Work Text:
Danny was doing pretty good. He actually got into college! After his sophomore year, he’d revealed himself to his parents, Val, and Mr. Lancer and it really helped with everything. His parents and Val, as the Red Huntress, all formed public truces with Phantom and helped him humanely catch ghosts so he could focus more on his academics and friends instead of fighting ghosts nearly all the time. And with Mr. Lancer in on the secret, he was getting help from the school itself and extensions for assignments were allowed as well as one-on-one instruction for the classes he was struggling most with (aka anything not STEM related. He was good at STEM classes). He’d been able to bring his grade up and got accepted to most of the colleges he applied to.
He decided on Gotham University. He was given a full-ride scholarship and was studying aerospace engineering. He wasn’t sure if he was going to add another major or a minor to it, but he was considering it. The ambient ecto in the city made it perfect for a halfa to live in.
On the way to his apartment (ghost powers and dorms do NOT mix), he heard something. It was dark out, but he wasn’t really sure it was time for any of the Bats to be out yet. And Protection was still one of his Obsessions, so he might as well check it out. He ducked into an alley and transformed into Phantom before taking off in the direction he heard the noise coming from and where he could sense some fear.
He found somebody trying to mug someone else. That just wouldn’t do.
“Hey buddy!” he called out, dropping the invisibility he’d used when flying over and hovering closer to the ground. “Why don’t you just go on wherever you’ve decided to curse with your presence and leave the nice lady alone, huh?”
The guy attempting to mug the woman looked at him in confusion.
“The fuck are you? You ain’t a Bat.”
“You’re damn right I’m not. But, I will still kick your ass.”
“The fuck are you going to do?”
Danny felt his smile grow just a little too wide and a little too sharp for normal human standards and the guy’s face fell a bit in fear.
A couple of slightly stronger than human punches later and the guy was out cold on the ground. Danny floated down to land on the ground in front of the woman to make sure she was alright.
“You ok?” he asked, looking her over with a cursory glance to make sure she wasn’t hurt.
“No, I’m-”
Whatever she was about to say was cut off by a gunshot and Danny felt something hit him in the leg. He didn’t go down, but it hurt like hell. Though not as bad as electricity hurt him.
It didn’t even feel like an ecto-bullet.
Weak.
He turned behind him at where the woman’s attention was drawn.
Fucking Red Hood was standing there, a gun pointed at Danny.
“Step away from her,” the modulated voice from the helmet said. Danny just put his hands up and backed away a bit.
“Dude, I was helping,” Danny said, trying to avoid getting shot or becoming a target of the Bats.
“He’s telling the truth. He knocked out the guy who was trying to mug me,” the woman said, motioning to the unconscious man a few feet away. Red Hood looked over and then lowered his gun.
“Riiight, well now that you seem alright,” he directed at the woman who nodded, “and you aren’t going to shoot me again,” he directed this at Red Hood, “I’m just gonna… go.”
Danny saluted before turning invisible. He flew off without paying attention to whatever it was Red Hood was trying to say and flew to his apartment. He went straight to his bathroom and turned intangible to let the bullet fall out of his leg. He made sure it was clean of any of his weird blood/ecto mix and decided to keep it because he thought it was sorta funny that he got shot with a regular fucking bullet of all things. As soon as the bullet was out, the leg wound started healing and he stopped bleeding.
At least there wasn’t too much blood on the tiles to clean up.
~~~~
A few months after that, Danny had met Jason when he was shopping for groceries and found out that Jason lived in the same neighborhood as Danny. They talked a bit and Jason asked Danny out, causing him to splutter and turn red but ultimately accept.
A couple months into dating, he realized Jason was Red Hood.
Danny’d run into Jason as Red Hood and realized that he had the same slight ecto-signature that Jason had. He’d also seen Jason taking off the Red Hood helmet after which Jason let Danny know the truth. Apparently Jason had died and come back.
That explained the ecto.
He needed to ask Frostbite about what Jason was (not a halfa, not a ghost, but not fully human either).
He honestly thought Jason knew he was Phantom.
It was a couple months after the whole Red Hood reveal and he and Jason had been together for a little over a year. Danny was also doing well in college and apparently might have an internship with Wayne Enterprises lined up? He wasn’t entirely sure how he caught Tim Drake-Wayne’s eye but figured Jason might have had a hand in it.
He and Jason were at his apartment and just talked a bit about any and everything. Danny thought it’d be funny to bring up getting shot when they technically first met.
“Hey, remember when you shot me?” Danny asked. The way Jason’s head turned to him with a horrified expression made Danny pause.
“I didn’t shoot you.”
Now Danny was confused.
“You shot Phantom.”
“Yeah?”
Danny just raised his eyebrows at him and he saw the realization in his eyes.
“You’re Phantom?” Jason asked, incredulous.
“Uhm, yeah? I thought you knew!”
“How the fuck would I know that?”
“I mentioned being half-ghost!”
“And that was supposed to make me realize you and Phantom are the same person? I thought you just meant that you’d died before like me!”
Danny barked out a laugh. “What the hell? No, dude. I meant I’m literally half-ghost and have a ghost form.”
Jason just sighed for a moment before sitting up straight again. “Shit, I shot you! I haven’t seen a gunshot wound on your leg, did you heal from it ok?”
“Jason, I have ghost healing. It was literally gone by the following morning. A normal bullet can’t do shit to me.”
Jason breathed a sigh of relief before looking at Danny with a smirk. “Guess it’s lucky that my boyfriend can handle himself and heal fast. Makes it a lot easier to know that if something happens.”
“Also means that I wouldn’t be opposed to patrolling with you. Especially since Batman still knows jack shit about Phantom and I know you love pissing Bruce off.”
Jason smiled at Danny.
“I love you so fucking much right now.”