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Zatanna isn't exactly in the habit of collecting rumors.
Yet somehow they gravitate toward her as if pulled and then trapped in her orbit. Most are harmless — the Justice League comprises very mature adults, even if it doesn't feel like it half the time, and anything she can rib Bruce with off the clock is worth it’s weight in gold. It's the more serious ones that tend to catch her interest, obviously.
Especially when they concern Phantom Stranger.
“Yeah, one moment Flash was on monitor duty with me, and the next some random kid was in his chair,” Jordan extolls to his captivated audience of Aquaman and Captain Marvel over lunch. “It was not the first time he’d had monitor duty, apparently. Is that allowed?”
Marvel says, “Wait, like, they just swapped?” just as she passes.
“No, Phantom Stranger dropped him off.”
Turning on a heel, Zatanna walks back up to their table, and all three men glance up through her shadow in curiosity. “Stranger did what?” she asks.
Gesturing widely, Jordan shrugs. “Took my buddy for a joyride and left this kid called Phantom in his place? Not one I’ve seen before either, and you know the sidekicks would kill to be up here in the Watchtower.”
Huh. That’s — when did Zatanna last see the man? Phantom Stranger’s uncanny ability to appear where and when he’s needed and to disappear just as mysteriously works against him in the greater sphere of the League’s opinion of him. A force for good, yes, very well trusted, yes, but… She isn’t sure who here knows him any better than that. Doesn’t know who gripes any less when a job is left understaffed between one heartbeat and the next.
She knows better. But she didn’t know this.
“Who did he also have monitor duty with?” Zatanna asks.
“J’onn?” Jordan replies, tilting back a little. “I think he said J’onn. Why?”
Arthur snorts through another bite of his sandwich. “Her and Stranger go way back, my man.”
Jordan immediately lights up, but Zatanna gives a quick Thanks and escapes before he can question her whole life. She doesn’t really ever need to visit the Watchtower, especially since Diana’s procuring space below the Hall of Justice soon, but. That’s true, in the simplest sense — her and Phantom Stranger do go way back, and Father and him even further.
If Stranger’s relationship to the heroic community is tense, the further sublet into the magical and mystic communities are incredibly strained. The man can’t answer a straight question to save his life — and everyone's personal life is free game except his own. Not even Zatanna knows much about it, but he’s been alive for a very, very long time.
No one knows how long exactly, but one thing she’s sure of is that the alleged kid named Phantom is new.
“Yes, Phantom,” J’onn says when she catches up with him a week later upstairs in the Hall of Justice. “Phantom Stranger needed Green Arrow for something, and so he was left in his place. Thankfully all was quiet, but Phantom was a fair conversationalist if very private even amongst his thoughts.”
Which says a lot. “Know if anyone else has seen him?”
J’onn takes a moment to think. “Red Tornado or Black Canary, I do believe both wrote a report up a year ago about him being replaced by Phantom during a Young Justice exercise.”
That gets Zatanna an even better sketch of the kid — Phantom.
Older than the lot if not by a lot, in Wonder Girl’s brief exercise report. Powerful, says Robin’s: Energy bolts, intangibility, invisibility, strength on par to Superboy, fast enough to keep up with Impulse. A good workout overall, if none of the sidekicks could make heads or tails of his outfit; a black and white suit under a purple cape. Nothing at all like what Phantom Stranger wears.
But enough similar abilities.
“Hm,” she mumbles as she watches the playback of the training later. “Good kid.”
It’s not like she expected less. Or for Bruce not to have been holding out about it on her; nothing — hah — strange gets past him.
“I met him once,” Bruce allows, and only then does he look up from the Wonder Twins report Zatanna interrupted; no favorites her ass, anyone but Superman would get raked over the coals for inviting unknown aliens into this stratosphere without real exigent circumstances. “Back when I just became your father’s student. Phantom Stranger needed him for a moment, and Phantom was left in his place to watch me escape from my first puzzle.”
“You never told me that,” she accuses, leaning backwards against the desk to thump his shoulder with a firm fist.
“I didn’t know you, and you were busy. I had other things on my mind.”
