#Astatia Thinking

[astatia-ghast]

Casually reflecting on how I think Danny’s catchphrase “goin’ ghost” is just about the stupidest thing in the entire show and I refuse to ever grant it the dignity of being in one of my fanfics, but Clockwork’s “time: in” and “time: out” are somehow so sexy to me and I’d throw them into a fanfic in a heartbeat.

Make this make sense. lol

[five-rivers]

A Star is Born!

AO3

@astatia-ghast

After revealing himself as a ghost (as a hero) (as an inhuman monster), Danny had gotten used to people staring at him.  Even people who had known him for a long time.  Especially people who had known him for a long time.  Something something, couldn’t reconcile the person they knew with the person they admired, according to Jazz.  

Danny had, honestly, enjoyed the attention at first.  It was kind of like with the Yetis!  But the thrill of being invited to every party wore thin fast.  Now he just ignored it the best he could.  

Today, however, was different, and it was really getting on his nerves.  Today, there was giggling.  

So, he normally didn’t mind giggling, but it was coinciding with an awful lot of pointing and whispering.  That, he was less fond of.  

Still.  What could he do about it?  Other than be annoyed.  He was going to do that anyway.  He got his breakfast (the lunch ladies were staring) and sat down at his usual table to wait for Tucker.  Sam was taking a zero period cooking class, and wouldn’t meet up with them until ten minutes before the bell rang.  

“Oh my gosh!”

Danny looked up.  Tucker was standing a few paces from the cafeteria doorway.  His eyes sparkled with emotions Danny had never before seen outside of an anime.  He looked delighted.  

“Danny, dude!” said Tucker, and now he flung his arms out and to the sides so violently the stylus attached to his PDA went flying and would have been lost to the mysterious and forbidden lands behind the breakfast-line counter if not for Danny’s swift use of telekinesis.  “Where did you get those nekomimi?  They look so realistic!”

“The what?” asked Danny.  

“The cat ears!”

“What cat ears?” asked Danny.  

There was a moment of silence as the whispers stopped.  

“He doesn’t know,” hissed someone, their voice carrying easily across the cafeteria.  

“I need to film this.”  There was a mad scramble for phones, PDAs, and in one notable case a full sized TV camera that absolutely should not be on campus.  

“Tucker,” said Danny, “are you telling me that there are cat ears on my head right now?”

“I mean, I guess they could be dog or wolf ears, but, yes.”

Danny raised his hands to the sides of his heads and found his earlobe.  It felt a bit… weaker, more fragile, than it had before.  He traced the sides of his ears up and up and up and…

“Tucker,” said Danny, holding onto the very tips of his ears, “why?”

“I don’t know, man.  Didn’t Frostbite say you might get shapeshifting powers?”  Tucker shuffled forward.  “Maybe you’re thinking too hard about cats.  Do you have a tail and is it fuzzy?”

Danny opened his mouth to say no, but then experienced the always-unsettling sensation of his spine reconstructing itself while he was still human.  Then, to Danny’s mortification, there was a terrible ripping sound and a fully formed and very fluffy tail unrolled itself.  

Across the room, Paulina stood up, a determined expression on her face.  “If you do requests, can you make your eyes green and pretty and sparkly and huge and slitted like a cat’s?  I’ve always wanted to see what that would be like on a human.”

Danny wasn’t intending to take requests.  He didn’t even know what was really going on.  But no one had given his power that memo, so it did it anyway.  

“Wasn’t there a cat guy ghost alr–?” started Ashley.  

“No, we don’t talk about them,” said Paulina.  "They don't count."

More importantly for Danny, who also wanted to forget that particular ghost, the cat (boy) was out of the bag.

"What about wings?  Can you do wings?"

"Make yourself look older and you can buy beer at–"

"Younger!  I want to see what Phantom would have looked like as a baby!"

"Can you do plants?  Oak trees?  Roses?"

"Dragon! Dragon! Dragon!"

"What about other ghosts?  What about blob ghosts?"

"Ooh!  Ooh!  Can you become a cockroach?"

"No!  Don't make him be a cockroach!"

"Metamorphosis, people!" shouted Mr. Lancer.  "What is– I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream!"

It was really impressive how Mr. Lancer said that all in a single breath.  Well.  Shrieked it in a single breath.

"HI, Mr. Lancer," said Danny, miserably, having become a shambling mound, "can I call home?"

"Can you- can you not… turn back?"

There was a sort of slurping sound as Danny's various body parts rearranged themselves.  

"I don't have a good handle on it yet," said Danny, trying to affect unconcern.

"Involuntarily transforming into whatever people say?" asked Tucker, voice slightly washed out.

"Something like that, I think."  

"Well," started Mr. Lancer.  

The cafeteria doors were thrown open and Mrs. Woods strode in.  "Where is my latest drama star?"  She didn't wait for an answer before shouldering through the crowd and picking Danny up off the floor.  "There you are."

"I'm not in drama," said Danny.  

"Nonsense!  You'll be a natural.  Just imagine all the parts you could play!  We'll immerse you in the world of drama.  Acting.  Staging.  Theater!  You'll have all the drama you can stomach!"

"But I don't want any drama," Danny tried protesting again, but she was already dragging him off.  "To the stage."

"Mrs. Woods!  I don't think I can stomach anything!"

"That's fine!  Many are the great actors who barred from stage fright!"

"It's not stage fright!"  It might have been a little stage fright, but becoming a loose heap of assorted body parts via shapeshifting not five minutes ago was playing a much larger part in his reticence.  "Mrs. Woods, I can’t–"

"There is no can't in drama, only yes and!"

"Isn't that improv?!" wailed Danny as she carried him through the door.  

“Yes, and?”

“My elective is astronomy!”

“And I’m electing to ignore it!”

“Holly!” called Mr. Lancer.  “You can’t just kidnap students!  The time to change classes is over!  We’re halfway through the term, for love of education!”

Like this would be any more okay if it was still the beginning of the term.  

“An exception can be made!”

Sometimes, Danny wondered if Mrs. Woods was a ghost.  She certainly acted like it, sometimes.  Either way, he’d had enough.  He phased out of Mrs. Woods’s grip.  

“No!” she hollered, even as Danny hid behind a horribly out-of-breath Mr. Lancer.  “My star!”

A door down the hallway opened up.  “Are you looking for me?” asked Star.  “Can it wait?  I’m making up a test.”

“It’s not about you,” said Danny.  

“Great,” said Star.  She eyed Mrs. Woods.  “Good luck, or whatever.”  She shut the door with a clunk.  

“So, uh.  Can I go home?” asked Danny.  

“Go to the office and ask if your parents can sign you out.”

“I can fly–”

“You’re sick, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You need your parents to sign you out.”

“William,” said Mrs. Woods.  “You can’t do this to me!  I supported your bid for a field trip to the Shakespeare festival!”

“You did that for your own reasons!”

Danny, wisely, slunk away.  He definitely wouldn’t be coming back until he could control his new shapeshifting powers.

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Father-Son Bonding (2)

With Maddie and Jazz off attending a women in STEM conference over the weekend, Jack decides to take Danny out for the best father-son bonding activity there is—ghost hunting! They're going to catch that elusive Danny Phantom or die trying! Metaphorically, of course. Jack would never let his son die hunting ghosts, or at least... that's what he thinks.

Written for the prompts:

Jack and Danny spend quality time together hunting that damn ghost boy! Danny is being such a help! Bonus points for if they're both enjoying the endeavor. [from @pricklenettle], Jack Fenton finds out. [from @underforeversgrace], and Jack is excited to hunt ghosts alongside his ghost-powered son, and Danny is enjoying the time with his dad way more than he thought he would. Maddie, however, is deeply troubled by all the ways her son could get hurt, and her overprotectiveness causes a heaviness to fall over the Fenton family home. [from @astatia-ghast]

Read on AO3

Chapter 2: Jack Fenton Doesn't Know What's Waiting (Ch.1; Ch.3)

[Warning for minor violence]

In ghost form, Danny dove into the green-tinged water. Just as he'd expected, the Fenton Foam made it sting like hell against his skin, and especially in his eyes, but he couldn't afford to close them. He swam right to the bottom, where Mariner was holding his father under, and pried them apart, inadvertently kicking his dad in the stomach in order to get the leverage he needed.

"You think you can beat me in my own territory?" Mariner roared, their voice not the slightest bit muffled, despite the terrain. "The water strengthens me!"

"Not this water!" Danny refuted, although his voice did not carry like Mariner's did, so it sounded more like, "Glug glib globob!"

The one-liner didn't really matter though as Danny whipped out his Fenton thermos and sucked Mariner into it. Despite Mariner's claims, Danny had been right about the water weakening them. Fenton Foam was really no joke, and it made Danny wonder why his parents didn't use it more often. He didn't have time to wonder now, though.

He clipped the thermos to his belt and grabbed his father's limp body, hauling him out of the deep-end with all his ghostly strength.

Dad didn't move one he was out of the pool.

Danny didn't know what to do. He didn't know CPR or anything, so what could he do? Come on! He had ghost powers! If they couldn't even save his dad, what good were they?

Water!

If Danny could use intangibility to get the water out of Dad's lungs, maybe he'd be okay. He put his hands against his dad's chest and prayed to any god or ghost who might be out there that the foam in the water wouldn't resist intangibility. Someone must have been listening.

An instantly later, Dad's eyes snapped open, and he was coughing and spluttering and shouting, "Ghost!"

—

"Ghost! Ghost boy!" Jack shouted.

He barely registered being flat on his back on wet concrete when he jumped up and wrestled the ghost boy into submission, grappling him on the ground. The ghost boy didn't fight back. Perhaps he knew it would be futile. After all, Jack Fenton was not a ghost hunter to sneeze at; just ask his wife.

"Danny!" he called out, excited. "Danny I caught the ghost boy! I caught Danny Phantom!"

His head swiveled around, looking for his son's black hair and white jumpsuit, but he was nowhere to be seen. He called out again, looked harder, but there was no answer, and Danny was gone.

"What have you done to my son, spook!" Jack snarled. "You have one chance to tell me what you did before it tear you apart molecule by molecule, scientific progress be damned. If you hurt my son in any way, I'll pay it back to you a hundred times over."

"Dad... it's me," said the ghost boy, and in a flash of white light, the figure in Jack's arms transformed. "I'm your son."

And there was Danny, soaked to the bone, with ecto-foamer stains on the brand new jumpsuit his father had lovingly sewn for him, and Jack had never been happier or more confused to see him. He released the grapple and let his son stand up and take off his gloves to wring the water out.

"Danny?" Jack asked. "You're... you're the ghost boy? You're Danny Phantom? but how?"

Danny looked around nervously, but Jack already knew that all the water park patrons had gone, and the employees were hiding and cowering.

"The portal," he said. "I'm not contaminated with ectoplasm, it... changed me." He swallowed visibly and looked up at Jack with fear in his eyes. "Are you mad?"

