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long-live-astronerd-ghost-king · 7 months

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Ectoberhaunt 2023. Day 17. Blood and Flesh.

CW: TW! Recurrent pregnancy loss. TW!Abortion. TW!Bleeding

Maddie: Jack, we need to talk. I know this is gonna sound crazy but I think Phantom, the ghost boy, is actually our son. And I’m sure Danny and Jazz know about it too.

What if we bring down on the Fentons the knowledge that they have ghost children without revealing Phantom’s identity?

Text+Chat+Memes=Prompt:

Of course Maddie wanted to have children. But…Not in college. She felt it was too soon. The lack of stable earnings and time were not conditions for growing a new person. She had nothing to give this potential child. Maddie did not hesitate long before deciding to have an abortion.

And for years, neither Jack nor Maddie have thought about this unplanned pregnancy.

Ectoplasm is toxic, obviously. But since ectology was only recently recognized by the scientific community, no one has ever fully analysed the effects of ectoplasm on the body.

When Maddie and Jack had the misfortune to become one of those couples experiencing recurrent pregnancy loss, they immediately suspected that the ectoplasm in their lab contributed to their reproductive difficulty. Put simply, death didn’t go with life.

They may not always have followed the lab’s safety rules perfectly, but is that why one of their first works will be exposing a teratogenic effect of ectoplasm? What if they’ve lost their only chance to be biological parents?

What a cruel price to pay for the work of life. Jack and Maddie so dreamed of their little happiness. Do they have to forget about it?

No, the Fentons don’t give up that easily!

They may have to spend a few years doing only theoretical work, but they’ll try again.

~~~~~

Ectoplasm is toxic. Tests, hopes…and a few miscarriages too.

Jazz was a miracle. Fenton family literally didn’t get out of hospitals to look after her health.

Danny was an even bigger miracle, because they didn’t have any hope of having a second child. Maddie and Jack didn’t even plan this pregnancy. Danny was born premature, with signs of hypoxia... but alive. His potential twin was not so lucky. Single intrauterine fetal death (sIUFD).

Right. Death still followed them. Of course, parents didn’t tell Jazz and Danny that they might have had another brother. It was their grief. Children had no reason to know about it.

~~~~~

"You filthy ghost!" Maddie stopped to rest after a chase for elder Phantom.

"Exhausted?" Dan was flying at a safe distance from her. "Maybe it’s time to retire, Maddie? A little exercise never stopped you before." The ghost was clearly making fun of her.

"Not going to happen, I’ll do it until I die if Amity Park need it. And my son will be here to stop you instead of me after me or Jack."

The smile on Ghost’s face faded immediately. "I hope he die first." The ghost whispered in a hoarse voice."It's best for everyone."

"What did you say?" Maddie rose up in anger, pointing her weapon at it.

"Has any thought crossed your mind about what happens to your children if anything happens to you? Go out every day and yell like idiots, attracting all the ghosts around." An ectoblast is blowing right up against her temple and crashing into the wall. The ghost frowned and turned away. "Did you ever think that Danny wouldn’t want to live without you? Did you think that he would be hurt if he had to lose you? No! Is it always about your stupid desires and ambitions, Mom."

For a moment Maddie thought he it was looking at her like it had seen a ghost, which was obviously just ridiculous. Maddie wanted to laugh about it, but somehow she couldn’t. Why would the ghost trying to fake human emotion care to hide the tears that gather in the corners of its eyes?

Maddie tried to get it out of her head. Anyway, it’s not that important. Phantoms have always been atypical. She’ll come home, take a warm shower, and tell Danny how much she loves him.

~~~~~

Maddie: My son is a strong boy and Dan: He’s weak! He’s a freak! He can’t handle it, Mom!

Maddie had long pondered this theory since the day Jack admitted that Phantom had misspoke during the fight and called him his father but she had never experienced it before. Or maybe she wasn’t paying attention.

Maddie: Hey, Phantom, just a question, how old are you? Dan: Why are you changing the subject? Twenty-four, twenty-five… Hell, I don’t remember. Stopped counting after 17, nobody cares anyway. And her first months dating Jack were 24 years ago. Right. The eyebrows, the shape of eyes and the height is all from Jack. The waist and the side eye from her. Theoretically. Still need more proof.

~~~~~~

Dan: Is this all your frail human form can do?

Maddie walked past the Casper High playground when she saw a ghost flying around. It was one of the new ones. The Phantom’s full-grown specimen. More dangerous. And totally unpredictable. Maddie squeezed the gun harder. Her theories are just theories and she can’t have such a dangerous spirit near the school, near her children.

Danny: Shut up and give me my bottle of water, asshole.

This voice. Maddie stopped in shock. What’s her boy doing so close to a ghost? He’s always so terrified of them.

Dan: No pull-ups, no water. You need muscles. Without them you’re gonna look like a worm if you’re gonna grow up to be taller than Jack as I am.

Danny: Just so you know, you’re a terrible big brother and I hate you.

Dan: Well, that just means I’m doing a good job.

Danny: When Mom asks who destroyed the furniture in Vlad’s house I’m pointing at you. A little run around town will be good for you. And as they say, Older siblings are like your parents' personal science fair. They're a bunch of experiments.

Dan: ...Just so you know, it sounded completely insane. Terrible. Good job, but don’t go near Dani with those jokes. Jazz will kill us both for setting a bad example. Danny: Bad example? Since when has a good sense of humor become a bad example? Dan: Shut up. Drink water and go to the shower. Jazz is gonna kick my ass if you die of overheating.

Danny: Huh, afraid of one know-it-all? When dad chased you with a bazooka, you didn’t seem scared.

Dan: Сome on, dad has a lot of strengths, yeah, but the ability to aim isn't one of them. And not

Dani: driving a car?

Danny: Right. Wait, how long have you been eavesdropping? Dani: Long enough to blackmail you both. Сomputer’s mine for the rest of the week. Dan and Danny: Shit.

~~~~~

The Invisobill. or Phantom. Ha. Danny Fenton…Danny Phantom. Weston boy said crazy things. Yeah. But what if he was only partially wrong? Everything except the color of its eyes and hair is so much like Danny's. If this were typical manipulation from a ghost hoping to shake the desire of ghost hunters to chase a creature similar to their child, he would have had to give it up months ago. But phantom did not change his disguise. This is his true form. What about ghost girl and older ghost? They are also so young.

Maddie could not sleep. In her head struggled scientist and woman weighed down by feelings of guilt and shame. She was tormented by philosophical problems and religious issues. No, Maddie, not even a neural tube is formed at that time. It was just a collection of cells. It’s not a person. It doesn’t feel pain. And ghosts do not too. Right? Is it even acceptable to compare such things? Is it possible that a ghost is not the remnant of negative human emotions and memories? What is responsible for its formation then? What is the purpose of such a ghost? And more importantly, how long have these ghosts been near and they did not notice? Has the portal become a source of energy necessary for their existence in the physical plane? Or is it only they who have not seen them?

So painful. It’s so unpleasant to think about what monsters they look like to their dear Danny and Jazz. Ghosts or not, she threatened creatures who might have been part of their family in front of her babies. God, naive teens must think that three Phantoms are their siblings or something. Of course! That explains the disappearance of fenton thermos and the way the Phantoms sneak into the portal and Danny’s always somewhere in trouble and…Oh my God, they could be in so much danger! How long has this been going on? No, the real question is..Hm, if this is going on for so long, why haven’t the ghosts done anything…evil? If their nature is in the destruction then why didn’t anything happen? Jack and she would never have missed something that would hurt their children.

~~~~~~

The fight between the Skulker and Invisobill was particularly fierce this time. Maddie was unlucky to be in one of the damaged buildings. But who is she if not a scientist? She will find a way to benefit in such a situation.

Unnecessary risk, completely unprofessional. But… The debris of the wall does not lie on her very tightly and the weapon still with Maddie. Yeah. She has to test her theory. She has to. She can get up and leave if she needs to. Right? A little dizziness never killed anyone. She just feels cold and sounds are strange. Maddie: Help. Help! Someone! M-Maddie? An insecure voice with an echo sounds. Yes, it's near. Maddie: Help! I can’t.. I can’t get up. T-Hard to breathe. Danny: Mum! Mama, hold on, I’m coming.

Phantom checks her pupillary reflex. Who taught him that? Jazz? The touch of his hand, so cold and shaky. Now Maddie really doesn't feel so good. It’s good that the ghost is her boy. She doesn’t have to worry about anything happening to people around. Neither he nor Danny know how to lie. She can breathe. Just cover her eyes for a moment and… Just a few seconds. Phantom:Jazz, Jazz! Call an ambulance. I don’t know what to do. I..I can’t just make mum intangible. What if she has a crush syndrome and I make it worse or… Her boy. Why is Danny so scared? Danny: Tucker, she is bleeding and she’s not responding to me and… Sshh, my little star, is all right. Mom just needs to lie down and rest a little.

~~~~~~

Maddie could not believe that she had actually passed out. But the time spent in the hospital gave her enough time to think about everything.

Maddie: Jack, we need to talk. I know this is gonna sound crazy but I think Phantom, the ghost boy, is actually our son. And I’m sure Danny and Jazz know about it too.

Jack: Honey, are you sure we don’t need to double-check if you have a concussion?

~~~~~~

Maddie and Jack decide to watch surveillance videos for the first time. After all, it concerns the safety of their children, they have the right to know what happens in the house in their absence. Especially when the ghosts are nearby. Children *live in their own sitcom*:

They have seen enough. Maddie decides to check chats on Jazz’s phone. It’s for their safety, only. She’s a good mother but what if the ghosts are up to something?

The chat was so..Teenage? And Chaotic. Normal? No, definitely not. How many times have they punished Danny unfairly? Did Jazz learn to lie and they didn’t even notice? And what the hell, why were they joking about dissection. It’s just awful. They need to talk immediately. No, it will look suspicious. They need to try to make contact with ghosts. And then they’ll all be grounded. All five.

Oh, and she thought two kids were a lot of work. How are they gonna handle three more with the bizarre biology ectology? Do they have hobbies, interests? They are definitely more complicated than theblob-ghosts. Was she wrong? Do they have emotions, a need for socialization? Can she trust her emotions in this matter?

~~~~Bonus~~~~

"What the hell happened to freak’s neck?!"

Danny: Um, excuse me, ma'am, he’s been doing Hatha yoga in India for years. Practice opens up amazing flexibility in the joints! Right, brother?

Dan: Fuck off.

Ma'am: Don’t take me for an idiot! What about his skin color then? Jack: You have something against my son’s tan? Dan: I told you going shopping with me was a bad idea. Dani: If you didn’t scare everyone around, it wouldn’t be so bad.

Dan:...I didn’t even try to do it this time. Why is she meddling?!

~~~Bonus~~~~

Dan: Why am I only third? Dani: Because I have successfully stabbed Danny in the back when he did not expect it. With you he is always waiting for a trick. This makes me much more successful than you :)

#ectoberhaunt23 #ectoberhaunt 2023 #eh23 #ectoberhaunt #eh magic #eh science #day 17 #blood #flesh #danny phantom #danny fenton #dan phantom #dani phantom #dp prompt #dp memes #tw blood #tw abortion #tw recurrent pregnancy loss

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the-random-phan · 8 months

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Danny Fenton has 1 (One) Nerve Left, and it is Almost Fried

WC: 13,865

Ao3

Summary:

“Boss?” Asked FRIDAY. Tony looked up from the hologram he’d been staring at for the last two hours. “Yes?” He replied. He grabbed a smoothie from DUM-E's waiting claw, checked it for motor oil, and took a sip. It wouldn’t be the first time he made that mistake. “Danny Phantom has entered the building.” She informed. Tony grinned. “Let’s get the show on the road then, yeah?” Tony had a personal intern to coerce to and a tour group to stalk. aka; A re-imagining of the "Stark Industries Trip" trope starring a very anxious half-ghost :)

Read the first chapter below the cut!

“I have great news!” Mr Lancer was unusually cheery for a Monday morning. Danny certainly was not feeling the same.

Danny's feet dragged as he stumbled into class, fifteen minutes after the bell. Desiree had decided to go on a wishing spree during lunch and he had to track her down. She was easy enough to defeat- just wish she would go into the thermos- but this time she had taken to wearing earmuffs so she couldn’t hear him, and he had to knock those off first.

It was a hassle he had not been looking forward to this early on a Monday.

Lancer sent Danny a scathing look, but it was quickly wiped away and replaced by a smile.

…weird.

Tucker looked concerned as Danny as he took his seat with a slight limp. But Danny waved the concern away. He was fine. Nothing he hadn’t suffered through before. He’d just taken a hard landing. Totally his own fault.

“Well, there is a touch of bad mixed into this news. The senior trip to Washington DC has been canceled.” Lancer announced. A chorus of complaints rang out. Danny was relieved. He hadn’t been looking forward to spending a long weekend away from Amity Park. No, he did not have attachment issues. (Lie.)

“Sh-Shh! That’s not all!” Lancer looked vaguely annoyed. The class barely quieted down at all. He seemed to resign himself to the chaos he’d created.

“It has been replaced.” Oh, no. That couldn’t be good. What, were they gonna go on a field trip to the Ghost Zone or something?

…

No, no. Danny could see that actually happening. He wiped the thought from his recent memory, pretending it had never existed in the first place. Best not to tempt fate, for it was cruel.

“A wondrous chance has arisen.” Said Lancer, sounding like he’d walked right out of one of Shakespear’s poems. Or wait, was he a poet? Or did he write something else?

Danny had sat through far too many of Lancer’s classes with raging concussions to remember such minute details.

”Instead of Washington DC, we are going to New York!” Lancer grinned. The class broke out into whispers yet again. Though they weren’t really whispering anymore. Lancer seemed to have given up. He collapsed into his desk chair, head cradled in his hands. If he was already this defeated, how would he handle this many teenagers in a whole other state?

‘That might be even worse than the Ghost Zone.’

See, Danny (Phantom) and New York did not mix very well.

New York was the home of superheroes, and well, that was really the most accurate title for Danny and his ‘ghostly protector’ MO. It wasn’t really all that likely he’d stumble upon an Avenger on the street, but he didn’t want to chance it. He had no interest in being a part of that band. Or worse, they might think he’s a criminal like the GIW do. His inner, childhood Iron-Man-fanboy wouldn’t be able to handle that.

Maybe with the change of plans Danny could fake an excuse? His parents had already signed the Washington DC permission slip, but they hadn’t checked off on this one yet. He could still weasel his way out.

Paulina raised her hand.

“You mean, like, New York, New York, right? The city that never sleeps?” She asked. Danny could hear the stars in her eyes. Lancer seemed relieved to actually be being paid attention to.

He nodded vigorously. His widened smile was almost disturbing.

“This school has been giving the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to actually tour Stark Tower! The base of operations for Stark Industries in New York!”

‘Oh Ancients, kill me now.’

~linebreak~

“Moooom! Daaaad!” Danny called down the lab stairs. There was no response, but Danny wasn’t really surprised. The GAV was in the driveway, so his parents had to be home. And he could hear their heartbeats in the lab. They probably just had hearing protection on.

Danny’s footsteps echoed heavily as he descended. (On purpose.)

Sure enough, there were his parents. Dad had on a welding mask and earmuffs, and was loudly yelling. On the other side of him was Mom, who sat on a rolling stool that was pulled up to a workstation. Danny could feel that she was buzzing with annoyance.

The portal glowed dimly from the other side of the room. Danny tried his best to avoid staring at it for too long. The eternal swirling and dance of ectoplasm had a mesmerizing effect. He’d lost hours of his life right after The Accident, fixated on the surface of the portal and yearning just to touch-

“Honey!” Mom exclaimed. She slid past Dad and wrapped Danny up in a hug.

“How was your day?” She asked. Which clued Danny in to the fact that something was definitely up. She never asked him anything like that. Usually they just shooed him out of the lab when he paid them a visit. It had been a hassle to get them to sign the original permission slip.

“...what’s going on?” Danny asked. His suspicion was plain to hear.

Dad finally removed his earmuffs.

“Oh,” He chuckled sheepishly.

“We have good news!” Mom said cheerily. After the day he had, Danny didn’t need any more ‘good news.’ Not to mention that what was ‘good’ for his parents was usually ‘horrifically bad’ for him. Usually it had to do with new inventions. And if they were this happy, it had to be something especially dangerous and/or lethal. (Either worked.)

“We’re chaperoning your trip!” Dad exclaimed. Mom shoved him playfully.

“You weren’t supposed to tell him yet!” She chided. But the smile didn’t leave her face.

Danny’s first thought was, ‘I’m going to die (again) on this trip, aren’t I?’

“The New York trip?” Danny was already traumatized. And they hadn’t even gotten on the bus yet.

Dad nodded his head. His smile was shockingly similar to the one Lancer had been wearing earlier.

“They sent out an email last night, asking parents not to spill the beans. They also asked for any chaperones, since your entire grade is going. So we volunteered!” Mom looked up at Dad and he shared her grin.

Dad wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Danny begged his knees not to give out under the force. Sometimes his Dad forgot his own strength.

“Aren’t you excited?”

Danny tried not to let the terror show on his face. Not too much, at least. He’d never been very good at telling his face what to do.

“Yeah!” His voice shook.

“Sure- sure am. Can’t wait.” For this to be over already.

~linebreak~

Which was how Danny ended up here.

He and his classmates took up a whole two cars on the Subway. Why the school decided to stuff a bunch of teenagers on public transport was beyond him. Mr. Lancer was having a hell of a time trying to navigate. He squinted down at an app on his phone and tried to figure out where they needed to be going. He’d already led them astray twice. They must’ve traveled under half of New York by now.

Oh, and they were officially ten minutes late for their tour of Stark Tower. Would they cancel the tour if they were late enough?

Dad stood behind Danny, taking up the entire width of the doorway. He looked queasy, and was holding onto a pole for dear life. Mom was trying to comfort him, but he looked like he was gonna hurl. They drove the GAV over curbs and took out cones like they were bowling pins, how did this make them sick?

The subway car screeched to a stop and Dad’s face turned a sickly shade of green.

“Next up is our stop, everyone!” Lancer announced suddenly. There was about a… 17% chance of him being right. If Danny had to guess. Just picking a random number.

Classmates around him buzzed into action, collecting their things and themselves. Dannywas surrounded by laughter and smiles. Kids happy to be away from their parents and home, with their friends.

It was a stark (heh) contrast to Danny’s own loneliness.

Tucker was having a big family reunion- the first in years- so he couldn’t come. He would’ve been able to go to DC, but there was a date change and he couldn’t just ask all of his family to cancel. And his parents wanted him there to help out and socialize.

Sam’s mother Pamela had just straight-up refused to let her go- “to that rubbish bin of a city! What could happen to my little Sammykins?! So far away from home!”

It probably didn't help that Pamela wasn't allowed to be a chaperone. Not after what happened last time at the Zoo.

Danny shuddered at the memory. Giraffes could be surprisingly vicious.

Valerie was the only familiar face around, but things were still iffy between them. Danny had finally come clean to her about his identity last fall, but ever since then things had been… stiff. Awkward. When they were both out ghost fighting at the same time they’d work together, but aside from some fight banter they’d barely said a word to each other.

Which was fine with Danny, usually, but he was finding himself wanting someone to talk to that wasn’t his parents.

They weren’t very good conversationalists, unless he asked about ghosts. But he wasn’t in the mood to hear about all the ways they’d tear his ghost half apart ‘molecule by molecule.’

Danny had tried to sneak off at the last moment before they got on the bus out of Amity Park, but it was Sam and Tucker who convinced him to go. They had shown up to see him off. Which he greatly appreciated, seeing as the sun hadn't even risen yet. It was a nice gesture. If a little inconvenient, because Tucker showed up with his new-and-improved ‘Foley Gauntlets’ and physically refused to let him go. It was the most evil hand-holding he’d ever experienced.

His best friends- no, traitors- weren’t about to let him dip. They said he needed a break and some time off from being a ghostly protector. But how was spending half a week in another state with his parents supposed to be a break? If anything, it would be more stressful than staying home. But they seemed to be convinced that this was best for his well-being, and they wouldn’t give up.

Sam and Tuck assured him that things would be fine, and they could handle any ghostly threats. Danny wanted to have faith in their abilities. After all, they’d been at this just as long as he had. But he couldn’t help the worry, the nagging feeling at the back of his head.

Danny weaseled them into promising they’d give him a call if things got out of hand. It was only a two-hour flight! He could probably shave off 15 minutes if he really pushed it. But Danny didn’t really trust them to alert him. His idea of safety and theirs were vastly different. And yes, Danny knew how hypocritical that was. But he couldn't find it himself to care enough to change it.

Danny had already checked the Amity Park News a dozen times since he got on the bus.

All of this to say, Danny was alone. Alone and with his parents, to be exact. Danny took a picture of Dad looking ready to puke and sent it to the group chat titled ‘Loser Trio.’

The doors opened and everyone around Danny hopped into action. Welp, here it went. Danny slipped his phone into his pocket. He hoped nothing disastrous happened on the tour.

He probably just jinxed himself there.

Ugh.

~linebreak~

“Boss?” Asked FRIDAY. Tony looked up from the hologram he’d been staring at for the last two hours.

