AN: This fic will be full of my headcanons, as well as some minor things that goes against original canon, aka:

Danny's Powers: I'm going draw inspiration form what Young Justice did to Conner and Megan and give Danny less powers than he has in original canon. This is partly to make him less OP compared to the YJ characters, partly to make him more differentiated from Superboy. As such, he has no ice, no duplication, no super-strength and no super-senses. (With that I mean things like super-hearing, not his Ghost Sense. Night-vision and stuff like that are just fanon, but they are rather prevalent in fanfic.) I'm letting him keep his Ghostly Wail because it comes with its own pre-packaged drawbacks.

Canon Timelines: Unless otherwise noted, Young Justice episodes happen between chapters in the same way they play out in canon. If it's important which episodes have happened I'll make a note of it. This first chapter takes place between Infiltrator and Denial. Danny Phantom is post D-Stabilized with no Phantom Planet, and without any episodes that won't make sense without the powers I've removed (aka Urban Jungle)

Motion

Early August meant many things.

For high school students, it mainly meant that summer was coming to an end. That he fleeting time spent on vacation was extra precious and needed to be cherished. Most young people in Amity Park were at the pool, savouring the warm weather and brilliant sunshine.

Which was why Danny, Tucker and Sam were at Tucker's house playing video games.

The curtains were drawn, almost giving the illusion of darkness but mainly making the room feel stuffy and smell of sweat. Between them sat a bowl of chips. Sour cream and onion. Life was good.

"Look, all I'm saying is that Danny's the youngest superhero." Tucker leaned forward as he spoke, heavily invested in the conversation even as his eyes were glued to the screen.

"And I'm saying that Robin's got to be younger than Danny." Sam frowned, and punctuated her claim by viciously hitting Tucker's character in the game.

"Sidekicks don't count!"

"Yes they do!"

Danny let the argument go by without interruption. At this point, he was used to his two best friends fighting about inconsequential nonsense. Whether it was superheroes or meat versus vegetarian food.

"Danny, you agree with me. Right?"

He hated it when they tried to drag him into their arguments. Danny sighed deeply before answering.

"Sidekicks should count. I mean, you two are practically my sidekicks and-"

"We are not." Tucker managed to look offended, even as he stuffed his face full of chips.

"You totally are. You follow me around and act as back-up..."

"That's not what matters. We're not masked vigilantes, therefore we don't count."

"Does that mean Valerie's my sidekick?"

The three friends looked at each other with mounting horror. After everything that had happened with Dani, Valerie had been much more willing to team up with Phantom.

"No way. Nope. I won't accept that." Sam shook her head with gusto. "New rule: Sidekicks can't have tried to kill the heroes they're sidekicking under."

Danny shrugged, accepting the rule. "What is the most important thing about being a sidekick, anyway?"

Tucker mulled it over for a second before answering. "I guess the whole mentoring thing."

"I've taught you two how to use Fenton weaponry," Danny pointed out.

"I think we're more of a support team," concluded Sam, with a tone that allowed no argument. "Since we're not planning on taking over your mantle when you're dead... Well, dead-er."

"You could have just said 'retired'," noted Tucker.

"Like Danny's ever gonna retire," scoffed Sam.

"Point."

Danny rolled his eyes and began to think of a snappy come-back when his ghost sense when off. "Well, they're playing my song. Got to go."

"Pick up some more chips on your way back." Tucker waved lazily, still not looking away from the game.

"What happened to 'support team'?"

"It's multiplayer, we can't pause!"

Sam sighed. "If you need anything, radio us. I've got my Fenton Phones on. Okay?"

Danny grumbled, but smiled as he transformed and flew away.

The sky over Tucker's house was clear, with soft summer winds blowing through the air.

Weird evil laughter echoed across the city.

'Oh, it's just Technus,' thought Danny, looking around for the ghost. 'I should be able to deal with him on my own.'

He followed the shrill laughter.

It took a while, but he finally spotted Technus. Oddly enough, the ghost wasn't attacking anyone with flying computers. He was just... floating around, his head turning in every direction.

'It looks like he's searching for something.'

Danny fell back behind a yellow brick wall, narrowly avoiding discovery as the ghost looked his way.