Jack stepped forward and his breath hitched when he saw the way his son flinched back at the movement.

"No, Danny," he said, and he strode forward again and wrapped his boy up in a big bear hug. "How could I be mat at you for something like that? That's not your fault! If anything it's... it's mine."

He realized as he said it how true it was. It was his carelessness that caused the portal to activate when Danny went inside it. He should have disconnected the power. He should have put caution tape over the opening, or closed the doors. He shouldn't have been letting his son down into the lab when there was an experiment that big in progress at all. All the guilt that had plagued him since the accident first happened was suddenly coming back tenfold. He felt like he was drowning for the second time today.

"Oh Danny, it's all my fault," Jack insisted. "If I were less careless, if I were a better engineer, this wouldn't have happened to you.

"No, it's not your fault. I should have known better than to mess around with your experiments. It was just an accident. And in the end, it gave me the power to save you from being drowned by that ghost today, so I don't regret anything."

"Are you okay? That ghost didn't hurt you, did it?"

"Dad, I'm fine," Danny said. "The foam in the water stung a little, but I'm really okay."

"The foam... but you're still covered in it!"

"It's okay, Dad, really! It kinda just feels like licking a D battery, but all over my body."

"That's not—Danny, no," Jack said, shaking his head. "This place has showers, go take one and wash that gunk off. There are spare jumpsuits in the car; I'll bring you one."

Danny nodded, and turned to go to the locker room.

"Oh, and one more thing," Jack said, causing him to pause. "I'm sorry for... grappling you, and threatening you.... If I had known it was you, I never would have done that."

"It's okay, Dad." Danny smiled at him. "It was actually kinda nice hearing the lengths you'd go to protect me. Although... it would have been nicer if you didn't say those things to Phantom all the time."

"Well, I'm sorry for that, too," Jack added.

"I forgive you," Danny said firmly, like he was trying to end this conversation. The way he shifted uncomfortably seemed to corroborate that theory. "I'm gonna go take that shower now, 'cause this stuff is starting to itch."

"Right! You go do that."

After washing off the slowly crusting foamy water, Danny changed into a regular, non-Fenton-Fabric jumpsuit, and he and Jack walked back to the GAV. The ghost proximity alarm in the vehicle blared when Danny got within three feet.

"Sorry!" Jack shouted over it, hitting the button on the key fob that turned it off. "Sorry, I forgot about that."

Danny just snorted a laugh and climbed into the passenger seat. They were both silent as they buckled up, and Jack turned the key in the ignition so they could leave.

Finally, Jack cleared his throat. "I guess the ghost hunt today is a bust."

He glanced over to see Danny's lips quirk up in a small smile. "I don't know about that. Maybe we didn't hunt down Danny Phantom like we planned, but you are technically taking him home with you. Plus," — he waved his Fenton Thermos between them — "We did manage to bag that Mariner spook, and they were pretty powerful, so all-in-all, I'd actually say we can call today's ghost hunt a success."

"You know what? You're absolutely right!" Jack agreed. "I wasn't thinking about it that way, but this was a complete success! We are the greatest ghost hunters in the world!" he bellowed. "Now you say it, nice and loud."

"We are the greatest ghost hunters in the world!" Danny shouted, laughter coloring his every word.

Yeah... today was definitely a success.

Jack didn't let the fact that it would probably be the last sour the experience for him. He didn't even bring it up until they were home, putting their gear away.

"Too bad this is the last time we'll go ghost hunting together," Jack said sadly, while he field-stripped the ecto-guns to clean them.

Danny stopped cleaning the water out of his wrist ray, cotton swap frozen an inch away from it. "What? Why?"

"Well... I just thought that you wouldn't want to anymore, since you're kind of a ghost yourself," Jack said. "Obviously we don't know as much about ghosts as we thought we did, if you can be one and still be... you are still human, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but... that doesn't mean we have to stop hunting ghosts all together," Danny said, sounding a little downtrodden at the prospect. In fact, he sounded like he felt quite the same as Jack did about the two of them not hunting ghosts together anymore. "I mean, I hunt ghosts all the time when I go out as Danny Phantom, that's like, the main thing I use my powers for, actually."

"Really? Why?"

"Well I can't just let them go around town causing chaos, can I?" Danny pointed out. "They may not be like, evil, but they can't die, and they don't tend to think about the consequences of their actions, so they cause trouble, sometimes even when they're not trying to, and someone's gotta stop them."

"So... you just go out and hunt ghosts on your own? What do you do with them?"

"I guess... catch and release?" Danny said. "I catch them in the Fenton Thermos and then release them into the Ghost Zone where they can't hurt anyone. They'll come back sometimes, but I just catch 'em again."

For a long moment, Jack just stared at his son, watched as the boy's shoulders slowly shrunk down with anxiety as he waited for Jack to say something.

Then he started to laugh, a deep, powerful laugh, that echoed against all the steel and concrete in the lab.

"My son's a ghost hunter!" he crowed and he got up and lifted his son in another bear hug, swinging him around like a rag doll in joy. "Oh, Danny-boy, I'm so proud of you! Tomorrow we're gonna go ghost hunting again, and we're gonna catch tons of ghosts and send 'em back to the Ghost Zone! The Fenton boys won't stop that easy!"

Danny laughed with him, much higher pitched, but just as giddy. "We're the greatest ghost hunters in the world!" he cheered, and Jack repeated the declaration at the top of his lungs.

They did, eventually, get back to cleaning and putting away all their equipment. Jack washed Danny's new jumpsuit so he could wear it again tomorrow, they went out to get celebratory hamburgers for dinner this time, a happy change from their usual self-pity hamburgers they got after ghost hunting trips. It was the same hamburger, but it tasted like victory!

Then they both went to bed, and Jack could barely sleep a wink in his excitement for tomorrow.

—

That morning, both father and son were up bright and early, dressed in their Fenton Works Jumpsuits, and once again loading up the GAV with weapons and ghost hunting equipment. Soon enough, they were rocketing out of the garage in a screech of tires and a cloud of dust, chowing down on beef jerky and fudge for breakfast.

"Are you ready to hunt some ghosts?" Jack asked his son.

Danny grinned and transformed in a flash of light. "You bet I am!"

Thank goodness he'd reminded his father not to turn of the ghost proximity alarm or the internal automatic defense systems in the GAV, otherwise that little maneuver wouldn't have gone over as well.

They weren't hunting any ghost in particular, unlike yesterday, but there were always miscellaneous ghosts around Amity Park just waiting to be captured and sent home.

"Spectral Sub-sonar is picking up ghost activity downtown... looks like the mall," Danny said, and he gripped the safety handle tightly as the vehicle banked left to head downtown.

"I don't see any running and screaming," Jack observed when they got there. Through the glass doors at the front of the mall everything looked calm. "Do you think they're overshadowed?"

"Maybe," Danny said. "Or maybe the ghost isn't inside the mall."

Jack looked down at the sub-sonar screen in the dashboard. "Looks like the ghost is around back."

"I'll fly ahead and see what I can see inside," Danny suggested. "You drive a lap around the mall?"

"Good thinking," Jack said. "Don't forget to put on your Fenton-phones."

Danny nodded and did so, "Check," before phasing through the roof of the GAV to look for ghostly activity in the mall, turning invisible before he went inside.

"See anything?" Jack asked through the Fenton-phones.

"Not yet," Danny replied. "I'm pretty sure these people aren't overshadowed, though. I can't sense any ghosts in here, and they're acting way too naturally for it to be ghosts pretending to be shoppers. I'm heading to the far end now."

"Copy that, Dann-o. I'm on the far side now and so far—wait..." there was something going on just ahead, and Jack pulled the GAV to a hard stop. He could see that eerie glow that always accompanied ghosts wherever they went, and floating boxes. "I see the bogey! East loading dock!"

"On my way!"

Jack grabbed the Jack-o-Nine-Tails to subdue the ghost and got out of the GAV. He walked toward the loading dock with purpose, and by the time he arrived there, Danny flew through the wall to fight with him. They were close enough to see the ghost now, a familiar one at that.

"Beware!" The ghost shouted. "I am the Box Ghost! I am the master of all things cardboard and square! You do not stand a chance against my corrugated destruction! Nor the various stock and wares of..." he looked at the packing labels on the boxes he was floating around. "The GAP!"

Jack made to whip the ghost with his Jack-o-Nine-Tails, but the ghost just threw a slew of cardboard boxes, blocking each of the tendrils. It made for a good distraction, though, and Danny was able to hit the spook with one of his... what at he called it? One of his ghost rays, stunning the ghost.

"Dad, Fenton Thermos!" Danny called out, and shot a continuous beam at the Box Ghost.

Jack fumbled a bit getting the thermos into his hands, but Danny held on plenty long enough for his father to take aim and capture the ghost inside it.

"Got him!" Jack announced, capping the thermos proudly.

The two of them returned to the GAV where they high-fived each other for a job well done and tore out of the mall parking lot before anyone could blame them for the damage the Box Ghost had done.

"You know, Danny-boy, we make a pretty fantastic team," Jack observed, "whether you're a human or a ghost. A spectacular father-son duo!"

Danny chuckled. "Yeah... you know, actually, I was terrified about what would happen when I told you I was Phantom. Even though I knew you would love me no matter what, I was still scared that you would treat me differently afterwards. But, actually, I'm enjoying this way more than I thought I would."

"Oh, Danny," was Jack's sympathetic reply. "Well, you know what? I'm enjoying working with the ghost boy a lot more than I thought I would, too. So let's just enjoy this together!"

"Yeah!"

"After all, we're the greatest ghost hunters in the world!"

Danny laughed heartily and repeated the phrase.

"We're the greatest ghost hunters in the world!"

After that, the two of them kept on driving around, searching for ghosts. Luckily, there wasn't a lot of traffic for some reason, so Jack had plenty of room on the roads. Most of the day was pretty quiet, but they did manage to catch a pair of ectopusses before they decided to call it for the day and head home.

Danny changed back into his human form so they could drive thru at Nasty Burger on their way back, and the two boys were in excellent spirits as they turned onto their street.

At least, they were until they saw who was standing there, on their front porch, glaring furiously.

It seemed Jazz and Maddie had come home early. And Maddie did not seem too pleased to find her husband and sun driving home in a fully armed and activated Ghost Assault Vehicle.

[underforeversgrace]

broken trust and the wounds hidden behind - 7

title: broken trust and the wounds hidden behind

words: 3064

Chapter 7 of 7

Story Summary: Jack wasn't meaning to snoop in his son's room when he found a box of medical supplies and a USB with a tag that said IF I DON'T COME HOME. Danny’s secrets revealed, Jack is desperate to earn his son’s trust, to earn the right to this secret he stumbled across. After almost two years of unknowingly hunting his son, is Danny's trust too broken to heal? NO ONE KNOWS AU

@astatia-ghast

AO3

Tumblr Chapter One

Danny POV One-shot

It was a week later and more treated daily injuries than Jack cared to think of when his phone beeped late at night. It had to be well past midnight as he groggily slapped his hand around on his bedside table until he clumsily managed to grip his phone, yawning. He blinked blearily at the bright light as he opened it, though his exhaustion quickly cleared away as soon as he actually read the message.

