#when the fenton parents put research of their own kids

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP fanfic idea: Big Fish in Gotham Pond

Based off of @saphushia art found here. . I just loved the idea of Tucker not knowing his skill level because he grew up in the boonies

Tucker gets scouted by Wayne Enterprises after he fixes a kid's computer game while in Gotham visiting Danny.

See, Tucker always known he is passable at tech- one has to be when a technology theme ghost is consistently harassing one's best friend- but to be good at something in a small town like Amity Park didn't mean much .

It's a big fish in a small pound sort of deal. That's why he's never put much thought into it. If Tucker were ever to rank himself in terms of school grades, he would say his computer skills were about a C-.

B+ if it was just coding.

His parents also don't think much of his obsession with his PDA or phones. They thought he waste too many hours on them like the rest of his generation.

It didn't matter that Tucker's technology was about five or more years behind his classmates.

The Foley were hard-working people who barely scraped enough for bills. They were never below the property line, but they danced on it often enough that Tucker knew never to ask for unnecessary purchases.

For as long as he could remember, his parents have always worked long and hard hours. He never blamed them for missing so much of his childhood, in fact he was grateful that they worked so hard to keep the roof over his head, but he did miss them.

That's why Danny's house became a haven for him. He was always at the Fenton's place because the loud, wacky family was much better company than the home silence.

Tucker knew that his family's financial situation didn't change how Danny or Sam viewed him. They had his back through tick and thin just as he did for them, but as they got closer to graduation the difference between them became jarring.

Sam had easy picking of what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go. Her parents were so overjoyed that she wanted to go to a university that they didn't even argue about her wishing to major in botanical biochemistry.

She had started house hunting in Star City midway through senior year. Her parents would gift it to her as a graduation present. Sam would live there for the next eight years to finish her degree.

Danny's parents, while somewhat eccentric, were also certified geniuses. Between the two of them, they had five PHDs and were often freelancing for companies when not doing ghost research. They too could send their two kids to college States away with housing not being a issue.

Jazz went to Metropolis to study Physiology. She lived in a small apartment but was doing well off her scholarships and parent's funding. Last he heard, she had a part-time job at the Daily Planet as a research assistant to gain some independence.

Danny wanted to go to Gotham for their engineering program. He, too, had an apartment of his own, with scholarships and equal funding from his parents. He also worked at Wayne Enterprises, but he was a receptionist. He hoped that once he graduated, he could apply for their engineering program

Not Tucker. His family could only help him get into Community College near Amity. He also couldn't afford to move out so he stayed with them, picking up a part time job to help out when he could.

Tucker is a first-generation college student so even though it wasn't much, he loved to see how his parents glowed when telling others their boy was futhering his education. He wanted to do something that paid well- and after years of patching up Danny- he figured nursing would do the trick.

Tucker would do all his basics in the community College, take a break to save up some money and then move on to the bigger schools.

The day of the graduation felt bittersweet. Team Phantom was finally adults, finally starting out in the real world, but while Danny and Sam moved on to bigger and better things, Tucker knew he would be left behind in little no-where Amity Park.

He never brought it up, but he felt a small dosage of envy the last day of summer before his friends finished packing and left.

Despite both being gone, Tucker had little to no social life even though they called, texted, and emailed often. His days blurred between class, work, and home. Even then, classes were long and tedious, work often ending with one or more customers screaming in his face to try and get free food.

His parents quickly started to nag that he should find a wife as they had married young. They couldn't figure out why he didn't want the same, even though he had no social life again.

Life became dull.

Tucker's only sparks of joy were playing online with Danny and Sam - when they found the time to log in or re-coding his old tech to try and salvage it whenever it broke down.

Soon, it became apparent that Tucker was slowly lacking motivation when he started skipping classes to sleep in and started feeling anxious when he needed to clock in for shifts.

It leads to him barely getting out of bed.

He felt horrible about it, thinking his parents sacrificed so much for him only to have him throw away the opportunities they gave him, and the cycle of not being able to get out of bed would start all over again.

It was Danny who caught on, and all but begged Tucker to come to Gotham for a weekend. He even sent money over for the plane ticket.

Tucker couldn't have gotten on that plane fast enough. He arrived early on Friday since the tickets were cheaper- and Uber over to WE headquarters to pick up Danny's keys as they agreed.

That way, Tucker could sleep and rest in the apartment while Danny worked.

Danny would finish his shift and have the weekend plus Monday and Tuesday off to spend with Tucker. When he arrived, Danny was helping a school check in for a field trip, so Tucker sat down to wait.

Next to him, a kid was growling at his laptop, frankly typing and moving his fingers over the computer's touch mouse. Tucker accidentally glimpsed his screen when the kid started swearing in a different language.

It looked like a shooting game but his lag was bad. By the time the boy pressed the buttons to have his little drone move the other flying things he was chasing were flipping though the air and out of his shooting rage.

It sucked when that happened, and since he was using WE free wifi for guests, it was probably the game. The graphics were badass, though. Seemed almost real.

"Hey try updating the system" He tells the kid after seeing the boy once again lag so bad he missed his shot.

Green eyes swing to him drenched in rage. Which yeah, Tucker knows how frustrating that could be.

"Did I ask for your help!?" The boy snaps, his words lined with an upper-class accent. Made sense since he was wearing a Gotham Academy uniform like the rest of the large school group. "Why are you even looking this way, peasant?"

"No, sorry. I just noticed the lag." Tucker raised his hand, slightly amused at the peasant insult. "I thought I could fix it for you."

The boy's face spams, "You believe you have the ability?"

"Ugh sure? I can try?"

"Here. Be quick. The fate of this city's air defenses depend on it" the boy turns his lap top to him and Tucker blinks.

Okay. So fix the game. He can do that.

And he does, quickly opening the code, analyzing the control and commands , he gets it running properly in less then twenty minutes. The boy seems utterly shock but he quickly takes control of the game and shoots down all the escaping ninjas from the sky.

"Thank you." The boy says with no more tense in his shoulders. Then he closes his laptop and dissappears with the crowd of students.

Tucker thought the kid was a cute.

Danny hands him the keys not long after and he leaves.

Never was he aware of the Boy being Damian Wayne and that the game was not a game but a actual defensive drone system that was fighting off the League of Assassins.

He only finds out how important those two facts are when Danny gets a call from Tim Drake asking if he could pass along Tucker's information because the CEO wanted him on staff as soon as possible..

Both nineteen-year-olds lost their minds after getting the call, screaming at each other in ghost shrieks of glee. They called Sam to let her know- and have her lawyers look over the contact Tim Drake sent just to make sure it wasn't a big-time company trying to screw him over.

He went to an interview three days later. He faced Tim Drake, the current seventeen-year-old CEO, Leo Noir, the current head of HR, and Jessica War, the current head of computer services. They asked him many questions about himself- some of which he felt he had answered terribly- then had him take a computer test.

Tucker thought it was busy work, so he quickly breezed through it. He fixed the problem in many of the coding for various programs, adding his flare to the final product, and after thanking them for their time, went out into the lobby.

He hadn't even reached the door before Jesssica ran after him, offering him the job. Apparently, the first two problems they had him do was the busy work. Tucker had thought they were the ones to let him get comfortable with the coding program.

Like a tutorial in video games.

The other seven were actual issues; many of their latest cellphone products failed. Tucker had solved them in an hour, which had taken the actual team of coders about a month.

"Nitey one dollar and thirty-five cents an hour," Tim tells him tapping the hiring contact. "It would be eighty hours every paycheck. You can work here or at home. Full Benefits. What do you say?"

Tucker's jaw drops. "When do I start!?"

He calls his parents to tell them he will be staying in Gotham with Danny. He tries to explain what had happened but it was all so fast that he can only babble about certain parts.

They tell him not to worry about explaining because they understand how much this means to him.

His parents help pack everything for him and when he flies back for it they, offer him hugs and support. Tucker is so glad they aren't mad.

"I sort of knew it was coming," His dad laughs. "You and that Fenton boy have always been inseparable."

"I did the same thing, you know," His mom says, wiping tears from her eyes but smiling all the same. "I moved with your father states away with little to no plan when I turned twenty too. Drove your grandfather mad."

He loves them both so much. He promises to send money- disregarding their denials- and flies back to Gotham, where Danny has opened his apartment until he gets enough for his own place.

He plans on renting a house with three bedrooms, one for him, one for his office, and another for Danny, as soon as he can. He wants to pay his friend back for everything he did and Danny deserves a bigger living space.

And for once, he'll not have to worry about money!

For once, life is looking up!

(What Tucker is unaware of, is that his parents think he moved to the big city to be with his childhood best friend turned recent lover. They don't know that the money he is sending home is from his own payroll and not Danny's. They think he's a stay-at-home husband.

Tucker is also unaware that the Bats are closely watching him in case he goes rogue. They have been slowly "causally" running into him in the city and breaking into his place to check for supervillain activity.)

[the-thing-inside-your-closet]

GhostKing!Maddie

Reveal gone right. Good parents Jack and Maddie.

Danny tells his parents that he’s Phantom and they accept him with open arms and hearts and the willingness to change their views. With this they start their research on Ghost culture, because that’s a part of their baby’s life (afterlife?) now so of course they’re going to make sure they understand their son so as to avoid potential culture clashes in the future.

(Did you know ghosts fight as a form of bonding?! Fascinating!)

At some point in their research they learn that the method of succession for the title of King of the Infinite Realms if for the former king to be defeated in trial by combat.

They learn that Danny defeated the former king tyrant Pariah Dark.

Their little Dann-o is the new King.

But he’s just a baby! Their baby! Cry his parents.

Danny is only 14, going on 15. Even if he’s a teenager he’s still their baby boy, and he is far too young to be forced to deal with politics alongside school and all the other dramas that come with teenagerhood.

They were young once, the Fenton parents remember how major some things were for teenagers and how stressful it could be. And Danny had already been through so much with protecting the town. And they wanted to make up for what they put him through before they knew it was him. Danny says it alright, they didn’t know but they do now and that accept him and that’s what matters! And oh do their hearts ache at the memories of shooting at their son and all the terrible things they said about him while he was right there.

No, they wouldn’t allow their son to deal with everything in his own when they could help him. Somehow. How do they help with this?

Then, Maddie demands an audience with the council. There, declares herself the King.

The Observants argue that she can’t possibly be the King as she is not a ghost, nor did she defeat the previous king to take the title. And anything else that they could use to oppose the idea.

Maddie counters that as her son isn’t even legally old enough to drive yet (the age is 16 in American right?) he cannot take on such responsibilities until he is of a certain age. Jack is nodding along enthusiastically as Maddie verbally eviscerates these floating eyeballs.

Clockwork is smirking in the corner. He likes Phantom’s mother. And he agrees with the Drs Fenton. He backs her up, and says that young Daniel had other pressing matters to attend to and that yes, he is in fact too young for the full responsibilities that come with being the King of the Infinite Realms. He is so young, and still of the living being a halfa that he would require education of the Realms laws before he could officially take up the crown.

But what about Maddie? She’s fully human, how could she possibly be placed in that position then without the same training?

Clockwork smiles as Frosbite or maybe Pandora, one of Danny’s other allies, states that the council could handle things until then, and that they would have had to have waited regardless for Danny to be up to speed before he could feasibly take on the role of King and confidently make decisions without the guidance of the council at every turn. With Maddie as a placeholder she could still sign off on things or act as a figure head, at least until Phantom could take on his role as the fully realised King.

Anyway, Maddie becomes the Ghost King. Or at least temporarily while her baby boy finishes high school and can decide what he wants to do. At least this is one less thing he has to worry about.

This however results in instances of cults and all manner of people trying to summon the Ghost King for one reason or another. But instead they get one Dr Maddie Fenton.

Sometimes it’s some kids that were fooling around at a slumber party, and she warns them on the dangers of summoning unknown entities without doing proper throughout research before hand and ensuring they have the proper protective measures if something were to go wrong.

And then there are cults and magic users and everything in-between that are trying to summon the Ghost King for personal gain.

These individuals are more often than not met with the sight of a bazooka, pulled from seemingly thin air, aimed directly at them as the very ominous sound of the woman counting down echos in the air. The ones with half a brain would book it.

All of this while maintaining the midwestern politeness would be both hilarious and a little ominous.

Then one day the Justice League, or any of the other teams, are breaking up a cult ritual that they got wind of to summon a powerful being for the purpose of destroying something or someone. I’m not to fussed on their motives.

But just before they can stop it the summing is cast and the air is filled with such a heavy sense of forbidding that it makes the hairs on the back of one’s beck stand on end.

The room darkens, the shadows seemingly converging in the centre of the summoning circle. It feels hard to breathe, and there’s a hint of something other in the air around them that just keeps increasing in intensity. It feels like reality is being around them, and just as quickly as it all began a crack appears within the circle. And a toxic green (Lazarus green) glow seems out of it as it opens like the unhinging jaw of a predator. There’s a blinding flash of green and then there is a woman, judging by her build, in a teal spandex suit with goggles fastened on her face.

She scans the room in silence before her eyes falls on the heroes standing in defensive positions before her. The cultists are all tied up or knocked out, or just frozen in place because holy shit the summing worked.

It’s never worked before.

But who is this woman?

And where is the Ghost King?

The head cultist, whom was still yet to be detained, demands to know who she is and where is the Ghost King?!

Maddie smiles as she pulls out her Fenton bazooka and says, “Oh bless your heart, I am the Ghost King!”

Where this goes from here, I’m not sure. This was all I had when is tarted writing this and right now I’m too tired to think. I just hope someone likes it and if you do, feel free to add anything! And if you have any critiques feel free to tell me!

(My apologise if I leave out a chunk of information, I’m writing this in my pyjamas half asleep and just trying to get it all written down. Also I’m not from the US, and haven’t watched Danny Phantom in a hot minute, so if I got something wrong pls forgive me.)

[rboooks]

DC x DP Fic idea: The Bakery is a Front!...right?

Danny Fenton starts his own business in Gotham. He knows that moving to Gotham is dangerous in a way, but it is the only other place with enough natural ectoplasm that can sustain him.

He wanted to move away from Amity Park to start on a clean slate. His parents now knew the truth, and to show their support, they were turning their research into a more sociological base instead of biological- I.E. ripped ghosts apart. Jaz got accepted into her dream college- Oxbridge. She moved overseas and is doing well in her advanced physiological courses. They told their parents of Dani, who promptly adopted her and signed her up for a traveling club under the condition she returned home for school.

The ghosts stopped challenging him after he explained Amity was his haunt and that it was bad manners to spar inside a haunt. He is open game in the ghost zone, but Danny got to choose when to go in there- his obsession requires him to defend something, so defending weaker ghosts in the Zone was a good option.

Danny always wanted to be an astronaut, but his teenage vigilante lifestyle ruined his chances- it isn't even his grades. It's a fact Danny's heart is so slow due to his ghost side it is mistaken as a heart condition. No space program would ever send him up with that. Danny decided that he would instead go with his second joy- baking. He opened Phantom Bakes in his second week in Gotham using funds from his Ghost King vault.

He served everyone and asked no questions. He was mostly sure half of his customers were gang members, but he didn't start anything and didn't allow any fights in his bakery. He became a sort of haven for everyone. He even began preparing packs for people experiencing homelessness, and bought the building next door to put some heating systems for anyone to sleep In during the winter.

Despite his obsession with protection, his human side made it possible for him to ignore it. He decided that his teenage years were spent too much giving in to his obsession and that in his twenties, he would retire. He did nothing while the various Bats threw themselves into battle, he turned a blind eye to petty crimes and basically tried not to bring any attention to himself.

He managed about six months until he accidentally walked through a cloud of fear gas while texting Sam and Tucker. His friends were tying the knot- the fact they all were best friends and exes was only slightly strange- and he was so focused on helping them plan the wedding as their Best Man he didn't hear the gasps, and horrified yells until he ran into Scarecrow.

He apologized for not looking where he was going and got a needle shoved unto his arm as a response. Danny's reflex to that was to punch the man a foot away from him.

The Bats quickly locked up the villain, and Danny decided he needed to be gone as fast as possible. He tried to return to his everyday life, but the next day, some of Scarecrow's goons showed up at his bakery asking him for work....so he hired them and taught them to make pastries. Then those goons brought over some friends who needed work but were recovering addicts and couldn't find employment.

