#good Fenton parents? I wanna say good Fenton's in this one.

[memetic-trigger-hazard]

Such an excellent snip. So many ideas to add to the soup, take each individually, fresh from the grocery isle.

Danny and Damians relationship, in any other world, the pain, the sense of betrayal, would snap Damian's composure and ruin any chance of a relationship with his twin, but in this one? A little girl misunderstood what a twin was and assumed that he must be a clone as well, and had "clones only" tea parties, which later included Superboy. In this world, the love of a little girl helps two brothers reconnect. (Danny has SO much blackmail for when she's older)

Damian is in fact HIGHLY predisposed to being fully Liminal, and the more time spent around Ellie hastens this process, because she bleeds ambient ("genetically" compatible) ectoplasm due to lacking control at a young age. So Damian and Ellie get to learn how to ghost speak with whatever flavour of empathy /chirps etc you desire. Cass of course is included because Cass is best.

The Mansons are from Amity Park, God level entities and shady government black ops are literally a weekly basis. So they're unlikely to blab about anything because they want, desperately, to be seen as normal. Played for laughs, they find out that Bruce is Batman and that Danny and Damian are twins, and with Sam being Ellie's female genetic donor and therefore (by her own words) her mother. The Mansons get their absolute hearts desire, Sam in a committed relationship with a Wayne and with a child with said Wayne. But! They also find out that Bruce Wayne dresses up in a fursuit and punches criminals. The opposite of normal. Desirae is DYING of laughter. She didn't set this up but she's glad she witnessed it.

Seventeen year old Damian Wayne is dragged to a business deal outside of Gotham (along with his father and Drake), mostly to keep up appearances that the family does work outside of Gotham, networking, and because Damian does need to learn the ropes of the company, he decides to head outside the meeting with the Manson family to get a breather (mainly cause the Manson's were annoying him fully, it was like they were trying to suck up towards Damian and trying to push their daughter on him but at the same time he caught them almost insulting and hostile towards him before they would stop and correct themselves) when out of the blue a three year old toddler with black hair comes running over with a cheerful "Daddy!" and latches onto his leg.

Damian is stunned in place but feels frozen when he hears a voice, older and almost identical to his own but he can detect a familiarity in it, a voice he only hears in his dreams nowadays say.

"Ellie, no! That's not me Starlight! I'm so sorry dude-"

When Damian turned his head towards the voice he's meet with an near identical face, granted there were some minor differences, but very, very familiar pair of striking blue eyes staring at him. Eyes that were somehow full of life, which shouldn't be possible because the last time he saw those eyes they had been dim and milked over years ago. The speaker had become startled at the his sudden turn and the words that he had been saying had quickly died out when he too took in Damian's features.

"D...Damian?..." the name came out so soft and small that Damian almost didn't hear it but he did.

And before Damian could stop himself, he spoke a name he hadn't dared utter in years.

"Danyal."

His twin looked like he had just seen a ghost, and Damian was sure he looked the same. And given the last time they had last saw each other it was no wonder they both looked like death warmed over them for a moment.

After all... Damian had failed to protect his brother, Danyal al Ghul all those years ago on a botched mission.

His bother who... wasn't dead.

His brother who was looking like he wanted to run but was keeping himself rooted in his spot.

His brother whose eyes were glancing downwards and seemed so nervous.

His brother who knew the little girl, Ellie, still hugging his legs.

His brother who had... responded and corrected her mix up when she had called Damian 'Daddy.'

And oh, she's looking up at him and making grabby hands wanting to be picked up and she has Danyal's eyes and his nose and-

Oh... Damian.... Damian's an uncle it seems.

[redflagshipwriter]

Mama Bat 9: Dinner Out

masterpost

After her promise, the bats were a whirlwind of activity. He didn’t know where Uncle D or Alfred went, but Cass and Bruce gently bustled him across the house to plan his ecto dinner like it was an attack on an enemy base.

“I think it was around here,” Danny said uncertainly over the map in Bruce’s study. “I don’t know the names of any of these places. But there was this abandoned-looking theme park that had a lot of what I need.”

He didn’t have to be the world’s smartest ghost to recognize that there was a lot of tension in the air after he said that. That tracked. There were not many pleasant ways for a place in the human realm to accumulate a glut of deathly energy.

“That makes sense,” Bruce said. “Cass, honey, do you think we should ask Dick and Jason?” He folded the map back up along the same lines as before without even looking. Danny wondered at why he had that muscle memory. Did he fold everything in the same pattern?

“Big visible muscle,” Cass agreed. Her phone appeared out of nearly nowhere. “Danny.” 

He stood up even straighter. 

“Is Amity dangerous?” She pinned him in a look, her soft brown eyes arresting. “Dangerous to Jasmine Fenton?”

“Jazz,” he corrected automatically. Cass nodded. He rolled his ankles around, stimming below their line of sight. “Uh.” Danny faltered. “Um.” He bit his lower lip and tried to feel less like there was a painful hand around his heart. 

He hadn’t thought so. But he would never have thought that he and Vlad were in serious danger, either. Now that the GIW and Mom and Dad knew… They would know who to ask for more information.

His parents would never push his friends or Jazz too hard. But the idea of the GIW trying to intimidate his friends and family was almost too upsetting to consider.

“Batdad extracts them?” Cass cocked her head at him to make it even more of a question. It was up to him. Was it a good idea?

Danny licked his lips. His mouth was so dry. He struggled for words. “Maybe.” One shaky inhalation. “If, um.” It sounded like someone else’s voice. It couldn’t be him saying that right now. “If it wouldn’t be too obtrusive… I don’t want to extract them and then, like, they can’t go back if they wanna.”

“We can handle that.” Bruce made eye contact to promise. He looked, Danny thought, like a more responsible, boring version of Jack Fenton. His eyes burned. 

“That would be, uh. Cool.” Danny managed to get that out and avert his eyes, but he felt like everyone could see that he was about to cry.

Whatever. He leaned to the left before he consciously knew that Cass was lifting an arm to put over his shoulder. It slotted in place like they’d done it a billion times. Danny tilted his head towards the nails she gently scratched through his hair.

“Batdad, Damibat, Timbird, Stephanie,” Cass listed easily. “Amity.” She jostled Danny a little. “And we get dinner. You only need me. I’m the best. But we bring boys too, Dickbird and Jason.” She blew a raspberry.  

Bruce looked exhausted and fond. “She is the best,” he agreed. Danny watched their interplay like it was a pingpong match. “I think you ought to go tonight to get something to eat. Would you recommend that we contact Jazz and your friends in the daytime, or should we leave as soon as possible?”

…They all had school in the day. Even Jazz was still in high school. Danny eyed Bruce doubtfully. He did know about school, right? “Night is probably better.” 

“I’ll make a few calls.” Bruce sat back and seemed to flip a switch into planning mode.

“Text!” Cass said, disagreeing strongly. She rolled her eyes, but it wasn’t too mean. “Grandfather Bat.”

“Oh!” Danny startled. “Um, I should contact Sam and Tucker. So that they know to expect you.” 

Bruce balked. “We don't normally contact civilians about ongoing investigations…” He looked constipated about it.

Danny crossed his arms. He wanted to think it was stubbornness more than self comfort. “You're not going to like, creep up on my friends. If they want to go, they need some time to get ready.” 

“Preparing could give away the plan to observers.” 

“Is Amity Park Batman's domicile?” Cass asked archly. “Batdad.” She put both her hands on his desk and leaned forward to give her father an unimpressed look. “Mayor of Amity Park?”

Bruce snorted and then covered his mouth guiltily. “Point taken.” He cleared his throat, trying to retain some dignity. “Danny, do you need help to contact your friends?” 

He shrugged. “Just a computer.” Danny fiddled with the strings on his hoodie. Tucker's hoodie. “I know you gave me a phone, but we thought -”

“That communications might be intercepted,” Bruce said, nodding as if that kind of paranoia was commonplace. “It's the first thing I would do if I expected a person of interest to contact a friend. What's your workaround?”

Danny bit his lip. It sounded stupid when he said it aloud. 

Ten minutes later, Damian joined Cass in her perch on the back of the sofa and watched with morbid curiosity as Danny joined Doomed chatroom after chatroom, scanning for Sam's username. “She’ll leave it running whenever she's home in case I ping her,” Danny defended weakly. He left another chatroom. 

Damian hummed, two pitches that came off incredibly doubtful. He had a gift for that.

“No, really, this- yes!” Danny pumped a fist and sent a HEY ITS YA BOI message. 

It took seconds for Sam to get to it and add his temporary account as a friend. She sent a DM before he could and then ignored his response to start a voice chat. 

Once he'd confirmed to her satisfaction that he was himself and that he hadn't gotten any deader in Gotham, he passed on the information that the friggin Batman was going to stop by Amity and wanted to check in. “But don’t worry, he’s kinda cool,” Danny added. “I gotta go. I am starving.”

Sam said all the rude words that she knew in quick succession. Damian looked sort of impressed. “Fine,” she said, obviously annoyed about it. “I’ll meet with Batman, but only because I hate the GIW more.”

“You hate Batman?” Damian asked. It was hard to tell from his tone if he had any feelings about that.

“That’s Damian,” Danny introduced. “He’s cool.”

“Hey,” Sam said shortly. “Yeah, he’s basically a cop. You have a problem with that?” Her voice went a little too aggressive.

“Just so you know, Damian is a child,” Danny said warily. 

Sam scoffed. “You said he’s cool. I respect him enough to fight him if he’s wrong.”

“Batman may be improved by your feedback,” Damian said idly, as if he wasn’t making trouble for his father on purpose. “You should be certain to give it to him as soon as you see him. Do you have time to prepare a presentation?”

Danny sniggered into his hand.

“I can reuse the posterboard from Current Events class, yeah.” Sam mused. “Good idea. Alright, thanks for the heads up. It’s really good to hear from you. We were starting to get worried here. You missed a check in, you know.” She was trying to sound tough, but there was a hint of strain.

Danny flushed. “Yeah, I had logistical difficulties,” he said, which sounded less pathetic than “I got robbed while I was sleeping outside and had no money to  use to access a computer.”

He ignored the thoughtful look he knew he was getting from Cass and signed off. He avoided making eye contact with anyone as he stretched, hands over his head. Then Danny put his hands on his hips and kind of stretched by rotating his back around. “Well, that’s done. Have fun with Sam, Uncle D.”

Damian made a hum in the back of his throat, eyes lost in thought. “I think I will.” Then he stalked away without a proper goodbye. Just a big housecat, that kid.

“Do you think Jason and Dick will be here soon?” Don’t ask, don’t ask, Danny silently hoped.

Cass looked at him for a long moment, silently weighing options and odds behind her dark eyes. Then she nodded. She turned on her heel and left, obviously expecting him to follow.  

Danny jogged to keep up. How did she move so fast without running? She had short legs, too. He was still busy pondering when they rounded a hallway corner and heard male voices from the entryway.

“Wait.” Cass shoved him the last step with a gentle palm press to the shoulder and then flitted back down the hallway.

“Hey, buddy,” Dick said.

Danny managed a nod in return. He stuffed his hands into his hoodie pocket and tried not to look like he was hiding.

Jason all but oozed reassurance at him, without ever looking at him. As far as the eye could tell, the blonde was barely aware that Danny was present. But under the surface of his skin, his masses of ectoplasm were roiling with  a sort of proprietary indulgence. 

It was a kindness, probably, that the two men continued their conversation as if they were still alone. Danny didn’t really pay attention, thoughts consumed with  a mixture of nerves about his worlds colliding and sobbing relief that he might get really, genuinely full for the first time since he had to run away from Amity Park. He edged a little closer to Jason without thinking about it consciously. 

Cass arrived silently. Danny looked up as she entered the room only because he could sense her steady presence. “Time to go,” he said.

Jason startled with a very small jump. His expression instantly changed to exhausted resignation.

“Haha,” Cass said, pointing at him.

“Poor scared little guy,” Dick cooed. “You can’t sneak up on him like that.”

“Too scary,” Cass said, nowhere near as convincing as Dick at empathy.

Jason scowled. “Shut up,” he complained. He zipped up his jacket and yanked the door open. The sound of early crickets immediately cut into the house along with a fresh, cool breeze. “You both suck.”

Danny felt a faint smile pull at his face. He ducked his head and fell in, following at Jason’s heels. He didn’t look back to see who shut the door. 

Dick drove them all. They parked a few blocks away and made it across the barren, creepy fairgrounds in utter silence. Danny followed his instincts and the source that he’d sensed from kilometers away in the city center but had been too worn down to even try to trek to without at least feeding his human body.

“So, what now?”  Dick turned a cautious circle. “I didn’t exactly expect to see a physical object for you to eat, but I did sort of expect something.”

Danny made a face. “If I had the right tech I could filter and extract it out of the air, condense it into a really dense, liquid form. But, uh.” He turned a little to the side to avoid eye contact and hunched into his hoodie. “I sort of need to just hang out and…filter feed.” He grimaced. He sounded like a dumb fish.

“Inefficient,” Cass observed.

He nodded. “Yeah, but I’m really drained, so I need to be around a high concentration to get a jumpstart. If I needed less, I could probably just…” Danny made a circle gesture and sort of pointed at Jason. “Hang around him, I guess.”

Cass hummed in the back of her throat. “Perimeter.” Then she ran directly at a wall and hefted herself up onto the roof of the derelict funhouse. She was out of sight in seconds, which was impressive athleticism. Danny watched her go with raised eyebrows.

Dick huffed and shuffled even closer to Jason, clearly wary of Cass. “You can’t be the favorite uncle,” he lamented. “That should be me.” Danny choked down a laugh and pretended to be very busy filter feeding.

“You’re just crabby because you aren’t full of delicious ghost juice,” Jason muttered into Dick’s ear at a volume that he clearly thought Danny wouldn’t hear. The banter didn’t stop him from making periodic glances around the area. He caught an elbow to the gut from Dick for the comment and the inattention. Danny took a step further away from jabbing range.

“We aren’t here to hear you brag about how juicy you are,” Dick said out of the side of his mouth. 

EW. But Danny felt smug satisfaction in Jason’s aura at that answer, so apparently it wasn’t as nasty sounding to him as it was to Danny. He made a blegh face, scraping his tongue against his teeth.

‘Maybe I should tell them at some point that I have better than human hearing.’ He pointedly wandered a few steps further away and pretended to be occupied with sniffing out the highest concentration of ectoplasm.

Jason grinned unpleasantly. “No, I usually have that conversation with all of your exes- oof.” Jason bent over and tried to breathe through the hit to his diaphragm.

Danny did his best to ignore the commentary from the peanut gallery. He took deep breaths and tried to keep an eye on all the shadows. 

Amusement Mile wasn’t saturated with high quality ectoplasm like Amity Park, but nothing ever should be. Danny licked his lips and tried to stay alert. There could be any number of distressed or territorial dead around a place like this. It was eerily still. 

“This place is just plain creepy.” Danny hid a shudder. “What happened here?”

Jason huffed a laugh with absolutely no joy in it. “It’s more like what keeps happening here.” Danny glanced over at just the right angle to realize that Jason had a gun in his pocket. Holy shit. A gun. His eyes went wide.

“But nothing should happen tonight,” Dick cut in. His eyes looked tight and tense in a way that his breezy tone didn’t hint at. “The person who likes to use this area as a staging ground is currently in lockup. We double checked before we came out here.”

All three of them tensed when Cass jumped back down off the same building she’d climbed earlier. “Suspicious,” she said flatly.

Dick and Jason instantly lost their facades of ease. Danny realized, a bit late, that this place was really fucking concerning even to the living. “What’s wrong?” Dick snapped out. His posture changed and somehow his shoulders looked broader. Alarmed, Danny glanced between the adults.  

“Someone was here.” Cass held up a very familiar piece of tech. “Inside vent.”

Danny felt the blood drain out of his face. Cass zeroed in on the expression. “GIW,” he said. “Uh, that measures… that senses ghosts.” He licked his lips. “I think we should go.”

