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tumbling-darkling · 3 years ago

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You Can’t Punch a Ghost

Ch 8. Dennys

AO3

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(There’s art near the end ;) )

“Danny, you are aware that my students have an exam coming up, correct?”

Danny, who had been peacefully eating breakfast, paused mid bite as he glanced up at Aizawa, panic suddenly fluttering in his chest. Exam? Oh shit, did he have to take the exam?

“Your expression says that you were not aware, and that you��re trying to figure out if you need to take it as well,” Aizawa deadpanned.

Danny choked on his breakfast as this man seemed to read his mind. Didn’t he have a power erasing quirk or something? Did he have two? Had he known of Danny’s secret this whole time and was just messing with him?!?

No- he said his expression gave him away, and he was a bit of a detective when it came to stuff like this. He just had really good observation skills. Which Danny kept forgetting and needed to be way more wary of if he wanted to keep his secret under wraps.

“You will be taking the exam as well, given your skills seem to be on the same level as the rest of my students. But it won’t be detrimental to your grade or participation, this is because of how the exam is set up. We need an even amount of students and the class has an odd amount,” Danny nodded along as Aizawa explained, feeling a lot less panicked than before. “The students that pass will be participating in a training camp during the break, in which I will be supervising in a top secret location for the students' safety. You will remain behind, which I have spoken to Yagi and he agreed to keep watch over you for the time being. That being said, I’m going to set you up with him tonight just to be prepared, he has a… history of encouraging some pretty stupid ideas. I don’t need the two of you burning down the city before I return.”

Danny tried to rake his brain for any familiarity in the name, but nothing came up, “uh… who is that again? Is that Present Mic’s name?”

“No, he’s All Might’s secretary-, why would you guess that it was Hizashi?”

“Cause you two are dating,” Danny said in a matter of fact tone before taking another bite of his meal.

It was Aizawa’s turn to sputter, “Wha-, we are not-! What makes you think we are dating?!”

Danny lazily waved the chopsticks he’d been mastering around in a circle as he chewed, “the vibes.”

“The… vibes.”

Danny nodded, “you get this… energy I guess when you so much as look at him. It’s ridiculously obvious.”

“It isn’t that obvious,” Aizawa deadpanned.

“I’ve only been here a couple of weeks and I noticed, it’s obvious,” Danny hummed.

“You live with me, you notice more about me in a day than my students would in a month.”

“Oh good point. It’s still obvious.”

“Look, my relationships aside,” Aizawa said with a sigh and a pinch of the bridge of his nose, “you will be staying with All Might's secretary. He has immediate contact with the hero himself if you find yourself in any trouble, and tonight I need you out of the house so you will be staying with him just to get you two acquainted. When I’m on the trip, you won’t be able to contact me so this way we can determine if the setup will work or if I will need to figure out something else.”

“Why not leave me with your boyfriend?” Danny asked.

“Hizashi will be out of town during the week, I can leave you with Nedzu instead,” Aizawa threatened.

Danny threw up his hands in defense, “I’ll stay with the secretary!” Aizawa seemed to sport the ghost of a grin as he turned away, and Danny shook his head as he returned to his meal, “they are totally dating.”

Why again did he agree to this?

Toshinori stood to the side as the young man walked into his home and glanced around, a bag in hand for his overnight stay and those eyes scanning over everything in the room.

He couldn’t shake that image, the one he first saw when he met Danny. He tried to convince himself that it was only a hallucination, a product of over exertion and lack of sleep, but he still could feel that chill when near him. Hear that screaming and crying, the distorted body, scarring, the smell, the pressure-!

Pull it together Toshi! He’s a young boy, it was only a hallucination!

“To be clear, Danny has a curfew of 10pm for just tonight, it may change to 12 during the training weeks. He’s nocturnal like that, he has your number and my number, and like any teenager he will eat anything you put in front of him,” Shouta explained.

“I think I can handle a 15 year old, Shouta,” Toshinori chuckled.

“You can barely handle your prodigy and he doesn’t even live with you,” Shouta deadpanned, cutting off Toshi’s chuckle as he turned it into an awkward cough. “Look, you’re aware of Danny’s case. I don’t exactly know what’s going on with his past and relations, so I need a skilled, powerful hero I trust to keep an eye out for him.”

“You trust me?” Toshinori playfully mocked.

“You’re a tank, Yagi. Whatever is thrown at you, you will be able to handle. I have newer theories on what may have happened, but I can’t be too careful. Just keep him from getting killed,” Shouta sighed.

“That’s my specialty,” Toshinori grinned.

Shouta rolled his eyes and turned to leave, “Be on your best behavior, Danny.”

Toshi felt a chill and glanced down before he startled, nearly leaping in the air as the young man was right next to him. When did he get there?!

“Got it, Dadzawa!” Danny called.

Shouta paused in the doorway for a second before sighing, “I see Denki taught you some new nicknames.” Then he closed it behind him and Toshinori was left alone with the boy. Whose gaze slowly drifted up to Toshinori, eyes that he recognized as experienced, calculating, cautious, and very piercing. Then suddenly they shifted, the look changing to that of a general teenager. Did he just imagine it?

“So… Aizawa said you’re All Might’s secretary? So you have him on speed dial or something?”

Toshinori snapped out of his thoughts as he realized the young lad was attempting small talk with him, “er-! Yes! I am-, and I do. I’m the person you talk to if you ever need All Might for anything at all!”

Danny looked him over again, “are you like… his little brother or something?”

Toshinori raised an eyebrow, “why would you think that?”

“Hair, eye colour, similar taste in clothing,” Danny shrugged.

“A-all just a coincidence,” Toshinori laughed nervously.

Danny hummed and turned around, glancing back around his apartment, “do you know what the deal is with him and Midoriya then?”

Toshi coughed up a little blood, “Wh-what could you possibly mean?”

“He tends to pull Midoriya aside and they whisper a lot together, or they share this look that seems like they have a secret code that no one else really gets. Midoriya talks about his mom a lot, but not his dad, just wondering if Todoroki is right about him being his secret dad.”

More blood came up, “d-dad??!”

“You never noticed-?” Danny glanced back at him and jerked, “ARE YOU BLEEDING-?! Should I get a cloth or a bandage or-?!”

Toshinori held up a hand as he wiped off the blood, “no-no! No need to panic just, I have an old injury, causes a bit of upset with my health is all!” He tossed out the bloody tissue, “I can assure you that All Might is not young Midoriya’s father, he just… sees that Midoriya needs extra help from time to time is all.” Toshinori pulled out a chair and sat down, patting the table to indicate that the young lad should sit as well. “Say, let’s talk a bit about you. Care to tell me something about yourself? Family? Interests?”

Danny slowly took a seat, “well uh, Aizawa already told you about my … well, my predicament, right?”

Toshinori flushed as he realized that that bit of information had slipped his mind, “Ah-, right. Amnesia. Well, you do have interests, correct? Surely, you didn’t forget about those?”

Danny shifted slightly in his seat, suddenly appearing so small as he awkwardly tapped his fingers against the table, “I like space…”

“Space? Like in the sky kind of space?” Toshinori pressed, suddenly interested. He loved Midoriya like his own son, but that boy had interests which he had a hard time following along with sometimes. He should probably try interacting with the other students and learning of their interests. If one is passionate, then integrating those kinds of interests can boost performance and overall happiness.

Danny nodded, “I just… like it a lot. Planets, the stars, the questions surrounding it, how it’s different-,” Danny suddenly stopped mid sentence, then picked up the sentence in a higher tone, “-from anything anyone has ever experienced!” He laughed nervously. An odd reaction, but Toshinori decided to sum it up to nerves. “It’s a shame that there isn’t more advanced space travel… especially when everyone has powers.”

“Well, in this time of peace, there may be more motive to look towards the stars,” Toshinori smiled. “Technology changes very fast, it could be possible for people to return to space within the next decade, and not all research is immediately public. Some company may be researching that kind of travel right now and we are none the wiser.”

Toshinori glanced back towards Danny and, for what felt like the 100th time in that last hour, jumped a little when he noticed the young man had gotten much closer and was staring at him with wide and wondrous eyes, “really? You think that there could be more space travel being studied at this moment?”

Toshi chuckled nervously, “of course! There are so many people in this world with different passions and dreams, I would be surprised if no one was.”

Danny pulled back, seeming to be deep in thought, then he had a question that caught Toshinori off guard. “What about Multi-Dimensional travel?’

Toshinori blinked, “multi-…what?”

“Like…” Danny waved his hands around a little, “other worlds, not in … space-space. But in another plane of existence, in its own world with its own solar system and universe. Worlds that exist… on a different level of space?”

“Well, I am not sure that these… other worlds exist.” Toshi could have sworn he heard Danny say ‘oh they exist all right’, under his breath.

“So… no one is studying creating a portal or something for if it did exist?”

��I can’t say for sure. It is very possible there are studies about that kind of thing being done by very small research institutions, but it’s not as tangible as space travel.”

Danny looked… a little disappointed by that bit of information, then it was wiped away as he stood up from the table, “do you have any snacks?” The change in subject was quite abrupt, and Toshi wanted to know why he went from space travel to dimensional travel. Was it a connection to those movies that kids watch? Was it something else?

“I do, in fact. Spread out throughout the kitchen, I’m sure you can find something you may enjoy! Say, I can order us some take-out as well if you haven’t eaten yet.”

Danny paused, “What kind of take-out?”

Toshinori jerked awake in a cold sweat, his grip on his bedsheets a death grip, the lingering images of the nightmare still fresh in his mind's eye. They had only been getting worse with his age, and while they did begin to fade at the beginning of the school year, they had swiftly returned when whispers of All for One’s reemergence had surfaced.

He slowly peeled himself off his bed, his limbs heavy with exhaustion and his mind still hazy as he tried to shake the effects of a terrible awakening. He ran his fingers through his hair, which easily got caught in the tangled mess.

With a heavy sigh, he exited his room and headed for the kitchen, deciding that a glass of water should ease his mind and stomach.

He lightly shuffled through the halls then came to a stop at the entrance to the kitchen.

The fridge door was open, and a shadow was leaning into it.

The hairs on the back of Toshinori’s neck prickled, the cold sweat returned tenfold, and he took a stumbled step back, knocking into a side table in the hall and creating a deafening clatter.

The shadow whipped its head up at lightning speeds, green orbs boring deep into Toshinori’s soul. Death gripped Toshinori’s heart.

Fight or flight instincts kicked in.

He activated One for All on instinct.

In fear.

The light turned on.

Danny stood in the place of the shadow, noodles dangling from his mouth and his eyes wide, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“D-Danny?”

The noodles fell from the boy's mouth.

Toshinori could just feel his best friends glare setting his soul on fire from across the room, “he fucking did what?”

“Turned into All Might when he saw me getting a midnight snack,” Danny played with a pencil as he sat across the table from the detective, completely unfazed by what he had just witnessed. A reaction that was a relief but also a conundrum. He expected yelling, screaming, disbelief, and all he got was a small gasp. He had to inform Naomasa, and after telling the detective, his old friend basically kicked down his door. “You guys don’t need to make a big deal about this, I won’t tell anyone,” Danny dropped the pencil he was trying to balance on his nose.

“You see, social media would spread the information like wildfire which could be very dangerous-, pardon, did you say you aren’t going to tell anyone?”

Danny shrugged as he struggled to get back his pencil, “Yep, won’t tell a soul. I bet Midoriya knows though, doesn’t he?”

Toshi began to sputter again, “how- how did-?”

“Remember how I thought you were his dad because of your ‘subtle’ talks? They aren’t very subtle.”

Toshinori tried to hide in his hair from the new glare that Naomasa sent him. “So you won’t tell anyone?”

Danny grinned, his teeth a little too sharp and a little too wide, “the dead are the best at keeping secrets.”

This kid really picked up fast on Aizawa’s jokes.

With Danny back in bed after their talk, Toshinori led his friend back to the front door, “I’m sorry that you rushed here at such an early hour, I just assumed you would see my text in the morning and stop by later in the day.”

“I was doing research on the Stain case,” Naomasa rubbed his eyes, “in case you forgot, there’s a vigilante running, or more like flying around that barely anyone can catch. Only Eraserhead got close to catching him but the kid is slippery.”

“Kid?” Toshinori asked.

Naomasa nodded, “Eraserhead has been the only one to get close enough to confirm it, though many had suspicions based on his personality and size. Though even Eraserhead is doubting that what we are facing is entirely human. The various quirks indicate possibly a more advanced Nomu, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call him inhuman.”

“He considers a child, inhuman? Are you sure we are talking about the same man?” Toshi softly gasped.

“Well, I don’t believe he meant it as to see the vigilante as less than or monsterous. He just said that he didn’t believe him to be entirely human. And that was it. Other than telling us that the kid finally provided a name for himself,” Naomasa chuckled to himself, “it’s really quite fitting honestly. He goes by Phantom.”

Phantom. For a vigilante that disappears into thin air, untrackable and untraceable.

It truly was fitting.

Toshinori hummed to himself in thought. “Say, what about Danny? He said he would keep my secret, did your quirk confirm he was truthful about it?”

Naomasa suddenly looked even more tired, “Your school has a gift in finding the most odd children, even in a world full of quirks like ours. His first answer was clearly truthful, there was a pull to it, a lingering feeling as if there was a personal reason why he was quick to keep the secret a secret. But his joking answer, about the dead keeping secrets? That was fully truthful.”

“How is that odd?” Toshinori frowned, not catching on.

“Not many know this but my quirk can be outmaneuvered, but it’s not an easy feat. An answer must be both truthful and false at the same time. This can be based either on someone not being entirely confident in an answer, which can be easily figured out by tone and body language. Or it can be a carefully constructed answer that integrates true and false information so closely that my quirk has a difficult time distinguishing what is true or false. Jokes about death, or answers regarding death in general usually fall in the former category. Mainly because nobody knows what happens after death. Danny’s answer was clear, firm, and he was entirely confident in his answer.” He shook his head, “though more odd were his other answers about anything regarding his personal life. Everything he said had a balance of truth and falsehood. It’s one thing to have one answer mess with my quirk but nearly every other word he speaks sends off that reaction?” Naomasa sighed heavily. “I don’t think he’s a bad kid. A little sarcastic and direct, but means well. He’s just a conundrum. A mystery.”

Toshinori leaned back, “well, Aizawa did find him in a dumpster and he does have amnesia regarding most of his past.”

Naomasa stared at him, “... Toshi, I cannot deal with this kind of new information at this hour.”

Toshinori chuckled, “ah, well. Aizawa did say he has an investigation going regarding trying to figure out his past. If you find yourself having any free time, I’m sure you will take time to at least look through it.”

Naomasa stepped out of Toshi’s apartment, “... I’m going to get some rest. I suggest you do too, Toshi.”

“Have a good evening, Naomasa.”

Naomasa raised a hand in acknowledgement as he left.

Toshinori closed the door and leaned back.

That was enough excitement for the rest of the week.

It was the day before the exam. Everyone was on edge, they didn’t really know what to expect or if they would pass or fail. Aizawa spoke of a summer training camp for those that would pass, and those that failed would be left behind.

Nobody wanted to be left behind.

So failure just wasn’t an option. They had to all pass, which meant a large number of the class was holed in corners or empty rooms attempting to cram last minute studying. Danny and Denki had a different idea for the final day before exams though.

“Stressing the day before is bad luck, if you need to cram, you do it 10 minutes before the exams start,” Danny stated. It wasn’t like he usually had free time to study the day before the exam back at home, but Denki was a staticy mess. Danny could barely get close to the other teen in fear of getting electrocuted shocked. So he decided to try and calm down the others' nerves through a day of bothering everyone else. “So to get that good luck rolling, we are going to pull a few harmless pranks!”

“Shouldn’t we not be bothering them? Everyone is stressing about this exam and they may not be too happy about us bothering them throughout the day,” Denki frowned, crossing his arms as he glanced towards the window.

“We aren’t tearing apart their homework if that’s what you’re thinking,” Danny grinned, “that would be cruel and is more likely to incite violence. I should know, it usually happens to me on a daily basis! No, our aim for today is to confuse and disorientate.”

“What do you have in mind?” Denki seemed to let his curiosity take hold, and Danny pulled out a piece of paper with really basic and shoddy Japanese written on it. Denki gasped, “You’ve been practicing!”

“Yes, I have been!” Danny huffed in a prideful way, “but we should really focus on the contents of the paper!”

Denki squinted at the writing, “oh. But we need to work on your verb conjugations.”

“Ignore the errors! This is for pranking not for marking!”

Denki rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything more about the errors. Danny smiled excitedly as Denki read through the list, eyes widening at some bits before finally looking up Danny again, “these… these are perfect.”

Danny took the paper back with a grin, “let’s get to work then!”

The devious pair ran off down the halls towards their first victims in the study hall, the simplest pranks happening first.

The heaviest studies were in the room: Midoriya, Iida, Todoroki and Yaoyorozu. Though they expected Bakugou as well, he was nowhere in sight. Danny wasn’t too worried though, he had a different prank for him.

Danny and Denki split up, planning to have their attacks quick and unexpected from all parties. Danny went for Midoriya as Denki went for Yaoyorozu, Danny approaching directly while Denki stuck to hiding behind tables and other pieces of furniture.

Danny sat across from Midoriya, elegantly hiding his ghost sense with a cough into his elbow as he got close. While that was something he really should look into, his focus was on pranks. The cough did catch Midoriya’s attention, and boy did he look stressed. He pulled out a protein bar and slid it over to Midoriya with a grin, “Hey, thought I would come in here and hand out some snacks! I’ve been told you’re especially bad at eating when studying,” he explained.

Midoriya glanced at the offering, and accepted it with a grateful smile, “That’s so thoughtful, Danny! You really didn’t have to- I’m sure you're stressed about your own exams and everything…”

Danny shook his head as he held up his hands, “I’m a relaxed studier, I study better after long breaks,” he shrugged off and stood back up. “Good luck!” And he walked off casually, leaving the study hall and into a bathroom where he shifted to phantom to turn invisible and headed back towards the hall. He hovered over to Midoriya and waited for him to eat the snack, which he just finished as Danny returned. While he returned his attention back to his books, Danny snuck the wrapper and replaced it with another protein bar, exactly the same as the last.

Knowing that Midoriya probably won’t notice it right away, he lightly blew against the back of his neck on the side of the protein bar, causing him to look up again and behind him. Of course he didn’t see Danny, but as he went to go back to his book he spotted the brand new protein bar. Danny had to stifle a giggle as Midoriya clearly became slightly confused at the sight, looking around for the wrapper of the protein bar he was pretty sure he just ate. He then shrugged a little and opened the new one, eating it as he went back to studying. Danny waited for him to take the last bite before placing down another protein bar.

Midoriya went to put the wrapper down and spotted the new snack. During his double take, Danny slipped the wrapper from his hand and hid it, so as Midoriya tried to look for the wrapper from the bar he JUST ate, it had vanished.

Now he was really confused.

He looked around some more, and as he looked under the table, Danny placed down two more protein bars next to the existing one. Midoriya looked back up and yelped as he saw more protein bars. “Wha-?” He looked behind him and Danny dumped five more bars onto the pile.

Midoriya looked back and screamed, stumbling back and falling backwards off his chair, startling everyone in the room into looking up from their own books at the fallen student. Danny could barely hold in his laughter and had to rush from the room, back into the bathroom where he transformed back, laughing the entire time at his classmates' poor confused look. He would admit to the prank later and pretend he’s also pretty good at sleight of hand tricks, but the confusion of the prank may help loosen Midoriya up a little. Not to mention free food, he had to ask around to figure out Midoriya’s favourite snack without directly asking him.

When Danny managed to control his laughter, he walked back in just in time to see Denki giving him a thumbs up from behind a table.

He grinned back and took a seat across from Iida, Yaoyorozu in sight while Midoriya was seeming to have a bit of a crisis as he inspected each protein bar as if expecting it to bite him back. He swallowed the little bit of laughter he had left as he leaned on the table, “hey Iida, could you help me out with something?” He asked.

Iida glanced up, “of course! As class president and a student of UA, I would be happy to help out another student! What is it that you need?” He chopped his hands in a downward motion as he spoke. Behind him, Denki had attached a string to Yaoyorozu’s pencil and tugged it further and further away from her every time she reached for it. Her eyes were glued to her book though, and she didn’t seem to notice as Denki stopped each time she would finally look up and see the pencil halfway across the table.

“Well it’s about some Quirk history,” Danny said, Iida nodded and looked down at his bag, probably reaching for a book. Danny took this moment to put on a fake pair of glasses.

Iida found the book and looked back up and paused at his new look, “you wear glasses?” He asked.

Danny frowned, “of course I do? Have you never noticed?”

Iida blinked, “I-I swear I… I must have never noticed. So what is your question?”

“Well kids get quirks from their mom or dad or a mix of both, right? But do people get quirks that aren’t like either parent? And how exactly?”

“Oh! Well this is simple, there's an entire chapter about quirk genetics in history!” Iida exclaimed and looked back down at the book, flipping through the pages in search of the chapter.

Danny took off the glasses.

Iida looked back up and blinked once more, “what happened to your glasses?”

“What glasses?” Danny asked.

Iida narrowed his eyes, “erm… well you see, Quirk biology isn’t always accurate and mutations can happen,” Iida moved on back to the question at hand as he glanced down at the book and Danny put the glasses back on. “So a mother and father can have, say an ice and flying quirk but the kid has a rock quirk-, DANNY DO YOU OR DO YOU NOT HAVE GLASSES?” Iida exclaimed as he looked back up and saw them again,

“I do have glasses, is it that hard to figure out?” Danny asked as innocently as he could.

Yaoyorozu was starting to catch onto the pencil thing, keeping her hand on the pencil itself. Though every time she moved her hand Denki would pull it away.

Iida blinked and Danny made the glasses invisible in that millisecond.

Iida blinked again and they were visible again,

He blinked once more and rubbed at his own eyes, the glasses turned invisible again.

“Wha-,” Iida gapped as Yaoyorozu loudly stood up and yanked the pencil, and Denki, out into the open.

“Denki?!” Yaoyorozu hissed.

Danny stood up, slamming his hands on the table and yelled, “SCATTER!”

The two tore across the study and burst through the doors, Iida and Yaoyorozu yelling after them as they cackled like little prank gremlins.

They only managed to escape Iida as they slammed the doors to the hall shut behind them, turning wildly around corners and wheezing out fits of laughter. “Amazing, we pulled it off!” Danny laughed, “I didn’t expect us to manage to get all three, a shame we couldn’t get to Todoroki though.”

“Man, this is so much more fun when you are doing it with someone who is actually good at pranking,” Denki wheezed. “Do you do this often? You’re, like, really good at it.”

Danny grinned, “here and there. Mostly harmless stuff, of course. I once went a little overboard and had a weird Freaky Friday body swap, it didn’t last too long but I tend to stick to the more friendly confusion type of prank because of it. Ready for the next targets?”

“Hell yeah!”

Shouta had given his class a day to prepare for the exam, expecting them all to use the time wisely to review subjects they were uncomfortable with, and be able to walk into the exam with confidence. He wanted his class to pass with flying colours, to strive for the heroes he saw in each of them.

It also gave him time to do more research regarding Danny.

He was beginning to suspect an abusive home instead of possible gang violence. But he hadn’t ruled the possibility completely out as some of his mixed up memories could be attributed to the aspect. It wasn’t unheard of to have parents who abused their children to also be part of criminal crowds and even subject their children to experimentation within these crowds.

Danny had unlocked some memories at some point. Mentioning an older friend helping him with his quirk, and his parents not keen on this person based on looks. The friend possibly had a mutation quirk and Danny’s parents could have been not very accepting of mutation quirk users. There was also a nagging thought that Danny did remember what happened to him, but didn’t want to share in fear of being returned to such a cruel family. The rabbit hole was getting much deeper the more he thought about the case-

Something yellow caught the corner of his eye and broke his train of thought.

A turn of his head confirmed that there was suddenly a lemon on the corner of his desk.

Shouta blinked once. And then once again.

He didn’t put that there.