He added coffee to his menu and threw them into that. Then some street kids asked if he would buy some stuff from them. Danny told them that he wasn't interested in car parts, but he was interested in furniture for the building next door. He had kids bringing in broken bookshelves, bed frames, and much more, paying them far more than the shady garages would.

Then some shady groups of men kept coming to his bakery asking for money for protection but Danny can protect himself just fine and proved it every single time a group made trouble.

He started having the streey kids make deliveries hoping to get them out of life of crime.

He made natural ectoplasm which, after much testing and research done by his parents, proved to clean out dangerous substances from the body. He made unique pastries that could help overcome addiction and heal withdraw.

He saw the light slowly return to the eyes of a drug-ridden community, and it brought him so much joy he barely charged for them.

Unknown to Danny, he has set himself as a up and coming villain. Rumors of his Fear Gas immunity attracted the attention of the Joker- who was found with all limbs broken, beaten black and blue after the clown tried to take a swing at Danny's employees. The baker had taken his broken body back to Arkharm, dragging the bleeding man through the streets uncaring of the line of red he left or the various people recording him in awed fear.

The rest of Gotham waited to see his true colors as he carefully built a front and gathered people. Some want to take him out as soon as possible.

Red Hood, most of all, after he heard that Danny had kids run special deliveries to know addicts. The only reason he hadn't blown his brains out was because Danny hadn't set himself up in crime alley.

The Bats had even talked him into joining an undercover mission to learn more about Danny. They didn't know what drugs he was moving or if he had a hand in other crimes, and needed more information that Oracle was unable to find.

She couldn't pull anything on Danny, driving her insane. (Techus erased Danny from the internet as a prank once and forgot to undo it.)

That led to Jason and Tim entering Phantom Bakes, acting like street kids who ran away from a homophobic father looking for a job.

Danny had them decorate cupcakes within the hour, letting them know he didn't expect them to crunch out masterpieces. They knew it would be a while to see Danny's real business so they bite thier tongues and got to work.

Tim just hopes they finish this mission before Jason snaps and shoots their main suspect....or before Danny romances the entire of Gotham because, goddammit, he has as much game as Brucie pretends to have. It's getting frustrating to see so many people throwing themselves at him, only for Danny to pretend not to notice. His good looks, charming personality, and carefully manipulated cover, drag good people into his schemes. He didn't want another Harley Quinn.

(He will ignore that his heart skips a beat whenever Danny gets too close. Thank you very much. It's just a crush; people get those all the time.)

(Part 2) (Part 3)

[flamingpudding]

Fictober23 Prompt: 29 - "That's all? Easy."

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: G

Warnings: -

A/N: I sometimes like to headcannon that Danny is actually a rich kid that doesn't live the rich kid style cause his parents use their money for their research and like to live a simple life. He goes to galas Vlad or Sam drag him to as his parents representative.

Damian had been prepared for another boring Gala to go through. His elder siblings as well as Pennyworth had made sure to take away any sharp blade he had on him beforehand. With the blades gone Damian refused to socialize with high society. What was the point in enduring the torture of pinched cheeks and repeating comments with double meanings and hidden insults as well as the 'boot' lickers, as one of his brothers liked to put it, when he wasn't allowed to return the favor these people were giving him with a quick blade swipe.

So Damian was hanging back, retreating to the corners and shadows of the room where people aside from his family wouldn't notice him. But being there gave him the chance to notice something else. At first Damian didn't think much of it but with the minutes passing he noticed it more and more.

Small colorful page markers.

He started tracking them. Eyes going from person to person as he scanned them for these markers. Always in spots and placements oneself wouldn't notice them on their own as well as by others around them. Sometimes they were even Color matched with the person's outfit.

Damian scanned the hall and his eyes landed on a teenager, younger than Drake but older than him. The other boy was gliding through the people seemingly effortlessly and unnoticed towards the snack table. Once there the teen appeared to be interested in what sort of food the gala was offering.

His eyes narrowed as he eyed the people the teen had passed.

A blue marker by the belt loop of an older gentleman.

Red marker on the purse of the lady dressed in purple.

Green marker on another man's vest.

He was sure these markers weren't on them before. Interesting, he missed before moving towards the teenager by the snack table. The boy by now had piled up one of the small plates high with some of the overhead foods and Damian first felt reminded of everting Todd went to a gala and immediately would go for the foods.

"You are quite sneaky." He spoke up after waiting somewhat politely for the other to acknowledge his presence. Which never happened even after five minutes and Damian having clearly seen the other looking at him from his corner of the eye.

"Oh, what do you mean?" The teen then said after swallowing a bite of food.

"I presume the page markers are what you're doing?"

"Damit, not even an hour in and I am already busted." The teenager muttered and Damian arched an eyebrow. "Look, I don't know whose rich kid you are but will stop as long as you don't tell the fruitloop. I am here to represent my parents and if this fruitloop hears I am playing the game Sam invented for these galas he will-"

"I believe you misunderstood my intention." Damian smirked as he held out a hand. "My family found it adequate to take my blades. So I want in on this 'game' you are playing."

The teenager blinked at Damian before a grin spread across his face. He hurriedly placed his plate on the table before rummaging around in one of his pockets."Well that is a nice change! Your not a stuck up like the other kids here."

A block of green, red and blue page markers were then placed in Damians held out hand. "I am Danny Fenton by the way, representative of Fentonworks."

"Damian Wayne." He answered out of reflex as he inspected the page markers given to him, uncaring if the teen would now start fawning over his last name like he had seen others do before.

"Cool. So want to make it more interesting? This is more fun in a two player setting then one player." Damian inclined his head, not letting the surprise of the other teens lack of reaction towards his name show. Well it looked like Daniel, because what else got the name Danny stand for, would be nice company for this gala.

"Let's make specific targets for each other, maybe even placements. Sam always dares me to do specific things. If one of us gets caught is an automatic loss, the one with the highest successful placements at the end of this gala is the winner."

He smirked. Daniel had no chance, a game like this was easy for him. This was going to be an easy win. His league training as well as the training his father had made him go through was going to give him a clear advantage. He was playing with the thought of giving Daniel a chance by not using certain skills but after the first three targets, Damian decided that that would be unnecessary.

The gala went by faster, the two pointing out specific people or placements of the marketers to each other. They both had surprisingly their fair share of failures as well as success. In the end they both had a draw and were on their last page marker to place.

"This is going to be the final decision between, win, loss or draw." Daniel hyped up the game and Damian shook his head lightly at the others foolishness that reminded him of Jon.

"Well then, it would be only right to select the most difficult targets for each other."

"Well if that's the case, see the guy over there, the one with gray hair and a ponytail? That's the fruitloop. Place your last marker right to the left on his lower back, where his jacket covers over his belt."

Damian arched an eyebrow but the teen only grinned. He smirked if the other wanted to make it apparently difficult then Damian could provide him with a real challenge. "For you target, my father is currently talking to this 'fruitloop' as you call him. Place the marker on his back on his left shoulder blade."

Daniel would not be able to so, his father was vigilant and despite his act, very aware of his surroundings. His newly made gala acquaintance would fail and Damian would be the winner of this game.

"That's all? Easy."

The two boy's started to move towards the two adults. They shared one last glance before splitting up slightly in two different directions to approach their targets. Damian was close, his steps silent as he neared his target the 'fruitloop'. The page marker was tagged to the tip of one of his fingers. Once he was close enough he would be able to place it without even having to get too close.

His father noticed him and Damian gave him a polite smile as he moved like he was going to pass the man in his way towards his father. He did however not anticipate for his target to place his hand on the hip obscuring his target placement. Damian's hand instantly hid his hand behind his back transferring the page tag to his other hand and unconsciously clicked his tongue. He would have to try again.

"Fruitloop! Who are you talking to?!" He heard Daniel shout out of nowhere suddenly, his head wiping around to see the other clapping his hand on his fathers shoulder. The shoulder where he had told the other to place the marker. Damian ground his teeth. He was not going to accept a loss here.

"Daniel! Where are your manners?! This is Bruce Wayne. CEO of Wayne Enterprise. I am so sorry Mr.Wayne."

"No worries Mr.Masters. He is just like how my sons were at his age. It is good for teens to be so full of energy."

Damian narrowed his eyes as the other teen gave him a peace sign and mouthed the words 'I won.' As the adults returned to their discussion Damian glared at Daniel, his last page tag crumpled in his hand, he switched to stand on his fathers other side so that he was next to the teen now.

"I demand a rematch." He hissed agitated, to which Daniel only grinned wider. "Sure. The next time we see each other at a gala again. I will have two packs ready for our rematch."

Later that night when Damian had returned home from the Gala, he took off his jacket only to notice something green peaking through the folds of it. As he lifted it to inspect where the Color on it game from his eyes narrowed and his grip on the jacket tightened. On his jacked he found several green page markers tagged on it one of them even had a little ghost drawn on it. "Well played Fenton, well played."

[f4nd0m-fun]

DPxDC - Mafia Ties

Good parents Fenton and redeemed Vlad escaping to another universe with Danny, Jordan, Ellie, Jazz, Tucker, and Sam because of GIW chaos getting so bad they literally need to go to another world to get help, only for the portal to close, and they can't open it from this side. Jordan is Jazz's age maybe a year older and Ellie accidentally got deaged to her actual age give or take which is probably about a year and a half old. Yes it's the Family Breakfast ship.

@hallowsden

Cue Vlad doing his whole possession stuff to not only get them new identities but carefully accumulate a small amount of wealth, not enough to be suspicious in his opinion but still.

The Fenton parents start looking to see if/where this world has ectoplasm because the kids, and maybe Vlad, need it. Hel, maybe the parents accidentally need it too after all those years of exposure.

I know everyone chooses Gotham for this stuff, but also that's about the most I know about DC and it has a Lazarus pit underground so we're using it.

Vlad doesn't get back into the proper businessman profile, too many eyes for him to feel safe after the GIW disaster, but he does end up a Mafia boss, or at least tries. Also, Hood becomes a new 'son' obsession for him, yeah he has Danny and Jordan and Ellie but this kid is also ghosty and probably hungry or something, right?

Hood doesn't get what's up with this weird older man who always has a baby with him, let alone why he'd even bring a baby along to mafia stuff.

Vlad thinks it's safer to have Ellie in mafia meetings than be left with the Fentons during their research obsession periods because they will literally not pay attention to anything else unless it's an emergency, it's not their fault, they're learning to manage it though.

Speaking of Fentons, they work on clean energy manufacturing topside, but underground they deal with weapons. Mostly they supply them to Vlad's crew, since that's basically their testing grounds, but they also don't make anything that's actually lethal. Vlad isn't a fan of guns though but he isn't about to bring out his plasma blasts if there isn't a good reason. (He pretends anyone who sees him cackling like a maniac hit their head, he did say he hates using guns after all).

Jordan and Jazz are probably about 17/18 now. Jazz is going to college, while Jordan slips his way into the kid's mafia (yes he knows he's a kid now too, shut up, he used to be 24). This is half to annoy Vlad and half because he's curious. Jazz, of course, with a little help from both Vlad and Tucker in getting her grades moved between universes, is in college soon, and manages a full scholarship (not that Vlad wouldn't have paid if he still had his old money, in fact he might even be a little jealous that he wasn't the one to pay for her schooling).

Jordan looks a little more like Vlad than he does Jack, due to the way the ghost half fusion effects everything, but he also looks more like Jack than Maddie because Jack is what Danny would have grown into anyway.

Ellie of course just looks like a nearly carbon copy of Danny of course, just baby and female.

Danny, Sam, and Tucker are all going to Gotham Prep, if Vlad can't pay for Jazz's schooling then he's paying at just some for theirs (they might have partial scholarships but not full ride). Danny still sneaks out at night because he can't stand sitting still after a long time of being a vigilante and ends up running into the Bat. He promptly apologizes for invading his haunt and flees.

If any ships, I'm thinking Jazz/Jason and Jordan/Dick, but I'm a sucker for everlasting Trio and Tim also has a trio of his own.

Back to Ellie and Vlad. He of course is trying to keep any 'Meta' rumors on the downlow, but she's just a baby. The harness she's in is ghost proof mostly so she can't just phase out of it, but you try changing a baby's diaper and they just turn intangible, or put then down to nap when they start floating. Hel, imagine setting her down for two seconds, she accidentally makes a shield, and now she's crying because she wants to be held. Sure, Vlad and Danny both, Jordan and Ellie too, can go through shields in human form, but that doesn't mean it doesn't sting or something. Eventually it gets figured out though.

I wonder how long it takes Jason to figure out that this Jordan fellow is related to Vlad. 😂

I also wonder what it would take for Vlad to actually use his ghost form outright, what kind of threat he'd expose himself to for the sake of his family. Just, shoving the kids at Jack - "Darling your aim is iced tea, let Maddie and myself handle this" - and doing what he has to.

And, yes, even as a Mafia boss he refuses to actually swear. Also, he probably still goes by Plasmius, the way his other form looks does NOT help the vampire rumors. Let alone the- well, I read a post on here a while ago where Ellie Danny and Jordan were deaged and needed his ectoplasm to survive. Imagine being a Plasmius goon in a meeting while he's trying to rock his baby to sleep and she's just sucking on his hand. You don't think much of it until you see he's bleeding and, even though it's technically red, your pretty sure it's glowing green and you're not sure if you want to ask (you won't but still). Plus, he's not even reacting to what must be a fair bit of pain, right?

Honestly, there's probably a betting pool about the whole weird family.

And of course I'm bringing in my Alfred Clockwork storyline. Flashpoint Thomas is Frighty, dead Thomas is Pariah, and Gotham is Martha. The moment Vlad finds out that Jason's grandparents are some of the most powerful ghosts in the realms (or at least this side of them in Gotham's case) he's like "okay I won't interfere, but maybe he'd like a friend? He doesn't seem to know a lot of ghosts.' (he tries to figure out which kid would be a better fit and that's when he finds out Jordan's been working for Hood this whole time. "You didn't tell me?" "You didn't know?!") 😂

Basically, give me a Mafia family who's major story plot isn't even the bats outright, it's just trying to survive after fleeing a world that may as well be destroyed at this point. Sure, they interact with the bats, cross paths, maybe even a couple relationships, but, overall, the Fenton-Masters are just outsiders in Gotham, learning to adjust to this new life.

[providencehq]

I really adore the idea of Danny seeming really confident and overall having a grasp on getting along in his fake identity for a new start in Gotham. Only for it to be quickly realized he's putting on a really good act and some simple investigation unravels it all (or, most of it.) Like facts are not matching up enough for his fake identity and when members of the bat family look into why this is for him they're quickly realizing that it's maybe a shotty identity because it was hastily put together but a teenager.

Faking his age enough to be a legal adult (18) so he can control over himself? Check. Faking only part of his name because he's still attached to his old life and won't admit it? Check. Leaving no paper trails and only paying in cash? Check. Refusal to participate in things that may lead to his identity or lack of one be discovered? Check. Kid also being 15/16 at most and being shit at hiding it physically, he cannot pass off as anything else than a young teenager but all documents say otherwise? Check.

Tim and Barbra quickly notice how he covered solely for himself. At least Tim was able to fake an uncle (temporarily), Danny isn't able to fake any information aside from the basics in regards to any family. It's quick to tell he's good at faking information but he's nowhere near the skill of Tim and Barbra. Once they find a single sliver of actual information on Danny and figure out who he really is, it opens a lot of questions while closing others. It also makes getting an eye and overall some semblance of control over the mysterious Danny situation they have on hand.

Like, Tim and Bruce at the very least are going to trick Danny to come into Wayne Enterprises to discuss his scholarship and hit him with "hey, we can't exactly give a scholarship to a person who doesn't exist, we know you are hiding from something by looks of our research. People don't fake new lives for the hell of it. We will however help you with whatever is going on, give you the scholarship, if you tell us what is going on." Danny of course is like, ah, no, I'm going to bail. But of course is cut off by Bruce suggesting that if he leaves without accepting their help, they'll be forced to report him and he'll be a ward of the state at best. That some investigation will happen because them finding out that Danny Fenton is considered dead before he was abled to be transferred to the care of a Vlad Masters, that is parents and friends are dead, and is overall an orphan is a big deal. ESPECIALLY when Danny Fenton is pretending to be Danny Duxo, a legal adult, and out on his own in Crime Alley and barely scraping by to be able to get to college.

