growled, green eyes glowing. "You have no right to call me a coward after I just saved your life, okay?! I didn't have to come along, but I did because I wanted to help! Get that through your brain!"

"You weren't supposed to come in the first place!" Cyborg shouted back, his voice echoing off the lobby. "You forced your way in when we didn't need you! Some 'hero' you claim to be!"

Danny was about to say more, probably something he would regret, but there was a flash of light and he and Cyborg, and everyone else for that matter, turned to the far end of the lobby where a reporter with a camera stood, gawking at the fight. The only thought that ran through Danny's head was the camera, the film, and how quickly it would get into the hands of Plasmius. He couldn't afford to let that happen, and he immediately turned invisible, ignoring Robin's "Phantom!" and flying over, grabbing the camera out of the shocked reporter's hands and floated up to the ceiling. Digital camera, poorly organized, the lectures from Tucker paid off and he deleted all the photos, and then pulled out the memory card and phased through it, ruining it forever.

Safe. He was safe.

The reporter was shaking after having his camera yanked out of his hands and flying up to the ceiling, and Danny lowered and offered it to him. The reported cast terrified eyes to the Titans, Robin already advancing and grabbing not the camera but Danny's invisible wrist. "Show yourself," he said in a low voice.

Danny did.

"What did you just do?" Robin demanded, yanking the camera out of the halfa's hands.

Now that the panic was gone Danny slowly came to realize that he had just messed up again, harassing a reporter and damaging someone else's property. In the Teen Titan's Tower, a hall of heroes. He gulped, realizing that the tentative trust he had gained from Robin was now probably completely gone. He tried to explain: "I can't have my picture out there," he said slowly, aware his voice was more of a squeak than he wanted. He threw his green gaze at the reporter, unable to say more and risk it getting on print. "It's why I was invisible for the fight."

Robin's grip was hard, strong enough that even in his ghost form Danny felt the strain of his muscles. His face was completely closed off, an impenetrable mask. Silence stretched out between them, the reporter right next to them, the camera still in Robin's free hand. Cyborg was to the side, arms crossed and expression disapproving. Raven had disappeared and Starfire looked on worriedly, uncertain how to intercede. The air felt heavy, tension building in all of Danny's muscles as he understood that his fate was now in the Boy Wonder's hands. He sighed at the inevitable and put his feet on the ground.

Robin turned to the reporter. "Name," he growled.

"Keith Fischer," the man stuttered. "Bay Bugle."

Robin's blank stare finally broke, a dark frown pulling at his feature. "We've made it clear repeatedly that we do not appreciate, nor desire, the attention of tabloids. Your paper has a restraining order against coming to the island, let alone the Tower, and you are in violation of that. I have to confiscate your camera. Cyborg will show you the way out."

Said teen cracked his knuckles and offered an impressive grin. "I'm gonna enjoy this," he said darkly, grabbing the man's shoulders and not-quite-shoving him to the entrance of the library.

"Starfire," Robin ordered, "Go up to the op center and run a scan on him, make sure he didn't have any other cameras."

"Of course," the alien said, flying over to the staircase.

Robin still had a death grip on Danny, and the half-ghost couldn't stand it anymore. He looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry," he said, voice low and subdued.

Robin let go, turning and walking away. "Sorry isn't good enough," the Titan replied, leaving Danny alone.

Jazz found Danny an hour later, face first on the bed as a human, staring at the carpet and completely numb.

"Hey," she said softly.

"Hey," he replied. He didn't even have the energy to look up. He listened as his sister padded around the bed and dragged the upholstered chair over. He watched her shadow sit down. She did nothing else.

That was why he loved her. When he had first found out Jazz knew his secret, it was after learning about him, and he was flabbergasted that Jazz had been in the know for so long and said nothing. Jazz had explained that she wanted him to trust her with his alter ego; and later, when she tentatively offered to be his psychologist, she did the same thing. Just waited for him to talk. She let him go at his pace, and often she didn't even give much in the way of advice, just asked probing questions that let him arrive at his own answers. He sighed, craning his neck up to see her sitting in the chair, spiral notebook in hand. That made him smile.

"That takes me back," he said sadly, spinning to his side to see her better, head still hanging over the edge of the bed. "When was the last time we had a session?"

Jazz had her own sad smile. "Beast Boy gave me a notebook and helped me outline your workout tomorrow. It's pretty robust, by the way," she added. "You'll be cursing me by the end of it. I asked if I could keep it."

Silence spread out between them, soft and comfortable, so like their three a.m. sessions that it almost made Danny happy, nostalgic for the time when life was simple – well, simple for him. Hiding from his parents, fighting ghosts, food at the Nasty Burger, Sam and Tucker... "You know I saw Clockwork," he said. Jazz of course said nothing, simply leaned back and let him talk.

"It was in Colorado. Had a fight with Plasmius – it was a big disaster, he overshadowed a bunch of people and said it was me, and the Guys in White were blanketing the area, and the only place for me to escape was the Ghost Zone. Wulf was with me then, he made a portal." His gaze drifted, mind tracing back to the memory. "I think that was my lowest point over the course of the whole year," he said. "I went to Clockwork and asked if I could turn back time and save Mom and Dad. I was so angry, and it was all the time, the stupidest thing would set me off and I just wanted to start punching people. I was terrified I was turning into him."

Jazz cocked her head. "Stages of grief?" she asked.

"Probably," Danny sighed, closing his eyes. "He let me stay there for a week, get my head back on straight. We didn't really talk a lot, managing time is kind of a full-time gig, you know?"

