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scarletsaphire · 10 months

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Our Death Was The Start (Til Death Do Us Part)

When two similar people die at the same time in similar ways, their souls may end up tied together in the afterlife, connecting them in a way that almost nothing can break. Danny Fenton dies screaming in pain, hoping for help that won't come. At the same time, Jason Todd dies with a scream caught in his throat, hoping for help that comes too late. Danny comes back to half life. Not even the boundary of death will stop Jason from doing the same

Danny did not remember much from the moments when he died. He remembered pain, a searing, burning, tearing pain that was impossible to put into words. He remembered green unlike he had ever seen before, a green that seemed to be more than just color as it pushed its way into his eyes, his nose, his throat. He remembered screams. One was his, but he couldn’t tell you which one it was. He remembered some small part of his mind, the only part not drowned out by green and pain and noise, praying and hoping and dreaming that someone would come and help him, to save him, to stop the pain.

Nobody came.

(That doesn’t mean nobody answered)

—

Jason remembered far too much about how he died. He remembered every broken bone, every maniacal laugh from a split, bleach white face. He remembered every thought and prayer and plea he sent to the shadows on the ceiling, that one of them would morph into Batman, into Bruce, into his father. He remembered how even as the timer on the bomb ticked lower and lower, and the shadows remained stubbornly unmoving, how he had still had hope. He remembered the fire and the force of the explosion, and he remembered his scream, channeling everything he could into calling out for help, for someone to save him.

Nobody came.

(That doesn’t mean nobody heard.)

—

Sam and Tucker had tried their best to calm him down afterwards, swallowing down their own horrified expressions to try and comfort him. They helped! They really did. But they didn’t know what was going on anymore than he did. They were lucky that his parents had gone out with Jazz when it all went down. If they had been home, there would be no hiding it. If they had been scheduled to come back soon, they would have noticed something.

Instead, the three of them had a few hours before anyone else would arrive at the Fenton house, and the few hours was enough for Danny to change back into himself (it was both relieving and horrifying that he could do that. A relief because that meant he wasn’t dead, right? But if he could do that, what did that make him?) and for his breathing to return to normal (Five breaths a minute was not normal, but anymore and he felt like he was panicking, gasping for air that he didn’t need. At least he was still breathing.)

His parents came home a little happier than they had been when they left, but their heads still hung low. Jazz didn’t look much better.

“So we have some good news,” Tucker said from his spot on the couch almost the moment they walked through the door. They had talked for a while about how to break the news to the Fenton’s. Danny had tried to convince them that he should be the one to say it, but he couldn’t get through it without his voice cracking and his body shaking. That, and his voice was almost gone, vocal cords screamed raw.

“We know that you said we weren’t supposed to go downstairs without you guys, but we were just so curious about how it worked, and we wanted to see,” Sam said. “Turns out, you forgot to plug it in! It’s working now.”

As Danny had expected, neither of his parents verbally responded to that, instead opting to run down to the basement, nearly walking over each other in their rush to get down the stairs. Jazz did not follow them.

“You three really shouldn’t have gone down there!” she stated, pointing at the three of them. “You especially, mister!” Her gaze landed on Danny, and he suppressed a flinch. “I know that Mom and Dad have always been lax about lab safety and all of that, but you should still know better than to go down to a potential electrical hazard without supervision. What if one of you had gotten hurt?” None of them could stop the looks they sent to each other, and Jazz didn’t miss them. Her gaze hardened further. “What happened?”

“It’s nothing serious!” Tucker said quickly. Too quickly. “Danny got a little shocked. But it was like, nothing more than static electricity type shock, you know?”

Jazz’s gaze softened just a little. “Are you ok?” Danny nodded his head. “Are you sure? How about mentally? Even a small shock can be traumatizing if it was in the wrong situation.”

“I’m fine, Jazz,” Danny said. He kept his voice soft, so the unhealthy rasp to it wasn’t noticeable. Her eyes softened as she reached over the back of the couch to hug him. He bit his tongue to suppress a flinch, and returned the hug the best he could at the awkward angle.

“I’ll trust you,” Jazz said as she pulled away. “Don’t make me regret that. Now, what do you want for dinner? I doubt Mom and Dad will be emerging from the basement any time soon.”

Sam and Tucker decided to stay for a dinner of chinese takeout from a place Sam chose. One of them was always pressed up against his side, always talking in easy, light hearted conversations. It was easy, to lose himself in the conversation, to not think about what happened to him.

It was less easy, when they both went home for the night. They had wanted to sleep over, but neither of them were able to get their parents to allow them on such short notice. (They both offered to sneak out and stay with him anyway, parents be damned. He told them not to. Amity Park was not a dangerous city, but they still shouldn’t be walking around alone in the middle of the night. It wouldn’t be safe. He needed them to be safe.)

Sleep did not come easily to Danny. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw blinding, burning, searing green. Every time he opened them again, his ceiling was illuminated with the same green, illuminated by a light that came from his eyes. It took hours for Danny to fall into an uneasy sleep, and he’s certain it will be full of nightmares.

It’s not. Instead, Danny dreams of a boy.

He looked to be just barely older than Danny, and just as scrawny, at least at first glance. His hair was black, with a single white streak towards the front, draping over his sleeping face. The weirdest thing about him was the outfit, all bright yellows, reds and greens, with a very noticeable lack of pants and an equally noticeable domino mask covering his eyes. In any other circumstance, it would have been an incredibly memorable, and likely concerning, outfit. But with everything that had been happening, it was so far down on his list of “Weird Things Happening Recently” that he barely even processed it.

He was much more distracted to find himself with snow white hair and the hazmat suit he had been wearing when- he stopped the thought there. He spent an hour trying to change back to himself, then panicking about not being able to, then calming himself down after he figured out that it was a dream. After all, what else could it be?

Danny would have started to explore the dream, or do literally anything else besides sit there, if there was anything else to do. All that surrounded him was an empty black void, broken only by the sleeping boy. Maybe there was something further away from the boy, off into the darkness, but Danny didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to leave him alone. The boy looked peaceful, but something in his chest insisted that he wasn’t, that something was terribly wrong, so Danny sat next to him, cross legged, and waited.

It was an odd dream, one that seemed to drag on for hours and hours. Danny awoke from it slowly. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, clearing the face that he had been staring at for who knows how long out of his vision. He didn’t recognize where he was.

Danny was wide awake in a heartbeat, sitting upright with a start, only to hit his head against the wooden beams mere inches above him. He muffled a cry of pain, reaching his hand up to his head, and taking stock of his surroundings. Now that he was more awake, he began to recognize bits and pieces of his room. He had somehow managed to get under his bed.

He tried to roll to the side, only to find that his leg was stuck. Danny’s eyes traced his leg in the not-quite darkness, finding it stuck in his bed. His breath caught in his lungs. It wasn’t stuck in the covers, or tangled in the boards of his bed frame. It went straight through all of them, as if they weren’t even there. He tried to pull his leg out from the bed, but it was completely stuck.

It took Danny the better part of 15 minutes to get his leg free. It didn’t calm him any when he did, seeing as he had pushed his leg through the bed, once again as if it wasn’t even there. He rolled out from the bottom of the bed, grabbing at his carpet and coughing away the dust that had accumulated under the bed. Danny scrambled for the phone, typing in Tucker’s number as quickly as he could with his shaking hands.

It had barely rung before Tucker picked up. “Are you ok? What happened?”

“I don’t even know,” Danny said, his voice shaky, his words coming to fast. “I woke up under my bed with my leg stuck through the mattress. I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll figure it out. I can get my parents to pick you up if you don’t want to walk. I assume your parents won’t mind?”

Danny didn’t even need to check where his parents were; he could hear the sound of them clanging around in the lab downstairs. (He could hear the whirring of copious amounts of electricity. He could hear the swirling sounds of the portal. He could hear Jazz shifting in her bed in the next room over. He shouldn’t be able to hear all of this.) “Yea. Call Sam?”

“Of course man.”

—

The day was long, and hectic, but Danny was able to keep himself from falling through anything solid for the whole day. Tucker had offered to let him sleep over his house to try and help him, and while Sam’s parents had vehemently refused, she had promised to sneak out sometime during the night to hang out for a while. So when Danny fell asleep that night, it was in a sleeping bag on Tucker’s floor, closer to sunrise than sunset, with the soothing sounds of Doom’s start up menu playing in the background.

Danny dreamed of the boy again. This time, he didn’t panic over his hair or his outfit. He didn’t bother trying to look around the area to figure out where he was. He didn’t bother with much of anything besides settling into the same place he had taken last night. Knowing that this was a dream, that none of this was real, made it far easier for him to put aside the parts of him protesting that this was wrong. It didn’t need to make sense, didn’t need to be right, since none of it was real.

(It allowed him to write off the vibrations coming from just below his chest, tucked behind his ribcage, as an oddity from his dream. It allowed him to excuse the soul deep satisfaction that staying vigil by the boy’s side filled him with. Dreams were weird. This one was no different.)

The hours passed slowly, at least for a dream, but Danny didn’t mind it. The tranquility ended abruptly by the sound of Mrs. Foley’s voice.

“What are you doing down here?” Her voice cut through Danny’s dream, and he opened his eyes to see the Foley’s living room ceiling, with Mrs. Foley’s concerned face looking down at him. He sat up quickly, looking down at himself. None of his limbs were stuck through the floor, which was a good thing, and the couch was next to him.

“Uhh…” Danny fumbled through his sleep-addled brain for a believable lie. “I didn’t feel like sleeping on the floor, so I slept on the couch instead. Fat lot of luck that did me?” Danny gave an awkward laugh. Relief flooded him when Mrs. Foley joined in.

“I think that we have a yoga mat in the attic somewhere,” she said, helping Danny to his feet. “If it’s an issue next time, I’m sure one of us can find it. We don’t need any more tripping hazards in this house!” She made her way into the kitchen. “I’m thinking of making pancakes for breakfast. Let Tucker know that if he’s up and ready in the next 10 minutes, I’ll make bacon for him too.”

Danny gave a quick thumbs up, before scurrying back to Tucker’s room, directly above where he had woken up. He was lucky; he didn’t want to know what would have happened if he had been found on the kitchen floor. Or worse, halfway through the kitchen ceiling.

Tucker was, as Danny had expected, still passed out on his bed, drool gathering in a little puddle on his pillow and blankets tangled around his feet. And the bed posts, somehow. Danny didn’t bother trying to wake him up quietly. Nothing short of an earthquake would wake Tucker up. And maybe the promise of bacon, but that was more a “stay awake” bribe than a “wake up” bribe. So Danny did what he’d done at almost every sleepover he’d had with Tucker over the years. He climbed up on the bed and started jumping.

The bedframe creaked protestingly at Danny’s weight, the mattress shaking violently beneath him. Still, Tucker didn’t stir. Danny jumped harder, and higher, putting more force into each of his bounces, determined to get Tucker out of bed. Tucker rolled over in his sleep, grabbing the non-drool soaked pillow and flipping it over his head. That was a good sign; just a little while longer and-

Danny’s feet didn’t touch the bed. They didn’t touch anything. He just hung, suspended in air, hovering over Tucker’s bed. He’d gone ziplining before, knew how it felt to be strung up, still feeling the tug of gravity even as you’re safely tucked in a mess of lines and harnesses. He’d been in a low gravity chamber, once, when he was little, and that still didn’t seem comparable to this. He couldn’t describe it. He’d never experienced anything like this before.

(That was a lie. He remembered when he couldn’t get himself to the ground right after the portal. He didn’t think about that. He wouldn’t. But the memory brought with it a scream echoing in the back of his head, in the back of his throat, and it took all his power to bite it back down.)

Tucker sat up in the bed, rubbing at his still closed eyes, hair pointing every possible direction. “And here I thought you’d never give up,” he said through a yawn.

“Tucker,” Danny said, voice nothing more than a panicked, strained whisper.

“Mhum?” Tucker mumbled. Finally, he opened his eyes. He wasn’t able to suppress the yelp of surprise, before he clamped his hands shut over his mouth. Slowly, he removed them. “How are you doing that?”

“I don’t know,” Danny hissed. “I don’t know how to stop doing it either!”

“You’re not going to like, drift away or anything? Because I don’t know what I’d do if you started floating away like a lost balloon.”

“I don’t think so?” Danny said. He gave a hesitant spin in the air. It was easy. Far easier than it should have been. “I think I can control it ok? Maybe if I just…” He moved over to the side of the bed so that he was hovering over the floor, and slowly started to will himself to the ground. It worked, his descent slow, controlled. And then his foot met the floor, and kept going.

Danny froze with the floor up to his ankle. “Tuck…” The two of them met eyes. Tucker drew in a sharp breath. He reached out with one hand, grabbing onto Danny’s shoulder. His grip tightened when his hand didn’t phase through Danny’s shoulder, grabbing tightly and pulling. Danny’s foot came out of the floor, and the two of them stumbled back. This time, Danny didn’t slip through the floor.

Danny blinked back panicked tears. “What’s wrong with me?”

Tucker was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out, ok? You’ll be ok.” Danny nodded.

“Boys! If you want bacon, you have two minutes to get your butts downstairs!” Mrs. Foley’s voice called out from downstairs. Tucker and Danny shared a look. They’d figure it out. Right now, bacon was more important.

—

Over the next few weeks, Danny’s life only got more and more chaotic. He’d had to go home after spending the night with Tucker, mostly because Danny couldn’t get a hold of his parents over the phone. He wasn’t surprised at that; he doubted they’d come up from the lab since the portal turned on, doubted that they’d even slept since then. They wouldn’t stop their research for something like the phone ringing.

(They wouldn’t stop their research for him.)

It was lucky, in some ways, that they stayed sequestered away in the basement over the next week before school started back up, because Danny’s powers had only gotten progressively worse. He had taken to using straws and only straws whenever he got a drink, to minimize the amount of time he was holding the glasses. He’d deep cleaned the bottom of his bed, pulled out the old hoodie and battered up shoe box of model parts he’d had spares of. It was uncomfortable to wake up every night in a pile of dust and junk every night, especially when he still had to wrestle various body parts out of his bed frame.

The only part that had stayed consistent and peaceful since the “accident”, as Sam, Tucker, and he started calling it, was the dream. It was always the same; the boy sleeping, the darkness, comforting in its completeness, and Danny, keeping watch over him. After the third night, Danny started to talk. It wasn’t quite to the boy; that would insinuate that the boy could hear him, and Danny didn’t think that he could. Even if he wasn’t talking to the boy, he was talking at him.

It was never anything serious, at least to begin with. It was little details, about Danny’s life, his friends, his family. Once school started back up, he talked about classes and teachers, about Dash.

And then the ghost animals started coming through, and Danny’s dreaming rambles became a lot more serious. He had talked about it with Sam and Tucker, of course, but he couldn’t tell them everything. He couldn’t tell them about the sensation in his chest, so cold it burned, when the two of them had been in danger. He couldn’t tell them about the fear that was gnawing at him from the inside when the creatures scratched him and he bled the same color they did. He couldn’t tell them about how the newly functioning Fenton Thermos always seemed to draw him in too, when he used it. He couldn’t tell them how scared he was about what it all meant.

(How was Danny supposed to say that he thought he had died? That they had watched him die? His heart still beat, he knew that much. He tested it himself, when he was awake. But he was like these creatures, and these creatures were dead. What did that make him?)

The boy did not move during any of the nights. He just slept on, with an expression far too peaceful on his face. The boy listened, even if he didn’t react.

(The boy hadn’t always listened. Danny didn’t know why he knew, with such undying certainty, that the boy was listening now. But he was. Danny was sure of it.)

Maybe it was because it was the only sense of routine that Danny had anymore that made him not tell Sam and Tucker about it. The reasoning sounded like something Jazz would say, which tended to mean it was at least somewhat correct, even if it was annoying. It wasn’t that Danny didn’t trust the two of them about it, but every other part of his new powers was something that the three of them had spent picking apart. They had spent hours trying to figure out how they worked and how to control them, and Danny was incredibly grateful. He didn’t know how he’d go through it alone. But the dreams…

They seemed intimate in a way he couldn’t describe. Personal. He didn’t want anyone else to go poking around the dreams, didn’t want anyone to disturb them or the boy that slept inside of them. They were just dreams, after all. What harm could they do?

It was the night after the Lunch Lady fiasco. Danny had gone to bed with a nasty bruise on his side and an existential crisis a mile wide. He’d never seen a humanoid ghost before that. He’d never been recognized as a ghost before, especially not by someone who would, presumably, have that same “ghost sense” that he did.

Danny laid back in the darkness, hovering next to where the boy laid. He spoke softly, even as his thoughts ran away from him. It was hard to panic, next to him.

And then the boy sat up, and panic suddenly came a whole lot easier.

---

@maddoxarcane @justhauntley @silicon-puppy-pudding @isis-

I won't be doing a tag list past this first chapter. I'll be tagging it on my blog as ODWTS, and am aiming to post updates every other Wednesday. We'll see how that goes.

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dp x dc fanfic #dead on main #dead on main ship #jason todd/danny phantom #jason todd/danny fenton #soulmate au #ODWTS #dc x dp #dc x dp fic

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thebubblesareevil · 2 years

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The Gotham Ghost Pt. 1

This is not how he thought things would go. After the reality gauntlet Danny thought everything would turn out okay when he finally revealed himself. He was wrong.

One thing he neglected to consider was the two times his identity was revealed were life or death situations. Situations where they had to rely on him in order to survive. This was not one of those times. It was stupid really, he was just so tired and he wasn’t paying attention. He walked into the kitchen and made himself breakfast like he did every morning. He didn’t see his mom sitting at the table. She did see him phase his hand through the cabinet. Before he even turned around he was hit in the back with a shot from an ecto gun. He knew his parents could be cold, he knew they could be neglectful. He didn’t think they would be so cruel. He ran through the house, grabbing the bug out bag Jazz insisted he pack and he ran, he ran far and he ran fast, his parents hot on his tail. He ran to the one place he knew the boo-merang couldn’t find him.

Gotham

He’d lost count of the amount of times his parents complained about Gotham. Apparently it generated massive amounts of interference which distorted low levels of ectoplasm. Which meant that so long as he didn’t overdo it with his powers in his human form, and didn’t transform, they shouldn’t be able to track him. So he took buses and hitchhiked his way to Gotham, found a condemned building to squat in and, just to be safe, hid his bag in the walls. The first time someone tried to rob him was pretty fun. He was walking down an alley when some guy held a gun to his back, demanding he hand over his wallet. Danny slowly turned around allowing a light green glow to coat his eyes, his skin began to pale as the muggy temperature slowly begins to drop as he eyes and teeth begin to sharpen. The would be mugger slowly tries to back away when Danny charges, going right through him and stealing HIS wallet in turn before taking off while he was on the ground panicking. It happens a few more times before rumors start to circulate that Gotham is haunted. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to truly catch the bats attention, until robin goes missing.

Danny is minding his own business, heading back to his hideout when he comes across the little bird, it appears he bit off a little more than he could chew this time as a massive man slowly corners the brightly colored vigilante. Danny stops and weighs his options. He likely wouldn’t kill the little bird, incurring that level of wrath from the bat would count as suicide. But looking at the downed kid he lets out a long cold sigh, he knew he couldn’t walk away. He pushed his ghostly nature to the front as much as he dared as he slowly made his way down the alley, stretching his shadow out until it reached the end of alley. He speaks with a shattered voice tinged with a hollow echo that reverberates through the alley “Walk away.” The large man quickly turns and gasps when he sees the apparition “Diablo de ojos verdes” but he steadies himself and charges towards the specter..only to was right through him sending an icy wave through his body. Danny doesn’t move he just slowly turned his head around, making sure it cracks as it turns bringing out his fangs as he gives a wide toothy grin and says “run” he fully turns around and starts to move towards the masked giant. He was gone before Danny made it to the end of the alley. Danny gives a out a relieved sigh, he really didn’t want to fight, before release if his ghostly state and turning back to the fallen bird.

He tries to wake the kid, because that is most definitely a kid, with little success. Danny looks around trying to see if he can catch sight of the bat to no avail. Danny lets out a loud groan knowing there was no way he was leaving an injured kid knocked out in alleyway in Gotham, there are sooo many ways that could go wrong. So with some slight struggling he managed to get the kid on his back and headed back to his hideout.

When he gets there he lays him down on his makeshift bed, wincing at the blood that he just KNEW was going to stain. Oh well it’s not like it was anything new. He pulls out his limited supplies and makes a note to pick up more bandages. Once he finishes dressing the kids wounds he’s starts packing up everything ha can and pulls up his go bag. He’s just finishing when the kids starts to stir. Danny grabs his last bottle of water and brings it over to the kid. “Take it easy little bird, you took quite a beating back there.” The bird immediately reaches up to check his mask “I’m not an asshole, your honor is intact don’t worry.” He looks around at the dingy building before looking at his apparent rescuer “who are you?”

“Me? I’m nobody, just a ghost. Now drink your water, I need to head out before your bat dad comes charging in.” Robin snorts the water “I’m sorry my what?!” He laughs.

Danny looks at him like he’s lost it “Your bat dad, the furry that goes around fighting crime with you?” At this point Robin has rolled off the makeshift bed laughing and is holding his bruised ribs “Oh god please stop, it hurts, your killing me.” Danny grins “Well at least your sense of humor is intact.”

Danny sets down his bag.

“What we’re you doing fighting that guy by yourself anyway?” At this Robin looked more than a little offended. “Don’t give me that look, I may not have been here for long but even I know who Bane is and I know that even the Bat has a hard time fighting him. So what possessed you to try doing it by yourself.” Robin gives a huff and looks away.

