A Phantom's Way

Chapter Six: The Pain

Danny groaned and slowly opened his eyes, his body stiffened and tensed up at the sight of the lab-like room, ignoring the screaming pain that shot through his body from that one small action.

"Careful, your body should be incredibly sore after the surgery and what you put that wound through before the operation.", Batman's voice filled Danny's ears, causing him to jump in surprise before slowly allowing his body to relax.

He turned to see Batman, Superman, and Aquaman standing there.

"Oh, hey guys.", Danny greeted, voice raspy from having just woken up, "How's everyone?"

Batman's eyes narrowed, but he answered anyway, "Everyone's fine. You're the only one that came out injured. Mind explaining?"

Danny sighed leaning back tiredly in the medical bed, because he could be nowhere else but at Atlantis's medical area.

"You saw.", was the only thing he said.

"You collapsed the moment everything was over, your suit sticky with some sort of green fluid.", Aquaman explained, "We had to check you over to make sure it wasn't life threatening, of course we saw, everyone did."

"The other three are talking everything over with the Queen, taking care of some last loose ends.", Batman informed, "They should be here shortly. I suggest you start talking then."

Batman glared as if to tell him he would tell them, making Danny grimace at the thought.

He knew there is no way out of this talk.

As promised, it wasn't long before Diana, John, and J'onn entered the room. The two males wore unreadable expressions, but Diana's was clear with worry. The Amazonian princess sighed in relief at the sight of Danny up and awake. Still looking shaky, but he was okay.

Danny knew it was time for him to talk the moment everyone was settled and staring at him expectingly.

Sighing once again, Danny tiredly ran his fingers through his hair, not sure where to start. Superman saw this and decided to help him along.

"How long?", Superman spoke up.

"Huh?", Danny asked, head snapping up towards the Kryptonian in confusion.

"How long during the mission where you hurt?", Superman asked.

Danny wouldn't meet the other's eyes, not answering right away.

"...The entire time.", he finally answered.

"What happened?", breathed out Wonder Woman.

Danny wasn't quite sure he really wanted to answer that, his hand trailing to his chest, fingering the zipper, then finally giving it a good tug. Revealing the newly wrapped bandages that were already lightly stained from the little movement he did.

The stains formed the shape of a Y.

He looked up to the league, grimacing at their multitude of expressions. Most of them horror, despite having seen the grotesque wound before, Aquaman looked angry, like he wanted to smash something, or throw someone, angry, and Batman was hard to read, but Danny can only guess from his narrowed eyes and tense posture that it was a mix of the two emotions.

"Despite the facts and/or opinions of the world, I'm not very liked by my town. In fact, they hate me enough to call me a menace, a villain.", Danny explained, "And most of that is because the ghost hunters, besides Red Huntress, that resides there all say that Ghosts are all evil and feel nothing, no pain, no emotions.

Two of the residents got a lucky hit while I was distracted, just finished up stopping a robbery and making sure the criminals were secure for pick up. They caught me and they took me to their lab. And that's when they... um..."