“Are you- are you going to be hungry?” Jason’s brow furrowed fiercely. “You think they might have an alert that you came out here?”

“We are more capable than we look.” Dick promised. And his serious voice was pretty reassuring, actually, all things considered. But Danny still felt like he was going to be sick. 

 Tires screeched. It was too late to get out of here.

[anonymous-existences]

Permission has been given :)

I'd say sorry for the word vomit, but you said to share with you my thoughts.

Here are my thoughts :)

I kinda wanna throw Danny into the Monster Hunter Stories world. Specifically Stories 2, the Wyverian Village atop the cliff.

Maybe he's been needing to reconnect with nature after so long of floating aimlessly amidst the other ghosts, after his parents, sister and friends all grew old and died, but he remained.

He ages so slowly now, that he looks barely 30 when he buries Sam and Tucker, who were already old and gray and tired of everything.

I cannot stress this enough, this man looks like the Hot History Teacher trope, and yet he's just as old as the other senior citizens of Amity Park.

So, he packs up everything he has, all the old Fenton Tech goes into storage in his lair, and leaves through a natural portal. The Fenton Portal was decommissioned when his parents found out. Their research was entirely redone and republished, and the Ghosts stopped invading, partly afraid after his defeat of Pariah Dark, partly out of respect for Danny's ability to wreck them.

Danny goes off, spends a good couple of decades going around the Zone, helping out whenever, and exploring, and eventually just drifting about.

Then, as per canon, the Monster Hunter Stories 2 main character's grandpa, Red, goes off on his journey. Accidentally stumbles across an old shrine tucked away somewhere, one that honoured past warriors. Danny is a past warrior, and one that is more human than most ghosts. So maybe settling down at the shrine to patch up an injury wasnt a great idea.

Brilliant lights and rumbling, the ground cracks open with an eerie green glow, his Rathalos is screeching and ready to open fire on the weird fissure.

A hand pushes out of the crack in the ground, and pulls up a dad-shaped man through the ground. One dressed in crystalline armor and carrying a spear. Slightly singed and bleeding green from a cut on his cheek.

Turns out, Danny wasnt expecting to be summoned in the middle of an exhibition match against Pandora, but now he's looking down at a teenager pointing a sword at him while a dragon-looking thing behind him growls and looks two seconds away from opening fire on him. What else can he do but adopt the little shit? Danny could use a vacation away from the Ghosts, and this kid is on an unsupervised journey across the world.

Danny can totally go on a nice cross-country journey. Amd besides, kid has his own flying mount, and Danny can fly. He's going to wrangle in this kid and keep him safe.

He's a Dad now. Fuck. Wait until Ellie hears about this!

They do the journey, find the odd pink pits of evil light, Danny totally teaches the kid about magic and ghosts, and all the skills he needs to be a good fighter.

And then Red grows up, has his own family, and all. Danny becomes that hermit Uncle that owns a chunk of forest and teaches you to hunt, but always comes down for the family gathering. That is, until Red dies. (And considering the MC in Monster Hunter Stories 2 doesn't even mention parents, maybe they've also died too).

Danny goes into the woods, never to be seen again. Occasionally someone brings words of a tall, handsome man in crystalline armor helping someone and then disappearing before their eyes, but as soon as reports his Terga Volcano they stop. They assume he's disappeared too.

In reality, Danny found that game's equivalent of the elves, and they understand his grief of looking barely over 40 and having mourned several generations of humans already. They live atop a cliff that you need to fly to get into, and don't ask invasive questions about his powers.

He becomes their best Hunter, but rarely needs to be sent out, only to chase off invasive species or poachers. Danny hates poachers and their cruel methods.

By the time game story happens, and the MC arrives at the volcano, they're received at the village entrance by warriors, as happens in canon, and get to meet their commander, a tall, regal-looking man, with a spear over his shoulder and crystal armor covering him. He's glaring and giving out orders to bring the intruders to the village, but he's very soft-spoken towards the Rathalos accompanying the MC.

And then the kid takes off their helmet and Danny feels his entire world freeze. That's...that's impossible. He knows those eyes, but on a much older face. On the face of a son he couldn't get to in time.

The MC gets to witness the tall, scary man suddenly look pained by so much grief, falling to his knees and asking them about their grandpa Red.

I kinda wanna have the MC be a girl, specifically so Danny, who raised a feral son and his Monster friends, now gets to be a dad to a girl, and oh Ancients, what do girls in this world even like?

Turns out, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and she likes to climb everywhere. Instead of a bed will sleep comfortably on her Monster friends, and she's more likely to end up covered in mud and sticks, than anything he's expecting a girl to like.

Except, this go around, you get tired veteran and his emptional support feral child. Imagine Geralt raising Ciri, if young Ciri had the attitude of Dick Grayson along with the love of nature of Damian al Ghul Wayne.

This kid was half raised by her village's Monsters, because she refused to sit still and kept running off to go play with the baby Monsters in the Stables, and eventually got semi-adopted by the adults.

Picture this:

"Kid, please get down from there! You're gonna hurt yourself!"

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, already feeling a slight headache coming. Somehow, his great-granddaughter had found her way up the cliff with the help of a bunch of vines, a knife, and clinging to a particularly big Konchu.

"Not until I find it!"

"Find what? Kid, what are you looking for that could be worth a broken arm or leg?"

And thena the kid is wrenching something out of the cliff face, tipping over backwards further than her improvised rope can bear. It snaps, and she goes falling, leading to a fussing Danny flying up to catch her, holding her against his chest, too terrified for words.

Sure, later the kid is going to realize she almost died AND made her great-grandpa almost have a heart attack if he still could get those, but for now she's safe in his arms, her prize of a particularly shiny rock is in her hands, and they're flying without riding on a Monster's back.

"Let's do that again!"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!!"

Just...girldad Danny, who looks like the Hot Teacher, but is too Scarred by The Horrors to consider dating, having to contend with raising a feral girl who's somehow even worse than raising her grandpa was. And she keeps trying to set him up with single older women, except Danny's got almost, or already well over two centuries under his belt.

He's the Hot Immortal Lover, and doesn't understand that everyone they meet would happily be All Over That if he only let them. And now the Handsome Immortal has a child. Oh no, he's hot AND a good dad!

HOLY FUCK!! AHEIRBRIBAIE this was a good read. I love it. I don't understand some of the terms but I'll gobble it all up either way.

(I kinda wanna see Dan -Biased-)

[cielcreations]

Front Seat (Danny Phantom

Characters are aged up to be 18+! Also, no ghosts AU!

I remember past me when I first used Tumblr liked this post and was like "Hey, this is a good idea for a short story."

And now, like 5yrs later, I actually made a short story. Enjoy!

Dash Baxter did not like Danny Fenton. That much was obvious.

He tolerated the annoying bug for the most part because of his sister. Jazz Fenton helped him with work and made it easier for him to somewhat maintain his minimum GPA to stay on the football team. Granted, Dash's definition of "tolerance" was shoving Fenton into lockers or pushing him out of the way. It could be worse. He gives some other nerds swirlies or slam their faces into food, so Fenton should feel somewhat grateful!

One day, when it was snowing and cold, Dash's practice ended early and he needed to get something from his locker. So, after he changed and got dressed, he grabbed his textbooks from his locker and headed out the front doors of the school. As he stepped outside, he saw a none other than Fenton, reading a random book, slouching over as he did.

"What're you doing here, nerd?" Dash asked, not really caring but still curious.

Fenton looked over his shoulder, scoffed and went back to his book.

"Hey! Don't just ignore me!"

"Do you actually care?"

"Just answer, idiot."

The raven groaned, rolled his eyes, and sighed, "Jazz is tutoring some freshmen and I don't have a ride cause parents are busy with ghost work."

"What about that weird goth freak and tech geek?"

"That 'goth freak' and 'tech geek' have names." Fenton hissed, "Sam can't take me home, her parents are weird and don't like my parents and, therein, me, and Tucker is too far away from me. It'd be too out of his way and I don't wanna inconvenience him."

Dash hesitated before walking past him. He noticed Fenton was only wearing a jacket and pants, nothing to help him with the biting cold. Dash wore a scarf, a large winter coat over his long sleeved shirt, his letterman jacket, two pairs of pants, and two pairs of socks. How could Fenton stand this cold? He went to walk away, turned to face the raven, and took another step away. Am I really going to do this?

Dash looked over his shoulder one more time before he groaned dramatically, "Alright, come on."

"What?" Fenton asked.

"Come on, I'll take you home."

"Are you high? No, you don't smoke." The raven shook his head, correcting himself, "Are you drunk?"

"NO!" Dash hissed, groaning, "Listen, if you freeze to death, I am not going to be the last one to have seen you! If Jazz found out I saw you and left you to die in the cold, she'd kill me! And I am not spending my afterlife with you, Fenton!"

"I'm not going to freeze to death, idiot, I'm fine!"

"You barely have anything on!"

"So what?! I'm fine!"

"Nope, nuh uh, come with me, now!"

"Fuck you, I'm not-"

"If you let me drive you home and not make a peep, I'll stop messing with you for a day!"

Fenton's eyes widened before he narrowed, "Seriously? You're willing to do that just to get me to let you drive me home? You got something in your car I should be concerned about?"

"NO! JUST- UUUGH!" Dash pinched his temples, "Listen, recently, during tutoring session, your sister has mentioned how worried she is with you. She said she's afraid you're going to get hypo.... hyper...? The shit when you're too cold!"

"Hypothermia?"

"YES! She's worried 'bout that!" The blonde sighed, "She really cares about you and if she finds out I left you out here when it's freezing, she'd make me pay for it. I get not trusting me, but can you at least do it for her?"

Fenton seemed to hesitate before he sighed. He shut his book and stood up, "Fine. But I get bragging rights and get to say I won a bet if anyone sees and asks."

"Ugh, whatever. Just come on."

The two began walking to the blonde's car. Dash unlocked the doors and got in the driver's seat, Fenton getting in the passenger's seat. He sat, looking out the window, hugging his bag to his check, uncomfortable and awkward. Dash turned the car on, turning the heat up and pressing his seat warmer.

"You want yours on?" Dash asked, pointing to the seat warmer button.

Fenton looked at the button and shook his head, looking out the window again, "No."

Dash shrugged and looked over his shoulder. He reversed out of the parking lot, beginning to drive away. The ride was silent for the most part, awkward, on both sides. They stopped at a red light, silent, the only noise being from outside. The blonde was trying to think of something to say, trying to figure out if he should even say something. Suddenly, Fenton leaned over and turned on the radio.

"Hey, don't-"

"Hey, it's Ember's new song!" Fenton exclaimed, excitedly turning the music up a bit, "Don't ruin it!"

Dash looked at the raven out of the corner of his eye, confused, "You... like Ember?"

"Uh, who doesn't?" Fenton rolled his eyes, "You may think I'm a nerd or whatever, but nerds have taste too!"

Dash snorted a laugh, focusing on the road and beginning to move once the light was green, "Well, how was I suppose to know? We don't exactly talk."

"And who's fault is that?"

The blonde was silent, knowing he was right. The raven nodded his head along to the music, mouthing the lyrics, Dash watching out of the corner of his eye. He was... kind of impressed. The other wasn't as lame as he originally thought. Then again, liking Ember McLain is not necessarily anything to write home about. Like Fenton said, who doesn't like her songs? I guess it's weird coming from him. Dash thought, pulling up to the building with the large neon glowing signs and metal space ship looking thing.

Suddenly, green smoke started coming out from the top of the building.

"Ughhhh..." Fenton pinched his temples.

"Uhhhh, is your place... safe?"

"It is. My parents are too stupid for any of their shit to work." Fenton groaned, grabbing his stuff, "Thanks for the ride."

"Uh, yeah, no problem." Dash stared at the green smoke, "Uh, you sure your place is not on fire or something?"

"Dash, did you forget my parents are the crazy ghost fanatics?" The raven opened the passenger door, waving his hand at the smoke, "This is what they do. It's stupid, crazy, and annoying, but to the few who believe in fairy tales, it makes money."

The blonde snickered, "I guess that's what matters?"

Fenton shrugged, stepping out, "Thanks again." He shut the passenger door and walked to front door of his home.

He opened the door and immediately stepped out of the way, just in time for Mr. and Mrs. Fenton to run out of the building and going to the alley next to their home, holding what looked to be junk. The raven groaned and walked inside, slamming the door behind him. 

Dash felt... weird. Bad, maybe? He can't imagine living with those types of parents.

Dash shook his head, beginning to drive away. He wasn't going to worry about Danny.

Fenton. He wasn't going to worry about Fenton.

***

For the next couple of weeks, the same thing had happened. Dash's practice was cut off early due to weather, he would "forget" his textbooks, and he would find Dan- Fenton sitting at the front, either reading a book, copying some notes, studying for a test, or just on his phone. Dash would offer him a ride and the other would agree. At first, it was reluctant, but over the next few days turned to weeks, he would put up less of a fight, to the point when Dash came out of the building, he would stand up and look at him.

The rides turned from Dash taking Fenton home, to Dash driving to the nearby fast food joint, offering to buy Danny some food. They would hang out, eating in his car, sometimes going inside to do some studying together. Over time, Dash noticed how Danny didn't prepare much for the cold, which made him a bit worried. Danny always said he was fine, but the blonde didn't always believe him.

One day, when he walked out, he shoved a small letterman jacket in Danny's direction, "For you."

"Huh?"

"Listen, you don't have a winter's coat and you're probably freezing your ass off. Just take it. It was from my freshman year, so it's too small. It'll just collect dust in my closet anyways."

Danny blinked and took it. He put the letterman on and hummed, hugging himself a bit, "It's... pretty warm."

"I know, why do you think I wear it all the time." Dash snickered, "Come on, we're going to the movies."

"Movies?" Danny was quick to follow him to the car, "Why?"

"Cause I wanna see that new horror movie that just came out and Paulina, Star, and Kwan are too chicken and I know you will enjoy it!"

"Hell yeah!" The raven exclaimed, "I'll pay for-"

"Nope, on me. I'm inviting you out."

They got in their seats, the raven looking at the blonde, smiling, "You don't have to."

"If I'm taking you, it's only right I pay." Dash began to reverse.

Danny chuckled, "You know, Dash, you're not a bad guy!"

The blonde chuckled, "You're not so bad yourself, Danny."

The raven widened his eyes.

"What?"

"I think that's the first time you've called me by my first name."

Dash blushed a bit and shrugged, "Well, uh, I figured I should."

The ride was silent to the movies, mainly because both we feeling a bit embarrassed and awkward again. Once they got to the movie theater, they hopped out, going to the ticket stand. Dash bought their tickets, a bag of popcorn, and their drinks before they went into the theater room. They sat down and whispered to one another as the ads played, laughing quietly and joking with one another. Once the movie began playing, they shut up and began watching. As it began, Dash thought Danny would get scared, but the other was fine. If anything, he got more excited and loved it. Danny leaned into the blonde, who wrapped his arm around the raven without even thinking.

Once the movie ended, the two stood up, hand in hand, walking out of the theaters, talking excitedly about the movie and how impressed they were with it. They got back to Dash's car and continued laughing, joking, and overall having a nice time as the blonde drove to Danny's home. By the time they got there, the sun had set. Dash walked Danny to the front door, the raven taking out his keys and unlocking the door. He peaked inside, seeing all the lights were off.

"Will you get in trouble?" Dash asked, "Like, do you have a curfew or something?"

"Probably, but where's the fun in that?" Danny snickered, looking at him, "What about you?"

"Meh, my mom's chill."

"Well, good." The raven faced him, smiling, "Thank you, Dash, for the nice time. I-I had a lot of fun."

"Me too. I-I like sending time with you." The blonde responded.

The two stood there for a second, silent. Danny took a step forward and stood on his toes to lean up and kiss Dash's cheek. The blonde grabbed his chin before he could pull away, leaning down and kissing his lips. It was a short kiss, nothing dramatic or otherworldly, but it didn't have to be. They stepped back and smiled at each other.