He slowly reached for the citrus fruit, picking it up and trying to figure out where it came from.

He glanced around the room again, nobody had entered his classroom in the last half hour and he was certain that the lemon had not been there when he entered.

Where the hell did it come from?

He looked up and jerked, seeing another lemon sitting right in front of him.

Shouta looked around quickly after, but couldn’t spot the culprit. There were just… lemons.

Oh.

Nope.

Shouta stood up, placed down the first lemon he found, then left the room.

He was not dealing with this right now.

Fumikage was heading back from the library with some books needed for his studies when he spotted Danny and Denki ahead speaking to each other. From the distance, he couldn’t seem to catch what they were saying yet as he got closer he began to realize he couldn’t just understand them from the distance, it was also how they were speaking.

He couldn’t understand a word.

Fumikage had to pause in front of them in order to attempt to place whatever language they seemed to be speaking but it just… didn’t seem familiar in any way other than a small vagueness about it.

Denki spotted him staring and grinned with a wave, “hey Toko! How’s it going?”

“My dark studies have been going well…” Fumikage answered in a mysterious way, “though… what language is it that you two are exchanging information in? I cannot seem to recognize it.”

Danny tilted his head in confusion, then spoke the gibberish again. Fumikage didn’t catch any of it.

“Danny just said we are speaking Japanese? Are you feeling alright, Toko?”

Fumikage paused, looking between his two classmates before he shook his head, “I think I’ve been reading for too long…” he muttered and stalked away from them, hearing them return to speaking that strange language.

He would later wake up at 2am in a cold sweat, realizing that it was familiar because that language matched Danny’s eerie accent perfectly.

Ochako was having a hard time focusing on the words of her notes, the stress of the exam eating away at her sanity as she struggled to remain focused. But it was difficult.

She needed air. She didn’t care where it was as long as it was anywhere except this particular room. She harshly stood up and stumbled out of the study hall into the hallways, pacing down towards her homeroom. It should be empty in there, a good time to relax, open a window, and think of nothing for a few moments.

She slowed down as she spotted Tsu up ahead in front of the classroom door but not entering the room. Slightly confused by the action, Ochako approached the other girl and softly asked, “hey is something wrong?”

Tsu glanced over to Ochako, then pointed into the classroom, “I think someone either got kidnapped or murdered.”

Ochako paused, then yelled,”WHAT?!” Before quickly dashing to the doorway and looking inside the room as she stood next to Tsu. She gasped at the sight, the classroom was a mess, blood seemed to be splattered all over, bloody words covered the chalkboard before a handprint ended it and dragged down towards Aizawa’s desk. The words spelled out ‘Bakugou did it’.

Ochako slowly inched into the room, taking in the shattered desk, a broken window with some sort of makeshift rope hanging out of it, blood splatters on the walls and floors and even marks that suggested someone had been dragged-! Getting closer to the desk she saw someone collapsed under, covered in red-

The closet behind her opened and someone fell out onto the floor.

Tsu and Ochako both screamed.

Danny nursed a black eye with a frozen bag of peas as he sheepishly grinned up at the two girls looking down at him and Denki with righteous fury. Look, as a half ghost, he needed at least one prank to be ghost/dead/corpse related and what was funnier than faking a crime scene?

Yeah they both knew they would have to clean up the classroom later but throwing around the red paint and smashing furniture was worth it.

Especially making his classmates scream.

Honestly, this prank was nonspecific and he was really hoping he could have gotten Todoroki with it, but this worked too.

And holy shit could Ochako throw a punch.

Falling out of the closet and playing dead, getting Denki to distract them momentarily so he could stand up and then using his ‘scary eyes’ and ghost voice to say boo? Amazing, worked like a charm!

Though now he knows that Ochako is a fighter and not a flighter.

Danny and Denki leaned against the ledge of the roof of the building, “final prank of the day. I left the best for last,” Danny grinned.

Denki frowned in return, thinking back to the list Danny had shown off earlier, “I thought we did everything on the list?”

“Oh, this wasn’t on the list,” Danny’s eyes glinted devilishly and Denki gasped as he realized there was one person from the class that they missed.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

Denki looked down towards the ground and saw Bakugou leaving the building. Oh shit. He wasn’t.

Danny pulled up a water balloon from seemingly out of nowhere. He was.

“Danny, didn't you tell me that a balloon from this height could kill a person?!”

“Oh I’m not doing it from up here,” Danny lazily waved his free hand, then used it to grip the air and tug, revealing a torn hole that opened just over Bakugou’s head.

Danny tossed the water balloon through it and closed the portal.

“DUDE WHEN DID YOU-?!”

Danny grinned and dragged Denki to the edge of the building and pointed down towards their explosive classmate, who had stilled since being hit with the water balloon and being completely soaked. The teen very slowly cranked his neck to look up, where even from their height, they could see those red eyes basically on fire.

“I’m going to kill you motherfuckers!!”

Bakugou then slammed through the doors and disappeared into the building, and Danny burst out laughing like an absolute madman. “Danny-,” Denki nervously tried to calm him down as he began to worriedly look towards their only means of exit, which was the single door that led to the roof. The door Danny was making no effort in heading towards. “Danny we should totally bail before he gets here, Bakugou punches hard,” Denki tried to reason.

Danny only managed to flash another grin as he cackled, stepping back closer to the edge of the building, “just- just wait. This is the best part,” Danny managed to wheeze, which only confused Denki even more.

He was about to ask him what he meant by that when the doors were BLASTED off their hinges to reveal Bakugou in a smoking and smoldering rage.

Denki was pretty sure his life was flashing before his eyes.

“Would you look at that? You morons managed to corner yourselves. And now I can finally fucking fight the walking popsicle!”

Despite the carnage that blazed behind Bakugou, the look of absolute murder in his gaze, and heavy implication of them both about to get their asses handed to them, Danny only shot Bakugou the widest, most shit eating grin Denki had ever seen. “You’re gonna have to wait for that fight.”

In a swift, split second motion, Danny scooped up Denki in his arms like he didn’t weigh a thing, leapt onto the ledge of the building, and promptly stepped backwards off the edge, all without breaking eye contact with Bakugou.

“You motherfuckers-.”

Denki’s stomach leapt to his chest as they dropped, and he instinctively screamed. His arms flung out and wrapped around Danny’s neck in his panic, squeezing his eyes shut as he dug his face into the other boy's shoulder and hung on for dear life. He was expecting death to meet them, he had no idea what Danny was thinking with the stunt.

And then they hit something solid way faster than Denki anticipated, did they die? Is this death?

Death felt cold.

No wait-, he was still breathing. He slowly opened an eye and took in a sharp breath.

Ice surrounded them on both sides as wind whipped against his face, the pair sliding down a massive ice slide Danny must have somehow made in mere seconds. Danny held up Denki by the legs since Denki was supporting the other half with Danny’s neck, Danny’s free hand dragging behind him as they slid. It took Denki a moment to realize that the reason that Bakugou hadn’t leapt on the slide after them was that Danny was destroying it on their way down, the ice cracking and shattering under that free hand.

But Bakugou still had a backup plan.

His palms sparked, then exploded, and then he was chasing after them.

Oh right, he could fly.

“He can fly?!” Danny exclaimed.

“I can fly, you dead sons of bitches!!” Bakugou shrieked.

Danny then quickly flicked his free hand up, ice swiftly followed, creating a solid wall of ice that Bakugou smacked into like a fly on a windshield.

Danny cackled at the sound he made from the impact, and turned back towards their destination, returning to destroying the ice behind them. The pair never slowing during the entire interaction.

Denki glanced up at Danny’s face and felt his heart skip a beat. The destroyed ice that trailed behind them left small droplets and ice pieces in the air that glittered in the sunlight, Danny’s hair wisping around his face, and that giddy yet goofy grin. The twinkle in his gaze, the specks of green in his irises that only seemed to show up on the rarest of occasions, becoming suddenly aware that he was basically being cradled by probably the strongest human he had ever met. Even if he did look like a twig.

His heart flipped again.

Oh.

They made it to the bottom of the slide, and Danny easily lowered Denki down to his feet, his legs wobbly was it because they were almost murdered by a classmate or was it something else? Danny twirled and dramatically flared his arms out, “well? Best prank of the day, wasn’t it?” He laughed. “I’ll admit I didn’t expect him to chase after us from the roof but you know, it did make it all that much more exciting!”

Denki’s heart was hammering way too fast, all he could do was nod along as Danny leapt around him and made faces at Bakugou who was angrily trying to chip through Danny’s wall of ice he had the unfortunate experience of slamming into at full force. The absolute joy on Danny’s face, the perfect lighting-, oh now his face felt hot.

“Hey man, you alright?”

Denki jerked, “uh yeah of course I am why wouldn’t I be alright?”

A chapter or two ago we had a little contest (on AO3) for you all to submit prank ideas and that has finally come to fruition. They were all pretty good and some of them might make it into future chapters but for today, I would like to thank the following readers for the inspiration they gave to this chapter. For the gaslight, gate keep, ghost speak prank, we have Flopyflor and KarinMaaka07. For the idea of a murder scene, we have Selkierai. And our personal favourite, Lemons, from HG_Anna!

-J & Internal_Screaming

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tumbling-darkling · 3 years ago

Text

You Can’t Punch a Ghost

Ch 7. Death comes to those who are assholes

AO3

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Katsuki glared at the ice eyed newcomer from across the cafeteria. He hadn’t been able to get into a battle with him yet, his being in the class a threat to his goals of becoming number one. What business did an American transfer student have in Japan? Couldn’t he just go take up space somewhere else? Anywhere else?

Every day he didn’t fight him felt like a punch to the gut. He needed to prove that he was number one in the class! And how could he do that if the little shit kept avoiding him?

He growled as Icy Eyes laughed at something dunce face said, he already was nearly finished his lunch that had been piled higher than the damn nerds! How did that stick figure eat more than deku? He was probably the scrawniest kid in their entire class! Nothing made sense!

Not to mention that look he would notice from him every so often. That glint in his eyes, the taunting smirk, though there was also something else. Something he would spot in those eyes when he would shout at Deku or bump past him. He thought it was recognition but there was something else to it. And he couldn’t place it.

Those didn’t matter though, all that mattered was finding a way to corner the fucker and prove he was the best in the class!

Which had been so much harder than he ever expected.

If there was one thing that icy eyes was good at, it was disappearing. Katsuki tried to trail him one time to corner him, but he turned a corner and vanished by the time Katsuki managed to make it to the corner himself. Even in the halls of the school, one moment he was surrounded by dekus nerd squad and the next! Gone! Vanished! What a coward!

Yet someone had to be fighting him!

He showed up today with a bandage over his nose. Someone punched him in the fucking face and it wasn’t him!

It was as if he avoided fighting Katsuki just to piss him off! And it was working! He will find a way to fight icy eyes! And he will blast apart his shitty ice along the way!

Danny cast a grin towards Mr. ‘I can make my hands explode so I think I’m better than everyone here’. He was glaring at him again and Danny found a cocky grin always got him to look away. He hadn’t really had a chance to interact with the blonde, but he wasn’t exactly too keen on doing so. Mainly since he reminded Danny a little too much of Dash. Especially with how he acted around Midoriya.

Danny didn’t really understand how everyone was unaware of their relationship but it was definitely not an extremely healthy one. Bakugou was aggressive, but he has different types of aggression. A lot of bark and no bite when it came to people he hung around like Kirishima and even Denki. But with Midoriya, it’s like he had some sort of issue with the fact that he was just breathing. The bark would always become a bite around him, and everyone seemed to treat it like normal behaviour.

Danny could handle bullies. He was used to it. He was a small kid in a small town with the weirdest parents a child could ever ask for. He could take a hit, he was resilient even before the accident. It was always better if the bully targeted him instead of Tucker or some other kid, because he could handle it. He could always handle it. He had to handle it because what if those around him couldn’t? Couldn’t protect them from danger, couldn’t protect them from the pain, themselves, the screaming, the crying, the voices that constantly circle in his head, freak, loser, creep! Her voice, her voice always there, in the corners, the deep and dark corners he tried to bury. To hide in- hide from. The voice her voice echoing whispering, haunting what are you? What are you? Some freak pretending to be human? Or a creepy little boy with creepy little powers? A foot in the grave and the other planted firmly on the unforgiving earth, unable to choose, unable to be whole, always torn, always a freak. Just a freak just a freak just a freak just a freak-

Bakugou was a bully to Midoriya, and lately Danny had been drawing his attention. And he was just fine by it.

Ancients, he could even teach him a lesson, one that Poindexter would be proud of.

He may just do that, actually.

An annoying laugh snapped him out of his thoughts and he glanced up to notice a new blonde staring down at him with the most condescending look possible, “oh? Is Class 1-A ever so broken over their recent loss that they had to bring in an American? Oh how your class has sunk so low!”

Danny very slowly blinked then turned to Uraraka next to him, “who’s the kid with the creepy smile?”

The boy took that personally, dramatically flailing backwards, “Creepy? Creepy? I think that out of everyone in this school, you’re the creepy one! My classmates say they doubt you even breathe! What is your quirk? ‘Being useless and weird?’” The asshole reached out a hand and Danny slapped it away, standing up, “oh? Another aggressive type, are we?”

Danny then grinned, briefly flashing his fangs and causing the bully to jerk back, “Why don’t you go bother someone who cares to listen to your insults? I suggest a bathroom, there’s plenty of mirrors in there.”

He then sat back down as the people around him all paused, then the kid looked ready to scream when a girl grabbed him with … massive hands.

Okay. Yeah, sure. Got it. Big hands. Nothing makes sense.

“Sorry about Monoma, I couldn’t stop him when he saw you and basically bolted across the room. It’s nice to meet you, my name is Isuka Kendo!” She introduced herself with a regular sized hand.

Danny very slowly took it and shook it, “what’s his deal?” Danny asked, casting a quick glance at the struggling student in question.

“He has a bit of a grudge, the classes are numbered 1-A, 1-B, and 1-C and he has a bit of a problem not being in class 1-A so he tries to prove our class is ‘better’. Really, it’s more annoying than helping anything, we all have the same end goal in mind.”

“Huh. May need to get a therapist for that,” Danny shrugged. “So what’s his quirk?” He asked right before shoveling a good amount of rice into his mouth.

“He can copy other people’s quirks.”

Danny could feel the blood drain from his face as he dropped his fork and began choking on his rice. Out of all the people in the world, he knew he could probably find a way.

Just as he began sputtering and coughing, Monoma managed to somehow slip out of Kendo’s grasp. He watched in dawning horror as he saw Monoma’s hand flicker in and out of tangibility, making it much harder for him to stand up, though he seemed to manage to roll to his feet with a loud cackle. He copied his ghost powers.

He copied his ghost powers oh god.

“Now let’s see what great and powerful quirk you happen to have, American boy!” Monoma cried.

Danny saw Monoma’s breath mist just as he launched himself in the mimic's direction, knocking him to the ground and holding him firmly by his shirt, “how long does it last?” Danny hissed, he could NOT let his secret get exposed like this. Especially not like this!

Monoma’s face twisted into another grin, “What? Afraid I will use it better than you?”

Danny noticed his hand go intangible again, did he not notice what was happening? Danny lowered his voice, “look my power- my quirk is dangerous. I don’t need you accidentally killing yourself with it-.”

Monoma then coughed, causing Danny to pull back a little as spit got on his face. He glanced back down to see the other boy's eyes wide in horror, a hand now clutching his chest, “this… this doesn’t feel right.” Danny frowned, slightly confused until he realized that Monoma’s skin felt cool. His skin paling, tinging blue. Deathly blue.

Danny didn’t think. Thinking took too long and he needed to fix this now.

So he hefted Monoma over his shoulder and bolted out of the cafeteria, startling everyone as he slammed out the doors and tore down the halls. He spotted the sign pointing to the nurses office and the door itself shortly after, slamming in and dumping Monoma on an empty bed. He spun around, frantically searching the room before spotting a small lady staring at him in surprise. He pointed to Monoma, “I- he copied my quirk and- and I don’t know, something is wrong,” He managed to blurt out without being too obvious.

The doctor lady nudged him aside and leaned over Monoma, a frown causing more wrinkles to form on her face, “and you think it’s because he copied your quirk?”

“I don’t, yeah I think so, I just-, is he dying?” Danny couldn't tear his gaze away from Monoma, he was out cold now but he was just too still. His breathing was shallow but it was still there, thankfully. He just met the jerk but he didn’t want him to die. Especially not because of him.

“His quirk only lasts 10 minutes of usage, but some quirk suppressants may help,” the doctor said as she revealed a syringe. As soon as she finished giving Monoma the suppressants, colour returned to his face, his breathing became deeper and more even, and within a minute, he looked just like he had a few minutes prior to this mess.

As the blonde slowly flickered awake, Danny let out a sigh of relief.

“What exactly is your quirk, young man?” The doctor suddenly asked. “Especially to cause such a reaction, why doesn’t this happen to you?”

Danny froze.

He presented his quirk as ice… but… he got his powers by dying. Did… did Monoma copy the death aspect of his abilities? Was… was his body dying to accommodate the sudden ghost powers? Or could his body just not handle the ghostly powers so it began to kill him?

He swallowed thickly, clutching his right arm tightly as he tried to think of a lie to connect it to his ice.

“Uh-, it’s er, Phantom Ice. Like really weird ice,” He vaguely explained.

The nurse raised an eyebrow, “how is it weird?”

Danny began to scratch the back of his neck, “uh- it doesn’t, it doesn’t melt. Not unless I make it melt.”

“Hmmm, odd indeed. Did you have any complications when the quirk first manifested?”

Danny glanced down at his hands, remembering when the ice first manifested. Well… remembering what he could. Honestly a lot of it was a bit of a blur. There was Sam, she and the town had been taken over by ghost plants. He remembered he had been cold all week, constantly shivering, unable to get warm no matter what he did. Looking for help. Flying, the ghost zone, so much snow… then waking up and Frostbite hovering over him.

“I was… I was cold. For an entire week. It started with an odd shiver, but then it got worse and worse. It got so bad I thought my entire insides were covered in frost or something.”

“Did it eventually return on its own?”

Danny slowly shook his head, then realized that he probably should have agreed with her speculation, “I… have a friend who knows a lot about ice p- quirks. I went to him and he helped me control it.”

“You went to this friend? How old is he?”

Danny nearly fell out of his chair as he spun around to see Aizawa standing in the doorway.

Oh no.

Oh no his lies needed to be more airtight now that Mr. ‘I can see through all your lies and even your soul’ was here. How old were kids when they got their quirks? Six? Eight? It wouldn’t make sense if the friend was the same age as him. Too young for any control. And Danny really couldn’t picture Frostbite as a child.

Okay maybe he could a little. Like a little puff ball of icicles and fluff.

Focus, Danny.

“He-, he’s a family friend. Was always very kind to me and my friends. My parents didn’t like him a lot because of… because of the way he looked.” Wow he just called his parents ghost-ist. Was that a thing? Maybe, he wasn’t sure. Could be. They did hate ALL ghosts. Because they were ghosts. “He had this really cool ice quirk, parts of him were even made out of only ice. So I… kept it from my parents and went to him for help. And he helped me.”

Danny could feel that dark gaze digging into his skull, trying to pick out every detail that Danny had given and piece them into some sort of puzzle that Danny was trying really hard to keep him from completing. “So how did he help you, then?” The doctor lady asked.

Danny kicked his foot a little, “he, uh… well he said my quirk built up in power for too long. Said the power wasn’t being used and because of that it began to build and build until I was almost basically frozen on the inside. He… he managed to thaw me out, told me that if I had waited another day or less, I could have died.” Faded fully dead not just half all the way full ghost

“Hmm, I have one more question. Where does your quirk come from?”

Danny blinked, “uh… my… parents?”

“Not genetically, where does the quirk come from? When you use it?”

Danny lifted a hand, “well, from my hands. I think.”

“You shot it from your eyes during one of the exercises,” Aizawa made his presence known and once more, made Danny jump a little.

The doctor took Danny’s hands, “so your quirk doesn’t come from your hands, do you know where it does come from?”

Danny stared down at his own hands, “I… don’t think so?”

“Well, when you use your quirk, try to follow it. Follow it from your hands to its source.”

Danny glanced between his hands and the doctor, then to Aizawa, then back to his hands. He took a heavy breath, then summoned a little bit of ecto ice energy into his palms. The energy wasn’t ice yet, just the condensed energy before it became ice when he blasted it across the room.

“Good, now follow it.”

Danny closed his eyes, feeling the energy in his palms. Sure enough, he could feel energy in his arms, pooling towards his palms, but the energy also left his palms back into his arms, flowing back into his body. He mentally followed the stream, feeling that returning energy trail up to his shoulder and down into the centre of his chest. Into… his core. His energy, all his power, why hadn’t he noticed this before? The pulsing of the core wasn’t just a beat in his chest, it was more. It was like a second heart. Pumping power throughout his entire body. And when he summoned his ice, the core would pull some power from the rest of his body and then pour what it had within it towards the area he was wanting to expel it from. Everything about his ghost side started and ended with his core.

He slowly pulled the energy back from his palms; now aware of the cold as he felt it travel back into his core. Then gently lifted a hand to tap the center of his chest, “right here. My power comes from here.”

The doctor nodded once more, “I see, it all makes sense now. So your body must have a built up quirk immunity.”

Danny blinked, unfamiliar with the term. “Quirk… immunity?”

“Haven’t been paying attention to your quirk studies, hm?” She slightly teased, “Quirk immunity is when users are immune to the effects of their own quirk. Such as Bakugou, he can cause hot explosions in the palms of his hands but they don’t get burned. Or Endeavor, he can create and control flames, but will never be burned by his own power. Some children are born with this immunity, which can be dangerous and they never truly understand just how much damage their quirk can cause without experiencing it themselves. Sometimes this immunity is built up over time. Such as yourself. A quirk can be too much for a body to handle and may cause effects such as dropping the body’s temperature. With use and control, the user can build up this immunity, where their body slowly adapts to coexist with the quirk. And some users never gain this immunity and must be much more cautious and aware of their power. Such as Midoriya, who is quite a reckless child in the worst possible ways. Midoriya doesn’t have quirk immunity, and his own power tends to hurt his body when used in extreme amounts. His body will never naturally adapt to this power to make him immune to harm from his own quirk, so he must be constantly aware of how much power he is using. He can build up his own strength to handle more of this power, but this is something he must do on his own.”

Danny had to think for a moment in order for the information to all sink in, “... so… Monoma…?”

“Monoma doesn’t copy quirk immunity. He can’t copy experience. And he can’t copy control. Your quirk requires all of these aspects to at least be used to a minimal degree from how you described it. So an attempt to copy and use it instead had the quirk attempt to adapt his body for use. This dropped his body temperature, absorbed his energy, and ultimately slowed all his functions. He will be fine now that the quirk is no longer active, and I suggest he tries to avoid copying yours from now on,” the Doctor gave Monoma a very stern glare, causing him to sink deeper into the bed.

Danny could feel his blood pressure lowering. No one suspected that he was a ghost. Monoma was going to be fine. And now he had a new angle to work with in regards to making portals.

“Is there anything I should be worried about on your end, young man?” The doctor asked.

Danny shook his head in response, “No issues here, medically wise!” he lied. There was always something wrong, he wasn’t fully alive, now was he?

“Then there is no need to crowd my workplace, shoo! Off to class with you!”

Danny shuffled quickly out the door, realizing that Aizawa had stayed behind since he was nowhere in sight.

Should he be worried about him just showing up and listening to his ‘quirk origin story’?

…

Nah.

Danny sat on a street light in phantom mode, fiddling with his hands as he thought about what the doctor told him about his flowing energy. It all came from his core. He had tested around with it more by trying out his other abilities. His ectorays, ecto-ice, even his poor attempt at duplication stemmed from his core. Ancients, this duplication attempt was probably the best he’s ever attempted now that he understood the source of where the energy he needed came from.

The sound of shattering glass snapped him out of his own thoughts and he couldn’t help but sigh in annoyance.

