Superman's Confrontation

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/52327336.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandoms: Danny Phantom, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Relationship: Danny Fenton & Clark Kent
Characters: Danny Fenton, Clark Kent
Additional Tags: Danny Fenton is a Justice League Member (DCU), Adult Danny Fenton,
forever young phantom, Protective Danny Fenton, Oblivious Danny
Fenton, for the first half, POV Clark Kent, Every learned detail of
phantom's life is a cause for concern
Language: English
Series: Part 5 of Phantom Clones
Stats: Published: 2023-12-17 Words: 1,959 Chapters: 1/1
 Superman's Confrontation
by Vett2270

Summary

Phantom and Superman have a discussion on clones.

Notes
See the end of the work for notes
Clark readjusts his glasses, looking around the fast-food restaurant. He’s skeptical to eat at a
place called Nasty Burger, but if this conversation is anything like the one with Bruce, he
doubts he’ll be having anything anyway.

Despite the growing discomfort for the upcoming talk, Clark still finds himself strangely
excited to be in Amity Park for the first time. Phantom’s warning of overshadowing has
scared off a good amount of the curious league members from visiting, but the ghost hero
assured him that it’s unlikely that for a regular reporter to be at any real risk of being
controlled.

He already has a cover story mentally prepared to explain why his civilian self would be
meeting with Phantom, but when the hero enters the restaurant, no one actually pays him any
mind. The ghost spots Clark right away and heads toward him with a beaming smile.

“Hey there,” he greets, “thanks for agreeing to meet.”

“Hi,” Clark responds, a bit bewildered by the ghost’s upbeat tone. “You wanted to talk,” he
states more than asks, hoping to just get this over with.

“Yup,” the hero chirps, “I’m gonna go order first. Do you want anything?”

He shakes his head no, and the ghost floats over to the register. Clark likes the ghost hero,
and he hopes the good mood will last, but his argument with Bruce keeps replaying in his
mind. He doesn’t want to get into anymore fights with his coworkers.

Phantom slides in the booth bench across from him. The ghost leaguer is actually sitting,
rather than his usual hover over the chair, and Clark can’t help but notice how small the hero
looks like this. His heart clenches, not for the first time, at the thought of a kid dying so
young. Contrary to his cheery greeting, Phantom is now uncharacteristically quiet, simply
frowning at the table in thought and tapping his fingers.

Clark would have been fine in keeping the silence if his colleague didn’t keep opening his
mouth to start talking and abruptly closing it. By the time Phantom’s meal is brought to the
table, the reporter makes the first move.

“So,” he begins uncertainly, “Where’s the…um, boys?,” he trails off with a wince, trying his
best to avoid the c-word.

The ghost’s expression softens at the question, the nervous tension in his frame dissolving in
relief. “They’re safe, don’t worry. Their aunt took them out to Paris, I think,” he chuckles a
bit, “I’m not completely sure, she just kind of took them and ran.”

“I see…” Clark had heard rumors about Phantom having sisters, but it’s strange to have that
detail confirmed. Still, the fact that he doesn’t even know where they went is a bit worrisome.

“I think she’s just excited to have someone to drag with her on her travels,” Phantom
continues with a small smile. “It’s good for the kids to explore too, to see the world apart
from missions and fighting.”
“Isn’t that dangerous though?,” Clark asks, “leaving them unsupervised like that?”

Clark is no Batman when it comes to paranoia, but even he thinks Phantom is being too lax in
acknowledging the security risk the clones pose.

A confused expression forms on Phantom’s face. “Their aunt is with them?”

“Is she as strong as you?,” Superman stresses. If she shares his powers, then maybe Phantom
did put some thought into their supervisor after all.

Phantom begins eating his fries and shrugs, “I mean, physically no, I’d probably win in terms
of strength, but she can handle herself,” Phantom answers with amusement dancing in his
bright green eyes. “You don’t have to worry about the danger, Supes, between her and
Conner, they can take on just about anything.”

Superman sighs at his coworker’s lack of understanding.

“Did something happen yesterday?,” Phantom asks, “Conner was really upset when he got
back from Metropolis, but I can’t figure out what went wrong.”

Conner? Is that the boy’s name? Clark shrugs, not able to find anything particularly upsetting
that could have set off the clone. That sensitive temperament of his may be a cause for
concern though.

Phantom, however, seems genuinely distressed for the clone, one that is not even his
responsibility at that.

“I don’t get it,” Superman confesses. “How are you so calm? Doesn’t this whole situation
bother you?”

The Kryptonian has yet to completely relax since the clones’ discovery, and he doesn’t
understand why the rest of the leaguers are just brushing it aside. Bruce, in all of his self-
sacrificing glory, can’t seem to understand why he can’t just adopt the boy, to ignore the pain
and frustration each time he sees the clone. Worst of all, the one person who would
understand what he is going through right now is acting the least concerned of all. “Don’t you
feel violated?,” he chokes out, “knowing that your DNA was stolen from you, used for who
knows what?”

He can feel his voice rising, and notices a couple tables glancing their way, but Clark can’t
find it in himself to care at this moment. He wants to understand why he’s the only one
feeling this way. He hates that he wishes his friend to go through the same turmoil that he is
feeling, but the fact that Phantom can find so much joy out of the situation bothers him more.