They force his hand of course and accepts their help (and basically becomes a ward of Bruce Wayne). Danny convinces them that he will have Bruce acting as a guardian for him but he gets to remain at his apartment, he doesn't want to lose his tech he's working on but he's also afraid of anyone learning about his ghostliness. Does this work out? No, not for long. After a few weeks of being on his own and going out at night as a vigilante, injuries catch up with him. Jason comes by a few times a week to drop food off and comes into Danny one day bandaging some pretty nasty wounds. He brushes it off as some malfunction with some tech he's messing with but that incident causes him to be relocated to the Wayne manor so if an injury does happen, he's not alone.

And to think, none of this would be happening if he was better at faking an identity. He should have honestly asked for Technus' help for that and maybe he wouldn't be in this mess. This is all just surrounding his human identity too! Oh my god, the bats are going to freak when they find out Danny is way more than human and also a vigilante!

[lwh-writing]

DC x DP Prompt: Maddie Kane

Disclaimer: I don't know a whole lot about the Kane family. This is mostly my own interpretation based on the wikis I hastily read.

Roderick and Betsy Kane had six children: Martha, Nathan, Philip, Jacob, Roderick Jr., and Madeline.

Now, Madeline was a surprise baby. Martha was already twenty-three and married to Thomas by the time her only sister was born, but that didn't stop her from showering the girl with love and affection. Thomas loved his little sister-in-law just as much, and the two practically raised her as their own. Under the undivided care and affection of Martha and Thomas, little Madeline grows up to be a willful, independent, free-thinking, intelligent girl who is very, very happy with her life at Wayne Manor.

Madeline and Martha's relationships with their brothers are... complicated, to say the least. Martha as a rule did not fully support the Kane Family's arms dealings, and so tried to distance herself (and subsequently Madeline) from them. The Kane boys didn't challenge this overmuch: they were, after all, hard military men and didn't have much interest in raising their sister who would surely just become another socialite married to one billionaire or another. (It's ironic, then, that Maddie would grow up to be the best weapons innovator the Kanes would ever produce, but such things happen.)

Madeline had just turned thirteen when Martha and Thomas had Bruce. Her little nephew was a long-awaited joy for the family, and she would sooner think of Bruce than the Kane boys when Maddie heard the word "brother".

This idea is only solidified when the Kanes, forced to acknowledge their sister after multiple high-society scandals, try to strong-arm her into attending a finishing school in England. (Maddie to this day does not regret hospitalizing Lionel Luthor. If he didn't want a broken fibula, then he shouldn't have gotten drunk at a Wayne Gala and tried to strike his son. The following press release was unfortunate, but the thank you card from Alexander was touching.) The Kanes are not successful in removing Madeline from Gotham, and after much back-and-forth, they give one final ultimatum: either go to England and return an "upstanding member of society," or Madeline would be officially cut off.

Madeline chooses the second option without much further thought, sure to tell her brothers to stuff it in as many ways as she can before she trashes the Kane Mansion for good measure.

Madeline, now almost exclusively going by "Maddie", thrives. She gets accepted into the University of Wisconsin, and so off she goes, with hugs and well-wishes from Martha, Thomas, and Bruce, who are staying in New Jersey.

Maddie is twenty-one when she gets the worst news of her life: Martha and Thomas are dead. She puts her studies on hold for a bit and flies back for the funeral, her research partner/best friend in the world/boyfriend Jack Fenton-Nightingale coming with her.

Not even a week after her sibling-parents are put in the ground, her brother Philip tries to swoop in and seize Wayne Industries for himself. Thankfully, though, Martha and Thomas's wills were very clear: Maddie is to manage the Waynes' estates until Bruce comes of age. So Maddie once more tells her brothers to fuck off, this time for good. Jack, muscled, glowering, and seven feet tall and still growing, makes good to stand silently in the background so the Kanes don't try to pull anything further.

As soon as she is able, Maddie sits Bruce down and they make arrangements. Maddie can't abandon her schooling forever, and Bruce's life has been upended enough; she doesn't want to make it worse by ripping him away from the only home he's ever known. So Maddie signs over custody to Alfred, and promises are made to visit every chance she gets.

Life moves on. Jack and Maddie get married and start Fenton Works. Bruce starts traveling abroad to "further his education of the world." Maddie and Jack have two kids. Jasmine Martha Fenton-Nightingale-Kane inherited the Kane signature fire-red hair, and Daniel James Fenton-Nightingale-Kane looks so much like Martha that it hurts. Bruce adopts a gaggle of children of his own. Bruce and Maddie like to send each other pictures to brag about their respective kids, and the Fenton-Nightingale-Kanes make sure to visit Gotham for at least one week every summer.

Maddie and Jack don't ask too many questions when Bruce hesitantly takes them aside and requests that they make a couple of custom-made, non-ghostly weapons for him. Of course they'd be happy to make him a few odds and ends every once in a while. Goodness knows how dangerous Gotham can be.

The Fenton-Nightingale-Kanes miss their summer trip for the first time ever when Danny comes to them and explains the whole "half-a-ghost-thing" and, well... Jack and Maddie spend the entire summer reeducating themselves about ghosts, working through years of biases, and ensuring that their son knows that they still love him of course we still love you, Danny, there isn't a thing in this world that could stop us from loving you. Dick Grayson is very understanding and assures them that Bruce wouldn't mind. (Dick is very happy to avoid telling Aunt Maddie and Uncle Jack about Bruce's death. Dick is even more happy when Tim finds proof that their dad was just lost in the timestream and not actually dead. That entire summer was very stressful for both sides of the family)

It isn't until Danny is seventeen and hesitantly makes contact with the Justice League that the Waynes learn about ghosts and the Fenton-Nightingale-Kanes learn about the vigilantism.

Maddie is so cross when she and the rest of the ghostly delegation walks into the Watchtower only to come face-to-face with her nephew/brother, and don't you try and deny that's you, Brucie, I have eyes. Who are you trying to fool, young man?

The rest of the Justice League has to awkwardly sit there as the Ghost King and his family have a full-on family reunion, with King Phantom taking the time to finally introduce his partners to his cousins, Princess Jasmine and Nightwing teaming up to try and talk Red Robin into dialing back on the caffeine intake, King Father Jack exchanging fudge recipes with Agent A, and Queen Mother Madeline chewing out Batman for being a reckless idiot and not telling her what he was using his gadgets for. ("If I knew that grappling hook would be actively used every night, I would have installed more safety features! We could've made it more durable! We would've had to put it through more rigorous testing before we deemed it field-ready!" "Why does that bother you now? Isn't your lab safety horrible?" "A private, indoor lab that less than ten people have access to is not the same as the streets of Gotham in every type of weather! Goddammit, Bruce, I swear--")

[little-pondhead]

Fenton Family on Vacation (part 1)

Original Post⬅️

"You know, when you revealed yourself as Phantom, I thought it would be much harder to adjust." Madeline Fenton, ghost-hunting extraordinaire and mother of two, stared at the swirling green portal in her basement. Despite building the darn thing herself, with its glowing wires and simple design, Maddie felt like she was seeing the whole thing for the first time.

It was late afternoon on a Saturday. At least, Maddie assumed so. She hadn't stepped foot outside their lab for a while now. Too busy modifying all their ghost-hunting equipment. The blinking red numbers of the digital clock on their desk said it was almost six in the evening. Then again, it has been six in the evening for the past several months. The clock was very much broken, and no one had bothered to fix it. 

It was summer, so the time spent in the Fenton lab drastically increased. And with the reveal of their son Danny, Maddie practically breathed ectoplasm with the amount of time she was spending in the basement. Danny said it was no big deal, but both Fenton parents were determined to re-evaluate their research and inventions completely. Basically, starting from scratch. 

So imagine her surprise when, two days ago, both Jazz and Danny sat them down to propose a memorable family vacation. 

And for some reason, she couldn't say no. Was it her guilt? They were prepared to shell out the money for any dream destination the kids proposed. But no, Danny had invited them to a different dimension via the Ghost Zone. This was tremendous progress, not just in her relationship with her kids but also for their new research. (Let's not mention the headache she got from learning parallel dimensions exist.)

Apparently, the kids had been planning this for a while because now everyone was packed and armed to the teeth, two days later. Jazz had taken care of the logistics-when to leave, how to get there, what to bring. Danny was the one to choose the location since he was the most familiar with the Ghost Zone. Maddie learned much later that he had just thrown a dart at a lineup of names on a corkboard.  

"Are you sure it's okay for us to enter?" Maddie looked concerned.

"Yeah! It'll be fun, mom!" Danny reassured. "It's just a week off-I've always wanted to show you the cool parts of the Ghost Zone without the immediate threat of horrible death." Maddie gave her son the stink eye. He was grinning a bit too innocently for her liking.

"Well, I think it'll be a great bonding experience!" Jack announced, winking at Danny. Badly. "Someone was being a little paranoid about the mall trip yesterday; I hardly got a chance to spoil our new little princess."

Ah, yes, their new granddaughter. Danielle. Maddie had been furious to discover how horrible Vlad had been to her family. Attempting to murder her husband, trying to recruit Danny as a weird evil son/apprentice, outright disrespecting and dismissing Jazz's existence, and wanting to marry her?? "Furious" was putting it lightly. The man slept with a doll version of herself, for heaven's sake! And then Danny just offendedly mentions that Vlad had cloned him. Several times. Only one clone survived; a little girl with no identity of her own. And here was her son sheepishly asking if they might consider letting the clone stay? Even for a little? She was traveling around right now but didn't really have a place to call home-

Maddie and Jack immediately offered to adopt the girl into the family as their youngest. 

(Jazz giggled. "Danny already beat you to it. They tried being cousins at first, but he acts like a total dad around her—the fastest case of ghost adoption that I've ever seen. Instead of a new child, Elle's more like a new grandchild.")

Danny blushed, hunching his shoulders in. "I don't know if Elle wants to be a grandkid-we haven't talked about it, really."

"YOU CAN BET YOUR SWEET BISCUITS I WANNA BE A GRANDKID."

The trio startled and turned, watching the last two of the Fenton family work their way down the stairs into the lab. Jazz was gripping her backpack in one hand and Elle's arm in the other, using her superhuman strength to keep Elle in line. Probably so Elle wouldn't run down the stairs and permanently kill herself. Jack quietly chuckled at the sight of Elle's ghost-themed backpack, so painstakingly picked out the day before. It was a tad too big and looked just adorable on her. A few tiny blob ghosts floating around her head whizzed in excitement, sometimes using the backpack as a place to hide. Maddie, personally, loved the pink light-up sneakers that Elle showed off as much as possible. Her husband had done well shopping by himself. 

It was evident Elle was excited about the trip. Despite all her travels abroad, satisfying her wanderlust, she'd never been to another dimension. When they had reached the bottom, Elle phased out of Jazz's grip, bolting to collide with Jack in a hug. "Yesterday was loads of fun." She exclaimed. "I loved shopping around for new stuff. And if being Danny's kid means I get two new grandparents in the deal, then I'm taking it."

Danny made a face. "But isn't it weird to have a dad so close in age to you? What if people look at you weird?"

Jazz snorted at her brother's words, picking her way around the lab mess. "Danny, you'd be the one they would look at funny. A fifteen-year-old-"

"I'm almost sixteen!"

"A fifteen-year-old who has a physically thirteen-year-old daughter? People will be ready to call CPS."

"And besides!" Elle detangled herself from Jack's grip and stomped over to Maddie with a shit-eating grin as she looked at her dad. "Technically, I'm only a year old. You're not going to leave your poor, unstable clone daughter alone in the world to fend for herself, right?" Danny just grumbled. Something about not even being old enough to drive. 

Maddie cooed a bit and enjoyed the hug from her new granddaughter. It was cold but in a good way. Elle's response was a low hum that vibrated through her body. It reminded Maddie of a cat's purr.

"I've been meaning to ask," Maddie said. Elle clung tighter as she adjusted her grip. "What is ghost adoption?? You mentioned that before when explaining your relationship with Elle."

Their son shuffled his feet a little. "Uh, it basically means my core has connected to hers in a parental way, I guess." He was obviously nervous. "When we first met, even before I knew Elle was a clone, my core recognized her as a "baby ghost," so to speak. There was enough of a connection that I kind of adopted her subconsciously."

"But it doesn't happen with between all ghosts." Jazz cut in. It felt like their eldest was giving them a lecture on this and that every week. "Frostbite explained it a while ago, something about similar cores and ambient ectoplasm. Kind of like pack bonding?"

Maddie nodded, barely following. "And Frostbite...you said we were visiting this person?"

Danny perked up, actually floating a few feet off the ground in excitement. "Frostbite is the best! He's the leader of the Far Frozen and looks like a giant yeti. He helped me figure a bunch of things out and makes the best cocoa."

"Well, I'm excited to meet him."

And they were. Going through the portal was an experience and a half. It wasn't the first time they'd done this, but it was still memorable. Danny and Elle had gone ghost and chased each other around the Specter Speeder while Jazz piloted, hunched over the steering wheel. The Ghost Zone was a wonderful mix of greens and purples; Jack lamented his lack of a camera.

("We don't want to give Technus something to use." Tucker explained. Danny's friends had come by to help them all pack properly. "The Fenton Cameras haven't been ghost-proofed all the way, and Technus is an insufferable b-uh, idiot when he manages to get his hands on new tech. I'll never hear the end of it.")

It was just so much colder than they expected. The "Far Frozen" certainly lived up to its name. So did Frostbite and his legendary cocoa. The giant yeti (did he count as a ghost??) also took the opportunity to give each Fenton a checkup (ghosts have doctors???) to make sure everyone was healthy enough for inter-dimensional travel. They were, and Frostbite even handed over a few extra vials of pure ectoplasm to tide the kids over in case they didn't land near a natural source in the new dimension. Jack and Maddie took a few vials each, one for each of their ghost kids, and Jazz just tucked hers away in her luggage with a little pat.

Then they were off sightseeing. Understandably, most of Danny's allies were a bit wary around the (mostly former) ghost hunters but did their best to hide it. Jack and Maddie got to meet Princess Dorathea, who could turn into a freaking dragon how cool was that, Jack-

There was Pandora, a towering woman with blue skin and four arms. She took a liking to Maddie and gifted her an engraved xiphos. "To match her fighting spirit." The woman explained. She did not tell anyone what the engraving meant. At some point, they saw a towering castle in the distance. It was hard to see, but the towers looked like spiraling ice. Jack asked about it.

"Oh, that's nothing special." Danny waved them off. "Don't worry about it. We DO need to worry about Walker's prison, so duck down for a bit. He doesn't like it when the living are in his territory." Maddie didn't bother pushing the subject, so they moved on.

Then there was Wulf, a werewolf who could make portals and was the kids' teacher on that subject. Jazz was especially excited, greeting Wulf with a bear hug. (Maddie vaguely remembered something about her daughter being a werewolf now, but she very rarely changed while in the living world. Maddie had almost forgotten.) Jack was pleasantly surprised to learn Wulf spoke Esperanto. In fact, that was the only thing he could speak. It turns out Esperanto was something Jack had learned during their college days. The two hit it off, and Jack had to be dragged away from whatever conversation they were having.

Time moved a bit sluggishly, but eventually, they got around to "the least annoying ones." Elle had a blast messing with someone named Fright Knight, who just kept calling her 'my lady' for some reason. Danny got a few potshots in when one of his rouges (was that a robot?) got too close to the Speeder. They met Ghost Writer, Amorpho, Lunch Lady, Nocturne, Technus, Ember, Cujo, and a few others. Their final stop was Clockwork's.

The flight there was exceptionally long. It felt like forever, yet the clock in the Speeder only moved forward five minutes. Jazz explained that this was Clockwork's influence. He was the Master of Time, and the closer they got to his lair, the weirder time was. Eventually, the Fenton family arrived. Clockwork's lair was, well, a clock tower.