“Yes?” He replied. He grabbed a smoothie from DUM-E's waiting claw, checked it for motor oil, and took a sip. It wouldn’t be the first time he made that mistake.

“Danny Phantom has entered the building.” She informed. Tony grinned.

“Let’s get the show on the road then, yeah?” He clapped. Tony had a personal intern to coerce to and a tour group to stalk.

#invisobang #danny phantom #marvel #mcu #crossover #tony stark #maddie fenton #jack fenton #dp #invisobang 2023

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talzane · 2 years

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Ever had a family member suddenly decide that they're vegan/vegetarian/whatever, and then another family member is overcome with the sudden urge to tell everybody at every restaurant y'all go to because, "well what if they need to know?" It's all supportive but also...judgmental or creepy. I honestly think it is a way to feel in control of the situation.

That seems like Jack and Maddie Fenton about Danny being a ghost.

Danny told his parents he was a ghost, and after far too many questions, a lab analysis--whether he agreed to it or not--and several weeks of grieving, during which Danny was grounded for, "going into the lab when we told you not to," his parents had been so supportive!

"Of course Principal Ishiyama needs to know, sweetie, somebody has to excuse all your tardies when you're fighting ghosts!"

"Mr. Lancer and Falluca, too, Mads. They've been worried about our Danny!"

"I'll have you know my son is the greatest ghost hunter in the whole wide world! Right, Danny-boy?"

"Nobody understands ghosts like us, *we* know about hybrids, Vladdie, and that's why you should officially hire us as Amity Park's ghost hunting task force!"

"Don't talk about D-E-A-T-H around him, he's D-E-A-D, remember, Jack? We have to be sensitive, that's what Jazz said."

"Back away from my son, you ectoplasmic manifestation of post-human consciousness! Not you, Sweetie!"

"Don't you touch one hair on my half dead son's head, Wisconsin Ghost!"

"Danny, I'm glad to see you alive again! You're spending too much time as a ghost, we hardly ever see you!"

"Danny, maybe you should spend more time as a human with your friends, you know your dad and I can take care of those pesky ghosts."

"Danny, you should really only be human in the lab. We've talked about this! It could be dangerous."

"Young man, when we said you were grounded, we meant no floating above the couch, either! Don't you turn your ears intangible to avoid listening to me either!"

"Look at this, Danny! We just finished installing a ghost monitoring system in the house so Maddie and I can know whenever you're home! Isn't it great?"

"Danny, you need to stop eating so much junk food! How are you going to stay in fighting shape if this is all you eat?"

"I know you're a ghost, Danny, but you need to stop eating all of our ectoplasm samples. Those are for research, why don't you eat *your* ectoplasm?"

"Make sure you don't put blood blossoms in his food, he can't eat those!" (Thanks for telling everyone.)

"How dare you prank my poor, baby boy with a shock pen! He was electrocuted!"

"We're not interested in hypnotherapy, Danny was mind controlled once and we don't want to bring that back up."

*Sigh*, "We'll take the stairs, I guess, Danny has a fear of cramped, metal spaces. One accident with the portal and now he's afraid of everything."

"You don't need Frostbite, sweetie, we can treat you downstairs, in the lab! You are a ghost after all, and they are our specialty!"

Of course they're being supportive, everything they've said has been, "positive," and, "encouraging," towards Danny; no way in the Zone is it at all making him feel discriminated against.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #jack and maddie #dp au

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fangirlwriting-stories · 7 months

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A Need For Defensive Weapons Part 2

Chapter One

Chapter Two:

“So,” Jazz says when Danny manages to tell her what happened later that evening. “So tell them.”

Danny stares at her. “Now? Are you crazy?”

“Are you? It seems like the obvious and only way to fix this is to tell them both what was going on,” Jazz says.

“Yeah, and that’ll go swimmingly,” Danny says. “‘Hey Sam, you know that ghost that tried to kill you? Well guess what!’”

“Except you didn’t try to kill her,” Jazz says, crossing her arms.

“Which I have no way of proving! The crystal ball is in pieces, remember? Besides, I… don’t know if she’d hear me out. She still seemed really scared and angry.”

“Danny, she trusts you,” Jazz says. “I’m sure she’ll hear you out if you try and explain it to her.”

“Or she’ll immediately leave in anger or fear and tell Mom and Dad in revenge who will then dissect me molecule by molecule,” Danny says.

“Danny.”

“I’m not saying I don’t want to tell her,” Danny says, holding his hands up. “I’m saying not right now. After things calm down. And I can shift my public image a bit away from ‘horrible hypocritical villain.’”

Jazz gives him an uncertain look. “I don’t know, Danny,” she says. “I’m not sure putting it off longer will help matters.”

“Well I am,” Danny says, trying to convince them both. “I don’t want to give her more to figure out right now. I’d rather try and get things back to normal first.”

“Did you like normal?” Jazz says hesitantly.

“You bet,” Danny says. “Sneaking around and hiding my identity from everyone important to me was the best. I can’t wait to do it again.”

Jazz sighs and shakes her head, but doesn’t say anything.

“Look,” Danny says. “I want to tell her. Really. Just not right now. I want her to know that she can trust me, all of me. Let me prove it to her as Phantom first.”

Jazz looks at him for a minute. “I wouldn’t ever tell anyone without your permission, Danny,” she says.

Danny breathes a relieved sigh. “Thank you.”

Jazz doesn’t say anything else, and then their mom calls them for dinner and they both go downstairs.

Danny does feel ready to deal with the idea, after some sleep and a bit of time to come up with a plan. He can do this. He was always going to have to prove himself to Amity Park eventually. He’d kind of expected to have Sam and Tucker at his back when he did, but no big deal. He has Jazz instead, and she’s actually really good at this kind of thing.

Unfortunately, no one will actually stop and listen to him speak long enough for explaining his side to be an option. They’ll have to settle for displays of character. So they start planning ways to minimize things like destruction of property or collateral damage, while of course still putting protecting living people and animals above that. But it’s definitely possible to make some headway if they strategize some— hopefully enough to get to the point of someone actually being willing to hear him out. (Maybe if they’re really lucky, that someone is Sam.)

Jazz spends a couple days looking through Danny’s ghost files with him, and then comes up with some thoroughly impressive analysis that makes Danny regret not telling her sooner.

“Okay,” Jazz says, from her spot sitting in his desk chair, with Danny leaning over her shoulder. “So different ghosts have different styles you’ll have to work around in order to avoid damage. Skulker uses all of the blasters and guns that are part of his suit, so upping your shield use instead of blasting back is a good first step.” She scrolls down.

“Technus uses objects to enhance himself a lot of the time, making avoiding property damage a little harder, but if we can find a way to disable the objects or dismantle them without destroying them, that would be a good start,” she says. “I don’t imagine that one will be easy, but we can work at it.

“Spectra does a lot of emotional attacks, and seems to be weaker if she can’t get to someone, so you should invest in some earplugs.”

“The actual plan is to stick my fingers in my ears and go ‘la la la I’m not listening?’” Danny asks, raising an eyebrow as he looks down at Jazz.

“Just for long enough until I can show up with the thermos,” Jazz says, turning to face him from the desk chair. “Which is the key to a lot of these, actually. That or you can start bringing a thermos around more often. Probably both are good ideas, actually.” She turns back again and scrolls further down the files.

“We still don’t know much about Freakshow, but he shouldn’t be showing up again now that his crystal ball is broken and he’s stuck in prison,” she says.

“Good riddance,” Danny mutters despite himself, and Jazz pauses to look at him for a moment. Thankfully she seems to see on his face that he doesn’t want to talk about it, and moves on.

“There are a lot of ghosts that you don’t see quite as often, like the Fright Knight or Desiree,” she says. “So I’m gonna work on those a little more as we go on. We also don’t have quite as many examples of their fighting styles, so it’ll take a bit longer. And then there’s like, you know, the Box Ghost.”

“And who cares about him,” Danny agrees with a nod. He glances at Jazz a second later with a curious look. “What are we going to do about Vlad?”

“We’re going to hope he doesn’t bother us!” Jazz says with a faux-brightness in her voice and a weak smile.

“What? Jazz.”

“It’s not— okay look,” Jazz says with a sigh, pulling up Vlad’s file. “Vlad’s way more experienced than either of us. He’s been doing this since before Mom and Dad got married. He thinks things through way in advance. If he decides to make you look bad, it’s… probably gonna work.”

“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Jazz,” Danny deadpans.

“I’m not saying we won’t try something!” Jazz exclaims, holding her hands up. “I just don’t think there’s much point to planning stuff in advance. We can’t know what he’s thinking. Our best option is probably to be unpredictable.”

Danny sighs. “Yeah, that’s probably fair,” he says. He glances back at the screen for a second before turning back to Jazz. “Okay, unless you’ve got other stuff, I’m ready to be done with ghosts tonight,” he said. “I’m gonna call Sam and Tucker and see if they want to play video games.”

“Sounds like fun,” Jazz says with a smile, standing from the chair. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

Danny takes a seat in the chair as she heads for the door, and is about to pull up Doomed to see if Tucker and Sam are online when Jazz calls, “Oh, and Danny?”

Danny turns around and finds Jazz giving him a pointed look.

“What happened with Sam isn’t your fault,” she says. “You know that, right?”

Danny swallows. “Yeah.”

“Promise?”

Danny doesn’t say anything, which apparently is enough of an answer.

Jazz sighs. “Okay,” she says. “Expect some reminders then.”

“Jazz—”

“Sorry I can’t hear you, I’m too busy leaving your bedroom so you can hang out with your best friends that you have never willingly hurt,” Jazz calls, though not loud enough for their parents to hear.

Danny rolls his eyes fondly as Jazz leaves, then turns back to the computer and boots up Doomed. He needs to get ghost stuff out of his mind tonight.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #jazz fenton #no one knows au #that's just kind of the tag for this au now #yeah jazz knows but also that's where it started so #my fic

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five-rivers · 1 year

Text

Life's Great Lie 12

AO3

Loki was shaking. He was furious. He was excited. That boy had been so powerful. Unheard of for a human. By Loki’s estimate he was about the same age as his boy. Amassing something like that in less than two decades was… astounding. And the way he used it! Truly, Loki had rarely met a more kindred spirit.

It complicated everything immensely, especially when coupled with the disappearance of Barton. After all, no Barton meant no materials. And they needed those materials, or, at least, the energy source. Everything else was being labored over by Dr. Selvig and the assistants Loki had procured for him.

On the other hand, the fight in Amity Park might have been enough to get Earth’s defenders to really hate him.

No, that wasn’t what he’d been trying to do. He was trying to divide them. Divide and conquer, as they said, and Loki would conquer them. They were divided. They… The boy, the pharaoh, he would be against Iron Man, if nothing else. His boy’s other young friends didn’t seem terribly enamored of the heroes, either. Likely, they would spend as much time getting SHIELD’s way as Loki’s in an attempt to get their other friend back.

Not as good as crashing their ridiculous airship, but not terrible, all things considered.

“That was stupid,” said the boy. “That whole thing was stupid. If you’d just waited—”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Loki. “We still have the original plan.”

“Which was terrible. Maybe…” The boy glanced at where Selvig was working and licked his lips. “What if we spliced into the power cable in the ocean? Keep everything out of New York? If the army you’re bringing can deal with space they can deal with water, right?”

“They can do many things,” said Loki, vaguely. “But we cannot breathe underwater.”

“I don’t need to breathe.”

“And the rest of us?”

“We can steal a boat.”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “I must commend your dedication to…” he trailed off. Thanos’s herald was plucking at the strings of his mind. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. When was the last time he’d slept? He’d have to meditate and see what the irritating and impatient creature wanted.

He wanted- He needed—

Ice, invigorating and incongruous, washed over him, sweeping away the pull on his mind. He breathed in through his teeth and rounded on the boy.

“What did you do?”

“I helped you. Mind control is unfriendly.”

Loki snarled. “Boy, do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Yes. But my name is Danny.” He tilted his head. “I’m pretty sure I’ve told you that before.”

“That is my contact with my army!”

“It isn’t really yours, though, is it?”

Loki raised his hand, intending to strike the boy for his impudence, but… He dropped it. There was no point to it. Loki would merely have to find some way to instruct him not to interrupt the connection again without subverting his other, more important orders.

Later, later. Unless he was contacted again, it wasn’t a priority.

“We could try to contact Jazz again. I’d bet they took the equipment I asked for with them.”

“We are not talking to your sister. We do not need any of that so-called equipment, regardless.”

“Yeah, sure, and do you really need an army from somewhere else? I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but look at everything you’ve already done all by yourself!” He spread his hands to either side. “Why not just keep doing this? I’m sure that by the time whoever is really in charge of that army gets here, you’ll have gotten Earth to the point where it can more than match them.”

“Stop,” said Loki. That was all irrelevant. It was meaningless. He could not—No. Fighting Thanos was impossible. All he could do was this. All he could do…

But the boy’s suggestion had merit. Somewhat. He had—He could—

His skin felt like it was crawling off. Memories of—

He had made a mistake, and it would be—

There was much a god could endure—

Falling—

Danny put his hand on Loki’s arm and ice pricked at his skin. It was like holding the Casket of Ancient Winters. It was like touching a blizzard. It was like the chill in his own blood.

He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, gently. “Danny,” he said, voice soft, “this is the only way. This is the only choice. Everything else… is worse.”

“Sometimes, the right choice only seems worse. Sometimes, the worse choice is the only one you can live with making. The only one that won’t haunt you forever.”

“Then you understand me perfectly.” He patted Danny on the shoulder, then turned away. “We are going to Stark Tower.”

“Like some kind of prisoner exchange?” asked Jazz.

“No,” said Tucker. “Because of the whole HYDRA thing, they don’t want the really awesome people who are partially famous for being nazi haters to be here. But they need a place to deal with the alien problem.”

Well, they weren’t the only ones. Jazz would even say that the alien problem was her top priority right now, right after not bleeding out or crashing. She looked back at Barton.

“And you’re sure arrow boy isn’t a nazi?”

“I’m not sure,” said Tucker. “But based on what I’ve seen behind the curtain, I doubt it. Unless he’s one of these codename guys. There’s… a lot of double, triple security on everything and some of it is in languages I don’t speak. They didn’t put sensitive stuff where the GIW could get it easily. I guess the GIW were sort of the idiot cousins in all this. Too loyal and know too much to completely brush off or take out when they have so few people comparatively, but too incompetent to put on anything they thought was real or important.”

“And no one believes in ghosts,” said Jazz.

“You’d think that people would be more credulous, considering the whole super-soldier thing was decades ago and Thor is, you know, around. Existing. All those aliens. Oh, and they’re not even—” He broke off. “Okay, yeah, I know you don’t want me to talk about it, but who do you think was the first person I showed when I hacked you? Get off my back. There are so many other aliens. There are even shape shifting aliens, just living here. Like a Men in Black situation.” Something in the background of Tucker’s call got very loud and annoyed looking.

“And you’re sure none of these people are nazis?”

“Pretty sure. The one woman is Russian, though. Maybe. Her accent is really good. And Thor’s… He’s not actually Scandinavian. It’s whatever. Look, I’ve only met, like, Stark. And the Russian. So, you aren’t exactly getting a personal vetting, here.”

Jazz sighed. A personal vetting probably wouldn’t be all that useful, anyway, given the circumstances. These were spies that could fool other spies. Not people who would have trouble fooling Tucker.

“But they’re all those heroes, right?” asked Sam. “Not people that are coming out of nowhere.”

“Except the Russian. And I’m not sure Dr. Banner really counts as a hero. Except in, like, the pioneer in the field of science sense.”

“I don’t know,” said Sam, “there were some things on the internet way back.”

“Yeah,” said Tucker. “I think we can at least be sure Captain America isn’t some kind of sleeper agent. Or Mr. Stark. I mean, whatever plan would involve making a really awesome weapons dealer billionaire in their pocket dump the weapons part and give eighty percent of his income to charity and spend his spare time tracking down terrorists and curing malaria would have to be really convoluted.”

“The malaria thing wasn’t actually me—”

“And, like. Thor’s an alien. So maybe he’s whatever the space equivalent of nazis is, but at least he’s not an Earth nazi, and—”

“Okay,” said Jazz. “Tucker, you’re rambling.”

“Right, I don’t think these particular guys are HYDRA.”

“Great,” said Jazz. “So, what do they actually want?”

“Like I said, they don’t want the, uh, the Avengers to be around the potential nazis. Probable nazis. HYDRA agents. Whatever you want to call them. But they still need a place to work. They want that place to be the Ops Center.”

Jazz bit her lip. She wasn’t enthusiastic about letting a bunch of heavily armed strangers who were buddies with the guy who had shot her into their space. But while they could use the ops center to track Danny if he was using his powers and capture him with the onboard equipment and shields, if Loki had more people like arrow boy and the weaponry to back them up… Jazz didn’t think the ops center would do all that well against, say, a grenade launcher. It wasn’t built with that kind of weaponry in mind.

For that matter, it wouldn’t do all that well against the GIW if they decided to attack. They didn’t have Danny to drive them off this time.

(And Loki had held his ground against Tucker while he was in the full grip of Duulaman. Danny had trouble with Duulaman. His power couldn’t be dismissed.)

“How many of them are there again?”

“Five,” said Tucker. “Not counting arrow guy. Barton.”

Then they’d outnumber her, Sam and Tucker by two to one. And three of them were soldiers trained to fight, another could pull a Cujo if he got even the least bit annoyed, one was armed to the teeth, and one was at least the inspiration for a god.

“Oh! And Valerie is here. Not sure why, but. You know.”

“Well that’s something,” said Jazz. She wasn’t thrilled about Valerie being involved, and she didn’t know what side she’d come down on in a fight, but… Yeah. It was something.

“She knows. Actually, all of these guys do. About Danny.”

Jazz closed her eyes. She’d known that, but getting it confirmed had a different effect.

There was a way to even those odds, at least a little bit. She didn’t like it.

“Where do they want to meet?” she asked.

Tucker rattled off a set of coordinates. Jazz started shaking her head before he was done.

“No,” she said. “Tell them to meet us at Lake Eerie.”

“Are you thinking it’s a trap?” asked Sam.

“No,” said Jazz, “but the GAV still has to follow roads. Mostly.”

“Oh, no,” said Sam.

Jazz shrugged. “We don’t have a lot of options. Mom and Dad… I don’t even know what they know. They’re working for SHIELD somehow, too, so they probably know.”

“They might still be okay with—” She looked at arrow boy. Barton. Annoying guy. Whatever. “With the whole molecule by molecule thing. More than okay with it. We don’t know. We can’t bring them into this situation.”

“Yeah,” said Jazz, “but they’ll defend us. We’re the ones who’re here, and to help others you have to take care of yourself. We can cross any other bridges when we get to them.”

Sam wasn’t so sure about that. In fact, she was the opposite of sure about that. “I don’t want them to be in a situation where shooting at Danny while knowing he’s Danny is something they have to do. I don’t want them…” She trailed off.

“I get what you’re saying. I do. He’s my brother. They’re my parents. But… I don’t think they will. Not like that.”

“If I can put my two cents in,” called Barton from across the room.

“No,” snapped Sam.

“I did meet the Fentons.”

“Great,” said Sam, “so have I. You’re not special.”

“Yes, but I have a bit of an outside perspective. You know how that goes. I’ve met Danny, too.”

“Did you shoot him, too?”

“Sam…”

“No, that’s a good point. But no. I met them, and the only thing they talked about more than their work was their kids. Maybe not the best thing to do when you’re being hired by spies, but…” He shrugged, the motion cut short by the handcuffs. “They care.”

“That was never in doubt,” said Jazz, as cold as Sam ever heard her.

“Hey, we’re on the same side, now, right? I’m just trying to be helpful. The more comfortable you are, the better.”

“The better to ambush us, you mean?”

“Still not helpful,” said Jazz.

Sam crossed her arms and tapped her foot. She was just trying to look at all the perspectives. Danny loved his parents. But there were reasons that, despite everything, he hadn’t trusted them. And anyone who worked with SHIELD could by HYDRA. Anyone.

If it were just up to Sam, she wouldn’t work with any of them. Danny had allies in the Ghost Zone. If nothing else, his enemies wouldn’t like him being occupied. They were awfully territorial over him sometimes. They just had to, you know, make a portal… travel through the Zone… hope the portal opened somewhere useful… find the necessary ghosts… convince them to come back… make another portal to a useful place… the porta-portal and Fenton Bazooka portals didn’t last that long, after all.

Yeah, that was totally doable.

Absolutely workable despite Jazz’s arrow wound, the assassin/hostage, Sam’s relative inexperience with the technology they had on hand, and the lack of Zone-ready transportation.

Yeah, right.

She couldn’t even say all that stuff in her own head without it sounding sarcastic.

Even if they could do all of that and got an army of ghosts, Loki could bring his army over first. There was no guarantee that an army of ghosts could beat an army of aliens. They didn’t even knew how big Loki’s army was, except that he expected it to be able to conquer the planet with it. They needed backup, regardless.

“Okay. Fine. Call them. We’ll meet up with the superpowered boy band, too. But you know what people who are used to being in charge are like. This is going to go wrong, and it’s going to go wrong fast.”

“And then you’ll say I told you so?”

“And then I’ll say I told you so.”