From: Phantom

Can you meet me at the clearing?

He shot from the bed, stumbling towards his closet as he responded.

On my way. What's wrong? He sent as he hurriedly pulled on clothes and shoes, running a mental check of what all he had ready in the GAV. It was surprising, how often he’d needed to refill it after only three weeks of this. He’d wondered how Danny kept his first aid kit so well-stocked, though he’d quickly pushed the wonder away.

He had no doubt Danny had been using his own allowance to do it - using money from his parents to buy the thread for the stitches he needed for the wounds also given to him by his parents. Some things were still just easier to not think about.

Jack didn’t bother to check Danny’s room on the way out. He knew it would be empty.

The drive to the park was again short, though he didn’t bother with the sirens this late at night. Ghost activity spiked the later it got, so many people stayed home once the sun set. The only souls he passed on the way there were some police and ambulance on standby, and a few blob ghosts.

Jack’s anxiety, however, grew as he got closer to the park. Danny hadn’t messaged him back, normally he told Jack at least what kind of injury he had - burn or laceration, typically - so Jack could be prepared. But now there was nothing, no information, and it made Jack’s heart twist in fear.

As he made the now familiar trek to the clearing, first aid kit in hand, thoughts and images flew through his mind so fast his head began to ache. He was terrified he was about to find his son - human or ghost - unconscious and bleeding out into the ground. The mental image constantly flickered between red blood and green ectoplasm staining the grass - neither options were good.

Jackno longer needed the tracker, at least, as often as he’d come here recently, though his stomach seemed to sink lower as he got closer, as he didn't see the brilliant, bright white of his son’s aura as he normally should with it so dark.

“Phantom?” He called in a panic as he pushed through the branches, immediately sweeping the ground for his fallen child, who he quickly saw flat on his back in the center of the clearing, one arm reaching up towards the sky, a dark rainbow engulfing him.

“I’m over here.” Phantom called back as his arm moved in a pattern Jack couldn’t identify.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, looking for the green glow of ectoplasm but coming up empty.

“Nothing’s wrong, Jack.” He responded softly, lowering his hand to rest on his stomach.

Jack had never been called out here for any reason other than first aid, so he was still on alert despite the assurance. He did settle down on the warm ground next to his son, though, finally realizing why he hadn’t seen the white glow of Danny’s aura.

Instead, Phantom’s aura breathed and swirled like a nebula, constellations again dancing and fading across his cheeks, along his nose. He’d been tracing the stars with his hand when Jack had arrived, he realized.

Silence stretched between them, though not an uncomfortable one. A companionable one, a safe one. Jack mimicked his son, leaning until his back pressed against the ground, staring up at the stars glittering so beautifully against the darkness of night.

“Are you okay, Phantom?” Jack asked after several minutes. As wonderful as this moment was, he wanted to make sure Danny was alright. Once he knew that, he would be more than happy to spend the rest of the night stargazing with his son, as they had done so many times before, from the top of the ops center, though it had been many years since they'd actually done so.

“Do you want to know what I wanted to be?” Phantom asked, eyes still on the night sky, completely disregarding Jack’s actual question.

“What you wanted to be?” Jack repeated, confused.

“Before I died. What I wanted to be when I grew up.”

Something was different tonight and Jack couldn’t help the way his heart began to race. Despite the lack of blood, of injury, the air felt heavy, it spoke of impending change. Anticipation curled into Jack’s chest.

“What did you want to be, Phantom?”

“I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to join NASA and fly. Get closer to the stars. I think about it, sometimes. It hurts to think about too much, to remember I’m dead and this is all I’ll ever be, when all I ever wanted was the stars.”

Jack’s heart rate rapidly accelerated, though he just reached out and laid one of his hands on Phantom’s shoulder, long since used to the chill of his son’s body. “Don’t give up, Phantom. I have faith in you.”

Phantom’s eyes finally left the sky, turning to Jack, a burning green boring directly into the older man's soul. “Do you? Have faith in me?”

“More than you know.” Jack answered, gently squeezing his son’s shoulder.

Phantom pushed himself up into a sitting position, scooching away from Jack’s reach. Jack followed, bringing himself up to a sitting position, though he didn’t move closer as Danny pulled away.

“You’ve said your son was really into space, wanted to work with NASA. Do you have faith in him too?” Phantom asked softly, plucking at the grass beneath him.

If Jack’s heart did any more leaps or acceleration, he was going to need to see a doctor, but it was beating a rapid staccato within him. Was this it? Was Danny finally admitting it, letting Jack in?

Was Danny finally about to trust his father?

“I do. I have full faith in whatever he does.” Jack answered.

“Do you know where your son is?” Phantom asked, plucking a single piece of grass from the ground and beginning to methodically rip it into shreds.

“I do.”

“Is he safe?” He questioned, dropping the decimated bits of grass to the ground and pulling his knees to himself, curling up slightly. The colors of the sky faded, brightening again to Phantom's usual pure white.

“Absolutely and undeniably.”

Phantom laughed slightly and seemed to pull away. “Dumb question, right? It’s like 1am. Of course he’s safe, asleep at home.”

Jack slid closer to Phantom, placing a hand on the ghost’s knee, though unsure what to say. Did he admit to knowing his son wasn’t at home? Did he just continue playing along with his son’s secret?

Instead, Jack elected to slightly change the topic. “Are you safe, Phantom? Here, with me, do you feel safe?”

“Do you?” His son responded, looking at his hands. “Everything I can do, have done. Do you feel safe around me?”

Jack didn’t answer verbally, instead choosing to move closer to Phantom, until they were sat side by side, and he threw his arm around Danny’s shoulders. Danny immediately leaned into his side, accepting his father’s embrace.

“I don’t feel safe around myself,” Danny admitted. “I’m scared. I’m dangerous.”

“What do you mean, kiddo?” Jack asked, rubbing small circles on Danny’s shoulder.

“I… Jack, you don’t understand what I am, the things I can do. I’m not safe.”

“I don’t need to know what you are or the full scope of your abilities to know that isn’t true. You’re good, Phantom. Hell, you’re probably safer than my driving at the very least!”

That pulled a small chuckle from Danny. “That isn’t a very high bar to pass.”

“Would you call me dangerous, though? In an overall sense, like the way you’re calling yourself?”

Phantom relaxed slightly. “I… I guess not. I just… I’ve hurt people, Jack.”

“Phantom, I can say with absolute confidence you have never hurt anyone beyond maybe minor bruising, and even that has never been intentional. It was one of the things we monitored back when I still thought you were bad.” Jack admitted.

“Not… not in this timeline. It wasn't in this timeline that I did awful things.”

“Uh. Huh?”

“There was… I’ve mentioned the time ghost, right?”

“Yes?” Jack said, loosening his grip on Danny. This seemed like something that was making Danny uncomfortable and he didn’t want Danny to feel trapped. Apparently this was the correct decision, as he relaxed further against Jack, actually burrowing in closer.

“His name is Clockwork and he can see other timelines. And he showed me one where… where I lost everything. Everyone. And then I lost my mind. And Earth paid for it.” Danny turned slightly, burying his face into the rubber of Jack’s hazmat and breathing raggedly. “I enjoyed it! That part of me enjoyed it and I don’t want to be like that.”

Well. That at least explained Danny’s insistence to never stop seeing Phantom as a threat, he supposed.

“Then it sounds like we need to make sure you’re never in a place to lose everything,” Jack determined. “Because all I’m hearing is a good kid terrified of loneliness and in possession of a good conscience with incredible power who never wants to hurt anyone.”

“That’s easy for you to say, now… but I’m not sure of that. You didn’t see what I did. How many I hurt… I killed.”

“I am, Phantom. I am entirely sure. Anything you have done, anything you fear I’ll damn you for, any secrets you keep from me? I will always support you and try to lift you out of the darkness. It sounds like that’s what you needed - that lonely version of you needed. Humans need help when the darkness is at its worst, Phantom. What you’re describing is just humanity. What’s bringing this up, kiddo?”

Phantom turned slightly, resting his cheek against the orange suit, head tilted up towards the stairs. “Today’s… well, today’s the anniversary of the event that caused the other me to lose everything he - I - we loved. It’s just… brought back some unpleasant memories.” Jack racked his brain to try to remember any significant event roughly a year ago that could've yielded the kind of tragedy Danny was describing, but he came up empty.

Jack squeezed Danny to him briefly. “Thank you for reaching out to me.”

“Of all the things I expected to come out of your mouth, that was not one of them.”

He chuckled. “You did what I asked - you didn’t suffer alone and you didn’t pretend to be perfect. Thank you for letting me in. If you didn’t expect me to thank you, maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” Jack teased.

“Actually, I think I know you better than I thought.” Phantom said, hesitating then pulling away from Jack. “But…don't freak out, but I don’t think you know where your son is.”

A repeating mantra of don’t miss this up, Jack, don’t miss this up began to play in his head. “What makes you say that?”

“Because…” Danny gulped, hovering up and settling down a few paces away. “Because, I’m right here, dad.” Jack watched the transformation sweep across his son, the first time he’d ever seen it in person. Watched the glow fall away, watched the jumpsuit change to familiar clothes, watched eyes and hair that he knew so well reappear in front of him. Until all that remained was his black haired, blue eyed son, wearing clothes that were too baggy for him, nervously wringing his hands as he watched Jack in apprehension.

Apprehension, but not fear.

“Then he’s right where I thought he was, kiddo.” Jack said, standing up and smiling. “I’ve known for a little while, Danny.”

Danny’s mouth dropped, blue eyes wide. “You knew? How? Wait. That’s why you’ve been so nice to Phantom lately?”

“I… I’m sorry.” Jack said, nervously pulling at his fingers as well. “I found out on accident. I found the first aid kit in your room and saw the USB. When I saw all that gauze and a drive that said to watch if you didn’t come home…” Jack gulped. “I panicked, I was worried about you and I watched it… I saw the video. I saw how scared of me you were. I wanted to earn your trust, prove you were safe.”

“So you decided to go through my things and then lie to me more?” Danny asked.

“Wait, no, that - it isn’t what I -“ Jack stuttered but he was cut off when Danny rapidly approached, throwing his arms around his father. Jack immediately wrapped his own around his son, significantly warmer in this form yet still with a slight chill about him. “I needed to earn it, son. I didn’t know how broken your trust in me was.”

“I didn’t either,” Danny confessed. “But you listened. That’s all I’ve ever wanted from you or mom.” Danny suddenly tensed. “Oh God, mom. What do we do about her? She isn’t home for another month. Do we tell her? Will she take it as well as you did? Oh Ancients, what if she doesn-“

“Shh,” Jack said gently. “We’ll figure it out together, son. She will accept you just like I did. I know it.”