The soft hum of a hover-board came from behind him.

'Wonder if Val wants to kill me today or not...'

"Phantom." Her tone wasn't nearly as hostile as it used to be.

'I guess not.'

Danny turned around, nodding towards the armoured figure. "Hi."

"What are you-"

"Technus is up to something," Danny gestured towards the ghost.

"Well, duh." She looks like him like he's being ridiculous – Technus was always up to something. "So let's hurry up and throw him in a Thermos."

"And I figured it would be better to find out his plans and then stop them. Otherwise he'll just try again later."

Valerie nodded, begrudgingly.

"You wanna help out?"

"Sure," Val hesitated. "... and afterwards I need to talk to you."

That sentence was a bit too similar to 'we need to talk' for comfort, but since they weren't dating (anymore) Danny ignored it and they returned to their ghost hunt.

Technus froze, turning his gaze towards the far horizon. Tiny sparks of green energy flickered around him. He nodded to himself before starting to fly in that direction.

'Whatever it was that he was looking for, it looks like he found it.'

They kept their distance, even as the three of them left Amity Park behind and flew towards Fawcett City.

(Well, it still wasn't the furthest he'd ever travelled to stop Technus – space held that record with a very strong grip – but it was still worrying. Technus wouldn't go far from Amity unless looking for something specific.)

They definitely needed to figure out and stop whatever plot that was going on.

Technus stopped over Amity's neighbouring town, looking around some before continuing his search at a slower pace.

Phantom and Red Huntress closed the distance as Technus landed in a run-down alley. He seemed overly interested in a rusty old photo booth, but that still made more sense than most of the stuff the Box Ghost liked.

'He'll take over the world using the power of bad pictures? That's... original, I'll give him that.'

Technus started laughing again.

'OK, this has gone on long enough.'

Danny looked over at Valerie, unspoken understanding passing between them with a nod.

"The way you're acting, one might think you'd never seen a photo booth before." Danny flew out of hiding, drawing Technus' attention.

"Ah, ghost child. You won't be able to stop me this time."

"Well, this time he's not alone." Valerie flew down from the other side, charging up a large ecto-gun..

Danny smirked and threw a flying punch, using his momentum make it stronger. The two ghosts fell into the photo booth from the impact. The Red Huntress hurried to catch up with them, grabbing onto Technus' arm to wrestle it against his back.

"You can't stop me-" Technus began, shouting in outrage.

Danny was holding onto... something. An arm or a leg, he wasn't overly sure.

Ghostly power not his own surrounded them.

That was all he had time to process before the world turned into bright yellow lights and movement.

"Not recognized. Error." A computerized voice echoed around them as Danny fell to the ground, letting go of Technus.

To his left, a muted crash signified Valerie botching her landing as well.

"-if you can't catch me!"

Danny pulled himself to his feet, trying to quickly take in his surroundings. Somehow, somehow, they weren't in the alley anymore. Instead they were in a cave, man-made by the looks of it, with pieces of advanced technology scattered through-out. Behind them was a still buzzing and glowing tube of sorts.

"With the power of teleportation, I, Technus, Master of All Things Electronic, will take over the world!"

"Good work, team. Hit the showers."

The members of the Team visibly relaxed as Batman dismissed them after the debriefing. They had just come back from a short recon mission, which had gone surprisingly well. No weird twists, no big injuries.

Robin smiled widely and threw an arm over Kid Flash's shoulder, a feat in an of itself since KF was more than half a head taller than him.

"Dude, get your armpit away from my face until after we've showered." KF made a face.

Robin pouted, but slowly did as asked.

"Not recognized. Error."

Robin's head shot up at the sound, tension returned to his team members. The Zeta Beam system didn't just randomly have errors.

As one, they looked at Batman.

"With the power of teleportation, I, Technus, Master of All Things Electronic, will take over the world!"

Only Robin could tell, but Batman raised an eyebrow at the shout that echoed through the cave.

"Observe only, don't engage until I give the signal."

The Team scattered. Robin immediately headed towards the ventilation shaft.

The rest of the team hid in their own ways, with varying degrees of success. (Artemis was good, M'gann was in camouflage mode, the boys were hopeless.)