#life's great lie #danny phantom #danny phantom/marvel #dp/marvel #dp/mcu #dpxmarvel #dpxmcu #op!danny

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charcoalhawk · 1 year

Text

And they’ve all got the same heartbeat (but hers is falling behind)

With Casper high behind them, students from Amity park are finding out the the world around them is much different from the one they grew up in.

First Phic for Phic Phight 2023!

Prompt was from @mr-lancers-english-class: Amity Park residents often forget what feats of human ability are considered "normal" and what are considered "superhuman does not even begin to cover it oh dear god where in the world did you learn to do that?!?" This leads to some... interesting situations when Danny's graduating class steps out into the rest of the world for college.

had, a lot of fun with this. It was really fun breaking out a bunch of OC’ s and letting them just all run wild all over this.

Warning for reference to SA, Transphobia, injuries, and vomiting.

Title comes from Ecosmith, Cool Kids.

Paulina

Paulina hadn’t realized, at first, just how soft the world was outside of Amity Park. While her father had never let her attend the same self-defense classes Valerie went to, she had still learned how to protect herself from those who might wish her ill.

But, in retrospect, most people didn’t spend their high school years fighting the undead. So maybe her sense of fight of flight was just a tad bit skewed.

This wasn’t Paulina’s first time waking home slightly too drunk, during junior year at Casper she and Star spent every night during spring break bar hopping, and there had definitely been times during her senior year where entire week’s had felt like a dream.

But that had been at Casper, where all the teachers knew that students had bad weeks in which even showing up to school was a Herculean effort. On those weeks Mr. Lancer would offer you a quiet room after school to make up work in, and everyone knew to tread carefully.

But now she was in college, states away from Casper’s familiar haunted halls, and she, and Star, were starting to realize that the other girls around them maybe had slightly different experiences growing up.

Case in point, Paulina had mastered walking in heels when she was thirteen running away from an ancient dragon that had wanted her head on a spike, so even slightly drunk her steps didn’t waiver. Jessica was holding her heels in one hand while the other clutched her phone and lanyard like a lifeline, and Monica had shown up in flats and was now happily devouring a huge tub of pretzels she had borrowed from the frat house.

The party had taken place in the farthest house from freshman housing, off the campus itself. It had been free admission, a feature most freshmen all thought was amazing, but all the sophomores and juniors knew was a scam to get rid of all the old beer from the last several years that no one else wanted to drink.

It was close to three in the morning according to the last time Jessica had loudly announced from checking her phone, so there was little other foot traffic as the three of them slowly made their way back to the dorm. Paulina had noticed someone following them almost immediately after they had left the party, but had hoped it was just another freshman making the walk of shame back onto campus.

But as they near the first campus building, the figure that had been following from a distance rapidly gained on them, revealing itself to be at four gangly boys, who all swaggered towards them like they had a hive of bees up their asses. Paulina distinctly remembers turning the leading boy, Ben, down when he had insisted she give him a shot earlier that week.

They’re stopped at a traffic light where Jessica starts to rather urgently press the crosswalk button, but the light has just turned green and it’ll be at least two or so minutes before the light will cycle.

“Hey there, pretty thing,” Ben drawls, “what’s someone like you doing out past your bedtime?”

Oh, he’s one of those assholes. Paulina knows she had made it abundantly clear she had no interest in him, and if he was the kind of guy who stalked drunk girls after a party, she had definitely made the right choice.

Jessica and Monica are giving her some very concerned glances, and out of the corner of her eye Paulina sees Jessica fumbling for her phone while trying to not drop her heels.

There’s just too much traffic for them to safely cross, and even then the boys would just follow them, and there is no way Paulina is playing a demented version of hide and seek with these losers.

Paulina understands the other girl's concern, but she’s met beings who would truly wish her harm, these empty headed cardboard cutouts with overinflated egos just needed to be firmly taught a lesson.

With large steps Ben’s in her space in moments, hand reaching down to posessively stroke her cheek down her neck. His hand is larger than her’s, smooth from lack of work and well manicured. She can smell his cologne, it’s something cheap, he’s practically doused himself in it so entering his personal space means all you can smell is him.

His hand travels didn further and- nope! Paulina has dealt with a lot of disgusting men in her life, but most of them are too cowardly to get too close. Over the years she’s learned to ignore most demeaning language, as in most cases speaking up about it will get her a telling off from her parents for acting unladylike.

Her hands snap up to grab his wrist while she shifts slightly so none of him is touching her. Before he can make any comment, she yanks harshly down and hears the tell-tale pop of a dislocating shoulder. She remembers Valerie teaching her that the summer before freshman year, her then friend had been worried and had wanted to give Paulina a way to deter anyone from trying to touch her more then once when she didn’t want them too.

It had come in handy a few times over the years, but she hadn’t always been able to actually get the shoulder dislocated on the first try. It had still been surprising enough that it had gotten her out of one bad situation, but after that she had asked and both Kwan and Dash had volunteered to help get her technique down and now she knew the exact right angle and amount of abrupt force needed to get the desired result.

There’s a startled gasp from the girls, and one of the looming guys let’s out a strangled “what the fuck,” but Paulina isn’t done. Quickly she yanks, pulling Ben’s now limp arm down so she can wedge her elbow with his, before snapping it as hard as she can at a perpendicular.

This time it’s the satisfying crunch of bone and with that he crumbles to the floor, wailing.

The smallest guy darts in to help his friend up but the other two seem frozen in shock. Going from their horrified faces no one has ever been bold enough to stand up to them when they traveled in a pack like this.

“Move along boys,” Paulina gives them a smile that is all teeth, something she had learned from Manson, “next time you think about harassing someone just stay in your room with some tissues, it’ll be more productive.”

The last two guys lunge at her then, but their movements grow awkward as they both aim for the same target. One does land a half decent punch to her nose and one tries to get behind her and definitely pulls out some hair with his harsh grip, but neither of them have had to fight in close quarters with others before. it’s easy to catch her palm hard on one guy’s throat and send him down hacking.

The one behind her has the unfortunate fate of getting her nails in his eye, and really now she’s going to have to get them redone because already she can feel two of them catching in flesh and ripping off.

He screams, high and long as his hands yank harshly at hers. She allows herself the brief satisfaction of digging them in deeper for a few more moments before allowing him to push her away.

And with the last guy releasing her to clutch at his face, it’s all over. The other two have already disappeared, and all it takes is one loud step with her heel to send the other two running.

A quick glance shows that Monica and Jessica are still standing near the light, Monica’s pretzels scattered on the floor as she’s holding one of Jessica’s heels like a weapon.

Something in Paulina’s heart warms. It’s nice to know her new friends are willing to protect her, maybe during the summer she’ll invite them to Amity and Valerie can show them how to properly snap someone’s wrist.

“It’s all fine now girls. Oh Monica, you dropped your pretzels! Let's stop by the college store on the way and pick up some new ones. The girl who works the night shift always keeps the best ones in the back of the shelves so there should still be some left.”

“What the fuck?” Jessica whispered.

——————

Dash

This year’s group of freshmen is pretty promising.

Don had been coaching the football team at Ohio State university for almost eleven years now. Most of the boys that he coached had been playing since middle school, and had a decent grasp on the game, if sometimes a little arrogant about their status as ‘college football future all stars’.

Some were always more bone-headed than others, and every year Don could always predict a few of them leaving the program within the year due to an injury from being too reckless.

For all the love he has for his boys, the first proper practice was always one of Don’s least favorites. All the kids want to do is gossip instead of practice, and all the new freshmen try way too hard to make a good impression with the upperclassmen. By the end of the day, every year, he always has to make everyone run suicide’s because the boys were either being too rough or goofing off when they shouldn’t.

Over the years Don has found sprinting to be one of the best punishments for over talkative players, as it has a unique way of getting kids out of breath in a way where they would finally stop yammering on for a few minutes so he could talk to them without dealing with interruptions.

After the third time a freshman decides to describe his summer flings loudly and in graphic detail, Don has had it up to here with these kids. Bragging was for the locker room, not the field.

“Alright! I’ve had enough! Line up at the zero mark, we’re doing suicides for the last ten minutes of practice.”

There’s the usual amount of groaning and whining as everyone slowly makes their way over to the zero mark, and one of two even tries to sneak off to the bathroom, but one stern look has them stomping back with the rest of the pack.

“Alright! Everyone here should know what suicides are, but just in case any of you left your brains in the summer heat for too long here’s what your going to do- we sprint to the twenty five mark, then back, then the fifty and back, then the seventy five and back, and finally the opposite goal post and back. You will repeat until my whistle.”

Once everyone is in position Don gives a shrill signal with his little metal whistle, and they’re off.

The first five minutes go by and everything is going as it should, some kids are already slowing down, a clear sign they were not keeping in shape over the summer, and thus ones Don is going to have to push harder to get them back with the rest of the pack.

At the eight minute mark even his juniors and seniors are starting to slow a bit, but the last two minutes of sprints are almost always the hardest, even for the boys he’s been working with since their freshman year.

But, as he looks there’s one kid who isn’t slowing down. He had initially seen the kid’s slightly more sedate pace and internally marked him as a kid who would need a firmer hand, but now it’s obvious he was simply setting a pace for himself, as now almost ten minutes in his sprinting has not slowed beyond what it started as.

In Don’s experience freshman tended to put everything they had into the first three minutes of sprinting, and were almost always the first to sprint to the other side of the field and back, but also meant that they usually didn’t have the stamina to stay sprinting for ten minutes straight.

But this kid is still going. It takes him a minute to place the kid, but after a moment he realizes it’s Baxter, the kid from Amity park.

In most other cases the small town would mean nothing to him, but in this case Amity had enough of a reputation that he had been warned when one of its alumni decided to join his team.

The most haunted town in America. Sounded like a bunch of bullshit in Don’s professional opinion, but enough weird shit had happened the last five or so years that Casper high had gotten in the habit of sending, not warning letters, but an informational packet to schools so they would know what behaviors to watch out for.

Don still remembers three years ago the story of a freshman at Colorado Tech publishing a paper on the effects of being haunted by ghosts and how it affects the perception of mortality for an entire town. The young woman had been a graduate of Casper high, and when invested further it was revealed that this wasn’t some kid trying to be as ridiculous as they could, but an actual, legitimate thing that was still happening in the town.

Hell, he remembers trading emails with Baxter’s English teacher the last few months of the kid's senior year. In most cases it would have been a school counselor that he discussed a kid’s schooling and grades with, but apparently Amity had had a very bad experience in the last few years with ghostly interference and currently didn’t have a dedicated counseling team at all.

Which, Don definitely had opinions about, but the school was doing all it could to help the kids where they could. So Don would at least give them that.

Apparently Baxter had been a pretty big asshole and a bully his first two years of high school, something the school had let slide more than it should have, and had initially been excused or ignored because of his prowess in physical sports. Towards the end of his sophomore year and leading into his junior Baxter has seemed to finally learn and grow from his bullying ways.

Many teachers had observed him becoming, if not kind then neutral to those he had been harassing, and by his senior year was genuinely well liked by most acquaintances and not feared.

Don remembers the report from the recruiter that had gone down to Amity to observe the team, and nothing they had observed had even hinted that Baxter or any of his teammates acted in any way different or better then any other team they observed in that period.

At the twelve minute mark everyone else has collapsed near the post, but this kid is still going. After fifteen minutes the kid looks at him intently when he turns back towards him, his seventh time reaching the opposite end of the field, but his pace still hasn’t slowed, and he doesn’t look like he’s in any extreme pain, so Don motions for him to continue, and the kid does so without complaint.

It’s odd, in almost any other situation Don would say the kid had just switched to running, but the motions, the sharp turns and the slightly hunched posture, he's still sprinting.

Don finally calls it at the thirty minute mark, and by now the soccer team has shown up, but everyone seems just a bit too mesmerized by the sight to comment on Don holding the field almost twenty minutes late.

Baxter jogs right over to where everyone is standing slack jawed and casually reaches to drink some of his water. He definitely looks like he just exercised, his whole face is flushed red and his hair has become a solid mass lying flat on his head, but his legs are holding him up and his breathing isn’t the rapid mess he expects from someone having sprinted for half an hour straight.

After Baxter finishes his drink he looks expectedly at him, and after a moment Don shakes himself out of his stupor and motions for the soccer team to take the field.

After they’ve left the football team is still hovering around the bleachers, likely wanting to get the first chance to hound the kid for answers or beg him to spill his secrets. Don’s at least a little more subtle than that.

After checking that everyone else is ready he releases them and with some reluctance the rest of the kids leave for the locker room.

Baxter hasn’t moved, likely sensing that Don has questions.

“Kid, I say this as kindly and as without judgment as I can- but how the hell did you do that!”

“Oh, well,” Baxter doesn’t look nervous, but he does seem a bit self conscious, a small sign he has hopefully matured from the pompous bully he was said to be. “Coach Tellestaff back home was pretty insistent that we learn how to sprint for long periods of time in case something was chasing after us that wouldn’t grow easily tired, so we usually did sprints at least every other day.”

“That’s an… interesting motive. Did you often find yourself in situations running from things like that? Back home?”

“Uh well it wasn’t an every day kinda thing, but at least once every other week a ghost would attack the school, and in situations like that you wanted to be as far away from the fighting as possible.”

“Well, I just want you to know it was extremely impressive, you must have worked hard to be able to do what we just saw now.”

“Ha, that’s nothing! Two of my best friends, Paulina and Star, could sprint half way across town in heels. They offered to teach me and Kwan, but to be honest we were a little worried that we’d break our necks falling or somehow impaling ourselves with those five inch torture devises.”

——————

Tucker

There are many things Tucker enjoys about college. Not having to wake up before ten am most days? Amazing, let’s him get so much more work don’t and he can tinker into the night without worrying about his parents having to barge into his room the next morning because he overslept.

Not having to be ready to fight ghosts 24/7? A goddamn lifesaver. After four years the ghosts who frequented Amity had calmed down enough that they weren't all chomping at the bit to cause as much mayhem as possible. Danny had also gotten Wulf to show him how to make dimensional portals, so he could fight ghosts in the Zone without destroying the town. It helped that Danny had set it up so he visited Amity at least every third week for a few days, both to check in with the more peaceful ghosts who called Amity home, and to make sure his parents hadn’t caused any more trouble than they could handle themselves.

One thing Tucker really enjoyed about college was the extracurriculars. Casper high had band, football, and a few small after school clubs, but no big organized programs beyond that that could compete in competitions.

But now, at Tech, Tucker had found his people in the robotics team. Ever since that first freshman orientation where they were introduced to all the clubs Tech has to offer, where Tucker found a group showing off a robot they built that poured drinks without overflowing or knocking them over.

He had signed up then and there, and from that point forward every Monday and Thursday night were for Robotics, and Thursday and Saturdays were fuck around nights where they had almost unrestricted access to the lab and were able to test out personal projects or ideas that they might not want to hand over to the team.

Official work nights were also fun, and definitely a bit more informative with their teacher around to help them expand upon their ideas. they would share and explore code together, and discuss what they could build for the numerous robotics competitions held throughout the year.

Tucker loved participating in these events, but this upcoming one was promising to be his favorite. This competition has a very special individual event that offered a huge cash prize, and Tucker was determined to get it. A few of his friends were also competing, but most had wanted to focus solely on their big team project.

Now, Tucker loved his team, but they did tend to get a bit squeamish when he pulled parts from non-standard scraps. Having a friend like Sam meant that he had access to what was considered modern material that had already lived its course, like recently released phone models, for example. Like now, where he was cannibalizing a few very new devices for their cameras to make a drone with a multi-directional camera.

“Dude, is that an iPhone 14?” Roberto looked absolutely appalled from where he was hovering over Tucker’s workstation.

“Oh yeah, a lot of their components are shit, meant to be obsolete in like two years so you’ll have to buy another one, but I’ve found the cameras aren’t half bad once you put them on something that isn’t meant to shit itself in a year.”

“Well yeah, everyone knows most super modern phones are kinda garbage, but this hasn’t even been released onto the general market yet!”

“Oh, well my friend Sam gave some of her family’s old versions, apparently they don’t fare well after possession.”

“Possession?” Now Cassius has floated over from their project in trying to make better AI detection software, “Dude, are you still keeping up that joke about Amity and how haunted it is? I thought we had convinced you that you didn’t need to tell these crazy stories for us to want to hang out with you?”

Well, that’s rather rude of them, but as Tucker winds up and is about to begin his by now long rehearsed speech on how Amity is absolutely fucking haunted there’s a buzz from his pocket, and when he checks it’s Jazz, who in his long experience never calls without reason.

“Well.. hold on, I gotta take a call real fast.” Tucker pulled out his trusty pda, which over the years he had tinkered with enough that its internal workings barely resembled the device he had gotten his first week in high school. He had kept the outer shell mostly unchanged because after seven years, turns out he had gotten pretty fond of it.

“Hey ya! Everything ok?”

Turns out Maddie and Jack had accidentally created a small anti-matter gun when trying to find a way to make a portable portal, and Jazz was hoping he could stop by with Danny in the next ten minutes to find out how it worked in the first place and maybe accidentally destroy it or make it unusable so they would think the first success was a fluke.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Tucker glanced at his teammates who were looking at his pda like it had personality offended them, “tell Danny to hop right over.”

“Oh my god, don’t you still use a pda?” Roberto whispered in horrified awe after Tucker had ended the call, “There’s no way it can hold up, it can’t be compatible with other phone providers. It could barely be considered functional when it was first released!”

“Oh jokes on them,” Tucker checked that everything was off at his station and that there was no exposed wiring that someone could get hurt by, “like hell I’m paying for something that already exists and should be free to access.”

There’s a ripping pop behind them, and he turns around with a grin to see Danny holding the dimensions open for him.

“Well, we can argue the amazingness of my darling at a later date, I should be back in less than an hour, if not make sure you get at least one meat-lovers for me tonight, I’ll Venmo you the cost when I get back!”

“Well,” his teacher grumbles, “At least he turned his project off this time, the fire was hell to deal with last year”, is the last thing he hears before the portal closes around them.

——————

Kwan

Julius hadn’t really wanted to work at their college’s discount coffee shop during their junior year, but over the summer their parents had helped them track down the perfect car for them, and after some haggling their parents had bought it for them at a steal. But now Julius had to pay for their own gas, and having their own car meant more temptations, like 3am Nasty Burger on the other side of town, which they could finally drive to on their own without having to bully one of their friends to come over and drive them.

Luckily it wasn't too hard to get the position, they had applied early enough that most other kids were still enjoying their summers, so a month before school Julius officially had their first job.

All of Julius’ coworkers were very nice, and even after they had finished training no one hesitated to help if they were confused about how to make a drink or about a certain procedure.

Winston and Bella both came from New York, and enjoyed trying to gross the other out with increasingly outrageous drink combinations. Zack was from Washington state, and seemed to genuinely enjoy the intricacies of coffee itself. Darius, Kassidy, and Shaun were all locals who loved to recommend places nearby to eat and hang out. Victor came from the same area as Julius, and was in the process of illustrating his first book.

Kwan came from a small town in the Midwest, and was one of the most genuinely friendly people Julius had ever met.

When Julius’ car had refused to start one morning Kwan was the first person they called, and had shown up without complaint at seven in the morning to drive them to work, then afterwards helped them set up an appointment with a friend of a friend's mechanic who helped fix their car for an absurdly reasonable price.

On most days things were pretty slow until ten or so in the morning. The store itself was very small, with only a cafe area and no drive through, and the owners still refused to sign any deals with third party companies so no doordash or Uber eats. It means that a three man team could comfortably work the store at any one time, and maybe on holidays they would bring an extra person in to help the midday shift when all the college kids decided to study in packs and take up every available seat they had.

Today, however, looked like it was going to be a shitshow.

Victor had called out at the last minute, she had fallen in the shower and heavenly twisted their ankle, and given that it was spring break there was no way anyone who hadn’t already been scheduled was going to come in to cover.

Spring break also meant they were staying busy much later into the afternoon than usual. On a normal Thursday by 4pm the ravenous packs of college kids would have mostly cleared out to go to afternoon classes, and all that was left were local working adults looking for overpriced coffee and free WiFi, and kids who didn’t have classes that day.

But now at almost seven pm the store is still packed. There were two groups taking up most of the more lounge-y seating, an older man having a very heated debate on his phone, and a kid hanging by the bathrooms watching YouTube without headphones. Overall it was much louder then Julius was usually comfortable with for an extended period of time.

But the current source of conflict was a younger woman looming over the counter that separated the customer area from where drinks were made.

Her drink had taken a bit because she had ordered right after the two rowdy groups of kids, and Julius had been taught to make drinks in order of who placed their order first, not on whose order it would be easier to do.

Well, technically.

In practice people did orders out of order all the time, but the woman had pissed Julius off with her attitude and her visible sneer when she had noticed the pronoun pins everyone was wearing.

So, they would follow protocols exactly, just for her.

Her drink itself wasn’t too difficult, and in situations like these Julius always wished they could just tell customers they were better off buying the ingredients and making it for themselves at home, not spending almost ten dollars on lackluster taste.

Julius handed the coffee over to the glowering woman, and was just getting ready to signal to Shaun that they were going to go to the back to work on dishes when there was a very pointed cough and an aggravated sigh from across the counter.

“This doesn’t taste right.”

