Location: Watchtower. Briefing Room.
The Watchtower hums. Low. Constant. A reminder that they are not on Earth anymore.
The holographic table in the center of the room glows pale blue, casting Batman's cowl in even deeper shadow, turning him into a silhouette with a voice.
J'onn J'onzz stands opposite him, posture calm and composed — but his red eyes narrow slightly as the Dark Knight speaks.
Batman: "He's too unstable. The programming won't last forever."
His words are clipped, but the weight behind them is anything but casual.
Batman: "Cadmus designed him for missions, not… life."
The words hang between them, colder than the void outside.
J'onn: "And yet, you placed him on this Team."
It isn't an accusation, but it almost sounds like one.
Batman's jaw flexes under the mask. He doesn't answer right away. He chooses his words like weapons. "It's the only place I can keep him under watch."
J'onn tilts his head. "You do not believe surveillance will be enough."
Batman: "I need more than surveillance."
The Martian folds his hands behind his back, studying him with the kind of patience only a telepathic, centuries-old being could muster. "You wish me to fix him."
Batman's eyes flash up, hard. "No."
A single syllable. Absolute.
Batman: "I need you to reach him. Before the cracks get worse."
J'onn absorbs the words in silence. He doesn't rush. Doesn't fill the air with platitudes. He simply stands there, weighing them.
A long pause.
Then, finally, J'onn inclines his head, voice like still water. "Very well. But if I am to do this, I will need more than access to him."
His gaze sharpens, almost piercing.
J'onn: "I will need his trust."
Batman doesn't respond. He doesn't need to.
Because they both know: trust is something Phantom doesn't give.
---
Hours earlier.
The Watchtower lights had dimmed as the meeting ended. J'onn had turned to leave, but Batman's voice followed him.
"J'onn."
The Martian paused.
Batman stood at the table, no longer the unflinching silhouette of the Bat — but something smaller, heavier. His voice was quieter, almost… human.
"He reminds me of me," Batman said.
J'onn tilted his head slightly, waiting.
Batman's hands flexed at his sides. "The mission. Always the mission. You don't feel it at first. But it rots you from the inside. Leaves you… hollow. I know what that does to a person."
He met J'onn's gaze, the briefest crack in the armor. "I don't want that for him."
J'onn said nothing, but in that moment, he understood.
Now.
The room is dim. Soft lighting, no windows. The kind of place meant to calm people.
It doesn't calm Phantom.
He sits cross-legged on the floor, mask on, back rigid. His hands rest on his knees, but his fingers twitch against the fabric, betraying his tension.
Across from him, J'onn mirrors the same posture, silent. He doesn't intrude. Doesn't press.
They sit like that for minutes. Ten. Twenty. A stalemate of stillness.
J'onn's voice eventually breaks the quiet. "You may speak, if you wish."
Phantom doesn't respond.
The Martian's mind brushes against the edges of his consciousness — not a push, not a probe. Just an invitation.
Phantom slams the door shut in his head. No entry.
The shadows in the corners shift, almost protectively.
J'onn does not force his way in. He simply waits.
--
Day 3.
The sessions continue. Silent as tombs.
J'onn waits. Always waits.
No telepathic prying. No questions. Just presence.
Phantom hates it. He doesn't know why. It's easier when people try to fix him — when they yell, or demand, or fight. Then he knows his role. Soldier. Weapon. Ghost.
But the Martian just sits there. Silent. Still. Patient. Like he has all the time in the world.
And somehow, that's worse.
J'onn watches him carefully, not with the cold scrutiny of Batman or the nervous glances of the Team, but with a quiet, almost painful empathy.
Phantom's body tells a story his voice won't:
The slight twitch of his right index finger every time J'onn shifts.
The way his shoulders stiffen, like they expect impact.
The tremor in his breathing when the silence stretches too long.
J'onn feels the emotions underneath — not by force, but because they bleed out of Phantom despite his best efforts. Rage, jagged and sparking. Fear, sharp as broken glass. And beneath it all, a grief so deep it feels bottomless.
Phantom's fingers dig into his knees until the knuckles go white. He can't stop the memories from bubbling up.
Cadmus Labs.The hiss of restraints.Mei's cold voice, always clinical. Slade's hand pressing on his shoulder, heavy, claiming .The reprogramming chair. The searing light. The pain that felt endless — and the numbness that came after.
Mission. Reset. Mission. Reset.
It kept him functional. It kept him empty.
Now he's neither.
J'onn speaks at last, quiet and careful: "You remember everything."
The words land like a stone thrown into deep water.
Phantom's head jerks up. His eyes flick to J'onn, sharp. Predatory. Almost threatening.
But J'onn does not flinch.
"I can feel it," J'onn says gently, as if talking to a wounded animal. "You carry it all. But you bury it under obedience."
The words dig into him like knives. Phantom doesn't respond. But his jaw tightens. His fingers flex.
And for the first time, J'onn sees not the perfect Cadmus creation, not the soldier Batman fears losing control of — but someone desperately holding himself together with the only thing he was ever taught: follow orders, keep moving, don't break.
---
The stalemate finally breaks.
The room is suffocatingly quiet.
J'onn sits in the same position as always, serene as carved stone, his expression unreadable. He does not move. He does not press. He simply exists — an unshakable presence in the storm.
Phantom, however, is unraveling.
His breathing is heavier than usual, controlled but shallow, like each inhale costs him. His hands clench and unclench against his knees, tendons straining. His head remains bowed, mask obscuring his face — but the shadows betray him.
They writhe in the corners like living things. Stretching. Reaching. Clawing.
And then they grow.
From the walls and floor, shapes begin to rise — half-formed silhouettes with too-long arms and faces without eyes. Phantom's shadow-clones. They stand around J'onn like silent sentinels, circling him, their edges shivering as if barely holding form.
It should be threatening. It should make anyone flinch.
J'onn doesn't move.
He remains perfectly still, his breathing steady, his posture unchanged. He doesn't even look at the shadows. He only looks at Phantom.
And then — his voice.
Quiet. Cracked. Like a boy trying to sound like a soldier.
"Why didn't anyone come for me?"
The words cut through the air like glass.
J'onn doesn't answer right away. He feels the weight of the question. The centuries of pain, the years of abandonment, the child who was erased and remade — all wrapped in that single sentence.
The shadow-clones edge closer, their amorphous heads tilting as though listening for the answer.
When J'onn speaks, his voice carries the stillness of oceans. "I do not know."
Phantom doesn't look up. His head tilts just enough that the shadows swallow his face completely, making him a figure carved out of darkness.
The clones retreat, dissolving back into nothing.
For the first time, J'onn sees him not as the weapon Cadmus built, or the soldier Batman wants to control — but as what he truly is: a boy in the dark, still waiting for a rescue that never came.