Mount Justice — Mission Room. Late evening.
The room hums with the low thrum of Zeta-tube power. The holo-table glows pale blue, projecting a rotating map of Bialya's border.
The Team sits scattered around the table. Kaldur stands at the head, posture perfect but voice weary. M'gann fiddles with her comm device, eyes downcast. Wally leans back in his chair, feet on the table like he's more relaxed than anyone believes. Robin stays hunched over his wrist computer, scanning intel files he isn't really reading.
And then there's Zatanna.
She perches on the edge of the table, legs crossed, arms folded, a spark of lightness in a room gone heavy. She's not officially part of them—not yet—but she's been around often enough to feel like a fixture. And she's trying, in her way, to keep the room from collapsing into its own silence.
Zatanna: "Okay, so, quick question—are we ever going to have a mission where the bad guys aren't armed to the teeth? Maybe just… a nice, magical jewel heist? Something low stakes?"
Wally grins, seizing the chance to fill the air.
Wally: "You're preaching to the choir, Zee. I vote for a week of bad guys armed with… I don't know. Nerf guns. Maybe a water balloon fight."
It's forced, but it gets a few smiles. M'gann's lips twitch. Kaldur doesn't react.
Kaldur: "You may submit that suggestion to Batman."
Wally: "Oh sure, I'll get right on that. I'm sure he loves reading my memos."
Zatanna: "Does he even read memos?"
Wally: "No. He memorizes them. Big difference."
M'gann gives him a weak, "you're not funny but thanks for trying" smile.
But then the levity drains as Kaldur switches the projection to a new mission report—another border conflict, another incursion, another day of the world spinning out of control.
Kaldur: "This is our next operation. Bialya's actions have drawn attention from the League. We are to monitor the situation, not engage unless ordered. We leave at dawn."
No one complains. No one cracks a joke.
For a moment, it's just the hum of the holo-table and the faint sound of the mountain settling.
Robin breaks it. Softly. Not really for anyone.
Robin: "It's been months."
It hangs there, heavy.
Kaldur looks at him. The leader mask slips just enough for humanity to peek through.
Kaldur: "And yet… it feels like yesterday."
No one has to say who they're talking about.
There's an empty chair at the table. Not officially his, but it might as well be. It hasn't been moved. No one sits in it.
The silence stretches. Zatanna glances between them, finally catching on to the absence they're circling around but not naming.
She opens her mouth to ask—but M'gann suddenly stands.
M'gann: "I… should make more cookies for the mission tomorrow."
A flimsy excuse, but no one calls her on it. She leaves the room quickly.
Wally exhales, long and slow, like the joke he wants to make dies before reaching his mouth. Robin stares back at his wrist screen, not seeing it. Kaldur just straightens, regaining his composure.
Kaldur: "Debrief is over. Rest. We will need our strength."
The Team disperses in silence.
A single pod in a sterile room. Frost creeps along its edges, coiling like veins. Inside: Phantom, still and silent.
No sound but the low hum of the freezing unit. No movement. No time.
The Team drifts out of the mission room in silence. Zatanna lingers. She doesn't like being left out of the loop, especially when the air in that room just dropped ten degrees the moment Robin said those words.
She jogs to catch up to Wally, who's headed toward the kitchen.
Zatanna: "Hey. Question. Who were you all… talking about back there?"
Wally doesn't break stride.
Wally: "No one."
Zatanna: "Right. And I'm the Queen of England. Seriously. You all went dead quiet like somebody walked over your grave. Who is he?"
Wally: (grumbles) "It's complicated."
Zatanna quickens her pace, cutting him off.
Zatanna: "Complicated how? Like 'ex-Teammate complicated'? Or…?"
Robin suddenly appears behind her — silent as only Batman's protégé can be.
Robin: "Or 'don't ask' complicated."
Zatanna jumps a little at his sudden arrival but doesn't back down.
Zatanna: "Okay, you can't just drop cryptic lines in a meeting and expect me not to be curious. Who's missing? Whose chair was that?"
Robin: "It's not your problem."
Zatanna: (folding her arms) "You really think that's gonna stop me?"
Robin finally looks at her. His voice loses the snark, dropping into something softer, heavier.
Robin: "He's… someone who wanted to be on the Team. Someone who didn't know how."
Zatanna opens her mouth to press for more, but Kaldur's voice cuts in from down the hall.
Kaldur: "Zatanna. A word, please."
