Shadow_D_Monarch3
patreon
Going Ghost! (Young Justice) Chapter 54: Good Excuse
🕑 Added 2025-05-11 15:29:01 +0000 UTC[Third Person's PoV]
Danny glanced around the room, tension still thick in the air. “Shall we leave?” he asked quietly.
Dick let out a long sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “What other choice do we really have?”
Danny gave a faint nod before placing a hand on Dick’s shoulder. A shimmering glow surrounded them as he phased them both invisible and intangible. Together, they stepped silently through the wall, emerging into the hallway just around the corner. Once clear, Danny dropped the cloak, and both boys became visible again, straightening their suits in sync to look at least somewhat presentable.
Danny adjusted his collar. “Okay, on a scale from one to ten, how dead are we on the dead scale?”
“That depends,” Dick muttered while brushing off his jacket. “Do you think we can come up with a good excuse for Bruce?”
“Funny you say that,” came a cold, gravelly voice from directly behind them. “Because a good excuse is exactly what I’m looking for.”
Both teens froze in place, the hairs on their necks standing on end.
Turning around slowly like guilty teenagers caught sneaking in past curfew, they were met with the icy glare of Bruce Wayne himself. His arms were crossed, expression unreadable, but his eyes said everything—displeasure, suspicion, and just enough restraint to not explode... yet.
Danny raised his hands innocently. “We were… powdering our noses?” he offered weakly, his voice climbing slightly at the end like he wasn’t sure why even said that.
Dick turned his head slowly to stare at him, disbelief plastered across his face. “Really?” he whispered.
Bruce’s gaze darkened. The air around him practically chilled. “You both disappeared for two hours, sixteen minutes, and twenty-eight seconds. Not a single word. No status report. Nothing. Just silence.”
Danny leaned in toward Dick and muttered under his breath, “I bet he made that number up.”
Dick responded immediately by slamming his elbow into Danny’s side. Danny winced and let out a low grunt, clutching his ribs.
Bruce’s jaw tightened. His narrowed eyes drilled into Danny like lasers, a glare that would have instantly outed him as Batman.
Dick quickly stepped forward, raising his hands in a calming gesture. “Wait—okay, just let us explain. It’s not like we didn’t want to report back. We literally couldn’t.”
“Yeah!” Danny chimed in, recovering from the elbow jab. “This painting ate us. Like, slurp. We ended up inside some ghost world or dimension or whatever, fought off a bunch of creepy zombie, and then Dick got us lost in a living maze made of branches. Then I made friends with a ghost painter after beating him into submission, changed his life with a pep talk—and oh! I met Death. Like, the person. She was beautiful, very kind might I add. Dick couldn’t see her though.”
He paused, looking very proud of himself.
Dick slapped a hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face. Bruce just stared at Danny, blinking slowly, trying to process what he'd just heard.
What unsettled Bruce more than the content of the story was the fact that—based on his training, instincts, and years of detective work—he could tell Danny wasn’t lying. Not about any of it.
“Danny, please,” Dick groaned. “Just… stop talking. You’re honestly making this worse.”
Danny held his hands out, palms up. “Did I lie?”
“No, but the story could’ve been told in a way that didn’t make it sound like we were high on ghost mushrooms,” Dick muttered.
He looked back to Bruce, who still hadn’t said a word. “Let’s go somewhere more private. We’ll tell you everything. The real version. What actually happened”
…
Half an hour later.
“—Then Vantasma gave us a makeover before leaving, we exited the room, and that’s when you found us and said ‘Funny, because a good excuse is exactly what I’m looking for.’ And—mmmph!”
Danny’s rambling was abruptly cut off as Dick firmly clamped a hand over his mouth.
Bruce exhaled slowly, his expression loosening slightly from glacial to mildly irritated. “I suspected something related to the amulet might’ve been involved. But… I’m relieved to see that wasn’t the case.”
Danny phased his mouth right through Dick’s hand, his voice springing back to life. “So… did you find it?”
Bruce took a steady breath, visibly working to keep his face from twitching at the comedic use of intangibility. “Yes and no. I spoke to the auction’s organizer. He mentioned a few late entries he plans to include in the event. One item in particular was described as a pendant of… unusual energy. It might be the one we’re looking for, but before I could confirm, I realized you two had been missing for an uncomfortable amount of time.”
Dick finally dropped his hand, trusting Danny to stop blurting for now. “Do you think we still have time to recover it?”
“I suspect it’s already been auctioned during my search for you two, but we can't exactly tell,” Bruce replied. “We’ll head back now. Keep your eyes open. If anything—anything—seems even slightly off, report it. No more solo adventures through supernatural oil paintings.”
“Yes, sir,” Dick muttered, falling in step beside him.
Danny gave a mock salute. “No promises.”
Bruce didn’t say anything, but the sharp glance he gave Danny said everything before they started to head back.