“It was just a simple robbery, how was I supposed to know it was a trap?” Robin looked dejected “One I walked right into.” Danny sat down next to the smaller hero. “Look you’ve been doing this for how long?” Robin looks at him “about a year now” Danny nods “So you’ve been doing this for one year, ONE, and you fell for a trap meant for Batman, who’s been doing this a heck of a lot longer than you have. Honestly I’m impressed, I only came in at the tail end of it but it’s pretty obvious you held your own better than most. That’s something to be proud of. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think you should be out fighting at all, but at the very least I know you can handle yourself.” The two continued to chat and eventually they were joined by a third. Danny didn’t notice the newest addition, but Robin did and he slowly maneuvered to block the only other exit. It was then that Danny noticed the bat and sighed “You were stalling.” Robin had the decency to look a little ashamed as he said “Yeah, sorry about that.”

He turned towards the bat “I haven’t done anything illegal and I wasn’t the one who hurt your bird, so I’ll just be on my way okay.” Batman narrowed his eyes and held up one of the stolen wallets “OH come on! Who hasn’t stolen a few wallets?! Besides they tried to rob me first!”

“I’m not coming after you for a few wallets, however there is a noticeable pattern among the wallets stolen.” Danny scoffed “and would you like to share with the class?” Batman slowly approached the teen, stopping when Danny too a step back. “All of the wallets belong to people who have claimed to have seen the Gotham Ghost.” Danny starts to take deep breaths, his eyes widening. “Look I haven’t hurt anybody, okay!?! I just needed a place to stay for a bit, sure I took their wallets, but I needed food! They were threatening to kill me!” Batman motions for Danny to calm down as he continues his approach, Danny slowly backing into a wall. “I already said you’re not in trouble for the wallets. I just want to make sure you’re doing okay. I can help you get home, I’m sure your parents are looking everywhere for you, worried—”

“Oh they’re looking for me alright, but they’re not worried. They’re the ones hunting me.” Batman froze, looking towards Robin. He looked back at Danny he came to a decision “I have a safe house near here that you can stay in for the night. If you’re still there in the morning, a man will come by in the morning and we can see about getting you a more permanent residence.” Danny looked at Batman, shocked, before asking “Why?” Batman shook his head and said, “Because you need help.” With that he moves over to Robin and picks him up. He gives Danny a slip of paper with an address on it. “If you’re interested go to this address.” And the two left. Danny sat down and stared at the paper thinking over his options.

————-

Batman gently sets Robin down in the batmobile before getting on his side. Once they are both settled and the hood is up the two head back to the cave. Dick looks down at his knees in shame “I’m sorry, I should have waited.” Bruce gives a soft sigh before placing a hand on Dicks head “You’re right, but what matters right now is that you’re okay. We can go over protocol another day, for now let’s get you looked at.”

Dick looks back at Bruce “and what about Ghost?” Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Don’t look at me like that you know who I mean, he didn’t tell me his name and he sure as heck didn’t tell you it either.”

“For now, if he decides to take the offer, he can stay at the safe house. Tomorrow Bruce Wayne will come to him on Batman’s behalf and try to set him up in foster care.” Dick gives a slight hum “Y’know you could do that or…” Bruce glances over at Dick “or what?” Dick gets an excited look on his face “I’ve always wanted a big brother!”

—————-

The next day found Danny waking up on one of the most comfortable mattresses in his life. He walked into the kitchen and made himself coffee and a half burned omelette (progress!) and sat down to eat. After he finished his meal he pulled out everything in his big out bag to determine what is still usable and what needed to be replaced. After all it’s not like Batman doesn’t clearly have the money to replace a few bandages. It was as he was packing everything back up that there was a knock at the door. Danny sighed before opening the door to reveal… a rich guy, great. “Are you the guy Batman sent?” He asks as he steps aside to let the stranger in.

“You could say that, my name is Bruce Wayne and this is a halfway house that I set up with Batman as a way to help get kids, like yourself, off the streets.” Danny scoffed “Off the streets to where, foster care? No thanks, I’m trying to stay off of the governments radar if you don’t mind.”

“Foster care is an option, there’s also private adoption. Could you share anything about why you don’t want the government knowing where you are?” Danny raised a skeptical eyebrow “I don’t see how any of that matters to you, look I’ll be out of your hair by the end of the day, so just forget about it.” There was something off about this guy.

“I’m not trying to push you out of the apartment, I only want to make sure you have somewhere safe to go and someone looking after you, you won’t have that on the streets.” He said with a frown.

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock!” Danny was starting to get annoyed with this guy, and why did he feel so familiar!! “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to put someone else in danger just so I can feel safe! Look I’m grateful for the offer I really am, but no.” Danny gets up and heads for the door despite Bruce’s protests. “Thank you for letting me stay the night, if all goes well, I won’t be seeing you around.” Bruce grabs Danny by the shoulder and holds out a business card.

“Just think about it, if you change your mind you can reach me anytime.” Danny reluctantly took the card before leaving.

——-

Bruce sat down for a second “Well that went well.” He said with a sigh before touching something behind his ear. “Is the tracker activated?”

“Good news and bad news!” Dick replied “The good news is the tracker is working great!” Bruce sighed, looking to the heavens “and the bad news?” Dick let’s put a laugh “The bad news is it never left the apartment.” Bruce scrunched his brow, ‘This may be more complicated that we thought.’

——-

After leaving the apartment Danny went in search of a new place to stay, as there was no way he was going back to that apartment. He was passing by the Gotham cemetery looking at the card he was given when he heard someone call out to him.

“You should take him up on his offer dear.”

Danny turned to face the woman sitting on a gravestone. “Oh? And pray tell why should I trust him? He’s just another rich weirdo looking for something to gain. As far as he’s concerned I’m just some charity case, he’ll put me in a home and that will be that. For me though? I can only hide so much.” He sighs “I’m tired of hiding.”

“Hmmm, that sounds like quite the conundrum….Walk with me?” She says with a secretive smile. Danny snorts “A gorgeous gal like you? How can I refuse?” Danny steps into the cemetery and breathes in the morning dew.

“Even Gotham has its moments, don’t you think?” She said with an airy voice.

“You could say that. They’re rare that’s for sure but those few moments of peace….they’re worth the chaos.” He says with a soft smile before giving her a heavy sigh “Out with it, I know you want to say something. Probably something about how I should open myself up to new opportunities, or that not everyone is out to get me, or even that I can’t know that things will go wrong unless I try!” A soft giggle echos through the graves. “It seems to me you’ve already told yourself all those things… so what’s holding you back?” He sighs

“I just… I guess I’m scared, I don’t want to put myself in a situation where I can be hurt like that again.” He sighs rubbing the back of his neck with a soft grin. “Y’know this is what happens when your sister is a budding psychiatrist, you become way too self-aware.”

She gives him a soft laugh as she comes to a stop before a grave “There’s nothing wrong with knowing yourself. I think it’s time you take a leap of faith, and for what it’s worth Bruce is a good man. He’ll make sure you’re taken care of, but I may be a bit biased, just don’t forget to visit us every now and again. We all love having you come by.” Danny smiles

“And be deprived of your lovely company, never!” He chuckles “Thanks Ms. Martha, it was good talking to you. Tell your husband I said hi!” Danny turned to make his way back to the entrance, greeting wayward spirits as he passed. He wandered through the streets of Gotham thinking over everything, he looked at the night sky and saw the bat signal lighting up the night.

He had made his decision.

——————

He was in the process of taking a fresh patch of cookies out of the oven when Alfred heard the doorbell ring. Making sure to turn off the oven, he made his way to the entrance, curious to see who had come calling so early in the morning. After all Master Bruce was notorious for being late to rise and Master Dick was already at school for the day. Any…. other guests would attempt to make contact through the cave, not the front entrance. Perhaps a salesman? They so rarely get unexpected visitors, he made sure his shotgun was within reach before answering the door. What he found on the other side was oddly enough a young man, not much older than Master Dick, who appeared to be distracted by the manor grounds.

“How may I help you young sir?” The teen turned to face him and he was struck by tired blue eyes. They reminded him so much of Master Bruce at that age, tired and lost. He pulled out a card from his pocket before addressing him.

“I know he said, but uhh I don’t really have a phone.” He said with a wince. “I wasn’t really sure how else to get a hold of him.”

Alfred gave the teen a considering look “I’m afraid Master Bruce has not yet risen for the day.”

“Oh! Uh I see, I can come back later or not…”

Alfred gave a warm smile “I only just pulled a fresh batch of my famous chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. If you would like we could have some with a fresh pot of tea while we wait for him to wake.”

The teen visibly brightened at the mention of food, deeply worrying the aged butler. “That sounds fantastic!”

“Well then shall we?” He opened the door, motioning the boy inside “Might I have a name for our guest or shall that stay a mystery.” The teen paused looking at him.

“Danny. You can call me Danny.”

——-

Bruce found them in the lounge when he woke an hour later. Alfred was pouring a fresh cup of tea while their mysterious guest spoke, quite passionately, about the travesty of Plutos excommunication from planet hood.

“You know” he paused as the teen swiftly turned “I hear they’ve actually fixed that. Pluto is officially back on the roster.” The teen relaxes just slightly but does not let down his guard. Alfred gives him a LOOK “Now that Master Bruce has risen I shall take my leave for now, to prepare lunch. Young master Danny, will you be staying for the afternoon meal? I’m preparing a nice hearty stew.” Danny looked ready to start drooling, but looked towards Bruce. “That sounds fantastic, Danny and I will be in the office discussing some business.” He said, placing a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Shall we?”

The two made their way through the manor, passing sculptures and artwork alike. When they arrive at the office Danny sees a large portrait of a rather familiar couple. ‘Oh yeah, definitely biased’ he thought

“My parents” Bruce explained after noticing Danny’s interest in the painting “Both were quite active in charities and trying to reform Gotham. The Martha Wayne orphanage fund has helped hundreds of children, like yourself, find new homes-”

“Cut the spiel. Look if I’m just a charity case to you, I’ll leave right now. The only reason I’m here to begin with is because a friend of mine said you’d be able to help.”

Bruce nodded “Alright then, I’ve been working on your paperwork. There wasn’t much I could do without your name, but I’ve managed to find a family in Fawcett City that’d be willing to take you in no questions asked. They have a good record and—”

“No”

Bruce wondered if he should still be surprised at this point “Okay, your other option is a young couple in Central City, they-”

“NO!” Bruce looks up from the papers on his desk, the teen in front of him looks seconds away from running out the door. “Okay, would you like to talk about why not?”

Danny paused for a moment “Look I’m sure they’re nice, but I’m not leaving Gotham, I won’t.” ‘I can’t’ he thought.

Bruce gave Danny a considering look. “I don’t have any families available in Gotham at the moment to take you in permanently.”

A slight shake of the head “That’s fine, all I really need it documentation so I can get a job, once I turn 18 I’m out of there anyway.” He said seriously.

Bruce thinks over all the families in Gotham he had looked over. Not many would be willing to work with the severe lack of trust, that coupled with the lack of documents and his options just shrank to the single digits. He could a migraine start to for when he hears the pounding footsteps of his ward racing down the halls. He has mere moments to process this before Dick burst the the door exclaiming “You won’t believe what happened at school today!” Danny twisted around at the intrusion and made eye contact with Dick for a few seconds before he awkwardly laughed. “Sorry to interrupt, I didn’t realize we had a guest.”

Bruce smiled at his ward “Danny this is my ward, Dick Grayson, who is supposed to be in school right now.” Dick gave a mischievous grin “That’s what I was just gonna tell you! You might get a letter explaining things, but there was a massive prank played by some upperclassmen. All of the alarms in the school went of for an hour before they decided to end things early. They were still going off when we left. I hitched a ride with one of my classmates, figured you might still be asleep and Alfred would be cooking.”

“Upperclassmen? Really? Well, I guess I’ll just have to talk to the school about upgrading their security if a few students can disrupt the whole school.” He says giving Dick a stern look, he just gave his signature laugh and replied “I guess so!” Neither of the two noticed Danny’s eyes widen just a fraction, before he schooled his features.

“We were just getting ready to head to the dining room for lunch, care to join us?” Bruce asks Dick raising an eyebrow. “Definitely!” He turns to Danny “Alfred cooks the best food, there’s nothing like it.” Danny indulges him a little as they make their way to the dining room, which was surprisingly already set for three. “Alfred always knows.” Dick says with a shrug. The three sit down making light conversation, Bruce dancing around the topic of his housing situation not wanting to scare him off. They start to talk about how Dick came to be in Bruce’s care.

“I’m still grateful that Bruce was able to take me in, at that point I had gone through so many foster homes they were planning to send me to an orphanage.” Danny nodded along “How old were you?”

“I was only eleven when my parents died, I was twelve when Bruce took me in, that was three years ago.” Danny gave a slight hum as he took a bite of his food. “And how old were you when you found out Bruce was a furry?”

Bruce choked, Dick spewed stew all over the table, Alfred sighed. Once Bruce managed to regain his composure he gave Danny a stern look “Care to explain? I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding.”

“Gonna be honest, you definitely seemed familiar at first but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. It was Dick that gave it away, no offense but you have a very distinct laugh.” Bruce gave Dick a look, he just gave him a shrug “You try keeping a straight face as some guy talks about Batman being a furry.”

“Look I’m not gonna tell anyone, just wanted to get the awkward reveal out of the way. Last time I dealt with peoples secret identities my ex girlfriend shot me. Not something I’d care to repeat.” Bruce sighed “While I appreciate that, somehow I get the feeling that you aren’t doing this out of the goodness of your heart.” Danny smirked

“Think of it as incentive to keep me in Gotham, after all who know what I might talk about while I’m away?” Dick chuckled “Blackmailing the bat? Gutsy.”

He turned to Bruce “Can we keep him?” Bruce questioned his decisions on life. “He’s not a pet, he’s a living, breathing, human being.” Danny’s snort did not go unnoticed, something to investigate later. “Let’s head back to the office and see what we can work out. As for you young man, I’m certain they didn’t send you home without work to do, so you might want to get started on that.”

The two stayed in the office going through files on different programs and families. Danny shooting each one down, too religious, too many kids, to far from the area. They were getting ready to widen their search a bit when Alfred announced that dinner was ready. “Stay for dinner and if you’d like, you’re free to stay the night or take up residence at the apartment for the time being.”

“Thanks, I’d prefer the apartment if you don’t mind. It’s close to the cemetery, it’s peaceful there.” Bruce gives Danny a considering look

“Most people try to avoid cemeteries, they tend to hate being reminded of their mortality.” Danny just shrugs.

“I’m not afraid of dying, not when the living can be so much crueler.” Bruce looks at Danny sadly, wondering exactly what he’d been through.

Dick joined them for dinner and the three sat down, Danny trying and failing to convince Alfred to join them. They talked the whole meal, laughing and sharing stories. Bruce hadn’t seen Dick this happy in awhile, weighed down with more guilt and responsibility than any child his age should. He thought back to what Dick said that first night. Once they finished their meal Danny once more tried to fight with Alfred to take the dishes. A losing battle, Bruce knew, Alfred is relentless. He looked at the bright smile on Dick’s face and the argument between Danny and Alfred. He couldn’t help but agree with Dick, all that’s left to do is plan and ask.

They made it all the way to the door, Bruce trying to figure out how to broach the subject.

“Should I come back tomorrow, to keep working on the paperwork and stuff” Danny asked awkwardly

“You could or…” Danny looked up

“Or what?”

“You could stay, here, I could foster you.” Danny moves to object “Before you say no, I understand that you likely don’t want to be in public eye, we could put together some paperwork as far as anyone will be concerned you don’t exist. You don’t have to be my son if you don’t want to. You can think of this as just a place to stay, but I think… I think you could be happy here. Dick has already expressed his desire for a brother and Alfred would welcome the company. If you want to continue your schooling I could hire a private tutor or i could get you signed up for online classes. So what do you say?”

Danny looked at the ground thinking over everything Bruce said. He was tired of running, maybe, maybe Ms. Martha was right maybe he should take a chance on Bruce Wayne. He square his shoulders and looked Bruce straight in the eye.

“Yes”

End Pt 1

#danny phantom #ghost king danny #dc x dp #dick grayson #bruce wayne #detective comics #I was avoiding Batman #FOR THIS EXACT REASON #holy plot twists Batman its a fanfic #I love Batman I do #this is going to be a whole as fic #I can’t stop coming up with stuff #eventual Danny x Kaldur #not sure when we are gonna get to that though #gonna post this on ao3 when I get home

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stealingyourbones · 11 months

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Aight here me out, also you can have the fish spine that I have.

A more Jazz centered prompt where Jazz is fleeing from Amity with Danny. He had convinced her to leave for college but she felt something was off her last year. She left college before graduation to go check on Danny since he wasn’t responding to her messages, and when she arrives she gets attacked by her parents, who had been experimenting on Danny for months now.

Jazz is thankfully able to break them out, but not after a month goes by. Danny is extremely clingy and traumatized, and now Jazz is traumatized from being experimented on with her brother. So she calls the only person she can think of, her study buddy from college Jason.

Jason was relieved to hear from his old study buddy since she disappeared right before graduation only to learn that she and her siblings are in horrible danger

oh man this is a wonderful Anger Management idea. They bond over the fear of not being able to protect their loved ones and shield them from harm and just AUGH good stuff.

#bones replies #dpxdc #Anger Management ship

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jackdaw-and-hattrick · 10 months

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An idea I’ve seen a bit but wanted to jot down:

Danny cures the pits, all that jazz, but Jason finds that, underneath the artificial escalation, he’s still a revenant built on vengeance who will always experience heightened emotions because of the ectoplasm and trauma.

That’s not to say things haven’t improved. He’s better at directing his rage, and no longer experiences the same green outs. He starts seeing real results from therapy, has an easier time getting back under control, and can better reason his way through his emotions now. It’s discouraging in a way, realizing that it wasn’t just the pits, but it’s also kinda relieving that he honestly felt a lot of what he thought he did; his actions were, mostly, his own, even if he wouldn’t have necessarily gone as far looking back. This increased autonomy comes with its own challenges (he realizes he never really hated Tim so much as what he represented to him and feels genuinely sorry for how he’s treated him, as well as increased anxiety now that negative emotions don’t necessarily become anger) but over all, this has been an improvement, even if not the total overhaul he’d kinda hoped for.

(Please add more if you have further headcannons)

#danny phantom #dp x dc #jason todd #dc x dp #revenant Jason #The pits were A problem but not the only problem #there’s still a metric ton of trauma there for him to get through #not a comprehensive list #but kinda just a thought #he still brought himself back to life outta spite #it’s not just the pits

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fangirlwriting-stories · 1 month

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Growing Closer to Revelations

Summary: Danny navigates the easiest problem he's had in a while.

Author's Note: You know what's super helpful when you already don't have a lot of time to write? Getting sick!

Also though check the tags for this one there's potentially triggering stuff near the end

...

Danny has a problem. He has several problems, actually. And most of them have something to do with Valerie.

The two of them have taken to eating lunch together in a classroom that Valerie says is almost always empty at this time. And Danny tries to feel bad about bailing on Sam and Tucker. Theoretically, he wants to hang out with them. And they’re still his best friends, in a very non-theoretical sense. But it’s hard to want to see them when Valerie is actually someone he likes spending time with, and when she’s not constantly telling him how terrible he is to his face— even if she wouldn’t know that’s what she’s doing either.

Thankfully, she hadn’t seemed to have heard anything that they were saying the first time she dragged Danny away from the lunch table, because Danny wasn’t sure if he’d be able to avoid a Phantom rant from her if she had. Valerie had dealt with a lot as a result of him. She had the right to be angry. But so far she hadn’t mentioned Phantom once, and it was a more than appreciated reprieve.

But the fact that she hadn’t heard what they were talking about meant she really had just noticed him looking miserable and dragged him away to make him feel better, which was leading to… the problems.

The first of which being that he’s really starting to enjoy spending time with her, more than he has with Sam and Tucker in a while. He’s pretty sure Valerie’s picking up on that too, which has to be the reason she keeps asking him to hang out after school any days they both have free.

Sometimes Danny has to bail or arrive late because of a ghost fight, but amazingly, she never seems to mind. In fact, more often then not, she says that something happened to come up for her too and she would have to cancel anyway. So apparently they’re both very busy people constantly being pulled in a hundred different directions, which weirdly enough makes them work for each other. It’s so relieving, he feels himself waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never does. There’s an ease to all of it that makes the idea of hanging out with Sam and Tucker instead just feel even more exhausting.

That’s the second problem, though. Sam and Tucker notice. Because of course they do. The three of them are very used to spending time only with each other, of course they’re going to notice when Danny stops doing that. He spots them a couple times in the hallways, and he still has class with them and he’s talked with them before school once or twice, but they’ve never mentioned Valerie. At this point, he kind of wants them to. It’d be better than all of them never acknowledging it and him waiting anxiously for them to say something.

The third problem is similar— Jazz notices. There’s been an awkwardness between the two of them for a while that Danny doesn’t know how to breach, but he can tell she’s noticed. Mostly because she smiles at him whenever she does ask how his day went and he tells her that he spent most of it with Valerie. Danny doesn’t like the feelings that come with Jazz being proud of him for ditching Sam and Tucker. He already feels guilty about it, the fact that Jazz thinks it’s the right thing to do just adds another layer of that guilt as well as irritation at her (which also makes him feel guilty, because really, he knows she’s just trying to look out for him).

Danny spends most of the time, however, dealing with the simplest of the problems, because even though it’s really not simple at all, it’s completely disconnected from Jazz-Sam-Tucker-Phantom bullshit, which is such a nice difference that weirdly enough, it’s a problem he’s enjoying having.

That being he’s pretty sure he’s developing the lamest crush of all time on Valerie.

Not lame because Valerie’s lame, mind you. Lame because he’s lame.

Valerie started as, and probably still is, significantly more popular than him. Even though she’s lost quite a few friends because of losing her money (which was because of him), she’s still nowhere near the bottom of the totem pole Danny’s dangling at. She could probably still ask someone to beat him up if she wanted to, not that he thinks she wants to anymore.