“Are you sure? She’s a little more, uh…”

Jack ruffled his son’s black hair. “I know what you mean. But I promise. We’ll get through all of it. Together, okay?”

“Okay.” Danny said, finally pulling away from his father. “Want to watch the stars for a little longer?”

“There’s nothing else I’d rather do right now, son.” Jack responded and they both settled back to the ground, each of them practically inhaling the serenity of the night under the sky’s diamonds.

“Dad?”

“Hm?”

“I trust you.”

~~~~~~

“You defy us yet again for the half breed.” The cloaked ghost said, the scowl audible in his voice.

“I have done no such thing,” the accused responded smoothly, not even deigning the other important enough to stop watching the show before him.

“You were told explicitly to not directly interfere in Daniel Fenton’s life. His choices and his consequences are his own.” A second cloaked ghost said, voice much more nasally than the first despite lacking a nose.

“And I have not directly interfered, you will find.” The purple clad ghost said with a smile, red eyes fixed on the orb in front of him, where time yielded to him like a puppet to its strings.

“Clockwork, we saw what you did. You set Jack Fenton on a path that changes the most likely timelines drastically.” The first, elder Observer said, throwing his hand forward so the time looking glass began to shift.

Clockwork watched with boredom on his face as the Observer played their so-called proof before him.

“Time out,” came Clockwork’s voice. An intradimensional clock appeared, swirling away the time until it settled as a portal. Jack Fenton stood in his son’s room, duct tape gripped tightly in his right hand, a longing look in his eyes as he took one last glance at the rockets along the shelved blue wall.

In the past, Clockwork stepped from the portal, staff clutched securely to him. He floated towards the orange clad man, a thoughtful look on his timeless face. The gentle ticking of his internal clock was the only sound in the frozen time.

He reached forward and placed a single finger against the inconspicuous roll of sticky silver. The tape turned intangible and immediately fell from Jack Fenton’s grasp, though it too returned to suspended animation as soon as Clockwork withdrew his touch, ready to fall and roll under the bed as soon as the clock began to March forward again.

Satisfied with the new direction of time, Clockwork smiled.

“Time in.”

“What have you to say for yourself, Time Master?” The more nasally Observant asked.

“I see only that you prove my point for me, Observant. I did not directly interact with Daniel Fenton nor his ghost form at all within that scene.”

The older Observant scoffed. “You interacted with his father, Jack Fenton, specifically in order to avoid that future.” He said, again waving his hand.

Clockwork really did loathe it when they took control of his viewpoints. They always changed the settings.

Still, he watched with bored disinterest as the scene changed, a future of a timeline now never to pass. A future where, in only seven months, Danny Phantom dies violently by his own government after being recaptured, his family and friends too late to save him, none knowing he was their son and friend.

“I have still yet to see proof of my direct interference with the child’s life.” He said. “I interacted with the father, which I was not forbidden to do. I do not control Jack Fenton nor how he responded to the information he stumbled upon.”

Both Observants seemed stunned into angry silence as they processed his words - his loophole. Clockwork continued to watch them with expressionless eyes.

“Is there anything else you will be needing?” He asked, motioning his staff to the door. “Otherwise, do see yourselves out. I dare say you know where my door is by now.”

“This isn’t over, Clockwork.” The first Observant growled, turning and dramatically spinning his cloak as he stormed from the room, his young charge following behind.

Sealing the door behind his employers, he returned his focus to the view screen, pressing a hand against the smooth, glass-like surface, an actual smile gracing his aged face as the scene shifted again, to show the new future he had nudged the timeline towards.

A tearful apology from a father, a beloved acceptance from a mother, a fierce protectiveness of a sister, and a bond stronger than life or death itself between a trio of friends.

Clockwork nodded to himself the dismissed the image, a swirl of green and purple dancing idly on the screen instead.

“All is as it should be.”

[phantomtwitch]

@astatia-ghast tagged me in this like a week ago, lol, and I am only just now getting to it. Been pretty busy and out of it recently. BUT anyway, here's the rules for the game:

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

So one of my WIPs is my EctoImplosion fic, which I can't really discuss. And I'm not going to name ALL the files in my WIP folder, just because of how I organize things, and a lot of them are the same fic but like draft 9 or whatever, and also I have a doc that's just full of random fic ideas I want to write but generally haven't done much with. Anyway, though, here's the somewhat edited list. Some are more descriptive than others:

EC-ND-2

Human - 6

Wayward/DP Crossover

DP-GZ-2023-3

H-D14

DP Fae Deals

DPxDC Prompt Response

Valerie Wraith Draft 1

I think that means I'm supposed to tag 8 people, but I'm bad at this tag people stuff. Uhhhh . . . @summerssixecho and @paenling and @modordracena and @maebird-melody and really anyone else who wants to join in.

(And if I tagged you and you've already done it/don't want to do it, no worries! Feel free to skip it).

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Father-Son Bonding (3)

With Maddie and Jazz off attending a women in STEM conference over the weekend, Jack decides to take Danny out for the best father-son bonding activity there is—ghost hunting! They're going to catch that elusive Danny Phantom or die trying! Metaphorically, of course. Jack would never let his son die hunting ghosts, or at least... that's what he thinks.

Written for the prompts:

Jack and Danny spend quality time together hunting that damn ghost boy! Danny is being such a help! Bonus points for if they're both enjoying the endeavor. [from @pricklenettle], Jack Fenton finds out. [from @underforeversgrace], and Jack is excited to hunt ghosts alongside his ghost-powered son, and Danny is enjoying the time with his dad way more than he thought he would. Maddie, however, is deeply troubled by all the ways her son could get hurt, and her overprotectiveness causes a heaviness to fall over the Fenton family home. [from @astatia-ghast]

Read on AO3

Chapter 3: Maddie Fenton Doesn't Know the Half of it (Ch.1; Ch.2)

[Warning for bigotry and unintentional bad parenting]

Maddie Fenton was not happy. First, she and her daughter had been kicked out—politely asked to leave the women in STEM conference because apparently, the small-minded people running the event didn't consider ecto-science "real science", and her talk of ghosts was disrupting the other attendees and the speakers. And now she was watching her husband coming home after obviously having taken their fourteen-year-old son out on a ghost hunt.

She watched the GAV slow as it approached the house. She'd never seen her husband drive that slowly before, and she knew that he knew he was in the dog house after this.

She had made herself absolutely clear on this matter that their children were not to be allowed on ghost hunts until they were eighteen. It was simply too dangerous, especially for Danny, who'd had a fragile constitution and heart problems ever since his accident. And Jack had gone behind her back, taking advantage of her absence to go against her direct wishes.

Rather than going to the garage, Jack pulled the GAV to a stop on the street, obviously realizing that his punishment would be worse if he tried to delay it. It was common for Jack to not know or realize when he did something wrong. He often broke rules only because he forgot they existed. But Maddie had never and would never let him forget this one. So, for once, he knew what he had done.

And he was gonna get it for this.

—

"Stay cool, Danny," Jack said as he pulled the GAV to a stop on the street. "Maybe she doesn't know we went on a ghost hunt."

Danny took one look at his mother's face and shook his head. "I think she knows."

Jack grimaced and tilted his head. Danny made a compelling point. Still, if they played it cool, maybe they could get away with minimal damage.

"Just, smile and act happy to see her," Jack said. "No matter how terrifying she may be right now."

Danny nodded, his brows furrowed in determination.

They both plastered on smiles as they climbed out of the vehicle. Jack greeted his wife with open arms.

"Maddie! You're back early! It's good to see you!"

"We missed you mom!" Danny added, laying it on thick.

It had no effect.

"Don't you dare try to butter me up!" Maddie snapped, holding out a hand to stop them in their tracks. "You took Danny on a ghost hunt?! You know how I feel about that!"

"No, we weren't ghost hunting, we were just—"

"Is lying really the route you you want to go, Jack?" Maddie cut him off sternly. "Because that will only make your punishment so much worse."

"I'm... sorry?" Jack tried instead.

"Is that a question?" Maddie asked. Evidently that hadn't helped his case in the slightest. She didn't wait for him to respond before barrelling forward with her lecture. "Just because we agreed that it would be best to train them for the possibility of fighting ghosts, to protect themselves if they were ever attacked, does not mean I want them going out to pursue those dangerous monsters!"

Jack saw Danny flinch in his periphery and wondered if that was how he had sounded just a few days ago. If Danny had heard his parents calling ghost monsters and thought they must think he was a monster too. If so, it was no wonder he had been so hesitant to reveal himself.

"Now, Maddie, I think you're overselling the danger a bit," Jack tried. "Danny is strong and competent, just like his mother. He can handle it. And I was there the whole time to protect him."

"And I think you're not taking the danger seriously enough," Maddie shot back. "Ghosts are vile, evil, and deadly. They have no regard for human mortality and care only about their own obsessions. Anyone can handle themselves against a ghost until they can't. And I for one don't want to find out at what point our children can't handle themselves.

"And you? Protect him?" She scoffed, crossing her arms. "Don't make me laugh. Half the time when we go out ghost hunting, I have to be the one protecting you! Don't give yourself more credit than you've earned!"

"Hey, that's not fair!" Danny piped up. "Dad did a great job protecting me!"

"Quiet Danny," Maddie snapped. "Don't think you're in the clear. You knew the rule just as well as your father did—no ghost hunting until you're at least eighteen—and you went along with it anyway!"

"Now, Maddie, there's no need to yell at him, it was my idea," Jack tried, but his wife had more than enough ire for the both of them.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm not done with you yet!" She glared at him, uncrossing her arms only so she could go back to gesticulating, wildly and aggressively. "You know that ghosts don't hold back just because an opponent is young or inexperienced. Danny could have died!"

At that, Jack glanced at his son, and saw Danny meeting his gaze with a similar look on his face, halfway knowing and halfway sympathetic. Danny was already dead, after all.

Maddie kept going. Yelling and pacing and wagging her finger as she practically bit their heads off right there on the front porch of Fenton Works where all the neighbors could see—not that any of them dared to watch. Maddie could be downright terrifying when she was like this, and no one was spared her vitriol if they dared to make their presence known. That was why Jazz just stood there, absolutely silent, not even daring to go inside the house lest that movement attract her mother's attention and put her in the line of fire.

Time wasn't exactly Jack's best area, but it felt like hours that his wife yelled at them before she finally finished lecturing and started doling out punishments.

"Jack, you are going to fix every single broken or busted thing in the lab. You're going to clean every weapon in the armory—thoroughly. You're going to upgrade the security on the Fenton Portal, and you are going to scrub every surface in the basement until it sparkles!"