The woman’s bright purple lipstick has already stained the lid of the cup, so at least they know she actually tried it, but still. It was a regular old white chocolate coffee, with no special addendums or bells and whistles to it. And while they haven’t been working here for the years that others may have, Julius has over six months of working here to know that they made that drink correctly.

But, deep sigh, assume the best.

“Oh, I’m sorry, could you tell me what was wrong about it so we can remake it for you?”

“It just tastes wrong! I have ordered this drink every day for the last three months, I know what it should look and taste like, and this is wrong!”

The commotion had caught Kwan’s attention from where he was restocking their cups and espresso beans, and he moved over to draw the woman’s attention from Julius to himself.

Thank god, Kwan was the best with asshole customers. Julius thought if they had to deal with this woman for too much longer they might make their disdain too obvious, and then they would have a whole ‘nother problem in the woman saying they were being unkind to them.

Julius still remembers Kwan warning them about unsavory customers their first week.

Julius had been nervous because all their work in high school had been volunteer, and not in situations where people generally would complain to them about something being miss made, or just the general shit they knew true customer service often involved dealing with.

“How do you really deal with bad customers?” It’s slow right now, but just twenty minutes ago there had been a literal crowd of people in their cafe, and some had been very irate that their drinks were not magically appearing before them. Julius had been keeping their head down, attempting to make drinks as quick as they could without drawing attention, while Kwan and Bella helped dole out food and placate everyone.

“Well, that kind of depends,” Kwan makes a seesaw motion with his hand, “sometimes there’s a genuine mistake in the making of the drink or when it was ordered, and the customer is respectful in politely asking for a remake. In those cases you just simply make it again for them, and everything moves on.”

“But that’s not always the case.” Even if social media wasn’t what it was, Julius remembers the horror stories various friends had told them over the years. They’ve seen it first hand plenty of time already, but there’s always been someone nearby to help deal with it.

“Ah, no,” Kwan glances out towards the now calm cafe, “I know when the owners hired you they must have made a big stink about always being approachable and how the goal is for customers to feel welcome and comfortable here. But in practice it’s-“

“A load of horse shit?”

“-unrealistic. Sometimes people think something is wrong with the drink and demand it be made again, but they won’t tell you why. Or it’ll be wrong in some unhelpful way, like it tastes wrong or they can’t taste a flavor even though you know you added exactly as much as they asked for. In those situations you kinda just have to make it again, and hopefully this time they’ll be satisfied. If they want it remade more than twice, that’s generally the point where you politely tell them that it seems we can’t reach their standards, and that they might want to try another location.”

“What about people who just want a free drink?”

“We make it for them, if they’ve already touched it we can’t take it back anyway, so just make them another.”

“Jeez, you're definitely nicer than me about this.”

“Oh I know they’re not all in the right, but sometimes all you can do is smile and hope they leave quickly after you’ve fixed their drink for them.”

Even now, It’s almost supernatural how calm Kwan is in the face of others' anger.

“Yes ma’am, I completely understand,” and oh Kwan is giving her an absolutely dazzling smile, “we will absolutely get that drink remade for you right away.”

He’s speaking perfectly calmly, not an ounce of annoyance or anger in his tone, but all the same Julius sees the woman almost shrink back.

Julius knows part of the whole customer service shtick was to always appear pleasant and to never show anger towards a customer. But what Kwan is doing now goes way past that.

He’s kept direct eye contact with the woman since she started complaining, and his smile sits on his face like it was branded there, never wavering. He continues to hold eye contact as he remakes the drink, which a small part of Julius finds super impressive, and by the end of it the woman snatches her new drink out of Kwan’s hand and swiftly exits the store like she was being chased.

“Well, I hope she was satisfied this time, you go ahead and head back to do those dishes I saw you eying, I can hold the fort down for now.”

——————

Star

It’s almost four in the morning and Star is maybe just starting to get a little worried. She knows Paulina can take care of herself! She’s seen it! But, she still holds the right as best and oldest friend to worry about her when she goes off to three am frat parties.

Just as Star is about to call Paulina in the hopes that her phone isn’t sitting forgotten on a table somewhere, there’s the sound of locks clicking before Paulina and their two other roommates step into their little common room.

Paulina walks in with Jessica and Monica practically on her heels, and once all three were in the room Jessica turned and swiftly re-locked all the locks, and even grabbed the door jammer Monica’s mom had brought over and swiftly put it in place, making the door about as secure as it could be.

The space is a little bit cramped, four girls who all brought probably more stuff to college then they probably needed meant that most everything was an organized mess and there was not too much of the floor actually visible at any given moment.

Suitcases were still sitting unpacked by the door. Star and Paulina had visited Amity just last week to see their parents and pick up their winter clothing that they hadn’t brought with them initially because they had needed the room for all their fall clothes.

The first smell to meet her is obviously alcohol, but after that initial overwhelming moment the iron-y tinge of blood starts to permeate the room.There’s no growing puddle on the floor, and no one’s screaming for an ambulance, so it’s hopefully nothing life threatening.

As the three stand in the middle of the room Star instinctively scans them for visible injuries.

Monica and Jessica look very shaken up, but there’s no forming bruises and there’s no obviously ripped clothing.

Paulina on the other hand looks quite disheveled. A quick glance shows a growing bruise around her nose, and a finger missing a nail is already swelling.

“Oh no, what happened!” Paulina didn’t usually let things escalate to physical harm, not unless she felt seriously threatened.

“We’re fine, Star,” Paulina finally moved to take off her heels, a sign she at least wasn’t getting ready to head out again, “it was nothing, some boys with overinflated egos thought they could have their way with us on the way back from Brad’s party. Brad’s? Thad’s? The senior who told all the freshmen that his party would have free beer and all the freshmen didn’t think twice about the quality.”

“Was it at least good beer?”

“Hell no, I wouldn't even use it to disinfect my wounds, not even as an ice pack.”

They both laugh at that. Back home, everyone knows which beers are worth drinking to numb pain, and which are better used to try and soothe sore muscles.

“That is, not what I think we should be focusing on right now.” Monica sounds out of breath, clutching a large container of pretzels like it’d a shield. Star recognizes the brand from the school store, and Paulina must feel particularly close to these two if she let them in on how to get the good pretzels.

There’s another long moment of silence, before Jessica suddenly bolts towards the bathroom she shares with Monica.

“Oh, poor dear,” Paulina looks sadly to where her friend disappeared to, “I was worried that would happen, Monica at least had food to help her keep anything down, but the last thing Jessica ate was that nasty burger at lunch today, I think everything just finally caught up to the poor girl.”

“Well at least it’s just cheap beer, Jessica would have a conniption if she found out she threw up wine more expensive than her whole dorm room.”

With the metaphorical ice broken Star beckons Paulina over to the couch while she grabs the kitchen medical kit. Not as big as the one at home, but it at least has the necessities to treat small injuries.

Returning to the living room sees Paulina relaxing into the couch, with Monica hovering nearby. After a moment of hesitation the other girl collapses onto their smaller couch, still holding onto the pretzels.

With a closer look the bruise seems to be the only injury Paulina sustained, but her hair seems frazzled from possibly being pulled, and two of her fingers on the right hand are missing their nail extensions. There’s starting to be some serious discoloration at the joints of the fingers, a sign they’re probably out of their sockets.

“Well at least it isn’t too bad, I can grab an ice pack for your face and nose, but we’re going to have to pop your fingers back into their joints.”

“Wait wait wait,” Monica speaks up from the couch, “wouldn’t it be better to go to a hospital for something like this, you can seriously mess up your body if you pop a bone back in place wrong.”

“Oh that’s so sweet, but don’t worry, I have plenty of experience with sprained and broken bones.”

“Even better, didn’t you sew up Manson that one time with the helicopter?” Paulina looks up from where she was inspecting her intact nails, “that has to be at least thirty stitches, and you did it without even flinching!”

“What?”

Oh dear, what Paulina had clearly meant to be encouraging only seems to have made Monica more unnerved and horrified. Which, Star kind of understood, it was scary when your friend got hurt, but Star knew what she was doing, so Monica had no reason to fret.

“Shouldn’t we, um, go to the campus police with this?” Jessica’s voice is scratchy from where she’s leaning out from the bathroom, clutching the doorway.

Monica nods enthusiastically, but Star thinks it is a rather silly idea.

“Ha!” Paulina’s laugh is sharp, “the most that would happen would be that we get told off for being ‘young ladies out drinking late at night without thinking about the consequences’, worst case, I did much more damage to them than they did to me, so if anything I would get charged with assault.”

“But! He was harassing you! Everyone who’s anyone knows Ben has been trying to get into your pants for the last two weeks, it’s obvious he was trying to-“

“Oh like any officer would take my side in that situation. It would be all ‘oh but you didn’t give him a chance’, ‘oh she dresses like that and is surprised when young men take an interest in her’, 'oh but the young man is so nice usually’…”

While Paulina is giving her impassioned speech Star quickly pops the two fingers back into place, each making a satisfying snap pop sound as it’s put back into alignment.

It’s almost enough to cover the sudden sound of violent retching from Jessica and Monica’s bathroom.

———————

+ Danny

Jerome’s Dad is going to be so disappointed with him. Another quick glance at his phone screen reveals that it’s almost eleven pm, and that Jerome has less than an hour to file his taxes.

His Dad had been texting him every day for the past three weeks to remind him that he needed to do them ASAP, but every time he sat down in front of his computer something had come up.

A test to study for, a party he absolutely couldn’t miss, Hillary from calculus asked him to go to the movies with her and from there he might have spent the next three days at her apartment.

He just, he had never found the time. And all those hours sitting on his phone switching between Twitter and Instagram didn’t count, that was his daily time for doom-scrolling and making himself feel bad by seeing how perfect some people’s lives seemed to be.

And now it was tax day, and he hadn’t even bought the filing software until this morning. The poor cashier ringing him out that morning had wished him luck, which he definitely needed.

He needed the job. Getting scholarships had helped, but with his Dad’s single income it was still a very tight fit. Jerome had tried to get jobs as a teen in high school, but every place he had applied to wanted you to already have experience or demanded more hours than he could give with a high school schedule.

Next year Jerome was going to have to pay for at least his own room and board, and part of the tuition based on what was estimated his scholarships could cover. His Dad had emphasized that if he didn’t feel comfortable he could always come home, but so much of their savings was going towards his degree, Jerome couldn’t waste it. And Jerome liked the idea of having some spending money that he had earned himself, having his own pocket change meant he could buy books or replacement parts for his guitar without feeling guilty about using his rather limited personal savings.

At this point smacking his forehead into the desk might not be productive, but it does feel deserved.

“What’s up? Did you finally get a computer virus from all those sketching anime-watching sites?” His roommate Danny had been quietly enjoying his misery for the past half hour. The other boy had just recently gotten back from one of his late night classes, and was hunkered down under his lofted bed, playing Zelda from the sound of it.

“No, it’s- hey! You weren’t complaining when I got us the original Trigun and the Japanese sub for Ghost Stories.”

“Yeah yeah, but really, what’s got you so freaked?”

“It’s just- Oh my god, why did I ever want a job,” he questions the room and the universe at large.

“Uhh money?”

“No no no, don’t be logical with me, let me wallow in my misery for this last hour. God why didn’t I let my Dad help me when he was over for spring break?”

He scrolls through the file once again, but he still cannot make heads or tails about what he is supposed to do. All his frantic googling will tell him is that there’s some form he needs to fill out somewhere, but nothing gives him a straight answer on how filling out this form will help!

“It’s these Tax forms. I bought one of those ‘tax help’ programs but it keeps asking about all these accounts and different bits of personal information that I have no idea if they need to know.”

“Ouch, you waited this long to start?”

“Yes yes, laugh at me later, I think at this point I’m just going to have to call it quits and call my dad tomorrow and pay the late fee.”

“Maybe I could help?”

“At this point I’ll take anything,” Jerome stretched as Danny got up from his fort under his bed and walked the two feet to Jerome’s desk, “I mean you can’t make it any worse than it already is.”

“I mean,” Danny gives a grin that flashes in the low light of the room, “if I filed these horribly wrong you could get a very passive aggressive email from the IRS that you really fucked up and need to re-do your taxes again.”

Jerome has mostly come to appreciate Danny’s humor, bad puns and all, but sometimes the guy can get just a little too deadpan in his delivery. But two can play at that game.

“Maybe I’ll just suffer then-“ Jerome makes a show of trying to shove Danny away from his computer, and the laugh it brings out of Danny makes Jerome feel light.

“No no, kidding,” Danny huffs as he leans in and inspects the mess that is Jeromes’s laptop. “Ok, so what I think you need to do first is find this form here…”

Less than half an hour later Jerome is pressing the file button. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders, enough that he plops down to their slightly Cheeto dust infested carpet in relief.

(Maybe he had been neglecting other things along with doing his taxes.)

“Oh my god you’re a lifesaver!”

Danny grins down at him and offers a hand up, and once he gets to his feet Jerome’s stomach lets out an unhappy gurgle that reminds him he hasn’t eaten since breakfast.

“Wanna go down to the common room and see if Gus left any leftovers from his family’s visit last night? I think he said as long as it was in a blue container any of us could have as much as we wanted.”

“Oh yeah, I’m definitely down!”

They leave the room and arrive in the common area with little fanfare, and within minutes are enjoying some very late night home cooked chicken and rice.

“So, how’d you know how to do taxes?” Jerome asks one his stomach has stopped rumbling about mutiny. “As far as I know that’s not why you stay up until three am watching YouTube, and you said you weren’t going to get a job until next semester when you didn’t have to deal with night classs.”

“Oh yeah, my Mom showed me how to do them for the past few years, she said no one had ever helped her growing up and so she wanted to make sure me and my sister knew how to do them correctly so we wouldn’t stress.”

“Man, that's awesome. I know my dad tried to show me last year, but he already had most stuff auto-completed because of the service he used. So I kinda blew it off and just assumed I would know what to do when the time came.”

“Yeah, most of it is pretty easy, although I know my parents have to file quarterly because they’re self employed and mostly do work with an independent income and not through an established company. My dad showed me some of the forms they had to fill out once, absolutely nightmare inducing. I couldn’t imagine trying to work independently and having that much pressure from the IRS about all those different forms.”

“Why did your parents need to do that?”

“Oh because they’re independent paranormal investigators, they hunt ghosts.”

#danny phantom #phic phight 2023 #team human #no beta we die like Danny #danny fenton #tucker foley #dash baxter #Kwan (Danny phantom)#paulina sanchez #Star (Danny Phantom)#Sam Manson (mentioned)#a whole host of oc’s

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spectral-tentacle · 2 years

Text

In which Danny kills Dash

[Can also be read on Ao3]

Danny was firmly against killing, whether it was a human dying or a ghost being destroyed. It wasn't his place to decide who lived or died. But...it had been an accident. He hadn't made a decision, hadn't did it deliberately. 'Are you sure about that?' a little voice whispered treacherously in the back of his mind. Wasn't it a little coincidental that the one time Danny's ghost rays missed his target, hitting a building and sending bricks and wood flying, that Dash Baxter should be the only one in the fallout vicinity? His big meaty jock head the only skull caved in by a chunk of building too large for even his thick head to survive?

'It was an accident. And Dash was a jerk anyway. What would he contribute to the world, had he lived? More misery and bullying?' But no, good or bad, Dash shouldn't have died. And it had just been an accident so deserved or not wasn't an issue. Accidents were random, tragic, they couldn't be predicted or avoided. They didn't pick or choose shitty people or nice people. Right? No matter how often he whispered to himself that it was just an accident, the memory of the blood and bits of bone splattered on the pavement wouldn't fade. Every night he saw Dash in his dreams, the look of surprise on Dash's handsome ruined face making Danny want to scream from the guilt that welled up in him. The jock had never thought his hero, Danny Phantom, would put him in danger. Dash may have been a bully but he'd had an almost childlike faith in Danny's ghostly persona.

Danny had hated resented him when he was alive, but now Danny would give anything to see him again. For weeks he had abandoned his heroic duties of protecting Amity Park, instead spending his free time scouring the Ghost Zone for the ghost of Dash. But Dash, for all his bullying ways and insecure masculinity, must have had peace in his heart when he passed from this life, because he was nowhere to be found in the Ghost Zone. "Even when you're dead and gone you haunt me." Danny said, scrubbing his hands across his stinging eyes. "It's not fair." Why should he be stuck with this awful weight on his chest for the rest of his life? This pain behind his eyes that never went away? Danny didn't even know if, being a halfa, he would ever die. Maybe he was immortal and he would truly suffer forever. Meanwhile Dash was dead and at peace. It wasn't fair. "Trust Dash to bully me in the afterlife and not even have to put the work in...maybe that's his idea of heaven." Danny said, letting out a weak, tired laugh. He felt a little better after letting himself cry. Now the sun was peeking through the curtains of his bedroom window and it would be time to scrub his face clean of the salty tear residue on his cheeks and put on a cheerful smile to face the world. After all, who cried for their bully?

#danny phantom #dash baxter #danny fenton #phanfiction #fanfiction #cw: character death #my fic

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providencehq · 2 years

Note

How is Vlad doing? Is he scheming? Cause I don't think he will be okay with Danny out and about.

Vlad is around and alive as he can be! He's scheming in the background of things to try and get Danny under his control in any sense of that word. After the initial Nasty Burger explosion, Danny quickly moves away/runs away to Gotham where he lives alone for a while. Quick enough it takes Vlad a bit to realize Danny isn't grieving alone to process what happened, no, instead he's just gone.

Vlad doesn't want the halfa out both become in some weird way he is concerned for the boy who has lost everything but also because he wants to be able to use Danny having nothing to advantage and finally get him on his side. Danny straight up missing from Amity really throws a wrench into his plans and spends a lot of time trying to track him down. It takes a long while, he doesn't hear about the meta Phantom in Gotham but doesn't initially believe it's Danny. He does later on believe it might actually be Danny after learning about the Wayne's new ward. He sends out other ghosts to either try and keep an eye on him or try and capture him and bring him back.

I do have one idea that is tangentially related to Vlad I'd like to draw out if I have time where Danny, pre-Phantom and pre-Shrike is hit fear serum from Scarecrow and ends up seeing Vlad and some his ghost allies/ghost animals going after him. Danny is very terrified but you have to love anger, a secondary response emotion and he tries to fight the fear serum Plasmius but in reality he's fighting against some of the bats who came to help the Scarecrow situation. It ends up raising a lot of questions about Danny when he's later adopted by the Waynes as the recognize him as someone who was able to fight, even if for a moment, against the bats while affected by the fear serum.

I would love for Vlad/Plasmius to actually get to Gotham to fight Danny/Phantom himself but I have no idea how to go about that. So many possibilities. Plasmius can mess with Danny pre-Phantom reveal at a Wayne gala and simply cause havoc. Maybe he tries to worm his way into being a business partner with Wayne Enterprise to just kinda fuck with Danny about how much power he has. He could maybe fight Phantom post-reveal and ends up realizing he's has the bats as allies. Anyways, no actual idea how to actually integrate Vlad Masters/Plasmius into this crossover au.

#shrike au #danny phantom #batman #dc #dp #dp x dc #dc x dp #i have no idea what to actually do with vlad he's kinda there and i'm not sure what to do about that

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wolfjackle-creates · 10 months

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Bring Me Home Arc 2 Part 6

It's Wednesday! (I'm ignoring the clock that says it's 2 AM. It's totally still Wednesday. I haven't gone to bed yet which means it can't be Thursday.)

So, since it's obviously still Wednesday, it's time for another WIP Wednesday. We're getting into the real meat of the plot of this arc with this update! And now you'll maybe start to see where I'm gonna take this.

Story Summary: Tim and Danny are both neglected by parents who care more about their work than their families. They deal with this by spending too much time online and find each other playing MMORPGs. They keep up their friendship as Tim becomes Robin and Danny becomes Phantom and don't bother keeping secrets from each other.

First, Previous

Word Count: 1.2k

-----

And that was when a large, swirling-green gash opened up in the night sky and dozens of ghosts started pouring through.

“Oh man!” exclaimed Sam as they watched the ghosts wreak havoc on the street. “I’ve never seen this many ghosts attack at once!”

Danny held out his thermos as he stared. “I’m gonna need a bigger thermos.”

The ghosts all appeared to be wearing uniforms and held batons as they attacked civilians and police indiscriminately.

“Uh, Danny?” asked Tim. “Should we call in back up?”

“No!” One of the ghosts got close to their group and Danny quickly sucked it into the thermos, dropping Jazz’s milkshake in the process. “Dammit. Absolutely not. It’s bad enough with three metas here. No more.”

Across the street, they saw a couple running from three of the invaders. One of the ghosts turned invisible and entered the body of the man who went stiff before sprinting to catch up to his partner and grabbing her to hold her still.

Then one of the other ghosts turned a garbage can over the both of them. The one overshadowing the man left his body, leaving the humans crying and covered in garbage as the ghosts laughed.

“I see,” said Tim. “How do we protect Bart, Cassie, and Conner?”

“You’re metas?” asked Sam.

Cassie nodded. “Yeah, nothing special, but… I don’t want to see what a ghost could do with my powers.”

“Let’s get back to my place. My parents might be crazy, but the ghost shield works. And then we can make a plan.”

Tim nodded. “I’ll lead. Kon, Bart, Cassie, you three need to stay in the middle. Sam, Tucker, you watch our sides and Danny, take up the rear. Capture any ghosts that try to approach us.”

