Meeting the Team

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/50984548.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandoms: Danny Phantom, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Characters: Kon-El | Conner Kent, Robin (DCU), Dick Grayson, M'gann M'orzz,
Aqualad (DCU), Wally West, Kid Flash, Kaldur'ahm
Additional Tags: POV Dick Grayson, Cannon Divergence, AU where Conner is taken in
by Phantom at the beginning of the show, main focus on the teens,
conner casually dropping information bombs, he learned from the best
Language: English
Series: Part 3 of Phantom Clones
Stats: Published: 2023-10-20 Words: 2,352 Chapters: 1/1
 Meeting the Team
by Vett2270

Summary

The creation and introduction of the Young Justice team, where Cannon changes after Conner
lives with Phantom after being found in Cadmus labs.

Notes
See the end of the work for notes
Robin glances around the cave, watching as Green Lantern moves around old equipment with
his ring. He’s read about this base and its history, but this is the first time actually being
inside. He admits, it’s a bit strange to see this place fixed back up to its prime considering
how many years its been used for storage. Robin figures this spring cleaning and impromptu
visit has something to do with the ‘secret project’ Batman has been working on the past
couple of days.

Hopefully Wally gets here soon (knowing the speedsters, probably not). Technically, Robin
was never told that his friend was arriving, but considering Batman’s little field trip and
Wally’s message of Flash wanting to take him to a surprise place today, the answer is pretty
obvious.

Dick sighs after inspecting the room for the 30th time, this cave is so unfun with no one else
around. Yea, Bruce is here, but the guy’s not exactly quality entertainment, he’d be better off
staring at the rock walls than trying to joke around with B when he gets in “Batman Mode.”

His string of sighs and self-pity are cut off when the zeta tube announces the arrival of
Aquaman and Aqualad. Not who he was waiting for, but he’s glad that at least someone his
age finally showed up.

He glides over to Aqualad with an easy smile, but throughout their talk, Dick can’t help but
question why all the teen heroes and mentors are gathering. This is definitely related to the
stunt they pulled the other day, but whether this is a punishment or acknowledgment is yet to
be seen.

As the two teens chat, Robin catalogs the arrival of other adult leaguers. Red Tornado.
Shazam. Black Canary.

To his surprise, the zeta eventually announces the arrival of Phantom and two guests.
Thinking back to Phantom’s involvement in the Cadmus event though, perhaps it shouldn’t
be that much of a shock.

Phantom flies out of the tube with a shudder and says, “still can’t stand those things.” The
baby from the lab slaps Phantom’s arms with shrieks of laughter. Robin’s attention, however,
is immediately caught on the taller teen following the ghost hero.

He’s glad to see the other boy is doing alright, especially with how bummed out he was after
his talk with Superman. Dick isn’t sure how a ghost would be able to provide for two whole
kids, but both seem healthy enough, so there has to be some kind of system in place.

As the group of three move closer, Dick chokes back a laugh of surprise at the teen’s
wardrobe change. “Nice shirt,” he says genuinely, looking at the matching symbol between
the three of them.

The super glances at the design, but apart from a faint blush, the boy’s face remains stoic as
he stares down Robin and says, “thanks.”
Aqualad steps forward with a greeting as well, but Robin focuses on the shadow moving
directly to Phantom’s blind spot. He rolls his eyes behind his shades, when the shadow
rumbles out, “Phantom,” causing the ghost to squeak and fly to the ceiling of the cave.

Dick swears Batman enjoys scaring his co-workers more than actual criminals.

When the ghost realizes it’s just Batman, he floats down with an embarrassed chuckle.
“Didn’t see you there.”

Batman stares in silence until the other hero begins fidgeting. “Come with me,” he orders,
then swooshes away.

“Be right there,” Phantom calls out with a strained laugh and quickly turns back to the teen
super. “If I double die, make sure Neil knows about my noble sacrifice,” he says, pushing the
baby into the teen’s arms and flying after Batman.

The teen glares at the fleeing ghost and looks down to tell the baby, “your dad has always
been and will forever remain, a wimp.”

Dick snorts at the unexpected joke, the humor is a definite change to the angry shouts from
the last time he saw the boy. He notices Aqualad’s lip twitching up as well.

“Neil?,” Robin questions with a disarming smile, he heard Phantom slip the name, but hopes
he can actually get information from the boy.

Thankfully, the teen is feeling generous enough to share. Well, as generous as a curt, “Neil,”
while holding up the baby can get.

