When Phantoms Fly the Coop

by XoMintyBreezeXo

Summary:

The Justice League FINALLY investigates Amity and realizes that they’ve made a grave mistake by letting a burgeoning hero shoulder a large problem without any training or support. They rectify this immediately by offering a position in the JL along with an assortment of mentors and other teen heroes to bond with.

Red Huntress receives this invitation in front of Phantom, while actively trying to hunt him down.

Or;

Danny leaves Amity and the mortal realm behind after he is labelled as a villain by the Justice League and the rest of the world. Red Huntress, or Valerie Gray, will be fine without him.

Right?

Chapter 1

Notes:

I'm sorry if the writing style looks off. I copied this from my Tumblr draft of this post, and it's formatted exactly like this. I don't plan to add to my Tumblr draft, so future chapters may look different.

Just a heads up. Hope you enjoyed this little intro to this fic!

Danny was tired. And angry. And scared. And confused.

Danny was a lot of things right now, but most of all, he was over it.

What is it, you may ask? Everything. The ghost fights. The being hunted. The slipping grades. The bullying. The contempt of the town and now the world at large. And heck, considering that the Green Lanterns work with the Justice League, maybe even the universe. He wonders if the Guardian Green Lanterns have been informed of the villain Phantom yet and if they will be informed at all.

Before Danny had fully processed this information and everything it implied for him going forward, he was still in shock that Red Huntress, the ghost hunter, who spewed bias and hatred like it was her native language, was the hero here.

"Never before have I seen someone so young, and without so much as a mentor or friends to help out, be so courageous and strong." That was what Wonder Woman said during her part of the Please join us speech that they had to have prepared and practiced beforehand.

Red Huntress, who chased ghosts not to catch and return them to the Ghost Zone, like Phantom, or even to research(experiment) on, like the Fentons and the Guys in White, but to destroy, was the hero.

Not murder, not even kill, as far as the press and public were concerned. But destroy. Crush. Like ghosts were overpowered insects and not sentient and sapient individuals.

Danny didn't even know what to think or say about the Justice League yet, so he tried not to think or say anything. At least, not until it fully sunk in that the heroes whom he'd admired for their strength and bravery, who Danny, even before becoming a hero, of a kind, himself, understood were flawed and had their issues and weaknesses, thought him to be an evil, unfeeling thing. Danny, who had looked up to those heroes despite knowing that no one, not even the strongest or smartest of them, was truly indomitable, truly untouchable, was something malicious to those same heroes who had fought so hard for Meta rights and protections.

And Danny was tired. The kinda tired that took hold in your soul and didn't release until you were well and buried and truly gone. Except Danny would never be gone, now. The stupid portal incident made sure of that.

If there had been even a small chance Danny would one day die and stay gone forever, not even coming back as a shade or blob ghost, it was dashed the moment Danny made the amazing mistake of stepping into his parents' the Fentons' faulty portal.

Danny, for 2 years now, had been made to protect the town from rampaging ghosts, and after the first year and into the second, the ghosts from humans.

Danny had sacrificed as much of himself as possible to protect. To guard. To keep people safe. To keep the peace.

He'd sacrificed his grades, his mental health, his physical health, and the high regard of family and connection he'd placed on the Dr. Fentons his entire life. He'd sacrificed his body, his safety, his self-respect and most of all, his self-image, to protect a town full of people who'd made it clear his whole life that they didn't care if he lived or died.

As Phantom, that much was obvious. As Fenton? It was subtle, yet somehow even more insidious.

He was the weirdo Fentons' son, having committed the grave sin of being born to the town freaks.

Except Jazz wasn't treated anything like he was, despite being their daughter. No, she was too perfect, too smart, too academic, too well-rounded and well-adjusted to be treated like the inconvenience he was.

Jazz started walking at 8 months. Started talking at 17 months. She was never a problem. Never complained or threw tantrums, no matter what. She used her words, and she used them wisely. Jazz was an aspiring psychologist, someone who would make a real difference in the world! Jasmine Fenton was born to succeed!

Danny?

Danny was forgotten.

Danny was the kid who was mediocre and overlooked. Even when he was good at something, he was left to the side. He was the kid who threw tantrums, not to be a nuisance on purpose, but because he wasn't being listened to and didn't know how to express himself.

At school, he'd always been treated as other. And the otherness got worse in high school, after the accident Freshman year.

