Danny Accidentally Appearing Out Of Duke's Shadow. And Doing It Purposely Every Time After That. ; Requested

Danny accidentally appearing out of Duke's shadow. And doing it purposely every time after that. ; requested by @kyrianclawraith! (deviated from your original prompt a bit, sorry! the ghostlights brainworms got away from me)

Traveling through shadows has become second nature for Duke after using them so extensively over the years. He even uses them as a civilian, hopping between shadows when he’s running late to class so he doesn’t have to stress out over traffic. 

Not even Batman’s scoldings can stop him from making it on time to his classes. Risks need to be taken for the sake of his education!

The shadows are comforting. They hide him from sight, get him to where he needs to go, and gives him the alone time he needs when he’s been around people for too long and desperately needs some quiet to recharge. Duke would say that he’s well versed in the shadows at this point, no longer stumbling out into the light.

Even with all his practice and confidence, he still can’t prepare himself for tripping over someone in the shadows while he’s trying to escape some of The Riddler’s goons. 

They both go tumbling out of the shadows, landing in a corner hidden by storage shelves. The poor tripping hazard of a person is under him, groaning lightly as he reaches up to press a hand to the back of his head, where he hit the concrete floor. 

“Oh, shit,” Duke whispers, “I’m so sorry. What are you doing here? How are you here?”

“I was hiding,” the guy hisses back at him. “I wanted to get out of the rain and dozed off and when I woke up, guns were being shot! I was up in the rafters, so excuse me for thinking no one would find me up there!”

Another gunshot rings out, alarmingly close to where they are.

Duke curses under his breath, then picks up the guy and hauls him over his shoulder. “Time to go!” And then he’s disappearing into the shadows again, following the line of them outside the warehouse and down the street. 

As soon as they’re safely away from the goons, Duke steps out of the shadows and carefully sets the civilian back onto his feet.

“So sorry about that,” he says, “But I need to get back and deal with them. Stay safe!”

He’s gone before the civilian can say anything else, and though it’s embarrassing that he tripped over someone while shadow hopping, at least it ended relatively well. It’s not like it’ll happen again.

Duke, sweet, naive Duke, doesn’t think much of the civilian again. He’s a busy guy with a busy life! Lots of things to do! Lots of embarrassing moments to keep secret from the other Bats! No one has mentioned it at all, so he thinks he’s safe from being teased about it.

That is, up until he’s training with Dick and a hand pops up out of his shadow.

“Um,” Dick says, backflipping away from Duke’s punch. He lowers his escrima sticks and squints at the space behind Duke. “Are you… trying something new with your powers?”

“...No? I’m not using my powers right now.”

Dick looks more and more alarmed. He won’t look away from the space behind Duke, and it’s making him nervous. He doesn't want to look, but he knows he has to. 

Steeling himself, Duke takes a deep breath, then turns slightly to see what’s behind him.

Nothing. 

His gaze goes down, and he sees a pale hand sticking out of his shadow, moving back and forth. It then comes out some more, up to the elbow, and the hand pats the ground Duke’s shadow lays on, a stiff mat perfect for sparring.

Behind him, Dick turns on his escrima sticks, the electricity crackling through the air.

The hand disappears for a moment. 

Then two hands appear and grab the ground, hauling up a body from Duke’s shadow.

Duke is very well versed in shadows. He travels through them almost daily. He thinks he would know if there was some strange netherworld hidden in the shadows where other beings could pop out of shadows like portals. This is alarming, to say the least.

“Don’t move, Duke,” Dick warns, creeping closer, ready to attack.

A head pops out of his shadow. Whatever it is glows and their white hair moves softly as if underwater. They’re facing away from him, so he can’t see their face, but he can see the black, skin-tight suit their wearing as they float up from his shadow, no longer needing their hands to pull themself out. 

“Huh,” they say, looking up at the ceiling.

Dick grabs Duke’s arm and pulls him back, shielding him with his body. “Who are you?” he demands, voice cold. 

The creature/person startles and whips around to stare at them with wide green eyes. His gaze darts down to the electrified escrima sticks, then back up again, visibly nervous.

“Um, hi! Sorry, I didn’t know anyone would be here. Wherever this is.”

“How did you get here?”

“I was practicing a new portalling method. I found a ghost to teach me how to move through shadows, since my usual portals are very bright and noticeable. Not great when you’re trying to be stealthy! I did not mean to end up here.”

Duke stares at him. “You came out of my shadow.”

“Sorry,” the guy repeats. Then he squints at Duke. “Hey, didn’t you save me the other day? From the warehouse?”

It’s been a while since Duke’s saved anyone from a warehouse. Criminals and goons have moved on to condemned apartment complexes and the back rooms of bars. The only person he’s saved is the tripping hazard…

“Man, what is up with you and getting caught in my shadows?”

“This is your fault!” the guy insists. “I associate shadows too strongly with you! That’s why I’m here! Probably. I don’t actually know how this works.”

“You don’t know how it works but you did it anyways.”

“It sounds bad when you say it like that.” The guy floats down to the ground and offers Duke a hand. “I’m Phantom, by the way! Figured I should introduce myself because this will happen again.”

Duke considers introducing himself as the Signal, but Danny is looking directly at his bare face, so it’s lost cause. Talk about an unexpected security breach. “Duke. You looked a little different when we first met.”

“Yeah, that was my human form. This is my ghost form.” A watch on his wrist, some clunky looking thing that looks like it came from the early 2000s, beeps and Phantom frowns at it. “Shoot, I need to go. I’ll see you later!” And he dives right back into Duke’s shadow, disappearing.