Amity, even during a ghost invasion, was much easier to navigate than Gotham and Tim was able to lead them back to Danny’s house without getting lost. Every scream made him want to stop and help, though. He hated being useless.

Behind him, he could hear muttered curses from his teammates and knew they felt the same. But they needed weapons. Ones that could actually hit a ghost. And they needed to make sure they could fight off any overshadowing.

A TV was thrown out of a house through a window next to them sending shards of glass raining on the ground. Sam let out a string of curses.

“Sam!” called Danny. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. Just a slice to my arm.”

“We’re almost there,” said Tim. “We’ll check it out.”

He was flat out running now, could hear the others just behind them. They turned a corner and he could see the glowing FentonWorks sign. He grit his teeth and continued to run away from the mayhem, fighting every instinct he had. He wouldn’t be able to help if he stayed. He repeated it as a mantra with every step.

And finally they were there, he grabbed the door handle and pulled it open, ushering his friends in first.

Once inside, Danny flipped a few switches and metal slammed down over the windows, though no guns or lasers came out of the walls.

“Okay. No ghosts can get in now.”

“Danny!” Jazz came running down the stairs. “You’re all okay! Mom and Dad rushed out as soon as the attack started. What’s going on?”

“Jazz! Sorry, I dropped your milkshake on the way here. And not much, just, you know, a ghost invasion.” Danny’s laugh was bordering on hysterical.

“But you’re all safe?”

“Sam?” asked Danny. “How’s your arm?”

“I think it’s all right.” Sam grimaced as she held some tissues to the injury.

Jazz joined and led her to the kitchen. “Come on, let me clean that up for you. What happened?”

“A ghost threw a TV through a window. A piece of glass got me as we ran by.”

Tucker turned on the Fenton’s TV and switched to the news channel.

“I’m Shelly Makamoto and this is Ghost Watch,” an Asian woman said in a cheerful voice. “Ghosts, can you believe it, real ghosts are invading Amity Park right now. Emergency vehicles are struggling to get through the invasion, so if you are injured and in an area of high ghost concentration, help may be delayed. It is recommended you remain put and wait until first responders are able to get to your area. Currently, the ghosts are most focused on the downtown area, so the hospital is spared at this time. We can only hope this doesn’t change. Now, our weatherman Lance Thunder is out right now, so lets switch to him to get an on-the-scene report.”

They all watched in silence as a male reporter cowered behind an overturned car as he gave his report.

Sam and Jazz returned just a moment later. Sam had a large bandaid over her arm but shook her head when Danny shot her a questioning look.

“It’s fine. Clean cut.”

Tim relaxed as well. “Glad to hear it,” he said.

Jazz nodded. “Nothing to be concerned about at all. Thanks for getting the ghost shield up, Danny. I always forget which switch is the weapons and which is the shield.”

Tim’s eyes narrowed. She was lying. Why was she lying?

“Yeah, no problem. We’re gonna go to the lab. Tim and his friends have self defense training, Gotham, you know? So I want to see if we have any weapons in the vault that they’d be comfortable with.”

“Great. I’m gonna be in my room. As class president, I want to try and make sure everyone is safe so I’ll be on the phone with my door shut. Knock before you enter!” Then she was running back up the stairs and slamming the door to her room.

Tim exchanged a glance with Cassie. That was weird.

But next to him, Danny let out a breath. “Okay, so she’s out of the way. Sam, you sure you’re okay?

Sam grimaced. “It stings a bit, but it’s fine. Jazz put disinfectant and antibiotic cream on it.”

“Great. Well, not great.” Danny grimaced and Sam punched him on the arm.

Tim cleared his throat. “You said something about weapons?”

Conner nodded. “Yeah, did you say you have a weapons vault?”

Danny laughed. “You saw the home defense system. Are you really surprised?”

Cassie shook her head. “Your parents are evil scientists, aren’t they?”

Danny led them down a set of stairs. “I wouldn’t call them evil. They’re just… a bit single minded.”

And then Tim was standing in their lab for the first time. It was all silver chrome and neon green accents. But worse, it was messy. Half assembled inventions were scattered haphazardly over every surface. And was that a half eaten sandwich on the bench? Ectoplasm dripped off one of the counters onto a puddle on the floor.

Sam, Tucker, and Danny walked in without concern, but Tim and his team held back.

Danny realized they weren’t following and looked back in concern. “What’s wrong?”

“No offense,” said Bart as his eyes darted around, “But, uh, is it safe?”

“What do you mean?” asked Danny, but then he looked around and noticed the mess. “Ah. Hang on a sec. I’ll get you rubber gloves and boots you can slide on over your shoes. That’ll keep you safe enough.”

Sam helped and soon enough they were passing the protective gear over. Meanwhile, Tucker sat down at a computer and pulled up the news report so they could keep tabs on what was going on.

“Can we get eye protection as well?” asked Tim once he had everything on.

“Sure. Mom and Dad have plenty of goggles.” Danny grabbed a few of those as well.

Still not entirely comfortable, Tim finally stepped into the lab. On the far wall, behind yellow and black doors was the portal he’d heard so much about.

Danny followed his gaze and put a hand on his arm. “Come on, Tim. The weapons vault is over here.”

-----

This should be enough to figure out which episode I'm using as the base for this arc! It's not quite the Ghost Fight people were hoping for in the comments of the last update, but I think this is gonna be better.

Tag List Part 1

@gremlin-bot, @bonebrokebuddy, @britcision, @lady-time-lord-, @welcometosasakiworld, @akikkobara, @phoenixdemonqueen, @dolfay, @skulld3mort-1fan, @we-ezer, @markus209, @sjrose1216, @onyxlightdragon, @dragonsrequiem, @jesus-camp-the-sequel, @spidey29phangirl, @kyrianclawraith, @evilminji, @introvert-even-on-the-internet, @emergentpanda-blog, @lexdamo, @v-inari, @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit, @longlivethefallen, @undead-essence, @xye-chan, @liandrin, @seraphinedemort, @kisatamao, @schalensitzbucket, @caelestisdreamer, @runfromthemedic, @nutcase8691, @channajen, @tonicmii, @ambiguouslyominous, @vythika96, @addie-lover-of-stories, @ironicvixen, @violetfox2, @pickleking8, @mysticalcomputerdetective, @ark12, @mygood-bitch99, @squirrel-wolf, @satisfactionbroughtmeback, @sometimesthingsfallapart, @automaticsoulharmony, @d4ydr34min9, @revnantdpxdclover, @midigeria, @raginblastocyst, @feral-bunny31, @lunaria618, @ghostreblogging, @ace-aro-as-shit

#dpxdc #dead tired #my writing #conner: whats that you got there?#danny: a weapons vault why?#he has no clue its weird so doesnt think to hide it #its just his basement #one weapon for you and one for you and two for you #rip jazz's milkshake #damn ghosts #i am very tired #and my tags reflect that

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ectokelpeigh · 2 years

Text

WWDITS (tv) x DP

We’re going to roll with my headcanon that Vlad is incredibly sensitive to any mention of him looking like a vampire because it makes everything 10x funnier ok

Vlad goes to Staten Island meets our beloved nest of disasters because [reasons]. Maybe there’s an artifact in the house he really wants/needs? So he snoops around as Plasmius but he gets caught? Anyway, the vampires either a) recognize him as a ghost and are about as weird around him as they were about their own ghosts in 2x02, or b) assume he’s a vampire, and any protests/corrections from Vlad (and Guillermo, guardian of the brain cell) fall on deaf ears because they’re all just Like That.

The (actual) vampires’ individual reactions:

Nandor is immediately taken with Vlad. He ignores every word Vlad says and knows absolutely nothing about him by the time they all part ways, but feels so connected to his style that in Nandor’s mind, this is his new best friend (cue bad mood for Guillermo). They wear capes, they are conquerors, they love their pets, they wear boots with pointy toes. Bonus points if Nandor notes that Vlad’s look is “a little much” at some point because irony is delicious.

Nadja cannot stand this creep. Spends hours in a ‘confessional’ interview listing everyone bastard she’s met in her long life of which Vlad reminds her, exactly how she mutilated their corpses, and how much pleasure she took in it.

Laszlo: Vlad is relieved when Laszlo steal him away from the group to “converse in a more civilized space”, thinking Laszlo is the most normal of the bunch. Really Laszlo dragged him there to coach him on picking up sexual partners. Laszlo is convinced this pathetic chap needs to get laid pronto. Based on Plasmius’s aesthetics Laszlo assumes he’s super old, and he’s obviously been a frustrated virgin this whole time. But good lord no he’s not volunteering, he has standards. It goes as well as you think it does. We learn that Colin Robinson has taught him the word “incel” as some point.

Colin Robinson: fucking thrilled when he realizes he has an excuse to feed with some oddly specific Packers trivia. Vlad already knows every “fun fact” Colin Robinson has in store, which makes it all even juicier. When he runs out of trivia, he starts brainstorming ideas for Vlad to purchase the team. They’re all very obvious and/or generally terrible ideas. Fun plot twist: it turns out energy vampires temporarily get ghost powers if they feed off a halfa (including the ability to turn into a human, which is entirely useless to him because it’s not like he has any of the classic vampire weaknesses anyway but it’s a neat trick)

Of course I’m not leaving out Guillermo, but I don’t think he interacts with Vlad much. As usual he’s too busy solving the problem. + he has the good sense to avoid him. While the others occupy Vlad driving him crazy, Guillermo looks into Vlad’s personal history and Amity Park. He can’t stop whispering yikesyikesyikesyikes for three days at the shit he finds. He figures out the halfa thing almost instantly (the vampires have seen Vlad in both forms but assume it’s classic shape shifting, not some alive/dead thing [vampires: “you can turn into a human but not a bat? what’s the point?” Vlad: “What’s the point of turning into a bat when you can already fly without wings?”).

What does Guillermo do when faced with a threat like this? Fucking handles it that’s what. But as skilled as he is, wooden stakes and holy water don’t do shit to Vlad (he stakes him in human form once and Vlad is more upset about ruining his suit than anything).

So he scours the web for ways to deal with this kind of ghost, and on the way down that rabbit hole he comes across the Fentonworks site. Being their ridiculous selves, Jack and Maddie have a big old family photo of themselves and the kids that takes up the entire home page. Seeing Danny’s face (obviously the Ghost Boy of Amity Park with different eyes and hair, how is no one else seeing this?) and recognizing the Fenton name from his initial research on Vlad (news clipping from the accident), it doesn’t take long for Guillermo to figure out the personal connections. He somehow gets a hold of Danny and begs him to come deal with this bullshit, please. Danny whines “Aww, can’t you keep him for like, another week? It’s been so peaceful without him around.” but shows up the next day on their doorstep, arms crossed in a huff: “I’m here to pick up the trash.”

Vlad is thrilled to have an excuse to get away; his powers are haywire for [reasons again] and the personalities in the group are so obnoxious that he couldn’t speak long enough to make an excuse to leave before he’s interrupted again.

Except.

Guillermo never mentioned anything about vampires to Danny. But these are. Real vampires. His jaw drops and he bluescreens for a hot minute until he busts out laughing and cannot stop for the life of him.

Now, Danny showed up as Fenton and Guillermo hadn’t told anyone they were expecting a guest, much less a half-ghost (they wouldn’t even listen when he tried to explain Vlad’s situation), so when Danny literally falls over with laughter but “catches” himself with levitation before he hits the floor, all vampires present throw confused looks between each other then at Guillermo in unison. The first time Danny hears Nandor, Nadja, or Laszlo speak with their accents and fang-lisps he laughs so hard he involuntarily goes ghost, which makes him laugh harder because “you literally have me dying laughing here.”

For weeks after the fact, Danny only speaks to Vlad in a terrible imitation of Nandor and Nadja’s accents. Vlad absolutely ruins his day when he points out how much the stupid “hero voice” he uses as Phantom sounds like Laszlo.

Guillermo and Danny keep in touch, mostly texting each other out-of-context quotes from their respective ridiculous Masters (ba dum tss)

#golden opportunity for mockumentary-style DP #''fucking guy'' definitely sticks with Danny #wwdits #danny phantom #dp #dp crossover #dp x wwdits #dp writing prompts #klo #ghostferatu #crossover

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lexosaurus · 3 years

Text

Birthmark

Phic Phight oneshot for @datawyrms: Danny Phantom's jumpsuit is hiding a secret he'd rather not reveal to anyone.

---

“Shit,” Valerie cursed, deactivating her hoverboard and gently placing the figure on the ground. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Bright green liquid soaked the ghost’s body, dripping off his waist and painting the grass in a steady stream. It was ectoplasm, something inhuman and twisted, and yet when Valerie looked down, all she saw was how closely it resembled blood.

She raised a shaking hand and attempted to brush away some of the green on her suit. But she looked more green than red at this point and all she could think of was how much ectoplasm was outside the ghost’s body.

It was too much.

They’d been ambushed after a ghost fight, the Guys in White having caught them in one of their special nets. Valerie had tried to yell out that she wasn’t a ghost, she was human, but it was no use. They zapped the net, and her vision was shrouded in darkness.

The next thing she knew, she was in a van, trapped with her biggest rival in Amity Park. Phantom was awake, but he didn’t know how long they’d been in the van for. Hours passed before the van stopped at last. But at that point, they had a plan.

As soon as an operative opened the back, Valerie was on him. She knocked him out, stole his gun, and bolted.

Apparently, Phantom wasn’t so useless without his powers either. By some miracle, he managed to find a way to remove his inhibitor collar and take flight.

But that was when all hell broke loose. Right as he’d paused to free Valerie from her inhibitors, someone landed a shot on him.

And he fell.

Valerie didn’t have time to think. She just grabbed his body, activated her hoverboard, and flew, not sure where she was going but unwilling to stop until she was sure she’d lost the agents.

“Fuck.” She threw off her helmet and looked down at Phantom’s unconscious form. There was a hole in the stomach of his suit, and ectoplasm bubbled and sparkled in the harsh sun.

He was going to die, Valerie realized. What happened when a ghost died? Could they even die?

“Stay with me,” she whispered.

She shoved a hand in her belt for her emergency supplies, but her glove was too slippery, and her hand trembled too much. She couldn’t do this. She ripped off her glove and tried again, trying to ignore the way the ectoplasm trickled between her fingers.

She had a bit of gauze, a tube of instant clot powder, a few butterfly clips, and a few large bandages. It wasn’t much, but it would have to work.

Because the alternative…

She set the supplies down and turned back to the unconscious ghost. His glow was almost nonexistent, and for the first time she could see his face clearly. All the grooves of skin, his pores, the individual hairs on his eyelashes and eyebrows. He had freckles. That tiny, human detail Valerie would have thought impossible for a ghost.

Even the more humanoid ghosts always had some slight haze to them, something that just made them more like a realistic doll than a person. But not Phantom. If it weren’t for the white hair and ectoplasm, she would have thought him to be just a regular teenager.

“Stay with me.”

She needed to take his jumpsuit off. Could she even do that? Was it attached to him? Would taking it off just hurt him more?

For a moment, Valerie knelt there frozen, unsure of what to do. She felt lightheaded, dizzy, nauseous. Her nostrils were filled with the scent of burnt battery acid and lime, and she could only stare as the Phantom’s face slowly grew paler and paler.

She pinched herself. “Snap out of it.” She’d dealt with worse, this was just a ghost. A ghost that she didn’t even like. A ghost that she’d spent the last two years chasing out of Amity Park.

She could do this.

Grabbing her swiss army knife out of her belt, she began carefully slicing through the fabric. Her damp hands were immediately filled with green goo, and for a moment she panicked, thinking that her fears were correct and that the jumpsuit acted like a second skin for Phantom.

But then she saw a black t-shirt peeking out underneath the jumpsuit, and she realized with a shaky breath of relief that the suit simply melted if it wasn’t attached to the host.

Of course, that made sense. She’d seen Plasmius rip off his cape before and it had dissolved in thin air. How could she have forgotten?

She made quick work with removing the jumpsuit, and had started on the undershirt as well when Phantom groaned.

She froze, unable to move the slightest muscle, as she watched Phantom’s drunk green eyes slowly flutter to life.

“Don’...” he slurred.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked. “You’re hurt, I’m sorry.”

She tried to resume cutting his shirt, but he lazily swatted her hand away. “Don’...”

“Phantom, stop. I need to get this off you.”

“Stop...”

“I gotta do this,” she said, tearing his t-shirt. “It’s just a shirt.”

“S’ugly,” he mumbled, his eyes rolling back. His head lolled to the side, and he was out again.

Valerie rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be—”

Her voice cut off, and she sucked in a breath. Tattooed on Phantom’s skin were glowing lightning figures that branched from his shoulder, snaking around his chest and stomach as if they were alive.

Valerie had never seen anything like it before, and she could have dismissed them as just ectoplasmic tattoos. But from Phantom’s reaction, she had a sneaking suspicion that these were something much more serious. Much more personal.

Something that she didn’t have time to think about right now. Something that was getting covered by ectoplasm, something that was losing its bleak glow as the aura around Phantom faded to nothing.

Time was up. She needed to act now.

Ripping off the packaging, Valerie got to work.

---

The sky was clear, glittering with thousands of stars. It was one of those rare nights where the milky way was visible, arcing the sky with its brilliance.

Valerie had never been one to care about nature. Growing up rich in the city, her focus was always materialistic. She just wanted to fit in with the other girls, so she’d been more than willing to follow along with their hobbies and model her life after their trends.

Nature? Space? Stars? She never gave them a second thought.

Until her life was turned upside down, that was. Suddenly, Valerie went from hardly spending time outside to now soaring through the sky every night, weather be damned. It didn’t take long for her to appreciate the beauty of a clear, warm, night sky.

She landed on top of a building and collapsed her hoverboard. It had been quiet thus far, with only a few ambient blob ghosts roaming around a warehouse. Although at the beginning of her ghost hunting career, Valerie had spent each night painstakingly capturing every ghost in sight, she’d grown since then. She wasn’t so angry, so vengeful now.

And aside from being completely harmless, even Valerie had to admit there was something almost cute about the tiny bulbs of ecto energy.

Her suit dinged, signaling a ghost nearby, and Valerie groaned. There really was no rest for the weary, it seemed.

She raised her radar watch to her eyes to see a familiar ecto signature reading pop up in the corner.

One that was heading towards her.

Shit.

She hadn’t seen Phantom since that day. He’d been avoiding her. And maybe a few months ago she wanted him to avoid her, but now...

That day had changed her.

It was terrifying the way the government had so easily lumped her in with the ghosts just because they detected ectoplasmic readings from her suit. She woke up not knowing where she was, where she was going, if she’d ever see her father again.

Part of Valerie had insisted that once they saw her without her helmet, they’d call her dad and drive her back. It would have all been a big misunderstanding.

But a different part of her, one deep down inside, knew she was just lying to herself.

The government operated the way she did when she first started ghost hunting. All black and white, no room for grey. Ghost were evil and all ectoplasm needed to be destroyed. Period.

After she patched Phantom up in that grassy field, she flew and flew until she stumbled across a nearby town. She hid Phantom in a warehouse and sat with him for hours, forcing herself to stay away and stand guard in case the GiW found them.

He didn’t wake up until the next morning, taking one look between Valerie and his exposed torso before panic struck his features and he simply disappeared. Before Valerie could gather her wits to hunt his ungrateful ass down and kill him again, he reappeared, suit intact, and began leading their way back to Amity on instinct alone.

Phantom refused to look her in the eye for the entire trip home. And when they finally got to Valerie’s apartment, left her with a “get some sleep” before disappearing once again.

Her watch buzzed lightly against her skin, signaling that he was close. Valerie leaned back, waiting. Seeing if he’d actually come to her, or if he’d bail and pull the vanishing act he was so famous for.

But then he appeared. Right in front of her. His glow was vibrant against the night sky, covering his body in a shimmery aura. His acidic green eyes glistened in the dark.

He really looked no worse for wear after his injury. That kind of hit would have landed Valerie in the hospital. And yet, Phantom was back the next day, full of bright smiles and puns for the people of Amity.

She wondered how often this kind of thing happened to him. Just how many times had he been nearly slaughtered only to pop back into the public eye pretending like nothing happened?

He gave her an awkward wave. “Hey, Red.”

“Phantom.” She greeted cooly.

Just because lately she’d been seeing Phantom as someone who didn’t have an inherently evil Obsession didn’t mean that she liked him. At best, he was cocky, arrogant. At worst, he’d dumped her back at her apartment and left her by herself after the complete shit show that was their kidnapping.

So yeah, maybe she was a little bitter. Sue her.

“Uh, do you mind if I…” He gestured to the roof.

She pretended to mull his proposition over, watching as his ghostly tail flickered in anxiety.

He was ready to bolt, and she didn’t blame him. They’d never really talked before.

“Do what you want. I don’t feel like fighting tonight,” she finally conceded.

Relief spread across Phantom’s features, and Valerie was once again reminded of how human he was. She once thought that ghosts couldn’t feel any emotions. While it was doubtless that the way they experienced emotions was different than how humans did, there was just no way that Phantom was able to nail all those tiny details so accurately. Even if he was one of the more powerful ghosts out there, it would have been near impossible to mimic the full range of human emotion so quickly and precisely.