But while hanging out with a total loser is one thing, dating him would be a total other thing.

…Not that he thinks she wants to date him. He’s not still not a hundred percent sure why she’s doing the first one.

But that means his last and simplest problem can be summed up as “I like a girl who’s out of my league.”

Which is nice. It’s so nice. What he wouldn’t give for this to be his biggest problem. Heck, he’s used to this problem. He’s had this problem since he noticed Paulina, which was way before Phantom stumbled onto the scene.

So, rather than complaining to anyone about how his love life is doomed, or how unfair it is or how she’d like him if she got to know him, like he did to Sam and Tucker about Paulina, he finds himself just enjoying time in Valerie’s company. Because even if the idea of actually dating her is doomed, she’s a nice person to like. Spending time together proves that to him well enough.

“Okay no way, now you have to tell me the story!”

“Sure, as soon as you get done trying to deny that you’ll use it as blackmail material for Dash later,” Valerie says, smirking at him.

“Hey, that is not true,” Danny says, crossing his arms. “Why would I bother trying to deny it?”

Valerie snorts. “Believe it or not, I do actually still like some of the people I’ve been friends with my whole life. Even if I know they’re not perfect.”

Danny huffs a laugh. “Oh, don’t worry, I believe it.”

Valerie winces. “Right. Sorry.”

Danny grins at her. “Know how you can make it up to me?”

“I am not telling you the fourth grade vomit story!”

Danny groans overdramatically and leans back against the desk he’s sitting at. “Why do I even bother with you? Clearly you do not care enough about me to give me the things I need in life.”

��Yeah, because that’s my job,” Valerie says with a roll of her eyes.

Danny sits up, considering. “Tell you what,” he says. “If you tell me the fourth grade vomit story, I’ll tell you about the time Sam tricked Tucker into eating a vegetable and the disastrous consequences.”

He sees Valerie perk up, and knows he has her.

Unfortunately, before Valerie can say anything, the bell rings overhead, signaling the end of lunch.

Danny sighs, defeated. “That’s not even fair.”

“Sorry, guess you’ll have to bring your bargaining skills next time,” Valerie says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Danny says as they stand up to gather their stuff. Valerie, unfortunately, had the foresight to stuff her lunchbox in her bag when she finished, meaning she stands up already ready to go.

“Hey, uh, wait!” Danny calls, stopping her at the door. “You wanna… walk to class together?”

Valerie smiles. “Sure. Long as you don’t mind carrying my bag.”

Danny smiles back as he stands. “You got a deal,” he says, and takes Valerie’s bag from her as he reaches the doorway.

“Don’t think this means I’m telling you the story on the way, though,” Valerie says as she pushes the door open.

“Dang it!”

…

“Look, I’m just saying, if I could fly, I’d get places much faster,” Danny says as they round the corner of the park trail and start back towards the entrance.

“I mean, I guess I can’t deny a statement that vague. How fast are we talking?” Valerie asks.

Danny thinks back. “Across the country in a couple hours.”

“No way.”

“Planes do it!”

“Planes fly hundreds of miles an hour!”

“Who’s to say I can’t?”

“You’d have to actually be able to fly, first,” Valerie says, giving him a look.

“That’s not the point! This is all hypotheticals anyway!”

“Well if it’s all hypotheticals how about you just give yourself the ability to teleport places? Then there’d be no travel time.”

Danny snorts. “Man, I wish.”

“Look, being able to fly fast doesn’t mean you should,” Valerie says. “There could be buildings in the way, or people.”

“Well…” Danny hesitates, unsure how far he should go. “Then I’ll just turn intangible like a ghost,” he says, keeping his voice light and casual and ‘this is all a hypothetical, Valerie!’ in tone.

“See, and then I would turn back to ‘just give yourself the ability to teleport’ if you’re adding whatever you want to this hypothetical,” Valerie says. “Look, I wasn’t disagreeing with your first statement. Yeah, you could probably get places faster if you fly there. I just don’t think it would be that fast.”

“Oh, because of your in-depth experience with flying places,” Danny says, crossing his arms.

“And your in depth experience with turning intangible like a ghost?” Valerie asks, crossing her arms right back.

Danny sticks his tongue out, and Valerie does the same a second later.

There’s a moment of silence while they’re both thinking, and then Valerie says: “Now, the sunsets on the other hand…”

“Oh my god, the stargazing.”

…

“Dang, you weren’t kidding about picking things up quickly,” Danny says, from his spot on the chair he’d dragged down to the lab. His parents had been more than a little surprised when he told them who he’d invited over, but he wasn’t grounded anymore, and he isn’t in any kind of current trouble for once, so they didn’t object.

“I have a natural talent for kicking butt,” Valerie says with a grin, without looking away from the computer screen.

“No kidding. Try not to beat my high score, would you?”

Valerie knocks out another Doomed enemy without breaking a sweat. “No promises.”

A chime rings, and Danny glances down to the corner of the screen to see that Sam has signed on.

“Who’s Chaos?” Valerie asks, peering at it.

“No one, don’t worry about it,” Danny says, hoping Valerie won’t ask.

She looks at him for a minute, and he can tell she’s guessed something, but after a second she shrugs, and goes right back to destroying all of the enemies Danny struggles with in this game. Now he just has to hope Sam doesn’t talk to him either.

But while he sees her Avatar show up on their level after a while (he and Tucker had found out she was Chaos a while ago and they’ve been begging her to teach them her tricks ever since), she doesn’t talk to him, which is weird, because Valerie’s playing with his Avatar.

He’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, though, and instead just watches as Valerie attacks without knowing who’s on the other side of the screen.

He’s not surprised when she starts struggling a bit. Sam is better than him and Tucker combined, and while Valerie is good, it is her first go around with the game.

“Man, this guy is good,” Valerie says, leaning into the screen.

“Yeah, I don’t know anyone who’s ever been able to beat Chaos one on one,” Danny says with a shrug. “I can’t do it either.”

For some reason, however, right as Sam is about to finish Valerie off, she instead stops and leaves.

Danny blinks, confused.

“Wait, why’d they leave?” Valerie asks. “Is that a strategy or something?”

“Not one I’ve seen her use before,” Danny says. “We’ve allied a couple times, maybe she just wanted to spar without actually killing me.”

“I guess so,” Valerie says. She turns the avatar around looking for Chaos a couple more times, but nothing is there.

Though that doesn’t sound like Sam either. She’s definitely toyed with him by beating him up in game a couple times, but she usually finishes him off for lighthearted gloating rights. He doesn’t know what’s so different this time.

They don’t see her again, though, and eventually Valerie gets back to kicking enemies’ butts and gets her health back up.

She beats the level she’s on just in time for there to be a knock on his door and Jazz to stick her head in.

“Sorry to bug you,” she says, as they both glance over. “But is Valerie staying for dinner?”

“No,” Danny says immediately at the same time Valerie says “Sure.”

Danny winces, and glances over at Valerie, who’s looking at him confused and slightly hurt. “What, you don’t want me here?”

“No no,” Danny says, waving his hands. “That’s not it at all. My parents’ food just has a tendency to… come to life, partway through the meal. It’s not exactly their best foot forward.”

Valerie’s look shifts, and she gives him a smile. “Aww, you want me to like your parents?”

“I don’t know if ‘like’ is the appropriate word,” Danny mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was thinking more along the lines of ‘view as normal.’”

Valerie laughs a little. “I already know you’re not normal, Fenton,” she says, nudging him in the side. “That’s what I like about you.”

“Yeah?” Danny asks, smiling at her. “Really?”

Jazz clears her throat. “Hey, still here. So is she staying for dinner or not?”

“Uh,” Danny glances at Valerie. “Sure.” He looks back at Jazz. “But tell Mom and Dad to use the meat that doesn’t have eyes yet.”

Jazz huffs a laugh. “I’ll do my best,” she says, and ducks back out of the room again.

“Seriously,” Danny says, turning to Valerie. “If you really want to stay, prepare yourself for it to have eyes.”

Valerie hesitates. “Is it harmful to eat?”

Danny pauses. He wouldn’t really know. Jazz seems fine. “I don’t think so?”

Valerie nods. “I’ll take that.”

Danny smiles a little, caught off guard. “Maybe I should stop thinking about you as normal.”

“Maybe you should,” Valerie says, smirking right back.

Thankfully, when they’re called downstairs later, the food looks relatively normal, apart from the chicken being slightly burnt. Danny glances over at Jazz as they all sit down, but she gives him a nod. So it really is normal then. Maybe they do want to put their best foot forward, with Valerie here.

But they might not have needed to bother. Because for Valerie’s part, she digs right in as soon as they all start eating, not seeming at all phased by the potential for the meat coming to life in the middle of the meal (though this stuff is probably less likely to).

“So,” Dad says, grinning at Valerie. “Danny hasn’t brought you around before. How long have you two known each other?”

“Oh yes, did you meet recently?” Mom asks, thankfully giving Valerie a moment to swallow her bite of chicken. “Danny doesn’t really have a lot of friends.”

“Mom,” Danny hisses, narrowing his eyes at her.

“We met pretty recently, yeah,” Valerie says, seeming unbothered. “We were uh—” she glances at Danny, and they both realize simultaneously they probably shouldn’t say how they actually met. “Hiding in the same spot during a ghost fight,” Valerie finishes, breezing smoothly past the pause. “It was a long one, so we just started talking.”

“A ghost fight you say?” Dad asks, leaning forward.

“You kids weren’t doing any of the fighting, right?” Mom asks before Dad can continue. “If a ghost attacks, you should make sure you’re safe and let the professionals handle it.”

“Oh, no of course not,” Valerie says, waving her hands dismissively. “That’s what I meant. You know, ghost fight, ghost attack, same thing really.”

“Right, right,” Dad says, leaning forward again. “Now back to the ghost part. Do you have opinions on them?”

Valerie glances to the side, seeming a little uncomfortable. “Uh, I should hope so? I mean, that Phantom prick kind of ruined my life,” she says, and Danny goes still.

“Oh, well you don’t need to talk about that if you don’t want to,” Jazz jumps in immediately. “We understand if that’s personal. Ghosts are just kind of a topic around here, but we don’t have to talk about them.”

“Of course not,” Mom says, and Dad nods in agreement, even if he looks slightly disappointed. “Just know plenty of people have been in your position,” she says to Valerie with a sympathetic smile. “Phantom is one of the larger menaces we have to deal with.”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea!” Jazz calls, leaning towards the center of the table. “Let’s talk about anything else! Valerie, what’s your favorite subject in school?”

Danny laughs a little, partly to make it seem like he’s unbothered by what just happened and partly because that’s such a Jazz thing to say. “Of course you jump right to school,” he says.

“It’s something we can all be sure we have in common!” Jazz protests, sounding a little intentionally overdramatic with a glance at both their parents and Valerie.

“No that’s fine,” Valerie says. “Uh, I don’t know. Does gym class count?”

Jazz wrinkles her nose, and Danny can’t help but laugh. “Not to her,” he says with a grin at Valerie.

“I like being active!” Valerie says, holding her hands up in defense.

“Ugh, you would,” Danny says with a smile, making sure Valerie can tell he’s joking.

“And what’s your favorite subject, lunch?” Valerie asks, her tone just as teasing.

“Well, I mean, they took away recess years ago, what else is there to compare it to?” Danny says with a casual shrug, and Valerie laughs.

Plus Valerie’s there during lunch, and he doesn’t sit next to her in any classes, making it a definite plus, but he’s not going to say that aloud.

He glances over at Jazz to try and include her in the conversation again, only to find her looking very uncertainly right at him. He blinks at her. “What?”

He turns to look at his parents, and finds them both smiling. “What?”

“Nothing, sweetie,” Mom says. “Just thinking about dessert. I’m afraid we don’t have anything fancy, would you be okay with some ice cream, Valerie?”

Danny glances at Valerie to see if she knows why everyone’s being weird, but she just shrugs and says, “Sure,” in response to Mom’s question.

Mom brings in ice cream, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles, and they all talk a bit more as they eat, but Danny can feel the energy of the night wrapping up, and he’s not surprised when afterwards, Valerie says she needs to start heading home.

“Do you need a ride, sweetie?” Mom asks her as they start for the living room. “We could drop you off.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Valerie says. “I can take the bus.”

“Absolutely not, young lady, we can’t just leave our guest to take the bus home,” Mom says. “Hang on, I’ll go grab the keys to the Ghost Assault Vehicle.”

“Uh, thanks?”

“It’s just a souped up RV,” Danny explains as soon as Mom’s out of earshot. “And if Mom’s driving, we’ll be fine.”

“Aww, are you driving me home, Danny?” Valerie says. “I didn’t realize I needed two escorts.”

“No, he’s not,” comes a sudden voice before Danny can say anything back. They both turn in surprise to find Jazz standing there with her arms crossed.

“We need to talk, Danny,” she says.

“What? Why?”

“About your homework,” Jazz says with a subtle glance at Valerie. “Do you have any idea how much you’ve missed this week?”

Danny groans. “As a matter of fact, I do, Jazz,” he says. “You say it like I don’t have the knowledge constantly looming over my head.”

“Well, I’m going to help you come up with a plan to get it done,” Valerie says. “You definitely don’t have a half hour to waste to drive Valerie home.”

“So I’m just going to let Mom drive home the friend that I invited over? That’s kind of rude, Jazz,” Danny says.

“Too bad,” Jazz says. She grabs Danny’s arm and starts pulling him for the stairs.

“What? Jazz!”

But Jazz is insistent, and Danny only has enough time to look back and mouth ‘Sorry,’ to Valerie before they reach the stairs.

Valerie waves him off, thankfully seeming unbothered, before Jazz drags him up the stairs and out of sight.

It’s only once Jazz pulls them both inside of her room that she lets go of him. Danny starts talking before she can turn around, though.

“Okay, seriously, what is with you?” he says, raising his hands up in exasperation. “I wasn’t kidding about that being rude. And why are you suddenly being a stickler about homework, you haven’t done that since you learned… you know.”

“How long have you known that Valerie hates Phantom?” Jazz asks quietly, crossing her arms and completely ignoring his question.

“Uh, I don’t know, I always kind of figured after that whole ‘ruined her life’ thing? Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

“Because I’m tired of seeing you hanging out with people who bad mouth you right to your face.”

“Hey,” Danny says, narrowing his eyes to a glare. “First of all, Valerie doesn’t know that’s what she’s doing, so it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Second,” he continues, “since when is that any of your business? It’s not like I don’t have a lot of experience with that kind of thing.”

“Yeah, and that’s a problem,” Jazz says.

“It’s hardly my biggest problem. It’s not one I can’t deal with. And Valerie never brings up Phantom unprompted anyway. It’s okay.”

“Danny, it’s not—” Jazz takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Just because she doesn’t talk about it doesn’t mean you won’t know,” she says.

“Like how I know Mom and Dad would rip me apart molecule by molecule if they found out? It’s really not a big deal. I can handle it okay? I promise.”

“It’s not about whether or not you can handle it.”

“Well, what’s it about, then?”

Jazz opens her mouth to respond, but is interrupted by Mom calling “Danny!” from downstairs.

“Where are you, we’re driving Valerie home!”

“See, Mom knows it’s rude too,” Danny says, gesturing back at the door. “I’ll be going now.”

“Fine, but we’re going to talk about this when you get back, right?” Jazz calls after him.

“I don’t know,” Danny says, sending one last glare over his shoulder. “Probably not.”

He walks off before Jazz can reply.

…

“Okay so uh, here’s the thing,” Valerie says as the three of them climb into the GAV. “I don’t exactly live in the greatest apartment.”

“That’s okay,” Danny says. “We’re not going to judge you.”

“No, I just mean, you guys live in a house with a bunch of fancy lab equipment and have an entire Ghost Assault Vehicle with gadgets on it as your car. Don’t… expect that.”

“Don’t worry about it sweetie,” Mom says from the front seat as she pulls away. “I know Jack and I might be a little out of touch from time to time, but we certainly don’t expect everyone to be rich.”

Except she used to be just that, hisses a voice in Danny’s head. He tries his best to shake it away.

Valerie gives a slightly bitter chuckle. “Just a bunch of leftover ghost problems really,” she mutters, and Danny winces, looking away as he fidgets with his hands.

“We’ve certainly had our fair share of those,” Mom says. “Danny’s right, we’re not going to judge you.”

Well, judging is one thing. He’s definitely not judging. But a lack of judgment doesn’t stop Danny’s stomach from curling up in guilt when they pull to a stop in front of Valerie’s clearly falling apart apartment building. He makes sure it doesn’t show on his face, lest Valerie take it as something else, but when she climbs out and waves at him, he still feels very small as he waves back.

“See you tomorrow?” Valerie asks, clearly still nervous.

Danny shoves the guilt down and smiles at her. “Definitely.”

Apparently he’s hidden his feelings well enough, because Valerie’s smile turns a little more confident. “Next time, we’re hanging out at my place.”

“Deal,” Danny says with a nod.

Valerie grins at him and heads off towards the front door, waving as she goes.

Danny climbs up to the front seat as soon as she heads inside, and then Mom turns to him before she pulls away.

“Well then,” she says, and she has a knowing tone in her voice that makes Danny realize he’s in for something embarrassing. “She’s a cutie, isn’t she?”

“Oh, my god, Mom,” Danny groans.

“I’m just saying, teenage crushes can be very sweet!” Mom says, turning to pull away.

“Mom!”

“You have my full support if you want to go for it, sweetheart.”

Danny buries his head in his hands. “I’m getting out and walking home.”

“Just make sure you’re both comfortable with whatever you want to try!”

“Kill me twice.”

…

The inside of Valerie’s apartment isn’t much nicer than the outside, but Danny can see effort to make it more of a home. There’s Christmas lights hung up in the living room, though that could also be because there’s no overhead light built in. Either way, the lights look nice, and there’s a couple of posters hung up on the walls, though most of them seem to be referencing something called Scalpels and Secrets, which according to the posters looks like it’s exactly as good as it sounds.

They aren’t there for long before Valerie and him both end up in the kitchen, helping Mr Gray make potatoes. He washes them and passes them to Valerie, who cuts them up and slides them to the other side of the cutting board, and Danny puts them on a tray and shakes some spices over them, and the tray will go into the oven as soon as they’re all there.

“Do you guys make dinner like this together a lot?” Danny asks, picking up another handful from Valerie’s cutting board.

“Yeah. We both tend to get home pretty late, so it just makes it go faster,” Valerie says.

“It’s nice,” Danny admits. He smirks a little bit. “And none of it’s glowing.”

“I’m sorry?” Mr Gray asks, looking over at him in bafflement and slight concern.

“My parents’ food has a tendency to glow green and attack you,” Danny says. “That’s kind of just what happens when you live in the same house as an interdimensional portal.”

Mr Gray stares at him for a moment, then seems to shake himself. “Well, I can assure you none of these potatoes will try to attack you,” he says, passing the last one to Valerie.

“We’re already off to a great start then,” Danny says, and Valerie laughs a little.

“Your parents’ food wasn’t that bad,” she says.

“I’ll be sure to tell them you said that,” Danny says. Valerie laughs again.

“You two seem to get along well,” Mr Gray says with a smile at them. “How did you meet?”

“We got stuck together during a ghost attack,” Valerie says, likely for consistency’s sake so they can tell both sets of their parents the same story. “It went long, so we just started talking.”

“Sometimes life happens that way,” Mr Gray says with a smile and a nod. “I’m glad you two met. Valerie seems happier since she’s started spending time with you.”

“Dad,” Valerie grumbles, looking away. Danny does the same, feeling his cheeks warm.

“What, am I not supposed to take note of someone who makes my daughter happy?” Mr Gray asks. “I don’t know if you know this Valerie, but I like it when you’re happy.”

“Dad.”

Mr Gray chuckles a little, and Danny takes a moment to be glad that Valerie wasn’t in the car last night when Mom was teasing him.

He turns and notices he’s picking up the last of Valerie’s potatoes, so he adds the spices to them and does one more shake over all of the potatoes, and then passes them off to Valerie, who carries them over to the oven, which Mr Gray has pulled open.

“That’s gonna be delicious,” Valerie says as Mr Gray shuts it. He sets a timer for half an hour, and then turns to face them both.

“Well Danny, since Valerie seems to have gotten a crash course in dinners at your house, you should know that we have a tradition when we eat dinner here.”

“Oh?” Danny asks.

“I hope you’re ready for cheesy medical dramas,” Valerie says with a grin. “We’re watching Scalpels and Secrets.”

…

They manage to get part of an episode in before the potatoes are done, and when Mr Gray heads into the other room to get them, Valerie pauses the show and turns to him.

“Thoughts?”

“Oh, uh,” Danny says. “It’s, um…”

“We like it because it’s bad, Danny.”

“Then it’s really bad,” Danny says in relief.

Valerie laughs. “That’s the fun part,” she says. “I’m almost never having more fun than when I get to sit here and make fun of Kelly for being an idiot and Stacy for being a bitch.”

“Valerie!” is heard from the kitchen,

“For being a jerk,” Valerie amends without missing a beat. Then she mouths to Danny ‘She’s a bitch,’ and Danny muffles his laughter.

Mr Gray comes back in with three plates of potatoes that look smothered in butter, and sets a bag of shredded cheese and salt and pepper on the ground in front of them. He hands Danny, then Valerie their plates, and takes his seat again in the armchair. Valerie immediately goes for the cheese, so Danny picks up the salt and pepper and shakes some onto his potatoes, then trades with Valerie when he’s done. They both pass what they’re holding up to Mr Gray afterwards, and he takes them and starts on his plate as Valerie plays the show again.

They eat the potatoes as they finish the episode, which ends on the most ridiculous cliffhanger of all time (Kevin is trying to decide whether or not he’ll tell Kelly he’s cheated for what is, according to Valerie, the fourth time).

