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bongo-clash · 1 year

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Even when you don't know what it is your job knows what it is

DP/DC week prompt: There was something off about them

'Danny Phantom, alleged several-thousand year old ghostly entity, has a feeling something’s not quite right with Captain Marvel, alleged several-thousand year old champion of magic. He reckons there's no time like the present to confront his hunch.'

Look, Danny’s been working with the Justice League for a while now, and he likes to think he knows them all pretty well. Some of them are more open about their civilian identities than others, but even if he doesn’t know who everyone is behind the cowls, he’s got their personalities down pat at least.

Everyone except, perhaps, Captain Marvel.

Maybe that’s not fair to say. Captain’s a friendly enough guy- nobody’s ever had a bad conversation with him that Danny knows of- but he’s weirdly flaky. The longest he’s stuck around post-mission is probably about five minutes tops, and no one actually knows anything about the man; the League have a habit of hanging around after missions for drinks and talk, and the Captain’s been offered a place with them several times and not taken it once. In all fairness, neither has Danny, but he has an excuse. They think he’s about several thousand years older than he actually is and also a full ghost, so they’d probably expect him to drink and he doesn’t want to have to go through the awkward process of refusing and nor does he want Jazz to go ape on him for giving into peer pressure.

…That’s another thing; Captain Marvel is allegedly several-thousand years old, but when Danny looks at him there’s a strange sense of camaraderie that makes him think maybe they’re both liars.

The longer he’s spent thinking about it, the more sense it makes. Their behaviours probably have a lot in common from an outside perspective: coming across awkward around the other members of the team, passing on every event outside of work, sharing very little about their personal lives least of all a civilian identity- which neither of them are even suspected to have. After all, Phantom’s a ghost, and Captain Marvel’s the champion of magic, it seems reasonable to assume their have some other plane of existence they return to when they’re not in the Watchtower. But Danny just goes back home to Illinois and tells his parents he was at Tucker’s again, and he really doesn’t believe that the Captain just sets up shop by the ‘Rock of Eternity’ or whatever he’d mentioned it was called.

He doesn’t know how to bring it up, though, because what if he’s wrong? There’s a non-zero chance that he’s just projecting his own issues on the man (and that sounds so much like something Jazz would say that it physically hurts), and if Danny tries to confront the man about a lie that isn’t there, then the Captain will know he’s lying, and he’ll totally get booted off the team or placed with Young Justice. There’s nothing wrong with YJ, but it’d just hurt to have worked side-by-side with them proving his reliability for so long only to get pushed away because of his age.

So he doesn’t say anything, figuring there’s not much choice other than to wait for some kind of confirmation. Until, of course, the opportunity for confrontation arrives in the aftermath of one mandatory League check-point meeting.

Check-point meeting with the Justice League are really just contractually obligated gossip sessions regarding their recent heroic endeavours that quickly descends into normal conversations. Contrary to the usual progression of these meetings, however, Green Lantern is prodding at Captain Marvel to tell him about what it was like visiting ancient civilisations before they fell.

It’s one of those weeks where the other members are being a bit more insistent on finding out more about the Captain. They’ve made their peace with the fact that they’re not going to get much in terms of a civilian life out of him, but every single member of the League (with the exception of maybe Martian Manhunter) is invariably nosy, which obviously leads to their more mysterious members coming under scrutiny every now and again. This also includes Danny on occasion, but Phantom has a brilliant out for interrogations in the form of making people uncomfortable about the fact that, even if he’s an ancient entity, he clearly died young. All he has to do is pull out some wistful bullshit about wishing he’d lived long enough to experience mortal romance or something equally upsetting and he’s home-safe.

The man across from him, however, taking the form of a very much full-grown adult, has no such excuse.

“Come on, Captain, surely you can tell us something! I thought you were around for ancient Egypt?” Hal exclaims, leaning just slightly over the meeting table to scrutinise his colleague. The Captain is looking increasingly uncomfortable.

“Of course I was!” Marvel agrees quickly, accompanied by a nod of the head that could almost be described as frantic. “Ancient Egypt was around for ages, probably couldn’t’ve missed all that if I tried! I wasn’t around for all that much of it though, I- uh, I caught the tail end of it- when Cleopatra was pharaoh, if I remember right- but I was… I was a little busy somewhere else during that, uh, era.”

Green Lantern raises an eyebrow behind the green domino mask. “Busy? Busy doing what?”

“Well-“

The Captain is making a very particular face, the kind that Danny imagines he himself makes when he’s scrambling for any reasonable excuse to get out of the hole he’s dug himself into by lying. And Danny looks at him from across the table, the man catching his eyes with a look he can only describe as odd and desperate, and he makes a decision.

“That was around the time all those conferences were being held to sort out the mess between the newly-formed undead societies and the natural ghosts, right? There was some involvement with living mages, if I recall correctly; I’m sure I saw you at one of those.”

In terms of lies he could’ve told, he figures this one is pretty low-risk. There were a lot of diplomatic meetings held between natural ghosts and the ones existing post-mortem when proper civilisations first came about and people from them started dying, after all (though he knows for fact the living weren’t involved in any way), so it’s not like he’s pulling it out of his ass. If he’s wrong about the Captain and the man admits he doesn’t have a clue what Danny’s talking about, then he can just say it must have been a realms-exclusive thing- hard to remember the finer details when it was all so long ago- and they’ll be none the wiser.

