#anyway plz validate me so im motivated to work on my multi-chapter fanfic some more

[darks-ink]

Make It Go Away

Not for the first time, Danny cursed himself for never telling anyone about his extra-curricular activities. And now, far more injured than he could fix himself, Danny desperately wished that he had told just one person.

(also on AO3 and FFN)

Danny’s aura flickered, and he dropped another several feet. Barely stifling a yelp, he caught himself mid-air. His flight path never faltered though, even if his flight did.

His last fight with Skulker had been bad. Danny didn’t think that he had ever felt so terrible in his life, not even when he had almost died while fighting against Pariah Dark.

He resolutely pressed down on his side, where sticky ectoplasm was continuing to flee his body at a worrying rate. And then he focused back on his flight, maintaining the last shreds of his ghostly power to carry himself home. He had to make sure to pace himself, to leave enough energy to maintain his ghost form. His injuries were far more severe than any human could survive, and while he wasn’t just any human, he was fairly certain that he wouldn’t survive either.

Not for the first time, Danny cursed himself for never telling anyone about his extra-curricular activities. At the time it made perfect sense to hide it, for his own benefit, but mostly for theirs.

And now, far more injured than he could fix himself, Danny desperately wished that he had told just one person. Just a single person that he could rely on, that he could go to for help and patching up. But, unfortunately, no such person existed.

And so Danny, half delirious from pain and from losing so much blood, went for the next best thing: his parents.

Sure, in any other context, for almost everyone, it would’ve been their first choice. Get injured, go to your parents. But for Danny, stuck as a ghost until he was sure he wouldn’t die if he shifted back, going to his ghost-hunting parents in the form of the ghost they hated the most… Well, it probably wasn’t a decision he would’ve made if he had been in his right mind.

But he wasn’t, and so he continued his shaky flight back home.

He barely made it there, and stumbled when he landed, hitting the door with an audible thump. Danny lingered on the doorstep for a long moment, waiting to see if anyone came to open the door. His glow had dampened almost entirely, a testament to how little energy he had left. He considered ringing the doorbell, but then remembered his dad’s bad habit of opening the door by shoving an ectogun into the face of the visitor and decided against it.

Instead, Danny scrounged up the last vestiges of his power, leaned against the door of his house, and forced himself intangible. The moment he had phased through the door he returned back to the tangible realm, and almost fainted.

He slumped against the door he had just passed through, hitting it with another loud thud, barely remaining upright. He figured that his parents probably would’ve heard it down in the lab, and if not… well, he didn’t think he had the power to drag himself down to them anyway.

But his suspicions were soon proven right by the thundering sounds of his dad’s heavy footfalls. Within seconds the man burst through the kitchen, storming towards the front door-

and then he faltered, the moment he saw Danny.

Moments later, his mom appeared beside his dad. When she spotted Danny (not Danny, he corrected himself mentally, Phantom) she swung her ectogun up. The gun started charging a shot with a faint whirring sound, but Danny ignored it in favor of looking at his parents.

Ectoplasm continued to pour out of his body, seeping from in-between the fingers of his right hand, which was still pressed against his side.

He must’ve looked as terrible as he felt, because the noise died out, and his mom lowered the gun. She turned her head, apparently sharing a silent conversation through glances with his dad, despite wearing goggles.

And then she looked at him again, and finally spoke up.

“Why are you here, Phantom?”

“I’m-” He paused, took a shaky breath, and slumped a little further down the door he was leaning against. He was sure he was leaving streaks of glowing green ectoplasm on the wooden surface, but couldn’t bring himself to care. His vision had gone blurry, black creeping in along the edges.

He could barely stop himself from passing out. Could barely cling onto the remainder of his power to stay conscious. He was sure that, if he passed out, he would return to human form. And even if, against all expectations, he would survive his injuries, he couldn’t have that happen in front of his parents.

“Mads...” his dad said, quietly. “I don’t think that it’s pretending. I think… that it really is injured.”