Jazz smiled. "I can imagine."

"Before I left, he said that if I was really so angry, then instead of burying it I needed to find a constructive way of burning through it. The portal he lead me to put me in New York, and Ember was there holding a concert. I still wonder if that was his gift to me, to show me how to deal with my anger and not spiral out of control. I started fighting ghosts again after that."

"And did it help?"

"Yeah," Danny said, a small grin on his face. "It felt good to be helping again, and I figured if I was stopping ghosts, then I was living up to Mom and Dad's legacy, you know?"

"Bargaining."

"Maybe..." Danny finally lifted himself into a sitting position, crossing his legs and stuffing his elbows into his knees to prop his head up. "I don't want to turn into him," he said. "I try and try and try to make the right decisions. I promise to anyone who'll listen that I understand how much small decisions turn into big consequences, but even with all of that I still screw up."

"Danny," Jazz said, "You're not perfect. None of us are. It's not about making the right decision every time, it's about why you make your decisions, the place that it comes from."

"But today I screwed up even on that," he confessed quietly, looking down at the rug again and unable to meet his sister's eyes. "I mean, it's the Teen Titans. I've wanted to be like them even before I had superpowers, you know? Like, the very idea of fighting with them is a dream come true – I wouldn't be playing at being a hero, I would actually be a hero, no judgements from people, no looking over my shoulder to see if someone's going to dissect me, just find the bad guy and stop them. Done deal. It's part of why I do all this," he gestured vaguely, "I wanted to feel like I was saving the world."

"And you were, Danny," Jazz said. "You did, multiple times. Don't sell all of your accomplishments short."

"But what if I was doing it for the wrong reasons?" he countered. "What if the place my decisions come from isn't a good place? What if I'm doing all of this just to role play? Or just to get respect? I do have those feelings, Jazz. I get so tired of people assuming I'm the bad guy and trying to be the better person. All that effort in Amity Park is undone, I start from scratch in every city and rabbit hole I come to and it's just so ridiculous."

To his unmitigated shock, Jazz shrugged. "So?" she asked.

"So?" he repeated.

Jazz finally caught his eyes and held his gaze, face neutral. "Let me ask you," she said. "Why did you go off in the Ecto-Skeleton to fight Pariah Dark?"

… Huh? They'd been through this before. "Because no one else could stop him."

"Why did you erase everyone's memories of the Reality Gauntlet? Even Mom and Dad's?"

Danny frowned. "Because they were in too much danger. Dash and Paulina would just blab to the universe, but Mom and Dad... they were kidnapped by Freakshow and used to blackmail me. I didn't want to put them through that again. Or anyone, that's why I destroyed it."

"Why did you give the box back to Pandora?"

"Because nobody else should use it!"

"Why did you save Danielle?"

Danny scoffed. "She was going to disintegrate, Jazz! You know all this, what are you getting at?"

And Jazz finally smiled. "Were any of those reasons about emulating the Teen Titans? Or being a hero?"

And Danny was brought up short as her words slowly sunk in, dozens of different fights and escapades flitting through his head.

"Nobody makes a decision for exactly one reason," Jazz said gently. "There could be a hundred reasons to make a decision, but certain ones will count as the 'main' reason: and look at the ones you listed. You might want to be like the Teen Titans in the back of your head, but it's not the real reason you do what you do. Don't sell yourself short, Danny. Enough people do that for you already."

Danny smiled, slightly, feeling lighter than he had all day.

"I'm still in a lot of trouble you know," he said.

"Yes," Jazz acknowledge. "But let's not add to that pile. Now, I saw a little bit on the news, but if you want to, tell me in your own words what today was like."

And Danny did.

Author's NOtes: By now readers should/might start seeing where this is going, since this is the last bit of world building that we do for a while. There will be the occasional villain of the day - partly to honor the respective franchises but also to be used as flashpoints for the story to develop. There is also the "second half" of heroing: dealing with the press. Neither of us have really seen this talked about in superhero comics - well, there was the Stamford Incident in Civil War of course, and the MCU is starting to touch media reaction, sort of... but to us, superheros are public figures, and as public figures they have to make public appearances, i.e. the 24hour news cycle. They probably always have to answer questions after dealing with the police, and some might even be part of things like the Sunday morning talk circuit, or as readers will find out later on, the SHNN. This cycles back to Danny because he, too had to deal with the press in his show and it never ended well. He was always so busy doing other things that public relations never even factored into his head - even when it was painting him as a menace.

This is compounded by the fight - more on that later - and by the other side of the media outlet: tabloids.

Also, though Jazz is by far the most visibly fragile and affected by the year we've put them through, Danny has his own encyclopedia of issues that he has to deal with, and only some of them are on display here. Danny's immediate reaction by this point to media of any form is unquenchable terror, and survival instinct takes over, which in turn makes everything worse. As if the Titans weren't disappointed in him enough...

And that's something we've been very deliberate about. Of course the whole point of reading a cross-over is to see favorite characters working together to defeat a bad guy, but not all cross-overs are perfect fits, and not all CHARACTERS are perfect fits. We very deliberately gave each Titan a different reaction to Danny Phantom from accepting to skeptical to terrified, and Danny has to get each of their trust one by one. It won't and cannot be automatic, he's a walking existential crisis, and there will be slips and false starts. It's more impressive - to us, anyway, - not to see the characters work together but to watch HOW they come to work together, because it shows growth in the characters.

Anyway, next chapter is of course fallout. Jazz might have made Danny feel better, but that's not exactly going to last long. See you next week!