Danny could always hear whispers and snickering behind his back from the students. Could hear the disappointed sighs and the lamentations about how different he was, compared to his sister, from the teachers and other staff.

Sam and Tucker were his only saving graces, and their friendship had been put to the test again and again the past two years; their relationships with him were shaky, as much as it pained him to admit that. After the incident, their shared feelings had begun to bud into something more, something new, and it scared the three of them.

Danny was the kid who was bullied and ostracized, even by the other nerds and outcasts. He's the kid everyone makes light of, passing around jokes about the bliss that would follow him disappearing into the night and never being heard from again.

His teachers would 'quietly' ponder the high possibility of him dropping out of school and off the face of the Earth two weeks later.

And here Danny was, writing all of this down in the journal he'd kept since he was six years old and already being written off by his family and the town. He remembers hearing Jazz, in all her 8-year-old glory, mention something about how journaling was therapeutic and recommending it to some random lady she decided to help out of nowhere, despite no one asking her for help.

She'd gotten praise from the surrounding adults and parents about how mature and smart she was.

And yet.

When the random lady, later on, when it was just them kids without the Dr. Fentons around, tried to offer Jazz pills covered in some kinda of leathery candy, and Danny slapped them out of her hands, he'd been labelled as a jealous petty ingrate, who couldn't handle his shortcomings and took it out on his sister.

Jazz tried so hard to deny being anything like their parents, and she seemed to think her point was proven purely because she wasn't interested in ghosts, much less hunting them, yet she was just as obsessed with psychology and medicine as the Dr. Fentons were with ghosts, and no amount of willful ignorance would erase that.

He sighed heavily, leaning back and stretching his arms. He let himself fall until his back hit the mattress, and Danny was staring up at his ceiling.

This was all so hard to wrap his head around. So difficult to swallow and pretend it didn't burn on its way down.

Danny, for two whole years, had given his literal blood, sweat, and tears to protect this town. He'd given up sleep, studying, and eating regularly. He'd given up his safety and more to keep ghosts from tearing this place apart and the government from tearing the universe apart by destorying the Infitite Realms or angering the ghost gods, and all he got for it was colourful ghost slurs and contempt.

Danny had to give up everything. He had to. He protected this town, this world, not because he wanted to or because he was bored or even simply because he was able to, but because he had to.

He didn't realize what that truly meant for him until Freakshow happened.

Every loss had to be a minor setback.

Every weakness had to be a temporary obstacle.

Every mistake had to be a one-time problem.

And yet the mistakes were all the people ever saw.

The only current upside to this was that the Justice League was looking to repeal the Anti-Ecto Acts.

Not out of concern for ghosts. Of course not.

But because the definition of 'ecto entity' is vague and probably wouldn't hold water if challenged with actual facts and logic. That was what they claimed.

Though it was more likely because some of the magic people working with the Justice League use death magic, which messes with their bodies and the way they survive, and this could apply to them. Convenient for the Justice League, if you asked Danny, but no one would.

It could also be because the Guys in White ripped through the town regularly when on the hunt for Phantom, and Danny meant that literally, the amount of property damage and general hazard they caused and contributed to would have anyone, even the ghost hating town of Amity Park, wanting them gone.

But that didn't matter right now. What did was that Danny couldn't stay in this town. He may not be the smartest or the most socially aware, but he knew that much.

Just existing was dangerous for him. With all the new ghost tracking technology and the magic used to peel away glamour and disguise, he knew it was only a matter of time before he was found out and 'brought to justice'.

People were already shocked Danny Fenton managed to last this long without running away and never looking back. The town was irritated that no amount of hate speech and 'support' from ghost hunters had driven away Phantom yet.

And truth be told, the only reason he hadn't left right before high school started was because he'd planned to be an astronaut. He'd planned to graduate with the best grades he could, get into a good astrophysics program at Gotham U or Metropolis U, and finally be out of this stupid town and never have to look back.

But Danny's hopes and dreams died alongside him in that lab accident.

The only reason he didn't leave immediately after becoming half ghost was because of the ghost attacks.

Now he was wondering if staying would be worth the danger.

Probably not. And Red Huntress wouldn't need his help anymore; she had the Justice League working with her now. Which was still crazy to think about, her needing support he means, because the ghosts were always after him, Phantom.

That much was clear from day one. It was part of why he always got flak for the attacks and property damage, even when said property damage was caused by the Fentons, the Guys in White, and Red Huntress herself.