"Even the floor?" Jack asked.

"Floor, walls, even the ceiling Jack," Maddie said. "And that's not all! You're also going to fix the lawnmower, the vacuum cleaner, the garbage disposal, and the refrigerator so it stops randomly making that weird groaning noise. All the household repairs you've been saying you planned to do for years, and until every single one of them is done, you'll be sleeping on the couch."

Danny opened his mouth as if to defend his father, but he quickly snapped it shut, probably not wanting to make his own punishment any worse than it was already going to be. Jack could hardly blame him for that.

"And Danny!" She turned on him, hands on her hips. "Until your father has fully completed his own punishment, you're grounded. You are to come directly home after school, you are not allowed to invite your friends over, and no video games! Am I understood?"

"Understood," both Jack and Danny acknowledged dourly.

It seemed a little harsh to Jack, but he knew better than to challenge his wife's decision now, or she'd only make it worse. After a few days, a week at most, she would ease up a bit. At least let him sleep on the bed, if only to reduce the risk of him destroying the couch with his tossing and turning.

"Good!" she said. "Now, I've had a long, and trying day, so I'm going to go upstairs and take a long, soothing bath to relax. You'd better be getting started on your punishment by the time I'm done."

"Yes, Maddie," Jack said.

With that, Maddie finally went into the house, leaving her husband and children on the porch, all three of them waiting a few minutes to make sure she was actually in the back before they entered themselves.

"I'm sorry," Jazz said, her shoulders slumped and voice quiet. "I totally forgot about Dad's tradition of taking us ghost hunting when Mom's away. If I'd remembered, I could have called you and warned you to deactivate the ghost hunting equipment on the GAV before you got home."

"Yeah, that would have helped," Danny griped.

Jack put a hand on his small shoulder to stop him from being mean to his sister. "It's not Jazz's fault," he said. "It was just unlucky timing."

"Still, you and I fought ghosts when Mom and Danny were at that mother-son science symposium thing, too," Jazz pointed out. "I should have done something."

"That's not your responsibility, Jazzy," Jack assured. "Don't worry. I'll blase through those household repairs in no time, and tinkering in the lab? That's hardly a punishment. You'll be un-grounded soon enough. Come on, Danny, help me put away all this stuff?"

He was hoping to talk to Danny in private for a few minutes, without Jazz there.

"Sure, Dad."

The two of them got in the GAV, and jazz went into the house as Jack brought the vehicle around to park in the garage.

"Danny... about the whole Phantom thing... and your mother..."

"You don't think I should tell her, right?" Danny guessed.

"Hrn, it's just... after hearing all the things she said today... and she's not as willing to change her views as I am," Jack said, not really sure what he saying, or particularly wanting to say it, but wanting to make sure his son was safe. "Maddie... all her theories and observations about ghosts. She made them herself. They're all based on her own studies and research and she's sure she's drawn all the right conclusions.

"Me, I'm just an engineer," he continued. "I was willing to believe whatever she told me when it came to ghost biology and psychology, because those are her fields—at least I was until... well, until I had a first-hand source to contradict her. I'm not sure she'll be so quick to accept those contradictions when she was the one who came up with those theories, fist-hand source or not."

Danny looked down at his hands in his lap for a long moment, not saying anything. And for that moment, Jack was sure his words must have upset his son.

"If you disagree, Danny, it's your secret to tell, but—"

"I don't disagree," he said. Then he went silent again.

Although he was determined to wait for his son to collect his thoughts, Jack quickly became antsy in the silence, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"I was so happy after I told you, and you took it so well," Danny said. "It made me think that maybe mom would react the same way, and maybe it would be safe to tell her. And then we got home today, and I had to listen to her talk about ghosts and it was... it was even worse than usual. It was just... disheartening, I guess, to realize the reality after getting my hopes up like that. But I agree that telling mom right now wouldn't be a good idea."

"But that doesn't mean you can't ever tell her!" Jack added, trying not to let his son's hopes be completely dashed. "No matter how staunchly she's convinced of her views right now, I'll change her mind. I'll warm her up to the idea that not all ghosts are evil, and that they don't have to be destroyed. And I'll release the ghosts we trap through the Fenton Portal and make sure she doesn't hurt you while you're out as Phantom."

"You promise?" Danny asked, his voice so small.

"I promise," Jack said. "It's my job to keep you safe, and that's what I'm gonna do. You can count on me."

"Alright, then I will," Danny agreed, a small smile making its way onto his face. "We should get started putting all this stuff away. There's a lot of work to do if we want our punishments to be lifted."

—

Things were different after that. Knowing Danny's secret changed more than just Jack's personal opinions of ghosts. Suddenly, he was hyper-aware of his wife's anti-ghost rhetoric. All the awful things she said like they were objective facts. He'd never thought much of it before, but now, every time, it made him think of their son and his chest ached with sympathy.

That wasn't all, though. Ever since she got back and learned that he'd taken Danny ghost hunting, she was even more protective of her son than before. She kept close watch on him, and that prevented him from sneaking out as Phantom to protect the town from ghosts.

Thankfully, he had Jazz and Jack both helping him out—and Jack was still surprised that Jazz had found out about Danny before him—but even so he struggled.

Just as Jack anticipated, he was allowed back into the bedroom after only a week, though she still expected him to finish all the chores and repairs she'd given him. But things didn't go back to normal.

There was something oppressive hanging over the household now.

Jack had to change her mind about ghosts sooner rather than later if he wanted their family to go back to the way it was. It was his only hope. But even still, he wondered if things would ever be like they were before.

Somehow... he was starting to doubt it.

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Father-Son Bonding (1)

With Maddie and Jazz off attending a women in STEM conference over the weekend, Jack decides to take Danny out for the best father-son bonding activity there is—ghost hunting! They're going to catch that elusive Danny Phantom or die trying! Metaphorically, of course. Jack would never let his son die hunting ghosts, or at least... that's what he thinks.

Written for the prompts:

Jack and Danny spend quality time together hunting that damn ghost boy! Danny is being such a help! Bonus points for if they're both enjoying the endeavor. [from @pricklenettle], Jack Fenton finds out. [from @underforeversgrace], and Jack is excited to hunt ghosts alongside his ghost-powered son, and Danny is enjoying the time with his dad way more than he thought he would. Maddie, however, is deeply troubled by all the ways her son could get hurt, and her overprotectiveness causes a heaviness to fall over the Fenton family home. [from @astatia-ghast]

Read it on AO3

Chapter 1: Danny Phantom Doesn't Know What's Coming (Ch.2; Ch.3)

[Warning for violence]

Jack Fenton was excited.

He was often excited, so that wasn't really noteworthy, but the reason he was excited this time, as opposed to all the other times was.

Jazzy had talked Maddie into going to a Women in STEM conference together during Presidents Day weekend, and that meant that it would just be him and Danny for four whole days, and he was excited. It was rare that the two of them had a boys' weekend together where they didn't have to be the ones getting out of the house. As much as Jack loved fishing, he had other plans for this weekend.

"Rise and shine, Danny boy!" Jack shouted boisterously into his son's room. "The early bird catches the ghost."

Danny groaned and sat up in his bed. He glanced at his alarm clock. "What early bird?" He asked. "Dad, it's almost ten."

"Well... it's just a metaphor," Jack said.

Danny shook his head and chuckled.

"Are you excited for our boys' weekend Danny? I've got big plans!"

"Oh yeah? What are they?"

"It's a surprise!" Jack shouted, absolutely giddy. "Now put this on and meet me in the lab downstairs!" He threw one of Danny's white Fenton jumpsuits at him.

"Let me guess, does it have something to do with ghost hunting?" Danny asked, holding up the jumpsuit and ripping off the picture of his dad's face.

Jack tried not to be too offended. He probably just wanted to match his father, since Jack's own jumpsuit didn't have any sort of logo on it.

"That's just the half of it," Jack started to say, then cut himself off. "Ah! You won't get any spoilers from me! And don't worry about about breakfast! I packed plenty of beef jerky, cereal bars, and fudge in the Fenton GAV."

"Alright Dad, I'll meet you downstairs in a few minutes," Danny said.

"The hunt is on!" Jack shouted, before leaving and closing Danny's door behind him.

—

Danny chuckled as his Dad left his room. Most of the time, their father-son activities were more... fishing and catch. You know, standard things like that. As much as mom wanted her kids to be capable of fighting ghosts, training them in martial arts and marksmanship, she was a lot more hesitant to let them actually fight ghosts. She thought that they should be older before they entered the dangerous world of ghost hunting.

But when mom was away, well, that was when their dad would take the kids out on ghost hunts so they could have some real-world experience. Jazz had always hated them, but Danny had absolutely loved them when he was little. They never actually found anything back then, of course, so it was kind of like going camping and saying that you were hunting for Bigfoot.

Once the portal opened, and there actually were ghosts around—not to mention the Danny was one of them—Danny had been dreading he next time Mom went away and Dad would take him 'ghost hunting' again, but now that it was actually happening, that childish glee of being able to do something 'grown up' with his dad was coming back anyway. That illicit excitement of his father taking him to do something that his mom wouldn't approve of, something they'd have to keep a secret.

Besides, there may have been actual ghosts now, but that didn't make his dad a more competent ghost hunter. And even if they did catch something, Danny could pretend to fall or fumble and let the poor ghost loose. He knew Dad might be a little disappointed at losing the ghost, but it wouldn't get him down for long—and with how often he fumbled things himself, there was no way he'd hold it against Danny.

So Danny pulled on his jumpsuit, brushed his teeth, ran a comb through his hair, and then headed downstairs to the lab with a smile on his face.

"Danny-boy! What took you so long?" His father greeted when he entered the lab.

"It's only been five minutes," Danny pointed out. "So what's the big surprise?"

"Oh, you're gonna love this!" Jack said. He grabbed the Fenton Finder and held it up in front of Danny, who instantly tensed. "Fenton Finder, locate ghost."

The small dish on the device swiveled and the radar beeped, and Danny held his breath.

"No ghost detected," came the Fenton Finder's cold, robotic voice.

"What?" Danny asked, surprised.

His dad was practically jumping up and down. "It's the new jumpsuit!" he explained, beaming. "Ever since your accident, you've been pinging on all our devices, and your mother finally figured out that you were probably contaminated with ectoplasm during that incident. I knew I couldn't take you out ghost hunting if you were just gonna throw off all our instruments, so I designed a new jumpsuit for you and sewed it myself.

"It's a new type of fabric I invented, completely ecto-insulated, I call it Fenton Fabric!"

"Catchy," Danny said. He couldn't help the slight, incredulous shake of his head. "Dad, this is... amazing. I can't believe you did this.... Thank you."

