Watchtower Containment Wing.
The Watchtower hums like a living thing — a deep, thrumming pulse that settles into the bones of anyone inside. Here, in the Containment Wing, that hum feels louder, heavier, like it's pressing down on everyone in the room.
Phantom sits on a narrow bench bolted to the floor of a reinforced containment cell. The walls are layered alloy and alien composites, thick enough to hold a Kryptonian. Green Lantern constructs a coil around his wrists and ankles, glowing faintly, humming with restrained energy.
His mask is gone.
For the first time, Batman and J'onn see his face.
And it's jarring.
His skin is pale under the harsh fluorescent light, crosshatched with faint scars — shallow lines across his cheekbones, a nick along his jaw, a faint indentation near his temple like the ghost of a surgical tool. His lips are split, one healing over a cut. A dark bruise blooms along his jaw where Wonder Woman's shield had caught him.
But it's not the scars or the bruises that hit hardest.
It's how young he looks.
He isn't the shadow-wreathed ghost who stalked the Bialyan desert. He isn't Cadmus's perfected weapon. He's just… a boy.
A boy who looks like he hasn't slept in weeks. Eyes red-rimmed and glassy, shadows like bruises beneath them, staring somewhere that isn't the floor and isn't here.
J'onn J'onzz sits just outside the cell, cross-legged, posture as calm and grounded as a mountain. His hands rest loosely in his lap. He doesn't speak out loud — he doesn't need to. His mind brushes against Phantom's gently, like the faintest touch of a hand on a shoulder. Not a probe. Not a push. Just… presence.
J'onn (telepathic): "You are safe here. You may speak freely."
Phantom doesn't lift his gaze. His eyes stay fixed on the floor. The weight of his own words keeps him there.
When he speaks, his voice is low and hoarse, cracking like it hasn't been used in days.
Phantom: "It's like my head isn't mine."
His throat bobs as he swallows.
Phantom: "One word from Slade… and I'm gone. Not me. Not… whoever I'm trying to be. Just… a weapon again."
The last word drips with quiet venom.
Up above, in the shadowed observation deck, Batman watches silently. His arms are folded across his chest, his face unreadable behind the cowl.
But his eyes — the only part of him visible — stay locked on the boy in the cell.
J'onn waits.
He doesn't press, doesn't probe. He simply sits there, his mind a calm tide brushing against Phantom's chaos.
When he finally speaks, his voice is as soft as it is deliberate:
J'onn: "You mentioned Slade. Tell me."
Phantom's hands tighten against his cuffs, the faint green glow of Lantern energy reflecting off his scarred knuckles. The light makes them look skeletal.
For a long moment, he doesn't answer. Then his words spill out, quiet but cutting:
Phantom: "He called me. Before the mission."
J'onn tilts his head slightly. "Called you?"
Phantom nods once, slowly.
Phantom: "On a channel I… I buried. Tried to forget. Tried to pretend it didn't exist."
He swallows hard.
Phantom: "But he knew I'd hear it. And he was right. One word. That's all it takes. One word from him… and I'm back there. I'd always be his. That's what he said. That's when he called, I'd come."
He lets the sentence hang like a noose.
From above, Batman's voice finally cuts through the air, low and razor-sharp:
Batman: "And Queen Bee?"
Phantom doesn't look up. But his jaw flexes.
Phantom: "She said it too. That she helped program me. More layers than I even knew about. Like I'm just…"
He exhales through his nose, sharp, like the words taste foul.
Phantom: "Like I'm just a puzzle she built, and Slade has the solution."
J'onn leans slightly closer, his telepathic presence still feather-light.
J'onn: "And this troubles you."
Phantom laughs — a sound so dry and bitter it isn't laughter.
Phantom: "Troubles me? It terrifies me. Because I thought… I thought I'd broken away from it. That if I just kept playing hero long enough, it'd stick."
Finally, he lifts his head.
Bloodshot eyes, rimmed with sleeplessness and shame, meet J'onn's.
Phantom: "But the second Psimon tore through my head… it was gone. All of it. Everything I'd built. Everything I wanted to be."
His voice cracks.
Phantom: "It's like drowning awake. I know what I'm doing. I just… can't stop it."
The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on.
J'onn doesn't move. Doesn't blink. He lets the words settle, lets Phantom breathe.
Up above, Batman leans forward slightly in the shadows, but says nothing.
Phantom's breathing grows uneven. His chest rises and falls in jagged rhythms, like he's fighting to keep control — of his voice, his hands, his very self.
He swallows hard and keeps going, the words coming out raw, unfiltered:
Phantom: "The past couple months… they've been better than I deserve. Better than I thought I'd ever get. And you don't even know how much."
He lets out a bitter chuckle — the kind of laugh that comes from someone who doesn't know if he's allowed to feel hope.
Phantom: "Yes. I still kill. I still… slaughter. Because it's all I know. It's the only thing I was ever taught to do right. But this?"
His fingers twitch against the glowing cuffs. He gestures vaguely, helplessly, as if trying to name something that doesn't have words.
Phantom: "To be free. To be… away from him. From all of them. It's—"
His voice cracks. He takes a deep breath, pushing the words out.