"Good, I wasn't reading that wrong, then." The raven chuckled.

Dash chuckled awkwardly, "No, you, weren't." He hesitated and stepped back, "So, um, see you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow, Dash."

From then on, everything seemed to change.

***

"Party time! Party time!" Paulina and Star cheered, both dressed in cute short party dresses.

Kwan laughed, wearing a nice button up and pants, holding the door opened for everyone, "Dash! Leo! Come on or we're leaving you!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, who's driving?" Dash teased, tossing a football towards him, also in a nice shirt, blazer, and jeans.

Kwan easily caught it with a laugh.

Leo, a new student at Casper High, easily integrated into the popular clique. He was a great football player, a bit of a class clown, smart, funny, and attractive. They easily accepted him both on the team and part of the friend group.

"I can drive you Kwan, if need be!" Leo chuckled, wearing a shirt with joggers, going for more casual than nice.

"Yeah, with what car?"

"Yours still, I'll just steal your keys!" 

The group laughed and got to Dash's car, the blonde unlocking just the driver's side and getting in. He jokingly made them wait before unlocking the car, allowing everyone to pile in the back.

However, Leo opened the passenger door.

"Nah, nah, nah." Dash immediately stopped him, pointing to the back, "Backseat."

Leo laughed but Dash just pointed to the back again. The man stared, "Wait, seriously?"

"We're picking up someone else. You get in the back."

"Wait, why can't they sit in the back?

"Oh, riiiight!" Kwan exclaimed, "Leo, get in the back, you'll see."

"But-"

"Just trust us!" Paulina giggled, "Come on!"

Leo begrudgingly got in the back, thankful Dash's car could at least fit all four of them in the back. The group continued talking and laughing as Dash pulled out of the school parking lot, making his way to wherever they were going. No one told Leo what was going on, so he just waited to see what was going on.

They pulled in front of a large building with a glowing neon sign reading Fenton Works. Leo remembered hearing about the Fentons, how Mr. and Mrs. Fenton were crazy about ghosts and their kids did everything in their power to not be embarrassed by them. He heard their daughter was going to college and their son also went to their school. Danny Fenton, the kid who sat with a weird goth chick and tech geek.

"What're we doing here?" Leo asked.

No one responded, rolling down the windows. Dash blasted the music and honked the horn, Paulina, Kwan, and Star cheering. After a few seconds, Danny Fenton emerged from the home, wearing a shirt with the NASA logo, a letterman jacket, and some skinny jeans. He was clearly holding back laughter as he approached the car, the four cheering.

"DANNY! DANNY! DANNY! DANNY!" Kwan, Paulina, Star, and Dash chanted, the raven blushing, covering his face in embarrassment.

"Shut up!" Danny hissed playfully as he hopped in the front seat, "God, you all are embarrassing."

Dash rolled the windows up and turned the music down as Kwan spoke first, "How you doing man, you ready for the party?!"

"Hell yeah I am!"

The group cheered, but Leo stared at Danny in confusion.

"Oh, is Sam gonna be there? I have to return her mirror!" Star explained.

"She and Tuck are carpooling with Valerie."

"Perfect, I need to give Val her headband back!" Paulina explained.

"Oh, Danny, this is Leo." Dash pointed to the seat behind him, Danny turning to face him, "Newbie. Probably heard it around."

The raven smiled, "Oh, nice to meet you. Sorry about them, you were probably confused."

"It's cool, I'm more confused why you get front seat."

Dash glared out his review mirror, Danny chuckled, and the other three jokingly 'ooooh'ed.

"Oh, you are new." He looked at Kwan, Paulina, and Star, who smiled innocently, "And you three didn't tell. Nice play." Finally, the raven looked at Dash, "Dashy~ Can I have a kiss~?"

Dash blushed and nodded softly, leaning over and kissing his lips.

Leo widened his eyes as the other three cheered. Once they pulled away, the blonde quickly focused on driving, embarrassed.

Danny then looked at Leo, winking, "See, I always get front seat. Perks of being the quarterback's boyfriend!"

Leo blushed in embarrassment, looking away as the car erupted into laughter, the group beginning to joke and talk once again.

[meowmeowmeowmeow4x]

Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 36

Hey guys! Been super busy with other stuff. Check out my Ao3 if u wanna see more dpxdc siren content!

also masterpost!

INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY AS AMERICAN AGENTS TEAR THROUGH PANAMA

GIW agents harass civilians and destroy property in pursuit of supposed siren supervillain Phantom, only for no trace of said villain to be found. Is this yet another sordid chapter in American interference on South American soil? Lois Lane reports.

That was a welcome sight to see in the morning. Jazz Fenton placed her phone face down, and rolled back into bed; it was a bad idea to look at screens for too long while concussed, as much as she wanted to dig into the article lambasting Amity’s least favourite government workers. A small weight lifted off her shoulders. For the moment, her brother and Damian were scot free. Her parents were still hard at work on repairs. They’d spent the whole night in despair along with Bruce Wayne after Skulker had escaped without telling them any info on the missing boys, then the next morning, boom! Back to work. Never let it be said that the Fentons gave up easily. The GIW seemed less likely to bounce back, if the backlash against them was any indication. And Skulker’s ship was at the bottom of the sea.

As for what Danny and Damian would do next, Jazz had no idea. They could be trekking through Brazil on foot, or planning to swim back up north to Amity for all she knew. All she could do was hope Danny got himself a phone soon to call her, and let her know they were alright. Speaking of which…

Jazz got up and moved to the side of her door, where the spare mattress was propped up. She dragged it over the door, sealing it shut. With her room once again soundproofed and secure, she went back to her bed, and tapped a group call contact on her phone. She had texted them the brief details last night, but was too busy comforting her parents to give them the full report.

It answered in two rings. Tucker spoke immediately. “What’s your status?”

Sam picked up right after. “Where are the boys?”

“Everything is fine, for now. They managed to escape Panama before the GIW could catch them. But Skulker got them soon after.”

“Shit. I never even knew! I wasn’t there to hack him. What happened?” Tucker asked in panic.

“Mom and Dad came back last night, told me and Bruce that ‘Phantom’ made off with his little green friend. So at least they’re safe.”

“So that means they’re safe, right?”

Jazz squeezed her hairband. “For the most part. There’s one issue, though. Mom and Bruce saw Danny running at the beach in Panama. They didn’t see him go into the water or anything.” She was always careful not to say anything that would connect Danny with Phantom, just in case there was still somehow someone listening. It was never ‘transform’, it was always ‘go in the water.’ It was never Danny and Damian swimming in the ocean, it was Phantom and his friend, or just ‘they.’ “They don’t suspect anything catastrophic yet, but the situation is sensitive.”

“Well fuck.” The sound of a fist on wood came through Sam’s end.

“Sam, are you training?” Tucker asked. Jazz internally questioned if there was a reason to his surprise.

“Just a bit. Need to be in tip top shape.” Another series of punches. “You got a problem with that, Tuck?”

“Nope. Not at all.”

Jazz pursed her lips. “How are you guys feeling, outside of paranoid anxiety and crushing fear?”

“Like I want to cave someone’s face in right now.”

“I’ve got some good news!” Keyboard clacking followed his announcement, and a text from him appeared on their group chat. It was an internal order obviously gained via Tucker’s illicit means, directing operatives to pack up and hit the seas for Phantom. “The Gankers in Wetwipes are screwing off in the next couple weeks. That means less property damage. Woo!”

“But more people chasing Phantom, Tuck.” Sam let out a guttural growl as she kicked something, by the sound of it. “They’ll be licking their wounds for a while with his GTA stunt in Panama, but for how long?”

For how long indeed. If they were as determined as they ever were, probably not long at all. “What’s the status at Fentonworks?”

“All clear for now. I already gained access to the system aaages ago, back when we needed to disable the detection systems for Danny.” A few keys clicked in the background. “Still nothing. I have a program to alert me and Sam when a certain someone shows up.”

“And then what?”

“Hopefully, blast him to fucking bits with the house defenses.”

“There’s also plan B, Jazz, but we’ll save that for later,” Sam added. “How are you feeling?”

Jazz sighed. The last few days have been nothing but anxiety, uncertainty and stress. Slowly, she breathed in again, and her sigh became a calming exhale. “Honestly? Relieved. The future is uncertain, and people are naturally inclined to dislike uncertainty, but I have faith in Danny. He’s one of the strongest little brothers a woman could hope for.”

She just needed to have faith.

Damian chewed a piece of Sargassum. The stars coated the night sky once more in a mesmerising dome, while Danny laid beside him, fins flicking lazily, as he retold myths. Currently Danny was going over Herakles, who was brought to the teet of Hera to suckle, only for the baby Herakles to nibble too hard, causing the goddess’ milk to spill out into the stars, forming the Milky Way.

“Incidentally, galaxias literally means milky! Can you believe it?” Danny concluded.

The whale pod was fast asleep at this moment, floating near the surface of the ocean. Danny’s body was already mostly dried out, scales replaced by pink skin. The older boy tipped his foot into the water, which morphed it into a fin, before splashing the water onto Damian’s body.

As much as Damian wished to be able to continue swimming, he was still in recovery, and he and Danny had not finished gathering supplies yet. Instead, he laid his head on the mother whale’s body and on Danny’s, and listened to another story.

“This isn’t about any constellations, but here’s the hillaarrious misunderstanding for why some Greeks thought the god Pan was dead…”

Damian fell asleep to the rhythm in Danny’s chest.

He woke up feeling better than ever, and the whale calves seemed to feel the same. As soon as he rose, a group of them with Dorothea at the helm ambushed him. Dorothea bumped her nose onto him, and Damian instinctively grasped her fins to hold on, while she dashed away from her friends. Three calves followed Dorothea’s tail, while another two flanked her left side.

The two from the side dove for Damian, aiming to knock him off Dorothea’s back, but she swerved upward and dodged their advance. So the game was to claim Damian as their rider. He could get behind this. Dorothea’s friends approached from the rear. Damian secured his position atop her back, and scanned his surroundings, which were mostly featureless sands and dozens of whales. He clicked a command, then nudged her in the downwards direction. Almost by telepathy, Dorothea angled downwards underneath the belly of one of the adult pod members. The three chasers followed closely.

“Giddy up, Dorothy! We can still outswim them!” He called out to his friend. However, his glee was cut short by the reappearance of the two flankers. One seemed like a young male, with three spots on his head. Damian dubbed him Cerberus. The other had a white patch on its fin. Damian called it Todd.

Cerberus went low, while Todd went high, brushing against the underbelly of the adult they were swimming under. With Damian holding on tight, Dorothy dashed forward. She and Damian aimed to swim up the side of the adult and lose their tails (curse you Richard and your infectious disease). However, the three chasers from the back had returned. A smaller runt rammed Damian by the side. It was not painful, just startling. Damian yelped at his new captor and the current winner. “Be careful, you dolt! And start swimming!”

Runt clicked an answer back, and the chase was on. Damian took the helm at Runt’s back, and chirped a challenge back to the other calves, who crooned back with renewed vigour. Runt wasn’t as big or strong as her friends, but she was small, and that made her a more difficult target, as well as granting her greater nimbleness in the water. Try as her pod mates might, they were unable to catch her. Runt twisted and zig-zagged through the water, and around the bodies of the adults. Dorothea managed to glance by Damian’s sail, but she had aimed too high and left Damian firmly seated on his current noble steed.

As enemy forces closed in on them, he had to wonder what the victory condition had to be for this game, and if there weren’t, how he could make one decisively. His gaze turned upward.

“We need altitude, Runt. On the double!” He commanded. Damian ducked under another capture attempt by Cerberus, then jerked Runt to the side as Todd dove for another attempt. Runt sped toward the surface with accelerating pace amidst the growing resistance. In a rush of motion, the pair broke the surface and launched into the air, almost six whole feet up. Runt sang a triumphant tune. She blasted water out of her blowhole, which happened to be right underneath Damian’s face, but Damian couldn’t help but laugh even as he was pelted by high-pressure water. His stomach lurched and his heart jittered with the thrill of free-fall, celebrated with a pump of the fist.

He and Runt plummeted back to the deep blue sea with a magnificent splash, right before the whale calves surrounded them with playful nuzzles.

A click interrupted their celebration. Behind the shifting bodies of the whale calves, a grinning Danny floated, camera in hand. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

Damian glared with dignity. He did not pout. “I was getting in my recommended hours of physical therapy. You’re welcome.”

“Yeah yeah yeah. And it wasn’t just because you wanted to play with the whales again?”

“It was training.” Damian put his hands to his hips. “I am learning how to be a whale whisperer and trainer, for any future encounters where that skillset might be useful.”

“Well…” Danny rolled his shoulders back and grinned. “Is the budding whale trainer ready for a lunch break?” The older boy offered a helping of brown kelp. “Today our chef has prepared a special three-course dinner comprising of kelp, kelp, and a mystery desert for later!”

“It is kelp, is it not?”

“You betcha!”

Within the clean white walls of a private jet, a man picks up a glass of champagne. Poor Jasmine, all alone in Fentonworks, her parents having gone off gallivanting across the waves once more. Poor Jasmine indeed. Well, having set affairs in order back at home, Vlad Masters was finally coming to check in on his dear, dear goddaughter.

“How long until we reach Amity, pilot?”

“Just another hour, sir. Hang in tight.”

“Excellent.”

And if he completed a few errands around Amity Park in the meantime, who could blame him?

[bowlerhatwearer]

(Hey! sorry for the inactivity, irl stuff has been more annoying lately. But I still wanna show up every now and then! So, in the meantime...) In my free time I've been thinking abt an animation crossover au where the studio made characters are the lightners and the independently made ones as darkners. I actually have a notes on this but sum up the main parts:

"Fenwick" (BunBun: Pibby Apocalypse) as Kris (And is a rabbit monster in a town full of humans)

"Clotilde 'Cleo'" (Little Cato: Final Space) as Susie (A world where he gets to live with his bio parents and sucks pretty bad)

"Anew" (Patient 1.0.1: cartoon therapy, most notably in the theme song video) as Ralsei (Fenwick's adoptive sibling is a figurative fusion of all three warner siblings who's currently at art school)

"Dannie Masters" (Danny Fenton: Danny Phantom) as Noelle (Which would make "Vazz" as Dess)

Chapter 1: Card Kingdom + Spooky month. with "Leader" (Skid's dad) as King and "Spid & Luck" (skid & pump) poth playing the lancer role.

Chapter 2: Cyber world + Lackadaisy. "Manager" (ASA sweet) as Queen

Chapter 3: TV world + Punch Punch Forever. "Noshow" (NoNo) as Tenna

Chapter 4: *maybe* Godspeed. (I say maybe just bc there's isn't a lot to go off of rn, but in that case) Maybe Kingslayer as the "old man" and bowie as Jackenstien

Sooooo yah, hope U like the ramblethon after being dead for so long ^^ (hey that rymes!)

Greetings Annoyingheartenthusiast! ^^

Welcome back my friend! I hope that despite the IRL Situation you have a good time. I am happy and it is good to hear from you. :-.)

This is very relatable to me, because my own free time / time for my hobbies but also having time with my friends or to socialize in general has been spread very thin, due to work ^^,,,

I find the idea very fascinating, the idea of the studio made characters being lighteners and the independent ones being darkeners is very creative and clever :3

I find the choice of characters, the who represents who very creative and I am excited to hear more about your idea ^^

Yours sincerely

Bowler

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

hiiii mackerellll my brains also bad soup rn soup brain solidarity BUT nhw.... winters family torment nexus..... i did have a question for u actually. currently wading around in the tranches (early game nhw) n i wanna write them doing silly like teen traumatized child soldier shit like playing truth or dare or shit like that... what do u think their two truths & a lie would b? also like. do u have any thoughts on their civilian life. when they are Not on the job or fighting extinction level threats or having panic attacks at school. u know. that 10% <333

ALSO. NHW WAVELENGTH..... do u have any thoughts on him. my only secret backstory caveat is that he has to have the fucking worst shit nightmare rube goldberg machine luck of all time. third & final question im just curious was danny phantom vivisection real & canon or just like a Thing??????

ok im going to start with the danny phantom question bc im dyinggg to talk about this. pun intended. also this is my equivalent of rent-lowering gunshots. if u cannot deal with my dp posting u do not deserve my pd posting etc etc etc !!!