Her eyes flick between Robin and Wally. She can tell they're not going to give her more. Not tonight.
Zatanna: (quietly, to herself) "Someone who didn't know how…?"
She walks off, but the curiosity stays written all over her face.
---
The cryo-chamber is still, bathed in the cold blue glow of the pod's status lights. Frost creeps along the glass, climbing like veins over its surface. The only sound is the soft hum of machinery.
J'onn enters silently, his cape brushing the floor. For a long moment, he simply stands there, gazing at the boy inside — a weapon, a victim, a child frozen between states.
Then his eyes close.
A telepathic thread weaves outward, slipping past the walls of ice and machinery, reaching for the boy buried deep inside.
The Mindscape:
Brightness. Warmth.
Phantom's mind is not Cadmus today.
Instead, J'onn materializes in a room that doesn't exist anywhere else: bright walls painted in soft colors, a bed with a messy blanket, a desk with scattered paper and pencils. On a TV in the corner, grainy home-video-like clips play on repeat — moments of the Team.
Robin laughing mid-training spar.
M'gann serving cookies, flour on her cheek.
Conner, silently standing at Phantom's side, just… being there.
It's imperfect — the footage loops unnaturally, frames skip, faces blur. But it's what Phantom remembers, preserved like treasures.
On the bed sits Phantom. Not in his Cadmus gear, but in a simple black t-shirt and loose pants. He looks younger here, softer somehow. His hair is unkempt. His shoulders less rigid.
He notices J'onn immediately.
Phantom: "You came back."
J'onn: "Of course."
Phantom shifts, unsure how to greet someone in this space. He's still learning what greetings even are.
Phantom: "It's… brighter now. I tried adding color."
He gestures at the walls — splashes of yellow and blue where once it was just concrete gray.
J'onn: "You've done well." (He pauses, taking it in.) "Do you remember when this place was only a single chair in an empty room?"
Phantom: (small nod) "And a door that wouldn't open."
J'onn: "And now?"
Phantom: "Now it opens. Sometimes."
His voice drops, quieter.
Phantom: "Not to everywhere. But to… better places."
J'onn sits beside him on the bed, his presence steady and grounding.
J'onn: "Do you know how long it has been since we last spoke?"
Phantom looks down at his hands.
Phantom: "Days? Weeks? I don't… time feels wrong here. Was it yesterday?"
J'onn: "It has been months."
Phantom's eyes widen slightly. He tries to mask it, but his voice betrays the flicker of panic.
Phantom: "Months?"
J'onn: "Yes."
Phantom: (after a long pause) "Then… am I still frozen?"
J'onn studies him.
J'onn: "You are still… waiting."
Phantom laughs, but it's hollow.
Phantom: "Waiting. That's all I've ever done. Wait to be told what to do. Wait for someone to open the door. Wait to stop feeling like this."
J'onn: "You are not the boy they made in Cadmus."
Phantom's eyes flick to the TV, where the Team's faces glitch through another loop.
Phantom: "Then who am I?"
J'onn: "Someone who has begun to ask that question. That is progress."
Phantom sits with that for a long time. His fingers dig into the bedspread, grounding himself in this fabricated safety.
Finally, he whispers:
Phantom: "I just want to be someone."
J'onn places a hand gently on his shoulder.
J'onn: "You are. Even if you cannot see it yet."
The sound of laughter from the TV fills the silence — Robin's voice, bright and carefree. Phantom stares at it, almost like he wants to step inside the screen.
J'onn: "One day, perhaps, this will not only be a memory."
Phantom doesn't answer. He just watches the screen.
J'onn's eyes open. He's back in the cryo-chamber, staring at the boy suspended in ice.
He whispers aloud, as if Phantom can still hear him:
J'onn: "You are more than what they made you. I only hope you live long enough to believe that."
Batman's private monitoring room.
The room is dark, lit only by cascading data screens. Batman stands before one, cape draped like a shadow given form, arms crossed as he studies League intel feeds.
The door hisses open. J'onn steps inside.
Batman: "Report."
J'onn doesn't waste time.
J'onn: "He is… progressing. The mental space we've constructed together has grown significantly since our first session. It is no longer a void. It is becoming a home."
Batman's head inclines slightly — a subtle acknowledgment.
Batman: "And the programming?"
J'onn hesitates.
J'onn: "That is… more complicated. The Cadmus conditioning was layered, deliberately. I have been working through it — door by door."
He steps closer, his tone measured but heavy.