“We can watch the next one tomorrow night,” Mr Gray says as it finishes. “I have some work to do. But I can do the dishes if you two want to head up to Valerie’s room to talk.”

“Uh,” Valerie says, leaping up. “Give me a minute first! It’s… really messy.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Danny says. “You should see the state my room is in most of the time.”

“No, I just need to put some— things— away! Won’t take two seconds!”

And with that she all but runs off down the hallway next to the kitchen, leaving Danny alone with Mr Gray.

Before it can start feeling awkward, however, Mr Gray chuckles and turns to face him. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “She gets like this when she wants to impress someone.”

“Impress someone?” Danny asks, surprised.

Mr Gray smiles knowingly at him and doesn’t say anything.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Just know typical shovel rules apply, and you better not hurt my daughter.”

“Wait,” Danny says, holding up his hands. “I don’t— she’s not— I mean we’re not—”

“Okay!” comes Valerie’s voice, and she appears at the entrance to the kitchen. “You can come back now.”

“Keep the door open,” Mr Gray calls, as Danny heads after her into the kitchen.

“Dad!”

Danny looks down to hide his face, which he’s sure is bright red. He keeps his gaze firmly fixed on the floor until they reach Valerie’s bedroom.

“Sorry about him,” Valerie says.

“That’s okay,” Danny says, finally looking up. “You’re lucky my parents didn’t—” he stops.

He has no idea what Valerie was putting away during the tidying of her room, but she left up the countless newspaper clippings and photographs and drawn up targets of Phantom. There are conspiracy articles, like ones about who Phantom is dating, and ones that are closer to accurate, like pieces about public opinion on him shifting. There are also tons of photos pinned and taped to the wall, some of which he doesn’t have the slightest clue how she could have gotten.

If this is everything she feels comfortable with him seeing, what did she feel the need to hide?

Danny feels a little sick to his stomach. He tries to shake the feeling off, but after a second of him not saying anything, Valerie notices.

“Oh god,” she says, turning to follow his gaze. “Okay I uh, I understand how this looks, but I swear I’m not creepy and obsessive. I figured you wouldn’t mind because your parents are ghost hunters, I just… please ignore these. I swear I don’t spend all of my free time thinking about Phantom.”

“That’s okay,” Danny says, trying to force as much of a casual tone into his voice as he can manage. Even his parents don’t have a hate shrine to him.

Then again, he didn’t completely ruin his parents’ lives. Maybe it does make some sense.

“I just…” Valerie sighs, sitting down on her bed. “I’ve been meaning to take some of these down too. I mean, Phantom’s not this much of a thing with me anymore. Like, he’s still a dangerous ghost and I— someone needs to stop him, obviously, but… just, especially after everything first happened, I was pissed at him. I still am pissed, I’m just not as lonely as I was.” She looks up at Danny, and then jolts upright and looks away. “I mean uh, because my old friends aren’t being quite as huge of jerks anymore. Obviously.”

“Yeah,” Danny mutters, looking down at the floor, as the only place he can put his gaze and not be met with a picture of Phantom.

After a second, however, Valerie sighs again. “And you too,” she admits in a mumble.

Danny looks up. “What?”

Valerie shrugs, looking embarrassed. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I like hanging out with you, Danny,” she says. “It’s nice to have a friend I can just spend time and do normal stuff with,” she says.

Danny keeps her gaze and smiles a little. “I like that too,” he says quietly.

Valerie smiles back at him, and neither of them say anything for a moment.

Finally, Valerie clears her throat. “So uh, ignoring all of the Phantom stuff that I’m taking down anyway… sorry about my dad. My life is way too complicated right now to date someone anyway. I don’t think he gets that.”

“Huh, that’s different,” Danny says before he thinks it through.

Valerie blinks at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, my life is crazy complicated right now too,” Danny says. “That’s why I want to date someone.”

Valerie gives him an intrigued look. “Okay, again, what do you mean,” she says.

“I mean, I have so much going on,” Danny says. After a second, he moves forward and sits down on the bed next to Valerie, and Valerie easily shifts aside to let him.

“It sounds nice to have a break from all of that, I guess is what I mean. Not in the long term committed partner way, just in the going on dates to have fun kind of way? I don’t know.” He shrugs. “It’s not like it matters anyway, my options are pretty limited in that department.”

“What makes you say that?” Valerie asks, tipping her head.

Danny stares at her. “Uh, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Valerie, but I’m not exactly as popular as your old friends.”

Valerie blinks, like the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. “I mean, that’s not what I—” she stops, and they both look at each other for a moment. Danny can’t tell if she wants him to ask or not.

Then after a second, he sees her look away, and he knows that answer is “not.”

So instead, he shifts his position to dispel the awkwardness and says “Like, can you imagine me walking up to Paulina and asking her out?”

Valerie snorts and covers her mouth, meaning he’s succeeded in moving the conversation on. “Okay, no, I can’t,” she says. “She’d definitely laugh at you.”

“See, that’s what I mean,” Danny says with a grin. “I have to make my choices on more of a ‘who’s low enough on the totem pole to be a real option,’ basis.”

“Well, you sure know how to charm a girl,” Valerie says. “I’m astounded they’re not all falling at your feet already.”

“I know right?” Danny says. “With all of the loserness and unreliability of scheduled activities to offer?”

Valerie narrows her eyes slightly. “That’s not all you have to offer.”

“It is to someone like Paulina,” Danny says.

Valerie rolls her eyes. “Because Paulina’s too shallow to pay attention to anything else,” she says, and Danny… doesn’t know what to say to that.

Thankfully, Valerie keeps going. “I mean honestly, even before she kicked me to the curb the second I had any hardships in life, she wasn’t exactly my best friend. She just… isn’t exactly the most supportive person.”

“I don’t imagine any of them would be,” Danny admitted. “But I can relate. Not having supportive friends can really suck.”

“Yeah, I guess you’d know too, huh?” Valerie says.

Danny doesn’t agree, but doesn’t deny it either.

“Well, whoever it is you’re talking about,” Valerie says. “And of course I don’t have the slightest clue who it could be. I think they’re crazy to not be treating you well. You deserve it.”

“Uh, thanks,” Danny says, though what goes through his head is She wouldn’t be saying that if she knew.

He glances up at her wall. She really wouldn’t.

He shakes it off and turns back to her. “You too, by the way,” he says. “Everyone who treated you like that is a jerk. I just uh, thought that before too.”

“Thanks, Danny,” Valerie says with a smile. “I like to think I’ve upgraded a little.”

Danny smiles back at her. “Me too,” he says. He tries not to feel guilty about the fact that he means it.

…

Mom comes to get him not long after that, and Danny spends the drive home trying to work out his thoughts.

It’s definitely nothing new, caring about someone who hates Phantom. He knew Valerie had an issue with him before. The only thing that’s changed is now he’s aware of the intensity.

When he thinks about it, he can’t blame her. When she says he ruined her life as Phantom, he can tell she means it, and he can tell why. It’s just another of the increasing list of screwups he doesn’t know how to make up for. Losing Valerie’s father his job, apparently dropping Sam from a highwire during his time with Freakshow, blasting Tucker into a wall and giving him a concussion. If any of them want to hate him, well, they definitely all have their reasons. He could be doing better as a hero.

And honestly, if he can deal with his parents talking loudly about wanting to rip him apart molecule by molecule, he can deal with Valerie hating him enough to decorate her room with that hatred.

At least she’s never tried to kill him.

…

He’s out late on patrol, partly because he gets back home late and partly because he doesn’t want to ask Jazz for help and keep them both up, which means he’s out even later. But as a result, despite all her best efforts Jazz can’t get him up in time to drive them both to school. Instead, he runs out the door with toast in his hand, yelling back to his parents that he’d run to make the bus.

A ghost sense throws a wrench into that plan. He sighs, ducks down a side street, and transforms, then takes to the sky, casting his gaze around.

After a second, he spots an octopus ghost a street over, diving towards a car parked on the side of the road. There’s a mother and daughter cowering inside it.

Danny heads quickly for the ghost, but the octopus soars straight through the car, pulling the girl along with it. Likely by accident, judging by the way the octopus starts shaking its tail.

Shifting gears, Danny ignores the ghost and heads for the space right under the child.

“I’ve got you!” he calls. “You can let go!”

The girl stops screaming just long enough to look down at him, and the second she spots him, her face brightens. She lets go of the octopus and lands safely in his grip, and Danny lowers them both to the ground. The octopus heads towards the sky, meaning it’s probably not going to cause too much trouble, so he lets it go for now.

Danny feels a sudden jolt from the girl in his arms, and looks down just in time for her to throw her arms around his neck.

“Hey, easy there,” Danny says, shifting his grip. “I don’t want to drop you. You’re alright.”

He turns back towards the car to see the girl’s mother running up the sidewalk.

“Daisy!” she calls as soon as she spots them both. “Oh, thank you, thank you!”

“Mama, he flies!” Daisy calls. She turns to grin up at Danny. “Can you do it again?”

Danny laughs a little. “I don’t know if your Mom has another one of those in her,” he says, passing Daisy back to her mother.

“Oh thank you so much,” the woman says, hugging Daisy close to her chest. Daisy hugs her mother just as tightly as she hugged Danny. Hugs are a thing for her, it seems.

“No trouble,” Danny says, giving the woman a smile. “I should probably go grab that ghost now.”

“Thank you so much,” the woman says again. She sets Daisy down on the ground, and grips her hand tightly.

Daisy waves back at him as the two of them start towards their car. “Bye Mr Invis-o-Bill!” she calls.

Danny holds back a groan and manages to smile back at her. He watches the two of them for another second with a small smile, then turns and takes to the air again, heading after that octopus.

Before he can get very far, however, he hears “Hey, ghost scum!”

He spins around to see the Red Huntress raising a blaster at him. This time he doesn’t bother to hold back a groan.

“Look, I’m busy, can we do this another time?” he says. “I do actually have somewhere I need to be.”

“Yeah, me too, but you don’t see me complaining,” Red Huntress snaps, and she raises her blaster again.

“I wasn’t even— I’m kind of dealing with a different ghost,” Danny says, turning intangible as the blast shoots through him and up into the sky. He stays intangible and turns to look after the octopus ghost that’s definitely long gone.

“Only ghost I see here is you,” Red Huntress says, and Danny sighs and turns to face her again, dropping his intangibility. She doesn’t try to fire her blaster again, but she doesn’t lower it either.

“That’s because you have amazingly terrible timing,” Danny says. “Where are your new sidekicks, did you drop them?”

“It’s not like they follow me everywhere,” Red Huntress snaps.

“Heck of a team, you three,” Danny says. “Look, seriously. I’m tired, and I have places to be. Can we just skip this for today?”

“Not on your afterlife,” Red Huntress says, and fires her blaster.

Danny sighs again. “Yeah, I figured,” he mutters. He dives out of the way just in time to avoid it and darts back the way he came, though he stays clear from his house. The last thing he needs is his parents to notice the fight and join in.

He hears Red Huntress chasing him, but there’s too many people around for him to feel comfortable using intangibility, lest the blast go through him and hit someone else. So instead, he turns so his back is facing the ground and flies backwards, keeping his gaze on the Huntress as she chases. What he really needs to do is to get away long enough to change back and just start heading back to school, but Huntress is right on his tail. He’ll just have to get to a less populated area first.

He starts flying for the end of the street, trying to keep an eye on Huntress while also avoiding slamming into any buildings. Just as he reaches the turn, Huntress fires a blast at him. Danny gives a quick glance down only to see people looking up at him, so he groans, braces himself, and takes the hit in the chest.

Thankfully he manages to hit the ground next to the people instead of landing on top of them, which would have defeated the purpose. It does, however, give him a chance to go intangible and sink below ground.

He can’t see anything underground, so he doesn’t fly too far before heading back up, this time just staying intangible.

The Huntress is looking around, but makes no sign of having seen him or knowing where he went, so Danny lets out a small breath and heads down a side alleyway. He ducks behind a dumpster and changes back. A peek out from behind reveals no one in the alley.

Danny sighs. He’s definitely going to be late for school.

Right as he’s about to step out, however, the Red Huntress lands in the alley with a loud sigh. She looks back out towards the street, and it must be satisfyingly empty, because she hits a button on her suit, and her armor retracts back into a backpack.

And then Valerie Gray looks up and locks eyes with him.

Valerie’s eyes immediately snap wide open, and her hands go to her mouth.

“Oh god,” she says faintly. “You— you didn’t see that! I’m not here!”

Danny stares at her.

Valerie groans and drops her head into her hands. “No no no,” she says. “That’s not— ugh, what are you doing here?”

“I was hiding from an octopus ghost,” Danny says weakly.

“No,” Valerie groans again. “Okay, okay, look, you—” she stops, and moves quickly across the alleyway, then pulls them both behind the dumpster. “I can explain.”

“That you’re the Red Huntress?” Danny says. He grabs the straps of his own backpack to hopefully keep it from being obvious that his hands are shaking.

“Kind of?” Valerie says weakly. “Look, I… back when Phantom first destroyed my life, I got the suit in the mail from… an anonymous benefactor. It started out as a way to get revenge, but then I saw how many people were getting hurt by all ghosts, not just him. I— I had to do something. No one was supposed to find out.”

Danny’s pretty sure the backpack plan isn’t going to work out. He shoves his hands in his pockets instead.

So, nothing new. He’s used to people hating him. He was just wrong about the intensity. Again. It’s fine. This is so fine.

“Danny?” Valerie says, and Danny looks up to see abject terror on her face. “Please, I— I wasn’t trying to lie to you. Please don’t tell anyone.”

Danny definitely can’t breathe right, but Valerie’s scared, so he tries to tap into that to force the feeling away from himself for as long as he can. He clenches his hands into fists until he can feel his nails digging into his hands, and focuses on that to ground himself.

“Hey, of course I’m not going to tell anyone,” he says, proud of how steady his voice comes out. “Val, that’s— that’s amazing.”

And it is kind of amazing, to hear his own motivations echoed so plainly back to him. He hadn’t realized the Red Huntress had any motivation apart from destroying him.

Apart from… oh god.

Valerie looks up at him, a nervous hope on her face, and Danny shoves his own feelings down again.

“You… it doesn’t change how you see me?” Valerie asks.

Danny opens his mouth to say no, but can’t get it out, so he switches gears instead.

“Of course it changes how I see you,” he says, and rushes on before Valerie’s expression can change. “It makes you that much more amazing. I mean you… you don’t have to do this, no one’s making you, and you don’t owe it to anyone. And it’s dangerous, but… but you do it anyway.”

Yeah, he can focus on that. That’s a good part to focus on.

That, and how terrified he’s going to be to be fighting the Red Huntress from now on, because he knows he’s fighting a human and more than that he’s fighting Valerie—

No no, that’s not a good part to focus on right now.

“And that’s amazing,” he says turning back to Valerie. “Sorry I— I feel like I’m just repeating myself but—”

He’s cut off by Valerie wrapping her arms around him and kissing him. It’s barely a second before she stops and pulls back though, looking startled at what she just did.

“Oh shit I shouldn’t have done that without asking,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

Danny swallows. “It… it’s okay,” he says, giving a smile that comes out much more confident than he feels. “I mean, Val, I would have thought my feelings are pretty obvious by now.”

Valerie laughs. “Yeah,” she says, rubbing the back of her neck. “Neither of us just ever said them out loud.” She smiles widely up at him, looking a mix of grateful and ecstatic.

“You’re amazing too, you know?” she says. “You just— wow, you just rolled with that.”

“Yeah,” Danny says weakly. “I’m a little amazed with that myself.”

Valerie laughs and takes a step closer. “Can I kiss you again?” she asks.

Danny takes a deep breath and shoves this realization far, far down so he can process it later, and instead smiles back at Valerie. “Yes.”

#danny phantom #danny fenton #valerie gray #jazz fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #uh what do i put a tw for #tw slight non con?#like Danny's not in a good place when the kissing happens #that kind of situation #everyone knows au #my fic

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five-rivers · 1 year

Text

Flitter

AO3

For @echoghost1 and @kawaiijohn

(Also, I would love to have a better name for this fic if anyone can think of one.)

It sounded ridiculous in retrospect, but the shoes were the first sign.

"Danny, please, we've been here for over an hour. Pick a pair."

"I'm trying," said Danny, staring across his empire of discarded shoe boxes (he was thinking about calling it Shoelandia). "None of them feel right."

"Of course none of them feel right," said Maddie. "They're brand new. You'll break them in as you wear them. Just get the pair that feels the least off."

Danny grumbled to himself as he tried to remember which one that was. There had been a wide one near the beginning, before the salespeople gave up on them… There! He lunged across a heap of boxes to secure the sadly orange shoes.

"Great," said Maddie, clearly relieved. "Let's go check out and you can put them on before we go out to the car."

"But–"

"If I let you wear those any longer, people will wonder if I'm neglecting you."

Danny followed her pointed finger to his reliable red shoes, which weren't that bad.

Okay, they were that bad. Ghost hunting plus teenage growth spurts were not friendly to footwear, it seemed.

Fine.

The next sign was his skin. As in, there was something wrong with it. Danny didn’t like to brag, but he had pretty good skin. It wasn’t perfect - whose was? - but he didn’t get a lot of acne and he definitely didn’t get chapped hands or whatever this was.

Disgusted and fascinated all at once, he peeled off another thin layer of skin from the back of his hand.

“What is this?”

“I don’t know, man,” said Tucker. “Did you get sunburned or something?”

“No,” grumbled Danny, peeling more skin from his arm. “I haven’t even seen the sun this week.”

“A ghost sunburn?”

“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean,” whined Danny, rubbing the back of his hand.�� The skin there felt weird.

“No, it’s probably normal,” said Sam. “Stuff like that sometimes happens to me if I, like, get really sweaty in the pool.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not quite that much, though. Please tell me you aren’t going to just leave that on the floor.”

“You know, most household dust is dead skin cells, so it’s not like-”

Sam snatched the tissue box from Danny’s bedside table and threw it at him. “You’re disgusting.”

Danny sighed and stood up, mincing his way to the corner of the room his dustpan lived in.

“You know, most people take their shoes off inside,” said Tucker.

“Most people don’t live with two mad scientists. Going barefoot is dangerous.”

“Three,” corrected Sam. “Jazz is going into STEM, too, right?”

“My point is, if your shoes are bothering you that much, you don’t have to wear them.”

“I know, I know, but I’m trying to break them in.” He swept up the sheets of peeled skin. “Happy?”

“Never.”

Danny threw the tissue box back at her.

The third sign… Well. It wasn’t so much a sign as an avalanche of signs.

Danny woke up sore. Not unusual, considering his extracurriculars, but annoying. Had he even fought a ghost yesterday? Things had been calming down, lately. He’d even been able to keep up with homework…

There had been Boxy… Boxy didn't count unless he showed up more than three times. So. No. He was just aching for no reason.

Ugh.

Puberty sucked.

Why couldn’t he have gotten it over with in middle school like Dash and the other meatheads?

He untangled himself from his bedsheets and forced his aching feet into his house slippers. Not the safest choice, but he didn’t want to deal with his still-new, still-orange shoes. Eyes still half closed (it was too early to be this bright) he made his way down to the kitchen.

"Danny! Your hand!"

“Hwuh? Wha?”

“Did you break a pen or something?” asked Maddie, pulling his hand up and turning it over.

“No?” said Danny, deciding he should try to be at least slightly more awake. He forced his eyes open and looked at his hand.

The tips of his fingers, from his first knuckle halfway down to his second, were black, the color shading to blue and then peach before it reached his palms. It was hard to tell with the color change, but the shape of his nails was also subtly off.

He pulled his hand back, then raised his other one. It was the same.

This was some crazy ghost thing, wasn’t it? And he’d just walked straight to his trigger-happy ghost hunting parents like someone with a death wish–

“Danny,” said Maddie, “Danny, don’t panic. Jack, dear, can you go down to the lab and get the quarantine protocol ready? Okay. Danny, have you noticed any other changes? Do you feel anything else strange?”

Danny shook his head. He’d just woken up. He hadn’t even noticed this.

“Really? Nothing? Not even body pains, soreness, that kind of thing?”

“Maybe a little,” admitted Danny. “I thought it was just growing pains… I don’t know what this is.”

“We might,” said Maddie, lowering her goggles.

“Really? You know what this is?” asked Jazz. Danny hadn’t even noticed her in the room. “Please tell me this isn’t because of one of your inventions.”

"Well, not exactly, but… last week, we were working with an ecto-irritant in the lab," explained Maddie.

"A what?" asked Jazz, suspicion still lacing her tone.

"It's supposed to cause transformations in ghosts," said Maddie. "Unexpected ones. Hijack their shapeshifting abilities. But it does have some impact on highly ectocontaminated people as well…"

"Ectocontaminated people?" repeated Jazz. "Should I be worried?"

"No, you aren't nearly contaminated enough."

"Isn't that what you thought about Danny, too?"

Maddie rubbed her face. "We'll run some tests."

"Where did you even get this, anyway?" asked Danny, hoping that would explain at least some of… everything.

"Vladdie!" said Jack, coming back up the stairs. “We were testing it for him!”

Wow. That really did explain everything. Screw Vlad.

"Well, one of his R&D labs developed it. They wanted to use it as a ghost repellant. He asked us to do some independent tests, first, but if it does this to regular people like Danny…"

Yes, that was totally what Danny was. Absolutely regular. No ghost powers here.

Maddie shook her head and turned to Jack. “Do you have the quarantine set up?”

“Sure do!” said Jack. “Come on down, Danno, we’ll get you fixed up in a jiffy!”

“It… might be a little longer than that,” said Maddie, putting her hand on Danny’s back and steering him towards the door down into the lab.

“But you do know how to undo this, right?” asked Danny.

“Well, in theory,” said Maddie. “It wasn’t something we were really interested in when we were testing it on ghosts.”