THE ANSWER IS. BOTH YES AND NO. it never Actually Happens but it is talked about!!!!!!! the whole thing is like. dannys parents are ghost hunters and dont know about his powers so theres a lot of him like. overhearing talking about them dissecting ghosts and experimenting on ghosts and such. not knowing that he is one!!! prime territory for somes angsty ass fics. however i am of the small minority that doesnt actually think the fentons are monsters apparently. they dont know!! how could they know!!!!! theyre scientists!!! do you know how much scientists casually talk about dissecting things!! its a lot!!! also theres been a few different instances of them finding out about dannys powers (almost always retconned by time/memory shenanigans but its fine) and EVERY TIME THEYRE SO SUPPORTIVE OF HIM. AND THEY TELL HIM THEY LOVE HIM REGARDLESS. AND IN ONE CASE THEY EVEN APOLOGIZE FOR SAYING THOSE THINGS AROUND HIM BC THEY DIDNT KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! anyway. anyway. i digress bc i love the fentons. anyway! there are so many. SO MANY fucking fanfictions out there of danny getting dissected/vivisected. so many in fact that its one of the things the fandom is best known for by outsiders. enough that there was literally a FANDOM-WIDE DEBATE about whether to call it dissection or vivisection because dannys status as alive/dead is so unclear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lmao!!!!!!!!! worlds most fucked up fanbase i love it here

putting the nhw stuff under a cut. subjecting my followers to my dp ramble bc fuck you!!!!!! read about my ghost boy first

OK I AM SOOOO FUCKING BAD AT TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE. IM SO BAD AT IT I CAN NEVER THINK OF ANYTHING. so instead i am just going to think of fun facts about them. so actually im gonna kill two birds wiht one stone here and answer both of ur questions abt them. here we go !!!

i think it would be REALLY funny if william is the only one with a drivers license bc he grew up in Not The City (just because he has a license doesnt mean hes GOOD). dakota is lactose intolerant but chooses to be in stubborn denial about it (he canonically doesnt like ice cream!). virion, despite being compared to a cat so often, is allergic to cats. speaking of animals, william likes animals but animals DO NOT like him!! on the other hand animals absolutely love dakota he is friends with every stray dog and cat in the whole city. virion was homeschooled by his parents/the greats. virion also doesnt know much about anything in regards to pop culture/general everyday civilian life? because he was never completely removed from the cape world at any time growing up. no non-cape adults in his life. so he and william still have their movie nights where william introduces him to shitty b-movies hehehe. dakota tries to get him into more Normal movies like. disney or ghibli or whatever but virion likes the shitty ones more. ASSIGNING THEM FAVORITE GHIBLI MOVIES WHILE IM AT IT. this is not which ones i think theyre the most like, just the ones i think are their favorties. dakota likes ponyo, william likes howls moving castle, virion likes princess mononoke, ashe likes spirited away . dont ask me why. UHHH FAVORITE PLACES TO HANG OUT OUTSIDE OF THE BASE/HOUSE. dodgeboy memorial library. lightspeed hangs out there and they like her <3. antonios pizza. he lets them loiter bc they always tip really well. william likes going to the park because he has chronic Grew Up In The Woods disease and needs outdoor time or else he'll go crazy. hes not used to city life. dakota likes the park bc there are lots of little animals there and he can Run Around, virion doesnt like the park as much bc its a lot of Vulnerable Open Spaces and those make him nervous. speaking of which in my head ive grown so attached to the idea of him being so hypervigilant at all times. look at him ive given him anxiety!!! just like. the insane betrayal losing every important figure in his life immediately leading into a life basically on the streets alone picking fights with other capes led to . idk man i keep thinking about it like sleeping in shifts but its impossible to do that with only one person!!!!!!!! do u know what i mean!!!! basically translating the "growing up on fauna where everything wants to kill you" energy into this setting. HMMMMMM. I THINK THATS IT. THATS ALL I CAN THINK OF RN . SORRY FOR THE BLOCK OF TEXT

ohhhhhhh god. oh god oh fuck. i literally Have Not Thought about nhw mark yet like AT ALL only bc i know if i do ill get so sick about it. worlds most suffering man ever he is losing everything!!!!!! ok bc im thinking about lizard stuff tonight im going to answer your question with a question. we;ve kind of sort of talked about the existence of harttawa in relation to overlord and cauldron does he still get fucked up lizard mutations!!!!!! ALSO CAN WE TALK ABOUT HIS POWERSET. i have a lot of feelings abt him being at least partially a tinker. i think before u also called him a striker (maybe? am i remembering that right) i dont think i know strikers yet what does that one mean. WHAT WAS HIS TRIGGER EVENT. OR IS HE A CAULDRON CAPE. SHAKING YOU. I KNOW I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS BUT. I NEED 2 GET TO THE WORM SECTION WHERE I GET TO LEARN ABOUT NHW ASHE SO BAD. actually i didnt get to read any worm this weekend so im gonna stay up a Little later just to get past this section where theyrre fighting the dragon suits. ouagh EXCITED.

[perlapulido]

Ghostly Heart Beat

Summary: Ariana just got into a new school in Amitypark finding herself in adventure with her friends and running into trouble that can may or may not change her future.

Ch1

(A/n: i only own the artwork and ocs.)

The bell rang for third class as students came into their English classroom. A boy with raven hair walked in with his two friends taking their seats. "Another day of the same old. Same old." said the goth girl. "Oh come on Sam. We can go to the Nasty Burger and try out something new from the menu." said a nerd next to the raven-haired boy. "Why not. My parents are trying get the house ready for the new neighbors from across the street." said the boy. "Maybe it wont be that bad Danny." said Sam. "Yeah like having more people think my family is weird." said Danny as the class door opened. A girl with long brown hair wearing punk clothes came in with a note. "Is this Mr. Lancer's English class?" said the girl. "Yes. Go ahead and take a seat next to miss Manson." said Mr. Lancer reading her note for being late. The girl sat down and put her satchel under her seat. "Now turn to page 83 and answer the questions given." said Mr. Lancer reading some emails on his computer. Sam passed the girl a note as she read the section. 'Welcome to Casper High. Im Sam.' it read. 'Thanks Im Ariana McClaire. Whos those boys staring at me?' she wrote below and passed it back. 'the nerd is Tucker and the other is Danny.' Sam wrote. 'Cool. Is alright if i hang with you guys?' Ariana wrote. 'Sure better than being with the wanna bees in the back.' Sam wrote. 

Throughout class Sam and Ariana wrote each other notes until the bell rang for lunch. Ariana followed Sam and her friends to their lockers to get their lunch money or put their stuff away. "So Ari where your from?" said Tucker. "San Diego. My parents got promoted to a new job." said Ariana then noticed a blue mist coming out of Danny's mouth. "Thats sounds awesome but i better run to the boys room." said Danny and left. "What was that?" said Ariana. "What was what?" siad Tucker smiling nervously. "The smoke coming out of Danny's m-" "We should save Danny a seat at the cafeteria. Come on." said Sam. They left the lockers as Danny phase through the floor looking around the halls seeing a black and White husky pup wearing a neon pink collar. "A ghost pup? Well this seems easy." said Danny until the pup went into the teachers lounge. Mr. Lancer was at the table getting a plate of egg salad until the pup knocked down on his shirt as Danny tried to grab her. "Oh Grapes of Wrath. I just had this dry cleaned!" said Mr. Lancer. The pup spotted him and phrase through the wall to the cafeteria. Ariana ate what looked like meatloaf on her tray as Tucker was talking about the lastest games he and Danny played. Sam just picked her food boredly as the pup went towards them. They heard a tiny pup bark getting their attention and Danny came in. "Time to put you back." said danny pointing the thermos at her. 'Go home Ava.' said Ariana in italy. Ava looked at her and vanished before Danny can activate the machine. "Great now i better get going." said Danny phasing through the floor. "What did you say?" said Tucker. "Nothing." said Ariana. Danny changed back to normal in the boys room and walked in sitting next to Sam. "Anyways where do you live?" said Danny. "I live across the street from a giant ghost hunting like house that says Fenton." said Ariana. "Thats my house." said Danny scratching the back of his head.  "Oh. Does everyone in your family hunt ghosts? Good? Or Bad?" said Ariana curiously. "I don't know. They always go after bad ones and even tried to grab that Phantom guy." said Danny. "Huh?" said Ariana then continued eating. "Im just glad your parents didnt barge in." said Sam. 

"Yeah but i hope that pup doesnt show itself to them." said Danny. "Me too." said Ariana quietly. "Hey Fenturd." said a voice. Danny suddenly got hit in the head by a patch of meatloaf. "Not Dash again." said Tucker. Dash marched over to their table and dumped a carton on milk on his head. "Lunch is on you." he said laughing at his lame joke then got hit the face with the grey mush. Dash wipe it off with a flick and looked at Ariana holding up a spoon. "Oh you are going to pay for that." said Dash picking her up from the collar of her black leather vest. He clenched his fist ready to aim at her stomach but felt a pinch on his inner elbow knocking him out. Ariana let him fall face first into the tile and fix her vest like nothing happened. "Nice. Now everyone knows you took down a jock." said Sam. "I just dont like jerks like him." said Ariana putting her empty tray on top of the rack with the others. "Looks like your one of us now. Tell us about yourself." said Sam. "There's nothing special about me except I do experiment stuff like my parents, kind of a music nerd, and don't like being pushed if you what I mean." said Ariana gesturing Dash being dragged away to the nurses office. "We'll keep a mental note on that." said Danny. "Anyways wanna hang with us at Danny's place?" said Tucker. "Why not." said Ariana then exchanged numbers with them. She got her next two classes which was music and history since she did miss three classes to help unpack everything at her house. After school Ariana walked with Danny, Sam, and Tucker to the Fenton house. "Hey I'm home." said Danny walking in. "Danny can you get my tools from the lab." said a large man wearing an orange jumpsuit peeking his head out from the kitchen. He then noticed Ariana looking around the living room and waved at him. "Your our new neighbor, right?" said the man. "Yeah I'm Ariana McClaire. Nice to meet Mr. Fenton." said Ariana. "Thanks, but call me Jack, now I better get back on the ghost dector." said Jack. "Want to check out the lab?" said Danny. 

Ariana shrugged and followed him own to he basement spotting a woman working on something the large computers. "Hi. This is Ariana from across the street." Said Danny then grabbed the toolbox. "Nice to meet I'm Maddie and did your father mess with the ghost portal last month." said Maddie. "No." Said Danny nervously. "What's wrong with the ghost portal reactor?" said Ariana walking towards the machine. "It somehow shorted itself out and turned on from the inside." said Maddie. "Looks like a spirit from the other side activated it. They can do that." said Ariana. "Possibly to take over." said Maddie. "Some could but remember that their like us before." said Ariana. "How would you know?" said Danny. "Because i lost my cousin when i was five and one of my pups. I still have her ashes and collar to keep her close." said Ariana. "Im sorry. Well maybe i can keep an eye on jack. He more into ghost hunting than me." said Maddie. "Thanks. I better get going before my pup starts howling." said Ariana going upstairs. She grabbed her bag next to a girl with red hair then heard a tiny howl outside. "Not again." said Ariana. "Is that your dog?" said the girl. "Yeah he only does that if he misses or calling out to his sister." said Ariana. "Awe thats cute. Im Jazz. Danny's sister. I saw you bringing the load." said Jazz. "I missed three classes because of that. Anyways i gotta get going. Bye." said Ariana rushing out the door. "Maui im here." she says walking inside the house. A tiny black and white husky jumped off the couch wagging his tail happily. "Her so lucky that i saved your twin today. Come on lets go." said Ariana walking upstairs to her room with Maui following. She grabbed her journal and guitar sitting on her bed practicing the notes and chords. Maui sniffed the air and growled playfully at the full-length mirror that hanged on the wall in front of the bed. Ava phased through the mirror and barked at her brother before chasing him around the room.

[bluerosefox]

[2023 Prompt List 1][Here] [2023 Prompt List 2][Next] [2023 Prompt List 3][Next]

|Why Ra’s Would Summon the Ghost King (Also Twins AU) [Part 1] |Danyal, Danny, Phantom [Part 2] |WIP [Part 3] |Bio!Dad Jason and Bio!Mom Jazz (With Oc!Kid or Son!Danny) |Ghost Gotham (With Bonus Ghosts Martha and Thomas) |Danny Says Clone Rights |Robin’s Haunted Halloween (Feat. Ghost King Danny and Ghostly grandparents Martha and Thomas) |Library Cryptid Danny |Twins to Trio? (Dani mistakes Damian as Danny, and Damian learns his twin might not be dead) |Twins AU BUT WITH ANGST! |Mom!Dani (Square up Superman) |Free Flying Graysons (Feat. Ghostly John and Mary Grayson) |Comes in Twos (Twins! Jason and Danny die on the same day) |Foreboding Words of Warnings (Feat. Competent Ghost King Danny) |Across My Memories (Feat. Ghost King Danny, Ghost!Prince Jason) |Consorthood Via Combat (Feat. Ghost King Danny, and Danny dating any Bat of your choosing) |Wrong Number Au (Danny sends a rant text to Tucker... Only its not Tucker) |Todd and Phantom, Mostly Ghostly Shenanigans (Danny and Jason try to get out of the GZ together and bond) |Ellie “I WILL bite you” and Danny “He’s just a baby” Fenton (Deaged Danny and caretaker (and tiny bit feral) Dani (Ellie) watch out Gotham, she’ll bite.) |Double Troubles (another Damian and Danny twin au but they wanna see how long their families notice they switch places) |Everything, including the bride. WAIT, BRIDE?! (Dead Tired pairing, Tim now regrets being a smart cookie as a kid and solving a magical puzzle box while Danny regrets beating Pariah Dark cause he got the old King’s bride now as his own) |CAT Ghost INSTINCTS (Damian brings home a... interesting new acquaintance who has some interesting... quirks) |Peek-A-Boo Champ! (Jazz and her baby being taken by a cult. Jason coming to save them. And Uncle Danny being the best at peek-a-boo) |Teeny-Tiny Kitten (Danielle ‘Ellie’ makes a wish and later gets found by a certain cat and bat) |Same As The Day I Lost You (Mix de-aged Danny, and siblings!Damian and Danny, add in some teleporting/portaling when the bats are fighting the League and you get this idea.) |Cuckoo Clocks (Clockwork sends a certain RR a sticky note during his solo run to come find Phantom and later find him) |The (Not) Normal One... (a reborn/reincarnted Danny idea where he’s the normal one in the batfam... only he’s really not.) |Dip and Kiss (Jason totally would kiss the person who ended the Joker in an Oscar worthy movie moment) |The Trouble With Time Travel Guilt (Danny starts an AITA thread due to his guilt over the future that will never be, he trauma bonds with fellow heroes and time travelers over it) |Friendships Between Realms (YJ and Danny Shenanigans Being Peek Friendship) |Misunderstandings and Miscommunications (Danny panics and runs, good Fenton parents want their son home, well meaning but not knowing the full picture best friends, on a war path Jazz and the maybe wooing of RH, and the DCverse getting caught in the middle of the chaos) |A Little Robin (Danny gets stuck in a Robin doll/plush and winds up in Gotham) |Kid's y'know? (Youngblood wants to be an astronaut this time, and Danny... Has to stop him from running amok the JL Watchtower) |Gothamites Never Really Rest (Johnny was a crime alley kid, Kitty was the daughter of a mob boss, and Jason was a kid they pseudo raised before their deaths. They meet again when Kitty and Johnny return to Gotham and find budding crime lord named Red Hood)

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children: Redux | III. Nothing is Bred that is Weaker than Man

A DPxDC crossover // Read on [AO3} or [FFN.net]

← Previous Chapter // MASTERPOST // Next Chapter →

CW: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF GORE

Three Years Ago…

Danny could not sleep though the chill of the ship invited him to rest his eyes. 