J'onn: "There are dozens of locked rooms in his subconscious. Most, I believe, are tied to memory erasure, combat triggers, emotional suppression. I've been able to breach several, dismantle the scaffolding around them."
Batman turns slightly, his eyes sharp beneath the cowl.
Batman: "And the others?"
J'onn's gaze hardens.
J'onn: "Some are marked with… warnings. One in particular repeats the phrase DO NOT ENTER. The emotional response it evokes in him is severe. Terror. Resistance. I suspect those doors are linked to Cadmus' deepest programming. And… Deathstroke."
Batman's jaw tightens at the name.
Batman: "Slade."
J'onn: "Yes. His presence is… pervasive. Like a shadow cast over every corner of the boy's mind. He does not appear in the conscious rooms, but the deeper I go, the more I feel him. Like a predator circling."
Batman: "Can you remove it?"
J'onn shakes his head slowly.
J'onn: "Not yet. Forcing those doors open could shatter what progress we've made. He needs to be ready to face what lies inside them. And I cannot say when that will be."
Batman turns fully now, stepping closer.
Batman: "But you've breached some."
J'onn: "Enough that he has begun to reclaim pieces of himself. He is no longer only the weapon they made."
Batman doesn't respond for a moment. When he finally does, his voice is quiet — for him.
Batman: "Keep going."
J'onn: "Of course."
J'onn turns to leave but pauses at the doorway.
J'onn: "He does not know how long he's been in there. It frightens him."
Batman doesn't answer. His eyes flick to a smaller side-screen — live vitals from the cryo-pod. Silent, unmoving.
As J'onn leaves, Batman's gloved hand briefly tightens over the console edge. He doesn't like the waiting either.
---
The room is silent except for the hum of the cryo-systems. Phantom floats in stasis, face barely visible through the frosted glass.
Two Red Tornado security drones stand at opposite ends of the chamber, their glowing optics sweeping rhythmically. Near the pod, Captain Atom and Shazam linger — late-shift sentinels on a watch that rarely needs watching.
Shazam leans back against the wall, arms folded, trying to stay awake.
Shazam: "Y'know, when I signed up for League duty, I thought I'd be punching alien warlords, not babysitting an ice cube."
Captain Atom: "Not just an ice cube. A living weapon. One that could probably level this room in under sixty seconds if he wanted to."
Shazam smirks, but it fades quickly as he glances at the pod.
Shazam: "Right. That helps me sleep tonight."
One of the drones pivots toward them.
Red Tornado Unit 2: "Correction. Statement: Subject Phantom is not a weapon. Statement: He is an asset."
Shazam: (raising an eyebrow) "Asset. That's a pretty sanitized way of saying 'kid who's been through hell.'"
Captain Atom: "Depends on who you ask. Half the League sees a traumatized child. The other half sees a ticking bomb."
Shazam: "And Batman?"
Captain Atom: (dryly) "Batman sees a contingency plan."
That one lands like a hammer.
Shazam looks back at the pod, his face softening.
Shazam: "Feels wrong. He's… what, our age? My age, anyway." (He catches himself.) "And instead of figuring out who he is, we've got him on ice until we need him. Like a—"
Captain Atom: "—weapon."
They let the word hang there.
Shazam: "That's not what a hero's supposed to be."
Red Tornado (prime unit) turns his head toward the pod, his mechanical voice quieter than usual.
Red Tornado: "He is… complicated."
No one argues.
They all stare at the pod. Silent. Waiting.
Mount Justice — Lower Level Corridor. Night.
The cave is quiet. Most of the Team has drifted off to their rooms or into their own distractions.
Zatanna wanders the hall, tracing her fingers along the cool stone walls. She's been here plenty of times now, but this feels… different. Maybe it's the way the others clammed up earlier, or how no one wanted to answer her questions.
Then she sees it.
A door.
It's tucked into the farthest corner of the hallway — nondescript, almost hidden. No nameplate. No personal touches. Just a plain metal slab with an old keypad lock that's long since been disabled.
Zatanna tilts her head, frowning.
Zatanna: "Huh."
She presses the panel. It gives way with a groan. Unlocked.
Robin's voice comes from behind her.
Robin: "What are you doing?"
Zatanna jumps. Robin, Conner, M'gann, Wally, and Kaldur are all there, looking like they were drawn by the same pull of curiosity.
Zatanna: "Exploring. What's this room?"
They exchange looks.
Wally: "That's… weird. I've never seen anyone go in there."
