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Going Ghost! (Young Justice) Chapter 68: Stolen Goods
🕑 Added 2025-06-08 14:53:15 +0000 UTC[Third Person's PoV]
Location: Wayne Manor
Date: March 9th
Time: 3: 43 PM
Danny and Dick stepped out of the sleek black limo, offering Alfred their thanks for the ride with casual waves. The butler nodded respectfully before driving off, leaving the two teens standing at the base of Wayne Manor’s grand front steps. The air was still, a little too still, and a strange feeling crept into the back of their minds.
It was the unmistakable sensation of being watched.
Both boys instinctively glanced up—and sure enough, a shadow loomed behind one of the high windows. Bruce Wayne stood there, eyes locked on them, his gaze unreadable. A second later, he turned away and disappeared from view without so much as a nod.
Danny and Dick exchanged glances, their brows furrowed in tandem.
"Yeah," Danny muttered, breaking the silence with a sarcastic edge, "that isn’t worrying in the slightest…”
Dick gave a wry smile and shook his head. “Let’s go see what he needs.”
They pushed open the heavy doors of the manor, stepping into the quiet interior. Dick raised his voice as they entered, calling out, “Bruce!?”
Moments later, the man himself appeared at the top of the staircase. He didn’t greet them. He didn’t smile. There was no warm ‘welcome back from school’ like usual. His expression was grim, his jaw tight. Without a word of explanation, he descended the steps and turned sharply toward the hallway.
“Follow me,” he said curtly.
Danny and Dick traded another look—this one edged with growing concern—before jogging after him. It didn’t take long for them to recognize the route. They were heading straight toward the Batcave.
“What’s going on?” Danny asked, his voice laced with unease.
“Is it bad guys?” Dick added, trying to keep pace as they neared the grandfather clock.
“You’ll know in a moment. Be patient,” Bruce replied, not slowing down.
The familiar click and mechanical grind of the clock shifting aside echoed in the hall, revealing the hidden entrance. The narrow stairwell beneath yawned open, cool air wafting up from below.
Once the clock sealed shut behind them and the darkness of the cave enveloped them, Bruce finally spoke again, his voice low and grave.
“While you two were at school, I received a call from Wayne Enterprises. One of our WayneTech cargo trucks was hijacked. The cargo was classified, and both drivers were found dead.”
“That… can’t be good,” Dick muttered under his breath.
Danny’s eyes narrowed, and his shoulders tensed. “Do you know what was stolen? What kind of weapons?”
Bruce came to a stop in the middle of the cave, turning slowly toward the boys. His eyes locked onto Danny’s.
“Yes. They were experimental ghost-hunting weapons—prototypes based on the blueprints created by your parents.”
Danny froze.
His breath caught. The air around him dropped in temperature. His fingers clenched tightly around the strap of his backpack. His eyes, once a soft sky-blue, now flared into an eerie, glowing green. The Batcave’s dim lighting only made the transformation more pronounced.
“What do you mean weapons my parents designed?” Danny asked. His voice, low and cold, held the weight of ice.
Bruce moved to the Batcomputer and tapped a few keys, pulling up schematics and project logs on the main screen.
“I sent a few of the designs over to WayneTech’s R&D division,” he said without turning. “The goal was to see if they could replicate and refine the tech—make it safer, more efficient.”
There was a blinding flash of light.
In the blink of an eye, Danny was no longer standing across the room. He phased through Bruce with a chilling gust of air, who felt like he was splashed by a wave of cold water, reappearing in front of him with his hand clenched tightly around the collar of Bruce’s suit.
“You did what?!” he snarled, his voice filled with fury and disbelief.
“Danny!” Dick called out, startled, rushing forward—only to be stopped in his tracks by Bruce raising a calm, steady hand.
Bruce didn’t flinch. He looked Danny squarely in the eyes, his expression unreadable, unshaken.
Danny’s face twisted with rage. His voice trembled with raw emotion. “And who gave you permission to share them with anyone? Those weren’t yours to distribute! I could understand if you’d kept them for your own use—just in case—but sharing them with an entire corporation?! That’s not just reckless—it’s stupid.”
“I understand that you’re angry—” Bruce began evenly.
“Oh, do you? And that should make it okay?” Danny snapped, his voice cracking under the pressure of his fury. “Do you think that just because my parents are dead, that gives you the right to do whatever you want with their work? Their inventions? You had no right, Bruce. No right at all. Batman having access is one thing. But WayneTech? That’s an entirely different story.”
