Due to the nature of this arc, and how dark it will get, I will add a warnings-free recap at the bottom of every chapter

WARNINGS
* racism (Zatara and mildly Wally @ Danny) 

November 5

Robin giggled softly as he acted like he was helping Phantom carry their obnoxiously big box. Drifting through the halls and narrowly avoiding hitting corners, the two resident trouble makers made their way through the base in the least inconspicuous way they could.

Fortunately for them, M'gann and Artemis were out going grocery shopping and other supply restocks. Kaldur was stuck in a pre-training meeting with Canary, Red Tornado and Batman. Meanwhile Wally was running famously behind once again, which left only their intended target roaming the grounds.

"You know, it would be a lot more helpful if you would not intentionally try to trip me." Phantom complained as Robin bounced around, aggressively jostling the box.

"I'm not." Robin wined, nearly sounding like Cujo who had stayed with the other furry demons back home.

"Really? Hadn't noticed." Phantom deadpanned as he simply turned slightly, moving the box to the other side with him. Robin's supposed grip on the cube immediately fell as he truly hadn't been carrying any weight. With a mildly amused huff, he darted to the other side, just to be able to place his hands on it again. It's the thought that mattered and a hill he was willing to die on. Emotional box carrying support was still support in his book.

Before the bird could grumble back a response, they arrived exactly where they wanted to be.

Right in front of Conner's door.

Being the one with actual free hands, Robin knocked on it, making sure to also press the built in bell on the panel next to the door. Knocking itself wouldn't do too much with the sound proofed structure but it was a standard habit. But it seemed like the bell also didn't do much as they received no answer. Knocking once again, Robin started spamming the button, hoping the continuous sound would annoy their recipient enough to give them attention.

"What are you doing?"

Robin nearly jumped high enough to land on top of the box as Conner had snuck up on them from behind. Phantom had only momentarily lost his grip on tangibility but at least he didn't fall through the floor with their precious cargo so it was a win in his book.

With a grin bordering insanity that would have unnerved any Gothamite, Robin turned to face the clone. "Who, me? Pfft," Robin tried to wave off his reaction like nothing happened. "Just testing out if the system is all good and running properly." Trying to solidify his blatant lie, he knocked on the control panel, accidentally hitting some buttons and getting an error code in return.

Conner raised his eyebrow at the boy, not believing a single syllable that left his mouth. Crossing his arms over his chest, he glanced over at Phantom. Not sure what he was expecting from the resident ghost, given that he was looking mostly embarrassed on Robin's behalf.

As if not knowing what the word for shame meant, Robin tried to casually lean onto the box, elbow propping up his head as he gave the cardboard a good slap. Not amused by the added weight, Phantom turned himself and the box intangible before Robin could speak, leading to an indignant squawk from the boy as he stumbled to catch his fall.

Attempting to recover again, ignoring the snort of his brother, Robin straightened out once more as he looked up at Conner. "He-I-we, ah, we got you a thing." He said, his failed smoothness turning into pitiful cringe. Knowing he wasn't going to be able to salvage it any more, he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. "It's not much but-" He wasn't even sure how to finish the sentence as he just helplessly gestured at the box.

Phantom stayed eerily quiet the whole time, watching his brother fumble time and time again. But it was nothing more than a minor distraction as he eyed the clone. Silently, observantly, he awaited the clone's response. Conner eyed them with valid suspicion. If he didn't already know Conner didn't have x-ray vision, he'd take a guess that's what the clone was doing as he stared intently at the box.

Without even saying a word, Conner took the box from Phantom. It was heavier than he expected, seeing as a scrawny kid like Phantom was carrying it without any issue. Still, he couldn't help but feel unease at how eager Robin looked for him to open it. And just how reactionless Phantom appeared to be at the whole ordeal.

So of course he wouldn't. Not when the living terror of a child was acting so strange while the bane of his existence was barely giving any sign of what could be in the box.

Saving him from needing to find an excuse to not open it in front of them, saving himself from whatever embarrassing prank they were likely trying to pull, Batman's voice crackled over the comms. A single unsaid order came out, warning them that Bioship would be arriving soon. Robin visibly deflated, looking between the hallway and the box with badly hidden disappointment. Phantom, though he hid it better, also looked rather sad at the failed opening of their cube of likely destruction. "Maybe later?" His voice came out hopeful yet soft, almost too soft to catch had it not been for Conner's super hearing. He didn't know what it was, but something about Phantom's tone made him rethink the potential prank-box idea.

Still, not like he had time to overthink it.