For a world literally filled with superheroes, you would think that would deter crime. Especially petty crimes like these robbers that seemed to believe that heroes don’t work at night.

He stretched a little as he stood up then dropped off the lamp, gently hovering down and appearing right in front of the criminal. Upside down of course. “Boo.”

The criminal yelped and stumbled back, a black mask pulled firmly over their face and dressed in all black. While he couldn’t see their face, Danny did notice how they trembled, the shifting of eyes between him and what they stole. He lost his grin at the sight, he wasn’t usually met with this kind of fear. Usually it was anger, or a sense of playfulness from the really wild criminals. Even the ghosts at home never really showed fear around him, and those that did usually didn’t want to fight. He glanced over at the dropped bag and the person followed his gaze, then quickly snatched the bag close to their chest and they tried to kick away from him.

“Whoa-, wait a second. What’s in the bag?”

“What does it matter to you?” The person spat, “you’re just a hero doing your job and I’m a villain stealing from a store! Just do your job and get it over with!”

Danny held up his hands, “Hate to break it to you, but I don’t get paid for this,” he joked.

“A vigilante then! Even worse!” They growled, eyes scanning over him, their body tense, ready to take a hit.

Danny drifted closer and they flinched, but he pushed forward and reached through the bag, pulling out one of the contents before the person could yank it out of his reach.

A pill bottle sat in his hands, the orange capsule and white lid a dead giveaway. The label had some wildly complicated word on it, and the instructions indicated simple daily dosage amounts that were needed to be taken. “Who are these for?” Danny asked without thinking, unable to tear his gaze from the little plastic container.

“... my brother.”

He finally looked up, drifting to the ground and landing lightly on his feet.

This… was new territory. Ghosts didn’t have the same problems as the living, they had simple motives. Take over the world, be the best, even just cause problems because it’s funny. Living people… they had other reasons other than just boredom.

He forgot about those.

He tossed back the pill bottle and shrugged, kicking at the ground as his gaze drifted up to the sky, “eh, you’re below my pay grade.”

The person blinked as they barely caught the returned item, “... I thought you said you didn’t get paid?”

“My moral paygrade,” he flashed a grin. “Better run off before I decide otherwise.” He saw the flash of watery eyes as the individual got to their feet, taking a stumbly step back as if they were afraid it was too good to be true. “Go on!”

The person finally turned and began to dash away, which was when Danny saw the shadows dance and light tear towards the running figure at lightning speeds. Danny snarled and instinctively threw out an ectoshield in front of the person he just let go, barely saving them from the blast of fire. The person stumbled, but a quick glance between the shield and Danny was all they needed before they managed to disappear down an alley.

“You just let a criminal go. You vigilantes truly are cheap imitations of real heroes.”

Danny could feel cold rage bubbling at his core as he turned to glare at the culprit of the fire. A man with flames billowing from his shoulders and face, while somewhat familiar Danny couldn’t place his name or face based on his growing anger. His rising emotions keeping him from restraining his otherwise toned down ghostly glow, “You could have killed them.”

“So? A criminal stole, they are aware of the possible consequences. Like you’re aware that you too are breaking the law, and I have an obligation to stop you.”

The man on fire blasted more flames in Danny’s direction, which he managed to pull another ecto-shield up in time to block it. The power and heat of the blast was enough to crack it and throw Danny back. His core pulsed, and suddenly the air around him began to chill. Energy pooled into his hand and he whipped the ectoblast at the flaming bastard, nailing him in the face and sending him stumbling back this time. “Who put you in charge of who gets to live and who does not?” Danny snarled, “Who gets to be horribly crippled, traumatized, or murdered? There’s only one who should decide and it’s not you.”

The man wore his own mask of rage, tenderly touching the forming bruise on his jaw from Danny’s blast, “Who the hell do you think you are? A child, lecturing me on right from wrong? Maybe I should teach you a lesson while I’m at it! To respect those who protect the pathetic and weak!”

He used both hands this time, fire twisted out of the air and towards him before he sent out a much larger and much hotter blast. The pavement began to warp from the heat, growing soft under Danny’s feet. He turned intangible, but could still feel the heat sap at his energy around him. He felt the need to get out.

Escape the heat.

Too much.

Too much heat.

He felt like he was going to fall back, his hand flailing behind him before catching on something, he tugged and there was a feeling of cold.

He didn’t even look, just fell into the hole that allowed him to escape the heat.

And then he was behind the man.

Danny blinked.

The man blinked.

Danny grinned.

The man’s face twisted into a scowl.

He lunged for the halfa and Danny easily leapt over his attempts to grab him, weightlessness returning to his being as his rage fell away. Oh, he was still mad. He thought this man was an absolute prick.

But he could absolutely cause more damage by being childish as he kicked this man’s ass.

Not to mention he was pretty sure he made a portal. Something he would have to figure out more about later but that definitely added to his uplifted mood.

“Man you are a flaming asshole. You know that, right? How did you even become a hero? Must have had daddy get you this far. And with an attitude like that, I bet you are at the bottom of the list too!” Danny taunted, hovering right out of reach of the man as he shot little bits of ectorays in annoying places like his cheeks, back of his neck and even his eyes a few times.

“Don’t act like you don’t know who I am!” The man snarled, throwing more flames that Danny very dramatically avoided with little effort. “I am number 2, the most powerful man in the hero industry who doesn’t cover behind fake smiles!”

“Nah, none of that rings a bell,” Danny yawned, pulling out his phone. “What’s your name? Flaming Prick?” He asked as he searched up the name, “holy shit there’s actually someone named that? Who let him do that?”

“Enough of your games!”

Danny stepped out of the way of more of the man’s blasts in the air, even taunting him more with his shitty dancing skills. “Unfortunately, all I have are games so you’re just going to have to suck it up, old man!” He shot a small beam of ice at the man’s feet, encasing them just in time to trip him and send him crashing face first into the pavement. Danny then slammed both his feet into the back of the man’s head as he tried to push himself off the ground, kicking his head back into the pavement with maybe a little more force than Danny intended.

Either way, all of the man’s muscles went limp and his fire decorations went out as Danny then landed on his back, the man now clearly unconscious. He leaned over and melted the ice, getting rid of the evidence that Phantom could use ice as he remembered. Maybe he got a little too cocky in using it.

He then decided to look the man up, searching up ‘jerky flaming hero of Japan’.

Oh.

This was Endeavor. The man who stole his goddamn credit.

No wonder he was vaguely familiar.

A quick scroll through his wiki and Danny found his last name was also familiar… he had heard it before. He stared at the man’s picture, then scrolled a little more before stopping completely to stare at the family portrait.

It was that peppermint head kid! The one Midoriya would talk to a lot!

Holy shit he just beat up his dad.

Danny glanced back down at the unconscious man, then back at the photo on his phone. Man, either this man had two personalities he only used at home or he was probably just a horrible father.

The kids looked miserable in the picture…

Well… it was a good thing Danny always carried a permanent marker on him for humiliation of his really shitty enemies. He had been saving it for Vlad… but that could wait until he got back home. Then he could hand Vlad his ass for leaving him in another dimension and mess up his face afterwards.

“This just in, Endeavor was personally defeated by the new vigilante, Spooky Boy. A bystander managed to record half of their battle when hearing the chaos outside his home. This new vigilante could prove to be a villain based on his actions towards the hero, though no reports of civilian casualties or attacks have been reported. Endeavor himself has minor injuries from the fight, and claims his defeat was nothing more than a mixture of a fluke and a lucky shot.

Many are wondering if this new menace will become the new hero killer after Stain’s defeat just over a week ago. Only time will tell if this individual will cause a casualty and show his true colours.”

Shouta stared at the screen of the television, the burning hot coffee that coated his hands after crushing his cup barely noticeable as he took in this information. A picture of Endeavor’s face was now on the screen next to a video of reporters trying to interview him as he angrily stalked away after his defeat. The picture had many blurred out spots, though some could still make out the drawn contents, which were very crude.

Honestly, the man deserved the face drawings. But what really concerned him was that this ‘vigilante’ had taken out Endeavor. The only reason he was number 2 was because he was powerful. No other hero could challenge him for his position, only All Might held that power.

He felt a pit in his stomach and glanced towards Danny’s room. The boy tended to turn in early, retreating to his room well before 10, though those bags under his eyes may suggest he either had troubles sleeping or stayed up way later than Shouta thought. The report was recent, only happening within the last half hour.

It didn’t hurt to check.

Shouta stepped over to Danny’s room, and heavily knocked on the door, “Danny?” He didn’t get an answer, and Shouta knocked again. Still nothing.

Maybe he was just sleeping. He was a bit of a heavy sleeper.

Shouta opened the door slowly, and glanced around the dark room. His eyes landed on Danny’s bed and he felt his blood run cold. An absolute mess, blankets bunched up or hanging off the side. No sign of the kid himself.

He turned on the lights and quickly scanned the room, already pulling out his cell as he searched the area while speed dialling Hizashi. Just the general mess, no actual signs of struggle, an open window-!

“Shouta? What’s up? Need help remembering something-,” Hizashi’s voice cut through his thoughts.

“Danny is missing,” he stated. “He’s not in his room, I can’t tell if the mess is his or signs of a struggle, and the window is open.”

“Well, is it possible he snuck out like most teenagers tend to do?”

Shouta pinched the bridge of his nose, “maybe, I don’t know. All I know is that the new vigilante from the news was just active and he managed to take down Endeavor. I’ve had a weird suspicion that he’s connected to Danny somehow because he showed up right after he was found. And if he is in anyway-.”

“Then you think he may have taken him,” Hizashi finished. “Alright, you aren’t just paranoid. I guess a ghost of a teenager in all systems disappearing would be worrying. I’ll help you look, as well as contact any other heroes in the area to see if they saw anything.”

“Call me if you find him,” Shouta stated before hanging up and tugging out his capture tool. Here he thought he found a child that wasn’t constantly attracting villainous attention. He never should have gotten his hopes up.

Shouta went out Danny’s window, using his capture tool to swing to the next building's roof and start searching for the teen. He didn’t know how long Danny had been missing, it could have been hours at this point. How far should he search? In one direction? Maybe the area where he first found him? He ultimately decided to cover as much ground as quickly as possible, eventually spotting a glowing streak in the sky.

On instinct, he activated his quirk and the streak faltered before straight up dropping like a rock from the sky. Shouta tried to keep him in his sights as long as possible as he tore towards the vigilante, but eventually disappeared behind a nearby building. He did hear a crash when he got close, he must not have been able to recover his flying abilities when Shouta lost sight of him. But that just worked in his favour.

With a quick turn of a corner, he finally caught sight of the vigilante once more, peeling himself off the roof of a parked car that now had a sizable dent in it. He was just as Midoriya described, though he seemed to have missed a few details.

Like how completely inhuman he seemed.

This just didn’t feel like a physical mutation, the way he moved, how his hair floated, that glow that emitted from his very being. Then his eyes, eyes that glowed too brightly, irises that seemed to swirl like thick syrup, pupils too black next to that bright glow.

Was he one of those things? Those Nomu?

Spooky Boy grumbled to himself as he landed on the ground, looking at his hands and then lifting off the ground like gravity meant nothing. He hadn’t noticed Shouta just yet-.

Then his eyes flickered over and he froze, and Shouta made his move, activating his quirk and whipping out his capture tool. The vigilante tried to take off but he stumbled as Shouta’s quirk erasure took hold and kept him from flying off like before. He adapted though, rolling barely out of reach from the tool and jumping to his feet and yelling, “What did you do?!”

Shouta didn’t answer as he made another capture attempt, his eyes slowly beginning to sting as he refused to deactivate his quirk on this one. From what he heard, this kid was a slippery one. The vigilante tried to do something with his hands, then barely twisted out of the way a second time when that didn’t work. Shouta didn’t give him time to think about dodging a third time, whipping it again just as he opened his mouth to speak, wrapping around him and successfully holding him. “-shit,” was all he got out before he fell over from being restrained.

Shouta pulled out a communicator that connected directly to the York suppressant specialists at the police station, “I got the vigilante, get to my coordinates fast with the strongest quirk suppressors you’ve got.” The kid wiggled around like a worm, even attempting to bite the fabric in an attempt to escape. “What is your connection to Danny?” Shouta asked.

The kid paused, slowly trailing those haunting eyes up towards him, “er… who?”

Shouta narrowed his gaze, “don’t act dumb, you showed up the same time he did, now he’s missing and you’re my main suspect.”

Something was going through this kid's head, but Shouta couldn’t seem to read what exactly that was. “Hehe, we have the same floaty hair.”

This made Shouta blink in surprise at the sudden very childish comment.

A mistake.

He must have realized his powers returned because he was out of the weapon within that split second and out of sight. Literally disappearing as he blinked. “Dammit! Where’s Danny?!”

“He’s fine,” a voice came from behind him, but turning around still didn’t solve the answer of where he went. “Strange, my powers are back, so you have some sort of power cancelling power?” The voice came from his left and another glance proved he still couldn’t see him. “I still have them now too, and they stopped earlier as I was flying… so either you have, like a power beam or it’s sight related… and your hair keeps doing that thing. Up every time I talk.” Was he just taunting him now?

“What are you?” Shouta found himself asking.

“Oh that’s an easy one. I’m a ghost. A Spector. A P̸h̵a̸n̷t̴o̶m̷. In fact, can you tell the reporters my name is Phantom? Spooky boy is just… it’s horrible. Not as bad as Invis-o-Bill but it’s still pretty bad.”

“How do you know Danny is fine? What's your connection to him?”

“Oh there's the heavy questions, alright. Uh-, we are… friends? Maybe? Acquaintances? Yeah. He was being a dumb teenager and got attacked by some villain. Roughed up. Saw him getting picked on, kicked the villain into next week, he insisted on walking back to his home though.”

Shouta didn’t trust anything he said, but he wasn’t sure if it was because of his suspicion of the story and coincidences or the echo to his voice as Phantom made it seem like the air was speaking to him.

“Yeah, I get that a lot. No trust. Got it. Well, I gotta ditch. See ya later, A- freaky older man I have never previously met before!”

Shouta could feel a shift in temperature around him, a chill he hadn’t noticed until now disappearing like fog suddenly being lifted.

He didn’t need to see him to know that Phantom had left.

That’s when his back-up finally decided to arrive, weapons out and looking around for the vigilante he had mere seconds ago. His capture weapon laid loose on the ground, unbroken in any way. Like the vigilante just… slipped through the cracks.

He pulled his weapon back towards him as a detective stepped next to him, “you lost him? Does your quirk not work on him?”

Shouta shook his head, “it works, got him to fall out of the sky with a look.” He bundled his capture weapon back around his neck before looking back over to the detective, “he surprised me, made me blink. Either he’s a quick study or he already knew what my quirk was and used it in that split second to escape. I don’t understand how though. My students with much more destructive powers can’t escape my capture tool, and there was no sign of damage to it either.”

“People have been reporting he can walk through walls,” the detective sighed.

I’m a ghost.

“Can any of your officers track him? A heat signature? Tracks? Anything?”

The officer shook his head, scratching the back of his head as he sighed, “unfortunately, he’s impossible to track. Smell is off the table since he just flies over buildings and out of sight. Not to mention the dogs refuse to even try and track him. His heat signature is actually ice cold, blue instead of red. Not to mention, also useless since he moves so fast. No heart signature either. One of our best that can identify anyone by heartbeat can’t find him because she said she doesn’t hear anything from him. Just a hum.”

“No.. heartbeat?” Shouta paused.

A Spector.

“Yeah, she managed to use her quirk to track down countless masked villains and vigilantes because no two heartbeats are the same. But she can’t find his. Do you really believe he could be an actual ghost?”

Shouta looked over, there was no joking spark to his eyes. “It shouldn’t be possible. Ghosts… even if they did exist… they wouldn’t have quirks. They are based on biology, not… spirits.”

The officer shrugged, waving to his team to pack up, “you’re right. Maybe he just has really messed up biology. A ghost… man, he does fit the gimmick though.”

Shouta watched them leave before taking leave himself, heading back to his apartment. But the thoughts didn’t leave him. He was just some kid who thought he was a ghost, wasn't he?

Why was there so much doubt that swirled through his head? A few weeks ago, he would have had no doubts. Just summed it all up to a very strange mutation.

But that voice. That feeling. Nagging at the back of his mind. It wasn’t… it wasn’t just a mutation, was it? There has to be more to it…

The voice echoed in his mind once more.

A Phantom.

To say that Danny was panicking was an understatement. He had just experienced a rollercoaster of events and emotions and now he was waiting in the living room of a man who took him in and has only been patient and understanding with him from the moment they met. Which was something that was still absolutely baffling to Danny.

First he almost killed someone when they copied his ghost powers. Then he discovered a way to potentially unlock more of his ghost powers by accidental lessons from the school's doctor. And then he finally made a portal which may have only been a few feet apart but it was better than nothing at the moment. Then he found out his temporary guardian's quirks turned out to be to turn off his powers with a very scary stare.

So there was a lot to process. Lots of feelings. Emotions. Stuff he was trying not to think about.

Aizawa didn’t recognize him as Phantom, and Danny wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He should be relieved, right? No need to connect his very dangerous nightly activities to the boy he found in a dumpster. Yet… yet he couldn’t help but be reminded of his parents. How they could never see him in Phantom. Never make any connections to the ghost and their son. Only see an enemy. Something to shoot at. Dissect. Hurt. Hurt because ghosts don’t feel pain, they are nothing but echoes, mimics, and monsters. Would it be the same with Aizawa? Did he end up in another world just to hear the same song playing all over again?

The question he asked Phantom… ‘What is your connection to Danny?’

He couldn’t help but play it over and over in his head. The concern of the tone, accusing, slightly fearful of the answer… but the familiarity of it lacked one key aspect.

When Danny would sometimes go missing and Phantom appeared to be at the center, his parents would scream at him. “What did you do to Danny?” Instantly blaming Phantom, hate so clear in their tone.

… why did Aizawa lack that hatred? Why connect his ghost half to potentially hurting his human half and not have a hint of hate in his tone? Everyone hates his ghost side in some way, for some reason. He had to hate it. It was just something people did. They hate the things they are scared of.

Danny would have just left by now. If this was anyone else, he would have tried to get as far away as possible before someone like Aizawa could piece together anything else.

But…

…

The door opened, Danny couldn’t help himself as he felt himself go rigged as the lights turned and he was exposed by the light. He didn’t want to look at Aizawa, he didn’t want to see those glowing red eyes that scared him so badly as they suppressed his ghost side, made him feel so helpless and lost.

“Oh thank god, he didn’t lie.” Danny heard Aizawa gasp under his breath before he quickly crossed the room without even closing his apartment door. Danny focused on a stain on the couch so he wouldn’t watch Aizawa’s movement, but he could still feel as the man stopped in front of him and crouched down. “Danny? Are you okay?”

That made Danny flinch, but he couldn’t understand why.

“Danny, this is way past your curfew! Do you understand how worried your father and I were?”

“You’re bleeding, I’ll get you a bandage.”

“Is that a cut? What did you do this time?”

“This will help,” Danny didn’t even react as Aizawa put on the bandage. “Danny,” Danny finally looked up and met dark eyes instead of red ones. Worried and concerned eyes. Why did this make him ache so much more than his broken ribs?

They never notice the cuts. The bruises. The poorly hidden limp from a bad fight. He always thought he was lucky that they never noticed. They would have looked like this, but always at the wrong times.

“Why aren’t you mad?” Danny blurted out, then continued without giving Aizawa a chance to answer. “I snuck out! Broke the one rule you have! Got myself into trouble and made you run around looking for me, made you worry and probably wasted your time!”

“... you didn’t make me do anything, and you didn’t waste my time either.”

Danny didn’t understand the anger that was boiling inside of him, and he couldn’t stop himself as he snapped, “of course I did! I could have prevented this if I just stayed inside! Just followed your rules! I don’t-! I don’t get it!”

Aizawa moved, slowly standing from his crouched position before he took a seat next to Danny, “teenagers like to break rules. Why did you sneak out?” He asked in such a calm voice, no anger, no disappointment, just a simple question.

For some reason, it made Danny want to scream, instead he looked away and answered in as steady of a voice as he could muster, “I… I needed fresh air.”

“It was more than just that, wasn’t it?”

Danny buckled slightly under the pressure, “Fine! I needed to get a feel for my surroundings! I need… I need to know where I am, where places are and how to get there and back.” How to get home was left unspoken.

Do you even want to go back home?

“I see. I can extend your curfew if you need.”

Danny jolted, “w-what?”

“I would prefer if someone also would watch your back at such late hours. I have an insomniac student who may be up for late night city wandering.”

“But-, wouldn’t you tighten the curfew? Punish me for disobeying rules? Take away privileges I have?”

“Danny.” Worry basically laced Aizawa’s voice, “cutting your curfew off shorter won’t help either of us. You’re old enough as well to understand right from wrong without punishment. My goal is to help you. If you work better at night, and have needs that only can occur at night, I want to help you achieve it in the safest way possible. Not force you to jump more hoops trying to avoid precautions that I set that won’t help you.”

Danny didn’t know what to say.

How could he?

Aizawa waited a few moments before he spoke again, “I need to ask you something important, about the new vigilante.” Here was the moment that everything fell apart for Danny. “Do you think that he would ever cause you harm?”

Danny looked up in surprise, “uh-! No way! He was super chill!”

“No memories about him wanting to cause you harm?” What a weird question.

“Nope.”

It was Aizawa’s turn to look away, but Danny could still tell he was deep in thought. Then the next question winded Danny.

“Do you remember your parents?”

How was he going to answer that?! Should he pretend his supposed amnesia was partially gone? That he only remembers bits? Yeah- maybe go with that.

“A-A little bit,” Danny lied. “Just… bits and pieces.”

“I see,” Aizawa then slowly stood up, “let’s head to bed. It’s late, and you have school tomorrow.”

Danny glanced at his hands for a moment before nodding. “A-alright.”

He missed his parents… he knew he did. He loved them. They loved him. But…

But something… something about this talk. About Aizawa’s reactions.

Why did it make him feel so sad?

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tumbling-darkling · 3 years ago

Text

You Can’t Punch a Ghost

Ch 6. “Don’t worry, what’s the worst that can happen?”

AO3

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Danny found himself hanging out with Denki even beyond the tutoring sessions.

He was the only one so far that knew of his very specific predicament, even though he stumbled upon the truth rather than Danny trusting him with the information. At first he was worried. Worried that Denki would tell all of his friends, worried he would tell Aizawa, worried he would break his promise the moment Danny wasn’t looking.

And he must have noticed how Danny avoided his gaze, his touch, everything the day after the secret was out in the open between them.

Then after classes Denki tracked him down, tapped his shoulder causing him to flinch at the thought of being electrocuted once again and invited him to hang out, to join his group's study session.

Danny had intended to decline, but then Ashido- who asked him to call her Mina, had dragged him along anyhow.

What was odd was how casual it was. A bunch of super powered kids studying for a final exam at a superhero school. And they all studied the basic subjects, asking questions when one got confused and each person jumping in to give thoughts or answers.

The day after, Denki and Danny had another tutor session. It went along as a normal session would and then- Denki offered to hang out afterwards. Danny continued to hesitate, but the begging look on his face made it impossible to say no.

Was he… making friends?

Denki peeked over the edge of the building before turning to Danny with a massive grin on his face, “looks like we got our privacy! If a flying hero shows up we will see them long before they get close enough to hear us! So! I’ve been thinking a lot about your- dimension problem. But I had no clue where to start! So I thought- hey! What if we come up with ideas together? Jump off each other’s thoughts!”

Danny blinked at the suggestion, “just, think out loud?”

Denki nodded, “it works in study sessions! Here, I need some questions answered first and maybe we can end up with a solution! So, how did you get to this world?”

Danny pauses, “well, a ghost zone portal, I think. It’s the only logical answer actually, no other kind of portal would drop me in another dimension of all places.”

“Okay, so how do these portals show up?”

“It’s, um… random really. But mostly only in the ghost zone, it’s much more rare for them to show up outside the ghost zone,” Danny stated.