("Really, I don't know what we expected, Maddie.")

It was dark and green, sitting on a tiny island they could barely land on. Ectoplasm was thick in the air; Maddie was sure that if she weren't already ecto-contaminated, it would have been increasingly difficult to breathe. Multiple ticking sounds filled the air as if the tower was filled with nothing but clocks. Maddie took a wild guess and thought it probably was. A glowing green sticky note drew their attention as they approached the door.

Danny scowled as he read the note. "Daniel, something has come up with the Observants. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't make the Watchtower your new haunt. A natural portal will open next to the Speeder. Enjoy your vacation, Clockwork. Drat, I was hoping he'd be home. I really wanted you to meet him."

Maddie pats his shoulder. "It's okay. I'm sure we'll find time later." Elle giggled at the pun.

"I know." He sighed. "It's just, he can be so cryptic. Why would I make a watchtower my new haunt? I've never even been to a real watchtower! But the note says a natural portal will spawn next to the Speeder so that we can wait for that."

"You mean this portal?"

Jazz was closely examining a small tear in reality that had popped into existence next to her foot. It was small and low to the ground. Small enough that the Specter Speeder definitely couldn't get through. Maddie doubted they'd be going in all at once.

Elle peered over her shoulder. "That's it! Come on, old man, I'll race you!" She dove in without waiting for a reply.

"DANIELLE MADELINE FENTON!" Danny immediately chased after, disappearing into a swirl of green.

"Oh yeah, she's definitely related." Jazz said. "Come on. I'll follow behind once you two go through." Maddie looked at Jack, and Jack looked at Maddie. Fine with them.

Jack went first, knuckles tight from gripping his bag straps, doing his best to suck in his gut before dropping out of existence. Maddie went next, standing on tiptoes and still having Jazz bend down to press a kiss to her cheek before she left. "Make sure to lock up the Speeder."

Jazz smiled, her eyes glowing with the barest hint of green. She had a hand on the Fenton thermos clipped to her belt and if Maddie squinted, she could see the barest outline of a crown on her head. "See you on the other side, mom."

Maddie stepped into the portal, feeling nothing but open air, and fell through.

---

Edit: OH GOD I FORGOT THE MOST IMPORTANT DETAIL ABOUT JAZZ I FIXED IT I AM SO SORRY

(the fix was kind of rushed but there is an extra line or two now that actually mentions it)

[bucketwritingpail]

Touch the stars

Danny phantom/ treasure planet ficlet that i might or might not actually write.

Daniel James Fenton was five years old when the human race discovered that they were not alone in their universe. To that little kid who wanted nothing more than to touch the stars, that news was everything. And with the hours upon hours of news coverage, the pages upon pages that came hot off the press only to be snatched up almost instantly, with all the buzz and the chatter and the talks and the seminars and the countless online threads, it felt like that news was everything to the whole world. The whole world except the Doctors Fenton.

The two promising ecto-scientists had just begun work on their newest project, their magnum opus: the ghost portal. They may as well have been deaf to the world. They certainly were to their own children.

Eight years later, Earth had finally joined the Intergalactic Union. They had trade, they had embassies, their knowledge of the universe was expanding with every second. Danny wanted to know all of it. He dragged his friends Sam and Tucker to every conference he could bribe his sister to drive them to. He hunted down every morsel of new information. Sam was more interested in homeworld politics and activism. Tucker though, was practically salivating at all the new tech.

His parents were still working on that portal, seemingly anawares to just how much the world around them was changing.

Danny was fourteen when he died.

He was fourteen when that portal opened on top of him and thrust the weight of two realms upon that starry eyed boy who had glow in the dark stars mapping the night sky on his bedroom ceiling. A crushing responsibility tying down that poor boy who wanted nothing more than to touch the stars.

His parents didn't notice at first. They were too ecstatic that their invention actually worked to ask questions. So things were... complicated for a few years. Danny became the city's protector, looking after ghosts and human alike. Afterall, what was he meant to do when he had stakes in both camps.

The work was thankless and dangerous. His parents didnt know it was their son they were shooting at, so he couldn't blame them. Valerie didn't know it was her boyfriend she was hunting. He couldn't blame her either. Still.

He was beaten up and smacked around on the daily, meanwhile, his once shining report card suffered for the late nights and missed classes. Sam and Tucker did what they could, but the only person he could truley rely on was his sister.

She told him to do what was best for him. What did he want?

Sometimes, on quiet nights, Danny would fly above the clouds, above all the pain and stress, and he would watch the sky. Even after it all, his core would still call out for those stars.

Humans weren't exactly popular out there. They had earned a reputation for being to curious for their own good and stubborn to boot. Work was hard to find out there. He still wanted to try. His grades would never get him a research position, and definitely not one in politics. But, despite their absence, Danny took after his parents. He was an engineer, and a good one at that. Even with the slight trembling in his left hand. He just knew he could fit right in up there.

So when Danny was eighteen, he put all his life savings into getting himself on a shuttle. He told his sister and friends goodbye, promised to keep in touch the best he could. They threw him a farewell party with cake and stories and music that played until the sun rose again. Even his parents showed to say their goodbyes.

Now, seven years of training and travel later, Daniel James Fenton, age twenty-five, stepped off the travel shuttle and into the hustle and bustle of the Montressor Intergalactic Space Port. A single duffle with his personal items, slung over his shoulder and a folder containing his new life, in hand.

And he was finally here

[rainycat2]

Though I Could Not Stop For Death / Death Kindly Stopped For Me

Chapter Two: Glimpses and Insights

The good thing about being one of the lead-- and only if he was honest with himself-- researchers on the effects of ectoplasmic energy and radiation on the human realm was that the United States government was willing to bypass certain things in order to keep the Fenton’s continued cooperation and research firmly under their sponsorship. For instance, the favor they’d called in to help set up an identity and fast-track an adoption for the boy they’d found in the alley.

Upon discovering the boy, they had taken him in, patched him up, and put him up for the night in their guest room, immediately contacting CPS to inform them of what they’d found. The poor boy had a scar in the center of his chest, inches below his heart, with bruised skin surrounding the area. That wasn’t the only scar he carried, but the most immediate one-- it looked like it had only barely healed over, tissue still angry and red. The agency had instructed them to take him to the hospital first thing, where they found out the boy… effectively did not exist.

He wasn’t listed in any databases. No fingerprints, no registration of his birth, no known parents in the system. For all they could tell, he’d never even been in a hospital.

He also made it difficult as all hell to get any information. When he first spoke, he only spoke in Arabic, and the hospital had to bring in a translator. His name was Danyal, he had no last name, and did not know where he was or how he’d gotten there. When the nurse attempted to draw his blood, he’d almost bit her before the translator explained. Even then, it took a demonstration and explanation to prove that it would not be detrimental to him before he allowed it.

Jasmine, though… well. She’d taken one look at the boy in the alley and claimed him as her own. At ten years old, she’d plopped herself down on Danyal’s hospital bed, damn the consequences, and started chattering away, talking about anything and everything-- what she’d learned in school, her friend James who’d dyed his hair recently, the new family who’d moved in a few weeks back. And surprisingly, Danyal listened. Attentively. He’d slowly begun asking halting questions back, his voice hardly above a whisper, but in fluent English.

Jack shook his head, signing his signature on another piece of paperwork before flipping the page. As they had been first contact, and the boy had nowhere else to go after a test discovered the low level of ectoplasmic radiation clinging to him… The Fentons were approved for an emergency fostering situation after passing their inspections. Who else was equipped to keep an eye on his radiation levels? That was part of the whole reason the Fentons had set up shop in Amity Park, Illinois. Their social worker, however, had been very insistent that Danyal not have anything to do with their research other than monitoring his ectoplasmic levels, and the Fentons had readily agreed. They still had to take a course on trauma-informed care for parenting-- Danyal had been through so much, the extent of which they likely would never know. Their caseworker, a kind woman named Katherine, had explained that while Danyal knew English and could speak it fluently, they suspected it to be his second language. It would take time and lots of trust before he would open up and relax around them.

But… in the brief few weeks they’d spent together, Danyal had already captured his way into their hearts. Jazz nicknamed him Danny after they’d spent an afternoon trying to pronounce his name. She’d almost had it, from what Jack gathered, but she was missing the lilt to the end of the name that just. Could not be fixed. Despite hours of trying. So, Danny had eventually given up and given in to the nickname.

Jack rubbed his eyes, set his pen down as he got up from the desk. It was about time when the kids would be going to bed, and so he started the nightly routine that had recently expanded-- visit Jazz’s room first on the second floor, as it was closer to the stairwell, tuck her in and tell her good night as he turned down the lights. She liked to stay up reading with a light under her covers, so in about an hour, Mads would come by and do the same, telling her to go to sleep for real this time.

This time, however… Jazz’s bed was empty. Jack blinked in confusion, then glanced down the hall.

---

“Maddie, oh my God, you need to come look at this,” her husband whispered urgently from the stairs. Maddie looked up, one eyebrow raising as she marked her page with a bookmark and set the textbook aside.

“What is it?”

“Just-- come up here-- quiet, I don’t want to wake them up.”

She blinked, then smiled softly as she crept up the stairs, sneaking down the hallway to the open door of Danny’s room. The overhead light was off, but the lamp was still on, giving them a perfect view.

Danny was curled up in a little ball, snuggled right up into Jazz, her arms around him, one resting on a book on their legs. The light played with the shadows on their faces, the relaxed expressions showing their ages of eight and ten.

Maddie couldn’t help the squeal she muffled with her hand.

In her defense? It was adorable.

Though she did immediately regret it as Danny’s eyes snapped open, bright blue focusing on them both. She froze, lowering her hands from her mouth to show her soft smile, knowing that Jack was almost certainly smiling as well.

And somehow… that seemed to be enough for him. A few owlish blinks before the corner of his lips turned up, just a little, before he snuggled back into Jazz and closed his eyes.

Oh, how Maddie wished she had a camera.

---

Over time, the collection of photos lining the walls of the Fenton house grew. Danny’s first day of school, once his therapist had said he was adjusted enough to go, and that it would be beneficial to his development. The first time they’d gone out together as a family. The first summer fair. Danny and Madeline training together, after they’d realized the other had self-defense training.

Danny was ten, now. Acclimating to his new life had been… weird. It was weird being away from the League, not knowing… everything about how he’d gotten here.

He remembered dying. That was hard to forget, honestly-- letting himself falter, letting Damian survive at his own expense. Mother’s cries as he faded, Damian sobbing and apologizing.

Damian.

His thoughts often wondered to his little brother (by two minutes, Damian liked to protest), worried about how he had grown. If he had grown at all. They weren’t the first Heirs to the Demon Head, after all. Simply the ones who were the most useful. Their father had been a prospective Heir, but turned Grandfather down.

Danyal wondered how he had managed to get away alive after that. Ra’s didn’t take “no” for an answer very well.

A tap on his knee, and Danny looked up at unfamiliar violet eyes, way too close to his space. His shoulders tensed as he leaned back, furrowing his eyebrows. “Can I… help you?”

The girl, probably his age give or take a year, had plopped herself down at the picnic table in the elementary school playground and had taken to watching him. “You’re different,” she proclaimed after a moment’s consideration. “You’re not like Paulina or the others. What’s your name?”

“Danny,” he answered. “Why? And what do you mean, I’m different?”

“I don’t know.” The girl sighed sharply, looking at the other kids playing around. Even from here, on one of his first days, Danny could just tell the cliques being formed. They’d be going into middle school, soon, but, well. People had their groups of friends, and Danyal was content being the observer on the sidelines, gathering information. That was what he was best at, watching and observing, collecting intel for missions.

“Well, that’s not an answer.” He shrugged and looked back at the homework on the table in front of him, idly writing in some of the answers. Multiplying fractions by whole numbers, honestly. Boring.

“It’s the answer I have. Anyway, my name’s Sam,” she continued. “You’re new, aren’t you? The new Fenton kid that got adopted, right? My mom was talking about you, I think, to Paulina’s dad. It’s nice that they adopted you.”

He had to hold back the urge to roll his eyes. “Sam isn’t a proper name.”

“Neither is Danny,” she shot back.

Alright, he had to give her that. A smile tugged at the edge of his mouth as he set his pencil down, shifting to look at her. “Okay, that’s fair. Yes, the Fentons adopted me two years ago. Yes, I’m new, I had a lot to work through before I could attend school. Do you have any other questions?”

Sam blinked, confusion flitting across her face at the businesslike tone he took. “Oh, um… Do you wanna be friends?”

“Friends?”

“Yeah, like. We can have playdates and do homework and stuff. Mom keeps telling me I need to make more friends, and Paulina’s been getting weird lately, so… Friends!”

“...I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. Jasmine is encouraging me to have friends as well.” He held his hand out for her to shake.

---

Danny was growing up pretty well, if Jazz said so herself. Oh sure, their family was absolutely insane even at the best of times. Sure, she was a sophomore in high school now, but… seeing how much work Danny’s social worker and therapists had done, how much they’d accomplished together, it made her want to help kids like they’d helped her brother.

She spotted the moment he realized she was watching him, his shoulders tensing almost imperceptibly until he met her gaze. Play it off, she’s not staring, not at all. Jazz got up, moving over to the kitchen table where Danny had previously been staring at the page in some… form of disgust mixed with annoyance.

“Hello, little brother,” Jazz giggled, wrapping her arm around his shoulders. “Should I offer to help you with your homework, considering you look like you want to set it on fire?”

“Jazz, this paper is literally going to kill me,” he groaned as he rubbed his face, pencil clattering onto the paper. “It’s just-- it’s so boring! I understand why we should learn how to predict events and how to prepare for them, but I learned how to do that before I learned to talk.”

“You should take that test to go into a higher grade,” Jazz encouraged. “I did it! And really, it’s so much more interesting. I get to take astronomy classes, I know you want to work for NASA when we’re grownups.”

“I know, I know,” Danny hummed. “But my therapist says it would be ‘detrimental to my development as a growing teenage boy coming from my background’,” he drawled, his voice completely monotone, drawing a laugh out of his big sister. “They act like I’m a feral kid, honestly.”

“You tried to bite your nurses when we first took you to the hospital. And the nurses when you got your vaccines. And your fifth grade teacher--”

“Okay, okay! Maybe I was a little feral,” Danny gave in.

---

He really hasn’t changed, has he? Jazz thought to herself from her perch on the top of a building, watching her little brother go apeshit on Skulker. Danny was fifteen now, and…

Her little brother was a superhero. Well, Danny liked to deflect, call himself a ‘vigilante at best’, but… well. They knew better, really. He’d done some awesome things, and she meant that in the Biblical sense of “awesome”-- truly awe-inspiring things that, if it were anyone else… well, they’d probably be a little concerned. Danny, though?

Danny was probably one of the genuinely kindest people she ever knew. Apparently, after his big defeat of Pariah Dark, Clockwork had taken him aside and talked about what that really meant, to defeat the High King of Ghosts in one-to-one combat. The Infinite Realms worked on a hierarchy of power, after all.

Which meant that on top of his duties as a vigilante superhero, and having just finished his sophomore year, Danny was also being tagged in for High Prince of Ghosts duties. Which, apparently, included acting as a psychopomp in some situations, albeit with quite a bit more ass-kicking.

As she watched Danny give Skulker one hell of a roundhouse kick, it felt like… her perspective of reality blurred. One minute they were in the sky, the next, Danny was floating in front of her with a paper in hand, Skulker nowhere to be seen. So really, you could hardly hold her responsible for the sharp jump and yelp, reaching out to sock him in the shoulder. “Danny! Don’t do that, I thought you were fighting-!”

Danny let his shoulder go intangible with a laugh, patting her on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Jazz. It… we need to have a talk with the rest of the gang, hold on a sec.” He tapped the communicator in his ear. “Phantom to team, come in team.”

“Here, as always,” Tucker’s voice buzzed, followed quickly by Sam’s agreement.

“Cutting patrol short tonight, guys,” he hummed, wrapping his arm around Jazz’s waist as they took off into the air. “Let’s meet back up at my place and talk-- seems we’ve got a letter from good ol’ Clocky.”

“Oh, Ancients,” Sam sighed. “Can we not get one normal summer?”

