Avoiding Past And Future

(93) Intermediate

November 14, morning

Surprisingly enough, the therapy sessions with Canary were starting to work. At least a little bit. There were still bad attempts at getting info about the boys, and their dynamics, but she pivoted to actual help as well. Enough that Phantom and Robin each agreed to give a solo session a shot, just to see what she'd try to do.

Even more surprisingly, she didn't try anything funny. On the contrary, she actually suggested just hanging out with the team without Robin. Though it did sound stupid at first, she did have a point. Always having his brother around to bounce off of and cling together was doing nothing for the team dynamic.

They were still their own person and always being together to defend another wasn't as helpful as it was at first.

Clearly they were trying, if the party and yesterday's impromptu gift research for Boxy wasn't proof enough of that. It would only be fair if they put in the same effort. When he left the room with an oddly determined look on his face, Robin declined the tradeoff of their emotional support pup. Whatever his brother was up to, the "therapy homework" he mentioned, Robin had a feeling Cujo would be more needed there. Plus it's not like he couldn't face Canary alone, he'd known her for years before any of the current issues arose.

Unfortunately for him, Phantom declined the refusal and handed over Cujo anyway. Before Robin could even object, he'd already been pushed inside with a door aimed for his face. Whatever it was, he wanted to do so alone.

So off Phantom went, pup in safe hands for the time being. It was probably for the best too, not having Cujo with him. His mission required delicate operation, not a pup with a temper of Mount Vesuvius at play. Even more so considering what his plan was. Out of everybody, Aqualad seemed to be the best option to attempt one on one time with. Well, out of those he didn't already know were on the friendlier side. Which also weren't that many but it were at least a few less to worry about.

Anyway, that led to his current predicament. Alone with Aqualad in the hangar, supervised by Bioship, they stood at an awkward distance. Phantom had asked to explain how his water manipulation worked. The idea was that there might be a chance they could translate whatever the water bearers conducted into ecto manipulation.

If Phantom were to go on more missions, it might be handy to be able to make more than just basic shiels, blasts and rays. Of course, as luck would have it, any time he tried, it was unstable as hell. If he even managed to make anything, it more often than not exploded in his face the moment he tried to move even a hair.

The fact he could do whatever with ice but not ecto itself being what kickstarted this whole mission in the first place. Ice was already a solid, making a shape wasn't too hard to imagine. Ecto's different in that it has to go from a liquid state into a solid, and back to liquid should he not want to waste the energy put into making it like he usually did when dissipating his shields.

If only he could get it to stop either taking him out with it or just dipping from existence.

Kaldur tried, oh how he did his best, but with Phantom shimming away any time he tried to step closer to demonstrate better, he could only hold back a sigh. With every failed attempt, Phantom's frustrations grew, only leading to more frustrations as it messed with his ability to focus. And with every failed attempt, Aqualad accidentally inched forward. It wasn't even on purpose, just the instinct to reach out and then stop when Phantom pulled back.

Except this time, Phantom didn't pull back on time. Trying to help contain this round's destruction, Aqualad reached out, water flowing over his skin to create a barrier. A barrier that seemed to carry a bit more of a charge than Phantom could handle from even a singular brush of their hands.