But if he’s right, and he’s really beginning to think he is, then-

Sure enough, the man across from him nods vigorously, clicking his fingers together as if his memory’s just been jogged. “Right!” He chirps, sending Danny a brazen smile. “I don’t know how I forgot about those! Man, those conferences dragged on, didn’t they?”

Bingo.

“Don’t even worry about it- I honestly would’ve thought the first ones were around the revolution at the end of the Qin dynasty in China if you hadn’t reminded me- my memory was way off. Speaking of that though, have you spoken to Pandora since? I figured you two would get along pretty well, but I know there wasn’t much time for small talk and dimension hopping wasn’t half as easy as it is now.”

Captain Marvel shakes his head with pursed lips. “Can’t say I have; not a lot of free time between everything, like you said. Would love to be introduced properly though!”

“Well, I did say I would- couple thousand years later than I thought it’d be, but better late than never.”

The tension easing from Marvel’s shoulders is probably obvious to everyone in the room. Superman looks to the both of them curiously. “You never mentioned knowing each other?” The Kryptonian questions. Phantom laughs the way he sees his mom do during those weird adult get-togethers.

“Oh, we’ve crossed paths a lot,” He declares with a wave of his hand, brushing the notion to the side, catching the gaze of the Captain in his peripheral even as he keeps his eyes on the other superhero. “Can’t say we had the opportunity to get to know each other properly between it all, though. Relations between the magic living and the restless dead have always been a little… fraught. I was just planning to keep things professional on my end unless the Captain wanted to seek a friendship outside of work since I wasn’t sure how appreciated it would be, especially given how much fuss ghosts have been giving the mortal plane recently.”

Marvel’s laugh mimics his own. “That’s what I was thinking! I guess no amount of time can time will change how weird it can be trying to made work friends.”

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), Captain Marvel is waiting outside the hall for him when the meeting is adjourned and each member of the League goes their separate ways. Wordlessly, Danny follows him deeper into the Watchtower, floating behind before phasing them both into one of the locked rooms everyone knows there’s no cameras in, for the sake of being allowed confidential discussions in at least one area of the place- when approved, of course, but these walls don’t hold Phantom just yet, given that the ghost-proofing paint doesn’t quite stick over the lead-lining.

“So.” Danny starts, when they’re both inside the office and the silence begins to creep thick into the air.

Captain Marvel looks nervous. “So.”

“You weren’t at those conferences.”

“No, I wasn’t.” It seems almost painful for him to admit, hands flicking slightly like he wants to fidget with them but doesn’t want to be caught doing it. “I’m grateful you, uh, that you said I was there- thank you, Phantom- but why’d you cover for me?”

For the first time today, and maybe even the first time in the Watchtower, Danny levers himself down from the air, putting both feet on the ground. He hopes beyond hoping his face comes across sincere. “Because I wasn’t there either.” He admits gently, watching for a response.

“I- what?” The man doesn’t appear to know what he’s meant to say. Well, time to rip the bandaid off.

“Captain, you’ve not been around for six thousand, have you? I’m willing to bet you haven’t even been around for 18.” The reaction is immediate. Marvel’s eyes widen, pupils shrinking with alarm, arms coming up as if in defence as he splutters some kind of excuse, and Danny interrupts before he can spiral too hard. “Dude, don’t worry. I seriously won’t tell anyone if you are- I’m not a snitch.”

The Captain’s expression looks utterly lost. “Why?”

Danny thinks it’s probably best to just bite the bullet here. He stands still as the transformation washes over him, bright silver-blue rings parsing over his form, exchanging gravity-defying white hair for scraggly black, hazmat for jeans and a sweater, and Lazarus-green eyes for a gentler blue. When the light finally dissipates, he gives the Captain a second just to process, before sending him a wry grin.

“Hi, Captain Marvel, I’m Phantom- otherwise known as Danny Fenton- Ambassador for the Infinite Realms and sixteen year-old half-human-half-ghost boy.”

The other hero stands still for a long, long moment, mute with shock, before muttering a quiet ‘Shazam’ and allowing the room to fill with the sudden crackle of a lightning bolt. Where the hulking form of Captain Marvel once stood, a boy is left in his place- eyes and hair the same, if a little less put together- but only just coming up to Danny’s shoulder, wearing clothes that have clearly seen a few years go by. If Danny had to guess, he looks about eleven or twelve

“Hi, Phantom,” He says, a little quieter but with more confidence than he’d had before, staring him resolutely in the eyes. “I’m Captain Marvel- also Billy Batson- champion of magic and twelve year-old and world’s mightiest mortal.”

Danny cannot resist reaching over to ruffle the kid’s hair. “Amazing to meet you,” He beams. “And if anyone asks, we’ve known each other since the Early Dynastic period of Egypt and are in no way human or related to any living humans. You good with that?”

Billy looks up at him with a gap in his teeth and mischief in his eyes.

“Phantom, I am more than okay with that.”

#dp/dc week 2022 #Billy asks afterwards what all the historical evidence of Danny is about and Danny explains his time travel shenanigans #And invites Captain Marvel to join in on a few too just to really buff up their alibi #Billy discovers the joy of vandalism in Ancient Rome #Fun fact: I have no idea what happens in this fic because I finished it 1 minute ago and I'm too tired to read it over #If there's any mistakes we can all just ignore them and that's cool and fine!!#Title is from Let's Get This over With by They Might Be Giants because I was struggling for a name and it's just what I had on #dpxdc #dp au #danny phantom au #Bongo's Writing!!!

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