“Like I said, I understand why you're angry,” Bruce said calmly, his tone unwavering. “But you also have to try and understand where I’m coming from.”
He reached past Danny, his hand brushing lightly against the boy's arm—not to push him away, but to tap a few keys on the Batcomputer. The massive screen shifted from schematics to a digital world map. Dozens of markers lit up across the globe—small green silhouettes shaped like ghosts. The concentration of markers varied. Gotham was practically glowing with activity. Central Europe and parts of Asia had moderate clusters. Surprisingly, Metropolis had the least. A few even floated in the middle of the sea.
Danny’s head turned, eyes scanning the screen. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t let go of Bruce’s collar. His glowing green gaze remained locked on the map, his expression unreadable.
“These attacks… they’ve been happening more and more frequently,” Bruce began, his voice quiet but firm. “You wouldn’t know the full extent, because you’ve mostly been here in Gotham. But ever since the explosion that took your parents… the number of supernatural incidents has risen exponentially.”
He paused, gauging Danny’s reaction.
“It’s as if that explosion tore a hole between our world and the Ghost Zone. Maybe the barrier was always thin, but that night? It widened. Things that were rare occurrences before are now happening every week—sometimes every day. Around the world.”
Danny’s brows furrowed further, and Bruce continued, “The reason I shared those schematics wasn’t out of convenience or carelessness. It was preparation. The weapons were meant to help contain these threats. To protect lives.”
Danny closed his eyes, exhaling slowly. His grip on Bruce’s collar tightened just a fraction more before his voice returned, low and bitter.
“Be that as it may… they weren’t yours to send. They weren’t yours to replicate. Those weapons were part of my family’s work. My parents’ legacy.” He opened his eyes, staring into Bruce’s. “And now, because of you, that legacy is out there—in the hands of criminals. People who’ll use that tech for evil.”
With a burst of cold air, Danny let go and shoved Bruce back into his chair. He floated a few feet above the ground, his posture rigid, his aura pulsing faintly in the dim glow of the Batcave.
“Let’s just focus on retrieving the weapons,” he said darkly. “The last thing I want is for someone to taint what my parents stood for.”
Bruce sighed as he adjusted his collar, silently accepting the rebuke. He turned back to the console and pulled up a series of surveillance files. The first feed flickered to life and zoomed in on the WayneTech transport vehicle.
Danny floated beside Dick, who had been standing awkwardly off to the side, unsure how to break the tension. Danny crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at the screen.
The footage played out in silence.
A couple of unmarked vehicles suddenly pulled alongside the WayneTech transport. One rammed into its side, trying to force it off the road. In the next instant, two figures emerged from the windows—one perched on the door of a car while the other extended a shotgun through the open window.
Without hesitation, they opened fire.
The glass shattered. Blood sprayed against the windshield. The truck veered wildly, swerving as it lost control. Then, from a side alley, more masked figures appeared. They hoisted rifles and sniper scopes over the hoods of their cars, aiming directly at the security cameras mounted on the surrounding buildings.
One by one, the cameras were taken out. Each feed ended in a burst of static. Bruce cycled through every available channel. The same pattern repeated—brief glimpses of the attack, followed by abrupt silence.
The last feed died with a hiss, and the Batcave returned to its quiet hum.
Danny turned sharply, the glow in his eyes flickering more brightly. “We’ll need to visit the scene. There may be evidence they missed. Clues they didn’t have time to clean up.”
Dick stepped forward, voice hesitant but ready. “We still need to change into our suits—”
Danny shot him a sharp look, his frown heavy. “Then do it quickly. We can’t waste time.”
There was no arguing with him. Not now.
Dick nodded and jogged off toward the changing area. Bruce remained at the terminal for a second longer, fingers steepled in front of his mouth, watching Danny quietly as the boy stared at the frozen frame of the truck attack.
Comments
KingSpy25i .
Damn! ...... just Damn....... Thank you for the chapter 🙏 Also, didn't notice when this chapter came out.
KingSpy25i .
At least that would be a amazing reason to do so if he ever did.
Green223
It would be interesting if Bruce showing Danny about Ghosts appearing in other locations and causing problems leads to Danny breaking away from the Dynamic Duo to fully cement himself as an independent ghostly hero who travels the world to send ghosts back to the GZ.