The ghost hunters of Amity Park, and technically the government, didn't even ping on most ghosts' radars except as a small rock in their shoe. Gum stuck to their sleeve, even.

The only reason the GIW were avoided at all was because ghosts understood what experimentation meant and they wanted no part of it, even if the GIW's successful catch rate was less than one percent and comprised entirely of blob ghosts.

And all of those guys, all the ghost hunters of this stupid backwater town, have stormtrooper aim! And they didn't spare a single thought for the safety of the public/surrounding citizens!

And every fight they, especially Red, got involved in was always on their terms!

They didn't have to wake up after 30 minutes of sweet, blissful rest to go fight Technus in his new and improved battle suit and get pummelled into the ground.

They didn't have to run away in the middle of a test because their ghost sense went off, and they didn't want whatever ghost was out and about busting through the window or ceiling and endangering a bunch of innocents.

They didn't have to miss the retake date(s) for those tests because some other ghosts had impeccable timing.

They didn't have to ask themselves multiple times a day if they'd eaten enough because ghosts kept interrupting their attempts at meals.

They didn't get chewed out and scolded for missing homework, not completing chores, being late to school, and always making a mess of the house.

He huffed to himself. Whatever. It's not that important. He shoved the journal into the pocket dimension of his torso before he forgot and Dash came over for tutoring and snooped around for blackmail material. Or something.

Danny got to his feet and intangibly pulled the bag out of the wall. The bag his friends had insisted he pack in case his house got raided by the GIW or he revealed himself to his parents and they didn't take it well.

Thankfully, he didn't have to worry about Ellie, since she was already staying in the GZ. Her obsession was Freedom, and a large part of that, to her, was travel. It was safer for her. From the GIW, and Vlad, for her to be in the Infinite Realms, where she could travel across the ever-expanding universe and landscapes for the rest of time and never go with her obsession unfulfilled.

He pulled out his phone, the one Sam bought him, and Tucker encrypted to hell and back. He shot them a quick message, just what he was planning and why. He didn't expect an immediate response from them, but that was what he got.

They wanted to come with him; that wasn't surprising. But it was heartbreaking. Or would it be core cracking, since he's a ghost?

Unfortunately for all three of them, that couldn't happen. Because people would notice if they left.

The world's elite, and even the police, and the world's greatest detectives, like Batman, would notice if the heiress to the Manson fortune was suddenly gone from her home without a trace.

The engineering world, the town, the hacking and coding communities, they would notice if the genius innovator and aspiring billionaire Tucker Foley dropped off the face of the Earth.

But Danny?

People would be more relieved by the fact that Phantom is missing, and he doubted his parents would even file a missing person's report. Jazz was a different story, but there would be no one to find anyway. Not in the mortal realm, at least.

So, here he was. Standing in front of the very thing that killed him and started him down this awful path in the first place. The only artificial and stable portal to the Infinite Realms. He was about to step through that portal for a second (or would it be third?) time, and he wasn't going to step back into this side of the veil for as long as possible.

He wished he could destroy the stupid thing, but he had tried before, even pleaded with Clockwork for knowledge on how and bribed him with two whole trays of homemade fudge for any kind of help, even bad news.

He'd been told that the portal could be dismantled, but to avoid a worse future, he would have to destroy all the pieces and the blueprints and research related to it, and run away from home anyway, since his parents would become convinced he was taken over or influenced by a ghost.

The only difference would be that he'd be stuck in the mortal realm, where half of him is considered a villain and functionally illegal. And he wasn't willing to risk himself like that, not after almost three years of risking himself day and night for people who couldn't care less.

Danny was going to miss Sam and Tucker. He'd hoped he could spend the rest of his life with them, back when he still had dreams for the future.

All he could do now was thank his lucky stars that they understood why he had to leave alone. Sam had started a three-way call to tell him that, and to say their goodbyes.

The phones they had for this situation would work in the Infinite Realms, thanks to Danny's tweaking, but Danny couldn't risk calling at an inconvenient time and exposing this whole thing, so communication would have to be kept to a minimum, no matter how much his core protested that, he knew it was safer for all three of them.

Danny sighed again, took a deep, steadying breath, let his transformation wash over him, and stepped through the portal, leaving everything he knew what what little he had left to love and love him, behind.