“Cool,” he says casually, as if this isn’t groundbreaking information to the Phantom identity
conspiracies he has seen in Bruce’s files.

“I see you and Phantom get along well,” Aqualad voices in courteously. “It is nice to know
you and Neil are acclimating to the outside world.”

The other boy shrugs, but does not verbally respond.

Before the silence can fall from awkward to painful, the zeta tube finally announces the
arrival of Flash and Kid Flash, and Robin has to stop himself from slumping in relief. Don’t
get him wrong, Aqualad and the super are cool and all, but there’s only so much conversing
Dick can do when his company is either overly formal or just silent.

A gust of wind flies by and ends with an arm around his shoulder. “Rob! What are you doing
here?”

Robin sighs in disappointment. Sure, he didn’t tell the other boy his suspicions about this
joint field trip or that fact that he was also brought to a ‘surprise place’, but his friend really
needs to boost his detective skills. “What do you think?,” he half-jokes.

Before Wally can quip back, he looks at the surrounding company and zips over to the teen
super and Neil. “Hey, Superboy, good to see you,” he says and raises his pitch to greet the
baby, “and you too. Remember me? I’m the one who was holding you when we were running
away.”

The baby, who’s fist was in his mouth, slaps Wally and gives him a gummy smile.

“Thanks.”

Wally looks back up at the super, wiping his face, but does a double take at the boy’s t-shirt
and whistles. “So not Superboy, then?,” he asks, then frowns in concentration, “Phantom-
boy?”

‘Phantom-boy’ glares at Wally and compacts an impressive amount of disdain in his

responding “no.”

Wally hums with a hand on his chin, squinting at the taller boy, “Ghost-boy?,” then, with a
sudden gasp and a look of revelation he says, “Kid Phantom.”

The super, who seems to have run out of patience, stomps away without a word, determinedly
ignoring Wally’s shout of “we’ll workshop it!”

“This cave was the original secret sanctuary of the Justice League,” Batman announces when
all the teen heroes and mentors join together. “We’re calling it into service again, since you
four,” he says pointedly to Robin and the three teens at his side, “are determined to stay
together and fight the good fight, you’ll do it on league terms.

“Red Tornado volunteered to live here and be your supervisor. Black Canary’s in charge of
your hand-to-hand combat, and Phantom will oversee your power training. I will deploy you
on missions.”

Dick can admit the idea of them having their own base is awesome, but the amount of adults
monitoring them makes him question how much freedom they actually have. “Real
missions?,” Robin asks challengingly.

“Yes, but covert,” Batman responds.

“The league will still handle the obvious stuff,” Flash pipes in, “There’s a reason we have
these big targets on our chests.”

“But Cadmus proves the bad guys are getting smarter,” Aquaman says, “Batman needs a
team that can operate on the sly.”

“The five of you will be that team,” Batman declares.

Kid Flash beams, “Cool!,” but falters momentarily, “wait. five?”

Robin sincerely hopes they are not including the baby, and judging by the way the teen
super’s grip on Neil tightens, he’s thinking the same.
Before a fight could break out between Batman and the teen (one that Robin would have
happily sat out), two sets of footsteps sound out behind them.

He turns around to see Martian Manhunter walking towards the group, closely followed by a
green-skinned girl with red hair.

Behind him, Batman explains, “this is Martian Manhunter’s niece, Miss Martian.”

The girl, Miss Martian, gives the group a wave and a friendly, “Hi.”

Dick smiles and waves back, rolling his eyes at Wally’s muttered “liking this gig more every
minute.”

His friend takes a confident step forward. “Welcome aboard. I’m Kid Flash. That’s Robin,
Aqualad,” he introduces, but then comments, “it’s cool if you forget their names.”

Dick retracts his earlier statement, maybe Aqualad and the other boy weren’t such bad
company after all.

“I’m honored to be included,” Miss Martian says, prompting him and Aqualad to step closer.

As Aqualad and Miss Martian exchange greetings, however, Robin notices the last boy never
moved forward. He turns to call him over, but realizes he still doesn’t have a code name. He
absolutely refuses to use one of Kid Flash’s suggestions and decides to just shout, “Hey!,”
hoping to grab his attention. Thankfully, it does. “Come meet Miss M.”

The boy hands Neil back to Phantom and steps over to their group. He is approached by Miss
Martian who shifts her white and red outfit to black and white.

“I like your t-shirt,” she says as an explanation.