His mom scoffed, but Danny couldn’t read her facial expression. Not while his vision was faltering, and while she was still wearing goggles. “As if a ghost would come to the house of ghost hunters while injured. No, it’s clearly just hoping that we’ll lower our guard, and then it’ll attack.”

Danny groaned, collapsing against the door and onto the floor. His grip on his side weakened as his strength left him, and more ectoplasm started pouring through. He drew his knees up to protect himself to the best of his abilities, but it wasn’t much. He bowed his head, resting his forehead against his knees.

If he was going to die here, he didn’t want his last memory of his parents to be them discussing if he deserved help.

He closed his eyes, and let the darkness take over.

Jack eyed the ghost, and watched as it collapsed. Bright ectoplasm streaked down the door, previously hidden by the ghost’s body. More of the fluid continued to pour down its side, seeping from in-between its fingers.

He glanced at his wife, shortly, before creeping closer to the intruder. The ghost didn’t react, not even when Jack crouched next to it.

Phantom just sat there, curled into a loose ball, eyes closed. If Jack didn’t know any better, he would say that it was unconscious.

But ghosts weren’t supposed to pass out. It was just another thing that made Phantom special, unique compared to other ghosts.

He glanced back at his wife, who still stood in her spot in the entrance of the kitchen. She had crossed her arms, and he was sure that she had a questioning eyebrow quirked at him, even if he couldn’t see it.

Then he turned back to the ghost, and poked it in the upper arm.

Phantom didn’t react.

“Mads, I think that it… passed out.” He shuffled slightly, turning his body so he could see both the ghost and his wife at once. “Maybe we should take it down to lab? This could be a good opportunity to study it.”

Maddie hummed, uncrossing her arms. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. See if you can grab it without waking it.”

Nodding, Jack hovered his hands over the ghost, weighing options in his mind. It would probably be best to grab it carefully, to avoid startling it awake.

Mind made up, he hooked his left arm underneath the ghost’s knees, and wrapped the other around its shoulders. Phantom stirred, a soft grunt, but settled in Jack’s arms.

And so he stood up, with the ghost in his arms, curled up as if it were a child being carried by its father.

Seeing his success, Maddie nodded approvingly, and turned to walk back towards the lab. He trailed after her, passing her in the kitchen as she held open the door for him.

When Phantom was placed down on one of the tables in the lab, it groaned, fingers twitching as if waking up. But then it stilled again, lying flat on the metal surface.

Maddie had swept into the lab behind him, gathering materials for their examination. Jack was still looking over the ghost when she reappeared next to him, a small cart littered with tools behind her.

“How do you want to start, honey? Should we just go ahead and cut it open?”

Jack hummed, noncommittally. He wasn’t really listening, too occupied with his visual inspection of Phantom.

Then his wife’s words finally found their way into his mind, and he stuck out an arm to stop her.

“No, wait. Let’s take off its suit first.”

Maddie clicked her tongue, disapprovingly. “Jack, you know we can’t do that. A ghost’s clothing is part of its body, part of their skin. We can’t take it off, and even if we could, there would be nothing underneath.”

“So then what’s that?” Jack asked, as he pointed towards the injury Phantom had been covering earlier. It was a deep, ragged cut in its side, right underneath where the ribs would be on a human. More curiously, however, was the fact that the cut in Phantom’s jumpsuit revealed bare skin, similar in color and texture to the skin of its face.

Maddie frowned, moving to look at the injury more closely. Then she grabbed the edge of the torn jumpsuit, and stuck her fingers underneath it, feeling around.

“It’s… not attached to Phantom’s skin.” She glanced at Jack, the corners of her mouth twisted in uncertainty. “Take off one of its gloves. See how defined its hands are underneath.”

He nodded and moved to do as she asked. The right glove, stained heavily with ectoplasm, peeled off almost effortlessly.

And underneath, a perfectly ordinary hand laid.