“Redundant question, sorry, Danny,” Tucker apologized.

“Don’t worry about it, guys-- let’s just get back and talk.”

---

“I’m sorry, he wants you to do what?!” Sam whisper-yelled, a throw pillow clutched tightly against her chest. “Danny, you’ve got to be joking. You can’t just… you can’t just tell your parents. I mean, what are they going to think?”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, he’s the Master of All Time. If he says that this is probably the best time to tell them, because I’m needed for Prince of the Realms stuff this summer, then that’s probably in my best interest to listen to him,” he argued, tucking a knee to his chest. “Just… look, I just need you guys to be there with me when I tell them. It’s not like I can just burst out of the gate with it.”

“And, y’know, Mom and Dad have gotten a lot better, lately,” Jazz mused. “They’re really focusing on the science of what they’re doing instead of just… building weapons for ghost hunting. I think they took my lecture on being researchers to heart.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “You screamed at them for a solid hour.”

“It was a lecture!”

“Not to be the voice of reason here or anything,” Tucker cut in, “but… I have to agree with Danny, Sam. Clockwork hasn’t guided us wrong yet, and technically, Danny’s his boss now, so I don’t think he wants to see him go power-crazy. Especially not after all that crap last time.”

Danny winced. “Really, just. Salt in that wound, huh?”

“Sorry man. But seriously, we just… sit them down and break out the powerpoint we made. We can all take turns explaining it,” Tucker reasoned. “And besides, where he goes, we go anyway.”

Sam huffed. “Fine. But I’m keeping my armor on standby.”

Danny grinned. “Thanks, guys. Now, we should plan for it this weekend, so we can start planning the summer trip…”

----

All things considered? Telling the Fentons was… a whole lot less screaming and accusations than Danny halfway expected. They took the information calmly, watching the presentation the teenagers gave-- and really, it was a damn good presentation. They’d gotten scans from Frostbite about Danny’s biology, his DNA, and how his long-term exposure to ectoplasmic radiation had protected him from straight up dying in the portal accident. How the Realms had saved him as much as it killed him. How he’d spent so much goddamn time, blood sweat and tears keeping the city, the world safe from their own little brand of cosmic horrors.

How they’d learned that fighting was how ghosts socialized, so they set up ways to keep it from being destructive on Danny’s grades and the town itself.

Their parents were… shocked, to say the least. But at their hearts, they were scientists. Scientists that had been fed lies and bigotry about ghosts in a field where they didn’t have the ability, for so long, to prove that bigotry wrong-- and when they did finally have the ability, their want to be proven wrong had long since disappeared. How their bias had been drilled into them by their professors, by their professors, by everyone in the field.

They needed time to reassess. To work through their biases, to… to try to apologize, in some way.

Danny said they didn’t need to apologize.

They insisted.

---

His mission, of course, was hardly put in clear terms. Danny thought that Clockwork just liked to fuck with him, at this point, as his Guardian. He had the right to, or whatever. Regardless, the young ghost just had to stare as Clockwork explained.

“Let me get this straight. You want me to go to Gotham, a place that is notoriously full of crime, murder, and 100% has a supernatural presence, because the City Ghost has said that she’ll make your afterlife miserable if I don't deal with their furry problem?” he said incredulously.

“I hardly said that, Danyal,” Clockwork hummed. “What I said is that Lady Gotham, one of the older City Ghosts on this side of the world, has requested your assistance with your connections to both the living and Infinite realms in regards to a problem with one of her Protectors.”

“...So, the Bats,” Danny grumbled. “Hooray, that’s definitely what I wanted to do this summer. Go into the city that notably hates metas.”

“I hardly think that they will take umbrage with your presence,” Clockwork chuckled, patting his charge’s shoulder. “After all, your father lives in Gotham, does he not?”

Danny rubbed at his face as they floated to the couches that had appeared, the Long Now sensing the wants and needs of its owner. “I guess. That’s kind of… part of the problem, you know? I don’t want to go and see him, and then have to pretend that we’re… I mean, I know he’s my Father. I do. But.. I have enough problems without having to deal with the whole-ass Justice League on my ass, you know?”

“I believe you have less problems than you believe you do,” Clockwork hummed.

Danny narrowed his eyes. “Are you… going to give me a better answer than that?”

“No.”

“Enigmatic bastard.”

“If either of us is a bastard, young Prince, it would be you.”

“You cheeky-!”

TAGLIST: @mynameisnotlaura @fisticuffsatapplebees @screamingtofillthevoid @lizisipancardo @digitizedworld @dahliasandrosemary

NEXT CHAPTER: ==>

[omegasmileyface]

The Forest, the Trees, the Fire I: CATALYST

Chapter 4

second chapter in a row to more than double the word count lets goooo. this one is the longest by far! feel free to take a break in the middle. also, it's my personal proudest! :3 Authors: myself, @attackradish, @ectolemonades. Artist: @/crunchysart

For the full characters list, word count, content warning, and a directory to all the currently available chapters and related content, see the Table of Contents!

full summary: The world outside of Amity Park has learned about the existence of ghosts, and the time for first impressions has arrived. The delicate public consciousness could be disrupted by the slightest ripple. Danny Fenton is being ripped apart from all sides, and when he finally breaks, the ripples will be very big indeed.

warnings: mind control/physical forcing, descriptions of pain, intense bad-faith arguing

words: 7587

AO3 link

first chapter

previous chapter

next chapter

===

November 8, 2006

Y'know, so much of Danny's big routine of "daily life" had changed, you'd think the smaller things would change too. But through all the turmoil— in Amity, in the Zone, in his own head— here he still was. Opening his front door after walking home from school, dreading whatever weapons and conversations lay beyond it.

He supposed, if he really cared that much, he could just fly up to his bedroom and hope his parents didn't notice.

And, wow! There they were, in the living room. No avoiding these pleasantries. If he vanished now, they'd just shoot at the open door anyway.

"Hi, guys."

"Hi, Sweetie! Here, come sit down and watch this news story with us."

Ooh, and a fate worse than death too! He'd know.

"Sorry, I've got a lot of make-up work—"

"Oh, some things are more important than homework!" His dad scooted over and patted the place where he had been sitting. Why? Why didn't he just leave the space that was open before? His dad was inscrutable. "I think you're gonna like this."

Danny listened to the little voice in his head that hated him and glanced at the TV.

It was an interview with Director Stewarts from the GIW. He seemed to be explaining the fight to get new passive ectofatal technology approved for public spaces. A man with a well-tailored suit in just the wrong shade of blue to match his eyes sat across a desk from him, nodding along and smiling like they were talking about a new library program.

They thought he'd like this. The thought froze him, his body torn between straight-up pouncing on the TV and shutting down completely. He paused to make sure they were done with the thought. Nothing? No well, we at least thought you'd like updates, sweetie? No well, not this, the documentary about comets that's on next? Not even a brief chuckle from his mom for his dad's blatant obliviousness?

Just silence. Enraptured silence. Pleased silence, even.

Danny took stock of himself before he responded. Held perfectly still until he was sure all his rage was moved out of his tense fists and glowing eyes and back into the little hole inside himself where he usually shoved it. Maneuvered his smile out of "betrayed lover who felt the stab before thinking to be sad about it" and into "obedient church kid". Put those secret identity acting skills to use. He refused to open his mouth before his body was loose and innocent on the outside.

"I thought you guys hated the GIW?"

"Eh," said his dad. Helpful as always.

"They tend to bury everything they do in bureaucracy," elaborated his mom, "and care about the science last, money first. But, intentions be damned, they're working on some incredible new ways to keep the people of this town safe."

"Really," said Stewarts on the TV, "it's a matter of doing what we need to. The current regulations aren't made with that in mind, but we're doing what we can, despite the misunderstanding from lawmakers. Publicizing our new research is a big part of that."

Danny took a breath. "Personally—" ah shit, some of his tightness came across with that one. Loosen up, D-Man. "I don't feel safer knowing that there are people who want to put untested radiation emitters in my school."

His parents turned to look at him. They weren't nearly as good at hiding their anger.

Fuck.

===

"Stop!" There were tears in Danny's eyes. It was all he could do to keep from Wailing. "I don't want to talk about this anymore." He ran into his room like a wild animal before he could hear any complaints. There were no restraints that kept a ghost down quite like social convention.

The argument had been no different from every other argument they'd had on the subject the last few months. Lightning-paced switching between heated discussions of ectology (in which both parties clearly had irreparably different understandings of fundamental facts) and direct war on Danny's track record as a "bad kid". Two "we studied this, honey"s versus one "and you don't even care about graduating high school". Danny wasn't strong enough to pull out the child neglect allegations. At that point, he may as well tell them why he thought of himself as such an expert, about the death trap in their basement, but even this endless conversational circle of unstoppable forces and immovable objects was better than that. He knew he didn't have it in him.

He didn't know, though, why he hadn't thought to just leave before now. Damn this family and their cleverness— none of them knew how to just take their losses and shut the hell up. Even Jazz, when she was here, only ended arguments by shouting her psychiatric advice the loudest.

Maybe Jazz would know what to do. She put up with being the only bearer of emotional responsibility in the household for years, maybe she'd have pointers now that it was his job. He fumbled for his shitty $20 flip phone to call her. 

He must have been more desperate than he thought, because he somehow reached into the phone to summon her number without giving it any thought. He laughed at himself and his core while it rang. Too lazy to scroll through my contacts?

"Hey?"

"Jazz! Hi. Um, how are you?"

"I'm ok, I'm just getting back from dinner. What's up?"

"Oh, well…" see, now he was starting to have second thoughts about bothering her with this. But she could probably hear how upset he was through the phone, so there was no stopping now. "I got in another argument with Mom and Dad."

She exhaled sympathetically. "About ghost stuff again?"

Danny scoffed. "What else would they be willing to talk about for that long?"

Jazz didn't respond. He sighed. "I really just need to cool off for a bit. But do you have any ideas on how I can keep from just getting in the same conversations again and again and just making it worse?"

"Well, you should probably just refuse to talk about it, if you just don't want to waste your time. But if there's any chance they'll listen, it'll be because you let them know that your info comes from a good source. Assuming they agree, that is."

Danny scoffed. "So, what? Tell them I've been hanging out with ghosts and taking their word for things? Yeah, they'll love that."

"No!" Danny could practically hear Jazz roll her eyes. "If you want to get anywhere, you'd have to tell them that you're learning these things firsthand. Let them know about… the accident. You don't even have to tell them about Phantom."

All the passion left Danny. "…I can't do that."

"Danny. You know they won't really hurt you, at least not if you leave the Phantom part out. And the fighting. I know you can be cautious about what you tell them, you're good at—"

"It's not that! I mean, I'm not convinced they wouldn't do something drastic with the way they've been talking lately, but even without that… I mean, imagine having one of your kids away from home, and the other is so disconnected from you and honestly kind of being a fuckup—"

"Danny—"

"—and then you find out that he's been a ghost for two and a half years? And you think that ghosts can't, like… experience emotions or love or anything? That would hurt them so bad. Assuming it doesn't drive them away completely, they would hate me for telling them. Fuck, they could magically end up not caring at all, and I would hate myself for making them hear that. They might suck, Jazz, but I love them."

"I understand that—"

"I don't want to hurt someone I love, Jazz." The tears on Danny's face had dried, but he could feel more behind his eyes.

"I'm really sorry it's like this. …I don't know if this helps or anything, but they're going to get hurt one way or the other."

"I should just be staying out of arguments with them—"

"Look, you asked if there was a way you could keep the same conversations from happening again and again. They're comfortable where they are, and if you want them to stop hurting you and everyone else, they're going to have to stop being comfortable for a little. There's no way everyone can get out of this one unharmed."

Maybe he just wasn't done with all the feelings from earlier, but he really felt like what he was hearing should have been making him sad. He didn't understand why he was just getting angry.

"The pain they're going to feel is just a normal part of living with other people and learning. Maybe they need it."

Danny's breath hitched with a very ugly sound. He felt… offended. Not by his sister, it wasn't by any means her fault, but… by something. Reality. "It's not fair."

"I know. I'm sorry. But, hey, you don't need to listen to me. Just keep it in mind, I guess. Hey, um…"

The phone was silent for a few seconds except for the sound of rustling fabric.

"Sorry, but could you try not to call me unless you really need to for a while? Things are getting sort of stressful here and as much as I like talking to you, I'm a little worried about, like, disrupting my schedule. N-not that you shouldn't call! But, I guess… try to hold off, if it's not a hassle? I'll try to call more often when I have the time. Sorry… Okay?"

Oh.

His calls were disrupting her life.

For a moment, yet another angry thought flew through Danny's head. Did he not deserve to call her? She always wanted to be up in his business at home, and she could still call, but he couldn't? She was the only one who got to decide when they talked?

The thought extinguished itself before he could dwell on it. All he knew was that one more of his outlets, his comforts, his friends was off-limits at the moment.

"Got it. I'll try. Thanks for talking to me."

Danny hung up and went to spend the rest of his night in the Ghost Zone. He didn't go to school the next day.

===

November 13, 2006

"Thank you for the opportunity to meet, Mr. Masters."

"Of course." Vlad set four mugs of coffee— with coasters— at roughly opposing seats of his dining table. He was getting a hang of this "unspoken social code" thing; in business, official meetings happened in the office, and the "personal" meetings where agreements were actually devised happened at restaurants. But in politics, though the official meetings still stuck to the civic buildings, the "personal" meetings were held in the home. In mayorship, at least. Perhaps it was different for higher up positions.

Others may have found the vulnerability of showing their own home to their peers upsetting. Vlad was always happy for a chance to look like he was being open without having to actually do so. The lab stayed sealed off, the offices only held documents that looked important, and even Maddie was taking a nap behind a locked door.

As far as he was aware, pitting three members of an interested party against one politician in their own home was bad form. The Garrison Irving Walker Commission were lucky that he was a match for them, and wouldn't need to speak about this elsewhere.

"We wanted to talk about the measures the city of Amity Park takes to keep its citizens safe in the face of high numbers of ghosts," said the leftmost agent, Robert something.

Vlad nodded because it was nicer than saying oh, really? I had thought you were here to talk about the quality of fishing spots in town.

"I do hope that you've all found the ghost alarm system and robust self-defense supply chain in town satisfactory, as well as our thorough emergency protocols and permit approval rates."

The center agent, David whatever, gave a polite smile. Vlad didn't even have to look behind the sunglasses to see that it didn't reach his eyes. "It's incredibly refreshing to find a place with so many well thought-out plans. But we were curious as to why the town hasn't implemented any new measures in the last few years."

"And," said the agent on the right, Rosalyn what's-her-name, "there is a large opening for preventative and passive anti-ghost measures in the town's infrastructure, especially given the constant return of the Phantom. That's much of what we wanted to talk through, since we have some ideas that can be looked through and altered."

Lovely! Ideas. They spent the next hour talking through the list, during which Vlad had to stay on his toes figuring out what he could and couldn't say was "worth thinking about". A live-updating webpage reporting ghost sightings in the town? Ooh, strong idea, David, he'd have to consider that! A high-frequency ectoenergy emitter that would annoy ghosts into leaving? Great start, Rosalyn, but that might need some more testing before the people in town would agree to it. These people were so dedicated, so convinced that they needed to put as much attention and care into Amity Park as possible, that he considered overshadowing them briefly, just enough to spark a little disinterest in his town. But they had a lot of protective equipment hidden on their persons. It wouldn't be worth the risk.

Not that he couldn't respect seeing an opening and trying to worm into it, it was exactly what he had done when he'd discovered the town, but the damned Guys in White had no idea what iceberg they were scraping against. If they knew, perhaps they'd just leave it to him and go about their days.

They left with a reminder that they'd be talking official proposals in City Hall next week— yes, Robert, I wouldn't forget it for the world— and a confident assertion that Amity Park and the GIW would be of great help to one another.

It was assertions like that that left Vlad wondering if they'd forgotten that he owned Axion Labs, the only current public retailer of ectotechnology. And that he funded practically all of the town's battle repairs. And that he was a significant donor to the GIW.

Little Maddie was impatient enough when he ushered the agents out and unlocked her door. She ran to the couch to bat at a toy she had left under it and ignored Vlad when he pet her.