As the two left to head towards the hangar, Conner quickly punched in his code to toss the box onto his bed before following them. As eerily as Robin had been acting earlier, it was even more unnerving to watch him shift from embarrassed mess to the cool and composed hero everybody knew him to be. By the time they reached the hangar, the two boys had fully synced up on almost a molecular level. Pausing identically as Bioship landed, he looked on in confusion as Bioship greeted them with tendril pats to the head.

Bioship never greeted any of them that way, not even M'gann.

As Bioship opened the hatch, Canary and Red Tornado walked in with Kaldur following close behind. Neither of the two non-robotic heroes looked all too comfortable but that was to be expected as their visitors could be arriving any moment.

Deciding to be useful, Conner pushed ahead to start unloading all the boxes. All the kitchen stuff went to one side as equipment restocks went to the other side, all clearly labeled as Canary went down the list to mark off everything that they brought back. She tried hard to not comment on Phantom and Conner as the two seemed to have gotten into a competition of who could carry the most boxes in a single trip. The faster everything was unloaded the better. So long as nothing got broken, she quite honestly could not care any less at the moment.

The entire hangar bay froze in time as the elevator dinged open. Batman, stoic as ever, walked out with a disgruntled Mr. Zatara and a nervous Zatanna in tow. Not even a breath flowed in the room as the newly arrived trio walked up to everybody unpacking.

Zatanna looked up at her father, a silent battle of wills being fought as everybody looked on. Tension grew before Mr. Zatara's sigh blew some of it away. With a blink-and-you'll-miss-it glare sent at the two bat protégé's, Mr. Zatara finally allowed his daughter to breach from his side and walk up to her friends.

"Did you get everything?" Batman asked, ignoring the silent war that happened behind him. He eyed all the boxes already sorted as Canary handed him the checklist.

Snapping out of it, M'gann floated over with two more bags of food. "Everything on your list, Batman." Phantom could spot the new box of strawberries on top of one of the bags, happy they didn't forget to add it to the list. Red Tornado collected a few boxes of his as well that Canary had set aside for the android. He vaguely heard Wally ask about some kind of cookie thing but that was about where he stopped paying attention to whatever the others were saying, not even listening to Robin and Zatanna chatting it up right next to him.

No, all he could focus on were Batman and Mr. Zatara. Or rather, the expertly concealed stinky face Batman kept making any time Mr. Zatara opened his mouth. Well, not even just for that. The man had blatantly positioned himself so he could both look at Batman and at their little group the entire time. Phantom could just feel the man's distrust and displeasure radiate off of him.

He could faintly tell the others around him fell quiet as he listened in on the magician's complaints.

"-not understand, Batman. How do you expect me to put my trust in a being that has been recorded to be as treacherous as that?" The man hissed, accent lacing his words more than the previous time either bat had seen the man face to face.

Batman stayed visibly unfazed to the untrained eye. "You should know well enough that the actions of a few do not dictate the behavior of an entire group, Giovanni." Batman countered coldly, not too far off of his standard gruffness if one didn't know where to look for the signs of his annoyance.

Phantom knew, however. Robin had told him all the slights so he would be able to try to follow along to their years old silent communication. He knew Robin could notice more, but the unnatural tension in Batman's back keeping him standing pin straight and the soft grinding of his teeth as he spoke were enough for the young ghost to know Batman was fighting demons to not break Bat-character.

Mr. Zatara looked rather offended, turning fully to Batman for the first time since arriving in the hangar just to mildly glare at him. "That is not the same." His tone dipped low, hints of danger in it as if he was but a breath away of trying to exorcise the entire base. The slicing motion he made with his hand already halfway making a cross should he change his mind about being this close to Phantom. "It is written so in the teachings of Fate. Grimoires millennia old warning us of what would happen if one were to trust lo spettro. It would be foolish to not heed warnings of our predecessors. You may even ask Captain Marvel. As the current champion he may bestow the wisdom of those before him upon you and make you see reason."

Phantom zoned out from the conversation after that, focusing back on the two lovebirds next to him. "You think it would be any help if I just go talk to your dad myself? I kinda feel bad making Batman do all the talking." His mutterings caught the attention of the pair as they looked over to the two adults clearly still locked in a cold discussion.

Zatanna cringed, knowing what kind of things her father was trying to convince Batman of about his own kid. "Honestly that might just make it worse. He'd think you're trying to 'deceive him with your slick treachery'." She physically air quoted the warnings she had heard hundreds of times over the past couple of days. It got old really fast but if her father was one thing it was, ironically enough, obsessively stubborn.

"It'll be fine." Robin reassured with a shoulder clap. "Once training gets on the way and he sees you aren't doing anything wrong, he'll change his mind in no time." Robin's optimism did nothing to actually cheer up Phantom's doubtful beliefs on the man.