If it wasn’t for the faint glow, Jack could’ve sworn it belonged to a human being, not a ghost. The skin was pale, with wrinkles on the palm and tendons running along the back. The knuckles were bruised, on the edge of bleeding. Even the fingertips were perfect, with square fingernails and, when Jack looked more closely, the ghost even appeared to have fingerprints.

He shared a short glance with Maddie, and then moved to check Phantom’s other hand. The left glove, not nearly as badly stained with ectoplasm, was removed with as little effort as the right.

The hand underneath was far less ordinary, however. Sure, the skin and the wrinkles and the details were just as human as Phantom’s right hand.

But, running from the center of its palm and branching down its hand and wrist, was what appeared to be a scar. It glowed a faint green, stark against Phantom’s pale skin. The sharp hooks and turns weren’t scars one saw often, but Jack recognized their origin nonetheless.

The shape, like lightning branching through the sky, was characteristic of electrical injuries.

“Huh,” Maddie remarked, having moved closer to Jack while he was distracted by Phantom’s unique anatomy. “Not only does it have a form underneath its jumpsuit, it even has scars.”

She reached out towards the left hand, carefully taking it in hers. Her slender fingers ran over the scar, tracing it down Phantom’s wrist. Then she stopped, frowning once more.

“Jack...” she said, as she wrapped her fingers around Phantom’s. “He’s not soft or malleable. It feels… like he had bones.”

He paused, thinking back to when he had grabbed Phantom earlier. Now that he thought about it, he could remember that the ghost had felt surprisingly sturdy.

“If only we had an x-ray machine! Imagine that Mads, a ghost with a bone structure!”

His wife nodded, biting her lower lip in thought. “Maybe… we don’t need an x-ray.”

She moved over to Phantom’s side, where she had been before. She reached out towards the injury again, but this time, instead of grabbing the jumpsuit, she went for the injury itself. She carefully shoved her fingers in sliced flesh, prodding around for a short moment.

Then suddenly Phantom winced, pulling away with a groan.

Maddie pulled her hand back towards her, holding it against her chest. Jack froze up, eyes locked on the ghost. But it didn’t attack, didn’t lash out. It simply settled back down again.

“Ghosts… aren’t supposed to be able to feel pain,” Jack stated, simply. His emotions were roiling, however. He didn’t know how he felt about anything. He didn’t look away from the ghost.

“They’re not supposed to have bones either,” Maddie answered, releasing her own hand again. ��But I know felt Phantom’s ribs.”

“So then… what does that mean?” Jack was still looking at the ghost. Its glow was almost completely gone, luminescent green eyes still closed. If he imagined the glowing green ectoplasm oozing from its side to be red, the ghost looked eerily human. The faint movements of its chest-

Wait.

The faint movements of its chest? Ghosts don’t breathe, and certainly not while they’re passed out. And Jack was sure, by now, that Phantom wasn’t conscious. Because if the ghost had been aware enough to take notice of its surroundings, it surely would’ve protested against the poking and prodding they were doing.

Jack took of his glove, crouching down next to the ghost. Then he held his bare hand over its face, almost touching its skin.

“Jack… What are you doing?”

Soft puffs of cold air hit his hand. He frowned, but didn’t answer his wife. Instead, he moved his hand to the neck of the ghost. He pulled down the neck of its jumpsuit, revealing a heavily bruised neck. Then he laid his fingers where carotid artery would be on a living human, and waited.

“Jack,” his wife repeated, irritation seeping into her voice.

He was about to shush her, but then he felt what he was looking for. What he had been half-expecting, despite the fact that it shouldn’t exist. Not on a ghost.

“Phantom has a heartbeat.” His voice was soft, a near whisper. But in the quiet lab, it was loud enough.

“Let me feel,” Maddie said, as she walked over. She pulled off her own glove, settling her slender fingers in the same place as Jack had. Within moments, the frown on her face melted away in an expression of shock and astonishment.

“He’s so...” she trailed off.

“Human?” he finished for her.

