Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The inside of the GIW's knock-off Fenton Thermos reminded Danny of being stuffed into his locker. It was larger than the Fenton Thermos, but not a lot roomier. It lacked the ability to actually compress ectoplasm. Moreover, it lacked any sort of buffer between Danny and the inside of the containment unit, meaning Danny smacked against the walls every time the GIW van hit a bump.

Unfortunately, Danny was only able to make these observations by virtue of being captured by the GIW.

It was Plasmius' fault, as usual. The GIW arrived just as Phantom was getting his ass kicked by the older half-ghost. They'd swooped in while Danny was distracted, and sucked him into this clunky, fridge-sized version of a Fenton Thermos.

Danny felt the van stop, and he strained his ears to hear the muffled voices outside of his containment box. A few minutes later, he was shunted out of the containment unit. He had only a moment to register bright white lights and grayish walls before he received a ecto blaster to the stomach. Danny slammed into the floor, the impact brutally painful to his already bruised ribs. Blinking the tears from his eyes he was horrified to find himself staring up the muzzle of another blaster. This was going to hurt... Danny's world exploded in green and black sparks.

Danny blinked his eyes open, then immediately slammed them shut again as light pierced his skull. He was sitting in a chair, and someone was choking him. He reached up to try to dislodge the grip, confused when he felt metal against his wrists. Still hazy with confusion, he opened his eyes again. He was wearing handcuffs, and the thing choking him wasn't a person, but a metal collar.

Danny tried to phase through the handcuffs. To his surprise, his hands went through them easily. When he reached up to pry the collar off as well, he felt his ghostly fingers slip against the metal. Covered with an anti-ecto paint, Danny realized with horror. It was a heavy thing, probably stuffed full of electronics. Danny was able to breathe normally, but it pressed uncomfortably against his neck. The inside of the collar was uneven. Not a good sign in Danny's opinion.

Two white-suited agents had been sitting in front of Danny the whole time that he'd been panicking. One of them cleared his throat. "We apologize for the cuffs. It's protocol, you see."

Danny snorted in disbelief, "And the collar? Is that protocol too?"

The agent who'd spoken shrugged. Danny thought the motion looked quite awkward in the stiff white suit.

"Look," Danny said in exasperation, "This is a big misunderstanding. I know you guys catch ghosts or whatever, but I'm not a evil ghost! I help catch ghosts and protect the people living in Amity Park. We literally have the same job!"

"We know, that's why you're here and not stuck in containment," the agent said tightly. He nudged the other agent, who had the most bored expression possible. "Agent M," he hissed, and glanced meaningfully at the papers in Agent M's hands.

Agent M sighed, barely glancing up at Danny as he read directly from the page. "The GIW will ensure that the ghost called The Phantom does not cause further harm to the public. The GIW also proposes using The Phantom's abilities, including flight, intangibility, superior strength, ecto rays and cryokinesis, to aid in the capture of violent ghosts." He stopped reading and stared at Danny with a slight scowl. The first agent shifted uncomfortably.

Danny gaped at them incredulously, "So you are saying that you kidnapped me so I could help you catch ghosts? Seriously? Why would I even do that?"

"We theorized that your ghostly obsession is tied to protecting people in Amity Park, so we thought we would utilize you to contain the ghost attacks." The first agent said.

"Yes, but I already fight ghosts on my own!" Danny said, frustrated, "If you know that I'm protecting Amity, you could just let me go, and we can both protect people."

The first agent looked imploringly at Agent M, but he was once again staring impassively down at the papers. The agent sighed, "The collar you wear will incapacitate you if you try to leave or attack -" "What?!" " - and you will accompany the GIW on missions to stop ghost attacks. Any questions?"

Danny couldn't believe this was happening, "So you kidnap me and threaten me to do what I was already doing?" Some time during the conversation, he had floated away from the chair. The agents didn't comment as he pulled inconsequentially at the collar and growled in frustration.

"It isn't personal, kid," the man shrugged, "If you catch more ghosts for the GIW, we'll finally get a higher performance score and maybe a raise."

Danny decided that he hated the agent.

-.-.-

After being informed that he was essentially free labor for the government, he was led to a small office in the facility.

The first agent, who'd finally introduced himself as Agent P, told him that he could stay in the office if he wasn't helping the GIW catch ghosts. Apparently, as a ghost, Danny did not deserve to actually leave the facility when he wasn't working. The two agents left him inside the office without even deigning to lock the door.