Notes:

Okay, so I'm still debating if I want to make this Ghost King Danny or not, cause on the one hand, I feel like that's the natural progression after defeating a king, especially a tyrant. But on the other hand, Danny's just a boy who had been trying his best. I don't want the JL to feel guilty about painting him, a ghost, as a villain from a lack of data and uninformed bias simply because he's the king now. So if I do make this Ghost King Danny, it's most likely going to be after the JL start trying to make amends.

Edit July 22nd: Fixed up some grammar/spelling mistakes and tried to clean up the flow of the writing a bit lol.

Sorry for anyone who may have been a bit peeved about that

I originally tried to make the Everlasting Trio in this subtle, romance-wise, cause I didn't know if I wanted it to be romantic or platonic yet, but I tried to lay it on a bit thicker to add to the teenage confusion lol.

I also wanted to add in a bit more of an implication to codependency, cause, like, Sam and Tucker watched their friend off a stupid bet/dare they made and watched him risk his half-life every day onwards. You can't tell me they don't feel the need to know he's safe and okay every waking second.

And just to be clear, I'm not saying the Justice League fully believe that ghosts are not sentient or sapient, but due to both a lack of evidence otherwise and extremely little neutral takes towards ghosts, they have to treat every ghost with the caution that they are inherently malicious and unfeeling, but Danny doesn't know that, and this chapter is his pov.

Chapter 2: The Day That Changed Everything

Summary:

It's been two months since that day where everything went wrong; two months, and it's still burned into his memory. After two months, it still haunts his nightmares, 'what if' scenarios where the Justice League didn't stop after 'subduing' him momentarily. He tried not to think about it, but that only made him think about it more.

Notes:

Sooo I realize now that I mentioned my Tumblr and did not link it, so here it is! https://www.tumblr.com/xomintybreezexo

2,730 last chapter. 2,975 this chapter.

Sorry, it took so long to update this! My fam and I were on vacation for a bit, and we were winding down from that lol.

Vlad Masters is not an actual halfa, and I will die on this hill. He has enough ectoplasmic energy to be mistaken for half-dead on first glance, but he never died and therefore functions differently from Danny. He's also never had a near-death experience before, unlike Sam and Tucker, who got close to death during the portal accident but didn't die halfway like Danny, and have been in various almost-died situations throughout the show.

It's been two months since that day. The day his entire life changed.

The day he lost everything.

It had started like any other day, surprisingly enough. He'd woken up early after defeating Nocturn in the dreamscape again, made himself a bowl of cereal, making sure to pour out the contaminated milk, as always. Then he got dressed, brushed his teeth, and turned into Phantom. He had a few hours to kill; he could hang around before school for a bit. 

Danny had been floating around with a few blob ghosts, just chilling as usual, when the sharp, burning pain of an ecto-shot radiated from his left. He doesn't remember much of what was said, just that Valerie Red Huntress didn't want to see him around her turf anymore, that he was a nuisance and a pain.

The incandescent(thanks, Lancer) rage at her audacity to call his haunt her turf.

So, yeah, Danny flew away. He flew as fast as he could above the city, with the citizens they passed cheering her on as she chased him, taking shot after shot, missing shot after shot, and almost hitting some random innocents on her way.

He sighed, knowing the headlines would blame him for her destruction in the afternoon.

All in all, a very typical day for our dear ghost boy.

What wasn't very typical was fucking Superman crashing into him, and trying to hold him steady when Danny had been sent careening down after an ecto-shot got him in the back and sent him off balance. He'd been too stunned by the appearance of a member of the fucking Justice League to move, let alone speak. This was one of his heroes! One of the people who had inspired him to keep fighting for good even when facing hatred and bias from all sides! He couldn't stop the wide, giddy grin from taking over his face at the sight of the Man of Steel.

Maybe they were finally responding to all the calls the Amity Parkers had sent them about the ghost attacks? Maybe they were here to help with the ghosts?! Ooh, he couldn't wait to work with them! Though he was a bit confused. Why was Superman staring at him like he was one of the villains he fought every day? Danny felt his grin slide slowly off his face the longer Superman watched him with that cold, detached look, like Danny was just another problem, another mess to clean up.

"Red Huntress!" Danny tore his gaze away from Superman and to the booming voice. He knew he had stars in his eyes when he saw Wonder Woman, an actual Amazon, standing on the nearest rooftop, hands on her hips and her head raised high. He'd heard so much about her and Themyscira from Pandora and a few fallen Amazons! He was so lost in recalling all the great feats she's done that he almost missed her next words.

"We have come to offer you aid! And a position as the newest member of the team, Young Justice!"