Denki rubbed his chin in thought, “okay-, so in order to get you home, you need one of these very rare portals to just... pop up at the right time and place. Any way to predict it?”

Danny shook his head with a frown, “I haven’t been able to figure that out yet. I’m sure my parents could have made a device to predict such things, but I don't believe I could make one on my own. I would need Tucker for the engineering side of it, or some kind of mechanic.”

“Could we find you someone to make a device like that?”

Danny frowned even more, “I would… prefer not to. A device like that needs background information about ghosts, ectoplasm, dimension hopping. Dragging another person into my mess isn’t really something I want to do at the moment. Maybe when I start to get desperate.”

Denki leaned back a little, “so man made device may be off the table, what about a man made portal?”

“Do you know one that exists in this world that leads to the ghost zone?”

Denki paused, then deflated a little, “Ah- nope. But! We could try to look into it! So it’s a possibility!” He then glanced back over to Danny, “were there other ways to travel between your world and the ghost zone? Or other ways to open portals?”

Danny knit his eyebrows together in thought, looking down at the street below when a very hairy stranger sauntering down the street reminded him of a friend with exactly that kind of ability, “actually… I have a wolf friend who could tear through the veil with his claws into my world or the ghost zone at will.”

Denki blinked, “that’s… fucking incredible. Do you think he could find a way to get here with that kind of power?”

Danny then felt that glimmer of hope vanish, “...no his abilities are limited to the ghost zone and my world, not other dimensions.”

The pair sat in silence for a few moments, thinking over the ideas they managed to work off of eachother, that is until Denki broke the silence.

“... can you open portals to other dimensions?”

Danny looked over in confusion, “no, what makes you think I could?”

Denki shrugged, “well, you are like a godly powerhouse. You have like 20 quirks; flying, invisibility, going through walls, ice, changing forms, dropping temperatures around you, lasers-, the list goes on! So why not add portal opening in the mix?”

Danny shook his head, “Well it’s not one I have-,” and then he paused.

Wait a second.

Didn’t…

Didn’t Dan have the ability to open portals into the ghost zone?

As much as he hated thinking about the alternate version of himself, sometimes he couldn’t help but compare himself to the other at times. Especially in regards to powers.

Dan had a lot of powered up versions of his abilities, honed powers from experience and usage. Not to mention Danny had to remember a good half of the abilities were Vlad’s.

But he also got powers Dan never had, like his wail. And Vlad didn’t have portal opening abilities. If he did, he wouldn’t have a man-made portal under every damn mansion he owned.

So did that mean… that Danny could develop abilities in regards to opening portals back into the ghost zone?

Danny opened and closed his mouth like a gaping fish before he found his words, “actually, I think I might.”

He looked over and nearly fell off the roof when he spotted Denki’s face mere millimeters from his own, a grin spread out wide across face. “Well it sounds like we have a solution to our problem!”

Danny slowly looked down to his hands, “now… how exactly would I activate them?”

Denki hummed in thought, “that’s a good question. Everyone activates their quirks in their own way. For me, it’s like flexing all my muscles at once. But portals… maybe you have to like, think like a teleporter? Like try to picture where you want to go and try to summon it?”

Danny tilted his head back, “that… may work?” He closed his eyes, trying to picture the ghost zone. Thinking about the swirling green void and floating islands that were scattered within. Picturing the friends he had in the zone, the Far Frozen, Clockworks tower, the Fenton Portal.

He slowly peeked a single eye open, hoping to see swirling green. Then fully opened his eyes when he didn’t see anything and deflated with a sigh. “Or maybe it will never work and I’ll just be stuck here forever.”

Denki leaned forward, “hey now, you can’t just give up after a single try! We can practice and maybe something will happen! Heck, I bet you will figure it out randomly! That’s how a good chunk of society figures out their quirks!”

Danny snorted, “yeah- I guess that is the way it will most likely happen, alright.”

“Besides, this world isn’t the worst place to end up! You could’ve fallen into a world full of spiders! Or mushrooms! At least here we have really awesome and cool powers!” He winked. “How about I show you some really cool and awesome things we can do around here?”

Danny blinked, “what are you suggesting?”

Denki grinned mischievously, “how do you feel about pranks?”

Shouta shouldn’t be this stressed.

His students were dealing with studies for final exams which he already had set up and ready to go, even with Danny participating in the exams for the sake of even pairings. So he shouldn’t be stressed about the exams, he had faith his students would survive. They all should pass.

But of course he would always worry about those with lower grading scores.

No, that wasn’t what was causing his stress.

It was his goddamn problem children.

The ones with good scores have been causing him problems. Midoriya always caused a very specific headache, and his stunt in Hosu was a barely covered up mess. Iida pulling a stunt he never would have predicted, though he had a feeling that he was working towards never trying to commit murder again for the sake of revenge. At least Midoriya was good at slapping some sense into his friends, though he desperately needed to save some of that common sense for himself.

Danny was a mix between a headache and a blessing. He hadn’t caused any issues yet, no running off and fighting villains, no attracting villains, and he rarely injured himself in training if at all. (Unlike one student that could never seem to leave a training arena without at least one shattered bone.) He paid attention in classes, other teachers had informed him of Danny’s progress as well, the young boy being quite brilliant in some of the scientific fields. The only headache was trying to figure out what the hell happened to him.

Who tried to kill him and left him to die amongst trash? Or was he trying to escape someone, or something, and crawled into the dumpster to hide? Did he really have amnesia regarding these events or was he hiding it?

Why was his speech in Japanese flawless yet his writing and reading non existent? Did someone never teach him to keep him under their thumb? Keep him from realizing what was happening to him was wrong?

Then there was that nagging feeling that Danny was hiding something. The flickering looks, the stiff posture from time to time. Even on the first training day when he finally saw Danny in action instead of just the aftermath. Witnessing the fight brought back his thoughts regarding Danny’s handle on the villain attack. He didn’t fight like a child in training. He fought like an experienced pro.

It’s like a switch was flipped.

Danny always seemed to hold himself in a meek way, he would hunch as he walked, hands held close to himself or in his pockets, he wasn’t big on eye contact either and always seemed to watch the surrounding area instead of others. Then when he stepped on the battlefield, everything shifted. His stance would straighten, holding himself steadily as his focus was primarily trained on his opponent. He became confident, he knew what to watch for in order to predict an opponent's attack, bounced back quickly when knocked down, even the air around him seemed to shift. It was almost like watching a different person entirely.

And then there was ANOTHER new problem.

A vigilante that was more public than any other vigilante. Usually they barely lasted a week, facial recognition software finding documented files of the most foolish vigilantes. Pro heroes were also quick to end public vigilantes' antics as they didn’t have the same training and back-up. And finally, Shouta would be the last resort in the area. Once tracked to a familiar fighting ground and sighting area, he would swoop in and cancel out their quirk before any more damage could be done and the capture would be swift and painless. The more painful vigilantes stuck to the shadows, remained out of sight and those were the few that could last years unnoticed.

So this new Vigilante, which the media had shamelessly dubbed ‘Spooky Boy’ since the vigilante hadn’t dropped a name, was very public, very powerful, and very headache inducing.

Midoriya even admitted that Spooky had a hand in helping apprehend Stain before he vanished. Yet the most concerning aspect that Midoriya had reported was his quirk.

Spooky had to have multiple quirks from what Midoriya had seen. Lasers, flying, invisibility and intangibility, and an overall very mutated look. Midoriya even said he may have some sort of delusion in regards to actually being a ghost, joking about being dead and acting like he was a ghost.

So there was a young vigilante with multiple quirks running around pretending to be a ghost, easily avoiding being apprehended thanks to his power set, and had no clear motive in place. He had been lucky to avoid the top 5 heroes so far since he mainly operated at night while the most popular heroes operated during the day, yet his luck was bound to run out. The police had asked him to keep an eye out, to assist if he came across the vigilante but to focus on other issues since the vigilante hadn’t shown signs of causing damage. The only issue so far was just his ability to avoid the law. Which encouraged others to attempt to copy him.

He didn’t need kids not from his class causing more damage based on bad influences.

Not to mention he showed up a night after they found Danny.

It could be a coincidence.

Or it could not be.

It could be a ruse. A trick. Faking heroism to gain public trust. To get close to his real target and strike.

He couldn’t be too careful.

He needed to know Spooky’s motive because if he was connected to Danny in any way… then Danny may be in more danger than Shouta initially thought.

He leaned back in his chair, digging the palms of his hands into his eye sockets in an attempt to keep himself awake and rid himself of another headache that pounded against his skull.

“Late night again? Isn’t this the time of year where the load is supposed to be lighter?” Shouta glanced at his doorway spotting Hizashi leaning against it in a casual way. “Who’s giving you the headache now, Midoriya? Todoroki? Or is it Shinsou?”

“The new one…” Shouta sighed, slowly getting up from his chair and glaring at the paperwork scattered over his desk.

“Oh! Young Fenton, was it? Goes by Danny? Where in the world did you pick up an American transfer student?” Hizashi leaned forward, tilting his sunglasses down to reveal that devilish glint in his eyes, “or should I instead ask what it is about him that you're hiding from everyone.” Shouta shot the other teacher a glare, which only seemed to make that smile grow even wider. “Oh you totally are hiding something! Come on! You can tell me! You know I’m going to find out when I come over this weekend!” He hummed, skipping over to him as Shouta attempted to escape the room. “I’ll find all that pesky paperwork about him, so it’s easier if you just give up now!”

“How much trouble would it be if I had to set Danny up at All Mights house?” Shouta muttered under his breath, which it seemed Hizashi managed to pick up when he very, audibally, gasped.

“He’s staying in your apartment?”

Busted. “Yes, I’m… acting as his Guardian until we can confirm his safety.”

“Confirm his… is he a child of a mob boss or something? Like the bastard child they usually want dead?” Hizashi dramatically asked.

“It’s a possibility, really,” Shouta humoured him, “but it’s suspected to be more… experimental.”

Hizashi’s playful grin dropped, “seriously? You think he was experimented on? By who? And for what reasons?”

Shouta shook his head, “we have no leads that could answer either of those questions. A citizen found him passed out in a dumpster. He wasn’t dressed like he had been on the streets, he had a head injury, has amnesia about his past, and every day I see evidence that it was worse than I would originally think.”

“He’s such a bright kid, a little shy at most. I mean yeah, he gives off some creepy vibes from time to time but I never would have guessed-,”

Shouta placed a hand on Hizashi’s shoulder, “Wait-, what do you mean by ‘creepy’?”

Hizashi scratched lightly at his cheek, “well, it’s just- sometimes he seems to stare at nothing, like your cats do at ridiculous times in the morning. Or the air around him chills, which I think is just his quirk acting up or something. The most prominent is just the presence at times. I don’t know how to describe it but it feels… off. Like how you can just tell that it’s going to be a bad day, or how you can tell the incoming storm is going to be really bad? It’s almost like that but you don’t really know why it feels like that.” Hizashi then shrugged, “but you know, every kid has their quirks, right?” he offered a slight grin, “maybe that’s just a family thing.”

Shouta frowned, trying to piece together the information. He did notice Danny had such an odd presence about him, as well as his accent was something Shouta had such a hard time placing. It was another reason he had a hard time pinning down Danny’s origins. An accent can sometimes pinpoint locations. Southern Japan versus the northern areas. Different countries' citizens all had different accents, American and Canadian English accents in Japanese were slightly different, as well as the ones between Mexico and Spain Spanish accents. Danny’s accent was an outlier. It didn’t fit under any accent he had ever heard before. In fact it sounded… odd. There always seemed to be a wisp of the vowels, a slightly off pitch of the words being spoken, a twist of sounds that made it seem like a forgotten voice was speaking.

Shouta just scratched his chin and managed to shuffle out of his office, waiting for Hizashi to exit after him before closing and locking the door, “it could be anything. Everything about that kid is odd and it worries me. Why does it worry me?”

Hizashi nudged his shoulder with a grin, “because he’s your new cat.”

Shouta blinked slowly, processing Hizashi’s words. “Excuse me, what?”

Hizashi barked out a laugh, “you seriously don’t see it? I’ve never seen you latch onto a kid so fast, but I have seen you latch onto a cat this fast. Hell, you latched onto your other catboy, Shinsou really fast after the sports festival. Your weakness isn’t just cats. It’s cat-like kids!”

Shouta shoved past Hizashi aggressively, which only prompted more laughter from him, “it’s not my weakness, I just know if I let those two flail around on their own they won’t get very far. I don’t have a bleeding heart.”

“You said bleeding heart! You have it bad! Oh man, are we going to have to have custody battles over these kids?” Hizashi grinned, “heck, Danny already lives with you, soon he’s going to start calling you dad.”

“You really don’t know when to shut up, now do you?” Shouta sighed.

“Look, this is what happens when you adopt cat boys, I’m going to mock you over it.”

“Please stop calling them cat boys. This isn’t anime.”

“I will when you can prove they aren’t cats by heart,” his grin became sinister, “maybe I can convince your class to get pictures of them with cat ears just to mock you even more.”

“Hizashi, please.”

“Oh no need to be so serious all the time! Look, Danny may be just a little odd but he’s in no danger! He goes to the most highly secured school in Japan and he lives with an underground hero! The kid couldn’t be more safe!”

Danny glanced over the edge of the top of a light lamp pole in ghost form, a good 50 feet off the ground. He grinned at Denki who gave him a thumbs up from the ground. The area was empty thanks to the late time and construction sections surrounding the area. Danny pulled the walkie talkie Denki gave him close to his face and pressed the button, “so you think if I am in mortal danger, the power might spontaneously manifest?”

He heard a beep erupt from the small device before Denki’s voice followed, “exactly! Sometimes quirks have been known to develop early because someone was faced with a life or death situation so they just- BAM!! Manifest their quirk! So this might jumpstart it into showing up!”

“But I’ve been in mortal danger before. A lot. And I can fly.”

“Just turn off the flying part! And now it may show because you’re thinking about it! Just trust me!”

“Okaaayyy….” Danny said, glancing nervously over the edge again. He leaned back and took a few quick breaths, then squeezed his eyes shut and threw himself off the lamppost.

He tried to think of the Ghost Zone again, the safety of the churning green abyss. He risked a peek and immediately regretted it as all he saw was cold, hard pavement before his face painfully collided with it. Green splattered out of his now shattered nose in all directions, and all he could do was groan in response, turning back to human as he sat up. The green remained but now fresh red blood began to spill out of his nose and mix with the green, making a swirling mess of blood on his face and his shirt.

“Ouch.”

“Holy fuck- dude you were supposed to fly before you hit the ground!”

“Yeah I kinda forgot to do that,” Danny said in a nasally voice, leaning back his head and tenderly touching the mess that was his nose. “Oh god I can’t believe I have to do this again…”

“Do what-,”—Danny snapped his flattened nose back straight with a horribly sickening crack—,”hoLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK!”

Danny twitched his head a little, blinking wildly, “hOO that hurt! I forgot how much that hurt!” He shook his head again. “Oh- well at least it will heal all right. Hopefully before Aizawa notices…”

“How long will it take for it to heal?”

Danny thought back to the last time he broke his nose so horribly, “uh- 2 days. Oh no it’s gonna bruise so badly. He’s going to notice, Denki! What do I tell him? ‘Hey I leapt off a lamp pole to try and manifest portal making powers’?”

“Yes.”

“NO! No, I can’t tell him that!”

“Fine. Ride or die it is.”

“Ride or- what do you mean-.”

Denki punched himself in the face, causing Danny to yelp in surprise, “what did you do that for?!”

“RIDE OR DIE, DANNY!” Denki exclaimed. “I have a black eye, you have a broken nose, what happened? I don’t know! Do you know? No! I don’t know either! No questions asked!”

Danny snorted, which made his nose hurt even more, “you’re my ride or die then?”

“Of course dude! Look, we are secret buddies now. You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not!” He cackled in a joking manner.

Danny sighed and leaned back, looking up at the darkening sky. “Stuck with you, huh? Say we still have some time to kill. Wanna try out some pranks you suggested earlier?”

Denki grinned, “I thought you would never ask.”

Todoroki tapped the whiteboard surrounded by other white boards and cork boards with a long pointer stick he seemingly whipped out of nowhere. Izuku was leaning forward on his seat, his full attention directed towards Todoroki. Mina, Toko, Momo, Tsuyu, Uraraka, Iida, Sero, and Kirishima filled the empty seats of the room around him. The rest of the class was busy with other things and couldn’t make the theory fury crew meeting, Kacchan’s particular excuse being, ‘I’m not joining your stupid insanity club.’

The cork board had many images of Danny, which were very, very bad images. Blurry and out of focus, too dark, or having really bad cases of red eye. All provided by Mina that she gathered on the day she met Fenton a few days prior to the first class (which he felt a little betrayed that she never mentioned that she and Tokoyami had met Fenton beforehand AND saw his quirk in action and never told him) and throughout the first day back to classes. There was also a large tangle of strings, red, blue, white, pink glitter, you name a colour and it was somewhere amongst the cork boards. On the whiteboard that Todoroki was pointing to, was a list.

Theory 1: Danny Fenton is my long lost twin given away at birth because Endeavor fucking sucks.

Theory 2: Aizawa fucked my mom and Danny Fenton is my half brother.

Theory 3: Aizawa had an affair with an American woman and never paid child support but now he has to and also spend time with his son.

Theory 4: Aizawa and Present Mic somehow made Danny. (Young clone of Aizawa??)

Theory 5: SPACE.

Izuku nodded along as Todoroki read out each of the theories, scratching his chin in thought.

Tsuyu raised a hand, “how can he be your twin if he looks nothing like you, your dad, or your mom, ribbit?”

“Well, actually Tsuyu, it’s very possible for twins to have two different fathers, if they’re fraternal that is!” Uraraka pipped in.

Tsuyu tilted her head slightly, “how so? Ribbit.”

“Well…” Uraraka’s cheeks flushed a bright pink, “there’s a lot of… like science and biology about boys and girls but- you know how identical twins are the baby split in two and fraternal twins are two babies from the start? So like if two daddies like a mommy very much during the same week… it’s very possible to have twins that have two different dads.” Her entire face was a bright red by the time she finished explaining, but Tsuyu seemed to get the idea.

Kirishima raised a hand, “what about the ‘space’ theory.”

“That one is very simple,” Todoroki nodded, “he came from space.”

Sero scratches his head, “I don’t get it.”

“Oh! That’s because you all weren’t at the mall! Danny LOVES space!! Once you get him talking about it, he won’t even stop to take a breath! He especially lit up when we mentioned Thirteen, but it was odd how he never heard of the hero before! Or like… any hero before. So someone who loves space and actually doesn’t know a lot about earth customs? He has got to be an alien,” Mina grinned.

“A very valid point,” Todoroki nodded, “though his lack of knowledge could be because he lived a very sheltered life. If he was my half brother or twin, he, as you said, shares none of our family attributes. Black hair and blue eyes? I’d be suspicious if his quirk was a fire quirk but instead it’s ice, which my mother has white hair and grey eyes. So his father must at least have black hair. So clearly, an affair had happened and Endeavor covered it up to protect his precious reputation. If Danny was kept away from hero propaganda, he would never be encouraged to pursue a life of a hero and therefore remain a hidden secret from the public for the rest of his life.”

“So… who’s his father then?” Momo asked.

“None other than,”— Todoroki dramatically tugged a sheet off a covered board revealing a massive picture of Aizawa with red arrows and circles drawn around his face—,”Our own teacher, Mr. Aizawa!”

Several gasps were heard from the members of the theory club.

“Black hair, walking zombie look, sinister grin when he attempts to smile, and unkempt hair. There is no denying that he is somewhat related to our homeroom teacher,” Todoroki slapped his pointing stick against Aizawa’s picture.

“But what about the eyes?” Toko asked. “Neither Aizawa or Todoroki’s mom have blue eyes like his.”

Izuku spun around so fast he nearly knocked over his own chair, “this is where I can add explanations!!” He jumped up next to Todoroki and whipped off another covered whiteboard, revealing an absolute mess of words, circles, arrows and various theory looking images. “His eyes are like that because of his quirk!” Izuku explained. “You see, some users have extra features that are like side effects of a quirk! Like Kirishima! You have very sharp teeth despite having the transformative hardening quirk! It’s slightly related but not as directly! Or Mina! You have pink skin and hair, black whites of your eyes and horns, but your quirk is acid! An emitter type quirk!” The room nodded and hummed in understanding. “Therefore his eyes don’t need to be taken into account in terms of genetics because they are a direct result of his quirk!”

Izuku flipped their whiteboard over, revealing even more writing and notes that looked even crazier than the first. He knew how it looked, but he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t stop when it came to quirks. “Now, to discuss his quirk. Phantom ice! We have to consider what that means for ice to act ‘phantom-like’, so we can start with the definition of ‘phantom’, which from the thesaurus is-,”

“Slow down there, bro. This meeting is mostly about theorizing who his parents are. We can have a separate meeting for his whole quirk analysis aspect,” Kirishima stopped him before he could go buck wild.

Izuku dropped his head in sadness at his inability to rant about what Danny’s quirk could be to a full extent and slowly flipped the white board back over and took a seat back in his original chair.

“Thank you for your contribution, Midoriya,” Todoroki nodded. “Now it is voting time. We shall vote on our most likely theory and continue our research back at our homes to discuss at our next meeting.”

Tomura glared at the shop windows full of merchandise surrounding that new pest. He’s barely been here a week and his stupid fucking crest was everywhere.

What the fuck did the D even stand for?!?

He should be getting all this attention! All this credit!

First Stain and now some little glowing freak that doesn’t even photograph well? What do these brain dead NPCs even see in this fucker?

‘He’s the one who took down Stain,’ Kurogiri’s voice rang in his head. ‘A single hit and the glorious hero killer was down. We should consider recruiting him.’

Recruiting!! Recruiting he said! They tried to recruit Stain and all they got was a bunch of freaks! He was getting tired of putting together a circus instead of a boss-crushing team!

Sensei hadn’t spoken on the manner yet either, it was up to him to decide what he wanted to do about this ‘illegal hero’.

Well… he wasn’t easy to track, so maybe they will just ignore him and one day some stupid hero will kill him.

He grinned to himself, that would be quite fun to watch.

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#danny phantom #danny fenton #phantom #danny #fenton #ghost #au #you can’t punch a ghost #ycpag #chapter 6 #crossover #bnha #mha #dennys #ship #rare pair #tw swearing

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tumbling-darkling · 3 years ago

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You Can’t Punch a Ghost

Ch 2. Aizawa took one look at a half dead child and claimed him as his own.

AO3

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Shouta looked over the papers Doctor Ichiyo handed him, “Unmeltable Ice?”

“That’s his quirk, we tried to melt it too but only he managed to melt it when asked. It’s a powerful quirk too, but he has… limited control over it. He told us it’s something that’s difficult for him to control in large amounts. But his quirk isn’t the main concern at this point.”

“What is the concern?”

“He’s practically a ghost,” the Doctor frowned. “No records anywhere. We tried finding his ‘home town’ but there’s no town with the name he provided, there’s no information on any Fenton’s or specifically a ‘Danny Fenton’, it’s like he appeared out of nowhere.”

Powerful quirks usually mean someone aims to be a hero, or they get targeted. A pit in Shouta’s stomach began to form as new thoughts began to form and his mind turned towards the creature that nearly killed him at USJ. It had been an abomination of mixed quirks. An experiment. “Did you notice… scars?”

The doctor quirked an eyebrow, “... why yes. Quite a few in fact. One being the most concerning when we patched him up before he woke up.”

“Why did that one catch your attention?”

“It was an electrical scar.” Shouta suppressed a shiver. “On his left palm. About a year old or possibly older. It looked the most severe on the palm and it ran up his arm and onto his chest. But it’s very… faint. The most notable part being on his palm but even then it is barely there. It may have caused an issue at the time based on the surgical scars we noticed as well. We can’t be entirely sure… but this is one odd case.”

Shouts nodded slowly, processing the information then glanced up, “do you know what you are going to do with him?”