No, he could not.

Though the coolness of his room and the layers of blankets cocooned around him would be tempting enough to knock him out for a couple hours on a regular day it was the cold that kept him wide awake

The freezing, numbing, blessed cold that made the back of his left knee ache and any attempt at sleep fitful.

He tossed and turned in his bed. When was the last time he slept, anyway? Was it in the car ride to the docks? The plane? The hotel they stayed at two—three?— days ago?

Danny couldn’t remember. That was… Jazz would say that was a bad thing if she were here.

It was kind of stupid really but—

He curled in tighter on himself, burying his head beneath the blankets.

When he was younger, his parents bought him a stuffed animal; a brown monkey in a space suit. He named it Albert, after the first monkey to ever go to space. Well, go to space and survive. The first monkey to go to space was Albert II but he died coming back to earth because of a parachute complication. Albert VI (also called Yorick, but Danny preferred Albert) was the first monkey to go to space and survive the landing.  Anyway, that stuffed monkey used to be his favorite thing in the whole world. He used to drag it everywhere until he accidentally left it in a hotel during summer break when he was nine.

God, he was absolutely inconsolable when that happened. Couldn’t sleep for anything more than a few hours and when he woke he was the most snappish nine-year-old to ever walk on the face of the earth. His parents offered to get him a new one but he didn’t want a new one. He wanted Albert. 

But then there was Jazz. Jazz who snuck into his room at night and tucked Bearbert under the blankets next to him. 

“Sleep is important if you wanna grow taller,” Jazz said. “I know he can’t replace Albert, but maybe Bearbert can keep the monsters away until we get Albert back.”

The memory warmed his chest for a brief moment.

And then the reality of it all came crashing down again.

Jazz was dead. His parents were dead. 

Lost for all eternity like Albert.

And both times were his fault.

If he just looked underneath the blankets or on the side of the hotel bed, he would have realized that Albert wasn’t in his backpack.

If he hadn’t given in to Dan’s taunts, then he would have  been fast enough to everyone.

If he never cheated on that fucking test—

God, he just did everything wrong didn’t he? 

Good ol’ Danny Fenton, fucking everything up as usual.

Fucker can’t even die right.

◆◆◆

It was sunset when Danny found himself wandering onto the deck of the ship. The sun resembled a red giant as it sank into the sea, less so in size and more so in the intensity of its color. Visceral and raw and blinding , dying the ocean a deep violet-red.

His mania had abated, somewhat. It seemed to fluctuate in intensity. Sometimes the cold felt all-consuming; frost would crawl up the walls of his little cabin, his skin tinged frostbitten-blue, and the cold would seep beneath his flesh and war with the fever that made him delirious to the world around him. Sometimes it manifested as nothing more than an occasional shiver. What made each day different, he didn’t know. But those calm days, those good days, he savored like a bittersweet drink.

Today was one of those good days. He wasn’t feverish, wasn’t nauseous, and his head didn’t hurt like Skulker had elbow-driven him from 500 feet in the air. 

Sure, a shiver would occasionally crawl up his spine, and sure there were a couple moments where his powers froze the waves as they crested, but it never lasted long. The shivers would go away and the ice would break as the wave slammed down again.

“Ah, young Danyal.” Dusan stepped up beside him on the railing, the sea breeze catching a few tendrils of his white hair in the wind. “Your mother told me you had been feeling better.”

He gave a noncommittal hum beneath his breath.

There was a wrinkle between Dusan’s brows and instantly, Danny straightened, hands squeezing the railing. “Yes, sir.”

“Hm.” Dusan pulled a sleek black phone from his jacket pocket, unlocking it with a few taps of his thumb. He passed it to Danny. “You will be pleased to note that our ruse has succeeded, and you are now free from the clutches of the law.”

It was an article from the Amity Park Angle. It was short, only a couple paragraphs long, and had his school picture posted beside it.

Daniel James Fenton, 14, passed away tragically last Wednesday. 

Ah. His jaw tightened, skin tingling though not from the cold. 

This was his obituary.

He returned the phone to Dusan, not wanting to read the rest of it.

How did you do it? He wanted to ask. How did you kill me?

Instead, he gave a strained sort of laugh. “You think I’ve set a record? I’m probably the only one in the world who managed to technically die and remain alive three times.”

The corner of Dusan’s mouth quirked up. “Needs must, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He scratched the back of his neck, eyes drawn to the lull of the darkening waves.

“What is it that occupies your thoughts?”

He pursed his lips, shifting his arms so that they laid crossed on the railing. “I don’t— I just…everything happened so fast.” He dropped his head into his arms, fingers raking through his hair. “A few weeks ago I was, well, not normal , but close enough to it. I had my parents, I had my sister, I had my friends, and the most I had to worry about was the next ghost attack and making sure I remembered to do my homework. And then the explosion happened and everyone died and I became an orphan but it turns out I’m not? Because my real mom found me but I can’t— you guys had to fake my death to get me away!”

Frustration coursed through his veins with the same intensity as the waves slamming against the side of the ship. He leaned back, hands holding the railing in a knuckle-white grip, frost creeping from beneath his fingers. Not that he noticed. Not that he cared. 

“I’m dead. I’m dead but I’m not and I’m constantly flipping between being fine and becoming a human popsicle. I’m on a ship in the middle of the ocean and I have no idea where we’re going because people won’t tell me!” The red sun glared hatefully into his eyes. Red red red like Dan’s eyes, like Plasmius’ eyes, and burning so, so bright . He had half a mind to wish that the sun would just extinguish itself so he’d never have to see that color again. 

The sun did not extinguish, but Danny’s anger did. Left as quickly as it arrived, leaving him hollow. 

He slumped against the railing. 

What was he doing unloading all this stuff on Dusan? Dusan didn’t ask for any of that. He didn’t deserve to listen to all of Danny’s baggage. Not when Dusan was already doing so much for him.

He should have kept his mouth shut.

“I’m sorry,” Danny said quietly. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

Dusan laid a warm hand on his shoulder as they both stared at the sun. “Tell me, my boy, have you had the chance to read the Odyssey?”

Danny shook his head. They were supposed to, though. On the first day of school, he remembered Mr. Lancer’s quiet pleasure as he passed out the class syllabi of how they’d be covering the Odyssey in the spring. Poor Mr. Lancer. He was a hardass, sure, and he had his faults, but he genuinely did try with Danny. 

“And if some god should strike me,” quoted Dusan “out on the wine-dark sea, I will endure it, owning a heart within inured to suffering. For I have suffered much, and labored much.”

He continued: “Like Odysseus, you have found yourself cast adrift into the world, far away from all that you knew. And like him, you will endure this. You must. For the world is a vast and cruel place, Danyal, and you must either bear against its weight or it will see you crushed and broken beneath it.”

“But what if I can’t?”

“You can,” he stated, resolute and firm like his grip on Danny’s shoulder. “You can endure because your family is here to support you.”

◆◆◆

Danny opened his eyes.

The sky was an endless expanse of swirling gray clouds. The ocean rocked the raft to a punishing rhythm, murky green-gray waters slapping against the rotting planks.

Danny was tied to a makeshift mast, the rope crossing over his abdomen and tied tightly behind his throat, digging into his jugular. He could not speak. Could not breathe . 

“Do you remember, Danny?” Sam stood at the head of the raft, her back turned to him. “Do you remember that story I told you about The Raft of the Medusa?”

Eighth grade. A field trip to the Amity Park Museum. Their teacher wanted to show them the new art exhibit since it was only available for a short while. He remembered the painting Sam was talking about; it was hard not to when The Raft of the Medusa seemed to overpower every other painting in the exhibit. 

It depicted the aftermath of a ship wreck. A morbidly beautiful painting of a raft lost at sea, its few surviving passengers desperately trying to call for help, their faces gaunt, eyes manic and wild.

“There were originally 147 passengers on that raft. One hundred and forty-seven people and only fifteen survived at the end of it.”

A large wave smashed against the raft. It filled Danny’s nose with salt-water and his mouth of the taste of asphalt. He gasped, coughing out the smoke in his lungs. 

Sam was still rooted to her spot, back turned to him.

“Do you remember, Danny? Do you remember who they blamed for the entire disaster?”

The ocean carried the raft up and up and up . High into the air that they rose. He could almost touch the clouds if it weren’t for the ropes digging into his skin. 

“They blamed the captain.”

The raft plummeted into the sea. He couldn’t scream, his heart was lodged in his throat.

The raft slammed into the ocean, pieces splintering off upon impact. Thunder roared around them like the clashing of cymbals and the sound of laughter.

Danny strained against his confinement, but the ropes tightened around him, the harsh fibers burning his skin.

He could hear the mast creak. Hear it splinter as it fought against him. 

He was almost there. Almost there .

“Look at me Danny.”

Danny opened his eyes—when did he close them?

Sam was in front of him and— oh god.

Oh god.

Her face.

Her flesh was melted, plastered against her blackened bone. Eyes nothing more than empty sockets in her head. Her skeleton hands held his face, forcing him to look. To look at what he had done to her.

“Why didn’t you save us Danny?” She asked. Asked with the voice of six people he had failed, their voices conjoined in some deranged siren song. “Why did you kill us?”

He could see it now. He could see that they weren’t alone on the raft. There, being slowly dragged into the depths, were the burned and waterlogged corpses of his victims. 

He screamed, and the sky answered with his own manic laughter.

◆◆◆

Danny opened his eyes and his skin was on fire.

He yelped, tearing off the weights that pinned him down and tumbled onto the floor. 

He can’t—

He can’t breathe—

Tucker suffocated to death, chest caved in and choking on air.

Someone was calling his name.

Who was it?

He can’t—

He doesn’t—

Mom?

“Focus on my voice, habibi . I need you to breathe, can you do that for me?” 

There’s something warm enveloping his hand.

“Breathe in, Danny, come on. Inhale through your nose for four.”

One. Two. Three. Four.

“Hold for seven.”

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

“And exhale through the mouth for eight.”

She counted out loud, and he tried to focus on her voice.

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

Each second felt like an eternity. Some part of him laughed and said that this was Clockwork’s doing. Retribution for daring to interfere with the timeline. Punishment for whatever future atrocities he committed.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out.

Talia gave him a closed lip smile, rubbing circular motions across his back. “There is nothing to be sorry for, my son. Now, let’s get you back to bed. Perhaps I’ll get you something warm to drink, would you like that?”

◆◆◆

Talia slipped her son something to ease the pains and make him drowsy. Carding her calloused fingers through his hair, she watched as Danny sank further and further into sleep’s sweet embrace. His breath evened out, the tension loosening from his frame. She continued her soft ministrations on his dark hair, but slowly her fingers moved to stroke the lines of his face, the slope of his nose, and then the curve of  his eyes.

She cataloged his features and compared it to her own. He had her nose. Her mouth. Her skin. He had a more lean figure like her, built more for speed and agility than brute strength— though currently, Danny could be considered more ‘lanky’ than lean, but training and a strict diet will correct that. The rest of Danny was all her beloved’s, from the wide too-bright-too-blue eyes, to the sharp jawline, to the exact shade of black in the hair.

Was this what her beloved looked like in his youth?

Was this what Damian would grow to become?

The ship rocked gently along the waves. She smoothed down Danny’s hair and pressed a soft kiss to his head before rising from her seat at his bedside.

She could not say the same for Bruce at that age, but she was quite certain that Damian would never be as trusting as Danny was. Though she could not blame it entirely on the boy. He was raised in a rather…inferior household, per se. What innate skills he might have inherited from his bloodline were left to rust under the mundanity of civilian life. Had circumstances been more favorable, Talia would have whisked Danny away the moment Dusan had discovered him all those years ago.

Alas, such was not the case.

She left Danny’s room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

The League had too many enemies at the time that bringing Danny in would have made him too tempting a target. Though Talia was not naive enough to believe that concern for his first grandson would be Ra’s al Ghul’s only motive for not having recovered sooner, she did see why it would have been more beneficial to keep his existence and any connection to the League wrapped under secrecy.

“It seems that our father’s investments have paid off.” She looked to her left at where Dusan seemed to materialize from the shadows of the ship’s passageway. “Now, we have the makings of a great assassin at our disposal.”

“Do you think that he planned for this to happen?” She asked, matching his stride, the pair of them slowly making their way to the bridge.

“I cannot even begin to fathom the mind of Ra’s al Ghul. How he could have  predicted this , I do not know, but he must have expected some kind of result by keeping your son with the Fentons. No— even that was an accident, wasn’t it? This…this is fate.”

Talia doubted that even the great Ra’s al Gul could predict this outcome for her son. However Ra’s was not one to so carelessly sacrifice a potential asset unless he had a particular gambit in mind. What future did he envision when he made that decision all those years ago?

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “The Rosa disanthus produced mixed results. The worst of the chills and fever abated about half an hour after he imbibed the tea, only to be replaced by nausea and vomiting.” Talia raised her hand, contemplating the lines of her palm for a moment. “There was frost when he had a panic attack. Frost coated his palms and covered his arm all the way to the elbow—I don’t believe he even realized  it—but when he drank the tea, it receded.”

“Hm.” Dusan furrowed his brows. “His condition affected his physiology to a greater extent than we thought. No matter. Hopefully enough exposure would mitigate much of the effects. Neither of us are strangers to mithridatism; we would have inevitably tested for all his potential weaknesses, and starting early would prove fruitful later on.”

 “You have spoken to father, then?”

He inclined his head in affirmation. “He has given me the task of training young Danyal.”

Talia’s fingers curled into a fist, hand dropping to her side. “I would have thought that I, as his mother, would be in charge of his lessons.”

“Take no offense, sister, this is not meant to be a punishment.” He smiled, a cunning gleam in his eyes. While Ra’s al Ghul normally paid more attention to his daughters for their strength, not even he could deny that, above all his other children, it was Dusan who inherited Ra’s ruthless cunning. “Danyal is young and naive, but he is powerful . Simply isolating him in Nanda Parbat will do nothing if he could simply fly away whenever he wanted. We must teach him to love us. To choose to stay.”

Talia thinned her lips, jaw clenched. She nodded, leaving the conversation at that.

Dusan would be a harsh master to learn under. He would strip Danny and of all he used to be and break him down into nothing . It would be cruel and unkind— but it would be efficient.

Well, no matter. Talia would always be there to pick up the pieces; the honey to the vinegar; the carrot to the stick. She would take what remained of the boy known as Danny and rebuild him with loving words and her motherly embrace, fill the cracks with love and loyalty for the League and their family and shape him until he becomes her son and no one else’s.

She had been forced to give up her eldest son once. Never again.

This child was hers.

◆◆◆

A light fever clouded Danny’s mind during the last stretch of their journey. 

Talia said it was the tea that caused it. A little something that they picked up at their last port stop that she and Dusan believed would help with his mania . 

Danny didn’t like that tea. It had a pungent aroma to it that made his nose wrinkle. He couldn’t place the scent, but the strength of it was like walking past a Bath & Body Works at the mall mixed with the smell of cherry-flavored cough syrup. Its taste was about as pleasant as its smell, considering that his stomach fought the tea at every step of the way. 

He didn’t want to drink it, but Talia and Dusan insisted and Danny didn’t really have much right to refuse. They did so much for him already and in return all they really wanted was for him to drink some tea.

Despite his revulsion for it, Danny could admit that the tea did work. Sort of. It kept the worst of his chills away, thawing the bitter cold deep within his core.

It kept the dreams away too.

So maybe it wasn’t so bad. 

He couldn’t remember much of what happened in the interim. Only the rocking of the ship, the quiet lull of his bedroom, Talia’s soothing voice and her hands carding through his hair.

Dusan came at one point with the intention to prepare Danny for his meeting with Ra’s al Ghul, his grandfather and his parents’ benefactor. There was a degree of reverence in Dusan’s eyes as he spoke, his usually impassive face split into a wide grin.