...

Um... What?

Red Huntress...? Red Huntress? That's who they wanted to join the fucking Justice League? 

Red Huntress? The lady who had just been chasing him around town and shooting at him while screaming pure hate and what Danny is pretty sure are ghost slurs? The lady who has terrible aim and was hitting more property and barely missing innocent people? Her?

To say Danny was in shock was an understatement. He ended up missing the various two cents from Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and Superman. He only clocked back in in time to hear Wonder Woman say this,

"Never before have I seen someone so young, and without so much as a mentor or friend to help out, be so courageous and strong." She sounded proud, like she was about to cry happy tears for Valerie, and Danny probably would have desperately latched onto that pride and happiness to share it if he didn't feel like he'd just gotten hot coals thrown over him. (Uncovering his ice core has made the idea of heat and fire more uncomfortable to him than cold and ice, so he's had to adjust his vocabulary to accommodate)

"...What?" Danny didn't even notice he'd been tied up and left floating until he'd tried to adjust the sleeves of his hazmat suit a second ago. He was covered in glowing, almost translucent bonds. Green Lantern's work then, solid enough for him to be able to slip through if he wanted. He also didn't realize he'd said that out loud until the disapproving stares of all of the present people were pinned on him. Red's was outright hateful.

"You can stay silent. We'll bring you to a meta jail soon enough, and you can give your statement during your trial." Danny didn't like any of that. Least of all, how straight-up annoyed Green Lantern sounded.

...Should he be concerned that he's more bothered by a random adult sounding disappointed in him than he is about going to jail for crimes he didn't commit? Probably, but Danny feels like he gets a pass; this is the freaking Justice League after all. The heroes he used to?  look up to and admire for all their strength and bravery and all their cool powers and strategies.

And they thought he was a villain. A menace. Just like the rest of the town. Just like Red Huntress. Danny didn't know what his face looked like, but he wasn't going to wait around and hope someone would tell him while they carted him off to jail for existing. 

He slipped through the glowing binds with a practiced ease and made a point to go invisible before flying off. His vision went blurry as he flew, and he struggled to hold in his tears as he flew.

Danny hadn't cried since the portal incident, and he wasn't planning to start now. He didn't have time to cry, not when the town needed saving and his friends needed protecting. But...

He guessed he wouldn't need to protect the town anymore, not with the Justice League showing up. (trespassing on his territory)

There still should be about an hour before school, so he flew to Sam's window. He was almost sobbing when she finally opened the window for him and threw himself into her arms. She didn't even get a chance to ask what was wrong before he was stumbling through the events of the last hour and a half.

====

"Damn it..." Red Huntress, their newest prodigal hero, muttered to herself as she typed on her wrist. She and Clark exchanged looks before turning their attention back to the young woman. They felt it when the villain, Phantom, left, more than they saw it happen. 

"Ah, sorry about that." Hal sounded sheepish. "The threat of prison must've scared that guy back to reality. That was my bad." Extenuating circumstances notwithstanding, that's probably the most genuine apology she's heard Hal give to someone he'd just met before.

Red Huntress sighed heavily. "It's fine. Phantom has a bad habit of coming back no matter what." She sounded irritated, and for good reason. Diana's sure everyone here has those villains that were similar. She hummed, Clark speaking for them all. "We'll be ready for him, after you come back with us to the Watchtower so we can work out the details of your position and salary." He sounded as earnest as always, and it made Diana smile. How optimistic and upbeat he always was, it's truly a beacon for the rest of the league.

Red Huntress turned to her, shock and genuine surprise clear in her body language. "I'm getting a salary...?" She sounded hopeful. Diana smiled sadly. Another struggling young hero without a support system... At least they'd realized their mistake and finally managed to extend an offer of aid and training to her, and resources for damage caused by her rogues.

====

"And then they told me to shut up, and that I was gonna go to prison, and that I was a villain, and, and-" Danny broke out in another round of soft sobs. Tucker knew his ears and wings were drooping low. Sam looked a mix of sympathetic and furious. He got it, honestly. After all they had been through together, all they had fought against and preserved through together.

Danny's death and reincarnation.

Sam finding out she's from a long line of Oreads and Dryads, mountain and tree nymphs. The sudden plant and Earth-related powers after the two of them got a face full of ghost world, while Danny died and got ghost powers, as well as the horns and plants literally trying to swallow her sometimes, made that pretty obvious. It also explained her almost cult like obsession with preserving the environment.

