Training Day

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/52269925.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandoms: Danny Phantom, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Characters: Danny Fenton, Kon-El | Conner Kent, Black Canary (DCU), Robin
(DCU), Dinah Lance, Dick Grayson, Wally West, Kid Flash, Clark Kent,
Original Child Character(s)
Additional Tags: Danny Fenton is a Justice League Member (DCU), Adult Danny Fenton,
Parental Danny Fenton, Danny refusing to acknowledge that conner's not
his clone, Good mentor Black Canary, Kon-El | Conner Kent Needs a
Hug, Superman is on thin ice, Phantom traumatizing his coworkers,
Canon Divergence
Language: English
Series: Part 4 of Phantom Clones
Stats: Published: 2023-12-15 Words: 1,822 Chapters: 1/1
 Training Day
by Vett2270

Summary

Continuation of Young Justice cartoon where Phantom takes in Conner at the beginning.
Training day with Black Canary.

Notes
See the end of the work for notes
Danny looks up from the broken toaster in his hands at the sound of the breaking news
announcement. A bridge is collapsing in Metropolis. He glances over to see Conner intently
watching the tv from the newly made ‘kids area’ in Danny’s workshop.

Superman quickly arrives on scene, and the halfa has to hold back a laugh when Conner turns
to him with a silent plea to join in his eyes.

“Go ahead,” Danny answers, “just remember, we’re supposed to go to the cave later, so head
there afterwards.”

Conner jumps up with an “okay,” and races to the nearest zeta.

The halfa watches him leave and sighs when he goes back to watching the TV. It’s been
almost a month since he got the kids, and Superman has yet to ask about Conner. Danny
knows the situation is a lot to process, and he doesn’t want to ruin Conner’s chances by trying
to rush the guy, but he’s getting concerned. At this point, Conner’s living here is looking less
and less temporary.

The bell to the shop’s door chimes, and Danny hides his worries behind a customer service
face.

The customer’s problem is pretty simple, so he agrees to fix the watch really quick, only half-
paying attention to the client’s small talk and checking in on the news updates. Conner just
arrived on the scene, helping pull cars to safety. He is struggling to carry a bus when
Superman flies under it, and sets it back down on the bridge. Danny squints at the TV when
the two seem to start talking, but the camera is unable to catch any of the words.

His attempts at figuring out the conversation is disrupted by the customer asking why the
baby’s playpen is glowing.

“Ah, it’s ghost proof,” he shrugs. He finally figured out how to phase proof Neil’s belongings
without causing any harm to the baby.

The man seems genuinely surprised at the answer. “Did the Fentons make it?”

Danny tilts his hand so-so, “a lot of the technology is based off theirs, I just child-proofed it.”

He turns back to the TV, but the breaking news segment has already ended. He figures he can
just ask Conner about that later.

“You ever think of marketing that?,” the man asks.

Danny’s confusion must have been apparent, because the customer nods to the play pen and
explains, “I’m sure you’d get a lot of sales for ghost proof stuff like that.”

“You think so?”

The customer just laughs, “trust me, I’d be going to you for ghost protection over your
parents any day—no offense.”

The halfa shrugs, he has no real defense for them. “It’s not really protection,” Danny
explains, “just keeps ghosts from coming in” ( or out, he thinks, but does not add on).

“In this town?,” the customer says incredulously, “people would pay a lot for that kind of
safety, especially for their kids,” he tacks on with a nod towards Neil.

The customer leaves with his fixed watch, but the conversation stays stuck in his head. He
rarely ever deals with ghost tech apart from personal use, but he never really considered other
people finding a use for ecto infused items.

If what that man was saying is true…well, maybe he has a way to pay back Batman for the
new house after all.

Zeta-ing into the mountain, Danny and Neil arrive in time to hear Black Canary call out,
“Stick around. class is in session.” A glance at the room tells Danny that she’s addressing an
angry Conner.

The boy stomps back over to the training ring with his arms crossed, standing away from the
other teens. Danny has no clue what made Conner so upset in the past half-hour, but he hasn’t
seen the teen this wound up in weeks.

As a person who threw away his sense of self-preservation years ago, Phantom floats over to
stand beside Conner. He ignores the death glare the teen sends him, and puts a hand on his
shoulder asking, “you alright?”

The kryptonian shrugs off his hand and grunts “fine,” so Danny simply floats in silence. Neil,
on the other hand, holds his arm out for Conner to carry him. The halfa fights to keep a
straight face when the teen tries and fails to ignore the baby, eventually taking Neil from his
arms.

“I consider it an honor to be your teacher,” Canary announces from the center of the room as
she begins to remove her jacket. “I’ll throw a lot at you, everything I’ve learned from my
own mentors—” she cuts herself off with a pained groan, “and my own bruises.”

“What happened?,” Miss Martian asks, focusing on the bandage on Canary’s arm.

“The job,” she answers, “Now, combat is about controlling conflict. Putting the battle on your
terms. You should always be acting, never reacting. I’ll need a sparring partner.”

Danny’s gaze shoots straight to the floor. Sparring with her is no joke, and he doesn’t want to
test whether she’ll stick with only choosing kid volunteers.

Luckily for him, Wally enthusiastically sacrifices himself to the task. An imaginary tear sheds
down the halfa’s face as he watches the speedster get wiped out.
“So,” Canary starts, ignoring the boy suffering on the floor, “did anyone see what he did
wrong?”

“Ooh, ooh. He hit on the teacher and got served,” Robin answers.