He sighed. "For people seemingly so concerned with this town, they don't seem to have any respect for what the people in it want." He thought for a moment. "Oh, what do I care? I should be figuring out how to play this when we meet next week. Do you think…"

His thoughts drifted to Daniel like usual. Vlad's plan to become King had been invalidated last winter, when word had spread through the Infinite Realms like ink through water that Danny Phantom had been established as the Crown Prince. The Crown of Fire had disappeared from the safe in his lab without a trace. Though the boy hadn't been actually crowned, even the announcement that he would be was a simple truth, a fact that couldn't be disputed or undermined. At this point, if Vlad wanted the High Throne, he'd either need to defeat Daniel in an official duel, kill Daniel and be chosen as the inheritor, or get Daniel to give it up willingly.

The options were not ideal. Vlad had a reputation in the Zone, yes, but he didn't exactly have friends. Employees, business partners, and people in his debt, yes, but staggeringly few people who liked him. Daniel had been more than holding his own in unexpected fights recently, so Vlad didn't want to test his luck in a duel where the boy had time to prepare. Time to gather the support of all those ghosts who tolerated him better than Vlad. He couldn't ignore the likelihood that he would lose, and then… well, more than likely he wouldn't even be let close to the topic of the Monarchy again. It would be his last chance.

As for option B, Vlad had to put killing Daniel off the table for good. While his ultimate goal was the Throne, he wouldn't like to have to make himself alone again to get there. And if the boy did die in the meantime, Vlad had no illusions that any council that could be assembled would choose him as the replacement. See the, uh, "no friends" thing.

And option C… Daniel didn't like him. This was just something Vlad had to come to terms with. Despite his best efforts, the boy was too stubborn to let himself land on any of their common ground. But…

He looked back to the notes he had taken when the GIW agents were over. There were a lot of things in those notes that would disrupt Vlad's life, but even more that would make Daniel's that much harder. Some of those things would have them both toasted for good, but some would only push a little… if new GIW regulations went through, Daniel would have more stress going about his daily life, more trouble keeping up his relationships, more pressure to do something about it as King… he wouldn't know how to deal with it. He didn't have any experience with politics. But Vlad did. There Vlad would be, trying his absolute best to keep the GIW in check. But, alas, there's only so much he can do without the power of an official political position and the threat of the Infinite Realms behind him…

"Yes," Vlad said to Maddie, who had fallen asleep again. "I think I can work with this after all."

===

November 16, 2006

Danny had been shocked, last year, at how many of his allies were willing to spend time with him to help him prepare for the Crown. People he still regularly fought with had offered advice (though he didn't expect many of them would have anything useful to say, the sentiment was incredible). People he thought hated him had told him to at least ask if he needed help— Walker had handed him a business card with his preferred hours on it. Most surprisingly, actual political leaders had opened their arms readily to help Danny. Dora, Frostbite, Pandora… even Clockwork had been seeing Danny for their odd brand of "lessons" until recently. Sure, he didn't talk to them much about casual things because they all had him hard at work studying to bear responsibility or whatever, but nobody was as shocked as Danny that such a network had opened to him.

Today, since he was already running away from his problems in the living world, Danny had seen if Pandora was up for a chat. They were sitting under a golden tree behind her palace. The meetings had started more formal, but they had both gotten tired of it with time. Danny had been trying to ignore his problems in the living world by reviewing ethical and strategic lessons, but his thoughts drifted back, and here they were.

"…and now they've started moving more of their people to be based in Amity, so they can put even more, quote, 'defenses' into place where the most ghosts are."

"And these defenses haven't been approved for the wider state yet?"

"No. Not Illinois and not America. They're working on that, but it looks like they're trying to set a standard in Amity before they can even get started everywhere else."

"A good observation, Danny! I agree, it sounds as if the GIW are trying to use your city as a proof that their techniques would work on a larger scale. Like some sort of laboratory test."

Danny choked. "So, do… do you really think they're trying to escalate, still?"

"My little poplar, you already know the answer to that. The question is, what are they escalating toward?"

Danny swallowed. "They tried once to destroy the entirety of the Infinite Realms. Looking back, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have worked, but they wanted it so badly. They might still think that's what they need to do. And even if they don't… some of my friends are missing. Wulf and Poindexter. And they keep coming out with new studies on ghosts. The GIW, I mean. I think they're kidnapping ghosts to experiment on them. I don't expect them to stop doing that."

Pandora hummed. "Those are both acts of war. Do you have any plans to respond to acts of war?"

Danny looked away. He really, really didn't want to think about things like that. But this was real, and there was no avoiding it.

Pandora waited for his answer. Eventually, he admitted, "I would like to let them know our perspective first, if there's any chance it would work."

Pandora nodded. "As Haides Polyxenos, you have the power of the Ghost Army behind you, both literally and socially. This creates an actionable threat against any army of humans, which gives you negotiating power. Even non-threats are backed up with the knowledge that, should it come down to sheer military power, you would be the de facto victor."

That was not what Danny meant. He felt that opening with "oh, and by the way, we could destroy you if we wanted, so, like, keep that in mind" was a terrible start for a peace discussion.

"Regardless of that, I respect your devotion to seeing if there is a peaceful option first. The blow to our people would not be insignificant, even with a guaranteed victory."

Danny played with the teal grass.

"…And I know that humanity means a lot to you. Even if they weren't your kin, you would have respect for them as another group that doesn't deserve war."

Danny nodded.

"All that considered, I think your idea to establish your people's perspective before doing anything else was very wise! If you research who you would need to contact and the etiquette behind doing so next time you are among the living, you could come back here and we could work on a script for your meeting them."

He smiled. "That sounds really nice, Pandora, thank you. Do you mind if I invite Frostbite? I think he'll add another good perspective to the mix."

Pandora stood up with a triumphant grin. "That is an excellent idea, Danny! Now, let's get you doing something with your body. Your archery still needs some work."

Danny groaned, but stood up too. Thoughts of his next step were already running through his mind.

===

November 21, 2006

"Mr. Masters, you've had some experience with ectology as a study, yes?"

Vlad had to force the smile when he replied, "yes."

The meeting at City Hall was stuffy, crowded, and— now, you'll want to be sitting down for this shock— boring. He had already fought through dozens of statements regarding technology that would disrupt Vlad's own connections, research projects that would bring humans far too close to true knowledge of ghosts, and legislative moves that took "guilty until proven innocent" to a degree even he balked at. He had made moves that would shift Daniel toward his arms, but not nearly as many as he would have liked. He was far more concerned at the moment with keeping the balance between his image and his safety.

He hadn't even realized that they had drawn up information on his past. Hmm.

"I looked into the field during my time in college. I enjoyed that time, but, eventually… I decided to leave to pursue business management." Close enough, yeah?

"We think you should see the interest behind our favorite project, then…" Rosalyn ("Dr. Ducharm", now) pressed a key on the keyboard wired to the computer at the front of the room. The projected slide on the wall changed to a 3-dimensional model of a square, concrete building with an impressive parking lot. It looked strangely like a larger version of the Axion Labs unit in town, except for a two-story glass dome on the north side of the roof. Painted next to the front entrance was "GIW" in massive white letters and the organization's circular seal.

"We would like to start a new operation in Amity Park, where we can employ ectologists from in and out of town to take advantage of the city's unique relationship with the Ghost Zone. We would have this building constructed as a base, and from there we could employ the talents of dozens of kinds of laboratory and non-laboratory workers, in an organized effort toward a safer future."

Now Vlad was trapped. There was that key word; employ. An operation of this size would spur Amity's construction and infrastructure sectors with something different than the usual repair jobs, and then it would employ STEM specialists from within the city, and then it would draw in dozens or hundreds of workers from the rest of the country, pulling outside money in. The city council would never pass it up. If they propagandized it well enough, the voters wouldn't, either. Vlad would look either malevolent or completely idiotic if he didn't express total interest now.

He let his eyes go flat lest they start showing red, and pulled the rest of his face into a plastic grin. "How exciting! Now there is a future."

Yes, a future where Vlad was watched from all angles by ectosignature-reading cameras.

Oh, well. Construction was an infamously slow process. He would have time.

===

November 28, 2006

…IN SUCH A SITUATION, OF COURSE, YOU WOULD HAVE TO BRING FORWARD ANY GHOST YOU WOULD EXPECT TO HAVE INFORMATION ON THE EVENT. SHOULD THEY WITHHOLD IT, YOU—

Danny's phone chirped. Oh, thank God. There were only a few spots in the Realms where he got a cell connection (do not ask him how that worked), and he would take a late text over the bossy, traditionalist, very-poorly-hiding-their-hatred-for-him Observants any day.

He held up a hand directly in front of the indignant eye of the floating robe closest to him. Hilarious as usual. "One sec, guys."

He tuned out the sound of spectral sputtering as he looked through text previews.

Sam: (11:25) call when u get… Sam: (11:22) if u don't show… Tucker: (11:10) Read pls. Import… (10:54) Sam: what are you up… Tucker: (9:43) Missed you in ch…

So on and so forth for the last couple days. Nothing Danny wanted to see until he was ready to deal with that. He would handle it all at once, cleanly and nicely, when he went back home. There was too much in his brain for now.

He should probably glance at that "important" message before he lost service, though. He trusted Tucker's judgement on whether something was an emergency.

Tucker: (11:10) Read pls. Important. I get youre out for a reason but your parents have asked me where you are. I had to tell them I didnt know. Sorry. Theyll probably start getting serious about looking soon

Oh, crap. His parents had noticed he was gone. Four days must have been too much for them. He didn't know what to tell them he had been up to this time… or what to say next time he disappeared.

Whatever. That was future Danny trouble. He'd deal with that when he went home, and he'd go home after these eyeballs finished up with him.

He put his phone away and stopped tuning them out.

—AND WHATEVER MORTAL IS CONTACTING YOU AT A TIME LIKE THIS CAN WAIT UNTIL—

"Sorry 'bout that. Continue with the whole… 'inappropriate relations' thing?"

The Observants looked like they were each going to pop a giant blood vessel, but they switched tirades without complaint.

===

December 1, 2006

Vlad was in his study, admiring a knitting pattern on his laptop, when Valerie Gray knocked on his window. Quietly, he wondered why she bothered climbing through a window in her suit when she could have just shown up at his door in civilian clothes and saved them both the suspicion, but he let her in anyway.

"Miss Gray! Please, can I get you anything? It's chilly out there."

"Thank you, Mr. Masters! No, I just wanted to stop by."

Internally, Vlad rolled his eyes. "Stopping by" was for afternoons in his office, or emailing him beforehand, or civilian clothes at the very least. Still, Valerie Gray was a smart girl, and had a tendency toward making herself small when she wasn't trying to do the exact opposite. She likely had a real problem, and was just being demure about it.

"Well, sit down! Let's go into the living room. We're the only ones here, so no need to worry about your suit showing or anything." They started moving down the hall. "Speaking of which! How has it been faring? Anything new recently?" He had, as "the Wisconsin Ghost", tussled lightly with her for appearance's sake a few weeks back, and he saw that her suit was acting oddly up close. He had already done his own studies on it and determined that it was somehow sentient, or something to that effect, and much more ghostly than he had originally designed it. Lasting effects, he supposed, of a time that she got tied up with Technus two years ago. She still hadn't told him about it. Bold.

Regardless, he wasn't too worried. Let the girl become more ghostly. As long as she was putting that isolative pressure on Daniel, as long as she was giving Vlad that in on the human ghost hunting world, what did he care? But she really should be telling her innocent, human benefactor about these things. Imagine if he really did have her best interests in mind? She was as reckless as usual.

"Nope! Working just perfectly! I hope I've been doing my job well enough."

Vlad poured some coffee for both of them— he hadn't been lying about the cold night. "You absolutely have. You are, perhaps, the town's best defense against ghostly attacks."

When he handed Valerie her mug, she casually set it down without taking a drink. He admired her caution.

"Thank you! Seriously. But, Mr. Masters, that's sort of what I wanted to talk about. I've been trying to keep up on changes the Guys— sorry— the GIW have been trying to make here in Amity and Elmerton. I really like how they're trying to keep us stronger in the face of violent ghost attacks. But some of the things they want to try out here kinda make me think they're looking at us like a… like an experiment, more than people. People with lives, who are hurt by ghosts, yeah, but that doesn't mean we can't be hurt by other things, you know?"

Ah. Vlad took a sip of his coffee. She wanted to put her word into this game, too? Figured she could get a little opinion in because she had business relations with the mayor? To Vlad, it was yet another force wanting him pulled a certain way. Luckily, he didn't need Valerie Gray's approval, not like he needed the trust of the GIW and Daniel. It was good to have her trusting him, yes, but she was low on his list of priorities. He let her keep talking.

"I just wanted to say, I know you're doing all you can to work with them for the best for the people in town. And… I trust you to make sure that they're not putting ghost defense above respecting the humans. I think you're a good mayor, Mr. Masters. Thank you for what you're doing."

Vlad was shocked. He was glad Valerie wasn't looking at him, because he couldn't keep it off his face for a second. She was sixteen and openly armed with the best in human-ghost weaponry, but she looked absolutely tiny, hunched over and entrusting him with keeping her and the people she loved safe.

Normally, Vlad liked to see people so vulnerable to him, but there was something off-putting about his strongest pawn, this teenager so full of rage and determination that it took only the slightest push to turn her into a living declaration of war, being so honest about her weakness. If there was anyone Vlad expected to be blinded into following the GIW from sheer hatred of ghosts, besides perhaps the Fentons, it would be her.

The look on her face was one he had seen on Danielle a few times before she had disappeared, when she thought he loved her. It wasn't begging. No, Valerie Gray expected him to pull through on these anti-ghost regulations for her, just because she thought he was a good enough person. She was thanking him for something he hadn't done yet.

She trusted him to handle this with grace. And he realized now, with the Red Huntress depowered and sitting on his formal living room couch, that he didn't.

===

December 4, 2006

People had been coming up to Danny when he was around the Ghost Zone. Really, he should have been expecting it, but he was sort of taken aback every time. Your average ghost knew that he was the Prince, and even before that he had enough of a reputation that sometimes they would approach him to ask for help on whatever superhero comic plot had come into their lives recently, but… really, shouldn't there be other options? Walker couldn't have been the only one upholding "laws". Johnny wasn't the only one going on adventures in the living world when necessary. There were other ghosts who handled this sort of thing. Why seek out some half-human two-year-old?

Especially when he couldn't even do what they wanted. At least thirteen ghosts had approached him in the past few weeks to report friends and fright members that had gone to the living realm for one reason or another and never come back. Captured by the Guys in White, shoved in some lab, and… who knows what, after that.

He had tried a few times. Logically, he should have a pretty good shot at getting in and out. Yes, they were looking for his ectosignature in particular, but he was human. He was skilled at hiding it. And he had links in the human world, ways to hide in plain sight, and a hacker friend for whom he was eternally grateful.

The first time, he had gotten the poor ghost out intact. The second time, he even got some hapless animal ghosts and blobs out too. After that, things got harder. Security got tighter, bases got put in stranger places, employees became even more ruthless at the sight of Phantom.

It hurt Danny inside every time he thought about it, but there just wasn't anything he could think to do without getting himself killed, and that wouldn't help anyone in the long run. The experimentation was legal, even on the more humanoid ghosts as far as Danny could tell. He couldn't physically attack the facilities if he wasn't sure nobody would die, and even then the newer defenses had a nasty effect of sometimes turning his own energy around on him.

And now, as he found himself surrounded by the desperate children and friends of a wolf-woman ghost who had been taken away while visiting relatives in the living world, that was what he tried to tell them. But he felt sorry at his own excuses, and he wanted more than anything to be able to do better for the people relying on him, and he saw in their eyes that they did, too, and Danny felt something in the air that said that everyone else did, too, and then—

He blacked out.

===

When Danny woke, he was sitting on a marble chair in a room where the floor was black tile and the walls glowed blue. Anything beyond that was blurry. Right in front of his face was familiar blue and red, and for a moment he worried that he had passed out in front of Plasmius before he noticed the scar.

He just had time to realize this was his first time seeing Clockwork since summer before his head was filled with pain.