Duke blinks at the empty space where Phantom used to be, still reeling from the shock of it. He’s so busy processing the last few minutes that he doesn’t hear the escrima sticks turn off until Dick is dropping a heavy arm around his shoulders, holding him in place. There’s a smile on his face, but it’s not happy; it’s a warning that he’s at his limit and is barely hanging on to niceties.

“So,” he says as Duke cringes, “Looks like we need to have a talk about the things you’ve been hiding from us, Duke.”

He can’t do anything but resign himself to his fate.

After that conversation, he’s instructed to let them know when Phantom pops up. Which is fine until he realizes that Phantom really did mean it when he said that it’ll happen again. 

Phantom pops up constantly. Most of the time, Duke is lucky enough to be at home, or in the Manor, or in the Batcave away from the public where no one will freak out about a glowing boy popping out of his shadow. Sometimes, he’s in the middle of the street as a civilian and has to sprint away, ducking into the first empty alley he can find in order to climb up onto the rooftop where no one will see him.

It’s stressful and confusing and he wishes he could be more upset about it, but Phantom is fun. He’s funny and charming and tells the craziest stories about ghost fights that Duke can’t help but hang onto every word.

He dutifully updates his Phantom Log, noting each time he’s portaled through Duke’s shadow, any information he’s revealed, and an injury count after Duke noticed a concerning pattern of Phantom often showing up after he’s been in a fight.

Duke begins to get a feel for when Phantom is about to show up. A shiver runs down his spine and his awareness of the shadows around him grows. Sometimes, he could swear he could feel something tear apart in his shadow. He feels it then, a tear that stitches itself up almost instantly, a ripple in the shadow, before that familiar hand pops up again and Duke grabs hold of it to haul Phantom out into his bedroom. 

He is, once again injured. There’s a large gash running down the length of his other arm, bleeding a toxic, glowing green. 

“Dude,” Duke says, unable to keep the judgment out of his voice.

“You should see the other guy,” Phantom snorts. “I slammed him through five streets, then ripped his limbs off.

“Dude…”

“Just to be clear, they weren’t his real limbs. He has a robot suit he uses like a body because he’s like a tiny little bean.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how to take that. Anyways, have you still not figured out how to open portals that aren’t connected to my shadow?”

Phantom shrugs. “Nope. And I’m not really trying to figure it out. I like hanging out with you. Plus, it’s nice to see a friendly face after a fight.”

“Can’t you like, go home and have your family take care of you first.”

“Uh, better not,” Phantom laughs nervously. “They’d probably kill me for real if they saw me like this.”

Duke quietly notes to himself to add that statement to the Alarming Things Phantom Says list. 

“Does it… bother you? Me always coming to you?” There’s a smallness to his voice, a fragility that makes Duke want to beat himself up for making Phantom feel like that.

“No! No, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t keeping you from anyone else.”

Phantom brightens. “Oh! Well, no need to worry about that. No one’s worried, back home. They know I disappear sometimes.”

…Another concerning thing. Duke is considering bribing Phantom into staying in Gotham forever, living in his shadow, just so he can take care of him. Just to be sure Phantom’s safe. “Is there anything I can do for you?” he asks, eyes flickering down to Phantom’s bleeding wound.

Phantom futilely tries to hide the wound with a hand. The green blood leaks out from between his fingers, and he applies more pressure to the wound with a faint wince. “Nope! All good here. I’ll heal in no time, honest.”

“Then, do you want to just hang out? I really don’t know why you’d chose to keep coming to me.”

“You’re good company, dude. Very chill. Very fun. And you’re a hero! That’s so cool. Why wouldn’t I keep coming back?”

Duke shrugs, not sure how to put his insecurities into words. He’s already starting to get the Bat-specific inability to communicate emotions, which is definitely a problem. He’ll need to spend time with other people to be normal again. 

As if sensing that Duke’s mood is falling, Phantom launches into another tale, complaining about people who bother him, teachers who are terrible at teaching, having snark-fights with the embodiment of Time itself, and so on. He always has the craziest stories, and he tells them so casually that Duke has to second guess himself, wondering if he’s overreacting when he’s shocked by what Phantom tells him. 

He starts telling his own stories as well, mostly fun civilian interactions he’s had since they last spoke, villain fights, the ever changing theories on the ‘Who is Batman Sleeping With Now?’ shared document all the other Bats have. By the time an hour passes, Phantom’s arm is fully healed and he’s flying in lazy circles above Duke.

His watch beeps again in the middle of him recounting the insane drama happening at his school. Phantom sighs and sinks back to the floor, hovering just above Duke’s shadow.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” he says, voice warm.

Duke shrugs. “You’re good company. I like when you visit.”

A slow, soft smile spreads across Phantom’s cheeks, making him glow even brighter. “Sweet talker,” he accuses fondly, then flies in for a quick, tight hug. He pulls back before Duke can reciprocate, and salutes him with a cheeky, “See you soon!” and is gone, flying into Duke’s shadow before he can respond.

Shaking his head fondly, Duke falls back against his bed.

Despite how unconventional their friendship is, he is glad Phantom keeps coming back. He hopes he’ll get to see Phantom’s human form again.

…And get more used to the horror movie scene that is Phantom clawing his way out of his shadow. No matter how many times he sees it, the sight still makes him jump.

Not that he’s ever going to admit that.

If Phantom thinks he’s cool, he’s going to do whatever he can to keep that impression from changing. It’s only reasonable, really.

(“Shut up, Dick,” he says later when he recounts this encounter with Phantom. Dick just keeps laughing, endlessly amused that Duke got ‘jumpscared into a crush’ as he phrased it. That’s definitely not what happened.

Next time, he’s definitely convincing Phantom to scare Dick with him. 

Revenge will be his.) . . .

[send me ghostlights prompts! one day left before they close on 11/17]