However, what was currently in the cave was much more interesting than his teammates attempts at hiding.

The one who had shouted before (Technus. It was nice when the bad guys introduced themselves in their monologuing) was a glowing man with green skin and a mullet. Likely not human, but Robin couldn't identify what it was that he actually was.

Two smaller forms were with him. The white haired boy, also glowing, looked to be close to Wally's age, but it was hard to tell with the girl since her suit covered her whole face.

Robin entertained the idea that the two of them were working together with this Technus character until the girl attacked him with a ray gun mounted to her wrist.

"You! How did you follow me!?" Technus pointed an accusing finger at Valerie, and she just wanted to roll her eyes at him.

The moment passed, when Technus opened his outstretched hand and used his power over technology to control of Valerie's suit.

"You should know, ghost! You're the one that brought us here!" She struggled to get free, but since he was levitating her she couldn't reach anything she could use.

"Us?" Technus blinked.

Valerie smirked. At least she made a good distraction.

"Forget about me?" Phantom appeared behind the other ghost, one hand glowing with ecto-energy. Before Technus could turn around, he took several blasts to the back. "After all we've been through..." Phantom put a hand to his chest with mock-sadness.

Phantom's attack broke Technus' concentration, making him let go of Valerie's suit. She landed hard, but on her feet, as gravity took hold.

Phantom placed himself between her and Technus, allowing her to catch her breath. "Red, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Phantom." She stepped forward, so they were standing side-by-side. "Let's do this."

Valerie powered up her ecto-gun, while Phantom moved in for close attacks. When he paused his attack, she tackled Technus with her hover-board. Rather than closing the distance, Phantom stayed back and started attacking with ecto-blasts.

Their teamwork was sloppy, but not horrible. They both knew how the other fought, even if they hadn't been working together since that time Skulker kidnapped them. At least they weren't cuffed together this time.

Valerie dodged a flying toaster and ignored Phantom's comment about Technus being 'toast'.

'Ghost... Phantom... Telekinesis and flying...'

Robin could feel his mounting horror as he realised that the terms probably weren't simple nicknames.

'Ghosts are real... I did not want to find out that this way.'

The three were fighting, with Red showing some interesting skills. She was definitely trained in some form of martial arts, likely Taekwondo - but he'd need to observe a bit longer to be fully sure, and her suit was as much a fashion statement as Robin's belt.

Phantom was also holding his own. He was... something. If Robin had to hazard a guess, he'd say Phantom had done a lot of street fighting against superpowered opponents. Experience, but no well-honed skill. Like he had been learning on the job, not under a teacher.

On the other side of the fight, Technus was controlling the cave's microwave. He was mostly motionless, making him an easy target as he used various pieces of technology to attack.

It didn't take long for the two teens (if they were teens, Red was masked, and if Phantom was a ghost there was no telling how old he really was) to win. Phantom sucked the injured opponent into what looked like a Thermos, of all things.

Robin gave Batman a flat stare. Batman didn't seem perturbed. Did that make him turbed?

"Yes!" Phantom smiled widely. "Gimme five!"

Red regarded him coldly, not making any move to give him the requested high five.

"Come on, Red, don't leave me hanging."

"Don't push it, ghost."

(Robin was still holding out hope on the whole ghost thing.)

"Where are we, anyway?" Phantom reluctantly lowered his arm.

Red shrugged. "Technus said something about teleportation."

Robin looked towards Batman, expecting the signal. Batman shook his head in the negative.

"Wanna leave before whomever lives here comes back and decides we're burglars or supervillains or something?" Phantom was looking around, coming awfully close to spotting Kid Flash.

"That's... not something that actually happens to people."

"Maybe not to 'people', but it's happened to me more than once... and we have technically broken into their cave." Phantom paused for a second, still looking around with obvious suspicion. "Let's just get out of here."

Batman gave the signal.

The cave was giving Danny the creeps.

Weird technology and the fact that it was an actual cave aside, he could deal with that after growing up a Fenton, it felt like they were being watched.

It was only slightly vindicating to suddenly be surrounded.

(That the people surrounding them were superheroes made it worse, because it upped the odds on them being mistaken for supervillains by at least 45%.)