She nodded, finally removing her fingers from Phantom’s neck so she could put her glove back on. “Jack, I don’t… I don’t think I can do this.”

“Me neither Mads, me neither. He’s just...” He gestured vaguely towards Phantom, who lied still on the table. If it wasn’t for the barely visible movements of his chest, the ghost would’ve looked like a dead body. Even the flow of ectoplasm had slowed down.

And Jack couldn’t help but think that Phantom looked frail. Far frailer than he had ever seen the ghost look. Like a kid in way over his head.

“He’s just a child,” Maddie agreed as she walked around him, slowly. “We should… patch him up.”

Jack hummed, agreeing. “Do you think… that that’s why he came to us? Thinking that we were the only people in Amity who know enough about ghosts to fix his injuries?”

Neither of them commented on the fact that they had both started referring to the ghost as ‘he’ instead of ‘it’. It only made sense, to Jack. The ghost was simply too human to refer to as a regular ghost.

“Can you grab the first aid kit, Jack? I can start cleaning his injuries, but we will have to stitch up this cut. And we’ll have to check if Phantom has other injuries bad enough to need treatment.”

He nodded, storming off to grab the kit they had in the lab. He handed it over to his his wife, and then turned to Phantom.

“I’ll try to get his jumpsuit off so you can reach more easily, and so we can check for other injuries.” As he said it, Jack had already leaned over Phantom, trying to see if there was an easy way to do as he said. He quickly found a zipper, the suit remarkably similar to the ones his family wore.

The suit was easily unzipped, and Jack carefully peeled it off of Phantom. Maddie had put away the kit, helping pull Phantom’s arms out of the sleeves of the jumpsuit. They left the fabric bunched up around his hips, held in place by his white belt.

The scar on Phantom’s left hand stood out against his pale skin, crawling up his arm, shoulder, and even branching over his chest. Perhaps more shockingly were the dozens of unrelated scars that were littered all over Phantom’s torso and arms. Cuts, slices, burns, some still fresh enough to ooze ectoplasm.

Maddie had taken her eyes off of the ghost already to start stitching up the injury on his side, but Jack continued his inspection. He had to make sure, after all, that none of the injuries were serious enough to need treatment.

While checking over the various injuries and scars, Jack noticed that a few scars looked rather… strange. Sure, many of Phantom’s scars showed that the injuries that had caused them had been serious, but a good number of them looked like they had been properly taken care off. A long scar, curling across his left lower arm, even showed signs of being stitched.

Frowning, Jack turned to look at his wife. “Hey, Mads. I think… I think that this isn’t the first time that Phantom has received serious medical attention.”

“How so?” Maddie asked, not taking her eyes off of her work.

“Some of these scars look like they’ve been stitched before. Not well, but… certainly stitched.”

“Huh,” she said. “I wonder why he didn’t go to them this time. Why come to ghost hunters if he already had someone capable of stitching to help him?”

“Dunno.” Jack shrugged as he started cleaning and wrapping up some of Phantom’s lesser injuries. “Maybe he couldn’t make it to them. He barely made it to our house.”

“Maybe. I guess we can try asking him when he wakes up.”

Silence returned as the two of them continued to work on Phantom. By the time Maddie finished stitching up the deep gouge on his side, Jack had bandaged all serious injuries he could see, including the two on Phantom’s calf and thigh. The smaller cuts that were scattered across most of the ghosts body, he left alone.

“We’re going to have to roll him on his side to check his back. He left behind ectoplasm on the door when he leaned against it, and on my arm as well. I don’t think that came from the injury on his side.”

Maddie nodded, and together, the two of them carefully rolled Phantom on his less injured side.

On his back was a massive burn, sprawling across his shoulders. Jack could make out branches of an older scar underneath. Probably more of the electrical scar.

He shared a glance with his wife, and then bent down to start cleaning up the injury. The deepest parts glinted in the light, wet with fresh ectoplasm, but they seemed to be healing already.