The room was quite bare, with only a cheap office chair, one florescent light and a faux-wood table. Danny was so exhausted that he would even take the uncomfortable chair if it meant he could nap a bit. His head still hurt from the blaster, and his ribs creak when he moves too quickly.

But being miserable didn't mean that Danny would take a nap over escaping. So he dragged himself back to floating, and phased through the ceiling.

At the next floor, someone screamed and Danny turned invisible by reflex. He was in a break area, with two coffee machines and an old vending machine. The two people clutching coffee cups were staring at where he had just been. The one on the left had spilled her coffee on her white uniform.

"I'm sorry about your uniform," Danny told the woman, still invisible. They both jumped.

Danny decided against talking further and floated up again. This time, he went through an empty space with ventilation and pipes before he broke through the roof. It was dusk outside. He floated higher and looked down at the facility. It had maybe two or three stories, and was slightly smaller than his school. The area around the facility was unpopulated, though Danny could see the lights of Amity Park just towards their North.

He headed toward the lights, one hand bracing against the collar in anticipation of pain. He had almost reached the wire fence marking the facility's property line before the collar activated.

The first shock made him lose control of his flight, sending him careening toward the ground. He was still reeling from the aftershocks when electricity tore through him again. He threw himself desperately back towards the facility, sobbing with the pain when another shock caused him to seize on the grass.

The collar finally stopped as Danny crossed an invisible line. He collapsed on the grass, rocks digging against his cheek as he trembled uselessly.

After an undetermined amount of time, Danny dragged himself back up. His hazmat suit was covered in dirt and grass, and his hair stuck up from the electricity. Night had fallen, and the chill biting against his clammy skin. He floated back towards the GIW facility. Only a few windows were still lit. In a daze, he phased back through the roof, down through the darkened break area, and into the small office.

His body ached with the events of the days previous, and he was almost swaying in the air. He collapsed on the chair, spinning a bit on the chair's wheels. He set his forehead against the desk and closed his eyes.

The dust in the air tasted like defeat.

Chapter Text

Danny woke up in the dark office, his heart pounding and feeling slightly light-headed. He had turned human in his sleep. Fortunately, no one entered the room while he was sleeping.

Danny dragged the transformation back through his body, letting his own glow light up the room. The collar left a bruise in his neck from the awkward position he had slept in, and he rubbed it absently as he floated through the desk. He wandered out of the office in search of food. He was hungry. He had been captured yesterday before dawn, and hadn't had anything since then.

The corridor outside his office room was already lit, and he looked down both sides before smacking his forehead. He had already seen a room with food yesterday! He floated up through the ceiling again. The break area had several people in it, and the whole room smelled of cheap coffee.

Danny ignored them and made a beeline straight towards the vending machine. He reached through the glass and took out as many snacks as he could carry.

Behind him, someone stage-whispered, "Should we stop him?" Danny turned around, and found several workers staring at him. "Don't be ridiculous, J," a woman replied, "Let the people with the guns do it."

"If the GIW gets to hold me prisoner, the least you can do is to feed me," Danny told the white-uniformed people. These people had different clothes than the agents that he'd seen. Less like suits and more informal. Were they GIW sidekicks or something?

The "GIW sidekicks" who had coffee gaped at him. The ones still in line looked as if they couldn't care less.

Cramming snacks into his mouth, Danny wandered off. He found a bathroom to clean up from last night's... ordeal. The dirt went away with intangibility, and while his ghost form did not have the ability to sweat, he dearly wished he had a place to wash the smell of old offices off his jumpsuit.

Danny explored the facility, noting the various niches and corners that only a ghost could access. The second floor contained mostly offices and filing rooms. It had fewer agents and more white-uniformed workers. The first floor was structured like a bad sci-fi police station, complete with a bullpen and ghost-hunting equipment.

Danny also found empty holding cells lined with ghost containment devices. They would generate an anti-ghost force field around the cells when activated, trapping ghosts inside. Danny stood in front of those cells for a long time, simultaneously relieved that they were empty, and shaken to see them ready and waiting.

If they hadn't found a use for him, would they have thrown him into a cell too? He would be locked in a room without even a bed or bathroom. He wouldn't be given food or drink, because why would a ghost need human necessities? Maybe the GIW would invite the Fentons, and his parents find out what he was...