Robin makes a note of the strange clothes, but puts away his question to instead smirk and
elbow the taller teen. Kid Flash zooms over to put an arm over the boy’s shoulder, and Dick
can feel his grin grow wider at the thought of Wally being jealous of a 5-day old.

“Today is the day,” Aqualad states, and Robin can’t help but feel excited for the future of this
team.

This team is going nowhere. Dick tries to be optimistic, but as the teens are sent off to tour
the mountain after almost two weeks of zero action, he can see the truth in Speedy’s claims:
this team is just a club to keep them busy.

At least Miss Martian seems happy, and Wally, by extension. Dick feels a bit bad for her, it
must be boring to live in this cave all on her own. He doesn’t hesitate to share the history of
the mountain and its past use, but the tour comes to a close when the super teen announces
something burning and Miss Martian flies away.

The four boys follow her to the kitchen in time to see her telekinetically place a tray of burnt
circles on the counter.
“I was trying out Grammy Jones’ recipe from episode 17 of—heh, never mind,” she says
shyly.

Dick looks at the sad, charred lumps on the tray, then plasters on a smile “I bet they’d have
tasted great.”

He hears a disturbingly loud crunch and has to stop himself from gagging when he sees
Wally actually eating the charcoal.

Wally must have noticed the eyes on him though, because he looks around and weakly
explains, “I have a serious metabolism.”

“Dude,” Dick whispers in disbelief.

“I’ll make more?,” Miss Martian says, uncertainly.

The super, who has remained pretty uninterested throughout the tour, looks at the tray and
snorts. Rude, Dick thinks, sure they look terrible, but there’s no need to be a jerk about it.

“It was sweet of you to make any,” Aqualad interjects, with a hint of irritation bleeding into
his words as he sends a sharp look to the super.

The boy frowns at Aqualad then glances back at the counter with a shrug. “It could be worse.
You should see Danny’s cooking attempts,” the boy picks up a cookie and takes a bite with a
carefully blank expression, “he tried to make cookies once, and they bit him.”

The other teens all share bewildered looks. Not really knowing which part of that sentence to
focus on, Robin asks, “Who bit him?”

“The cookies.”

He nods with a forced smile, “right. Silly me.”

“Who’s Danny?,” Aqualad asks, Dick and quickly realizes that probably should have been
his first priority.

The boy frowns at them, “Phantom?”

Robin freezes, and he notices Kid Flash and Aqualad doing the same. This is…big, this is
information that their mentors have been arguing about for years and the boy in front of them
just shares it like it’s nothing.

Miss Martian, probably not realizing the severity of the boy’s confession, perks up in
excitement, “I did not realize Phantom had a real name.”

Robin was prepared for the boy to realize his slip up, to deny it ever happened. He was not
ready for the boy to look confused and say, “It’s not like it’s a secret. He debuted by calling
himself ‘Danny Phantom’,” the boy then looks up at Robin, “Batman probably knows, it was
in the papers and everything, apparently.”
Robin, who has seen said man work himself to the brink of exhaustion trying to retrieve any
information on Phantom that has not already been scrubbed or blocked, is 110% the Batman
does not in fact know Phantom’s first name. The infamous “Amity Park” that Phantom refers
to as his home base is practically a dead zone (pun intended).

“I see,” Miss Martian nods. “My identity is no secret either. It’s M’gann M’orzz, but you can
call me Megan. It’s an Earth name, and I’m on Earth now,” she rambles on.

Aqualad is the first one to regain his composure, “Call me Kaldur’ahm,” he says, but
continues, “actually, my friends call me Kaldur.”

Kid Flash shakes off his shock by eating another cookie, “I’m Wally,” he says very clearly to
only Miss Martian, “see? I already trust you with my secret I.D., unlike mr. Dark glasses
right there. Batman’s forbidden boy wonder from telling anyone his real name.”

Dick scowls, it’s not his fault Bruce is so paranoid.

“Conner.”

All four look at the boy who is trying to hide the charred remains in his hands. The boy glares
at the sudden attention and repeats himself, “My name is Conner.”

Robin hears M’gann gasp from behind him, but his thoughts are preoccupied by the amount
of information he has learned within one afternoon, information that not even Batman has.

He smirks in triumph, how’s that for keeping busy?

End Notes

extra:
How did Conner know about Danny’s debut?--
Ellie, who lives to make her brother suffer: you wanna hear about Danny’s embarrassing start
as a hero?
Conner, who lives to make Danny suffer: Absolutely I do.

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