"Oh, don't mention it, son!" he declared. "It had to be done for you to be able to join me on the hunt for the most elusive ghost we Fentons have ever tried to capture! That's right!" He wrapped a massive arm around his son's narrow shoulders. "While the girls are away, you and me are gonna be hunting Danny Phantom." Conspiratorily, he leaned down and added, "That's the second part of the surprise."

"Awesome," Danny said, and much to his own surprise, he didn't even mean that sarcastically.

Any other day, if Danny had heard his dad proudly declaring that he was going to catch Danny Phantom, he would have felt nothing but dread. Not today, though. Today, he would be right by his dad's side the whole time, and he even had a brand new jumpsuit that would prevent the ghost hunting tech from locking onto him. Today would be a father-son ghost hunt with absolutely no chance of success, just the way it should be.

Step one, as always, was to arm themselves.

"So, what kind of weapons are you thinking?" Danny asked. "Fenton Bazooka?"

"No!" Dad shouted, then he slouched and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "No that one is... uh... prone to overloading and electrocuting the user. Your mom was okay with it, but I don't think we should bring it along."

"Oh."

Yeah... Danny could definitely agree with that call. He had no idea there were still such dangerous kinks to work out of Fenton Bazooka. That was good to know.

"Besides, we don't want to send that spook straight back to the Ghost Zone," his father added, waving a hand as he went to his workbench full of gizmos. "We want to capture him, and study him. That's why I propose we bring the Fenton Ghost Weasel! I caught him in it once before, you know, so I know it works."

"Yeah, you've told me the story."

"You'll bring your Fenton Thermos, too, as a back-up, of course, just in case it breaks, or something. You never can know what will go wrong on a ghost hunt, so it pays to be prepared," Jack continued. "Then there's the Fenton Finder, and the Fenton Foamer, in case he brings his buddies. What do you think, anything else?"

"Definitely the Ghost Fisher," Danny said. "If he's flying and out of range, we'll need a way to pull him in closer. Oh! And a portable ghost shield. 'Cause we're not gonna be in the RV the whole time."

"Good thinking, Dann-o," Dad agreed. "But it's not just an RV today. Today, it is the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle, just as it should be."

Danny smiled.

"Now, let's talk weapons."

The two of them armed themselves with the usual ecto-blasters to start with. Danny grabbed a Fenton Wrist-Ray as a back-up, and his Dad grabbed a pair of ghost gloves, since he was more of a brawler than a marksman. Danny also grabbed one of his mom's plasma-staffs, just because she wasn't here to tell him he couldn't, and he'd always wanted to try using the lightsaber-esque ghost hunting bo-staff, ever since he'd seen her use it to beat the crap out of Vlad's ghostly animal minions.

Finally, they were fully stocked and setting up a mobile HQ in the GAV, and Danny finally got a cereal bar for breakfast while his father flipped switched to fully arm and activate all the ghost hunting features in the vehicle that were usually turned off for the sake of safety. Once all that was done, the GAV pealed out of the garage and tore down the road, Fenton Finder and Spectral Sub-sonar both scanning the area for any signs of ghost activity.

The most dangerous part of ghost hunting with Dad wasn't the potentially deadly homemade ghost hunting weapons and tech, and it definitely wasn't the ghosts. No, the most dangerous part was Jack Fenton's infamous driving. He was such a menace that the local news did their best to warn the people of the town when he'd be on the roads. Danny made a point of calling Channel 4 to let them know of his father's likely plans to go ghost hunting tomorrow—and thanks the that, the roads were almost completely clear, and the pedestrians were keeping a wary eye out.

Danny, for his part, was clinging to his seat for dear life, strongly suspecting that it would be this that finally drove him into a grave. He may have been half dead already, but he was also half alive, and that half was on a roller-coaster with no safety restraints hurtling down the road—both having fun, and utterly terrified.

"Keep an eye out for any ghosts!" his father shouted over the whine of the engine and the squeal of the tires. "Even if they're not our target, any ghost we find might be able to lead us right to Phantom!"

"Roger that, Dad!" Danny shouted back, and he looked out his window, scanning the skies for any signs of that telltale green glow.

Since they weren't out to destroy any ghosts today, just capture them, Danny wasn't too worried about what would happen if they actually found some. They'd all just be put in the ghost containment cell in the lab, where Danny could 'accidentally' flush them all back into the Ghost Zone before anything bad could happen to them. He didn't see any ghosts in the sky, and his ghost sense didn't go off either, but there was a blip on the Spectral Sub-sonar.

The Spectral Sub-sonar worked by sending out periodic waves of a unique sound frequency that only occurred naturally in the Ghost Zone. It was an intangible sound, inaudible to humans because it couldn't interact with human eardrums. Danny could hear it though. It was kind of a low, resonant sound, like one of those massive orchestra drums, but quiet, and easy to ignore. It could pass right through solid objects, but bounced off anything made of ectoplasm, so it could be used to find ghosts and ghostly objects in the human world.

"I'm seeing a bogey, 9.3 klicks northwest, near the water park," Danny said.

"Well spotted, Danny!" his dad commended. "Man, we make a great team!"

The tires screeched as Dad made a sharp U-turn in that direction, and Danny tensed all his muscles to avoid getting whiplash. Then they were careening down the road toward the local Water Park. The closer they got, the more apparent it became that whatever was pinging on the sonar wasn't just near the park, it was in the water park. The parking lot was mostly empty, and Dad practically sling-shotted the GAV into an empty space... well, two empty spaces, since it was too wide for just one.

The second they stepped out of the GAV, Danny's ghost sense went off, alerting him to a ghost near by. He glanced over to make sure his dad hadn't noticed, but the bulky man was busying himself turning on the safety features before locking up so the GAV wouldn't activate against any innocent bystanders, so Danny was in the clear.

"Do you think it's that Danny Phantom?" Dad asked.

"Only one way to find out," Danny replied.

Floody Waters was still open, but this late in the autumn, there were few people there, even on a Saturday. A few families, with sopping wet little kids shivering whenever a cold breeze blew by. A couple of teenagers, the kind who didn't care if it was cold or not, and were probably planning to cause as much of a ruckus as they could manage before they were kicked out. More noteworthy than who was there was what most of them were doing, and that was screaming at the top of their lungs.

They hadn't been planning to go to the water park today, and it seemed Dad had even left his wallet (and his driver's license) at home. Still, they figured they could at least go up to the entrance and see if the park wouldn't make an exception for two ghost hunters. Much to Danny's surprise, the employee checking tickets at the entrance took one look at their jumpsuits and equipment and ushered them through.

"Oh, thank god you guys are here," the greasy-haired young man said. "It's pandemonium in there! You gotta get rid of that ghost!"

"GHOST?" Dad shouted, and tromped forward with purpose. "Have no fear! The Fenton boys are on the case!"

Danny stifled a laugh as he watched his father squeezing himself through the turnstile with absolutely no dignity whatsoever in his rush to get inside.

Danny didn't know what ghost to expect inside the water park. He'd fought ghosts there before, namely Klemper, and Johnny 13's Shadow. If it was either of them, there wouldn't be a problem. But it was a common misconception that ghosts always tended to haunt the same place, so Danny doubted it would be either of them, this time.

He was right.

The ghost terrorizing Floody Waters wasn't Klemper, or Shadow, or any of Danny's standard rogues. It was a ghost Danny had never seen before. He couldn't tell if the ghost was a man, woman, or a genderless Zone-born ghost. All he could see was a swirling vortex of water rising into the sky, casting a shadow over the park. When they spoke, their voice sounded like waves crashing against a cliff during a storm.

"Fear me, for I am Mariner!" the ghost shouted. "I am the stormy, indifferent seas, sinker of ships, drowner of sailors! This land-locked amusement center, this domesticated sea, this farce is an insult to the vast, uncontrollable ocean! I will free it, so that it may roil and churn like the true ocean, so that it may swallow its captors like a riptide, and never spit them out!"

Danny nearly transformed on instinct, before he remembered who he was with. He glanced nervously over at his dad, but the man showed no fear on his face. He stood his ground and stared up at the swirling pillar of water, sizing up the ghost.

"What do we do, Dad?" Danny asked.

Actually fighting a real ghost was not typically a part of the father-son ghost hunting adventure itinerary. Let alone a ghost this powerful whom Danny had never seen before. They were supposed to drive wildly around town, set some traps, set up a tent in the park for an overnight stake out, go out for sympathy burger the next day after finding nothing, and go home.

"Danny, the Fenton Foamer!" Dad ordered.

Danny slung the weapon off his back and tossed it over.

His dad caught it and took aim, not at the ghost, but at the water. Right before Danny's eyes, the toxic green foam mixed with the water, swirling upward until the entire waterspout took on an eerie green color, and then it collapsed, falling all at once and landing in the pools and rivers of the water park with a massive splash that soaked everyone around.

For a split second, Danny just stared at his father, shocked and impressed.

"Shoot, Danny!" his Dad ordered, snapping him out of it.

In a single motion, Danny drew his ecto-gun, took aim, and fired at Mariner.

The ghost howled in pain as they were hit right in the middle of the back, and whipped around, glowing red eyes wide with rage and fixed upon Danny and his father.

"Stand your ground, son!"

"Right!"

Reaching behind his back, Dad equipped the ghost gloves, and clenched his fists, preparing for a melee.

Mariner raised their arms, and the water churned, but it didn't do more than churn. While it was still mixed so thoroughly with the neutralizing foam from the Fenton Foamer, Mariner couldn't exert as much control over it as they had before.

"Very well," the said lowly, though their voice carried all the way to the ground. "If you dare to contaminate the tides, then I shall drag you under myself."

The ghost dove toward Danny and his father with murderous intent, and Danny, Ecto-gun still in hand, fired upon them, trying to slow them down or stop them before they reached the ghost hunters.

Mariner swerved and dodged. Now that they could see where the shots were coming from, they were a lot harder to hit, though Danny did still manage to get a couple more good hits in to the ghost's shoulder and spectral tail.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to stop them before they reached the ground. All he'd managed to do was piss them off, and now they were flying straight at Danny. Danny threw his hands up to defend, and braced for impact, but it never came.

He heard his dad shout, and opened his eyes just in time to see an orange blob slam into Mariner, grabbing the ghost with a pair of glowing Ghost Gloves.

It was a brawl. Dad was strong, but he could only touch the ghost with his ecto-charged gloves, which put him at a disadvantage. Still, he held on for a solid minute before Mariner grabbed him and pulled him into the water.

Danny ran to the edge of the pool, looking down, desperately hoping that maybe the foam in the water would be enough to weaken the ghost and make them let go. It wasn't. It had been diluted when it mixed with all the water. At worst, Mariner only felt a slight sting. Meanwhile, Dad was thrashing and struggling, and he couldn't breathe.