He realized that he couldn't quite breath. His chest felt heavy and his stomach clenched. Would his parents be disgusted? They hated Phantom, would they hate Danny too? He'd always believed they loved him, but the cells in front of it threw everything into dizzying perspective. Wouldn't it be best if a dangerous criminal like Danny be locked up by the government? Danny imagined him mom's tearful face, his dad's disbelief and heartbreak. "What happened to the child I loved?" they'd say. And then they would turn away and leave him in the cell, judged and found wanting.

Danny jerkily backed away from the cells, his gloved hands clutching at the collar. He felt claustrophobic, trapped in this building full of people who hated him and treated him like a well-behaved criminal. Would anyone come to rescue him? His parents would think that Danny had run away, and Jazz might agree that he'd been showing signs of a troubled teen. Both Sam and Tucker had been away from Amity when he'd gotten captured -- Sam on vacation across the globe and Tucker off visiting his family.

They didn't know he was here. They didn't - Danny crashed into the door leading to the cell block. He hadn't noticed how far he'd been floating away from the cells until the collision wrenched a gasp from his throat. He sank mental claws into his runaway imagination, and dragged it harshly back to reality.

Danny knew that even if Sam and Tucker didn't see the GIW take him away, they would search for him and get him out. He needed to send them a message. The GIW hadn't let him out last night, but they had said that they wanted him to catch ghosts. Maybe he could sneak a message out then.

He fervently grabbed onto that that thought. It wasn't quite a plan, but he felt as if he would crumble into nothingness if he stayed still.

-.-.-

Somehow, he made it to the bullpen. The agents seems to be changing shifts, and the shouted words were confusing to Danny's scattered mind.

An agent got in too close, and Danny reared back intangibly when he tried to grab him. The agent -- Agent P from yesterday -- looked annoyed and only slightly embarrassed at startling him. "Come on kid, you're with us this shift."

Danny wrestled his emotions under control, chasing them back into the corners of his mind. "And I have no say in that," he grumbled under his breath. Louder, he asked, "What's happened? Was there an attack?"

The GIW agent threw on his gear, expertly maneuvering through the chaos of the room. "Nah, we're just checking out some rumours in the west of the city, and bringing you out for a test run."

Danny wrinkled his nose at being talked about like one of his parents' weapons. Still he's grateful for the information that there hasn't been a major attack in Amity since his capture.

Danny drops the leftover wrappers of his brunch into an overflowing wastbasket, and allowed himself to be herded into a GIW van.

An agent was already at the wheel, her suit somehow whiter and less worn than Agent P's. She nodded at him as he got inside. "I'm Agent S," she introduced herself.

"Danny Phantom," Danny replied automatically. He examined the inside of the van, poking at various equipment and broken machinery. The fridge-sized faux thermos took up half of the space near the back door. A metal work bench lined the right side, with a single old computer and various scanning devices crowding around it. The floors were a mess of cables and salvaged Fenton Works weaponry on mismatched tripods.

Agent P cranked down one of the fold-down seats at the left of the van and settled into it with a sigh. "Lock the doors," Agent S called back from the front.

Since Agent P did not make a move to respond, Danny pulled the doors shut and fiddled with the handle inside. It didn't look locked, but what did he know?

The van started, and Danny was left awkwardly floating in front of the seat beside Agent P.

As they neared the gate of the facility, a thought suddenly seized Danny. "The collar won't shock me if I leave the grounds with you, will it?" He asked Agent P.

The agent ‘humphed", valiantly ignoring Danny.

Danny felt panicked as the gate closed in, "Just tell me! Will it electrocute me again?" He flew into the agent's personal space. His hands curled at his sides, resisting the urge to grab the man by his white suit and shake him.

The agent cursed at him and shoved him away. "Calm down, boy. The techs got it handled." He rolled his eyes, clearly frustrated at the rising tension in the air.

Danny did not trust the agent at all, but he had little time to act on it. His whole body tensed as they crossed the gates, every nerve screaming at him to throw himself out of the van before it was too late.

Danny couldn't tell how long it was before he finally relaxed again. The harsh sound of his breathing filtered back into his ears. Agent P was still doing his best to ignore Danny. Danny felt a rising wave of anger and frustration build up in his chest. He wanted to leave the van, he wanted to scream at the world that seems to turn a blind eye on his suffering, he wanted to get in Agent P's face and say "you are hurting me! You could at least acknowledge me as you do it!". He felt as if the emotions were going to tear out of his chest and swallow Amity Park whole. But outside his mind, things continued to move on.

Danny was shaken out of his tumbling emotions when the van stopped suddenly. "I see some ghost octopi!" Agent S shouted back cheerfully. Danny instinctively pulled at his transformation, before realizing that he'd been in ghost form the entire time.