Of course it wasn’t.

“Do you at least know what it’s transforming him into?” asked Jazz, following them down into the lab, her breakfast thoroughly abandoned.

“That’d be the other reason we were going to advise Vladdie against it!”

“What, you don’t know?” asked Jazz, aghast.

“Nope! Seemed pretty random! Half the time, we got these fluffy little blobs, and the rest of the time they turned into real monsters! Not good for a repellant at all!”

“Great,” said Danny. “Love knowing that I’ll either turn into a blob or a monster. Really love that for me.”

Maddie squeezed Danny’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out before then.”

Danny had doubts.

Beyond the persistent ache, whatever was happening to Danny didn’t really hurt. Which was good! Don’t get him wrong, he didn’t want it to hurt. But if it did hurt, it might have been easier to tell what was changing.

Right now, it was mostly his family members noticing things, not him. Jack had gotten the full length mirror from the master bathroom, so he could, in theory, help that way. Just staring at himself in a mirror looking for problems seemed kind of messed up, though, and he was, maybe just a little, still in denial.

The stain on his fingers was also on his toes, creeping halfway up his foot. His parents were still looking at x-rays of them, arguing about whether or not their structure had been changed. Danny wasn’t sure, but he felt like both his fingers and toes were longer.

The blackened skin was also hardening into something almost chitinous and fusing to his nails at the tips. It made him feel like he should put a toothpick under his nails to clean them out.

But it also felt weirdly satisfying to drum his newly-hardened fingers against things.

“Time for the blood test!” exclaimed Jack, making Danny flinch. “Gotta see how much of the irritant is in you!”

“Right,” said Danny, smiling nervously. “Gotta see that.”

Jack faltered. “Oh, Danno, your teeth…”

Danny raised his hand to his mouth. Yep. He had teeth. Specifically, he had canines that were almost twice as long as usual and felt sharp even through his toughened skin.

“Let’s… let’s get that blood draw done, okay, sport?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, also shaken. He hadn’t noticed. That was in his mouth and he hadn’t noticed.

Jack carefully cleaned a spot inside Danne’s elbow with an alcohol wipe and slid in the slender needle. “Don’t feel lightheaded or anything, do you?”

“Nope,” said Danny. It would take a lot more than that to make him feel lightheaded.

“That’s good.” He withdrew the needle. “Okay! Half for the centrifuge, half for the microscope!”

“Don’t forget the test strips!” said Maddie.

“Oh, yeah!”

Danny returned to angstily zoning out, this time tapping his fingers against his teeth. Then the centrifuge started up.

It sounded like an ice pick driven through his brain. He shrieked and covered his ears.

“Danny?!”

“It’s too loud!”

Someone shut off the centrifuge. Cautiously, he removed his hands from his ears.

“Okay,” said Maddie. “Okay. Let’s… take a look at your ears. Jazz, can you get the noise canceling headphones? The ones you got me for Christmas last year?”

“Sure,” said Jazz.

As Maddie went through a number of hearing tests that Danny did his best to cooperate with, the brightness of the lab’s overhead lights rapidly climbed to ‘unbearable.’

“Your eyes, too?” asked Maddie.

Danny moaned in response.

“Oh, sweetie,” she said, brushing some of his hair back behind his ear. It tickled. His ear flicked. He decided not to think too deeply about that. “Here, Jazz has the headphones… Why don’t you take a nap for now? We’ll wake you up if anything else big changes, or if we find anything out, okay?”

“Okay,” said Danny. “Not much else to do if I’m sitting with my eyes closed and my ears plugged, I guess.”

“It’s going to be alright,” said Maddie. “We’ll probably have everything worked out before you know it.”

Danny woke up to the vague sense of someone moving around near him.

“Hm?” he said, sleepily.

“Don’t worry, Danno!” said Jack in an exaggerated whisper. “I’m just bunking down here with you tonight! Jazzy thought that, eh, we needed a break.”

“Mm,” said Danny, opening his eyes just a sliver to see Jack setting up one of the Fenton Folda-Cots nearby. He sat up and stretched. His spine felt… different. Good. Like it fit together different, better.

“Oh, you don’t need to get up, Danny, I’ve got this handled,” said Jack, rearranging his bedding.

“Mm,” said Danny again. He opened his mouth to ask what had happened while he’d been asleep and got distracted by how long his canines felt now.

Concerned, he raised his hands to feel out his face. There were two hard little bumps right at his hairline that curved upward. Was he growing horns? He put the question to the side and brought his hands sideways to his ears, questing under the noise canceling headphones. They were long, droopy, pointed and fuzzy.

Somehow, Danny didn’t think this was what Tucker meant when he said that someday he’d turn Danny into a furry.

He started patting himself down. Were those scales on his shoulders? No, no, don’t think about it. Further…

That was a tail. A long tail. It was fluffy. It was… the change he had felt with his spine, darn it.

So much for waking him up for big changes.

“Danny? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not,” Danny said. Tried to say. His mouth went through the motions, but all that came out of his throat was a series of chirps. He started to shake, but before he could work himself up too much, Jack pulled him into a hug.

“It’s going to be okay, Danno,” he said, patting Danny’s back. “Just take a deep breath. Everything will be better in the morning.”

Danny snuggled closer, taking in the warmth. Something in his chest that had not been there that morning began to purr.

If this ecto-irritant thing was turning him into some kind of messed up cat, Danny was going to murder Vlad.

Things were not better in the morning. In fact, they were worse. Not in that his body had changed more in the night (which it had. He’d woken up with patchy black and white markings all over his body, ears too large to fit under the noise canceling headphones, and the beginnings of extra limbs growing under his arms), but in that Vlad had decided to show up. After Jazz had already gone to school, too.

“When I heard what had happened to young Daniel I just had to come,” said Vlad. “I’ve brought all the research from the development team, of course, and I want to offer my own expertise.”

“Great!” said Jack. “With your help, we should fix this in record time!”

Somehow, Danny doubted that. He was tempted to flip Vlad off while Jack’s back was turned and Maddie was focused on the research, but that would require moving and growing extra limbs was exhausting.

“I certainly hope so. I would hate to have this progress any further.”

Translation: Vlad would love to have it progress further and he knew exactly what it was progressing to.

“But I believe that between the three of us and Daniel’s cooperation, we can overcome this.”

Translation: Vlad wanted something from Danny.

A siren went off upstairs.

“Oh, my,” said Vlad. “Is that the mayoral ghost alert hotline? You’d better go answer it.”

What the heck? They still had that?

“But Danny–”

“I can keep an eye on him and compare my research to what you’ve already done,” said Vlad. “You should go. There may be lives at stake with an evil ghost running loose.”

“This is the first time they’ve called, Mads,” said Jack. “We should at least see what kind of ghost it is.”

“Oh, alright,” said Maddie. “But call us if anything - and I do mean anything! - changes.”

“Of course, Maddie,” said Vlad, smoothly.

Danny watched nervously as his parents both ran upstairs, leaving him alone with his archnemesis.

“So,” said Vlad, “you’re probably wondering what I want.”

Danny turned away.

“I understand that you think your parents will find a solution,” said Vlad, conversationally. “So. You could listen to me… or I could stage a ghost attack that will destroy every last bit of research they have on your transformation and the ‘ecto-irritant.’”

Danny jumped to his feet - and was immediately knocked down by one of Vlad’s duplicates and held there, too weak to do anything else. He tried to call up his ghost form, but he just didn’t have the energy.

“It would be easy. So you could listen. Or not.”

Danny glared up at him.

“Good. It seems like you’re listening. As you might imagine, I know how to fix your little problem. In exchange, I only want one thing.”

Danny made the best questioning sound he could, under the circumstances. Vlad smirked.

“I wish for you to accompany me to an event I’ve been invited to, as an attendant.”

He could not be serious.

“Oh, I’m quite serious. This isn’t a human event, after all, and your appearance is part of the dress code.” Vlad hummed. “You’re confused. I can see it on your face.”

No duh. Because everything Vlad said was mental.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Fey? Fairies? The Fair Folk? Hm? Don’t give me that look. I know that you’ve personally fought unicorns.”

Yeah, and they were bloodthirsty monsters. What was Vlad’s point?

“The Infinite Realms are infinite, Daniel. I would quote the Shakespere, but you’re no Horatio, and I know you’re failing English.”

Screw him. Danny had met Shakespere, and he’d seen Hamlet performed by ghosts.

“The Fey are quite real, in any case, and they have certain social standards. Persons of high rank are expected to have appropriate garb, weaponry, servants…” He trailed off, looking significantly at Danny.

He had to be kidding.

But Vlad wasn’t looking at him, and therefore was not given the benefit of the full force of the most incredulous expression he could muster. Instead, Vlad was opening his briefcase and pulling out a tablet. He turned it on and showed it to Danny.

There was a picture on the screen of a roughly humanoid creature with bright pink skin, large dark eyes, four arms, a furry, fluffy tail longer than it was tall, fuzzy moth-like wings, fern-shaped antennae, and long, soft-looking ears. The image didn’t give any scale, but it felt small, with disproportionately large head, feet, and hands. Their hands and feet were covered in black.

“This is what the higher-class servants look like. Look familiar?”

Vlad’s stupid face was so smug Danny would bet that there was a smugness shortage somewhere else in the world.

“You wouldn’t have to do much beyond follow my instructions and remain at my side while there. The event is only a few nights long. I’ll be back in a few days to pick you up - in a way that will keep your parents from guessing anything, of course - once you’re done getting ready.” Another, smugger, grin spread over Vlad’s face. “You can decide whether or not to cooperate then, but I urge you to do so. After all, I doubt you want to be stuck like this forever.” He stood up and two more duplicates materialized behind him. “Now, I have a ghost attack to stage.”

Danny’s parents completely bought Vlad’s ghost attack story because, well, it had been a ghost attack. Technically. The ghost was just Vlad. And they were terrible at charades.

Okay, maybe Danny was terrible at charades, too, but come on. He deserved a break. It wasn’t like he was getting one in anything else.

The scales on his shoulders were developing into wings. His tail was getting longer and fluffier. The hard, black, nail-like substance on his fingers and feet was creeping upward to his wrists and ankles. His second set of arms was getting bigger, longer. His teeth were getting sharper. What was left of his voice was gone, replaced by something that quietly chirped and purred deep in his chest. The ‘horns’ on his head were growing into fuzzy antennae. His hearing and sight were so oversensitive he wanted to just burrow into a pile of blankets and stay there. He was shrinking.

His parents were beside themselves. And they kept having to go take care of minor ghost attacks.

He wrapped his tail around him and curled deeper into his blankets. This transformation business was exhausting. Or maybe it was just that what he was getting turned into that was exhausting.

He looked at the mirror. He looked awful. Sick. The domino-mask black streak across his eyes didn’t help with that impression.

He was going to have to take Vlad up on his offer.

“It’s really quite remarkable, the system the Fey have,” pontificated Vlad after he had ‘extracted’ Danny from the lab. “Their various castes are perfectly suited for their assigned tasks. They’re designed that way. Born that way, usually. For example, the form that you yourself are taking at the moment? A perfect servant for the High Fey. Many hands to work and hold and serve, wings, to ensure they can follow everywhere, sharp eyes the better to see things that need to be cleaned or repaired, sharp ears the better to hear orders, attractive enough to be decorative, but not distracting.”

First off: Ew. Secondly: Vlad really liked to hear the sound of his own voice, didn’t he?

“Antennae,” continued Vlad, “to ensure harmonious movement with other servants. Now, the High Fey, who I most resemble…”

Danny tuned him out, instead choosing to watch the green clouds of the Ghost Zone roll by. The way they were traveling was actually pretty interesting. Vlad had gotten a chariot somewhere and hooked it up to his flying goon squad, AKA the inexplicably yiddish vultures.

They were flying in a direction Danny had never been in before. The islands and doors they were passing were new, strange. Floating trees and strange stone circles dominated the ecto-scape. As they continued, they tended to floating forests and island-hills with formations of standing stones.

Vlad, meanwhile, continued talking.

“... of course, animal servants are considered gauche - too human, too mortal. And the farmer caste is entirely different…”

Danny tuned him out again.

A great mountain was rising up out of the trees around them, its sides gray and silvery. There was a circular hole in its face, the edges of it studded with slabs like the ones he’d seen earlier in the standing-stone circles.

They looked like teeth.

The chariot flew right through them.

On the other side was light - but this light didn’t hurt his eyes. There was no sun in the sky, only a moon floating over a twilight purple-blue backdrop. Green lawns stretched in all directions, stopping against tall, green trees and the glittering walls of a literal fairy-tale castle.

Other chariots were sweeping down to the drive of the castle, tall, colorful beings fluttering out of them, escorted by shorter fluttering beings.

Like Danny.

There was a buzzing– No, not quite a buzzing, but what else could he call it? – in… in Danny’s antennae. He rubbed their bases, wary of directly touching the delicate fronds.

“Don’t fight it,” said Vlad, jovially. “After all, you aren’t trained as a servant. You’ll need all the help you can get.”

Danny glared at him, but the expression was unusually hard to form.

“See? At this point, you would usually be calling me names. Lovely, isn’t it, that you can’t? No way for careless servants to make unwise deals or spread secrets with loose lips - their loyalty is reserved for their High Fey lords.”

Vlad really, really liked the sound of his own voice.

If this worked on fairytale rules like Vlad was suggesting, he was screwed.

His head felt really weird.

The chariot landed, and Danny jumped out, not even quite thinking about what he was doing, and swung around to Vlad’s door, opening it so Vlad could step out, his even-flashier-than-usual cape billowing behind him.

“Very good, Daniel. See? Keep things up, and I’ll make sure you get back to your… admittedly less-useful regular body.”

Danny padded behind Vlad, hating how tall everything here was and how short he himself was like this. He’d earned his five-foot-five stature with a lot of hard work! Right now, he wasn’t sure how tall he was, but he felt that it was closer to four feet than five.

It was not a great feeling.

He really didn’t like this.

He stayed close. Rather, he stayed at the distance the little itch in the back of his head told him was appropriate. Meanwhile, Vlad smarmed about with literally sparkling people. They were all so tall, with inhumanly sharp features and wings far more colorful and varied than Danny’s or those of his fellow servants.

Fellow servants.

He folded his hands behind him as well as he could, given his wings. This was temporary. It was.

And then one of the tall people was right in front of him, fingers under his chin, tipping his head up, examining him with many-colored eyes, tilting his head back and forth. He took a step back.

The person - the fey? - turned to say something to Vlad. Their voice sounded like it was underwater. Meanwhile, a small servant with the same coloration as the person talking to Vlad stepped forward and regarded Danny curiously.

They were a solid two inches taller than Danny right now. He turned his head away. The other servant stepped into his field of view again, and the feeling of being observed redoubled.

“Daniel,” said Vlad sharply.

Danny hurried to follow him.

“Now, you see,” said Vlad, to the small group of fey he had gathered around himself, “I am more than capable, and I can serve as your link to the human world. We can bring in materials, performers, art, artists… anything you can think of.”

Some of the fey nodded. Others looked dubious.

“And at whose discretion would you direct these imports?” asked one.

Danny blinked, somehow surprised he could understand this fey when he… when he couldn’t understand any of the others.

He really didn’t like this.

He liked it even less when the fey made eye contact with him.

“At the discretion of whoever secured my services,” said Vlad, “and the high king, of course. With, perhaps, a few scruples for myself.” He raised his glass.

“Very well,” said the fey. “I shall sponsor you, as you say. But one gift must be exchanged for another.”

“Anything in my possession that I can– Daniel, stop that at once!” Danny dropped Vlad’s cape and shook his head vehemently. That was a bad kind of promise to make. Especially when it could be argued that Danny was in his possession.

“Perhaps I could take that unruly servant off your hands.”

“Ah,” said Vlad, getting a clue. “Perhaps not. Might the gift be your first delivery instead?”

The fey hummed. “Perhaps. We have much to discuss.”

“I suppose you were not a terrible servant tonight,” said Vlad as they flew away in the chariot. “Are you sure you don’t want to practice a little longer?”

Danny tried to scowl at him, but it was becoming harder and harder to make any expression that wasn’t neutral and pleasant. Apparently, his transformation hadn’t quite been finished yet.

“I suppose I should tell you how to reverse your transformation,” said Vlad. “But it will be so much more fun to show you.”

What did that mean?

A duplicate appeared behind Danny, grabbed the wings he was only just beginning to get used to, and severed them with a sharp-edged ecto-construct.

Danny shrieked.

Because he could shriek. The transformation that had taken days, gone in a moment.

“See?” said Vlad. “Easy.”

“What the heck, you jerk!”

“Tut tut tut–”

“Who even says that–”

“If you want to get home safely, you should reconsider attacking me. I am the one who knows how to get back.”

Danny sat down in a huff.

“Now, let’s start discussing the cover story we will tell your parents about our adventures, hm?”

#danny phantom #phic phight #phic phight 2023

170 notes · View notes

elizabethemerald · 1 year

Text

Summoning the Cat: Part 3

Selina stared at her kitchen, her mind far flung from her appliances, though she was thinking about her home. She had felt so relieved to have Danny and Jazz safe in her penthouse. Now she was starting to see that having two teenagers in her life would result in some necessary changes. She only had one spare room in the penthouse and two kids who needed beds.

The penthouse had been more than enough when it had been just her. She had the master bedroom, which she kept mostly clear of any evidence of her evening work so she could bring home partners if she wanted to. Unless her partner of choice was the Bat, then half the fun was stripping out of her catsuit in front of him, not that he would be getting anything like that in a long while, even after he pulls his head from his fantastic ass.

Technically the floor plan of the penthouse stated that there were three bedrooms, including the master, but one of them was now a dedicated “office,” where she kept all her tools for her after hours work. The last was only a comfortable bedroom because of the frequency that Harley and Ivy stayed over. She had thankfully changed the sheets since the last time they had spent the night.

Danny and Jazz refused to be separated and had shared the bed together. She wondered how often the two kids had found what comfort and support they could with each other. She hated the Fentons even more for what they had done to her kids, and she hated Bruce for being such an uptight bitch. They would have been much more comfortable sleeping in Wayne Manor.

Every time she had gone to check on the two kids one of them had been awake, while the other at least pretended to sleep. Danny would sit up, with his eyes shining in the dark, analyzing her for any threat, when he recognized her he would lay back down. Jazz would tense and press herself back against Danny, like she had to shield him with her body. Selina had kept her movements slow and obvious, her hands always visible and while Jazz didn’t visibly relax like Danny did she also didn’t do anything drastic like throw a lamp or roll Danny off the bed like she was expecting gunfire.

How incredibly defensive the kids were of each other aside, even though Selina wanted nothing more than to sit them down and demand they tell her exactly what they had gone through to have reactions like that, but she didn’t want to make the same mistakes Bruce was making, the penthouse was too small for an adult and two teens. They deserved to have their own rooms even if they didn’t want to use them yet.

Her kitchen was another shortcoming of the penthouse. Selina could cook and unlike Bruce she could actually cook well. She usually didn’t choose to do so, simply because she could afford to eat at the best restaurants and didn’t feel any need to do things she didn't want to, like dishes. However with two teenagers she would need something in her cupboards other than various fine alcohols. And the homebrew ales that Ivy made.

Dick had brought numerous snack foods that considering how much had been eaten last night would probably only last a few days more. He had also brought several very sugary breakfast cereals, that Selina wasn’t sure was the healthiest for a vigilante, much less a teenage ghost boy. The man also hadn’t brought any milk? Did he expect them to eat the cereal dry? Or perhaps right out of the bag? How were so many of Bruce’s children such disasters?

Fortunately there were people in the world who actually knew how to function as adults. Barbara had ordered groceries to be delivered to Selina’s penthouse and Jason had sent along some of his favorite easy recipes that made a lot of food. He had written in additional notes on the recipes that showed his personal experience with the dishes. She would start with a simple breakfast, eggs, pancakes and bacon. A celebratory, special meal then she could figure out what her kids liked and learn to make that.

As she mixed the pancakes (Jason insisted that pancake mix was for children and bachelors) Selina idly considered her living situation. She could certainly afford a nice house in one of the better neighborhoods in Gotham. If the kids wanted she would even be willing to move out of the city completely, though that wouldn’t be her first choice. She could get a house with a yard, close to Gotham Academy so Danny could continue his school and Jazz could finish hers. Each of the kids could have their own room, and she could certainly afford a house with enough rooms for her, her kids and her equipment.

She smiled to herself at a fun image of her and the kids watching a movie together, Pam and Harley there as well to keep an eye on the kids. They would also need room for the various bat children to come by, either just to visit or to get away from Bruce’s brooding. Actually that thought gave her pause. Her and the rest of the Sirens could pool their resources and get a larger house. Room for a gymnastics room for Harley, a green house for Pam, spare rooms for any special interests the kids had. That wasn’t a bad idea at all. Selina turned her head slightly at the sound of a door opening down the hall.

“Good Morning Ms- Are you cooking?” Selina turned to see Jazz watching the stove warily.

“Yep, I thought we could have some pancakes, bacon and eggs. Once I figure out your favorite breakfasts we can have those.”

Jazz looked surprised and confused for a moment before taking a seat at the breakfast bar.

“Do you need any help?” Jazz still watched her warily, actually she wasn’t watching Selina, she was watching the food as if she expected it to explode or attack.

“No, I’ve got it. Thank you though Jazz.” Selina gave her a warm smile.

There was a few seconds of silence as Jazz just watched her cook before she seemed to shake herself and focus.

“Uh, Ms. Kyle, can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course, Jazz. And you can call me Selina too.”

Jazz processed that for a second before she continued.

“Selina, Danny is probably going to come out and ask you something when he fully wakes up, and while I kind of think it’s an unhealthy coping mechanism, I still think it might be a good idea.”