It was terrible, and bone-deep, and from his mind as much as his flesh, but it did something to wake him up, too. Danny could see now that the far end of the long room held several ghosts, most of whom he had been studying under. He could see that the glowing on the walls was from tall stained glass windows in every color between ectoplasm green and ocean blue.

He could see that his marble chair was on a dais, and that Clockwork was looking at him with pity. It was an unfamiliar look on them.

Oh, Danny thought as the important people and the important room sunk in between throbs of pain. I am absolutely screwed.

Clockwork squeezed Danny's shoulder. The pain didn't go away, which he thought was incredibly rude since he knew they had some healing power. They turned around and said to the room, Daniel Phantom is here, and he will be King.

Fuck. Fuck. This wasn't supposed to happen yet. This was the coronation, and it wasn't supposed to be like this. He knew it was pretty different from European coronations, but there was supposed to be some kind of party involved, at least. Some kind of tedious ceremony, and it would be stressful and awfully final but it would be happy for a bit. There would be weeks of preparation and months of warning and everyone had told him it wouldn't happen until he was ready.

But here Danny was, on a throne in his own damn color scheme that Fate and Sam had chosen for him, alone except for a few ghosts who were very much not having a good time, in more pain than he'd felt at once since he died, and perhaps the least ready it was possible to be. He was a sixteen year old who was failing every class and avoided talking to his own parents.

He didn't want to see any of this. He tried to close his eyes, but the pain echoed somewhere in the back of his head and the back of his core and his eyes opened and his vision cleared. He couldn't move his eyes or his thoughts away when Pandora walked to the spot Clockwork had left. She opened a lapis lazuli box, and inside was the Ring of Rage, smaller than ever on its own in there. The last time Danny had seen the Ring, it had been locked in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.

She put it on the middle finger of his left hand, and he knew that if his unfading Lichtenberg figures were visible, they would start right where the ring sat. It shrunk and simplified. A band of white, a band of black, a pointed gem of the same blues and greens as the windows.

The pain spread below Danny's neck, to the rest of his body. Whatever kept his eyes clear kept him from doubling over and screaming, too. He didn't have it in him to fight.

Pandora stepped back, and Frostbite walked forward with the Crown of Fire. He didn't place it on Danny's head, he just set it in his hands and wiped a tear off of Danny's cheek.

It was Clockwork who came forward again and lifted the Crown onto his head. It electrified his skin where it touched. Hadn't Pariah Dark's crown floated? Why was Danny's sitting on him, feeling like it was about to topple but refusing to fall, burning a halo onto his scalp?

Why was any of this happening?

Danny was distracted from the pain when that place in the back of his core struck a chord like a symphonic bell and first the Crown, then the Ring, then everything else oh God every drop of ectoplasm in the deep ocean around him every space hidden between every other space the entire seam between this place and the other resonated with it. One massive echo, one frequency carried to infinity in an instant, and that which was within was without, just the same.

May his reign be perfect, said Clockwork from out of sight.

Danny was on the floor. Son of a bitch! The pain ran through him one more time with emphasis before disappearing.

Some of the attendees— Observants, mostly— left without another word. Some, those Danny had started thinking of sort of like family recently, came and tried to help him stand.

It was a struggle to get to his feet, but once he was there, he couldn't help but notice that Clockwork was gone.

"Alright, Danny," Frostbite said. Heh, that might have been the first time he'd used his real name. "Let's get you some sleep, and then we can have a chat about your new powers before you go home."

Danny made himself smile from where he was collapsed over the yeti's arm. "Do I get cake now?"

"Sure," said Frostbite, comforting as any good doctor. "You can have all the cake you want."

Danny laughed weakly. "Some party this was."

(And when word hit them that a small team of yetis had shown up at a grocery store in Amity Park to buy a premade cake with real money, Sam and Tucker decided to keep it to themselves.)

===

December 11, 2006

"No," Vlad hissed when he read the paper Dr. Robert Eldridge handed him across his dining room table.

"What's the issue? I'm happy with the progress we've been making here, and this is the only logical next step."

"It's too invasive. People will never trust a group that measures their ectoplasmic exposure every time they go out in public."

"Their daily lives won't be disrupted because it's passive once installed. Not intrusive at all," said Dr. David Reyes, who had a hidden camera in one of his shirt buttons.

"It doesn't matter, the knowledge that they're having statistics about them being read out to some other body at all times will be too much. H— people hate that sort of thing."

"It's all about awareness," said Dr. Rosalyn Duchart, who had never been in an ecto lab environment in her life. "Most people will be okay with their ectoplasmic levels being measured, because they'll be low anyway. Nothing to hide. It'll only upset those who would be spotted. Disguised ghosts, long-term overshadowings, hauntings and whatnot."

"I'm not so sure about that." Vlad's hand tightened around his mug. "People don't take so kindly to the idea that they might be hiding something. I've certainly never enjoyed being watched."

Maybe, if he had paid a little more attention, he would have found he didn't enjoy the way he was being watched in that moment either.

===

Voicemail from… (708) 112-4816 on… December 13 at… 4:19 PM. [Beep!]

Hey, Danny. It's Val. Um… I haven't seen you in a few weeks. Well, okay, I've seen you around town and at Nasty Burger once in a while, but we haven't talked. You know what I mean. Haha. So, I guess, if you're not at school, and you're not with your friends— uh, I asked them, sorry— where are you?

…You don't have to tell me, of course. It's probably none of my business. Unless it is, haha! Um. But yeah! I guess I just wanted to let you know that… I'm thinking about you! And I hope you're okay! And if there's anything you want to talk about with me, you can. I, uh, I even have homework you can copy if you want to get back on track with missed school.

Hey, call me sometime! I haven't had a chance to tell you about this dumb movie my dad and I watched last week. It was this 3-D animated Christmas movie? Yeah, it's as weird as it sounds, hehe. But that's all I'm telling you now! If you want the rest of the details you're gonna have to crawl out and talk to me.

Have a good day, okay? 'Kay. 

…End of message.

===

December 15, 2006

[A1 - BREAKING NEWS]

LANCE: GOOD EVENING EVERYONE.

I’M LANCE THUNDER –

TIFFANY: – AND I’M TIFFANY SNOW.

THIS IS AMITY PARK 8 AT 5.

TONIGHT’S BREAKING NEWS, A LEAKED GARRISON IRVING WALKER COMMISSION RESEARCH PAPER ALLEGES MAYOR VLAD MASTERS IS ACTUALLY A GHOST.

[VO]

[B-ROLL: STILL OF COVER PAGE]

LANCE: PAMELA DEH-LEE-UN, AARON HAMPTON AND DAVID RYE-EZ, LONG-TIME RESEARCHERS WITH THE GIW, WROTE THE PAPER.

TIFFANY: HAMPTON DEVELOPED SUSPICIONS ABOUT MASTERS SHORTLY AFTER THE GIW BEGAN WORKING WITH HIM ON PUBLIC ANTI-GHOST MEASURES.

THE TEAM STANDS BY THE RESEARCH, THOUGH THE PAPER WAS UNFINISHED AND STILL IN REVIEW AT THE TIME OF THE LEAK.

[A-ROLL: HAMPTON INTERVIEW]

LANCE: THE SOURCE OF THE LEAK HAS NOT BEEN CONFIRMED, BUT THE GIW’S MAIN CONCERN IS THE PUBLIC SEEING THE PAPER BEFORE PEER REVIEW.

WE CURRENTLY HAVE NO COMMENT FROM MASTERS OR CITY COUNCIL, BUT A PRESS CONFERENCE WILL BE HELD AT SIX-THIRTY PM.

TIFFANY: JOIN US AT TEN PM ON THE EVENING SHOW FOR EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE AND A MORE IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE RESEARCH PAPER.

UP NEXT, WE’LL HEAR FROM RESIDENTS ON A STRING OF BREAK-INS DOWNTOWN.

[juria9090]

Danny Phantom but make it murder mystery + supernatural/horror elements

Basically an idea of an au of which Danny Phantom fuses with Detective Conan. Throw both in a pot. Let it simmer for a while. Add some mysteries to the mix, a pinch of family and comfort, a couple of case solvings, a big bowl full off horror and supernatural elements. Mix them together and let it boil for over to dry a bit before adding a whole gallon of angst.

Boy i just got this idea today and i wanna throw it up here because i do not want it to live free rent here in my head.

Alright, let's get this over with.

There will be a lot of changes like the settings and all.

Alright. Here we go. Jack and Maddie Fenton are still scientists BUT! Both of them are morally dubious and sometimes can be a little bit darker than the sunshine vibe and image that they give off. They do not work for anyone and work only for themselves. They are a renown scientists and people's opinions on them diverge from time to time. Some people are wary and afraid of them while others applauded their works as scientists and look up to them.

Their children are geniuses. The public prefers the eldest daughter to look up to but they adore the youngest son. The children are famous in their own field. Jazz is on her way to be the youngest kid in history to ever enter a prestigious university and making a name for it in the psychology course.

Danny is still a fan of the space. Technically, he gain more benefits from his inventors parents because to appease him and not have him bothered them back in the younger days, they created all sort of inventions that can help Danny understand the space. They give him everything that they could with their money and genius brain. However, they are not a good parents. They still love their children but sometimes they forgot their responsibilities and often ignored them in favor of their own job. They put too much pressure on the children it nearly drove them apart.

Jazz have a love hate relationship with her parents. She is the oldest and the toughest daughter. Yes she is hurt by her parents and their decisions to deal with them but she always could brush it off. But when it comes to her baby brother she will literally explode and rage. Danny is miserable. He was happy when his parents give him gifts like books and inventions related to space. He even have his own small ship. But after the presents, his parents would dismissed him and get lost in their own world ignoring everthing in favour of study and science. Danny is Maddie's favourite child but he is often at the end of her dissapointment and rage. Jack always divert it from Danny whenever he is there. Maddie did not cross the line. However, she nearly cross it when she slapped Danny so hard it bruises when he was 10 years old. That day forever scar in Danny's brain. It happened because of an incident with a precious research paper.

Maddie felt guilty and tried to apologize by giving him more gifts. Jazz doesn't trust her mother around Danny anymore. Jack, ... He ignored everything and decided that nothing ever happened.

Jazz is five years older than Danny. She was 19 years old when her brother Danny, 14 years old goes missing. Her parents went into hiding a week before his dissappearance. She thought that it might be connected. The moment their parents dissappeared, they could not even contact them at all. They were left with money and other things for them to survive.

Her brother was missing for six months with no trace after both of them went to a science expo. Then he suddenly showed all bloody and bruised. He looks haunted. She found him shivering near the Fenton Family main house.

But one major change is that he is now a child. A 5 years old child. She recognized her brother as that child. Of course she would know him. She is his sister. She was the one that mainly raised him in the Fenton Family.

He lied about himself. She thinks that Danny was just trying to protect her. She studied the psychology of humans. Her main subject. She knows the child she dubbed as her Danny did not in fact act much like how a child will. Not even a child that is wise beyond their years.

Danny is oblivious though but she will keep her mouth shut right now. She will wait until he is ready to tell her.

Jazz was afraid for Danny so she let Danny's file be written as a dead file. Cast away to be forgotten for an unknown period. He is officially dead in papers and media. No one knows of the real predicament.

Danny only introduces himself as Niel which is kind of stupid of him even though he was supposed to be a genius child. Really Danny? The name derived from your own real name?

One thing for sure that everything that she knows as something unbelievable and never existed are now flipped over.

Supernatural things are true.

And Danny is the proof of it.

Danny looks so afraid. Those... creatures always goes after her brother and nearly took him away from her. She was afraid for him. The creatures seems enchanted with his presence and will always find a way to whisk him away from her grasp.

She can't see the creatures. But she knows that they are there. Too much evidence in front of her eyes shows that in fact the supernatural exists.

She once saw one of those creatures. It was when Danny was being carried by her. It's kind of weird. Usually when she was carrying him around, she did not see them. But she only sees it for a brief moment.

So she studied more about the supernatural things. She needs to have all of the subjects about the the supernatural and the other side of reality covered because it is important.

Important to protect her brother against the unknown.

Danny, to simply say it, could contact the dead and have the ability that is ... supernatural. Like a medium or liminal. And it effects him greatly. It not only effects his health but his lifestyle. His life. She tried to keep him safe.

Then she met these teenagers who seems taken with Danny. Well, not really teenagers. Only 13 years old boy and girl. It seems Danny have them in his tiny grasps..good. He needs friends and all the supports he could get.

Tucker Foley and Sam Manson are average teenagers at best. They are not in fact, friends. Just acquaintance at best. They always clash with each other. Sam and Tucker's fight rivals the fight between Paulina and Sam.

They always argue with each other and only in an agreement rarely. Danny acts like some sort of glue. Sam wants to see who the child that was adopted by the famous Fenton daughter. She dragged Tucker because he knows the place and has seen the kid.

Niel (Danny) takes her interest because he is something different. A concept she can't grasp. Bonus is that he is involved in something supernatural. Tucker did not like how she is around Niel. He loves Niel but goodness he will be around often with Niel when Sam is around. She will drag the poor child into something dangerous if she keeps that kind of behaviour and thinking.

Jack Fenton came back from hiding but Maddie Fenton is still missing. Jack looks somber and sad. Almost depressed. He said that he needs time away from his wife. He said both of them need time away from each other.

Almost like both of them are thinking about divorce.

Jack believes Danny's and Jazz's lies and is even more sad to know that his son is missing and possibly dead. Having Niel around causing him grief and heartache but he is never the one to lash out. Jack is still a scientist at heart but he will never repeat his mistakes. He has a chance now.

It does not mean that Jack is not going to stop looking for his son.

Danny's first murder case was when Sam dragged him with her and her parents to a party. Jack and Jazz are invited too. They are famous and the rich people there want famous people.

There they met the Gray duo. They met Damon Gray and Valerie Gray. Valerie is in the same class as Sam and Tucker. Sam and Valerie do not get along at all. Even more so than Sam and Tucker. Tucker and Sam agree that Valerie cannot be anywhere near Danny.

Tucker does like Valerie but as in girls in particular. Tucker does have a standard. Damon Gray is in the Police Force. He is in the investigation team. The detective is Mr Weston. Wes's father. Wes is actually one of the junior detectives learning under his father's teaching. Wes is usually seen hanging around Tucker and sometimes Valerie.

Crime happened and there was a lot of blood. Danny was at the scene having witnessed the murder happened. He can't see the face of the culprit but he knows other things like the culprit voice, height, and body shape.

He is under witness protection. Danny wants to tell them that something is going to happen to the killer. That something is angry. And that more people will end up dead if they did not find the killer quick.

Danny helps Wes and his father find the killer. Wes is suspicious of the Niel kid but oh well. Wes is 13 years old. Wes does know that Niel is hiding something and he will uncover it but he did not want to face the wrath of one Jasmine Elena Fenton.

A spirit is involved in the story between the murderer and the victims. That is the first step Danny is involved in the world of crimes and supernatural mixed in.

[randomhuman45]

Dannymay 2022- Day 17 Promise

Danny remembered the day his mother made her first promise to him. At 8 years old Danny walked up to him Mom pulling on her hazmat suit nervously shaking with tears falling down his face staining his cheeks.

"M-Mommy?" His voice quivered as his eyes stared down at his little pink shoes and frilly socks.

"What's wrong baby?" Maddie dropped down to her knees and lifted his head up to let their eyes meet. "You can tell me sweetie." Her voice was sweet as honey and full of concern as her thumbs tried to wipe away his tears off his cheeks only for them to be replaced.

"I can't have pigtails anymore." He whispered before wrapping his arms around her neck as tears turned into sobs.

"Do you want braids then? Or to have your hair down? What do you want?" Maddie didn't know why her daughter was so upset over pigtails but would support her no matter what.

"No! No, no, no, no, no!" Danny shouted shaking his head into his mother's neck.

"Okay, okay," Maddie said trying to calm her heartbroken child down. "What do you want?"

"I, I want my hair short. And," Danny paused trying to catch his breath and figure out how he wanted to say it, "I don't want dresses, don't wanna be Danielle anymore. Can, can I be Danny with a y? Please?"