Phantom searches his face with piercing eyes, causing the Kryptonian to repress a shiver of
unease. Thankfully, the gaze moves down to the fry between his gloved fingers.

For a moment, Clark isn’t sure Phantom is going to answer, just going to sit there twirling the
fry until the conversation fades, but he does.
“You know, the first time I was cloned, I was fourteen,” Phantom says in an impassive voice,
shocking a noise of surprise out of Clark. Unbothered by the reporter’s reaction, he continues,
“my godfather had this delusion that if he couldn’t have me as his perfect son, he could just
make one himself.”

A small smirk twitches at the end of Phantom’s mouth as he glances back up at Superman.
“A bit ironic that the only survivor was a girl, huh?,” he asks wryly.

Clark isn’t sure how he is meant to respond, but the ghost just eats the fry and glances at the
street view from the window before he starts again. “To this day, I still have no clue where he
got my DNA samples. I was so paranoid about leaving my ectoplasm at fights after that,” he
admits with a humorless laugh.

“For a little while, I was scared of eating out too. I’d take home any of my used straws to
burn,” He turns back to the table and pointedly drinks at his soda, as if the admission of that
concern is not something that Superman had not even considered and needs to keep in mind.

He is cut off from his mental planning by Phantom stating, “‘course, then I realized the
fruitloop had free access to my house, so all those public precautions didn’t mean much.”

The teen’s face is distant and blank as he stares at the soft drink.

“Phantom?,” Clark asks in concern.

The ghost blinks back to the present, rubbing the back of his neck. “So anyways, to answer
your question, yes, I do feel violated. This whole experience is actually bringing up some
pretty bad memories, y’know?”

He did not know. Clark didn’t even know about this being the ghost’s second experience with
cloning. Who in the world clones a 14 year old dead kid? Was he even dead at the time? He
can’t decide which way’s worse.

“I’m sorry,” Superman apologizes, “I didn’t realize. You just seem so happy and I thought…”

“Wanna know something, Clark?”

Superman straightens in his seat. Phantom never uses his real name, despite knowing his
civilian ID for a while now.

“When they told me I was cloned again,” he begins despite Clark’s lack of answer, “I was
terrified.”

Clark doesn’t remember that. Then again, he was a bit busy with his own internal panic to
really pay attention to Phantom’s reaction. From what he has seen though and heard though,
Phantom took to the baby immediately.

“I was so careful—I tried so hard specifically to avoid this type of situation. Even if I failed
with Vla—my godfather, I knew there were other wackos out there who would try something
similar.” Phantom fidgets with the hem of his glove, avoiding Clark’s gaze. “I’ll be honest, I
probably got a bit too relaxed over the years, must have let my guard down enough for
someone to steal some samples, but even if they got some DNA,” he looks up and whispers
in a frantic tone, “I never thought they would succeed.”

“I mean, apparently I’m surprisingly difficult to clone. The only reason my godfather got as
far as he did was because he studied ghosts so much,” Phantom wrinkles his nose at some
unseen memory, “so when they told me I had a clone, a new one, I didn’t know what to
think.”

“And then I saw him,” Phantom says quietly, his eyes softening, “and I knew I couldn’t just
leave him.”

Clark shifts uncomfortably, and the ghost is quick to notice.

“Calm down Supes, I understand why you ran,” Phantom says, slightly loosening the knot of
dread in his chest. “When I first met my little sister, I was a bit too busy fighting for my life
to really process the whole clone fact. Afterwards, she just left,” the ghost makes a small
gesture to the sky and says, “flew off into the sunset to travel the world.”

Superman is not too sure what to address there. He realizes Phantom would have just been a
kid at the time, an actual kid, but even so, letting an unknown wander off who knows where
sounds like a terrible idea.

“She was only twelve at the time,” the ghost continues, and then lets out a sharp bark of bitter
laughter, “not even that, chronologically, she was only a few months old when she decided to
go off on her own, and I did nothing to stop her.”

The teen glares at his meal. “Didn’t offer any alternatives or options—hell, I didn’t even give
her the stranger danger talk. I used the excuse that it was her choice to leave, but in reality, I
was just scared. Scared of taking her in, of the responsibility, of the consequences.”

The ghost makes eye contact with Superman as he says, “I may not have directly rejected her,
but I left her alone all the same.”

“Then at the Cadmus labs, they handed me the baby, and I just—I knew I couldn’t leave him
on his own. I couldn’t do that again.”

Clark sits in stunned silence as Phantom gets up, not even bothering to float, and clasps him
on the shoulder.

“I’ll take care of Conner for as long as he needs,” the ghost says, “but you need to make it
clear whether you want to be part of his life or not. I won’t tell you what choice to make, just
don’t take your resentment out on the kid.”

He picks up his drink, taking off the lid to chug the rest. The hero takes his empty—when did
he even finish the food?— tray and walks away muttering about “stupid billionaire fruitloops”
under his breath.

The conversation has given the man a lot to consider, but the reporter in Clark keeps nagging
at him. Why is a ghost eating food in the first place? Where is the first clone now?
And most importantly, if cloning technology already existed when he was 14, then how old is
Phantom?
End Notes

Danny: He must really care about their safety

Clark: You just let them go? No countermeasures? Back-up plans?
Danny, laughing: Such a helicopter parent

Ellie is working hard on earning the title of 'favorite aunt'

Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!