He settled down next to her, his tail morphing into legs positioned criss-crossed against the concrete. He turned to her, rubbing the back of his neck.

Valerie said nothing, just allowing the blanket of awkwardness to settle over the pair. If he wanted to say something, he could say it. Valerie wasn’t going to hand-hold him through a conversation.

When the tension was reaching the point of unbearable, Phantom finally broke the silence. “It’s a nice night.”

“Sure is.”

“I haven’t—uh, seen any ghosts. Tonight, I mean. Like outside. Or inside, too. Uh...it’s a quiet night. Ghost free. Well, except for me, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

He ran a gloved hand through his white hair. “Not that I’m really complaining. It’s kinda nice to have a break for a change.”

Valerie grunted in agreement, even though she was sure Phantom was lying through his teeth. Ghosts lived for their Obsessions, and Phantom was no different. She knew that deep down, he reveled in ghost hunting even more than any human ever could.

The duo was lapsed back into another tense silence, one that Valerie didn’t try to break. She didn’t understand what his goal was with the petty chatter. Did he think they were suddenly friends now? After he discarded her back at her apartment like she was a used rag and disappeared without a hint of remorse?

After she carried him hundreds of miles away from the Guys in White compound, bandaged his wounds, and then stayed up all night just to make sure he was safe?

She could have left him there. She could have been home before her father had woken up the next morning in a panic because his daughter was nowhere to be found. She could have avoided the phone call to the police, the missing child report, the whole mess that had followed.

And he couldn’t have even been bothered to say thank you afterward. Just dumped her and left.

So if he thought she was going to help him out now, he had another thing coming.

“How have...um, how have you been? Since…”

“Fine.” She said. “My dad’s been better.”

He winced. “Yeah…”

“Not that you care.”

He jolted up, turning around to face her. “What?”

“You know what I’m talking about, spook.”

“I thought we were over the whole ‘spook’ thing,” he said, his face twisting in annoyance.

“And I thought you were over being an inconsiderate jerk. But I guess I was wrong.”

“Listen, Val—”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Okay, Red. Listen, I’m sorry. Okay? I got freaked out that you—you saw…” He let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry you got caught up in my problems, I’m sorry they thought you were a ghost, and I just...yeah.”

Valerie sat there for a moment, glaring out at the night’s sky. “It was a big mess, you know.”

“I know.”

“The police were involved and everything.”

“I heard.”

“And you know the worst part? I couldn’t even tell them the truth.” She let out a bitter laugh. “I got kidnapped by my own government and I couldn’t even tell my dad. I had to lie and say I got lost while out on a nature hike. How stupid is that? I nearly got killed by the freaking government and I haven’t been able to say a damn thing to anyone.”

“I’m sorry.” His voice was quiet.

“Yeah, well…” Valerie swallowed the lump in her throat. “You know. Hazard of the job, I guess. Still would have been nice if you hadn’t just left on me. After everything.”

Phantom lowered his head, allowing the white strands of hair to cover his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“It was a dick move.”

“It was.”

“I just wanna know why.”

He looked up, startled. “Why? Why you were captured, or—”

“Why the silent treatment? Was it because I saw those glowing lightning tattoos under your jumpsuit?”

He flinched back as if he’d been struck, his body lifting to hover over the cement. He stared at her open mouthed, as if he didn’t think she’d even dare to mention it.

But Valerie couldn’t find it in her to be joyous at his hurt expression. “Seriously? You were mad about that? Like I care about what you put on your body.”

“No, no.” Despite looking like he wanted to take flight, he managed to lower himself back onto the roof. “No, they’re...it’s complicated.”

“Oh, wonderful,” she said sardonically. “So let me get this straight, ghost boy. I save your ass from the government, pull an all-nighter guarding your lifeless body in a warehouse, and the best you can give me is an it’s complicated? Thanks a lot. It really makes me feel better.”

“No, it’s…” He trailed off, rubbing a hand over his face. His eyebrows were pinched and he looked almost sick. When he finally spoke, his voice was small. “They’re not tattoos.”

“Oh? What, an unlucky birthmark?”

He didn’t respond.

Valerie turned to him, realization hitting her with full force. Unable to keep the surprise out of her voice, she said, “Really? That’s it?”

He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs. His eyes were distant, far away. Lost in some other world.

He’d been electrocuted. Struck to death by lightning, or something similar. And now it was branded on him, as some twisted reminder of the ugly creature that extended its spindly claws and ripped his humanity from his body.

“Damn.” Valerie blew out a breath. “Of all the ways to go, huh?”

“I—Yeah…”

She couldn’t help herself. “Do all ghosts have one?”

“No.”

Valerie didn’t know if that made it better or worse. Questions swirled through her brain, but she bit her tongue. She didn’t know much about ghost culture, but she was fairly certain that there was a taboo against asking ghosts about their deaths.

So she stayed silent, pretending to focus back on the stars but stealing glances to the teenage ghost beside her. His brows had furrowed, as if he were having an internal war. Whatever it was, Valerie didn’t pry. Even if her curiosity burned brighter with each passing moment.

Finally, he sighed, dropping his forehead into his knees. “It’s fine,” he said, though his voice sounded anything but. “You can ask.”

She hesitated for a brief moment before relenting. “Why do you have a mark?”

“They’re called Lichtenberg figures,” he explained. “They just happen. If the shock is bad enough. But they, uh, are supposed to fade in a few days. You know, if you’re...human.”

“But yours didn’t.”

“No, mine didn’t.” He raised his head, opening his mouth slightly, before slamming it shut.

This was unmarked territory she was stepping into. Hell, she doubted even the Fentons had ever talked to a ghost about their death before.

“Do you remember it?” she tried.

“Yeah.”

That surprised her. She’d read some of the Fenton’s papers, and even they were uncertain of how much a ghost remembered about their death.

The question must have shown on her face because Phantom added, “Not everyone does. I think...I think it has to do on their power level. And, uh, how old they are. I think some of the more ancient ghosts just kinda...forget. But I don’t know much. We don’t really talk about it.”

“Oh.”

Phantom nodded, staring down at his gloves. He sighed, and then started pulling one of them off.

Valerie froze, her eyes locking onto the movement. She’d never seen Phantom remove them before, and frankly she wasn’t even sure if they could be removed.

The glove left his skin and dissolved into ectoplasm, splashing onto the concrete roof. And there, left on his otherworldly skin, were the cobwebs of the lightning scar that covered his torso. It was brighter, glowing with more precision than Valerie remembered from before.

He pushed his sleeve up to his elbow, revealing more of the Lichtenberg figure. It traveled up his wrist, spiraling throughout his arm before it disappeared into his suit. The branches were thin, glowing with the same ectoplasmic energy that ran through the ghost’s core.

Valerie didn’t know what to say. Here Phantom was, her biggest rival in Amity Park, revealing his creation, the moment that turned him into what he was today.

“It was an accident.” He finally spoke. “I was being stupid, I don’t know. My friends and I were fooling around with this...this machinery, I guess, that we knew we weren’t supposed to be near. I grabbed a malfunctioning piece of equipment—I didn’t realize it was plugged in—and that...was it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well…” Phantom pushed his sleeve back down. He closed his eyes, willing the glove to materialize back onto his hand. He looked at her and offered a feeble smirk. “Teenagers, am I right?”

Valerie forced a polite smile in return, hoping it didn’t look too pained.

He cleared his throat. “But, you know,” he said, allowing some of that familiar cocky energy back into his voice. “It’s in the past now. I’m over it.”

Valerie doubted that much. After all, he was still a ghost.

“I mean, I get to do really cool things now. Like helping people. Protecting the town. You can’t exactly do that as a human.” He froze, his eyes flickering to her. “I mean, aside from you. You’re great at it!”

Valerie flipped him off. “Whatever, ghost boy.”

“No, I’m serious! You’re really good as a ghost hunter.”

“I know I’m good! I don’t need your flattery to give me self-esteem.” Her voice sobered. “But really, Phantom. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

He frowned, and looked up at the sky. The brilliance of the stars reflected on his form, giving his body an almost ethereal presence.

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

---

Thanks for reading!

#danny phantom #phic phight #my writing #birthmark

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dp-marvel94 · 3 years

Text

Fangs or No Fangs

For Phic Phight 2021. Jack and Maddie know that Danny is Phantom. They saw him transform and they knew they should talk about it with him. But...even after two weeks, that conversation feels impossible. And so Maddie has a plan: a trip to the planetarium to cheer Danny up, to finally see him smile, and to pave the way for the truth.

Word Count: 8,191

Also on AO3 and Fanfiction.net

Note: So this story is a bit of a mess of three prompts. I started with the first one and it veered into this. Part reveal fic. Part post-reveal family bonding (err....Jack and Maddie know and Danny knows that they knew but they haven't talked about it and no one's acting like they know so...?) Either way, it's all an unholy mix of fluff and angst.

Prompt by @amabsis : The Fenton’s notice that Danny isn’t smiling as much, so the only reasonable thing to do is take him out to cheer him up! What happens when they do manage to get him to smile, and they find out he has small fangs?

Prompt by @charcoalhawk: Maddie and Jack find out that their son is phantom and fully support him. Danny and Jazz however did not get that memo.

Prompt by @phan-pheeking-tastic : Post-Reveal Family Bonding

It had been two weeks since Maddie and her husband had found out what the portal had actually done to their son. Two weeks since they learned that their baby boy was a ghost. Two weeks since they saw their ghostly enemy, Phantom, turn into their son.

It was on a normal ghost hunt. They’d been following Phantom, for once not yelling their normal insults but stalking him silently. The pair turned around a corner, to find Phantom standing with his back to them, a ring of light around his waist. Maddie tensed, anticipating an attack. Then the ring passed over the ghost’s head and the woman gasped. Her heart just about stopped, staring at the figure in front of her.

The figure, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and now with black hair, turned around. His blue eyes widened in panicked fear.

“Danny?” Jack whispered in awe beside her.

The boy’s mouth fell open, body stiff with fear. Maddie blinked and the boy in front of them, their son, their Danny, disappeared.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The two went home, numb with disbelief. Maddie thought it was a dream at first; she must have imagined it. Or this was Phantom playing a trick on them except…

Maddie knocked on her son’s bedroom door to check on him. “Danny?” The sound of feet pacing and heavy breathing came from behind the door. Then there was a sudden clatter, a yelp as if the boy had ran into something. The woman frowned. “Can I come in sweetie?”

“Just...just a second.” Danny called, voice echoing but unusually high with obvious nerves.

There was a flash of light, visible from under the door. Maddie paled, wheels turning in her head. Then seconds later, her son pulled open the door, opening it only wide enough to see his deathly pale face. “Yeah? What’s….” He coughed, forcing his voice into a more normal pitch. “What’s up?”

The mother stared into his wide eyes, biting her own lip. “Danny….” She hesitated, suddenly unsure. “Is there...do you want to...Is everything alright?”

The boy paled at the question, shaking slightly. “Yeah. Everything’s...everything’s fine. I’m fine. You’re fine. Everything’s fine.”

Maddie frowned. “Danny...are you sure-”

He cut her off, starting to push the door closed. “Yeah. Yep. It’s fine. I’ve...I’ve got homework. Seeyouinthemorningbye!” The teenager said the words so quickly, Maddie could hardly understand them. Then the door slammed in her face.

Dread dropped like a rock in the mother’s stomach. Shaking herself, the woman turned back and started down the stairs. She and Jack needed to talk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s true. Isn’t it?” Her husband said, as soon as he saw her weary face. “Danny’s...Danny’s Phantom. Our son…”

“Our son’s a ghost.” Maddie whispered. Danny’s panicked expression in the alley and just minutes before in his bedroom, flashed in her mind. “It must be true. All the evidence is there.”

How their equipment targeted their son. The injuries he tried to hide, to blame on bullies. Skipping class, the detentions, the missing assignments. Missing curfew, sneaking out. His constant exhaustion. Their equipment going missing, only to end up in Phantom’s hands. Their children’s fervent support of the ghost boy.

Danny was Phantom. He must be. They saw him change. They saw him as a ghost. Danny….he was a ghost, meaning...he was dead. And it was the portal. It must have been. The portal, their life’s work, the machine that he had said just gave him a little shock, must have killed him. Except….did it? It had been two years since then and Danny had grown. Maddie had hugged him since and he was warm. She’d felt his heartbeat. He seemed to be alive so….?

The parents didn’t know. Danny was a ghost...and yet he was not? Or he was still alive but had some kind of ghost powers?

Maddie put her head in her hands. “We should talk to Danny.”

“In the morning.” Jack yawned, rubbing his tired eyes. “I’m exhausted and Danny….” He looked down, guilty.

The mother sighed. “He must be tired too, if he’s not already asleep.” They had been talking for hours at this point, processing what they’d seen and hypothesizing. Both of them needed to lay down and calm their racing thoughts. So the pair went up to bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maddie really had wanted to talk to Danny in the morning. But he’d dashed out without as much as a word to them. He did have school. They could wait and talk to him after, right?

Then after school, he raced up to his room with the excuse of homework before Maddie could even look at him. Soon after, he disappeared from his room and the mother saw a report about Phantom fighting the hunter ghost in the park. Guilt stabbed at her heart.

When he came home after curfew (and luckily uninjured), the woman didn’t have the heart to chastise him. And he looked so tired, so weary. He ran up the stairs, muttering an apology.

Talking to Danny the next morning turned into that afternoon again, turned into the next day, turned into waiting for the weekend. But then the boy was always over at his friends’ house or busy doing homework. He was nervous, flighty, skittish, and tense the brief times he was near his parents. And when he was, Danny wouldn’t look at them, wouldn’t talk to them, could hardly stand to be in the same room.

Maddie cursed herself. She knew they needed to have this conversation. She and Jack needed to talk to their son. So why couldn’t either seem to gather the courage? Why did the thought of talking about what the portal had actually done to their son, about how their work, their words, their actions, had affected him, make Maddie’s stomach roll? Why did it make her heart lodge in her throat, her lungs refuse to take in air? Why did it feel so insurmountable, like the guilt, the secrets would bury her alive?

Part of her wished that Danny would say something himself, that he would break the silence. Hell, she wished Jazz would call them out but no such luck. Instead a few days turned into a week, turned into two weeks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maddie sighed, looking down at her coffee. It made her insides squirm anxiously, thinking about all this. All that they’d done before they knew, her continued silence. The guilt was eating the woman up inside and Danny’s sober mood broke her heart. It had been so long since she’d seen him look anything but nervous and distrustful, since he’d been in the same room as them for more than five minutes. The mother’s shoulders fell. He looked so sad, so anxious; she’d given anything to see him smile again.

A soft yawn sounded beside her, causing the mother to look. The boy himself was swaying sleepily, standing at the counter. How had he gotten there without her noticing? He was so quiet, silent as a ghost. Maddie shook her head at the thought.

Then she frowned, letting out a short gasp. Danny’s had his hand through, literally intangibly, through the cupboard.

The boy turned, eyes widening; he suddenly looked very awake. He pulled his hand out, clutching a box of cereal. “Uh…. morning, Mom.” He paled, eyes widening.

Maddie’s frown deepened at that. “Good morning sweetie.” She eyed the coffee pot, trying to wipe the surprise off her face. “Do you want some coffee?”

“No.” Danny shook his head, biting his lip. “I’m good. I’ll just...uhh...bye.”

The mother held out a hand. “Danny. Wait.”

The boy didn’t respond, instead turning and practically sprinting away at almost inhuman speed. Maddie wanted to chastise him for running in the house. Instead, she put her head in her hands. Did Danny do things like that all this time? If he did, how the hell had they not noticed? They were really that bad parents, weren’t they?

Annoyance at herself flared at the thought as Maddie raised her head. She balled her fists. “We need to do something.” The woman looked at her husband. “We have to talk to Danny. Today. Actually….” She stood up, looking in the direction her son had gone.

“Wait Madds.” Jack interrupted. The mother looked down at where he was still seated. “We can’t just spring this on him.”

Maddie’s eyes twitched angrily. “Jack.”

“Just listen.” The man held up his hands. “How about we go out and do something together as a family? The Amity Park Science Center, they have a new planetarium show. Danny will love it. He’ll have a good time. He’ll get to relax and see that...see that we want to spend time with him.” The man worried his lip, his voice wavering with emotion. “I just want him to feel comfortable and safe talking to us, Maddie.”

Maddie’s expression softened and she sat down, grateful for husband’s insight. “You’re right.” She sighed. “Maybe doing something like a normal family will help him relax. And then...then we can talk to him when we get home tonight.”

With that, the parents agreed and informed both of the kids, earning wary but tentative agreement from both. Maddie frowned at that. The distrust stung but both Fenton parents had earned that distrust. They were ready to do what they could to fix that, starting with removing or deactivating all of the anti-ghost weapons in the GAV. They’d already moved all ghost hunting equipment into the basement and discussed dismantling some of the more dangerous-to-ghost equipment. But the ghosts, ones that their son had unbeknownst to them been combatting for the past few years, were still a very real threat to the town. They’d need to find a way to keep their weapons from being able to hurt him (Maddie’s heart ached at the thought) but that was for another time.

Now, Jack and Maddie were waiting downstairs for both kids to finish getting ready. Jazz walked down the stairs, a tight frown still on her face.

The girl raised her brow at the sight of her parents. “What are you wearing?”

Jack glanced at his wife and then down at himself. “Just jeans and a t-shirt, Jazzarincess.” He scratched at his neck, trying to look less uncomfortable than he was.

“But...you’re not in your jumpsuits?” The girl asked, still unsure.

Maddie shrugged. “We just wanted to wear something a little different, sweetie.” And a little more normal, the woman hoped she implied.

If Jazz understood the implication, she didn’t comment. Instead, she turned as Danny came bobbing down the stairs. The two shared knowingly looks, the boy’s eyebrow twitching as he noticed his parents’ clothes.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, shifting nervously. “Where are we going?” He asked quietly.

“To the Amity Science Center.” Jack beamed. “They’ve got a new show at the planetarium. Doesn’t that sound exciting, son?”

For just a moment, interest sparked in Danny’s eyes at the word planetarium. Then the wary look was back. Maddie sighed. “Come on kids.” Hopefully, he would enjoy himself and this would in fact help him to loosen up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The fifteen minute car ride to the Science Center was quiet and tense. Danny glanced anxiously around the GAV as if expecting weapons to activate and point at him. He flinched at every bump in the road. Jazz looked worriedly between her brother and her parents, her brow furrowed with thought. Honestly, Maddie wasn’t expecting much better but it still stung. Half-heartedly, she tried to idly chat with Jazz but the teen just looked all the more wary.

Soon enough, the family arrived at their destination. They quickly passed through the queue to pay and then entered the first room, a geology exhibit. The kids wander off, softly talking to each other while passively looking at the displays. Maddie could pick up the worried tones but walked away, deliberately not eavesdropping. They were probably wondering about why exactly their parents were being so ‘weirdly normal’ and taking them out for a family day. But after a minute, the pair drifted apart, Danny wandering to the back while Jazz looked at a large display on the left wall.

Maddie was reading about volcanoes when she spotted her son at the case to her right. His eyes roved over the display, widening at the words. His frown slowly ticked up. The mother raised a brow at his expression, feeling relief.

She then looked into the case wondering what had him relaxing. Oh, of course. These were the meteoroids. They even had one rock from the moon that had mystified Danny even since he was a little boy.

Danny’s eyes lit up at the exhibit, literally. For just a moment, neon green flashed in his eyes. His teeth flashed in a smile. Maddie let out a small relieved gasp at the sight.

It was then, Danny noticed her. His eyes widened and his head turned, hand automatically moving to cover his mouth.

The mother’s expression instantly fell and she wondered at the behavior. But she didn’t say anything, instead allowing Danny to wander off again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The family continued exploring, slowly moving from exhibit to exhibit. To Maddie’s dismay, Danny was tense at first. She hadn’t seen him smile again since the meteors. His expression was uncharacteristically neutral. It’s not that he was bored (not that he’d even been bored on a trip here) but he was visibly anxious, not allowing himself to relax.

That eventually changed, as the group entered the heart of the museum, the dinosaur exhibit. Life-sized replicas of T rex, Triceratops, and Raptors loomed over them, faux rocks, plants, and wall murals simulating Earth when the dinosaurs walked on it. With the shifting lights, the occasional dinosaurian roars over the speakers, and the excitable little kids running around, it was lively. Danny and Jazz were huddled over a display of replica triceratops eggs while Maddie looked at a fossil of a primitive flowering plant.

“Oh Danny! Stand there. I want a picture.” Jazz’s voice came from behind her and the mother turned.

“No. Jazz. Come on.” Danny pouted.

“Please.” The girl begged.

After a moment, Danny huffed. “Fine.”

The boy moved to stand in front of the replica raptor what his sister had pointed out. He forced a closed lip smile, holding out two fingers in a peace sign. There was a flash of light from Jazz’s phone, leaving the other teen blinking. “Jazz.” He whined.

“Sorry.” She smiled, sheepishly. Then she held out her phone. “Now take my picture.”

Danny wrinkled his nose, obviously displeased but played along anyway as his sister came to stand beside the raptor. “You should stick your hand in its mouth and look like you're screaming.”

Jazz rolled her eyes, instead just smiling at the camera. That is, until a roar sounded from the speaker directly behind her. The girl shrieked in surprise at the noise, jolting forward and holding her hand over her heart.