'The Justice League's sidekicks... Aqualad, Robin and Kid Flash I know. The other three have to be new or something. Still, obviously sidekick material... Heeeeeeey. They can help me settle the argument between Sam and Tucker!'

Danny shook his head to clear it. That had to have been one of the worst ideas he'd ever had. Asking a bunch of sidekicks whether sidekicks counted as heroes would be... probably physically painful.

"Erm... Hi." Valerie seemed to also recognize the masked heroes. "Sorry about your cave." She waved towards the mess of computers and kitchenware. "We were catching a ghost."

"An evil ghost," added Danny quickly. "Not all ghosts are evil."

"We'll just..." Valerie sounded as uncomfortable as Danny felt.

"...be on our way." He finished her sentence, and she nodded in agreement.

Aqualad looked like he wanted to say something in reply, but couldn't make up his mind on exactly what.

Valerie's hover-board formed under her feet, which made the guy with the Superman emblem on his chest stretch out his hand to grab her. Danny acted faster, taking Valerie's arm and turning them both intangible.

The guy's hand passed right trough them.

He looked at them oddly, before flexing his fingers as if to make sure they were still there.

If Danny had had a beating heart, his pulse would have sped up as the Batman joined the group of heroes.

"Relax, you're not in trouble. Nobody thinks you're supervillains... yet." Batman wasn't smirking, and his voice was completely flat, but Danny felt like he was being mocked.

Valerie elbowed Danny in the side, making him let go of her.

"Right. I'm Red Huntress. This is Phantom. We're ghost hunters."

"Since when are ghosts real?" mumbled Kid Flash.

"You... You don't know?" Valerie didn't bother to hide her shock.

"How can you not know?" Danny frowned. "Back in Amity Park we've got ghost reports after the weather."

"And ghost drills in school."

"I've never even heard of Amity Park." Green Arrow's mini-me shrugged.

Valerie and Danny looked at each other.

"Weird. Not even that time the entire town was pulled into an alternate dimension?"

"Nope."

"Okaaaay... Well, if you could get your teleporter thingie to send us back, that would be great," added Danny, still feeling on edge.

To seemingly everyone's surprise, Batman nodded and motioned for them to follow him towards the tube. "Where to?"

"Fawcett City, but if you've got anything in Illinois we'll take that."

The tube lit up, taking them back to the abandoned alley.

A meaningful look passed between Batman and Robin.

The rest of the Team was still frozen in shock. Artemis was blinking slowly, staring between Batman and the Zeta Tubes.

'He just let them go.' She frowned. 'Not that trying to stop them would help against someone who can go through walls...'

Artemis decided that if Batman had thought he'd get away with it, he would have kept the teens for questioning.

Robin smirked. "Sorry, guys, but we'll be going. It seems we have a long night of research ahead of us. To find out if they are supervillains or not, you know."

"So."

"So?"

"We've got a long flight back home." Danny fidgeted. "Wanna talk about whatever it was you wanted to talk about?"

"Oh, right." Valerie seemed to be looking everywhere but Danny's face. "I won't be hunting you anymore."

"Really?" He tried to hold back his smile. "Not to look a gift horse in the mouth..."

"Ghost hunting isn't as black-and-white as it used to be." Valerie looked pained and conflicted, but there was a hardness in her voice that meant she had made up her mind.

"It never was." Danny couldn't help the dry comment. "But at least you've noticed that. That's more than I can say for most ghost hunters... Heck, it took me a while to realise it, and I'm a ghost!"

Valerie raised an eyebrow at him.

"And for what it's worth, that wasn't my ghost dog. If anything it was your dad's, since he's the one who put it down in the first place..."

She gave him a look.

"I'm shutting up now."

"You better." She glared at him for a moment, before the expression melted into a warm smile.

They flew the rest of the way in companionable silence.

AN: Fawcett City is in Wisconsin, which probably makes it the closest superhero city to Amity Park. (Hard to say since we've got no real info on exactly where Amity is, but I'm going with the common fandom assumption of Illinois.) (Sam and Tucker has no idea that Fawcett's hero, Captain Marvel, solves their argument.)

As you've probably noticed, I made Val's second mask more opaque than in canon. Since it's the DC universe, she's gonna need to keep her identity secret.