All the ghost fights that forced them to think smarter and work harder, that made them lose sleep and class time and had their grades dropping for all of Freshman and Sophomore year. 

All the cursed ghostly artifacts that affected them on a psychological and physical level.

His being the reincarnation of a long-dead Pharaoh and awakening his own set of powers, and becoming what is apparently called a 'were-sphinx'

Danny having to defeat an actual fucking tyrant by himself because Tucker was too weak to help and got in the way too much and, and-

And how could he forget everything Vlad has done? From being a general murderous nuisance to kidnapping Danny, to actively endangering him as a human and ghost to try to get his way, to cloning one of Tucker's closest friends and being a complete Victor Frankenstein about it. That's right, Lancer, he, Sam, and Danny did read the entirety of Frankenstein, and they wrote an in-depth analysis about it from their separate perspectives, so suck that!

Tucker would never be able to trust the government again after the Guys In White showed up, not that he ever fully had before, but now he knows how awful the government could be towards something they don't understand. And he's no Sam, but he feels like permitting the genocide of an entire species without evidence that they are purely evil, like the Ghost Investigation Ward claims, is both drastic and idiotic. 

He's seen a side of Danny's parents that he hoped to never find in another close friend's again.

Too much has happened in two years. This newest development probably shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did, but he felt like this was too sudden. Too unchangeable. The more he thought about it, the more upset he got about it. He didn't know why the Justice League had a sudden interest in Amity Park after two years, but it definitely didn't make him feel better about the past two years, and he knew Sam felt the same. 

But for all he didn't know about the present and the potential futures, Tucker knew one thing.

Danny couldn't stay in Amity Park anymore. He had to leave. Even...

Even if that meant leaving him and Sam behind. He felt a soft whine escape him at that thought, the proto-core his extreme exposure to ectoplasm and all his near-death experiences caused to develop felt a slight strain begin to form, already anticipating the distance that ill have to be put between himself and Danny, and maybe even Sam if the cover story they were going with was Danny Fenton running away from home after their friendship fell through.

Time to plan, for the worst, he guessed. Wouldn't be the first time.

====

Danny couldn't stay in Amity Park.

Sam knew this, she knew Tucker knew this, and she knew Danny would have a hard time accepting it, but it was necessary. They didn't have a clear idea of what would or could happen to him now that the fucking Justice League were involved. 

So why..?

Why did she want to scream until her throat went raw and her lungs were depleted? Why did she feel the urge to go fight the Justice League?

Sam knew, logically, that doing that would make things much, much worse, but her core, the center of her very being since that damn accident in that stupid defunct portal, demanded it of her, and more. It screamed that she needed to avenge her beloved, that she needed to preserve the delicate ecosystem that the portal accident had created, that she needed to ensure their continued prosperity no matter the circumstances and odds stacked against her. 

Right now, the only thing she could do that wouldn't result in her, and probably Tucker too, being put on a wanted villains list was to comfort Danny. Plans were forming in her head, but she knew there was only one outcome that would truly work.

Even if it meant saying goodbye to one of her oldest and only friends. 

Sam felt a pang of hurt and strain being placed on her core at the thought, felt it mirrored by Tucker through the bond the three of them shared after the accident. 

"Danny," She started, hearing her voice whisper when she had wanted to sound more confident, more sure. "Danny. You need to leave. Soon." She felt Tucker curl around them, his chest to her back, his wings spreading to cover them gently, like he did when it was raining or too sunny for comfort. She bit back the tears, knew from the soft sniffles behind her and Danny using the dirty sleeves of his hoodie to wipe at his red eyes that she wasn't the only one.

If you had told her two, almost three, years ago that Danny would half-die, she and Tucker would become death-touched enough to unlock genetic secrets and gain their own powers, and go on wacky, sometimes traumatizing adventures and fight ghosts while also having to find time to attend class, do homework and be back home in time for curfew, she probably would have laughed you to hell and back and bleached your shoes and stolen one of each sock.

Oh, how the cookie crumbles... Sam's gonna be honest for a second, as a little going-away treat to Danny.

"Don't worry, Danny, I'll miss you lots, and I'll try not to get too cool while you're gone." She tried to sound snarky and knew she missed the mark, but the soft, watery laugh that tumbled out of Danny was something she would cherish until they saw each other again.