Doctor Ichiyo sighed, “he needs a guardian, so we have to put him in the system. His quirk may even need suppressants if he shows signs of it going extremely out of control.” She glanced at Shouta with a worried look, “you… you’re an underground hero. You know about much more gritty crime, the less flashy robbers and more horrid criminals… Do you think someone is hurting him? That he’s not in any systems because someone made sure he was erased and no one would look for him?” She whispered.

Shouta didn’t reply, but that was a very real concern. If he went into foster care, it would be easy for the criminals that lost him to pick him up and make him disappear again.

He glanced at the doctor once more, “what would it take for me to be registered as a guardian.”

The doctor blinked, “you-... you haven’t even met the boy- not with him awake…”

“If this boy is a ghost in the system, and finding him almost dead in a dumpster is any sign, then it’s that he needs help. He can disappear again the moment he steps out of this hospital,” god damn it he’s been growing soft ever since this stupid year began… “It can be temporary as well. But having a hero watch his back may be what he needs.”

The doctor glanced at her clipboard, then ran a hand over her head before letting out a sigh, “I’ll find you some paperwork. But I suggest going and actually meeting the kid before doing anything else. Explain the situation. Despite the initial confusion, he’s alert. Hiding information from him at this point would cause more harm than good. Tell him you’re a hero, that should help the situation too. Kids like heroes. Makes them aware that you help people and therefore will help him as well. That kind of thing.”

Shouta nodded, “might as well introduce myself sooner rather than later.”

The tired man was new.

Tired was the wrong word describing him.

More like spiritually and physically exhausted.

He entered the room, followed by Doctor Ichiyo, who he found out was a woman. The alligator head still threw Danny off, even knowing that this was common, and not even the oddest mutation he could come across.

The exhausted man glanced over to Dr Ichiyo and she held up a hand, “this is Mr. Aizawa, Danny. Mr. Aizawa, this is Danny Fenton. He’s the one who brought you into the hospital.”

Danny blinked, looking him over, “Ah- nice to meet you... Mr… Aizawa.”

Aizawa nodded and sat down in one of the chairs next to the hospital bed, “I’m sure Dr. Ichiyo has informed you about your situation?”

So he must be some sort of… child service dude. He kind of looked the part, it was probably very exhausting dealing with lost kids. Or just kids in general. “So you are some sort of child service guy?” No, he wasn’t keen on being put in some sort or orphanage or something. But he didn’t have a ton of options, living on the streets wasn’t keen. He didn’t have money, he didn’t know how to get money and he wasn’t going to start stealing if he didn’t have to. It wasn’t like it was a prison, or a cage, or anything along those lines. So he would just have to try and work with what he got.

Follow your heart.

Why did Clockwork have to give him the stupidest words of advice. It was like it was from some sort of friendship series or something. It wasn’t even guiding in any sort of way!

He was snapped from his diverting thoughts when Mr. Aizawa spoke, “no, I’m not a child service worker. I’m an underground hero. If you’re unaware, my line of work regards more serious and hidden issues than the flashy crimes handled by pro heroes.” He shot a glance to the doctor before looking back at Danny, “since you have no memory of how you got here or much before that…” that’s right-, Danny told them he had amnesia. To avoid making mistakes when talking about his history and explain why he didn’t initially ‘remember’ what quirks were or heroes. “We’re worried about your past and people involved in it. We have no history on your name, or you in general, and it’s possible that the lack of history was intentional, your status erased from systems to keep you hidden by bad people. To be careful, I proposed I provide you with housing and protection given my experience and initial connection to these issues. I can help find ways to bring back your memory, and provide access to education and other needs as they seem fit.”

Well, this fixed a lot of problems for Danny. “But why?” He blurted out before he could remember not to look a gifted horse in the mouth. He regretted the question instantly, the dude is literally helping him put, he was going to end up with strangers one way or another-

“My attention was brought to this case, and I have experience with powerful youths. If I left now and found out you had disappeared a week later, I would be failing my job as a hero, and as a teacher.”

Danny leaned back, “... yeah. Alright. I don’t really see what else I can do and honestly, this sounds like the best deal. I’ll be ending up with a stranger either way so a stranger who worries about my safety can’t be the worst thing in the world.”

Mr. Aizawa nodded in return and stood up, like he wasn’t expecting a fight. Or he was relieved that Danny didn’t bother with a fight. “Seeing as the doctors found your injuries almost completely healed, I don’t believe it will be an issue if we leave later today.” He glanced at Dr. Ichiyo, who nodded with a soft smile.

Danny didn’t stop himself from tapping his head, now knowing that apparently he got hit pretty damn hard and was knocked completely out. He suspected that when Vlad threw him off, he fell through a portal, smacked into a wall and fell into a dumpster, and when he tried to sit up, the lid fell shut and hit him hard on the head. Thanks to his ghost powers, he tended to heal quickly. Injuries only lasting about a day or two. The worst he had was a week when Skulker actually managed to blast a hole through his side. It took forever for it to stitch back into place and close up.

He then glanced at Dr. Ichiyo, “well if the doctor recommends it I guess that’s when I’ll leave.”

Mr. Aizawa was… an interesting character. A lot of him reminded Danny of Walker, he had a very authoritative feel to him, and a dangerous one. But he wasn’t very… scary. Just intimidating. But he also wasn’t finely dressed with a permanent scowl on his face, not very clean shaven either and had more of a drawl to his voice than Walker. Not to mention the lack of echo that ghosts have when they speak. And the lack of trying to imprison him for the rest of his afterlife. The ride to his home was… really quiet.

And awkward.

Was this really the best course of action? Should he have just ditched the moment he woke up? Maybe this was smarter, this world was filled with people with powers so they may know how to restrain people with abilities. He didn’t know how much of it affected his ghost powers… so maybe this was better. Faking amnesia to learn about the world, not living on the streets… if anything was too shady, he could just leave. He always had the option of ditching.

It would work.

They stopped in the parking lot of a building, an apartment building, parking the car and turning it off before leaving the car, which Danny took the cue to follow his lead. Danny didn’t exactly have any luggage, so it was a quick trip inside and up some stairs to the apartment.

Once inside, Aizawa gestured to a couch and he sat down, looking around the apartment as he tried to figure out what type of person he actually was based on his apartment. First thing he noticed were a lot of cat themed decorations… so a cat person. He couldn’t help but feel a little irk in the back of his throat, worry building up as the one other person he knew that liked cats was psychotic and named said cat after his mother, who he was obsessed with.

“I should let you know I’m a teacher, specifically a teacher at UA. This week my students all have internships and so I can give some initial focus on you, but once back in class I have a job and will be working 5 days a week. I won’t be leaving you alone here for 24 hours each day, instead I’ll be signing you up for UA, in general studies as a transfer. I have another student I’m training as well, you may be in the same class but be aware that it’s up to the principal and the class openings. This week I’ll get the paperwork in order and get you established. So tomorrow we will head out and get you something more to wear than just a single pair of pants and shirt. You are welcome to any part of my apartment, and I would prefer you remain indoors during this initial week. Once set up at UA, you can begin to explore the city in your own time but there will be a curfew.”

“... that’s… a lot of freedom,” Danny blinked. He expected to have to be within his sight 24/7, or something along the lines of that.

Aizawa nodded, “memories… are a fickle thing. And I know damn well teenagers don’t like listening to the rules of adults, with their memories or without. So too many rules leads to broken trust and I need you to understand I want to help. As well as if you find time to explore the city, you may find familiar areas, helping your memories return. But this is only once you’re established at UA, and I’ve seen your handle on your quirk. If your lack of memories and appearance in a dumpster are anything to work on, it’s that I need to know you can at least defend yourself long enough to get help.”

“And if my handle on my quirk sucks?” Danny asked.

“Then I’ll provide training with my other students.”

Danny blinked again. “...huh.”

“Huh?” Aizawa inquired.

Danny shook his head a little and glanced to the side, “I just- didn’t expect a lot of this. I expected, I don’t know, an orphanage. Child services. Being dropped off on the street. Not… actual help?”

It was time for Aizawa to blink in return. “What kind of past did you have to have such expectations from people meant to help you?”

Danny could only shrug in return as his mind flashed to his parents' constant talk of tearing him apart molecule by molecule, Vlad’s cloning attempts, the Guys in White, and the entire event regarding Dan. He just… didn’t look for help from adults because… because he just never believed they would listen to him long enough to understand. That their idea of help was actually hurting him.

Aizawa sighed and shook his head, “right- you probably don’t remember… a lot has happened… so now I think it’s best to get some rest. We will leave later in the morning. Does that sound alright?”

Danny nodded and Aizawa stood up, “let me show you where everything is, then we can turn in for the night.”

Danny slowly lifted the window in his room open, glancing over his shoulder briefly at the stuffed bed and then the closed door before he turned invisible and leapt out the window. He floated to the roof before transforming into Phantom and becoming visible again, glancing up at the dark sky. He took a heavy breath, taking in the night air as his core filled his body with a comfortable hum. He had only been stuck at the hospital for three days but he needed to get out, to fly, to be Phantom. Let out his energy and be as free as the dead could be.

He took note of the apartment he just snuck out of and its location, making more notes of recognizable billboards and buildings, and even checking out the building address and tapping it into his phone as a precaution. For once, someone, an adult someone, was actually helping him, and he didn’t want to ruin it just yet. Then he shot off across the night sky, enjoying the breeze on his face, and the stars above him.

He got… a little lost in the bliss of flying.

It was easy to get lost when he was so used to shooting across large areas that he forgot he wasn’t in familiar territory. He paused and looked at the city below him, frowning when he didn’t recognize anything. “Whoops,” he sighed.

A shiver ran up his spine, then he hiccuped, a tiny wisp of cold air escaping his lips. Danny tensed up, at first thinking his ghost sense went off but also realizing it felt… off. Could ghosts have found their way to this world? Did this dimension have its own versions of ghosts? Like his worlds but also different?

He was so distracted by the surprise of the odd ghost sense that he failed to look for the danger that set it off. So when something collided with him in the air, he didn’t have time to react. And then he was falling while trying to wrestle off whatever had slammed into him.

He snarled and finally blasted the thing away, sending it screeching as it fell to the ground steaming green from his ectoblast. It crashed behind some buildings, out of Danny’s view and he was about to follow when a green flash of light caught his attention followed by some shouts and yelling. He glanced between the two places before he chose to check out the source of the shouting, deciding it was more important to help people who could be in danger rather than something that was probably out cold thanks to his blast. He could find it later.

Danny turned invisible and hovered into the dark alley, spotting two standing figures, and then two on the ground and bleeding.

“What do you plan to do, young hero? You have proven yourself to be selfless but leave now and I will spare your life.”

“I won’t let you kill anyone! A true hero doesn’t run when people are in danger!”

Danny slowly hovered closer, the weirdly bandaged man with swords clearly sporting a villain vibe as a kid in a green costume glared daggers at him. He slowly put two and two together as he noticed the people on the ground and the dude with swords. He could finish this quite quickly actually… he hadn’t dealt with people too often before, and all he had to do was knock the sword guy out. Just a little ectoblast to the back of the head should work-

The man snarled and spun, slashing at Danny with his swords as he yelped and floated back, his surprise of being caught causing him to drop his invisibility, “dude how did you see me?” He cried out, crossing his arms in annoyance.

“Two little heroes? Are children truly what this society depends on?”

“Get out of here! This guy is dangerous!” The green kid was then gone in a flash and right behind the sword dude, aiming a kick at the villain, but the dude dodged it with incredible speed, the missed attack then propelled green kid instead and was about to crash into Danny.

On instinct, he turned intangible and the kid fell through him and crashed to the ground, “shit sorry! Probably should have caught you-!” Danny hissed as he realized his mistake. He felt the air shift behind him and let his intangibility take over right before a katana had swung through his chest. He glanced over his shoulder and took note of the surprised look on the man's face, “it’s rude to stab people when they aren’t looking, you know!” Danny quipped, moving out of the way of the sword and turning tangible to send off an ectoray into the villains face.

The villain was freakin’ fast though, and he was gone before Danny could even shoot off the ray. He frowned and glanced around, noticing the green kid stand up and turned his attention to the other two people in the alley. Did he run off?

The air shifted again behind him, and Danny made the mistake of turning to look instead of going intangible, and barely dodged the blade that sliced his side. He floated higher and out of reach, “do you know when to give up?” Danny asked.

The sword dude then lifted the blade that cut him to his mouth, and licked his ectoplasmic blood. Stain paused, and the smallest of shivers shot through the villain as he glanced at the green blood with an odd look.

Before Danny could shout out how utterly disgusting that was, he felt his muscles seize up and he dropped, landing hard on the ground with a groan as his limbs refused to work. What the hell?

{Before Danny could shout out how utterly disgusting that was, he felt his muscles seize up and he dropped, landing hard on the ground with a groan as his limbs refused to work.

Chapter ends

Chapter start

Before Danny could shout out how utterly disgusting that was, he felt his muscles seize up and he dropped, landing hard on the ground with a groan as his limbs refused to work. What the hell?}

“I told you to leave!” The green kid shouted and attacked the sword dude, then the two were suddenly locked in a fast paced combat, flashes of red and green leaping around the alley at lightning speed.

Danny hissed and tried to break whatever the hell was wrong with him- why couldn’t he move? This wasn’t like anything he’d ever encountered before, usually ghost restraints were more… painful? This just felt like his body was locked in place. The wound blade man left had already healed- which suddenly worried Danny about the fact that he may have been poisoned by the blade. Damnit, he should have just turned intangible! Something he tends to forget when fighting non-ghosts since it was useless against ghosts or ghost hunting gear.

The two came to a stop, and then the green kid collapsed as the freak licked his knife again, jeez what kind of vampire vibe was this dude going for? Not the cool kind, that was for sure.

And for once he was glad Vlad wasn’t insane enough to lick bloody blades to fit his weird vampire aesthetic… Danny would have to be sure to never give him the idea either. The fruit loop was crazy enough as it was.

“You… boy… you are a true hero. And for that I will spare your life… but I must rid this word of these imposters. These fake heroes.”

“No! No stop! Please I’m begging you, don’t-!”

Danny felt his limbs finally respond and he took the chance to quickly lift his arm and send an ectoblast at the blade man’s back right before he brought his blade down on the blue haired robot kid, knocking him to the side with a snarl as he spun towards Danny.

“Look man, I’ve been dead for a few years now and you should know that ghosts really like to hold a grudge,” Danny grinned nervously. “So maybe you shouldn’t piss people off while killing them.”

“Are you seriously making jokes?” The robot kid hissed.

“It lightens the mood!”

The man didn’t respond as he ran at him again, and Danny remembered to turn intangible this time, letting the blades slice harmlessly through him as he tried leading him away from the others.

“Come on, dude! Say something! I need material to work with! You know you really remind me of this dude who wants to put my pelt on his wall, but he talks way more than you do! Mostly about the pelt thing,” Danny dove through him and turned, turning tangible again to send off another blast but stopped midway to turn intangible again as the dude slashed at him.

Then he revealed a creepy grin, “if I can’t hit you, you can’t hit me, isn’t that right?”

“Maybe I can hit you while you can’t hit me, and I just felt like dragging the fight out,” Danny tried to deflect.

But then he ran for the immobilized robot kid and Danny hissed in panic, “shit- no-!”

He wasn’t fast enough-!

A wall of flames separated the blade dude from the robot kid, and Danny turned his attention to the newcomer who was… another kid. With weird hair. Hair that reminded Danny of candy canes and peppermint. Did everyone have weird hair in this universe?

“Midoriya, try to be more precise with your texts, I almost didn’t make it here in time,” the kid with red and white hair scolded. Possibly. He had a really emotionless tone to his voice.

“Todoroki- be careful and don’t let him cut you!”

The kid had been distracted as the blade man ran forward, but then his entire body was surrounded by flames, forcing the villain back and right into Danny’s ectoblast. “Hey! Nice teamwork! Keep hitting him with that fire and I’ll aim for his knees, peppermint!”

Todoroki blinked, “... Midoriya who is-.”

“Watch out!” Midoriya, who Danny assumes was the green kid, shouted.

Todoroki sent off another wave of flames, forcing blade man back but then causing him to try and jump behind him and cut him that way. Danny lunged through the peppermint haired kid and went to protect his back, swinging a kick that missed, then pushing both himself and peppermint back before the blade man could slash at them again. He sent another ectoblast at his face, forcing him back again just as a flash of green passed them and landed a hard kick to his gut, sending the villain flying back.

“His quirk has to do with blood type!” Green kid, Midoriya, yelled. “Different blood types he ingests keep people immobilized for longer or shorter times!”

Blade man glanced up, “... smart kid,” he hummed, before disappearing in a flash once more.

Danny glanced at the two, “blood type?”

“I have type O-, and yours is- green. You broke free before I did, and I broke free before Iida or Native, we have to avoid getting cut but if we do, we can break free after a certain amount of time, we can do this,” Midoriya explained.

Danny quickly put a hand on the other two and turned them intangible just as Blade man almost sliced through them, “yeah sounds good less talking more throwing fists in that dude’s face.”

“H-how did you-?” The green kid sputtered, “how many quirks-?”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m on your side right now!” This kid must not have been watching Danny too closely, or realized that his powers were more than just floating and maybe what seemed like turning invisible, either way he couldn’t let them get killed because they thought he was the enemy. “Watch out for the two still on the ground, he’s an asshole and will try to shish-kebab them!” Danny warned then lunged at the Blade man once more, getting back into the groove of fighting as he twisted out of the way of blades and aimed another ectoblast, trying to keep his distance from the blades.

“No-...” a voice from behind Danny whimpered as he dove out of the way and Midoriya aimed a kick. Blade man dodged and slashed at him in return, but peppermint head knocked him out of the way with some blunt ice to keep him from being cut-

Wait, he could use fire AND ice?

The dude was fast-

Very fast.

A lot faster and more dangerous than some ghosts Danny had dealt with before.

Danny was used to being the fast one when facing his opponents so the more he moved the more Danny had to try and keep up, to make sure he couldn’t get behind himself or the other two. Just keep him in sight. Keep him in sight-.

Fuck.

Danny lost him for a split second and he struck Midoriya, immobilizing him as he once again in the creepiest manner, licked his blood off his blades.

Someone was screaming at them to stop, to run away, but Danny was too damn tired to just let these people get killed. Was that how that worked? Who knew; just that this guy needed to be knocked down now.

Then, Blade man went for peppermint head, he was tearing through his defense like butter and he was about to get an open chest wound-! Danny lunged forward, trying to get him out of the way as the blade began to slash towards them-

Then it shattered.

The robot kid skidded to a stop after he had broken free and blasted right through the blade, shattering it from the force of his kick and fury blazing in his eyes as he screamed, “I won’t force my friends to protect me over my own stupid mistakes!”

The blade man turned to robot kid, his creepy tongue hanging out of his mouth as he seemed ready to mouth off at the kid, but Danny decided now that he didn’t have the sword to keep deflecting his ectorays and was distracted, it was time to end this.

He gathered as much energy into his hands, then lifted them at the last second and sent a double handed blast right into his face.

Danny expected him to dodge, but he was so wrapped up in ranting about his message that must have been caught off guard. The blast hit him hard in the face and sent him flying into one of the walls, cracking the concrete from the force, then he peeled off the wall and landed hard onto his face.

The three blinked at him, “did you just-...”

“He was rambling,” Danny whined, “I wanted to just check the city out and ended up facing… whatever that was,” Danny gestured to the blade man who lay unconscious on the ground in a very unflattering position. “I get it, you were having this whole “epiphany” moment but this night is dragging on and I have places to be. Ghost places.” He added.

Midoriya blinked, “no- no wait we have to wait for the police or pro heroes- you’re a vigilante-! That’s illegal! We can’t just let you-!”

“Yeah uh- bye,” Danny cut him off and turned invisible, shooting up into the sky and glancing down at the group that looked around in confusion.

Well. What a fun first night out. Good note, people prioritize villains over vigilantes. So ditch the scene quickly once villains are subdued.

Those three were also kids, maybe a bit younger than him but they weren’t heroes… but they acted like them and seemed to know each other well… then his thoughts clicked together. Aizawa said his students had internships. Hero interns. Those must be heroes in training. Where were their supervisors then?

Eh, best not to think too hard-

Danny stopped mid flight as he remembered.

“Fuck!! The bird thing!” Danny yelped, turning and looking around the city below him for hints of the place he saw that thing crash. He forgot about it, where the hell was it?!

He circled the area, looking for signs of a crash landing, lingering effects of his ecto ray, and came up with nothing. He frowned and leaned back, noticing how low the moon had become. He decided that it was gone, he didn’t know where but… this city was filled with heroes right? If it shows up, they can handle it. Meanwhile he had to figure out how to get to Mr. Aizawas apartment before morning.

“A vigilante?”

Izuku nodded, “he just… showed up. Started helping us, then took Stain down with a single blast of his quirk-... one of his quirks.”

All Might seemed to tense a little, “one? Are you saying-?”

Izuku shifted in the bed slightly, “yeah. He was… weird? There was… a lot he could do. Flying, he barely ever touched the ground actually. He blasted… green rays from his hands, some sort of lasers, and he could… go through things. Just walk right through people. And allow other people to do the same when he kept me and Todoroki from being stabbed… that’s at least three different quirks, and he had… a weird look. Some sort of mutation I believe.”

“Like one of those Nomu’s?”

Izuku shook his head, thinking hard. His mind was a swirling mess between his worry for Iida and the odd vigilante that helped take out Stain, his quirk a mystery based on the overall variety he witnessed, “he… was very glowy. It was a soft glow, his hair looked like it was bleached and floated around like it lacked gravity. His eyes… they were toxic green but… off. And his voice…. well it echoed. Everything about him was odd… and there was a moment when I confronted Stain, and the temperature dropped. That’s when Stain attacked him and he suddenly appeared out of nowhere- it’s possible he has an invisibility quirk too now that I remember correctly… but what kind of quirk allows for such a variety, is there anything that connects them all or is it like Todoroki where his family line just creates a stockpile of quirks? Or… or maybe he’s in fact a nomu but more advanced? More stable and less brain dead. But he didn’t attack us, he helped us and then left talking about having ghost-.” Izuku cut himself off from his rambles as he glanced up, “a ghost! He looked a lot like a ghost!” Izuku paused again as his mind jumped around, “is it… is it possible to retain quirks when someone is dead?”

All Might’s brow seemed to furrow as he thought on the question, “Well, my boy… most people don’t… stick around when they are dead. If any at all. We don’t even understand the concepts of souls or ghosts and… Well, there isn’t proof of ghosts. Not scientific proof, no concrete evidence. It’s possible he just… has a quirk that gives him qualities that we would associate with ghosts. But it’s not possible for him to actually be dead.”

Izuku leaned back a little, “but what if there are quirks out there that allow people to cheat death? Like ones that let people come back from the dead? Or speak with spirits? Or even prevents them from dying?”

All Might cast a very concerned look, “... that is… possible. Now that you mention it…” All Might then shifted in his seat once more. “Young Midoriya, I need to tell you something, in regards to One for All. It has to do what was discovered from the Nomu… and my fears of who is behind it. Because if my theory is correct… a danger that I thought I had eradicated may still be out there. A danger I thought I had prevented you from ever needing to face.”

—————————————————————

Danny slipped back into the bedroom, the apartment easy to find the moment he figured out his map app still worked in this world. He found a charger for his phone that was luckily compatible in the side desk of the guest room and plugged it in, then shoved his pillow decoy aside and collapsed onto the bed with a wheeze. That fight was exhausting. More mentally exhausting than physically. He just wasn’t used to fighting humans. Especially not humans with powers. He kept forgetting about his intangibility and his ability to float higher and out of reach of them. He was so used to those abilities being useless half the time when in battle, other ghosts could still smack him when intangible and ecto weapons worked too. They both hurt like hell as well.

He even forgot he could reform his body as he pleased around objects or weapons like, oh he didn’t know, freaking swords? He got cut once and while it healed immediately, it was enough for that dude to pull the gross licking stunt and paralyze him for a bit. Danny shivered at the memory, twisting under the blankets to get more comfortable.