 “He is a remarkable man, your grandfather,” Dusan began. “Powerful and intelligent. A self-made man of means.”

A visionary, Dusan described him. A man with dreams of a better future, of freeing the world from the corruptions of society and the clutches of greedy and vicious people who only want to drain the world of its vitality to feed their voracious gluttony. 

“Too long have the scum of the earth been allowed to exist in the light of day,” Dusan said. “And so it is from the shadows that Ra’s al Ghul means to rectify it.”

Danny squeezed his eyes shut, trying to take it all in. “That sounds…” His foggy brain couldn’t find the right word. “Intense.”

Well, at least it was safe to say that Ra’s al Ghul wouldn’t like Vlad.

Dusan chuckled. “Indeed. But do not make the mistake of assuming he lacks benevolence. Ra’s al Ghul is ruthless because he must be. But to those who are worthy, he is merciful and just. You have already taken the first step in proving your strength to Ra’s al Ghul, but now, you must leave yourself in his hands. Present your case. Tell him what you seek. Trust that he will help you—for you are of his blood—and that he will help you best.”

It’s those words that Danny—through all of the sudden influx of new sights and sounds and scents around him and the anxiety crawling beneath his kin— tried to remember as they traveled through the mountain fortress of Nanda Parbat. 

Exactly where Nanda Parbat existed on the map, Danny had no idea. It was surrounded by snow-capped mountains, built atop a large plateau that dropped off into a deep canyon. The fortress was palatial. Tall towers framed the high walls that encircled the fortress, sunlight bounced off the deep blue tiles of the steeply sloping roofs and gleamed against the golden spires atop the main buildings. 

There were three courtyards from what he could tell, each one hidden behind the other and separated by a thick wall. The training yards, Talia called them. 

“Who are they?” Danny said, gazing down at the hundreds of people below from their helicopter. They appeared to be doing a series of some kind of martial-art exercises, one form smoothly transitioning into the next in an intimidating display of synchronization.

Dusan answered, “They are those who believe in the world Ra’s al Ghul would bring.”

Trepidation settled in his gut. There was a voice at the back of his head that sounded like Jazz that told him that something was wrong. That this was a bad idea.

His core smothered the thoughts with a brief flicker of grimace, happily humming that warm family-here-home-wish.

Talia and Dusan led him up the lengthy staircase leading to the main compound and through a dizzying series of hallways and stairs that led to the office of Ra’s al Ghul. He barely noticed anything as he walked, too busy trying to keep in pace with his guides. The main building was a huge square tower. The hallways were made of polished wood, rows of shoji screens on Danny’s right and a railing looking down into the courtyard in the middle of the tower to his left. 

“What is this place?” he asked. His other question— who are you?— remained unsaid.

Dusan smiled, the overhead lights casting shadows across his face. “This, young Danyal, is home.”

The screen door slid open to reveal a large and spacious office. An antique desk sat in the middle facing the door, piled high with all manner of books, scrolls, ancient tomes, and artifacts. The walls were filled to the brim with even more books and miscellaneous items— some familiar, and some completely unknown to Danny. 

Sat behind the desk, a gold bird-shaped magnifying glass held steady above some ancient manuscript, was Ra’s al Ghul. 

“You are here,” Ra’s al Ghul remarked. He set down the magnifying glass and gently flipped a page of the manuscript spread out on his desk before standing. He clasped his hands behind his back and leisurely made his way around the desk. 

 To Danny’s surprise, Ra’s al Ghul did not look like a grandfather. Not that Danny had any other grandparents to compare Ra’s to, and Dusan’s descriptions certainly didn’t give off the vibes of some friendly and sage man who doted on his grandkids and talked about ‘the good old days.’

Yeah, Danny didn’t really know what to expect, but he certainly didn’t expect Ra’s .

Ra’s al Ghul looked, at most , a decade older than his mom and dad. Hell, even Dusan looked older than him. Built tall and broad-shouldered, the indication of whipcord muscles visible beneath his dark green and gold embroidered shalwar kameez. He had the same cool tawny skin as Talia’s, his strange green eyes marked by crows feet. He had dark gray salt-and-pepper hair with a receding hairline and sharp widow’s peak, the back of his hair tied tightly and low against his head. 

At his acknowledgement, Talia and Dusan greeted Ra’s al Ghul with a salute. Right hand curled into a fist and pressed against their heart, head bowed. Startled, Danny was quick to do the same. 

He bit back a cringe when he realized how sweaty his palms were.

Ra’s inclined his head and they were allowed to drop the salute. He approached them at a measured pace, movements so unnervingly silent even as Danny was watching him move right in front of him. 

He stopped in front of Danny, looming over him with narrowed eyes.

Was Danny…was Danny supposed to meet his gaze or lower it? He knew that in some cultures it was rude to look someone directly in the eye. Or was it supposed to be a sign of respect?

Ra’s al Ghul suddenly straightened. Smirked. Danny really hoped that was a good sign.

“So this is him, then,” Ra’s said, walking back further into the room. He turned abruptly on his heel, head cocked to the side. “Come closer, child. Let me get a better look at you.”

His heart jumped into his throat, and he pushed it back down with a painful swallow. A tingling sensation overtook his arm, the urge to try and scratch it away needling his mind. He caught Talia’s gaze as he moved past her and felt a flicker of reassurance as she subtly brushed her knuckles against his, calming his frazzled nerves. 

Dusan tilted his head slightly, features impassive  but assessing. 

Ra’s al Ghul, worryingly enough, reminded him of Vlad. Appearance wise, they looked nothing alike. But there was this… presence , this certain gravitas about them that emanated both great wealth, resources, and the cunningness of which to use them. 

Though while Vlad came off as comically villainous and, well, kind of pathetic at times, Ra’s al Ghul possessed an overwhelmingly intimidating aura that seemed to engulf the room. This was a man who did not demand attention but commanded it. One could not help but obey.

Gut instinct told him to not show any fear.

Gut instinct told him to leave .

Ra’s al Ghul’s flat affect broke into a small, soft smile that peaked from beneath his goatee. Gentle. Kind. Almost what Danny assumed to be grandfatherly .

His core hummed excitedly. The anxiety at the pit of his stomach subsided somewhat. 

Ra’s loomed over Danny—too close—eyes sharp and assessing. “Do you know who I am, boy?”

“You are Ra’s al Ghul,” he answered. 

Family , his core replied.

His smile grew. “That I am, boy, that I am. But I am also your grandfather.”

Grandfather, his core sang.

He straightened his posture, settling a firm hand on Danny’s shoulder.

This time, Danny could not help but flinch.

“No need to be so nervous,” Ra’s chuckled. “We are family, the two of us. My blood runs through your veins as surely as it does your mother’s, no matter that you were once lost to us. And besides that, the doctors Fenton were an invaluable asset to us, both in their research and in caring for you.” He shifted his hold, arm now across Danny’s shoulders as he led Danny in front of the desk. “Dusan and your mother were rather…cryptic with their reports. I have heard that you have a rather unusual situation and would like our help.”

“Yeah— I mean, yes, sir.” Best behavior Danny, best behavior. 

Ra’s detached himself from Danny’s side and sat behind his desk once more, elbows rested on polished wood and hands steepled in front of him. Curiosity gleamed in his strange green eyes. “Do tell.”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck, craning his gaze towards Talia.

Talia gave a reassuring smile.

He swallowed a hard lump in his throat, trying to remember what Dusan said.

Present your case. Tell him what you seek. Trust that he will help you.

It was— he never had to tell this many people before. Hell, he never had to tell anyone this story at all! Personally, Danny would like to keep it that way, but it made sense that Ra’s al Ghul would want the whole story. To know what mess he found at his doorstep.

And wasn’t this the reason he came with Talia, anyway? To look for help?

He raised his head once more, meeting Ra’s with a resolute gaze. “Some months ago, I was caught in an accident in my parents’—um, the Fenton’s—lab. Long story short, it turned me into a meta…or at least meta-adjacent? Sorry, I didn’t really have enough time to get too deep into ghost biology.”

Ras raised an imperious brow. “Ghost biology? Yes…If I recall, that was where your parents’ research lay. So you claim that you are a ghost?”

“Yes. Maybe?” Danny shrugged. “It’s kind of been what everyone’s been telling me and what all the signs have been pointing to.”

“I was under the impression that death was a prerequisite to becoming a ghost.”

“There’s been a running theory that I did die in that lab accident. It just didn’t stick.”

Ra’s blinked, giving Danny another appraising look. Danny fought the urge to squirm. Then Ra’s threw his head back with a loud, raucous laugh. “Fascinating!” He stroked his goatee, amused. “What a brilliant little enigma you are. What a wonder my grandchild has become! Though taking his blood into account, perhaps I should have expected it.” He leaned forward in his chair. “So, what request is it that you will make of me?”

Danny bit the inside of his cheek, mind racing for the right words to say. “I want…I was told that you would be able to give me a new life.”

“A new life.”

“I need— I don’t know what I need, really, but for certain reasons I can’t stay in Amity and I certainly can’t trust the law because I know where they’ll put me if I go back and if that happens then—”

Red eyes. A city in ruin. A world on fire.

“Then, what?”

Danny looked away, shoulders hunched as if he was Atlas himself, carrying the weight of the world on his back. “Something really, really bad will happen.”

Ra’s al Ghul beheld him, fingers drumming on his desk in a steady thump-thump-thump . Danny felt stifled under that gaze.

Trust in him , Dusan had said.

Grandfather , his core said. Family-here-trust-together.

After what seemed like an age, Ra’s al Ghul nodded. “Your request is doable, and I will excuse your ambiguity for the present, though I will require a full and detailed explanation at a later date.”

Danny let out a shaky breath. Relief coursed through his veins.

“But,” Ra’s al Ghul said. “I do not give you this new lease on life for free. I require payment.”

“I don’t— I don’t have anything to give.”

Ra’s waved off his concerns. “Worry not, boy, the price I seek is not so steep. What I want is for you to take your proper place in this family.” He stretched out his hand. “Do we have an agreement?”

Danny stared at the hand.

Was it…would it really be this simple? A new name, a  new life, a new family all in one fell swoop? 

It was almost too good to be true.

Take , his core hummed. Chance-take-family-mine-whole-take.

He took  Ra’s al Ghul’s hand and shook it. “We do.”

From that pact, Danyal al Ghul sprang into existence. 

And at that moment, though he did not know it yet, Danny Fenton well and truly died. 

[merchantziro]

Yes. Just fuck yes.

The Vampire Fentons accidentally learn everything they need to know about the Bats by becoming bats themselves.

Now they COULD expose the Waynes, but Danny is such a fan of them and the other Justice League heroes they probably could use them to help him in some other way?

By the ancients we got it!

Dick Grayson is kidnapped off the street and brought forth to the godfather of the Fenton family, a tall figure in a suit with an orange tie with black shades.

"Johnathan Fenton, head of the Fenton family I presume?" Dick snarks, used to being kidnapped and believing he had nothing to fear.

The man didn't seem amused.

"Please Jonathan Fenton is my professional name Mr. Grayson, or would you prefer Nightwing?"

Dick's eyes widened before his glare sharpened, "What are you getting at?"

"You can drop the act kid, we know the connection between the Waynes and the Bats. But I can assure you we won't reveal you... on one condition, a favor."

"You're blackmailing me for a favor? What's your angle Fenton?" Nightwing raised an eyebrow, now curious.

The Fenton slid two photographs to the Grayson, one of a young teen with black hair and blue eyes and the other of a teen shadowy with glowing green eyes and white hair.

"I want you and your little Justice League to help Danny, my great grandson, also better known as the Phantom of Amity Park."

Dick recognized the name, remembering Bruce mentioning him as a rogue wanted by a specific government branch among other villains. If he's a Fenton, then his presumed villainous behavior lined up.

"Phantom? Why should we help a wanted rogue, especially if he's one of your own?" The original Robin questioned.

As if he expected this, John sighed before turning away to look through a window into the night sky and at the full moon.

"Because I can assure you Danny's a good kid who did his best to protect his town as a Half-Ghost hero. Unfortunately your idiotic government doesn't exactly see it that way as they have tried for years to capture him, and let me tell you they don't understand jack of what they're messing with regarding the Infinite Realms"

Richard looked up confused, "...What do you mean?"

"I'm saying my Great Grandson isn't like the rest of my family and I want what's best for him and his sister, especially after how his own ghost hunting parents didn't respond well to the news to their own son being half of what they hate. A fact that has gotten them shunned from the family."

John removes his shades before turning back to reveal his eyes, glowing red, and his open mouth to reveal a pair of fangs. Great child of Dracula, Fenton was...

"...a vampire?"

The Fenton pulled out a long morningstar chain whip and pointed at Dick, threatening him.

"Now that I've got your attention... are you going to help my great, great, great, great grandchildren? Or do you wanna mess with me, John Fentonightingale, the first Fenton who has slayed countless creatures of the night since the 1600's?"

...What?

Dp x DC

So, I've seen a couple prompts about how the Fenton family is really big, passionate bunch of morally questionable weirdos and once you're one of them there is no escape. But what if the Fentons were a mafia?

Jack was supposed to inherit the family business, but he's just really not great choice. He's not stupid, far from it, but he's oblivious to anything that isn't fudge, his family, his inventions or later on ghosts. He just sees no reason to care about any of that so he truly never knew what his family did. Not a heir material. So a cousin took over.

Jack is still part of the family, has acces to resources, money and has full support to live his mad scientist dreams in Illinois. His wife while better at noticing is just as obsessive and distractable. But she is also highly capable and incredibly smart.

They mostly just see each other on reunions. The Family is based in Gotham so traveling so far is not easy.

But it turns out that they were wrong about just where Jack and Maddie's loyalties lied, they thought , believed that family was their number one priority, that their work, while still important came second to their kids. Except that is not the case as proven when frantic heavily bleeding Danny crashes on their doorstep in Gotham.

And suddenly all those little comments they dismissed don't seem so far-fetched. Jack and Maddie truly tried to rip their son apart molecule by molecule. Their work was more important than taking care of their children, their hate of ghosts won over their love.

The Family of course takes Danny and Jazz in immediately. They disown Jack and Maddie, it's just well they haven't been going by Fenton a few generations. It means they have no connection the GIW can easily trace.

Danny heals and starts school. What happens next is up for anyone. Maybe Danny joins the Family business. Maybe Danny keeps being hero. Maybe he catches the attention of a Bat. Maybe he just goes to school and works on his degree.

[jamiethebee]

I know everyone likes the "Fenton parents are dead/evil" route to drive Danny to Gotham, but I propose: "the Fenton parents have to send Danny away to keep him safe/cut off contact (since they're technically contracted to the government and the GIW is the definition of shady and spies)"

[meowmeowmeowmeow4x]

Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 29

MASTAPOST big thanks to @brekitten for betaing this chapter <3

“P-please.” Danny Fenton, son of the siren hunters Jack and Maddie Fenton pleaded. “You can’t tell anyone about this. I’m begging you.”

Damian nodded absently. This changed everything. This was- “You were a human. Just like me.”

“Yeah.”

“You were turned.”

Danny flinched. “It’s not a pleasant memory for me.”

“Is that why you know so much about the ocean, yet so little about sirens?”

“Hard to learn about your new species when they all wanna waste you for being half-human.”

That made sense. Everything made sense. He didn’t know about Damian’s inability to form human words because he’d never met a child siren before, never been a child siren before. He watched movies as a human. He fought the sirens who attacked Amity Island because that was his home. He had Fenton tech because he was a Fenton.

Damian’s scales went cold. He was a Fenton. His parents were siren hunters. Danny’s parents joined up with Damian’s father because both of them were looking for their sons.

Danny’s parents tortured him in order to find information on where their son was. They tortured their son to find out where their son was. Damian clutched his head. It was- It was agonising to think about.

As awful as his time was in his first home, his never home, he always had the love of his parents, even as twisted as his mother’s was. Every blow landed on him was training, with rules and boundaries (even if those boundaries were cruel). His father was even gentler.