Phantom: "It's life-saving. You don't know what that's worth when you've never had it. So yeah— I'm thankful. More than I can say. For this… for you," he glances upward, toward Batman, "for taking the chance."
He pauses, blinking hard.
Phantom: "But I can't trust myself. Not after this. Not after I almost—"
He cuts himself off, jaw tightening, shame burning behind his eyes.
Phantom: "I don't want to put them in danger. Not like that. Not again. They don't deserve it."
He looks down, almost ashamed to admit it:
Phantom: "I've never had a team before. It's always just been me. Me… and the shadows. So I don't even know how to feel about what I did to them out there. But I know—"
His voice sharpens, then softens.
Phantom: "I know it wasn't right. And I can't promise it won't happen again."
Finally, he looks up. First at J'onn, then directly at Batman in the observation deck. His expression is unreadable — but his voice trembles with the weight of the words:
Phantom: "Put me on ice. Until you figure out how to fix me. Or… make sure I can't hurt anyone else."
The words hang in the air, heavy as a death sentence.
Up above, Batman doesn't move. J'onn doesn't blink.
No one speaks.
Because for the first time since the boy walked out of Cadmus, Phantom isn't talking like a weapon.
He's talking like a person who knows exactly what he is — and hates it.
The silence stretches, thick and suffocating.
J'onn is the one who breaks it.
He leans forward slightly, placing a hand against the reinforced glass, his telepathic presence soft and steady:
J'onn: "Recognition is the first step toward healing. What you did was wrong, yes. But knowing it — feeling it — that means you are more than what Cadmus built you to be."
Phantom's jaw tightens, but his gaze drops to the floor. He doesn't argue. He doesn't deny it. And that, more than anything, tells J'onn what he needs to know.
Internally, J'onn feels something rare — relief. The boy isn't lost. Not completely. He's still in there, beneath the programming, beneath the scars.
J'onn: "You are not beyond saving. You are not beyond help. And we will not abandon you to the cold."
Phantom exhales shakily. For a moment, his shoulders sag like some unbearable weight has been acknowledged, if not lifted.
Footsteps echo.
The heavy, deliberate steps of a man who has walked battlefields and back alleys, who has stared gods in the face without blinking.
Batman descends from the observation deck.
He doesn't speak as he approaches. The room feels smaller with him in it, heavier, like the gravity itself bends toward him.
Phantom lifts his head.
For the first time, he sees Batman face-to-face — not as a commander in shadow, not as the looming myth of the cowl, but as a man standing before him.
And for the first time, Batman truly sees him: A 16-year-old child assassin. Shackled. Bruised. Scarred. Broken.
For a long moment, neither says a word.
Then Batman stops in front of the glass.
His voice is low, stripped of the growl he wears in the field.
Batman: "You understand what you're asking for."
Phantom nods slowly. "I do."
Batman: "Cryo-stasis isn't sleep. It isn't peace. It's… nothing. You will feel nothing. For as long as it takes."
Phantom doesn't flinch.
Phantom: "Good. Maybe that's better than feeling like this."
The words land like a blade between them.
Batman studies him, silent. Not the weapon. Not the shadow. Not Cadmus's Ghost. Just the boy.
Finally:
Batman: "If this is what you want…We'll do it. But know this."
He steps closer, voice quiet but unyielding:
Batman: "We will wake you. And when we do, you'll still have to choose who you're going to be. No programming. No missions. Just you."
Phantom's lips press into a thin line. He doesn't answer right away.
Then:
Phantom: "That's all I've ever wanted. A chance to be just me. Whoever that is."
Batman stares at him for a long beat.
Then, with the faintest nod, the Dark Knight turns away.
J'onn watches them both, silently hopeful.
Watchtower Containment Wing. Observation Deck.
Phantom hasn't moved.
He sits shackled in the center of the containment cell, head bowed, hair shadowing his face. From this distance — separated by the glass, the reinforced walls, the layers of alien metal — he looks smaller than ever.
A child swallowed whole by something much larger than himself.
Batman and J'onn stand in the observation deck, just beyond his sightline. Phantom can't hear them here.
They watch him in silence for a long moment.
It's J'onn who speaks first, his voice soft but weighted:
J'onn: "He is a mess. But he is right. This… is the safest path. For him. For them."
Batman doesn't respond immediately. His gaze doesn't leave the boy.
Batman: "What do we tell the Team?"
J'onn tilts his head slightly. "The truth?"
Batman's jaw tightens.
Batman: "Enough of it. That he's… stepping away. Until it's safe."
J'onn studies him.
J'onn: "And what do you believe? Truly."
Batman is silent for a long time. He glances down at Phantom — shackled, scarred, choosing to entomb himself in ice rather than risk hurting anyone else.
When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter than before:
Batman: "That he's making the same choice I would have made at his age."
J'onn's red eyes soften. "Then perhaps there is hope for him yet."
Batman doesn't answer. He just watches the boy through the glass — the child assassin who'd rather become nothing than hurt the people who gave him his first taste of freedom.
Finally, he turns to leave.
J'onn lingers one moment longer, placing a hand against the glass.
J'onn (softly, to himself): "Rest, little ghost. You've earned at least that much."