Selina considered that for a moment before plating the eggs and bacon and some of the finished pancakes. She handed one plate to Jazz, made herself a plate, and set some aside to stay warm for Danny. She leaned against the counter opposite where Jazz sat.

“Could you expand on that?”

Jazz’s jaw ticked to the side and she looked down at her food. She closely examined the eggs and bacon for a moment before she took a cautious bite. The bite seemed to be satisfactory so she continued eating. She explained in between bites of food.

“I know we haven’t explained everything about what Danny and I went through, and we haven’t explained everything about what ghosts are or how they function. I'll leave that part of the discussion mostly to Danny since he knows the most, but one of the most important parts of a ghost is their obsession.”

Selina was a little confused by the sudden change in topic, but she let Jazz continue. It was clear the girl was carefully weighing her words as she spoke. Selina was starting to realize she had a super powered ghost son and a traumatized older sister/therapist daughter. She doubted parenting books covered these kinds of topics. Maybe she would call Alfred or Ma and Pa Kent to see if they had any advice for the situation.

“Every ghost has their obsession. It’s kind of a personal topic, so Danny probably won’t discuss it too in depth, and I won’t out his obsessions without his permission, but it can be anything from books to music to boxes.” Boxes? Selina didn’t ask, but she was curious. “And that doesn’t translate directly to humans, but it’s how Danny has started to see things in his life, so it’s important to bring up.”

Jazz had finished eating and was now just moving the remaining food around on her plate.

“From Danny’s perspective, our parents, or I guess, my parents’ obsession was and is Ghosts. Specifically hunting and exterminating ghosts.” Jazz held her utensils with a white knuckled grip, her eyes still firmly on her plate. “They’ve had that obsession for our entire lives, they would forget our birthdays, or even to feed us if something ghost related came up. They moved us half way across the country to Amity because it was a hotbed of ghost activity.”

“When we were younger we just accepted that our parents were a little crazy and we took care of each other. Danny would always make me the nicest cards for my birthday each year.” Jazz had a tear in her eye at that. Selina moved around the counter so she could sit next to her and rubbed her back gently. “After Danny’s accident, so much of their obsession became about hurting him. They wanted to take him apart, molecule by molecule.”

Selina kept her emotions off her face as she kept gently rubbing Jazz’s back and shoulders. However, inside she was boiling with rage.

“I think in Danny’s mind he blames himself for how our parents acted when he became a half-ghost. He thinks if he had fed into Jack and Maddie’s obsessions they wouldn’t want to hurt him. That’s how he helps the ghosts who came to town, he could help them feed their obsessions and redirect them away from harmful avenues. Do you understand so far?”

“Yes I do.” Selina nodded. “Ghosts have obsessions. Your parents were unhealthily obsessed with ghosts to the detriment of both of you. Is this related to the unhealthy coping mechanism you mentioned?”

Jazz nodded and finally looked up at Selina, eyeing her carefully. Whatever she was looking for in her face, Jazz seemed to find, because she continued, now more hesitantly.

“So, from Danny’s perspective, your obsession is being a master thief, or maybe cats.” Jazz leaned back from her slightly as if she was afraid Selina might react poorly to that statement. However Selina could only smile in return. She could certainly see why Danny might see things that way. When she didn’t react badly Jazz continued. “I think Danny is afraid that if he doesn’t take part in your obsession with you, you’ll reject him just like my parents did.”

Selina felt like she had been slapped. Danny was afraid she would reject him. He thought he had to be a thief to impress her. Jazz clearly feared or at least considered the same thing. She took a moment to gather herself before she responded, her voice choked.

“He wants to become a thief like me?”

Jazz nodded then began speaking very quickly, clearly trying to convince Selina that this was the best course of action.

“While I don’t think that’s the healthiest way to look at your relationship, I do still think there are benefits. The athleticism you are known to utilize in your work would help keep him healthier as well as give him the skills to dodge attacks when he’s Phantom. It would also give the two of you time together, mother and son, a shared hobby is an excellent conversation starter. And! And-”

“Jasmine.” Selina said her name softly, so she wouldn’t startle the poor girl. “That sounds like a brilliant idea. You and I can work together to set safe limits for Danny, to make sure he has a proper balance between the hero work he’s done in the past, the after hours work he does with me and his “normal” life. How does that sound?”

Jazz smiled in relief and her whole body seemed to sag in relief.

“Yeah. That sounds good. Before when we were in Amity, he would have to fight ghosts at all hours of the day or night. He wasn’t getting nearly enough sleep. Balance is good. Especially a balance with his ghost powers. If he uses them too much it can exhaust him and risk attracting ghost hunters, but if he doesn’t use them he can hurt himself.”

Selina smiled, she was definitely going to have to give the Kents a call. They would have some good advice.

“What about you, Jazz?” Selina asked, Jazz looked at her confused so Selina explained her question. “Danny and I could have a mother-son activity learning to be a thief together. Would you like to join us?”

“Oh! Oh no. I want to be a therapist, and I don’t think it would look good if I had a criminal record like that.” Jazz didn’t seem disappointed to not be a thief and she had relaxed now that Danny’s mental and physical health had been discussed.

“Oh, well how about this then? You pick something you like to do, any hobby or activity, could be knitting, yoga, gymnastic, competitive hot dog eating, anything, and you and I can learn about that thing together?”

Jazz just looked more confused.

“Competitive hot dog-? Why would you want to do that with me?”

Concern blossomed in Selina’s chest at the same moment her rage was fanned into an inferno. Jasmine looked genuinely baffled by the idea that Selina would want to spend time with her. If she ever met the people who had raised her she would tear them limb from limb.

“I want to spend time with you. And with Danny. Individually and all together.” Selina decided for clarity’s sake she would spell out her desires explicitly. “Danny is my son and I would like to make that official again as soon as I can. I would like that for you as well.”

“But I’m almost eighteen?”

“Being my child isn’t something that ends when you’re an adult. I wouldn’t kick Danny out when he turned eighteen, and I won’t do it to you either. You don’t have to call me mom, or mother or anything other than Selina. You don’t even have to think of me as your mother. But I do want to be there for you. I want to be able to care for you. I want a relationship with you.”

Jazz’s confusion was slowly morphing into distress. The girl was running her nails up and down her legs almost hard enough to rip the fabric of her pants. She was certain Jazz would have scratches all the way up and down her legs. Selina carefully contained her grimace. She needed to talk to Harley about finding these kids a therapist ASAP. And maybe one for herself wouldn’t go amiss, at least until her murderous impulses subsided.

“If it’s too hard to think about it like that, for now, how about you think of it as me paying a debt. You took care of my son. Protected him, fed him, practically raised him.” Jazz nodded to confirm her assumption. “I owe you for doing so much for my son. And I would like to pay you back anyway I can. If that means paying for your student loans for an Ivy League school, or if it means learning underwater basket weaving by your side. I’m ok with whatever.”

Jazz now finally looked relieved and understanding, though there was still a little confusion on her face.

“That sounds fun. I’ll put together a list for you. Though where do you come with these examples? Hot dog eating? Basket weaving?”

“I have a lot of weird friends.” Selina said with a laugh. “And various bat children that are flying around Gotham can be even weirder.”

Jazz laughed now, then she tilted her head to the side, her head cocked as she listened to something Selina couldn’t hear. She mentally filed that information away that apparently Jasmine had some similar ghostly abilities to Danny.

“Danny’s awake now. He’ll probably be out in a few minutes.” Jazz said.

Selina nodded and stood before returning to the stove.

“Well then let’s make sure he has some fresh pancakes. I’ll also reheat the eggs and bacon for him.”

Jazz smiled at her and only a few minutes later Danny emerged. He obviously wasn’t a morning person and looked only barely functional.

“Good morning Jazz. Good morning Ms.- Are you cooking?” Danny asked, his sleepiness fading quickly before the apparent threat of someone cooking.

“Yes I am. Jazz and I already ate breakfast, but I want to make you some as well.”

“Do you need any help?” Danny was just as earnest as Jazz had been. Selina added, ‘parents were unsafe in the kitchen’ to her mental list of shit the Fentons had done to traumatize her kids.

“No, I’ve got it, thank you for offering though. You can have a seat. Your pancakes are almost done.”

Danny took a seat next to Jazz and hugged her before stealing a last bit of bacon off her plate with a grin.

“Ms. Kyle?”

Selina fought down a grin at how similar the siblings were. She turned to face Danny.

“You can call me Selina, Danny.” He smiled at her sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Was there something you wanted to talk about?”

“Uh, yeah. I was wondering if I could be a super cool cat thief like you?” There were stars shining in Danny’s eyes as he asked, but there was also underneath the excitement a level of trepidation she would have expected of someone disarming a bomb.

Selina was glad Jazz had warned her that this conversation was coming. She didn’t know if she would have been thrilled or horrified about Danny’s desire to join what he considered the “family business,” but now she had exactly the thing to say.

“That sounds like a great idea. I’ve always wanted an apprentice.” Selina said warmly. “We can work together to figure out a schedule that allows for a good school, home life and work balance. How does that sound?”

Danny gave a playful groan and shoved Jazz, a large smile on his face. His playfulness hid his relief at her acceptance.

“What is it with people and trying to get me to balance things!”

“It’s just what people who care about you do.” Selina said, keeping her voice light even as she sent Jazz a commiserating look. Then she pulled a pad of paper out of one of the drawers and tossed pens to the kids while distributing sheets of paper. “How about this? Each of us right down a list of fun hobbies. Things we really like, things we’ve never been able to try but always wanted to do. And then we can explore some of these things together while I work on putting together your training.”

“Like yoga, or a hot dog eating contest?” Jazz asked with a smirk.

“Hot dog eating contest! That sounds like a great idea!” He immediately wrote that down on his list underneath several items that made it look like a trip to the planetarium was in their future.

“Excellent. Here’s your breakfast, we can work on our lists while we eat, then we can discuss what we want to do next!” Selina said, gazing warmly as her kids filled in their lists. It looked like Jazz had written underwater basket weaving with a question mark next to it on her list along with a few other options.

#dp x dc #Danny Phantom #Selina Kyle #jazz fenton #summon the cat #writing emerald

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bambis-wonderland · 1 year

Text

Jack and Maddie aren’t good parents but they sure as fuck love their kids.

Okay, I really don’t care how much I hate get for this take if I get any at all.

I’m tired of everyone in the Danny Phantom fandom painting Jack and Maddie as these two monsters who if they found out Danny was half dead sooner that they would kill him.

They’re not good parents, I’m not say they are, but they do love their kids. They love them so much and that is plan to see.

And are we just gonna overlook how many times that they found out Danny’s secret and still loved him. I mean yes their memories were erased time and time again, but that out come never changed. They loved Danny and they loved Jazz.

And the only time they had a different reaction was when they found out Dan was once Danny, and that might have been disgust but that disgust wasn’t even directed towards Dan. That disgust was directed towards themselves that they didn’t see that Danny was Phantom and they blamed themselves for what happened to him even though they had no control over that situation.

And then there’s Phantom Planet when they found out Danny was Phantom and absolutely lost their shit when they learned this fact, but not because they were angry, but because they were scared. Because they were 100% sure that they just lost their little boy die, only to be so relieved when they found out he was alive.

In almost every instance of them finding out Danny was Phantom they were shocked, confused, and scared for him, but they were also proud. They were proud that their little boy was helping others and though they didn’t like the way he was helping people mostly because they were devastated that he was half dead, and also because he was putting himself in more danger by doing what he was doing.

I’m not making excuses for them, Jack and Maddie aren’t good parents, they didn’t know their son was a ghost, they didn’t notice when their daughter started being more of a parent to their son then they were, and they didn’t notice when their old “friend” was batshit crazy.

They love their kids though, and I’m so tired of everyone making them the villains and Vlad the good guy, when Vlad knew that Danny was nothing more than a fourteen-year-old boy with strange powers and repeatedly tried to kill him.

Everyone says that if Jack and Maddie had found out that Danny was Phantom they would have ripped him apart.

They found out multiple times that Danny was Phantom and the only times they laid a hand on him was either to hug him or squeeze his shoulders in reassurance.

Danny was never once scared of his parents because he knew that they loved him, because every time they found out he was a ghost they still loved him and they let him know that.

And, yes before anyone says “calm, down it’s just a show” I get that, but I’ve been in this fandom for a long time and this take is only getting worse to the point where it’s just annoying.

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lexosaurus · 1 year

Text

Everything Was White: Part 18

[see all chapters]

read on: [ao3] [ffn]

Summary: After being accidentally revealed to the public and taken away by the government, Danny deals with the aftermath of his time with the GiW.

---

There was a video in the morning. A hidden paparazzi camera, he found out. The video was sold to TMZ and subsequently reuploaded to every social media site within the hour.

“Danny Fenton can walk?!” was the caption of the one Danny was currently watching on TikTok. It was a video of him approaching the stairs, and—ugh—struggling to climb them. He could see Tucker’s (fake) smile and Sam’s concerned oversight. His legs wobbled as they ascended each step, his gate abnormal.

And as internet culture dictated, the comments were sure to point everything out.

ok but why do his legs look like that 💀💀💀

>don’t be gross, he’s clearly got some medical issues

My cousin is paraplegic and Danny walks similar to him.

Y’all are freaking out like there aren’t videos of him already in physical therapy 🤦

Wtf happened to him?

I know this isn’t supposed to be funny but it kind of is

>stfu he’s a minor

>>So? He’s a celebrity, he can take it

These comments are horrible. This kid clearly got abused during his imprisonment and has suffered lasting damage, and there are people here who think it’s funny because he walks differently now? That’s disgusting, and as a disabled person myself, it’s horrible to see so many comments and likes making fun of him. Surprise, disabilities affecting motor function make people look different when they perform said motor functions. Grow up.

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. This was exactly what he was afraid of. It was the entire reason why he had been avoiding walking in public.

He hadn’t even seen anyone around them. Had someone followed the van all the way to Tucker's house? Did this mean that Tucker and his family were going to get stalked too?

Ugh, ugh! This was horrible. And now he had to go to school where everyone would have seen that video too?

Fuck.

He peeked out his window, and beyond the recently installed tall fence lining the property, Danny could see a circle of paparazzi and media vans parked along the sidewalk.

This was insanity. It wasn’t like this was the first video of him walking in general; there were videos and pictures of him at PT. Sure, he was being supported by the other physical therapists and equipment, but he was still walking. It just happened that this was the first video taken of him in public, which Danny guessed was enough for the algorithms to grab hold of.

His family was so lucky the neighbors seemed understanding of the media circus that was now their life. Although, Jazz had mentioned bringing cookies over to a few of them before…

“It’ll die down,” Danny reminded himself. “Once they get bored, they’ll move on.”

But even that sounded like a lie the more he said it. Because unless another half-ghost stepped into the public eye, it didn’t seem like there would be anyone to take the spotlight off of him anytime soon.

He checked Twitter and…yep, he was the top trending topic on there too.

Fucking hell, did no one have anything better to do?

His inbox was flooded, and his notifications were worse. Danny was glad he had turned off all social media alerts on his phone ages ago. His phone would have probably caught on fire with the rate he was being tagged in tweets.

He closed his eyes and exhaled, breathing just like his therapist had taught him. In, two, three…out, two three.

Okay, so what if everyone knew what he looked like when he walked now? It wasn’t like he could keep this hidden forever. If anything, his physical therapists were probably just relieved he’d finally ripped the band-aid off because now he had no excuse to continue avoiding walking in public.

And was that really a bad thing? More practice meant strengthening his muscles, which meant that he would be closer and closer to ditching the walker for crutches.

He absentmindedly scrolled through his notifications, until one blue-checkmarked name caught his eye:

Izaak Adams @izaakadamsCongrats to @dannyphantom for kicking ass in PT! It’s amazing to see the progress you’ve made since I saw you last. Soon, you’ll be outpacing me! Keep working hard 💪

Danny frowned at the screen. Had that guy met him? As far as Danny remembered, he hadn’t met any celebrities since his release. Was this guy lying for clout or something?

Danny clicked on his profile and read his bio. “Paralympic Gold Medalist and Video Game Enthusiast”

Paralympic gold medalist? Why did that ring a bell?

Danny racked his memories for anything, but he drew a blank. Did he know this guy? Or maybe he was reading too much into this tweet?

A knuckle rapped on his door. “Danny?” came Jazz’s muffled voice. “You awake?”

Danny looked up. “Hey, Jazz? Do I know a guy named Izaak Adams?”

Jazz opened the door to reveal her baggy sweats and messy bun. “Huh?”

“Izaak Adams, a paralympic athlete?” Danny held up his phone. “He tweeted at me almost like we’ve met?”

Jazz’s confused frown was replaced by a look of surprise. “Yeah, I remember, you have met him!”

“Really? When?”

“At the hospital one time, he came to visit? When you were first learning to use your wheelchair.”

Fragments of that memory hit him, and on instinct, Danny cringed. Oh yeah, how could he have forgotten what an underweight, stuttering, dazed mess he’d been? Ugh, how embarrassing.

Jazz stifled a giggle. “Oh come on, it was cute! He was so supportive and patient.”

“Yeah, but—”

Jazz shot him a doting glare. “Danny, anyone looking at you could see that you were in intense recovery. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting the Phantom when he went to meet you. Cut yourself a bit of slack.”

Danny looked back down at his phone. “Yeah. You’re right.”

He contemplated what to do for a few seconds before an impulsive, teenage fuck it crossed his brain. He shrugged, opened the tweet, and hit reply.

Danny Phantom @dannyphantom Replying to @izaakadamsThank you for the support! Better watch out, I’m coming for your title as the gold medalist in Hospital Hallway Racing.

There. That was equal parts easygoing and funny enough to show the press and public alike that no, he wasn’t self-conscious about the way he looked, fuck off.

Jazz glanced down at her phone and snorted.

“Good response?” Danny guessed.

“Perfect. Now get ready for school!”

---

As expected, the police were escorting the paparazzi off the property when he arrived at Casper High that morning.

It wasn’t like Danny was able to use his walker at school anyway.

Still, the murmurs from classmates followed him into the building, and the sideways glances to outright stares trailed behind him in the halls.

Fantastic. Just when he thought his classmates might be getting used to him, the world had to backtrack. Part of him wanted to turn around and snark, “Fascinating news, guys, the elusive creature known as the halfa learned to walk! What an amazing step in evolution this was!” But he bit his tongue. His wit wasn’t worth whatever backlash the internet would make of it.

Danny rounded the corner and spotted Sam and Tucker hanging around their lockers. Their fight and the weight of Sam’s unresponded text were still fresh in his mind, but he took a deep breath and pressed forward.

“Hey, guys,” Danny said awkwardly.

They turned around, apprehension etched on their faces.

“Hey, Danny. What’s up?” Tucker asked.

If Sam looked desperate to say something, Danny wasn’t going to entertain her. “Nothing. My morning’s been uneventful as usual.”

Tucker fidgeted with his cap, looking sheepish. “I honestly didn’t see anyone around yesterday. They must have been hiding behind the bushes or something.”

“It’s fine, Tuck,” Danny said. “It’s not like this wasn’t going to happen soon anyway. And besides, the—the embarrassing part is done now.”

“It’s not embarrassing, Danny,” Sam rebuked. “It’s admirable if anything. The comments I’ve seen have been very supportive.”

“Sure, some of them.”

“Most of them.”

“Sam, I appreciate the pep talk, but it’s fine. Really.” When Sam’s adamant expression refused to let up, Danny reiterated, “It’s fine. There are other—other videos of me walking online. This is just the one every–everyone saw. I don’t care.”

“Good.” Tucker closed his locker door. “In an incredibly important change of topic, we never saw the new Dead Teacher movie!”

“You guys didn’t watch it?” Danny asked.

Tucker gave Danny an incredulous look. “Without you?”

“I don’t know, I figured me being out of commission was enough of an excuse.”

“Did you not read my texts? I said we weren’t gonna watch it without you. Really, Danny, do you think so low of me?”

Danny tapped into his bullshit meter, trying to gauge if Tucker was lying—it wouldn’t be the first time—but for once, nothing pinged his radar.

“We should just marathon the whole series now that they’re all on Netflix,” Sam said. “You guys can come over next weekend and we can play them in my home theater.”

“You, Sam, have a truly wonderful brain,” Tucker said.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll believe it when you can say that while eating a salad.”

“Don’t push it, woman.”

“That’s what I thought.” Sam rolled her eyes and turned to Danny. “You up for it?”

Danny hesitated, his hold on his wheelchair tightening. “I thought I wasn’t allowed at your house?”

“Yeah, but you’re a—oh…right. I forgot.” Sam slapped her hand to her forehead and groaned. “Damn, I forgot you don’t have your powers still. Shit, sorry, guys.”

“I don’t have a fancy home system or anything, but you guys can come over to my place,” Tucker offered.

“Thanks, Tuck,” Sam said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw Principal Ishiyama stare at him for a moment too long before scurrying down the hall.

Weird.

He tried to shake the uncomfortable squirming in his gut. “Yeah, Tuck, sounds good.”

“And this time…” Tucker leaned down cheekily. “Maybe you can try to not kill yourself getting to my bedroom.”

Sam and Danny both reacted immediately, shouting a chorus of “Tucker!” and “Dude!” They briefly made eye contact before Tucker’s evil cackling snapped Danny back to focus.

“That’s a cheap shot! No fair!” Danny moaned. “You can’t—this—this is bullying.”

If anything, Tucker grinned wider. “Fine, then next time I won’t save your sorry ass from a life of embarrassment the next time you try to launch yourself to the top step because you’re too lazy to climb up the stairs.”

“You have a lot of stairs!”

“My house has a perfectly reasonable amount of stairs.”

“No, I call foul,” Danny protested. “You’re literally picking on the disabled kid. Unreal.”

Tucker patted Danny’s shoulder. “Sure, okay, ghost boy.”

“That was a very dangerous move, though, Danny,” Sam said. “You could have fallen.”