That does play incredibly with the timeline. How old is Phantom then?
Bruce continues typing. “Could not have been a day over fifteen then.”
And so far, Zatanna’s hedging now on about seventeen or so. That’s decades of discrepancy, though Phantom Stranger’s never looks any younger or older himself. As far as she knows, anyway.
“Let me know what you find,” he orders flatly as she leaves, and Zatanna flicks her hand at him over her shoulder.
And maybe takes great pleasure in telling Bruce last when Bobo shows her the wispy mouse in his hat several months later after a Justice League Dark meeting. Dropped off apparently by a very sheepish Phantom at the Oblivion Bar in place of Blue Devil.
“Hello my dear,” it – he squeaks, red eyes peering up at her from patterned tweed.
“Hello Stranger,” she teases, and Bobo huffs as she scoops him out, eyebrows climbing in surprise. Small pink hands grip tight to her fingers, tail winding around. “It’s been awhile.”
His nose and whiskers twitch over a yawn. “And it may be longer yet, I’m sorry,” he replies, ducking down to curl up in her palm. “I am tired.”
Zatanna pouts, running a finger over his back to a deep exhale. “And here I was hoping I could finally get to ask you about the kid.”
“Next time,” he murmurs, closing his eyes.
“God knows when that’ll be,” she jokes, focusing lightly on the beat of his weak magic.
Still larger than life, even if brought so small — Zatanna will never forget the kindness he’d shown her in the wake of her father’s death. But whatever did this… they don’t have to worry about it. He’d have said, if otherwise. Godspeed to Blue Devil.
“I better get him back, he needs residual magical energy aplenty,” Bobo says, offering up the flat of his head. Zatanna gently slides Phantom Stranger out of her hand, and his misty body is hidden back beneath the cap of the hat. “Phantom seems nice. Think he’s Stranger’s son or something?”
Zatanna stands back on a hip with a shake of her head. “Or something.”
Of course, next time is nearly two years later. She hears about Phantom here and there — the growing frequency with which he helps more and more, even far out in space on a Titans mission. Directly, when Phantom Stranger never does. Batman’s dossier grows, if remains unsubstantiated by the curious source.
And Zatanna’s only at the new Reserve League members induction ceremony for the food when Phantom Stranger appears at her side to bitten hisses of surprise and stumbling feet.
“What the hell?” Rayner says, Green Lantern in sector for the month. “Dude, rude much?”
“Let it go, GL,” Zatanna advises, and he frowns, glancing between her and Stranger. He hasn’t ever met him before, it seems. “What brings you by, Stranger?”
His white eyes are fixed on some point ahead, face cast in shadow by the brim of his dark hat, but do drift briefly down to her with the faintest of a smile’s wrinkle to his lips. “This is a momentous occasion,” he returns simply.
Huh. Zatanna returns her attention to the front. The newest inductees are all upright and nervous, but the one who's suddenly came in from an unexpected corner — Phantom. He’s older too now, taller, little less gangly, but still in black and white and purple, though the gear pendant has been joined by gold; it looks a lot like Stranger’s own shining clasps. His own gaze strays toward her own as if sensing the attention, except.
No. Not toward Zatanna, toward Phantom Stranger.
Slyly, she whispers, “Couldn't he have picked a more different codename?”
“He had it picked out long before I met him, dear.”
Everyone but Diana and Bruce’s decorum blips as Phantom takes his turn upon the stage. His green eyes and white hair burn under the light, but he shakes the Trinity’s and senior League members' hands without hesitation in a neat row. Accepts his communicator with great respect and a wide smile. Already whispers are breaking out around her, those around distracted now with something more exciting than the annoying Phantom Stranger.
“And what makes this so important?” Zatanna asks under the polite and confused applause.
“When the Herald of Trials arrives, all will be made clear. Look out for him for me until then, won’t you?” Stranger rumbles, and, of course, when she turns on him at that, surprised, he’s gone.
Rayner too. Hah.
Never a dull moment, she muses, crossing her arms.
Kid looks like Christmas come early — she’ll catch him once the shininess wears off, and finally, maybe, get some answers.
Fingers crossed.