Never had he ever known what it was like to have unadulterated rage directed at him from someone who should have loved him.

Danny’s breaths hitched. “Y-you can’t tell anyone. If t-they find out. T-they’ll.” Danny sucked in a breath. “They’ll- They’ll…”

Damian recalled what was done for him the first night they met. Met as sirens, and not the cursory greeting when Father was introducing him to the Fenton family. He pulled himself out of the sink. He dropped to the floor, whereupon he immediately slithered to Danny’s feet.

Damian lay his head on Danny’s leg. He attempted to channel that rumbling purr that was able to shut his body down in relaxation.

His companion, no, his friend’s shivering faded. Danny’s back slid down the wall, until he was sitting cross-legged. Damian climbed up his legs, and laid his head against the trembling boy’s chest.

“I will not let them touch you.” He whispered. Low purrs rumbled from the back of his throat. His chest thrummed like a bass drum.

Danny clutched him tightly. Damian’s purrs grew louder, stronger. Along with them grew a determination.

What would Danny do once this was all over? Once he returned Damian to Gotham? The least his father could do was finance a plane ticket back home to Amity Island, Danny had counted on nobody knowing his secret. Was he just going to swim back the way he came? Hitchhike? How long would that take? How many months would he have been missing from Amity?

How would he explain it all to his parents? Unquiet horror settled between Damian’s scales. He’d had it all wrong. It was not supposed to be Danny bringing him to Gotham. Damian needed to bring Danny to Gotham, to a safe home.

“I am… I am sorry. For treating you harshly.” He whispered.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Perhaps. But it was unfair to you.”

“I’ve been unfair to you too.”

Damian clicked. Such self-sacrificial idiocy. “Tut. I am not entitled to your secrets. You had very good reasons for keeping them.” That, and he could relate.

Danny’s chest rumbled, a response to Damian’s purr. For a moment the boy said nothing. Eyes closed, he leaned his chin into Damian’s hair.

“You know, you’re a kinder kid than the media says.”

“You’re a better hero than the media says.”

The boys quietly laughed together. For the first time, Damian felt open, like there were no longer barriers between them. He understood his friend.

Well, no barriers except for one thing. That was a secret that could perhaps wait for later. However, a friend should share in vulnerability. Danny had trusted him with a secret that could threaten his life if revealed, another item in the long list of sacrifices he had made just to keep Damian safe.

“My mother loved me. But she treated me terribly as well, as did my grandfather. I will never know the pain you feel, but you are not alone.”

Danny stroked Damian’s sail. He allowed it. “I’m glad you’ve gotten away from them.”

And Damian will get Danny away from his parents. This he knew. It had to happen. “Thank you. So am I.”

It was decided that her mother and Bruce Wayne would take the jet skis again. Her father wanted to join in, but was convinced to say on account of Jazz still having a concussion, and to keep the boat safe in case anything happened.

That was exactly what Jazz needed. To pick her father’s brain. She’d had precious little time to investigate her father’s thoughts this whole trip, an error she needed to correct.

Her chest felt like soaring frisbees. It soared with hope.

They had an early lunch underneath the searing sun and among the scenic sea. Sunlight beamed off the waves like liquid diamonds. A seagull cried out above. The air stayed cool underneath the shade of their umbrellas. With the engines dead, the rhythmic shifting of the waves in the background made up most of the sounds. That and their fan humming beside them as they ate. It was a turkey sandwich she’d made from the leftovers in the fridge. Her father was too dirty from work, so she’d insisted on it. “I’m concussed, not helpless, dad!”

He’d just finished another round of repairs. It amazed her what her parents could do in such a short amount of time. She hoped Danny would be far into the Atlantic by the time they’d finished.

“Dolphins.” She said, wistfully.

Dad looked up from his sandwich. “Say what?”

“Sorry, it was just a little detail Danny used to go on about. Did you know dolphins are jerks?”

Her dad shook her head. His eye brows quirked up. General marine biology was less her parents’ specialty than engineering and siren stuff. “No way. Aren’t they supposed to be playful lil buggers that rescue humans and do all that fun stuff?”

“That’s tamed dolphins in aquariums and stuff.” Jazz’s voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “In the wild? They’re one of the few creatures intelligent enough to be cruel.”

Her father gasped. He leaned in like a schoolgirl hearing a particularly juicy gossip bit. “What do they do?”

“All sorts of things. They play around with corpses of fish. They bully other marine life to death just for fun. They even force themselves on others.” Jazz coughed.

Her father’s eyes welled up with tears. Maybe that was a little too dramatic. Sorry, Dad.

“T-that’s so horrible! Why would they do such a thing?!”

Jazz shrugged. “Probably for the same reasons the worst of humans do it.”

“I feel like everything I know has been a lie!” Pfft. Get in line, dad. “Danno knew the truth about those salacious cetaceans all along!”

“Wanna know another little fact Danny told me?”

Her father nodded eagerly. “Of course! But please let me down gently. I don’t know if my poor heart could take another shock.”

“Sharks aren’t actually that bad.”

Her father leaned back and wiped his forehead, relief clear. “Oh! Thank goodness! This I already knew!”

“I know right! There are barely any actual shark attacks per year, and most of them are caused by the sharks being confused or scared.”

“It’s sampling bias through and through. People just focus on the sharks that do attack and don’t realise just how many have never hurt a human before.”

Her father was so smart. And so. Freaking. Dense. Jazz resisted the urge to scream.

“It’s thanks to the Jaws movies, dad. The director was so horrified at the public reaction to his movie that he’s disavowed it. Became a shark conservationist. Can you imagine?”

“I’d be horrified if my work was used for evil like that by people who didn’t know better.” Dad leaned back in his chair, a distant look on his face, contemplation that usually fit her mother better. Her father was more of an emotional intelligent person compared to her mother’s scientific acumen. That wasn’t saying much, considering they both held multiple PhDs.

“Welp!” Her dad got up. “Back to work! This ship ain’t gonna fix itself!”

This was going to take a while.

The first thing Danny needed was food.

He walked out of the building back into the sweltering heat, protected by his invisibility. He’d never had to maintain camouflage for this long before. Sooner or later, it was going to flicker, or he would lose his concentration, or worse. What was more, his body had spent precious energy healing his burnt fingers.

He felt bad for taking the tamales from some poor truck driver. He really did! Would he have done it again in this situation? Absolutely.

A couple of birds fluttered about. Danny had dabbed some water on his nose to transform it. Couldn’t sniff out anyone nearby.

“You think you can eat those birds?” Damian whispered. Danny gagged. Wasn’t he a vegetarian?!

“Dude. Raw meat tastes awful in this form, for one. For another: feathers. Also what about your morals??” Sam would definitely have words to say. Fish was one thing, but birds? Oh boy.

“Survival precedes dietary restrictions.” Danny was pretty sure that would get someone killed. Nut allergies in the wild and what not, but who was he to judge?

The agents had long scattered at least. That meant he could walk through the yard without needing to worry too much. Soon Danny found himself at the side of a road, watching the occasional cars pass by.

Time to start walking, then.

The second thing he needed was clothes.

After some time walking, Danny found himself a very comfortable pair of jeans and a t-shirt in a trash heap. Did it offend his sensitive nose? Absolutely. It definitely offended Damian’s sensibilities even more.

“What are you doing? These things are filthy!”

“Clothes are clothes, man.”

Danny pulled on the jeans. He winced at the rough texture scraping on his skin. Pretty sure jeans weren’t supposed to do that, but ok.

“You are invisible!”

“I’m an American with very American opinions on nudity, thank you very much. You wanna see naked people in public you go to some beach in Denmark or whatever.”

Damian groaned.

“Besides, it means I can save on invisibility energy.”

Danny let go of his powers, only to be beset by the unfiltered power of the sun on his neck. He immediately went invisible again.

“Idiot.”

Vroom. Vroooommm….

The Fenton Jet Skis’ GPS indicated they were getting close.

All this effort, and still no Danny to show for it. Maddie needed these answers, and she needed them yesterday.

Bruce seemed to notice her mood. He tapped the comm piece in his ear. “You saw what I saw, right Maddie?”

“Saw what?”

“He was terrified.”

Maddie glanced to the side. Bruce was still wearing the Abyssal Dismissal Belt. He was likely not being controlled. “How do you know it wasn’t some kind of act?”

“Instinct.”

Maddie narrowed her eyes. “We’ve studied sirens for the last twenty years, Bruce.”

“And this is the first one you’ve ever successfully caught.” Until he escaped, that was.

“It’s an evolutionary tactic for many species to mimic others, or mimic distress signals from other species to deceive them.”

“I know you’re the expert on sirens here, but I’ve seen hundreds of children in various states of pain and distress.”

Right. Bruce Wayne was a noted philanthropist and father to many adopted children. She’d forgotten the man they’d been sailing with for days was also a larger-than-life billionaire on the other side of the country. It was part of why she and Jack wanted to approach his company for grants, early in their career.

“I’ve visited many orphanages. I got many of them shut down. I’ve built many more to protect victims of crime in Gotham. And I promise you that Phantom’s panic was genuine.” Bruce said. Even though his eyes were on the water ahead, she could feel the intensity behind him. His words carried years of suffering. Not just his own, but others’. Maddie let it sink deep into her spine. On a deep level, she knew no explanation of hers truly fit the empirical evidence. Did that mean Bruce’s did? Maybe. And that scared here, for some reason.

“Sirens have gone unnoticed in our society for centuries. How do you know it’s not just part of their many abilities?”

“You make a good point, granted. You also saw his heartrate, didn’t you?”

Did she? Maddie remembered seeing red, and that was more than just her goggles. She’d barely even looked at Phantom’s chest, focusing on his face, his eyes. Searching for the truth in every lie blubbered out.

“It was racing. Probably close 120 beats per minute. Maddie, he was having a panic attack.”

That information was new to her. Maddie chewed her lip. The heart was the centre of an organism’s circulatory system. Its vital role necessitated the unconscious control granted by the sympathetic nervous system. She was sure that 99.9% of sentient creatures could not simply control it.

“It could be his baseline.” A weak argument.

And Bruce knew it too. “Phantom’s heart rate was steady when he awoke, about 50 per minute.”

The implications slithered underneath her jumpsuit. Maddie swallowed bile.

[theshadowrealmitself]

Ah. Fuck.

Anyways, something hit me today, you see, in my family, every member usually goes “no one helped me growing up so why should I help you?” so you stop asking for help pretty quickly, but not my sister! She still feels comfortable asking me for help because I always help her, and I love it! It makes me feel like a decent older sibling

So I was thinking about it, and with Maddie and Jack being researchers and stuff, they probably also have that “help yourself” mentality, which puts another layer on Jazz wanting her brother to be honest with her, to ask her for help, because she’s not like them, she wants to help Danny

[britcision]

Hi, I have an idea for a fic and I wanna share cause you have good ideas too.

Danny's parents find out, it doesn't go well, maybe they don't try to hunt him down in human form but they don't really accept it either so Danny is forced to leave the home, even amity. He's nervous and afraid and somehow ends up in Gotham and tries to make the best for himself.

Gets a shitty apartment, somehow finds some kinda company that takes pity on him and offers him a shitty minimum wage job and life is a little shit.

But slowly Danny learns and grows, he meets one of the bat kids and they become friends as civilians, idk which one, fill it in.

He complains about not being able to see the stars in Gotham cause of the permanent gloom and clouds. So the batkid that was his friend gets him some of those glow in the dark stars, they have a fun evening sticking them on the ceiling with Danny making them into accurate constellations (maybe even drawing the lines between them)

And that is symbolic for Danny getting to heal, getting to sort out his life. Jazz keeps contact with him and says their parents have been thinking a lot.

His job gives him a raise or just a different position that isn't so god awful

Danny feels happy again, after a while

Fucking yessss this is so beautiful and I love it! Maybe his batfriend helps him get a position at WE, where he can use his engineering knowledge and love of space

And I do think it’s super important that the first time his parents want to reach out, Danny gets to decide if he’s ready to hear it

There’s this idea you should just accept an apology whenever someone wants to give it and be happy you got one, but

They’re the ones who fucked up and need to be sorry, and you’re allowed to just say “that’s great, I appreciate hearing it, but I’m not ready to talk to them yet”, or “now’s not a good time”

Or even just “fuck off” - you don’t have to take it

But a genuine apology has to be done at the recipient’s schedule, and I think Jazz would reinforce Danny’s boundaries with a tank if needed

And maybe when Danny’s ready, he can cuddle up with his batfriend and ask them to come home with him, as moral support and a way out if things get bad :3

But like, not for any holidays. Holidays in Amity Park are still sus, and maybe the Fenton parents have fun family videos they can show batfriend about why

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Dangerous People

Written for the Phic Phight Prompt: Identity reveal. Dash finds out Danny is Phantom. What happens? Could be swagger bishie or not, either or is okay. (from @q-gorgeous)

AO3 Link

[Warnings for internalized homophobia, implied homophobia, implied child abuse, and mentions of bullying]

Danny had been a lot of dangerous places, many of them in the Ghost Zone. But of all the dangerous places Danny had been, high school was at the top of the list. At least in the Ghost Zone, he could fight back. In some places, there were even rules that Danny could exploit to keep from getting the shit kicked out of him, or at least give as good as he got.

At school, the rules didn't protect him. At school, he couldn't fight back, because he had to keep his powers secret. Danny had a literal portal to hell in his basement, and he could confidently say that high school was dramatically more hellish. 

"Hey! Fentoe-nail!" Danny sighed as Dash came storming up to him. This was a prime example. Dash slammed him against the lockers and put his face real close to Danny's, menacing him. "I saw you at the beginning of sixth period yesterday," he said, voice very quiet and surprisingly less threatening than Danny was expecting, but still, Danny paled with fear. "Meet me under the bleachers after school."

Dropping him roughly, Dash stalked off.

Danny was almost shaking, his palms sweating. He'd been busy fighting Technus all through sixth period and after school. If Dash had seen him at the beginning of sixth period, then that meant... He swallowed hard and rushed to his next class, which he shared with Sam and Tucker. Dash had seen him transform into Phantom. That was very bad news.

"It's not that bad," Sam tried to tell him while they whispered to each other in the back of English class. It might've been more convincing if she'd looked like she believed it herself.

"Not that bad?" Danny echoed, his tone low but panicked. "Dash knows my secret. Dash Baxter. The guy who's been bullying me since the fifth grade. Oh, I am so screwed."

"Calm down," Tucker said, though he hardly sounded calm himself. "Dash loves Phantom, remember? Like probably loves loves Phantom, if you ask me. Maybe he's just gonna ask you for an autograph?"

"Yeah, but he hates hates me," Danny pointed out. He ran a hand through his hair. "Oh man, what if he thinks I like, ruined his hero for him or something and kicks the shit out of me? I'm already half dead, i don't wanna die the rest of the way from being wailed on by my bully."

"If he knows you're Phantom, then you can use your powers to protect yourself," Sam said. "And besides, we don't know for sure that that's even what he wants to talk to you about."

"He said he saw me at the beginning of sixth period yesterday. There's literally nothing else he could want to talk to me about."

"Your parents have tons of weird ghost tech. Maybe they have something that can alter memories," suggested Tucker. "You can fly by during lunch and check."

"No, if they were working on something that erased memories, they definitely would've told me about it in one of their rants," Danny denied despondently.

"Unless they did tell you about it, and you just don't remember..." Danny's eyes widened and he looked at Tucker with a grin while Sam face-palmed beside them.

"Fenton! Manson! Foley!" their teacher called them out. "Something you want to share with the class?"

"Uh..." Danny glanced to Sam and Tucker, who offered no help. "I forgot?" Tucker snickered at his answer, and Sam flicked him on the arm.

"Well maybe you'd do better to remember the lesson if you actually payed attention? Don't you think?"