Danny blinked in surprise before suddenly cackling with laughter and pointing at the now huffing girl. He snapped a few pictures, capturing her undignified face.

Meanwhile, Maddie beamed. Hearing her son laugh after so long was a beautiful sound. She walked forward, wanting to join the moment.

Then Danny spotted her. He blushed, covering his mouth with one hand before his chuckles quieted. His mother’s expression fell again. That was odd. This was the second time he’d covered his mouth once she’d seen him enjoying himself. She raised a brow as if to ask but Danny ignored the look.

Instead, he started leading Jazz away. “Come on. Let’s get some pictures in front of the T rex.”

Maddie turned, watching them walk away and noting the oddity. Jazz had been the one wanting pictures. The girl also wore a disappointed look as she softly said something to her brother, earning a frown from him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This continued as Danny seemed to enjoy the trip and grow more comfortable. Maddie would catch glimpses of him smiling at an exhibit or laughing at something his sister said. Then he would see her watching from a distance and cover his face. It was deeply bothersome. Did he not want his parents to see him enjoying himself?

By the time they were waiting for the doors of the planetarium to open for their show, Maddie’s stomach was flopping with anxiety over the behavior. Along the walls of the hallway leading to the theater was a display about the history of space travel. Ever since they'd first brought Danny here as a seven year old, this section had always brought her son such joy. He would smile and ramble, often even jumping up and down in eager anticipation for the doors of the planetarium to open.

Now, Danny was visibly trying to contain himself. Even as his wide eyes eagerly roved over the displays, his lips were forcefully pinched closed, almost as if the boy was exerting great effort to not smile. The display broke Maddie’s heart.

Then, the woman’s face set in determination. She wasn’t having this. They come here to cheer Danny up, for some parent-child bonding, so that’s what she would do. Maddie took a step forward, preparing to ask Danny what he was looking at. But then the doors to the planetarium opened.

Danny turned at the noise, meeting her eyes. His mother gave him a comforting smile. “Come sweetie. It’s time for the show.”

The boy nodded, giving her a closed mouth smile. He walked in front of her, into the theater and Jack and Jazz followed.

Maddie paused in front of a group of four seats. “How’s here, Danny?”

“Looks good.” The boy confirmed, sitting down.

Jazz sat to his left and after a moment’s hesitation, Maddie took a set to his right. Briefly, the boy tensed.

“Danny boy!” Jack’s enthusiastic exclamation cut through. “Are you excited?”

The boy blinked, turning. “For what?”

“For the show, dear.” Maddie chuckled.

“The show. Right.” Danny nodded. “It’s supposed to be about blackholes.” The corner of his lip turned up. “The poster looked awesome.” At that, the boy relaxed, letting out a breath.

Beside him, Maddie settled into her seat, relaxing as well. She hoped Danny would enjoy this. Soon, the lights dimmed, an image of the Milky Way appearing onto the dome in front of them.

“It’s starting.” The woman whispered happily to her son.

Danny perked up, his eyes widening at the sight. Music played through the speakers and the image shifted, the stars and clouds of the galaxy moving as if in a time lapses. “Wow.” The boy awed.

But the show was just getting started. Narration began playing through the speakers, the story of blackholes and their discovery. The life cycle of stars and their death. It was mesmerizing, the swirling images above and in front of them in the dark. It made Maddie’s lips part in a pleased smile, the beauty making the breath catch in her throat. Space really was incredible; the woman understood why her son loved it so. Thinking for her son….

Beside her, Maddie heard an excited gasp. She looked to the side, slowly taking in her son’s face. His eyes were wide, staring at the wall as the corner of his mouth turned though his lips didn’t part. He was clearly enamored with the program and therefore didn’t notice the mother’s observation at all. The woman smiled; he really was adorable when...he….was….

Maddie’s thoughts trailed off, her eyes widening. For a second, something flickered in Danny’s eyes before disappearing. The woman’s brow furrowed. A breath later, she saw it again. Ethereal green light flicker in his eyes, circling his iris before disappearing. Slowly, the boy’s lips parted. He blinked. The glow, the ghostly glow returned and Maddie’s jaw dropped. The light swirled like galaxies, overtaking his irises.

The mother stared. At the glowing eyes. Her son's glowing eyes. She recognized that shade of ghostly green. Phantom’s eyes. Maddie tried to shake away her surprise. She knew her son as Phantom. She did. She knew he was a ghost, or part ghost, or...she didn’t really know but….

Danny’s mouth parted into a grin. And Maddie’s heart skipped a beat. He was smiling. Danny was smiling. The ghostly light was swirling in his eyes, the light reflecting off his cheeks, his freckles. His freckles… they were glowy faintly and… shifting across his face, forming constellations. It was almost...beautiful. No, not almost. The boy’s smile widened, his teeth shining in the dark. He looked so happy and it was the most beautiful thing Maddie had seen in weeks.

All too soon, the planetarium show ended, the lights slowly turning on. Danny stayed looking forward for a bit as the ghostly light of his eyes dimmed. But he was still relaxed, smiling widely. At that sigh, Maddie finally noticed something. His teeth were...odd. On the top and bottom, his canines were unusually long and sharp, almost like….

The woman gasped, drawing her son’s attention. He paled, eyes widening in alarm.

Maddie pointed, quietly asking. “Danny? Are those-”

“No.” Danny cut her off, his mouth snapping shut. He covered his mouth with his hand as he rambled. “Of course not. Of course, I don’t have fangs. That’s ridiculous. Why would I have- Umph.” Jazz elbowing him cut off.

The woman frowned, opening her mouth to reply. But she had no idea what to say.

Luckily, Jack came to her rescue. He patted her knee. “Let’s go get some lunch, Madds.” His voice lowered. “And we can talk about…” He pointedly looked at Danny, letting the statement linger.

Maddie nodded in agreement. “Come on kids.”

She stood up and fronted. Danny looked pale and worried again. She offered him a comforting smile. At that, his eyebrow twitched but his anxious expression lingered. Then Jazz nudged him, before standing. “Come on Danny.” She offered her hand, pulled him out of his seat, and started walking out of the room, deliberately standing between her brother and her parents.

Disappointment rose in Maddie at that but she pushed it down. They would talk about all this soon enough but as for now… the woman’s stomach growled…. Getting food sounded like a good idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ten minutes later, the family took their seats at a secluded table in the Center’s cafe. They’d bought overpriced sandwiches and now Danny was taking small, tentative bits of his meatball sub. Maddie looked down, picked up her reuben, and started eating. At the same time, Jack dug in and Jazz nibbled on her chicken salad.

There was silence for a long while, the buzz of the other patrons surrounding them. The woman wanted to make conversation, to ask what Danny had thought of the planetarium show. He’s enjoyed it, clearly. But Maddie wanted to hear him ramble excitedly about it. She wanted to see him smile again.

But Danny looked so tense now, so worried. His shoulders were hitched, almost all the way up to his ears and he was pointedly avoiding looking at his parents. The sight of her son's fangs and his face once he realized that she’d seen them flashed in her mind. She wanted to ask about those. When did he grow fangs? And why? It was because he was a ghost, wasn’t it? Many ghosts they’d seen did have fangs. But did Phantom? Maddie couldn’t remember seeing them before, not that she’d seen that version of her son up close often. Granted...she hadn’t seen him smile in either form for what felt like months. The woman’s heart fell.

Danny’s quiet voice broke through her thoughts. “Are you gonna ask?”

Maddie looked up, the corner of her lips twitching down at the sight. His shoulders hunched, eyes downcast. The mother reached forward, wanting to squeeze his hand comfortingly but hesisted. Instead, she offered him a caring smile. “Do they hurt?”

The boy looked at her, brow furrowing in confusion. “What?”

“When my wisdom teeth came in, I remember my gums and jaw being really sore.” The woman shook her head, focusing on the boy’s closed mouth. “I know it’s not the same thing but…. If they’re giving you problems, we can take you to the dentists.”

Danny frowned. “No. I don’t...I don’t need to go to the dentist.” He wrung his hands. “They don’t hurt or anything. Haven’t at all really.”

Jack raised a brow. “Even when they were growing in?”

The boy opened and closed his mouth before covering his face with his hand again. He glanced at his sister, worriedly. Jazz raised one brow, frowning deeply. She then looked at the parents briefly, her expression all the more confused.

Danny’s forehead wrinkled. After a long moment, he answered. “They... uhh… I just woke up one morning and...my teeth were like this?”

Maddie blinked in surprise, taking in the words. The fangs just showed up overnight? Well…maybe that was better than them slowly growing and causing the boy pain.

With that thought, the woman forced the confused expression off her face. “Can we see your teeth, Danny?” She gently asked.

The boy’s eyes widened and he vigorously shook his head.

Beside the mother, Jack’s expression softened. He reached forward, patting the boy’s arm with surprising gentleness. “It’s alright Danny-boy. You can show us.”

Danny didn’t flinch at the touch, instead looking thoughtfully between the two adults. Slowly he opened his mouth. There on display were his small fangs.

Maddie leaned forward, observing. Unlike last time, she wasn’t surprised. She’d known what to anticipate and to her shame, the woman had expected to feel discomfort or even disgust at the inhuman dentistry. But no such feelings arose. Instead her expression softened. She smiled authentically. “Aww sweetie.... They’re adorable.”

Danny blushed, gapping at the reaction. His embarrassed expression intensified as Jack replied.

“Ah come on Madds. You can’t call him cute.” The man grinned. “Our Danno’s fierce! And those fangs just make him look more badass.”

The boy blinked rapidly, like he could hardly believe what he was hearing, like the words just didn’t compute. Jazz looked equally confused.

Maddie waved the man off. “No one said he can’t be cute and fierce.” Her smile widened. “Our fierce little man.”

Danny facepalmed, whining. “Mom!”

The response was so normal, the typical reaction to a teenager being embarrassed by their parents in public. It made Maddie’s heart sing in relief, so much so, she started laughing. A moment later, Jack did as well.

The kids stared at the adults, both looking embarrassed and slightly tensed. But slowly, the pair relaxed, a soft smile crossing Jazz’s face. Danny’s lip parted as he snorted as well, shaking his head.

After a long moment, Maddie and Jack’s chuckling stopped and Danny’s smile faded. He eyed the adults, with crossed arms and a raised brow. “So...are you gonna ask why….?” He trailed off but Maddie knew what he was asking.

The parents looked at each other before Jack shrugged. “If your teeth aren’t bothering you and you’re happy with them, we don’t need to worry about it. Do we?”

“Um...I guess… but…” Danny still looked unsure, glancing between the two.

Maddie tried to comfort him. “You don’t have to tell us why, if you don’t want to. If you’re not ready.” Her expression was just serious, just forceful enough. Hopefully, he understood what she was really trying to say, what she was implying.

The boy uncrossed his arms, looking at her thoughtfully. “And...you’re okay with me having...having fangs?”

“Of course we are.” The woman’s expression softened. “We love you no matter what you look like.” It was odd wording for comforting her son about his strange teeth but that wasn’t what this was really about.

Something that might have been realization flashed in Danny’s eyes. He might just have understood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of their time at the museum was much more relaxing after that. The family talked more freely as they finished eating. After lunch, they finished exploring the museum exhibits and visited the aquarium portion of the center.

“Look! The shark feeding’s in ten minutes.” Danny pointed at the tank, his fangs poking just below his lips as he gave his parents a tentative smile. “Come on.”

He bounded forward, positioning himself near the front of the growing crowd. Maddie stood right behind him, the two chatting about the earlier planetarium show while waiting. The corner of Danny’s mouth gradually turned up as he got more involved in the conversation. Then he was actually smiling. For a second, his hand reflexively swung up to cover his mouth but then he lowered the appendage. He smiled unsurely but when Maddie made no comment, nor did her open expression change, he relaxed. Soon, the boy was talking animatedly and Maddie cherished every word.

Minutes later, the shark feeding and subsequent educational talk captured the mother and son’s attention. Or rather, it just managed to wholeheartedly capture Danny’s interest. Maddie’s eyes flickering between the tank, the volunteer answering questions, and her son’s happy face, small fangs included.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The family continued exploring. Danny cheered softly at the touch tank, once one of the stingrays finally paused long enough for him to touch it.

“Yes! Finally! See. That wasn’t so bad.” He talked to the animal, gently passing his fingers along the soft skin.

He smiled at Jazz cooing over the adorable poison dart frogs.

“Awww. I just want to pick it up. Cup the little guy in my hands. It’s so cute.” The girl leaned against the glass.

The boy chuckled. “Jazz. It’s a poison dart frog. You’d be deader than me in five minutes.”

The other teen huffed, blushing before she rolled her eyes teasingly.

Danny and Jack stopped in front of the jellyfish tank, their translucent bodies hovering behind the glass.

“Danno! Ghost jellyfish!” The man pointed excitedly.

The teen shook his head. “There’s no way that’s what they’re called.”

Jack thumped the sign. “Yes they are!” Danny blinked, reading the sign in disbelief. The man continued. “Imagine it son. Ghost jellyfish that came back as ghosts. Ghost ghost jellyfish!”

Danny laughed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After that, the family explored the outdoor exhibits. Meerkats, Tortoises, Gibbons, Lemurs, Nile Crocodile, Red Pandas. The zoo’s star exhibits: the tigers and wolves. Yes, even the petting zoo.

They enjoyed all of it. Maddie asked the zookeeper's questions. Jazz took pictures. Jack peered through the glass with his normal boyish excitement. And Danny smiled.

Danny nudged his father. “Hey Dad. Can I have a dollar to feed the goats?”

“Sure kiddo.” Jack fished out his wallet and pulled out two bills. “For you and your sister.”

The boy nodded, handing the bills over to one of the employees and receiving two cups of feed. He handed one to Jazz and entered the enclosure. He smiled as the animals crowded up, eagerly sniffing at the cup.

“Alright. Alright. Here you go.” He grabbed a handful of pellets and held his hand out. An enthusiastic goat ate the food out of his hand. “Hey! Hey! That tickles!” The boy chuckled, scratching the animal on its head.

Maddie watched, enamored. Her son looked so happy, smiling so brightly.

“Oh, do you want some?” Danny asked, holding his feed-filled palm out to one of the sheep. The sheep licked the food out of his hand and he petted the curly wool.

True to what she had said, his little fangs were cute. And what’s more….

His eyes flickered towards Maddie’s face, noticing her attention. He didn’t stop smiling as he finished giving the goats, sheep, and donkey food and pets.

Ten minutes later, he turned over the empty cup. “That’s it guys. I’m out.”

The animals sniffed, wandering away as they seemed to realize they wouldn’t get any more food from the boy. That same enthusiastic goat persisted, nudging and licking Danny’s open hand. “I don’t have any more food for you.” He laughed. The goat bayed. “You can complain all you want. You’re not getting any more from me.” He petted the animal’s head anyway.

What’s more, seeing Danny enjoying himself and not turning away when Maddie noticed him smile, made the woman feel happy herself and hopeful. Spending time with the kids as a normal family did seem to get Danny and even Jazz in a better mood and more relaxed, like she and Jack had hoped. And Maddie found that she had enjoyed herself as well, despite the bumps. Yes, this was a day well spent and the mother wished it wouldn’t end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But all too soon, the Science Center closed and the family had to leave. They piled into the GAV and as Jack started driving them home, the reality of what they’d have to face, the conversation they’d need to have once they got home, struck Maddie. Her insides flopped with sudden nerves. They needed to talk about it. Danny’s accident and his ghostly abilities. His alter ego, Phantom. The ghost fighting and resulting injuries. All the secrets. Guilt sunk in her stomach like rock. There needed to be apologies. For her and Jack’s part in the accident. For the times they’d ranted about capturing Phantom at the dinner table. The insults. The times they chased him, they shot at him. Danny’s fear filled face when they’d seen him change in that alley flash in her mind. They had terrified him and -

“Can we uh….can we stop somewhere for dinner?” Danny’s nervous voice cut through her thoughts.

Maddie frowned, glancing back at him. He was pale and biting at his lip. The woman furrowed her brow wondering at the sudden change in mood. Maybe he had picked up on her own nervousness. She glanced at her husband. Jack was also quiet and uncharacteristically focused on the road.

“We can.” Her eyes flickered in front of them, spotting a Nasty Burger a few blocks away. “There’s Nast Burger right there.” She frowned. “Wait. That one doesn’t have a dining room. Is eating in the cat alright?”

“Sure, Madds.” Jack nodded and turned into the parking lot less than a minute later. He rolled down the window after pulling up to order.

“Welcome to the Nasty Burger.” Came a voice through the speaker. “What would you like?”

After some deliberation, Jack recited the orders and pulled forward. He paid and then received the bags of food which he handed to Maddie. He pulled away from the window and parked. The woman surveyed the meals and passed Jazz and Danny’s food to them in the back seat.

The family ate in near silence for a while. Music softly filtered through the radio and outside was the sound of traffic but inside the vehicle, no one spoke. Maddie’s mind swirled, going over possibilities for the upcoming conversation. Where to start. How to approach this. Should they apologize first? Hint that they know about Danny’s secret identity. Just come right out and say it? Really, they should have done that long before now. They knew that Danny was Phantom and he knew that they knew. They should have talked to him about this weeks ago but...why was this so hard? How hadn’t they noticed sooner? Why couldn’t she just-

A gasp sounded in the back seat. Maddie stiffened, looking back in time to see a blue mist exit Danny’s mouth. The mother’s brow furrowed. It wasn’t cold enough to...Wait...understanding hit her as the boy’s eyes flickered side to side. Something glowing and green flashed in front of the GAV and there was an echoing roar.

Maddie paled. In front of them in the parking lot was a giant ghostly beast. It was a mix between a bear and a cat, snarling and hissing fiercely. The ghost growled at some teenagers sitting at a picnic table near the ordering window and in response, the kids bolted away, screaming.

Behind her, Danny was fumbling with his seat belt. His eyes widened panickedly as he looked between the scene in front of them and his parents. “I uh...I need to….” His hands were shaking as he fumbled over his words.

The mother glanced between her son and the attacking ghost. Part of her screamed to move; it was her job as a ghost hunter to protect people but….

“Uh...I need to...I need to go to the bathroom?” Danny stood, his knees knocking together even as his eyes flickered from his mom to the spectral attacker.

Maddie’s heart fell; she knew what this was actually about. “Danny.” She said softly.

Jazz bit her lip, turning from her brother to parents. “Shouldn’t you get...get out there?”

“Jazz.” The mother frowned. “Danny.”

“We’ll be fine.” The girl’s pitch rose as she flopped a hand, forcibly casual.

“Yeah.” The boy took a step back, eyes still pinned on his mother. “We’ll be fine. You guys go deal with the ghost.” He motioned behind him, towards the GAV’s toilet. “And I’ll just be in-”

“Danny!” Maddie interrupted. She stood up and turned, standing in the gap between the driver’s and front passenger’s seat. “We know. Danny. We know that you’re Phantom.”

The boy paled, his eyes widening with shock. “What? That’s not-”

Maddie pointed through the front window, forcefully. “Go.”

Danny’s lip trembled. Fear flickered over his face and underneath it, hurt. The mother’s eyes widened at the reaction before it hit her. She’d said the wrong thing. She’d messed up. Why do she keep-

“Go deal with the ghost, son.” Beside her, Jack had turned. His normally booming voice was so gentle. “You can change. Go deal with the ghost and we’ll be here when you get back.”

The boy stared at the man, anxiously searching his face. He was still shaking slightly and...were his eyes watering? Maddie remained frozen, watching. She wanted to speak up, to offer him comfort and reassurance. But the words stayed locked in his throat.

Then there was a roar outside, a boom. Danny’s head turned and he sprinted. Maddie blinked, paling as he literally passed through the closed door. A second later, something flashed out the corner of her eye. Maddie turned, watching as Phantom….Danny flew out in front of the GAV, shooting an ectoblast at the other ghost. Her knees shaking, Maddie fell into her seat. The bear-cat growled and shot a fireball at the ghost boy.

Maddie’s heart skipped a beat, her hand twitching over the door handle. They should go out there. She and Jack should be dealing with this. She reached for the holster on her belt. Her brow wrinkled as she found...nothing. Wait...she wasn’t in her hazmat suit. No belt, no holster, no ectogun. She frantically looked on the floor, before glancing behind her. There had to be something, someway to-

“Mom.” Jazz’s quiet voice came from behind her. “Danny will be fine. He knows what he’s doing.”

Yes. Maddie nodded, trying to agree. She had seen Phantom in action and he was competent. But...this was...this was Danny. Danny was out there fighting the ghost. Her heart rate increased. “No. We need to-”

Jack’s hand was on her arm. “No. We can’t, Maddie.” His voice wavered. “No guns. Not..not after we….”

The woman swallowed, understanding. No. No. They could go out there, wheedling guns, not after….Maddie shivered as the memory hit her. Pointing a bazooka at Phantom….Danny… his eyes wide with fear. Chasing him down while yelling insults. Danny...Danny, her son, even if glowing and floating with green eyes and fangs...Danny dodging their shots.

Maddie felt her breath quicken. No, they couldn’t go after the ghost in their current state. They shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t dream of, pointing any ectogun in Danny’s general direction. Not when they hadn’t made sure their weapons won’t target him, that they couldn’t hurt him. Not when…..Danny’s fearful face, just minutes ago...not when he might think they...they wanted to hurt him.