“Eh, cut him some slack. Walkers are really annoying.”

“Don’t encourage this, Tucker!”

“I got your back, Danny.”

But Danny wasn’t paying attention to them anymore. Something else had caught his attention. A deep laugh, one so familiar it had sent a shockwave of ice shooting through his veins. If it weren’t for the chip, he was sure he’d be covered in ecto-frost.

He stared across the hallway, his breath frozen in his throat. Time slowed around him, and the conversational voices of Sam and Tucker melted away into the background.

No...it couldn’t be…

He must have been hallucinating. His mind was playing tricks on him. There was just no way that he was actually here in the hallway of Casper High.

No way it was true.

But it was.

There, in full view of the entire student body, was Operative O himself. His white suit gleamed against the dull cream and red of the high school. He stood against a row of lockers with his chest out, sunglasses covering his eyes, and a smirk splayed on his lips as he conversed with Principal Ishiyama.

No.

Danny needed to run away. Flee. Get out of sight.

But he couldn’t. It was as if his wheelchair was cemented to the ground. He was trapped, staring at the man who had made it his life’s work to ruin Danny’s.

It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

Operative O’s head turned until it locked onto Danny. His smirk widened and his sunglasses positively glistened. He brought a hand up above his shoulders and waggled his fingers at Danny.

Fear was replaced by hot anger. That bastard was waving as if he and Danny were longtime friends.

“Hey, Danny?” Tucker poked his shoulder. “Isn’t that…?”

The unsaid question hung in the air like a dark cloud.

Sam’s expression hardened. “What are they doing here?”

But Danny was seething. His stomach churned in fury, and the corners of his vision tinged green. Adrenaline spiked in his veins, and he could feel his core screaming against its restraints.

Before he could so much as think, Danny was whizzing down the hall. When he got close enough, he abandoned his wheelchair altogether, pushing himself up and gripping onto the lockers for support for the final few steps. Ishiyama gave him a warning look, along with a subtle shake of her head, but Danny wasn’t listening to her.

If it weren’t for this fucking chip, he probably would have transformed into Phantom right in the middle of the damn hall.

“What the hell are you doing?” Danny hissed. Despite his fury, his palms were clammy against the metal lockers.

“Why if it isn’t Danny Phantom. What a coincidence it is to see you here.”

Operative O’s slimy voice pierced him at once, and Danny nearly crumpled to the ground. Memories came rushing back, transporting him far away to a dark, musty place where the air smelled putrid and his skin was wet and sticky. Where he never knew what time it was, where his stomach felt sick with hunger, where he begged for anyone to find him, rescue him.

“I’m doing a routine inspection. Your school installed ecto-shields, and it’s my job to make sure they’re working properly. Nothing that concerns you,” Operative O purred, leaning in to pull what appeared like a dog tag on a silver chain from his pocket. “And might I congratulate you on how wonderful it is to see you walking again. If we were back at the research center, I would even give you a little treat.”

Danny’s blood ran cold, and he stopped breathing.

Operative O chuckled, standing back up and slipping the chain out of sight. “Now if you don’t mind, Ishiyama, I’d like to see those shields you mentioned…”

Danny’s ears rang, that laugh echoing over and over like a broken vinyl. He looked up, but Mr. Lancer had inserted himself in front of Danny, blocking O from view. The world tilted, and Danny gave up. He rested his head on the locker just in time for Sam and Tucker to catch up with him, their voices muddying into the background. The world was spinning, the entire hallway was probably watching, and Danny was just trying not to throw up.

A heavy hand fell on his back, and Danny barely caught the low murmur in his ear. “...my office?”

Danny nodded, not sure what he was agreeing to, but just knowing he had about five seconds to get out of the hallway before he was going to faint on the floor.

Thankfully, the hands were strong, and they held him upright as they guided him forward. Sam grabbed his arm, steadying him as well. Mr. Lancer said something, and Danny recognized Sam’s protesting tone in her response, but Lancer’s voice was sharper.

Sam huffed and squeezed his arm, and then his friends were gone just in time for what sounded like helicopters to womp in his ears and the spinning to reach a climax. He was pushed through the door and immediately felt his hand hit something behind him.

Danny collapsed onto his wheelchair and gasped, taking his first breath of air in too long. But his throat tightened again and he panicked, trying to breathe through the coffee straw that was his lungs.

A hand once again landed on his back, and a voice spoke soothingly into his ear.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Mr. Lancer said.

Danny shook his head and clawed at his shirt. Was his shirt choking him? Had the Operatives drugged him again? Is that why the world was spinning, why his arms were shaking so violently?

“It’s okay. Breathe, you’re okay.”

Danny clutched at his core, demanding whatever flickering bit of invisibility he could muster at whatever limbs were the closest. He couldn’t cloak his entire body in it, but the small whispers of his core powers were just enough to not send him into a complete meltdown.

“Why?” Danny finally gasped out. “Why?”

Mr. Lancer didn’t answer. Danny didn’t know if this was because he didn’t actually know the answer or if he just felt like Danny shouldn’t hear it.

Danny’s throat squeezed tighter. He glanced down at his bag and could feel the weight of the emergency pills. He was desperate for one. But he couldn’t, not in Lancer’s office.

Mr. Lancer pulled his chair beside Danny and sat down. He kept his voice low, whispering “it’s alright, it’s okay” as he waited for Danny to get himself under control.

But as soon as the dizziness ceased and the world righted again, Danny’s ragged breaths melted into sobs.

He bent forward, hiding his face in his hands. He could taste the ghost of the red bag on his tongue, and he could feel the plastic tube being shoved down his throat, cutting off his oxygen supply as it reached for his stomach. He felt the pain in his back, his chest, the phantom nerves in his legs firing off any way they could.

He felt Operative O thread his fingers down his torso, exploring the blank canvas prime to decorate with green.

“I didn’t want it,” Danny choked out. “I…”

His stomach turned, and he clamped his hands over his mouth, gagging.

Mr. Lancer was quick to react, shoving a waste bin under Danny’s chin just in time for Danny to empty the contents of his breakfast into it.

Mr. Lancer’s hand was on his back, rubbing circles as Danny’s head lurched forward once again. He coughed, spitting bile and stomach acid into the bin. The warmth in his body had never felt so uncomfortable before, so dizzying.

Danny shook his head, mumbling, “I didn’t want it.”

“I know,” Mr. Lancer responded quietly.

“I didn’t—I just—I just wanted the granola bars. It wasn’t my—” Danny choked on his voice. He shook his head, trying to force out the memories that flickered past the back of his eyes.

He just needed to reach his hand out and grab the granola bar. That’s all he needed to do. So why couldn’t he do it? Why did his mistake cost him the last shred of the dignity he was still clutching onto?

A fresh wave of tears fell from Danny’s eyes. “I—I’m not…” I’m not a dog, he wanted to scream, but he couldn’t.

Because he would be lying if he said he truly believed it.

“I’m sorry,” he said instead. Because he was sorry, truly, for continuing to be a burden on Mr. Lancer, a teacher Danny had spent the past two years disappointing over and over, a teacher who’d been forced to babysit him in detention dozens of times, a teacher who had now twice had to deal with him being an emotional fuckup.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

But that was a big fat fucking lie if Danny had ever heard one. And he should know, he was the master of lying.

---

His parents didn’t try to make him talk when they picked him up from school that day.

Danny was too busy staring out the window unseeing to talk anyway.

He didn’t remember getting inside. Couldn’t remember transferring out of the car or going into his house.

Maybe he should’ve been thankful that the wheelchair was autonomous now. Or whatever his doctor would tell him.

He blinked, and he was on the couch with a throw blanket over his body. Jazz was next to him, staring at the television as some reality show played. Danny’s gaze followed hers, and he didn’t miss the way her eyes noticed his movement. But he didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he much preferred to watch…

…

What was he doing?

There was this stillness over his body, in his mind. It was…quiet. Light.

It was nice.

He recognized this feeling. This lightness in his limbs, the calm in his body. The lack of pain, lack of burning from his nerves and muscles.

It was just. Relaxation. Pure tranquility.

He remembered then, the emergency pill he managed to sneak while Lancer and his parents slipped into another room to talk. And then a different pill his parents handed him moments later.

One that he’d taken while he was shaking, his body in shock, desperate for an ounce of relief.

When the world stopped, it was euphoric. The fog returned, blanketing his mind and shielding him from the realities just outside the door. He relaxed, accepting the fog like a long-lost brother. It stayed with him for hours, and he cherished every second of their time together, but now it was bidding adieu.

But this time, the loss didn’t seem so bad. There was no pain, no stress. It was only the calm with no storm to follow.

He closed his eyes and sank into the couch. He was tired, and the cushions and blankets felt so nice. He wasn’t in the cell—not even close—he was home with his sister. Safe, protected.

“Thanks, Jazz,” he murmured.

She didn’t respond, but he knew she heard him.

“What show’s on?”

“Survivor,” she said. “A rerun. Not sure which season.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The television droned on, and Danny heard the contestants bickering about…something or other.

Heh. That sucked for them.

“M’sorry.” Danny yawned. “Sorry for…you know…I hope I didn’t ruin your day. You babysitting me.”

“It’s fine, Danny, It’s not your fault. They shouldn’t have been there.”

“I don’t know…it sounds like they could be there.”

He heard Jazz shift beside him, and his eyes peeked open to see her attention fully diverted from the show.

“Danny—”

“Where’s Mom and Dad?”

“They’re with the lawyer.”

“Okay.” Danny’s eyelids felt heavy, and wisps of his core tickled his chest. “I need the chip out.”

She was quiet again.

“You understand why,” Danny said.

“I do.”

“I need Mom and Dad to—to remove it. If they don’t…”

“I wish I could help,” she said quietly.

“Then convince them. They won’t listen to me, I’m a ghost. You heard them, remember? I’m…my Obsession is influencing my brain. And…” He looked at the ceiling. “And, well, maybe it is. But Operative—the Guys in White were still there today. And I…I think I’ve seen them before today too. I thought I was…but no, I think it was them.”

Tears glittered in Jazz’s eyes.

“You have to convince them for me.”

“I’ll try my best. We can talk to them tonight together.”

Danny shook his head. “It’ll never work if I’m there. They think I’m crazy.”

“They don’t think that.”

“They’re scared of me. Or, the half of me they don’t like.”

“No.” Jazz wiped her eyes with her sleeves. “No, that’s not true.”

“I’m not deaf, Jazz. I heard them. Remember?”

“They love you so much, Danny. I promise. They’re scared for you.”

“What’s there to be scared for?” Danny pressed his finger into his thighs, feeling only the strange sensation of pressure in return. “It’s not like…I don’t know, it’s not like I’m banned from—banned from existing. That’s what the court case was all about, right?”

“Right.”

“And I’ve been in therapy for months. I go there every day. They know I’m not going to—to hurt myself.”

Jazz pressed her lips into a thin line. “I know.”

“So why don’t they?”

“This summer was…” She sighed. “This summer was hard, Danny. We’d all do it all over again if it meant getting you under legal protection, but the period you were gone? That was—it—” Her voice broke. “Not knowing if you were alive or dead, not hearing a word about you for weeks? That was terrifying. The last thing we remembered was you being carted off by the Guys in White and SWAT teams, knocked out, electrocuted, and then you were gone. Just like that. And when you were finally brought back to us…”

His eyes felt too dry for once. His body was too calm to rewake that pain.

“I know—I know it was so much worse for you. I know our experiences outside don’t even begin to compare to yours. I understand, and they do too. But in the flash of an eye, their entire world changed. They’re coping.”

“Their coping is going to get me killed, though.”

“The government can’t touch you.”

Anxious Danny might have snapped at that. But Anxious Danny wasn’t here right now. He continued in the same bland tone as before, “You have no idea what the government is capable of.”

Jazz’s expression tightened.

“If their reasoning for not giving me back control over my core is—is just that this summer was hard for them, then that’s a shit excuse. And it’s going to get me killed. That’s really—really…that’s really it.”

“I know. I’m not making excuses, I’m just explaining what’s going through their heads.”

“Then you need to talk to them. Because at—at this point, I’ve said everything I can.”

Jazz mopped at her face again, nodding. “I know.”

Danny reached his hand out, gently lowering it to her arm. He felt her stiffen before her free hand shot down to clutch his.

She was trembling.

“I need you, Jazz. You’re��you’re my sister. I need you to be on my side right now.”

“I am. I’ll try. We can bring it up tonight as a united front. I’ll lead the conversation.”

He gave her arm a gentle squeeze before breaking off the contact. He sank back into the cushions, closing his eyes. “Thanks.”

Jazz sniffled beside him.

---

Dinner was a quiet affair that evening. The painkillers had worn off, and Danny was itching to escape upstairs to lie down.

But Maddie insisted that he eat, so he picked at his bowl of noodles, not bothering to hide the fact that he really didn’t feel like putting anything down his throat at the moment.

Thankfully, his parents didn’t seem to want to fight him tonight.

“So…” Danny started.

Maddie took the bait. “We met with the lawyer today.”

“Okay, and?”

At Maddie’s despondent look, Jack took over, placing his hand on hers. “The government can’t touch you legally. We want to make that very clear. No matter what, they can’t take you.”

“But…” Danny prompted.

“But as far as everything else goes, at this current moment, we can’t do anything about them showing up in the same buildings as you.”

Danny wanted to laugh. Or cry.

Or both.

“We tried to file a no-contact or a restraining order,” Maddie said. “But due to the current laws, we can’t get anything. If the agents physically hurt you, then we might have a case. But unfortunately, as of right now, our hands are tied.”

“Nothing can be done,” Danny muttered numbly.

“I’m sorry, son,” Jack said. “We’re going to continue to see what other paths we can take. We won’t give up, I promise.”

Danny had always known that the Guys in White weren’t finished with him, that they were on a mission to cleanse the world of all things ecto. He knew that no matter where he went, they would follow.

But it still hurt to hear.

“So that’s it,” Danny said. “I just have to wait till they hurt me in front of everyone.”

“We’ll never let it get to that point,” Maddie said.

Danny shook his head, his eyes staring blankly at the table. “Okay.”

Because what could he say to that? He couldn’t just pretend like this was fine, like he was fine with this. Because that would have been so insane of a lie that not even his dad would have bought it.

Jazz’s eyes flickered between them. “There’s also the other thing we talked about before dinner, Mom.”

“I know.” Maddie looked to Jack for support. He gave a solemn nod, and she pressed forward, despite looking like she’d rather do anything else. “We know that your…halfa psychology makes situations like these difficult for you emotionally.”

Danny’s mood darkened instinctively. Any mention of his ghostly Obsession with his parents had a tendency to turn sour.

“I know that things haven’t exactly gone the way you’ve wanted them to. And I hope you understand that everything we’ve done has been for you and your safety.”

Yeah, because I’m so ‘safe’ that I can’t even defend myself, Danny internally quipped.

“We know that…protection…is something that’s important to you. And Mr. Lancer said that you, um, struggled after the confrontation,” Maddie said.

“I had a breakdown,” Danny stated, his dead tone surprising himself.

“Right,” Maddie said awkwardly.

“Jazz mentioned that the situation has gone directly against your core,” Jack said. “And we’re worried about that too.”

There was one way they could fix this, but Danny wasn’t going to be the one to say it. They knew what he was thinking.

Maddie sighed. “We were wondering if there was anything that you wanted to talk to us about. About this, your core, any of it.”

Danny didn’t let a single muscle twitch in his face. No way did they deserve a clue—not after they were the reason that Danny was completely defenseless against the Guys in White today.

They sat at the kitchen table listening to the hum of the fridge. The grandfather clock that Jack had built ticked on, each click seeming louder than the last.

And finally, Danny shrugged.

“Well,” Jazz said. “I think Danny has done a really good job at upholding his end of the bargain. And now we’re at a point where continuing in this trajectory is going to actively hurt his progress in therapy.”

“And we agree to a certain extent. But honey…”

“But nothing, Mom. We’ve talked about this: Danny is as much of a human as he is a ghost. It’s not fair to him or his psychology that he’s spent months without access to his core. And with the government making bolder moves such as this, it’s important to Danny—and me too—that he is secure.”

Danny didn’t like being talked about as if he were a test subject, but if this was what it took to get his core back, then so be it.

“The government is not going to touch him. Not unless they want to be sued to hell and back for violating court orders,” Maddie said.

Oh, he could scream.

“I’m not talking about that; I’m talking about how this affects Danny’s mental health. The whole point of the chip was to give him the safety he needed to heal, but the issue is that now the chip is actively interfering with the entire reason it was created.”

“But to go from zero to full powers right now…” Maddie drifted off.

Jack nodded. “I agree, it’s too much.”

“Well, you guys are the scientists. Figure out a way to adjust the power level on the chip, then.”

Danny’s eyes narrowed, snapping to Jazz. Just what in the world was she saying?

Jack pondered her proposition. “That’s not a bad idea, actually.”

“I know.” Jazz leaned back and folded her arms in that annoying fashion she did when she thought she’d won.

“Hun, I don’t even think that’s possible. To access those mechanics on the chip, we’d need to extract it from Danny,” Maddie said.

“Maybe!” Jack snapped his fingers. “This chip might not be flexible, but I bet we could build one that was! And we’d be able to remotely configure it!”

Immediately, Danny felt sick.

Apparently, Maddie didn’t, judging by the way her eyes lit up. “And then we could even program it to slowly fade its power levels! Oh, Jack, that’s brilliant.”

“Aren’t you glad you have such a genius for a husband?”

“I am!”

“Don’t worry, son, we’ll get you fixed up in no time!” Jack gave him a thumbs up.

Danny was careful to not let the mask slip from his face and betray how truly revolted he was by this plan.

A chip that let his parents remotely set how much control over his core he had? He couldn’t think of anything more dystopian.

Perhaps noticing his silence, Maddie prompted, “Honey?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Danny admitted.

“You can say anything on your mind, dear. This is…we’re a team.”

Even as she said those words that had been repeated so many times before, her voice sounded unconfident.

Danny could have laughed at the irony.

“You already know what I’m going to say.” Danny’s eyes traveled up from the table until they pierced hers. “There’s nothing else.”

“Yes, and you understand why we can’t just give you free rein of your ghost powers, right?” she asked.

No.

“Yes.”

“And you know that—that you’re still safe, right? You’re still protected in the meantime?” Maddie asked.

He wasn’t safe.

“Yes, I know.”

“The law is final, son,” Jack said gently. “They can intimidate you all they want, but they will never be able to touch you at all.”

“Sure.”

“And pretty soon, you’ll start to have your powers back. Okay?” Maddie said.

Danny looked away. “I was just scared. That was all.”

---

Danny glared at the name on his screen. Never in his wildest dreams could he ever have imagined he would be willingly seeking this scum of the Earth out, but he had no other choice.

He was down to his last few pills, and with the escalating boldness of the Guys in White, there was no way he was going to make it out of this intact.

Grumbling for the tenth time, he pressed the call button and brought the phone to his ear.

Later on, he would be disgusted at how quickly Vlad picked up the phone. “Daniel!” he said, his voice too cheerful. “What a lovely surprise!”

“Yeah, lovely.” Danny’s tone was anything but.

“To what do I owe this pleasure? Does your mother miss me?”

Danny closed his eyes, remembering Vlad’s warning about his calls being tapped.

“Gross, no, shut up about my mom. I’m…I need help. With a school project.”

He could feel Vlad’s grin on the other end of the line. “A school project, you say? That seems a bit bland of a request.”

“In—in science. I had an idea, but I need resources. And you’re…rich.”

“Science? My, that is interesting! If you don’t mind me asking, Little Badger, why not just ask your parents for assistance?”

Cocky bastard.

“I feel bad. They’ve—they’ve done a lot for me, and…I know they’re busy. They were meeting with the lawyer today, and I just don’t want to—to bother them. With this. And I know you…from your college days, you have experience and your old gadgets still.”

“Surely your parents have some old gadgets in their shed you can toy with.”

“Most of those are fried. You know how my dad gets.” He knew that Vlad was just trying to pick at any loophole in their conversation, and he needed to play along, as much as he hated it. “I wan–wanted to show the school that I’m okay. You know? They have me in these—the Learning Center, and I wanted to prove I can handle real classes again. I need something to impress them. Especially after today, I just…I don’t want them to think I can’t—I can’t handle myself.”

There was a brief moment of silence on the other line before Vlad hummed. “I see. Well, you know I am a very busy man, Daniel.”

“Yes, but…”

“However, I suppose since you reached out, I would be delighted to help my favorite nephew with his assignment. Does tomorrow after school work for you? I can pick you up if so.”

Danny’s eyes widened. “Yeah. That’s fine, I don’t have PT. There—it’s just that I’m under…I get picked up by my mom.”

“I see. So would I have to contact the school to pick you up instead?”

“No, I don’t—I don’t think so. I think I can ask my mom.”

“Alright, well, hopefully dear Maddie and my old friend Jack won’t be too jealous that you’ve asked me to help you rather than them. Do tell your mother hello for me, alright?”

“Whatever,” Danny grumbled. Then, remembering the code, he slapped a fake smile on his lips and bared his teeth into the receiver, “Thank you, Vlad! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“Ta!”

---

previous / next

---

Thanks so much for @imekitty for doing beta work while mid-NaNoWriMo. That is insane so please appreciate her thank you 💚

#danny phantom #fanfiction #dp fic #phandom #everything was white #my writing #midpoint time babes!!!

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theapprenticeofthanatos · 1 year

Text

TAoT: Chapter 28: Aftermath

“Mr. Fenton?”

Danny blinked. He was standing at the front of Mr. Lancer’s classroom, a stack of papers in his hands. The other students were looking at him curiously (except for Sam and Tucker—they looked more cautious, as if wondering if it was really him.)

Mr. Lancer gave him a look of disapproval. “Is there a problem?”