Even before Danny and the others stepped back into the auction hall from the corridor, they could hear the rapid-fire cadence of the auctioneer echoing through the space like a machine gun of numbers and offers.
“Can I get a hundred thousand? A hundred thousand—yes, over there. One-fifty? One-fifty, one-fifty—yes! Can I get two hundred thousand?”
“Five hundred thousand,” a voice cut in clearly.
“Five hundred thousand!” the auctioneer echoed with dramatic flair. “Going once, going twice… sold! To Oliver Queen!”
The crowd applauded politely as Oliver stepped off the stage with an easy smile, disappearing into the sea of suits and gowns. Which was when Danny and the others entered.
Bruce, ever composed, adjusted the collar of his suit and wore his most sociable grin as he approached a group of high-profile men.
“What did I miss?” he asked casually, slipping back into his role as Gotham's charming billionaire.
From a distance, Danny and Dick could hear Bruce laugh heartily. “Haha! You know how kids are—always disappearing to who-knows-where!”
While Bruce mingled, Dick and Danny moved to the side, scanning the ongoing auction. It wasn't after another 20 minutes that an item Danny recognized was being rolled out—a painting.
Danny’s breath hitched slightly.
It was Van Gogh's painting.
He hesitated only for a second before weaving through the small crowd and approaching Bruce, who had just finished exchanging pleasantries.
“Uh, Bruce,” Danny asked quietly, tugging lightly at the older man’s sleeve, “could you... buy that painting for me?”
Bruce looked down at Danny, eyebrows raised in confusion, catching the awkward expression on his face.
“Is that…?” Bruce began to ask.
Danny nodded quickly. “Yeah. I’ll pay you back. Promise.”
Bruce huffed a small laugh through his nose, causing Danny to shoot him an offended look.
Nevertheless, Bruce lifted his paddle to begin bidding, and Danny gave a quiet, grateful, “Thanks.”
Bruce gave a rare smile in return before Danny slipped back into the crowd to continue his search.
“Danny,” Dick called from across the room. Danny hurried over.
“What is it?” he asked.
Dick subtly tilted his chin forward. Danny followed his line of sight and spotted Oliver Queen standing beside Dinah Lance.
Dinah stood regally, holding a wine glass in one hand while her other hand absentmindedly stroked a golden necklace around her neck. It gleamed with a large green gemstone at its center.
Oliver, ever the charming figure, had one arm comfortably around her waist, his white teeth flashing in a showman’s smile.
Danny squinted. “What about it?”
“Do you remember Dinah wearing that necklace before we came in?” Dick whispered.
Danny frowned. “No… You don’t think—?”
“It might be what we’re looking for,” Dick said, eyes narrowing slightly. “I’ve been scanning the room for any new jewelry—something recently acquired. She was the first to stand out, especially with how much she’s touching it.”
Danny tilted his head slightly, studying the necklace. “That gem… I feel like I’ve seen something like that before…”
Before he could finish the thought, a nearby waiter carrying a tray of wine glasses passed by m.
A man accidently shoved him while lifting his paddle high. “Six hundred eighty thousand, five hundred!”
The waiter lost balance, and in a second that felt like slow motion, the tray tipped—and all the wine glasses came crashing down.
Right onto Dinah.
Crimson liquid soaked her from head to toe, staining her elegant dress and cascading down her hair. Her hand clenched the now-glowing amulet tightly.
A terrifying silence followed.
Her face twisted in rage as her eyes gleamed with an eerie, emerald fire. “What the HELL!” she screamed.
The amulet around her neck pulsed with ethereal light, and her voice deepened into a guttural growl, as her eyes turned to slits.
“Not only did you ruin my HAIR that I spent hours on,” she shrieked, a reptilian forked tongue shooting out from her mouth, “but you RUINED MY DRESS!”
Gasps rippled across the room as people backed away.
Her skin began to shift. Scales crept across her face. Her neck elongated unnaturally. Her body grew and expanded, limbs contorting and reforming. Her wine-stained gown tore apart as claws replaced fingers, and wings burst from her back.
“You’re going to PAY for that!!”
Oliver immediately lunged forward, tackling the terrified waiter out of the way just as Dinah let loose a monstrous roar, unleashing a torrent of emerald flames.
A literal dragon now stood in the center of the auction hall.
Danny stood frozen, jaw slack, a blue mist seeping from between his lips in his shock. Slowly, without breaking his gaze from the now-rampaging dragon, he extended his hand to the side.
With a sigh, Dick reached into his jacket pocket and slapped twenty bucks into Danny’s palm.
Danny grinned.
Comments
Bryan Vargas
No...but one night stands are a thing
Green223
Princess Dorathea is another DP waifu not on the level of Ember or Desiree but still notable.
Bryan Vargas
Crazy right welcome to DC
KingSpy25i .
"Both BOYS froze in place...." Thank you for the chapter 🙏 Also, who would have thought that we would see two ghost huntings in one place? 😀