“I think just wrapping it up will be fine,” Maddie mused. “I don’t know how similar his skin is to human skin, so I can’t say if burn cream will work against the scarring.”

“Yeah. It looks like it’s healing already.” Jack shrugged at his wife. “Guess he heals faster than humans after all.”

They bandaged the burn, Jack lifting up the ghost so his wife could wrap around the entire body, and then left Phantom lying on his side.

Maddie glanced at the clock, sighing when she saw the time. “It’s getting late, and I still need to get groceries so we can eat today. Do you think you can keep an eye on him while I go take care of that?”

Jack nodded. “Definitely!” As he saw her walk off to put on a clean jumpsuit without ectoplasm stains, he called after her. “And Mads, don’t forget the fudge!”

The first thing that Danny noticed when he woke up was that he was somewhere really bright. Quickly closing his eyes again, he decided to wait a little longer before he would try slowly opening his eyes. Instead, he focused on his other senses to try and figure out where he was.

He was lying on his side, thankfully not the one that Skulker sliced open earlier. Whatever he was lying on was cold and hard. The air smelled like ectoplasm, but that wasn’t much of a clue considering the enormous amount of ectoplasm he was probably covered with. There were no obvious sounds either, no one shuffling around or guns charging up.

Deciding that wherever he was was probably safe enough, Danny tried slowly opening his eyes.

Once again, the light was blinding, and he groaned as he tried blinking away the dark spots in his vision.

“Hey kid,” a familiar voice sounded from somewhere near his feet, but he couldn’t quite place it yet. “How’re you feeling?”

Danny groaned again, rolling onto his back – and promptly wincing when the burn on his back hit the surface of whatever he was lying on.

He tried pushing himself up into a sitting position instead, his fingers curling around the edges of – was he lying on a table? – whatever. He didn’t quite have the strength to manage it, but thick gloved fingers caught his arms and helped pull him up.

Finally he opened his eyes again, this time without blinding himself, and looked himself over. Bandages were wrapped around his chest and side, and his hazmat suit hung around his hips. His gloves laid to the side, stained heavily with his own ectoplasm. He would be concerned about that if he didn’t know they would return to their original condition when he transformed again.

Hovering at the end of the table stood his dad, and he realized that that was the voice he had heard earlier. He must’ve been really out of it if he couldn’t even recognize his own dad when the guy was talking to him.

A quick glance around revealed that he was in the lab.

In his ghost hunting parents lab.

As a ghost.

He tensed up, muscles bunching up as he readied himself to shoot off before his parents could do anything.

But his dad just raised his hands, palms out, showing that he meant no harm. “It’s okay, Phantom. We’re not gonna hurt you.”

“I-” His voice cracked, embarrassingly, and Danny cleared his throat. “Really?”

His dad just nodded, sitting down in the chair that was conveniently placed next to the table Danny was sitting on. “Well, I hoped that our attempt at patching you up would’ve been enough to prove that we won’t harm you.”

Danny blinked, somewhat stupefied. Sure, he had gone to his parents hoping that they would patch him up, even as Phantom, but he hadn’t expected them to actually do so. His expression must’ve shown as much, because his dad made an uncertain face.

“Yeah, I guess patching you up once doesn’t make up for everything we’ve threatened to do, huh?”

“Depends,” Danny said, feeling his strength slowly return to him. He wasn’t sure if he could walk, and while he could probably survive shifting back to human, he would rather wait a little longer for his ghostly healing to do its job. But he felt confident that he could handle a serious conversation with his parents.

Actually, scratch that, parent. He had glanced around the lab again, and couldn’t see his mom anywhere.

“Maddie is out right now,” Jack explained, having apparently correctly interpreted his glancing around. “She still had to get groceries, and we figured you weren’t a danger.” He looked away, scratching his cheek, and sighed. “Never have been, huh?”

“A danger?” Danny shrugged, frowning a little. “I guess I could be a danger, but I don’t try to be, no.”