"Oh baby!" Maddie grabbed her baby and hugged them as tight as possible without hurting them. "Are, are you saying that you're a boy? Or something else? What, do you need?"

"I-I'm a boy. I think, but I think so. I want to be." Danny stuttered out now nervous and panicking. "Is that okay?"

"Of course baby!" Maddie assured, "I promise no matter what, and I mean that, NO. MATTER. WHAT. I will always love you! I promise!"

"Okay, thank you Mommy! I love you!"

"Of course!"

-----

Danny remembered the first time his father did too. He was trying to hide his growing chest with bandages when his father burst into his room.

"Danny boy! Guess- Oh!" Jack quickly turned around trying to give his son privacy. He full heatedly supported his son and made it a point to make sure his son was treated like a son after he came out.

"Ahh! Dad, umm, uhhh. I, I think I need help." Danny huffed out both embarrassed and completely done with these bandages not working and giving him incredible aches and pains.

"You, you do? Is it like, uhhh, puberty issues? I got sock puppets for that!" Jack piped up like a eager puppy. "Wait right here and I can get the sock puppet box!"

"No! No, no, no, no. I don't need- it not about that. Well, sort of but, no, I don't need the sock puppets!" He stuttered out completely flustered at this point.

"Well, umm, what do you need then son?"

"Umm, well, you see, errr well not see see, but. I'm twelve and my chest is kinda..."

"Oh. Oh! And you don't want or like that?"

"Yeah, so umm I was trying to tape, uhh well use tape to make it not look like, uhhh, that but..."

"It's not working out like you planned?"

"Yeah," Danny sighed out.

"Don't worry son! I may know a thing or two about things not working out on the first try but you know what the best part of being a Fenton man is?" Jack pipped up.

"Ummm, eating fudge?" Danny joked with a smirk.

"Oh that's definitely a part of the gig, but the best part is that when we fail, we get back up and try again! Fenton tech doesn't always work the first round but me and your mom always try again and again to get it working to protect you kiddos!"

"So, what do we do with, uhh," Danny gestured to his now covered chest.

"Well, we can search up some options! See what's out there on that internet to see can help you out!"

"Hey, umm, thanks Dad. You know for, all of this, and umm, helping me out."

"Of course son! I promise just say the word and I'll come to your rescue! I promise I'll always help you, no matter what!"

----------

Maybe Danny should have kept it a secret. Maybe he could have kept it to himself like a secret identity. But his parents promised they would love him no matter what. They promised to always help him no matter what. But when he told them about the portal incident and his ability to turn into weird ghost version of himself, he thought they would love him. He thought they would help him. That's what they promised they would do. No matter what they said. No matter what they promised.

But after begging for them to let him go as he was restrained against a lab table, after crying out for it to stop as their experiments tore him apart, after pleading for food and water he realized that they wouldn't keep their promises. He should have never trusted something as trivial as a promise.

[rainybyday]

Not twin au but more of Danny is the eldest while Danny is the youngest au

Anyways so before Damian was ever introduced to the family there was a problem that Batman found when looking through the JL’s reports only to see three declined “helped needed” by John Constantine who wrote that the place asking for help, Amity Park, is a no go zone. That is by the most simplest and shortest version of that anyways.

Of course after from some talking (yelling) he managed to get in Amity with some ward(s?) to not get ghostly possessed

(also this is around earlier in Danny’s career, so maybe two or three months -ish pass?)

That was when he met Phantom

Phantom, he soon learned, was a boy that died at 14 in a suit that was never supposed to be put on by a child. This child died yet it seems like most of the town hates his very existence. This little ghost boy who shouldn’t have to protect a town who hates him from his own kind but he doesn’t leave because he said it was his home.

Amity Park is the place he died.

(Bats went feral once he found out how recent his death was)

in hindsight, he should have done this before but he finally sat himself down to do research on Phantom, Amity, the hunters, and everything

he found a lot

By the end of three days of research, a internal breakdown as he sat down starring at Danny Fenton’s medical records, and some much needed clarifications from many magic users he made a decision

Phantom was under Batman’s protection

Batman did confronted Danny and after managing to calm him down from a panic attack he stared to explain his intentions. Danny didn’t trust him at first (understandable from the high hostility he was getting from everyone else) but he soon started to open up to the only adult that seem to give a dam about him as both Danny and Phantom

Slowly Batman stared to teach Danny to fight more effectively and in different styles (which weirdly, he found Danny dose know how to fight but doesn’t know how to use his fighting skills correctly). Batman gave him a panic button, communicators, leeway to Gotham, and gave advice to the poor ghost boy

(he did try to lead him away from the vigilante life but knew, that just like his children, he couldn’t do anything that was far to late)

of course, Batman can’t be gone from Gotham forever and he soon had to leave as well. But he made it a point that Danny should communicate with him and keep in touch with him or he will fly va bat plane to make sure he is alright

Two years pass by and the relation with Phantom and Bats has grown. Even if Batman can’t be there all the time for Danny, Bruce made it a point to visit Amity occasionally, write down the reports that Phantom gave him, send him a gift when he mentioned his parents forgot his birthday, comfort him after the events of Dan and helped Danny with Ellie/Dani to find a way to stabblelize her

(of course some events have to stay the same such as how he met Clockwork, Vlad and Dan

also him becoming Ghost King as well

The reaction of those two just finding out that he is the Ghost King is-)

but anyways, relationship that was builded in two years of trust for both Phantom and Batman with both as Danny and Bruce. It’s at the point that Danny knows who is Batman and that Bruce knows Danny enough to look away when one of his kids makes a detour to Amity to met Phantom (there soon to be brother)

(his children like to joke he was just adding another bird into his clan or another bird under his leather wing which he would ignore when he later hold up his caps over Danny)

now to the fun part

at this point Danny is getting a little angsty and weary of his parents on how close they are to finding out about Phantom and Bruce is learning all he can about ghost adoption after things seem to settle down.

then Talia entered the picture

along side with Damian

immediately he gets red flags blaring in his head as soon as he sees Damian. It’s not that he doesn’t trust that Damian is his (he looks far to familiar (but he still needs that dna test)) but it’s the fact that he looks a little to close to Danny.

knowing you have a bio son all these years is devastating when your not there for his first years of his life, but knowing he looks like the child he was planning on adopting a little to much only tips off Bruce’s paranoid brain even more

so he confronts Talia if Damian is his only son she had with him.

she denies ever having another child

She lied, to extent

she did had another child, but said child died before he was born with his remains sunken to the bottom of the Lazarus pit

(she didn’t know that time choose it’s own course)

Bruce wasn’t the only one to see the similarities of Danny and Damian when the rest of the bats met Damian, which brings up the next question

is Danny Bruce’s biological child?

[adding more later]

[kawaiikenna]

My take on @minnesota-fats ‘s post about Danny being Maddie and Bruce’s kid. Here’s the link to the post if you desire.

So I see Danny being super smart, possibly graduating way early in his teens or at least pretty damn close to graduating when his accident happens. And even though Danny is ridiculously smart he’s still the goofy kid we all know and love. He’s also just a lot smarter about his ‘hero identity’. His grades do end up dropping after the accident but not nearly as drastically as they do in cannon. More like his straight A’s turn into B’s the occasional C which is quickly brought up. I also see him with many more detective skills just cause why not. And his mom trained him and Jazz from a young age. It was mostly used for self defense but came in real handy when Danny started fighting ghosts on the daily.

Anyways; being this super smart kiddo in a family of geniuses he helps run the family business. He ends up dealing with all the numbers and financials and the inventory as well as fulfilling orders and such. He would honestly rather study and talk about astrology and the cosmos but he is plenty knowledgeable about ghosts and ecto-biology due to his parents. And being how he is, Danny has a lot more knowledge of the social structure and mythologies of the Zone. He’s probably the one that put together the classification chart that they use when a new kind of ghost appears/is discovered. He and Jazz help organize all of their parents notes so that they’re understandable and not just mad man rantings.

I also like the aspect of the Fenton parents being more scientifically centered and unbiased towards their work. Like they’re still the crazies of the town but not overly so. Their papers and research are fairly sound. Their inventions do work properly and only explode every once in a while. Idk if they know about Phantom but if they did they would be far more considerate and understanding. Like they would code his ecto-signature into all of the security systems so that he would stop getting shot at every time he came home. This would also fix the random inventions activating and targeting him thing.

I think he knows basically his whole life that Jack isn’t his bio dad but that doesn’t really have an effect on him. His parents decided early on that if Danny ever asked why he looked a little different or something along those lines they would tell him the truth. They don’t tell him names until he’s older just because safer concerns. But if anything, it strengthens their relationship because Jack chooses Danny. He chooses to view the boy as his own son and act accordingly. So Danny never really had the motivation to find/figure out who his bio dad was because he had an amazing dad already. Vlad ruins this and Danny tries not to think about how his bio dad is richer than Vlad and has several adopted kids, one of which is his half brother.

So imagine the whole family has been invited to do TED talks on their respective topics. Jack and Maddie talk about the biology aspect, Jazz about the psychology, and Danny about social structures. Now the kicker is that this event is being hosted in Gotham and sponsored by Wayne Tech. Everything is going well, Danny just finished his presentation and the Fenton’s were all heading somewhere (the hotel, to sit in on other presentations, to go get food, whatever suits your fancy) and they bump into Bruce and one or more of his kiddos. The adults talk and Danny is just in the corner sweating because hOLY SHIT THAT’S HIS BIO DAD. HE WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THIS.

Or Jazz and Danny run into a couple of the bat kids. They get along like houses on fire. Danny being the incredibly chaotic gremlin he is while also being ridiculously smart and knowledgeable about seemingly random things and Jazz just being like, ‘daww, my baby bro is making friends.’ And at some point Bruce comes looking for his kiddos only to find that they’ve multiplied somehow. Danny tries to be super subtle but ends up tipping off all of the bats and birds when he scrambles to leave with his sister as soon as he sees the man walking towards them. They look into Danny and the only off thing they can find is that his father isn’t listed on his birth certificate.

Meanwhile, in his hurry; Danny ended up rushing himself and Jazz back to the hotel or even just out of the conference center and into the streets. Not the wisest decision because in record time the two get snatched up by kidnappers. They’re convinced that Danny is one of the Wayne kids, which I mean isn’t entirely wrong, and they end up calling the Wayne estate just as Jack or Maddie is trying to get ahold of their kids. There’s a whole mix up but the Fentons get to their kids first before the bats or police and the whole family just kicks ass. Once everyone has been ‘rescued’ and taken to safety, Bruce comes into the picture. Jack and Maddie greet him warmly and they get talking. Somehow it slips that they had been at that conference all those years ago and dots are connected. Maddie vehemently states that she didn’t want to bother Bruce with Danny because she was afraid of him seeing it as an opportunity for her to extort money from him.

Their conversation goes something like;

“We knew that there was a high possibility that Danny wasn’t Jack’s kid so the only other possibility for that timeframe would be the drunk one night stand I had with you. But just to make sure we had Danny paternity tested shortly after he was born. All it did was solidify that he was definitely not Jack’s. There is a very slim chance that he may not even be yours but we didn’t want to intrude on your life.” Maddie explains, Jack is standing next to her with a soft smile pulling at his lips. “I had heard about the rumors about other women trying to do that exact thing to get to your fortune. I decided I didn’t want to do that.”

“I have never treated Danny as anything other than my own son. So you don’t have to worry about that.” Jack adds as he winds an arm around his wife. “If anything I think I’m pretty attached to Dan-o!”

“But if you would like to get tested to make absolutely certain that Danny is yours we won’t object. If you’d rather not be in his life we also won’t take it badly. But if you’d like to talk to him first we can set something up for tomorrow.” There’s an indecipherable glimmer in the woman’s eyes. Nothing bad, mostly caution and curiosity.

Bruce was blown away at the openness and acceptance that these two showed. He glances over at the raven haired teen that was currently being doted on by an older red headed girl. He could see the resemblance in the boy. It showed in the color of his eyes and the curve of his jaw.

“If you would, I would like that. We could possibly even have our families get together later. I know your two children have met a few of my adoptive children. They seemed to have got along quite well.”

Maddie nods and the small group of adults then start to plan their get together for the following day.

Danny formally meeting his bio-dad’s side of the family is great. They go on a tour of the estate and somehow end up in one of the gyms. This then gets a show off contest started and they’re now sparing with each other. It starts off with Danny challenging Damian and Danny being able to keep up with his little brother. Then it turns into a who-can-beat-Danny contest. The answer is no one. Not a single one of them comes remotely close to winning. Jazz almost beats him but gets taken down at the last minute.

Do they know about Phantom? Eh, they just think that he’s a meta and call it good.

That’s all I’ve got but I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts on this. -w-

[redrobin-detective]

I’ve been thinking about Jack and Maddie Fenton and what caused them to be like that. People don’t become that obsessive out of nowhere. 

Jack mentioned in episode 1 that he was “born in a log cabin in the woods” which tells me that he grew up in an isolated, possibly poor environment. It explains some of his behavior, he would have done a lot of his social development without other people to bounce off of. His exuberance, high energy and lack of social awareness kind of play into a excitable, creative boy in the woods. For all we joke, Jack is a brilliant man and he’d have probably felt restrained by the lack of knowledge, stimulation in the middle of nowhere. Some fics I’ve seen have made the claim that Jack grew up on some kind of farm, he’s got the energy and the work ethic but not the discipline. Clearly the rural, peaceful lifestyle wasn’t suited for him. 

What I can see is a young Jack Fenton, shirking from his chores and responsibilities at home to grab a little .22 rifle and a borrowed neon orange hunting vest and explore the woods, hunting monsters. He is an explorer, a scientist hunting for answers, the hero of his own story. And maybe on one of those deep woods explorations, when he wanders too far from home, too late in the day and he sees something unnatural. Maybe he saw a ghost, maybe he didn’t but when a wildly intelligent and bored child comes up against something they can’t explain, the throw themselves into the answers. He studies the supernatural with a fervor and works harder than he ever has before to earn money to study at university so he can finally answer the questions burning in him.

In Prisoners of Love, we get a glimpse at Maddie’s life through her sister, Alecia. She herself lives completely alone in the middle of nowhere Arkansas. It’s stated that she purposefully moved there to get away from it all but it insinuates that, like Jack, Maddie grew up in a woodsy, rural area. It would explain her independence and confidence roughing it during Maternal Instincts. Like Jack, Maddie is brilliant and driven and a bit quirky as people who grow up kind of isolated end up being. Did she have her own encounter that she couldn’t explain? Was she captivated by the reports of unnatural phenomenon in her remote little town? Maybe she too, like Jack, wanted to explore and study and decided to invest in a field which no one else had proven existed before. Either way, she also packed her bags and set off for university to further her studies.

By coincidence, she meets a tall, broad man with a kind, goofy face who will tell anyone who will listen that ghosts are real. In return, Jack meets a beautiful, powerful woman in mind and body who is determined to prove the unproveable. It was love at first sight and from there on, no one could break up Jack and Madeline. From the moment they laid eyes on each other, there was a bond of understanding between them not only at their mutual interests but of being understood as the weird rural kid with strange ideas. Everyone could see that they were a perfect match except, of course, for Vlad. Vlad, an outsider with a lonely, bitter but relatively normal childhood, couldn’t relate. He played along with his roommates silly ideas because he was captivated by Maddie. His hormones and self-importance blinded him to the obvious chemistry between his two friends.

So they graduate, marry and move to a small midwest town. Amity Park is no New York City but it’s practically a metropolis compared to where Jack and Maddie grew up. Jack himself is eager to adjust to modern life, more than happy to forget being a child lonely, bored and restless in the quiet woods. Maddie though keeps that independent edge and ferocity that led her to the love of her life and research that never grows old. They have a daughter and son and raise them with simple luxuries they never had growing up. It causes a separation, parents and children simply unable to connect because of vastly different upbringings. The Fentons foster love, opportunities and an invitation to be themselves which they both missed as children. Jazz and Danny could do with a bit more normalcy. 

When the ghost portal is active and their theories stop being scribbles on paper and become real, those old habits come back. When scared, faced with the unknown, the put aside their interest in exploration and raised their weapons. For Jack and Maddie Fenton, science was a love they both learned but hunting and protecting their own was instinct.