Another growl and a crash and the mother’s head suddenly whipped up, just in time to see a flash of blue light. Floating twenty feet in front of them was Danny, holding a thermos and pointing it at the other ghost. The bear-cat hissed as it was sucked in but seconds later, it disappeared.

Maddie let out a relieved sigh, as her son caped the thermos. Then the boy’s head turned, his eyes meeting hers through the window. His shoulders were raised, his wide eyes misty. His lip trembled and then he disappeared.

The woman gasped, reaching forward. “Danny. Come back.”

The boy didn’t reappear and Maddie’s heart skipped a beat. Her hand reached for the door again. She needed to find her son, to reassure him, to -

A knock sounded at the side door, across from where Jazz and Danny had been sitting. Maddie flinched, looking back. Another knock.

Maddie frowned, brow furrowing. “I don’t see...anything.” Nothing and no one was visible through the window but...that didn’t mean no one was there.

“Danny.” Jazz called, standing. Warrily, she glanced between her parents. She bit her lip. “Mom? Dad?”

“Danny’s….Danny’s invisible, on the other side of the door. Isn’t he?” Maddie asked.

The girl nodded. “I think so.”

“You can open the door for him, Jazz.” Jack sighed. He looked down guiltily.

Hesitantly, the teenage girl stepped forward. Her hand hovered over the handle before she pulled it open. “It’s okay, Danny.” She whispered. “You can come inside.”

There was no reply as Jazz stepped back. The hair on the back of Maddie’s neck raised as the temperature dipped. Her eyes widened as the door slide closed, seemingly by itself. Then there was the shaky sound of someone sighing. And finally….Danny reappeared.

Maddie’s heart skipped a beat. There he was. The ghost boy. Phantom. Danny. Her Danny...her son, floating in the mind of the GAV. He trembled nervously in the air, his misty green eyes flickering between the ghost hunters. He looked so scared and...something in Maddie broke.

The woman stood up, suddenly. Her hands started shaking, her eyes watering. “Danny.” Her voice shook.

“Mom?” His echoing voice questioned.

Maddie nodded, hesitantly approaching. “Yes, sweetie.” She reached forward, gently touching his arm even as he flinched. “I love you so much.”

Danny’s eyes watered, his voice trembling. “You...you really mean that? Really? Even though I’m…I’m...” He shook his head, unable to force more words out.

Tears started to blur her vision. “Oh, baby. Yes. Yes. I love you so much.” Her breath quickened, a sob threatening to escape. “We...we should have said something sooner.”

“No. I….I should have…told you. I should have...” Danny looked down, sniffling.

Maddie gently pulled the boy into her arms. “I...I should have reassured you.” Danny stiffened before relaxing into the hug. “I should have made you feel safe, like you could trust me with this.”

Footsteps sounded behind him. “Danny boy.” Jack squeezed in beside the two. “I am so sorry, son. I love you so much.” The man wrapped his arms around his son and wife.

With that, Danny finally started crying. A soft sob broke forth from his throat. “Mom. Dad.” He whined. “I just... I’ve been waiting...waiting for the other shoe to drop and you’d see. You’d finally say...say something and…. And...” He sobbed. “You’d see what a monster...what a freak..a freak I...I am…”

“No. Danny. No. You’re not...you’re not a monster. You’re..You’re my baby boy….You’re my baby, no matter what. I’m...I’m so sorry you ever...we ever made you think….” Maddie cried, squeezing him tighter as he cried. He was cold. So cold. But solid in her arms. She could feel the slight fluttering of his heart, pressed up against her own heart. And the ectoenergy swirling under his skin. That was new, something she’d never felt before. And she thanked the heavens that she hadn’t, that she’d never laid hands on Phantom when they hadn’t known the truth, that they had never landed a shot on him. Maddie choked through her sobs. “We messed up. We messed up so badly. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I need to do better.”

“Danny. I’m sorry.” Jack reassured, sniffling himself. “I’m so sorry too. I have so much to make up for. Me and your Mom...we...we will...we’ll make this up to you.”

Danny warbled. “Mom. Dad. I...I love you guys. I love you guys so much.”

The words pricked at Maddie’s heart as much as they uplifted her. All that they had done and he still said that. All the woman could find in herself to do right then was hold her son tighter.

For a second, the woman saw movement out of the corner to her eyes. A flash of red hair and...relief on Jazz’s face. The girl joined the group hug. “I love you little brother.”

Danny sniffled, nodding in acknowledgement even as he continued crying.

For a long moment, the family stayed huddled together. All of them were crying, trembling slightly with emotion. But through the sadness, another emotion broke through...relief. Danny sighed, the corner of his lip turning up slightly as his tears slowed.

Finally, the boy gently pulled out of their hold. He wiped his wet face. “You really...you really mean all that?” He looked between his parents. “You’re okay with….this?” He motioned up and down his body. “You’re okay that I’m a ghost? That I’m Phantom?”

Maddie offered him a watery smile. “Yes. I love you no matter what or who you are.” She placed one hand on his face and Danny’s lips parted just enough to see his fangs. “No matter what you look like, you’re my son.”

Dad nodded. “Fangs or no fangs. Ghost or human or….something inbetween.”

The woman glanced down, at the slow movement of his chest, the glow radiating from his body, the air below where he floated. “We don’t really understand this. But...I know I’d like to.”

For a moment, Danny looked worried. He floated back, away from Maddie’s hand.

Jack’s expression softened. “We want to know what life is like for you now. How we can help and support you.”

Maddie agreed. “We haven’t been there for you for a while but we’re here now.”

Danny nodded. “Okay….Okay...I think..I think I believe you.”

The parents looked at each other and Maddie’s stomach flopped. His tentativeness was understandable but still… it made her heart hurt. They’d lost much of Danny’s trust and would have to work to gain that trust back. They were fortunate he was willing to try rebuilding their relationship at all.

The mother sighed. “We do have a lot to talk about but….” She motioned around the crowded GAV. “We should go home first.”

Danny nodded. “Yeah.” With that, everyone stepped away, returning to their seats. The teenager glanced down at himself, blushing. “I’m still in...ghost form. I’ll just….” He bit his lip, closing his eyes.

Then a ring of white light, the same one that started all of this, formed around his waist. The light passed and Danny, now with black hair and blue eyes, gracefully touched down. He picked up his fast food bag and pulled out his half eaten burger. He took a bit before looking up at his parents, both of whom were standing and marveling at his recent transformation.

He smiled sheepishly. “Uhh...can we get milkshakes?”

Maddie blinked at the seeming random question. Beside her, Jack laughed. “Sure thing, Danno.” He walked to his seat and buckled. “What do you want? Peanut butter and bacon?”

Jazz wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Ew. Why would you eat that?”

Meanwhile, Danny laughed. “Because it’s delicious.” He addressed Jack. “Yeah Dad. That sounds amazing.”

The man nodded. “Madds, what about you?”

The question drew the woman out of her observation. She returned to her seat, answering. “Mint Chocolate chip sounds good to me.”

“I’ll do strawberry cheesecake.” Jazz piped in.

“Okay. Peanut butter bacon, mint chip, strawberry cheesecake.” The man listed off. “And I’ll do...peanut butter banana.”

Jack repeated the list while he pulled back into the drive through line. And Maddie sighed, relieved. Finally addressing Danny’s secret had not gone as she’d planned. But…. she glanced to the back to see Danny and Jazz were eating and chatting with each other, looking as relieved as she was. It went well, all things considered. As she said, there was much to figure out. But...today they’d had a fun time as a family. They’d relaxed, they’d bonded, they’d finally seen Danny smile again, after months. And...the truth was out. Apologies were made. After the fear, mistrust, and anxiety, Danny and Jazz as well knew that she and Jack would fully support Danny, ghost powers and Phantom alter ego included.

Maddie looked back, meeting Danny’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He gave her a fanged smile. Yes, it felt like...everything would be okay

#Danny Phantom #Phic Phight 2021 #Phic Phight #My fic #identity reveal #Maddie Fenton #jack fenton #jazz fenton

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redrobin-detective · 3 years

Text

The 101 Deaths of Danny Phantom

AO3 link

One of the first things people learned about dealing with ghosts, other than not to try and date them, is to never asks about their death or obsessions. That doesn’t mean the citizens of Amity Park aren’t curious though, especially about their resident ghostly hero and the confusing and concerning comments he sometimes makes.

“Are you okay?” Phantom asked Maisie as she shook and tried to hold back tears after that car had almost slammed into her. She sometimes joked about getting hit crossing the street of her college campus to pay her obnoxious loans but it was another thing entirely to almost experience it herself. Maisie was nearly twenty, she shouldn’t be comforted by someone younger than her little step sister but here she was, shaking like a lead and leaning into Phantom’s comforting, chilly touch.

“Sorry,” she stuttered, “thank you, I’m sorry I’m just-”

“Hey, it’s okay to be upset that was very scary. The thought of dying is very scary.” Through her adrenaline and her tears, she took in the ghost’s unnatural glow, his faded, barely visible appearance and the fact that he was floating a foot off the ground. Maisie knows this ghost, this boy, knows more than she ever could about death.

“And getting run over by a car sure is a bad way to go,” the ghost kid chuckled awkwardly, taking his cold hand off her shoulder to scratch at the back of his neck. “You should see how my dad drives or my mom or my sister if she’s running late enough,” Phantom paused in thought. “No one in my family should have a license now that I think about it. Anyway,” he dismissed with a wave.

“My sister and I were getting ready to head out to school and my dad was backing out of driveway too fast and didn’t see us and uh, luckily I got my sister out of the way in time haha,” Phantom trailed off awkwardly. Was it because of the uncomfortable conversation or because he noticed her dawning horror.

Her best friend ran the community college’s Phan club so Maisie was a member by default. Phantom’s death was sometimes talked about late at night, everything from wrongful murder to a freak accident. She never in her worst nightmares imagined being him being runover in front of his own house by parental ignorance. It was so normal, a quick mistake and a life lost.

“Oh my god,” he said with an adorable little green blush. “Why am I babbling about that? You almost got hit by a car, I’m probably retraumatizing you or something. I should probably go get the jerk who almost hit you,” he said before disappearing into thin air.

“Tia is not going to believe this,” she whispered to no one. All she knew is that for the rest of her damned life she was going to look both ways when crossing the street. She’d seen first hand what a single moment of reckless driving could cause.

XxX

Matthew, not Matt or Matty or Hughie, Matthew shivered from the cold. He was only in his boxers with little Pacman on them. It had been fine when he’d gone to bed considering it was mid-August but Phantom and this stupid flaming mecha ghost had tussled outside the summer camp he was working at. He could see some of the kids snickering at his state of undress though he was just extremely glad they were alive enough to disrespect him like this.

“Oh man, I’m sorry,” the ghost kid said with big, sad eyes that looked so human despite the fact that they were literally glowing. He looked around at all the snow and ice left over from his fight. “Jeez you guys must be freezing, I wish I could warm you all up but all I can do is make things colder.”

“S’okay,” Matthew said through his chattering teeth. “Teaching the kids how to start a fire was supposed to be next week but we can get a jump on it.” That got a smile out of the ghost and within a half hour, the other counselors were distributing blankets and hot beverages to the kids clustered around multiple fires. They didn’t seem particularly upset by the potentially fatal attack, Matthew will breakdown about that at a later time when he was alone. For now, he just smiled as the children chattered happily with the ghost while he cleaned up as much of the damage as possible.

“So you spend all day fighting ghosts?” Zoe asked with stars in her eyes.

“A lot of the nights too,” Phantom nodded, “I do other stuff but yeah it seems ghost fighting takes up most of my time.”

“Where’d you learn those cool powers?” Zuri asked, miming a punch.

“Comes with being a ghost,” Phantom shrugged, “my ice powers came in later though so I still struggle a bit with them but I’m getting better every day.”

“Why ice though?” Morris said with his cocked curiously to the side. “I see some ghosts use fire or shadows, why do you have ice?”

“Ah that’s a little personal,” Phantom chuckled but his posture was easy despite the invasive question. “Specialty powers like my ice require special circumstances and a certain uh connection to the ghost. Someone like me couldn’t use fire or electricity or plants, ice is in my soul, it’s who I am.”

Matthew paused in drinking his lukewarm coffee as a horrible thought came to mind. He’s been an outdoorsman all his life, practically from the time he could walk. He’d been a deep woods camping guide for a decade before switching to working at summer camps. But the years working in the relative comfort of a stable camp didn’t erase his knowledge of how unforgiving and deadly the woods in the winter could be. A grown man, much less a young teen, would freeze to death in 20 minutes if it was cold enough.

It made sense for ghosts to develop powers related to their deaths. Had Phantom been one of the dozens of unfortunate kids he read about every year who ran away in the middle of winter only to found later as a frozen corpse. He eyed the boy’s snow white hair and frigid aura he exuded with mournful trepidation. God, what a horrible way to die.

“I’d get chilly with ice powers,” Tabby said with a shudder, she held out her cup of cocoa. “You want some of my cocoa to warm you up?”

“No thanks,” Phantom said with a soft smile that was warm despite everything. “The cold hasn’t bothered me for a while.”

XxX

Ghost attacks may be the norm but, if there was one good thing that came out of whole mess it was the fact that violent human crimes went down drastically. So when the rare murder did happen, the shock and fear rippled through the whole town.

Stanford Newton had only been sheriff of Amity Park for eight months after the last guy had gone gray overnight and moved to Florida the next day. It was a daunting position but one he bore proudly. This wouldn’t be his first murder investigation having initially cut his teeth as a beat cop in Chicago but it would be the first in Amity. And it certainly was the first in which the dead served in an active capacity.

“Amanda Chastain, 27. Officially she was a waitress down at Spengler’s Diner but she’s been picked up for prostitution twice in the last year,” Stan said calmly, ignoring the cold, angry presence over his shoulder. “History of polysubstance abuse as well, not that either of those things mean she deserved this.” Used, beaten to death and then dumped in the trash like yesterday’s paper.

He wondered if she’d come back a ghost or if she’d finally get some peace this world hadn’t offered her. “We don’t have many leads right now, I’m afraid. Acting illegally as they are, there’s not a lot of resources these poor girls have to turn to.”

“I’ll find them,” The Phantom said with blazing conviction, his voice thick and sharp as ice. “I’ll find and bring them to justice and make sure no one else is hurt again.”

“I believe you,” Stan nodded, shutting his notebook as he finally turned to face the teenage superhero haunting his town. He can’t say he liked what he saw. The Phantom looked even less human than usual, his aura flaring and flickering like the foggy mist before a heavy snowstorm. His unnatural green eyes glowered, painting his too young face in a terrifying light.

The kid looked furious, clearly taking this death to heart. He’d read the Fenton’s memos about obsessions and such but this seemed beyond that. “But don’t hurt anyone to do it, or yourself while you’re at it.”

“I won’t, I’ll make sure they’ll face human justice and don’t worry,” Phantom gave a snarling smile. “No mortal can hurt me, not like this,” he growled causing the hairs on Stan’s arms and neck to stand on end. He flew off after that, presumably to track down Amanda’s killer.

“Not like this,” Stan mumbled to him, pulling out his handkerchief and wiping his brow where a cold sweat had broken out. “Jesus Christ that poor kid.” Stan had seen plenty of murdered and mutilated bodies in his lifetime, some of them even kids. He just never got to talk to them after they’d had their life forcibly snatched away. It would explain the ghost’s near fanatical determination to save others, why he took a stranger’s murder so personally.

“I hope your own murderer is behind bars,” Stan said as he tucked his handkerchief back into his coat pocket. “Or even six feet under, for killing a good kid like you.” Stan made his way back to his squad car so he could head back to the station and move forward with the official investigation. But he’d eat his hat if there wasn’t a stammering lowlife there by tomorrow ready to turn themselves in.

Maybe after all this was settled down, he’d delve into some of the cold cases stacked in the cellar. Maybe in there he’ll find a picture of a smiling, carefree teen who’d disappeared and returned with the power now to ensure no one else suffered as he had.

XxX

“Yes, I know about the Phantom,” Luis Oliveira will say to anyone who so much as brings up the ghost kid. Locals know better by now but the tourists eat it up every time. He twists his finely combed mustache and gestures to the floor where his audience is standing. “He died right there oh ten or eleven years ago.”

Luis has worked his way all across the the United States since he emigrated from Brazil in the 70s. He finally settled in Amity Park about twelve years ago. He’d never intended to stay in the small Midwest town but the fatal shooting of a young customer kept his little corner market open.

“He was a nice kid, always said hi to me and paid in exact change. Was big fan of the snacks I made, would stop by after school and take half my inventory. He had big brown eyes and a crooked nose,” Luis would smile at the memory before closing his eyes and frowning sadly. “One day, he came late. His teacher made him stay after to go over a failed test, I remember he complained. He was pulling out his money when robber burst in, demanding my money. I fumbled for the register key, dropped it. I bent down to grab it and I hear shots going off. Two over my head, another right into the boy’s throat.”

Luis will hear the sound of that sweet boy’s guttural choking sounds as he drowned in his own blood until the day he himself died. The robber left after the shot, Luis called the police and held the young man’s hand as he died. The would be thief were never found and Luis never did learn anything about the boy who’d died on his floor for getting hungry after school.

“As soon as I saw Phantom on the TV,” Luis would say, perking up after his moment of somber grief, “I knew it was that boy come back. Those kind eyes, I’d recognize them anywhere. He’s never come here but one day he will and I will be able to pass on my regret on not being able to save his life that day.”

XxX

“I think he killed himself,” Mikey whispered to Lester during lunch period, angling his voice low. “The jocks may love Phantom for his powers but I just know he was one of us, an unwanted nerd. I’ve seen him chatting up a ghost I’m pretty sure is Poindexter, Casper’s suicide kid. They’re probably bonding over their similar deaths and the circumstances that led to it.”

“That’s pretty dark,” Lester whispered back. “I also get unpopular vibes from him but I don’t think he’s the time do uh do that to himself; he’s too stubborn and protective. But I bet he was the victim of a prank gone wrong. Dash locked Fenton in the Janitor’s closet last Wednesday, he got out okay somehow but maybe something like that happened to Phantom. He always looks kind of annoyed at the A-listers, maybe they remind him of old bullies.”

“Nuh-uh,” Clara said, pushing up her glasses with her middle finger. “The ghost kid totally got electrocuted or something. He was fighting that weather ghost and he sent lightning bolts his way and Phantom flinched. He fought the Ghost King and yet a little electricity scares him? It might not’ve even been a lightning strike but something manmade like a machine backfiring or something.”

“Get real,” Mikey scoffed, sipping his milk with an eyeroll. “I’m sure we’d have heard about some poor kid getting zapped to death; this town isn’t that big.”

“We’d have heard about a suicide too,” Lester noted with a wry grin.

“Shut up Mr. I base my theories around Fenton who’s a known weirdo”.

XxX

“I’m telling you, the ghost kid died of some debilitating illness,” Abbie McMillian, retired school teacher and three year reigning champ at the Tristate area’s Daylily Competition. She sipped her tea and spoke with as much confidence as she had back in the day wrangling Amity’s impressionable youths. “The superhero thing is clear wish childhood fulfillment, a chance to live and be free like he never got to in life. You see how happy and carefree that young man looks while flying? Clearly he spent his formative years sick and weak.”

“No way,” Greta von Martin frowned as she aggressively stirred her own tea to show her displeasure. “I worked in a hospital for close to 30 years and I know what chronically sick kids look like and Phantom doesn’t fit the bill. I will agree he’s carefree when he’s not battling spooks but he acts like a stupid teen. I’m telling you, the boy got into his parent’s liquor cabinet or took a few too many of whatever pill was going around his school. Tragic but something that happens every day.”

“Greta, dearie,” Abbie said with a pinched frown. “We’ve been friends since grade school and I love you like a sister but you are wrong and until you admit it, I won’t share anymore of my recipes.”

“You’re just being stubborn because you can’t see what’s right in front of you even after working with kids half of your life, Abbie, love,” Greta sniffed. “And you can kiss my grandson’s help weeding you garden goodbye until you relent.”

XxX

Perhaps one of the most human traits is curiosity, especially about what comes after death. Now the good people of Amity Park know a great deal about the dead so the lives before is what attracts their attention and none so more than the ghost boy. Maybe it’s because he’s their hero or maybe it’s because he’s so young. Or perhaps it’s because Phantom is such a mess of contradictions that it’s very hard to guess how the unfortunate boy met his end. But everyone has their own theories, from the mundane to the fantastic, some with evidence backing them up and others pure poppycock.

But for all their curiosity, as much as it burns them to know, they’ll never ask. They don’t want to risk the powerful ghost’s wrath but, moreover, it seemed in poor taste. The boy risked his afterlife to keep them safe, they couldn’t ask what traumatic and miserable circumstances had led to this point.

And besides, it was so much more fun to look up at ghostly figure as he sped through the skies and wonder.

#danny phantom #my writing #i made a headcanon post and immeaditly said 'i have to write this'#and then I did #tw: suicide mention #there is a non described background death of an OC #opinions are like assholes #everyone has one #and *everyone* has an opinion on how phantom died #some are reasonably close and some are waaaay far off #but they wonder and gossip and argue when the kid cant hear #its human nature

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