"Right, sorry, Mr. Lancer," Danny said, and Sam and Tucker mumbled their apologies too. It wasn't worth detention to continue their conversation, but Danny mentally resolved to cut lunch to search his parents lab for memory-altering devices.

That plan went out the window almost as soon as lunch started when Skulker crashed through the wall, shouting for Danny. "WHELP!"

Danny ducked under a table to transform while the students evacuated the cafeteria, running and screaming. He flew up through the table top, ready for a fight.

"That's my name! Don't wear it out!" The fight with Skulker took all of lunch and part way into fifth period, but luckily his math teacher was willing to accept, "Sorry I'm late. There was a ghost attack in the cafeteria and I got trapped under a table," as a suitable excuse, and didn't mark him tardy.

"I guess you didn't get the chance to get over to your parents lab, right?" Tucker said to him in a hushed voice.

"No," Danny sighed. "It was a long shot anyway. I'll talk to my parents about the ghost hunting applications of a memory eraser later. For now... I guess I've just gotta bite the bullet and talk to Dash. Try to convince him not to tell anyone."

Tucker scoffed. "Yeah, good luck." Then he looked at the despair on Danny's face and quickly backtracked, switching to a much more positive, if less genuine, tone, and shooting Danny a thumbs-up. "I mean, good luck!" 

"Gee, thanks."

—

The bell rang to mark the end of the school day and Dash jumped out of his seat, carefully giving Kwan the slip. He made a beeline for the bleachers by the football field and waited underneath for Fenton to show up, fidgeting nervously with the sleeves of his Letterman jacket. He hoped the kid wouldn't just ghost him. Dash snickered at the pun. It was the kind of joke Danny would make.

Danny. Dash wrung his hands and swallowed the lump in his throat. There was no way in hell he could've said anything to anyone about it, but he'd been crushing on Danny Fenton since the fifth grade. Not once during that whole time had he known what to do about it. If he'd had a crush on Paulina or Star, he would've given them a flower or something, but flowers were for girls, not boys, so instead, Dash shoved him in the hallway.

Dash's dad was very strict in ensuring that Dash grew up to be as strong and manly as he could be. Men didn't hug, or hold hands, so if Dash wanted to touch Danny, which he longed to do, it had to be in a fight, or during a sport. Danny didn't play sports. That left only one option. Dash felt bad about it the more time passed, but he also felt angry—at himself, and at Fenton for making him feel the way he did. He regretted it when he saw the hatred in Danny's eyes, but he couldn't hold himself back, either.

Phantom had been a relief. He was the first person besides Fenton that Dash had ever liked that way. He reminded Dash of Fenton, a little bit. Their sense of humor was the same, and Dash liked that. Of course, Dash had had a minor breakdown when his second crush had also been a guy, but Phantom was a ghost, so he'd decided that it didn't count. The biggest difference was that practically everyone in the whole school was crushing on Phantom, girls and guys alike, so it wasn't weird that Dash liked him so much. His dad would beg to differ, but his dad didn't have to know.

Then, yesterday, Dash had been cowering—strategically concealing himself under a desk in the computer lab after all the monitors came to life and flew out the window. Everyone else had already run out of the room, but Dash had bravely stayed behind to get the drop on the ghost, and not because he'd accidentally gotten his foot tangled up in wires under the desk. It was then that he'd heard it.

"I'm goin' ghost!" Fenton's voice cried.

And then he saw it, glowing white rings, so bright they almost forced Dash to look away, but he couldn't stop staring. They split up and down Fenton's body, and when they faded, Phantom was standing there instead. He took off, phasing through the wall to fight the ghost. Dash had been left dumbstruck. A sinking feeling spread into his stomach. So much for thinking he'd moved on from Fenton, not that he ever had, really.

Dash looked through the gaps in the bleachers and felt his heart flutter in his chest when he saw Fenton crossing the football field and he pushed it down immediately. Man, he had it bad. What a moron. Danny looked around for any spectators before slipping under the bleachers to meet Dash.

"Look, I don't know what you think you saw, but you probably didn't see it!" Danny burst out immediately.

"I'm sorry," Dash said, and Danny stilled, blinking in confusion.

"What?"

"I'm sorry for bullying you all this time," Dash elaborated, "even before you were Phantom. I shouldn't have done that, and I'm sorry." Danny stared some more.

"What?" he asked again, his voice raising in pitch.

"I said I'm sorry for bullying you, even before you were Phantom."

"No, I heard you I just... what?!" Danny's mouth hung open, and his brows furrowed, clearly not able to process the situation at all.

"Look, I've been a major asshole to you, and you still save my life and everyone else's from ghosts all the time," Dash said. "That one time we got shrunk real tiny, and you had to fight that ghost while all your powers were wearing off, you remember? You kicked that robot-ghost's ass and saved my life, like a dozen times, and got us both unshrunk, even though I shoved you in a locker, like, just a few hours before that. You're a better person than I am, and it makes me want to be better."

"So you're apologizing because I'm not the kind of dick who would just let you die because you're an asshole to me and you're worried I'll stop saving you if you don't?"

"No, I'm apologizing because you deserve an apology," Dash said. "I should've apologized a long time ago. Actually, I shouldn't have bullied you in the first place, but I got a lot of repressed rage and shit I gotta work through, if I'm bein' honest."

"Repressed rage you need to work through?" Danny echoed, his mouth gaping in astonishment. "Did you start seeing a therapist?"

"After Ms. Spectra? Hell no!" Dash denied, even the thought made him anxious. That particular ghost had done a number on the entire Casper High student body, and they were all completely ruined for therapy now. "Your sister tutors me in math and science every Tuesday, and she's starting to rub off." 

"Oh, yeah, that tracks." For the first time since Dash first opened his mouth under those bleachers, Danny actually seemed to comprehend what he was saying. He nodded thoughtfully. "I hope you don't think this makes us even," he said. "I accept your apology, but I still don't like you. If you really want to prove your sorry, you'll stop picking on me and my friends—actually, you'll stop picking on people altogether, got it?"

"Yeah," Dash agreed. "I was going to, anyway."

"Good." Danny put on a very serious expression then. "Now, we need to talk about me being Phantom. You can't tell anyone, ever, do you understand. No one can know."

"Believe me, I wasn't planning to," Dash assured him. "I was at that ghost-safety assembly with your parents. I heard what they said. I wouldn't risk putting you in danger like that. The town needs you—er, needs Phantom."

"You can't tell your friends, either," Danny said. "You'd better keep it completely secret, or I'll put you in permafrost."

"I swear on my life, I won't tell anyone." Dash didn't want to tell anyone. This was something only he knew, a secret between him and the guy he'd been pining after since he was ten years old. Obviously he wanted to keep it between just them. Wait, was it between just them? "Does anyone else already know?"

"Sam and Tucker do," Danny said, and Dash fought the urge to scowl. "They were there when I first changed. And Jazz knows, but she found out later."

"I see." He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. "By the way, if you ever need any help with anything, I'm happy to lend a hand," he offered, perking up a bit. "We made a pretty good team fighting ghosts on that pirate ship, and, well, I noticed you haven't been doing so well in school since freshman year started. I'm no straight-A student, and I won't be much help in math, but if you need a hand with, like, vocab or history, I'm your man."

Danny looked him up and down suspiciously. "You'd really do that?"

"Don't sound so surprised," Dash chuckled awkwardly. "Phantom's—you're my hero. Anything I can do to help, I'll do. Besides, I'm trying to be a better person, remember? Helping you study for a history test is like the fifty yard line toward that goal, right?"

"I don't understand football metaphors," Danny said.

"That was actually a simile."

"I have a D plus in English."

"Wow, you really do need my help," Dash ribbed, but it was lighter and far less mean-spirited than the insults he tossed around before.

"Well..." Danny rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, but he was smiling. "Maybe a little help wouldn't hurt."

"Cool." Dash checked his watch and cringed when he saw the time. "Sorry, I am way late for basketball practice, but I knew I had to catch you before you left. Anyway, your sister has my number. Call me any time after five and we can set up a time for me to help with your schoolwork."

"Sure thing," Danny said, stepping to the side so Dash could squeeze past him and out from under the bleachers.

"I'll see you around, Fenton!"

"Yeah, bye... Dash...." He waved awkwardly, still looking taken aback by the conversation he'd just had with Dash, who looked over his shoulder for only a brief moment to look at his face before sprinting full tilt to the locker room to change for practice.

Coach yelled at him for being late and made him run suicides for half-an-hour, but even so, Dash was giddy all the way through practice. Afterwards, he showered, went home, and continued to be giddy while he did his homework. Halfway through his math worksheet, which he was pretty sure he was only getting every third problem right on, and only thanks to Jazz's excellent tutoring, his phone phone rang.

Dash picked it up without looking at the number. "Hello?"

"Hey, Dash?" Fenton's voice came through the line and he grinned. "I was just working on my history homework, and I don't recognize a thing. I was wondering if it wasn't too soon to take you up on your offer?"

"Nope, I got time now," Dash said cheerfully. "I'm just working on my own homework."

"So should I head to your place or—"

"No!" Dash said quickly. His dad was bound to get suspicious about a guy who wasn't on any of Dash's sports teams coming over to his house, even if it was for tutoring—especially if it was for tutoring. "I'll grab my stuff and head over to yours. I'll be there in ten."

"Okay, cool," Danny said. "I'll see you in ten." Dash hung up and gathered all his homework and textbooks into his backpack.

"You look happy," his mother observed when he walked past the living room on his way to the door. She was doing some embroidery while his dad watched golf on the TV. She was really good at embroidery, actually. The colorful flower near the hem of the black dress she was working on was probably a commission. "You off to a study date or something?"

"Uh... something like that," he said cautiously. "It's not really a date, but..."

"But you like this girl, I see," his mother smiled knowingly, and he tried to keep the hurt out of his own smile at her assumption. "Well, good luck, son! Maybe next time it will be!"

"Thanks," he said, but he doubted it. Then he walked out the door and jogged over to the Fentons' place. It wasn't too far from his own house, and he'd been there plenty of times before to study with Jazz. He made it in exactly the estimated time and rang the doorbell.

Danny answered the door, and Dash grinned at him. "Your knight in a Letterman jacket has arrived." Danny snorted and let him inside.

When they got into the kitchen, Dash started to take his backpack off, since that's where he and Jazz always worked when she was tutoring him, but Danny kept walking, so Dash followed. Once they got to the stairs, he realized where they were going and his heart raced. Danny expected them to study up in his room.

Dash tried to calm himself down. They were just studying. Nothing was going to happen. His heart refused to listen. Then the door opened to reveal Danny's room, and Sam and Tucker were already inside, and suddenly his heart caught up to his head, and he had to fight not to whine in complaint.

"Dash!" Tucker cheered. "Danny told us what happened earlier. Are you actually good at history? Because I completely suck at it, Danny ends up missing class all the time, and Sam only knows about, like, witch trials and junk like that."

"Much as I'm loath to admit it," Sam sighed. "We are in desperate need of help."

Dash let his disappointment roll right off his back, reminding himself that even with the other two there, he was still getting to spend time with Danny that didn't involve hurting him, or an attacking ghost, and that was a win. "Lucky for you guys, history is my best subject. You've got Ms. Horace, right?" 

"Yeah," Danny confirmed. "We've got Ms. Horrid." Dash chuckled.

"So you're up to the French revolution, then, yeah?" They got right into it, with Dash helping them figure out how to answer each of the document based questions and advising them on the kinds of answers that would appease Ms. Horace. "She's really big on women's lib and stuff like that, so if you can manage to bring up a woman who was important, or call out mistreatment of women in history, that'll boost your score every time."

"Maybe Ms. Horrid isn't so bad after all," Sam remarked.

"She's strict, but she's not, like, evil or anything," Dash said with a light chuckle. "I honestly don't know how she got that nickname." Unexpectedly, Danny put a hand on Dash's shoulder, causing him to startle, but it didn't deter Danny from fixing him with a thousand yard stare.

"That's because you're actually good at history," he said solemnly, oblivious to the rapid beating of Dash's heart. This was the first time in a very long time that there'd been physical contact between the two of them that wasn't caused by Dash's fists, and he almost couldn't take it. It took every ounce of self-control not to lean into the touch. "To us morons, she's the devil."

Dash laughed awkwardly as Danny withdrew his hand and tried to get his heart back under control, hoping to high heaven that his face wasn't as red as it felt.

"Right... anyway, where were we? Marie Antoinette, right?"

"Actually, I think we need snacks," Sam said, standing up from the floor where all their books were spread out. "Dash, come help me carry them."

"Uh, okay," Dash agreed, getting up as well.

"Get some chips and salsa!" Danny requested, and Sam nodded as they stepped out the door.

He followed her down to the kitchen in silence, and waited while she pulled down a bowl and a bag of tortilla chips from the cupboards. She handed him a knife and instructed him to cut up some of the pears that were in a bowl on the countertop. Somehow, he doubted that she'd asked him to come with her just so he could slice pears. She put a plate next to him for the pears and ripped open the bag of chips.

"You have a crush on Danny," she said darkly.

"What? Of course I don't, what are you talking about?" he asked nervously. She hadn't actually found him out that quickly, had she? Was he really that obvious.

She rolled her eyes, as she poured the chips out into the bowl. "Please, you were red as a tomato when he put his hand on your shoulder. I thought your head was gonna pop from all the blood rushing to your face."

"I wasn't..." He started cutting pears more quickly. His fear making his hands move faster and faster. "Oh god, no I wasn't! Was I?"

"Okay, that's a mild exaggeration," she said, and he sighed with relief. "I've been keeping a close eye on you all night to make sure you actually intend to change, and it might not be noticeable to Danny and Tucker, because they have the emotional intelligence of a pair of wet socks, but I've been picking up signs since you first walked in."

"Please don't tell anyone," Dash asked softly. He'd spent one personable afternoon around Sam, and now she could ruin him if she wanted to. If his dad found out he was gay... well.... This must've been how Danny felt when Dash discovered he was Phantom. It didn't feel good.

"Of course I'm not gonna tell anyone," Sam scoffed. "Just so you know, though, Danny's bi." Dash's head shot up and he whipped around to look at her with wide eyes.

"He is?" he asked hopefully. Then he frowned. "Should you be telling me that?"

"Danny doesn't care who knows about that," she assured him. "I'm only telling you because it seems like you actually to intend to become a better person, though. I would advise against asking him out right away, but since you're trying to get in his good graces anyway—and provided that you actually follow through on becoming a better human being, and you're not just gonna give up when it gets annoying—maybe someday you'll actually have a shot with him."

"You think?"

"I said maybe," she reminded him. She closed up the bag of chips with a clip and stowed it. "You've gotta actually get in his good graces first. He still seriously resents you, and for good reason. In retrospect, I can see that you were just pulling his pigtails, but you were still a complete and total dick to him for years, and that's no way to treat someone you like."

"I know," Dash said, his shoulders slumping.

"Good." She opened the fridge and pulled out a bowl a salsa. "Oh, one more thing. If you ever hurt Danny again, in any way, I will take you in the Specter Speeder to the farthest reaches of the Ghost Zone and I will leave you there to slowly deteriorate into ectoplasm as you gradually lose your mind, forgetting yourself and everything you once knew and loved. Do I make myself crystal clear?" Dash nodded, eyes wide, and she smiled a deceptively sweet smile. "Great! Now finish cutting those pears, and let's get back up there."

"Right!" He did as she said, and they went back up to the room to finish studying.

Dash launched into telling them all about Marie Antoinette, and what kind of ruler she was, and how she never said 'let them eat cake', but her last words were apologizing for accidentally stepping on her executioner's toes. All the while, Dash thought about Danny, about how to get on his good side, about how to get to a place where Danny might actually say 'yes' if Dash asked him out.

When their study session was over, Dash went home. He laid down in his bed, and he knew that he was probably never going to ask Danny out anyway. He would be too afraid—of his parents, of Danny, of what people would think at school and in town. The truth was, he wasn't brave like Danny was. Still, it was nice to imagine what could happen if he was. Sam had said 'maybe', after all. Maybe, someday, he would be.