"Yeah," Zatanna tried to add helpfully as they watched Phantom's dismay grow. "He just needs some time and healthy space to warm up to you." Because Phantom was just so great at warming things up.

Sighing deeply he tilted his head back as he ran his hands through his hair before pulling them down his face in exasperation. "Ugh, all this dumb adult stuff is so annoying. Sometimes I really wish it would all just disappear." He let his head fall onto Robin's shoulder as Zatanna gave him a sympathetic pat on the back.

Of course, as if the universe had heard him and decided to fuck with him for the millionth time, it listened to his pleas.

Boxes clattered to the floor, breaking apart the moment they made contact. "DAD!" Zatanna screamed out as the twins stood frozen in shock. They watched Batman and Mr. Zatara vanish in a flash of bright light. Zatanna and Robin rushed towards where the men had just been, trying to find any sign of what just happened.

Phantom, on the other hand, stood frozen in place. Unable to shake off the eerie sense of déjà vu and hoping his gut feeling wasn't right.

Not like he got a lot of time to listen to said gut feeling as he was forced back to reality as his shoulder got violently yanked backwards. "What did you do?!" Wally shouted inches from his face. Phantom blinked rapidly as spit flew onto his face, unable to focus on anything else as his brain misfired time and time again.

"Wally!"

"Let him go!"

Robin rushed back to them as Bioship ensnared Wally, pulling the speedster away from the stunned boy. Grabbing Phantom's arm, he softly pulled his brother backwards to force more distance between who used to be his best friend. "What the fuck is your issue, Wally?!" He growled, both annoyed and trying to hide the fear of who or what could have targeted not just Batman and Zatara but also Canary and Red Tornado it seemed.

"What the fuck me?" The redhead asked indignantly as he struggled to free himself from Bioship. "What the fuck him more like!" Wally angrily gestured to Phantom with his foot to the best of his ability.

Robin pinched the bridge of his nose, so beyond done with this already. They were wasting precious time and here Wally was trying to shift blame to his brother once again. "And what, pray tell, did he do?"

Wally struggled more, shooting a pleading look over to M'gann who could do nothing but shrug helplessly as Bioship refused to listen to her prompts to release him. Wally groaned as more tendrils snaked their way around his legs. "Fuck if I know! But it's not a coincidence that something happened right as he was about to be outed by Zatara as a fraud!"

"That was not what my dad was trying to do." Zatanna argued, feeling icky at having to defend her father's biased beliefs over a different flavor of biased beliefs. "He just doesn't like Phantom because he thinks ghosts are liars and dangerous, not that he isn't one in the first place."

Wally tried to roll his eyes, trying to fight the claustrophobia from how strongly Bioship was coiling around him. "Yeah, exactly! Expose he is nothing but a cheat and a liar!" Whatever else he wanted to say got cut off as Bioship came dangerously close to encircling his head.

"Bioship!" M'gann scolded audibly as she tried to wrest control over her actions. It seemed like Bioship finally took her commands somewhat serious as the tendrils loosened. Not quite enough that he could easily escape but at least Wally wasn't dangling in the air anymore.

"See what I mean?!" He cried out the moment his feet touched the ground again. "He's lying to you all and even got Bioship to ignore M'gann in favor of him!"

Kaldur finally decided mediation was needed as he stepped forward to block Wally's view of the boy. "Maybe it would be better if you explained why you believe Phantom to be the cause?" Artemis hummed in agreement as she finally reminded others she, too, was there. Conner, much to his credit, remained calm and simply observed how protective Robin became over Phantom once again. Or rather, how utterly frozen Phantom looked, like his soul had vacated when Batman disappeared.

"Oh this is going to be great."

Kaldur shot Robin a warning look before encouraging Wally to explain. "What is there to explain?" Wally grumbled out, hating the feeling of being forced to stand still for so long. "We all know he lied about being a ghost, lied about his age, how do we even know he isn't lying right here and now and hiding some secret powers that took out Zatara and just went overboard with it?!" Wally's struggling increased the more he spoke, forced to keep himself within reason as Bioship sent a harsh reminder she was still in control here.

Robin felt like slamming his head into a wall from the stupidity coming out of a genius such as Wally's mouth. "And how exactly is he lying about his age? I don't see you accusing Conner of having secret people disappearing powers either." For what it's worth, he did send Conner a soft look before focusing back on Wally who just grew more irate.

"Oh don't tell me the great detective Robin doesn't know about all the paintings Dinah found across history. He's been drawn all over the world as far as multiple centuries ago, and yet you still want to believe whatever lies he told you? We all know so why even pretend he isn't capable of hiding powers too." Silence fell over the room, barring Wally's struggling grunts, at the accusation finally muttered out loud.