He flew out of the van, only remembering after he'd left to worry about the collar reacting badly to that. But thankfully, the thing stayed quiet.

The ghosts in question were not octopi. They had multiple arms, yes, but they also had ram horns and razor sharp spikes on each arms. The four of them had surrounded a woman with a dog, but they rose up to meet him as he came closer.

The one in the front slammed into Danny, spikes aimed at his stomach. Danny kicked it away, using the momentum to launch himself at another ghost, blasting it with ecto energy before tackling it down. The remaining two came at him simultaneously. One managed to take a good bite at his arm, so he's left awkwardly shaking it off while swatting the other away with ecto blasts.

The fight was quickly over when he manages to punch the one biting him. It crashed into its pack member and sent both of them tumbling back. The four ghosts hissed at him warily, no longer eager for a seemingly easy meal. Danny crackled back, projecting the instinctual "run and stay away" vibe of a peak predator. He jerked forward in a feint, and the ghosts scattered away. In seconds, they were gone.

The lady with the dog took the cue and quickly left, a slightly shocked look on her face. Her dog growled threateningly from the arms of its owner.

He took a peek back at the GIW van. Agent P had the back doors open, and was pointing the nozzle of the ghost containment unit uselessly at the remains of the fight. Agent S was leaning out of the window, a slight frown on her face.

Danny threw caution to the wind, and sped away, flying in a zig-zag pattern to avoid the faux-thermos' beam. He needn't have worried, since Agent P just gaped at him.

He only made it two blocks away when the electricity cascaded through his body. Momentum sent him crashing into the side of a store, thankfully not one with a glass display. Shouts of alarm came from the pedestrians. Danny only managed to get up and take a few steps before another round brought him down again.

Several people had gathered around him, one them shouting in concern, and the others flashing their phones at his face. Danny needed to get back, but he didn't want to bump into any of these people in case the electricity hurt them too. He wasted precious seconds trying to find an opening, and did not even make it out before another shock began. He collapsed, his legs turning into a ghostly tail and wrapping around his body.

Suddenly, the electricity cut off mid-way. He didn't even take a moment to think before turning intangible and speeding back to the van. It was closer than he thought, rumbling down the road and slowing beside him.

Agent S opened the front door of the van, "Come on, Phantom! We don't have all day."

Danny wanted to do anything but go back to the van. But he's also terrified of getting shocked again, so he dragged his exhausted body back into the GIW's clutches.

Inside the van, Agent P was no longer intensely ignoring Danny, but Danny was too strung out to try to discern his moods. He collapsed into the fold-down seat beside Agent P. The seat groaned as he leaned back to rest his head against the side of the van.

"That's what, seven hundred feet of my leash?" Danny said to the agent through his still chattering teeth.

The agent just frowned at him, "You didn't catch the ghosts."

Danny's anger spiked, then fell back into the exhausted haze. He sighed, "Technically, you didn't catch those ghosts. I don't even have a thermos."

Agent P looked offended, but not angry enough to throw punches, so Danny did his best to ignore him.

A few seconds later, the man tried to assert his point again, "We need to catch the ghosts and bring them back to the facility."

Danny opened his eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling, "They won't cause trouble anymore," he explained wearily, "They're new to Amity, so I just had to assert claim to the city first. They've either gone back into the wilderness, or are grazing in an alley."

The man humphed, and muttered, "You try explain'n that to the higher-ups, then."

Danny ignored him.

The remainder of the patrol was uneventful. They discovered that Agent S was quite good with an ecto gun when she shot one of Vlad's vultures right out of the sky. Honestly, Danny was disappointed. He'd hoped he could beat the vulture up and make him bring a strong-worded message back to Vlad.

After the vulture sighting, they did not find any more stray ghosts about. Agent P started sighing constantly and shuffling a set of playing cards around.

Danny had finally recovered from his escape attempt. He frowned slightly as something nagged at his mind. The collar had first gone off when he had been far enough away from the facility. The same thing happened when he'd flown off after the fight. He could safely rule off perimeter alarms, since that hadn't been the case with the van. His best guess was that there was a central signal located in both the facility and the GIW van. When he gets out of range of the signal, he would get a shock. Of course, it could be something else, from tiny cameras to remote controlled activation, but this wasn't Fenton tech, so the simplest solution was the most likely one.

Danny smiled grimly to himself. If he could find the signal broadcast, he would be able to escape.