“I figured. We really misjudged you, haven’t we?” He leaned back in the chair he was sitting in, not looking at Danny.

Danny hummed an affirmative. “Kinda, yeah. But you meant well.”

His dad just snorted. “Good intentions don’t make up for doing the wrong thing.”

“No,” Danny agreed. “But good intentions make it easier to forgive you.”

Jack turned to look at him again, blinking, with a stunned expression on his face. “You mean...”

“Yeah. I never really blamed you. Sure, I often wished that you would just see that we were on the same side, but,” he shrugged, “you were just trying to do the right thing. The same thing as me, really.”

“So you don’t… You’re not angry, or upset?”

“Nah.” Danny waved a dismissive hand towards him. “Forgive and forget, right? You know better now.”

“Just like that?” Jack grinned at him. “Phantom, you’re a kid of my heart.”

He smiled back, shrugging. “I just believe in second chances.”

The sound of a door opening and closing echoed through the house then, followed by the voice of his mom as she yelled. “Jack, I’m home! How’s Phantom?”

She was already coming down the stairs to the lab by the time she finished talking. Jack cocked his head towards Danny, and Danny picked up on the silent cue.

“Much better,” he called out to Maddie as she walked into the lab. “Thanks to you two, apparently.”

She blinked at him, apparently surprised by the fact that he was up, before she smiled. “That’s good to hear. We… don’t know much about fixing up ghosts.”

“And you know what, Mads!” Jack bounced out of his chair, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “He isn’t even angry at us for hunting him!”

“Really?” His mom quirked an eyebrow at Danny.

“Yeah, it’s fine. You meant well. Although I am very glad that you’ve changed your minds.”

“But, while we’re still on the topic of us patching up ghosts...” Maddie ventured, moving closer to Danny. “Why did you come to us? Why not go to whoever did it last time?”

He frowned. “I came to you because there was no one else. I was kind of… hoping that your knowledge about ghosts and their anatomy would help.”

“But, based on your scars, you’ve received treatment for some of your previous injuries,” Jack prodded. “That big one on your left arm was definitely stitched.”

“Oh,” Danny said as realization struck him. He gently rubbed the scar with his right hand, remembering how bad it had been. It had been one of his first serious injuries, and the sight of ectoplasm oozing out of his body in thick globs… well, it still wasn’t an easy sight, but it had been terrifying back then.

“I, uh. I kind of… stitched that up myself?”

Suddenly slender fingers wrapped around his arm, a hand gently pulling away his right hand. His mom stood next to him, tracing the scar. “Didn’t that hurt?”

What was she trying to get at? He didn’t know, so he shrugged, uncertainly. “Kinda, yeah. But, well. I had to do something, right? And it wasn’t the first one I did.”

“So you came here because you couldn’t do it yourself?” His dad had wandered over closer as well, standing next to the table again. “What would you have done if we hadn’t helped?”

“Well, my original plan had been to go into the Ghost Zone, find someone there to patch me up.” He smiled sheepishly at the two of them. “But as you might’ve noticed, I wouldn’t have made it that far anyway.”

“The Ghost Zone?” his dad repeated, frowning. “Isn’t that place full of the ghosts you fight?”

Danny shrugged, raising his hand to rub the back of his neck. “Kinda? But my only allies are there, so. Don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

“You have ghostly allies, then?” His mom shot him a scrutinizing look, but he could see the sparkle of interest in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have expected it, since we only ever see you picking fights with the other ghosts.”

“That’s kind of how I made most of my allies,” Danny said, feeling an embarrassed blush creeping up. “Enemy of my enemy kind of deal, you know? Like Wulf, I befriended him when I helped free him from Walker. Or Frostbite and his people, they kind of-” he stopped, suddenly.

“’They kind of’ what, Phantom?” his mom asked, curiosity peaked.

Danny, in turn, hiked his shoulders up. His blush, his very noticeable glowing green blush, had spread across his entire face. “They, uh. They kind of… worship me?” he stammered out. “Because, y’know. I defeated Pariah Dark.”