M'gann: "I didn't even know this existed."
Robin: (narrowing his eyes) "It shouldn't. I've mapped every inch of this place."
Kaldur: "Then perhaps it is his."
The word his hangs in the air.
Conner steps past them and pushes the door fully open.
The room is small. Sparse.
A stiff cot against one wall. A tiny desk. No posters. No personal belongings. It feels less like a bedroom and more like a holding cell someone dressed up to look livable.
But then they see the far wall.
Photos. Dozens of them.
They're not printed from the League's archives — these are snapped in secret.
The Team training in the gym.
M'gann laughing over a plate of cookies.
Wally mid-joke, caught unaware.
Robin deep in thought over the holo-table.
Conner sitting alone in the lounge, looking out the window.
Some are blurry. Some are perfectly framed. They're moments Phantom must have taken when no one was paying attention — stolen glimpses of a family he couldn't figure out how to join.
Above them, scratched into the wall with something sharp:
TEAM.And underneath, shakier: FRIENDS??
The air goes still.
M'gann's voice trembles.
M'gann: "He… did this?"
Wally: (quiet now) "He was… watching us."
Conner: "No." (His voice cuts through, rough, defensive.) "Not watching. Wanting. He wanted this. To be… here. With us."
Robin moves closer to the wall, his mask hiding his eyes but not the way his hand lingers over the carved word FRIENDS.
Robin: "He didn't know if he belonged."
Zatanna: (softly) "That's… heartbreaking."
No one answers. They just stand there, staring at a wall that says more about Phantom than any mission report or debrief ever could.
Kaldur: (finally) "We treated him like a weapon. And yet this… is what he wanted."
No one moves. The silence feels like mourning.
Phantom's Room. Later that night.
The room is empty now, the Team long gone. The photos still hang on the wall, the word FRIENDS?? still etched above them like an open wound.
---
The door opens silently.
Batman steps inside first, his presence filling the small space. J'onn follows, quieter, his expression unreadable but heavy.
Batman doesn't speak. He doesn't need to. His eyes move over everything:
The crude bed.
The scavenged photos.
The childish, uncertain question carved into the wall.
He walks closer to the etching. The tip of his gloved fingers grazes the carved word FRIENDS. He lingers there for a moment too long.
J'onn: "The Team found this earlier."
Batman: "I know."
His voice is lower than usual — stripped of its usual edge.
J'onn studies him, then the photos.
J'onn: "This room speaks volumes about his mind. He has been trying to build connections… even in silence. Even when frozen, his subconscious holds onto them."
Batman says nothing.
J'onn: "You see now, perhaps more than ever, that he is not just a weapon. Whatever Cadmus tried to erase… it survived. It clings."
Still nothing.
J'onn: "Does this change anything for you?"
Batman finally turns slightly, just enough to glance at J'onn. His jaw tightens.
Batman: "No."
It's a lie.
J'onn doesn't press.
They stand in silence for a long moment, staring at the wall of photos — a boy's desperate attempt at belonging.
Finally, Batman speaks, quieter than before:
Batman: "He'll wake up. And when he does… we'll do better by him."
He turns and leaves.
J'onn stays behind a little longer, his eyes on the word FRIENDS??, before following.
---
Batcave — Late Night.
The Batcave hums with life — computers buzzing, distant water dripping from stalactites. Robin sits at the Batcomputer, posture hunched, cowl off, the light from the monitors reflecting off his tired eyes.
The footage on screen isn't new. It's training sessions — old recordings from Mount Justice.
On one, the Team cheers as Superboy slams Aqualad in a sparring match. Robin notices it instantly:
Phantom is in the corner.
At first glance, he looks like he always did — arms crossed, face blank, watching.
But Robin slows the footage. Frame by frame.
Phantom's hand lifts, just slightly — fingers curling upward.
It's hesitant, like someone about to join in the cheer. But then his hand lowers, slow, deliberate. His face hardens back into that cold mask.
Robin leans forward, frowning.
Robin (to himself): "You wanted to cheer… didn't you?"
He pulls up another clip: Phantom sparring with him.
Robin watches closely — the flicker of a smirk after Robin lands a hit, so faint you'd miss it unless you were looking for it.
Robin: "And that wasn't just about the fight."
He rewinds. Plays it again. Study it.
The patterns start to click in his head: a boy trying to mimic belonging without knowing how to do it.
Robin: "You weren't just a weapon." (He exhales, almost a whisper.) "You didn't know how to be anything else."