Robin looked around the room, at his friends, his comrades. The people he was supposed to trust with his life, trust with his brother's life. None of them made eye contact. None voicing their dis- or agreements but it was loud enough to hear anyway. Not even Phantom could look at him, hating how he was yet again the cause of conflict when there were more important things to focus on.

"It wasn't him." Zatanna defended weakly, trying to cut through the awkwardness. "I was standing right next to him. If he used any magic or power I would have sensed it." But her defense wasn't worth much. Everybody already knew Zatanna was close with the two bats, close enough to fight and argue with her own father on the daily in their defense. For all they knew, she could have simply fallen for his deception as well.

"Fucking unbelievable." Robin growled as he pulled up a screen. "What does it take to prove it wasn't him? Would you believe security cameras or is that also just lies?" He didn't even care if anybody actually answered. Typing angrily at the hologram, he grew even more angry as he ran into system failure after system failure. Though this anger was more fueled by the fear of what those system failures actually meant.

"Robin?" Kaldur tentatively called out, walking over to inspect the failings himself.

"The entire network's down-"

"What a beautifully timed coincidence, yet again."

Robin openly glared at Wally to shut up before he put up a useless diagnostic. It can't be paranoia if he has proof for it. Just as he feared, it confirmed the cause. "It's a protective measure. A-a defense should anything abnormal happen to Batman. I can't fix it from here. The main controls are in the Batcave."

"Why didn't that happen in there then?" Conner asked tentatively, curiosity beating his hesitance to get involved.

Robin just shrugged, trying to see if he could do anything, even just check over Gotham reports of any issues, from here. "Because we knew it was a simulation, knew it was fake. We knew what was and wasn't real and that I would be able to fix it in no time. And by the time we forgot, it wouldn't have made any sense for the system to fail so long after Batman had supposedly died." Robin tried to stay calm, trying to hide the fact there were already comments coming up from Batman not being spotted during patrol hours.

"Plus, he was in space. The moment he leaves the strato, the system bounces off of me." He added offhandedly as he kept swiping more and more bugged group chats from various gangs. Gotham, ever the bloodhound when it came to Batman disappearing, had already noticed the change. Noticed they weren't out. If there wasn't a confirmed sighting soon, hell he didn't even want to think what his city could get up to. None of the options were one he'd like to witness tonight.

"And why does Batman get to have that type of power?" Artemis objected, stress of the same déjà vu feeling creeping up her spine. Just Batman having the control to cripple the entire Justice League systems was bad enough. But now that control fell to the two least trusted members on the team, something they all seemed to feel some sort of way about.

Robin tried to collect his thoughts but utterly failed to keep the annoyance out of his voice. "Because we are the ones who build the entire system from the ground up, program by program, line of code after another. If anything happened, we know how to fix it."

"We," Artemis scoffed, clearly not believing the self praise Robin gave himself for building something as advanced as the entire League operations. "The League's been around for a whole lot longer than the team."

"Yes, we." Robin growled, closing the screen as it had no use to him anymore. "Don't forget I have been here since before any of you were out of elementary, since before Kaldur learned to speak English for crying out loud! Batman and I build it all and gave it to the League for the greater good." He sneered at the blond, head softly bobbing as he looked her up and down. "But I'm starting to regret ever being so generous."

Robin turned on his heel, dodging the attempted shoulder grab from Kaldur as he walked over to Phantom. "Where are you going?" M'gann asked softly, still clutching her head as she argued with Bioship to release Wally.

Robin grabbed a dazed Phantom's hand, somewhat calmed by the fact he got an instant reassuring squeeze back. Not even caring to look back, he strutted forward, focusing on the soft taps of Phantom's boots on the ground to keep himself from turning right back and continuing the endless discussion. "Unlike you lot, I have people to call and make sure my city doesn't burn itself to the ground the second they notice Batman is gone." He bit out, squeezing Phantom's hand to ground himself.

Taking a soft pause just to look back apologetically at Zatanna, he gave the rest of the team nothing but a barely there side eye over his shoulder. "But what do I know, I'm just an untrustworthy child after all." Helping in easing the tension, Phantom faded them to invisibility, still tracked by Conner's hearing as they made their way over to their room.

Recap* Phantom and Robin gift Conner a box, but he doesnt have time to see what's in it as Batman warns Bioship is back* Zatara tells Batman he still doesn't trust Phantom because the teachings of Fate said so and he has never been wrong* All adults vanish after an unfortunate comment from Phantom* Wally accuses Phantom of being the reason the adults vanished, Bioship nabs him to protect Phantom* Robin tries to show security footage to prove it wasn't Phantom but the main hero-network is down because the Batcomputer went into safety mode* Robin drags Phantom away to cool down and to call the GCPD junior force to check up on their city