If there was one thing in the world, Dan hated more than those assholes in white, were the assholes in costumes.
It may sound hypocritical coming from an entity that spent his half-dead adolescence as a ghostly vigilante. But that was different.
Completely different.
He didn't have a team to impress and didn't have a set of rules and guidelines. What Dan did was purely for the aim to help people. To protect the ones he loved and his home.
The Justice League? Essentially, fancy billionaires in his eyes. They weren't real heroes, not truly.
The first time he met them had cemented it. He knew he was breaking laws, knew if the police got their hands on him, they'd the book at him.
But the greater good was more important that anything else.
Especially after all the harm he had cause in his original universe, Dan was trying to repent for it. To ease the blood that stained his hands by saving more lives than he had taken.
But when those "heroes" showed up, they had painted him as the villian. Fought him, chased him. They didn't stop to realize that despite Dan's scary appearance, he was there saving innocent souls taken by a secretly evil organization.
Thus starting their strange cat and mouse game.
Dan knew he was on their watchlist and knew they were trying to get more information on him. To contain him until they figured out exactly who he was, what he wanted, and how to stop him if needed.
And Dan would be damned if he let himself be imprisoned once again. Especially when he was actually trying to do good.
If you asked him, Dan would say he became an expert on avoiding the League. Keeping them on their toes and with as little information as possible.
Hell, Dan was pretty sure the only thing they truly knew was how he looked. He wasn't from this universe, this timeline, there was no tracking back his lineage to something other than a dead end.
Dan thought he was safe, finally getting into the groove of things, and started actually feeling good about his life.
Until the other assholes reared their ugly heads.
Dan blamed himself mostly. How could he forget that those raging monsters also existed in this universe?
How could he let himself get so distracted by the costumed assholes that he forgot about his biggest threat?
This is why Dan is where he is now.
Shooting through space as he felt his life force slipping away. This was his one more shot at being partially human again, one attempt to correct all the wrong he did in life.
And he fucked it up.
His hands did the best they could to keep his organs inside as he raced to find safety. Somewhere, he wouldn't be persecuted just for what's in his DNA.
His core guided him to escape into space. It was his safe space, after all, pun intended. The vast emptiness gave him comfort. The stars almost felt like family to him.
Dan knew there was a station the League owned in space. He knew they had a secret base up here. He had needed to learn everything about them, after all.
It's not his fault their defenses sucked against ghostly entities.
He didn't anticipate himself flying straight there. Phasing through the wall and stumbling into the middle of what looked like an important meeting.
He didn't think about what he was doing, even as he mentally cursed himself.
His bloodied, torn form stumbled to the ground as he looked up at the heroes before him. Their shocked, confused, worried, and apprehensive expressions.
Dan should've bitten his tongue off before those fate sealing words stuttered from his dry lips. The fear of going back to the Dan he was before his second chance driving his actions more than he would have liked.