Danny had to help him, but how could he? The ray from his ecto-gun or wrist ray wasn't a fully formed ghost; it would become inert the second it hit the foam-infused water, and the Fenton Thermos would have a majorly reduced range. The plasma staff didn't have enough reach, and if Danny jumped in with it, he didn't think he would have enough control or momentum underwater. He only had one option left if he wanted to save his dad.

"I'm going ghost!"

[underforeversgrace]

broken trust and the wounds hidden behind - 5

title: broken trust and the wounds hidden behind

words: 4295

Chapter 5 of 7

Story summary: Jack wasn't meaning to snoop in his son's room when he found a box of medical supplies and a USB with a tag that said IF I DON'T COME HOME. Danny’s secrets revealed, Jack is desperate to earn his son’s trust, to earn the right to this secret he stumbled across. After almost two years of unknowingly hunting his son, is Danny's trust too broken to heal? NO ONE KNOWS AU

@astatia-ghast

AO3

Tumblr Chapter One

Tumblr Chapter Six

It would only be three days before he’d get a text from the burner phone.

From: Phantom

Can you meet me at the clearing?

At least Danny had actually reached out to him, Jack thought grimly as he ran to the GAV. It was midday on a Saturday, so he threw the sirens on as he sped to the park, cars jumping out of his way. Danny had asked for help for the first time and Jack would be damned before he let it take longer than absolutely necessary to reach him.

He arrived at the park, parking the GAV in typical Jack Fenton perfect parking (meaning, somehow he took up five spots) and grabbed the tracker, running into the forest.

He let the tracker guide him, the forest vastly different in the light of the sun above. He didn’t trip this time, though, as he approached the clearing, the roots no longer hidden by the night.

“Phantom!” He called as he burst through the tree line, easily finding his son in the middle of the area. His mouth went dry when he saw the ghost child in front of him.

“Uh, hey, Jack. This a good time?” Phantom asked with a slight chuckle.

How the hell he was even chuckling was a mystery to Jack as Jack dropped beside Phantom, flinching at the squelch of his suit hitting the ectoplasm pooled into the ground beneath the two of them.

“What the hell happened?!” Jack asked, taking in the sight.

A laceration ran nearly the entire length of his son’s back, from hip to opposite shoulder, deep enough Jack thinks he saw muscle. Danny had pulled off the top half of his jumpsuit already and let it drape to the ground, the entirety of his back beneath the injury coated in green blood.

“Skulker’s knives are sharp and sometimes he gets in a lucky hit.” Phantom responded, shrugging. He hissed slightly in pain as the action tugged his injured shoulder. “And I can’t stitch up something on my own back. My duplication isn’t good enough yet.” He admitted, holding out the hand attached to the uninjured shoulder.

Jack grabbed the small box from his hand, popping it open. He almost wanted to be sick as he realized what he held was a miniaturized version of the first aid kit hidden under Danny’s bed, complete with red and green stains and needles with thread.

“You… want me to give you stitches?” Jack asked, dumbfounded.

“I can’t exactly go to the hospital. My existence is illegal, remember? And hospitals are only obligated to treat illegal humans. For me, they’re obligated to call the Ghost Investigation Ward. Even I can pass out from blood loss, though. Uh, ectoplasm loss. So. Stitches.”

Jack’s stomach was doing impressive feats of acrobatics as he realized with horror that Danny was right. Even though he had no doubt that the hospital would happily treat Phantom - they had actively lobbied against the law Danny was referencing - their hands would be tied when it came to reporting to the GIW. Federal law wasn’t something they could break.

“Okay.” Jack said, grateful his hands were far more steady than his voice at that moment as he threaded a needle. Big as he may be, he had plenty of experience working with things much, much smaller than his hands. He pulled a large piece of fabric from the box - it took up over half the box. It seemed to be a rag that may have formerly been white, though it was currently doing its best to cosplay as Christmas. God, his poor son. “No antiseptic?” He asked as he dug through the small box, only finding more needles and thread.

“Ghost, Jack. I’m dead. Infection isn’t a concern.” Phantom said, his voice slightly slurred. Right. Right, blood loss.

Jack’s throat felt constricted but he dutifully began stitching up the large injury. He decided this would need two applications - one with more spaced out sutures to get it more manageable, and to reduce the amount of time it would be freely bleeding. Just like a sewing project - get the outline done before the details. Jack’s gloves quickly turned more green than black as he quickly did the more ragged, less consistent first row.

With every prick of the needle, Danny made small whimpers of pain that absolutely tore through Jack’s soul.

Once the first set was done, Jack picked the rag up again and began to clean off Phantom’s back, trying to get a better visual of the damage.

Semi-stitched up, the fresh wound looked much better, but it also threw the rest of Danny’s back into stark relief. This wasn’t the first injury sustained here, not by any means, though this did appear to be the largest. White lines decorated Phantom’s back, long healed scars, criss crossing with the green branches of the Lichtenberg figure that seemed to wrap around Danny’s entire torso. Tears blurred Jack’s vision. He hadn’t even considered Danny having scars, ghosts didn’t as far as they knew.

But they’d already been wrong about so much, he and his wife.

And Danny wasn’t all ghost, regardless. Made sense, that he’d have scar tissue. After all, hadn’t Jack noticed small injuries littering his son’s arms? Scars he could see on Phantom’s arms, too, though they were much larger and brighter in this form. He couldn’t help the pained sob that escaped him.

“You okay?” His son slurred.

How had he gotten such a good kid? Someone who was so genuinely worried for others, even when bleeding half to death?

“I’m… alright. I didn’t expect the scars.”

“Oh yeah. Meant to warn ya. Not pretty back there.” Phantom continued to slur, though his voice was definitely stronger than it had been before Jack started.

“I’m about to do a second layer, okay? You ready?”

“It doesn’t hurt that bad anymore.”

Jack ignored the not-answer Danny gave and began sewing the second layer in, keeping his spaces small and concise.

“Keep talking to me, kid.” Jack said, for his own sanity as well as Danny’s safety. “I don’t know how different ectoplasm loss and blood loss is, but this is enough to have had a human long since unconscious.”

“Watcha wanna talk ‘bout?”

“Uh…” Jack desperately wanted to ask more about Danny - he doubted Danny would remember any of this conversation - but no. He would not get answers he didn’t deserve by taking advantage of his son’s injury. “Skulker. He’s the hunter ghost, right? Tell me about him.”

“Uh. Metal ghost. Small dog complex. Is actually barely more than a blob ghost when taken out of his mecha. Likes hunting. Wants my pelt.”

“He wants your what?” Jack nearly screeched. He hadn’t known that bit! He’d known of Skulker, that was one of the enemy ghosts they saw most often, one who always seemed to target Phantom rather than causing general chaos. And that was because he wanted to skin Danny alive? “Why?”

“‘m unique. He likes uncommon trophies.”

So this ghost knew Danny was half human and still hunted him? A ghost might be able to survive having their ectoplasmic skin removed, but would Danny? Could he regrow parts of him like other ghosts could? Or did this Skulker just not care he’d be killing a human?

“So he’s the kind of ghost I thought all ghosts were, then?” Jack finally said.

“Yeup. There’s only two ghosts like me and he works for the other one, so he can’t hunt him.”

“Two?” Jack choked out as he tightened the next knot. He was nearly done.

“Other guy’s a fucking fruit loop.”

Jack’s mind began to go into overdrive until he forced his thoughts back down. There was only one person Danny called a fruit loop and Jack was not prepared to face that knowledge yet, especially not while he was still sewing up his son’s skin like a torn canvas. He would absolutely be having a meltdown once he was home alone again, though.

Finally, he finished the last stitch, tying it off and cutting the string with the small scissors in the kit. He wiped off more of the ectoplasm drainage, though there wasn’t nearly as much now. “Okay, I’m done. You feeling okay?”

Danny pressed his opposite hand to the injured shoulder and slowly rolled the joint. “Yeah. I’ll live, at least. Probably shouldn’t use that arm for a few hours though.” Phantom turned around, reaching for the kit in Jack’s hands.

As soon as he fully turned, though, Jack felt what he would’ve sworn was a superhuman punch to his entire body as he saw the scarring and damage to Danny’s front. It was much, much worse. The electrical pattern continued here too, seeming to concentrate around his heart, as the scar seemed to be worse - darker, more solid - there. Even more healed scars scattered across him, though these seemed to have small pinpricks surrounding them - where Danny had stitched his own wounds up, Jack guessed, based on the unevenness in the spacing. All of this, though, paled in comparison to the large scar stretching across his entire torso - the Y he’d left the GIW with.

The incision Jack himself would’ve given just two weeks ago if he’d had the chance.

Jack didn’t even think as he pulled Danny close to him, engulfing him in a hug as he freely cried, gross, ugly, loud sobs. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything, he was already this close to spilling his guts to Danny about knowing the truth. Sure, he’d known it happened, but seeing it? Seeing where someone else had tortured his son the same way he’d always dreamed of?

Phantom immediately tensed his entire body in preparation as Jack grabbed him, but seemed to relax some as he realized Jack meant no harm. This just made Jack cry harder, though, that his son’s first instinct was to fear him. One day, he wouldn’t be afraid of his father’s embrace. One day, Jack promised himself.

“Jack?” Danny asked, voice echoing around the clearing as he wrapped his uninjured arm around Jack, awkwardly patting him comfortingly.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” Jack blubbered, tears falling into Phantom’s hair, immediately turning to ice on contact and glittering in the sunlight.

“It… uh, it’s okay. You didn’t do it.” Phantom said sincerely.

Jack just cried harder, continuing to mumble apologies on repeat. Seriously, how had he been lucky enough to end up with a son like this? Danny was just so goddamn good!

“Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay.” Phantom continued as he kept patting Jack’s back. “You didn’t do it. You changed.”

“But I could’ve.” Jack said brokenly. “I would’ve.”

“I… I think you would’ve stopped.” Phantom said slowly. “I think you would’ve realized you were wrong and stopped.”

“God, I hope I would’ve. I’m… I don’t even know.”

Phantom gently pulled loose from Jack’s arms, lightly pressing Jack away. “If you think only of what may or might’ve been, you’ll drive yourself crazy. You have to stop thinking in what ifs. If I only ever thought of what if, what could’ve been, what I could’ve done, if I hadn’t had my accident… I’d have lost myself a long time ago. Ghosts who’ve continued to hold on like that have gone insane.”

Jack sniffled a few times, wiping his nose into the crook of his elbow, far above where the ectoplasm on his gloves ended. “I‘ve still hurt you.”

“And I forgive you.” Phantom immediately said, though his eyes widened in surprise. “I… huh. I forgive you, Jack.”

Jack just looked at his green stained hands, unwilling to look at his son anymore.

“Seriously. You thought I was bad. I can’t… can’t fault you for thinking you were helping. I didn’t even realize it ‘til just now.”

“How can you forgive so easily?”

“Forgiveness is easier than hatred. Besides… I don’t wanna be alone again, y’know?” He said, shuffling slightly. “It’d be hard to be friends with someone I hated, I think. And, having help… it’s kinda nice.”

“Every awful thing I’ve done and said. I take it all back, Phantom. All of it.” Jack insisted.