As terrible as it was for a first fight in a new world… he was… glad. Those other kids mostly just had shallow cuts and bruises, and nobody died. No extra ghosts as competition!

…

Fuck, he missed Amity Park, the lack of his ghost sense constantly going off was… just a little too quiet.

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#you can’t punch a ghost #ycpag #danny phantom #danny fenton #phantom #danny #fenton #ghost #au #Phan fic #fic #writing #chapter 2 #crossover #tw swearing

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tumbling-darkling · 3 years ago

Text

You Can’t Punch a Ghost

Ch 4. Everyone wants to fight Danny

AO3

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The following week was in most cases… uneventful. Well uneventful in terms of the fact that Danny wasn’t brutally murdered or thrown into ANOTHER dimension. (Imagine what a mess that would end up being, he would have to find a way back to this dimension and THEN the ghost zone.)

It was uneventful during the day in normal terms. He would be dragged out of bed by Aizawa, who really didn’t seem to give a flying fuck about what time it was. Eat a really hearty breakfast (Japan had a full course meal for breakfast and he was getting used to it really fast), then go over typical preparations for being admitted into another dimension’s school almost halfway through the year! Preparations like math and science overviews, recounts of history classes he would have been taught. Quirk specialized classes.

During their first talk, Danny admitted he knew next to nothing about any history of this world, or the more in depth quirk statistics. Even some of the science was wonky in comparison to what he knew. And he knew quite a bit thanks to living in a lab for most of his life. His failing grades back in Amity were only because he had a hard time finding time to study the new subjects, as well as stay awake in class or finish the homework before some asshole ghost burned it up for the 5th time that week. Yet some things were just… different. Mainly biology related subjects. Math was quite linear though. Language Studies? That was another one he had no experience in. He had never even heard of a good chunk of the books listed that he should have read in middle school. If they were like anything he read back at home, then the titles probably wouldn’t help either. And reading was out of the question too. In any language.

Aizawa picked up on his struggle when he placed the paperwork in front of Danny, paperwork he needed to sign in regards to the security of the school. The symbols and lines made no sense to Danny, and after a lot of staring at the paper and Aizawa’s gaze boring holes into his skull, Danny cracked under the pressure. He dropped his head to the table and yelled, ‘I can’t read this!’

There was confusion at first, then Aizawa picked apart what he meant, eventually discovering that Danny didn’t understand the Japanese written language. Then he got this look on his face, a thoughtful and concerned look, like adding a piece to a puzzle but still not knowing the full picture. Danny didn’t really care much for that look.

Aizawa mumbled something about a tutor and then they moved back to getting him prepared for courses he was going to be taking. Boring school talk. Well some of it was interesting but planning it was boring.

Danny had to admit, the nights were a bit more eventful. He had to get a lay of the land. And the city tended to be riddled with crime at night. So every night, Danny snuck out as Phantom and began to map out the area, finding familiar buildings and using them as landmarks as he began to explore every inch of the city he was in. He would come across crime, and while he knew that vigilantism was technically illegal, it was no different than the ecto acts making ghosts basically illegal to exist. So he did a little crime by helping out the heroes at night, it was no big deal. Especially when Danny found out how… easy it was. He could just phase people halfway into walls to keep them from running, his blasts acted as an easy way to knock criminals to the ground, and for once in his life, nobody could touch him.

He never fully realized just how specialized his abilities were in Amity, and how specialized his opponents were. Danny’s opponents needed ridiculously specific weapons and abilities to counter the Halfa on a basic level. Weapons and powers this world didn’t have any clue about. He easily turned intangible to avoid hits and it always worked! The closest anyone was able to track him while invisible was some dude who could see thermal energy. Not everyone in this world could fly as well, and not always as freely as Danny could. Gravity stopped existing for Danny while the few others he did face had to manipulate the air or use wings to fly. He was… ridiculously overpowered in this world.

Well he assumed he was. There was always that nagging feeling that there was something that could mess him up. A surprise he didn’t expect.

So of course he remained on edge while out as Phantom.

While he was wildly overpowered compared to others he’s faced so far, this was a world where a good chunk of the population had powers. So they must have ways to prevent people from using their powers when they were caught after committing crimes or otherwise. There must be at least one person on this planet that may have ecto-related abilities or abilities to cancel out other people’s powers.

Would all of these affect him?

Danny had no fucking clue.

He could very much not be affected just because he was from another world. But he could also be very affected because his powers worked similarly or his body adjusted to this world in a way that would affect him. He just didn’t know.

Better to keep it that way, at least.

So he stopped villains or criminals as he came across them, quickly knocking them out or trapping them to be found and leaving before anyone could notice.

Or so he thought.

It turns out a lot of people are wandering around at night with cameras.

So by the end of the week, his blurry ass glowing face was plastered everywhere.

News headlines of a mysterious vigilante taking out villains faster than pros, disappearing without a trace, his identity a mystery since the pictures were horribly blurry, broken, or even cryptid-like and the only recounts being from people who actually saw him. Even the descriptions of him were not enough to track him down because of his unique and ghostly look, details that no other person held and no records of such an individual seeming to exist. Some headlines questioned his motives, and others pointed out his wide range of abilities. There were even articles about his actions being a hoax. For once in his life, he was grateful for his unphotogenic abilities. At home it was the same, both as human and ghost, any photo of him was a mess, though it was more so for his ghost side. Sometimes he was blurry beyond recognition even if he wasn’t moving at all, his eyes would glow green like a cat at night, sometimes the shadows would curl unnaturally around him or he would have odd features like a faint outline of a glow or even looking like some parts of him were scratched out. In other words, he hated picture day.

So while unrecognizable, he knew it was him they were talking about.

And he quickly picked up that Aizawa wasn’t too happy about this new vigilante, muttering about stupid kids whenever the topic popped up on the news or the bags under his eyes darkening which he picked up the paper with Danny’s blurry face on the front page. One time Aizawa straight up pointed at the TV and said, ‘don’t do that.’

And it took all of Danny’s willpower not to respond with, ‘too late.’

Danny was nowhere close to finding a new portal to get home, or finding out where he arrived in the first place, but he wasn’t having the worst time. And he may get more leads once he starts this school. He wasn’t getting pummeled on a daily basis for once, and his ghost sense hasn’t really gone off yet. Well, other than that one time which he still didn’t fully understand. He was slightly surprised he hadn’t seen a lot of ghosts, yet then again this world didn’t have stable ghost portals. They could be very different ghosts too.

The only thing driving Danny a little crazy was his worry for his home. His friends. His family. Tucker and Sam could handle themselves against ghosts, Val could easily pick up the ghost hunting slack as well. His mom and dad could also easily handle the ghosts on their own. They could handle themselves but at the same time he worried about an unlucky hit, if they got hurt and he wasn’t there to protect them. Or if a powerful ghost took over his town while he was gone. Or how they would all react when they find him missing. Would they think he was kidnapped? Or that he ran away? Would they leave the town to look for him leaving it unprotected and vulnerable or make a big fuss and bring in attention nation wise, would Jazz tell them his secret to convince them to look in the ghost zone would they destroy the ghosts and the zone looking for him? While he couldn’t protect his allies friends family couldn’t protect them he wasn’t there he’s not there why is he not there he’s too far away from home can’t know won’t know protect find save help protect protect protect PROTECT PROTECT PROTECTP̷̧̝͙̲̥̱̻̙͛̓͆́͐̒̓̎̈̾͋̋̕̚̕͜ŗ̴̨̨͔̺̝̤̙͗͆͝ǫ̶̢̛̯͚̬̳͙̳̗̭̅͐̈́̓̋̔͂̊̆͘̕͝͠͝ͅţ̵͍̤̫̩̘̤͖̮̒͊̈̄̎̀́̈́̽͆̑̓̌e̶̢̢̛̤͎̬̣͕͇͙̭̫̥̅̔̏̏̃́c̷̙̪̤͈̫̜̱̫͇͎̖̠̝̥̀̿͑̒́̓̈́̑́͘t̵̨̩̯̺̭̟͉̹̖͈͔̂̌̐̒͌̓̈̉̇̇̊̋̕̕P̷̧̝͙̲̥̱̻̙͛̓͆́͐̒̓̎̈̾͋̋̕̚̕͜ŗ̴̨̨͔̺̝̤̙͗͆͝ǫ̶̢̛̯͚̬̳͙̳̗̭̅͐̈́̓̋̔͂̊̆͘̕͝͠͝ͅţ̵͍̤̫̩̘̤͖̮̒͊̈̄̎̀́̈́̽͆̑̓̌e̶̢̢̛̤͎̬̣͕͇͙̭̫̥̅̔̏̏̃́c̷̙̪̤͈̫̜̱̫͇͎̖̠̝̥̀̿͑̒́̓̈́̑́͘t̵̨̩̯̺̭̟͉̹̖͈͔̂̌̐̒͌̓̈̉̇̇̊̋̕̕

Danny dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to push down the thrumming of his core as it shouted the drowning, possessive thoughts.

It’s been an interesting week. Uneventful but interesting.

It’s also been a very long week.

Now it’s over and he was walking the halls of this school, trailing close to Aizawa and not making eye contact with the other students passing by. They were heading towards the principles office for a finalization of his admission and official meeting. It was only supposed to take a few minutes, quick in and out. Danny didn’t know what to expect of the principal, but he pictured a big and imposing figure, since they ran a top notch hero school.

The pair turned another corner, this school had a lot of corners apparently. They turned it a little too quickly and Danny nearly rammed into another person turning the corner, barely twisting out of the way and only slightly bumped them. His breath misted from his mouth and he froze slightly, looking back at the person, no that had to be a ghost, that he ran into. A yellow suit, too big for the skeletal figure, was what he noticed first, then his eyes glanced up to meet powerful blue ones, hidden in the shadows of the man's hollow features. Fear and horror stared back at Danny, and Danny could only blink in return, he must realize Danny wasn’t entirely alive either…

“Yagi, are you alright?” Aizawa was looking at the ghost- he could see him? And he knew him? Did he know he was a ghost? “You look a little pale.”

“Ah- I’m- I’m fine,” Yagi responded, the ghost's expression changed, looking more bashful. Then Danny began to notice his mistake as he got a longer look at the ghost- no he was a man. His form was solid, not transparent in any way. Only halfa’s were completely solid. There was no glow to him, he didn’t have the same aura. But his ghost sense did detect death. Either this man was on the brink of death, or he had a very serious near-death experience. Those kinds of things tended to confuse his ghost sense from time to time, which was annoying when patrolling for ghosts at first. Then he had later realized the difference in a ghost-ghost sense, and a death detecting ghost sense. Ghost-ghost was chilling, lingering in his throat, while death ghost sense was quick bursts.

His mistake was just because he hadn’t seen a ghost in a while.

But the man's expression when he first saw him… he can’t know. It must have been a mistake of the light or something, those features of his casting shadows to make Danny see things.

“This is Danny, he will be joining some of Class 1-A’s classes since we have space in this remainder of the semester,” Aizawa introduced him. “Danny, this is Mr.Yagi, he’s a secretary of the school, he helps with paperwork and other duties.”

Danny held out his hand to shake then paused, remembering this wasn’t America and people bowed to show politeness instead of shaking hands, but before he could take it back, Mr. Yagi took it and shook it, “Nice to meet you, young Danny. An American transfer student, I’m guessing?” He asked.

Danny blinked in surprise, “how did you-?”

“I once, ah, traveled to America in my youth. I know of some customs, and your name sounds more American than Japanese.”

Danny nodded, and Aizawa took a step forward, “sorry to cut the introduction short but we were heading to Nedzu’s office and need to finalize some paperwork before classes begin.”

Mr. Yagi bowed his head slightly, “yes, of course. I will see you both around, then.”

And then they were both off again, Danny cast a look over his shoulder as they continued on their way, and saw Mr. Yagi watching them walk off, and even jerked a little as he caught Danny’s eye. As soon as he did, he spun around and continued going the opposite direction, though possibly at a quicker rate than most people.

Weird.

Danny was quickly distracted from the interaction as Aizawa led them into a new room, which must be the principal's office.

“You have the paperwork ready?” Aizawa asked.

Danny stared at the big imposing chair, it’s back hiding the figure sitting in it. It spun around, and Danny had to stop himself from reaching out to poke him to see if he was real. He was… some sort of oversized mouse or something. In clothes. His little nose twitched as those beady eyes flicked over to Danny, something about them sending chills down Danny’s spine. “Of course! It’s just one more paper. Honestly you could have done this with the rest of them but I like to hang on to it so I can meet the students first and in person. So this is Danny Fenton? The one you found in a dumpster in an alley?”

“Uh- yes that’s me,” Danny glanced at Aizawa, who was watching the clock. Then back to the principle, maybe he shouldn’t be surprised anymore. He had met two people with animal heads already, so a person who was fully animal shouldn’t be too surprising. The most surprising aspect was just the fact that the principle was… well a mouse.

“Nice to meet you, Fenton, I am Principal Nedzu, I am responsible for all students in these walls and providing them with the best education I can possibly offer. Your short notice transfer was quite an interesting surprise for me, especially given your circumstances. I’m sure Mr. Aizawa has filled you in on the details regarding the transfer. Until we can dig up information about your past or any memories, and to make things much easier in terms of paperwork, you are going to be an American transfer student. This allows you to bypass some entrance exams and keep a lot of questions to a minimum.”

Danny nodded, “yeah, he told me about it.”

“I will also be tasking one of my students in tutoring Danny,” Aizawa stepped in, catching Nedzu’s attention. “We found Danny doesn’t have a lot of experience in writing… or reading in general. The comprehension and knowledge exists, but he can’t read or write Japanese. We both hope this may encourage the return of some memories, while also providing valuable education to both Danny and my student.”

Nedzu nodded, “well seeing as everything is in order, I will let you both go! Be sure to enjoy your first day of classes!”

Danny glanced at Aizawa again but he was already leaving, to which Danny offered a quick farewell to the principal and quickly went to follow Aizawa. Once out of the office he spoke up, “that’s it? Just ‘hello, here’s a quick confirmation, goodbye’?”

Aizawa just shrugged and kept walking, so all Danny could do was follow after him.

—————————————————————

“We have a transfer student joining our class for the remainder of the semester,” Mr. Aizawa stated, stepping aside to reveal a dark haired, blue eyed teen in one of the school's athletic uniforms. “Since we have had a free spot in our class ever since the expulsion of Mineta, Danny Fenton here will temporarily fill that spot. He will join the hero training classes and some other shared classes with Class 1-A, but not all of them. I expect you to treat him like any other class member. Yes, Todoroki,” Mr. Aizawa nodded at Todoroki’s raised hand.

“Is he your son?”

Izuku watched as Fenton sputtered from behind Mr. Aizawa while the teacher didn’t react other than a very slow blink, “no. He is not. If that is all, we will have a very basic training exercise today. One on two duels. This will give you time to share skills you learned during your internship and use them either as team work or to go against unfair odds. As well as will allow myself to assess Fentons quirk. We will follow similar rules to the sports festival, the winner is determined by who is not the first to be knocked out of bounds, knocked out, or prevented from fighting. If facing an opponent from the sports festival, learn from your past mistakes, I expect a better performance from all of you. First up, Danny against Midoriya and Yaoyorozu.”

Kacchan stepped forward with a shout, “hey, why the hell does the nerd get to go first? I want to throw the first fist at the new kid!”

Izuku swore he saw the new kid's eyes flash green at the remark, but it was gone as quick as it appeared, and Izuku began to wonder if it was just the trick of the light.

“You rarely get to pick your opponents in the battlefield, so don’t expect that privilege in this class,” Mr. Aizawa coolly stated, then headed out of the circle, motioning for the rest of the class to follow. “Danny, Midoriya, and Yaoyorozu, take your positions and be ready for my signal.”

The three students did as Mr. Aizawa asked, Izuku and Yaoyorozu took their positions on one side of the circle and Fenton stood opposite, his stance seeming to have shifted from an awkward shyness to a sturdy fighting stance. He must have some training from his previous school. Izuku glanced at Yaoyorozu, “so neither of us know what his quirk can be, and so far it doesn’t seem to be any kind of mutation that I can see. So it’s either a transmitter or emitter type, we also don’t know if he is short range or long range so if I can get close to him fast while you hang behind, I can get him to use his quirk and then maybe you can make something to counter it.”

Yaoyorozu nodded, “sounds like a plan.”

They took a step back and looked over to Fenton, who seemed to be grinning right back at them. There was something so strikingly familiar about him as Izuku now saw the way he held himself, but his face was hard to pinpoint where. But that had to be impossible, he was a transfer student so Izuku would have never met him beforehand. Couldn’t have.

“Start.”

Mr. Aizawa’s dull voice snapped Izuku out of his thoughts, and he reached for One for All’s power, charging up to 5%. Energy sparked around him- but he barely threw himself out of the way of a massive wall of ice that would have trapped him mere seconds beforehand. Izuku felt his mind go a thousand miles a minute as he took in the information.

Ice. Like Todoroki- but not a Todoroki. No red or white hair. American. No relation. How can he use this to his advantage? How can Yaoyorozu help?

Izuku shot a quick look to his partner and spotted her chipping the ice away from her trapped feet with an ice chipper she must have made. He turned his attention back to Fenton as he leapt into the air, using the ice to get higher to get out of his opponent's sight and strike from above.

The ice can be chipped, it was cold as Izuku could see his own breath but not cold enough to make Izuku shiver. They may be able to melt it if Yaoyorozu makes a flamethrower, melt her way towards him while Izuku distracts him.

Izuku lunged forward at lightning speed, aiming a punch for his gut, but jerked as Fenton flicked his head around and met his eyes, playfulness dancing in them just before he stepped out of the way of Izuku’s attack and delivered his own kick into Izuku’s back, sending him rolling to the side and just almost over the out of bounds line. Izuku leapt back off the ground and lunged at Fenton again, feinting to the right and trying to sweep his legs. Izuku jumped back as Fenton slipped, throwing out his arms and slipping slightly and seemed to pause midair for a split second, then he dropped with a grunt and shot a look to Izuku. Izuku was trying to process the weird falling moment and almost failed to dodge another thrown ice attack. More ice spikes like Todoroki’s shooting across the ground and ending in blunt points.

Fenton was still on the ground though, and Izuku ran forward to take advantage, but felt his foot slip and he fell forward, slamming his chin on the ice and hissing as he bit his tongue. Coppery taste flooded his mouth as he tried to get a grip on the ground, but in his struggle Fenton had extended the ice to cover his hands and legs, reaching up to his neck. It was then that he finally stood up and casually walked over to Izuku like the ice wasn’t slippery at all. Even Todoroki had a hard time on the ice he created. “That was a lot quicker than I expected,” Fenton grinned. “Does this mean I win?”

Izuku shattered through the ice using One for All’s power, causing Fenton to stumble back a little in surprise, but he was quick to recover, throwing more ice at Izuku as he barely managed to dodge out of the way, sticking to hopping around instead of running and risking slipping.

Where was Yaoyorozu?

Fenton didn’t seem like he wanted to advance, in fact, whenever Izuku seemed to get too close, Fenton would step back. He was keeping a distance.

Long range fighter. Better take it closer!

Izuku dove in again, and Fenton twisted to avoid his attack, but this time Izuku was prepared for the dodge. He landed hard on the ice and jumped back at him, elbowing Fenton’s back and sending him into his own ice. Fenton slammed into it just as planned and stumbled, twisted and threw more ice at Izuku, but he kept dodging, feeling frost build up on his uniform as he got closer and closer. Izuku switched into close combat, throwing a punch and a rounded kick.

But then Fenton seemed to switch tactics too, his stance shifted slightly as he realized he was cornered and he became more defensive. His arms pulled close to him as he took both the punch and the kick, and returned them at full force at such a speed that Izuku couldn’t dodge or block them, getting punched in the face and then the gut, and a final kick sent him flying back.

Too far back- over the line.

“Izuku is out.”

Izuku huffed as the breath was knocked out of him, wheezing as he twisted into a sitting position. This dude was scrawny, how did he land such solid hits? He needed more training… way more training if he was defeated so easily. Yaoyorozu must still be in the battle, since Mr. Aizawa hadn’t mentioned her name. Though Izuku noticed Fenton tense at the announcement, probably coming to the same conclusion. His eyes scanned the icy field he had created and Izuku realized he accidently put himself at a disadvantage! It was near impossible to pinpoint where exactly Yaoyorozu could be hiding with all the corners and hidden edges surrounding him. And without a fire quirk to melt the ice, he was even more put at a disadvantage!

Izuku then felt his jaw drop as Fenton reached out with both hands and then pulled them in, the ice on the field liquifying with the movement into a watery mess.

And exposing Yaoyorozu as she landed heavily in the newly made puddles.

Though she barely looked surprised, instead the moment the ice disappeared and before Danny could find her position, she acted. She lunged forward and snatched his wrist, pulling a pair of handcuffs and slapping them on and dragging his hands behind his back. Fenton wasn’t done yet, twisting out of her grip and stumbling away, “I can just freeze my way out-,” his grin faltered a little, “why is it not-?”

“Those are cuffs made from high alloy steel,” Yaoyorozu grinned, “the best metal to resist the cold. Unless your ice can drop below liquid nitrogen levels of freezing, those cuffs won’t budge!”

“Better safe than sorry, huh?” Danny grinned back.

Wait- he lost why was he-?

Blue beams shot from his eyes and hit Yaoyorozu before she could even consider dodging, freezing her solidly on the spot and keeping just her head unfrozen.

“That’s the match. Danny wins.”

He- he could shoot ice out of his eyes as well?

Izuku was left dumbfounded, trying to piece together what It could mean about his quirk when a shadow fell over him and a concerned looking Fenton was looking down at him, “are… are you okay dude? Did I hit you too hard? I didn’t think it was a good idea to hold back-...”

Izuku shook his head, pushing himself to his feet as he watched Yaoyorozu make a key for the cuffs. Danny must have freed her while he was still reeling from the eye ice beam thing. “I’m fine- just winded,” he coughed, “that quirk is amazing, and your fighting style too! You switched so effortlessly!” Izuku delved into the fight, determined to pick out where he went wrong and how to get better. “It’s so much like Todoroki’s quirk but without the fire side of it, you must be able to have much more control over the ice- does it form from water particles in the air or do you create it on your own? Can you create eyes from anywhere else on your body or just your hands and eyes? How do you thermoregulate? That ice was really slippery too, do you control how cold it can become? Or the smoothness of it? Can you only make big pillars like that or small detailed things too-?” Izuku had to pause for a breath, which was enough time for Yaoyorozu to butt in with her own questions.

“Why doesn’t your ice melt?” She asked breathlessly.

Izuku jerked his attention towards her, “it- it doesn’t melt?”

She shook her head, “I made a flamethrower and it didn’t do anything. Not even a drop of water. I managed to only get out with an ice chipper, and if I had known you could create ice from your eyes as well, I would have made a blindfold! Just what kind of ice is this?”

Fenton shrugged casually, “I call it Phantom Ice. Because honestly it behaves weird. Like being unmeltable.”

Izuku wanted to grab his hands and beg him to make more ice, just to study it, to see the properties, to see if it was actually ice or an odd substitute.

But Mr. Aizawa took this moment of peak discovery to step in, “you can discuss your quirk properties later, but now I want you to figure out why Danny beat both of you and how he could have pulled through with a swiffer win.”

Izuku nodded, but his mind was still focused on Fentons quirk, so much that he noticed that it may affect his body’s biology based on the cold mist that seemed to escape his lips every few seconds.

Must be a side effect of his quirk.

—————————————————————

Danny could barely hide his relief when the class ended, and the students began to get ready for the next. He may be able to avoid Midoriya for a bit. For some reason, his ghost sense decided to be a bitch and go a bit haywire around him. And Danny knew he wasn’t a ghost, and it wasn’t a death type of sense either. Well not really. It was… hiccups. Ghost sense hiccups.

And worse; Midoriya seemed to notice his sense.

He never felt more relieved to have chosen ice as his ‘quirk’ than in that moment, because he could just chalk it up to a side effect or something. Sometimes he just- breaths out cold air! No big deal!