Danny looked down at what he was holding. It was the CAT answer booklet. How did he…?

He remembered fighting Dan. He remembered the explosion. He remembered Clockwork saving everyone. And…?

He looked back at his friends and gave them a small, reassuring smile before returning his attention to Mr. Lancer, who was still waiting for an answer.

“Um, actually, Mr. Lancer… there is.”

Danny groaned as he plopped himself down on the steps outside the front of the school. Mr. Lancer had been merciful enough to let him schedule a make-up test for next week, so… now what? He knew that he needed to talk to Sam and Tuck, but they were still taking their tests, so that was out of the question for the time being. Maybe he should go find Jazz and his parents. Make sure they were alright.

It seemed that his sister had a similar idea.

“Danny!”

He looked over his shoulder to see Jazz bursting through the front doors. She hurried down the stairs and sat down next to him, immediately pulling him into a hug.

“Danny, you’re okay!” Jazz gushed. “I was so worried.”

“Y-yeah, I… y-you’re…” Danny’s eyes stung as his voice caught in his throat. “Alive.”

Jazz pulled away, a relieved smile on her face. “Of course I’m alive! You did it! You made it back!” But then her expression turned inquisitive. “What happened to Evil Danny?”

“W-what?” Danny sputtered, caught off-guard by his sister’s question.

“Your evil future self,” Jazz clarified. “What happened to him?”

“Oh, I-I…” Danny remembered handing the thermos to Clockwork, who had promised to keep an eye on it. “I took care of him. Don’t worry.”

Jazz didn’t look very reassured. “Okay…? If you say so, but… like…” She gave him a look of concern. “Why was he evil in the first place?”

“I…” What could Danny even say? Well, our family died in a freak accident, and then a crazy goddess manipulated me and made me evil? And Thanatos…

Danny winced as the beginnings of a headache started to form in his temples. “I dunno,” he muttered.

He could tell that Jazz didn’t believe him, but as she opened her mouth to speak, a wisp of cool vapor left Danny’s mouth: his ghost sense.

“Sorry.” Danny stood and transformed. “Gotta go.”

“Danny, wait—”

But he was already gone, off to save the day once again.

Danny took a deep breath as he capped the Fenton Thermos. It hadn’t been too hard of a fight—more messy, than anything. There luckily wasn’t any serious damage to the area, but the giant blob ghost had left a foot or so of ectoplasm on the road and neighboring buildings. Danny wasn’t too worried, though—he was sure that the city waste management would take care of it.

As for Danny… he was feeling surprisingly okay. He thought so, at least. He hadn’t been hurt during the fight, and although a faint tremor had started in his hands once he defeated the ghost, he just decided to blame it on adrenaline.

Danny landed on the rooftop of a nearby apartment building, and was surprised when his knees almost gave out. Maybe… maybe he was a little more tired than he’d realized. But he couldn’t rest yet. He still had to check on his parents, and his friends, and…

_ And Thanatos. _

Danny flinched. O-oh, yeah, he had almost forgotten about the whole… “other voice” thing. But it brought up a good point. He should probably talk to Thanatos, as well. Let him know what happened. He would do that first.

Danny pulled off his glove, and was surprised (though mostly relieved) to see that his mark had returned to its usual bright, glowing silver. He began to trace the first letter of his mark, but then he paused; did he really need to do this right now? Thanatos was a busy god. Danny could just wait until their next training session to talk.

Had… had Thanatos even noticed that Danny was gone?

Danny ruffled his hair in frustration. Why was he even agonizing over this? He held his arm out again, but before he could trace the letters, a cloud of darkness suddenly formed on the roof in front of him, and Thanatos appeared.

Danny quickly stepped back and looked down at his feet. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you—”

“Daniel,” Thanatos interrupted Danny, who flinched. “Where were you?”

“I-umm, I—” Danny felt tears begin to prick at his eyes, and he blinked furiously to clear them. Why am I crying? I shouldn’t be crying. There’s no reason to cry. “It’s, uhh…”

“Daniel,” Thanatos said again, speaking softly. Danny spared a glance up at him, and was surprised by the concerned look on the god’s face. “Are you alright?”

Danny nodded, but the sob that bubbled out of his mouth said otherwise.

Thanatos POV:

Thanatos woke up to a mess.

It all started the day before when Daniel had contacted Thanatos to ask him for advice with some matter, waking the god from his slumber in the process. Thanatos honestly didn’t even remember what Daniel had asked him about, as he had gone back to sleep soon after Daniel ended the call. With how busy he usually was, Thanatos only managed to sleep maybe once a month.

When he awoke again, Thanatos found that his workload had grown drastically. Somehow, in the short time he had been asleep, hundreds of spirits had escaped the Underworld and were roaming freely on the surface. Normally there were only a few escapees here and there, but with the sheer quantity that had escaped in such a short amount of time, Thanatos wondered if someone was playing a cruel prank on him by letting them all out.

Thanatos sighed wearily. This was going to be a long day, he could tell.

After spending several hours trying to round up all the spirits (more than a few were being quite uncooperative), Thanatos took a moment to check on Daniel. Normally, through their marks, he could get a sense of his apprentice’s general health and mood.

But… he didn’t feel anything.

Surprised, Thanatos looked down at his mark and found—much to his alarm—that it was black. It wasn’t gone, so Daniel wasn’t dead, but when Thanatos tried to search for his aura, it just… wasn’t there. What happened? And why hadn’t he noticed sooner?

Thanatos immediately went to Hades and explained that he needed to go and find out what had happened to his apprentice. However, Hades was less than sympathetic as he pointed out that since the mark was still there, that meant Daniel was still alive. And if Daniel was still alive, that meant Thanatos needed to focus on capturing the runaway spirits first. Thanatos scowled when he was dismissed to return to his duties, but he still obeyed.

Thanatos was in a foul mood as he returned the last of the rogue spirits back to the Underworld. Daniel was clearly in some sort of trouble, and Hades had told him to just ignore it and keep doing his job? Thanatos’ first apprentice in millennia, and Hades had told him to ignore the danger that Daniel could be in? Thanatos scowled. He had half a mind to…

His mark prickled against his skin, putting a halt to his darkening thoughts. Thanatos looked at his mark and found that it was silver once more. Relief washed over him as that could only mean one thing: Daniel was back. Thanatos immediately shadow-traveled to his apprentice, intent on asking him exactly what had happened, but that plan was pushed to the back of his mind as soon as he saw Daniel’s face.

He looked broken.

Daniel’s shoulders sagged as he backed away, and his downcast expression and hasty apology awoke an instinct that Thanatos hadn’t felt in a very long time: the parental need to comfort a child.

“Daniel, where were you?” Thanatos questioned. He had no idea how long Daniel had even been gone.

Daniel stammered as he struggled to respond, and the last of Thanatos’ foul mood quickly faded away as Daniel’s eyes filled with tears.

“Daniel,” Thanatos said gently, cutting off his apprentice’s rambling. Daniel looked up at Thanatos with his watery, solid green eyes, and the god’s worry only grew stronger. “Are you alright?”

Daniel’s gaze fell to the ground as he meekly nodded, but then a loud sob suddenly broke from his chest and he threw himself at Thanatos, wrapping his arms tightly around the god’s waist.

Thanatos was knocked back a couple of steps by the force, but he easily regained his footing and looked down at his apprentice in bewilderment. Daniel buried his face in Thanatos’ chiton, and his tears soaked into the dark fabric as he began to cry.

Ah. Well, then.

Unsure of what to do, Thanatos hesitantly returned the hug, patting Daniel gently on the back in an attempt to comfort him. He noted that Daniel was far colder than usual, even for his ghostly self. A coldness was emanating from his skin that chilled the very air around them, a harsh contrast to the warmth of the sunny spring day.

Daniel stopped crying for a brief moment as he sucked in a deep breath of air. Thanatos opened his mouth and began to speak, but he was cut off abruptly by a high, keening wail as Daniel began to bawl loudly.

Alarmed, Thanatos quickly wove the Mist around them so as not to draw the attention of potential passerby, before turning his attention back to the halfa in his arms. He ran a hand through Daniel’s hair to try and soothe him—noting with surprise the ice crystals that fluttered from the ghostly white locks like snowflakes as he did so—but the action had little effect.

Frost had begun to crystallize on Daniel’s face, and it crept its way down his neck and arms. The halfa didn’t even seem to notice as he continued to weep, clinging onto Thanatos like a lifeline.

Daniel wailed again—this time much, much louder—causing the building underneath them to shake. The temperature dropped drastically as a thin layer of ice instantly formed on the ground around their feet, growing in thickness as it began to spread across the rooftop.

Thanatos was strongly reminded of when his last apprentice had developed ice powers. Granted, Dianthe’s ice hadn’t been quite so strong in its beginning, but that hadn’t made it any less dangerous; someone had died when her powers first manifested.

Though, her powers had come from her father. Where did Daniel’s come from?

Considering Daniel’s current state, Thanatos didn’t think he’d be getting an answer anytime soon.

The ice on the rooftop had reached the roof’s ledges and begun to creep down the sides—soon the whole building would be encased in it. Daniel hiccuped as his crying briefly wavered, his arms tightening around Thanatos.

Thanatos did not know how to handle this. At all. He knew that he had to take Daniel elsewhere—somewhere where he wouldn’t cause destruction or harm—but where?

At a loss, Thanatos closed his eyes and reached out to his twin brother, Hypnos—as godly twins, they were able to communicate telepathically with one another. Brother, I need help.

A sleepy voice responded from the depths of his mind. Yeah, what’s up?

Thanatos moved his hand from Daniel’s hair to his back, and began to trace small circles in between his shoulders. Daniel was still bawling, his voice cracking and growing hoarse from the strain. Thanatos was not sure how to describe “what was up,” when he had little idea himself. I’m not sure. Daniel is… very upset right now. His powers seem to be acting up.

Daniel… oh, your apprentice? Acting up how? Came the sleepy response.

Well… Thanatos grimaced at the ice that had begun to crawl up his own arms. They’re just… getting a little out of hand. I’m a bit worried for the safety of any mortals in the immediate vicinity. Thanatos put his hands under Daniel’s arms and lifted him up, holding him close to his chest in a hug. He felt something wrap around his waist, and when he looked down he was quite surprised to see that Daniel’s legs had morphed into a serpentine tail that had wrapped tightly around Thanatos’ lower torso.

Yeah… that’s not great. Thanatos could hear the yawn, even if he couldn’t see it. How can I help?

I need to calm him down in a safer environment. Thanatos paused as Daniel coughed, a warbling cry leaving him as he continued to wail. The smooth layer of ice on the rooftop had begun to grow jagged and uneven as little spikes rose from its surface, quickly growing in size. This was getting dangerous.

You could bring him to our cave, Hypnos suggested. A good rest usually helps most children calm down.

Thanatos hadn’t thought to bring Daniel there. It would be a calm, quiet place to go. However… I don’t know… I’m not sure he’s ready to be meeting new people at the moment…

I can leave for a while, Hypnos groaned tiredly. But you owe me.

Thanatos gave an audible sigh of relief. Thank you, brother.

His decision made, Thanatos spread his wings and took off from the roof as gently as he could, still holding onto his apprentice. Luckily, Daniel’s tail did not impede Thanatos’ wings as he flew. Thanatos had briefly considered shadow-traveling to his home, but Daniel did not seem up to traveling by that method at the moment. If anything, it would likely make things worse for the child. So instead, Thanatos opted to use the Doors; thankfully, he was able to summon them close-by, to the western outskirts of the city.

Flying seemed to help Daniel calm down as his sobs quieted and he began to tearfully mumble. :I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry… I d-didn’t mean to…:

Thanatos listened as Daniel continued to apologize, but what for? What had happened to Daniel since they last spoke?

:Daniel, what’s wrong?: Thanatos asked softly.

In lieu of a response, Daniel loudly burst into tears again. Thanatos winced, his ear ringing from the volume of Daniel’s sudden outburst. It seemed that he would have to ask again later. Once Daniel had calmed down.

They had reached the outskirts of the city, and Thanatos landed in front of an old abandoned factory. The Doors were set in the west-facing wall of the decrepit building, and Thanatos strode towards them, flecks of ice from Daniel fluttering to the ground behind them as he went.

Daniel hiccuped, a low and pitiful whine escaping him. Thanatos hugged him a little tighter as he stepped into the elevator, and the Doors closed behind them. Daniel continued to weep into Thanatos’ shoulder as they descended into the Underworld. Thanatos combed his fingers through Daniel’s hair in a soothing manner, but he didn’t speak for fear of upsetting the halfa yet again.

The elevator ride was uncomfortably silent for the most part, except for the occasional whimper or sniffle. But a few minutes in, Daniel spoke up again. :I didn’t mean to…:

Thanatos waited, hesitant to say anything and cause Daniel to either go silent or start crying again.

:I didn’t mean t-to kill her…: Daniel whimpered miserably. :Please… please don’t leave me again…:

Thanatos could only stare down at Daniel in complete bewilderment. What? Kill who?

What happened to you, Daniel? Thanatos wondered helplessly as the Doors made their slow descent into the Underworld.

The Doors opened right in front of Thanatos’ destination, almost as if the Fates were taking pity on their brother. Thanatos readjusted his hold on Daniel—who was still crying—and stepped out of the elevator, onto the ground in front of his cave.

Poppies, chamomile, peace lilies, lavender, and several other types of sleep-inducing plants sprouted from the dark soil in front of his cave. Small white dianthus blossoms were sprinkled amongst the other flowers, and the plants all gave off a soft glow that lit Thanatos’ path as he walked through the flora, disturbing the butterflies that flitted between the soporific blossoms.

The natural entrance to the cave had tall white marble pillars that stood on both sides, with a plain marble roof overhead, creating a portico of sorts. Pale-petaled jasmine vines curled up the pillars and crept along the roof, while overgrown ghostly-white gardenia bushes flanked the entrance. The plants gave the area in front of the cave a lively look that could give Persephone’s garden a run for its money (not that Thanatos would ever tell her so.)

The milky-white water of the River Lethe burbled as it flowed from the cave entrance and out into the rest of the Underworld. The river was only about a foot wide at this section, which left ample room for people to walk by on either side.

A cool breeze welcomed Thanatos as he stepped inside his home. The entrance hall of his home was built to resemble a mausoleum. Cut perfectly square with pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling, evenly spaced along the walls. Sconces dotted each pillar, lighting the hall with their pale blue flames. Square alcoves adorned the spaces between the pillars, lined with elaborately painted lekythoi.

A couple of bridges on both ends of the room spanned the river, connecting the two sides of the entrance hall. On the far wall, opposite the cave entrance and behind the headwater of the Lethe, was a painted mural of Thanatos and Hypnos as children, with their mother, Nyx. His mother had had it painted when he and Hypnos first moved in. Personally, he didn’t care much for it.

On either side of the mural stood two doorways, which led off into the cave tunnels. Thanatos took the doorway on the left, wincing as Daniel’s sobs echoed through the cavernous empty space of the entrance hall.

Thanatos walked down a cave-like tunnel, with rough stone walls that glistened in the dim light. He passed by several rooms and smaller passageways as he went, until he finally stopped in front of a heavy, dark blue curtain. Since his arms were occupied at the moment, Thanatos used a wing to push the curtain aside, revealing the room behind it.

The room was large and circular, with a natural domed ceiling resting high above it. A large ebony platform, draped in soft linens and downy pillows, took up a good portion of the floor, while the rest was taken up by a staggering amount of various pillows, blankets, and cushions. This was one of Hypnos’ rooms. Not his bedroom (most beings couldn’t enter his personal chamber without instantly falling asleep), but a living room of sorts.

The pillows and blankets on the floor made it a bit difficult to maneuver through the room, but Thanatos thankfully had plenty of experience doing so, and made it over to the ebony platform with ease. Songbirds flitted to and fro between the stalactites high above his head, happily singing their songs. A few came down and chirped hello, but Thanatos waved them away; he didn’t need them disturbing Daniel when he was trying to get the child to rest.

Thanatos attempted to pry Daniel’s arms from around his neck so he could lie the child down on the platform, but to no avail; Daniel only held on tighter and nuzzled his face into Thanatos’ neck, still shaking with quiet sobs. Thanatos sighed in defeat, readjusted his hold on the halfa in his arms, and climbed onto the platform himself.

The birds chirped and whistled inquisitively at Thanatos as he moved over and sat down against the cave wall. Sensing that it was time to rest, the birds settled into their little alcoves and nests along the walls as Thanatos managed to move Daniel so that he was nestled against Thanatos’ right side, with the god’s wing curled protectively around him.

Daniel had calmed down considerably since entering the room, but he was still awake and sniffling quietly, as though he was refusing to sleep. Thanatos had hoped that Hypnos’ lingering magic in the air around them would be enough to lull Daniel to sleep, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

Thanatos sighed again and glanced down at Daniel. The poor child was still weeping softly, his hands clinging to Thanatos’ chiton like his life depended on it. The god ran a hand through his apprentice’s hair, trying to provide what comfort he could. Thanatos needed to do something to calm the poor child down, but what could he do?

A distant memory floated to the forefront of Thanatos’ mind. One of him and Dianthe sitting in a field while she taught him a song. A lullaby, more specifically. Thanatos hummed thoughtfully. Perhaps… that could help.

Hesitantly, his voice low and melodious, Thanatos began to sing.

:Sleep, thou who takest children; Come, take mine too:

The songbirds recognized the tune and joined in, adding their own melodies and filling the room with soft, calming music.

:I bear it young, so young before you; Bring it to me, old:

Daniel’s tears finally started to subside. His tail unwound from around Thanatos’ waist and turned back into legs that he tucked up against himself.

:Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep; May my baby fall asleep:

Daniel’s breathing eased as he nestled closer to Thanatos, the tension and unnatural chill starting to at last leave his body.

:Come, Slumber take my baby; Gently lull it to its sleep:

A brief flash of light covered Daniel’s body, and once it faded Thanatos saw that Daniel had returned to his human form. The frost coating Daniel’s skin quickly melted away, and Thanatos gently moved his wing to cover Daniel a little more.

:Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep; May my baby fall asleep:

Thanatos repeated the chorus once more, faltering slightly as Daniel slumped against him. Thanatos caught him, and once he was sure that the halfa wouldn’t fall, he continued.

:Come, Slumber take my baby; Gently lull it to its sleep…:

Thanatos trailed off as he heard only soft breathing from under his feathers. At last, Daniel was asleep.

Danny POV:

Danny was alone. His mother… his mother had left him. The once beautiful rainbow grass of the valley now seemed off color. The once angelic chirping of songbirds now echoed loudly in his mind, irritating him; he wished they would shut up.

She had been gone for so long…

The first thing Danny noticed upon waking up was warmth; darkness and warmth, and a softness like a blanket drawn over him. The next thing he noticed was noise. Faint chirps and whistles filled the silence like a soft melody, their echoes only adding to their song. They were accompanied by a low, melodic humming.

Danny shifted and the humming stopped. He was surprised to find that the soft blanket was actually a large, feathery wing as it was gently lifted off of him, allowing his eyes to take in the dimly lit room.

The room was a large, rounded cave. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like icicles, and the flowstone pouring down the walls of the cave looked like frozen waterfalls. Along the walls, between the flowstone rivulets, were shelves that looked as though they had been carved into the dark stone. Most of them held lit candles, while a few were occupied by cute little sleeping songbirds.

The floor of the cave had stalagmites standing around its far edges, while the rest of the floor was flat and smooth and completely covered in blankets and pillows.

Still hearing bird chirps, Danny looked up and saw that the highest shelves were occupied by even more songbirds; warblers, larks, and thrushes flitted about, their tunes echoing and giving the cave an ethereal feeling.

Danny sat up with a groan and brought his hands to his temples; he had a terrible headache. “Ow…”

“Are you feeling better now?”

Danny blinked, and turned to his left to see Thanatos sitting cross-legged right next to him, his back against the wall of the cave. Thanatos shook out the wing that had been covering Danny and tucked it neatly behind him.

Danny looked around, confused. “… where are we?”

“My home,” Thanatos replied.

“Wait… you have a home?” Danny asked slowly.

Thanatos raised an eyebrow. “Well, where else would I live?”

Danny frowned as he thought for a moment. He supposed that did make sense… His brain still felt rather sluggish from waking up. He thought he had dreamt about something, but… he didn’t remember what. Rather belatedly, Danny noticed that he had been using Thanatos’ leg as a pillow.

“Wait.” Danny felt his face heat up. “Did I drool on you?”

Thanatos looked away awkwardly, as if pondering how to respond. “Well… I mean… sort of?”

Faint memories came to Danny’s mind then. Of crying. Full on, snot bubble, ugly crying. Danny groaned as he buried his face in his hands, his ears burning red with embarrassment. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, he nervously peeked at Thanatos through his fingers.

The god was watching Danny with a look of concern. He looked as if he wanted to speak, but he remained silent, just… watching. His blue and purple feathers were a bit darker than usual, looking rather dull in the shadows of the cave.

Danny lowered his hands. “Are… you okay?” He asked quietly.

Thanatos seemed taken aback by Danny’s inquiry. “I think I should be the one asking you that question, Daniel.”

Danny flinched, his gaze falling to his lap. Right, he… still had to tell Thanatos about… everything.

“… what happened?” Thanatos prompted quietly.

Danny remained silent for a long moment, before taking a deep breath and sighing. “I… don’t even know where to start,” he admitted sheepishly.

Thanatos just waited patiently for Danny to continue. Which meant Danny wasn’t getting out of this quite that easily.

Danny fidgeted with his hands a moment longer before sighing again. “I guess… I’ll start from the end of our Iris-message.”

First: Prologue

Previous: Chapter 27

Next: Chapter 29

#danny phantom #jazz fenton #mr lancer #thanatos #taot #the apprentice of thanatos #lotu #legacy of the underworld #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #fanfiction #crossover fanfiction

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