“Dude,” Wally hisses, offended.

“He allowed me to dictate the terms of—”

Canary’s explanation is cut off by Conner’s scoffing. “Oh please,” he says, unaware of the
dread building up in Danny, “with my powers, the battle’s always on my terms.” The teen
glares at her, but the effect is ruined by the baby poking at his face. “I’m a living weapon, and
this is a waste of my time.”

“Prove it,” Canary challenges.

Conner hands back Neil, and Danny wastes no time to whisper, “he will be missed,” as he
bows his head.

Despite the teen’s dramatic speech, it takes a punch and an arm grab later for his back to hit
the floor. Robin and Neil’s laughs echo in the following silence.

Conner gets back on his feet with a snarl.

“You’re angry,” Canary says, “good, but don’t react. Channel that anger into—”

She is interrupted by a shout of rage and a charging kryptonian.

“Ah, misplaced aggression,” Phantom begins nostalgically, startling the teens that didn’t
notice him moving closer, “he gets that from me y’know?”

“But Conner’s not your—,” Robin cuts in.

“teenage me,” Danny says wistfully, thinking back to the yelling and brawls of his high
school self, “just a tiny bundle of violence.”

“Yeah,” Wally mutters, “now you’re just tiny.”

Phantom graciously ignores the comment in favor of watching Conner walk away from the
ring.

“Training is mandatory,” Canary says gently, placing a hand on his arm that he quickly
shoves off. Her attempts at getting him to stay, however, are interrupted by a call from
Batman. The kids are being sent out on a mission, and Phantom has to squash down the
disappointment from the fact that he didn’t even get to begin his part of the training today.

As Danny considers whether he should wait for Conner or just head back home, Canary
walks up to him.

“I’m worried about him, Kid-phantom.”

Phantom almost chokes on the laugh that burst out of him. “There’s no way that’s the name
he chose,” he wheezes.

“Ah, that would explain why he didn’t respond to that,” she says, “I’ve just heard Kid Flash
referring to him by that name and assumed.”

Danny tries his best to rein in his breathless giggles, “I don’t—I don’t think he chose a hero
name yet.” Taking a deep (unnecessary) breath, Phantom calms down enough to address her
first comment. “I’m worried too. He hasn’t been that angry in a while.”

Now that he thinks about it, Conner has been acting off since he left to help in Metropolis.
Maybe he should ask Supes about what happened earlier.

“Maybe he’s just having an off day then?,” Canary murmurs with a thoughtful frown, “Either
way, I’ll make sure he knows I’ll be here if he needs me.”

“Thank you.”

She smiles in response then turns to look at the baby. Pitching her voice higher she asks, “and
what’s your name, little guy?”

“Neil,” Danny answers, not noticing how her smile freezes in place or the nervous tone in her
voice when she asks, “no code names?”

“Oh, uh I guess I never thought of one?” It’s not like he was planning for Neil to get in the
hero business or anything, but maybe it would be useful if he were to fly around with him as
Phantom. He contemplates on what he should call Neil and finds himself snorting
involuntarily when a certain one pops in his head.

“What is it?,” Canary asks, bemused.

Phantom shakes his head chuckling, “I was just thinking of Conner’s name suggestion when
we were first looking for Neil’s name. He wanted to call him ‘Baby.’”

Canary laughs too, but Danny begins to squint at Neil though. Well, he thinks, I did say we
could use it as a nickname.

“How ‘bout it Neil? That work as a codename for you, Mr. Baby?”

Neil cackles and nearly pokes Danny’s eye out with his slaps, so he’ll take that as a yes.

“So, how have you been adjusting,” Canary asks, effectively making the choice for Danny to
stay and wait for the kids to return.

“Pretty good actually. I had to get some help from Batman to get a bigger place, but the boys
are great, my family loves them.”

“Oh really?,” she asks in a weirdly strained voice.

“Yea, my parents especially. They were really excited to have their first grandkids, so it’s nice
to have their support,” he says. “They offered to babysit too if I was ever needed for a
mission, but they’re not exactly experts at child safety,” he jokes, waving at his ghost form.

The horrified look on Canary’s face tells him he should probably tone down the dark humor.

“Do you want to talk about it?,” she asks in a near whisper.

Definitely not the right audience .

“No, no,” he laughs awkwardly, floating away a bit, “already been processed, thank you very
much.”

He spends the next couple of hours dodging any emotionally charged conversations and
hoping the kids come back soon.

—————————————

extra:

Clark sits down on his couch with a sigh, dragging his hands down his face. His talk with
Bruce went terrible, and his friend can’t seem to realize that the boy just isn’t his kid. He
feels bad, it’s not like he hates the clone, but he’d rather just not have a relationship with him.

His JL communicator chimes, and he sees a message sent from Phantom.

“We need to talk,” it reads, and Clark has to resist the urge to scream.
End Notes

Danny being the son of the crazy ghost fanatics is just common knowledge in Amity Park.

Conner: *gently holding baby* "I'm a living weapon"

Where was Danny for the initial Amazo fight? On paternity leave. Plus, by the time they
were desperate enough to call for him, they didn't want to risk giving the android even more
powers.

Phantom: "I was just thinking about the name Conner chose for him."
Black Canary: Who's Conner?!

Neil’s codename is Baby. Original? No. Easy to remember? Yes.

Conner's code name? Idk. If Superboy could wait months for a real name in the show, he can
wait a bit for his hero name this time around.

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