“I know, Jack. You wouldn’t have helped me just know if you still believed any of it. You’re a good guy - just kinda biased. There’s as many ghosts with my, like, humanity or goodness or whatever, as there are without.” Phantom smiled gently, reaching his bare hand out and patting Jack on the knee.

Jack just shook his head slightly. He didn’t feel he deserved Danny’s kindness right now. Wasn’t sure he ever would again, to be honest.

“So,” Jack said, changing the subject to something that hopefully wouldn’t hurt as much. “How are you feeling now?”

Jack watched as Danny slowly rotated his injured shoulder again, careful to keep his eyes on his son’s face only, knowing he’d break down again if he looked at the chest scars.

“Better! Damn, that’s some good stitch work, Jack. Half the stitches I do end up popping with any bit of movement!”

“Maybe let me be the stitches guy from now on? Stitches, uh, aren’t supposed to snap that easily, kid.” He said, doing his best to keep the plea from his tone. Jack had no doubt the scars continued all the way down Danny’s body, probably also chock full of scars with half done stitches.

His stomach churned when he wondered how many of those scars he’d caused, enough looked like burn patterns that he was sure at least a few of them were from he and Maddie’s weapons.

Yet still, his son forgave him. All the injuries, all the threats, all the slurs. And he was forgiven of them.

“Heh, maybe that’s a good idea…” Danny admitted, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I’m just, uh… I’m sorry, but I’m not sure about coming to FentonWorks. Not yet, at least.” He added, looking at Jack apologetically.

“I’m fine meeting here until I’ve earned more of your trust, Phantom. I’ll stock a first aid kid into the GAV, okay? What all should I bring?”

“Uh, all I really use is needle and thread and that rag, to be honest. Sometimes I use gauze to make sure I’m covered in case a stitch fails.”

“Okay. So, stitching supplies, rags, antiseptic - better safe than sorry, kid - and gauze with medical tape?”

“Duct tape works better than medical tape.”

“Excuse me?” Jack asked, suddenly remembering Phantom alluding to that the night he’d been given the cell phone.

Danny grinned sheepishly. “Medical tape doesn’t hold as well through fights and it isn’t uncommon for me to get patched up right before launching into another fight.”

Jack’s brain seemed to short circuit for a second. Well, at least that explains why Danny had had the duct tape beside his bed.

…having that question answered did not bring him any comfort, though. He wasn’t sure if any answer yet had brought him comfort, actually. Mainly they just seemed to be eating him up with concern for his child’s wellbeing.

And Danny’s wellbeing was very, uh, not well, to say the least.

“I kind of hate that you know that.”

Phantom shrugged. “I have a lot of experience, Jack. Open wounds are distractions I can’t always afford.”

Jack sighed. “I can’t argue there. Some of the ghosts you fight are no jokes.”

“Why do you think I joke around with them so much?” Danny asked, grinning. “Throws them off because no one wants to get insulted by some dumb kid, so they’re tryna think of a good comeback and don’t notice me coming in at Mach 10.”

“Wait, your puns are battle methods?” Jack said, incredulous. He had never even considered that - even before he knew Phantom was Danny, he’d just assumed it was a kid thing, left by the imprint of whoever Phantom’s human had been.

“Yep!” Danny said, laughing. “Works on humans and ghosts alike. Even enemies I face repeatedly - they know it’s coming and still refuse to lose to me in a wordplay battle. Typically, at least. Some of them have gotten more used to it and are still able to allocate at least half a brain cell to dodging me. Honestly, Pariah Dark is the only one I’ve ever faced who didn’t care about my quips.”

“Really? I’ve always wondered how that fight went, and what happened to the ecto-suit you sto-uh, took.”

A green blush rose into Danny’s cheeks. Jack was thrown off for a moment, but he supposed it made sense. He knew first hand, especially now, that Danny bled green in this form. “Uh, promise not to get mad?”

“I promise.” Jack said genuinely. If it was what had kept his son alive, he did not give a single flying damn what happened to the suit.

“Well, it increased power, like, what, a thousand fold or something? And I’m, uh, kinda a powerful ghost?”

“You are?” Jack asked. Phantom had referenced as much before, but Jack couldn’t deny he was curious for more details.

“Heh…” Phantom said, looking at the ground and pulling at some grass. “Uh, yeah. Even by ghost standards. I’m, uh, fairly highly powered, remember? But! Uh! Anyway! Pariah! That suit worked so freaking well! Like, seriously, that was a damn good invention! Anyway. Some of the other ghosts helped with Pariah’s minions so I could get to Pariah himself. Duplicated myself - which I still struggled to do back then, though I haven’t gotten much better - and rammed his ass into a magical sarcophagus that makes him sleep forever.”

Pride surged through Jack again. His son may not be able to get a grade higher than a C anymore, but he could go toe to toe with a ghost king and win. Jack knew better than anyone - academics wasn’t everything. Sometimes application was enough. Could he explain why some of his inventions worked? Not at all. But that didn’t change that he knew how to make them work, that he could imagine each piece and component working off each other, that he could dig through the equivalent of a trash pile and make a weapon in fifteen minutes. “And then what happened?”

“Uh… I don’t actually know. I remember seeing the ecto-suit say that my power - or life force or whatever metaphysical thing it was reading - was at 2%. I lost consciousness. Woke up in my b- uh - in Amity Park, on the outskirts of the ghost shield, no ecto suit in sight. I think it may have been stolen, but I had no idea who took it. It’s been over a year and I’ve been waiting for someone to show up with it, but no one ever has. Uh. Sorry for stealing it? And then losing it? I swear I meant to return it!”

Jack knew the end of that was a lie. Vlad - who Jack was still very adamantly refusing to think of - had found Danny Fenton outside the shield and brought him home, injured and exhausted. Danny had been bed ridden for the next two days.

“It… the suit nearly killed you?”

“Technically the correct term is Faded for ghosts - it nearly Faded me, not killed. But, uh, yeah. I knew it was a risk, but I wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines. This is my city and I will protect it.” Danny said, his aura briefly flaring pure white and expanding around him.

A chill ran down Jack’s spine at how Danny said that. After the previous visit in the clearing, he’d assumed his son’s Obsession was stargazing. But the sheer possessiveness in his voice as he said that, the gravity and certainty of his words? Jack was wondering if he had it wrong.

“Oh, uh, sorry.” Danny apologized, seeming to focus on drawing his aura back in as he noticed Jack slightly recoil. “It’s, uh. Um. Kinda. An Obsession of mine? Making sure the city is safe.”

“Wait, you’re able to discuss your Obsession?”

“Uh, yeah? Why wouldn’t I be able to?”

“Just more theories I had wrong, apparently. Ectoscience holds that ghosts can’t discuss a lot of things - former life, death, Obsession, unfinished business, stuff like that, without going into murderous rages.”

“Oh, right. I mean, it’s not like it’s something we shout from the rooftops.” He shrugged. “But it’s not a taboo topic. Some ghosts don’t like to discuss it and some don’t remember everything, but that’s just like human trauma. Ghosts don’t die peacefully.” He held up his left hand as though in emphasis.

“Do you wanna talk about it? Any of it?” Jack encouraged.

Danny pursed his lips. “I don’t mind talking about my Obsessions. But… I don’t like going into detail about who I was before.”

“Obsessions? Plural? Ghosts have more than one?”

Phantom nodded. “Some do. Some actually don’t even have any at all. No one has more than two, though, as far as I know. But yeah, I have two. Protection of Amity - uh, because there’s a ghost portal here, I didn’t live here - and stargazing - which you probably guessed the last time we were in the clearing.”

“That is so fascinating, Phantom. Man, I really screwed up hunting ghosts on sight. So much bad data, bad science, bad hypotheses. So much of which has been cleared up by talking to one ghost a couple of times in a few weeks.”

“I mean, the guy who first said the earth orbited the sun was like murdered or something, right? Not like you’re the first one to hold to old ‘truths.’”

At that, Danny stood, testing his limbs, pulling on his right shoulder gently with his left hand. He nodded, then pulled his hazmat back on. “Anyway, I think I’m stable now. I can feel the skin growing back.”

“You can feel that?!” Jack asked. Wow, he really was learning a lot about ghosts today. And all it cost him was to stop shooting his goddamn son.

“Uh, yeah, kinda? Rapid healing is pretty nice to have.”

“What’s the worst injury you’ve ever healed from?” Stumbled from Jack’s mouth before he even thought it. “Ah, I mean! Sorry!”

Danny, surprisingly, just laughed. Honestly, the echoing laugh his son had when he was like this - a ghost - was growing on him a good bit. “You’re good - still a scientist, remember? Worst injury I’ve healed? Uh. Kinda a tie. I had to regrow half my pinky once. And, y’know. This whole deal.” He said, gesturing to his covered chest.

When the actual hell had his son lost half a finger?!

“You’ve uh. Really been through the ringer, huh?”

Danny shrugged. “Such is the life of a superhero, amirite?”

“Superhero?”

He blushed again. “I may have read too many comics. And it’s, uh, cooler to say than being a friendly neighborhood ghost or whatever. I mean, I’m not Casper!”

Jack laughed. “I think it fits. You really are Amity’s very own ghostly superhero. All you need is a secret identity!”

Danny’s eyes shifted back and forth slightly, unwilling to look Jack in the eye. “Hahaha, right? But c’mon, I’m a ghost! Not like I can hide all this.” He said, gesturing to his face and hair. “I’m kinda a floating glow stick.”

“Yeah, I suppose the whole glowing green eyes and echoed voice don’t help either?”

His son nodded again, though his face seemed slightly relieved as they moved the conversation away from secret identities. “Little bit hard to hide being a ghost.”

“Anyway. Uh. You’re feeling better?” Jack asked.

Phantom adjusted his shoulder a little bit again before rising to hover above the ground. “Yep, I’m good to go! Thank you!”

“You’re welcome, kiddo! Seriously, though - call me next time you need sutures. I’m going to pack a first aid kit into the GAV and I am always more than happy to meet you here, okay? Anytime of day or night.”

Danny hesitated for a moment, then held his uninjured hand out to Jack. “I promise. If I need something tended to, I’ll call you.”

Jack gripped Phantom’s hand, shaking it vigorously. Danny - currently untethered from gravity - had his entire body moved by the shake, much to both of their amusements. Danny began to laugh like a little kid, Jack starting to laugh almost immediately after. The situation, odd as it was, just felt so familiar - Jack doing something overly boisterous around his kids and making them giggle.

They released each other and - with one final wave from Phantom - the ghost shot into the sky and disappeared, leaving Jack to walk back to the GAV.

Jack got lost a few more times than he probably should have, considering the walk absolutely was not that long from clearing to parking lot, but he was so lost in his thoughts it took him nearly an hour to get to the vehicle.

Everytime he talked to Phantom, he learned more and more about his son, though none of it seemed to make him feel better.

Once he arrived home, though, he did finally let some of the words Danny had said crush into him.

Danny was one of only two ghosts like him.

The other he called a fruit loop.

Jack had always wondered why Danny seemed to insist Jack’s old friend Vlad Masters was a fruit loop.

Could Vlad be… could he be another half ghost? Was it one Jack had seen around? Vlad had moved to Amity Park’s wealthier subdivisions a few months back, citing a desire to rekindle their friendship. But was that really it? Did Vlad somehow know Danny was half ghost, too? But Danny had said he didn’t have any allies on this side of the portal - did that mean Vlad was an enemy?

Which enemy?

…had Jack killed Vlad too?