====

"And that's what happened, I guess," Danny grumbled, mostly to himself. He nibbled on the cookie Lunch Lady had given him. He made a point not to make eye contact with any of the other ghosts huddled around him at the little table in Lunch Lady's restaurant. There was silence for a long moment. Surprisingly enough, it was Johnny 13, who he was still shocked was here at all, that spoke up first.

"They pushed you out of your haunt?" Johnny sounded pissed, and looked pissed, actually. Danny sighed heavily, trying to push through the self-pity to get some answers that he needed. Distractions that he desperately wanted.

"Why are you guys even here? I thought my being gone would be your ticket to go and do...whatever." A part of him, which he recognized as distinctly ghostly, felt guilty about not knowing what specifically brought his rogues to find and enter the portal and cause mayhem, especially since ghost hunters, ghost experimenters, and Danny himself were beyond that portal at all times.

The gagglefuck of gathered ghosts (alliteration, Lancer would be so proud of him) looked insulted to be honest. That only confused him more. They'd already told him about the play fighting, something he was struggling to wrap his head around. Everything around him stopped, from the ghosts talking at him to the start of small arguments between them, as a thought occurred to him, a rare thing according to Sam. (he missed her so much.)

"Wait, hold the phone, hold everything!" Danny had his hands up, trying to quiet down the other ghosts. Once they were silent and expectant, he continued. "All those times you guys showed up in the mortal realm were to play, right?" The ghosts nodded, and he felt a bit incensed. "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?!" Most of the ghosts seemed unsurprised by his reactions; they had more of a reaction to what he said than to his feelings on the matter. 

"I thought you guys were trying to kill me and destroy the town! I thought every time one of you showed up, I was gonna die again! I thought you guys were going to kill Sam and Tucker, too! Why didn't you ever just tell me that you wanted to play? We could've, like, I don't know, set up playdates? Do you guys even know how much school I missed because of you coming out of nowhere and wrecking shit?" Danny hadn't tried to stay calm or measured as he usually did when dealing with ghosts; he was perfectly entitled to his emotions and to express them whenever he felt necessary.

The ghosts were looking anywhere but at him, the floor and ceiling and walls seeming very interesting all of a sudden. 

Shockingly enough, it was Nocturn, who he hadn't even realized showed up along with the other Ancients, that broke the awkward silence. "It seems we all have much to explain. Let us begin. You, Phantom, as I'm certain you are aware, are not just any ghost," Nocturn started, his voice like a soft lullaby meant to soothe into slumber. Danny groaned loudly, slumping against the chair he was in as he mentally prepared for a long, boring lecture. What a day.

Apparently, there's a lot to learn about being half-ghost. Yay, Danny, I guess.

Notes:

Sorry again for the late update! I tried to get this out earlier, but the thoughts of how to write this chapter were not coming to me easily. It's a struggle sometimes just to get a draft down lol.

Ya'll when I wrote 'Danny hadn't cried since the portal incident' I meant it. If you go back and look through the show, he never cries, it's insane. Like other characters cry during the show, but not Danny, like ever. I took this knowledge and decided to use it to make this chapter sadder lol.

I also wanted to play up Danny's emotions a bit because he is an extremely traumatized teenager above all else, and teenagers aren't the best at accurately recounting events.

The events I listed in Tucker's pov of this chapter are meant to be out of order, and also (almost) completely off topic because, again, teenagers aren't the most reliable narrators. Especially when emotions are running high.

An Oread is a mountain nymph; they are typically associated with Earth and rocks.

A Dryad is a tree/forest nymph; they are typically associated with nature and the wilds and forests.

Technically, all types of were-creatures can exist, but were-wolves are talked about the most, and I wanted to switch things up for our boy Tucker. This is also partially to set up flashbacks to 'better times' where Tucker is playfully made fun of by Sam and Danny for being a furry, both before and after the portal accident.

Sam mentions the portal accident a lot more than Tucker and Danny because she views everything happening as her fault. She knows, deep down, that none of them would change a thing, even if they had the chance, but all their shared and separate trauma weighs on her and keeps her up at night with the weight of the guilt she feels.

If you couldn't tell by how vague their POVs are, I'm still trying to work out the details of how Sam and Tucker's obsessions would work. They didn't die; they both got very nasty shocks during the accident both times, but they didn't die, so they function a bit differently from Danny.

A part of me feels like I shouldn't spend so much on these random notes for stuff you probably already realized or connected yourselves, especially when I'm pretty sure no one reads these lol

Hope you enjoyed this!