“They worship you?” His dad chuckled. “You’re joking, right?”

“Well, no.” He crossed his arms, attempting to preserve the little dignity he still had. “They have a shrine dedicated to me, and they even call me ‘Great One’. It’s… kind of embarrassing, really. But they mean well.”

“But still you spend most of your time here, in Amity, instead of among the ghosts who appreciate you?” Maddie asked, having long since released Danny’s arm. “Why would you willingly spend time in a city where people don’t appreciate you, where they hunt you, if you have better options?”

Danny considered asking her the same. After all, most people in this city had lower opinions on the hunting skills of his parents than of him. Between him and Valerie, most people didn’t think they needed the Fentons anymore. But instead, he answered her question properly.

“Well… The first ghosts I fought were kind of… accidental? I was just hanging out and I saw them causing trouble so I decided to stop them. And then more and more ghosts started showing up, and they weren’t just hurting the people of the city, but they threatened the people I care about. And I couldn’t let that happen.”

“’People you care about?’” his dad repeated. “Like… family, friends?”

“Uh, yeah.” Danny crossed his ankles and leaned his elbow on his knee, resting his head in the open palm. “People I knew when I was still living in this city, you know?”

“But… you didn’t have anybody who could patch you up? Couldn’t any of those people help?”

Danny snorted. The irony of the statement wasn’t missed on him. “Nah, they don’t know I’m Phantom.”

“Why not tell them?” His mom frowned at him. “I might not know your parents, Phantom, but as a mother, I can assure you that she misses you, and that she would want to see you. Ghost or not.”

“I suppose,” Danny said, not knowing how to answer without revealing that his loved ones didn’t miss him because they didn’t know they were supposed to. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this topic of conversation, either. If Jazz knew about any of this she would be either thrilled or horrified, and he wasn’t sure which he preferred.

Their discussion (and Danny’s train of thought) was thankfully interrupted by the loud growling of a stomach. Jack grinned, even as Maddie turned to chastise him.

And then Danny’s stomach growled as well.

Both of his parents turned to him, and Danny felt the blush from earlier return.

“Well,” Maddie said as she clapped her hands together. “Why don’t we continue this conversation over some lunch?”

“Great idea Mads!” His dad extended a hand towards Danny, who was unfolding himself again. “Need a hand, Phantom?”

He shrugged, throwing his legs over the edge of the table. “I wanna see if I can stand first. And if not, I can always just float.”

“Oh, right.” His dad grinned, sheepish. “Forgot that you were a ghost for a minute, there.”

Danny, meanwhile, tested his legs. He could stand just fine, but the biting pain from his side told him that walking probably wasn’t a good idea yet. Instead he let gravity ebb away, rising into the air, legs melting away into a ghostly tail.

He grinned, turning to wink at his dad. “Race you there?”

“Please don’t,” his mom cut in, moments before his dad would’ve replied. “You’re still hurt, Phantom. You need to take it easy.”

He sighed, tail twitching in the air. “Yeah, alright. I guess I see your point.”

Their lunch conversation wasn’t much to note. Both Danny and Jack were too occupied with shoveling food into their mouths to talk much, and Maddie knew better than to try.

When they were done, and Danny made to fly away, he was stopped by his mom wrapping a hand around his upper arm.

She looked at him, her violet eyes filled with warmth. “And Phantom. If you need our help for anything, no matter what… You’re always welcome here.”

He gaped for a long moment before smiling. “Thanks. You have no idea how much that means to me.”

And then he left, phasing through the wall, turning invisible in the process. He hooked upwards almost instantly, phasing through the wall a little higher than where he had left, and entered his room.

Finally, he dropped down on his bed and shifted back into his human form.

Maybe… Maybe he didn’t have to tell anyone about his secret double life. Just the support of his parents as Phantom was plenty.

And if it ever wasn’t…

Well, he made a good first step today, that was sure.