He was about to head to the next class as well when Aizawa called out, “Denki, Fenton, hold back a moment.”

He hung back, noticing some other kid freeze at the mention of the name, his hair slightly lifting in the air as he slowly looked over his shoulder. He had this golden shade of yellow for hair with an odd black streak that ran across his long bangs. Like a lightning bolt. Yellow eyes too. Electricity seemed to dance in his eye, along with a very scared and almost panicked look on his face. He quickly turned to the friend group he was walking away with, which included Mina from the mall. As well as a redhead that the loud and aggressive kid, Bakugou, referred to as ‘shitty hair’, and tape arm guy which he hadn’t caught the name of yet. He tried to remember this dude’s power but he must have been distracted during his fight or didn’t use it too much.

Eventually Bakugou shoved Denki toward him and Aizawa and the rest walked off, leaving their friend behind, who shakily turned toward them. “Ah- so- what's this about?”

Aizawa pointed at Danny, “Fenton needs a tutor, and I’m assigning you as that tutor.”

Danny blinked while Denki’s jaw dropped.

“Wait! Wait wait! I can’t tutor- have you seen my grades? I’m already freaking out about the final!” Denki exclaimed.

“Your English and Literature skills are your highest grade. And Danny doesn’t know how to write in Japanese, his English writing techniques are… in need of polishing as well.”

Danny huffed out a ‘Hey!’ before Denki spoke up again.

“B-but what about Midoriya? Or Iida? Or Yaoyorozu! They all would do a way better job than me! And they all have way higher grades!”

“Midoriya would quickly become distracted, while studying is a strength of his, tutoring could become disastrous due to his… problematic tendencies. Iida has his own personal issues to deal with at the moment, as well as I feel his way of tutoring won’t exactly cater to Danny’s style of study.” Danny blinked at the observation, he noticed a style of study? “And while Yaoyorozu is a viable candidate, I believe you would benefit most from this kind of interaction with your peers. You have high grades in these fields, even surpassing the giant graders of your class. You have insight in essays that others don’t even touch on, and I know you are skilled in a variety of languages.” Aizawa placed a hand on Denki’s shoulder, “you may lack in some fields of study, but Danny can help in return regarding those areas. And you are skilled in these areas enough that I know it will be beneficial for both of you. You should give yourself more credit, you’ve certainly earned your place among your peers.” Aizawa stepped back, his expression barely changing through the encouraging speech, “not to mention I feel like you two have very similar personalities. Now you can figure out times and places for these sessions to take place on your own. I’ll write you both late passes too.”

Denki and Danny shared glances to each other as Aizawa took out the passes and began to sign them, both slightly confused but their shared confusion seemed to bridge a little bit of a connection. “1 hour sessions on Mondays, Wednesday’s, and Fridays after classes?” Danny asked.

Denki grinned back, “that seems like it could work, alternating places to meet up?”

Danny nodded, “Mind coming to Aizawa’s place to start?”

Denki’s eyes widened, and then a curious and slightly devious look flashed through his eyes, “a chance to see where my homeroom teacher lives? Count me in, the guys will be ecstatic!”

Danny grinned back, and he heard Aizawa sigh, drawing back their attention.

He looked so much more tired than he did a few seconds ago, “just don’t break anything.”

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#danny phantom #danny fenton #phantom #danny #fenton #ghost #au #fic #Phan fic #writing #crossover #bnha #mha #you can’t punch a ghost #ycpag #chapter 4 #tw swearing

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tumbling-darkling · 3 years ago

Text

You Can’t Punch A Ghost

Ch 3. Goths, Jocks and Ghosts go SHOPPING

AO3

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Danny groggily left the room and shuffled into the hallway, still pretty tired from his little exploration around the city last night. When he woke up, he nearly had a panic attack, thinking he got kidnapped or something based on the change of scenery from his own familiar bedroom. Vlad has pulled that shit before, but luckily his memories caught up with him and he remembered the whole, ‘stuck in a superhero universe’.

It took him a few seconds to navigate his way towards the living room, where he heard what sounded like news was being played.

“-Endeavor successfully took down the Hero Killer, Stain. As well as saving three students from UA from the deadly villains' grasp,” Danny nearly tripped over his own feet as he glanced at the television and recognized the three students. “As the villain is now behind bars, unrest amongst the public is now eased, though there is worry about the influence Stain has left behind.”

Blade guy was called Stain? And was a hero killer? What kind of plot point villain did he stumble across last night?

“While Endeavor’s success in taking down such a villain hasn’t gone unnoticed, his popularity polls remain the same, as well as rumours of the arrest have been circling since early this morning on Internet forums. Particularly that the no. 2 hero got help from a vigilante. There is no proof of this claim so far, but time will bring the truth of the matter to light.”

… did that fire dude seriously just steal his credit? He didn’t see that dude ANYWHERE during the encounter, why the hell are they saying those three were saved? They did most of the work!

“Don’t like the number 2 hero?”

Danny jolted in surprise and whipped around to see Aizawa standing down the hall, a cup in his hand and the same tired look in his eyes as yesterday… Did he even sleep last night? “Uh-,” Danny glanced at the TV again then back at Aizawa, “n-not particularly. Dude gives off a bad vibe.”

Aizawa shuffled past him and turned off the TV, “you sleep like the dead,” he said, catching Danny’s attention again with a worried look before remembering that it was a saying and not an accusation that he was a ghost. Nope. Not everyone thinks he’s dead! Just gotta remember that fact. “I had to deal with some of my problematic students this morning, I tried to tell you but you slept through every effort I tried to wake you.”

Danny blinked in return, “It was a very… busy day yesterday.”

Aizawa nodded, “it worked out, we still have time this afternoon to go. We leave in 5 minutes.”

Danny twisted in surprise, “5 minutes? Why not 15?”

“4 minutes.”

Danny quickly realized negotiating was not going to help and bolted towards the bedroom to fetch his phone and anything else he may need. Which seemed to only be his phone.

“Run a comb through that rat's nest while you’re at it,” Aizawa called after him.

Danny huffed a little, his hair was the least of his worries, but as he stepped out of the bedroom and met Aizawa’s gaze, he crumpled and went to do as he said. “Say’s the guy who looks like he rolled out of bed,” Danny muttered. He glanced at his head and frowned at the fact that his hair did look like a worse kind of messy than his usual kind of messy. A quick comb and he was back out as Aizawa was by the door, hands in hidden pockets and a single raised eyebrow.

Then they were out the door, only this time instead of driving, Aizawa took the opposite direction of the building's garage. Instead of questioning Aizawa’s choice of walking instead of driving, he had a different question on his mind, “so what did your problematic students do to get your attention so early in the morning?” He knew what they did but he had to be a clueless teenager right? And teenagers are interested in stuff like what other teenagers do to cause problems.

Aizawa grunted, not looking back or slowing his pace as he spoke, “one did something he wasn’t supposed to do, something I never expected him to do, and two others decided to get involved.”

“Vague,” Danny stated.

Aizawa shrugged and they continued to walk in silence.

After a few minutes of silent walking, it was starting to drive Danny a little crazy, “you’re not very chatty today.”

Aizawa cast him an unamused look.

“I honestly expected more questions. Even ones like, ‘do you remember your family’, ‘does that tree look familiar’, ‘do you remember how you got here,’ that kind of stuff.”

“If your memories start coming back, you’ll mention it. Prompting questions won’t help,” Aizawa hummed.

Danny frowned, glancing around the area as they walked to find some entertainment in that. The streets were much more different at ground level in the day than they were at night. He still wasn’t quite used to people with very mutated qualities, blinking or staring too long at people with especially obvious features. Sometimes he had to speed up a little to catch up to Aizawa when he paused too long, the man didn’t seem to care much about waiting.

Then they were at the mall, or he assumed it was based on the fact that Aizawa had stopped in front of a rather large building. Something had been bugging Danny the entire walk there and as he glanced at the signs, he finally figured out what it was.

He couldn’t read the signs.

They were written in some sort of different language than english, the lines making up the script not even resembling any letters. He already had a hard time with English, his failing grade thanks to the fact that words and letters liked to float around his page ever since the accident.

He glanced back at the city signs and sure enough, all of them had the exact same kind of script. He couldn’t read any of it.

Turning back, he noticed he was losing Aizawa and rushed to catch up with him, sticking close as his lack of ability to read anything started getting concerning. He could read the numbers last night off the signs and buildings, and his phone seemed unaffected by this revelation as well, but now being unable to read anything else at all just felt… imitating. How had he not noticed this until now?

“How confident are you about going off on your own with some cash?” Aizawa suddenly asked.

Danny quickly whipped back to look at him, seeing him holding open a wallet and pulling out some paper-looking cash. He could recognize the numbers still, but the realization that he couldn’t read anything was freaking him out, “Not very confident,” Danny squawked, unable to hide his unease very well.

Aizawa raised an eyebrow, then put his wallet away as he put his hands in his pocket, “well then, lead the way.”

“Lead the- I’ve never been here before I don’t know where I’m going!” Danny yelped.

Aizawa gestured around the area, “wander, go into stores that interest you.”

“But I-,” Danny glanced at the signs again, then took a breath, it’s fine, he didn’t need to read. The stores had windows to show off what they were selling. It’s fine, things would be fine. “-Alright.” He then picked a random direction and headed that way.

As the day went on, Danny slowly began to build back his confidence, the first 15 minutes having him second guess his choices before eventually he found his stride and specifically a space themed shop. He could feel his core thrum when he found the shop, the space themed clothes and items exciting. While he couldn’t find anything relating to NASA, (did this world even have NASA?) he found a bunch of shirts with dumb space puns and went wild, casting a questioning look to Aizawa for approval before walking out of the shop with a good haul of space shirts.

They went to stop for lunch before continuing which was… even more interesting. Because this was when Danny remembered he couldn’t fucking read. He didn’t know what he was looking at, what anything meant, heck if it had some sort of lettering like English he could maybe sound it out and eat whatever they gave him but this was so forgein to him that he couldn’t even do that.

“Any preference?”

Danny glanced at Aizawa once more, doing his best to hide any panic he was feeling, “uh- not really I’ll just have whatever you’re having.” He pretended to shrug it off. Yeah, play it cool. He could eat anything, he didn’t have any food allergies and he has eaten a fair share of utensils in the past based on the fact he tends to inhale whatever was placed in front of him.

“Are you sure? It’s no problem, there’s plenty of choices,” Aizawa pressed.

Danny shook his head, “I’m sure! Whatever you’ll have, I’ll have!”

Aizawa leaned forward, and Danny could feel himself start to sweat nervously, “... alright.”

Then he stood up and headed over to one of the many food stalls, and Danny let out a nervous breath. No need to let Aizawa figure out the reading issue, it was fine.

That was odd… he felt like something was behind him-

“What are you doing with Mr. Aizawa?”

Danny shrieked, spinning and stumbling at the same time as he fell off his chair and knocked his head on the table, smacking onto the ground with a wheeze. He tensed as he glanced up at his attacker, his vision swimming before it finally focused on… a… pink… girl? Danny sat up with a shout, using the table as support to pull himself to his feet as he bristled, “who are you?”

He noticed she had a friend and had to bite back another shout of surprise, the other person's face- it was a bird face- why do people with bird faces exist- who were these people?!

“The real question is who,” the girl continued, leaning forward, “are you?”

“Maybe Mr. Aizawa just has a kid,” the bird kid said, and Danny had to suppress another surprised noise as he watched him speak. Did- did he have teeth. A beak with teeth. Was his shadow moving?

“Why wouldn’t he talk about him though? All parents talk about their kids! Unless-!” The pink girl spun on Danny with an accusingly pointed finger, “he dishonoured the family and was disowned! What did you do? Become a villain? The worst thing a child could do to get disowned by a hero parent!”

Danny tensed, feeling cornered despite the wide space around him that allowed him to just run off if he really felt like it, “I- uh- I’m not- he’s not-,” Danny stumbled over his words, not sure how to respond to these absolute strangers that seemed to know Aizawa.

“Ashido. Tokoyami.”

The duo glanced up and Danny looked over to see Aizawa had returned to save him just in time. He set the tray on the table and walked over to place himself between Danny and the two teens, “I thought you two have internships today.”

Danny had no fucking clue who Ashido was and who Tokoyami was, both names forgien to him, he only knew that Aizawa knew these other teens based on the familiarity.

“We get a day off!” The pink girl exclaimed, “who’s the kid? We saw you two hanging together! Do you have a kid, Mr. Aizawa? A secret kid? Is he in witness protection? I’ve never seen him before and you never talk about your personal life, this is like a gold mine!”

“He’s a kid I’m watching for a friend,” Aizawa lied.

Danny shot a quick glance, catching Aizawa’s eye that clearly said: go with it.

Danny subconsciously brought a hand to his neck, rubbing the back of it nervously as he spoke, “yes- uh my parents have something special they are working on and A- Mr. Aizawa here offered to take care of me while they did so.” Honestly, this is the best he’s ever managed to lie before, usually he creates a mess of lies that’s picked apart before he’s even finished. Maybe it was the fact he had Aizawa to work off of.

“I didn’t know you also had friends!” The pink girl exclaimed.

“It’s quite uncharacteristic, though he is friends with Present Mic, isn’t he?” The bird face dude hummed. “I won’t doubt that if Todoroki spots you two, he will make assumptions.”

“Hey! He’s really good at those theories!” The pink girl exclaimed, then leaned forward towards the bird-faced boy, “and Midoriya totally could be the secret love child of All Might, his quirk is so similar! And they always seem to share looks that just screams ‘secret’!” She glanced between Aizawa and Danny and whispered, “He could totally be his secret love child and the ‘parents friend’ is just a coverup.”

Danny blinked, pretending he didn’t hear it since he had an ice quirk, not a super-hearing quirk.

Suddenly he was pushed forward by Aizawa, dragging out a yelp of surprise, “Anyhow, this is Danny. Danny, these are my students, Ashido,” he gestured towards the pink girl, “and Tokoyami,” he gestured towards the bird head. Okay, Danny had names now for the two. Aizawa paused, a thought seemed to cross his mind, and Danny didn’t like the new look dawning on his face. “Maybe you should spend some time with the two, spending time with kids your age would be better than always staying close to me.”

Danny blinked, and then Ashido shrieked, linking her arm around Danny’s and dragging him back before he could react, “Yes! That sounds like a whole lot of fun! Wouldn’t you agree, Tokoyami?”

Tokoyami had his eyes closed, but nodded, “three does sound more exciting.”

“What are we waiting for! This mall is massive and we have a lot of ground to cover!”

Then Danny was being dragged away as Aizawa cast him an amused look, Danny barely registering the fact that Aizawa had placed his lunch into his arms before he was dragged around the corner.

Encountering his students at the mall was unexpected, but not unwelcome. At least they weren’t causing trouble like his other students.

What caught his attention between the exchange though was how easily Danny managed to lie, and so quickly as well. There was no hesitation, quickly and casually slipping into the lie Shouta had set up.

It’s like he did it often from how easily he ran with the lie.

So what did that tell Shouta about his past?

His theory on illegal experimentation came to mind once more, lying is not always the result of bad intentions, in fact it more often lies in the desire to survive.

He probably should have thought more on encouraging his students to drag Danny around, but they were very promising kids who had experience with danger and knew how to deal with it. And Danny did need to interact with people his age, it could spark memories, or at the very least start building up relationships. Friends. Keeping him away from that kind of thing was never very socially healthy.

Maybe the pair will drag more secrets out of the mysterious kid, especially since Shouta already suspected he was hiding something from him.

These two were… a very odd pair. Tokoyami didn’t speak much, but did sprinkle in some talk of darkness and such. He even spoke a little about spirits, almost giving Danny another heart attack before he realized he was referring to the general myth of them and connecting them to his talk of gloom and darkness. He reminded Danny a lot of Sam, but more goth? If that was possible.

Mina was very loud, bright, and full of life. She carried all of the conversation. Which was mostly about being a hero, fashion trends, and anything that caught her interest.

The three explored the mall at various paces based on who decided to lead, Ashido was very fast paced and dragged them to stores with the flashiest clothes. She pulled out bright pink cheetah print tights, neon yellow and turquoise crop tops, flame patterned cowboy boots; if it was bright, wild, and fun, it caught her eye. She even managed to convince Danny to try on some star shaped shades, which he only agreed to get if Tokoyami did as well.

Before he knew it, the three of them had matching pairs of shades and were heading towards Tokoyami’s favourite store. The moment they stepped in, Danny became painfully reminded of Sam. It had only been a day- but it was still a painful reminder he still had no idea how to get home. Tokoyami snapped him out of the reminders by leading him to a wall filled with ‘spirit crystals’, crystals that held spirits and glowed when free spirits would pass by. It was a relief to know they were fake when none of them reacted to Danny, but something else caught his attention. Off to the side were more tables of crystals and rocks, but one section was specifically labelled ‘meteorite’. He leaned over the minerals, excitement filling his entire being as he picked out a particularly interesting one. “Are these actually from space?” He asked, glancing at Tokoyami.

The bird headed goth shrugged, “I believe so, it’s quite easy for some people to get to space with their quirk, and then bring back some minerals. This store particularly carries genuine products from my experience.”

How could he not get the meteorite piece? It’s from a different dimension! From a different dimension’s space!

He actually found himself… enjoying some of the time being spent with the pair, there was a very nice balance between them. Then Mina opened up the can of worms as she spoke of her and her classmates' exploits so far in the short time they had spent at the school.

“Then the astronaut hero Thirteen was taken out! It was terrifying-!”

“Astronaut… hero?” Danny steadied his breath, there were space themed heroes? Of course there were, in a world of superheroes it would be weird if someone wasn’t space themed.

“Yeah! Thirteen! They’re really cool, they wear this astronaut suit all the time because their quirk is wicked dangerous. I was so scared they died during the attack but in the end they were totally fine! Which was a plus!”

Danny would have to look up this hero some other time… in fact he may have to find information on all the heroes in the area. He’s already been painted as a vigilante by the one dude last night, and he planned on looking for answers as Phantom when he could, which meant avoiding heroes. But they were popular, which means with the right information he would know how to avoid them.

He was about to ask her more about the astronaut hero (like maybe everything she knew about the hero), when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he felt something was wrong. It wasn’t a ghost sense, but he knew the feeling of danger before it became clear. “Get down!” He hissed, dragging the two to the ground just as the glass behind them exploded, sending shards in all directions. Some goonish dude crawled out of the store, his skin looked like it was dripping oil, pooling at his feet as he left behind footprints. The pair glanced over their shoulders as Danny tried to find a private spot to transform-...

Wait a second.

Danny Fenton has an Ice Quirk.

Before the other two could react, Danny placed a hand on the ground and let his ice core bloom in his chest, the chill spreading through his body before sending it through the ground towards the villain.

The villain was slowly making their way forward before they stopped, Danny’s ice reaching their slimy feet and freezing them to the ground. The villain paused and looked down with a confused frown, then Danny poured more energy into the ice, sending it spiking up the villain as they shrieked in alarm, and as quickly as they appeared, they were entirely encased in ice within mere seconds. He didn’t worry too much about the villain getting hyperthermia, ghost ice being freezing cold but not causing permanent damage to the living. It felt cold, it had the sensation of cold, but Danny knew it didn’t actually cause frostbite to humans. It was… weird. Since it also was extremely difficult to melt.

But he didn’t regret deciding on the ice to be Fenton’s quirk.

He quickly melted the trail leading to his hand as he stood up, faking shaking knees as he glanced at the stunned pair, “that was… weird,” Danny faked a waver in his voice to mimic fear.

Security guards were on the scene in a few seconds, and then came more brightly dressed people who scratched their heads at the ice and the villain encased inside, the villains eyes the only thing that could move at the moment. Then they began to quickly chip at the ice, realizing they needed more power when that didn’t work. As much as Danny could just melt it by touching it, he decided to take a step away instead of attracting too much attention.

“Who do you think did that?” Ashido whispered.

“Danny.”

Danny flinched and slowly peeked over his shoulder to see Aizawa storming towards the three, then remembered Aizawa probably knew about the ice- oh fuck-

Aizawa snatched him by the collar of his shirt and Danny cried out and flailed as the man dragged him over to the ice and other heroes, who looked confused at the display of the pair.

“Melt it. Now. Before you kill him.”

Danny hunched his shoulders, glancing at all the staring eyes before quickly placing a hand on the ice and letting it melt under his hand. It seemed to evaporate instead of turning into a puddle, disappearing in seconds and letting the villain drop and shiver on the ground. Danny pulled his hand back and shoved it into his pocket, “he would’ve been fine.”

“You can’t use your quirk in public, you don’t have a license.”

“He nearly plowed me, Ashido, and Tokoyami over! I was making sure he didn’t stomp on more kids!” Danny hissed. He helped. Should it really matter if he had a license or whatever when he stopped a villain from causing harm? And property damage? This was the least property damage he's ever caused, that had to count for something.

“If everyone went around, using their quirks like pro heroes and those who are licensed, they could cause more damage and harm because of the lack of training. You barely remember your past, you could have lost control and killed someone, and encasing someone in ice will suffocate and kill them.”

“I have control and my ice doesn’t hurt people like that!” Danny snapped.

“And how do you know that?”

“I just do!” Danny shouted as he threw up his hands. Then he saw a look in Aizawa’s eyes and realized he made a mistake. Shit. That was a suspicious look. One that said, ‘we will discuss this further in private’. He knew it from Jazz way too well.

He pulled away from Aizawa and sulked over to a wall, feeling his chest tighten as panic began to sink in. He’s going to ask about the ice, how he knows the effects of it, going to ask why he was so quick to react to the attack, he bet Ashido and Tokoyami might mention how he shoved them to the ground before the robbery even happened. There will be questions about that too. Should he disappear? Turn invisible and walk off? Not look back? He dug himself so deep in this hole- it’s barely been a day and he already fucked everything up.

Someone touched his arm and he flinched away with a sharp hiss, glancing up to see it was Aizawa.

He should run.

He was good at running.

Being a ghost made it so easy to disappear.

He could make it where he couldn’t be found.

When people didn’t have ghost tech, he could disappear for as long as he wanted.

Just walk through a wall and leave.

“Kid.”

Danny didn’t meet Aizawa’s eyes. Why wasn’t he just running?

“I shouldn’t have snapped. You’re still probably dealing with missing memories, forgetting things, working on instinct. There’s a lot of laws dealing with quirks, and I just dealt with three of my students doing what you just did.”

Danny still didn’t want to meet his gaze.

“You wanted to help. I see you have the same recklessness as some students of mine, and you did what you thought was right. You did help, this time, and there’s a lot of willingness to let this go based on the lack of witnesses and lack of damage done.”

“Then what?”

Aizawa paused, “what do you mean, ‘then what’?”

“Are you going to send me to the child services or whatever? Interrogate me?”

“No. I’ll ask questions once we return to the apartment but I won’t require you to answer them.”

For some reason, this started to frustrate Danny, “why not?” Was it because he kept acting like this was fine? Why was his voice so calm? Why was he apologizing to Danny? Why was he still treating him nicely? Giving him space when Danny was clearly hiding something? Why the hell didn’t he just leave?

“Because no one will benefit from forcing answers out of someone who’s unwilling to give them out of fear.”

Danny finally glanced up, expecting a cold gaze but being hit with a softer one instead. He hunched his shoulders, slumping against the wall.

He thought he was pretty good at hiding his fear so far. Guess he was wrong.

As promised, Shouta asked Danny questions about his quirk. And Danny got to choose what he wanted to share and what he didn’t.

Danny shared facts about his quirk, describing it as ‘unable to permanently hurt anyone alive’. But he didn’t share how he knew about this fact, or why he was so sure he could control it.

The concern Shouta had in regards to how the situation was handled had led him to a lack of emotional control and snapping at the kid. He could also blame his long morning and dealing with this felt like déjà vu from earlier with his students. But that didn’t excuse how he reacted. And he regretted his outburst. Though as he thought back to it, another reason for his reaction came from how the whole incident was handled.

It wasn’t handled by someone who didn’t know how to use their quirk or had never been in combat before.

There was minimal damage, in fact the only damage that was done was done by the villain. Danny’s ice didn’t cause any issues. It didn’t crack the floors, didn’t pierce the ceilings, it was all contained and focused on the villain. It was a fast reaction, almost like a second nature, as described by his students. They said he pushed them out of the way before the store exploded, then froze the villain before he was even aware of his surroundings. And the kid was right about the ice properties of his quirk.

The villain said that it was cold when he was frozen, that he couldn’t move but he could still manage to breathe, like in a dream. And doctors didn’t report signs of frostbite or hyperthermia. He was just a little chilly and drowsy afterwards.

Another concerning fact was that he used his quirk very quietly, in fact Tokoyami and Ashido never suspected him. He had experience in secretive use of his quirk. He had experience in containing damage. He had experience in dangerous situations.

Then there were some little things Shouta was slowly noticing, how Danny’s eyes would scan every nearby area starting with the darkest corners. He took note of it when he brought him to his apartment yesterday, he expected the kid to be a little paranoid, but during their walk to the mall it became more apparent that he always checked the dark areas. Alleys, inclove corners, tensing a little when they walked past corners he couldn’t fully see around. Paranoid. As if expecting the worst to jump out at any moment.

Combat experience and trained paranoia hinted that either these were skills rooted into his mind where even without memories he was subconsciously using them, or he knew more than he was telling Shouta.

And he was growing more and more concerned about the skill that Danny actually possessed, how much was being held back, and for what purpose had he been taught it. Who had taught him to use his abilities so skillfully, and why.

Danny had hidden in the room Shouta had given him after they had spoken, having ducked his head and disappeared so quickly and quietly, Shouta had been surprised his feet had even touched the ground.

So much wasn’t adding up, and again Shouta didn’t want to press for facts. Not yet. It had barely been a day, and if Shouta wanted honest answers without chasing Danny off, he had to be patient.

He thought he was almost about to make a run for it earlier, the way the kid kept eyeing the windows at the mall or nearby doors, he was so sure that the kid was going to bolt.

What exactly could he be running from?

Danny stared at his phone, scrolling through the contacts and phone numbers that didn’t work as the scenes from the day flashed through his head. Did Vlad do this all on purpose? Drag Danny out of Amity just to toss him through a well timed portal and get him out of the way? He was having such a hard time remembering what happened after Vlad tackled him- or did he tackle Vlad? The fight was a blur at this point, the hospital people told him he had a head wound when he came in, so he hit his head and his memories were a mess. Which didn’t help him in trying to find where he showed up in the world and maybe could find a way to track the portals.

He opened the notes app again, reading over Clockwork's message again with even more frustration. Usually he hints at what Danny needed to do in these kinds of situations but this was just getting ridiculous!

‘Remember to follow your heart.’

The words mocked him.

Follow it where? How the hell does he follow his heart? Will it lead him home or will it lead him to whatever he was supposed to do in this world? It was all just-! Frustrating!

He dropped his phone back onto the side table, deciding that staring at it wouldn’t help much other than flare his temper. Just clear his head…

Danny took a heavy breath, then held it for a few seconds before letting it out. Frost that had been creeping along his sheets crinkled as he shifted back into a sitting position. A knock at the door caused Danny to jump, quickly patting the frost away to melt it and hissing as it just turned to water and made the sheets wet. He wanted to make it evaporate like before, not turn his bed into a water bed-!

“Danny-,” the door opened and Aizawa paused as he looked at Danny, halfway through smacking his now wet bed that made a ‘squelch’ noise that seemed to echo in the heavy silence.

Danny immediately felt his face flush in embarrassment, staring back into those overly tired eyes of the man who took him in.

Aizawa then shattered the silence as he continued on, averting his gaze to a nearby wall instead of directly at Danny, “we need to discuss your integration into UA next week, and get some food while we discuss.”

Danny slowly blinked, “... right, yes. I’ll be out in a minute,” he squeaked.

Aizawa nodded and then turned and walked back out, closing the door behind him.

Danny groaned in embarrassment and dropped his head into the soggy bed, forgetting that it was wet and now his face felt like a wet sock. He was starting to look like a clumsy idiot who didn’t know what he was doing and now Aizawa had just witnessed him wetting the bed. With ghost frost, not pee but still-!

For some reason the embarrassment was slightly… comforting.

It felt just like he was at home.

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#danny phantom #danny fenton #phantom #danny #fenton #ghost #au #crossover #you can’t punch a ghost #ycpag #chapter 3 #fic #phan fic #writing #tw swearing #bnha #mha

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tumbling-darkling · 3 years ago

Text

You Can’t Punch A Ghost

Ch 5. Tutors and Secrets (which Danny is terrible at one of these things)

AO3

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Danny hated to admit it but Denki was easy to get along with, they clicked pretty quickly right after the training session and even a little more throughout the day. Denki wasn’t kidding when he talked about some of his garbage grades, the guy had some kind of attention related issues. Likely ADHD or something along the line of that. He also mentioned he was aware of it during the tutoring session, as Denki must have noticed Danny’s shit handwriting, as well as the halfa’s hard time trying to focus on the lines on the page as they kept threatening to float around in his vision while they practiced the various Japanese writing forms. Which was primarily ‘hiragana’ for the first session. Danny didn’t really want to admit his struggle, but Denki made it ridiculously easy to open up to. He got frustrated and dropped his pencil, huffing about the floating lines and symbols, which Denki overheard his mumbling and leaned forward, “dude that sounds like a wild case of DYSLEXIA.”

Then Denki pulled out his phone and searched up ‘reading tips for those with dyslexia’, humming as he scrolled through results then wrote some of them onto a piece of paper. He then turned to Danny with a grin and began to read out the tips while pulling out a laptop. They took the session slowly, Denki pointing out the different keys of the laptop and sounding out the hiragana. He told Danny to take his time instead of trying to rush, that there wasn’t a time limit and Aizawa didn’t expect him to write like some famous poet, just know how to read basic words at his own pace. He even suggested asking to take oral exams or exams with extended times, and that by telling Aizawa, he wouldn’t hesitate to accommodate those needs. Danny of course hesitated, it felt like cheating. Special treatment. Then Denki admitted he took oral exams, that sometimes his brain ‘short circuits’ when writing and that Aizawa was the one who recommended the oral exams when Denki admitted this fact. That it helps and it was fair, bringing up a saying about fish climbing trees.

And it made Danny feel a little better about it. In fact, he felt a little better about a lot of things during the session. They took some time to study some science and Danny helped out Denki in return. They both had fields they were comfortable in and ones they lacked but it felt like they were on the same level the entire session.

It was… nice.

Then the session was over and Denki packed up and left, and Danny retreated to his room to sneak out the window for a quick little look around the city once more, wanting to practice some of the reading he just learned.

He had just changed forms when Denki opened the door.

“Hey Danny, I’m missing a pen, it’s my favourite cause it’s shaped like lightning, have you seen-,” Denki looked up and froze as he spotted Danny’s floating, glowing form. “HOLY SHIT YOU’RE THAT VIGILANTE ON THE NEWS-! SPOOKY BOY!”

Danny blinked- Wait they were calling him SPOOKY BOY? It’s not worse than invis-o-Bill. But it was still horrid. He was going to have to start declaring his name again- and just Phantom- didn’t need the first name to get the dots connected. Or more wild theories to emerge from it.

“Wait a moment- why are you in Danny’s room- why are you in Mr. Aizawa’s HOUSE?” Denki suddenly shifted to a more defensive stance, “Where’s Danny? I saw him come in here! What did you do to him?”

Danny held up his hands, “I can explain-!”

“Did you kidnap him? Or hurt him? Look I may only know him for a day but he’s my classmate, dude, and you don’t mess with Class 1-A classmates!”

“Just give me a moment-!” Danny tried to speak before Denki jumped in again.

“No! No explanations! Where’s Danny?!” Danny felt the hair on his neck stand on end before he noticed the sparks jumping off Denki.

And that’s when panic took hold of his chest as his core began to thrum rapidly and the room temperature dropped. His ghost rays activated in his palms subconsciously as he floated backwards, the scars that were starting to itch now beginning to burn.

Electricity- the yellow hair and lightning bolt streak- his quirk was some sort of electric quirk-!

The ghost rays and drop in temperatures must have spooked Denki, because in a split second, all of Danny’s hair was standing on end and then his whole body was on fire.

Danny knew he was screaming even as the noise failed to reach his own ears through the pounding of his own core, lava running through every nerve in his body as he stumbled backwards, hitting the window sill and falling out of the building.

He couldn’t feel the impact when he hit the ground, couldn’t feel the ache that came when he usually was tossed around by other ghosts.

Just the burning nerves, the memories that surfaced, unimaginable pain reaching every inch of his being. Burning. Boiling. His blood bubbling from the heat, choking on his own burnt tongue, his eyes threatening to burst, nothing he was able to do that would allow him to escape it. Just pain.

Pain.

Hurt.

Stop.

Make it stop.

Just end it.

Let him die so it would stop.

Stop.

Stop!

S̵̜͘t̷̻̆o̸̰͊p̸̩͛!̷͇͠

S̴̙̹̖̘̠͎̽̐̌̓t̸̛̮̬̻͈̏͌ŏ̷̧͆̿̇͠͝p̸̡͚̹̠̗͆̊̿

S̷̮̰̩̦̳̲̬̭̩̗̰̤̮̻̏̊̄̋̆̇͝t̸̻̊͑͠o̸̬̼̰̝̐̾̅ṗ̷̡̰͚͈̤͐͛̊̿́s̵̨̨̡̪̺̜̲͖̤̟̹͔͙̖͚͛t̵̢̛̪̩̬͎̉́͐͆͐͗̽͗̋͘͝o̷̧̢̧͚̝̫͚̘̳͈͔̰̺̠̕͠p̴̢̰̘͎͕͈̜̖̦͈̤̗͉͖̒̇͋́̀͗̂̑̇̚͘͝ͅş̷̡̝̣̝͕̟̩̻̜̰̝̏̈́͂t̴̡̡̛̛̳͕̞̺͚̰̯̽̿̄̏̀̈̃̋̀̍̓̍͘͘o̵͉̮͈̝̹͈͖̳̦̙͕̻̎̈́̈̓̿̐̌̊̋̎̈̍̀͋͘̚ͅp̵̨̪̞̥̯̠͈̞̼̣̱̿͑̿̉͐̂ś̸̨͙̼̮͚͔̀͆̀t̴̞̺͍͙̼̝̮̖͇͓́̿͂̍̄̈́͐̽̿̂̏́͆̓͘͝ơ̶̡̨̛̰̫̳̮̑̅̂͊̃̐͒̐̕͜p̵̨̛̺̭͍̱̖̜̖͚͔̽͆̃̓͆͑̏̔̒̄̾͗͝ş̴͚̘̲͈͍͓̣̠̭̞̹͆̌̽̂̀̕̕͜͝ţ̶̞͕̦͙͈̱̯͎̹̰̼͑̋̈́̋͐͐̄̎̓͘͝͝ở̵̢͚̮̟͔̺̬̙̳͖͈̩́̄̿̆͋̀̒͝͝ṗ̵͎̫͙̫͈͙͒͐-̸̨̻͙̭̝̪̫͉͓̞̼͆̈́͋̿̃

It stopped.

It took Danny a moment to realize it stopped. When did it all stop?

He slowly opened his eyes that had been squeezed shut, a pounding ache just behind them. His face felt hot and wet, and he slowly dragged a hand that was clutching his shoulder to his face, wiping off the wetness to look at it.

Clear. Must be tears.

He twisted his gaze away from his own hand and looked up at the shadow hanging over him and nearly bolted away in surprise, but all he did instead was violently flinch.

“-nny! Danny!”

Danny finally was able to focus, recognizing Denki’s face, worry etched in every feature.

“Can you hear me? Nod if you can hear me!”

Danny managed to shakily nod his head, his brain making his thoughts a little jumbled. What was he doing? Where was he again?

“Holy shit- oh fuck I’m so sorry- I didn’t know you could do that! And your hands started to glow- then the temperature dropped and I freaked out- because you looked freaking terrifying! Eyes glowing and your room was dark so I went to stun you- I must have been turned up too high because you started to scream and then you fell backwards-! Oh god what about your ribs? What’s broken? You fell like 5 stories and the cement is a little cracked-! Fuck if you just told me it was you I wouldn’t have tried to attack! I’m so fucking sorry, oh fuck a hospital! I should call a hospital!”

Danny jerked around the mention of the hospital, “n-no! No hospital! It will heal!” He hissed, propping himself up by his elbows. “I’m fine,”—he could still feel the lava, the itch of pain that passed. The memory still fresh—“I’m fine, Denki.” He then paused as his brain seemed to reboot, “Wait- did… I…” he pulled his hair in front of his eyes.

Black.

Oh.

Oh shit.

“Are you sure? Like I said it was like a 5 story drop.”

“Yes! Yes I’m- you saw me transform?” He had to- he’s calling him ‘Danny’ and was apologizing for the- the shock.

“Yeah- the ring stuff right? Dude if I had known you were Spooky Boy-.”

“Please- please don’t call me spooky boy. I go by Phantom when in that form.”

“Well- why didn’t you tell me you were a vigilante? Or had more than just an ice quirk- does Mr. Aizawa know?”

“No! No, he doesn’t know!” Danny exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. He only felt slightly bruised as moved, which was a given since his ghost form was kinda built to take a hit. “And you can’t tell him! You can’t tell anyone!”

“Why not? You would be wildly popular! Heck, spooky- Phantom is super popular already as a vigilante! I’m sure Mr. Aizawa could smooth out any legal issues with the vigilante stuff-,” Denki rambled before Danny grabbed him by the shoulders to stop him.

“Nobody. Can. Know,” he emphasized.

“But- is it because you have like 10 quirks? Or how you got your quirks? Do you have a secret past?”

“I’m not from here!!” Danny burst out, getting overwhelmed by the questions.

“Yeah I know, you’re american,” Denki stated, clearly not getting it.

“No! No, I’m not from this world!” Danny hissed.

Denki paused, “you…. are an alien?”

Danny wanted to scream. Unfortunately he was all screamed out. “No. No, a different dimension! Look, my world is connected to a dimension full of ectoplasmic creatures we call ghosts, and in that dimension portals like to pop up all willy nilly to different times and apparently, different dimensions. Sometimes those portals leak into my world and I accidently fell into one. I’m not- in my world nobody is born with powers. I got mine in an accident. And if people knew about it, then my friends and family would be in danger, and my life could be spent running from freaks who want to do- who fucking knows what with what I have. So- nobody can know, alright? If Phantom remains as a ghost and Danny remains human, then there’s no connection, and no problems.”

Denki had been slowly nodding his head as he listened, then he spoke, “okay. So different dimensions… weird. But it’s not entirely unbelievable. But the secret identity thing- you know that Mr. Aizawa would help you, right? He could help with this whole dimension thing, get you home!”

Danny shook his head, “no! No look, I don’t know what kind of villains this world has but it would NOT be good for Aizawa or your school if they found out that I was going there, or staying with him! I’ve barely been here a week and my powers- they aren’t easy to counter in this world. Look it’s just- it’s best if nobody knows. Okay? Please just- just trust me on this.”

Denki paused for a second, then nodded, “alright, I can keep quiet. Though I still think your reasoning is dumb. Which is coming from me. Quick question, can I help?”

Danny blinked, “you… want to help me?”

“Well, duh! Hero in training! Also I feel really bad about, like, shooting you out a window. Seriously, I thought I was set to stun, I never meant for it-!”

Danny held up his hands, stopping Denki mid sentence, “it’s fine. Don’t worry about it, alright?” he smiled.

Denki nodded, then leaned forward suddenly, causing Danny to jump back in surprise, “okay, so how many quirks do you have? And what’s with the super cool costume change? And how have I never noticed? How has anyone never noticed?”

Danny sighed, “let’s just, head back inside and I’ll explain. Oh, and if anyone asks about the messed up cement, let’s just say a hero crashed there and ran off or something.”

Denki took his time walking home, his mind swirling with a large number of thoughts. Mostly in relation to his new pal, Danny.

The American dimension hopper.

That would make such a funny comic series. But Denki would dress him more like a cowboy and he would have a horse that’s his best friend and they meet a really cool, electric dude that just happens to be called Denki and go on wild adventures in the various dimensions of reality.

No wait- his thoughts were derailing. Back to Danny.

Back to the fact that everything was real. That Danny came from a world where powers weren’t the norm but ghosts were. That ghosts existed at all was a wild thought but then Danny started to talk about how his ghosts were only powerful where he came from because of an element called ectoplasm. And while Denki couldn’t really wrap his head around how that works, he did understand that apparently, souls could imprint on large amounts of ectoplasm and essentially create a new host or body for the soul. That ghosts aren’t always souls of people but could be powerful elements given sentience or ectoplasm exposed to strong emotions to create smaller beings. That not all people become ghosts when they die.

And that Danny had told him he was only half ghost. That he died in an accident, which he refused to explain exactly how, only huffing out that he died by doing too dope of a skater trick, which Denki was 90% sure was untrue.

The whole half dead part really was taking a toll on his mind, and death in general. Sometimes it’s so easy to forget that Hero work is really dangerous, that heroes die a lot in the line of work. And nobody really mentions the death part. Not enough for anyone to put too much thought into what could happen after. Would he become a ghost? Would he disappear? He wasn’t really in a hurry to find out.

He also was in charge of a secret. One he couldn’t tell Kiri or Bakugou or Sero or even Mina (she would especially spread the information like wildfire), a secret between him and Danny. One that Danny trusted him to keep. Well he didn’t have a choice but still! It was a secret he had to keep for the sake of Danny!

He paused for a second, he told him he would help too. Help him figure out how to get back to his home. He could do that! Maybe do some reading about it! Find some science facilities or something that mention dimension hopping or studies about it!

Study sessions just got 1000% more interesting!

Toshinori Yagi had faced death.

He’d seen it often. It’s something you can’t avoid when you are a hero for decades. It’s something you will face, something you have to accept, but something that is very difficult to understand. He had seen it since he was young, and even people who are not heroes face death. But it is so much more violent when taking the responsibility to protect others.

He watched Nana lay down her life for the sake of protection. He’s seen friends, co-workers, even strangers in the heroic duty fall and rarely was it painless or quick. When you’re faced with danger with a heroic morality, it’s difficult to step back to let someone else handle a situation. Instead you fight. You fight through your pain, fight through collapsing lungs and shattered limbs, you fight until it’s impossible to move. You fight until you’re dead.

And it’s never peaceful.

You can be told that it was heroic. That the fallen will be remembered as heroes.

But that doesn’t take away the fact that those who are dying die too young. That their hearts shatter with their broken bodies. That many die not knowing if their sacrifice was enough. That many die with tears in their eyes not because of pain, but because they aren’t ready to give up life yet. They are scared all the way up to their final breath. And that not all of them can die surrounded by friends or family, that most die alone, choking on their own blood.

Heroics could be a war zone.

And Toshinori had fought every second of his career to make sure that the children entering the field would never have to face the horrors of death. To train them so they would know when to ask for backup, call for help, so they would never have to die, not alone, not in pain, never again abandoned. No more sacrifices.

But how can they prepare for the unprepared?

In the aftermath of the USJ and Stain, Toshinori had started to become paranoid. The kids seemed to be handling it fine, better than he expected, but that may only be because nobody had died. Moods would have shifted, changed even if Shouta had lost his life during the USJ attack. Even serious injuries to family had driven a young and promising student to acts of revenge.

And then he swore he met death.

He was preparing for classes on the first day back from the students' internships, moving papers between classes when he bumped into Shouta. More specifically, he bumped into the child with Shouta.

But he didn’t see a child. Not at first.

He saw death itself.

Hollow sockets, with glowing green dots within the darkness as eyes that seemed to pierce through his soul. Paper thin skin that reveals all the veins, organs, and skeleton, lichtenberg marks coating it’s left arm and extending to its chest, flashing a toxic green every few seconds. Elongated features, arms and fingers that were too skinny and too long, sharp cheeks and sharper teeth. Too white of hair wisping around death's face like it was caught underwater, a blackened crown covered in green flames hovering over its head. The smell of burning flesh and static, the echoing screams of a dying child. The overwhelming pressure that squeezed the air around them.

Scared was the wrong word.

He was petrified.

He thought death had finally decided to take his soul. That his heart finally gave out, that he took the wrong dose of medication that morning, that a villain must have finally gotten in that final lucky hit. And he only worried for young Midoriya, fearing that he would have to face a foe he knew nothing about. One that Toshinori believed to have been dead. One that could kill him just as easily as he killed Nana.

He felt so small, smaller than when he watched his mentor die, smaller than when he finally delivered what he believed was the final blow to All for One. Smaller than when he lay on the cold, hard ground, bleeding out with half his organs strewn across the earth.

Then it all lifted.

Like waking from a nightmare.

His heart still pounded in his chest, the shadow of death still hung over the child that took death's place, and the fear was still pumping adrenaline through his veins.

It took all the willpower in the world to keep from transforming and smashing the child out of the building.

Was he really a child?

How much of it was just a hallucination?

He barely caught his name as Shouta introduced him.

Danny Fenton.

It didn’t ring any bells. No clues to who he could be. What he could be.

He plastered on a meek smile, shook the boy’s hand, which was too cold. Like a corpse.

And then the meeting was over and they both walked off.

And Toshinori couldn’t help but glance back, to see if he would see death once more where the boy stood. But instead he caught the boy’s too blue eyes, even Toshinori’s eyes didn’t have the chill and off-ness that the boy did. He quickly turned his gaze away, something within him screaming at him to run. To stop drawing it’s attention. Get away.

Returning to his office, he nearly slammed the door off its hinges in his rush.

His heart was still hammering against his ribcage.

He was just a kid- maybe his quirk was a nightmare quirk.

It had to be.

… Right?

An old ghost floated in their lair, staring at a large clock face that had gone black.

A Master of Time was just that, a master only of time itself, and not space.

The Master of Space was still being brought up. Still learning his place, his role in the zone. Clockwork took the responsibility in becoming his ghostly guardian, his teacher, and his protector from responsibilities he was not ready for.

But it was difficult when he was usually limited to one space. One world with a large variety of timelines to guard and watch over. Space and time worked together but were so different, space being affected by time and time being affected by space.

Clockwork had gone a long time without a counter. But he knew when he would show up. How he would grow. The decisions he would make. The zone itself used to be a counter, but it needed a Master. And who better than the boy that defeated the old king?

Now Clockwork, for the first time in eons, was at a loss.

The small rivers of time were so fickle. He barely had any time to react when the current timeline slipped through the cracks. When the low chance of a portal opening at the specific moments and times were near impossible. And the chance of leading to not only a different time but different space?

It never should have happened.

But it had.

And Daniel’s future was unwritten, the rivers of time stopped because how could time predict the future of someone who wasn’t in the time stream anymore?

Clockwork could not know if Daniel would ever return, could ever return? How much of this was meant to happen? He couldn’t even prevent Daniel from entering it, he could only guide him forward.

He only had a little time to send a message through the child’s device, telling him to trust his heart. To make the right choices.

He had hoped it would ease the boy's nerves when he realized how far from home he had become, to have him believe this was planned.

But it wasn’t.

It wasn’t planned.

And he couldn’t let Daniel be lost forever.

Clockwork waved his staff, searching the clock faces in front of him as they all shifted, the hands turning at rapid speeds, images passing by by the thousands in a blink of an eye.

Then another wave and they all stopped, and Clockwork took note of the date and location.

Turning to leave his lair he paused, doubt crossing his mind.

Causing him to laugh to himself.

Doubt.

There was no doubt with Daniel.

He continued forward, the doubt gone and newfound desire coursing through his being.

This world would be fine without him for the time being.

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#danny phantom #danny fenton #phantom #danny #fenton #ghost #au #you can’t punch a ghost #ycpag #fanfic #fic #phan fic #writing #crossover #bnha #mha #tw swearing

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